HUNTER (The Corbin Brothers Book 1) (115 page)

“Hey, Mama,” Jules said, beaming as she held her arms out to me. She looked like an angel, the sun illuminating her honey-colored hair, her skin the color of a café latte. Her eyes were almond shaped and a gorgeous amber color, and her smile lit up her whole face.

“I’ve wanted to do this for a long time,” she said, hugging me tightly. I thought I’d been all hugged out in prison, but I was wrong. I’d just been waiting for this hug for years.

“You and me both, sugar,” I said, crushing her to me. “It’s so good to finally see you.”

When we parted, I had to look up to meet my son’s face. He was looking at me carefully, trying to figure me out.

“Hello, Marshall,” I said, keeping my voice as neutral as possible even though I was threatening to dissolve into tears. After all this time, my son was standing right in front of me. It was involuntary. I’d been thinking about him so much that my arms spread themselves, and I leaned in to give him a hug.

“Don’t,” he said quickly, stepping back. I let my arms drop to my sides quickly.

“Marshall,” Jules fussed, a look of warning crossing her pretty face.

“It’s all right,” I said. “That’s all right. Let’s get on out of here. I could spend the rest of my life without ever laying my eyes on this prison again.”

Jules chattered on the car ride back to their house and I tried to follow it, but the reality of actually being in the same car as my son and daughter-in-law was almost too much of a shock. I’d been thinking about this day for a long time, but I’d never actually thought it would come to pass.

“Mama?” Both Marshall and Jules were looking at me, and I realized we had stopped in front of a house.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “This is all just a little overwhelming.”

“We understand,” Jules said warmly. “This is it. Welcome home.”

Their house was small, but it was a house. They had a tiny little porch that was swept clean, two chairs sitting on it. The décor inside was cozy, clean, and modern. They didn’t have many knick-knacks lying around, which was nice, but there were stacks and stacks of magazines acting as side tables to the chairs in the living room.

“We read a lot,” Jules explained. “And I just love magazines. I can’t bear to throw them out. Here. Let me show you where you’ll be staying.”

They converted the room they used for a home office into an additional bedroom, the desk and computer shoved into one corner to accommodate a twin bed.

“I know it’s not much, but the mattress is new,” Jules said. “I hope it’ll be nice on your back.”

I’d complained multiple times to Jules over the phone about how my prison bed had ravaged my back.

“This is more than enough,” I said, still struggling to take it all in. “This is too much. Thank you, sugar. Thank you for this kindness.”

“No thanks needed,” Jules said, hugging me again. “We’re family. This is what family does.”

Jules prepared a wonderful supper and wouldn’t let me lift a finger to help her. We ate in only slightly strained silence, Marshall’s close presence halting any conversations.

“I’d like to make sure you know that I’ll be taking on the chores and the cooking until I find a job,” I said. “Then, I’ll be paying rent until I find a place to live.”

“You take as much time as you need,” Jules said. “And you’re not going to slave away. We’re used to doing our own chores, aren’t we, Marshall?”

“We’re very used to not having my absent mother around,” he agreed, wiping his mouth with a napkin.

“Marshall!” Jules hissed, aghast.

“That’s just fine,” I said, but she cut me off.

“It’s not just fine,” she protested. “Marshall, show your mother some respect.”

“I don’t see how that’s going to be possible,” he said. “I don’t see how any of this is going to be possible.”

Jules started to spit something at him, but I raised my hand.

“Let him talk, sugar,” I said. “I want to hear what he has to say. Don’t you have some things you’d like to get off your chest, Marshall?”

“I’m pretty confused about why we’re opening our home to you when you couldn’t even make one for me when I was a child,” he shot at me. “So there’s that.”

“I understand,” I said, nodding. “You and Jules are being very generous to me.”

“And I can’t even believe you’re here,” he said, his face caving in on itself before he mastered control of it once more. “And not in the emotional, touched way, either. I’m in absolute disbelief. I can’t believe this is even happening right now.”

“I was absent for a very long time from your life,” I said. “You’re right to feel this way. This is natural.”

“Nothing about this is natural!” he shouted. “I don’t want you here!”

“That’s not your decision to make,” Jules said. “I live in this house, too, and it just so happens that I’m very attached to Mama.”

“You have no idea what she did to me,” he said, “what she’s done to so many people.”

“I would like to talk about it, if you want to ask any questions,” I said.

“I know all about it!” he yelled. “I lived it, remember? And I saw every second of every news program about the life you left me for. Was whoring that great, to abandon your son?”

Jules’ mouth gaped open and closed, but she couldn’t find the words to rebuke that.

“My priorities have been very messed up since a very young age,” I said. “Being in prison gave me time to get them straightened out. I want a chance to prove to you that I can be the mother you need.”

“I don’t need a mother anymore,” he said. “When I was young? Yes. Yes. I needed a mother very much back then. But now I’ve evolved, you see? I don’t need a mother anymore. I don’t understand what you’re doing here. I want you gone.”

Marshall pushed himself up from the table and stalked away, slamming the front door.

“I’m so sorry,” Jules said, but I waved the apology away.

“I knew that this wasn’t going to be easy,” I said. “Marshall doesn’t trust me, and he’s right not to. I wasn’t a good person the last time he knew me. I abandoned him. It’s going to take a lot to win back his trust. It’s going to take a long time to make amends. I knew that going into this. Please have patience with us, sugar.”

“You take as long as you need, and I mean it,” she said, picking up the dinner plates. “You’re always welcome here as long as I’m living in this house. Marshall can rage about whatever he wants, but that’s a promise.”

Look at this strong, fearless woman my son had married, I told myself, watching her move around the kitchen, dropping the dishes in the sink before getting another load from the table. She was capable of weathering my son’s rages and loving him still. She was a special woman, and I loved her for loving Marshall.

I slipped out the front door and found my son, sitting in one of the chairs on the porch, staring listlessly at the street. I had done this man so much harm by a handful of decisions and a lifetime of absence. How was I ever going to make it up to him?

“Marshall?”

“What do you want from me?” he asked, his voice tired.

“I want a chance to prove myself,” I said. “I want to show you that I’ve changed for the better.”

“You need to give me time,” he said. “I’ve been without a mother my whole life. You can’t expect me to start hugging a stranger and calling her Mama, can you?”

“No,” I said, as my throat closed with tears. I was a stranger to my son. “No, I can’t expect that.”

“Then give me time,” he said, still staring into the street.

“Time,” I said. I knew time very well. “I can do that.”

Life was strange sometimes. Jules was so warm and welcoming, but Marshall was absolutely cold. He didn’t look at me if he didn’t have to. I would’ve liked to say that the two opposites evened out, but it made me feel like I was getting whiplash emotionally.

I had to fight trying to stay out of Marshall’s way to avoid provoking him with my presence and wanting to be in his presence, begging him to give me another chance, to see what love I was capable of. I studied him in secret, while he was working on the files he brought home, or reading a magazine, or eating.

“I hate you staring at me!” he’d shout, standing up and glaring at me before stomping out of the room.

“I’m sorry I made him angry,” I told Jules, who scowled after him. “I just can’t help it. I haven’t seen him since he was a little boy, and I guess I’m fascinated with the way he’s a man now.”

“He’ll get over it, Mama,” Jules assured me, but he never did. His temper around me was volatile, unpredictable. I hated it for Jules. She had to feel like she was stuck in the middle. I hoped I wasn’t ruining their marriage.

When I wasn’t working or helping out around the house, I was working through my amends. The Internet was a godsend. I’d found filings from my trial and was able to figure out a list of girls I could start calling. And the simple fact that I could find people’s numbers online was amazing. Technology was an incredible thing.

When I saw the name Jasmine King on the list, it made me frown. She was the only Jasmine, so I knew that she had to be the one, but her last name didn’t ring a bell until that moment. It was possible that she never told me her last name—most of the girls didn’t. It was then that I realized the author of the book,
A Message to Jasmine
, had the last name of King, too. Maybe that smiling girl in the printed photo was Jasmine after all. Good for her. She deserved to be happy, especially since I’d first laid eyes on her when she was eating food out of a dumpster in the alleyway behind the nightclub.

From there, it was easy enough to find her number. I took a deep breath—I was always nervous before one of these calls—and dialed. It rang twice before someone answered.

“Hello?”

“Jasmine King?”

“That’s me.”

“This is Wanda Dupree,” I said, fidgeting with the keyboard on the desk. “You knew me better as Mama. As in, Mama’s nightclub.”

There was a gasp of pure, unadulterated horror, then the line cut off. She hung up on me.

I took a long, deep breath again and laid my cell phone down. It’s all right, I told myself. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. I’d always remember the Serenity Prayer for the rest of my days. That much was evident. And this case fell under the accepting things I couldn’t change category. I’d made an effort to get in touch with Jasmine. She hadn’t wanted to talk to me. End of story.

It was still difficult to shake the uneasiness, so I fell into cleaning the house in an effort to distract myself. But no matter how hard a swept, mopped, or polished, that tortured gasp kept invading my thoughts. It meant that I was a monster. There were girls out there who thought I was a monster.

I had to accept that. I had been a monster. That was just the reality of my situation.

But it still burned. I thought I had come so far and even had good conversations with several of the girls. Others had simply thanked me for calling and ended the call. It varied from person to person.

That gasp, though. I paused in my furious wiping down of the countertop in the kitchen and looked up to the cabinet above the refrigerator. I knew there was something in there that would help me forget about all of this. There was something in there that would help me.

No. I thought about drinking again, and tossing away all my years of sobriety. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want the hallucinations, the nausea, the vomiting, the realization that I was weak. I wasn’t weak. I was strong. I could do this. I could beat this.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference,” I said out loud. This was a choice. I just had to have a little courage. Maybe go out for a walk. Get out of the house.  Remove myself from temptation so I wouldn’t get burned.

No, again. I wanted to face down that monster. I wanted to look temptation in the face and tell it that I was too strong for it. I had to stand on my tiptoes to get the cabinet open, and nearly dropped the bottle of whiskey bringing it down from its resting place.

I set it on the countertop in front of me and stared at the amber liquid inside that shiny bottle as dispassionately as I could. It had been eight years since I’d touched a drop of liquor. Did I really still want it? Could it still have that terrible pull on me?

Yes, I had to admit to myself. If something as simple as a gasp on the other end of the line of a phone call had upset me badly enough to throw away my sobriety, I had to acknowledge that mine was a wily, pushy demon.

In its bottle, the liquid perfectly still, the whiskey looked benign, harmless. But I knew it would be different poured in a glass in front of me. That would be nearly impossible to resist.

It bothered me a little that alcohol still had its claws in me. I thought that AA had worked miracles on me in prison. Now that I was on the outside, though, I was exposed to many more temptations. Liquor stores on every corner. A cabinet in my son’s house that contained everything I ever needed.

The front door shutting made me jump. Were they back from the doctor already?

“We’re home, Mama,” Jules called, stepping into the kitchen. She registered my wide-eyed look, observed the whiskey bottle out on the counter, and frowned. “Did something happen? Are you all right?”

Sweet girl. She didn’t jump to any conclusions.

“I was trying to make amends with another of the girls,” I said. “It didn’t go very well. I felt like I wanted to drink again, but I resisted. I just wanted to stare the devil in his face for a few moments.”

Jules smiled. “I’m glad you won the staring competition,” she said. “I’m going to get rid of these bottles, now. I’ve wanted to from the beginning. You don’t need this kind of temptation in your home.”

“It’s your home, sugar,” I protested. “And these are yours and Marshall’s bottles. I’m not going to make you change for me. I’ve done enough.”

“What’s this?” Marshall stepped into the kitchen and took in the scene just as coolly as his wife had. “You start drinking again?”

“No,” Jules said quickly. “She told me she was tempted, but resisted.”

“Get out of my house,” Marshall said, his eyes flashing, a thunderstorm on his brow. “Out.”

“No!” Jules cried. “You’re not listening! She said she didn’t touch a drop.”

“She’s lying,” Marshall said. “I can see it in her face.”

“I know that you’ve been looking for an excuse to try to boot me out,” I said. “I understand that you don’t want me here. I’ve overstayed my welcome. I’ll leave now. It’s high time I got my own place.”

“Damn right,” Marshall said.

“But know this,” I said. “I’m still sober. Eight years and going strong. I didn’t drink your whiskey, sugar. I just didn’t.”

“I bet I could smell it on your breath if I wanted to come close enough,” he said. “Out.”

“Marshall.” Jules was scowling—a foreign look on her pretty, smooth face. “The bottle. The seal isn’t broken. Look.”

“Probably some prison trick,” he said dismissively.

“Stop it!” she shouted. “You stop it! Give Mama a chance! She’s trying! Why can’t you?”

“She never gave me a chance when I was a child!” Marshall yelled back, spittle flying. “Why do I have to give her a chance now? I wish she’d stayed in prison forever! I wish I never had to see her again!”

It was heart-wrenching to see my son and his wife fighting over me when I was standing in the middle of the room.

“Please, both of you,” I said. “I’m not going to stay here anymore. That much is clear to me. I just need to pack my things and I’ll be out of here. I’ll stay at a motel until I can find an apartment. This has gone on too long, and that’s my fault.”

“No, you’re staying,” Jules said. “I told you that you could stay here after you got out. I won’t go back on that offer.” Her chest heaved, and I watched her with concern.

“It was an offer you weren’t supposed to make,” Marshall raged at her. “This is my house to, Jules. My life. My failure of a mother. You can’t just invite her into our lives. It’s my life, too. She’s already pissed all over that. Why are you insisting on doing this to me? Do you think I can bear to have her hurt me again, like last time?”

His words and obvious pain cut me to the core, so swift and so deeply that I didn’t know I was crying until the tears fell onto my chest. He would never love me. I could never convince him that I had changed, that I was so sorry for who I’d been when I was younger.

“See what you’ve done?” Jules demanded, looking at me and my helpless tears, then cried out—a soft, sharp, essential sound. She clutched her chest and fell to her knees.

“Jules,” Marshall said, his voice low and raw. He and I dove for her at the same time, but he got there first. He was so fast and so strong, my son.

“What’s wrong, baby?” I asked, reaching out for her.

“Get away from her,” Marshall snapped at me, his eyes wild. “Jules, talk to me.”

“Be nice to Mama,” she said, each word an effort.

“What are you feeling?” he asked. “What’s going on in here?” He laid his hand over her heart.

“Won’t slow down,” she whispered, closing her eyes.

“Call 9-1-1,” Marshall barked at me, and I got to my feet and hurried into the office. My fingers seemed too slow as I fumbled with the phone, unlocking it and mashing the numbers as fast as I could.

“What’s your emergency?”

“My daughter-in-law has collapsed in the kitchen,” I said, hurrying back out to assess the situation. “She hasn’t been well lately, and she was upset—yelling and stuff—when she collapsed. She said that her heart won’t slow down, that it’s beating too fast.”

Marshall was still cradling her in his arms, petting her hair, her skin, whatever he could reach as he kept talking calmly to her.

“We’ll send an ambulance to you,” the dispatcher said quickly. “What’s your address?”

I rattled off the house number and the street, looking at Jules’ ashen face. She had to be all right. She couldn’t be sick because of me. I wouldn’t be able to handle that. And there would be no chance in all of hell that Marshall would ever be able to forgive me. I might as well go toss myself off a bridge.

“A unit is on its way, ma’am,” the dispatcher said. “Try to keep her calm until we get there.”

“Please hurry,” I said before ending the call.

I wet a clean dishtowel in the sink and brought it over, meaning to mop Jules’ brow, to give her what comfort I could, but Marshall slapped my hand away.

“Haven’t you done enough?” he hissed at me, then soothed Jules as she moaned.

“Be nice,” she ground out, her brows knitted together.

“It’s going to be all right, sugar,” I said. “I’m going to go outside and wait for the ambulance, wave them down when they turn onto the street.”

The evening air was cool and fresh, and it made me realize that I hadn’t stopped crying. The wet trails of tears down my cheeks were cold in the air, and I wiped them away as more continued to fall.

Why was this so hard? Why did this have to be so hard? All I wanted to do was prove to my son that I could be a good mother to him. Why couldn’t he see that? Why couldn’t he try to accept that? I felt that every look he gave me was a punishment, a reminder that I had fucked up royally. I knew that I’d fucked up. I regretted it every goddamn day. I just needed him to give me a chance, just like Jules had said.

I took a deep breath and held it for a moment before letting it out. If I’d toted that whiskey bottle outside with me, it’d be half gone by now. The desire for alcohol in stressful situations was always going to be with me, I realized. Always.

A siren’s wail made me perk up. The ambulance wasn’t far off now. I wanted to be inside with Jules and Marshall, soothing them, comforting them, telling them that everything was going to be just fine because Mama was there, but I couldn’t. I was relegated to lookout. I was a terrible person. Terrible people didn’t get to have second chances. I just had to resign myself to that. My son was never going to love me. I’d simply dropped the ball on that one. I couldn’t be a mother to him anymore. I’d never been a mother.

When the ambulance was in sight, I waved the damp dishtowel I was still clutching, grabbing the attention of the driver. It pulled right out in front of the gate, and I threw it open.

“You’ll need that gurney,” I called. “I don’t think she can walk.”

I led the paramedics up the walk and onto the porch before pushing the front door open and standing aside, watching them file in.

“Through the kitchen,” I said. “She’s in there with her husband, on the floor. Be quiet, please. Try not to stress her out anymore than she already is.”