I can't tell you how excited I was to write this chapter.
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Chapter Eleven. Paper.
"Mama!" Hunter exclaimed for the fifth time in as many minutes.
They were still in the first aisle of the Aldi grocery store and Beth looked up from her list to see what he was holding up this time. A big tub of pretzel sticks. She looked at it for a moment and then up at the price. Without a word, she nodded and Hunter grinned widely as he put the tub down in the cart and then turned, on the lookout for his next request. Beth could just imagine what it would be. The boxes of fruit snacks and packages of cookies were also in this aisle, up ahead.
Luke was in front of them, Abby on his back, giving her a piggyback ride and her delighted laughter echoed throughout the nearly empty store. The Dixons were all early risers and when Beth had said that Saturday morning over breakfast that she had to go to the grocery store, Luke and Hunter had asked if they could come, too. Aldi opened at seven and they were there by eight – one of the few people in there besides the few still bleary-eyed and yawning workers.
"Mama!" Hunter exclaimed again, holding up a package of vanilla pudding cups.
"No, butterscotch," Luke said, coming up beside him.
"Vanilla, butterscotch and chocolate," Beth said, all three written on her shopping list. All of the kids – and Daryl – loved pudding and they seemed to go through a ton of it every week no matter how much she bought to stock up on.
She stopped at the boxes of cereal, looking over each one, trying to decide which two she should buy for the week when she heard a woman standing at the milk cases, a swift curse word leaving her mouth as she fumbled with the door and the two gallons of milk in her hands. Beth looked to Luke and gave him a slight head tilt.
He nodded and keeping one arm under Abby's knee, he went to the cooler door to hold it open for the woman.
"Thanks," the woman said, turning and pushing the hair out of her face as she and Luke looked at one another.
It all happened in slow motion. Luke looked into the woman's face and felt himself stumble a step backwards before he regained himself and gripped Abby's legs. The woman gasped and both of the gallons fell from her arms and onto the floor, one bursting open and milk spilling everywhere. Hunter exclaimed "Cool!" but no one seemed to hear him as Luke and the woman stared at one another and Beth felt her own heart slow as she recognized the woman and then it rapidly began picking up speed, beating at a speed that was almost hurting her chest.
"Luke?" The woman then said in a whisper, her voice trembling as if frightened.
Luke quickly took another step back as if hearing his name from her lips had physically harmed him. He quickly turned back towards Beth, his eyes slightly wide and she could see he was afraid and had no idea what to do.
Hunter's own smile faded as he looked between his mama, his brother and the woman in front of the milk coolers, all staring at one another, all white and looking as if they had all just seen a ghost. And then he frowned because he hadn't seen anything and he wanted to see a ghost, too. His brow furrowed and he opened his mouth to ask what was going on but before he could, Beth quickly spoke.
"Luke," she said his name, her tone slightly sharp though she didn't mean for it to be. Her heart wouldn't slow down. "Take your brother and sister and go and pick out what ice cream flavor you kids want."
Luke didn't argue. Instead, he released a breath he had been holding as if relieved and then grabbing Hunter's sleeve, he tugged him along as they began walking to the other side of the store where the freezers were, Hunter's questions of what was going on clear to all of their ears.
Beth stared at the woman. It had been years since she had last laid physical eyes on her. Luke had been four at the time and Valerie Ridgeway had come to pick her son up at the daycare center at the end of the day. She had been all bones and ashy skin. Her face had been pot-marked and her teeth had been practically rotted by her meth use with her hair greasy and tangled. Beth had always been a bit uneasy around her though she tried her hardest to act nothing but polite around her and every day, the hardest thing she had to do was hand Luke over to her so he could go home. She was his mother though and it wasn't like Beth could keep him for herself.
The best thing to ever happen to Luke was when Valerie and his dad, Mark Ridgeway, got arrested and sentenced to prison. Beth and Daryl were able to become Luke's legal guardians and then, after some convincing, Valerie signed away her parental rights so they could adopt him and he could be their son in truth.
Beth honestly hadn't thought of either of Luke's biological parents in years. She had never really had a reason to. They were gone and Luke was a Dixon now and all that mattered to her was that he had a good, happy life. She knew Valeria hadn't gotten that long of a sentence. Five years? Seven? She couldn't remember the exact number but even then, even though they had all lived in the same town, she had never expected to see Valerie Ridgeway again.
She watched as Valerie's head turned and she watched Luke walk away. Valerie had not been a good mother. She had beaten and starved her son when she wasn't completely forgetting about his existence. No. Not her son. Luke was a Dixon. He was the son of Daryl and Beth Dixon and no one could take him away from them.
Valerie looked to Beth and her eyes were wet with unshed tears. "He looks just like his dad did when he was younger," she said.
Beth almost cringed at that. She didn't want to think of Luke looking like Mark Ridgeway. If his wife had been a bad person, Mark had been one of the worst and Beth didn't want to think of Luke having a single thing in common with a Ridgeway besides the blood they unfortunately shared. And besides all of that, Daryl was his dad now. Mark had never been a dad to him in any sense of the word.
"How is he?" Valerie asked.
Beth felt her throat thicken. Valerie looked different. She looked tired and older than she probably should have but her years in prison had definitely changed her. Beth could tell. This woman was clean now. Beth couldn't help but glance in the direction the three children had gone in though she couldn't see them before her eyes slowly went back to Valerie.
She gave a slight nod. "He's good. He's… he's really good," she said in a soft voice.
Valerie nodded her own head. "Good." And it almost sounded like saying that pained her; as if she had wanted to see Luke as a Dixon and to see that he was suffering as much as he when he was a Ridgeway. "He looks, he looks really healthy."
"He is. He and his brother eat like horses," Beth said and she didn't miss the way Valerie flinched at that. Both at the reminder that Luke had a brother but that also, Luke was living with people who actually fed him.
"Mama!" Hunter shouted from the other side of the store.
"I'm staying with a friend. A clean friend," Valerie was quick to add. "And a couple of her kids," she said and then looked down to the milk on the floor. A teenage boy had arrived with a mop and was now cleaning up the spilled milk. "And I've got a job working in the high school cafeteria," Valerie looked to Beth again and Beth couldn't help but stiffen because she had a feeling as to why Valerie was telling her all of this.
In her mind, she knew Valerie had no legal standing anymore. Beth knew that she was Luke's mom. Not Valerie. She hadn't been his mom since the day he was born and Beth wondered how Luke had actually survived infancy. But he had and he had been a Dixon for years now and Beth loved him more than anything in the world. None of the Ridgeways would ever get themselves anywhere near her son again.
But… Valerie was looking at her with green eyes that looked just like Luke's and she was clean and Beth remembered when her daddy had been going to AA meetings so many years ago and the steps he had to go through and one of those steps were fixing past mistakes. She could just imagine how many mistakes Valerie had made in her life and Beth couldn't begrudge a woman for getting herself clean and wanting to set a few things right. Could she?
Beth felt her stomach twisting. She had no idea what the right answer was to that.
"Mama!" Hunter yelled again clear across the store.
"It would be up to Luke," Beth heard herself say to the question Valerie hadn't asked.
Valerie nodded, visibly swallowing. "I'm… Here." She was quick to search through her pockets and she pulled out a crumpled Burger King receipt. "Do you have a pen?" She asked the stock boy and he pulled one out of the pocket of his smock. Valerie quickly wrote something down and then stepped forward, extending it to Beth, who took it, looking down at the seven numbers. "When, if," she quickly corrected herself. "If he wants to meet me anywhere, anytime, that's my number."
Beth nodded and didn't know what to say so she didn't say anything. She carefully folded the receipt and put it into her purse.
"Thank you, Beth," Valerie said and Beth couldn't help but be a little surprised as if she hadn't expected Valerie to know her name.
Beth still didn't know what to say so she nodded again before pushing her cart and heading across the store towards the freezers where the three kids were. Hunter was holding two different boxes of popsicles.
"Can we get these, too?" He asked eagerly.
"Just one," Beth said, regaining herself. She looked to Luke.
He was no longer holding Abby on his back and stood in front of the freezer doors, staring at the tubs of ice cream, pretending to study the selection. She could see the slight twitching in his face from his jaw being clenched so hard and she went to him, reaching a hand out and brushing some of his golden hair from his forehead. He didn't flinch and she realized that she had been worried that he would; as if seeing his birth mom would regress him back to the four-year-old boy he had been before he had come to live with Daryl and her.
"We'll talk about it with dad tonight," she told him softly and he nodded.
He didn't look at her or say anything and she put an arm around his shoulders, kissing his head and normally, she wouldn't do that because he was reaching that sensitive age of being embarrassed by everything but she couldn't help herself and Luke didn't seem to mind right now.
"Which ice cream?" She asked, desperate to change the subject and wanting to distract both of them from Valerie Ridgeway being in the same store as them.
Luke was quiet for a moment and then without a word, he opened the freezer door and pulled out a tub of butter pecan ice cream. They were able to do the rest of their shopping in the small store without running into Valerie again and when they got home, Luke and Hunter helped her carry the groceries in through the back door into the kitchen. Daryl was nowhere to be found – nowhere in the house or in his woodshop out back and she knew that he was probably out in the woods somewhere. The receipt in her purse with Valerie's phone number written on it felt as if she was carrying around a rock and she didn't know how she would tell Daryl; had no idea how he would react to the news of running into Luke's birth mother.
Without a word, Luke went outside and Beth knew he was going up into his tree house that was in the tree in the front of the house. She didn't bother him for hours but when it began to drizzle and the temperature dropped that afternoon, she couldn't just let him stay out there. She grabbed her sweater and a sweatshirt for him and stood on the front porch, looking up at the tree.
"Luke!" She called out. "Come on!"
She saw a figure off in the distance and knew that it was Daryl, coming home, his crossbow on his back and a couple of animals she couldn't make out dangling from his belt. She looked up when she saw Luke climb down the rope and he came up the steps of the porch with a frown. She handed him his sweatshirt and he tugged it on but neither of them moved to go inside. The rain began falling a little heavier now and it pounded the porch roof above their heads.
"I'm not going to see her!" Luke suddenly exclaimed.
"You don't have to," Beth shook her head, keeping her voice gentle and calm. "I told her that it would be completely up to you. Your dad and me aren't going to make you do anything, Luke."
"Do what?" Daryl stepped onto the porch, shaking his hair out like a dog.
Luke shoved his hands in the front pouch of his sweatshirt and stared down at the ground, not saying anything. Daryl looked at him for a moment and then looked to Beth, a crease of confusion between his eyebrows.
"We ran into Valerie in Aldi this morning," Beth told him as simply as she could though nothing about this situation could possibly be simple. Or maybe it could be because if Luke didn't want to see her, they weren't going to force him to. It was entirely up to him and if he had no desire to see her, why would they make him? She had beat him and abused him and starved him. Valerie was from a life that wasn't his anymore. Luke was a Dixon. Not a Ridgeway. He had absolutely no connection to the woman in the grocery store anymore.
It took Daryl not even a second for him to remember who Valerie was. Like Beth, he hadn't thought of the woman in years. He had no reason to. She was no one. But now, just hearing her first name, he felt the blood feel a little warmer as it pumped through his veins and his jaw clenched much like Luke's had in the store. They may not have made him scientifically speaking but so many of Luke's mannerisms were ones he had picked up from Beth and Daryl throughout the years. He was theirs.
"I'm not going to see her," Luke said again and he almost sounded calm but Beth and Daryl both knew that tone. It was like the calm before the storm. He looked back and forth between both of them before his eyes settled on Beth.
"We are not saying you have to, Luke," Beth reminded him. "You never have to see her if you don't want to. Of course you don't have to ever see her."
"Good." And with that, Luke stomped past them and into the house.
Beth watched him go and when she turned her head, she saw Daryl looking at her.
She tucked hair behind her ears and without a word, she went into the house as well. She was only gone a couple of minutes and she came back out onto the porch with a towel in her hand. Daryl was sitting down on the top step, cleaning one of the squirrels. He knew she hated when he cleaned the animals right in front of their house like this but she knew that he needed something to do with his hands right that second and he would clean it all up, the rain helping wash the blood away. He must have gone for a walk rather than a hunt because he wouldn't have gone out just for a couple of squirrels.
She sat down beside him and taking a towel, she began rubbing it over his wet hair.
"How she look?" Daryl grunted out, surprising her because she hadn't been expecting him to talk at least for a few more minutes.
"Clean," she said. "I don't know how long she's been clean but it's obvious she is. She told me she has a job in the high school cafeteria. It sounds like she's trying."
Daryl nodded but didn't say anything as he carefully maneuvered his knife, staring down at his work though he could gut and clean an animal blindfolded if he had to.
"Valerie said that Luke looks like his dad and I couldn't help but get so upset," she confessed quietly and Daryl paused in his work to look at her. "Because I hear dad and I think of you. Not… Mark," she swallowed once she said the name as if it was setting off her bile reflex. "You're his dad, Daryl. I don't want to think of him as a Ridgeway. Never a Ridgeway," she began shaking her head and she couldn't help the tears that stung her eyes.
Daryl took the towel from her hand and wiping at his own, cleaning off the dirt and blood as best as he could, he slid his arm around her back, pulling her in close to his side and Beth nestled against him.
"I'm his dad and you're his mom, Beth, and it's not just 'cause we've got a piece of paper sayin' that," Daryl said and Beth nodded her head because she knew it was true. She supposed she just really needed to hear it. "And to be honest, I think when people first meet us, they never think Luke's adopted. I think you two look alike."
Beth looked at him, not having known that. "You do?"
Daryl nodded. "And I think Luke likes to think that, too."
Beth sighed softly at that and she leaned into him, pressing her face to the side of his throat, and Daryl tightened his arm around her.
"Sorry I wasn' there this mornin'," he then said quietly.
"There's no reason to apologize," Beth responded in a soft voice. "I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. I just never thought about it." She sighed again. "I just hope Valerie doesn't try to approach him on her own."
Daryl frowned at the thought, having not thought of that possibility either. "Me and Merle can go talk with her."
"No," Beth pulled her head back and frowned at him. "I don't even want to think about what it means when you and your brother go to talk with someone. I don't know how long she's been out but she hasn't come to find Luke yet…"
He shrugged. "No one is comin' near my family and makin' any of you uncomfortable. If I need to tell Valerie myself that Luke wants nothin' to do with her, then that's what I'll do."
Beth sighed but she didn't say anything because again, just like in the store, she wasn't entirely too sure what to say. She didn't say anything and instead, she rested her head on his arm as he began cleaning the squirrels – finishing one and starting the other and the rain began falling a little bit harder.
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Thank you so much for reading and please review!