Juliana

The urns at the funeral home had cost more than I thought.

We were still homeless from Katrina and  living with Jocelyn when I decided to get an urn for my mother’s ashes. I didn’t feel like I could spend $200 on a customized urn when the ashes were already in a necklace so the funeral home associate led me to a room where they kept the free urns.

I picked out a white stone box urn with a weeping angel on the lid. I’d been fascinated by all the angels in the Bible at the time and the crack on the right corner somehow looked perfect. I slipped the heart shaped ash necklace off my neck and cushioned it inside the urn box with some velvet Jocelyn had given me.

The urn lived in a storage container for a few months. When Rhett and I moved into our own house I'd kept the urn box on my bedside table. It had sat there for months and most of the time I forgot it was even there.

Until now.

Now it was the darkest part of the night and there was a soft steady ticking sound coming from inside the urn box. I go to lift the lid, thinking Mason put a toy inside, and the stone weeping angel on top is warm.

And it has a heartbeat.

 I jump back and scream, turning on instinct to shake Rhett awake but he’s not in bed. I try and turn on the lights but they don’t come on. I scramble to the door, snapping my ankle in the process. I drag myself to  the door knob but the hinge is stuck. I scream and struggle with the door until it finally gives.

And my mother is waiting for me is on the other side.

But she’s dead. And she looks dead. She looks like she’s been dead a very long time.

I scream and she chases me. I trip over Mason and Rhett’s body’s again and again and again as I try to escape.

 

---

 -1-

“Daddy! Car ! Daddy ! Car ! ,” Mason shouts poking my side to wake me up from my nightmare

I sit up with a start in Mason’s double bed, my body drenched in a cold sweat. I look at the clock and my stomach sinks. It was already after 5 PM, which meant I’d slept through most of the day and Rhett was going to kill me if he found out I slept while I was supposed to be watching Mason.

“Car! Car! Car!,” Mason repeats into my ear.

I finger comb hair out of my face as I try and put the day back together. I remember Rhett injecting me with heroin this morning before he left and I remember lying down with Mason for his nap at 10:00AM but I couldn’t remember where Rhett had gone.  Most likely to the gym or to the bar.

Mason runs out of the bedroom and starts banging his hand against the living window repeating the word ‘daddy’ and laughing giddily to himself. I stand up to follow him to the living room window, but a wave of nausea overtakes me and I run to the bathroom and throw up instead.

I hear a car horn beep and Mason starts jumping up and down by the window getting even more excited than I’d ever seen him. I quickly rinse my mouth with mouthwash  and walk over to the window and look where Mason is pointing.

My eyes go wide.

Rhett is sitting in the driver’s seat of a sleek black convertible. He’s wearing dark shades and a well tailored suit and tie I’d never seen before.  I pick Mason up and walk outside to meet Rhett at the car. Rhett’s smiling widely at me and it makes me uncomfortable.

“Car, Mama, Car, Mama--,” Mason says pointing at the  fancy car.

“Where did you get this ?,” 

“I rented it,” he smiles.

“Why would you do that ?” I try not to sound angry. Even though he was  on paid leave we were on a very tight budget. “Why are you dressed like that ? What’s going on,--”

“Let’s go for a ride,” Rhett responds.

“Why ?”

“You’ll see,” he smiles. “We ain’t goin’ far.”

The car isn’t made for a car seat, so I have to sit in the back and hold Mason’s car seat in place as we drive the 10 minutes to the shopping center where Jocelyn's salon was. Rhett parks in the space in front of the door and honks the horn a few times.  

“Oh my god !,” Savannah shouts rushing out of the salon door, with Jocelyn trailing behind her, a pair of scissors in her hand. Aubrey and a few of the clients  peek out the window.

“What in the good lord’s name….” Jocelyn exclaims putting her hands over her mouth and staring at the expensive car.

“This car is so cool ! It’s just like the one on that poster I have in my room ! ,” Savannah screeches getting into the empty passenger’s seat. “Rhett, is this yours ?, Ahhhh, I’m so jealous !”

“Nah, it’s yours,” Rhett smiles.

“What ?,” Savannah asks, her perfectly even eyebrows knitting together.

“It’s yours. I’m going to chauffeur you and your friends to prom in this car this weekend,” Rhett tells her

Her face falls and she looks angry. I suddenly feel nauseous again, but it didn’t seem like a good time to get out the backseat.

“I’m not going to prom,” Savannah says, deflating. “It’s too embarrassing.”

Word had gotten around that Caleb had dumped Savannah. The day we came back from Hilton Head, I’d told Rhett how hurt she was but I left out most of the stuff about her frustrations about being a girl in this family.

“Fuck him and his date,” Rhett tells her. “I know you wanted to go and I know you already got a dress. Wasn’t he going to take you to prom in his Kia ?  I’m offering to not only chauffeur you the entire night in this kickass car but I also rented a suite at the hotel for the night so you can host a party…and you can invite or not invite whoever you want.”

She stares at him with her mouth open. I can tell she is pretending to think about it even though she’s already made up her mind.

“Okay, oh my god, thank you Rhett ! ” she says and leans across the seat to hug him. She turns to hug me too.

“Now, let me take this for a spin !,” Savannah says, hopping out of the car and running to the driver’s side door.

“Over my dead body,” Rhett tells her.

“That can be arranged,” she smiles, jumping up and down.

Mason and I get out of the car as Rhett relinquishes the driver’s seat to Savannah. She honks the horn a few times and then they speed out of the shopping center leaving me in the parking lot with  Jocelyn. Mason slips out of my arms and runs over to say hi to her.

I was glad he was here as a buffer. Jocelyn had sort of froze me out once the videos came out. She was still nice to me but she didn’t call to talk or invite me to come help at the salon anymore.

“I’m kind of exhausted,” I tell her, heading for the door of the salon. “I think I’m going to take a nap, in the back if it’s okay--”

Jocelyn takes  my arm and turns me toward her.

“The kid gloves are off, honey so  I’m going to give it to you straight,” she says, her tone suddenly icey. “I want you to stop this foolishness right now. Do you understand ?”

The way she talks to me, like I’m a child, makes me angry. I didn’t even know what she was talking about.

“Excuse me--”

“Hannah Grady told me that Ray Ashby bragged to the Coach that you took pictures for him.”

“He’s lying,” I tell her, my face burning red over her thinking about me this way. I’d never given pictures to Ray Ashby, I knew he hated Rhett.

“He better be,” she says. “Cause I’m at my limit. If you bring my son  or grandson into anymore of your mess I will make you leave.”

“He’s lying,” I repeat and she lets my arm go

We walk into the salon and I can feel the eyes of all the women on me as I step inside. Jocelyn puts Mason in her chair and starts to cut his hair. It had started to grow long and I’d kind of thought it looked cuter long but I don’t say anything.

Jocelyn explains to everyone what Rhett had done for Savannah with the car. Apparently Savannah had seen that  black Porsche convertible in a movie when she was a child and told everyone she was going to use the change in her piggy bank  to buy one for her 16^th birthday.

“You raised a good boy, Joss,” the older woman in her chair said. “Just look at his little angel.”

The client was reaching toward Mason, who was being uncharacteristically well behaved in the chair as Jocelyn cut his hair to the almost exact military cut as his father.

I walk to the back of the salon and collapse in the office chair in the tiny back office / supply room.  I lay my head down on the desk  and start to drift to sleep when the sound of heels clicking wakes me up.

“Can you hand me the 5/41 ?,” Aubrey asked me.

She’s leaning against the office door in ripped black jeans, a black tank top and cowboy boots. Her hair is straightened and rolled to the crown of her head in big rollers. I  sit up and look at the row of hair color just over my head. I take down the small tube of color and toss it to her, she catches it easily.

“Are you okay ?,” Aubrey asks

I nod.

Aubrey was Mason’s godmother, but she’d also become one for me in some ways. She was always trying  to protect me. She’d told me about Rhett bringing Whitlow to a party even though I’d told her it hadn’t mattered. I wanted to tell her I was thinking about leaving Rhett, but I knew she’d call my bluff. She’d make me do it right that minute and I wasn’t ready for that.

“We haven’t seen much of you around here since…,” she says.

“I know,” I sigh. “It’s been kind of crazy lately with all of Amber’s wedding stuff and Mason is such a handful--”

“It’s died down,” she says twirling the tube of hair dye between her manicured fingers. “They ain’t talking about you as much…and even then it’s always the nosy old ladies.”

“Jocelyn’s still seems mad--”

“She may be upset but she probably doesn’t even know why. Aunt Joss and them are just from a different time. You shouldn’t be ashamed.” Aubrey sighs. “I’m not saying what you did was amazing but hell, I wish I’d had that kind of confidence.”

“I don’t want to talk about this.” 

“Okay,” she says putting her hands up. “It’s just I remember Rhett said you had a tendency to run when things got tough and I’d really hate for that to happen.”

“I won’t,” I promise her.

---

Rhett

-2-

Fuck it.

I was done playing dumb

“How many fucking weeks ?,” I ask

It comes out more  like a accusation than a question.

“What ?,” Juliana snaps, curling up on the bathroom floor. She was wearing exactly what she’d been wearing when I left three hours ago-- one of my  undershirts and her underwear.

I’d  just driven Savannah and three of her friends to a Benihanas in Jefferson Parish and then to the Jefferson Marriott where prom was being held. I’d come back to get Juliana so we could set up for the afterparty in the hotel suite and maybe have a little bit of fun of our own, but she hadn’t even showered and she was throwing up.

Again.

She’s been doing it for the last two weeks and had stopped sleeping at night all together. She’d woken me up and asked to go to the emergency room twice only to change her mind once I got there. At first I thought she was trying to get out of Amber’s stupid wedding activities, but I knew I had to face facts.

“How many weeks pregnant are you ?,” I clarify.

“I’m not pregnant, Rhett,” she spits at me and throws the toilet brush at me.

“Then what the fuck is your problem ?” I ask, narrowly avoiding having it hit me.

“I hate you,” she says crying into the bathroom floor. “Stop accusing me of things and just ask me if I’m okay,”

“I’m not accusing,” I tell her. “But you’ve been throwing up, you keep having mood swings and I know you’re not detoxing so--.”

“Well, I’m not pregnant,” she snaps. “God, Rhett, I’ve been on my period all week, you were just too drunk to notice.”

I hated when she accused me of being drunk. I’d only had a few drinks but this time it makes me pause.

Cody had come over two nights ago and we did shots while watching the baseball game.  When he’d left I’d cornered Juliana and she wouldn’t let me touch her unless we did it in the shower.  I’d agreed to shut her up, but I hadn’t thought of why she’s said that until now.

“Well…are you better now ?,” I ask her.

She doesn’t say anything, she just spreads her body  out on the bathroom floor and I can tell she isn’t going anywhere

“Shit.”

 

***

-3-

A mass text to every girl I know within 30 miles of Freeport asking if they want to hang out at a high school party unsurprisingly yields no responses.

“This is creepy as fuck,” Cody says leaning against the stainless-steel fridge in the hotel kitchen.

“Yeah, well it would be even creepier if I was alone,” I tell him.

Mama wouldn’t let Savannah have a hotel party unless there were chaperones and since most of Savannah’s friends were girls, I’d planned to have Juliana do most of the chaperoning while I hung out in our adjoining room. I figured if things got bad she could come and get me.

But now Cody and I had barricaded ourselves in the kitchen of the hotel suite, trying to stay out of the way of two dozen 16-year-old girls  in the rest of the suite and  aggressively ignoring the underage drinking.

I hadn’t bought any alcohol for the party but a few of them had snuck it in. I’d figured I’d let them have a real party, just as long as everyone was safe.

“Damn, even with the makeup these girls look young as fuck,” Cody said. “How did Lawson not feel like a pedophile ?”

I laugh inappropriately at this.

Brooke had met Lawson Mitchum, Cayden’s dad, at a party like this. It had been a cheerleader/football player party and the assistant coaches were supposed to be chaperoning but one had  brought some college friends who spent all night convincing high school girls to sleep with them.

All of the girls in the room suddenly squealed at once and someone turned the Katy Perry song playing from stereo up as they all started dancing and singing along. Savannah was off the center of the group and she looked happy. It freaked me out how grown up she was sometimes—she was only a year younger than Juliana has been when all that shit happened.

“Football players,” Cody says in a deep voice and then makes cave man grunting sounds.

I turn around to see three football player approaching us, they were one of the few groups of boys at Savannah’s party. I recognize the floppy haired blonde in the front of the group as Alvin Hemingway, I knew he’d been friends with Caleb and I was surprised he was even here since this party was implicitly anti-Caleb.

The football players give Cody a head nod of acknowledgement since he was the Coach’s son after all, but Alvin's eyes keep flicking up to meet mine before moving away.

 “What’s up ?,” I ask and then recall we’d talked about lifting in the past. “Hey, how’s that workout going ?,”

“Hey,” he says to my shoes. “Yeah, um, good.”

His voice is wavy and nervous. I wonder if they’re going to ask us for one of our beers.

“Is everything okay, man ?,” I ask him.

Alvin mumbles something. I look to Cody to see if he caught what the kid had said but he just shrugs as confused as I am.

“Maybe say that so I can hear it,” I tell him. “And maybe look at me when you’re talking to  me.”

He looks up at me and he looks scared shitless.

“Uh…Mr. Enlign is selling bad stuff,” Alvin says. “Our friend says he shot up and it fucked him up. He went to the hospital.”

I don’t know how to respond. Dealing with this feels more like being a responsible adult than I had planned for the evening.

“Um. Okay,” I said. “Well, look, I’m all for a good time but ya’ll shouldn’t really be doing that shit--”

“Savannah told me that your um, that, um… Mrs. Clark was sick,” Alvin interrupts me quickly, his words spilling out. “And Mr. Enlign said he sold to her so I thought you should know--”

 He stops talking and I realize I must be glaring at them.

“Wait. Backup What the fuck are you talking about ?,” I ask.

“Mr. Enlign said Mrs.Clark buys from him and I guess the shit he gives out is bad. It messed up one of our friends so we thought we should tell you--”

 “I don’t know what you’ve heard but J doesn’t buy--”

“He said she did,” one of the other football players said and then his eyes leave me. “Um, Mr. Enlign was showing us the pictures she gave him.”

“Fuck,” I say out loud and the football players look even more uncomfortable. “Thanks for telling me.”

“What are you going to do ?,” Alvin asks.

“None of your fucking business,” I snap and they take that as a sign to leave.

“Well, shit,” Cody says as the football players retreat. “ I didn’t know Marty Enlign used.”

“Everyone uses,” I tell him. “Fuck, I thought she was getting it from you.”

“I ain't that stupid. Besides you know I don’t do that China white shit,” Cody tells me. “It’s too easily cut.”

I didn’t know that, I made a point of never learning his drug preferences.

Marty Enlign had been our neighbor for as long as I could remember. He ran special teams for JV sometimes, he had two daughters in middle school, but they’d gone with his wife when she moved back in with her parents. Marty was religious and fatherly. He owned the used car lot but he didn’t fuck people over. He’d sold me my first car.

“You know you gotta do something,” Cody tells me.

“Yeah,” I said.

I walk through the crowd of puffy ball gowns to the empty adjoining room I’d reserved for Juliana and I. I call Deacon and tell him what the football players told me.

“Shit. You should know better than to let your girl do heroin, nephew,” Deacon chastises me.

“I know but I couldn’t stop her and she seemed fine.” I tell him. “I was trying to wean her off. I didn’t know she was buying from Marty Enlign of all people---”

“Yeah, he told me he had a supply. I didn’t realize he’d been selling to your girl. If I'd know I would have kicked his ass. Dumbfuck should know better than that…. how they hell did you not know where she was buying from? His shit is expensive.”

“…I don’t know.  Shit’s been really fucked up lately.”

“Imma go talk to that son of a bitch. You wanna come ?,” Deacon asks me.

I knew Deacon wasn’t really asking me, he’d fuck Marty up without me and I didn’t want him fighting my battles or doing something really stupid.

“Just wait. I’m at Sav’s party… just give me a minute and I’ll come to you,”

-4-

I give Savannah the keys to the Porsche and I tell her I’m going out and to call me if anything happens. I have Cody drive me to my truck and we go to Deacon’s trailer in my truck. When we get there Deacon’s watching television with Wil. They're smoking weed and look settled in for the night I wondered if I could convince him not to confront Marty tonight.

 But the second he hears me come in, Deacon bolts up with his keys in his hand. I notice he has his buck hunting knife in the side of his belt and that Wil is open carrying his favorite revolver.

“We ain’t going to kill him,” I tell them looking at their weapons.

“Not on purpose,” Deacon laughs, putting an arm around me and leading us back outside.

“I just called Marty and told him I want to buy,” Wil tells me taking a short drag. “He said he'd give me his real shit. I asked him 'as opposed to what ?' and he told me it was nothing, he was just working on some new shit to give to kids."

"He could have killed your wife or those dumb kids,” Deacon adds. “We ain’t going to let him get away with that shit.”

Deacon and Cody get in my truck and we follow Wil’s truck. When we approach the Freeport Used Car Center, the dealership Marty owned, I cut my lights. It’s dark and the dealership is closed down, but there is a faint light coming from an office inside. Wil gets out of his car and knocks on the  giant glass door of the used car dealership.

After a beat Marty Enlign walks up to the front doors with Ray Ashby, my other neighbor following behind him. They both stand in front of the car dealership doors talking to Wil and Wil laughs with them over something. When Marty gestures for Wil to come inside the dealership Wil changes his posture  almost instantly.

Wil grabs Marty by the collar of his ill-fitting polo shirt and shoves him to the ground. Ray Ashby looks confused and I take this as a sign to step in. I walk out of the truck approaching them. I hear Deacon and Cody walking behind me.

“For fuck’s sake,” Ashby says when he can make out my face in the dealership lights..

I ignore him and grab Marty off the ground. He tries to punch me, but he’s weak and I easily drag him over to my truck and slam the side of his face against the hood.

“Have you been selling to my wife ?,” I ask him.

“What in the-- ? No I--”

I turn Marty over to face me and punch him in the jaw, hard enough for it to hurt but not for anything to break. He actually starts tearing up a little and it feels good.

“Try again,” I said.

He tries to get away and I slam his head against the truck hood again. His breaths become short and desperate.

“Hey, now,” he wheezes. “Okay. Okay. Look she came to me—she wanted it---”

“We don’t give a fuck about what she wanted,” Deacon shouts behind me. “You know better than to sell heroin to my family. You know what I’ve done to other men for less. What, Marty ? You thought she was going to suck your little cock ? Cause if you keep lyin’ you ain’t going to have one for anyone to suck. Now,  what did you cut her shit with ?,”

“I don’t know…,” Marty said but immediately thinks better of it. “Oxy and aspirin at first…coke…mostly roach powder….maybe RGB once. She came to me begging for it I swear, I was just trying to make the supply last longer for--”  

He doesn’t finish because I kick him in his balls and land a cartilage breaking elbow to his nose. I want to draw blood, but Deacon grabs my elbow to stop me.

“Did she send you pictures ?,” I ask Marty and he nods. I haul him up off the truck hood. “Show me,”

I motion for Cody to follow me and we walk through the dealership showroom to Marty's small office where he’d been watching the game. There are lines of coke on the little table that was usually covered in family friendly  magazines.

Marty opens up his computer and shows me an e-mail from her address. She’d  actually done it. In some she's wearing clothes and touching herself, but in others she's naked. She taken the pictures in our bed and front of our bathroom mirror. Now I was pissed. I was going to fucking kill her later.

“Delete all of  them,” I tell him.

I watch as Marty deletes the e-mails. My blood boils seeing how much he’s been interacting with her without me knowing.

“Okay ?,” Marty says. “You can leave now.”

“Hey, he might have ‘em  saved on his desktop or somethin’,” Cody says.

Fucking computers.

I bend down to look at Marty’s computer, I pick the CPU tower up off the floor and yank it from all of it’s cords. I hear Marty’s protest as I take the tower out to the showroom floor and smash it on the polished floor. I stomp on it with my dress shoes until it’s an unblinking mass of plastic and metal.

“MY ENTIRE BUSINESS WAS ON THERE--,” Marty roars.

“Not my fucking problem,” I spit back at him.

“This is destruction of property. I’m calling the cops, boy--”

“Fine. Do it. I fucking dare you," I challenge him. "Are you going to do it before or after you finish you’re coke lines ? Don’t think I won’t tell people what you did. I’m sure your wife’s divorce lawyer would love to hear this--”

“You little asshole, you think you can do whatever you want--,”

“Maybe don’t sell that shit to my wife and nothing would have happened you,” I remind him walking out. “And if you ever sell to my wife or show those pictures off I will come back here and I will cut your balls off and shove them up your hairy ass.”

 Marty stares at me and I motion for Cody that is was time to go. I didn’t like being an asshole, Marty deserved to bleed a little but I went too far with the computer but I couldn’t let people cross my family like that. Juliana was a god damn  addict now and it was all his fault

Cody and I walk out of the dealership doors to where Wil and Deacon are waiting outside smoking. I’m about to get in the car when Deacon yells something at me and  the wind is knocked out of me. Pain explodes in my head and my vision goes fuzzy around the edges. I slam into the ground and  Ray Ashby is suddenly on top of me.  

I hear something hollow hit the ground and I realize he hit me with a baseball bat.

“You still can’t do math motherfucker,” I sputter, spitting blood in his face as I try to get my bearings and he tries to punch me.

The last time Ray Ashby tried to fight me I’d been 16-years-old and he’d been trying to fight both Cody and I. Now he was trying to fight me with Cody, Wil and Deacon standing right there.

They try to pull him off me, but Ashby fights like a god damn animal. He claws and punches my face, forcing the back of my head into the gravel of the car lot.

“You think you can just do whatever the fuck you want and destroy property  cause you can’t control your pussy ? We ain’t all rich like you, boy,” Ashby growls. “You ain’t gonna bring a filthy whore into this town and get mad when everyone wants a taste.”

I try and throw him off me, but he’s got me pinned down hard. I can vaguely tell Wil and Deacon are trying to get him off me, but he must be coked up good because the son of a bitch is not going down.

Marty tries to join the fight and the six of us grapple for a few minutes before Deacon finally pulls his knife on Ashby and the man stops hitting me. Wil takes out his gun and points it in Marty’s direction. Marty’s hands instantly go up

“This is over, ya’ll,” Wil says. “Rhett’s done what he needs to do. You go on back inside and we’re gettin’ out of here.”

Ashby looks pissed as fuck, but he claps an arm around Marty and they go back inside the dealership.

“You alright, nephew ?” Deacon says with a rye smile, kneeling down next to me.

“Shit,” Cody whistles. “I thought he fucking killed you with that bat. Fuck you shoulda heard that sound.”

Deacon helps me sit up and I’m sure I don’t have a concussion but my white dress shirt was covered in my blood and my head was on fire.  I knew I couldn’t go back to Savannah’s party like this.

I wince at the sound of glass breaking as Wil and Cody take turns  smashing random car windows in the lot with Ashby’s abandoned baseball bat.

“You, alright ?,” Deacon asks again.

“I need a drink, a big ass painkiller and a shower,” I tell him. “In that order.”

He laughs and nods and helps me walk back to the car.

 

 

***

Juliana

-5-

When the house phone rings I start to shout to Rhett to pick it up but then I remember he was staying overnight at the hotel with Savannah's party

I look at the clock and see it’s 4 in the morning and my mind starts racing as I reach over to Rhett’s side of the bed to pick up the cordless phone. Amber and West had dropped Mason back off at the house since I didn’t go to the party so I knew it wasn’t about him.

Which meant it had to be Dad. I knew he wasn’t in the greatest health and I’d been worried about getting this call.

“’ey,” a male voice said. “'ey, you gotta come get ‘em.”

“What?” I ask. “Who is this ?, Dad ?”

“Nah. It's  me, Jul…,” he says, giving up on my name halfway. “Is me Cody.”

“Oh, sorry,” I say not recognizing his voice. It sounded slow. “What do you mean? Is everything okay at Savannah's party? ”

I hear something like shouting in the background.

“We…ain’t at the party. Rhett’s….shit he real out of it and I think it’s time for him to go home, ya know ? Can you come get him ? Motherfucker's wasted and tryna drive...”

 I liked Cody, but he’d been responsible for more than one drunk Rhett.  “If you think he’s so drunk you can just bring him home.”

“I…can’t,” Cody says guiltily.

I roll my eyes.

“Look,” Cody says. “He’s….‘bout to fight this dude for his car keys. If you don’t come he’s gonna drive himself. He’s bein’ real dumb.  E’ryone here is fucked up. I don’t like to do this but….but you gotta come get ‘em. We’re at Deacon’s.”

“Okay. Fine. I’m coming,” I sigh. “Have him waiting outside.”

“ ‘kay,” Cody says and hangs up.

Mason had gone to bed two hours ago and I consider leaving Mason and running over to Deacon’s to get Rhett but I can just hear him berating me about child endangerment. I slip into the first dress I touch, zip a hoodie over it and grab my sneakers. 

I  pick him  up as quietly as I can. He stirs and I rest his head on my shoulder, swaying a little so he goes back to sleep.

I carry him outside only to see the truck is gone and Cody’s car is sitting in it’s place. I’d assumed they’d taken the rental car to Deacon's, but it looks like Rhett came back and got the truck at some point in the night.

I go back in the house and put Mason in his stroller, I tilt the seat back so he is lying down, cover him with a blanket and start walking. Deacon’s trailer park was only a few miles from our house, I just had to walk out of our neighborhood, cross two intersections and walk through two more neighborhoods. The darkest part of the walk was in our own neighborhood, where the streetlights were always out.

With the stroller it takes me 45 minutes and I don’t see another soul   until I get to the Choctaw II Mobile Home Park. Most of the trailers in the park are quiet and have the lights off except for Deacon’s. 80’s rock music and thick smoke is spilling out the  trailer window. I catch the faint sound of rowdy male voices and it sends some kind of fear down my spine.

I see Rhett’s truck sitting in the trailer park parking lot unlocked. I take Mason out of the stroller and put him in his car seat and put the stroller in the back. I don’t have the keys, so I sit in the dark truck watching Deacon’s door and making sure Mason is still asleep.

It soon becomes apparent to me that Cody isn’t going to bring Rhett outside like he agreed.

I’m not sure what is going on in the trailer but I sense it’s not a place for a child, so I leave Mason in the car and walk up to the front door of Deacon’s trailer. I don’t even bother knocking,  I just walk inside.

I immediately make eye contact with six men, who all look like Deacon’s truck driver friends. They are sitting around the living room table that is covered in cigarettes, white power, syringes, pills and other drugs I can’t identify.  My eyes wander until I find Rhett—he’s passed out on the floor and he's face is swollen, cut and bruised.

“Hey, pretty niece you come to take this son of a bitch home ?,” Deacon says from behind me

I turn to see Deacon standing at the kitchen table, which was covered in more alcohol bottles and moonshine containers. Deacon  has a glass pipe in his hand and he takes a long drag from it. I see Cody sitting at the kitchen table too, but he’s just staring ahead with his mouth open like he’s in a deep trance.

I knew Deacon wasn’t perfect, but seeing him surrounded by so many drugs and openly smoking some kind of white rock didn’t match the picture I had of him. It was uglier.

“Don’t be mad at him, baby girl, he ain’t take nothin’much. Just a valium.,” Deacon says. “Dumbass' just drunk as fuck.”

“And he still got two more shots in that Johnnie Walker. I wanna see him finish the bottle,” someone shouted and a small group laughed.

“What happened to his face ?,” I ask

“A damn dirty fight.” Is all Deacon says and he grins to himself.

I walk over to Rhett and kneel next to him. I pull on his arm, his eyes open and they are red. His shirt is blood stained and unbuttoned down to his chest. I don’t even see his tie and suit jacket.

“The fuck…?” he slurs, frowning up at me.                                             

“Let’s go home,” I tell him.

He holds on to my arm hard and I have to  pull him up from the floor so he can stand, he smells like a bar. He loses his balance and he has to hold on to the walls to stand, but he’s still slumped over.

“What are you doing here?,” he slurs taking my shoulder.

“We’re going home--”

“Shut the fuck up,” he says and my face heats in anger. He cradles his head in his hand. “Shit,J, your voice is so high.”

He grabs a random a bottle of water off one of the tables and just starts sloppily drinking the entire thing while I pretend like I’m moving my hair out of the way as I wipe stray tear.

The other men laugh at this. I’m not sure if they are laughing at me or at him.

“Come on,” one of the truckers says shaking a nearly empty bottle of Johnnie Walker. “You still got three shots left, loverboy.”

“He’s got his girl now, he ain’t going to do it.,” one man says says..

“Hell, she’s the reason he needs to finish it,” someone else jokes.

“Fuck. Ya’ll,” Rhett says. Before I can stop him he takes the nearly empty whiskey bottle and finishes it. He throws the bottle on the floor and it smashes. The truck drivers seem to love it.

“Uh-oh,” someone says as Rhett puts his hand over his mouth and looks like he’s going to throw up, but he manages to swallow it.

I pull on Rhett’s arm and he lets me guide him towards the door. I have to walk slow so I don't step on glass bits from the bottle he just broke.

“This one’s a little troublemaker,” Deacon says pulling on my ponytail as I pass him. “Rhett’s gonna have to put this one over his knee.”

Rhett laughs at this.

“I ain’t that wasted...,” Rhett says.

“If you was anymore wasted you’d be dead,” someone says.

“Can’t teach a girl her place anymore these days, Clark,” another trucker adds.

“Nah,” Deacon says. “But she’s been…causin’ me and my nephew all kinds of trouble this evenin'.”

They were talking about me like I wasn’t even there and I could feel a ball of anxiety in my stomach.

I just put my arm through Rhett’s and walk us silently outside, a part of me wants to go back for Cody too but I couldn’t manage them both and I didn’t want to go back inside.

Rhett turns away from me and kneels on the ground and  throws up right beside one of the big hauling trucks. He stands up and unzips his pants, relieving himself in the same spot. Rhett was an asshole when he was drunk, but this was a new level. 

"Where are the keys ?," I ask him, when he zips up his pants a few minutes later.

“You left my boy out here ?” Rhett says in an amused tone when he sees Mason sleeping in the backseat of the car. “ People out here are fuckin’ crazy. Someone could have taken him. Is that what you want ? God damn you’re so fucking stupid, J, you know that ? ”

He says it like it’s a joke and then opens the driver’s seat and gets in, pulling his keys out his pocket.

“Let me drive,” I whisper, remembering it was almost 5AM and knowing how thin the trailer park walls were.

 “No. Get in the fucking passenger seat,” He tells me in a loud voice.

He can’t even get the keys in the ignition and I easily yank them from him. I stare him down until he moves over to the passenger seat.

Mason had woken up, but he’s still sleepy and probably confused. I hear him start whimpering in the backseat. Rhett leans back in his seat and reaches back to starts stroking Mason’s blanket to comfort him.

“Turn the fucking headlights on, I swear there is nothing in your head these days.” Rhett snaps.

I do as he says as much as I hate it. It was pitch black outside and I’d forgotten about the headlights.

“What exactly happened tonight ?,” I ask casually, but it’s the wrong question.

“You fucking humiliated me that’s what fucking  happened,” he shouts.

“I--Cody called me--he told me to come--,”

“It ain’t about that. Marty was selling you bad shit. That's why you've been so sick--,”

My stomach sinks. He knew now that I'd been buying from Marty.

“Rhett I--”

“Shut up, Juliana. I don’t like it when people call you a whore but I can’t say anything when you sell your body for heroin,” he says in an icey tone. “You humil--milili--humili--you fucking bitch. You were unfaithful to me and lots of guys knew and never said anything--”

I open my mouth  to tell him I never did anything physical with Marty or anyone. I want to tell him I wasn’t ever  going to let it get that far but he cuts me off.

“You’re a god damn idiot Juliana. You think you can just give a picture to one man and it doesn’t get around ? I think you just like the idea of random guys jerking off to you, I swear to god you’re either a whore or the dumbest girl I’ve ever met. Which one are you ? Are you dumb or are you a little whore ?”

“Okay, Rhett. I'm sorry--”

"I want an answer, Juliana. Did I marry a slut or an idiot ? Which one are you ?"

“We’ll talk about this later,” I say through clenched teeth remembering Mason was awake in the backseat.

“I mean, what the fuck , J? You keep doing the same shit over and over again,” he continues, his voice raising. “You open your legs to solve any problem you have and I then I have to deal with the fucking consequences. What the fuck is wrong with you ?  I’m not tolerating this shit anymore from you. Since you're too fucking stupid and lazy to get a job  all I ask is you don't do drugs and you don't suck another man's dick and you somehow manage to do them both.”

As I pull into our neighborhood I quickly make a plan to run into the house and lock myself in Mason’s room. I have a creeping feeling Rhett was too angry and too drunk and was going to go too far  tonight and  I knew if he did I would have no choice but to leave. And I wasn’t ready to do that.

Not yet.

When I park the car in the driveway I move quickly to get inside the house, but I struggle to get Mason out of the car seat in the pitch dark and Rhett grabs my arm. I push Rhett away from me and he loses his balance enough for me to grab Mason and run into the house.

I barely make it to Mason’s room when Rhett’s arm catches me around my waist.

“Rhett-”

“Put him in his bed,” Rhett barks at me.

I lay Mason in his bed, he’s awake and staring at me and I try to smile at him so he thinks everything is okay, but he must know it’s not because he starts whimpering.

“Daddy’s just acting silly,” I smile putting his pacifier in his mouth. “ It’s okay--Rhett, ow!-,”

I’m cut off by Rhett grabbing a fistful of my hair at the scalp and pulling me out the room. Once we are out of Mason’s eyeline I start trying to push him away, but he only pulls my hair harder. I have to try not to scream.

“Stop it, Rhett--”

“Shut up--,”

“You’re hurting me--”

“I haven't done anything to you yet. Where is your heroin ?,” Rhett demands pulling tighter on my hair.

“Let go of my--”

“Where is your fucking heroin ?,” he shouts louder.

"Rhett--"

He lets go of my hair and shoves me into the wall of the living room.

“Where is the fucking heroin, Juliana ? We can do this the hard way or the easy way,” he threatens me."Where the fuck is it ?,"

"Why--"

He raises his hand and I brace myself  but he slams his fist into the wall, it's barely an inch away from my head and I flinch like he made contact. I’m shaking from exhaustion and fear. I hear  Mason crying, but he surprisingly doesn't get out of bed. Rhett's still shouting at me, calling me names and I suddenly don’t care anymore. I give in.

“It’s in the bedroom,” I tell him and he stops shouting.

He pulls me into our bedroom.

“Go and get it,” he orders.

I don’t know why I’m so hesitant. I didn’t need the heroin. It wasn’t worth this. I take the three steps over to my bedside, flip open the urn box and give him the paper bag of white powder.

“You sick little bitch. You put this with your own mother's ashes” he spits."Your detox starts tonight, Juliana."

He pulls me by my arm into the bathroom and makes me watch as he flushes all of it.

 

***

-6-

I wake up to the smell of coffee and the sound of the shower running. I look over at my clock to see it’s well into the afternoon.

It was Sunday.

Jocelyn had probably called twice to yell at us for not coming to Sullivan Sunday dinner.

Last night felt like a terrible dream. A dream that had ended with me crying myself to sleep in bed and Rhett passed out  head first in the toilet after throwing up violently for two hours

I hear the shower shut off, followed by the sound of Mason’s voice from the living room.  I get out of  bed and peek out of the bedroom door to see them both naked and wet. Mason is dancing along with the characters in the movie on the television while Rhett tries to dry him off with a towel. Mason stops dancing long enough to point at all the bruises and cuts on Rhett’s body and face and asks him if they hurt.

When Mason sees me watching them he runs towards me and I pick him up. Someone had told me children were resilient and I guess they were.

“Good Morning ! Why didn’t you wake me up ?,” I ask him and he laughs.

Mason points to a spot on my forehead that is tender when he touches it.

“Ouchie, Mama ?,” he says

“Just a little one,” I tell him.

I look to up to see Rhett wraping the towel around his waist. He sits on the couch, takes a sip out of his Coast Guard coffee mug and takes a handful of asprin.  I sit on the couch next to him. Mason immediately becomes interested in pulling out all his toys from under the couch.

Rhett leans over to me and places the softest, most chaste  kiss he’s ever given me on my lips. It makes me shiver. His skin is still warm and damp from the shower.

“Did I do that ?,” he asks, rubbing the tender spot on my forehead.

I nod, taking the Coast Guard coffee mug from him and taking a sip. I didn't even like coffee but I felt hungover from last night.

"You shoved me into the wall," I tell him.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” he says taking my hand softly.  I pull it away. “I took what I thought was Valium but probably wasn't and drank way too much. Those guys were egging me on—I don’t even remember much after I got in a fight with Ashby and Marty. I just blacked ou-”

“It’s okay--”

“Nah, it ain’t.”

I hand him back the mug.

He was right. His fist was inches away from being exactly what Mrs. Ashby had warned me he would be all those years ago. He was inches away from being like every other terrible man in his family. He was inches away from losing Mason and I last night.

It’s unnerving how vulnerable he looks now, almost like he’s going to cry.

“I did something I shouldn’t have done,” I admit. “When I took those pictures…I wasn’t even thinking about how you would feel… you flushed all my heroin last night. I won’t buy anymore--”

“I shouldn’t have done that. Detoxing is going to be a bitch,” he says. “I can maybe get you something to help detox--”

“No. I’ll do it myself. I’ll be fine,” I tell him because I have to believe it.

He kisses me again, this one feels sweeter. He drinks more of his coffee and I pull the cup from his lips and finish it.

“I’m sorry if I was an asshole, Juliana,” he says."I love you so much that's all. I just want you to be safe."

I shake my head.

“Last night scared me, Rhett. No more, okay ?,” I said. “No more drinking. No more drugs.We have to stop, Rhett. We have to do better.”

He nods his head, burying his hand gently in my hair.

I flinch.

He probably didn’t remember grabbing it last night.

“No more. I promise, baby.” he says. “I’ve been thinking…maybe I’ll pick up a temporary job or something until I hear from the Coast Guard. Get some structure back in my life. Maybe Wil can get me some work.”

“The money would be nice,” I say.

“We’re okay ?,”

I nod.

I hoped so.

 

 ---

A/N

So, that Katy Perry reference was originally a Taylor Swift refrerence, but of course she doesn't have her music on Spotify so I had to change it.