Lost in You: Petal, Georgia, Book 2 (18 page)

“Probably some sort of mental-health hold. Better there than jail. I wish I could go over there. Just to be with him. But I don’t know his mom very well, and I don’t want to be more hindrance than help. I need to know what to do.”

“I’ll get you a pad and a pen and the laptop. You can call Trey after you check in with Lily. Nathan will be going crazy with worry.”

She hugged her sister tight. “Thank you.”

“For what?” Tate had no idea how much she meant to them. It was part of how wondrous she was.

“For being here when I needed you. For knowing what I needed to do and for making it happen.”

“How many times have you been there for me? To pick up the pieces when I fell apart? I love you. It breaks my heart to see you upset. But
this
Beth I can deal with much easier than the one who was in tears. You want him. He needs you. We’ll make it happen. Heck, if he gets too out of line, we’ll get Polly involved.”

Beth laughed. “He’d never know what hit him.”

“For now, let’s keep it between us.” Tate winked as she got up. “Call Lily before Nathan shows up. Or worse, William hears about it.”

“I don’t know why you couldn’t just say all this at the Sands. I could have given you a ride to Tate’s. You ran off in the dark. After you’d nearly been thrown through a window.”

“I’m sorry, Nathan.” And she really was. She could see in his mannerisms that he’d been worried. “I needed to get away. I was…”

Tate rolled her eyes and handed her brother a cookie. “She was weeping.”

Nathan’s mouth dropped open and Beth felt even worse at the look on his face. “I’m going to punch Joe Harris in the face.”

“No. It’s not his fault. He thinks he’s protecting me. He’s embarrassed.”

Nathan hugged her. “He made you cry. You never cry.”

“I love him.”

Nathan sighed heavily. “All right. I know you well enough to understand what that means. What can I do to help?”

Lily squeezed Beth’s hand before she kissed Nathan quickly. “I love you. You big marshmallow.”

“Lily, she never cries. Not even when—” He shut up quickly.

Beth shook her head, taking his hand. “No more silence. That’s part of the problem. If I cried, he won. Our father I mean. So no matter what, I wouldn’t let him make me cry. I could control that. I never wanted to give in to him. To give him the satisfaction. Not even when he broke my arm. Not even when he punched me so hard he knocked out my tooth. I won’t ever let him make me cry. But that’s not my shame to own, and Joe needs to understand he can’t own shame for anything other people do.”

“I’ve been your best friend since we were kids and you never told me? My God. Beth.” Lily looked to them all, shaking her head. “It’s a miracle, you know. That you all turned out to be so wonderful and loving.”

“We did it to spite them both. Now, Trey gave me his sister’s number. She gets off shift in an hour. I’m going home. Don’t worry, I’ll be back for waffles in the morning. I want to see my girls. But I have stuff to do between now and then, and I don’t want to wake them up. Nathan is going to drop me home. Go snuggle with your wife.”

Matt kissed her cheek. “We’ll see you tomorrow morning then. Don’t make me come get you.”

Joe had just crawled back home when he heard a knock on his door. He ignored it, but it kept on.

He opened up, saw it was Beth and had to fight the need to simply hold her.

He had to satisfy himself by asking after her. “You all right?”

She touched the butterfly bandage on her forehead. “Just a few cuts. Nothing major. What about you?”

“Fine. Look, Beth, we said all there was to say last night. I’m exhausted. I need to sleep before I go to work a while.”

“You’re not going to work. You have people to help you. Accept that help and get some rest. Jacob told me the garage was fully staffed for the rest of the weekend without you. I’ll take Buck for the day. Just get some sleep and come get him when you’re ready.”

He sighed, wanting her so bad his skin itched. Buck didn’t do his usual dance at the sight of her, he was too linked with Joe’s emotional mood to do that. But he did come over, tail wagging.

“We’re broken up. I can handle my fucking dog.”

She narrowed her eyes at him for a moment. “I’m sure you can. Don’t use the F word around him. He’s sensitive. Call me when you’re ready. I’ve got a bowl and stuff at my place.” She looked to Buck. “Come on then, Mr. Buck. We’re having a play date.”

And then she stole his dog!

He watched her go, watched her get Buck into her car and go around to the driver’s side. She turned back to him. “I’m not going anywhere far.” She meant with the dog, but he knew she meant in general too. And though he couldn’t afford to be comforted by it. He was anyway. “Get some sleep. You know where to find me when you’re ready.”

He went back inside and stood, back against the door for so long he just slid down and sat, staring into nothingness.

Christ. He should be angry with her for dealing with his staff. But he couldn’t be. All he could do was remember the way her face fell when he’d broken up with her. And yet, she’d been there, offering to take Buck so he could sleep without noise and distractions.

He looked at his hands. Abrasions on his knuckles. Middle finger splinted. He’d taken his mother home after sitting at her side all night long. His father had been heavily sedated so at least his yelling had stopped.

His mother seemed totally deflated. She was cried out. Had wrung her hands and blamed herself a thousand times. She’d been watching him that night. His dad was supposed to have been watching the game. She’d left the room and when she returned with snacks, he was gone.

She’d gone glassy eyed. Leaning on Joe to make the decisions and choices. She’d lost hope and he didn’t blame her. The hope they’d felt as his father had assented to the treatment had been so wonderful after all the worry and upset. The bitterness that it not only hadn’t worked, but the spectacular, public failure lay on his tongue, in his heart.

His mother was a simple woman. Not stupid. Certainly not naïve. But simple. She came from a world where if you were sick you took a pill and got better. Right then he didn’t know what was next. He didn’t even have the strength to imagine it just yet.

With a heavy sigh, he made himself stand. He needed a shower and at least four hours’ sleep. First though, he needed to check in with his staff. He believed Beth and he trusted Jacob, but it was his business after all.

Chapter Thirteen

Joe ended up sleeping seven hours. Like a stone. What had eventually woken him up was a call from his sister, checking in and mightily apologetic for waking him up.

He filled her in with what he knew. Which wasn’t a lot. Dissuaded her from coming down. There was nothing she could do, and it didn’t seem to him like it would help to disrupt the kids’ school and activity schedule. Not then in any case.

He called the hospital to check in. He wouldn’t be allowed in to see his dad, even if he’d wanted visitors. His mother was staying with her sister in Riverton, which filled Joe with a sense of guilty relief. One less thing to be responsible for.

He shuffled into his kitchen, realizing his pantry was empty. He’d order a pizza or something. But first he needed to collect Buck.

He tried not to look closely at his phone, with Beth’s picture smiling up at him. He needed to delete that, but he didn’t want to right then.

She answered, laughing, Buck yipping in the background. “Why aren’t you resting?”

“I slept seven hours. I’m good. I can come get Buck. I’ve got to get groceries anyway.”

“I’ll bring him over in twenty minutes.” She hung up.

He didn’t want her in his apartment. He wanted a big moat around his life to keep her out. It was too hard otherwise.

But she was stubborn. He smiled, even though it wasn’t wise. He was too tired not to.

He opened to her knock and Buck barked up at him once as he came inside.

“Thank you. For taking him today.”

She breezed past where he’d been attempting to block her from coming inside. She headed into the kitchen where she put the bags she’d been holding up on the counter.

“Beth…”

“Be quiet. I’m making you some food.”

“You need to leave. Damn it. We’re not together anymore. I don’t need you to make me food. I can cook.”

She sighed, moved to him, led him to a chair at the table and pushed him into it. “You. Sit. I’m going to make you a meal and you’re going to appreciate it. You will not tell me you broke up with me. I was there.”

He frowned, but she simply ignored him and went back to work.

“My father is an alcoholic.” She said this matter of fact as she began to get out pots and pans. “I never really realized other people’s dads weren’t like mine until I got to third grade or so. Sometimes someone’s daddy would come on a field trip or to some lunchtime performance. It became really clear to me then. Like,
oh, so it’s just him
. Or maybe it’s me.”

She chopped and set something that smelled really good on the stove and began to cook. “The trailer we grew up in had two bedrooms. Eight kids and two bedrooms. You can imagine what that was like I’m sure. Or maybe not. I hope not, actually. Anyway, it was pretty much impossible to hide from him when he got angry. Unless you just left. Which I did as much as I could. Lily’s parents had me stay over a lot. That’s where I learned that normal kids didn’t sleep under their beds to hide from dad when he got so drunk he needed to hurt someone just to ease himself.”

He’d known they’d had a hardscrabble life. Knew about the drinking and the catting around. But he’d had no idea the depth of it. William had never said. He’d never asked either. “Jesus.”

“No. Not in my trailer. My mother was no help. She’s an alcoholic too. A bigger mess than my dad in some ways. Her biggest addiction is attention. From lots of men who aren’t my dad. She’d run off for days, sometimes weeks. Sometimes he’d go to find her. Sometimes he’d stay home and drink. His temper was always worse when he drank. He’s mean, my father. But when he’s drinking he’s cruel. Tate was his favorite target because, as you can tell, she’s not his. The rest of us are tall with dark hair. Like him. But Tate is short and blonde. She was always so full of love for us, protected us. He resented that and my mother did too in her own way. She never protected us. She lied to the cops. Lied to the doctors when we got broken bones or had to go to the emergency room.

“We got good at lying too. It was easier, you see, if we just went along with the fiction. We fell down the steps, or ran into a door. Tate would dumpster dive for clothes because we never had any. We didn’t have coats for the cold. She managed to make a connection at the thrift store. She cleaned up after they closed and they let her have stuff for us. William and Tim had jobs, so we could eat.”

She stirred, adding garlic and vegetables to the meat, and his stomach growled, despite his growing horror.

“My parents wouldn’t allow us to go on the school lunch program. They didn’t want anyone to think they couldn’t take care of their kids.” Her laugh was bitter.

“Tate stepped in between me and a fist more times than I can count. She, William and Tim paid hush money to my parents to let us live in the apartment they’d rented. And each one of us, once we could get a job, we helped with the younger ones. That’s what you do when you love your family.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t know. I…”

She held up a hand. “I know how to make spaghetti, that’s what’s for dinner, by the way. I know how to make it because Tate taught me. It was easy and relatively cheap. Kept you going all day. We ate it a lot in that little apartment Tate, Tim and William rented. For about six years after I got out of school and had a job, I refused to eat spaghetti. Every time I heard the burble of boiling pasta, or smelled spaghetti sauce, all I could think of were those fists. Of sweat filled with the stench of hopelessness and alcohol. I refused to speak of what my life was like. For a long time I refused to deal with it. I hid it, was ashamed of what I’d come from because it made me feel weak.”

“You can’t possibly think it’s your fault.” He was so angry he wanted to drive over to that trailer and beat the shit out of her father.

“I don’t. Not now.” She buttered bread and put it on a cookie sheet. “For a long, long time I did. I think it wasn’t until Tate got together with Matt that I was truly able to let it go. She got the happily-ever-after that she deserved. It made me reevaluate.

“When I was four, my father broke my arm. It was one of the few times we ever had a Christmas tree. Guilt. So he and my mother got into it. A week before Christmas. She set the tree on fire.”

“Your father broke your arm?”

“Yes. And he knocked out one of my front teeth. He beat me so bad I had to ditch school. More than once. We were raised, you see, to believe that if people knew what happened in that trailer they’d send us to juvie. Juvie was jail. We’d be separated and put in jail. I believed that for a long, long time. So we kept silent. And we hid what we came from. In varying degrees, we held ourselves responsible for the sins of other people who should have known better.”