Page 35 of Wild Justice

“It’s a sad tale of woe,” Kai said with a chuckle. “A story of teenage rebellion, not unlike Romeo and Juliet, except that six people didn’t die.”

“Is it rude of me to say that I now kind of want to hear it?”

“I don’t have a problem telling you the story,” Kai said. “It’s all water under the bridge now.”

“Why don’t we sit down?” Lulu offered. “I’m all ears.”

In addition to being an avid people watcher, she also loved to hear family stories. And there was something about this man in particular that made her want to know more about him.

Don’t think about the implications of that.

They settled on a loveseat with several Elvis pillows depicting his 1968 comeback special. His black leather outfit look was one of her favorites.

“My mom was a rebellious teenager. Sneaking out at night, running around with boys, smoking and drinking. That sort of thing. Her parents sent her to boarding school because of that, but according to her, all it did was teach her new ways to torture her parents. During her senior year Spring Break trip with her family and their friends, she met my dad in Palm Beach. He was visiting his aunt and uncle who lived near the beach. They spent an idyllic week together falling in love. By the time the break ended, they were convinced that they were soulmates. They continued to stay in touch by writing letters. They were crazy about one another.”

Lulu cleared her throat uncomfortably as he described his mother’s youth. It sounded rather familiar, although, she had never fallen in love like that. If anything, she’d found most boys her age boring as hell.

I liked my men older and more problematic.

“Right after her high school graduation ceremony, Mom ran off with my dad and got married. He was from here in Harper, and just as wild and rebellious as she was, from what I’m told. Dad drove his dilapidated Honda Civic all the way to Boston to marry her.”

“Anyway, my mom’s parents flipped their lids, of course. They’d hoped that she might straighten up after graduating and maybe get a job. They didn’t hold out any hope for college, but they thought she might find work in an office or something like that. By the time, my parents returned from their extended honeymoon backpacking around Europe she was pregnant with me. She hadn’t even turned nineteen yet. Dad’s parents, Mitch and Lois, were pretty chill about it all. As they said, it had happened so being mad about it wasn’t going to do anything. But as you can imagine, my mom’s parents were not thrilled. There was estrangement between them for years.”

“Something, something, you’re ruining your life. Was that how it went?” Lulu asked.

She’d heard that from her mom and dad a time or two.

Do you want to ruin your life? Because this is how you ruin your life. Don’t you care about your future?

If she’d been honest with her parents, and what teenage girl ever was, she would have answered that she didn’t care much about her future. It wasn’t even on her mind back then. She’d been busy reveling in living in the moment, happy to dig deep into the here and now.

It was only later as she’d grown more mature that she’d thought about tomorrow. But she was also aware that looking too much into the future often kept a person from enjoying the present. She didn’t want to go back to who she was, but she didn’t want to be that either. There had to be some sort of happy medium, right?

Maybe that was the secret to life - finding that balance.

“Pretty much,” Kai agreed. “Both sets of parents tried to convince them to settle down and get jobs now that I was on the way, but my mom and dad had a different idea of how to live life. They took off, and I didn’t meet either side of grandparents until I was six. By then, my mother had left my dad and had to come back home. Dad had started drinking way too much, and eventually, she didn’t think it was safe for me to be around him. From what she said, it was a humbling experience. She had to admit that her plan for life had basically failed. She was so humiliated. It shaped the way that she parented me. She actively discouraged me from ever taking chances, doing anything outside of convention.”

Despite being horrified by some of Lulu’s antics, she gave her parents a great deal of credit because they could have done the same. But they hadn’t, especially her mother. Presley Reilly had always been Lulu’s biggest cheerleader, telling her to keep trying things to figure out what she wanted to do and be.

“Is she still like that?”

“Yes and no,” Kai laughed. “Obviously, I’m a grown man so she doesn’t say much. She was upset when I quit my law career to come out here and run Grandad’s newspaper. She wasn’t the biggest fan of my paternal grandparents to begin with. Her parents always called them hippies, and she wasn’t close with them, no matter how hard they tried. But she never stopped me from coming here in the summer to visit, though. She wanted us to be close, even after my dad died.”

“Hippies?” Lulu giggled. “Mitch and Lois were hippies?”

“As far as my uptight, maternal grandparents were concerned…yes. They were good people, but they saw life one way and only one way.”

“Their way or the highway?”

“That sums it up well,” Kai replied. “They rarely ever spoke about the seven years my mom was traveling around with my dad, and they sure as hell never said my dad’s name. Not once. When he passed away from drinking too much, I heard them arguing with her about going to his funeral. They said she shouldn’t go, and that he didn’t deserve it.”

“She said that she needed to take me so I could say goodbye and get closure. That it would be wrong not to. It was one of the few times she stood up to them. They even sort of picked out her second husband, although they truly do seem in love and happy together. But I always got the feeling that there was a bit of sadness inside of her. I think she missed my dad and their adventures together.”

“But she’d never admit that?”

“Bingo. Not in a million years. I get why she is the way she is. I understand it. And she’s not unhappy. She has a great life.”

“Maybe you should take her ziplining or something,” Lulu suggested. “Or book one of those vacations where you explore uninhabited islands.”

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