Page 52 of Absolution

“He didn’t,” Ricca gasps, realizing where the story was about to turn. I know I need to tread lightly on this part of the story because Ricca herself had lived in this kind of hell. Bringing back those nightmares was not something I intended to do.

“He didn’t get the chance. He tried to break his way into her room one night, but he only found me. I could tell by how much he was throwing back that he was fixing to do something bad. So, I sent Ginny to my room and told her to pack our backpacks and slip down into the kitchen to get food, before hiding outside near the old shed. I waited for hours and then I heard his heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. As he jiggled the locked door handle, I readied myself. The moment that he broke the plane of the door, I smacked him with one of the bats, which his wife had gotten me for my first Christmas under their roof. He yelled and tried to fight his way to get me, but I hit him harder a second time. He fell to the ground, and I just ran.”

“Oh my god.” Is the only thing that slips from Ricca’s lips, before I finish.

“Ginny was scared that he’d come after us, but I had already taken care of that. On my way out the door, I grabbed the gas can that he kept by the backdoor, and doused the entire kitchen with it. I lit the place on fire, grabbed Ginny, and never looked back.”

“That’s how you ended up on the streets, isn’t it? That’s how Jagger found you.”

“That’s right. He brought us both back here, and put us to work. Ginny worked in the kitchen, and I worked in their mechanic shop, until I was old enough to prospect. Things were good for a while, but club life really started to affect Ginny, as she grew older. The guys looked at her just like my foster father did, and I knew I had to get her out of there, when one of the guys made a play for her. The club decided her being underage was too much of a liability, and sent her away to live with one of the former old ladies, whose husband had just passed.”

I pause, trying to ready myself for the last bit of my story. As much as I want to pretend that I am tough as nails, Ginny much like Ricca, was the light of my world. I lived to protect her. Ricca must sense that I am nearly through because she doesn’t say a single word on the other line.

“A few years after she left, I became a full member. She begged me to let her come back now that she was of age, but I just didn’t want this kind of life for her. The woman that she lived with had homeschooled her, and gave her a life that she would never get living the club life. I got a call not long after that she had taken off. I searched for her for over three years, but when I finally caught up with her, she was heavily addicted to drugs. The day I convinced her to go to rehab, I bought that house, but she would never live in it. She committed suicide after a week of going through withdraws. The pain was just too much for her.”

A stray tear gleams down my face, and I am thankful that Ricca can’t see me this way. There are only two things in this world that would make me shed my hardened exterior and actually give into the coiled emotions buried deeply inside of me. My sister, and my wife. While I could not save Ginny, I would save Ricca and Asher.

“That’s why the house has been empty all this time, hasn’t it?” her voice finally answers. “You couldn’t live there because that house was never supposed to be yours.”

“Somewhat,” I offer her. “Being alone in that house, I felt like I was suffocating. It was meant for a family, and at the time, I never thought that I would deserve one.”

“Oh, Jude. My heart is breaking for you right now.”

Her use of my first name makes me pause, and she notices it immediately.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to call you that,” she back peddles with an obvious note of nervousness in her voice.

“Say it again,” I plead. “I need to hear you say it again.”

“Jude.”

For the first time since I lost Ginny, I loved hearing my real name spoken out loud. In my mind, the right to use that name was only meant for my sister, but now that torch has been passed onto Ricca. Hearing it may have brought back memories of Ginny, but she was gone. Most might think that I traded one damaged woman for another, but they would never understand my reasoning. I needed someone like Ricca in my life to ground me.

“From now on, when it’s just you and me, I want you to call me that. In public, we’ll have to stick to my road name, but alone, I’m your Jude.”

I can feel Ricca’s smile beaming from my phone, and for the first time in my entire life, I feel absolved of my past. My misery of losing Ginny was long fading away, and in its place was beginning to fill with my happiness of Ricca, and hopefully Asher.

Ricca’s silence returns, and I know that I need to push this conversation back to a lighter topic. I couldn’t have her self-doubt trying to overanalyze the story I just told her because it wouldn’t help her or me. We needed to keep our relationship away from the bullshit of our past, and only look to the future that was to come.

“So what are you wearing?” I ask, bringing her giggles back to life.

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