Chapter Forty-Five

As I ambled out the back door of the United with two trash bags, I spotted Momma’s car in the side parking lot, thankful Uncle Ansel had gotten it running again. I threw the trash up and over the side of the metal Dumpster but stopped abruptly when I noticed Neil Blaylock’s pickup angled behind the hatchback.

The two of them were talking.

Neil Blaylock and Momma. Talking in the parking lot of the United.

I stared at them before edging forward, itching to hear what they said. Neil and Momma hadn’t spoken to each other in years. Not really.

Momma leaned against her driver’s door with arms clenched over her stomach while Neil rested one boot on the rear bumper, elbow to his knee.

Neil’s voice was controlled and smooth. “You should talk it over with Ruthie. Maybe she has more sense.”

I stepped onto the sidewalk in front of our car, but Momma didn’t acknowledge me.

“I don’t need to talk it over with anybody, Neil.”

His name sounded strange on her lips.

“I think you do.” He chuckled. “Ruthie, I’ve been telling your mother you’d be better off in Lubbock. The old-timers in Trapp will never treat you like you deserve.” He straightened his cowboy hat. “Some of them have trouble letting go of the past.”

I tensed. “What are you talking about?”

“I’d like to make your lives easier.” His smile seemed out of place. “There’s a nice apartment complex on Lubbock’s west side. It’s clean, comfortable, homey.”

A tractor roared past the front of the store, and I waited for it to pass before snapping, “You know we can’t afford that.”

“Stay out of this, Ruth Ann,” Momma said.

Neil dropped his foot from the bumper and leaned on the car door next to Momma. “Lynda, I can take care of the rent, and Ruthie could afford Tech if she lived with you.” His gaze traveled in a circle, starting at the top of her head, falling down her hair to her shoulders, then up her neck to her mouth and eyes as though he were breathing in the parts that pleased him.

Nausea inched toward my throat, but Momma only stared at the ground six feet in front of her.

Neil tilted his head into her line of vision. “I know I should’ve offered to help you long ago, and I apologize. Can you forgive me?”

My heart bounced and fluttered in a haphazard confusion of repulsion and desire. Neil Blaylock had just given me a way out of Trapp. Even if it came from him, I could humble myself and accept his gift. Maybe this was the forgiveness I’d heard so much about.

Momma seemed paralyzed, but when I noticed her fist clenched around her car keys, I recognized it as the silent fuse sparking toward a cluster of dynamite. “Momma?”

“Don’t listen to him, Ruth Ann. He’s a snake.”

Neil’s shoulders drooped dramatically. “Can’t you see I have your best interests in mind?”

Momma’s fingers gripped her elbows so tightly, the keys dug into her skin. “If you were thinking of me, you wouldn’t be talking about this in front of my daughter.”

“Your daughter is old enough to be part of the decision, since it affects her as much as you.”

“You can’t stand the guilt any longer, can you?” Momma’s voice was acid.

The muddled meaning of their words drove me to step off the sidewalk. “What are you not telling me?”

“Nothing, Ruth Ann.”

My anger, familiar and ever present, simmered just below the surface, but I redirected it from Momma’s refusal to answer and instead turned to Neil.

He inspected his boots, unflustered. “We dated back in high school,” he admitted. “And a while after.”

“I know that.”

Momma jerked her palm to silence him. “What he’s not saying is he couldn’t stand it when your daddy put a wedding band on my finger.”

“Now, Lynda … life is no fairy tale, but I reached out to you and Hoby. I fulfilled my Christian duty.”

“Christian duty? Is that what you call your actions when Hoby left?”

“I stood by you.” He rubbed his palm across his mouth.

“You stood by me, wrapped your arms around my waist, and pulled me close.” Momma trembled with rage.

“Maybe you read more into it, but that’s understandable.” Neil shifted away. “You were desperate.”

Suddenly Momma shot words at him. “Yes, I was desperate. And I looked to my friends and my church for help, but you took them away from me with your lies. You convinced them to turn me away so you could hide your own lust.”

“I protected you.”

She made a spitting sound with her mouth. “Oh, please. You were afraid I’d tell your wife.”

He paused, with some sort of twisted love painted across his face, and my stomach rolled into a tight ball of disgust.

“Lynda, be reasonable.” He spoke softly, leaning into her. “Take the place in Lubbock.”

“Do you expect the church to be reasonable about it?” Momma shook her head.

Neil flicked his hand through the air. “The church will follow my lead like stupid sheep. Besides, they don’t have to know I’m taking care of you.”

Heat washed over me as I envisioned Dodd worried about the church. “What do you mean, they don’t have to know?”

“I can get the two of you set up in an apartment, register you for school, buy enough groceries to stock the pantry.” He rested his arm on top of the car behind Momma’s shoulders. “I never stopped loving your mother, Ruthie. Not this whole time.”

Momma closed her eyes.

I gaped at the two of them. I hadn’t even known Momma dated Neil until recently, and now he stood in front of me declaring his love for her?

He touched her cheek with the knuckle of his middle finger.

Momma’s eyes snapped open, and with a growl she swung wildly, scraping her keys across his face like a weapon.

Neil cursed and stepped back to gain leverage, sweeping his arm back to slap her, but I yanked Momma out of the way.

“You little—” He swallowed, then spoke low. “Lynda, if you refuse me again, I won’t handle it well.”

“Once and for all, get over yourself,” Momma lashed. “I haven’t been tempted by you since I discovered what you’re made of.” She held her fist with keys sticking out in all directions. “Hoby still owns my heart, Neil. He always will.”

Neil’s gaze drifted above our heads as though we were invisible. As though he hadn’t just been emotionally involved in a conversation. As though he had temporarily lowered himself to the level of swine simply to smear manure across our self-esteem. When he strode to his truck and drove away without a backward glance, the air in the parking lot snapped with silence, and for a speck of time, it hadn’t happened.

Momma didn’t move.

Neil’s truck disappeared around the front corner of the store, but what if he came back? What if he tried to hit her again? What if he continued to pelt her confidence with spikes? My body surged with instinct, urging me to escape, but questions ran through my mind, stalling my actions. “Momma?”

“What?”

She stared straight ahead, eyes unfocused, as I lay my hand on her shoulder. “You all right?”

“Of course I’m all right,” she snapped. “Get in the car.”

Her face reflected the usual mixture of anger and bitterness, but there was a subtle difference. Now, layered on top of her brashness, I recognized … determination.

I gripped the armrest as the car careened out of the lot. “Can we talk about this?”

“No reason to.”

“But Neil did wrong when Daddy left.”

“Of course he did, but talking about it won’t change anything.” She ran the stop sign at the corner.

“The church needs to know.” Dodd needed to know.

A sarcastic chuckle spit from her lips. “I don’t give a horse’s backside what that blasted church needs.”

“But they were your friends. They should know the truth.”

“Great friends.” She slammed on the brakes in front of our house. “Get out. I need to drive.”

“No. Tell me what happened with Daddy.”

Her face was blank parchment as she stared blindly through the windshield, her shoulders melting. The pulse in my ears flumped two times as I realized Momma’s exhaustion from hiding the truth finally outweighed her resolve to do so. When she spoke, her voice conveyed irritation, but I saw something significant in the droop of her shoulders. Something other than her habitual dreariness. Something masked as indifference … but more like acceptance. Peace.

She spoke without looking at me. “A hundred-pound load has been lifted from my shoulders, now that you know about … Neil.” She flicked her fingernail against a seam in the vinyl steering-wheel cover. “I suppose I should tell you the rest.”

The engine idled high then low as she drifted into her thoughts. “Your daddy suffered from depression, Ruth Ann. All his life. His family hurt more than helped, but I thought after we married, I could boost him up, you know? Back then, I didn’t have the blues.” She chuckled. “Clyde says I caught it from Hoby, and I don’t know but what he’s right.”

Momma’s words were salve on dry skin. All I had ever known about my daddy’s departure I heard from Aunt Velma, who sugarcoated the details.

She turned the ignition off and clinked the keys onto the seat between us. “When you were born—” Her voice caught, and I realized, with amazement, she had a tear in her eye. “I never saw him so happy, Ruth Ann. He loved you. So much.”

The memory brightened her face, but then her eyes clouded again. “Neil couldn’t stand it.” Her jaw hardened. “He claims he loves me, but actually he just wants what he can’t have. He’s always been that way.”

“But if he loved you so much, why did he break it off in the first place?”

“I can’t explain that, Ruth Ann.” Her voice calmed. “I can, but I shouldn’t. Just let me finish.”

“Okay.”

“The Blaylocks married before your daddy and me, and for some reason Neil thought we could remain friends.” She blew air through her teeth. “But he expected something more than friendship. It was subtle at first, but after a while I realized his intentions, and I avoided him. He wouldn’t back off, though, and after a few years, it was so bad your daddy began to notice.” She closed her eyes, seeming to will the pain away. “Hoby began to question my loyalty, and over time, his insecurity gave way to paranoia. His depression got worse than ever.”

Momma’s shoulders trembled, and I wanted to slide across the seat and hold her, but we weren’t used to talking to each other, much less hugging.

“I didn’t know how to encourage him, and he wouldn’t let me get close. He didn’t believe anything I told him. I felt very alone, and Neil knew it. So he took it upon himself to flirt with me every chance he got, which, of course, only made things worse for your daddy.”

She turned to look directly into my eyes, and I held my breath, terrified of what she would say next.

“Ruth Ann, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry about all of it. If I had done things differently, it wouldn’t have happened the way it did. I was so alone. I didn’t know what to do.”

I leaned toward her and touched the back of her hand. “Whatever happened, it’s all right, Momma. Really.”

She turned away and spoke quicker, as though to get it over with. “One night when your daddy was at work, Neil came by the house. He made a blatant pass at me, and I told him to get away and never touch me again. You can’t imagine how I hated that man.” She laughed harshly. “But he was still there when your daddy got home. You’d think Neil Blaylock would be confident enough not to care when I turned him down, but he lashed out at me in the most effective way he knew.”

“What did he do?” I whispered.

“He told your daddy I’d already been unfaithful.”

“But why would he believe Neil?”

“You know how evil the monster of depression can be.” She stuck the keys back in the ignition, signaling she couldn’t take much more. “But that’s not all Neil told him, Ruth Ann.”

I rubbed the toe of my tennis shoe against a daub of dried sand on the floorboard. An inch to the left. An inch to the right. Back again. The gritty rasp echoed the coarseness of her words against my heart. A heart that couldn’t bear the weight of another stone intended for Neil Blaylock. The acidity of my feelings slowly reached an overwhelming peak, and I felt myself sliding into the safety of indifference.

“What did he say?” I asked numbly.

“He told Hoby I’d been unfaithful before you were born. After that, your daddy never believed you were his child.” Momma started the car. “He was gone a month later.”