Olivia
I run my hands through the tepid milky water of my bath. It’s a Friday, and Dalton is opening the shelter so I can start late. I don’t know how that wound up meaning that I was giving Josiah the morning off too, but I didn’t argue. The boy is a hard worker, and he deserves a lot more than the small wage I can give him, so I let him take the morning off. August and Bett have a doctor’s appointment, and I’ve been looking forward to having the house all to myself, but that wasn’t to be. Still, even though it is hot as the burning blacktop outside, I can’t resist a soak in the tub with my new bath milk. It’s been forever since I had time to do this now that I’m sharing a bathroom with a teenage boy.
The phone rings and I turn off the tap and yell downstairs for Josiah to pick it up. He ignores it, and I wrap a towel around me and open the door. “Josiah! Will you get that please?”
“Why can’t you get it?” he shouts up the stairs. “It ain’t my damn phone.”
“Watch your mouth and just answer it.”
Just when I’m afraid it’s going to ring off the hook, he answers it with a gruff, “Yeah?”
Silence.
“Well, who is it?” I ask.
“It’s my aunt. You better come real quick.” He doesn’t need to tell me twice. I fasten the towel around my body and dart down the stairs.
“Sheriff?” I ask into the receiver as I take the phone from Josiah.
“Mmhmm, one and the same. Later we’re gonna have ourselves a little chat about my nephew answering your phone and living in the damn bed and breakfast with you and August Cotton, but right now, I need your skinny white ass down here to Jesse’s. That employee of yours is a menace, scaring kids, ranting and raving about how the government is watching.”
“What?”
“The sooner you can get down here, the sooner I can make sure this town is safe from loons like Dalton Brooks.”
“I’m coming, okay? Just don’t touch him. I’ll deal with it. You wait for me before you do anything rash.”
“Girly, does it look like I take orders from you?”
“Please, Shona?” I beg.
“Just get down here quick before he does something he’s gonna regret.”
“I’m on my way.” I hang up the receiver and turn to Josiah, about to tell him to wait here for August, but he shakes his head.
“I’m comin’ with you.”
“Josiah, no.”
“I’m comin’ with you. Either you let me in the passenger seat of your car, or I take your bike, but I’m coming either way.”
I nod as I start up the stairs. “Fine. Grab my keys, I’ll be down in a minute.”
I pull into the disabled park in front of Jessie’s Restaurant. There’s a crowd of people gathered around, staring, probably drawn by the flashing lights of the sheriff’s cruiser parked beside us.
I climb out of the car and push through the throng of people who’re packed in like sardines watching a grown man fall apart.
He’s backed up against the wall of the restaurant, crouched down on his haunches with his arms wrapped around his knees. He rocks gently back and forth.
“Dalton, look at me.”
“S-s-stay back. D-d-d-don’t touch me,” he shouts. “Where’s my rifle? Who t-t-took my rifle?”
“You don’t need your rifle. You’re not in a war zone anymore, okay?” I say, crouching down in front of him. “You’re here in Magnolia Springs, with me. No one’s going to touch you, Dalton. You’re safe.”
“No. We’re n-n-not s-s-safe. No one’s s-s-safe.” He looks at me for the first time, and the fervor in his eyes is both frightening and heartbreaking all at once. “S-s-see? They want you to think that, b-b-but we ain’t safe. None of y’all are s-s-safe.”
“Where’s Xena, Dalton? Why isn’t she here?”
“She d-d-d-don’t like me much. I can f-f-feel it.”
“No, she loves you. I’ve seen the way she is with you.”
“You should t-t-take her b-b-back. Give her to s-s-someone who needs her, someone who can l-l-love her.”
“Dalton, why don’t you come with me and tell me all about it, huh? We can take a drive, go back to the cabin? Or out to the lake?”
“No! I don’t wanna go t-t-to t-t-the lake. It’s too open. T-t-there are drones everywhere, watching, always w-w-watching.”
“Okay, the cabin then. Why don’t we go to the cabin, and we’ll get your pills? We’ll chat.”
He nods, but he glances at the audience around us and cowers back against the railing. “What are y’all s-s-starin’ for?”
I take a step back and turn to the sheriff and ask, “Can we clear the area?” She glares at me. “Please? He doesn’t do well in crowds.”
“Looks to me like he doesn’t do well out of the psych ward,” Shona says, and gives me an unimpressed look as she turns to the gathering around us and claps loudly. Dalton covers his ears. “Alright, people. Move it along. Nothing to see here. Let’s clear a path for Miss Anders, shall we? Go on, now. I know y’all got better things to do than watching some old drunk throw a tantrum.”
It’s my turn to glare. Dalton isn’t a drunk; he’s a Marine who went to war and came back with traumatic brain injury. But I guess to uneducated outsiders, a PTSD meltdown looks very much like a drunk-and-disorderly nightmare.
Once the area is cleared of onlookers, it’s another ten minutes before I have Dalton calm enough to leave the wall and get him tucked safely in the car. I have the windows down, but he reaches over to the driver’s side and rolls them up, shutting himself inside as if it were a tomb.
Josiah moves to the back door of the vehicle and opens it, about to climb in when his aunt’s voice booms across the burning concrete lot toward us. “Where do you think you’re going, boy?”
“Home,” Josiah says. “With Olivia.”
She chuckles, “Home? That ain’t your home. Just ’cause you’re playing house with a bunch of white folks don’t mean that’s your home. She ain’t your mamma. In fact, it’s downright creepy, a single woman taking in a young black man.”
“Go get in the car, Josiah,” I say. He glances between his aunt and me.
“You stay here, boy. You ain’t going anywhere with her.”
“Tell me, Sheriff, what is it about me that you hate so much? Is it the fact that I took your nephew in when you wouldn’t, to save him from his father? Or is it the fact that I’m white that annoys you more? Would it make a difference if my skin was black?”
“Don’t you sass me, missy.”
“That kid has no one. No one stepped up to take care of him, not even his own aunt, so he’s coming home with me, whether you like it or not.” I turn and walk away, but she calls out behind my back.
“It ain’t right you taking an interest in a young boy like that.”
I whirl around, glance at the stragglers and patrons that remain, and stalk toward her. “Don’t you dare turn this into something it’s not. The only interest I have in this boy is protecting him from his own family, and making sure that he gets the hell out of this town, and as far away from you and your brother as possible, before either one of you can pollute him any more than you already have.”
I turn around. Josiah is leaning against the car door with a shocked and maybe even slightly awed expression on his face. I stalk around the hood and make a shooing gesture “Get in the car.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says, and ducks his head as if to hide his grin from me. Once I make sure Dalton is okay, I start the engine and throw a glance at the boy in my review mirror. He’s all-out grinning now, and I shake my head and release a shaky breath.
“Don’t start with me,” I snap, but even I wind up smiling a little, though I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t terrified of seeing those flashing lights in the rearview coming to cart me off to jail. I’ve just started a very public war with the sheriff, and I’m certain it isn’t going to end well for me.
I let out a deep breath and glance at the kid in my backseat. He’s so carefree these days, so changed and polite, and I know that some things are worth fighting for. Some people are worth the risk. Some are even worth risking everything for.