Page 16 of Bear Strength

“I see,” Mason nods, leaning onto the doorway, casually.

His shirt is half-unbuttoned, and he’s barefoot, in jeans. Little dark hairs emerge out of his shirt, covering his chest. His beard is bushier than last time, his hair curlier, darker. Everything about him seems more overpowering in broad daylight. For a moment, he reminds me of Captain Ahab, the one who kept going against Nature, in an effort to catch the elusive white whale. Unfortunately, that didn’t end that well for him.

“I hope we can agree on that,” I round up my little monologue.

“I don’t see why not?” he shrugs with a smile.

For a moment, I can’t connect this guy to anything bad everyone claims the bikers are involved in. I mean, how? He doesn’t look like he has a single crooked bone in his body. He looks like those rich playboys who only care about sex and money. He’s just not dressing the part, but he sure acts it. Then, I remember how that guy in the diner jumped up when Mason called. He just called. Nothing else. No threats. No intimidation. Just a simple order was enough. Not even said in a raised voice.

“Also, I’d like to stay here, while my son is with you” I add.

“What?” Dominick turns to me. “Mom, no...”

“I’m not leaving you alone with these… men.”

I look up defiantly at Mason, but he seems simply amused by this. Far from annoyed.

“If the kid’s OK with that…” he shrugs again, as if he doesn’t care the least bit.

“Mom,” Dominick hisses at me, pulling me to the side. “What are you doing?”

I bend down a little as he talks, and I know we look ridiculous. I’m making my son look ridiculous, but I can’t help it. It’s what moms do. They make their kids look ridiculous with their behavior and they also keep their kids safe.

“Just go,” he orders me. “I’ll be fine.”

I sense the desperation in his voice. He wants me gone. I’m cramping his style. I remember what it was like to be a girl, wanting to impress those older than me. But, these are the wrong kind of people to impress, and I want him to be fully aware of that. He’s staying only until this job is done, and then we’re keeping away from them. The last thing I want is to be put in the same basket with some criminals.

“You don’t know these people, Dom,” I whisper, placing my hands on his shoulder protectively.

“If they wanted to hurt me, they would have done it already, no?” he asks me, and it hits me that he’s right.

People know my son is there now. What can they do to him? Apart from making him pay off the damages through painting, nothing. I bite my lower lip in helplessness. I don’t want to leave him here, but it looks like I’ll have to. I’m fuming mad. However, I don’t show it.

“Fine,” I whisper again, clenching the words through bared teeth. “But, if you need help, or anything, call me at the diner, alright?”

“Yeah,” he nods, and I see that he feels even more embarrassed.

Together, we return to Mason. He has a victorious look on his face, as if things ended up exactly the way he wanted them to, and he didn’t have to lift a single finger to do it. I want to wipe that smug smirk off his face, but what can I do?

“When should I come back to pick him up?” I ask, politely. There’s no point in making enemies of these people. At least, not while I’m in the position of leaving my son with them, unsupervised.

“No idea,” Mason shrugs again, and I swear, I want to punch him in the face. One can take only so much shrugging in 5 minutes’ time. “When it starts to get dark?”

“Fine,” I hiss. “I’ll pick him up a little after 7.”

“Sure thing,” Mason nods.

I look at Dominick. I want to wrap my arms around him, to tell him that everything will be alright. He’s still my little boy. All I’ve ever done and will do is for him to be safe. But, I don’t hug him. Instead, I just squeeze his right shoulder, smile at him, then turn around and walk back over to the car. When I look in their direction again, there is no sign of either Dominick or Mason. The rest of the bikers went back to their business, whatever it is.

Suppressing a bout of tears, I step on the gas pedal and rush back home. It’s hard to look through the windshield when you’ve got eyes full of tears, so I try to calm myself down. I guessit’s just one of those things that is bound to happen. Kids grow up. They don’t want their parents around as often as before. But, that doesn’t mean that I can stop worrying.

I stop by a small store to get some water. I see a book by the register. It’s an old Agatha Christie novel, in cheap paperback version. I add it to my bill. Books have always been my go to when I needed to unwind and de-stress. Now, with work and everything, it’s been increasingly hard to fit some reading time into my hectic schedule, but I figured this would be a good time to start. It might take my mind off of everything, and calm me down a little.

CHAPTER 9

The afternoon at the diner is slow, so Fred doesn’t mind me slipping out for half an hour, just to pick up Dominick. I’m not sure what Bill would say, but he’s not here anyway. If he comes back, Fred promised to say I just went out for a moment. Hiding like this doesn’t make me feel good about myself, but I’ll be damned if I let Dominick sit on that bike again. The very thought makes me furious and frightened at the same time. The worst mixture of emotions.

On the way there, I decide to drop by our place, to pick up some more money, just to have it on me. I know having all your savings on you, hiding inside the pillowcase, so to speak, is a bad idea. Once, a long time ago, I had my money in a safe place. The safest place, you’d say. It was in a bank, in a joint account. We both had access to it. We could both use it as we wished. Then, one day, a smiling clerk told me that I couldn’t access it anymore. No matter what I’d say, she would just shrug her shoulders, her smile remaining the same. My hands are tied, she seemed to say, not caring one bit why this happened or how. She pretended not to see the dark circles underneath my eyes, the bruises on my wrists which peeked out of my long-sleeve t-shirt.

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