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I wasn’t sure why my offer of help didn’t result in the same level of excitement a
s Ivy’s, but however the fuck we got there didn’t matter. The main thing was that Annika had her arms around Ivy, a huge smile on her face, and those defeated shoulders were gone.
Thank fuck.
My gaze met Ivy’s in appreciation while I jerked my chin towards the kitchen door. “I’ll be back soon,” I mouthed. In other words: you sort my sister out because I have no fucking idea how to do that.
I went in search of Mum, finding her on the wooden bench in the garden she loved. She sat with her back hunched, hands curled around the seat gripping it tightly, head down. Everything about the way she sat led me to believe she wasn’t doing so well.
I sat next to her, noticing for the first time the worn dress that hung from her tiny frame. Fuck, how had I missed her struggle? I’d been so wrapped up in the club and my problems with Ivy that I’d neglected the other woman I cared for most in the world. In that time, she’d not only been dealing with a teenage girl, she’d also been through a falling out with her closest sister.
“I’m sorry about before.”
She looked up at me, surprise clear in her eyes. It wasn’t often anyone got an apology out of me. “Thank you,” she said softly, her voice laced with exhaustion.
“You need a break from the girls.”
Her chest rose and fell as she took a deep breath. “I can afford neither the time nor the money, Zachary. And besides, your sisters need me. I can’t just take off on a holiday whenever I feel like it.”
She might not have been my birth mother, but we shared the same stubborn streak. I readied for a fight. “One week. I’ll pay for it and stay with the girls while you’re gone. Ivy will help. She’s in there now helping solve Nik’s problems. If she can manage that, she and I can manage them for a week.” At the pursing of her lips, I added, “I’m not taking no for an answer, so don’t even try to argue with me about this.”
The time that passed between my offer and her response felt like forever. She watched me silently for the longest time before gazing out at her rose bushes. A few birds landed on the birdbath next to the rose garden, drawing her attention there while cold wind sliced through the air scattering chills over our skin. And all the while I thought about my life before her, which only added to the bite of the wind making me cold.
I’d had six month’s experience with the foster care system and the streets by the time I landed on Margreet and Dale King’s doorstep. While those six months hadn’t been anywhere near as bad as living with my parents, they’d been fucked up. Three sets of foster parents who didn’t know how to handle an angry nine-year-old boy, one filthy cop who’d handled me in ways a cop never should, and a fourth foster father who’d tried to beat the anger out of my system added another layer of damage to that already inflicted by Carl and Lois Brown, my biological parents. To say I’d been filled with mistrust was an understatement.
Dale had been a good father in the time we had before he passed away, but it was Margreet who found a way to connect with me. Compassion, love, and patience were things I never knew until I met her. I hadn’t the first idea of what those words even fucking meant before her. She showed me and taught me how to love. And although I wasn’t the best at it, I was far better than if she’d never been my role model.
Turning to face me, she murmured, “You were my most difficult child.”
I wasn’t sure where she was taking this. “And?” That wasn’t news to me, so why voice it now?
She placed her palm on my cheek. “And look at you now.”
My thoughts faltered, and my breathing slowed. Carl and Lois had fucked me up to the point that I didn’t know how to accept kindness, and although Margreet had done her best, I still didn’t know what to do with it most of the time. My mind was conditioned to expect and deal with cuts, bruises, beatings, burns, broken bones, and unimaginable other shit. Cruelty was the currency I dealt in. My brain misfired when presented with anything else. Sometimes I figured it out; sometimes I refused and clung to the familiar.
When I didn’t reply, Mum nodded and said, “I’ll go away for a week. Perhaps I’ll go see Janet.”
“No, I’m getting you a room at that resort in Port Douglas that you’ve always wanted to stay at.” Janet, her sister, was a lazy bitch. She’d take advantage of Mum.
Her eyes widened, shocked. “That resort is far too expensive, Zachary. I’ll just find a motel on the Gold Coast. I can lie on the beach all day and read.”
I stood, and with a shake of my head, I said, “Nope, you’re going to Port Douglas.” And I don’t give a flying fuck how expensive it is. She deserved it. Hell, she deserved so much more, but I wasn’t a man who engaged in battles I figured I couldn’t win. A week was all I knew I could push her for.
As I walked away from her, she called out, “Don’t ever believe those voices in your head. They’re wrong.”
I paused for only a moment before continuing. She knew about the voices because I’d shared that information after I’d lived with her for a few years. I’d volunteered that the voices had helped me survive Carl’s abuse, that they’d helped me understand why he inflicted it.
That I deserved it.
That I was a bad person.
I didn’t hear the voices these days, and I didn’t believe that I’d deserved Carl’s abuse. Not anymore. But I did know I wasn’t a good person. She was wrong about that, not me.
6
King
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