AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My father’s words rang loudly in my mind, exactly as he’d told them just a few weeks prior. I’d had time to digest them. To unpack the tale he’d tried telling me all these years, and ultimately gave up on, out of respect for my own selfish wishes.
Ross ran a small crew, doing small-time jobs. He was a little older though — too old to be running petty theft. Too slow to be doing the more physical jobs that might get him caught. These things should’ve been obvious to me, but they weren’t at the time. They should’ve been my first warning to just walk away.
I’d sat in the prison, watching him talk. Listening to every last thing he had to say. If it all sounded a little too well-rehearsed, it’s because it was. He’d been wanting to get the story off his chest for almost twenty years.
At first things were good. The jobs were simple, the pay good. We hit targets at night, when no one was round. Took things that no one would miss, at least until long after we’d left the scene.
I’m ashamed to admit how much I liked it. It felt exhilarating, getting away clean. Passing that point in time where something that belonged to someone else suddenly and irrevocably became mine.
My father’s eyes had crawled my face, searching for a change in my expression. Looking to see if he were being judged, or even worse, shut out completely. I’d given him nothing, except my attention. Which was fine, because he’d asked for nothing else.
Eventually the jobs slowed down, and the pay thinned out. My wife — your mother — was already on my case about it. She never knew exactly what I did, but she never pressed too deeply either. There were things she didn’t want to see. Things she’d rather remain blind to, as long as I was bringing home cash enough to pay our bills.
Over time, I eventually wasn’t. I borrowed for a while, but that only led to bigger problems. I got in with the wrong sort of crowd, and ended up owing some bad people a lot of money. Even worse, your mother wasn’t happy anyway. No matter what I did, she always wanted more. No matter what we had, she always needed to push the envelope.
I explained to Ross that I needed more. I had an ambitious wife, a hungry child, a rent payment to make. When your mother threatened to leave, so did I. I told Ross I was going to work somewhere full time. A real job. A real salary, collecting an actual paycheck…
But Ross only laughed at me. He pointed out numerous times where we’d made as much in a single night as I could make in a month. I still wanted to go back to cutting meat. I was great with a knife and everyone knew it, but deep down in my heart I didn’t want to work for someone else. I had ambitions of my own. I wanted to open my own shop…
When Ross came to me with our last job, I couldn’t say no. We were doing a big safe in a tremendous house, tucked away in a rich neighborhood so dark and quiet no one would ever know. There was cash to be had. Jewelry. Bullion. It sounded too good to be true because itwastoo good to be true. Only when you’re that young and stupid — not to mention that desperate — you don’t think about the consequences. You live for the moment, because you’re too stupid to see ahead.
My father paused here, gathering himself for the last part of the story. He looked actually pained. The color had drained from his face, and I could see the sorrow in his eyes.
It wasn’t sorrow for getting locked up, though. It wasn’t even sorrow for not being a part of his son’s entire life.
No, this was a much deeper, more mournful sorrow.
The guy wasn’t supposed to be home. The house was supposed to be empty. If it had been, my whole life would be different. But a freak snowstorm and canceled flight were all the difference between freedom and imprisonment, and also the difference between life and death.
Slowly, painfully, my father had related the remaining details of his sad, pathetic tale. The guy charged them. Ross pulled a gun. My father never even knew Ross tocarrya gun, because he’d never carried one before, but suddenly the gun was going off and someone was screaming and my father was covered in another man’s blood.
Fuck.
In the end, we got away only we didn’t. Ross left a bloody print behind. He’d lost a glove in the scuffle, and they nailed him quickly. It took him all of twenty-four hours to rat me out, and then I was nailed too. Turns out you get virtually the same murder charge just for assisting in a crime as the person who actually pulls the trigger. Even when you never knew about that trigger…
I finally stopped talking and looked up into the faces of Kayla and Warren and Luke. It was nearly midnight, and the trailer was silent. But it was cozy now, all warmed up from a newly-working heater. It was furnished too, with second-hand couches we’d picked up at Goodwill and an old unused fridge from the back of the garage. The ceramic of the stove was cracked, and it only had two working burners out of four. The overhead lightbulbs were those shitty energy-saving spirals that cast a yellowish light, but they still did the job.
“I just wanted all of you to know the story,” I said thickly. “My whole life I’d been avoiding it, turning a deaf ear to whatever my old man had to say.” I sighed heavily. “Now, after all these years, I no longer blame him. I don’t resent him for leaving us. I forgive him for not being there.”
They stood around in the shitty yellow light, nodding their support and drinking the rest of the twelve-pack I’d picked up earlier in the week. I’d have to replace the beer before the old man showed up. I wanted to leave him at leastsomethingto look forward to in this lonely, quiet place.
“Also… thanks for this,” I said, waving my bottle around the trailer. “You didn’t have to help me. I never would’ve asked you to—”
“We help each other,” Warren cut in. “That’s what we do.”
“That’s what we’ve always done,” Luke offered, adding his best tension-cutting smile. “So you can shove your ‘thanks’ up your ass.”
It felt good to have them there, and damned good to be done, too. My father would go crazy when he saw the place. I realized in the back of my mind it was exactly what I wanted.
“I never imagined I’d be fixing this place up for him,” I said numbly. “Not in a million years.”
Kayla took my hand in hers. “Yeah, well it’s a good thing you did,” she said softly. “It’s the start of a whole new life for him. An all new beginning.”
I turned until we were nose to nose, mouth to mouth. From this angle I could count every blemish, every tiny freckle on her pretty face. Goddamn she was beautiful.
“Just like us,” she whispered, and then kissed me.
Forty-Two
