Mine, page 8
Jake and I have a good relationship. And the reason for that is he’s never here. He spends a few weeks at home and months offshore. We chat on the phone, FaceTime sometimes, text, and email, and it works for us. Usually, when he’s home after a few days, we start to fight. Sometimes, depending on where he is and certain other circumstances, we can't contact each other for days or weeks due to signal issues on the ocean. It’s not like there are any cell towers out there. It doesn’t seem to bother him, and it certainly doesn't bother me.
I loved Justin, back then. Before I fell into bad habits, and things I managed to keep tucked away grew into monsters that were so large I could no longer hide them behind a closet door. I’m not sure what happened, but it was like something turned off. As if there wasn’t room for love and man and money in the same body. If he hadn’t caught me—if I'd been more discreet—I’d probably be living a different life. What did I care about who they were or what they did to me? Sometimes I did enjoy it. Sometimes the men and women weren’t all old or gross or fat. There were times when they were younger, normal. It wasn’t my first ride down that road; I learned a long time ago. Sex with strangers never bothered me, and frankly, I always enjoyed the control I felt.
When I was young, I started performing sexual favors for neighborhood boys in exchange for all kinds of things: homework, protection, money. It wasn’t long before their older friends found me, a few dads. The power I got in exchange was intoxicating. Boys and men who would do anything for me. I had parents who paid no attention and didn’t ask me where I got money for the things I bought. They didn’t care.
However, when I got pregnant at fourteen years old, I was forced to stop. I gave the baby up in a closed adoption. A girl, a child I didn’t name or hold. A child with no father. She was never handed to me, simply wrapped up and whisked away, never to be seen again.
Of course, my parents suddenly cared when I got pregnant. I made up a story about a boy who took advantage of me, anything but the truth. Even then I was still beaten half to death, and to this day, I wonder if my mom was trying to beat that child out of me. I wasn’t supposed to be around boys, and whatever happened to me must have been my fault in her mind. I expected the baby to die after that beating, almost hoped it would, but the kid hung on. Then I was dragged to church and forced to repent. Forced to my knees to beg forgiveness with lips busted, bruised, and swollen by my mother’s hand, in penance for my shameful ways. I had the devil prayed out of me. I was anointed, read to, and once my mama even smacked me with her daddy’s Bible. A large hardback volume that was swung at me full force with both hands, knocked me out cold.
I learned then. I straightened up, became the good girl. We never talked about the baby again.
She crossed my mind here and there, but I fell into life, and my desires for more became so intoxicating that the dark-haired baby girl I birthed became the memory of one of many mistakes I’d made over the years.
“You seem fine though.” Jake peers at me, picking up his coffee. “I haven’t even seen you cry.”
I stare at him, stone-faced and refusing to look away as if I’m ashamed of my lack of proper reaction. “We all grieve in our own way. Justin and I broke up a long time ago. We were barely in each other’s lives anymore.”
“I know, so you’ve said. But still, you were married to him. He’s the father of your child. I would think—”
I scowl at him. “Well, don’t think. Don’t tell me how to feel.”
He frowns, then picks up his paper and hides behind it once more. “I’m not. It’s just an observation.”
Don’t think I don’t pick up on the attitude in his tone. I sip black coffee with two sugars and think. Jake won’t stay home long. He’s a nomad. He takes care of us, of course. His hefty paycheck goes into a joint account. The bills get paid. I won’t go down that road again. I try to learn from my mistakes.
14
~Madison~
I stare at my reflection in this small rental apartment, hating it. I brush out the blonde weave, missing my short dark bob. I pop in the blue contacts, longing to keep my eyes the chocolate color I was born with. Soon I can get rid of the hair. Burn it all. Change my name from the assumed-stolen one of Britney Ingalls.
Madison Holt. Adopted daughter of Millie and Daryl Holt. Sister to the late Albert Holt, who died four months ago in an industrial accident. Unfortunately, Millie and Daryl died when I was just a little kid, so I was dropped into foster care. I don’t remember much about them. My childhood is nothing but memories of being in the system.
I didn’t even know I was adopted until a caseworker let it slip that it was impossible to locate any existing family members due to adoption. She didn’t know I was listening, or maybe she didn’t care. Probably didn’t give a shit, being an underpaid, overworked government lackey.
When I was released from their care at eighteen, I tried to get a copy of my original birth certificate but failed miserably. The county clerk suggested going through my parents’ things for documents they may have filed away. “Sometimes they get a copy of the original birth certificate,” she claimed with a shrug before looking past me to the next person in line, effectively blowing me off.
I took her advice and decided to dig into my family’s long-forgotten storage facility, one that needed to be emptied and dealt with but sits half forgotten. Took me a full day of digging through boxes of crap in a non-air-conditioned room in the summer heat. Finally, after sweating through my shirt, I found a plastic file box full of papers. In the bottom was an old, beaten-up manila envelope with my mom’s scrawled handwriting on it—adoption papers.
Unsure of what to expect, and assuming it wasn’t going to be this easy, I bent the little metal clasp and opened it, pulling out a stack of papers. I flipped page after page. Most of it was legal stuff. Then jackpot. The original, unamended birth certificate.
Madison Holt, born to Jennifer Michelle Coker and an unnamed father. There it was, her name and date of birth. I did a quick calculation in my head; she was only fifteen when I was born. I stared at the document for a long time before I went through the rest of the papers to see if there was anything else useful. There wasn’t.
That was just the beginning. Took some time to decide if I wanted to find her. Took more time to actually locate her.
I stare down at the fake ID in my hand. Britney, twenty-three. In my other hand, my real ID: Madison Holt, twenty. Soon I’ll get to be me again. As soon as his estate is finalized. As soon as that $750,000 in assets and cash is transferred to Britney Gray, as his legal wife.
But that’s just the beginning.
15
~Abby~
Uncle David knocks softly on the guest bedroom door as I lie in bed, staring blindly at daytime television playing on the TV that hangs on the wall just above the dresser. Turning my head toward the sound, I call for him to enter.
He walks in with a steaming cup of something in his hand, looking unsure of himself. He looks so much like my father. It pains me to see his face and comforts me at the same time. “I brought you some tea. Seems to be what girls on TV do when they’re upset,” he mutters, holding it out.
I sit up, taking the cup. It’s warm. I wrap my hands around it as I bend my face over the steam, noting by the color of the liquid that he prepared it like he would a cup of coffee. Milk and sugar.
“Thanks.” I don’t drink it. I don’t like tea.
“Your mom called to check on you.” His eyes ask the questions his lips don’t: When are you leaving? When can I have my life back?
I know I’m probably in his way. I can’t imagine he would be all that happy about me deciding to stay here, that all of a sudden, he has a seventeen-year-old kid to worry about.
I look up at him with a weak, thin smile. “I’m in the way. I should get home,” I mutter.
David sits. The bed sinks under his weight. The mattress is worn. I bet it’s his old one, one he put in here when he got a new bed. “You can stay if you need to, if that’s what helps you, but you need to tell your mom what’s going on. You need to get back to school. You need to talk to someone.”
Tears fill my eyes. I thought I was cried out. The room swirls and blurs until I blink and they drop onto my cheeks, clearing my vision. “It’s easier here. I feel like he’s here. When I’m at home, it’s harder.”
He nods. “I can see that. Your dad and I were close. He was my best friend.” His voice lowers and becomes rough. I don’t look over, fearing I’ll see tears. I can't see him cry. I won’t. In my head, he’s a rock, and at this moment, I need to keep that illusion strong. “Nothing will ever be the same. But you can’t let it stop your life. He wouldn’t have wanted that. He didn’t want that.”
I know. I know what he wanted. He wanted me to succeed. He said I was his child, had his brain and his smart-ass ways about me. Strong head on my shoulders with my mom’s good looks. He teased that I was the best of both. I don’t know if he’s right, but I know he would be upset with me for simply ceasing to exist. For crying my life away. For letting it kill me. He would pull me to my feet and tell me to stop.
But I can’t stop. I don’t know how. Tears roll down my face, and I watch them fall into the tea still sitting in my lap.
David rubs my back with a big hand, and if I close my eyes, I can almost pretend it’s Dad’s hand. This is why I’m here. Because of this. I can get a hug and pretend it’s Dad. The body feels similar, the same size and shape.
Standing, I walk to the nightstand and set the cup down, then pick up the bottle I took from Dad’s dresser. His cologne. I open it and take a sniff, both comforted and broken by the scent. His smell.
“He didn’t do what she said he did,” I whisper to no one. “I won’t ever believe it.” I’m not supposed to know. It’s one of those things they don’t want us kids to find out, thinking I’m still a nine-year-old child and not almost eighteen. Forgetting we can hear, we can read, we have eyes. We see the news. I get emails, I got shit on social media, strangers posting and messaging me.
What’s it like to know your daddy is a wife beater?
He got what he deserved.
Good for her for killing him.
Should've cut his dick off too.
It didn’t take long. I shut it all down. Went off the grid. No email or anything.
“You and I both know he’s not capable,” David replies.
I look up, he’s watching me smell the bottle. I blush and put it down.
“She murdered him, Uncle David. Why?”
He shakes his head. “I can only assume. I don’t know. She’s getting everything, you know.”
“What about the business?”
“You worry too much, kid. You’re only—”
I frown. “I know how old I am. Don’t start that crap.” I shake a finger at him. He smirks at me. “What about the business? Did he—”
“There was a caveat in the contract. If anything ever happened to either of us, the other gets the whole thing.” He smiles at me. “He would be proud of you, you know.”
I tear up again, looking up at the ceiling in hopes of stopping the waterworks. So tired of crying. “I hope so. I know I need to go back to school. But all that stuff that everyone said, I’m worried.”
“Why don’t you homeschool for a while?”
I laugh. “Okay, yeah. Mom will be down for spending all day teaching me.” I shake my head, sitting on the edge of the nightstand. “Hardly. It’s why I haven’t gone back, partly. Avoiding.”
“Switch schools.” He shrugs.
I had thought of it. “If I use your address, it puts me into a different district, so I could do it. I thought of it, but is it better to face a problem head-on?”
“Nah, not always. Take care of you, your mental health. You’re a kid. No need to give yourself a headache. File the papers, and I’ll sign. You can drive yourself.” He tosses me keys.
I stare down at the fob in my hand, confused for a moment. “What is this?”
“Your car.”
I balk. “What?”
“Your dad’s, now yours.”
I frown. “But what about her, the wife?”
He waves me off. “It’s yours. She shouldn’t be getting anything. He filed the annulment the day before he died. They just won’t buy the truth because of the trumped-up assault charge.”
Uncle David lives an hour from my mom’s house. Somewhere between her house and Dad. I calculate the time I’d have to wake up in the morning to get out of the house in time to be there. I wonder what my mom will say when she sees the truck. Knowing she would try to take it from me, I close my hand around the keys and take in a deep breath. I bring my mind back to the moment, what Uncle David said about the assault charges.
“Doesn’t the annulment paperwork raise any questions at all?”
He shakes his head. “Not when it’s still sitting on the lawyer’s desk. She never got to file it. He died the next day after he gave it to her. I brought it to their attention, hoping to at least stall everything. Nothing has been paid yet.”
“At least that’s something,” I mutter. Raising my head, I squeeze the keys. “Mom will try to take this away from me.”
He meets my eyes. “I know. Don’t let her.”
“I don’t like to fight her, but she’s so….” I swallow the words. I love my mother, but I am realistic. I’ve never let my love for my family shadow me from knowing what’s true.
He rises, nodding. “Yes she is. Whatever it is you’re thinking, she is. But she’s still your mom, and you still need to do what’s best for you. In the years I’ve known her, I know she has bad judgment sometimes. You do what you need to and know I’m here for you. Any time. There’s always a place for you here, Abby. Your dad would’ve wanted me to make sure you’re okay. You were his whole world.”
My eyes burn with unshed tears. I look up and find his face stone but his eyes shining. “Thanks. I won’t let her, I promise.”
“Good. Don’t. It’s late. You stay here tonight, but at least call her and tell her you’re alive.”
He walks out, shutting the door behind him.
I pick up my phone and call my mom, telling her I’ll be home tomorrow after I switch schools.
“What do you mean, switch schools?”
I sigh. “I have to. I’m not dealing with all the accusations, the stares. I just want to go to school. I told you what people said.”
She huffs but doesn't argue the point. “What school?”
“Uncle David is letting me use his address. I’ll go to Northside Senior High School, according to what it said online. I’ll take care of it tomorrow and start school on Monday.”
“That’s an hour away.”
“I’ve got it covered.”
“How?”
“I just do. I’ll talk to you later, okay, Mom?”
She sighs heavily. “Fine. Okay. Bye.” She hangs up abruptly.
I pocket the phone and take the keys out to what was my dad’s truck, hoping it might still smell like him inside.
16
~Abby~
I’m aware that Mom should be doing this as I take myself out of school, drive back to Northside, and enroll there. I forge her signature; my uncle told me to sign for him too. I sign and then return all the paperwork. It's done. I have my stuff from my locker in a small box and turn my books in. I text my close friends, the handful of people I share my life with, and tell them.
I pull into my driveway at almost three in the afternoon. Mom’s standing at the mailbox, sifting through a stack of envelopes, her forehead wrinkled in a frown when she sees the familiar vehicle parking in her driveway. It only deepens when she sees me get out.
“What is this?”
“David gave it to me. Dad would’ve wanted me to have it.”
She purses her lips, walking around the thing. “This is a bit big for you, don’t you think?”
“No, I don’t think.” I retrieve my box from the passenger seat, shutting the door.
“I think you should drive Jake’s and let him have this one.”
I snort out a sarcastic laugh. “Hell, that little truck sitting there? You mean you want me to hand you the keys. No. It’s mine.” I walk past her into the house, aware she’s behind me. “Besides, he never drives. He’s already gone back to work. It’s stupid that he even has a truck.”
I leave the box on the chair in the living room and pass through to the kitchen. My stomach is growling, not having eaten anything since yesterday. Since Dad died, I’ve lost more weight than I should, but when I try to force myself to eat, I get sick to my stomach. It will eventually pass. When I was a kid, he used to tell me everything comes in seasons. Some good, some bad, some really bad, some scary. But the thing you can always remember is seasons always pass. They come and go.
As I stand in the kitchen in front of the open refrigerator, searching for something to make a sandwich with, I remember his words. This one won’t pass, Dad. This season where you’re dead is forever.
I hate that bitch Britney. She had to be lying. Dropping into his life and then killing him, getting all his money. He didn’t know her, so I don’t see how she could’ve known he had money when it all started. But it sure seems to be pretty dumb luck that he hooked up with a psychopath who did this to him, to all of us.
David told me there’s nothing we can really do. The law is behind her, and we’re all basically fucked. Well, he didn’t say fucked, but I know he wanted to. Every time I mention it to Mom, she looks away and says she can’t talk about it, that it’s too hard for her. I don’t believe it. I think she probably just doesn't want to share some parts of her past with me, which I get. It’s okay. I don’t need to know everything about everyone, but I wish I could unload on someone who might understand.
