I know she’s okay; I watched her from afar when they arrived at school this morning. At least I think it was her; the shape and height looked correct, but her hair, that hair that’s so much like her mother’s, who else could it be? I wanted to go to her, but somehow, I knew I wouldn’t be welcomed, plus that boy was hovering around her like the gatekeeper.
I threw the paper with the note Becky had left in the trash, not giving any thought to why she’d done that instead of calling or texting. A look at my watch showed that it was well past time for them to be heading back unless they’d decided to spend the night. Instead of foraging for something to eat for dinner, I poured myself a stiff shot of hundred-year-old Scotch and sat down to unwind and relax. No sooner had I sat down with my head resting back against the overstuffed chair than the doorbell rang.
I got up to answer, more than a little miffed by the interruption. I opened the door to see a group of men in suits, some with those lightweight jackets law enforcement wear with their emblem on the pocket. “Yes, may I help you?” The older gentleman in front held out a sheaf of paper to me.
“We have a warrant to search the premises.”
“A… a warrant, what for?”
“It’s all in there.” He pointed at the paper in my hand as they brushed by me with a dog. I was about to complain that they had the wrong house when I saw the name and address on the warrant. Were they looking for drugs?
“Counterfeit money? What counterfeit money?” No one responded as I followed them around, just proceeded to tear my home apart in their search. The dog alerted at one of the drawers in the master bedroom and the bed before bounding down the stairs and out to the driveway, but after hours of searching, nothing was discovered.
“Is anyone going to tell me what this is about?” One of them passed me a card. “Call the number on there; they’ll explain. Your wife has been arrested in New York for passing counterfeit bills.” My mouth was still hanging open when they left, closing the door behind them.
GABRIEL
“What’s the matter? Can’t sleep?” The house was quiet when she crept into my room later that night. I was up on the computer, which I switched to sleep mode as soon as she walked in.
“No, I can’t. I think I want to call my dad.” My face must’ve given my thoughts away because she rushed to explain herself.
“I think there might be something going on with him. I can’t explain it; it’s just a feeling I have like something’s wrong.” Yeah, a lot is wrong with him right now, but don’t you dare start feeling sorry for him; he doesn’t deserve it. I’ve turned the situation over time and again, and no matter what angle I look from, there’s no excuse sufficient enough for men like him.
It would’ve been wrong for him to have neglected Victoria after marrying her mother and taking on that role, but what he did instead is nothing less than an abomination, and unless he’s a complete moron, there’s no way he didn’t recognize any of the signs of what was going on with his own blood right under his nose.
More importantly, and something that she obviously couldn’t possibly know when I start down the path of revenge, I never turn back. So, her feeling sorry for him right now will only bring her pain and sorrow in the not-too-distant future when I’m finally through with him.
“I know you don’t understand, but…he can’t handle those two on his own.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I know Becky, know what she’s like. Now that Victoria’s been expelled, she’s going to go on the warpath, and without me there, he’ll be the one in the line of fire.”
“And? Are you telling me that your father is fine with you standing in between him and his wife to take the brunt of her anger?”
“That’s not what I meant. Like I said, I don’t expect you to understand, but I’ve had some time to think since I’ve been away from home. I'm not going to make excuses for him, there’s none, but I think he really thought he was doing what was best for me. I didn’t always understand that, but now that I think about it, he was different when mom was alive.”
“I don’t get the correlation; explain.”
“I used to think he replaced my mom too soon. I thought it was a man and woman thing with him and Becky; as a child, I didn’t know any other way to look at it. But when I look back, he’s never really been like that with her. I’ve never seen him act the way he did when mom was alive with his new family. That’s why I’m beginning to think that in some misguided way, he thought he was doing all that, getting remarried so quickly and to a woman with a child, someone I already knew, for me.”
I’m not even about to entertain that shit. “What was it like when your mom was alive?” I guess the perfume was making her feel nostalgic and that, more than anything, is the reason she couldn’t sleep. I could still smell it on her hours later, which meant she’s probably been spritzing herself with it all evening.
Maybe talking about her mom would help ease some of the pain she’s been carrying around for so long. I get the feeling from some of the things she’s said that she wasn’t even allowed to mention her mother much, if at all, in that house.
Speaking of which, in this light, which I had on dim, she looked a lot like the drawing she’d made of her mom. Same hair, eye shape, even the look in her eyes was the same. That gave me an idea, something new to turn my treacherous mind to. I wonder just how envious Becky was of her old friend that she’d tried so hard to erase her very existence from the memory of those who loved her? The female mind can be a vicious thing. I realized she hadn’t answered and turned my head to look at her. “Well?”
“We were happy; the three of us together, as little as I was, I can still remember that vividly. I remember him letting me sit on his shoulders when I got too tired to walk. The feel of his hand on my forehead when I became ill. He used to spend all his time with mom and me, and there was lots of laughter. I don’t recall the last time I heard my father laugh.” She looked so sad. Still, I wanted to disagree with her. It’s just that her words sounded pretty similar to the ones he’d spewed.
I let her talk without interruption. “Everything changed when Becky became his wife and moved in with us. I try to remember what she was like before mom passed, and I can’t, but I’m almost certain mom never saw this side of her, or she wouldn’t have been as close to her. And maybe had I not had that dream, things would’ve been different, who knows.”
“What dream? What are you talking about?”
“When I was little, right after mom passed away, she came to me in a dream. It’s as if she was trying to warn me about Becky. I don’t remember it all, and if not for her scent.” She lifted her wrist to her nose. “I probably wouldn’t have thought of it now either.”
Something in her words, her tone maybe, struck a chord. “Tell me what you remember.”
“Not much, just that she was calling out to me, trying to tell me something, which I could never seem to hear or understand, but I think we always got interrupted somehow. It felt so real, though, that I remember, and it scared me for a long time. I think I had the same dream more than once too.”