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“I’m not surprised,” he says. “I’m going to do something I’ve never done in twenty years.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m going to blab about how I found her,” he says as he waves to Gladys to bring him a round. He waits for her to walk away before he starts his tale with the words I knew but am still sick to my stomach to hear. “He beat her. Knocked the absolute shit out of her. And frequently. There wasn’t a thing she could do right.”
“What about her family?” I ask. Someone had to have protected her.
“What family?” he laughs a mean laugh. One that’s not at all happy. “When she told them she was pregnant with Audrey at sixteen, her daddy threw her out and her momma did nothing to stop it.”
“Christ.”
“I’m not even sure she told them how bad it was but if she did, they weren’t a lifeline for her.”
“That’s atrocious.”
“When she wandered into my bar with an infant in her arms and two toddlers trailing behind her, her sunglasses did not one fucking thing to hide the bruises that covered her face or the careful way she held her body. She also didn’t have two nickels to rub together and even though she was scared of me, she begged me for something to eat—not for her, mind you, for her girls—and said she’d wash the dishes in trade.”
“What did you do?”
“I asked the girls if they liked milk with their PB & J and lead them all to the kitchen. Zelly was dead on her feet, and I guess there was something about the way I cut the crust off for the little girls. Audrey and Parker couldn’t have been more than five and six. Either way, they trusted me. I promised Zelly no one would ever hurt her again. I became her dad that day, the one she deserved. I put them in a rental property I had on a hill, and I helped her cover her tracks. After that we were family.”
“Thank you,” I say quietly. I thank him for telling me, for saving them. I don’t know what, but this gruff man is a good man. The world could do with more like him.
“The question now is what are you going to do with the information?”
“I’m going to make her talk to me.”
“Good man,” he says, throwing some more money on the table for Gladys. “I’ll drive you to your car.”
“Thanks.”
“Oh, and not a word to Peaches, yeah?”
“Peaches?” I ask.
“Nash.”
“Mason?”
“Yeah, it’s a long story. I’ll tell you over a beer after you win over my Zelly.”
“That’s a deal.”
I follow Hank out to an old, rusted Chevy Cheyenne pickup and climb in. He drives me back to the airfield and kicks me out with a warning to “Treat my girl right.”
I feel like a teen again, promising to have his daughter home before ten on a Saturday night. Nevertheless, I climb in my SUV and head for the little blue house on the hill. The one that I now know an old Vietnam vet gifted to a scared single mom who had absolutely nothing to her name and no one to lean on. I want to be the one she leans on. I know that I’m strong enough, if only she’ll let me. I’m just going to have to prove it.
I turn off the engine and take a deep breath. The curtains flutter and wonder if I’m about to be treated to another invasion of the Harris women. One thing I know for sure, is that at least her daughters are in my camp, even if their mother is running scared.
You can run, Zelda, but you can’t hide.
I knock on the door and three solid beats pass before it opens and the very woman who has occupied all of my thoughts and not any of my phone calls today stands in the opening.
“Court,” she says softly. “Wha-what are you doing here?”
“I called you,” I tell her. “Several times actually.”
“About that—”
