Arrogant Bastard(4)

“I’m kind of tired. Been a long day.” I point toward the stairs and paint a regretful half-smile on my lips.

“Please.” She’s not asking. Her eyes snap toward the kitchen table. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this conversation. There are things you need to know, Jensen. About the past. About the present, too.”

The tea kettle whistles. She grabs two mugs and two bags of tea and I take a seat at the table amongst one of the twelve chairs.

“I’m sure you have questions,” she says, setting a white coffee mug in front of me.

Hundreds. Thousands, maybe. None of which matter at all anymore. Maybe at eight or twelve or even fifteen, I’d have wanted a chance to ask them. I lost my ability to give two shits years ago.

“Your father,” she says, blowing on the steamy liquid in her mug, “is a very powerful man.”

You’re tellin’ me, lady.

There’s a reason he beat the living shit out of me and walked away with a slap on the wrist. He’s got the whole town of Charter Springs, Arizona wrapped around his pinky finger. He drives around in the church’s Lincoln Town Car like he owns the city, and he sort of does. The man’s never met a traffic ticket he couldn’t get out of, and he’s never met a local he couldn’t convince to come to one of his sermons. The man could sell ice to an Eskimo, just like the way he sells his version of God to a congregation of over two-thousand people. Back in Charter Springs, Josiah Mackey is a hand-picked-by-God, modern-day saint.

“I ran off with him at eighteen,” she says, averting her gaze. “We never married. You came along quickly, and then something in your father changed. He became controlling, physically abusive—manipulative. I couldn’t do anything right. I couldn’t please him.”

Her hands tremble as she wraps them around her mug. Josiah Mackey put the fear of God into his congregation each Sunday, but he put the fear of himself into his women twenty-four-seven.

“I tried to leave him several times. I took you with me each time, and each time he’d find me. And so I stopped fighting. I made him think I was happy. I had to get him off my case for a while. But right after your seventh birthday, I announced I was leaving him for good. He told me if I took you, he’d kill us both.”

“I don’t doubt that.” I stare at my tea. I haven’t touched it yet. Not much of a tea-drinker, and it stinks like mulch and barley.

Kath blinks away tears and wipes the ones that fall anyway. “I wanted to come back for you, Jensen. I did. He made it impossible.”

If she wants me to feel sorry for her, it’s almost working.

Almost.

“I tried to go to the police in Charter Springs. No one would listen. No one believed me. And by then, he’d trashed my name all over town. Told everyone I ran off and had an affair. Said I had mental illnesses and I was a danger to you.” She sniffs and turns away. “The threats didn’t stop until he knew I was good and scared. I was afraid if I tried anything else, he’d hurt you.”

“I was a weapon,” I mused. “The only weapon he had to hurt you with.”

She wipes her nose on the side of her wrist and nods, her blue eyes softening as if we’re sharing a special moment. I’m sure it’s a special moment, in her book.

“I wish things would’ve been different,” she says. “There’s nothing you or I can do about any of it but move forward. I’m just glad to have you in my life again.”

Her hand slides across the table, covering mine. She’s not shaking anymore. I drag my eyes toward hers, and for the first time in a long time, I don’t completely hate her.

“Mind if I get to bed?” Heart-to-hearts wear me the fuck out. I’m not cut out for those kinds of talks.

“Do you forgive me, Jensen?” Her eyes are round, her brows raised. “I need to know. And if you can’t forgive me, is there any hope you might someday?”

I might be an asshole most of the time, and I’m definitely a Mackey, but I’m not heartless. Plus, she’s taking me in, which beats the hell out of some random foster home or halfway house. Mercy told me I was old enough to be a ward of the state, but I wanted to finish my last few weeks high school without worrying about how I was going to provide for myself or where I’d be staying until my apprenticeship. This, believe it or not, was the lesser of all evils.

I take a deep breath, consider it, and release. “Sure… Mom.”

She smiles when I call her that, and maybe it’s sort of worth it. I don’t tend to make a ton of people smile these days. It gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling like I used to get when I’d break into the communion     wine cabinet.