Scarlett hooted with laughter. “A lady? Are you fucking kidding me? And just who do you think might have taught me how to act like a so-called lady, hmm? My grandmother, who spent most of her waking hours drunk or hungover? Or one of my numerous and assorted foster mothers who only took me in for the money? Or, no, wait. You probably thought I went to some fancy ass finishing school or something, right? Well, sorry to disappoint, but I would have flunked out for sure. So what you see is what you get - Dad. And if you don’t like what you see - well, who’s to blame for that, huh?”
“Okay, okay. Both of you - calm down,” insisted Jackson sternly as father and daughter glared at each other across the table. “Neil, cut Scarlett a break, would you? And Scarlett, he’s right. Let’s at least wait until after breakfast before you start getting what you have to say off your chest.”
Scarlett’s scowl deepened, and the look she gave her father was one of such malice that Jackson briefly considered confiscating her knife, blunt edged as it was. From what he had read of her past antics - getting into all manner of scrapes and fights at school, mouthing off to teachers, social workers, and foster parents - he had little doubt that she’d need any sort of actual weapon to inflict bodily harm. She had calmed down since starting college, but Jackson was willing to bet that she still knew every dirty street fighting technique she’d honed over the years. And that if provoked, she wouldn’t hesitate to use them on her own father, especially since she had zero affection for him and a whole hell of lot of resentment.
But evidently Scarlett’s hunger won out over her need to castigate her father, for as soon as their food arrived she set about devouring the entire plate. He regarded her from the corner of his eye with mingled amusement and compassion as she barely came up for air in between bites. Jackson also didn’t miss the thinly veiled expression of revolt on Neil’s face as he observed his less than ladylike daughter shoving a forkful of pancakes into her mouth, followed by an equally ill-mannered slurp of coffee. Jackson wondered idly why he had never realized until now what a prissy pain-in-the ass Neil was, observing derisively how his brother-in-law picked almost daintily at his egg white omelet and took precise sips of his coffee. He hadn’t spent a lot of time with Neil’s family - parents, siblings, in-laws - over the years, but it had been enough to know they certainly never put on the sort of high class, snobby airs Neil did. Neil’s parents - the grandparents Scarlett had never been permitted to meet - were kindly, down-to-earth people, who had always gone out of their way to make Jackson feel welcome the few times he’d visited their modest home.
And he knew without having to ask that Howard and Eileen Brockmeyer would love Scarlett unconditionally, would welcome her into their home and their family without a moment’s hesitation. They would be for her the family she’d never had. And Jackson’s heart broke for Scarlett all over again when he realized that meeting her grandparents and other family members would never - could never - happen.
Neil stared in some disbelief at the plates of food that Scarlett had all but licked clean. “My God,” he murmured in awe. “I honestly didn’t think you could finish even half of that. Do you have a hollow leg or something?”
“More like an empty stomach,” retorted Scarlett. “At least I did. Thanks for breakfast. Uh, whichever one of you is picking up the tab, that is.”
“It’s on me,” drawled Jackson. “And it’s the very least we can do, considering the circumstances.”
Neil none-too-discretely pulled back the cuff of his sport coat to check his watch. “Now that you’ve finished your meal, Scarlett, I’d appreciate it if we could finish this - this conversation up. Jack and I really can’t be away from home too much longer. As it is, you have no idea what we had to go through to get away today. I would have thought – hoped - that you could have had more consideration for poor Hannah under the circumstances. And expecting me to leave my daughter in her condition was just downright spiteful of you. Not to mention completely selfish. We could have easily taken care of - of all this on the telephone.”
Scarlett stared at her father slack-jawed for a moment, before giving him a glare of such pure malevolence and disgust that he visibly recoiled. “Well, Dad,” she replied jeeringly, “I sort of think after everything I’ve had to endure in my life I’m entitled to be a little bit selfish. And spiteful. And fucking pissed off. Hey, let me ask you something. Is Hannah all alone right now? Is that why you’re so worried about being away from her for a few hours?”
“Of course not,” replied Neil indignantly. “She’s in the hospital, with a private duty nurse in her room at all times, so that she’s being cared for round the clock.”
“What about family? Friends?” prodded Scarlett.
Neil nodded. “My wife rarely leaves her side. The same with her grandmother - Jack’s mother. The hospital doesn’t let her have more than two visitors at a time, so the rest of the family rotates in and out during the day. Jack’s father is there every day, along with his brothers and their wives.”
“Kind of what I figured,” mused Scarlett. She took a sip of her coffee, keeping her eyes downcast. “Did you know that I’ve been in the hospital three different times myself? Oh, not for anything as serious as Hannah’s illness, of course, though the last time I came real close to kicking it.”
Neil fidgeted a bit, looking more than a little discomfited at this line of conversation. “I, ah, might have read about that in the report.”
“Yeah, well, your little report probably failed to mention how many visitors I had any of the three times I wound up in the hospital. That’s because there weren’t any,” she bit out testily. “The first two times I was just a kid, a lot younger than Hannah is now. Scared to death, and with no one to comfort me except for the nurses. And the reason I was there in the first place was because that monster of a woman you condemned me to live with was too preoccupied about where her next drink was coming from, or where she was going to scrape together gambling money for the night, to notice how sick I was with pneumonia. Or on my second hospital stay that my arm was broken in three places and so swollen I couldn’t even lift it. She never came to visit me one single time, except when she had to bring me home. So while I feel sorry for Hannah, even though I’ve never met her, at least you can feel assured she isn’t being neglected or ignored like your other daughter was. That she’s getting the very best of care while nobody in the world gave a shit whether I lived or died. Speaking of which - here. Have a look, both of you. I mean, I can’t imagine that report you read would have described the scar that almost killed me in much detail.”
Almost casually, she pulled the tail of her shirt out of her jeans to expose the right side of her rib cage. Neil gasped aloud while Jackson recoiled in shock at the sight of the ugly, puckered scar that hadn’t faded much over the last few years. Calmly, she re-tucked the shirt before picking up her coffee mug.
“Sorry about that,” she offered a bit too cheerily. “I’m guessing right after eating probably wasn’t the right time to show you something that stomach-turning. And while I lived to tell the tale about why I have such a lovely scar, I almost didn’t. A matter of inches, the doctors told me, that’s all, between surviving and having the blade nick a kidney and cause me to bleed out. Lucky for you - and Hannah - that the kid’s aim was a little off, hmm? Now, Dad. Want to tell me again how much these few hours are putting you out? Or how your place is really with Hannah?” She pounded a fist on the table, causing the cutlery and glasses to jangle noisily. “Your place should have been with me,” she hissed in a low voice, her blue eyes like shards of ice as she glared at Neil. “You should have been sitting by my hospital bed, holding my hand, soothing my fears, helping me get through the pain. Actually, if you’d accepted even a tiny bit of responsibility for me way back when, I might never have wound up in the hospital even one time. And I truly get it why you wouldn’t have wanted to tie yourself to my mother - Jesus, what sane person would have? Or why you couldn’t have raised me by yourself. But you could have done something. Maybe intervened and arranged to have me adopted by some nice family. Fuck, being raised by a pack of wolves would have been preferable to what I endured.”