"Thanks for the visual."
It would do him good to talk, she decided. And until the mare's water broke, they had time. "Your mother moved to Florida, didn't she?"
"Yeah, her and Frank. That's the guy she married about ten years ago."
"You like him?"
"It's hard not to like Frank. He just goes with the flow and manages to turn the current in his direction without making waves. They're good for each other. Up to him her taste in men sucked."
"The divorce was hard on you?"
"No, it was hard on her." Idly, he picked up a shaft of hay, spun it through his fingers. Then, to Laura's amusement, he handed it to her as he had the flowers.
"I don't suppose it's ever easy. Divorce."
"I don't see why. Something doesn't work, it doesn't work. My father cheated on her from the get-go, never troubled to hide it. She just wouldn't let go. Never could figure that either."
"There's nothing mysterious about wanting to hold a marriage together."
"There is when it's a sham. He wouldn't come home a couple nights running, then he'd show up. She'd rant and throw things, and he'd just shrug and plop down in front of the TV. Then one day he didn't come back at all."
"Ever?"
"We never saw him again."
"Michael, I'm sorry. I didn't realize." Though her hands continued to soothe the mare, her attention was on him.
"Didn't matter to me. Or not much." He shrugged. "But she was miserable, and pissed, and that made it hard to be around her. I didn't spend much time at home for a couple of years. Hung out with Josh, drove Mrs. Sullivan crazy thinking I was going to corrupt him."
She remembered him. Remembered well, now that she allowed herself to, those brooding, dangerous eyes. And her reaction to them. "My parents always liked you."
'They were cool. It was an eye-opener, watching them, you, what went on in Templeton House. Whole different world for a cliff rat like me."
And the world he was describing was different for her. "Your mother married again."
"She hooked up with Lado when I was about sixteen. I hated the son of a bitch. I always figured she picked him because he was the opposite of the old man. He was sloppy and mean and jealous. Gave her lots of attention,'' Michael muttered, and his eyes were dark with memory. "Lots of it. He used to knock her around."
"God! He hit her?"
"She always denied it. I'd come home and she'd have a black eye or a split lip and make up some lame excuse about tripping or walking into a door. I let it go."
"You were just a child."
"No, I wasn't." His eyes, stormy now, latched onto hers. "I was never a child. By the time I was sixteen, I'd already seen and done more than you will in your lifetime, sugar. It suited me fine."
"Did it?" She kept her eyes level. "Or did it keep you from feeling helpless?"
He nodded. "Maybe both. But the fact is, Mrs. Sullivan always had the right idea. I was a bad companion, and if Josh hadn't been who and what he was, we both would have ended up in juvie. Or worse. Fact is, he's the reason I didn't."
"I'm sure he'd appreciate the testimony, but I'd think you had something to do with that yourself."
For the first time in months he had a strong, nagging urge for tobacco, even patted his pocket before remembering that that part of his life was over. "You know why I took the hitch with the merchant marine?''
"No."
"Well, I'll tell you. One night I came home. Been drinking a little, me and Josh and a couple of others down at the cliffs. We were eighteen and stupid, and I'd copped a six-pack from Lado. So I walked into the house, feeling a nice comfy buzz, and there he was, that big fat bastard, using his fists on my mother because she hadn't kept his supper warm or some such shit. I wasn't going to let him get away with it, figured it was my job to look out for her. So I took him on."
Abs