CHAPTER ONE
Sometimes secrets are meant to be kept, taken to the grave with us, but I've learned the hard way that the longer you keep them, the more destruction they cause once revealed.
In the blazing sun of a late August Day, dressed in her Sunday best with pearls and heels, I watched my mother pack her suitcase. Her belongings falling out onto the wooden porch floor of our small house as she hurried to leave with us kids before my father came back.
My four year old brother and seven year old little sister were nearly in the packed car when my mother froze in her tracks from the sound of my fathers truck speeding down our long drive.
With his horn blaring and a bottle of whiskey still tightly clutched in his hand, he shouted for her to stop.
"Renee! Stop!"
My father was a business man, making his wealth in real estate for years before he'd picked up the bottle, drowning his anger in Jack Danielle's and gambling. Most nights were filled with the same shouting and arguing, but tonight was proving to be different.
Tonight my mother had finally had enough.
With trembling hands desperately gripping her car keys, she told him she was leaving for good and taking us with her.
"You're not going anywhere! They are my damn kids, too!" He raged back at her, hastily grabbing Brennon and Claire from the back seat, his handling of them rough as it always was.
"Jack!" My mother yelled, getting in his way. "No! Stop it! I am leaving!"
He shoved her and I winced at what I knew was coming next.
His slap to her cheek didn't deter her enough to stop, she continued to fight him, while my siblings ran my way.
I took them down to my room and locked the door behind me, something I had done countless times before when the fighting had got to be too much, or when my father had a heavy hand.
I hid them in the closet and peered out my window, watching the scene unfold as my mother locked herself in her car and soon pealed out of the driveway, taking off for the last time and not coming back.
That was six years ago now.
Mom had written to us, sent the letters to my grams house every few months, but they eventually stopped coming and never started back up again after last Summer.
She was careful to send them with return addresses from various locations, never wanting her real whereabouts to be known.
My father had only ever read one of her letters we'd saved, and he was quick to toss it aside into the growing stack of overdue bills laying on the table of our small trailer located just Northwest of Atlanta, Georgia.
The city of Marietta was where we'd relocated to last Spring when our home was foreclosed on by the bank from non payment. We took only what we could afford to move at the time, which wasn't much, and made the two hour drive to the seven hundred square foot living quarters on an acre of property.
This was where we called home.
Where we laid our heads at night.
For now.
How long it would last though, only time would tell.
The harsh and unforgiving rays of the high Georgia sun beat down on my bare back while I casted another line into the rivers water ahead.
Money was barely existent right now and we hadn't eaten a proper meal in two days.
I'd grown used going without whenever we fell on hard times again like this, but I didn't like the idea of Brennon and Claire going to bed hungry, so I'd taken up fishing once the weather had warmed up enough. I'd gotten pretty good at catching dinner a few nights a week now, and I'd even learned how to cook from a book I picked up at the local library here in town.
It certainly wasn't gourmet, but it was enough to keep the hunger pains away at night. So, it was something.
"I think I hooked one!" Brennon called my way from down the bank, his small hands yarding the line and pole back with an eager grin now on his face. "Look!"
I dropped my pole and helped him reel in a small sunfish. It wouldn't serve us for dinner, but he was still proud nonetheless.
"Good job!" I huffed, unhooking the small fish and placing it in his waiting hands.
"Can we eat him?"
"No, sorry bud. Those aren't the kind you fry up in the skillet. With any luck, I'll catch another small bass here before dark, and we can take that home to eat, alright?"
"Okay!" He smiled, peering up at me through the shadow of his oversized ball cap he'd borrowed this morning. "Think daddy will be home tonight for dinner?"
"I'm not sure, Bren. Maybe...-" I told him, before casting my line once again.
The sun swiftly began to set in the sky and after another hour of casting, I gave up and settled on skipping rocks with Brennon along the waters edge before we packed up and headed home.
The half a mile trek always felt as if it took forever after being out in the sun all day.
With Summer break half way through, there were no classes for us to attend right now, and I'd learned that the more we stayed out of dads way, the better off we were for it.
Within a few more minutes, Mrs. La'Bree's house came into view and she waved as Claire spotted us and came running off the porch with a basket in hand.
"Did you catch anything!?" She asked, her doe eyes full of hope.
"No, not today." I replied. "Maybe tomorrow."
"Mrs. La'Bree and I made banana bread and she gave us a half loaf to take home." Claire grinned. "See?"
"Looks good. Smells delicious, too."
I waved to her there on the dimly lit porch and Mrs. La'Bree returned the gesture with her white smile in place.
"Same time tomorrow, Jeremy? I'll put on some breakfast if you kids are hungry." She kindly offered.
"Thank you. Sounds nice." I told her.
We turned to go and Claire blew her a parting kiss with a final grin.
Mrs. La'Bree had been a God send to us lately. We met her at a yard sale she'd been having not long after moving to town and she had taken to my sister Claire instantly. The two of them spent a lot of time together whenever Bren and I would go fishing. Sometimes she'd invite us over for supper, asking about how our dad was, offering us all a seat at her table with her husband Jacob.
They were into their late forties and had children who were grown and had all gone off to college a few years ago.
Being empty nesters seemed hard for them, and I think having us all around sometimes made it sting a little less.
"Mrs. La'Bree said we should join her for church on Sunday. She wanted to come pick us up-"
"Did you tell her our address?" I quickly asked.
"No, you told me not to." Claire huffed in agitation. "But I wanna go. She said they have Sunday school there with more kids my age I could meet!"
"You know why that can't happen." I reminded her, taking hold of her small hand in mine while we all walked the rest of the way home.
"Daddy might want to go with us." She timidly added.
"He won't."
"You don't know that."
"I do, Claire. If you want to go that badly, I'll walk you over to the house myself and we can all go."
"Really?!" She beamed.
"Yeah, sure peanut." I chuckled. "It might be fun for you."
"Do we have to go?" Bren sighed. "Church is boring!"
"How do you know? You've never been?" I questioned.
"Mama took us twice with Grandma when I was just little."
"You're still little." I jokingly reminded him, ruffling his hair.
"Hey!" Brennon exclaimed. "I am getting taller!"
"Growing like a weed!" I agreed.
"I don't remember mama ever taking us to church? Do you remember that, Jeremy?" Claire asked.
"Maybe there was a few times. I just can't remember to be honest."
Claire squeezed my hand at this and peered up at me.
"I miss mama."
"I know you do. I miss her, too."
"I wonder where she is." Brennon sadly pondered.
"Somewhere out there. Wherever she is. I hope she's happy." I told him. "She misses us, too. I know she does. We'll see her again someday. I promise."
We rounded the last corner in the wooded path that led to the familiar railroad tracks just a short distance from the trailer and noticed my fathers old truck in the dirt drive.
"Daddy is home tonight! Think he'll be happy we brought banana bread for him!?" Claire asked.
"I'm not sure." I nervously stated, noting the half hazard way he'd parked.
The house was dark when we entered and the smell of whiskey was heavy on my fathers breath the same as it always was this time of night.
"There you are. Been looking for you kids." He mumbled, lighting a ciggarette. "Where have you been?"
"Fishing." I replied.
"Catch anything?"
"No."
"But we brought you some banana bread, daddy!" Claire piped up.
"Oh yeah, who made it?"
"Mrs. La'Bree. I helped, too."
My father took the half loaf from her and got out a knife from the kitchen to give us all a piece then.
"Pretty good. Maybe you'll be a famous cook one day?" He joked with Claire.
She grinned and hurriedly ate the rest of her piece.
"Did you go out looking for a job today?" I asked, nervously flinching back some at the anger in his face from my wrong question.
"Yeah, didn't find anything." He snapped. "But I won some money off my last scratch ticket and I'm thinking maybe we should head into town to the diner? Get us all a real meal?"
Brennon and Claire were elated at this, each of them rushing off into their rooms to change before we left.
"Yeah, daddy!" They exclaimed in their rush down the hall.
My father pulled on a fresh flannel shirt and grabbed his keys, gesturing for me to follow suit.
"Go change for dinner. Can't wear that haggard shirt into town smelling like fish."
I bit my tongue and did what I was told, even though I knew already how this night would end.
With him too drunk to come home and me driving Bren and Claire back here, and putting them to bed with no sign of him to be found again for the days that would surely follow.
This had become a routine for me now.
It was a damn good thing I'd gotten my license last year or he would have left us stranded on more than one occasion.
"Come on, kid." He yelled for me.
I stripped down and rifled through my messy drawers in search of the only clean pair of jeans and black t-shirt I had left.
The washing machine had broke down last week and laundry was steadily piling up.
"Comin'...-" I yelled back, tugging on my shirt and zipping my jeans, before straightening my ball cap and meeting them out in the old Chevy.
The thing broke down more than it ran.
"Dad, can I drive us?" I asked, hoping he wouldn't cause a scene like last time.
"Think I'm too lit to drive, huh?"
"No...- " I carefully replied, holding out my hand for the keys. "I like driving is all."
He let it go at this and tossed them to me.
"Sure. Have at it. Damn thing drives me nuts anyway."
The diner was busy, even for a Friday nite. We had only been a few times since moving out here, and the crowd was made up of mostly older folks. Regulars who ordered the same dinner often enough that the staff all knew them.
"Place is hoping tonight." My father huffed in annoyance.
"Wanna go somewhere else?" I guessed before parking.
"Nah, I'm too hungry to care at this point. Just hope the service isn't slow."
We were seated by the window and I cringed when he ordered another whiskey, giving the young waitress a smile and a look over before she left the table.
"Jer, she's a looker that one. Never seen her before in here. You should get her name...-"
"I'm good." I replied, pretending to be too interested in my menu to focus on what he said.
"Oh, come on, now. Good looking boy like yourself with charm and smarts to boot. You get that from me, you know? Surely, you want a girlfriend."
"We've only been here a few months. I don't know hardly anyone yet. Not worth the trouble." I sighed, noting the way his gaze narrowed in disapproval at this.
"You got a point there. Women are trouble."
"Mama was trouble?" Claire asked, her eyes welling with tears now.
I shook my head and threw an arm around her petite shoulders.
"No, mama wasn't trouble. Dad is just kidding, right?" I pointedly asked him.
"Yeah...-" He grumbled, taking another haul from his glass of whiskey. "Sure."
We ordered burgers and fries and when our meal was delivered to the table, the waitress apologized for the slight delay.
"I'm sorry about the wait. We got a larger party that just came in to celebrate a Birthday. Ten people so-" She explained. "I hope you all enjoy your meals."
We nodded and dug in, all of us so hungry we hardly chewed the food before swallowing it down.
"This is yummy, daddy!" Claire grinned. "Can I get a milkshake?"
"Sure, we can all get one. How's that!?" He obliged, his good mood undoubtedly alcohol induced.
"Yay!' She clapped. "Thanks, daddy!"
With more delight than I'd seen in her face for weeks now, she soon spooned out the whipped cream and cherry on top of her tall strawberry milkshake and giggled when plopping it in her mouth.
We all chuckled and I couldn't remember the last time we had all laughed together, as minimal as it was.
I lifted my own glass and paused when I caught sight of the large dinner party the waitress was talking about before.
A round table, filled on every side with laughing and joking friends and family caught my attention. In the center was a large sheet cake, complete with several candles on top as the traditional 'happy birthday', song rang out from them.
Happy Birthday to you...
Happy Birthday to you...
Everything in the room stopped for me, as I watched as the pretty girl with snow white ivory skin and long chocolate hair, slowly lean in over her cake and close her eyes just long enough to make her wish before blowing out all those candles.
Applause and cheering filled the small diner as she grinned, her lips full and her eyes of blue, framed with long thick lashes, lit up now like the clear sky above.
She threw her head back in more laughter and the sound was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard.
Music of all sorts failed miserably in comparison.
Like a blind man suddenly given back his sight, I was captivated by her.
I stared helplessly as she cut the cake and served her family and friends, and for the first time since I was a small boy, I made a wish of my own.
I wished to know her.