Blaze (Queen's Birds of Prey 2)

“I have. I could you too, both of you, if you were to allow me to change you. Nothing more than a touch. Nothing that would harm either of you. But I want you to think on it before either of you say yes. You will be around for a very long time. You will never hurt or get sick, but forever is a very long time.”

Reba nodded. “There would be perks too. That’s all I can think about at the moment. The perks that will come to us if we agree. Great grandchildren and beyond. Spending time with you and Bryson. Also the woman that he thought of as his sister. I’m assuming that they’re close.” Blaze told her as close as they could be and not be blood related. “I’d like to adopt her as well. Take her into my heart and give her whatever she wishes from me and Paul.”

“It’s doubtful that she’d want anything from you that you’re not willing to give her. Dawn, she’s a great deal like Bryson. And as sweet.” Reba felt the tears roll down her cheeks. “I have five sisters. A brother-in-law, as well as a niece. They, too, would benefit from having grandparents around. Even though my sisters and I are a great deal older than you, we’d benefit in ways that I can only imagine. But you must think about what forever means, Grandma.”

“Paul and I have money. A great deal of it. We’d not be a burden on the two of you.” Blaze told her that she had a great deal of money too, far more than they did. “I’d not take anything from either of you that you weren’t willing to give us.”

“Just your love. That’s all we’d want. And a hug when we need one, or you do. Or even if you just pass me in the house and hug me.” Reba lifted her head up then, looking at Blaze. “A great grandchild will also need you to tell him about his grandmother. How she was happy as a child. Since Bryson never knew his mom, it would help him as well to get to know her through your eyes. See her when she was only a child. Tell them about her schoolwork and how she excelled so much better than the other children. That learning to ride a bike got her a broken arm. How you and Paul both cried because you thought that you’d failed her.”

Sobbing now, Reba didn’t even care that Blaze was reading her mind. Those memories and more were things that she’d not thought of in years. Hugging Blaze, hanging onto her for support, she told her that she’d talk to Paul tonight. And then made Blaze promise her that she’d not leave them at the old peoples’ home forever.

~*~

Curt waved at everyone in town that he came across. It was, or it had been, a very friendly town until the meeting yesterday with Bryson and Clara. Since then he’d been treated with disdain and meanness. Even the grocery guy had given him a pass on an apple or two when he went by h

is place. Today he’d run him down and demanded that he pay for them. It had taken his last buck to get the guy off his back.

He wondered how a single person like his boy could command a little town like this one in such a short amount of time. Then he thought of the woman—Beano, or something like that, was her name. Beano was the one that wore the pants in their family. He’d known that even before she took that cheap shot at him and hit him when he wasn’t looking.

“Women.” He looked around to see if anyone heard him. Just yesterday he’d been warned about talking to himself. The cops told him to be crazy on his own time or they’d take him in, whatever the hell that might have meant. Even if that was what he said. Curt had trouble keeping what people said in reality straight with what he wanted to hear. Usually it involved him getting cash, but he’d been using that trick so much that it was becoming a habit for him.

Curt wanted to get in touch with Ellen. She might well have been the one that told them how he’d come to be the father of them two ungrateful curs. Ellen didn’t care for the way that he’d picked up Bryson. And she’d been wholly pissed off when he’d come home with Clara. Not even naming the kid after her aunt soothed her into staying to help him raise them. Of course, she did tell him, with her body all stiff and her teeth not moving, that Clara wasn’t her aunt’s name.

He never bothered with names all that much. He’d learn them if he had to, like with his wife and the kids. But the rest of the world could go to hell in a handbasket for all he gave a shit. Curt was better at “Hey you” or “buddy” than he was with some name that your parents stuck on you when you couldn’t tell them that you’d rather have a normal name, rather than being named after some dead relative to get money from them.

He’d even changed his name when he got away from home. His name, he remembered. It was a name that got him into so much trouble at school that he just quit going after a while. Renaldo Cortland Williams. And if that wasn’t bad enough, he was the sixth. Five other people had had to endure what he had when he’d been a kid.

Getting to the grocery store, he saw the man putting out his fruit for the day, like this place was back in the fifties and had never seen a big grocery store like Curt loved. The man guarded his fruit like he was guarding his family jewels. He didn’t want the fruit any more than he did the guy’s jewels. They were more than likely as dried up as he was.

“They said you have the only payphone in town. It’s not that I don’t believe anyone—hell, you more than likely have had the same one for fifty years. But I gotta make a collect call.” The grocer nodded to the back of the store. “Thanks.”

Sure enough, not only was there a phone in an actual booth back there, but it had a thick cushion on it like his mom had made it. Ruffles and all. And the sucker had a rotary dial. He was still laughing when the zero made its way back to its home to call the operator. When she answered, he had to straighten up to answer her.

“I’d like to make a collect call to Ellen Williams. She lives in Texas.” The operator said that she’d need more than that, like an address. “Address? I don’t have that. Just Texas. Can’t you do a search for her like that?”

“Sure, why not?” He heard a tone there, but wasn’t sure since he didn’t know her. “Sir, there are seventy-three hundred Williams in the state of Texas. Over a hundred are Ellens, and another five hundred have the first initial of ‘E.’ If you have a pen and paper, I can give you all those numbers.”

“Are you kidding me right now?” She said that she didn’t have any kind of humor in her today, it was Monday. “It can’t be Monday. But that’s beside the point. I can’t be writing down that many numbers. We’d be here all day. Then I’d need a quarter to each to see if that’s her or not.”

“A phone call is now fifty cents from a payphone, sir.” He wanted to hang up on the woman, but was afraid, like with the town, that she’d tell everyone that he’d messed up and no one would try to help him anymore. “If there is nothing else that I can help.…”

“You didn’t help me at all. I need to talk to Ellen Williams. Can’t you just call them all at once and find out which one was my Ellen? I know you can do it. You’re the phone company.” The operator huffed at him. “Look, you mean person. I pay your wages, and you’re supposed to help me when I call in. It’s your job.”

“Okay, first, you don’t pay my wages. I work for the phone company. They pay my wages. Secondly, if you think that I have the ability to call over six hundred people at once, you’re mistaken. There would be no need for robot calls to annoy people all at one time and hope people bite on the scams. Thirdly, and this is the most important thing I can say to you, find Ellen yourself, if you need her that badly.” Then, like he knew she would, she disconnected the call.

People were just rude anymore. He knew that he was as well. Hell, he’d made a living off taking advantage of people and being a snot. But she worked a job, and she should have been nicer. This was one of those times he wished he could remember a name. That way he could have called her boss and had her fired or written up or something.

Coming out of the booth, he saw Bryson there waiting on him. One look at the grocery store person made him think that he was the one that had called him. He started to tell his son the same thing he did every time he saw him, but Bryson told him to come with him and to shut up.

They were on the sidewalk when he got his tongue working again. “That ain’t no way to talk to me, son.” Bryson stopped and turned so quickly that he nearly ran into him. “Watch what you’re doing there. You nearly knocked me down.”

“I should put you in a grave, is what I should do. What the hell were you thinking when you stole that man’s fruit? Don’t you realize that he has to make a living too? Christ. And then to call the state of Texas looking for your wife?” Curt told him that it was his mother, same as he was his dad. “No, you’re not. Neither of you are my parents. You stole me from my mother a long time ago, as well as took their home. In turn, she killed her husband, then herself, thanks to you.”

“You can’t be pinning that one on me. I didn’t have nothing to do with that shit. Besides, I did a fine job raising you up. Look at you now, a man about town. And money out the ass. I only need a few thousand bucks, son. Once I get enough investors, then I can be on Easy Street plus paying you back.”

“You want me to finance another one of your schemes.” Curt said not to be so negative. “You’ve made me that way. Broken promises and lies have turned me into a man that doesn’t believe a single word that flows over the rotted teeth in your head.”

Closing his mouth, he glared at Bryson. He used to be so sweet. Then here lately he was hard to even have a conversation with. It was always how he’d messed things up. Taken money that hadn’t been his. Now this, even with Bryson having enough to share, he was putting up another fuss about that. He asked him if he had any cash on him.