“Rhianna,” our mother scolds, narrowing her eyes at her.
I hand him the salad, and he puts some on his plate before I hand him the meat. “Eat. You’ll need your energy,” I tell him, smirking.
He raises one brow at me, but it’s not for what he thinks. I glance down the table to my mother who is watching us with drawn eyebrows.
“Why don’t you ask him?” I say to my mother.
The table goes quiet as I standoff with her.
“You wanted to know why he fucked Mrs. Lee … so, ask him. He’s going to be in my life because he is Winter’s father, and no one can change that.”
“You don’t have to tell us anything, son,” my father says, holding up his drink and nodding to him. I appreciate that Dad is willing to let August’s past lie, but I’m not just doing this for my mother. I need to hear it too.
“No, he does. I want to know why,” Mother insists.
“Mom,” Rhianna says.
“What? I need to know that the man who is going to be around my daughter is good and that the father of my granddaughter is going to teach her right from wrong and not allow her to sleep with strangers,” she spits.
“Mrs. Lee made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, and she knew it.” We all turn our attention to August as he speaks, but he addresses my mother when he does.
“I highly doubt that.” My mother straightens herself in her chair, waiting for him to continue. “No one can be that desperate, surely?”
“That just shows you have lived a life of privilege, and you would never understand what it’s like to try to feed yourself because your mother can’t be bothered to take care of you any longer.”
“Again, you don’t have to explain yourself, son,” my father says. “As long as you are there for my child and grandchild, I don’t care what you did in your past. The past is just that, the past.” He nods to him.
“But that’s not enough for you, is it, Mrs. Harley?”
My mother shakes her head. She has no shame at all in admitting it.
“I found a way to feed myself at a young age. When my mother stopped buying food, it was either that or starve to death. You don’t really get a choice when you’re that hungry that the gnawing hunger pangs are eating at your very soul. I had to find a way to make money to buy shoes, to get to school, to live even if it was wrong…” He pauses. “I was working for a guy named Josh. I had just started when Mrs. Lee first saw me. She asked why my shoes were so broken. I shrugged and told her I didn’t have the money to buy a new pair.” He takes a deep breath, then continues, “She bought me a pair, then asked me to come back to her house to shower.”
“August,” I say, looking at him.
“I thought nothing of it. Our shower hadn’t been working for close to a week … the water was disconnected. I was washing using the taps at school, but that didn’t do the job. Plus, she was Anderson’s mother, and I thought maybe she wasn’t such a bitch like her son. I thought wrong—”
“She most certainly is,” Beckham breaks in.
“I showered, and when I got out, my clothes were gone, and she was standing there, dressed in a nightgown.” He swallows. “She offered me new clothes as well as more shoes. Nikes. I was a teenager, and all my friends had Nikes, apart from me. Then she offered me money. She said in order for me to get all those things, there was one thing she wanted from me.”
Everybody stays quiet as we wait for him to speak again.
“She wanted me. And if I continued to sleep with her, she would shower me with all my wildest dreams.” August lowers his eyes to his food, then raises them back up to my mother. “You don’t know what kind of offer that is to someone who’s never had anything. Plus, I liked sex. I was a teenager. It wasn’t so bad.”
“That’s rape, son,” my father growls, his face now a mask of anger.
“I knew that. So I told myself after that first time that I’d never do it again, but then…” he looks to me, “… she gave me a bike and offered more money as long as I did it again.”
“Now you understand why Anderson is such a pig,” Beckham says to our mother, who is just sitting there taking it all in. Mom’s quiet now. No more smug looks, no more judgment in her eyes, only somber stillness.
I was angry at August before, knowing what he has done. But as I turn to look at him now, it’s hard to stay mad at someone for something they never had any sort of control over. He was young, hungry, and desperate, so who can blame him for someone misleading him in such a horrific manner.