Captive (12 page)

Interrupting her I demand,

“What the fuck does that mean? You can’t take her. She’s carrying my baby, I won’t let her leave. You get that don’t you? I can’t let her leave.” Again I didn’t think first, I allowed the panic to overtake my rationale. That didn’t come out as I intended it to. What I meant was she can’t take my Angel. I
need
her. She’s the only thing standing in between me and that dark abyss that’s calling me. The one that will swallow me whole. The one that’s called to me most of my adult life. Adelyn is the only person that can keep me from losing myself, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let anyone take her from me. Selfish, yes. But I’ve never claimed to be anything but.

Twirling the firearm in front of her twice, Emily picks it up holding it firmly in her grasp before depositing it back into her purse.

“Oh, I’m well aware of your demands and threats toward my daughter. I’ve been kept abreast of the developing hostilities in your bigoted little hick town. And before you run your mouth making an even more grave assumption, my daughter has not said one word, not one goddamned word about the vicious treatment she’s been treated to,” Emily yells pounding her fist on the table to punctuate her point. “You think you’re the only one that’s been keeping tabs on her? Surely you’re not that naive. Vengeance has a reach that Devil’s Spawn can only dream of having. Our people have people, and our informants have informants, and let me assure you there’s not a good God damned thing my boys wouldn’t do to see that young lady is safe, and that protection without a doubt extends to the child growing in her belly. Now you and I are faced with some conflicting issues to iron out. You want Adelyn here so that you can be involved in her child’s life.”

I go to stop her, because the baby I planted in my Angel is most definitely ours, not only Adelyn’s. That’s my goddamned child she’s carrying too, and I’ll be fucked if I let anyone say any different. Emily doesn’t give me a chance to correct her, she ploughs on regardless of my disdain of her phrasing.

“A father is one that’s actively involved in his child’s life, which includes the time it spends in its mothers’ womb. A father wants to be at every appointment, every test, and every ultrasound. He wants to feel his child move, feel it roll, kick its mother. A father wants to protect, cherish, adored, and support his child’s mother. Make sure she is taken care of, sheltered from the cruelties of the world. And a daddy wants to do nothing but shower love on the most important people in his life, something I was under the assumption you were well versed in if my daughter is to be believed. Let me ask you this, Max. How do you think your child will feel when he or she finds out you did all that, and more for their brother? That you were there for the obstetrician’s appointments, the blood tests, the child birth classes, to hold his mothers’ hand during delivery, and you weren’t for theirs. How will you explain that? Because in my eyes there’s no fucking way you can redeem your status as a father, however it’s not up to me. Lucky for you it’s Adelyn that will ultimately be responsible for the decision that will decide how much of a part you play in her child’s life.”

I feel like I’ve been sucker punched, but it’s not over yet, she’s not done. Karma has finally found me, and taken hold in a death grip delivered swiftly, and unmercifully by an unassuming middle aged brunette.

“And I will pray for you next, Max. I’ll pray that if you have a daughter you don’t get called one day to see her battered black and blue. That you don’t get asked to help peel the bloodied clothes from her body, tape her broken ribs, reset her nose and dislocated shoulder. I’ll pray that you don’t have to explain to her when she wakes up that a doctor, one she doesn’t know, one she’s never met, needed to put eighteen stitched into her rectum, and twelve into her vagina to repair the damage done by an animal. But I’ll pray hardest for your soul if you’re faced with holding your daughters hand when she’s told that the same animal that violated her for years made her pregnant, and the last beating he gave her caused her to miscarry. That when she sits still and stoic, you can contain your rage at hearing she may never have children, and if she does it could be dangerous because of the amount of damage that beast inflicted on her insides. I hope you will never know the pain as a parent you go through when your daughter calls you alone, frightened, and heartsick on finding out she’s finally getting what she prayed for if it wasn’t for the man responsible for putting her in that condition. What I wish for you the most though is that you will never have to
feel
the desolation come from your daughter when she explains it was all a misunderstanding, that all she’d intended to do in the end was to come home to visit her mother, clear her head for a week or so. That the second she saw the man she was falling in love with walk into her house she changed her mind, and wouldn’t have left if she’d been forced to by a heard of wild elephants.”

Jesus fucking Christ. My poor beautiful girl. I had no idea the extent of the horrors she faced. The brutality she’s overcome. And I threw that back in her face. All of it. I told her she used her tears, her past as an excuse to trap me, to take my kid from me. A way to run away. That she was using her tears as a weapon, as a tool to manipulate me.

My world abruptly stops spinning, and the abyss I thought I could stave off engulfs me, but not in the way I thought it would. It engulfs my consciousness wrapping it in sorrow and grief, but not for me, for Adelyn. My Angel. The most beautiful person I’ve ever known, inside and out. I sink my head into my hands, and let the tears keep coming. I haven’t cried in years, so long ago in fact that I can’t remember the last time I did.

Standing abruptly Emily walks toward the archway of the kitchen leading to the hallway, which will take her to the front door.

“Few things in this life are certain, Maxwell William Andrews, but there was one thing I would have assured you was more certain than anything else, that is before you fucked it all up of course. And that was that my girl would have loved you in a way that was unending. It would have lasted longer than you will walk this Earth. Adelyn has a capacity for love and forgiveness that I’ve never seen in another human being, and I don’t think I ever will. It’s what makes her so phenomenally special. It’s what makes her better than us laymen. It’s what will set her apart the day she dies, and send her straight for the stars where she belong. Where she will burn bright and long, eventually burning out as was her life in a shower of light and brilliance. She was your gift. And like every asshole before you, everyone that didn’t notice her brilliance for what it was, you’ve done yourself out of the most wonderful thing to ever happen to you.”

A few more steps, and one last glance over her shoulder shows me she isn’t unaffected by her own words, it hurts her almost as much as it’s destroying me to know that Adelyn’s happiness was compromised by my selfishness, and bitterness.

“If that baby has an ounce of her compassion, her ability to love, her brilliance, you Max are one lucky man. Because even though you broke your child’s mother down, broke her spirit, you’re being given that gift all over again. Try not to fuck it up this time. Make better choices. Step up and be the man, the father my daughter believes you are. If not for your child, do it for the woman you owe it to.” With that Emily swings her purse over her shoulder, and strides out my front door, slamming it closed with a finality that rattles more than the door frame.

I’m left with a sinking feeling, one that isn’t going away any time soon it’s so deeply embedded in my gut. If it ever does it’ll take a piece of me with it. It will undoubtedly rip apart what remains of my humanity if I can’t get it under control. It’s a feeling that will shatter the illusion of control I’m holding on to by a thread. A feeling that’s so all-encompassing I can’t see past it to what I have to do it fix this. And I know that’s what I have to do, what I
need
to do. I have to fix what I broke. I have to put her, my Angel, back together again.

Reaching blindly for my phone I open my contacts and push the button. When the person on the other end answers I beg. I put every ounce of desperation I feel into my words.

“Son, I need you.” I croak out. That’s all I’ve got the energy to say before I slide off my seat, and on to the cold unforgiving floor breaking apart at the seams in despair.

Kryptonite – 3 Doors Down

              There are days you wake up and curse the sun. Days you want nothing more than to go back to sleep and pretend the day never even begun. I’m having a lot of those lately. It’s as if my body is refusing to cooperate with my need to get up and pee, put a pot of decaffeinated coffee on, which mind you I don’t blame it because that shit is akin to drinking pig swill, but whatever it’s best for the baby, so I try not to complain too much. But even with the promise of nasty coffee, and bladder relief my body doesn’t want to make them slightest of headway, and today is no different.

However today I’m not giving my traitorous excuse for a body a choice, it’s getting up whether it likes it or not, putting respectable clothes, not sweats or pyjama pants on, and hauling ass into town. Definitely not my favorite place to go of late, but today I don’t give the first flying fuck about the stares, nasty gestures, or name calling. Today is the ninth of May, and nothing, I mean nothing will stand in my way when it comes to laying my poppies.

I might be alone, but I won’t be brought down by anything today. It’s too important. Too special to allow anyone to interfere with it. So by sheer will alone I’m showered, dressed, and pig swilled up managing to haul my carcass out the door by seven thirty AM.

On a brighter note, I think I scare the ever-loving-shit out of Trig, which is a plus. He was dozing in the front seat of his old, seen better days’ pickup truck when I knocked on the window waking him with a start. Poor guy almost fell right off the seat. Thankfully the steering wheel saved him, and all’s well that ends well. It would most definitely have been a shame if he damaged that pretty face of his.

I’ve noticed after three months of borderline stalking that Trig is indeed a gorgeous specimen of male. Tall, broad, with a goatee and half beard covering his face Trig is covered in colourful, some humorous, some not tattoos, ripped with muscle, and very much the biker if you discard the truck and replace it with a bike of course. The funny thing is, he does nothing for me. As in, nothing. Sad, but true. Not that I’d even consider having a relationship with another member of the opposite sex
ever
again, but if I did unfortunately good old faithful local stalker number one wouldn’t be in the running.

While I can appreciate his sexiness for what it is, and the man is definitely sexy, I don’t have any desire to see him naked, which is also a shame because I’m sure he’s even more stunning buck naked.

But I digress. After waking Trig telling him I’m heading into town I start up my charger making my way along the quiet streets that lead to the place that gives me the most anxiety attacks of late. So I suppose it’s good that Trig’s always around because God knows what I’d do if I had one and couldn’t get home. And let’s be honest, Trig is a decent enough guy that he wouldn’t let me sit on the side of the road hyperventilating. Actually after last nights’ little chat I think deep down Trig’s more than a decent guy, he’s nice. Sweet even. He apologised, and I did what comes naturally, I forgave him. Too easy? Not really. We’ve all got a choice whether we hang on to bitterness and resentment, and I for one don’t have the room inside my head for either. So forgiveness it is, until he fucks up. Then I’ll have to kick his ass and make him apologise all over again, because again let’s be honest, he’s a guy, he’s bound to fuck up sooner or later. But for now I’m just going to wait and see if I can have a friendship with the silently brooding man, and take it from there.

Letting my mind wander isn’t something I do often any more. Actually I try not to do it as often as possible, because more often than not I find it wandering to places I can’t steer it away from. Places that involve Reaper, the people I used to call friends, and how much I miss home, particularly the guys, Emily too. But driving seems to give my brain the perfect opportunity to take a walk on the dark side, and delve into thoughts it shouldn’t.

However on days like today, especially today, my thoughts stay focused on wanting my family here with me. There’s nothing I want more than to have them taking this trip just outside town with me. They were my support crew when I didn’t think I could place one more flower. They encouraged me to keep going, see it through. And every year I did. We did. Because we did it together, all of us.

Allowing my mind a quick trip down memory lane I reel the thoughts of Reaper’s hand, mouth, and cock in, placing them in a box to be continued at a later date. Or not, it depends on how I feel at the time. That’s the beauty of being able to compartmentalise, I can put everything neatly in its little box, packing them away until I see fit to pull it out, and go over the contents. It’s a self-preservation technique I learned very early on, and one that’s served me well.

There’s one flower shop in Blackwater, and thankfully the owners belong to the group of residents that studiously try to ignore me above anything else. It makes getting in and out of the shop fast and relatively painless, if it weren’t for the multiple trips to and from to collect the hundred and something poppies I had specially ordered in for today. Albeit for the most part Mr. and Mrs, Farmer ignore me, they mutter their thanks for my patronage, seeing as I spent four hundred dollars with them that’s only fair, turning their backs on me the second the words have passed their lips. Not a surprise, but what does surprise me is that it still hurts. That people in this town no matter how horrible they’ve been still have the capacity to hurt me comes as a huge surprise.

I thought I was past that, and maybe today I’m more sensitive than most other days, regardless I berate myself internally warning what’s left of my fractured mind to harden up and eat a spoon of cement. I can’t keep letting people I don’t know, people that don’t matter affect me like this. The stress is putting undue pressure on my body, and even a little nudge might land me in hospital, or so says my obstetrician. At first I thought he was being over cautious, but after last week, and the way I felt the over load of stress take it out of me I know he wasn’t kidding So, it’s time to toughen up, start moving forward instead of being held captive in the past. What they said yesterday doesn’t matter I tell myself. What they say today can’t hurt me, and tomorrow doesn’t bear thinking on until it gets here.

The drive to the cemetery is short. There’s no time to dwell on the reason for my visit, there’ll be plenty of time for that later. Rounding the last curve on the hillside leading through the wrought iron gates I slam on my brakes, staring in shock at the sight in front of me.

At least thirty bikes line the one lane road on the lead up to the main burial site. Harley’s in black, blue, gold, and white gleam in the early morning sunshine, and a symphony of tailpipes rip through the air as they notice I’ve arrived. Three men stand off to one side, and it takes me less than ten seconds to unbuckle myself and fling my body into theirs.

“You came,” I breathe out.

Chuckles fill the air, my heart lightening at the sound of them alone.

“Of course we did Addie. Nowhere else we’d rather be.”

None of us really
want
to be here, but I understand what Boss means. This day signifies more than just the day I lost my baby, it signifies the day I finally hit my lowest point. More importantly than that though, it signifies the day I decided to pick myself up, rise from the ashes and begin again. Like the mighty Phoenix, I chose to rise not fall and these men were there through it all.

Hugging each and every one of them individually, tightly, the group parts and I catch sight of someone making their way up the hill. Before giving it a second thought I take off running. Launching myself at the figure I hold on tighter than I ever have before. Tighter than I need to, but I need the right now. I need the comfort, the safe this body offers. It’s probably wrong to rely on someone so much for my sense of well-being, but when everything else in my life is up in the air, out of my control, this is real. This is something I
can
hold on to without judgement or fear of retribution.

“You didn’t think I’d miss out on the party did you baby girl? Moms’ know when their babies need them, didn’t need you to tell me you needed me here for this to know it would be what you wanted, honey.”

Laughing at her, I feel the weight of the last few months lift a little. It’s not gone, and more than likely it’ll return as soon as they leave, but for now I’m going to bask in the weightlessness of my shoulders. I’m going to take a deep breath and enjoy them being here with me. For now at least.

“Mom, I missed you.”

I took to calling Emily mom when I was seventeen, and realised she was the only person I would ever consider bestowing the title on, for she was indeed my mother through and through. Every success, every failure she was there to encourage me, pick me up when I was down. Every time I faltered she was there to push me in the right direction, and every single time I made a choice that had the potential to put me in danger she knocked some sense into me. Not violently, but one look from Emily and man, woman, and child were instantaneously aware she’d be more than happy to kick your ass if you didn’t smarten up. I only hoped I could be half the mother she is if I’m given the chance because she is the most remarkable woman I know, and I’m proud to call her my mom.

Clapping her hands mom starts doing what she does best, giving orders. Mind you she does this all whilst keeping me closely tucked to her side.

“Enough gas bagging boys, jump to it. If I know my girl her trunk, and backseat are full, and we need it empty in T minus, oh, five minutes. Start heading up the monument on the left, the one with the two angels and put your haul there, we’ll be along in a minute.”

Without delay the men of Vengeance MC dutifully follow orders, emptying my car in record time.

“Good to see some things never change, mom,” I say as I gesture with my head to the guys carting flowers up the last of the hill without complaint.

Looking at me with a serious expression, she puts her hands on my protruding belly and says,

“It’s even better to see some things do.” Nodding at her, she cracks a small smile adding, “It’s a special day, Adelyn. The first of many more to come I hope. Today we’re not only honouring the past, but the present too. How are you coping with that, honey?”

I’d like to lie. I’d like to say that it doesn’t bring me more than a little sadness to be visiting a grave site honouring the memory of my long dead baby while another grows inside me healthy and safe, but I can’t. It’s always been hard, more than hard it’s been horrible. And Emily knows it too. I don’t have to tell her, she already knows today will be harder than the years that have come before it. Worse still it’s made harder because I feel like there’s so much to mourn.

I’ve been struggling lately to look for the positives, find the good in things. Focusing on them rather than the sadness building with every step closer to the cemetery’s entrance is nearly impossible. It used to be my trademark move, my go to default being upbeat, but more often than not I find myself focusing on the negatives. The fact that my life is not going the way I had planned it out neatly in my head is a heavy weight to bear.

Look, it’s not like I expected perfection, I would have been content with my little slice of happiness. They say good things come to those who wait, but in my mind I have waited. I’ve waited years. It’s hard to reconcile that, and the fact that it isn’t to be just yet, but I do honestly believe it will come. Deep down I have to believe it will come. I just have to wait a bit longer than most, and I’m resigned to being okay with that as long as my chance does come.

Headstones, monuments, tributes to loved ones lost, elderly grandparents remembered, and children mourned cover the hillside cemetery. In rows neatly aligned, it’s as if everyone has a place and there’s a place for everyone with how orderly it is laid out. In groups of three or four we slowly meander through the graves gently laying a poppy on the top of each one. Some of the guys say a few words if the mood takes them, most of us are silently reflective.

I have always picked out one grave, one special grave to spend extra time at than the others. There’s no rhyme or reason to my choice, just a feeling I get when I’m standing in front of it that tells me to stay a little while longer. Today I’m instinctively drawn to a marker with the image of a sparrow carved into the top of the headstone. What’s written underneath is like taking a hit to the solar plexus. The air rushes out of my lungs harshly, and I’m pretty sure my heart missed more than a few beats.

Ryan Macon Andrews

May 9 1986 – May 9 1986

Too short for this world,

too pure to walk amongst mere men.

May the ride be long, and the

journey swift.