Too Far to Say Far Enough: A Novel (25 page)

After Kade dropped us off at Palm Row and he and Chief went out to the side porch, I did sit Flannery down at the bistro table and explain that if we
were
going to protect her, we had to have her mother’s signature so she could stay with me until we got things straightened out.

I watched her closely as I said, “If Brenda will give me temporary legal custody of you—”

“How did you know her name is Brenda?” Flannery’s knuckles whitened on the edge of the table. “You don’t even know where she lives.”

“Hastings,” I said.

“Did you already talk to her?”

“No. I thought we should do that together.”

Actually, I still didn’t think Liz’s idea was the best one and neither, apparently, did Flannery. I waited while she did everything but split the wood on the bistro table.

“I’ll go on two conditions,” she said finally.

“One,” I said.

“She has to promise me she’s alone. Totally alone.”

My stomach seized. Was she expecting her pimp to be there, at her house, with her mother? I had to push that aside to get out, “And two?”

“I want Kade to come too.”

I forced myself not to sigh.

“Is he still out there?” she said, one foot already feeling for the floor.

“
I
will ask him,” I said.

“Then can I go to bed?”

“Absolutely,” I said.

The poor kid had been through as much as I had that day, and I could barely put two thoughts together at that point. But there was still one more thing to deal with.

After I saw Flannery to her room and smoothed the covers over her and stood outside her door to breathe a prayer, I went back downstairs where Chief was pouring me a cup of Earl Gray. I wrapped my fingers around the mug handle and held the cup against my temple.

“You’ve had quite the day, Classic.”

“It’s not over yet. I need to talk to Desmond.”

“He’s asleep. I talked to him.”

I nodded Chief to the living room where he tucked the Harley throw around my feet in the red chair and put the cup back in my hand. Strange behavior for somebody who couldn’t commit.

There was still so much steam rising from the cup I set it on the table. “What did Desmond say?”

“He didn’t have to say much.” Chief stretched back on the couch. “It’s obvious he really cares about this girl.”

“He has a crush on her.”

“It’s more than that. He relates to her, which makes sense. Both from messed-up backgrounds, both having to trust that somebody gives a rip about them when they never had a reason to before.” Chief shrugged. “I think he puts up with her using him because he understands why she does. There’s your trouble.”

“Meaning …”

“Desmond isn’t what Flannery needs.”

“She isn’t what Desmond needs either.”

“Right. Plus, she’s transferred all her affections to Kade.”

“
Oh
yeah. And I can tell you where they were before.”

“Pimp?”

“Uh-huh. Only, you know what’s really heinous?”

“I’m afraid to ask.”

“I get the impression she didn’t run away from her mother and
then
get hooked up with this piece of slime. I think he was part of her life at home.”

Chief winced.

“I know.”

“You didn’t get the whole story though.”

“Not yet. But she did say she’d go with me to get a signature from her mother. She wants Kade to come along.”

“Big surprise.”

I shook my head and felt the messy bun come loose. “What I still don’t get is why she’s so afraid of you.”

“No idea.” Chief surveyed the ceiling. “There’s something else we need to discuss.”

I picked up the cup and blew into it. “Good or bad?”

“Strange.”

“What hasn’t been today?”

“Desmond told me he saw the Mosquito talking to somebody at school this afternoon who knew you.”

“Who?”

“He wasn’t sure about the guy’s name. Roy, maybe. He said this dude stepped out in front of you on the bike down on Aviles Street one morning when you two were out riding.”

The mug went back to the table. Could I not catch a break?

Chief’s eyes took on their eagle quality. “Desmond said you didn’t like this guy, and he didn’t much like him either. This ringing any bells, Classic?”

“It was Troy Irwin. But I think you already figured that out.”

“Knew it the minute Desmond described him as ‘some dude in a pimp suit.’”

I guffawed in spite of myself. Chief didn’t join me. He just leaned forward.

“Come
on
, Chief. It was a chance meeting. He just showed up out of the blue.”

Chief looked as if I’d just smacked him in the face.

“
What
?” I said.

“You weren’t going to tell me about it?”

“There was nothing to it.”

“Desmond said you were so freaked out when you drove away, you almost hit two cars and a pickup truck.” Chief’s eyebrows lifted. “That sounds like something to me.”

I kicked off the blanket and got myself out of the chair to pace to the bookcase. “We keep having the same conversation,” I said to the spine of a Robert Frost collection. “When have I had a chance to do anything about this Troy thing? I guess I could have gone to his office, somewhere between taking Zelda to the hospital and keeping Flannery from getting her nose broken and—”

I turned from the shelves, and my breath caught. Chief was examining his left palm as if a gash had appeared there, but the wrench in my chest said the hurt was someplace else. His hand closed as he looked up, in time for me to watch a memory escape from his eyes.

“This isn’t just about
my
stuff, is it?” I said.

He stood and reached for my cup. This time I blocked his path. “I’m thinking I’m not the only one in this relationship who has issues with the past.”

For the first time since the day I met him, Chief couldn’t meet my eyes. It was hard to tell whether the pain that cut to my core was his or mine.

“You always tell me whatever goes on inside needs to come out where we can deal with it.” I pressed my hands against his chest. “But that goes for both of us.”

“Always has.”

“Really? Because that’s not what I’m feeling here.”

Chief rested his forehead against mine. “Your tea’s getting cold.”

Maybe it was the fatigue that made my brain suddenly heavy. Or maybe the press of his Chief-ness into my skin. Whatever the reason, I let it go.

“We’re not done with this,” I said. “But right now—”

“Right now you’re the walking dead. Get some sleep, Classic.”

He started to pull away, but I put my arms around his neck. “Just tell me we’re not over.”

I watched his face struggle. “I don’t want us to be over.”

“That’s good, because you’re the best thing that has ever—”

Chief pressed his finger against my lips. “’Night, Classic,” he said.

With a kiss on each of my wrists he was gone. Even as I listened to the Road King growl away I crawled into the red chair, pulled the Harley blanket over my head and whispered, “You infuriating man.”

But I couldn’t escape the pain that clenched my chest. Again, and then again, until I had to gasp for breath.

I sat up and let it throb. This time I knew it wasn’t just mine or Chief’s. It was God’s.

And I wasn’t going to be able to let it go forever, because the aching, breath-stealing pressure to hang on—that was God’s too.

Desmond was distant the next morning, and between the stiffness from sleeping like a pretzel all night in the red chair and the dread of making the phone call with Flannery, I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to question him. All I said when I dropped him off was, “I understand why you want to help Flannery.”

And all he said was, “She rather get her help from Cappuccino.”

As I pulled the Harley from the curb I hoped Kade was right about boys surviving those heartbreaks, because Desmond Chamberlain wasn’t just any boy.

When I got back to Palm Row I hauled Flannery out of bed and down to the kitchen and set an English muffin in front of her. While she pulled it apart into tidbits, I slipped out to the porch and called Liz.

She was ecstatic to hear that we had a name and address for Flannery’s mother, but her voice quickly hushed to a husky whisper.

“Let the mother do most of the talking,” she said. “Questions about how long the girl has been with you and the circumstances of her winding up with you are better left unanswered. You have to protect yourself.”

“I’m more interested in protecting Flannery.”

“And you can’t do that if Judge Atwell takes her away from you. All you’re doing in this phone call is setting up a meeting.”

“Got it. And Liz?”

“Yeah?”

“Any time you want to step out of this, I’ll understand. I’ve already put one person in a bad position.”

“You know what, Allison? You aren’t the only one who gets Nudges.” I heard a door squeak on her end, and her voice changed to something between professional and are-you-getting-this-Allison? “Gotta go. Get back to me on that, would you?”

As I hung up, I could imagine her nodding too cheerfully at whoever had walked in on her breaking the law.

Flannery was waiting for me in the living room where I had told her we’d make the call on her phone, thanks to Kade’s provision of a charger. She looked tiny and pale and still-bruised in the red chair, and I wondered if she was feeling any of the same pain I’d spent the night with.

“I’m going to put us on speaker phone,” I said. “Not because I don’t trust you—”

“Nobody trusts me,” Flannery said. “Why should they?”

“Because.” I sat facing her. “You’re starting to tell the truth.”

She toyed with a curl, eyes away from me. “You believe what I said last night?”

“I do. I also believe there’s more.”

I gave that about ten seconds until she said, “Can we just get this over with?”

I nodded and handed her the phone. As she deftly punched in a number with her thumbs, I tried to read her face. It was pretty much as guarded as it had been when I first saw her at Sacrament House, but the place between us was thinner now. I just hoped the woman we were about to talk to didn’t thicken it up again.

The ringing was cut off abruptly with a “Hello?”

The voice was crisper than I expected, and more confident. Until Flannery said, “Hi, Mom.” Then the air crackled with silence, followed by an almost timid, “Flannery?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“Darlin’—they let you call? Are you supposed to be calling?”

That was not among the possible maternal responses I’d imagined in the wee hours of the morning. I had to grip the sides of the ottoman to keep from grabbing the phone and screaming,
You were in on this?

“The school is allowing you to call?” the woman said.

“What school?” Flannery said. “I’m not at any school, Mom. I never was. Is that what Elgin told you?”

“Where
are
you, Flannery?” Brenda Donohue’s voice now climbed to the place I’d expected it to be. I’d heard that same mother-fear in my own voice more than once.

Flannery looked at me, shoulders to her earlobes, as if she’d just realized I might actually be able to help her.

“Ms. Donohue?” I said. “I’m with a nonprofit that helps young women in trouble.”

There was a pause as she apparently put it together that someone else was on the line. “What kind of trouble?” she said. “Flannery, who is this woman?”

“Ma’am—”

“Mom, she’s been taking care of me, okay? I’m fine.”

“I don’t understand any of this. You’re not at New Beginnings? I signed the papers. Elgin said it would—”

“Straighten me out?” Flannery’s practiced insolence kicked in. “He’s the one who screwed me up in the first place.”

Brenda didn’t answer, which gave me a minute to sort through what I’d just heard. This mother thought her daughter was away at a residential facility all this time? She let this Elgin person put her there, with no way of being in touch with her? I had been a mother for less than a year, and on my worst I-want-to-quit Monday I could not imagine myself doing that. Either this woman was a complete mess, or Elgin, whoever he was, had a hold over both of them that made my insides tie themselves into a whole series of knots.

“Flannery, I don’t understand,” she said.

“Did he come looking for me?”

“No! I told you, I thought you were in Huntsville, Alabama. What about the emails you sent me?”

“I never sent you any emails.” Flannery put her hands up like she was trying to stop a train. “You haven’t seen him?”

“No. He’s working in Jacksonville. Flannery—what happened?”

“You really don’t know?” Flannery’s voice trembled on the near side of vulnerability.

“If I had known you were someplace besides that school, I would have come and found you and brought you home. What is going
on
?”

By then Brenda was clearly close to tears, and she wasn’t the only Donohue in that place. “Do you swear to me that you will get him out of our life?” Flannery said. “Because if you do, if you
swear
to me, I’ll come home. Only we have to go someplace where he’ll never find us.”