Razor’s old lady cleared her throat, bringing my attention back to her. “I’ll say what needs saying and then leave you in peace.” Her gaze flickered over me, then she added, “If that’s what you want.”
“Whatever it is, the answer is no.” Channeling my inner Duane, I crossed my arms.
“I’m not here to ask you questions, or favors.”
Yeah, we’ll see. I didn’t trust this woman. Even if my momma hadn’t warned me that she was a bad lady, I saw how she treated her daughter—like Claire was property of Razor Dennings, like the man could do whatever he wanted because she was his blood—and as far as I was concerned, Christine St. Claire was irredeemable.
Christine shoved her hands in her back pockets. She was wearing tight jeans, a blue tank top, and a black leather jacket. I’d never seen her without the leather jacket; it marked her as Razor’s property.
“You’re not making this very easy on me.” She looked out over the lake, a bitter-looking smile on her features.
“Lady, I’m tired. In case you forgot, I was out late last night.”
“About that,” her gaze flickered to mine and then away, “I see now I was wrong, ganging up on you like that. I should’ve known better. That’s why it’s just Drill and me this morning. I didn’t want to scare you off.”
“I wasn’t scared. I was irritated.”
“I don’t mean you no harm. I told them boys not to chase you.”
“Okay.”
“You had Duane in the car? He’s always been a great driver.” She gave me a small smile, like she knew Duane, like she knew my brother.
And it was the small smile that set the fine hairs on the back of my neck standing in alarm.
This isn’t right.
I tensed, taking a small step back.
I need to go. I need to get out of here.
My heart kicked up, warning me of imminent danger. Instinctually, I glanced around the woods lining the lake, searching for a threat and finding nothing but early morning stillness, silent trees, and serene grass.
This isn’t right. Something isn’t right.
“Beau—”
“I don’t have anything to say to you.” I shook my head, knowing intuitively that I wasn’t going to like whatever she had planned to say.
I’d turned halfway, intent on leaving my fishing gear with Hank and getting the hell out of here when she blurted, “I’m your momma, Beau.”
I stopped.
I stopped because my heart stopped.
My breathing stopped.
Time stopped.
In life, there are three periods of time: before, after, and now. It’s happened very rarely, but there have been a few instances where I’ve experienced the limbo of now with any clarity: When our daddy first put Billy in the hospital and we all thought he was going to die. When Duane fell out of a tree and was knocked unconscious. When Ashley left for college and I knew, I knew she’d never come back. When my momma died.
This moment was now. There was no escaping it. There was no going back to before and I had no desire to live in the after.
“Did you hear me?”
Tangentially, I was aware she’d moved closer. I saw her in my peripheral vision, her hands still stuffed in her back pockets, her eyes on me, her leather jacket still in place, marking her as the property of Razor Dennings.
I breathed.
My heart started.
And time began again.
21
“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”
― Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein
*Beau*
I drove home. I parked Cletus’s car right where I’d found it. I went inside, walked to the library, and I pulled out the family albums dated the year before Duane and I were born.
There weren’t many pictures of Momma—of Bethany—she was usually the one taking the photographs. So I flipped and flipped, searching.
August, September, November, December . . .
Four pictures. She didn’t look pregnant in any of them.
“Shit.” I shoved the book away, my hands shaking, and stumbled to one of the chairs.
My thoughts were very loud, and circular, and all-consuming, and completely involuntary. I couldn’t see and I couldn’t hear and I couldn’t think.
I pressed the base of my palms into my eye sockets and breathed, unable to do anything other than just sit there, caught in an undertow of chaos and misery.
“Beau?”
Someone was shaking my shoulder. I glanced up. It was Billy.
“Hey.” His eyes moved over my face. “What’s wrong?”
I shook my head, not knowing what to say. How could I say it? How could I even think it?
Billy stared at me, his brow pulling together by degrees as his concern visibly increased. Tearing his eyes from mine, he glanced around the library until he spotted the picture albums where I’d haphazardly dropped them on the floor.
Leaving me, he picked up the album, flipped through a few pages, and then stilled. I heard him exhale.
“How did you find out?”
I choked.
On nothing.
Actually, I choked on shock.
“What?” My voice cracked.
He turned to face me, his eyes sober, knowing. “How did you find out?”
“Christine told me,” I said automatically, because I wasn’t sure we were talking about the same thing. How could we? How could he know?
But he does know.
Billy the brave. Billy the fearless. Billy the strong. Billy our great protector.
He looked ashamed. “She shouldn’t have done that.”
So many questions. I couldn’t figure out what to ask first, but my mouth was forming words even though I hadn’t decided what to say. “Who else knows?”
“In the family, just me. Grandma Oliver knew. Daisy knows, Judge Payton, and Mrs. Cooper . . . I think. They helped move through the paperwork.”
A thought occurred to me and it turned my stomach. “Did the Pooles know?”
It took him a moment, but then I saw he realized who I was talking about. “No. I don’t think the Pooles knew.”
“But you’re not sure?”
“Beau,” the muscle at Billy’s temple jumped, “that girl did you a favor. That whole family looked down their nose at all of us.”
“Yes, but she didn’t want to marry me,” I pointed to my chest, “even though she thought she was carrying my baby.”
“She wasn’t pregnant. It was a false alarm. You didn’t love her.”
“But she didn’t know that at the time.”
“Beau, stop being crazy. Andrea Poole being young and stupid had nothing to do with you, and everything to do with her being young and stupid. Lots of sixteen year olds don’t want to . . .” he paused, closing his eyes and rubbing his jaw before finishing, “marry their high school boyfriends. It’s not ’cause you were adopted.”
“Adopted.” I repeated the word. It was a word I would have to get used to. I’m adopted.
“A couple of folks in town—folks who’ve been around long enough—know you and Duane weren’t Momma’s. Not the Pooles,” he reemphasized, “ because they moved here much later. But nobody who remembers the adoption knows who your biological parents are.”
“And nobody ever said anything.”
“Why would they?”
I didn’t know how to answer that because it seemed so obvious to me. You don’t hide the fact that a person is adopted. Unless . . . unless . . .