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“Love the design on the bedspread,” Shirley said.
Dani nodded. “Me, too. I’m a sucker for anything floral, and the softer the pastel colors, the better I like it.” She plumped up and added a couple of decorator pillows, and called it done. “I cannot wait to sleep in my own bed tonight.”
Shirley sighed. “That’s exactly how I felt when we moved home. I was so grateful to be there, and at thesame time, after the nightmare we left behind us, it felt like I was coming home with my tail between my legs. Our mountain family changed all that for us.”
“I don’t know what happened to you, but I can empathize with needing a fresh start,” Dani said. “Aaron knows. I told him not long after we first met. Secrets are like poison. If you keep them forever, it just takes them longer to die.”
Shirley was silent for a moment, and then her eyes welled. “My husband, my sons’ father, was a man I came to fear. It’s been well over a year since it all happened, but he got high on something one day and nearly beat me to death. He stormed off, leaving me for dead, then went on a rampage that ended with him killing two innocent people. I finally got the courage to divorce him after he was jailed. He’s in prison now, serving a life sentence without possibility of parole. But my sons and I became pariahs through no fault of our own. Then my mother passed, and I inherited my childhood home here. It was a godsend. A way to cut ties completely with that life. And the last thing I did was take back my maiden name, and so did my sons. His name was the last link we had to him, and we cut it and left him behind.”
At first, Dani said nothing. Just handed her a tissue.
But it was best telling her truth now when it mattered before she got too close to people who would judge her again.
“I had an ex-boyfriend who turned into a stalker. I, too, was beaten. My neighbors heard the screams.He bonded out of jail before I got out of the hospital, and spent the ensuing year trying to get me back; then it turned into stalking. Scary stuff. I got a protective order that didn’t work. The police got tired of me calling only to have him disappear by the time they arrived. I woke up once and saw him standing by my bed. I don’t know how he got in, but I had become his enemy, and I knew it was only a matter of time before he killed me.”
Shirley pulled Dani down onto the side of the bed they’d just made and held her hand.
“Dear lord, child. What did you do?”
Dani looked up. “I changed the game he was playing.” Then she told her about stuffing pillows in her bed and sleeping in the closet, and then finally hearing him in her apartment again. She was shaking by the time she got to the part where she was watching him from the closet when he emptied the gun into the pillows.
“Did he get away again?” Shirley asked.
“No. I’d already called 911 before he got into the room. The dispatcher heard everything as it was happening. When I knew his gun was empty, I came flying out of the closet before he could run, and shot him in both knees. He’s in prison. In a wheelchair. He got fifty years for attempted first-degree murder, without a possibility of parole. That’s why I’m here. Because I couldn’t be there anymore.”
Shirley hugged her.
“We belong to a select club of women who havesurvived their killers. We hold our heads up. We do not walk in their shame.”
Dani looked at her then. “No. We do not walk in their shame. Now, let’s go see where we are in unpacking.”
They stood up in unison, but when they turned around, the brothers were standing in the doorway.
Before Dani could react, they spilled into the room and surrounded her and their mother, wrapped their arms around both of them, and pulled them close.
“Some men are sons-a-bitches,” Wiley muttered.
“They don’t deserve to draw breath,” Sean said.
“Some men are good men,” B.J. whispered.
“Yes, and children are not responsible for their fathers’ sins, and neither are their victims,” Aaron said.
Shirley looked up from within the circle and saw the look on Dani’s face.
“I’m hoping you’re just overwhelmed by all the love, and that expression on your face is not claustrophobia, because my boys are huggers. And if you don’t toss us away after all this, this won’t be your last group hug.”
Dani shook her head. “No claustrophobia here. Yes, overwhelmed, but in a really good way.”
“Good news,” Shirley said, then looked at her sons. “Well? Are the boxes in the right rooms?”
“Yes, ma’am,” they echoed.
“Then Miss Dani, what would you have us do next?” Shirley said.
“Yes. Give me a job,” B.J. said. “The sooner we get through, the quicker I get to eat.”
The ensuing laughter swept the room clean, and happiness returned along with a new sense of belonging to people who were not her kin, something Dani had never felt before.
