“But when Travis was released, Ricky didn’t want him back as a seller. Too many eyes were on him and because Travis didn’t snitch, Ricky left him alone.”
I blink. Several times.
“It’s an option. You play it right, you could serve some time, not a lot, keep your mouth shut and if you just happen to mention to someone you’re Mozart’s daughter...”
Then the cops would always be watching me. If Mozart’s daughter had become a dealer, then they’ll think that maybe I’m trying to reclaim his glory and the moment I was released, I would be the equivalent to a rat in a science experiment maze. Ricky wouldn’t want me back because I would bring unwanted attention to his business, and he wouldn’t touch me if he thought there were eyes on me.
My blood tingles. This could work. I serve time, but I could stay in Louisville. I wouldn’t have to stop being me. I open my mouth to say something, but Linus turns his back to me and walks down the ramp. “Goodbye, Abby.”
“Bye, Linus,” I say softly, and he glances over his shoulder at me and winks.
Another piece of my previous life fades from view and I begin to contemplate jail.
Logan
Outside crickets chirp and a half-moon smiles down at us as I hug Mom goodbye.
“It’s late,” I say. “You can crash here if you want.”
Mom pats my cheek then with one hand tries to squish my cheeks together like she did when I was younger, but fails. “Your father isn’t the only night owl. I’m used to being up late myself.”
She lets me go and frees her crazy curly hair from her ponytail and ruffles it out. “I’ll text you when I get home.”
“Would you have a problem with it?” I ask. “Me dating a girl who sold drugs?”
Mom tilts her head in amusement and I give a short laugh. Of course she wouldn’t.
“As long as she made you happy. That’s all I want, Logan, your happiness.” Mom’s gaze becomes far-off as she looks over my shoulder. “I want his happiness, too.”
She’s watching Dad. He’s in our garage with the hood up on his truck.
“I did him wrong and I regret it,” she says. “Be careful of whose hearts you play with, including your own, there’s some damage that doesn’t heal.”
A lot like the hole that will be left in my heart when Abby leaves.
She blinks then smiles like she didn’t just say something deep. “You’re going to stay with me when you go to school in Louisville, right? Don’t be stubborn and make the thirty-minute drive here.”
“I’ll stay with you some.” And I’ll also drive home to Dad’s. I love my mom, but I also like real food.
“Good. While you’re staying with me this year, I think I’ll be taking a man hiatus. Sort of like a cleanse. I think it’s time I figure out who I am without one.” She explains this all with a smile on her face, but there’s hurt in her eyes.
“Don’t have to do it on my account.”
The smile wanes. “I’m doing it for me. I’m tired of being alone. Even with someone in my bed, I’m tired of being alone.”
Not sure what to say to that, I hug my mother, long and hard. She kisses my cheek, and without another word, slips into her car and drives off. Her red taillights disappear around the long winding curve of our gravel drive.
Exhaustion from the past few days weighs me down, but I head to the garage regardless. Dad’s got a wrench and he’s doing something to his carburetor. We’ve spent countless hours in here since I was a kid after Mom left. We fixed cars, refrigerators, window units, washing machines, and even took a crack at a broken iPod.
At work he makes things. Out here he fixes things. Never buys new. Keeps things running longer than their expected shelf life, maybe even when it’s time to give up. He tried to make a life for him and my mom and it didn’t work. He couldn’t fix her. He couldn’t fix me. Maybe it’s time to fix himself.
“Mom says she’s taking a guy hiatus when I start school,” I say.
Dad’s eyes flicker to me from the belly of his truck. “That should be interesting.”
“Maybe you should do the opposite.” I rub the back of my head, unsure of how this will go.
The cranking of the wrench stops. “What?”
“Maybe you should...” Damn, bad idea. This is as comfortable as eating nails. “...date.”
Dad stares at me, motionless for a few seconds, then returns his attention to his truck. “Date?”
“Yeah. From the stories Mom tells you were capable of it once along with a few other things.”
“Your mother brought that out in me.”
“And maybe somebody else can, too.”
The wrenching stops again and then he continues, “You were in love with her? This Abby?”
I nod and then realize he doesn’t see it so I say, “Yeah.”
He straightens then goes to the workbench, cleaning then putting away his tools. “Not sure how I would have felt about you dating a drug dealer.”
“Not sure you would have had a choice.”
“A lot of that going around with you.” Dad leans his back against his bench and stares at his truck. “You’re wrong. I’m not ashamed of you.”
I don’t respond because he’s always been on me to be responsible and I get some of what he has to say, but the adrenaline junkie in me, it’s part of who I am, just like the diabetes.
“And you were right. Not knowing what you want to do doesn’t mean you don’t know who you are. I just worry about you. Hate to see you hurt.”
“You were right with me and taking care of the diabetes. I’m done with ignoring the diabetes, but the adrenaline stuff—I can’t promise that’s going to change. You worrying? Maybe you need to start focusing less on me and more on you.”
Dad nods because we’re both reaching our conversational and emotional limits for the night.
“I’m too old for dating.” But he didn’t say it like he meant it. He said it in the same tone he uses when discussing Mom’s cooking. The type where he still eats the meatless ball.
Next to Dad’s old truck is my grandfather’s 1950s Chevy that led me to Isaiah, who led me to Abby. Ever since I was in a car accident last spring with Isaiah, I haven’t touched the car. Seeing the disappointment in Dad’s eyes as I once again screwed up in my hunt for an adrenaline rush has kept me from getting behind the wheel.
It’s a beautiful car. Deserves more than a dusty garage.
Maybe Dad needs more than a date. Maybe Dad needs to remember how to live.
I dig for my keys in my pocket. “There’s this flat stretch of road between here and Chris’s where I’ve heard people can catch some awesome speed. I think we should try it. Me driving.”
I leave out I’ve already driven there and won more than a few drag races.
“Air conditioner has been making some weird sounds—”
“I’ll consider the pump if you come with me.”
That shuts Dad up.
I jack my thumb to the car and Dad starts for the passenger side. “Not too fast.”
I open the driver’s side and slide in. “Fast, Dad. We’re going fast.”
Abby
“I love you.” I kiss Grams on the forehead and ease away from her bed in the living room. The window is open and the white curtains billow in with the warm breeze.
Grams is awake and while she holds my hand, there’s absolutely no recognition in her blank hollow eyes. She watches me as if I’m a specter. Something she’s not sure is really there or what it is.
I think of the night I came home from the hospital and hug that memory tight. That was the last time she remembered any of us. The last time she remembered herself.
“All the drugs will be out of the house and I’ve already paid the nurses for three mon
ths of service. After that, sell the house and place her in one of those nice nursing homes. I checked the market, and homes here go fast. Respectable neighborhood and all.”
I wink and my uncle Mac tries to grin, but that’s a hard feature for such a weathered face.
“Even still, visit her daily in the nursing home. Read to her, even if it has to be from the Bible. Make sure they’re taking care of her. If you piss or drink the money away or don’t take care of her, Isaiah will know and then I will know and then you’ll be very happy I can’t reach you, but know someday I will find you.”
Mac doesn’t flinch at my threat, only gives a dry laugh. He’ll take care of her. If I can do what I am doing, he’ll do this for me.
I study the old man in front of me. The two of us may have made different choices in our lives, but we’re the same type of person. A bit of good and a bit of bad.
“Take care of you, too,” I say.
“I will,” he answers. “Same to you.”
I nod and drink in the house. The peeling wallpaper. The ever persistent grandfather clock that rings hourly to tell me that time is wasting away. The ghosts of memories. The happy times and the sad.
But like always, I don’t have the luxury of time to reminisce. I have a job to do and, as always, I intend to do it.
* * *
Taking a risk, I return to the park at the same time and sure enough, he’s there, the narc, and he appears just as giddy to see me today as he was yesterday. His eyes flicker to the two little girls currently shrieking as they go down the slide with their arms wrapped around each other. He fingers that wedding ring that was absent the night we first met.
At school, a lot of people called me names, said I was evil, labeled me a slut and even a killer. None of it’s true. All of it lies.
I’m not really one thing or another. I’m me. I’m Abby. I’m right and wrong, moral and immoral, good and bad, a hero and a villain, and I’ve been just as capable of truth as I have been lies.
I used to not believe in choices. Thought there was only survival, but I was wrong. I do have a choice and I choose to be me.
To make him comfortable, as comfortable as an out-of-the-closet narc can be with a drug dealer, I sit at the other end of the bench. “Hello. Nice kids and don’t worry, I don’t mess with innocents. I only bite adults and that’s only when provoked.”
The death stare he sends me tells me he’s three seconds away from pulling whatever concealed weapon he’s carrying. “I knew you were the one. The moment you walked away after the Bible verse, I knew I had fucked up. And then you were shot later that night. My captain thought it was coincidence, but he didn’t see the way you smiled.”
I half laugh. “Scared you, didn’t it?”
“You’re too young to be terrifying.”
Yet I am. “Don’t lose sleep over not figuring me out immediately, most people underestimate me. So here’s the thing, I need you to arrest me.”
He actually twitches and I smile. That nice deadly one he just referenced.
“Not now. Later tonight. At a bar maybe. I have some lose ends I’ll need to tie up first. And it can’t be you. They know you’re a narc. We’ll have to make it all seem legit. Have it happen at a place where people would believe I am selling. And in case you’re wondering I’m not carrying now.”
The narc looks away from me as he leans forward to rest his arms on his knees. He watches his daughters intently and for that I respect him.
“I have to say, this is a first. The dealer asking to be caught. Forgive me if I don’t trust you.”
“Fair enough.” I slouch and kick my legs out. “I’m seventeen and if I don’t get out now, I’m screwed.”
“Then quit. You don’t need me to do that.”
“Seriously? A narc that doesn’t want an arrest?”
“I’m smelling setup.”
I roll my eyes. Who would have thought this would have been so complicated? I’m going to have to sell him on this and sell him big. “I’m Mozart’s daughter.”
Snapped head in my direction.
“See why I can’t just walk away now?”
I can see the thoughts turning in his brain like a hamster in a wheel. “If I arrest you, you’ll go to jail.”
“Juvie,” I correct. “I’m not stupid enough to carry enough to cause real problems for me, just enough to cause the problems I need. But I have some requests that are really demands. I can’t be given bail. I’ve got to stay in and then go straight to juvie.”
“You know how much to carry to get arrested, but not to cause you problems?”
“Arrests and possible punishment—occupational hazards. Always felt it was best to be informed. Like the more you know?”
He does that slow blink that most sane people always do with me. Pity I’m chatting with him so I can be arrested. Otherwise, I’d find this conversation a lot more amusing.
“If you’re serious, there are people who would love to talk with you. Give you protection in return for a sliver of the knowledge in your head.”
“No. I want out. I’ve got enough problems without skipping down the snitch road.”
“I promise protection. Just—”
“I’m seventeen,” I repeat and drop the cold, numb mask I mastered and permit him into the desperation ripping through me. “Pretend I’m one of your daughters out there racing up and down the slide. I’m asking for a way out. For a chance to live a normal life. Just for a few seconds, pretend I’m one of them.”
He’s wavering and he’s fighting to keep his emotions in check and explore the opportunity for his job.
“Please don’t use me. If you got into this to serve and protect, then protect me.”
“Daddy!” One of his little girls calls from the top of the playground. “I want to fly. Come catch me.”
I used to fly and my daddy used to catch me. Right now, I need this guy to catch me, too.
He looks at me, I look at him, he opens his mouth and he answers.
Logan
Abby opens the front door and immediately grabs the bag from my hands. “You got queso, right?”
“And tacos.”
“Wait right here. We need plates.” Abby called this afternoon and demanded dinner. Four tacos for her, queso with chips, brownies with frosting, told me to order for me, and to tip well.
I close the front door behind me and nod at Nate. “What are you doing here?”
“Peggy’s’s sick so I’m filling in.” Nate surveys me like he has something to say and when he inhales like he’s going to speak, Abby reappears.
“We’re eating upstairs,” she says and then jots up.
I’m still standing there holding drinks and Nate watches.
“What?” I ask.
He sighs. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
She’s leaving. Nate knows it and the punch is right to the gut. Denny got the IDs faster than he thought he would. I run up the stairs after Abby and as soon as I’m in, I slam the drinks on her dresser. “I thought you said your new IDs would take a few days.”
Abby squints at me like I’m speaking gibberish. “They will.”
“Then what’s Nate upset about?”
Abby rolls her eyes. “Really? For real? Can one of the guys in my life not be all emotional? I swear. Next you guys will start a quilting circle and will be selling at church bazaars. Grab those drinks and put them on the floor.”
It’s then that I have the same wake-up moment as I did last night in my kitchen. Abby’s lighting a candle and it’s not the only one burning. There are several. Not too many, just enough, and on the floor next to her bed is a picnic-style blanket.
“Soak it in, Logan. This is the most you’ll ever get out of me for romance.” She blows out the stick she had
used to light the candle and I soak in the glorious sight.
Abby’s rocking it in a pair of tight jeans and a halter top I’ve never seen on her before. It’s dark purple, glitters in the dull candlelight, but hugs her right. Her dark chestnut hair falls over her shoulders and has this beautiful wave.
I step forward to touch the silky strands. Hell, I’m stepping forward to devour her body, but a door opening below causes me to remember my own surprise. “I’ll be right back.”
Her forehead furrows. “You’ll be right what?”
Even though my fingers twitch with the need to caress her body, I force myself back down the stairs and meet a confused Nate at the landing. “I’m assuming this is yours?”
My response is to take it from him and then dash back up the stairs. Abby raises an eyebrow when I enter, close the door, and put the massive covered object on the floor. “I bought you a present.”
Abby shines. “Really? Can I open it?”
“Yeah.”
Abby kneels on the floor, removes the blanket and she freezes. My heart stops as what’s frozen on her face is panic.
“It’s a bunny,” she says.
“It’s a bunny,” I repeat.
Abby lowers herself to peer inside the cage. “It’s real.”
“Yes.” I shove my hands in my pockets, doubting this idea. “I know you say you have to vanish, but maybe it can just be temporary. Maybe we can stay in touch. I can visit. You can visit. I can take care of this until you’re ready.”
An excuse to stay in contact. An excuse to see her again.
“Is it a boy or a girl?” she asks.
That brings me up short. “I don’t know.”
“Only one way to find out.”
Abby carefully opens the cage like she’s dismantling a ticking time bomb. She reaches in and extracts the massive ball of brown and black. Abby squishes her face and talks like a parent to a baby. “Aren’t you the cutest little lop bunny ever?”
Little? “That thing is massive.”