Page 14 of Reckoning

Tate looked up, saw Briar’s father, and knew he’d come to take her home. He put the leaf aside and patted Briar’s shoulder.

“Briar, Briar…your daddy’s here.”

She opened her eyes and sat up. “You promise Mama isn’t in jail?”

“I promise,” Tate whispered.

When Roger stepped off the porch to walk toward them, Briar jumped up and ran toward him, talking all the way.

“Daddy! We played hide-and-seek, and I got to swing in the tire, and we had cookies and juice, and we made toast. It’s for making wishes. Tate is my best friend. It’s a rule.”

Roger scooped her up in his arms, listening to her rattle on about her visit. “You made toast?” he asked.

Lilith smiled as she explained. “They toasted each other with juice boxes, thus the ‘making toast’ reference. I don’t know where Tate got this. Lord knows Abel and I aren’t in the habit of such things.”

“On TV, Mama. Watching the Super Bowl with Daddy. The winners were taking a drink and laughing and bumping bottles and cups and I asked Daddy what they were doing, and he said they were making toast,” Tate said.

The adults burst out laughing. “You are so right,” Abel said. “I forgot about that.”

Tate leaned against his daddy’s leg and waved at Briar, sad that she was leaving.

Briar was looking over her daddy’s shoulder, waving goodbye to Tate.

Parting is such sweet sorrow, Lilith thought, and went to retrieve the quilt she’d put down for them to play as Abel and Tate walked them to the door.

The overhead sun was hot on the bald spot on the back of Roger’s head as he opened the door for Briar to get in the car. As soon as she climbed up into the back seat, he reached for the seat belt to buckle her in.

“You’ll be happy to know that Mama will be home when we get there. She didn’t have to go to jail after all.”

“I know. Tate told me this morning. I was sad and scared, and he told me as soon as I got there that they wouldn’t put her in jail, but they would put her on a roll.”

Roger’s heart skipped. This morning? Before the sentence had even been announced? Lord, I am glad that boy is not my child. If he’s the real deal, he’d always know when someone was lying too. Not that I lie…but still…

He patted Briar’s shoulder, then closed the car door and took a deep breath. He wished with everything in him that the Bandy family would move away. It would solve everything. They were nice people, and the little boy was quite sweet, but the bond between his daughter and their son was worrisome. All he could do was hope that as Briar grew older, she’d find other friends, and different boys more suited to their way of life.

Briar was staring at the back of her daddy’s head as they drove through the streets toward home, wondering what mood her mama was going to be in when they got there. When the car began slowing down and turned up into their driveway, she began to get anxious. Mama was mean to everybody when she was angry. She wished Mama was nice, like Mrs. Bandy.

“We’re here,” Roger said as he pulled up in the drive.

Briar unlocked her seat belt and got herself out of the car and ran up the porch steps, but when she got to the front door, it was locked. Mama never locked the door when she was home.

“The door’s locked,” she said.

Roger frowned as he used his key. The moment he opened the door, he could hear Mariah talking on the phone. From the tone of her voice, and the few words he could make out, she was already spinning a story to make herself look like the victim.

He shut the door behind them, then gave Briar a quick pat on the back. “Why don’t you go play in your room for a while? I’ll see about making us some lunch in a bit.”

Happy she wasn’t going to have to face her mother just yet, Briar ran up the stairs and down the hall to her room, while Roger went to the kitchen.

Mariah was leaning against the kitchen island with a glass of wine in one hand and their landline phone in the other. When she saw Roger enter the room, she turned her back on him and kept talking.

For Roger, it was the last straw. He opened a cabinet door and then slammed it so hard the dishes shook on the shelves. Mariah jumped like she’d been shot and, as she turned around, saw the rage on his face and ended her call. Before she could say a word, he pointed at her.

“Don’t even start,” he hissed. “You lost all footing with me. You’re already lying again. I heard what you were saying. You can lie to everyone else until you’re blue in the face, but you can’t sell that to me, so don’t even try. Your daughter is in her room. If you so much as look cross-eyed at her, or say anything about her outing you for what you did, you’ll think a year of parole is a vacation compared to what I’d do to you. Divorcing me won’t get you custody of her either, because you’re a convicted felon. On parole. So, stop spinning lies. Get off your high horse and feed our daughter before you get so drunk you forget she exists. I need to get back to work, and your child needs to be fed.”

Mariah promptly turned on the whine and the tears. “But Roger, I…”

The phone rang, startling them both. “I’ll get it,” he said, and pushed past her. “Hello? Yes, I’ll be there shortly. See you there,” he said, hung up the phone, and went to get bread out of the breadbox. “I’ll take my sandwich to go,” he said, and got lunch meat and fixings out of the refrigerator, slapped ham and cheese and lettuce on his sandwich, and wrapped it in a paper towel. “You make Briar cry while I’m gone, and I’ll give you something to cry about when I get home.” And then he was gone.