Chapter Forty – One
Krystina
“December 23rd, just two more days of this craziness,” Gloria said pouring our morning caffeine fix. Damion was at the office and the kids weren’t up just yet. This morning it was just us.
“Crazy like this is good. Feels homely. New York wasn’t this way,” I added peppermint creamer to my coffee. It used to be my favorite when I was out East. But the last month and a half having only a splash of milk to my strong black coffee appeared to have changed my taste buds.
“You want me to go to Teffy’s with you?”
I shook my head. “As generous as an offer that is, I’ll save you the train wreck.”
“How long has it been since you saw her?”
“How old’s Trenton?”
“And how long has it been since you talked?”
“I was in divorce settlement mode. The only talk since my separation. I cut her monthly allowance down to a third.”
“That still pays her rent and car payment.”
“She has a car worthy of a loan?” I was surprised.
Gloria shrugged. “The Nissan was when she bought it.”
“I better get over there then,” I drained my mug.
My best friend looked to her kitchen clock. “It’s just after eight. She won’t even be up yet.”
I pulled my coat on. “Better to deal with a hung over Teffy than a drunk Teffy.”
Gloria tossed me her car keys. “Call if you need me.”
Despite wanting to catch my mother early it took an hour and a half for me to cross town and make it to the park. But there were only so many side streets I could drive. After that, it took another fifteen minutes of staring at my childhood home before I got out of Gloria’s SUV.
The old trailer park had aged as I expected it to. The old blue tin was four shades lighter and three times the rust on it that had been when I last saw it before I moved to Boston. The small front deck was rickety as hell. If I tried I could rip it apart bare handed, no tools necessary. The patio furniture sitting atop of it was new addition but just as worn.
Despite the physical state, love could have made this place a home. But Teffy was Doris Day hell she didn’t even possess a Mallory Archer warmth. It just wasn’t her and I stopped hating her for it years ago.
I banged on the door. The blue Nissan Gloria said she bought was in the drive but that didn’t mean she was in the trailer. After another knock I heard her yelling from inside.
“Keep your damn pants on! I’m coming. So damned early!”
“It’s ten in the morning Mom, not really early,” I said as I opened the door.
“Krystina, what are you doing here?”
“I’m in town with Gloria for Christmas. Thought I would come for a visit.”
“Where’s that doctor husband of yours? To good to come see his mother-in-law?” she looked around and behind me.
“I divorced him months ago. I told you.”
Teffy stepped aside and let me in. “That’s right. That’s why the moneys stopped coming.”
“Money still comes. Just not so much right now. I still sent three hundred. That’s a lot a month. They’re will be more when I get set up. Going to go into practice soon as I get my license.”
“Thought you had that.” I wanted to scream. There was no talking to the woman. Teffy dumped out her purse, looking for her cigarettes. She found them and lit one up.
The inside of the house hadn’t changed. Bigger TV all covered in dust. Large leather couch that didn’t fit the living room or the mess. Least my money hadn’t all gone to men, booze and drugs. The cabinet in the kitchen was still missing the door. Over ten years and she still couldn’t get it fixed.
***
“It’s your graduation party. You shouldn’t have to drive me home. It should be the other way around,” I laughed. A bunch of the popular kids had a graduation party. Specifically honoring the state champions and senior football boys.
“I needed to be with you. Just for a little bit at least. Not being in school is going to make it harder to see you.”
“Yes, but it means just a few more months.”
“Twelve more months.”
“It’s a lot less than what we started with.”
“A year and a half of sneaking around. It’s exhausting.”
“But it’s all the more fun,” a year and a half I had been selling him on our secrete and he still hated it.
“Let’s go to the river.”
“It’s past my curfew as it is and yours is quickly approaching,” I reminded him gently.
“Teffy won’t notice if you are late – or even if you don’t come home at all tonight. My parents I’ll deal with. Besides, now that I’m out of school we need to re-evaluate the whole curfew thing.”
“I need to get to bed. I have my summer job starting tomorrow. I need to be more mature than my mother,” I nodded to the house.
That’s when the shouts started coming from inside. Mom and Daryl. I felt sick. It had been months since the ‘incident’ but he was still here. Still here and I hadn’t told my mom because I wasn’t sure it mattered.
“You can’t go in there,” Gentry said grabbing my forearm.
“It’s just another day in my life,” I said offereing him a weak smile.
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“Teffy’s still my mom, Gentry.”
That’s when the crashing started and my mom’s cursing turned to blood curling screams.
“Fuck!” I jumped from the car and hurdled myself towards the door.
“Krys!” Gentry yelled after me but I was going inside. Teffy was a lot of things but she was still my mother.
I threw open the rickety screen door, Gentry on my heels. Daryl was atop my mother in the kitchen. Punching, slapping and still trying to choke her.
She was bleeding and crying. They were both drunker than skunks.
I grabbed his shoulders and tried pulling him from my mother. He threw me off easily sending me crashing into the refrigerator door.
“You fuckin’ tease! I’m sure you’re a slut for the likes of Hollis but not me?!”
By the time the words left his mouth Gentry had yanked him from my mother. Daryl was a big man. A drunken man mainly made of slobby fat and a touch of bruteness. But he was no match for my Gentry. Even at only eighteen he was pure muscle and easily overcame Daryl.
Gentry’s fist flew faster than I could acknowledge in my fear. Tears poured from my eyes although crying was the last thing I wanted to do at this point. Teffy was curled into a ball on the other side of our small kitchen nearer to her room.
Gentry was still beating Daryl. I saw the drunkards head bounce off the floor and somehow hit the cabinet door shattering the cheap wood to splinters. If someone didn’t stop Gentry, Daryl was going to die.
I found my voice and feet at the same time. Screaming Gentry’s name over and over again. Begging him to stop. Not for Daryl’s sake but for his. For mine. For our future’s sake. I pulled Gentry from Daryl as the sirens screamed in. the neighbors had heard enough and died 911.
***
Teffy had spent the night in the emergency room. Gentry had glue and stiches in his fists and hands. Daryl spent four days in the city recovering in a bigger hospital than our band aide station.
Seven hours with the police and district attorney, explaining that night and the night that Daryl tried to attack me, before I managed to convince them not to press charges on Gentry.
Eventually, the scandal and threats by Daryl’s bar buddies would lead to Ed dragging Gentry to the ranch. Blow back for what he had done for a “good family friend.”
“Don’t give me that look,” Teffy said when she caught the scowl on my face. “Ain’t never had the money to fix it.”
Bullshit. I had sent her more than enough over the years. Teffy just had higher priorities and most importantly, she didn’t care. It’s not like Daryl had been the first boyfriend to get violent, or probably the last.
“You know, should make you pay for it. It was all you and that Hollis boys fault. Put Daryl in the hospital. He left me after that.”
There was a time in my life Teffy would have made me see red and cry my eyes out at that comment. How little my own mother cared about my wellbeing. About her own safety. Things had changed though. I cared a lot less about her than I had ten years ago. The fact that I still sent money tried to prove otherwise.
The syringes in the sink said I was just an enabler to her drugs. But if she used my money to kill herself, then so be it.
“I’ll send somebody after the holidays for some repair work.”
‘You could just cut me a check,” she puffed on her cigarette.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “I’ll send someone.”
Teffy excused herself to her rooms to change. I took the time to wander down to my old bedroom. Not much had changed. Walls were bare. Bed still in the corner with mismatching blankets. Everything I had wanted I took when I left or was stored in the Hollis basement until I went to New York.
I didn’t know what memories I expected to wash over me. Very few were worth remembering. That’s just not life with Teffy.
I left my mom’s after another hour of very forced mother and daughter conversation. Gloria needed a few more supplies so I ran to Walmart on Christmas Eve for them. It had been so long I thought there would be very few people I would recognize and even fewer who would remember me.
Turning my cart down the baking isle I crashed into another cart. Both myself and the other shopper started to apologize then we both stopped mid-sentence. I was face to face with Janice Delore.
“Krystina.”
“Janice,” I bumbled out. My relationship with my in-laws had always been awkward and a bit uneasy however, my relationship with my mother-in-law had been the best.
“I heard you left the city but I didn’t expect you to move back home.”
“I’m not home. Just a holiday visit. Christmas with Gloria and the Hollis’.”
“James said you went back to Gentry.”
Ah, so she did know about her sons little unexpected visit. “I was visiting the ranch. Working as a horse handler for awhile until I figured out where to go next.”
“Did you decide?”
I laughed. “Not really. Aside from taking the bar I have nothing figured out. So, Christmas at your moms? Did the whole family come?”
“Just me. The boys are on call so it was going to be an empty holiday. I can let James know you say hello if you wish,” Janice was always the optimistic.
“I doubt James cares to hear from me. Our last run ins haven’t been what you would call friendly,” I said starting to creep away.
“I know. What James did, it was extremely wrong, embarrassing as a mother. The doorman at your apartment, he called out of concern once. Out of place of course, should have had him fired for it. I never thought, not my James. Not that he could raise a hand to lady… to his wife. I’m sure whatever it is you’re holding over him now isn’t pleasant and for a mother to know. But I always thought you were the best for him. Even though it was clear to everyone your heart wasn’t there. He always knew I think, knew that you were still in love with Gentry.”
I couldn’t find the words to reply. Instead I hastily grabbed the sugar from next to me, mutter a “Merry Christmas,” and scurried away.
Chapter Forty-Two
Gentry
I drove all night and day. Stopping only late on the 23rd for a few hours at a pet friendly motel. Long enough for a nap and a shower and to like Duke run off a bit of his puppy energy.
It was Christmas Eve and if I kept my time I would make my folks house by late afternoon. None of my family knew I was coming. My mother at least should be happy about my arrival.
Throughout my drive I had thought a lot about what I would say to Krys. She was a lawyer she would expect a strong case as to why she should return to Mirror Lake with me. But I had no fuckin’ clue what I would say.
As my childhood town came into view I thought about turning around. If she turned me down…
I saw Gloria’s SUV outside my parents. I put my truck in park, felt my pockets for all my necessary items and picked up Duke. “Here goes nothing my boy.”
I walked to the front door and knocked once before opening it. The shriek of “Uncle Gent! Uncle Gent!” and the rush of my nephew greeted me.
“Trenton!” I scoped him up in my puppyless arm. “Merry Christmas!”
“We got your presents under the tree. Mom wouldn’t let me open it until Christmas.”
“What a fuddy duddy,” I said sitting him back down. My sad and brother-in-law Damion sat on the couch in front of the TV. Gloria stepped through from the dining room with Mila on her hips.
“Come on Uncle Gent. Aunt Krys is helping bake the cookies!”
The warmth and smell of fresh baked cookies in my mom’s house on Christmas Eve was an all real scent. No candle warmer fakeness here. So many Christmas holidays of the same picture when I was a child. Mom, Gloria and Krystina in the kitchen baking up a storm. I followed Trenton who had now noticed and became infatuated with Duke, into the kitchen.
Krys looked up from where she was decorating sugar cookies. “Look at the puppy Aunt Krys!”
Duke wiggled and yipped at the sight of his mom. “Hi-ya Duke,” she said as she petted him and kissed his head.
“Krys,” I started.
“Not now Gentry,” she said quietly, going back to the reindeer cookie she was making.
“No, now.”
“It’s Christmas Gentry,” Gloria warned in her perfected mother tone.
“Exactly. I have spent days on the road with a non-potty trained puppy to ensure that Krys got everything she left behind.”
“I left a note. I told you I would send for Duke once I was settled.”
“Yeah. What about your paychecks,” I pulled them from my pocket and tossed them on the counter next to her. “And this?” I asked setting her locket on top of them. “Near thirteen years. You had no right to leave it behind.”
“It symbolized something that could no longer be a reality.”
“Then you should have sent it to me when you got married! But you held on to it. On to us!” Krys was fighting back the tears. I could see them cloud her eyes. “And you left me behind.”
“Gentry,” I could hear the protest in her voice.
“No. I spent to many Christmases in this house. Needing you but having to follow your stupid rules. Not this year. I was wrong. I said things I didn’t mean because I was upset but that’s no excuse Krystina. I know you love me and that’s all that matters.”
“No, it’s not,” she shook her head defiantly.
“I forgive you Krys! I was wrong there was nothing to forgive! When you didn’t join me after graduation I was devastated. So broken, everyone knew that but I couldn’t admit it. But I am now. I believe in love and I believe in us. I waited too damn long to lose it all now.”
I pulled the ring from my pocket and got down on one knee. Krys’ tears were falling freely now.
“My Grandpa Sutton gave this to my Grandma almost sixty years ago. Twice before I have come to give it to you. When you graduated and when you were in Boston. Third times a charm. Please Krystina Delouch, please, marry me.”
I could barely breath. I shook visibly. I was in my mothers kitchen proposing to a woman who left me four days before. My family all gathered around, staring at me making a fool of myself.
Krys still clutched her hand over her mouth. I closed my eyes praying she’d say yes. I felt her kneel before me and place her hand on my cheek. I slowly pried my eyes back open.
“Think it will fit?” she asked with a small smile. The pressure lifted from my chest and I started to breathe again.
“Is that a yes?”
Her smile took over her face as she nodded. “Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you.”
I took her hand and slid the ring on her finger. “Perfect fit?”
“Perfect fit.”