Dylan’s Redemption(28)

Dylan leaned against a tree about ten feet behind her. Frozen, she stood with her back straight and her head bent, looking down at her father’s grave where Buddy’s casket had been lowered moments ago. Jessie felt Dylan behind her and wondered if he’d leave, so she could do what she’d come here to do in peace.

The longer she stared at that grave the more the memories came to the surface. Memories full of abuse and hate were all she had from the old man, and as hard as she tried, only a handful of good ones came to mind.

Her father took her and Brian fishing. She was maybe ten years old, they’d spent the day sitting by the quarry lake, poles at the ready, red-striped white bobbers drifted on the serene surface. Light and happy, her father hadn’t been drinking that day. She remembered he’d laughed.

He’d helped her bait her hook and cast the line into the water. When it tangled on a rock, he didn’t criticize or yell. After wading out into the water, he untangled her line and helped her cast off again.

Such a simple memory and an ordinary day for most people. Why did she still feel that anxious panic in her stomach? She remembered feeling this way all the time growing up, like a clock ticked down on a bomb while you watched and waited for it to explode. That’s what it felt like to live with an alcoholic, only their clock was haywire. You thought you had an hour; in a blink it zeroed out and boom—all hell broke loose.

She’d felt it that day at the lake. As good as the day had been, she’d always been waiting for him to turn on her without warning.

She took a deep breath to relieve the fluttering in her stomach and tension in her shoulders and reminded herself those days were long behind her. Buddy Thompson couldn’t hurt her ever again.

“You going to arrest me, Sheriff, if I desecrate this grave?”

“Here I thought you’d continue to ignore me. As for the grave, depends. You plan on doing something to the body?”

She grimaced and shook her head. “Gross. But it’s a thought. He’s lucky I don’t bury him with my boot up his ass.”

“Do what you have to do. I’ll be waiting over here when you’re done.”

Relieved he wouldn’t stop her, she wished he’d leave her alone to finish burying her past.

She tried to ignore the pull between them. Impossible. Even now, she could close her eyes and feel his hand glide down her hair like he used to do every time he was near. That was then. This is now. Too much stood between them for her to give in to her emotions and walk into his arms and let the past fall away and find that safe place she’d only ever found with him.

She’d seen the way he looked at her. The same way he used to, but with an intensity that smoldered and threatened to flash every time she looked back at him.

Ignoring everything, including him, she took out the bottle of whiskey from her bag and unscrewed the cap. Even the smell took her back to nights of terror and pain and so much hurt. She took a long, deep swallow. She wondered if her heart hadn’t taken the worst of it, every blow and horrible word echoed deep into her soul.

One last swallow and Jessie poured the contents of the bottle over her father’s casket. Her perverted way of sending the old man off in the manner befitting his life.

Dylan stood back watching her, his gaze boring into her back. She contemplated lighting a match to it. Dylan would have no choice but to stop her. Besides, in her mind he burned in hell. Anger burning in her gut along with the whiskey, she let it fly along with the bottle she threw at the casket with as much force as she could put behind it, smashing the bottle into bits. She’d have liked to do that very thing a thousand times over the years.

She pulled her blouse off over her head, revealing a tank top underneath. Tossing the shirt on her bag, she walked over to the pile of dirt, took up the shovel, and began filling in the grave, dismissing the backhoe nearby.

At first, it was just hard work, but as each shovelful went into the hole, she remembered something horrible he’d said or done to her. She gave into the rage and the hurt and the sadness. Tears streamed down her face faster than she could shovel. Each memory a blow to her all over again. Each shovelful of dirt, her way of burying those memories forever.

This man could never hurt her again. That’s why she’d never come back to town. Instead of facing him, she hid. She didn’t like it that he made her feel weak and vulnerable. The only person in her life she couldn’t seem to assert herself with enough to stop him from hurting her with his words or his fists. In the end, she’d chosen to cut him out of her life like some cancerous tumor. It had been the only way to save herself.

She shoveled in the rest of the dirt. Hard work, but nothing she wasn’t used to. Her job conditioned her body for physical labor. She didn’t ask anyone on her work crews to do anything she couldn’t do herself. She often worked alongside them and did her office work after the crews went home for the day.