1
Old Bones
Years later, Laura will think she should have seen it as a turning point when she returned to Charming. Should have known the day she arrived her life would never be the same.
The drive from San Francisco to Charming is about six and a half hours, she's been on the road about six, and her eyes are so dry she can't blink them if she wanted to. There's some old rock song on the radio, maybe Eric Clapton, and she can feel a migraine coming on from her lack of sleep. She takes the next exit off the highway into a busy side road. She knows she's close.
The sun is rising, sending dusky waves of orange across a star speckled sky. The clouds are wispy strips of white, the blue behind it deeper than any lake or any ocean. Her father never said anything worth much value, but in this moment all she can remember is sitting in the driveway, watching him fix some motorcycle with a cigar clamped between his teeth.
"Charming is a hellhole," he had said, sweat beading on his porous noes, "but no place has a bluer sky."
Laura sighs, propping her elbow on the window sill of her door, rubbing a bruise into her temple, free hand clenching and unclenchinng around the wheel. She doesn't want to think of her father, though lately he's been on her mind more often than not. He's the reason I'm here, she thinks, nothing less than scathing. The road empties and small hills rise around her as she takes the next corner too sharp. Her passenger mirror nearly hits the gaurdrail.
She bites her cheek, images of Lowell sr. stumbling through their living room in a drug induced daydream. Her brother, stealing his drugs when he passed out, sometimes to sell, sometimes for himself. It makes Laura's stomach churn, but fourtunatly it's empty, and it reminds her of her hunger. She tries to think of food, not bad memories, and her mouth waters when she remembers Lumpy's diner and his famous onion burger. Those things are works of art, almost better than Gemma's pot roast.
Gemma's pot roast. Gemma's dinners. No matter what she does every memory circles back to her goddamned childhood. She huffs, angry, but at least Gemma's family suppers were a happier occasion than anything in her home. She wonders if she still lives in that same house, with that big oval table and grey parrot who hated red nail polish. Laura recalls that time he snapped at Luanne with her big crimson acrylics. He drew blood, and the former pornstar swore off birds of any kind from that day forth.
She smiles, just a bit, and her next corner reveals a straightaway passing a big wood sign. Welcome to Charming. Our name says it all! Her smile drops.
Her stomach rumbles, and when she checks the clock she sees it's much too early to be visiting her brother, so she travels down main street till she reaches Lumpy's. She can't believe it, everything looks the same. Eight years and the biggest upgrade this town has is a lower population.
Inside is pretty empty, only a few old folk and a big woman hostessing. Laura grabs a window booth and requests a cup of coffee. The seats are still red leather, though a bit more cracked now, and the bar still has coffee rings staining the faux granit. Christ, it still smells like french fry grease too.
She's drawing a smiley face in the condensation of her water glass when she hears the voice.
"Lulu? Lulu Harland is that you?!"
She winces, her shoulders crawling towards her ears at that shrill drawl she could never forget. From behind her, Angela Andrews comes prancing foward, her long tan fingers resting over her heart.
"Oh my Goodness it is! You know I didn't believe Kathy when she said it but look at you!"
Laura can't really laugh and she isn't sure what to say to that, so she just smiles instead. Somehow, the woman still has that odd southern drawl she mysteriously adapted sophomore year. It's not like they live in hick country, they don't even live in southern California. They're closer to Compton than they are Texas.
"Wow you look amazing," Angela gushes, "you do, look at that!"
Like I was so hideous before, "oh...thanks Angela."
She giggles and slides into the seat across from her, hands splaying on the table as she leans foward excitedly.
"How long has it been? Six, seven years?"
"Eight," Laura swallows, "eight wonderful years."
"Yeah," she keeps squeaking, like she's till seventeen and not in her late twenties, "yeah wow. What have you've been up to?"
"I live in San Francisco," she answers a little smugly. Angela had always been one of the naysayers, the ones who said she would never get out.
"Oh cool, the city life. What's it like? Do you live in one of those artists apartments?"
"Um," she lives in an apartment complex, across the hall from a guy with insomnia who only ever wears bath robes, "yeah."
"Well shit Lulu, that's great," someone from behind the kitchen calls Angela's name and she quickly slips from the booth, "one second."
When she's gone, Laura lets herself breath. It's not that she hates Angela, she is one of the few who actually acknowledged her in high school, it's just she could do without her. Despite the fact they were something like friends as teens, Angela had a particularly mean streak that plucked at Laura one too many times. Made fun of her brother, left her alone and scared at the few parties she had been invited. And she doesn't care for that awful nickname she stuck her with all through high school.
A different waitress delivers her the toast and eggs she ordered, and Angela doesn't come back till she almost finished. She flicks her hair, which she cut short for the first time, over her shoulder and spits idle gossip about all their old friends. Or her old friends, she had been the more popular of their duo of course. Laura just tagged along on the occasional weekend she didn't want to spend alone at home or with Gemma at TM.
"Well I have to go," Laura finally interjects, fifteen minutes into Angela's sassy monologue about Caleb Declane, her old boyfriend, "I have to meet Lowell."
"Oh," Angela makes a face, the same one she made ten years ago. Upturned lip and everything.
"Yeah, sorry about that. I'll be sure to call you though."
"Yeah," she squeals, "and come back becuase it's so boring here in the mornings. It's fun talking to you!"
"Of course Angela, I'll see you later."
Angela kisses her on both cheeks, leaving bubblegum pink gloss on Laura's skin. She waits till she's in her car to rub furiously at her face, huffing when she looks in the rearview mirror of her car. Her eyes are bloodshot and her face is pallid, she looks likes she feels. Shit.
Finding her old house is as easy as counting to three. It's off in SAMCRO's corner, the more rugged part of town, but not quite the trailer parks yet. Most houses here are old and sideways, but not noticeably dilapidated.
It's her luck, that the Harland house is.
Her face burns red as she pulls to the side of the road, it's empty back here, no outlet. If she kept walking she'd come to a dirt turnaround before a grassy hill. If she walked down the hill there would be a creek, where she spent most of her childhood playing. It's probably all dried up by now, dusty and cracked like the sidewalk beneath her feet. She walks up her dads dirt driveway to the hoover her brother calls a house. The front yard is nothing but dirt and patchy yellow grass, the porch is creaky, with a missing step and the entire thing is covered in blue peeling paint. If she looks hard enough, she'll notice the entire structure leans faintly to the left. I'm surprised the windows aren't boarded up.
She opens the screen door, wincing at the squak, and knocks on the door. Maybe if she's lucky, he won't answer and she can drive back to San Fran.
But Laura should know by now she's never lucky. Lowell jr. answers on her second knock. His hair is greasy, it's always been greasy, but now he's sporting a reddish brown scruff that she isn't sure makes him look any better. Definitely not worse though, which is good. He looks sober.
"Hey Lue," he grins, waving her inside. Laura steps over the door jam and looks around, breath hitching inside her throat. The house inside is in good condition, but it's...well she's not sure. It's suffocating and small. In front of her is the steep staircase to upstairs, beyond that the living room and if you keep following the hallway down, it's the bathroom and kitchen in that order. The light is low, it smells like clean linen candles and patchouli.
"Come-come take a seat," Lowell stutters, rubbing furiously at the back of his neck, "do you want anything to drink?"
"Water is fine," she answers, inching foward. The same paintings hang on the walls. Motorcycles and cars mostly, but a gruesome depiction of Jesus on the cross is hung above the couch. That painting used to give her nightmares as a kid, she thought her dad was gonna nail her up like Jesus if she did anything wrong. She shudders and takes a seat on the couch. It's tacky and plaid, giving away beneath her like all the springs are broken. They probably are.
There's three cushions, the farthest one left was her dads, Lowells was the farthest right and she notices she settled in the middle without realizing it.
At least the TV is new, so is the recliner in the corner and the wooden coffee table in front of her. She threads her fingers together as Lowrell walks out with a plastic cup of water. His hand is shaking.
"You look good," she says when he sits himself on the right. He smiles and maybe blushes a little.
"Thanks. I've been sober three weeks."
"That's good, that's really good Low."
And it's silent. She can hear the kitchen sink leaking, a drip, drip, drip on the tin. Somewhere a dog barks.
"So," she sips the water, "where's Moby?"
"Oh, he's at his friends house, but he should be getting home pretty soon. Neeta's gonna drop him off."
"Oh, good."
"Yeah."
She sets her cup down and pulls at her fingers, twisting her thumb ring round and round. He won't look at her and his jaw keeps clicking.
"So I guess since he's officially, you know, dead, you can have your share of the will."
Her head jerks up to look at him, he sniffs and wipes at his noes. Laura will never understand it, but for some reason Lowell really loved their old man. Looked up to him in a way. When he ditched them Low had been so torn up about it he didn't get out of bed for weeks. Laura on her part didn't care as much. Why give a shit about him when he never gave one about her.
"I don't want-"
"He left you the house."
Anything Laura might have been able to say stops and her jaw falls open. If she had been holding her water it probably would have slipped out of her hands.
"He what?"
"He left you the house," Lowell chuckles, "I got the bike and all his savings."
"His bike? You mean that shitty Panhead he had in the backyard for ten years?"
Lowell frowns, but he doesn't seem mad, his eyes are lit up and something inside her she left long buried warms.
"It's not shitty, it's '59 classic. If I restore it, it could be worth a lot of money," his eyes widen and he quickly backtracks, "not that I would sell it."
Laura wrinkles her noes and pokes at his side playfully, "really? What're you gonna do? Ride it?"
Lowell laughs, brushing her off, "yeah, and maybe I'll pass it down to Moby when he's old enough."
That doesn't sit quite right with her, but she chooses to keep quiet. She likes seeing her brother look good and happy, she doesn't want to ruin it. He peaks down at his hand and suddenly curses, jumping up.
"Shit! I gotta get to TM!" He brushes at his shirt and for the first time she notices it's a mechanics uniform. It's fits him well. He scrambles around, grabbing his keys from the kitchen and then pauses.
"Do you want to come? I'm sure Gemma wouldn't mind seeing you."
She thinks about it for a moment. When she first left Charming, Gemma called at least once a month. But sometime along the line her calls became less frequent before they fizzled out all together. It's been at least seven years since they spoke, eight since they saw each other. Laura thinks she might have sent the woman a postcard a few years ago when she visited New York, but that's sort of a pitiful thing when considering the fact Gemma helped raise her.
"No I'll stay here. I have to make some calls home anyway."
Lowell nods, then looks a bit sheepish as he creeps towards the door, "okay. Well um, since you're- since you're staying is it okay if you watch Moby? I was gonna take him to work but since you'll be here..."
Laura nods, eager at a chance to meet her nephew for the first time. She considers herself to be fairly good with kids, even if she isn't around them much.
"Great! I'll call you. I should be home around, three or four though. Thank you, Laura."
She smiles at her brother, "of course."
It's not long after Lowell leaves that Neeta shows up with his son. Neeta took care of Gemma's kid Jax, so she had met her once before when she was young, but never directly. Though she is sweet, Neeta spends the first ten minutes of their encounter grilling Laura in every way possible. Who she is to Moby, how long she's been away, why she's back, how long she'll be watching him. Realistically, Laura knows she's doing this because she's a good nanny, but a lot of her can't shake the fact she's a good nanny to outlaws. People like the Teller-Morrow family would never get so close to a woman with a loose mouth. Junkies like Lowell would never let another junkie watch their kid.
"Sorry baby but I gotta go," Neeta finally concludes, her eyes lingering on Moby as he plays with his race cars on the dirty lawn.
"That's fine, take a break," Laura smiles, "really, I have it from here."
"Alright, call me if you need anything, my number should be by the landline. And be careful, that boy is a real handful."
Laura brushes her off, when she first moved away, she had been forced to take up a whole bunch of odd jobs to pay for schooling. Being a nanny was one, and she was fairly good at it even when the kids weren't so well behaved. It's not in her nature to yell or lose her temper, she's a level headed woman and that's a good asset to have when taking care of kids.
Neeta drives off and Laura ventures across the dirt to her nephew, adjusting her jeans before crouching down beside him.
"Hey there kiddo," he doesn't look up from his game, "my name is Laura. I'm your Daddy's sister."
"Hi," he says shortly before standing up and running off. She watches incredulously as he goes inside without even a glance backwards. She's a little insulted, but quickly tells her self to suck it up. Getting her feelings hurt by an eight year old is a whole new level of pansy she isn't willing to reach yet.
Moby is watching cartoons on TV when she walks in, hanging upside down on the couch and not paying her any mind. She sits beside him until she can't handle the stillness anymore, and that's only about ten seconds.
"Okay Moby, you should sit up," she instructs, but he continues to ignore her. By her third time requesting, she's reaching a part of temper she hasn't seen in years.
"Moby," she snaps, turning the TV off, "are you listening to me?"
The pulls himself up and stands, making a nasty face at her, "you're not my mom I don't have to listen to you."
"Yes you do. I'm the adult and I'm supposed to be watching you."
"I don't know you," he says, "and I'm not supposed to listen to strangers."
She sighs, fingers flying up to her temples, "okay, my name is Laura. I'm from San Francisco and my favorite color is blue. What's your name?"
Moby looks skeptical, but eventually answers, "my name is Moby. I'm seven, but I'll be eight in October."
"And what's your favorite color?"
"Um...orange!"
Laura reaches out and lightly punches his shoulder, "see, now we're not strangers anymore."
Moby grins and nods, throwing his body back on the couch, "I'm hungry. Make me something to eat."
She cocks an eyebrow, "what do you say?"
"I dunno."
Oh boy. It's gonna be a long day.
Whatever Neeta may have done to wear the boy out must have worked though, because he doesn't do much other than watch TV and eat the PB & J she makes him. Laura tries to sit and bond but he tunes out any questions she asks, and really, she doesn't actually care about what subject he likes best at school. So Laura finds herself pacing the kitchen, then noticing the dust ontop of the fridge and the spaghetti stains on the top of the oven. Her brother keeps their minimal cleaning supplies in the same place her father did. Below the sink.
Between being a nanny and a Dominos delivery boy, Laura cleaned houses. But years prior she had cleaned her house every day. Lowell was never home and her Dad didn't care but Laura hated things being gross. She couldn't vaccume the cigar burns from the carpet, but she could wipe the sticky dried whisky from the counters. She doesn't mind having to do it again, cleaning requires little skill and keeps her mind off worse thoughts.
Before Lowell left, he said he would be back, he isn't. When she begins to worry, he calls her and let's her know he has to go to the police station to talk to Deputy Hale.
An hour after the call he walks through the door screaming.
Hey guys! I'm finally done with the rewrite of Devils Door, as you can see, it's now titled Sweetwater. You'll see why eventually. Though the first chapter is similar, everything after this is pretty much completely different from the old version. Except for a few key points. I'll update twice every week, and I hope you guys enjoy this revamped story.