CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Auggie
Lily, as it turned out, was absolutely ideal for the farm manager’s job. She had that rare combination of understanding the business and a love of horses. She could help a mare to foal and be dressed and groomed for a business conference by lunchtime. I was amazed at the coincidence that had brought our paths to cross on that flight.
I set her up in the farm manager’s mini-farm and she promptly began settling in, having her belongings shipped from the west coast. The male farm hands had no problem with her. Indeed, she was single and certainly eye candy, but hey recognized immediately that she knew what she was doing, and that earned her their loyalty and support. I couldn’t have been more thrilled. I began to take days off from time to time to see how she’d do when I wasn’t there, and often found she made better decisions than I might have.
It was no wonder my prowess had been compromised, however. Learning that my long-lost son had been living next door, yet clearly held such resentment was very hard on me. A mother’s instincts are not lessened by her children growing older. If anything, they’ve escaped the parameters of observation, and I found myself worrying all the more.
I hadn’t gotten any opportunity to talk to Liane at all. Now she would be a part of our family, and the lack of normalcy of our situation was disturbing. I tried to talk to Worth about it, but he seemed angry and withdrawn over the entire mess. I let him be. Pushing him always resulted in some sort of revolt among the LaViere men, both Worth and my son, “Hawk” included. It pained me that he had given up the connection to my family name, but it was his choice.
From a mother’s point of view, I understood why he felt abandoned. In the light of reality, he had been. A mother tends to forget the crime committed and remember only the punishment. After a time, it seems over-reactive and unjust. Bernie, although I knew he had loved Hawk in his own way, had made a poor substitute for a full set of parents. Well, the set of parents we should have been.
In retrospect, we should have never sent them out of the country. In doing so, he had magnified the crime, and there was no resolution short of imprisonment for Bernie, a man who knowingly kidnapped a minor under judge’s orders.
Would it have meant Hawk’s survival? Who could say? I knew it seemed the only solution at the moment, but in hindsight, dozens of possibilities could have been chosen.
God, the guilt wanted to eat me alive. I knew I hadn’t done my best job at being a parent. I had been horribly selfish. I had wanted things tied up with a neat bow so I could go back to my life. I had wanted to do the things that interested me and let someone else make the sacrifices of parenthood.
That’s when I realized the horrible truth. I had become my mother.
I was exactly like the woman I had resented and later despised. It had all come full circle. The realization stunned me, and I actually became ill for a few days. My head ached, and I felt as though I had the flu. I kept to our room, and although Worth kept insisting I see a doctor, I declined. I knew what was wrong with me. It was a big case of old-fashioned guilt. The only cure was to face it and deal with its reality — and to make sure that I changed my ways from that point forward.
I called Dad, and we talked at length about what happened. While he was thrilled that his grandson was back, I think he also felt guilt at what had taken place. He held himself accountable for Hawk, just as he had for Mother.
The world was made up of many people, and although Worth’s science broke them into types, I thought they were more like mutts. A little of one breed, or quality, and some of another. Some came out wonderfully, inheriting the best traits of the lineage while others seemed to take the garbage left over and had to do the best they could with that. Did that make one life worth more than another?
Those who inherited the good traits wanted to believe so. My mother was one of those, and now I realize, I probably was as well. We grew up having everything given to us and expected that would always happen. When life served up a different meal, we refused it; denied it had been given to us. We continued to live in our selfish fishbowl and believed that just because we willed it so, it was. Well, it wasn’t.
Nor could I continue to blame everything on the LaViere blood. While it was the easiest thing to do, wasn’t that once again putting myself into a selfish fishbowl? Wasn’t I disavowing that I’d contributed to his mess in some way? At the very least that my genetics had encouraged the selfish evil that dominated the LaViere heritage? After all, Worth’s father had committed the atrocities of deliberate murder, cheating, manipulation, abandonment, abuse, and control. Wasn’t Worth simply dealing with the aftermath of his father’s obliteration of the family name? Was Hawk dealing with our legacy in the same sense?
The answer came in a surprising form. I was still keeping to my room, spending hours before the window watching the farm operate under Lily’s steady hand and wondering how I could ever come to terms with the mess I’d created. Letty came up to say I had company, but I told her to say I was in bed, ill and didn’t want to see anyone. This someone didn’t take no for an answer and pushed around Letty to enter my room.
Aggravated, I looked up to see Liane.
She was almost wraithlike in her pale form but had a head of lustrous hair that decried any ill health. “I know you’re not up to company,” she said, “but I hoped you might make an exception for me. After all, we are to become family.” After a moment’s consideration, I nodded. Perhaps my salvation had just forced her way into my bedroom. I asked Letty to bring us up some tea and sandwiches and pointed to a pair of wingbacks that faced the big window overlooking the farm.
Liane sat down, neatly crossing her ankles and smoothing out the fabric of her skirt. She looked quite like a school girl in a simple A-line skirt, a white blouse with Peter Pan collar, and a soft blue cardigan sweater with pearl buttons. She wore small pearl studs in her earlobes and a serviceable watch on her wrist. She smelled like summer sunshine, and her complexion was untouched by makeup. I felt like the headmistress at a boarding school when I took the other chair. Letty appeared with a tray and set it up between us.
“Shall I pour?” Liane asked, and I nodded assent. I could afford to be generous in my control at times, and right then, I believed that was one occasion where it might be advantageous. I corrected my mental thought process at that point, realizing I was practicing old habits.
“You know,” she began, “pouring tea is an age-old custom that generally falls to the woman of the house. It was her ceremonial acknowledgement and quite the tool for superiority. She had the sole option of determining the order of presentation, how it was presented and even whether some member in the room might be excluded. I appreciate the subtlety of your allowing me to pour, and I want you to know that I will never attempt to replace you. Not in your family and certainly not in Hawk’s life.”
I flinched at the use of his new nickname but recognized it was only one of the many things I might take exception to over the upcoming years. Despite her respectful little tale, Liane was letting me know that my role was changing. I was no longer the mother to a young Ford. He was an adult now and Liane would be taking on much of my former responsibilities for him.
Am I ready for this new role? I suppose I am… must be, having done such a poor job of it up until now, anyway. And what of Liane? So, this is the woman who I will entrust with my legacy, I thought to myself. Was she up to the chore?
Liane was looking at me with a question on her face, and I realized that I’d been deeply introspective and had shut her out. “I’m sorry, I’ve had a lot to process the last few days, and my mind wants to wander.”
“That’s fine,” she said. “I understand. Perhaps more than you could possibly realize. Yes, there’s been a lot that’s happened lately in my life as well. This engagement to your son came about fairly quickly.”
That was when I believed I understood. “Are you trying to hold on to a rich catch?” I asked, feeling my voice morph into the superior and very bitchy one of my mother. I hated myself for it.
Her reaction was unexpected. “I can understand why you would believe that. I would too, I suppose, if I were in your shoes. The poor daughter of a vicar happens to meet the heir to a great fortune, except he’s on the outs with them. So, she insists that he patch things up, make sure he’s in the will, so to speak. That is how it would appear from the outside. It’s very hard to explain, Mrs. LaViere—”
“Call me Auggie.” I never could stand being called Mrs. LaViere. There were too many of them ahead of me, and I wanted my own name.
“Thank you, Auggie. As I was saying, I won’t insult you by singing my own praises. Those you will discover and think through on your own. I had a feeling maybe you’d feel that way, and it’s one of the reasons I’m here. I’ve not spoken to Hawk about this, but I insist on signing a pre-nuptial that will protect him and his money. I’m not marrying him for money, I can assure you. If all you want from life is money, it’s the easiest thing to get.”
Her words struck me hard in their logic. She was absolutely right. The LaViere family had been driven by money, generation after generation, and at what price? They had enough to eat, a bed to sleep in and you could only sit in one chair at a time. Their problem was they had too much money and not enough soul to handle it. But then, there I was, generalizing once again. I was blaming the LaViere bloodline for things that ran in my own veins just as strong.
“What you and Hawk do is up to the both of you, Liane.” I was beginning to like this young thing. She was nothing like me, and I found that intriguing. If anything, she was better organized in her life than I was, and I had to admire that. She wasn’t working with the label system I had always used: name, family, social standing, money, and eligibility.
“I know you’re not used to having people with my background around you,” she was saying, and it was almost as if she could read my mind. “Let’s just say, my family has chosen a quiet non-existence over prominence, and that has worked very well for us.”
“You’re making me out to be a snob, Liane.”
“Not at all, Auggie. I just wanted you to know that I understand the difference in our backgrounds and that I intend to do everything in my power to make your son a good wife. I won’t be offended if you don’t want to include me in your social gatherings — just so long as Hawk is. He belongs with his family and someday, perhaps, we’ll have our own. But until then, he needs your acceptance and inclusion. He feels very rejected.”
I was quiet and then whispered, “I know. I felt it. I didn’t do it on purpose. It just happened and spiraled out of control. I love him very much.”
Liane patted my hand. “I know you do, but he needs to feel it too, and you need to be less conflicted about it. You love him and are scared of him. You want him but are afraid of him. You feel guilt and shame, which overshadows the love. He bought that place next door so he could be close, but it was like looking through the bakery window.”
“What changed his mind? Why did he finally come to us?” I asked.
“You might say I made it a condition.” She smiled. “Not that he wouldn’t have on his own, but it might have taken a long time. By then his brother and sister may have been at a college or on their own, and he’d never get the chance to experience family again.”
I nodded, seeing her logic. “Thank you, Liane. You’re not even in the family yet, and you’ve already done a great deal to heal some wounds. You’re welcomed to be one of us, although you may not think that’s such a treat!” I smirked at my joke.
“I will be happy to be a part of your family, and I welcome you into mine, as well. Although it’s only my dad and me.”
“Your mother?”
“She’s gone now. Cancer.”
“No siblings?”
“Just me.”
“Your dad?”
“He’s a vicar, well, you would call him a minister, of a small church downtown. It’s his life, and I believe he sometimes feels as though he’s still in England. It’s a quaint building, and he lives in the vicarage behind. He tends to his flock, and they keep him on.”
“And you?”
“Me? Well, I got my degree and took care of my mother until she passed. I volunteer at the YMCA on the west end. That’s where Hawk and I first met. I’m also a zoologist and work at the Louisville Zoo.”
“Really? That’s fascinating. So, you like animals?”
Liane nodded. “Animals, fish, birds, plants — all of it. It’s been said that I have a way with living creatures.”
I grinned and nodded. “I think they’re right.” I found myself really glad that Liane was joining the family. I hugged her before she left. Soon, I was feeling much better and had rejoined the living by going down to the barn.
Worth
I saw Auggie headed toward the barns and it made me feel much better. I’d seen Liane leaving as I drove in and waved at her, even though to me she was pretty much still a total stranger.
Following Auggie, I caught up to her at the horse therapy pool. She was trying to lead a new boarder into the water and it wasn’t being very cooperative. I frowned. She shouldn’t be doing that. I motioned to one of the hands to take over, and Auggie looked surprised, then angry as she handed over the reins.
“What’s the matter? Think I don’t have it anymore?” she asked me as she approached, her mouth set in a thin line. “Think you can just order someone else to do my job in my barn?”
Shit. I’d fucked up again.
“I know you can do anything you want to do, but you’ve been out of the rhythm for a bit. Let Lily do her job. You’re only the boss now.”
“Only? Really? So I should go eat bon bons like a good little wife and not do any of the things I love?” Auggie’s temper flashed, and I stepped back a bit.
“Auggie…” I warned with a low growl. “That’s not what I meant. You’re letting this whole thing get to you. C’mon up to the house with me and let’s talk.”
“I’ll be up when I’m ready.”
While this raised my brows, I could tell little more was going to be accomplished here without riling her further, so I turned around and went up to the house. Eventually, Auggie showed up, and I was waiting for her on the patio.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Why does anything have to be going on?”
“C’mon, Auggie, it’s not like you to be like this. Out with it.”
She sat down and looked out over the horizon. “Liane came by to see me today,” she said, her voice as far away as the view she was looking upon.
“Yes, I saw her pulling out as I came in. Seems a bit meek, if you ask me.”
“Meek?” She practically snarled in my direction. “Well, Mr. LaViere, what you see as meek is actually nice in normal people terms.”
“Woah, Auggie! Where is this coming from?”
She kicked the concrete with her boot. “Damn, I’m just tired of all this LaViere quarreling, Worth. Do you realize that in all the time I’ve known you, there’s always one LaViere or another mad or getting revenge against another? Don’t you people ever just settle back and appreciate each other?”
I decided to let her wear herself out with this. It wasn’t as if I had a very good argument, anyway. She was factually correct although I don’t think she totally understood the dynamics of why we fought. It was more about control and domination than anything else. It obliterated anything that came close to love. That’s when the realization hit me...
We don’t know how to love. Jesus! Why didn’t that become apparent to me before?
I was a highly educated psychologist, and yet this innate disability had never occurred to me. Perhaps it was because of my training that I’d never acknowledged it? This gave me pause for thought while Auggie and I both sat quietly in contemplation.
Finally, I broke it. “So, just exactly what are you saying?”
“I’d like you to hear me out, Worth.”
I kicked off my shoes and settled back. “Go ahead.”
“From the first day I met you, all those years ago when Mother sent me to your clinic to be “analyzed,” I’ve always thought there was something intrinsically wrong with me. Perhaps it was my mother’s influence or perhaps just because I was rebelling. It didn’t matter. Where she left off, you picked up, pushing my buttons and causing me to react in whatever manner best suited your opinion of how I should feel about things.”
I picked up on the word “causing” and the blame she laid at other’s feet. But I didn’t interrupt. I stayed quiet. Tried to be a husband, not a psychologist.
“When I thought things were wrong between you and your father, I couldn’t say a word. I had to support you. When I thought you handled things badly with Linc, even though he was my brother as much as yours, his name was LaViere, so that made him hands off. Then when Ford was no longer a little boy and his temper began to exhibit itself, I backed off and let you handle it. I figured you were the shrink, the expert, so what did I know? What I didn’t take into consideration was that I had perspective that was unique. I was, next to you, the most involved person and yet I relinquished my power, my judgement, in favor of yours. That was wrong. Wrong of me to allow it and wrong of you to take it.”
“Auggie, I had no idea—”
She lifted a finger. “You said you would hear me out.”
I nodded and swept my hand out in permission.
“So, here we are. We’ve not been with our eldest son for the majority of his life, and he hates us for it. He doesn’t feel included; thinks we don’t love him. Liane told me as much today. I do love him. But you know what? I’m not sure you do.”
I jerked upright at this accusation but kept my peace. What could I say? I’d just been thinking the same thing only moments ago.
She knew she’d stabbed me but continued on. “Your entire family have all been more focused on competing with one another than you have loving one another. You call yourself a therapist, but I think this is one of those occasions where they say, ‘physician heal thyself.’ You can’t sit there and tell me you did everything you could have for our son. You could have gone to Mexico at some point and made sure everything was okay. You’ve got connections, why didn’t you use them? God knows you have money, yet our own flesh and blood was living in a place where he got beat up and maimed because he was white and looked prosperous, although he didn’t have a dollar he could call his own in his pocket. You call that looking out for your child?”
I opened my mouth, but she held that finger up again, her green eyes daring me to interrupt. I sat back and took a deep breath.
“I know I’m just as guilty as you are. The only difference is that I’m accepting the blame now, and I’m determined to make this better. I’m admitting I screwed up, that I’m fallible and selfish, and I looked for the clean, easy way out of that mess. Out of sight, out of mind, as they say. And why? To protect him? Hardly. You could have had him moved to a private facility where he wouldn’t have had to deal with the general population.”
I could hold my tongue no longer. “I put him where I thought he needed to be, Auggie. He was out of control. He needed to understand that behavior like that has consequences.”
“So, you sent a child to Mexico? Oh, yeah, that was teaching him. You took a young boy who was drugged out of his mind by your doctor friends and put him in the middle of squalor in a country where he couldn’t even speak the language. And who did you put in charge of his welfare? A kind, gentle man with no more street smarts than Hawk! Surely to god even you aren’t so shallow that you can’t see that?”
I looked away. Too much of what she was saying was hitting the mark.
“I was culpable too. I let you do it. But, no… I was a LaViere by marriage only. I didn’t exercise my right as his own mother. Sure, I hid behind the twins. I did it. And look at the good I’ve done for them. Do you think they don’t have your blood? Or mine from my mother? You don’t think we’ve only seen the beginning of what they are destined to become?”
I shifted in my chair and frowned darkly.
“Worth, this is coming to an end. Today. We have three children, not two. Even though one is a grown man, he needs us just as much. Even more, perhaps. I’m done making excuses and covering up the lies. From all appearances, Hawk has grown up to be a fine man. Judging by that young lady who left here a short time ago, she holds him in pretty high regard, and she seems to know what she’s talking about. Hawk doesn’t feel like he’s one of us and that’s going to change as of now!”
“Are you done?”
She looked surprised. “You always want the last word, don’t you?”
I said nothing, just stared at her for long moments. Then simply stood up, walked out of the house, and drove away.
***
A week had passed with that same cold bitterness between us, but we had to be civil for the children’s sake. The twins were ready for their drivers’ licenses. Auggie and I, despite our argument, had cooperated with one another on this point. I drove them to the DMV office and signed for them each to get a permit. I knew this was going to be the beginning of the end. As soon as they had licenses, they’d be out of my reach. I wasn’t worried about Mark. Marga was the problem child. She was headstrong like her mother and ran with a fairly fast crowd.
“I think we should buy them a tank to learn in,” Auggie commented when we got home.
“Mom!” protested Marga. “You’re such a worry wart. Don’t you trust me?”
Auggie looked disgruntled, and I knew she didn’t like confrontations, particularly now that she was on a quest to unite the family. “I’m buying you a tank because I don’t trust the other people on the road.” Marga, although not convinced, was satisfied enough to let it go at that.
“When can we go for a drive?” she begged.
“Talk to your father in that department. I handle the horses; he handles the cars.”
I’d bought a slightly used Volvo station wagon as a learning car. I understood they had the best safety rating, and while they were in training, the two would share it. An adult had to be on board, regardless. “Let’s go,” I said, and they yipped, running out to the car.
They tossed a coin and Mark won. He climbed behind the wheel, and Marga took the back seat. As I climbed in, I watched Mark go through the slow and a methodical check-off as though he was getting ready to fly a passenger airliner. He carefully adjusted his mirrors, fiddling forever with the side mirrors. His seat went forward, it went back. It rotated upward and then backward again. He looked at the gas gauge and checked his mirrors again.
“Enough already, Mark! We’ll never leave to drive at this pace.”
He flushed and jammed the key into the ignition, rotating it. He didn’t release immediately, and the vehicle starter chattered. “Let go as soon as you hear it catch,” I told him and knew immediately I was not the right person to conduct driver’s training. I just didn’t have the patience for it.
Mark finally got everything going and then counted the positions on the gear shift before finding “drive” and beginning to move forward. “Keep your foot on the brake until you’re in gear and ready to move!” I barked, exasperated. His hand was shaking by now, and I knew we were doomed as a team. I stole a glance at Marga in the rear seat and saw a look of triumphant satisfaction on her face. I figured she’d been practicing out on some country road with an older friend. She was wild enough to attempt it. I didn’t blame her; I’d done it too.
Mark finally started moving forward with a jerky gas pedal, and I told him to stay in the complex for this first time around. He didn’t argue, and I realized he was a very indecisive driver. Eventually, he got the hang of the brake versus the gas pedal, and the result was much smoother. A buzzer went off in the back seat, and Marga shouted, “My turn! Time’s up!” She had evidently set the alarm on her phone. Mark reluctantly pulled over and gave up his controls, swapping seats with her.
Marga, by comparison, whipped the seatbelt on and adjusted the mirrors in one smooth move. The ignition clicked on, and she was already looking over her shoulder and pulling onto the road before I knew what was happening. It was definitely the result of having done this before. She was a fast learner, but what I was seeing were practiced moves.
“Marga, slow down!” I barked as she took the curves in the development like an Indy track. She laughed wildly and squealed the tires through the next one. “Pull over!” I ordered her and even though she pouted, she did as I asked. “That’s enough of that, young lady,” I chided. “I know you think you’re smarter and much further ahead than your brother, but you need to exercise a little common sense. Somehow I don’t think this is the first time you’ve driven.”
She just grinned at me. How could I resist that contagious smile? “Alright, now pull back onto the road but this time, keep the speed down below twenty and drive like a little old lady coming home from church.”
She rolled her eyes but obliged. She knew she had to go along with my orders for now, but once she was on her own, look out.
When we finally pulled back up to the house, I got out and walked straight down to the barn. I turned to Carter, one of the senior hands. “You had any driving tickets or accidents in the last ten years?”
He looked surprised. “No, sir.”
“Good. Your new job is teaching my children to drive. I don’t have the patience.” I stalked off, leaving Carter looking after me with amazement. It was considered an act of great trust and importance to be assigned to look after one of the LaViere children. He swaggered a bit the rest of the afternoon and by the next day could be spotted with a driver’s manual in his hand. He was cramming. That was fine. He was taking his responsibilities very seriously.
The next day was Sunday so the family was at home. Lily and Auggie were in the kitchen finishing a cup as they discussed the upcoming week. In the distance, I heard car doors slam, and a moment later, there was a tap at the front door. Before I could stand from my chair, it opened, and Hawk walked in with Liane close behind him.
“Anyone home?” he called out, not seeing me sitting behind one of Auggie’s damn trees.
“Hello, Hawk,” I said. “Come in, both of you and sit down.” Mark was coming down the stairs, and I motioned him over. “Sit down and visit.”
Mark’s mouth opened in protest, but he quickly closed it and dutifully took his seat.
Auggie flew into the room and quickly introduced Lily to Hawk and Liane, her fingers twisting in front of her. Lily, sensing this was a family moment, took her leave.
Attempting to have some sort of normal family conversation, I blurted, “Well, it seems we have two student drivers in the house.” Right on cue, Marga came through the front door.
She stood a moment, looking at the gathering and then walked into the next room.
“Marga?” I called to her.
“Yeah?” She came back and looked at me, her head tilted in that cocky teenage way I despised.
“Don’t you think you could at least say hello?”
“Yeah, hi,” she said quickly and left again.
I looked at Auggie. “What’s up with her?” Auggie shrugged, and I decided to let it go for now. This entire thing felt awkward and tense. It felt like Hawk and Liane were company, and we were trying to make a good impression. It didn’t sit well with me. Not in the least.
Hawk must have felt it too because he took a stab at it. “So, Mark, how many ditches did you dig?” he asked, referring to his driving.
Mark looked at Hawk. There was almost a defiance in his expression; certainly one of distrust. I wondered at this. “None,” he said bluntly and fell silent.
Liane tried. “I didn’t get my license until I was eighteen. Dad was afraid I’d pick up strangers and give them a ride.” She smiled, and I knew she was referring to her big heart. Mark simply stared at her, as though she was unintelligible with her accent.
This angered Hawk. I knew it immediately. “Mark, Liane is to be my wife, and I expect you to treat her with respect.”
I closed my eyes. I knew it was the wrong thing to say, but it was too late. Liane jumped in, trying to make it better. “Oh, he’s just a bit shy,” she covered.
“I’m not shy,” Mark stated in a clear voice. He looked directly at Hawk. “I just don’t happen to trust you, and I don’t care whether you’re my brother or not. From what I’ve heard, you’re a psycho murderer, and we’re better off without you. No one asked you to come back.”
“Mark!” Auggie shouted, coming out of her chair. “Hawk is your brother and a member of this family. You will apologize immediately and then go to your room!”
Mark looked at Auggie with surprise. “You said yourself you didn’t know him anymore. Who changes their name? What’s he hiding? Or have you conveniently forgotten why you sent him away?” Mark dropped these bombs and then turned and took the stairs two at a time.
The silence in the room was suffocating, and Hawk stood. “Liane, I think we need to leave.”
“Hawk, no,” Auggie objected, but Hawk was pulling Liane, and they were already halfway to the door.
“It’s alright, Mother. I knew I should have stayed away. He’s right. Trust is important, and he’s not feeling it. I get that.” He opened the front door and slammed it behind them.
I looked at Auggie and saw the tears running down her face. “Why didn’t you do something?” she asked me, choking on the sobs. My mouth was hanging open in helplessness. “You just sat there and let Mark treat him like that. You didn’t stick up for him.” Auggie walked past me, and I tried to grab her arm, but she pulled it flat against her side, out of reach. She left the room and the bedroom door slammed as she retreated. She didn’t come down to dinner, and I saw Letty leave the kitchen with a tray in her hands. She didn’t look at me. It seemed I was in the dog house all the way around.
“Dad?” Marga was standing in the hallway.
“Yes?” I answered, grateful that someone was speaking to me.
“Can I go out with some friends for an hour or so?” she asked quickly, darting looks out the window as though someone would be pulling up to the house soon.
“Who?”
“Oh, just Bobby Fleener. You know his father. We’re just going for a ride.”
Every bone in my body cried out that she shouldn’t go.
“Be home in an hour,” I said, retreating into old habits. It was just simpler.
“Yes!” she squealed and was immediately out the door before I could possibly change my mind. I had no idea who Bobby Fleener was.
I walked upstairs and tried to go into our room, but the door was locked. With a sigh, I went into the guest room and laid down. I didn’t wake up until the next morning.
Auggie was at the table in the kitchen, her robe askew, a worried look on her face. “Marga never came home. Do you know where she went?”
The hair raised on the back of my neck. “Not really, she asked to go out with friends for an hour. She must have come home and gone out again, and you just didn’t see her.”
“She’s not been home, Worth. Her bed hasn’t been slept in. Her toothbrush is dry. My calls go straight to voicemail when I call. Where is she? Who did she go with?”
I was groggy and raked my brain for a name. “Bobby somebody.”
Auggie looked at me in total disgust. “Bobby somebody? You let our sixteen-year-old wildcat daughter run the roads all night with someone named Bobby somebody? What the hell kind of a parent are you?” she spat and left the room.
Disgusted with the entire situation, I grabbed my jacket and left for the office. At least there I was still respected.
I was thoughtful on my drive. I wasn’t worried about Marga. She was independent and could take care of herself. If something happened, I would have gotten a call. I made a note to check into this Bobby Fleener — I’d finally remembered his fucking last name. She said I knew his father.
I shrugged it off as soon as I arrived at the office, immersing myself in spreadsheets and forgot about the entire sour day.
Auggie, however, did not. I got hit as soon as I came through the door.
“Let me ask you a question, just for the hell of it,” she began.
“Okay,” I shrugged, oblivious.
“Is Marga home?” she asked.
I shrugged again. “I guess so.”
“You guess so?”
“Well, I assume if she hadn’t shown up, you would have called me at the office.”
“So you parent your children by assumption?”
“Well, all parents do to a certain extent. They have to unless they want to walk them on a leash. What’s this all about, Auggie? Why are you up my ass?”
“It’s so typical of you to only think of yourself and what you want, Worth. You’ve always been that way. As long as what you wanted included me, I didn’t notice I was being steered. But when it doesn’t, it becomes quite obvious.” Auggie was angrier than I could ever remember seeing her. She wasn’t screaming, but her deadly calm voice was far more lethal.
“What does that have to do with Marga?” I asked her, trying to keep her on one course of logic. She was blowing this out of proportion.
Auggie’s mouth distorted with resentful doubt. “Plenty! Number one, Marga didn’t come in until after ten o’clock this morning. Number two, she stank of booze and was slurring her speech — not to mention her clothes looked like she’d slept in them. And number three, there is no such person as Bobby somebody or the father you claim to know! I called some of her friends and none of them know of a Bobby of any last name.”
I saw black. It was an absolutely encompassing rage that I’d not felt since my father had beaten me for not filling a watering bucket, even when it was obvious by the wet soil that it had been kicked over — most likely by him. I was not angry with Marga. Teens were notorious for deceit. I was insanely furious that I’d been caught in this humiliation and in Auggie’s verbal trap.
“Are you rejoicing, Auggie?” I shouted. “You’ve been waiting for your moment, and now you have it! You’ve caught me when I had so much on my mind that I missed one detail, and you were waiting like a cat to pounce! Well, how does it feel, Caren?” I hurled at her, calling her by her mother’s name — a comparison intended to inflame her further.
She was smarter than me, however. “Feel better, Worth?” she asked in that calm, level voice. “You’ve been saving that little comparison for a long time, haven’t you? Now, rather than accept that you exercised poor judgement in your perpetual motion of self-aggrandizement, you behave just like you always have. You try to deflect it by attacking. Only it won’t work with me, Worth. I’ve been waiting for it. Yes, you’re right about that. I knew it would come eventually, but it wasn’t my trap. It was your own.”
Auggie turned her back to me and went upstairs. She didn’t slam the bedroom door. That would have invited argument and been childish. It would have positioned the argument between herself and me. This wasn’t about us. It was about me and my shortcomings, or so she saw them. She was quietly, completely shutting me out of her life.
A few minutes later, I quietly climbed the stairs and tapped on Marga’s door. When she didn’t answer, I opened it. She was on her bed, asleep, dressed in her clothes from the night before. Her arms and legs were splayed wide like she’d simply fallen face down and passed out. It felt all too familiar.
I closed her door, still angry and headed to the guest room where I slept the night before and sat on the edge of the bed. I needed a shower, a nap, and to think. Before I stood up, there was a knock at the door, and I assumed it would be Marga. “Come in,” I said sternly. It was Mark.
“Dad?”
I knew this was about to be another problem. “What is it?”
“Can I talk to you?” He could obviously tell I wasn’t in a great mood and surely had heard the shouting from downstairs.
“What is it, Mark?” I repeated impatiently.
He stepped through the doorway and nervously closed the door behind him. “Dad, I’m not sure how to say this, but I don’t like Hawk.”
I looked up, surprised at the turn of events. “You’ve made that abundantly clear. Where’s this coming from?”
“There’s something about him, Dad. He acts like he’s trying to bully me. Like he hates me, but he doesn’t even know me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve only known him a total of five seconds.”
“I’m not being ridiculous. It’s there. It’s a look in his eye. It’s like he thinks he is a hawk, just watching for the right moment to pounce.”
“Mark, it’s your imagination. Listen to yourself! You sound like a little girl. Be a man, son. He’s got problems — he always has. Just ignore it and leave me alone. I’m tired and need some space.”
Mark’s face fell and I felt momentary guilt at my callous words. But not enough to change them or say anything different. He was being ridiculous. The end.
He looked down as though he was thinking of something more to say, but changed his mind and nodded. He turned slowly, opened the door, and closed it as he left.