The bus ride was long, hot, and dusty, like I’d dreaded. About halfway there, I reconsidered, but I had no money for changing my mind. So I kept going. Finally, I found myself in Janesville.
I got off the bus, and went first to the cemetery. My mother’s grave was overgrown with weeds. Saddened, I spent a few hours pulling them out, scratching my hands on briars, and cursing my father, who couldn’t be bothered to come here once in a while to honor her after all he’d done to her. But he’d never respected her in life. Why should I expect him to do it when she was dead?
When I was done, I stole a small bouquet off a new grave five rows over that had a ton of other flowers. Fuck them. No one would miss this one. God damn it, I had no money for flowers, but I wasn’t leaving there until I’d given some to my mother. It was late summer here, so all the scraggly wild ones were long since withered in the blistering heat.
I kneeled down before her stone. My father had been cheap in that, too. It said only Geraldine V. Law, and the dates of her birth, and death. No “Beloved Wife.”
No “Beloved Mother.”
I’d taken crayons once, and written “Beloved Mother” on the stone. But when I’d come back the next day, it had been scrubbed clean. Later my father had spanked me. Groundskeepers couldn’t fucking weed a grave, but God forbid a stone had “graffiti” on it.
I took a Sharpie from my pocket, and wrote “Beloved Mother” on the headstone. “It’s the best I can do,” I whispered. “I’m sorry it’s not more, Mom.”
I sat there for a while, and gathered my courage. Then, I went off to see my father.
The trailer looked even smaller than it had the last time. To my surprise, it was also abandoned. There were some cracked picture frames, some beer bottles, and enough condom wrappers to make me realize high school kids were using this as a pad to fuck. But no Dad.
I headed to the local bar. His local bartender would know where he was, even if no one else did.
I asked around. By seven, the night bartender came on, and pointed me in the right direction. I hitched a ride with a decent guy, who took me to where my father was living now.
Jesus, that man is lucky. I walked up a long stone paved driveway to a house so new I could almost smell the cedar planking on the wraparound deck. There, lying next to an Olympic sized swimming pool, sipping a Bud Light, was my father.
He looked at me, and did a double take. “Sunny?”
“It’s me, Dad,” I said, forcing a smile. “You win the lottery?”
“Yeah! Well, kind of,” he said, giving me his most affable and heart-melting smile. “I met Sheryl, and she’s rich!”
She must be in a coma, or a hundred. Or both.
My father got to his feet. He’d kind of gone to pot in the years I hadn’t visited. Sure, his face was still good, and his body wasn’t bad, for a man in his late fifties. But he was overweight, and he didn’t wear it well. “Come and meet her, Baby Girl,” he said, putting his arm around me. “I want you to meet her.”
He brought me inside, and to say the place was opulent was doing it a disservice. It was so over the top that it almost looked fake. There were chandeliers, polished wood, and paintings on the light-hued walls that had to be originals. And mirrors; there were fancy mirrors everywhere, on every wall, and of every imaginable size.
“Do you like it?” a sensuous voice asked politely.
I turned to see a small woman in her late forties, heavily made up. She was fully dressed, and the clothing was expensive. To my surprise, she wasn’t ugly; she was very pretty, even with all that thick makeup.
“This is my daughter,” my father explained. “Sunny, this is Sheryl.”
“A pleasure,” the woman said, offering an insincere smile.
I detected right off she was either pissed I was here, or ill at ease. “It’s good to meet you.”
“Are you staying?” she asked politely.
“Would you mind?” my father asked her, before I could say anything. “Usually when she visits, she stayed at my place. It won’t be long.”
The latter was true. But the first part was a lie; I’d never stayed with him, ever. Why is he lying?
“A few days aren’t a problem,” Sheryl said, after a pause. “But I’ll need you exclusively for the weekend, darling.”
“Then I’m there, babe!” my father said enthusiastically.
“I’m going to bed,” she said, her eyes flicking to me and then away. “You probably want some time with Sun tonight.”
“Nah,” my father said, predictably. “We’ll catch up tomorrow, or the next day. I’ve been waiting all day for you to leave your office, hon.” He put his arm around her waist. “I need some loving.”
Sheryl smiled, and after they showed me to a guest room, they quickly left.
I lay in bed for a while, wondering about this odd turn of events, which were just as strange as the ones that had prompted my return. How had my father gotten this woman? I guess I’d find out in the morning.
* * * *
The next morning, there was no trace of them. I found a message on the counter that they’d gone off to play some tennis at the country club, and would be home after having drinks there, and some lunch.
I spent the afternoon by the pool, and then ate some food and drank a bottle of wine. It was peaceful here. So what if it wasn’t my home?
I went to bed that night without seeing my father, or Sheryl.
The next day was the same. And the next. It was always something, a luncheon they were invited to, or a play they already had tickets for. Finally, on Friday, I managed to get my father alone, while Sheryl was out running errands.
“Dad, how did you meet her?” I asked.
He grinned. “I was trucking near South of the Border. And there she was, lost, looking for a small town in North Carolina.”
“And so she took you home with her?”
“No! She took me to dinner, and we had a few drinks—”
So, they’d had sex.
“—and the next morning, she’d said she’d had a good time with me. Then she said she’d love it, if I’d come and live with her. She said she had enough money to take care of us in style. But she’d been divorced, and it was messy, and so she’d prefer it to be casual with us. And I told her that scene seemed like Heaven on Earth to me.” He paused. “But I told her this town was home to me, always had been. So she said she’d live here, and a few days later, she bought this house.”
Weird. I nodded. “That sounds amazing.”
“So here I am!” he said triumphantly. “And six months later, I’m still loving it!”
“So you haven’t cheated on her?” I said pointedly.
My father lost his happy look, and his pissy face came on. “No, I haven’t. She gives me whatever I want, whenever I want. So what if she’s older than the women I usually took to bed? I’m not young myself anymore.”
Good for him. “I’m just surprised.”
“So am I,” my father said, looking happy again. “I never thought my train would come in like this. And it sure beats driving trucks. Your old man gets stiff now from sitting behind the wheel more than an hour, Baby Girl, and it’s not the good kind of—”
Spare me your sexual talk. “What’s the catch?”
I expected my father to give me a sarcastic line, or say something funny, which were his two usual responses. But he just looked a little crafty.
“The catch is that she’s got cancer,” he said in a whisper, as if we would be overheard. “She’s got only a few months to live. That’s where she really is now: at a doctor visit. She says she feels weaker every day. When she goes, I’ll get it all!”
I wanted to vomit on him. “Do you care about her?”
“I like her,” he said with a shrug. “I’ll miss her in bed. She really gets into it. But I’ll find someone else quick enough, rich as I’m going to be. And Baby Girl, the next one’s going to be in her early twenties.”
I’d heard enough. “Dad, I have to get going tomorrow.”
“Sure,” he said, taking a swig of beer. “Come back in a year or so, Sunny. We’ll have a blast, throw a huge party! Your old man’s hit it big!”
I gave him a hug, packed my bags, and hitched a ride out of town the next morning. I felt bad for Sheryl, sure. But she was old enough to know better, and I wasn’t her daughter. And I trusted my father just far enough to be sure he wouldn’t hurry her passing.
* * * *
I spent the next few months in Nevada, working at a strip club outside the Las Vegas strip. I was able to save enough money to afford a small apartment, and I spent a lot of time there thinking about what I wanted, when I wasn’t working as many shifts as I could.
After some self-imposed solitary, I finally decided on a few things for myself.
I wanted to go back East. I missed the green, and the hills. It seemed like a desert here in comparison.
I wanted to see if Terian was okay. I missed him, and maybe...maybe somehow we could make it work. Yes, we had a lot that we’d have to overcome, but I wanted to try, damn it. I still loved him, and if he still loved me, we had a chance.
Lastly, I wanted never to see my father again.
* * * *
A month later, I took a bus back east. I got a job in another strip club, and a new apartment. This one was near a park, and I spent a lot of time there that first week, enjoying the greenness of everything.
In addition, I finally took Lash’s advice. I’d never cut my hair, though I had darkened it to a light brown. Now I dyed it a dark brown, and cut it in a many-layered style, with short bangs. It made me look different enough that I doubted I’d be recognized. But I kept it long, at least the back of it. Old habits die hard.
Having successfully accomplished my first goal, I attempted the second thing on my list. But Terian seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth. His old cell phone number was disconnected. The website he’d sold his magical potions on was no longer valid; it was up for lease.
I went to some of the places we’d visited together, and asked about him. But no one remembered seeing him for months. One night though, I did catch sight of Sarelle.
I was on the corner waiting for a bus when I heard a voice say, “What do you think, Sar?”
I looked over discreetly as a voice dissimilar to mine said, “I’m okay either way, Danial.”
She was in a car behind the wheel stopped at the stoplight. There was a dark man beside her, so finely featured he was almost beautiful. Her face, her build...God, she looked enough like me to be my twin sister. Thank God I cut my hair.
“We don’t have to make a decision now,” Danial said, looking over at her. “You’ve had no signs. There’s no rush.”
“Please, let’s not talk about it,” Sar replied, sounding tired. “I want to get home to Elle. She’s probably turned cougar, and slipped out her window again by now, sure something happened to us.”
Who is Elle? Theo’s daughter? Sar and Theo’s daughter? Why isn’t she with Theo?
“She’s probably giving Cia a hard time,” Danial said with a laugh. “She wanted to go with us.”
“Macbeth is too old for her.”
“Theo wouldn’t think so.”
Sarelle didn’t respond. When the light changed, they drove off.
I sat for a while thinking later that night. Sarelle was back to spending time with Danial. But Theo and he were friends, right? That was normal, to escort a friend’s wife to a play as a favor. Maybe it had been innocent, but maybe not. The important thing was Danial and Devlin were brothers. How long would it be before Devlin decided he’d waited long enough for the real thing?
Didn’t matter to me. As far as I’m concerned, that bitch has it coming.