Page 22 of Freak Show

“Well, seeing as I’m from the South, that makes sense,” I pointed out. “Where are you from?”

She pointed at the board. “I’m going to get the Oreo Cup Confection.”

I ordered and turned to her with a raised brow, clearly letting her know I wanted to know the answer to my question.

“I’m not ‘from’ anywhere,” she admitted. “I was born somewhere in the middle of a field in Alabama. At the circus. I was the first to come out, Hades was second by about two minutes. Before the night was through, my father was already moving us toward a new location in Arkansas…hence the reason I said I’m not from anywhere.”

“That sounds like torture,” I pointed out as I leaned a hip against the counter next to the register and studied her. “Did you like traveling?”

“I hated it,” she confessed. “I wanted to live a normal life so bad. I would’ve killed to belong to an actual school and not a homeschooling co-op that my dad had going on. But alas, that life wasn’t for me.”

“And college. How did you get your degree in zoology?” I questioned.

“That…” She reached for a stack of napkins when she saw our ice cream being delivered. “Dad let us go off and do whatever we wanted once we graduated. My brother went into the Marines. I went to school in San Francisco, and even Val went to medical school. At least, she finished the schooling side of it before she was forced to come back.”

“I’m not sure if going only to have to come back is a good thing or not,” I admitted. “It sounds like torture to me.”

“I think a lot of people think that way because they can’t get behind the idea of spending so much time with your family in so little space, day in and day out. Most people need their space and freedom. But with a family like ours—we’re close. Closer than I think any other family would ever be because of how we were raised. Keene practically brought us up from infants since he was the oldest. And every one of our mothers left us behind in some way and moved on, except for Simi’s mom. She was murdered in the Fun House.”

I already sort of knew that story.

“And what about all the other mothers?” I asked as we made our way back to the girls and Titus with our food. “Did they have the same issues as your mom did with how your father liked to play the field?”

“No and yes.” She sat down, her eyes going to the children that were happily eating away at their ice cream. “But that’s a story for another time without little ears around to hear me complain about him.”

“I feel like this is a story I need to hear, also,” Titus said as he looked at both of us. “Don’t forget to call me into the huddle when it happens.”

She smiled, and damn that made my heart skip a beat.

The woman really was beautiful.

“I’ll be sure to share it when little ears aren’t around,” she said. “It’s not the prettiest of stories.”

And, as if they knew that there was a story that was about to be told, Briley gave us her full attention.

My little shit starter.

“What’s the plan, Stan?” Briley asked me.

“I don’t know, other than we’re going back to Banner’s place…our place…and staying the night before our flight in the morning,” I explained, taking my first bite of ice cream.

I didn’t like ice cream all that much. If I was lucky, I’d eat half of it before it’d start to melt.

“What time is the flight?” she asked, calculating something up on her fingers.

“We go when we want to go,” Titus answered her question. “It’s a private plane. What time do you want to go?”

“Well…” She hesitated. “Long story short, I have sleep issues. Big ones. As in, narcolepsy, cataplexy, and I sleepwalk.”

Titus’s eyes went wide.

“Narcolepsy and sleepwalking I know,” I said. “What is the last?”

“Cataplexy is a disorder that has sudden onset of muscle weakness. Normally, muscle weakness like that occurs while you’re sleeping. In my case, sometimes strong emotions—laughter, witty conversations, and pleasant surprises. Like a dog runs up to me and then my knees get weak,” she explained. “That’s what happened today at the water park. The suddenness of the drop kind of threw me in a tailspin. It triggered my cataplexy, and when I got down to the bottom of the slide and went under, I almost died because I couldn’t physically get myself up out of the pool.”

My anger at her family sharpened.

“Does your family know you have these issues?” I asked.

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