Chapter Three
Dax
After I got dressed, I rode over to see my mom. I found her digging in her flowers in the back yard.
“Hi Mom.”
“Hi Dax,” she said with a smile. She always had a smile for me, no matter what. “Did you come by for breakfast? I didn’t make anything, but I can throw something together really quick”
Smiling, I said, “No, Mom. I’m fine. I just need to talk to you if you have a few minutes.”
“Of course I do,” she said, pulling off her gardening gloves. “Have a seat. I’ll get us some coffee.”
I didn’t really want any coffee, but my mom never entertains a guest without food or beverage so I let her go. When she came back out to the patio she had a tray with a carafe of coffee, two cups, cream and sugar and a plate of cinnamon rolls. I laughed as she sat it down,
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“You,” I told her. “You’re out here gardening and your garden looks beautiful by the way. You set up a tray of sticky buns and coffee to visit with your ex-con son and you don’t have a hair out of place. I just can’t figure out why a lady like you would have anything to do with a guy like dad, much less stay married to him.”
“Opposites attract they say.” She always looked nervous when I brought this subject up, but she still hadn’t given me an answer that made sense.
I still wanted to know why so I continued to press.
“Mom, this is more than opposite personalities here. Your lifestyles are polar opposite. You really are a lady and he is….well, we both know what dad is. Was it Brock, mom? When you and dad got back together Brock was what, two or three?”
“He was three.”
“Is that why you got together with Dad? You felt bad for Brock because he lost his mom and he was left with your dad for a father?” Not that Brock ever appreciated my mother, but that was another long, depressing story.
My mother looked at me like her heart was suddenly aching. I regretted bringing up my brother. I hadn’t thought about him for a while and I suddenly wondered where he was. I hadn’t seen him around. I looked at my mom’s face again and decided it wasn’t the time to ask.
She sipped her coffee and took the little knife in front of her and cut up a cinnamon roll. I waited. I knew my mother and if she was going to answer me, she was going to do it in her own good time.
Finally as my hair turned gray she said, “Dax there is so much more to it. I didn’t get together with your father or stay with him because of Brock. I fell in love with him and I know you have a hard time understanding that because we’re so different, I can’t help how I feel and I can’t even explain it. I fell in love with Brock too. His Mama walked away from him and even though he was so young he knew that she didn’t want him. He suffered for it. He was being raised in that bar by a bunch of bikers….it was amazing and terrible at the same time. You really have to give them credit. None of them had a clue what they were doing and they did it all very poorly, but they tried. Anyways, I know you don’t believe this but the truth is I stayed with your dad all of these years because in spite of everything I love him.”
It was so hard for me to fathom. If she’d told me yes, it was my half-brother Brock that kept her around back then, I could have understood it better. She should have been having tea with the ladies down at the quilting parlor. The problem was that she had never been able to have any friendships with decent people because of my dad. The women in town judged her by the husband she kept.
“Okay, I’ll try to accept that and move on,” I told her with a grin. Accepting it and understanding it were two different things. Turning back serious I said, “I was watching security tapes at the bar. Dad said that I could. I told him I was trying to figure out who was in on the robbery four years ago. What I was really looking for was evidence that I was set up.”
She didn’t say anything. She only nodded. I’m sure she was pulling up the memories of conversations she’d had with my father that were supposed to be private and suddenly realizing they were all on tape.
“I came across one of those tapes. It was a day or two after I got arrested and you came in to dad’s office and you were upset. You asked him how he could set up his own son. You wanted him to do something and he told you that there was nothing he could do and he had nothing to do with any set-up.”
“I remember that, yes,” she said, looking sad.
“Mom, do you have any kind of proof that I’m innocent or that I was set-up?”
She reached over and put her hand on my cheek.
“Dax, don’t you think if I did I would have used it to keep you out of prison?”
“Yeah, I do. But I couldn’t figure out what made you go there that day and confront dad if you didn’t. What made you so sure I hadn’t done what they were accusing me of?”
“Honestly, I hadn’t been able to see you yet so I wasn’t sure. I knew that if you were trafficking drugs it was for the club and your father had gotten you into it. I wanted to believe you didn’t have anything to do with it, but like I said, that was before they let me see you and there was always the small chance you were talked into doing something you didn’t want to, making one last run for them. You’re a good kid, but you weren’t perfect,” she said with a grin. “They try to make it sound so romantic and make you boys think it’s glamourous when in reality it’s all a bunch of crap.”
“I do know that,” I told her. “So once you did talk to me, you believed me, right? You knew that I didn’t have anything to do with any of this?”
“Yes, of course I believed you. You’ve always been an honest kid and you’ve turned into an honest man. Even when you were little and you and Terrance and Brock would get into trouble, you were always the one I could count on to tell the truth. That year, leading up to you leaving for school, your dad was a mess. He acted like you walking away from this club and your title as heir to the throne was akin to Prince William doing the same. He always planned on you replacing him because he said that Brock was too impulsive and hot headed to be a leader. Your intelligence and spirit was the reason why I wanted you to walk away and go to college and the reason why he wanted you to stay here and lead this stupid club. He was a mess the three months you were gone until you came back for winter break. He didn’t think you would come back. When you did, I thought he didn’t want to let you go again. He talked you into going that day, right? One last run before you went back to school again until spring break. It always seemed awfully convenient to me that you would be the only one carrying anything. I mean, I’ve known these guys for a long time and on any given day they have guns, knives, drugs and drug paraphernalia on their person. It just so happened that no one was carrying anything at all illegal that day. I found that hard to fathom. I strongly believed that you were set up and I still do. Your dad has denied it over and over and my suspicions are all I have.”
“I found an email from Terrance to dad the day before I was arrested. It said “It’s all set up and ready to go.” I didn’t want to believe that my best friend and my father, two people I should be able to trust beyond all others had conspired to do this to me, but I confronted Terrance and he finally admitted that he got an email telling him what to do. He says it came from dad. He of course wants me to believe he had no choice because he feared for his own safety. I think…no. I know if it had been me, I would have gone to him. I would have risked the wrath of the club over betraying my best friend.”
“Everyone doesn’t have your sense of right and wrong, Dax…unfortunately. Terrance grew up with a father who was an officer in the club and no mother. He was taught club first, family second, friends third.”
“What ever happened to thinking for yourself?” I asked.
“That goes out the door when you take that stupid Smokin’ Joker’s blood oath. You’re supposed to let your dad and Mack and all the others do your thinking for you. You’re strong enough to think for yourself. Terrance, not so much.”
“You’re defending him,” I told her.
“Maybe, a little. I’m angry with him for doing that to you, of course. But I can’t help thinking about that poor, sweet kid he was. He wasn’t as lucky as Brock. He was raised by that club.”
I didn’t want to argue with my mom, but I really didn’t want to hear her defend him so I changed the subject and said, “I’m going to confront dad, face to face.”
“What are you going to say?” My mom looked worried, but I didn’t think she would try and talk me out of it. She knew I had to do this and I thought she would be as relieved as me to get to the bottom of it all.
“I’m just going to lay it all out and see what he says.”
“You know that your father would never admit it, right? He’ll go to his grave denying he had anything to do with setting up his own son.”
“I know, but I have to give it a shot. Maybe he’ll have proof that he didn’t do it.”
Mom smiled sadly and said, “That would be nice.”