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Ash
The driveway of Bea’s house is empty, but my mother opens the door the moment after I ring the doorbell. She’s dressed in her small town rich lady finest—a pair of tan cropped trousers, a loose flowery silk shirt—and her hair looks freshly styled, while her long nails each have a different design on them. The make-up she’s wearing makes her looks ten years younger. But the concerned look in her eyes cancels out the effect.
“What’s going on, Ash?” she asks. “What’s happening with Bea?”
I take a few moments to decide how much to tell her, but at the end of the day, she’s used to hearing bad news.
“Are you home alone?” I ask and she nods.
I pass her and walk to the kitchen, where she takes over getting me something to eat as soon as I open the fridge.
I tell her what happened while she heats up the leftovers from last night’s dinner for me. A lot of the food seems to be left and I feel very bad for just storming out the way I did last night.
“Does Bea know who her father was?” I ask once I’m done.
She has a shocked, vacant expression on her face, since she’s clearly still processing what I told her, but the question brings her back to the present.
She shakes her head. “Her mother never told her the full story, as far as I know.”
“But you knew, right? I mean, you must’ve known all of them,” I say in between bites. The food tastes much better today than it did last night.
“Yes,” she says simply. “I recognized her as soon as she moved in next door, but she didn’t recognize me. She always kept herself away from that part of Trigger’s life and after he died, she left it all behind.”
“I guess you had that in common, huh?” My mom was never a fan of my dad’s MC ties. I suppose that was a large part of the reason why she left him.
She gives me a stern look and shakes her head. “I had a total of one conversation with Sam about that part of our lives. She doesn’t like remembering.”
“Well, I’ll tell Bea as soon as she gets back,” I say.
“Do you have to?” she asks. “That girl has been through so much already.”
“You mean the stalker?” I put the last piece of chicken in my and push my plate away.
My mom nods. “Or whatever is really going on.”
“You don’t believe her?”
She shrugs.
“Well, I do. What happened last night made it clear she’s not just making everything up, I’d say.”
She nods in a way that makes me think she’s not as convinced as I am. But I’ll make up my own mind. I decided that way back in the interrogation room and nothing I heard since has made me change my mind.
A car pulls into the driveway next door, and through the hedge I can see Bea’s mother helping her out of the passenger seat. She’s still wearing the same dress as last night, and it sparkles even nicer in the sun. She also doesn’t look like she can walk on her own and I’m out of my chair before even deciding to stand up.
“She’s back, I’ll go talk to her,” I say.
“Give her a minute,” mom say. “Besides, you do want to shower and change before you do that, at least.”
“I came straight here, this will have to do.”
She looks at me with very watery eyes, and I’m pretty sure she’s not actually seeing me in the here and now.
“There’s some of your old clothes in your bedroom upstairs,” she says. “You can shower and change there.”
Why would my clothes still be in my bedroom? All told, I probably spent less than a month’s worth of nights in that bedroom.
“I was sure you’d turned it into a guest room a long time ago,” I say and chuckle, but she just smiles sadly.
