He didn’t mention the part where he’d come home from school to find his mother on the floor, her face bloody and bruised, her sundress bunched up around her waist, all while his father rutted away between her thighs. He didn’t tell her how he’d jumped onto his father’s back, screaming for the bastard to stop. And he didn’t say how his father had flung him off with such fury that his temple had smacked the side of the coffee table and he’d gone out like a light.
Well, not exactly like a light.
It’d taken a few seconds for the darkness to completely suck him under. And the last thing his dimming eyes had witnessed was the degradation and resignation on his mother’s bruised and bloodied face.
When he’d come to, it was to find her dead and his father on the run. Luckily, it’d only taken the authorities thirty-six hours to catch up with Nash Wakefield. And after that, life had become more about surviving for Fisher than actual living.
He’d been surviving ever since.
“Fish.” Her throat sounded full, like she was holding back tears. “I don’t have any words. I don’t know if thereareany words for something like that. I’m so sorry for you, for your mother. I?—”
“I’m sorry too,” he cut in. “You’ve been through hell tonight and here I am pilin’ on with my sad-sack tale and?—”
“No.” He couldn’t see her, but he felt her shaking her head. Heard the raspy sound her hair made as it rubbed against the cotton pillowcase. “I asked and you answered. And honestly—and this probably sounds awful—but seeing how you’ve come back from such a tragedy gives me hope I’ll bounce back too. Maybe someday I’ll be able to feel like what happened is a chapter in my life instead of the whole damn book.”
He desperately wanted to pull her into his arms. Just roll onto his side and curl himself around her until every bit of him was holding every bit of her.
Instead, he satisfied himself with a gentle squeeze of her hand. “It’s a sad day when ya realize the person you need the most has just taught ya that ya really don’t need anyone at all. I thought I wouldn’t make it without Mom. But I did. And you’ll make it without Charlie too. I’m not sayin’ it’ll be easy. I’m just sayin’ it’ll get done.”
Her swallow was sticky-sounding. But she didn’t continue with that line of conversation. Instead she whispered again, “Tell me about your mother. Not the awful way she ended, but how she lived. Who was she?”
If it’d been anyone but Eliza asking, he would have waved away the question and changed the subject. Talking about his mother wasn’t something he did. Not because she’d been ugly and awful to him. But because shehadn’tbeen.
She’d been fun and loving and supportive and so, so…
Broken.
He hadn’t known it back then. He’d been too young and ignorant to the ways of the world and to wholesome, healthy relationships. But he knew it now.
What he’d suspected in theory before he’d joined Black Knights Inc., he’d since come to understand as fact. Having watched the original Knights with their partners, he could see how completely toxic his parents’ love had been.
Love.He snorted silently.More like a noxious blend of delusion, narcissism, and codependence.
“She was beautiful and smart.” He started quietly, but his voice grew stronger as he went on. “She had this big smile and an even bigger voice. The kind of voice that raised the roof of the church when she sang in the choir. She loved yellow, wore it all the time. Loved feedin’ bread to the ducks at the pond. And she always acted like she accidentally let the bananas get overripe. But I knew she did it on purpose. ’Cause I loved banana bread.”
He closed his eyes and the image of his mother sitting on the park bench, a bag of stale Wonder Bread in hand, flashed through his head.
“She’s the one who taught me to play harmonica. She’d been taught by her daddy who’d been taught by his daddy before him. She was small-town royalty. Her father was the local plastics manufacturer, and she grew up with the silver spoon and all the Southern charm you could ever want. I’m sure her old man did about a hundred somersaults in his grave when she took up with my old man.”
“Your grandfather died when she was young?” She unconsciously ran her thumb along the side of his. Alternatively, he wasveryconscious of the way her soft touch made his stomach muscles tighten.
Platonic my ass,he thought before answering.
“Her senior year in high school. I think maybe that’s how my father got his hooks in her. ’Cause she was hurtin’ and vulnerable. Anyhow, her older brother took over the plastics business and after she married my dad, she kinda lost touch with her family. Or, more like, my father isolated her and kept her all to himself. But she named me after them. Her family, I mean. Their surname was Fisher. And so even though I’ve never known any of them more than in passin’, I still carry around a piece of them.”
“How does a smart, beautiful, wealthy woman find herself tying the knot with an abusive, murderous man?” If he’d been able to see Eliza, he knew he’d find her sleek, dark eyebrows pulled together over her nose.
“It wasn’t like Dad started out that way.” He blinked contemplatively into the darkness. “Momma said he was the cock of walk, all good looks and charm and pockets full of money from the tips he got dealing cards on the riverboat. He seduced her with little gifts and honeyed words. In fact, he could sweet-talk her like nothin’ you’ve ever seen. Even when he'd go out of his mind with jealousy because she’d opened the door to the mailman instead of letting the letters be dropped in the box or waved at the neighbor man mowing his yard, he'd always tell her it was because he loved her so much. Because he knew she was too good for him and so he lived in constant fear she’d leave him.”
“She believed him?”
“For years.” He nodded. “She had stars in her eyes when it came to Dad. Thought he hung the moon even when he slapped a bruise on her face or grabbed her wrist so hard he broke her bones.” He sighed heavily. “She mistook his jealousy for love, made excuses for him by sayin’ it wasn’t his fault he’d been raised rough. And I think she honestly believed she could change him if she just loved him hard enough for long enough.”
“How awful,” she murmured. “And how sad.”
He hummed his agreement. “It only got worse once he got caught skimmin’ money on the riverboat and lost his job. He’d been usin’ his position there to draw in tourists and locals alike to illegal, backroom poker tournaments. So when he lost his position on the boat, he lost his side-hustle too. And that was the beginnin’ of the end. He got angrier and angrier about life. And that made him meaner and meaner to me, but especially to Momma. She was just beginnin’ to see through all his bullshit, just beginnin’ to realize his good looks and charm covered up a heart as cold and as hard as stone when he killed her. That was probablywhyhe killed her, actually. Because, for the first time, she trulymighthave gotten around to leavin’ him.”
Her inhalation sounded shaky. “Why do the most horrible things happen to the best people?”
