Cormac (13 page)

~~~

Bri watched her daughter-in-law closely. There
were times when she wished she could read minds. This one time she wished that
with all her being. The girl was hurting, anyone could tell that, but what was
paining Bri was the fact that the Mac and Andi had been so happy a few hours
before all of this.

“You know, I don’t know if I’m ready now to
be a grandma. I never realized how much work there was in preparing for one.” Nothing,
not even a blink of her eyes, Bri could see. “My mother-in-law told me once
that had she had any idea how much work grandchildren were, she’d never have had
children. She wasn’t a nice person.”

That was the wrong thing to say, she
supposed. Her mother-in-law hadn’t been mean, just too…well, forthcoming, about
everything. And she did have an opinion on everything, it had seemed. When Holly,
Ordan’s mother, was upset about something or she didn’t care for a person, you
knew it. And so did anyone around her.

“Ordan and I have been dusting off the rocker
in the house and getting out the play pen in hopes of having a grandchild soon.
Just didn’t know it would be this soon. Why, I’ve barely got one pair of
booties knitted. I’ll have to work harder, I suppose.” Bri wanted to shake the
girl and tell her that she’d done nothing wrong, but Mac had told her just to
talk to her, she’d come around. “Of course, I do have all of my boy’s things. I
gave some of it to them recently, but there are a few things that I was holding
onto. Silly, I guess, but they’re warm with memories I have of them.”

She looked around the room where the police
were talking to Ordan and Mac, everyone trying to sort out what had happened to
Hester Casey. They knew, of course. Her body had been ripped to shreds by Andi,
her cat protecting what she’d considered hers. Bri wished now that she’d not
recognized Hester when she’d been in the store earlier today and let the boys
know she wasn’t home. Things might have gone on longer, but Andi wouldn’t have
had to do what she’d done.

“Did you know that when you have your baby,
it’ll look as human as every other child in the nursery? I knew that, of course,
but I didn’t know if you knew or not. When I had Riordan, I was terrified that
someone would tell me I had to leave the hospital and take my son with me. Of
course, back then it was harder to get around being a shifter. Not like it is
today. Some people actually think it’s sexy, I heard.” Bri was babbling, but it
was that or beg the young woman to talk to her about what was bothering her. “I’ve
also gotten out the Christmas ornaments. I know it’s not quite Thanksgiving
just yet, but I just had a need to get them out and sort them for the boys. I
guess men now, but they’ll forever be my boys. I thought about giving them
their own, but I so love the ones that they made me. I have treasured them for
years.”

“I’ve never had a tree. Not a real one
anyway. There might have been one before I was born, but of course I don’t
remember it.” The words, spoken softly, broke her heart all over. “My aunt said
it was the work of heathens, and my father went along with whatever she wanted.
He was afraid of her, I guess. Jim…one year Jim drew a tree in class. It was
before they kicked him out, but he made this beautiful tree with too much
glitter and so many small puffs of cotton on it that it was hard to see the
green of it. To me it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. We hung it in
our room, behind the closet door so that no one would see it. It’s strange how
those sort of memories pop into your head at the strangest times, isn’t it?”

“It doesn’t get any better as you get older,
either. But as for your brother’s tree, that was lovely of him. He wanted to
give you something that every child should have had. He’s doing well in the
place he is. Did Mac tell you?” She said that he had. “What did you do for
gifts that year, Andi? I’m assuming that he helped you with that as well.”

“Yes. His was stolen, of course, but I really
didn’t care then. It was a way of life for us. He got me a candy bar. And
wrapped it in the Sunday funnies so it would be bright for me, he told me. I
gave him a box of crayons, used and some of them were broken, but I knew that
he’d like them. Jim used to like to draw.” Andi smiled then, a painful smile
but one nonetheless. “It was the only time in all my childhood that we had
gifts for each other. That year, I mean. The tree hung there for months after
that. I’d go and look at it when he’d have to beat me for something that Father
thought of. Or he’d be in trouble with the law again. Then Hester found it and….”

Bri took her hand in hers. “We’ll have a
lovely tree at our home this year. Not that we don’t have one anyway, but with
two more to add to our family this year, it will be a grand celebration. And
just thinking about the new baby for next year makes me giddy with excitement. A
summer baby will be so wonderful to play with. And by the holidays, we’ll be
watching her get excited over the lights and glitter.” Andi nodded and put her
hand over her flat belly. “She didn’t harm the baby; you know that, don’t you,
love?”

Andi nodded but held her belly. Bri wanted to
tell her that she could hear the child’s heartbeat should she want to. Hear
that it was strong and steady while nestled there. But she held her tongue,
waiting for the girl to get her bearings back.

“She wanted to kill me. Hester, she wanted me
dead. I’ve never…she really hated me.” Bri felt her heart tighten up in her
chest again when she thought of what that monster had done to her Andi. “Just
pulled out the gun and shot me until it was empty. I had no choice but to
attack her. What if she had hit any of the others there?”

“You did well, my child. You not only saved
my sons and husband for me, but you got rid of that horrible woman in the
process. No one is blaming you at all for it.” Andi tightened her grip on her
hand before letting it go. “Andi, Stormy said that when she and Riordan come
home, she’s going to teach you how to use a gun.”

“She told me. I don’t think I want to learn
though.” Bri could understand that. She hadn’t been sure she wanted to either
when the lessons started, but she was liking the way it made her feel when she
could shoot the heart out of one of those paper targets. “I told Jim she was
dead.”

Bri knew that as well. Mac had told her that
she wanted to do it herself and had called the home where Jim was staying. Apparently
it had gone a great deal better than any of them had expected.

“He is all right with it, isn’t he?” Andi
nodded at her question. “I’m to understand that she wasn’t all that good to him
either. She should never have been in that house with you children, much less
your father being there. I’ve never heard of a group of people less suited to
having children than the two of them.”

“She killed our mother. Hester acted like it
wasn’t any big deal for her to have done it either.” Bri knew that as well. One
more reason to rejoice in the death of the monster. “Jim had told Mac about it,
and he told me this morning. I never knew it was true, but…she really killed
her and made Jim clean up after her.”

“Your…Hester didn’t deserve you or Jim. And
your father should have been horsewhipped when he let her treat you as she did.
I swear to you had I known any of this was going on, I would have gone there
and shot her myself. The nerve of some people. Did she not have any idea what
she was throwing away?” Bri looked at Andi when she laughed a little. “There
now, there is no more grieving for that horrid woman. And we’re going to settle
on what to have for dinner on Thanksgiving while the men are busy sorting out
what happened.”

“I killed her. I think they all know that.”
Bri said that she was glad for it, but the police weren’t going to fuss about
that. “What will my children think when they find out that I killed two people?
They’re going to wonder why I did such a thing.”

“They’re going to think that they have the
bravest mother in the world. And that they want to strive to be just like her
when they grow up. And if you give me a granddaughter, just one, I will tell
her all sorts of things about her father that will make her laugh and enjoy him
all the more.” Andi slid to the floor and laid her head on her lap. Bri felt
her tears threaten again as she touched her soft head with her fingers. “I love
you, Andi. You and Stormy have done so much to bring me such happiness.”

“I love you too, Mom.” Bri felt tears burn
her cheeks as they slid unchecked down her face. “When I have this baby, I want
you to be there with me. I need you there with me when we come home too. I have
no idea how to be a good parent. My own childhood should tell you that much. But
I will love the baby. No matter what.”

“I’d love that very much. And I know you
will. You’re going to be a very good mother because of how you were brought up.
You’ll want to be better, and you will be.” She wiped then at the tears as she
continued. “You should name her for your mother if it’s a girl. I think that
would be wonderful, don’t you?”

“Yes. I have to think on it though. I’m still
getting used to being pregnant.” Andi looked up at her then. “Whatever it is,
you guys are going to have a lot of fun with it, aren’t you? I can see you guys
taking the baby to the zoo and stuff even before it knows what an animal even
is.”

“Nonsense. Your children will be born knowing
everything. And what they don’t know, we’ll teach them. We’re going to enjoy
that too.” Andi smiled, the first one she’d had since they’d brought her here
an hour ago. “You’re going to be just fine. You know that, don’t you? No one
cares a bit that she’s gone, nor how she came to be that way.”

“She hated me.” Bri nodded again, wishing she
had been able to show the woman the error of her ways. “And Jim. I’m going to
see him soon, talk to him now that he’s in a better place.”

“Good for you.” Andi laid her head back down,
and Bri looked over at her husband and smiled when he winked at her. She loved
that man more than she ever thought possible.

And I love you as well, my dearest heart
. Nodding, she held
the woman on her lap, telling her things about Mac that she’d not thought of in
years. Yes, she thought, having a grandchild in the house was going to be so
much fun. Just seeing her son trying to figure it out was going to be well
worth it.

Chapter 13

Andi moved out into the lobby to see who was
left to feed. The restaurant, Home Cookin’, had been reopened for nine days so
far, and it was doing so much better. There was more seating than there had
been before. The kitchen was well updated, and there were more workers too, to
accommodate the lines of people that came to eat every day.

Craig was here, she saw. He’d been staying
until she left for the day, or so Dean—Dean Burns, the new place manager—had
told her. And there was the gentleman that had been here daily for about a week
now. She smiled at him when he waved her over.

“Hello. Did you get enough to eat?” He told
her that he had had the best lunch he’d had in all his life. “Well, I don’t
know about all that, but I’m glad that you came in.”

“If you have a moment, I would like a word
with you, Mrs. Harrison.” She still had trouble remembering that was her name
now and asked him to call her Andi. “All right, Andi. If you have a few
minutes, I have something I would like to talk to you about.”

Sitting down, she noticed that there was a
large envelope next to him and a satchel. Not the kind that some men carried,
that they thought made them look cool, but one that was used and well taken
care of. And she’d bet, very old. Craig came over then and poured the man a cup
of coffee and handed her a glass of tea.

He’d been doing that lately, helping out in
the restaurant a little here and there. Mostly with the coffee pot or refills
on drinks. She thought it made him feel useful for his meals. Not that it
mattered to her. She just loved the elderly gentleman. When he nodded at the
man in front of her, she felt safer for it, thinking he’d given his approval or
something.

“I came here a few days ago to see what sort
of person you were.” Nodding, she looked around, wondering if this man, like a
few others in the place, thought she was fair game or something because she
worked here. Flirts mostly, but she wasn’t used to being treated that way. Mostly
it had been the opposite. “My mother was Martha Peterson. I’m Drew, and my
sister’s name is Lizzy.”

She started to stand, then sat down hard. Her
knees were shaking and she was afraid if she had to run, she’d fall. But he put
his hand over hers, and she looked up at him when he said her name softly. He
looked…well, crestfallen. A word that she’d never used until just then.

“I’m so sorry about your mother, Mr.
Peterson. I have no idea—”

He cut her off by raising his other hand. She
wanted to tell him that she’d not meant to kill her, not meant to do anything
at all to upset her, but he held her hand in his for a minute longer before he
spoke.

“She was a horrible person. Not just to you,
which I’m sure she was, but to us—my sister and I—as well. I’d like to, if
you’d let me, share a story of her. Something that I think will bring home how
grateful I am that she is no longer with us. I know that it sounds horrific to
you, even to my ears it does. I know that it’s not right, but once you hear
this…I hope, anyway, that you’ll understand why I came here. Why I feel this is
the right thing to do.”

Nodding, she watched his face. He was
struggling with something and she wondered if he knew about her own father and
aunt. If so, then perhaps he’d think her as horrible as he thought of himself. When
he let go of her hand and clasped his together on the table, she felt herself
relax a little. She wasn’t afraid, but she was worried about him.

“My father, my step-father really, left just
after Lizzy was a little over two years old. Barker—his first name—Barker told
me once that he’d rather live with her to see we were taken care of than to let
us be raised without love. But in the end, it became too much for him as well.”
He smiled then, but it was a bitter one that never reached his eyes. “I was about
five then, nothing much to speak of, but terrified of my mother all the same.
When I think on it, even then I knew that my mother had run him off. Drove him
away more like it. Just as she had us. And I think, even now, that she was relieved
when we left her. Lizzy and I left when I turned eighteen and her just
fourteen. We never once, in all the rest of our lives, ever had a thing to do
with her.”

“She was…difficult, I guess you could say.”
He laughed, and it sounded harsh and cold. “I tried very hard to do what she
wanted. Storm talked to her too. She was just too set in her ways to let anyone
but her do things. It became apparent that the restaurant would fail if she
stayed. But that day she came here, I had no idea what was going on until she’d
already killed poor Billy.”

“The police said they think there might have
been others. They’re looking into a few missing persons in this area. I’ve
given them a list of people that were in and out of our lives when I was
younger. I have no idea who else might have come to harm from her. I’m not sure
what that might mean for them. With her dead, I’m sure that they won’t be able
to charge her with anything. But, like I said, I have no idea.” Andi had heard
there were two bodies found on the property, one long dead, the other as recent
as last year. “But they told me that the contents of the house belonged to me
and my sister. Whatever we wanted out of it, we should take. There was not a
single thing there that I thought either of us would want.”

“The same with me and my father’s home. He
told the attorney that he wasn’t coming back. That if we wanted to tear the
house down, he didn’t care. Of course, the house belongs to someone else, but
everything in it has been burned. But I understand there was a great deal of
money in your family home.” He nodded, looking away from her to the outside
where snow was just beginning to fall as several store fronts put up Christmas
decorations in anticipation of the coming holiday season. “You said you came
here to see what sort of person I was? I don’t understand that.”

“When we were living there, Lizzy and I, the
house was cold during this time of year. She’d never turn the heat up past
fifty, and if the temp got up above fifty-five outside, she would open the
windows to the house to air it. I think it was to kill us both in our sleep.”
Andi said nothing, not even sure what to say to that. “One year, when I was ten
and it had been a particularly hard winter for us, I asked for a pair of boots.
Nice ones, ones that didn’t come from the free clothing drive that the churches
had yearly.”

He sat there, saying nothing for several
minutes. As she watched him again, Andi could swear that the man had aged a
great deal. He’d been worn before, the best word she could think to describe
him, but now he looked ill with his age and the burden of being Martha’s son. Andi
figured that having a support system, like the family that she now had, was
what got her through all this. And the fact that she had something special to
look forward to.

“The house back then was much like it was
when the police went there. I mean, right down to the same shitty furniture. Money
in stacks everywhere too…not nearly as much back then, mind you, but there all
the same, and none of us were to ever touch it.” He smiled then, the same sad
one from before. “Some of it in neat piles on shelves. There were plastic bags
of it stacked up like books on a shelf, each of them dated with the amount
within. The freezer in the basement held no meats or vegetables, but bags of
cash, hordes of it from her childhood until forever.”

“Ordan said that the officer that was first
on the scene had taken pictures of it. He thought no one would believe it if he
hadn’t.” Drew nodded. “He also told him that your mother was on welfare, that
she got free food handouts when they were available, as well as clothing from
the drives at the local churches too. She would be the first in line when there
was a free meal, and told everyone that would listen to her that she wasn’t
making it, her meds and bills were too much.”

“Why spend her own money when she could get
so much for free?” He laughed a little. “We had no things in our home. And what
I mean is we had no television sets, no radio, or foo-foo things, as she called
them. We had a couch that held us when we wanted to sit, and lamps, one on each
end of the couch, to see by. A table with three chairs, three plates…well, you
get it. There was no money spend on things that were not necessary, and she had
the final say on what was necessary, let me tell you. And even then, they had
to be something that was needed or die.”

She waited for him to explain the boots. Andi
had no idea, but she had a feeling that they were going to be the reason for
his hatred of his mother. Something that only she, as a person with the same
sort of feelings for her father, would only understand about him. As he sat
there, Craig filled their glass and cup. He said not a word, but she could tell
he was worried for the man. As soon as he walked away, Drew began again.

“They were on sale, these boots I wanted. They
were new and not full of holes. I’d not have to wear plastic bread bags on my
feet to keep my feet dry. But she said no. She told me, over and over, that I
wasn’t to have them. The shoes that I had were sufficient for me. They fit, did
the job that they were required to do, and that was enough for her. But I
wanted them, wanted them in a way that only a child could want, I suppose. And
the money was there. We could see it. Why not just buy me the boots to keep my
feet dry? I didn’t understand. Not then, and certainly not now.” He looked at
her then. “Lizzy served as lookout while I took it. I wanted them that badly,
you see. I never thought she’d find out. Yes, there would be dry feet, but that
would make her happy when I wasn’t sick with a cold again that winter, I
rationalized to myself. So while I climbed to the highest shelf in the living
room, Lizzy watched for her. When I had two twenties, money from two different
bags of cash, I hid it in my watch pocket and knew that by that time next week,
I’d be wearing new shoes, as would my sister. Then when they were purchased, I
would put the change back, not having any idea what things really cost as we
never bought anything, and I felt like Mother would think me brave and smart
for doing the right thing.”

“She knew.” He nodded and sipped his coffee.
Andi was sure that he wasn’t tasting it, the bitterness of the memory was
taking that much of him. “What did she do? Whip you? Beat you? I’m betting she
didn’t think you were brave at all, did she? Nor did she think you very smart.”

“No, neither of those things. When I returned
from school that next day, Lizzy was tied to a chair, her pretty face bruised
and beaten. Her left eye was swollen shut, her arms bloodied from the beating
that she’d gotten with the flyswatter that was her favorite type of weapon. I
should have run, I suppose. I knew what that I’d been caught, but I couldn’t
leave my sister to take it alone. The next thing I knew, I was falling forward,
the pain in the back of my head too much for me.”

Tears fell from his eyes. His handkerchief
came from his pocket then, and he wiped at them as he looked around. The man
was in so much pain that Andi could feel it. Almost touch it. When he looked at
her this time, she wanted to go to him, to hold him in her arms. Not the man he
was, but the child that he’d been.

“When I woke, I was tied to the other chair,
as my sister was still. We were at the kitchen table, tied there like a morbid
surreal dream. I could see that she’d found the money. It was in a plastic Baggie,
taped to the table in front of me. Lizzy had one in front of her as well. It
wasn’t until I tried to move, to see if I could try to reason with her—my own mother—that
I realized that this was well beyond what should have happened to a child who
only wanted boots. But there wasn’t any reasoning with her, and I should have
known better. I just wanted to let her know that my sister had had nothing to
do with the money when she hit me with the stick in her hands. Over and over
until blood ran freely down to my hands. My arms burned in pain…the switch hit
me in the face too. I screamed around the cotton taped in my mouth then, begged
her to no avail to let Lizzy go. But she would hit her too. Never asking a
question or saying a word, just beat us until there was no skin that she’d not
touched.” Andi reached for and took his hand in hers as he continued. “Mother
tied us there for five days. Saturday through Wednesday without food or water,
hitting us when we were awake and telling us how much she was disappointed in our
transgressions against her. Our transgressions against her for wanting
something as small as a ten dollar pair of shoes for each of us. Money, as far
as I could see, was in great amounts all about the house, yet it did us little
good for it being there. For five days, five full days, we were beaten,
screamed at, starved, and given no breaks. We sat in our own piss and crap for
all of those days, beaten and shattered.”

He sobbed, great gulping sobs that tore at
her. Even as she held his hand, he cried. Andi wanted to go and find his
mother’s grave, dig the woman up, and kill her again. This was beyond cruelty,
what she’d done to her children.

“It was still there.” It took her a moment to
realize what he’d meant. “When we went to the house, the police took me there to
show me what they’d found; the money in the envelope was still taped there. The
freshness of the tape told me that she’d kept it there to show whoever might come
by that her children had disappointed her. It was the same two twenties too. I
could never forget the numbers on the bills.”