CHAPTER 3
Sawyer
The good news about getting rid of my grandmother’s ballroom dress is that it’s made it much easier to part with everything else at my mother’s. At the rate I’m going, I should be out of this town forever by the weekend. Glancing up at the mirror in my mother’s bedroom, I swipe my arm over my forehead, wiping away the sweat. Of course, there’s one mystery that needs to be solved before I leave because when I do, I won’t ever be coming back here.
I bite my bottom lip, pondering the meaning of the ripped playing card that hangs on the mirror. A phone number is written on it with a man’s name and no other information. This is one of those things that my mother died knowing and never passed the knowledge on to me, probably because it was none of my business but now it is. Who is Dean? What is his connection to my mother? Why did she save this card? It has to mean something, he has to be someone important and I’m going to figure out who he is.
Yawning, I look over at the clock and note that it’s almost three in the morning. If someone took a look at this room, aside from the stacks of boxes, they wouldn’t even be able to tell I’d packed anything. I sigh and crawl into my mom’s bed, taking a deep inhale and falling asleep to the familiar rose scent that will always remind me of my mother. My mind drifts off, trying to find my R.E.M. cycle but I can’t let go of the idea of this man Dean. Relying on an old trick my mother taught me, I try to clear my mind and sing the words to Papa Don’t Preach, an unconventional lullaby but it’s the one song my mother sang to me every night I ever slept under this roof.
As I sing the chorus, I open my eyes and bolt upright. Dean, I know who he is! It has to be my father. Jumping out of bed, I trip over the sheet, falling face first on the wood floor and bumping my forehead. Ugh, that’s going to leave a mark. Touching my face, I don’t feel blood so I stand up and run downstairs. I know I’ve seen my mother’s yearbooks before, now if only I can remember where. It only takes half an hour for me to find the yearbooks which turns out were right in front of my face the whole time. Who knew people, my mother specifically, set them out as coffee table books instead of actual coffee table books with scenic images to look at?
Flipping through the pages, scanning for any Dean, I shake my head and laugh at my mother. Who would want to come over and casually peruse yearbooks? I yawn, not finding any Deans in the book. Maybe it was just my mother that wanted to reminisce. She never spoke of my father so I don’t know if was a forlorn relationship or something worse. I shiver at the thought, having entertained the idea that I could be the product of something horrible, but knowing I’d never find out until now. This playing card is the key to finding my father and finally understanding why he and my mother could never be together.
Back in my mother’s bedroom now, my eyelids start to get heavy but I keep looking, desperate to begin my search somewhere. My mind starts to daydream of how my parents may have met. Was it at one of the ballroom classes that my grandmother forced my mother to attend? Did they pass each other in the hallway at school, my mother batting her eyelashes to catch his attention? Did she run over his motorcycle in the Beast?
Unable to keep my eyes open any longer, I let myself fall into a deep slumber, thinking of more ways my mother could have met my father. I don’t know whether I love him or hate him. I don’t know if he even knows about me. I do know that my mother was young and unwed which at the time was still unacceptable so I wouldn’t put it past her to not have told him, to prove that she could raise a child on her own, which she did and she did well. Still, there’s a part of me that wants to know who he is, why he wasn’t around. I just want to finish that part of my story and be done with it. I’m twenty-four, I don’t need a father now, but I want to put the mystery to rest.
Not quite awake and not fully asleep either, I startle when my phone plays the salsa ringtone loudly. My heart beats rapidly as I reach blindly for the phone, trying to silence it but instead I accidentally answer the phone call.
“Hello?” the caller says in a deep, rich voice.
“Hi,” I squeak out, my voice thick with sleep and sounding scratchy.
“Is this Sawyer?”
I roll my eyes, already irritated at whoever is calling. “Yeah, who’s this?”
“Garrison Cocuzzo.”
My stomach flips as I remember him from yesterday, his thick hands and that motorcycle.
“You ran over my bike.”
I kick off the blankets and get out of bed, making my way downstairs. “I know who you are. Look, I don’t have the money yet, it hasn’t even been twenty-four hours!”
“Yeah, whatever. Look, I need a ride to Kirksville today so I can get some parts to fix my bike.”
Standing in front of the fridge with the door open, I frown at the lack of options to eat or drink. “Okay… thanks for letting me know…” I respond, not quite sure why he’s checking in with me.
On the other end of the line, Garrison lets out a sexy sigh and I can picture his nostrils flaring like they did yesterday. I bite my bottom lip to keep from smiling even though he can’t see me.
“I need a ride. Remember… you ran over my bike? Write down my address and pick me up in an hour.”
“Whoa!” He has my full attention now. “What makes you think I can drop everything and be at your beck and call? I have important things to do, you know.”
“Don’t we all, sweetheart, but I wouldn’t need a ride if you hadn’t creamed my bike so I’ll see you in an hour.”
He gives me the address and ends the phone call, not waiting for me to respond. I sigh, thoroughly irritated at the entire situation of being back in my hometown, all alone without my mother, and now the chauffeur to the hot, sexy man whose bike I demolished. Life is grand.
Garrison
“That woman,” I mutter, hanging up Cuzzo’s old rotary phone. I swear it’s the only one left in existence except maybe in a museum somewhere. Thank God I got it to work or I’d be stuck here all day, at least now I have a ride to fix my bike.
“What woman?”
I turn around, surprised Cuzzo could hear me but then again, the man has better hearing than a hawk. Spinning around in the barstool at his breakfast bar, I get up and walk toward the fridge.
“Some chick named Sawyer.” I chuckle at her name. “Who names their daughter Sawyer? That’s a guy’s name.”
“Sawyer Kingham… and don’t call a woman a chick,” Cuzzo says with a smile. “Sweet girl, or least she was when she lived here. I haven’t seen her in years, heard she only came home for the holidays but I never saw her around town.”
I pour my grandfather and I each a cup of coffee. “What’s her story?”
“The Kingham family has been around Memphis for longer than me but now the girl is the only one left since her mother passed.”
I wait for Cuzzo to continue but he has to make the sign of the cross before telling me more. I roll my eyes because he’s not even Catholic, there isn’t a Catholic church within a thirty mile radius of this small town. I, on the other hand, grew up Catholic thanks to my mother who saw the importance of making appearances, never mind what the priest actually had to say.
“Christmas Day, her mother went to Kirksville, volunteering and serving dinner to the homeless, but she didn’t make it home alive. She was hit head on by a semi-truck, the driver had dozed off. When the medics got to the scene, her radio was blaring salsa music, giving an upbeat tone to a deadly situation. Of course, the truck driver made it but Sawyer’s mother passed instantly.”
“Damn, that sucks.” I stroke my beard, picturing the scene Cuzzo describes.
Cuzzo chuckles and shakes his head. “A man that’s seen war and the best you come up with is ‘that sucks.’ We really need to work on your vocabulary, Garrison.”
I mutter a few choices words in Arabic and smile. “How’s that for an expanded vocabulary?”
Cuzzo shakes his head, cursing back at me in another dialect. “You be nice to that young lady. She’s going through alot right now, Garrison, so don’t be an asshole.”
Laughing at my grandfather’s words, I nod. “You got it. Know where she lives?”
Cuzzo gives me the address and I know exactly which house he’s talking about. Tying my boots, I head out the door and make my way across town thinking about everything I know about Sawyer Kingham. She’s heartbroken over the loss of her mother but trying to be a badass on the outside. I think we’ll get along great.