Her Sister's Shoes (17 page)

Twenty-Two

Faith

F
aith woke before
sunrise the following morning. She allowed herself a few extra minutes in bed, to enjoy the coziness of the soft comforter and the warmth of her daughter’s smal
l body
lying next to her. For the first time in a long time, she felt safe.

Last night, she’d begged Sam to let her sleep on the couch so as not to disturb Jamie from his peaceful sleep in the guest bedroom bed, but Sam had refused, insisting that Faith’s body needed rest in order to heal. Sam wanted Jamie in his own room so she could watch over him during the night, and Faith would’ve done the same thing in her sister’s shoes.

She owed Sam a debt of gratitude she’d never be able to repay. Not just for rescuing her from Curtis. Any sister would move heaven and earth to get her sibling away from an abusive spouse. But Sam had chosen to forgive her for the money she’d stolen from the market.

Faith glanced at the digital clock on the table beside the bed. Six thirty. Moses was coming over to talk to Jamie at eight thirty, which left her a small but workable window of opportunity. Officer Swanson had given her detailed instructions on where to find the forms and how to file them.

Time for Faith to take control of her life.

Despite her sore muscles and aching ribs, Faith forced herself to get out of bed. She slipped a sundress over her head, and tiptoed down the hall to the desktop computer in the sitting room. She downloaded and printed the forms. Thirty minutes later, when she had finished filling out all the information, she returned to the guest bedroom for her bag.

She nudged Bitsy. “Mama’s gonna run out for a while. I won’t be long.”

Bitsy nodded, but she didn’t open her eyes.

“Aunt Sam’s here if you need her. You sleep as long as you like.”

Her daughter responded by burying herself deeper under the covers.

Faith snuck out the front door and around the back of the house to her truck. She stroked the dashboard like a beloved pet as she turned the key in the ignition. “Don’t you quit on me now, Rusty, ole girl.” The engine fired on the first try, and Faith hit the highway, fighting to keep her eyes open as she drove the forty-five minutes to Charleston. She located the courthouse, filed her forms with the family court clerk, and was headed back home in less than thirty minutes.

When she entered the kitchen, she heard hushed voices coming from the sitting room—her nephew’s, her sister’s, and a deep pleasant voice she assumed belonged to Moses. She brewed herself a cup of coffee and went about making breakfast.

Faith was piling pancakes onto a serving platter when Sam strolled in.

“How’d it go?” Faith asked.

“Okay, I guess. I will continue to hope for a miracle, but after last night, I’m grateful for baby steps.” She dropped to the bar stool. “For the first time in a long time, Jamie opened up. Not much, but enough to consider it a start.”

Faith brewed her sister a cup of coffee. “Are they going to hospitalize him?”

“Not yet. Jamie convinced Moses to give him more time.” Sam blew on her coffee, then took a tentative sip. “Don’t get me wrong. I firmly believe that putting my son back in the hospital would be the worst thing for him, but as long as he’s under my roof, the burden of keeping him safe falls on me.”

“Where is Jamie now?”

“In the shower.” Sam clasped her hands together and lifted her eyes to the sky. “Which is an answer to one of my prayers in itself.”

Faith pulled a bar stool close to her sister. “I’m here, Sammie. You can share the burden with me.”

Sam let out a deep sigh of relief. “I know. Just having you here helps. And thank you for making breakfast. You didn’t have to go to so much trouble.”

Faith had set four places at the island with plates, napkins, silverware, and orange juice, then set a platter mounded with pancakes, sausage, and strawberries in the center.

Sam grabbed a fork and speared a sausage link. “Why are you up so early? After yesterday, I expected you to sleep in.”

“I’ll have you know, I’ve already been to Charleston and back,” Faith said, a smirk playing along her lips.

Sam stopped, the sausage link poised in front of her lips. “I thought we agreed you wouldn’t go out alone.”

“I went to the courthouse to file for an order of protection.” When a confused look crossed Sam’s face, she added, “You know, a restraining order.”

Sam set the sausage down on her plate and offered her sister a fist bump. “I’m proud of you for taking control.” She pointed her finger at Faith. “But don’t even think about leaving this house unchaperoned again.”

“Where do you expect me to find a chaperone?”

“I’ll chaperone you, Aunt Faith.” Jamie wheeled up beside his mother. “That’s about the only job I can manage in this chair.”

Sam’s jaw dropped. “You shaved.” She ran her hand down her son’s smooth cheek.

He batted his mother’s hand away. “It was starting to itch.”

“You look handsome, Jamie,” Faith said. “More like your old self.” She pushed the platter of food toward her nephew, and he filled his plate with pancakes.

Sam’s eyes met Faith’s. “Baby steps,” Sam mouthed.

“Where’s Bits?” Jamie asked. “Isn’t she going to eat?”

“I assume she’s still asleep.” Faith glanced at her watch. “But it’s almost ten o’clock. I’ll go wake her up.”

Panic gripped Faith’s chest when she discovered the bed in the guest room empty. She searched in the closet and in the corner behind the rocking chair. When she lifted the bed skirt, a pair of green eyes stared back at her. She reached in and dragged her daughter out from beneath the bed. She wrapped her arms around Bitsy’s trembling body and rocked her back and forth while the child wept. “Hush now, baby. You need to calm down and tell me what’s wrong so I can make it all better.”

“I heard a man’s voice, and I thought it was Daddy.”

“No, sweetheart. That was Jamie’s friend Moses. He came by earlier to see him.”

“But you left me here all alone.”

“No, honey.” Faith kissed her daughter’s sweaty head. “I would never leave you alone. Aunt Sam and Jamie were here with you the whole time.”

Bitsy stared up at her mother, her long lashes heavy with tears. “But where’d you go?”

“I had a very important errand to run. I filed some papers so the police can make Daddy stop hurting us.”

“Really?” Lip quivering, Bitsy inhaled an unsteady breath. “Do you think it will work?”

“I hope so, but for the time being, I’m going to stick to you like a piece of chewing gum on the bottom of your shoe.”

Bitsy giggled.

“Let’s go get some pancakes.” Ignoring the pain in her ribs, Faith swept Bitsy up and carried her to the kitchen.

Jamie noticed his cousin’s tears right away. “What’s wrong, Bits?”

“I heard a man’s voice and I thought it was Daddy coming to take me away,” she said, clinging tighter to her mother’s waist.

“We’re not gonna let that happen.” He pointed to the empty seat beside him. “Come here, and sit down next to me.”

Faith set her daughter on the bar stool while Jamie lifted two pancakes onto Bitsy’s plate. He cut one of the pancakes in half and arranged the two pieces on top of the whole one in the shape of a Mickey Mouse face.

“I have to go to the potty before I eat.” Bitsy hopped down and scurried off.

Jamie wheeled off after her, returning less than a minute later with a metal lockbox on his lap. He reached for his mother’s keys on the hook by the back door. One by one, he flipped through all of the keys on the ring.

“Where is it?” he asked his mother.

“I’m not telling you.” She held her hand out to him. “Give me the box.”

He placed his arm protectively over the box. “No.”

“So what’s in the box?” Faith asked.

“My gun.” He darted a glance at Faith, then stared back at his mother. “Give me the key, Mom. It’s my gun.”

“It’s the pistol Daddy gave him,” Sam explained to Faith. “Under the circumstances, I’m not comfortable with it being in his possession.”

No mother in her right mind would put a gun in the hands of a suicidal teenager
, Faith thought.

She placed a hand on her nephew’s shoulder. “I agree with your mother, Jamie. Seeing that gun might frighten Bitsy more than she already is.”

“But what if Curtis shows up? Somebody has to protect you,” he said to Faith.

Faith leaned down next to Jamie’s chair. “I appreciate your concern, Jamie. Really I do. But I have think about Bitsy. And I think it’s in her best interest for me to let the police handle the situation.”

“But …” Jamie started, and then backed down.

“We have to trust Faith to handle her crisis in her own way, son. There’s plenty we can do to help that doesn’t involve using a gun.” Sam held her hand out for the box. “I’ll put it back in its safe place. For now.”

Faith drove Jamie to his two o’clock appointment with Moses. They were pulling in the driveway on the way home, when Bitsy asked, “Jamie, will you teach me how to play Xbox?”

He turned around to face her in the backseat. “I’m not sure I have any games you can play.”

Bitsy pouted her lower lip. “Please.”

“Oh, no. Not the lower lip treatment.”

She stuck her lip out even further.

“
You can suck the lip back in.” He poked at her lip with his finger, making it flap up and down. “I’m sure we can find something you can play. Maybe
Angry
Birds
.”

Once the kids were settled in front of the television, Faith went out back to her sister’s garage, a freestanding wooden building at the end of the driveway. She wiped the dirt off the window and peeked inside. The garage was a complete mess, packed with tools and recreational items in all shapes and sizes. With a little organizing, there might be just enough room for her truck.

Ignoring the pain in her head and her ribs, Faith carefully lifted the heavy garage door. She started by pushing out the big items—things with wheels like the lawnmower and wheelbarrow and Jamie’s bicycle—and lining them up in the driveway, making enough room to move around inside. She stored the duck decoys, hunting gear, and gardening supplies on the shelves along the sidewalls. She filled a large plastic tub with baseball bats, lacrosse sticks, and fishing rods, then a smaller one with balls of every type. She was organizing the gardening tools on the workbench in the back of the shed when Jamie and Bitsy came out to check on her.

“What’re you doing, Mama?” Bitsy asked.

Faith brushed a lock of hair out of Bitsy’s face and tucked it behind her ear. “I wanted to do something nice for Aunt Sam for letting us stay with her, so I decided to clean out her garage.”

“Can I help?”

Faith surveyed the now semiorderly mess. “I’m not quite ready, but in a little while, you can help me push all the big stuff back inside the garage.”

“Okay. Just let me know when you’re ready.” Bitsy grabbed a hula hoop from the corner and took it out into the yard.

Jamie wheeled up beside Faith. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea for you to be out here alone.”

“I’m not alone anymore, now that you’re here.”

“You know what I mean, Aunt Faith. With Curtis on the loose and all.”

Faith watched her daughter, barefoot in the grass, having fun as she struggled to make the hula hoop stay on her hips. “If I let Curtis control my life, wouldn’t that be just as bad as letting him beat me?”

Jamie spun his chair around in a circle as he inspected the clean garage. “Funny, there’s just enough room in here for your truck.”

“Busted.” Faith popped her hands up. “So maybe I am letting Curtis control my life a little bit.”

“If that bastard tries to come on my property, he won’t live to see the next sunrise.” Jamie beat his palm with his fist.

Faith had witnessed Jamie’s off-and-on anger all day. He’d spent the morning watching a
SpongeBob
marathon with Bitsy, as though he was six again and it was his favorite show. But then he got frustrated when they couldn’t get his wheelchair in the truck, and annoyed when Faith refused to drop him off at therapy and come back for him later. She understood how his feelings might be confused after everything he’d been through. She only hoped the compassionate, less volatile side of Jamie held true in the end.