Page 38 of Freedom to Love

When she pulled into the old Holland homestead, she crept down the dirt road, hoping those who now lived on the property wouldn’t give them any trouble. Their mobile homes were off in the distance, so she hoped to be in and out. Billy stirred, having fallen asleep on the ride over.

“We here?” He rubbed his eyes.

“Mm hm.” Brynn grabbed the garden spade and climbed from the car. Billy did the same. The tree in front of them was a large willow. Her grandmother had always claimed it’s where she would run to when she needed time to think. As a child, she’d buried things there. Trinkets, toys, anything she wanted to hide from her siblings. So it had only been natural for Brynn to think of the tree when she needed to hide the money.

Tears burned her eyes as Brynn located the spot and sank to her knees. She reached up to trace her grandmother’s initials in the bark. Then, as Billy sank down next to her, she dug. The earth was soft, the dirt red. She dug until she hit tin and stopped. With Billy’s help they scooped the dirt away and exposed the old tin lunchbox. Brynn laughed.

“Remember this?” She lifted the Smurfs lunchbox and brushed it off.

Billy nodded. “That was Emily’s wasn’t it?”

“Sure was.” Emily, their older cousin, had always given them her hand-me-downs. Including the lunchbox.

Brynn set the box on the ground and unlatched the rusted locks. She popped the lid and sighed with relief.

“Thank God.” She looked to the sky. “Thank you.”

“How much is that?” Billy asked, sweat trickling down his temples.

“Never you mind,” she said. “Enough. And that’s all that matters.”

They stood and hurried back to the car. Brynn kept the box in her lap and drove back down the road. Quickly, she pulled back on the main road and sped toward town. Billy made waves with his arm out the window, playing with the hot air. She watched him and wiped away a tear. He was so naïve, so sweet. He’d tested low in school and she’d had to put him on a different bus every morning so he could go to the school that better met his needs. She’d worried about him constantly for as long as she could remember while Bea had taken him under her wing and used him to carry out things she didn’t want to do herself. It infuriated Brynn, but Billy couldn’t see it and he loved Bea so much.

“I’m going to call tonight and get your job back, okay?”

Billy smiled. “Okay.”

“Billy?”

He looked at her. “Yeah?”

“You still doing drugs?”

His eyes fell and he looked regretful, like he felt ashamed about her asking. “No. Not in a long time. I don’t like how I feel when I can’t get them.”

She nodded. “Good. Now you know what I mean when I say they aren’t good.”

“Yeah. But Bea does. Her and Robbie, they do a lot of bad things. You would be mad. And I don’t want you mad at me.”

She reached over and patted his leg. “I’m not mad at you, Billy. I just worry. I just wish you would listen to me rather than Bea.”

He looked back out the window. “I think I should too. I think you love me more.”

Brynn blinked at him. Maybe he understood more than she thought.

“Where’s your mountain bike?” He always got around town on his bike. He loved the freedom it gave him.

“Bea sold it.”

Brynn clenched her jaw. “Okay.” She tried to sound lighthearted. “We’ll get you another one.”

“Really?” He lifted his ball cap and scratched his hairline.

“Sure. You gotta get around, right? And we’ll get you a good lock and you can lock it up at home too where Bea and her friends can’t get it.”

He smiled, pulled down his ball cap, and once again made waves in the air with his arm. Brynn drove on thinking about Bea. She wondered where she was and where she’d left the car. If she was smart she would cross the state line and hide out somewhere far away. But Bea didn’t like leaving home and rarely ventured from the county. Big cities overwhelmed her. She liked rural areas and old farmhouses on acres of land. She’d once said she’d never leave Williams Lane. Brynn hoped she was okay, but more than anything, she hoped she’d turn herself in for her own sake. Her current situation was dangerous, and Brynn didn’t want her getting hurt or causing anyone else to get hurt.

She breathed deeply as she thought about Vander’s partner and what Deputy Murphy had said. Deputy Damien might not survive. Brynn cringed as a wave of guilt overcame her. Why didn’t she check his pulse? Why didn’t she make sure he was dead?

Maybe he would’ve had a better chance if she’d dragged him to the car too. But he’d looked dead, bullet wound to the head. She wrung her hands along the steering wheel. She felt responsible, and she hated thinking about how badly his loss would hurt Vander.

She swallowed around a tightening throat as she entered town and slowed to pull into the power company to pay the bill. She wished there was something she could do. She had to make it right or the guilt would eat her alive. She just wasn’t sure what she could do.

Billy climbed out of the car with her.

“I have a lot to do the next week or so,” she said to Billy. “But we will definitely get you a new bike, okay?”

He nodded and they opened the door to clean up yet another one of Bea’s messes. Was this how the rest of her life was going to play out?

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