Strong and Steady

“It’s time I told you about my past. My dad.”

19

EMORY

* * *

All of the heat that had been in Gray’s eyes was gone, and what was left was icy and empty. I held the sheet up over my breasts and leaned back against the headboard. While Gray was naked and sitting sideways on the bed, it felt better being covered for this, wanting only the other Gray, the eager-for-me Gray, to see my body.

“My father was, is, an asshole.” Gray leaned down, resting his forearms on his thighs. He wasn’t looking at me, but at the far wall although I wasn’t sure if he was even seeing it. He was looking into his past, into his memories, and I dreaded what he was going to say.

“He used to hit my mom. All I remember from when I was little is them shouting, the sound of the slaps, her crying. I would hide in the closet.”

The words came out short and clipped, dark and laced with grit. I wanted to ask him questions, but knew it was hard enough to get the words out without prodding. He’d held them in, probably, for a long time. Having him tell me this meant just as much as every promised

look and kiss.

“In the morning, she’d be making me pancakes, and she’d have a black eye or a split lip. Sometimes she’d still be in bed, and I’d get her cereal. As I told you, we lived on a ranch in Wyoming. Middle of nowhere. No place for her to escape. I… I knew what he was doing, and I did nothing to stop him.”

Sadness and anger filled me, overflowed, thinking of Chris when he was small and him having to deal with that. “You were just a boy.” I wanted to reach out and touch him, but he was too far away, too far in the past.

His head moved back and forth slowly. “I was. But I knew. Then one day I’d had enough of hiding and stood between him and my mom.”

He turned his bleak eyes on me. “That was the start of my fighting career.” Then, from one heartbeat to the next, he changed. His gaze sharpened, his jaw tightened, his fists clenched. “It was one of the last fights I lost.”

It was so quiet in the room I heard the air conditioning coming through the vents in the floor.

“My mother died two weeks later.” He dropped his head and looked at the carpet. “Car crash. I was in the backseat. The story is that she was so drunk she drove right into a telephone poll. What I remember is that my father was driving. When I woke up in the hospital two days later, my father didn’t have a scratch. I’d broken my arm and had a concussion from the accident, but my mother had died instantly.”

My eyes widened, and I licked my lips. “Are you saying your dad moved your mom, so it looked like she caused the accident?”

“All I know is my dad was driving when we got in the car, but no one believed a kid. I had a head injury, and my dad said I didn’t know what I was talking about. After that, after the funeral, when I got home, he turned his anger on me.”

My eyes filled with tears. Tears of sadness and horror. “How… how old were you?”

“Eight.”

My eyes widened, and I forgot about the sheet, crawling across the bed to kneel behind him, wrap my arms around his waist and place my head against his strong back.

He set a hand over my forearm and gripped tightly. “By the time I was in seventh grade, I had enough anger in me to start fights in school. I was suspended all the time but couldn’t tell my dad, so I left the house in the morning, pretending to go to school. My gym teacher, God,” he sighed. “Mr. Johns. He saved me. He recognized what others missed, that something was going on at home. At gym class, he made me do extra laps to burn off the anger. After school one day, he took me to a boxing gym in the little town.”

“He just took you?” I thought of Chris’ private school gym teacher just driving him to a boxing gym. He’d get fired and possibly arrested for the action.

“My dad didn’t give a shit where I was as long as when it came time for a happy family photo I was there. It was different back then anyway. I went with Mr. Johns, grudgingly, but found an outlet in the structure of boxing. The rules, the ability to use my hands, to beat the shit out of someone and not get in trouble.”

I kissed the warm skin of his back, urging him without words to continue, that I wasn’t going anywhere.

“I started to box competitively, but that wasn’t enough. The gym added karate and Muay Thai classes, and I took them all. It was better to hang out at the gym than at home. My grades improved, my fighting at school stopped. I owe it all, including graduating, to Mr. Johns. The week after graduation, I went into the Marines. I couldn’t get any farther from my dad than where Uncle Sam could send me. The Middle East was easy.”

I didn’t think that was the case, but based on what he was sharing, perhaps he was right. “If you were able to get away from him, why is he calling you now?”

“He’s followed my career. My tours overseas. Everything.” He released my arm and turned, so he could face me. “Kept tabs on me. I’m the only person who can truly hurt him, his career. He can’t kill me like he did my mom, but he can fuck with me. Ruin any happiness I have.”

He turned his head, so his eyes met mine. Lifting a hand, he stroked his fingers over my cheek. “He’s trying to get to me through you.”

I grasped his hand and held it in place. “Why? I don’t understand. You haven’t done anything to him, even joined the military to get away. Why doesn’t he just leave you alone?”

His eyes narrowed in frustration. “Heard the name Edward Green?”