Page 27 of The Broken Beginning: Part One

“I got angry when I saw that and moved her out of the way. Flung every fucking cabinet open only to find them empty too. One box of pasta, some ramen noodles, and that was it. My girl didn’t have any food worthy of a kid scraping by in college, let alone a pregnant woman who is trying to grow a baby.”

“Why in the fuck were you putting groceries in my shack for some whore who was fully capable of getting a job, when you couldn’t fill your own house for the woman carrying your baby?” My father shot the question at me like the accusation it was. I’d fucked up more than a single person had a right to fuck up.

“Yeah, speaking of women working for their food…” Rob started, his voice too quiet for the amount of emotion I knew was brewing there. “When I took her to the grocery store…” He had to stop and compose himself again before he could go on. “Her reason for not going, by the way, was that it was too cold, and she was too tired to handle the twelve-mile round trip walk to the fucking Food Lion, the last half with groceries to carry back too.”

Holy fucking hit! Fucking stupid fucking fucker! I didn’t know if I could hear any more of this because I honestly wanted to put myself in the ground. I wasn’t the only guilty party though, because they had let things get this bad for her too. They dropped the fucking ball thinking I’d pick it up, but I had been fucking clueless with my head in the goddamn sand while trying to avoid the marriage I didn’t want.

“She had barely more than fifty bucks in cash on her at the store and was trying to add up if she had enough for the handful of shit she put in the cart. Not a damn bit of it was healthy food, it was all cheap shit.” Rob was shaking physically with the anger raging through him. “I bought her groceries and took them back to her place. Do you know where the money she had on her came from?”

I shook my head. Hell, I hadn’t known she’d been starving, how the hell was I supposed to know where she got the money. I didn’t think the iron dragons weighing my stomach down could sink it any lower, but what the fuck did I know? Because in the next few minutes, I felt like the absolute worst piece of shit on the fucking planet.

“She was working at a pizza joint after school most nights until they closed. My daughter. The pregnant one. The one without a car.” He carefully emphasized each point he made. “She was either using up some of the meager fucking money she made to take cabs, or she’d hustle a ride from someone, but I have a feeling the majority of the time she was simply walking home late at night. It’s two miles to the pizza place from school. I checked, and the school has a bus that goes by there, so she didn’t have to walk that part. But it’s seven miles from the pizza joint to your house. My baby was walking that road, while pregnant, late at night, and by herself. Only God knows how many times she had to do that, because she wouldn’t fucking tell me.”

He shook off the rage that was a tangible thing taking up too much space in the room that normally held up to thirty men.

“She was doing that up until they cut her hours.”

“What did they do that for?” Boone asked, pushing his anger on another source.

“They felt she was a liability after she burned the shit out of her belly while making pizzas. Has a nasty scar across the top of it now.”

“That’s it! I’ve heard e-fucking-nough!” Timeless stood. “Boy, you were given that patch early, but it came with strings since you disrespected a brother of the club. You were to marry the girl and see to shit. You were to live as a married couple and were given a little leeway with what you could do with the club whores, since we allow everyone to sample them whether they’re tied down with a woman or not. From what I’m hearing, you ain’t even been home in months, let alone seen to your pregnant wife’s basic needs. That ain’t how we do things in this fuckin’ club. We care for what’s ours, and that girl and that baby she’s growing, are club family. She’s ours.”

Our Prez turned cold eyes toward Boone and Rob then too. “The two of you fucked up by not keeping a closer watch on this shit. Straighten it out.” He turned back to me. “Get your ass home. Don’t let me find you sleeping in this clubhouse again anytime soon, you hear me? I find out you’re here for more than just the weekends, or weekday meetings and club runs, I will snatch that patch off your back and burn off any club ink you have myself. You feel me?”

“I feel you,” I told him, though my words didn’t come out with any strength behind them.

9 - Remembered

Tiger Lily

It was the second week in March, almost three weeks after my dad bought me groceries and stormed out, and I was starting to worry when my boss called me and told me that he didn’t have any hours to give me this week. That meant no money coming in and I saw the final notice bill for the electricity taped onto the door before I left for school. I didn’t even get to take the damn thing off the door, because I didn’t want to draw anyone’s attention to it. It was bad enough for me at school. Aside from Stacey, I was a pariah. No one wanted to speak to the married, pregnant girl whose husband didn’t even want her.

Thanks to Brinley, the whole school knew about our situation long before I started to show. Most didn’t believe her until there was no way to hide my baby bump any longer.

How in the world was I supposed to pay a nearly $700 electric bill? They had apparently allowed it to go three months behind, but I didn’t even know about that until the notice was posted on the door. I wasn’t even sure who had been paying the bill before that. Was it Boone that had it paid up, and I was supposed to take over? No one told me! I ran to the bathroom once I got to school because there was no way I would let them see me cry.

But cry I did. How was I supposed to do this? I didn’t have the first clue about what bills I should be paying or how the hell to get the money to pay for them. Was there a house payment too that I hadn’t known about? Was someone going to come along and kick us out eventually? I couldn’t catch my breath and ended up making myself so sick that I threw up the scrambled eggs, toast, and orange juice I had for breakfast.

“Oh honey!” Mrs. Walston, the sweet art teacher, had come into the bathroom and started to rub soothing circles on my back. “Are you okay? Maybe you should go on back home today.”

“I don’t have a ride,” I explained pathetically.

“I’ll take you. Come on,” she offered. I didn’t even think about it after that. To hell with school. I didn’t want to be there anymore anyway. I used to value my education, but it was becoming more and more obvious that I’d never get a chance at anything beyond high school anyway, so what did it really matter? I’d been checking into getting my GED at the local community college, and the only thing stopping me was transportation to get there.

Mrs. Walston got me home in record time. When we pulled up, it was to see my father and Boone standing there talking to Merc, who I hadn’t seen in months. Actually, that wasn’t entirely accurate. My father was screaming at him while waving a piece of paper around in the air.

“Shoot!” I hissed under my breath.

“Should I keep driving?” Mrs. Walston wisely asked.

“Better not. That’s my dad, the one yelling.” I pointed out.

“I know who Mr. Donavon is.” She rolled her eyes. “Your husband, I mean. I assume the other one is his father since they look so much alike?”

“You got it.”

“Looks like they’re ripping him a new one.”

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