“Let me look at you,” her mom said, taking hold of her hand. “You grew up so perfect, baby girl.”
Pixie hated it that the praise meant so much. Her chest inflated traitorously like a helium balloon at the comments. She needed information, and the sooner she was out of here, the better.
“Mom, this is my boyfriend, Dred. Dred, this is my mom, Helen.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Travers,” he said politely.
Helen nodded. “You, too, Dred.” She turned back to Pixie. “Why are you here? What have you been doing all these years?”
Pixie wasn’t ready for small talk. “Mom, what do you remember of the night I left?” Helen’s hand shook in hers.
“Not much, I’m ashamed to say. I remember Arnie was having a card night. I was pissed because he’d been out fishing all day. And he’d left all his stuff out on the counter over there.” She tilted her head in the direction of the sink. Pixie remembered, but that mess had saved her, because that was where she’d found the fishing knife.
“I’m sorry, Sarah-Jane. I’ve been clean for four and a half years, and have been trying to get sober for longer than that. But those days are hazy at best. All I know is when I woke the next morning, Arnie was still gone and so were you, I kept thinking you’d both come back. But you didn’t. I was frantic and started asking the neighbors if they’d seen anything. One of them said Arnie helped a guy that sounded a lot like Brewster into his truck and drove off. And I dealt with it how I’d got used to dealing with things. Drugs.”
Helen sighed heavily.
“Have you seen Brewster since then? Or do you know anything about him? Where he worked?”
“I don’t. I’m sorry. He was good with his hands, I think. Carpentry, car mechanic maybe.”
Pixie tried to hide her disappointment. “Do you have any photographs from back then?”
“Let me go see. I have boxes of old pictures in the closet.” Helen stood and walked to the rear of the trailer.
“You doing okay, Snowflake?” Dred asked, leaning forward and putting his hand on her knee.
She placed her hand over the top of it. Truth be told, she’d felt numb the moment she set foot in the trailer.
“Here. Try this box.” Her mom returned and handed her an old shoebox.
Pixie spilled the photographs onto the table and started to sift through them. There were too many memories attached to the pictures to give them anything more than a cursory glance.
Dred lifted a photograph toward her and looked at her quizzically. She was about thirteen, but the biggest shock was her hair. “Brunette, huh?”
She smiled. “Better?”
He looked at her hair, and touched the purple ends. “Beautiful either way,” he said softly.
They found two shots of Brewster. “Do you mind if I take these?” Pixie asked.
“Of course. Whatever you need. Does Brewster have something to do with why you left?”
“He was the last straw. Arnie was the reason I left.”
“Will I ever be able to make this up to you?” Helen asked, sadly. Hope filled her eyes as Pixie fought to remain immune to the way it tugged at her heart.
“I honestly don’t know, Mom.”
*
Dred could tell from the slump in her shoulders that Pixie was down. Yes, it sucked her mom didn’t know more about Brewster, but there must be someone in Pahokee who did. The place wasn’t that big. They needed to find the right places to look.
They stayed in the trailer for a few more awkward moments while Helen tried to find out more about what had happened that night, but Pixie retreated more and more into a shell he didn’t even know she had.
“Hey, Snowflake. Come here,” he said, tugging her against him as they walked toward the car. He cupped her face gently, pained to see the hurt etched across her face. “It’s all good. I have you and you have me. No part of the conversation that happened in your mom’s trailer needs to change your life if you don’t want it to. Right?”
Pixie nodded. “I guess it was na?ve of me, but I hoped she’d have the answer.”
“I know. Me too. Let me see those photos.”
She handed them over and leaned against the hood of the car.
“Which is Brewster?” he asked.
Pixie pointed to a man at the far left of the photograph with shorn hair and a beer gut. “That one.”
He was wearing a polo shirt with a name on it. The fabric was rumpled and it was hard to make out what it said, but the last word was definitely TIRES. “Any ideas where this is, Snowflake?”
Pixie looked at the photo. She could see the company name began with an A, but wasn’t sure what followed. Pixie grabbed her phone from her pocket.
“What are you doing?”
“Think about it,” she said excitedly. “There can’t be that many tire places around here.” She went onto her map app, and searched nearby for tire shops. “Got it. AW+F Tires. It’s six miles away.”
“Brains and beauty,” he said, kissing her soundly. “Let’s go.”
In less than ten minutes, they pulled up outside an industrial unit, sandwiched between a garage and a car rental place.