Conor Thames 2 Page 3

  “I know what you mean,” I told him. “I get lonely too.”

  “But you’re not lonely with me, right?”

  “No, Billy.”

  We played tag until we were breathless, and as it got darker, we set up towels over the hard rocks and laid down, shoulder to shoulder, staring up at the clouds in the moving sky. He held my hand and squeezed, talking to me about castles and dragons and the games he played at school with his friends.

  “You should ask your dad to come here more. My friend has a pit in the backyard and we roast marshmallows sometimes. It would be so awesome if you were there.”

  “I’ll ask my dad,” I promised.

  When our stomachs growled, he snuck back to the car and grabbed a bag of chips. We feasted with our feet in the water, laughing every time an otter popped its head up nearby.

  The day was the best I’d had in a long time.

  Billy was so carefree, so beautiful under the dying light.

  I remember looking at him, seeing his beautiful smile.

  I remember the way it vanished when Paul came up from behind him and beat the side of his head in with his fist, scolding him for not hearing him call out for him.

  I looked at Billy now, aware he knew exactly the thoughts my mind had ventured down. My eyes misted at the memory, and he just smiled softly.

  “See?” he said. “Not so bad, was I?”

  What is wrong with me?

  Penny let out a cry and I hurried to her. He never bothered me when I was with her. She was my sanctuary, a place of peace where my mind relaxed. Leftover traumas of the past took a backburner when she was my whole focus. Maybe that was why she never slept. Maybe I was so restless, I kept her up with my prodding, pleading for more peace.

  Pleading to stop thinking of the way Billy’s head looked the day Conor beat him to death.

  Time.

  Time goes on.

  She cooed and flipped around. I watched excitedly as she learned to use her knees and hands. She crawled, unbalanced at first, but she looked so giddy.

  On my knees, I clapped at her, praising her.

  She smiled up at me. A searing gummy smile that I wanted to eat up.

  “Come to me, angel, come to mommy.”

  She gasped and fell and went back to scooting her fat little belly toward me. I fell to the floor and scooped her up into my arms, kissing the back of her fuzzy head.

  Ah, this was bliss.

  This was sweet, beautiful bliss.

  “Mama is so proud of you.”

  And I was. God, I was. I held her tight to me, sniffing back tears. This love I harboured for this little soul was endless. My heart had holes in it. I felt guilty experiencing this alone, knowing he deserved to be right here with me.

  “Dad would be so proud too,” I told her.

  It was important she knew he existed every step of the way.

  By the end of her first year of life, I had a pile of unpaid bills and an even longer pile of eviction notices. Sent from Dave Thames’ attorney, I had been given sixty days’ notice to vacate the premises. The home, I was informed, was in Dave Thames’ name. The bastard claimed he had been left with everything after his brother’s death, though Conor had been so sure the house was all that had been left to him.

  The final note I received in the mail was from Dave himself, and it read:

  It was in the purpose of peace I let Conor in the house for as long as I did. Then it was mercy for you and your child. Now I collect. I will fight for it in court if need be, but let’s not get nasty, Miss Miles. It will end up costing on your end, and I’m well aware your funds are running low. You are leeching off my goodwill and it ends now.

  It would end up costing, he said. Warning me I’d be spending money I didn’t have. The asshole didn’t have to send me anything. I had already been looking for a new home. I wasn’t going to pretend this didn’t devastate me. Conor and I had put so much work in this house. He had poured money into it, too. So much. He sold his apartment in the centre of town and put every penny he profited from that sale into it. I had no means to fight this. I was aware Conor had a stack of gold hidden on the property somewhere, but I couldn’t find it, and I felt dirty even trying. What the hell did I even know about bullion exchange, anyway?

  The savings I’d had from work before giving birth and from Conor’s final car sale was coming to an end. I needed to return to work, which meant I needed to place Penny in a daycare. It was stressful because finding a place in town wasn’t easy, and if they were in my price range it meant the location left much to be desired.

  It was the first time I had to confront I was out of my depth. That I was truly young and inexperienced with the world.

  The stress kept me up at nights. I needed help, but I didn’t have the courage to ask for it. Jem had been around often enough to help me out with Penny. He took me to appointments and helped with the groceries, but at the same time he was busy too. I couldn’t keep sponging off his goodwill.

  Megan had been promoted to night shift manager at the hospital and the responsibility had turned her into an introvert. She tried her hardest to see Penny whenever she could, but she could hardly keep up a conversation, and there was never an opportunity to tell her, “hey, Dave is threatening to fight me for the house, and I’m on the verge of homelessness.”

  She would take me in, I knew that. Megan was a giving woman, but Ember had fallen into bad times and was living with her now, and her daughter Lily was there too. They were their own clique, I felt it every time I had come around with Penny. Megan never tried to ostracize me, but I never quite fit in.

  Everyone had their own lives, their own stresses. I wanted to at least attempt to get as far ahead as I could without reaching for help until the last possible second. Only time was dwindling on by and I was getting scarily close to that point.

  One night I lay awake thinking about it all. My heart squeezed and my stomach turned. The anxiety was going to be the death of me. I rolled over and watched Penny sleep beside me. She was lost to the world, her small frame unmoving. She was refusing the crib now and demanding my company at all hours of the night. So, I pushed the bed against the wall (with the help of Jem), and she slept between it and me. It worked out in the end; the bed was huge, and she barely stirred when she knew I was close-by. I didn’t let Megan know this. She would have disapproved and given me the eye of judgment for taking her out of the crib. And as much as I adored Megan, she still scared the shit out of me sometimes with her stern looks.

  I wasn’t strong enough to tell her this was what I wanted or stand up to my way of parenting. I wasn’t strong in myself and I often let her scold me. I felt inadequate, like I had nothing to show in life, so I let certain remarks slide on by. Just last week, I let Ember look me over critically, asking me whether I knew my hair had split ends and how out of date my clothing was. Every night since then I’d thought of things I could have said in response. Of course, I’d never voice them because that ship had sailed, but why didn’t I have more of a backbone?

  What happened to me?

  Was I always such a pushover?

  Was that why Billy preyed on me when I moved into the house with him?

  These questions were unanswerable.

  But anyway, Penny was happier in bed with me, and maybe I liked not sleeping alone too. The bed was too big, and sometimes I still turned around expecting to bump into a big chest and strong arms. God, I dreamed of it.

  Conor would have told Ember to fuck off. He would have told his mom to mind her own business, and he would have backed me up. I supposed I’d counted on him as my armour, and now I had none.

  In a daze, I was stroking Penny’s hair when I heard the faint sound of footsteps downstairs. I froze, straining to listen as the floorboards groaned. I knew exactly where that sound was coming from. The floorboards between the kitchen and the entrance hallway sounded like that. Noise carried in this house, but those floorboards were the worst. I sat up, my spine was straight, m
y nerves shot.

  Someone was in our house.

  I slipped out of bed and took my phone with me. Tiptoeing, I made it to the door with my heart in my throat. I was close to a panic attack, convinced it was Dave or his posse I’d find, and I’d be thrown into the streets. But that didn’t make sense. Dave wouldn’t go through the effort of threatening to enforce the courts to remove me. It couldn’t have been him.

  I opened my bedroom door all the way and slipped my head out. 911 was ready on speed dial – my thumb so close to pressing the call button – when I heard a voice.

  “No, I’m not going into business with the Lebanese. I’ve been done over enough times by them. Good food, but they’ll stab you in the back the second you look away.”

  My shoulders slumped in relief. I knew that voice. How could I forget it? My heart stirred with surprise.

  Max Locke was in my house.

  I frowned. Why was Max Locke in my house?

  Turning away, I went to the bed and set up the baby monitor. I honestly didn’t know what I’d do without the thing. I situated the camera on Penny and then I barricaded the bed with pillows all around her. I stood there for a while, staring down at her, wondering if this was going to work, and then I shook my head. Yeah, this was bad parenting. I’d had my fails but this…yeah, not gonna happen. With a sigh, I took her into my arms and carried her out of the bedroom and into hers. I situated her in her crib so unbelievably slowly, hoping to God she didn’t wake up. I didn’t need to endure that look of betrayal right now.

  Situating the camera again, I took the monitor and left. I didn’t know how long I had, but it wasn’t going to be long at all. Penny had a sixth sense when it came to that goddamn crib. She was going to know of my violation very soon.

  As I approached the kitchen, the sound of rapid whooshing erupted. I blinked several times to adjust to the bright light. He’d turned every single light on in the kitchen, and he was standing there, with his back to me, facing one of the counters. He was busy, moving his hands quickly, grabbing at handfuls of something.

  I didn’t know if he heard me over the noise. I stood still, absorbed by the sight before me. His blue suit jacket was splayed over the island neatly. His grey dress shirt wasn’t thoroughly tucked in, and the sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. I saw the strong tendons in his arms, the muscle protruding from them as he moved. He had a worn-out looking watch on his left wrist that he stopped to look at twice in the span of a few minutes. As he stared at it, his face looked far off in thought. It was a bizarre watch to wear with a suit like that, but now I was thinking about the time and…

  God, what time was it?

  Just as I muttered, “Locke?” my eyes were scanning the counters, taking in the mess before us. My gaze paused at one corner where all my letters had been neatly stacked. They were opened – all of them – and looked like a mountain of rubbish. My lips parted in surprise. He’d gone through my fucking mail.

  He barely turned to look at me, not at all phased by my presence. His hair wasn’t done up like usual. I realized it had been a long while since I had seen him, probably the same amount of time I hadn’t seen Conor. His jaw still looked like it could cut steel, but he wasn’t clean shaven like before. The five o’clock shadow made him look wilder and less refined than what I was used to.

  “Charlotte,” he acknowledged, his tone impossible to read.

  “Did you break into my house?” I asked, bewildered.

  Eyes still on me, he responded, “Your locks are easy to pick.”

  He turned away just then to grab at…Jesus, my eyes widened. He had a stack of cash in his hand, and he slowly fed it into a money counter. The machine counted every note, whooshing once again. When it finished, he grabbed that stack and placed it next to a row of more cash.

  “What is going on?” I demanded, stepping closer to look at it.

  He was counting more money, slamming one hundred dollar note after the next in a pile in front of him, whispering the amount. After a ridiculous number, he grabbed the pile and fed it back into the money counter. As it whooshed, he turned around to face me. His back seemed wide as the counter. I felt tiny in front of him. My eyes scanned him fast, completely taken aback by how big he was. He looked like he’d been living at the gym, or popping steroids, or something. He was as big as Conor, tall as him too. A pulse of nostalgia ran through me, like for a split second I was reminded of how physically big Conor was next to me.

  But this wasn’t Conor. This was Max fucking Locke. This guy ate puppies for breakfast. His face was hardened. Conor possessed a cheeky tongue, whereas this guy probably severed tongues for fun.

  “Why didn’t you turn to us?” he asked, admonishing me suddenly with a harsh tone.

  I blinked hard, confused. “With what?”

  “The letters.”

  My heart instantly sank, and my eyes shot to the pile of papers. “You shouldn’t go through someone’s mail, Locke. It’s an offense.”

  “Sue me.”

  “Maybe I’d win, given your track record.”

  His jaw ticked, and his eyes narrowed dangerously at me. “Still sore about his sentence.”

  “Eight years, Locke. That wasn’t necessarily victorious.”

  He crossed his arms, and a hand shot up to his mouth. His finger traced his bottom lip as he studied me before responding in that monotone voice. “Against my advice, he pled guilty. He wanted to punish himself. It was his choice, his prerogative. I can’t say I disagree in hindsight. The scene was grizzly, he could have stopped himself, and he knew it. Had we taken it to trial, I’m not liking the chances we’d have had a more lenient sentence, not to mention we’d probably still be going through the courts as we speak. It’s lengthy and messy, and I couldn’t necessarily paint a picture of a giving community figure with Conor’s track history of violence and criminality. He chose a quick open and shut route, and it didn’t make it to the front of the newspapers. For once, Conor didn’t put himself first.”

  I mulled his words over. I had to stop giving Locke a hard time because I knew Conor was responsible for the swift sentencing. I was present, standing in the pew behind him at the court sentence. His appearance was haunting. Something about him was all wrong. He hadn’t looked at me the entire time. His face remained locked on the judge. There was a lost look in his eyes. His beard had been long and unkempt. His face was flat and unmoving. When the judge gave him eight years, the entire courthouse stood still, packed to the brim. Reid and his father weren’t far from where I’d sat, but I had made sure not to look at them to see their expressions. Nobody had uttered a word, but their eyes fell on Conor, waiting for his reaction.

  Conor had given them nothing. His face remained unturned. I remembered my eyes welling. I wanted to reach out to him, to hold him and breathe him in. But when it was time to stand and leave, Conor remained distant. He glanced around the courtroom once as he exited the room, and his eyes found mine.

  For a moment, it was just us. Tears fell from my eyes, and he…smiled. A brief peaceful smile, the same one he had flashed me on the driveway that day the world turned to shit. It was as if he was saying everything was going to be okay, that he was okay, that I was going to be okay. I understood the look of good-bye, the finality in his eyes before he tore his gaze from mine and disappeared from my view.

  “Have you seen him since his sentence?” I asked as a wave of numbness ran through me, quieting the memory in its tracks before I lost myself to the grief.

  “No.”

  I looked at him gravely. “I need to see him, Locke.”

  “He doesn’t accept visitations. He has no one on the list, not even Megan.”

  “What can I do to get through to him?”

  Locke was firm. “Nothing. He wants this. He wants you to move on. You have to respect that he wants his solitude.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. “No, he doesn’t. He’s self-sabotaging, and he isn’t thinking straight.”

  “I disagree. I think
he’s finally thinking for the first time in his life. All the years I’ve known him, he’s taken what he’s wanted, used people, bullied to get his way. He never thought of the consequences. He thought with his fists and searched for trouble to keep himself distracted from his sickness. Going to prison and cutting you out was simple self-preservation. He’s distanced himself to give you a chance. He dragged himself down, why take you down with him?”

  Didn’t Locke understand? It wasn’t that simple.

  “He killed Billy for me, Locke,” I stressed. “I’m partly responsible.”

  Now he looked at me like I was stupid. “The people responsible aren’t around. One’s in prison, the other is dead. Again, Charlotte, you don’t get it. He. Could. Have. Stopped.”

  “I know that, goddammit. I just miss him!”

  I took a few breaths to steady my racing heart. Locke couldn’t understand. He didn’t look like he had the capacity to feel. To make sense to him everything had to be logical. But feelings weren’t always logical, and you couldn’t look the truth in the eye and accept it if it meant you were going to walk away with a gaping hole in your heart. Hence why Billy had to haunt me and try to reason with me the truth of his madness on that day.

  After I stopped breathing hard, I finally levelled Locke with a weary look. “Okay, sure, I agree he didn’t think things through. He was impulsive and he was cruel when he wanted to be, but by the end he had stopped himself. You weren’t around to see it, but Conor was changing. Now he’s surrounded by people worse than him. Do you honestly think he deserves that?”

  Locke pressed his lips into a firm line, looking away from me. “No, I don’t.”

  I felt my chest tighten. “What if he’s getting hurt?”

  “He isn’t getting hurt.”

  “How do you know that?”

  His eyes grew distant. “I just do.”

  “You promise?”

  He ground his teeth, not meeting my eye. “You have my word.”