Royce (59 page)

And finally he called his mother, he’d been worried about calling her.  He had no idea what she knew or didn’t know, if she was in on it or not, but he decided the only way to find out was to call, but he called Jameson first.  “Jameson, I’m about to call my mother, let me know if you hear anything afterwards.  I’m not sure man.”  “Will do Mr. Harrington,” and he could hear the smile on Jameson’s face.  He’d called him with his new cell phone number practically before he’d gotten out the store good, and now he dialed the number to the ranch.  The number they’d had since he could remember and the butler answered. 

“I’d like to speak to Allison Harrington please.” “May I ask who’s calling sir?”  “Just tell her it’s a very dear friend,” and he could hear his mother, “What? Who would be calling me?”  “Hello, this is Allison Harrington.” “Mother,” and she broke down, “Royce, Royce darling is that you?”  “Yes mother it’s me.” “Oh my Royce!  How could you do that, how could you run off like that without telling us where you were?  How could you do that Royce?”  “It’s a long story mother, but I felt for the safety of my family and did what was right at the time,” and over the line he could hear his mother crying, “Are you home darling?  Are you safe now?”  “Yes mother, I’m home and I am safe.” “Well I need to see you, I haven’t seen you in so long, come home, come home Royce, can you come home?”  “Yes mother I can do that.”

“Oh Royce I have news, it’s not good you’ve been gone so long I will share it with you when you get here, it’s not news I want to share over the phone.” “If it’s about father passing I’m aware of that, I spoke with Bobby.” “Oh Royce darling, yes your father is gone and I know he wouldn’t have wanted to miss this day,” she cried and Royce was thinking,
no, he wanted it the other way around, he wanted this day to be about the death of my family
. “When can you come home?”  “Well I’m in Dallas now I can fly up tomorrow and see you.” “Oh that will be wonderful, just wonderful, everyone will be so happy to see you!”  And he could hear the excitement, “Tommy is here, Karen is here with us, and oh Alice Ann, well it might be too much for her to get here from North Carolina on such short notice, but I’ll call Dillon, he’s out at Tech.  He’s staying and doing an internship this summer then he’s going for his masters in the fall.  Says he wants to major in Clinical Psychology, imagine that,” his mother was going on and on.

“That’s wonderful mother I can’t wait to see all of you,” his mother paused, “And I need to tell you this so you won’t be surprised but Tammy is here with us.  She just got out a couple of months ago and she had nowhere else to go and Karen begged me to take her in, and she is the children’s mother after all,” Royce hadn’t thought about Tammy and he was glad to know she’d spent the full ten years in prison since he felt he’d spent the last ten years locked up too so to speak. 

“Okay mother thanks for letting me know,” and Royce didn’t know how he felt about that or if he understood but he did tell Bobby when he got off the phone though, “Tammy is out of prison and staying with my mother,” and Bobby was shocked. “Well I made sure she stayed in there I tell you that,” he said angrily.  Bobby felt all this was because of Tammy a woman he should have never been with in the first place.  She never deserved Royce in his opinion and then he told Royce what he’d done. 

“When I found out about her parole hearing I flew to Gatesville man and made sure she stayed locked up.”  Back then Bobby was so mad at her and still was for causing this, for causing Royce to have to run and hide and he was scared for him, so scared and he blamed Tammy and he told the parole board that.  “Her actions and what she started has caused Royce Harrington and his family to fear for their lives and they had to flee for their safety as they are uncertain who or what will be coming after them and they believe another threat is imminent.  She caused them to give up their life, their livelihood, and she should remain in prison for the maximum of her sentence,” he said angrily, and he saw Karen and Dillon.  Karen was crying and they were the only ones who’d shown up asking for their mother to be released. 

Tammy had been miserable in prison and had regretted from the moment the doors clanged behind her what she’d done, but mostly that she’d been caught.  She wished with everything in her that her plan had worked and Joy and her evil spawn were no more, and then if it came out then so be it, but to be in prison for planning burned her to her core and her only solace was her children.  She called every chance she got until Walker Sr. found out and put a stop to that and put his foot down, “You will call them once a week or I will shut down all communication!  We can’t have you calling whenever you feel like it upsetting the children!”   He’d told her furious, “Wednesday between four and six!  That’s it!”  And he’d held her to that, she tried to break that a few times but the butler who was the only one who answered the phone wouldn’t accept her charges unless it was Wednesday between four and six. 

Since no one would bring them to see her Tammy wouldn’t see her children for three years and for her it was three long tortuous years of once a week calling and no visits.  Karen was fourteen when she was sent to prison and it would take her getting her driver’s license and a car to end that drought and they finally came to visit her. 

And after five years Tammy was ready, more than ready to come home.  She’d survived the best she could in prison; she’d pretended she liked being in a woman’s bed with her fingers between her legs and her tongue deep inside her; she’d pretended she would kick the shit out of anyone who crossed her when she was scared shitless.  She’d flirted and let a couple of guards know they could have her if it meant she could win favors and get a little bit of freedom, but none of them took the bait.  After five years she was tired of pretending she wanted to go home and it was Karen and Dillon who tried to free her, but it was Bobby who stopped it.

The parole board looked hard at Tammy after his statement and the head of the board asked, “Were you aware Mr. Harrington and his family had fled fearing for their safety?”  “Yes, but it had nothing to do with me, I didn’t do anything,” but she knew Royce was gone.  Karen had told her, “Daddy’s gone mom and no one knows where.  Grandma is really upset about it too,” and she remembered at the time thinking,
run, run, you should run, if I’m locked up in prison you shouldn’t be happy either.  Run and take that bitch and your mixed spawn with you.  
She wasn’t sorry Royce had to run and with that the parole board denied her parole, also believing she had something to do with it.

The next day instead of flying Royce decided to drive.  Amarillo was only a few hours from Dallas and he wanted to think, be alone, and be free for a change, just go with no worries, no fears so he said goodbye to Bobby, “I’ll get back as soon I can okay.”  He wanted to roar up the freeway so he rented a red Mustang GT with a stick shift and sped up highway 75 towards Oklahoma. 

He drove with his music blasting.  The car came with satellite radio and he loved it.  He found so many stations with music that he loved and hadn’t heard in a long time that he made little drum beats on the steering wheel as he drove.  He was carefree but he also thought long and hard as he was zooming down the highway and by the time he reached Amarillo city limits he felt a knot in his stomach and he knew he didn’t want to see Tammy.  He hated her with everything in him, and his mother he didn’t know what she knew or didn’t but she didn’t seem to care about what happened to him if she thought welcoming Tammy was okay.  She clearly just didn’t get it.  Tammy was in jail for trying to have his wife and children murdered, that should be reason enough for her not to want anything to do with her.  He was her son, her flesh and blood and he felt she was being either naïve or cavalier about the whole thing either way he wasn’t sure if he was ready to face someone who didn’t understand or who wasn’t ready to understand. 

His thoughts turned to Joy,
if only I’d taken her to see them, maybe they wouldn’t have been so attached to Tammy. 
Joy was ten times the better person than Tammy.  Tammy had proven herself to be a heartless bitch in his opinion, but he’d been afraid to take Joy to meet his family, afraid his father would say something to hurt her, and he just couldn’t do it.  He’d seen how they treated Tammy at first and the best thing then was to stay away and it took time and children for them to accept her, but he didn’t do that with Joy and he felt the knot,
and that’s why my father could do such a thing, he didn’t know her.  He didn’t know how beautiful and wonderful she is,
and as he neared the turn off towards the ranch he saw the sign, “Junction 207,” and he thought of Karen. 

He didn’t know how she’d turned out and he wondered if she was alright mentally, and if she was anything like before and still defending her mother and he thought that was most likely since his mother said, “Karen begged me to take her in,” then he didn’t want to see her either.  Dillon he wouldn’t mind seeing, but Dillon was a follower and he’d never sided with him in this, so there was no reason to believe it would be different this time, and as he neared Junction 207 he swerved off and kept going.  He wasn’t ready to face them yet he knew that, he decided instead to go see his father, and just like that the knot eased.

Royce drove to St. Agnes of Assisi Memorial Cemetery.  It was a large beautiful cemetery and the Harrington’s had a large mausoleum where Harrington’s had been buried for generations and there was still room for more.  He could be buried there if he chose but he didn’t think he would, he wanted to be near Joy wherever that final resting place would be.

He called his mother, “Mother I don’t know what you understand about what I’ve been through and why but I’m not sure if you’re ready to understand if you think I can be in the same room with Tammy.  I can’t see you all right now mother.  There’s a lot that needs to be discussed and some things you need to be aware of and I’m not sure if you’re ready to hear them.  I’m sorry mother but I can’t come now,” and his mother was shocked, “Royce, everyone wants to see you, you must come!”  “Why must I come mother?  Did you hear what I said, do you know what I’ve been through?  Do you want to know and hear what I have to say mother and Tammy is a direct link to that.  I cannot come there and pretend everything is alright with me, come to some lunch and act like it’s one big happy family when it’s not.  There are some serious issues involved here that need to be discussed. I’m sorry mother I will call you another time,” and he knew he’d made the right decision and felt lighter. 

His mother seemed to take a stance without knowing what her actions might cause and he remembered her always standing behind his father, agreeing with everything he said or did.  And his brother was just like her.  They stood behind his father and he wondered did they know he was trying to kill his family?  Did they know how many times his father had broken him?   His reason for running in the first place, for bullets in Spain, for assassins in South Africa, a cruel letter in Italy, each time had broken him and sent him spiraling.  He hurt so deep and it was Joy and his family that held him together, he held on tight to Joy, so tight and he was glad she was the kind of woman who didn’t mind how hard and strong he held on to her.  If it hadn’t been for Joy he wouldn’t have made it through, and he wished he’d had the chance to ask his father  "Why?  Why?  Why?”

If his family wasn’t ready to seriously talk about this and really understand then he couldn’t see them, he couldn’t face them right now.

He drove through the angelic archway.   A stone and wrought iron fence with beautiful scrollwork along the top with cherubic stone angels went around the immaculate grounds.  He followed the roads until he reached the mausoleum, it was in the back but in the middle of the cemetery.  You could see the large marble structure long before you got to it.  It was made of solid marble and had a statue of Jesus with his palms up to welcome you, a stone path led to the Harrington final resting place. There wasn’t a door to the mausoleum, it was open and had marble pillars and an everlasting flame constantly burning in the center and behind it were the burial chambers that went from floor to ceiling, his ancestors buried one on top of the other and room to spare.

He parked behind a black SUV and a black man was leaning against it wearing a black suit and texting on his phone, the man nodded and Royce nodded back and headed down the stone path.  Royce saw two children about nine or ten, a boy and a girl dressed in their Sunday best laughing and holding hands going around and around in circles like they were playing ring around the roses, he assumed they were the man’s since they were black too.  He entered the mausoleum and a woman was sitting on one of the stone benches and she looked to be praying, her head down and eyes closed and her lips were silently moving.

“Oh excuse me,” he said.  She looked up startled and stared at him, “Oh no, it’s okay,” she smiled at him.  He walked towards her, “I’m Royce Harrington,” and she stood and shook his hand and she kept staring at him, “Do you know someone in here?”  “Yes, yes I do, Walker Harrington Sr.”  “Oh my father,” and he wondered if her father or mother was an employee, his father hired blacks in his factories, but only a few if any were at the main office, “How did you know him?”  And she looked at him strange, she paused and took a long time to answer and now he really wanted to know how she knew him.  She stared at him, looking deeply in his eyes and he waited for an answer. 

“You look so much like him,” she smiled and said, “So much like daddy.”  She looked into his eyes to see if that registered and it did.  “He was my father too,” and the shock hit him like a bolt and he took a step back.

“What?  Who are you?”  He said his head spinning, “I’m Holly Ann Johnson, Holly Ann Glover now and yes your father is my father.  I’m our father’s youngest child I was born ten days after you on August 14, 1968,” and her face showed she’d resigned to tell the truth.  He’d seen her struggle for a moment as he waited and then she resolved to answer truthfully, and now he was looking at her.  She had light eyes, not blue, but a brownish hazel, and her skin was a little darker than Justin’s, and now he stared at her.  “I know it’s a shock Royce, but would you like to meet somebody, someone who can tell you everything?”  And he nodded, and she took his hand.  He’d gone mute and she led him out the mausoleum and up the path like a child, he was stunned deaf and dumb.  “Come on Tiara and Tony, it’s time to go,” Holly Ann said.