Hawk
I blink the sleep from my eyes. I didn’t expect to get that text. Since I haven’t heard from Tessa at all, I didn’t think she’d tell me. That’s why I reached out to Martha and made sure she kept me in the loop on everything regarding my mom. I knew five days ago that Rose woke up, but I made a promise to myself that I wasn’t going to head back to Los Angeles until Tessa reached out. Only then did I know she was ready to have me back in her life.
My bag is already in the truck. It has been since Martha called me about my mom’s improvements. I wanted to be ready. I didn’t want shit to hold me back when it was time to get out of town.
“You headed back to L.A.?” Dyke asks as he walks up, holding an envelope.
“Yeah.”
He pushes the envelope into my chest. “Thought you’d want to see these.” He steps back, grabbing onto the edges of his cut that cover his chest and waits for me with no expression on his face. He’s still a beast of a guy. Sixty ain’t got nothing on him.
I open the envelope and pull out the papers and what looks like a stack of pictures. I thumb through the pictures first since they’re on top. The first photo is of a woman, who seems to be a younger version of Rose, is standing next to a man, and two little girls. The woman appears troubled, her eyes are vacant. One of the little girls is taller than the other with long, blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. Just like mine. The other girl is shorter with brown, chin-length hair. She’s pulling on the taller girls arm, and by the look on the taller one’s face, she isn’t too happy.
“They were eight and seven there. Now they’re twenty and twenty-one.”
I look up from the pictures. “Who are they?”
“Your sisters.”
I take a step back as the adrenaline starts to pump through my veins. “Wait. What do you mean they’re my sisters?”
“Come on, Hawk. You’re a smart kid. The taller one, her name is Loa. The younger one, her name’s Rhea. They’re both from the same man, a one James Calhoon. She met him not long after she left New Mexico. They dated briefly, and when she ended up pregnant, they married. Shortly after Loa was born, she became pregnant with Rhea.”
“Wait. She never divorced my father. How can she be married to another man?”
“That’s a great question. My take is that she never told this guy that she was already married in another state. I’m sure wherever they got the marriage license didn’t check that fact. Or the fact that she was using her maiden name of Lemont. Either way, this guy thinks he’s been married to her for the past twenty years.”
“Is he still in the picture? I sat with her for two days, and no one came to visit.”
“He left her about five years ago. She’s spent the past decade more drunk than sober. I guess her love for the drink wasn’t working for his career, so he took the girls and left.”
“Fuck,” I groan as I look down at the picture, flipping through the rest.
“Rhea seems to be following in her mother’s footsteps. She’s been picked up countless times for public intoxication–barely graduated high school. Now she’s working at some fast food joint and spends more time on her friends’ couches than she does in her own bed, but her father doesn’t know that. He’s kinda washed his hands of her.”
“So Loa goes to school?”
“Yeah. She’s enrolled in Cal State LA, on a full ride scholarship, studying biological sciences.”
I shuffle through a few more pictures of the girls through the years as I listen to Dyke tell me more about their childhood. He doesn’t have much to say about Rose. I’m not sure if that’s because he doesn’t have the information, which I doubt, or he knows that I’m in no hurry to hear it.
Stuffing the pictures back into the envelope, I start to go through the paperwork. There isn’t anything exciting, and nothing tells me what kind of life my mother had. Once I get to a thin stack of papers clipped together is when I see that I’m finally going to get some answers. I look up to Dyke, and he nods, confirming what I haven’t asked.
“Those are transcripts of therapy sessions your mother has had over the past twenty years. Mind you, there aren’t many, but I feel that what’s in there will help you understand why your mother did what she did. Brother or not, Hawk, what your father did wouldn’t have been tolerated by Devin if he had known—no ifs, ands, or buts about it. He’s lucky he’s dead.” He turns and walks away without another word.
I swallow the lump in my throat as I take in words.
Forced Penetration
Prostitution
Rape
‘Patient states ex-husband forced her to perform sexual acts with other men. The patient states that the ex-husband used threatening techniques. He used their minor child, Hawking Gentry, as leverage against the patient. Patient states this went on for several months before she decided to leave the situation. Patient declares that the welfare of herself and her son was at risk if she tried to part with the minor child.
Rose didn’t abandon me, no. She left to protect me.