“The reason Preacher Man left his church and left us? It’s because he blew Kurt’s head off after seeing him violating me.”
As long as I live, I will never forget the look on her face. It was an agonizing expression of shock, disbelief, and pain. Her hand flew to her mouth as she swayed on her feet. “Why didn’t you ever tell me? Why didn’t he tell me?”
“I don’t know. We thought it was best to keep it a secret.”
As she stared at me almost like I was a stranger, I felt like the biggest bastard to have ever walked the earth. “Mama Beth, I’msorry,” I murmured. I wanted her to scream at me. To slap my face for telling her in such a horrible way. To hate me for ruining her marriage and in a way her life.
Instead, tears streamed down her cheeks. “No, I’m the one who is sorry, Nathaniel. I’m so, so sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me. I’m an asshole for telling you like that.”
She brought her hand up to cup my cheek. “You’ve been under a tremendous strain these last three months. While I should be angry at you for the way you told me, I can’t be. You’re my son, and I love you. More than anything, my heart breaks for you.” She hiccupped a cry. “How I wish I could turn back time to be there for you when you were suffering.”
“You were. You just didn’t know the why.”
Shaking her head, she said, “I wish your father was alive, so I could give him a good talking to for keeping it from me.”
I laughed. “Knowing him, it probably wouldn’t have done any good.”
“It would have made me feel better.” She wiped her eyes. “He should have known keeping secrets never does any good. Maybe things could have been different if he had only been honest.” She glanced up at me. “Maybe you’ll learn from his mistakes.”
“What do you mean?”
“With Annabel.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I’m not asking you to. I’m just telling you that keeping the truth from me hurt me far worse in the long run.” She then opened her arms. “Now come let your mother hug you and try to make it better.”
Although I was a grown man, I allowed my mother to comfort me like the scared eleven-year-old boy wished he had been.
That had been a month ago, and while I wished I could say that her talk had made me see the light, I once again was toostubborn. I retreated back to drinking, although I did manage to make it to church meetings with the club and returned to my job at the pawnshop. Of course, I wasn’t sober for any of it, but at least I was physically present.
The next afternoon found me walking home from the pawnshop. The December chill had me reaching inside my cut for my flask. After sucking back some liquid warmth, I put the flask back. Just as I started up the stairs, I remembered I needed to feed Poe. It had been two months since he had been released into the wild. Even though he was doing fine on his own, I still gave him his favorite treat of dried corn. It helped to bring him back around. Even though he was a constant reminder of Annabel, I still wanted to be around him.
As I lurched around the side of the house, I heard Willow talking in a sing-song voice to Poe. She giggled at the loud way he crunched on the corn she was feeding him.
“Whatcha doin’, rug rat?” I asked.
After glancing at me over her shoulder, she gave me a disapproving look. It had a greater effect than she could have ever imagined. I had never felt so cut down to size by anyone, not even after Mama Beth’s talk. “Feeding Poe,” she finally replied.
“That’s nice of you, but I’m the one who does that.”
“You don’t do much of anything but drink lately,” she murmured softly.
Fuck me.She might as well have knifed me in the chest. I didn’t know what to say to her. Finally, I settled on, “I’m sorry, rug rat.”
After tossing the rest of Poe’s corn to the ground, she turned to face me. “My first mommy used to tell me she was sorry. But then she would go right back to drinking.” She stomped her pink sneakered foot dramatically, and then swept her hands to her hips. “I don’t want you to be like her, Uncle Rev. I don’t want you to hurt people like she did…I don’t want you to hurt me.”
While I had expected her to be the one crying, it was me whose eyes became moist. Christ, where had I gone so wrong? I had once been a hero in Willow’s eyes. Now she was disgusted and disappointed by me. She was just another woman I loved who I had alienated myself from.
“Do you want to know why Poe comes back for the corn?”
Swiping my eyes with the back of my hands, I muttered, “Because he’s a spoiled brat.”
Willow shook her head. “He comes back because he knows we want to take care of him. He could survive out there with his deer friends, and maybe he would be better off, but he still wants to see us. We show him we still love him by leaving him the corn.”
I blinked at her. I wasn’t sure but I suspected that she was trying to make some strange correlation between Annabel and Poe. She didn’t give me a knowing look like Mama Beth might or Alexandra. She just appeared to be talking from her heart.
