Page 51 of Brother to Brother

She clung to me and let it out, and I hoped like hell she heard the truth in my words, because I meant them. Melody and Noah were my property in the outlaw sense of the word. You touched a man’s property upon pain of death. It was the way of my world and I wasn’t changing it for no one.

We lay like that, the candles burning down, the fire in the fireplace too, and eventually, Mel slept and for once it was a role reversal; I couldn’t. My mind turning over and over the possible ways her parents could either track her down or fuck with what we had going. I contemplated making a stop at their place when I went through AZ, considered the best way to handle things and protect my new family.

Maybe this time it was best to let sleeping dogs lie? I didn’t know. It wasn’t exactly territory I’d been through before. I mean granted, I’d come up in the system, but I’d never done it from the side of being a parent and I was still pretty new at that part. I was hoping I wouldn’t have too much trouble with the curve.

Eventually, I fell into a sleep. I’d meant it to be light, but it’d been a hell of a day. When I woke up, it was to light streaming through the windows, the gauzy white curtains not doing a hell of a lot to keep it out. I sat up only to find Mel wasn’t in here with me, her new pajamas I’d had bought for her were neatly folded at the foot of the bed, but her boots were missing from the entry way.

I got up and went into the bathroom, getting my morning routine out of the way. I pulled my hair into a loose horse tail and threw on some jeans, a tee shirt, and because it was a touch cool, a flannel shirt I left open over that. I shrugged into my jacket and cut and pulled the front door open to see Mel striding up the path, one of those paper travel coffee cups with a lid on it.

“I brought you coffee, and some breakfast,” she called softly. When she stopped in front of me, she handed the coffee over.

“Thanks,” I said and took a drink. She pulled a banana out of one of her coat pockets and a muffin wrapped in a napkin out of the other.

“You were sleeping so hard, I didn’t want to wake you.”

“I wish you did, I don’t like waking up and finding you not here. It just doesn’t sit right.”

She blushed faintly and stared at the ground, “Sorry,” she said.

“S’okay, I guess.” I took another drink of coffee which was perfect. I liked that she knew what I liked. “What do you feel like doing?”

“A walk would be nice,” she said, and I nodded, the corners of my mouth turning down as I considered it.

“Not a bad start,” I agreed. “Go where you want, I’ll follow your lead.”

“Okay,” she said and hands buried in her pockets, turned. I juggled the breakfast offerings a minute and got the door shut and latched while Mel looked on amused.

“Would you like me to hold something?”

“Nah, I got it.”

I fell into step beside her and she strolled gently, giving me time to eat and drink my breakfast.

“Thanks for grabbing this for me.”

“Oh, sure. I figured you’d get hungry without anything. Lunch is a ways off.”

We fell into a silence that was more comfortable than not, and moved along at a sedate pace, towards the water.

“Mel, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.” She side eyed me curiously, as if surprised I’d asked her and hindsight being twenty-twenty, I guess I could have made more of an effort to talk these last few months. It was just hard for me to let anyone in; always had been. Once I did, though, for some reason it was like flipping a switch. Either you were out or you were in. There was no in between phase. I don’t know… maybe some of my circuits were fucked up from getting the shit kicked out of me when I was a kid so much.

“This whole thing with your parents, is that why you freaked the fuck out so hard when Noah hit his head a couple months back?”

She pursed her lips and nodded, “I thought for sure the hospital was going to alert CPS, and that they were going to investigate and find that I’d bolted from Arizona with Noah.”

I shook my head, “Mel, did your parents ever have any kind ofofficialcustody of our boy? I mean, was there any reason for ‘em to?”

She shook her head, “No, I mean, I was living with them, and they told everyone I was on drugs and was whoring myself out to the club. I was even tested for drugs at one point. Not just my pee, but they tested my hair too. They didn’t find anything. I guess I was lucky. I mean, I smoked weed before I found out I was pregnant… I stopped immediately once I found out I was though.”

I huffed a little bit of a laugh at that, “Seriously? Weed? That was it? I thought sure you bein’ with Grind he had you into some harder shit than that.”

She shook her head, “I tried ecstasy once when Grinder and I first got together; it scared me so bad I swore never again.”

“You and Grind were together, what? Three, four years?”

“About that long, yeah…” she murmured.

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