Chapter 13 Does your life insurance know you like being strangled during sex? -Audric to Gunner AUDRIC "You got her today?" I asked Gunner. He nodded. "Yep. I have a meeting with the lawyer today, too. So we won't be home until late." "Got it," I said as I picked up my work truck keys. "I wonder if your neighbors think we're gay." "If they do, it's your fault because you gave me a hug last night in the yard." I chuckled. "It's not my fault you looked like you could use one." He grumbled something under his breath, and I was just about to ask him if he was okay this morning after he'd broken down last night and admitted all his fears when the doorbell rang. I opened the door since I was closest, blinking when I found Creole in her flight attendant uniform. She was staring at me with wide eyes as she said, "If you don't take these boxes from me, I might very well die." I took the boxes from her, which happened to be Dole boxes with handles. "Did you steal some of my dad's pineapples?" I teased, not upset even a little bit that she would. "Actually, no. I went and bought my own. The Dole Plantation as I was heading out caught my eye, and I remembered you saying how much you enjoyed them. Plus, I wasn't sure if your dad would share any. The way you made it sound, I wasn't thinking yes. Then I got a little bit overwhelmed when I got there, got the pineapples and left." The way she'd just word vomited all over the place was adorably cute. "Ole!" We both looked down and to the right and there was our little Lottie, toddling over with a pacifier in one hand, her blanket in the other, and her hair crazy. "Oh, girl." Creole dropped down to her haunches. "Look at all that hair. Did you sleep good?" "Yes," she said and popped her pacifier back into her mouth. "'Akfeast?" "That's me and you today, crazy little baby man," Gunner called from his lean against the counter. She looked up at me and said, "You stay?" I touched the top of her head before saying, "Not today, Beanie Weenie. I have to work and go visit Grandma." Honestly, I'd rather spend the day watching The Lorax for the fifteenth time in two days. But that wasn't an option for me. Today was the day that I forced myself to go see my mother and pay off her monthly bill so I didn't have to go in again until the following month. I forced myself to go so that my dad wouldn't have to pay, and that he wouldn't have to go see her if he didn't want to. He forced himself to go by every six months or so, but mostly he stayed away, continuing to be loyal to a woman who should be dead. "Ohhh, work!" Lottie threw up the hand holding the blanket in the air, then turned around and marched back toward the living room where she immediately demanded, "Lorax!" I winced at Gunner. "Have fun, Dad." Gunner's face went white. I stayed there, waiting for the color to come back into his face. When it didn't, I turned around and placed my pineapples on the counter. Before I could speak, though, Creole stepped inside and headed straight for Gunner. "You weren't responsible," she said softly. Gunner's eyes went immediately blank. "Not any more responsible than I was for my son's leukemia," she continued. "Blaming ourselves for stuff that's outside of our control when it comes to our kids makes us a good parent. That's not how it's supposed to go. The parent dies first. That's the laws of nature. But sometimes, that's not the way it works, and we have to be strong. Because our lot in life as parents is to be strong, even when we don't want to be. Would it be easier to fall into a hole and bury ourselves? Yes. But that's not who we are. We fight. We continue to live, albeit unhappily, because that's what we do for our kids. We fight." She had no clue that while she was giving Gunner a pep talk, she was also clearing me of guilt. There she was, a victim of rape, having raised a child that should never have been. She loved him. Mourned him. And still, she fought. She didn't try to take the easy way out. She didn't put the death of her second child above the life of her first. She didn't completely shut down for years before finally deciding that the world would make sense if she was no longer in it. Thoughts swirled in my brain as Gunner and Creole talked some more. I was only halfway listening to their conversation when Gunner said, "Aren't you going to be late, man?" I winced. "Yeah." I pointed at my pineapples and said, "Don't eat all of those. No matter how good you think they are." Gunner's lips twitched. "I don't even like pineapples." "You'll like these," I promised at the same time Creole murmured, "You think that would matter, but it doesn't. These pineapples are different." "Lorax!" Lottie screamed. "Get to that, Dad," Creole said as she patted Gunner's shoulder. Gunner didn't pale like he had the first time I'd said it. He smiled softly, touched Creole on the top of the head, and headed for the living room and his fifteenth showing of The Lorax. Creole followed me outside, and when I expected her to go to her car that was parked at the curb, she walked with me to my work truck. "Umm, what are you doing?" I asked, heart slightly pounding. "Going with you to visit your mom," she said. "Then you can bring me back here before you start work." She paused next to my bike and pointed at it. "Unless you want to go on your bike?" Of fucking course I did. The chance to have her pressed up against me for an hour? That sounded pretty close to my idea of heaven. However, I thought it might be pretty close to hell for her. "Uhh," I hesitated. "You'll have to be pretty close to me." A determined look crossed her face before she said, "I should've brought up my issues with you a long time ago, and maybe you could've set me straight years ago." I tilted my head. "Yeah?" "Yeah," she confirmed. "And maybe I would've been able to be close to someone without my stomach feeling like it was about to revolt." "Are you saying I don't make you want to throw up?" I asked. "No," she admitted. "I can stand as close to you as I want and not throw up." I nodded. "What about hanging onto me?" She bit her lip. "I think I can do that, too." I nodded and did an about-face, then headed right back inside to get the spare helmet I saw Gunner had. "Gonna borrow this," I called out to him as I passed. He was on the couch with Lottie bouncing on his knee, singing about dancing with trees. His eyes sparkled as he said, "Sure thing." I was out into the blistering heat moments later. Creole waited patiently beside my bike, and I had a moment of 'hey, she knows which one is mine' when I walked right up to her and said, "Can I put this on your head?" She visibly wilted. "Yes." I put the helmet on her head as I said, "No clue who last wore this, though. You might have two tons of glitter in your hair when you're done." She wrinkled her nose. "I was a boy mom, so we never did the glitter thing." "I think the glitter was from Gunner's last conquest." She burst out laughing. "Oh. I thought it was from Lottie." "Definitely not Lottie," I said. "Lottie had men raising her. Do you honestly think we'd allow glitter to come into our lives?" She snickered as I pulled away, then I helped her onto my bike. She scooted right up to me, putting her arms around my belly. She didn't get super close, but she was close enough that this would work. Every last piece of me was electric at having her this close. Now that she wasn't hating me, I let the old feelings that I had for her slowly seep in. God, my poor thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen-year-old self would be having apoplexy right now. I'd wanted her with my every breath, but hadn't made a move because I knew that Laney had a thing for me, and Creole would never go there. But now that Laney wasn't here... I started the bike on that thought, then turned to say, "Hang on." I backed out of the driveway and waved at the neighbor, that I was fairly sure was already writing in her neighborhood app that one of the gay couple was now riding off with a woman. It'd probably be whispered about until tonight, when I met up with Gunner on the front porch with a beer. I gave the nosy neighbor a wave, then headed to the long-term care facility that my mother spent her time at. When we parked, I couldn't force myself to get off the bike. "What's wrong?" Creole asked. I squeezed my eyes shut and said, "I told Dad to get a divorce from her fifteen hundred times now." "Maybe you should tell your mother to," she suggested. That was a novel idea. "What kind of faculties does she have?" Creole wondered. I got off the bike, then held my hand out to her to help her do the same. When her tiny hand closed in mine, a feeling of rightness overtook me for a few long seconds before she slipped her hand free. I took off my helmet and placed it on the handlebars before reaching out for Creole's. Only when she had her helmet off and I was smoothing a few crazy hairs away from her eyes did I say, "She's fully cognizant of everything that she's done. She knows where she's at, what is going on. She just can't function as well as she used to. She can't move around easily because of her stability issues. When she shot herself, they had to remove half of her brain, and apparently that was the half that helped her with her motor skills. She can see out of one eye, but she has to have a feeding tube because she blew off her jaw, and they weren't able to reconstruct it." Creole winced. "So pretty much, she's aware. She can live. But she can't live a good life." "Yes," I answered. "Is she better, do you think? Mentally?" I thought about her question for a long moment before I said, "No, she is still incredibly depressed. She tries to kill herself at least once a year." Her mouth fell open. "Then tell her to ask for a divorce from your father," she suggested. "And stop coming up here. Continually exposing yourself to this toxicity isn't doing you any favors. At some point, you have to choose you." I wondered if she'd ever chosen herself, or for the last few years, she'd been constantly choosing everyone else. I looked up at the building and said, "I don't have the money to pay for her shit anymore." "Because the Combs are freezing it up in court?" she asked. "Yes," I said. "But, even when they're not, I'm giving it all to Gunner for Lottie. It makes sense that Laney's money goes to her daughter." "So what does that mean?" she asked. "What happens with your mom then?" I blew out a breath. "I don't know. But that's why I want Dad to get a divorce from her. If he doesn't, then he'll now be responsible for her payments again." Her head nodded. "Well, let's go tell a woman to divorce her husband." That's when she took my hand, and I knew for the first time that the visit wasn't going to absolutely wreck me.