Two months. That’s how much time had elapsed since I last got behind the wheel intending to drive straight through several states to get to Hawk Valley.
Back then I’d only known that tragedy had found me for the second time in my life. I didn’t know that once I reached Hawk Valley it would be impossible to leave.
The ten foot van I rented was larger than what I ended up needing. There wasn’t too much I wanted to take with me. Most of the furniture was unnecessary since I didn’t feel like finding a place for it in my dad’s house.
Dad’s house.
When I was a kid, being told I was going to ‘Dad’s house’ would often be met with a groan and a complaint. I preferred my mother’s small Phoenix condo to the sprawling old Victorian house with a view of the mountains. My father was never abusive. Just perpetually exasperated. And openly relieved when it came time to return me to my mother. It must have been a shock for him to go from part time dad to round the clock caretaker of a troubled teen.
Sometimes even now just before I dozed off I would jerk awake and bolt upright, positive that someone was shaking my shoulder in the darkness. There was never anyone there because it was only a memory. On that night, the night my world shattered, my father had awakened me shortly after two a.m. and the most shocking thing was that he was crying.
“Nash. Wake up, son. Something’s happened.”
The moments after that have been blocked out of my mind. I remembered seeing broken things around the house and hearing that I was responsible because after I heard my mother had been killed by her husband I began screaming and running around the house shattering everything I could get my hands on until my dad managed to physically restrain me. By that time I had to go to the hospital to sew up the hand I’d sliced open on a smashed window pane.
Chris Ryan didn’t know what to do with me. Our time together had always amounted to less than two months a year. Now suddenly he was a full time father to an incredibly angry kid. In the beginning he tried. He dragged me to a therapist. He encouraged me to make friends, to go out for sports. I found that I liked sports, that slamming into big guys on a football field or running around on a basketball court helped channel my aggression into something that didn’t involve blood. But friends were an enigma to me. Plenty of people wanted my company and it seemed like the more uncooperative I was the more they sought me out. Especially girls. I couldn’t be proud of the way I’d treated girls back then. I was a jackass.
But that didn’t mean I was willing to accept criticism from a man who’d kicked my own mother to the curb and then entertained a revolving door of girlfriends ever since I could walk. Chris Ryan could howl over my bad behavior all he wanted. I didn’t give a shit.
When I was sixteen he came barreling into my room after taking a furious phone call from a city councilman. The man’s teenage daughter had been sobbing in her room for three days because I’d told her I was both bored with her and screwing her best friend.
“Damn it, kid,” my father roared, throwing the door open so hard it left a dent in the wall. “Who the fuck ever told you it was okay to treat females like disposable objects?”
“Like father, like son,” I replied coldly.
His eyes narrowed. “You can’t go through life acting like a selfish piece of shit.”
“Why not? It’s always worked for you.”
We glared at each other. My fist clenched. If he came at me I was prepared to hit him. I didn’t want to. But I would. However, my father wasn’t a violent man. He was arrogant, thick-headed, rude and stubborn but not violent. Another fundamental difference between us.
“Figure out your own fucking dinner,” he said wearily and retreated from my doorway. “I’m going out.”
By my senior year I had plans. They didn’t involve remaining in Hawk Valley and struggling to sell shitty souvenirs. I had good grades and I was a decent athlete. A small college in Oregon had given me a scholarship. As my high school career drew to a close I was biding my time, aware that my father was both disappointed and relieved that I’d be leaving Hawk Valley behind. I just needed to keep from getting expelled for fighting in the meantime.
Meanwhile, the front office of the high school gained a pretty new employee when Heather Molloy started sitting at the reception desk. The guys all talked shit about what they’d do to that blonde pussy if they got close but Heather wasn’t really on my radar. I was juggling enough options as it was and she was older, in her mid twenties. But it was nice how she would always smile when she saw me coming.
“Oh no, what did you do this time, Nash?”
“Nothing I’m sorry for.”
She laughed. “What are we going to do with you?”
Then came a morning in early spring when I witnessed the neurotic tie-wearing class president shove his girlfriend into a locker so hard she cried out. I couldn’t take it. I clocked the guy, broke his nose. It was supposed to be my last straw. But Heather Molloy happened to be walking by and spoke up about the circumstances prompting my outburst. And so I was given a reprieve for stepping in to defend a fellow classmate. Thanking anyone for anything was never easy for me but I thanked Heather. In halting, awkward words I told her how much I appreciated her intervention. Heather smiled at me and touched my hand.
And that’s how it started.
We’d meet at the Hawk Valley State Park, five miles outside town. It wasn’t real popular with the locals. If people wanted to go hiking, fishing or sightseeing they’d drive up into the mountains, not picnic on a shallow hill beside a stagnant stream. Technically we weren’t breaking any laws but the situation wouldn’t mean good things for Heather if we were seen together. In the beginning we just talked. Most of the girls I knew saw me as some kind of wounded walking tragedy, something they aspired to fix. But Heather never pushed me to answer questions. That’s probably why I chose to open up to her.
For the first time since my mother’s murder I felt like I could breathe, like I could relax. And when I stepped over the line and kissed Heather she didn’t discourage me. She kissed me right back. But no matter how many times we’d remain out there in each other’s arms until long after dusk she never let things go much further.
“Nash, this shouldn’t be happening.”
I wasn’t used to being turned down and I was growing frustrated. I ran a finger up her arm and felt triumph over the way she shivered at my touch.
“It’s not illegal, baby. I’m eighteen and school ends in a month.”
She was breathing hard, her resistance crumbling as my fingers snuck under her shirt, exploring her smooth skin. “That doesn’t make it right.”
I eased her back on the blanket and covered her with my body. “I want you Heather. You want me too.”
She closed her eyes. “Maybe.”
We didn’t have sex. We hovered around second base and never advanced.
Then one day I walked into the store to work a shift behind the register. I hated the store but I needed a part time paycheck and my dad insisted that I couldn’t get it anywhere else.
He was there. So was she. I saw them through the glass, standing close together and talking earnestly and it was weird. My dad was a good thirteen years older than Heather. Hawk Valley was a small town but I’d never even realized they knew each other. Heather threw her head back in laughter and I wondered what the fuck they were talking about that was so funny. The only thing they could possibly have in common was me and I hadn’t said a word to him about her.
“Nash!” Heather stopped smiling and seemed startled to see me. “I just stopped by to say hello. I haven’t been in here in so long.”
I looked around the store. “Not much to see.”
“Right.” She tossed her blonde hair over one shoulder and looked down. “I should get going. Bye Nash. It was nice catching up with you, Chris.”
“Good to see you, Heather,” my father answered and I saw the way his eyes lingered on her ass as she walked out the door. It made me want to puke.
“What was that about?” I demanded.
He was whistling. “What?”
“If you need a new conquest don’t look for one in Heather.”
My dad was amused. The bastard even grinned at me. “Sounds like someone has a crush.”
“You’re such an asshole.”
“Forget it, son. She’s out of your league.”
“And you’re about a decade too old to be in hers.”
Sometimes he liked getting under my skin. This was one of those times. Maybe he thought of it as payback for all the times I’d gotten under his.
Chris Ryan smirked at me as if I was nothing more consequential than a first grader chasing the girl he liked with a bunch of dandelions in my hand. “You can’t compete with me, little boy. Don’t even try.”
“Go to hell.”
I stalked out with the sound of his laughter trailing behind me.
Heather started coming up with excuses about why she couldn’t meet. Graduation loomed so I had other things on my mind anyway. Besides, what was I supposed to do, pack her in my suitcase this fall and bring her Oregon with me? But still, I passed the front office more than I needed to just for the chance to receive a smile from her and felt my heart flex every time it happened.
My dad and I weren’t talking much but that had been the case for so long I wasn’t bothered. We were just trying to get through the next few months and put this experiment behind us. Someday things might be different between us. We just couldn’t live under the same roof together.
On Senior Ditch Day I made plans to go up to the mountains overnight with a bunch of my classmates. My dad even gave me his blessing and the keys to the family cabin up there. He just told me to keep the place in one piece if possible.
There were plenty of hot girls running around and I tried to get interested in them. But even when Amelia Horton started to suck me off as I leaned against a pine tree and smoked a cigarette I couldn’t keep my mind straight. I didn’t want to fuck some random girl. I still wanted Heather. There wasn’t love and marriage on my mind but I felt a connection with her that I hadn’t found with the girls my own age. That had to mean something.
I left the senior class to do whatever they wanted and drove back down to Hawk Valley after midnight. But Heather didn’t answer when I called and there were no lights on in her apartment. The idea of returning to the party was depressing. I figured I’d be better off just going home to crash in my own bed and jerk off to my fantasies.
I opened and closed the front door with care, not really caring to have any kind of interaction with my father. He might be out drinking away pieces of his liver or he might be snoring upstairs. Either way I just wanted to be left alone.
I didn’t hear any noise until I was almost at the top of the stairs.
There was moaning, the sound of a woman in pain. Or the opposite of pain…
They’d left the light on and hadn’t bothered to shut the door. She was flat on her back on the bed, shirt and bra pushed all the way up so her perky tits were bare, along with the rest of her. Her legs were spread wide and her body arched, rising and falling to the rhythm of my father’s tongue in her pussy.
“Oh god, Chris. Oh god!”
His shirt was off and he was kneeling, his face buried between her legs while Heather moaned his name and clutched the bed sheets as he got her to come.
I was frozen, staring at the woman I had wanted, the woman I had trusted, getting her pussy licked by the last man on earth I could stand to see her with.
They didn’t hear me. They didn’t see me. They didn’t know anything was wrong until I picked up an antique crystal decanter that had belonged to my grandparents and threw it against the far wall, shattering it into a thousand unfixable pieces.
“Nash!”
Heather wasn’t moaning with pleasure anymore. She was gasping with horror, struggling to cover her body as if it made any fucking difference. I couldn’t look at her. I didn’t want to hurt her. I just wanted to never ever see her fucking face again.
“Get out.”
She cried. “Nash I’m sorry.”
“GET THE FUCK OUT!”
My father stood. He was pale, wide-eyed. He swallowed, touched the weeping Heather on the arm and nodded.
“Please go, Heather.”
We faced off, father and son, listening to the sound of Heather bounding down the stairs and fleeing through the front door.
My dad swallowed, his face a mask of remorse. “Son, I’m so sorry. We didn’t plan this.”
I choked out hoarse laughter. “The battle cry of lying fuckers everywhere.”
“No, I swear it.”
“You knew,” I accused.
He lowered his head. And he didn’t deny it.
“She told you,” I whispered. “Or you guessed. But the bottom line is, you knew about me and her and you went after her anyway.”
He regretted everything. I could tell from the look in his eyes. I just didn’t care.
“I didn’t mean to do this,” he said.
“I get it. Your mouth just kind of fell on her pussy.”
“I’m sorry! Fuck, I had too much to drink tonight.”
“Bullshit. What was this, some kind of sick contest to prove that you’re the number one alpha male around here?”
He looked stricken. “Nash, tell me what I can do. I’m so ashamed. I’ll do anything to make this up to you.”
“Never see her again.”
He nodded eagerly. “Yes. Done. I’ll never see her again.”
I turned to leave the room but I had one more thing to say to him.
“By the way, Dad, I fucking hate you.”
While my mind had been preoccupied with the past, I’d crossed a state line and darkness had lifted. I had to add sunglasses to my face to fend off the highway glare.
My stomach was growling so I stopped at a roadside diner to grab some breakfast and a coffee. The coffee made me think of Kat and her affection for anything caffeinated.
My legs wanted to stretch for another minute before getting closed into the driver’s seat so I hung out beside the truck. I pulled out my phone and looked again at the photo Kat had sent me last night. She’d turn the lens on herself and captured the serene image of Colin asleep on one shoulder while Emma rested on the other. Kat had a small smile on her face, that wild hair of hers unbound and spilling out beyond the frame. Her beauty was more than sensual. I couldn’t think of a single other woman who could hold a candle to Kathleen Doyle.
With reluctance I pocketed the phone, wishing it wasn’t too early to call or text. I’d call her the next time I stopped, though I would have liked to hear her voice right now to chase away the brooding gloom that had been consuming my thoughts during the drive. It wasn’t just old hurt feelings that were bothering me.
“By the way, Dad, I fucking hate you.”
I was certain I’d said many other things to him after that devastating sentence. I remembered other conversations, other words that were spoken. But for some reason, ever since his funeral the last ones I’d said to him that long ago night were the ones that had remained the loudest in my head.