“Arnie! What’s wrong?”
“The chief called! Our boys are in jail!”
Donna screamed. “No, no! They’re in their room! This has to be a mistake!”
Then she ran through the house and into their room. It was empty, the window was open, and the curtains shifting in the slight breeze gave shocking truth to their absence.
“They’re gone! Oh my God! What did they do?” Donna wailed.
Arnold could hardly get out the words. “They set out to rob Mr. Phillips. They had a baseball bat for a weapon and intended to steal his car. The police got an anonymous tip that it might happen, so they were waiting for them.”
Donna gasped, then staggered toward the bed, but didn’t make it. She fell to the floor in a faint.
“Oh my God!” Arnold cried, and then dropped to his knees beside her and began patting her cheek. “Honey…wake up! Wake up!”
A few moments later, Donna began to come around. She opened her eyes, saw the expression on her husband’s face, and groaned.
“This is real? It’s really happening?” she asked.
“It’s real. We need to go to the jail,” he said, and helped her up.
Donna staggered to her feet, then stood for a few moments, trying to gather her thoughts.
“Close the window, Arnie. I can’t wear my house slippers. I need to change my shoes.”
Chapter 11
Teddy and Brian heard their parents’ voices in the hall outside the jail.
“That’s Dad!” Teddy said.
Brian stood up. “I hear Mama. We did a bad thing. I don’t want her to see me in jail.”
“Too late for that,” Teddy muttered.
“Aren’t you sorry?” Brian asked.
Teddy was sick-to-his-stomach scared, but he wasn’t going to admit it. “Yes. But we can’t take it back now, can we?”
Then the door opened. Chief Pittman came in, followed by their parents.
Donna Hollis stumbled when she saw them. “Oh my lord!”
Arnold grabbed her elbow to steady her. “Easy, sugar,” he said.
“I’ll give you a few minutes, but I can’t leave you alone with them,” Chief Pittman said.
“Mama, I’m sorry,” Brian said and started crying.
Teddy wanted to still feel empowered like he’d been when they were hiding out ready to take down Mr. Phillips for his car and money. But he didn’t have the guts to be defiant. And the look on his dad’s face hurt his heart.
“They said you two attacked Mr. Phillips with a baseball bat. They said you intended to take him down, steal his money, and steal his car. Is that true?” Arnold asked.
“But it wasn’t Mr. Phillips. It was the chief,” Teddy said. “It was a setup. They were lying in wait for us!”
Donna was horrified by her son’s defiance. It made her angry, and her anger was what she needed to get past the shock. She turned loose of her husband’s arm and walked into the aisle between their cells. She was tiny, but she was mighty in her rage. Her hand was shaking as she pointed at both of them.
“Oh…you mean like the setup you two had when you were lying in wait for Mr. Phillips? When you were going to hit him in the head with a baseball bat? When you were going to steal his money and his car? Did you intend to kill him, too?”
Brian wailed. “No, Mama, no!”
“But you could have,” Donna cried. “A head injury is a deadly injury. So attempted assault, robbery, and car theft are your solutions to failing school again, while claiming you’re both adults?”
Brian stumbled back to his cot and buried his face in his hands.
Arnold walked to his other son, shaking his head in disbelief.
“You have been feeling sorry for yourself because we’re poor. But you never offered to get a job. You just complained about what you didn’t have. We raised you boys in church. We loved you every day of your lives. We supported you every way we knew how, and you chose to solve your absences at school by smoking weed and drinking with your so-called friends. You didn’t even graduate and were screwing off your second chance at that, while wondering why we were upset.” Arnold took a deep, shaky breath. “I would have bet my life you two would never do something like this…and I would have died, wouldn’t I?”
Teddy shuddered. If his dad had been angry and shouting, he could have maintained the don’t-care attitude. But this broken man standing before him hurt his heart.
“I’m sorry, Dad. It was a mistake.”
Donna interrupted. “No, sir, Theodore Hollis! You didn’t make a mistake. A mistake is something that happens by accident. You planned every bit of this. You two decided it would be okay to attack a man, to rob him, and to steal his car. You both disgust me.”
“I’m sorry, Mama. I love you,” Teddy said.
“I don’t believe you,” Donna said.
“I love you, too, Mama,” Brian said.
Donna glared at the both of them.
“Love gets your father and me nowhere. While you two are off serving time, your father and I will have to face the judgment and disapproval of people who were our friends. They’ll decide we were surely bad parents and that we’re the cause of your criminal behavior. That’s what your so-called love has done to us…not to mention the fact that you broke my heart. I don’t know what I feel right now, other than I don’t like either one of you or what you’ve become.”
Then she turned around and walked out on her own, leaving Arnold behind.
Arnold’s eyes welled with unshed tears. “Your mother is right. Chances are we’ll be leaving Blessings. I don’t reckon I want to spend the rest of my days having people remind me that both my sons are in jail. You did a bad, bad thing, and I am ashamed of the both of you.”
Brian shrieked. “But Dad…if you move…how will we find you when we get out?”
“Why would you care where we were?” Arnold asked. “You both were already leaving us.”
He walked out, knowing no matter what kind of sentence his sons got, they’d be worse by the time they got out. They weren’t dead, but they were already lost.
* * *
Dan hadn’t talked to Alice about what Charlie told him because he didn’t know if what he’d reported to the chief had actually happened. But when they had heard sirens during their meal, it made him wonder, and when Charlie looked at Dan, all he could do was shrug.