Welcome to Hell: Rediscovering First Love

Before I could answer, Yancy said, “Honey I’ve been married to your father for forty years next anniversary. We just aren’t compatible men and women. You have to tolerate each other to make a marriage work and hard work is what makes the marriage.”

“Yancy, maybe you would have been happier if you had taken a woman for a lover?” I suggested hoping to shut my mother up.

She didn’t stop though. “God should have made men more like women so that we could live in peace together. But He didn’t so marriage is a constant battle. Marriage between a man and woman is like marrying an elephant with an ostrich.”

Shaking my head I turned back to my sister. “I don’t think marriage is a battle Yancy…only if you make it one.”

“Gabrielle, don’t tell me that you don’t battle that obsessive-compulsive, anal-retentive ass you call a husband every day of your life,” Yancy shouted at me. “He won’t wipe his behind without calling his mommy or putting on rubber gloves.”

The fury was building inside me. Standing so that I could nearly look my mother in the eye who was exactly one inch taller than me I said, “You’re right Yancy. I do battle him. I fight him every single day for control just as I battled you through my teenage years and then in my early adult years when I was trying to raise Kat while living with you and you interfered with my every decision regarding my daughter.” I was on a roll.

“Yancy, guess what? I married my mother.” I threw my hands up in disgust I told her as my eyes filled with tears that I refused to shed. Suck it up, I told myself using James’s favorite phrase.

“I am nothing like that man,” Yancy declared vehemently glaring hard at me.

My heart was suddenly pounding with adrenaline. I had allowed her to get under my skin. I had been in Hell for one hour and she had gotten to me already. “I am going for a walk.”

Passing by my mother I slammed the front door behind me. The fleeting thought that passed through my mind was that I was leaving Kat at Yancy’s mercy while I escaped. Hopefully, she had locked her bedroom door because I wasn’t going back just yet not even for her. That woman was a nut even if she was my mother. Even if I loved her and her suffocating ways with everything in me. The relationship was so difficult to explain.

Chapter Five

Hell was a small town. I could walk from one end of the town to the other in twenty minutes. I knew exactly where I was going as the adrenaline moved my feet quickly on the concrete sidewalks. The streets were empty as I passed through the main part of town. All the shops were closed at this time of night. Everyone was either home enjoying their family or at Paddy’s which is where I was heading knowing that if Paddy himself were working the bar he would float me a drink. I had no money on me and was desperately in need a shot of tequila my favorite drink from my younger days.

A dimly lit building with just a neon sign that flashed in the front window was Paddy’s. The outside was peeling paint onto the sidewalk. The heavy oak door opened easily and a whoosh of wind followed me inside as I entered the darkened bar. There were only three or four patrons sitting on the wooden barstools pushed up to a heavy oak bar sipping beers from stout glasses. I paid no attention to who they were as Patrick was behind the oak bar and a huge smile spread across his face when he saw me.

Patrick was a burly dark haired man with light blue eyes and a thick mustache. He hadn’t changed in the six years that I had been gone from Hell except that his eyes were more than well lined at the corners. He was my father’s age and his daughters had gone to school with me and my sisters. Patrick was one of my father’s closest friends and had my father known I was here he would be here too. He often escaped my mother’s wrath by hiding out at Paddy’s.

“Well if it isn’t Gabby Dawson,” he shouted to me in his soft Irish brogue.

Patrick had come from Ireland to America when he was eighteen. The rich sound of his voice filled the bar causing the other patrons to turn around and stare at me.

“She was my best customer until that man from Kentucky moved her away from Hell,” he teased his brilliant eyes gleaming.

I had known Patrick my entire life. His daughter Isabella and I were the same age. I had rarely frequented his pub except with Issy to get money for the pizza parlor or a movie and once or twice with one of my sisters when we were of a legal age to imbibe. Patrick had always liked to tease me causing my face to turn a brilliant shade of red then as it did now with everyone staring at me.

“What are you doing home girl?” He asked as I slipped onto a barstool.

“Visiting my mother Patrick. Could you float me a shot? I need it,” I replied.

“I know the hell your mother puts Jack through and I imagine she’s still as bitchy as ever. Beautiful but bitchy that one is. Here,” he said placing the glass in front of me. The sound of the glass against the bar filled my ear. “This one is on the house darlin’ girl. How’s Keegan?” He asked.

“Too big for her britches Patrick. You know teenage girls,” I replied.

“Aye, I remember two of them who used to get into more trouble than they were worth,” he responded with a twinkle in his eye. “It seems to me that I picked you and Issy up at the police station once so that your parents wouldn’t know you had been arrested for loitering and assaulting a police officer to boot. Luckily I charmed Hoot into letting you both go with a warning or Yancy would have had your hide.”

“I’m still grateful to you Patrick,” I replied sipping the tequila he had placed in front of me.

The clear amber liquid had filled the shot glass to the rim. The rawness burned going down but it felt good in my stomach after the burn went away.

“Gabby,” my name floated through air behind me, a soft huskiness that caused goose bumps on my arms. “You aren’t the girl you used to be.” His voice was unmistakable, gentle and so rich and warm my toes tingled. “I have watched you down a shot of Tequila in a heartbeat without flinching. Look at you sipping, like a sissy.”

“You better give me another shot,” I said to Patrick glumly. I downed the remainder of the liquid for courage before I turned to face Kerry McCoy standing behind me looking gorgeous as hell.

“You look great,” I said to him my heart beating rapidly against my ribcage so hard that it hurt; speaking the first thought that came to mind. I hadn’t seen the man since our daughter was a baby but still he affected me. No surprise there.

“So do you,” he replied still staring intently at me. “How’s Keegan?”

“I’ll tell you when I get home.”