“I was eighteen. ”
“I was six!”
“I wasn’t your father!”
I throw my arms out. “No, you weren’t. You were supposed to be better than him!
Congratulations, you officially became a replica of your worthless brother. Now where the fuck is the damn phone?”
Scott slams his hand on the counter and roars, “Sit your ass down, Elisabeth, and shut the fuck up!”
I quake on the inside, but I’ve been around Mom’s asshole boyfriends long enough to keep from quaking on the outside. “Wow. You can take the boy out of the trailer park and pretty him up in a Major League Baseball uniform, but you can’t take the trailer park out of the boy. ”
He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.
“I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. ”
“Whatever. Where’s the phone?”
Noah told me once that I have a gift that borders on supervillain status—the ability to push people past the edge of sanity. The way Scott releases another breath and rubs his forehead tells me I’m pushing him hard. Good.
Scott tries for that obnoxious, level tone again, but I can hear the edge of irritation in it.
“You want trailer park, I can go trailer park. You are going to live in my house with my rules or I’ll send your mother to jail. ”
“I broke out the windows of the car. Not her. You have nothing on her. ”
Scott narrows his eyes. “Wanna discuss what’s in your mom’s apartment with me?”
My body lurches to the left as the blood seeps out of my face, leaving behind a blurry and tingling sensation. Shirley already warned me, but hearing it from him is still a shock.
Scott knows what I don’t want to know—
Mom’s secret.
“Push me, Elisabeth, and I’ll have this same exact conversation with the police. ”
I stumble as I try to stay upright. The back of my legs collide with a coffee table. Losing the battle, I sit. Right beside me is a phone and as much as I want to, I can’t touch it. Scott has me. The bastard traded my life for my mom’s freedom.
Ryan
I LEAN AGAINST THE CLOSED tailgate of Dad’s truck and listen from two parking spots away as Dad recounts to a group of men loitering outside the barbershop every detail of our meeting with the scout last night. Some of them heard the story at church this morning.
Most of the listeners are generational farmers and this kind of news is worth hearing again, even if it means standing in the type of August heat where you can smell the acrid stench of blacktop melting.
In my peripheral view, I notice a man stop on the sidewalk and assess the ring of listeners and my storytelling father. I don’t pay attention to tourists and if he were a local, he’d join the group. It’s better to leave the tourists alone. If you look at them, they talk.
Groveton’s a small town. To appeal to tourists, Dad persuaded the other councilmen to call the old stone buildings dating back to the 1800s Historic then add the words Shopping District. Four B-and-Bs and new tours of the old bourbon distillery later, and the city folk brave the fifteen-mile winding country road from the freeway. It can make parking a bitch on the weekends, but it gives lots of good people jobs when money gets tight.
“What’s the local gossip?” the man asks.
He’s speaking and I didn’t even make eye contact. That’s bold for a tourist. I fold my arms across my chest. “Baseball. ”
“No kidding. ” There’s a drop in his tone that catches my attention.
I turn my head and feel my eyes widen in slow motion. No way. “You’re Scott Risk. ”
Everyone in this town knows who Scott Risk is. His face is one of the few to peer at the student population from the Wall of Fame at Bullitt County High. As a shortstop, he led his high school team to state championships twice.