Page 21 of Legions

“Leave,” my mother’s sharp command shut Esther up as I swung my head back around to see her eyes leveled on Esther. “I don’t want to listen to your ridiculous crying, nor do I want to look at your face.”

Esther opened her mouth to say something but stopped.

“LEAVE!” my mother shouted.

Esther turned and ran from the house, the door left wide open behind her.

“You wanted her to be here for that,” my mother said, looking back at Thatcher.

He nodded. “I had my own secrets to come clean on,” he replied, his eyes not leaving my face.

She studied him. “Go on,” she urged. I saw a glint in her eyes. The glimmer of fight. The lost shell that I had walked into find earlier was fading. There was a spark back in her eyes. It was a frightening one. Completely out of place on my mother’s face.

“Your husband is a sex addict,” he said. “One that was finally caught and had to claim love to make it okay. Perhaps forgivable.”

My mother grimaced. “Explains a lot,” she said tightly. “We haven’t… had sex in years. He claimed he suffered from erectile dysfunction. And because of it, I believed him when I found pornon the web history in his office and he claimed it must have been the cleaning service. I fired them after telling them all to pray for their souls,” she let out a hard, bitter laugh. “The few times I’d noticed his erection behind his slacks, often after church, he’d claim that it was a side effect. It would show up for no reason and fade. That if he took medication for it that, it was even more difficult to control. Yet he was hard because he was thinking about what young female he was going to fuck later.”

My eyes flew open at the word coming from my mother’s lips.

“Now, Mrs. Jewel, would you like revenge? Because the three point five million dollars can build you the life you want.” Thatcher asked.

My mom’s body was rigidly straight, and her eyes were hard as she stared back at him. “My name is Charlene. I don’t want to be addressed as a Jewel again,” she said, then swung her gaze to me. “Can you handle it if I seek revenge?”

He was my dad.

But he had been her husband.

He had betrayed us both, but hers was deeper.

“Yes,” I replied.

She waited a moment before looking back at Thatcher. “He preached that God would be there when you were at the bottom. Your lowest point. When God was all you had left. That you could ask, and God would reach down and pull you up,” Mom said. “I want him to find out if the bullshit he preached works for someone as depraved as he is.”

• Twelve •

“It’s not so bad, is it? Owning my dark, twisted soul.”

Thatcher

Standing over Capri, I watched her sleep in her childhood bed. I’d waited until her mother had finally taken a sleeping pill before slipping into the bedroom window that I’d made sure to break its lock before leaving her earlier. She’d been insistent that she stay with her mother. Seeing as how I had played a part in ripping everything, she thought she knew about her father and letting it go up in flames, so I allowed it.

I pulled off my shirt and then got rid of my boots and jeans before folding the covers back to climb into bed beside her. She couldn’t sleep without me. I’d not pointed it out earlier because she’d had a lot to deal with, and her mom needed her.

But my little doll needed me.

She curled against my chest before her eyes fluttered open. Her body only tensed briefly before relaxing.

“You knew I’d come,” I said, brushing her hair from her face.

She sighed. “Yes, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted you to.”

I’d hurt her today. I could see it in her eyes. It had been eating me alive.

“Don’t say that,” I pleaded. “You wanted me here.”

She placed her palm on my chest. “You kept something like that from me. That’s as bad as a lie.”

Reaching up, I gripped her chin. “How did I do that? When I knew telling you would break your heart, yet not telling you was also hurting you. I was waiting until I had to. Until the time came that I had to tell you all I knew. Seeing you hurt is worse than a fucking bullet in the chest,” I told her.

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