“Why?” I growl. “So you can sneak out of the clubhouse and go get high again. I don’t fucking think so.”
“Motherfucker,” he mutters, shoving his arms in the sleeves of his t-shirt before grabbing his jeans and pulling them on. When he has his tennis shoes on, he stands and flashes me an expectant look. “Willing to tell me where we’re going now?”
I shake my head. “Nope. Let’s go.”
I have to push him out of the room and continually nudge him down the stairs and outside to my truck. Once he’s in the passenger seat, I sigh and round the hood before jumping in and firing it up.
“Are we going to see Dad?” he asks as I pull out of the parking lot and I barely avoid glaring in his direction.
“No.”
We’re silent for the rest of the trip and when I pull up to the cemetery, I feel his shocked gaze whip to my face.
“What the fuck are we doing here?”
I put the truck in park and turn it off. “We’re here to see Mom.”
“I don’t want to do that,” he whispers, shaking his head. The fear in his eyes is exactly the same as all those years ago as I packed up our things and pushed him out of our bedroom window. Maybe this is exactly what he needs or maybe this will send him off the deep end but I know that it’s time for me to do something other than what I’ve been doing for the past six years.
“Tough shit. Get out of the truck.”
He seems smaller as he gets out and meets me on the other side, like all this time he’s still been the five-year-old little boy who went on the run after his father killed his mother.
“Why are we here, Luke?”
I sigh and we start walking along one of the paths. “I’ve never told you what happened that night.”
“And you’re going to tell me now?” he scoffs and I nod, glancing over at him.
“Yeah, I am.”
We stop in front of our mother’s grave and I suck in a breath as I read her name on the tombstone:
Amanda Julette
Devoted Wife and Mother
“What do you remember from the night she died?”
He shakes his head. “Just yelling and being scared but my earliest clear memory is running through the forest with you and finding the boxcar.”
“The night she died, it had been raining all day and around dinner time, these thunderstorms rolled in. The thunder was so loud that it shook the walls in our bedroom and I laid there for hours, unable to fall asleep so I heard them as soon as they started fighting. It had been happening a lot before that and I found out later that Dad had been using drugs.”
“No,” Clay snaps, backing away from me as he shakes his head. “Dad isn’t an addict.”
I nod. “Yeah, he is. That’s why he lost his job a few months before Mom died and why they were fighting so much.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I know you don’t,” I whisper, turning back to her grave. “We’d been in bed for a few hours when the fighting got louder, scarier than anything else I could remember and it got so bad that it woke you up, too.”
“What else?” he asks, his voice rough and my hands shake as I suck in a breath.
“You were laying in bed, crying, and I was trying so hard to get you to be quiet because I knew if Dad heard you, he’d come after us and I couldn’t let that happen. As I was trying to calm you down, there was this bang, so fucking loud that my ears were ringing, and then it was silent. That silence, I’ve never heard anything more terrifying in my life.”
Clay steps forward and lays his hand on Mom’s grave. “I don’t remember her.”
“She was like sunshine - always cheerful even when everything was going wrong. She’d find a way to make us laugh and make it all seem okay and she was so warm. All you had to do was be near her to feel her love because it just radiated off her.”
“I’ve spent my whole life jealous of you for being able to remember her.”
I wipe away a tear. “I’m sorry, Clay, but I was a kid, too, and I couldn’t stop what happened anymore than you could have.”
“What happened next?”
“The bang just made you scream louder and I made you shove your face in a pillow ‘cause I didn’t know what was happening yet and I crept toward the door. When I opened our bedroom door, I saw her. Mom was laying at the other end of the hall with a hole in her head and a puddle of blood all around her body. Dad was next to her, holding the gun in his hand and covered in her blood. It was everywhere, Clay. All over the walls, the floor, all I could see was red.”
“But you didn’t see him pull the trigger,” Clay breathes like I’ve just unveiled some forgotten clue and I grit my teeth.
“It doesn’t matter! He killed her.”
He shakes his head, backing away from me. “You don’t know that for sure. Unless you watched him pull the trigger, you don’t know.”
“You’ve got to stop this, Clay. This isn’t healthy for either one of us.”
He takes another step back. “I’m going to find the truth, Luke. It’s like one of those movies Iris likes to watch. No one believes me but I’m going to prove you all wrong and get our dad out of jail.”
“Just stop!” I roar, balling my fists at my sides. “This isn’t a goddamn movie and you can’t prove him innocent because he’s guilty, Clay. What you need to focus on is getting clean. Blaze is looking for a good rehab facility for you and we’re going to get you better.”
“No,” he snaps, taking a few more steps back. “I’m not going and you can’t make me.”
“Actually, I can and this is what is best for you.”
Without another word, he turns and takes off running.
“Fuck,” I growl, chasing after him but he’s faster than me and it’s not long before I lose him in the maze of graves. I skid to a stop and squeeze my eyes shut before spinning around and slamming my fist into the tree on the side of the path. “Fuck!”
As I catch my breath, I walk back to Mom’s grave and drop to my knees in front of it.
“Hey, Mom,” I whisper, tears welling up in my eyes again. I remember all the times Clay and I would fight when we were kids and Mom would pull us apart, telling us that we had to look after each other, not fight. I lay my hand flat against the stone and sigh. “I’m trying, Mom. I’m trying so hard.”
I sit in front of her grave and tell her all about Quinn and Brooklyn before promising to keep trying to help Clay and as I’m leaving, I spot a cardinal in a tree on the edge of the cemetery. It looks right at me before flying off and I watch it until it disappears.
When I get in the truck, I pull out my phone and send a text to Quinn.
Me:
Hey, babe.
How are you feeling?
Quinn:
Fine.
I read her message and throw the phone across the cab of my truck before leaning my head back against the headrest and closing my eyes.
“Fine, my ass,” I whisper, determined to figure out what the hell is going on.