“I don’t answer to you. Shut your mouth, or-”
“What?” Gage challenged. “You’re so drunk you can barely stand. What the hell are you going to do? And what the hell do I care,” he finished in disgust. Turning, he started toward his room. “I wish you’d drink yourself dead and finish the job.”
He was drunk, but he was fast. Bill lunged across the room, slammed Gage back against the wall. “You’re no good, never been any damn good. Never should’ve been born.”
“That makes two of us. Now take your hands off me.”
Two quick slaps, front and back, set Gage’s ears ringing, split his bottom lip. “Time you learned some goddamn respect.”
Gage remembered the first punch, remembered plowing his fist into his father’s face, and the shock that fired in his father’s eyes. Something crashed-the old pole lamp-and someone cursed viciously over and over. Had that been him?
The next clear memory was standing over his father as the old man sprawled on the floor, his face bruised and bleeding. His own fists had screamed from the pounding, and the healing of his swollen, bloody knuckles. His breath wheezed in and out of his lungs, and sweat soaked him like water.
How long had he beaten on the old man with his fists? It was a hot red haze. But it cleared now, and behind it was ice cold.
“If you ever touch me again, if you ever lay a fucking hand on me again in your life, I’ll kill you.” He crouched down to make sure the old man heard him. “I swear an oath on it. In three years, I’m gone. I don’t care if you drink yourself to death in the meantime. I’m past caring. I’ve got to live here at least most of the time the next three years. I’ll give my share of the rent straight to Mr. Hawkins. You don’t get a dime. I’ll buy my own food, my own clothes. I don’t want anything from you. But however drunk you are, you’d better be able to think this one thought. Hit me again, you motherfucker, you’re a dead man.”
He rose, walked into his room, shut the door. He’d buy a lock for it the next day, he thought. Keep the bastard out.
He could go. Exhausted, he sat on the side of the bed and dropped his head in his hands. He could pack up what was his and if he showed up on Cal ’s doorstep or at Fox’s farm, they’d take him in.
That’s the kind of people they were.
But he needed to stick this out, needed to show the old man and, more, show himself, that he could stick it out. Three years till his eighteenth birthday, he thought, then he’d be free.
Not quite accurate, Gage thought now. He’d stuck it out, and the old man had never raised a hand to him again. And he’d taken off when his three years were up. But freedom? That was another story.
You carried the past with you, he thought, dragging it behind you on a thick, unbreakable chain no matter how far you looked ahead. You could ignore it for good long stretches of time, but you couldn’t escape it. He could drag that chain ten thousand miles, but the Hollow, the people he loved in it, and his goddamn destiny just kept pulling him back.
He pushed away from the computer, went down to get himself more coffee. Sitting at the counter, he dealt out a hand of solitaire. It calmed him, the feel of the cards, the sound of them, their colors and shapes. When he heard the knock on the door, he glanced at his watch. It appeared Cybil was early. He left the cards where they were, grateful the simple game had kept his mind off the past, and off the woman as well.
When he pulled open the door, it was Joanne Barry on the front deck. “Well, hey.”
She only looked at him for a moment. Her dark hair was braided back, as she often wore it. Her eyes were clear in her pretty face, her body slim in jeans and a cotton shirt. Then she touched his face, laid her lips on his forehead, his cheeks, his lips in her traditional greeting when there was love.
“Thank you for the orchid.”
“You’re welcome. Sorry I missed you when I dropped it off. Do you want to come in? Do you have time?”
“Yes, I’d like to come in, for a few minutes.”
“Probably something to drink back here.” He led the way back toward the kitchen.
“ Cal ’s got a nice place here. It’s always a surprise.”
“Really?”
“That he-all of you-are grown men. That Cal ’s a grown man with this very nice home of his own, with its beautiful gardens. Sometimes still, just every so often, I wake up in the morning and think: I’ve got to get those kids up and off to school. Then I remember, the kids are grown and gone. It’s both a relief and a punch in the heart. I miss my little guys.”
“You’ll never be rid of us.” Knowing Jo, he skipped right over all the sodas, whittled her choices down to juice or bottled water. “I can offer you water or what I think might be grapefruit juice.”
“I’m fine, Gage. Don’t bother.”
“Could make some tea-or you could. I’d probably-” He broke off when he turned and saw a tear sliding down her cheek. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“The note you left me, with the plant.”
“I’d hoped to be able to talk to you. I stopped by Cal ’s mom’s, but-”
“I know. Frannie told me. You wrote: ‘Because you were always there for me. Because I know you always will be.’”
“You were. I do.”
With a sigh, she put her arms around him, laid her head on his shoulder. “All of your life, as a parent, you wonder and you worry. Did I do that right? Should I have done that, said this? Then, suddenly, in a fingersnap it seems, your children are grown. And still you wonder and you worry. Could I have done this, did I remember to say that? If you’re very lucky, one day one of your children…” She leaned back to look into his eyes. “Because you’re mine and Frannie’s, too. One of your children writes you a note that arrows straight into your heart. All that worry goes away.” She gave him a watery smile. “For a moment anyway. Thank you for the moment, baby.”
“I wouldn’t have gotten through without you and Frannie.”
“I think you’re wrong about that. But we damn sure helped.” She laughed now, gave him a hard squeeze. “I have to go. Come and see me soon.”
“I will. I’ll walk you out.”
“Don’t be silly. I know the way.” She started out, turned. “I pray for you. Being me, I cover my bases. God, the Goddess, Buddha, Allah, and so on. I pretty much tap on them all. I just want you to know that a day doesn’t go by that I don’t have all of you in my prayers. I’m nagging the hell out of every higher power there is. You’re going to come through this, all of you. I’m not taking no for an answer.”
Six
HE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN SHE’D BE EXACTLY ON time. Not late, not early, but on the button. Cybil had that preciseness about her. She wore a shirt the color of ripe, juicy peaches with bark brown pants that cropped off a couple inches above her ankles, and sandals with a couple of thin straps that showed off those intriguing narrow feet with their toes painted to match the shirt. She’d scooped that mass of curling hair back at the temples so he could see the trio of tiny hoops on her left ear, the duet of them on her right.
She carried a brown handbag the size of a bull terrier.
“I heard you had a visitor. I’ll need you to tell me about it so we’re sure nothing gets lost in translation.”
And right to business, he thought. “Fine.” He started back toward the kitchen. If he had to run through it again, he wanted his coffee.
“Mind if I get something cold?”
“Help yourself.”
She did. He watched as she pulled out the grapefruit juice and the diet ginger ale. “I’m a little put out she hasn’t talked to me yet,” Cybil said as she filled a glass with ice then proceeded to mix the two liquids in the glass. “But I’m trying to be big about it.” She glanced over, cocked an eyebrow as she lifted the glass. “Do you want some?”