Page 13 of Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

5.

Livvy

A couple of days ago, after months and months of putting it off—like three and a half of them—because dealing with what my great-grandad put into storage meant dealing with emotions I’d rather ignore for a while longer, I finally searched through the rooms, cataloging what treasurers still laid waiting to breathe fresh air out of the cardboard boxes, and came across one box in particular. On it, the shaky writing of an old man. The words, ‘Shelly’s Box’ lovingly scrawled across the top.

Inside there were mementos of my mother’s life here. Photos of friends, some of her clothing and a Walkman with a bunch of cassette tapes.

I checked the back and even the batteries had been lovingly removed so they wouldn’t leak and crust while in storage, ruining the player, in the hopes that she’d be back to use it again.

She never did.

But I do.

After, I went to the freezer to grab a pack of batteries. Not sure why I still keep batteries in the freezer. Hell, I’m not sure if it even does good or harm, just that I remember my mother keeping batteries there because that’s what her grandpops had taught her to do.

With fresh ones, the Walkman worked like new. I riffled through the cassettes until I found a cover that caught my eye. Journey’sGreatest Hits. My mother was a Journey fan; I never knew. Lords don’t listen to Journey. They listen to Ozzy and Metallica or whatever new ear-piercing screamo band comes along. Well, except for Boss, who loves the blues, which is why he called his bar Lady Sings the Blues. So by extension, Gage and Raif adopted his love of blues. I only recently found that out—within the past ten months of living at the compound. In some ways he’d grown so much, leaving behind those things he used to cherish in our youth, during those five years we spent apart. Having become this new man, a man I need to get to know, yet underneath it all, at the heart of him, still my Gage. Always my Gage.

Done with work for the day and in a house so clean I could eat off the ground, I walk over to the bed. Only there’s a dried white stain of some kind on my quilt. What could I have spilled on it? I scratch at it with my fingernail, then sniff the residue. Had I eaten yogurt on my bed? No, I don’t think so, but it still has to be dealt with. I’m not happy about the delay in my plans because now I have to strip and wash the bedding, tacking on at least an extra hour before I can fully relax.

Finally with the clean, dry, warm, pulled-fresh-from-the-dryer bedding back in place, I get to lay on my bed with my mother’s headphones on, the ones her grandpops kept stored with the Walkman, and pressplay. The melodies start to fill my ears, lulling me to a relaxed state. That is until one song in particular comes on. One I’m not prepared for. Hauntingly beautiful in its simplicity. About a man bearing his soul to the woman he loves.

As I sing along with the words I remember from the radio, a distant childhood memory, the tears begin to spill over my cheeks. A river of tears.

In my weakness, I reach for my phone. My finger hovers over the contact that would ease my suffering. But if I call, it’ll just make it harder to stay away. My reasonable mind knows this to be true. We’ve talked every night since the first time I broke down and called him, and every night he asks me to let him come to me. I’m being selfish. He needs to move on too. Unless I’m willing to break down and tell him where I’m at, I can’t let myself call.

“Okay, enough, Liv.” I give myself a pep talk and wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. Time to start living life.

As scared as the thought makes me, living life means curling my hair the way I normally would when going out, letting the tendrils fall in cascading waves down my back. When I begin to apply the makeup bought from the superstore, at first my biker roots begin to show. Heavy eyes, heavy lips. On the second pass lining my lips, it hits me, this can’t be me anymore. I’m not that woman. The one staring back at me in the mirror.

Houdini took her from me.

So now I don’t know who I am anymore, I just know it’s not her. Never to be her again.

I pick up the package of makeup-removing wipes and wipe my whole face down. Clean pallet.

Soft cheeks, soft eyes. Light lip.

It amazes me how much I look like my mother, minus the biker babe eyes, lips and cheeks. The innocent girl from the pictures in the box. Except for the hair. The strawberry blonde was the one trait I got from my father, the bastard.

My brother has it too. The only similarity between us, as he’s the spitting image of the old man at that age. Raif cuts a handsome figure, just as, unfortunately, my piece of shit father had.

It smarts to admit it, but I understand why my mother fell for him. A strong, confidant man who took an interest in such a small town girl.

Add to that, taking her virginity.

It’s no wonder.

The tears begin to form again.

No.

I walk back into my bedroom and pull a pretty pale-pink sundress from the closet. Besides being a pretty pale pink, it looks to be from the nineteen seventies, with spaghetti straps and a deep V-neck. I picked it up at the secondhand store—pairing it with a pair of tan leather wedge sandals from the same time period.

The hem falls to mid-calf. Me—in a mid-calf. The longest hem I’ve ever worn.

After grabbing a tan sweater, in case I get chilled, I pick my phone, purse and keys up from the kitchen counter and head out to the truck.

It takes only minutes to reach the outskirts of town and the little restaurant called Sea Breeze, which has an outside dining area and bar on a wide veranda overhanging the Chesapeake.

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