“With the help of Dr. Reynolds, in Tennessee, we were able to bring Tanner back from the brink.” The crowd started to applaud and again the senator held up his hand. “I am now proud to say that Tanner has been in full remission from his leukemia and continues to show no signs of the cancer that almost took him from us.” This time he lets the crowd clap. “Come on up here, you two. Bring Samuel.” A hundred pairs of eyes turned to us and we had no choice but to make our way to the stage. Samuel clapped along with the crowd and laughed. I would have given anything to be shrouded in the same beautiful ignorant bliss.
We stood next to my mother who made a show of taking Samuel from my hands and putting him on her hip just as I had him. She turned to the crowd and waved and Samuel mimicked her which just made them grow more wild. “Now I haven’t told you the best part,” the senator said, motioning for the crowd to quiet down. He was the maestro and they were his orchestra, playing to every one of his gestures. This was the grand finale, because I knew what was coming, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. “This morning, in a small ceremony, surrounded by only family and their son, my daughter and Tanner Redmond were married.” The applause from only a crowd of a hundred or so people, was deafening. The senator shouted into the microphone above the crowd. “So, I would like to take this time to introduce you to the new Mr. & Mrs. Redmond and their beautiful son, my grandson, Samuel. May God bless your union.” He came over to me and cupped my face in his palms pulling me in for a hug that made my stomach turn.
“You bastard,” I said. “This wasn’t supposed to a public display or a political tool.” I was surprised, although I knew I shouldn’t have been. The senator cared about the campaign first, campaign funding second, and campaign supporters third.
“It’s all a political tool. All of it,” the senator said. “You. Me. Tanner. Samuel. Your mother. It’s all for the greater good.” I honestly think he believed that crap. He released me and pulled Tanner into a hug of his own. Unlike the scowl I was wearing, Tanner was smiling from ear to ear and genuinely looked like he was enjoying himself, accepting the congratulations as if the marriage were real.
I’m so fucking stupid.
Suddenly I was so angry I couldn’t breathe. I was angry at myself, at the senator, at King for leaving me, at Tanner for no reasonable explanation.
My hands shook as I saw red.
The senator waved to the crowd. Nadine came to the stage and took Sammy who was wiggling in my mother’s unfamiliar arms and motioned to me that she was going to take him back to the house. I nodded. Nadine had a great sense of when shit was about to hit the fan and I was glad for it.
Because shit was about to hit the fan.
I stepped up in between where my father and Tanner were waving to the crowd and I added a wave of my own. The senator looked at me suspiciously and Tanner was still smiling like he’d just won the lottery and was accepting his giant check. “It’s hot out here, isn’t it?” I said, leaning toward my father who furrowed his brow and then corrected himself when he realized he made a negative facial expression in public.
“It’s Florida, during the summer. It’s always hot,” Tanner said before his eyes went wide and the realization set in. “Don’t,” he warned, but I didn’t listen.
“If you want to put me on display, you are going to have to put all of me on display.” I made a show of fanning myself and then I unbuttoned my cardigan and took it off. My father didn’t find anything unusual about me taking off my cardigan. He was right. It was Florida, during the summer. It was hot. But he didn’t know what was underneath the cardigan. He’d yet to see it. I held my sweater in my hands and heard a gasp from behind me that I assumed came from my mother.
“Don’t,” Tanner repeated, and this time he sounded angry. I spotted a chair and turned to my father. “Can I rest my sweater on that?” I asked him.
“What are you up to, Ramie?” he asked, looking worried.
“Nothing at all, daddy,” I said. I turned my back to the crowd and bent over to place my cardigan on the chair.
The tattoo King had given me was on full display for the crowd.
There was nothing anyone could do. My father could rush to cover me up but that would make it look like he didn’t approve. He could address it, but that would make it worse. I turned and shot them both a look that told them that I was not one to be fucked with. With one last wave to the crowd, who was now gossiping amongst themselves in loud whispers like a pack of rabid mean girls, I left the stage.
I walked along the property line to the back of the house, not wanting to deal with any of the party-goers that might have been lingering on the walkway from the back patio to the house.
“What the heck was that?” Tanner asked, jogging to catch up to me as I passed the treehouse oak. “What was that, Ray?” he repeated.