CHAPTER 44
We reached the car and Decklan waved farewell to Giovanni, his newfound friend, and then went around to the side of the house and gazed at the monstrosity of daisies in his flower bed.
I turned to Giovanni and said, “I’ll be right back, okay?”
“Do you want me to accompany you?”
I shook my head.
“I need a moment alone with Decklan.”
I tossed my handbag in the car and shut the door and made my way over to him.
“I just want you to know that you disgust me,” I said.
Decklan turned around with a dumfounded look on his face and then turned to the left and then the right like he thought my words were meant for someone else.
“Excuse me?”
“Why did you turn your back on your son?” I said. “After all he’d been through with the loss of his mother, I’d love for you to explain to me how a person justifies doing that.”
“You’re out of line.”
“Of the two of us, Mr. Reids, I assure you the only person out of line here is you—the out-of-the-ballpark-and-never-going-to-return kind of out.”
“You don’t understand, my son was—”
“Torn up when his mother left, I know,” I said. “So were you. That doesn’t give you the right to shun him.”
“It was so much more than that. You could never understand.”
“He was angry, hurt, frustrated, and he needed help. What’s not to get? And you could have got him the help he needed, but instead you chose to abandon him, and for that I hold you responsible.”
“For what? I don’t know what kind of stories my mother has filled your head with, but Samuel made his own choice to disassociate from this family. He was more than happy to do so. It was what he wanted.”
“And what about you?” I said. “It’s easy to shift the blame to your son, but you’re the one who asked him to leave and never to come back.”
“It was his decision, and he made it.”
“You talk about it like you gave him a choice. Cut the crap Mr. Reids. We both know you didn’t.”
Decklan plunged the hoe he held in his hand deep into the terra firma with great force and then said, “Enough! How dare you come to my home and assume to know anything.”
“You have no idea,” I said. “Not the first clue about the man your son is today.”
Decklan took three steps toward me and in doing so violated my inner circle of trust. A circle he wasn’t in, not by a long shot, and before I knew it he’d lifted his hand in the air and that’s all it took for Giovanni. He was out of the car and by my side in a flash.
“Back up out of my face,” I said.
“Or what?”
Decklan turned to Giovanni. “You need to get a handle on your woman.”
I still had a lot to learn about Giovanni, but one thing I knew without a doubt was that no one spoke to him that way and got away with it. I held my hand out to Giovanni to indicate I still had more welled up inside me that needed to come out. He grimaced but remained by my side in silence.
I turned to Decklan. “You won’t understand this right now, but one day you will—I blame your son for his actions—there’s no excuse for the person he’s allowed himself to become. But you, Mr. Reids, will someday have to own your part in all of it. You weren’t there when he needed you most, and whether you realize that now or later, at some point you’ll never be able to forgive yourself.”
Decklan stood still with his jaw propped open wide enough for a little bird to fly in and forge a nest. He wanted to say something, but there were no words. All he managed was a pathetic, “Get off my lawn.”
Weak.
“And now I need a moment,” Giovanni said.
“Let’s just go,” I said.
Giovanni put his hand on my shoulder. “Sloane, I’ll meet you at the car.”
I thought about fighting it, but I knew he’d given me my moment to shine and he deserved to have his if he wanted it, though I couldn’t imagine what more needed to be said.
On my way back to the car, Giovanni sounded off in the distance. I didn’t hear all of what he said, but it started something like: “If you ever come at her like that again, I’ll…” and that got me wondering what I missed after that. I’ll break your fingers…I’ll string you up and dangle you from the edge of the top of a hotel? Or maybe it was something more gangster like he’d bust a cap in his ass. Was that the way gangsters threatened people, and did they even talk like that? All I knew was that I had a protective guard dog that allowed me to do whatever I wanted, and since we’d met, he’d always been there to back me up. I liked my independence, but I couldn’t deny the fact that it was nice to feel protected at the same time. Woof.
CHAPTER 45
Sam Reids sat on a somewhat gnarled but thick wooden branch of a tree in his yard; a yard that was one street over from Decklan Reids house. Through his binoculars he watched Sloane scold his father and then some strange man he’d never seen before follow suit. The strange man angered him. He stood close to Sloane. Too close.
Sam’s attempt to control his emotions had subsided about an hour earlier when Sloane entered his childhood home and then his room. He hadn’t foreseen her level of commitment or what Decklan and his grandmother would tell her about who he was and what had become of him. It didn’t matter. What could they possibly know?
Sam felt like he should care, but he didn’t. There was just one thing that mattered to him now: Sloane. They could say whatever they wanted. If his own father was too stupid to recognize him when he drove by in his car day after day, Sam was sure any information he offered wouldn’t make the least bit of difference, and they wouldn’t be able to track down his whereabouts. It wasn’t like they’d ever tried anyway. Sam recalled the time he rolled by Decklan on a side street and Decklan actually waved a friendly hello to his neighbor, all the while being too stupid to recognize that neighbor was his own son. It had been over two decades, of course, but just for a split second Sam thought Decklan would be able to identify him for who he was—his son. Except now Sam didn’t see himself like that at all anymore. He wasn’t his son, he was Sam, and his father wasn’t his father—Sam called him by many names; one of them, Decklan.
Sam purchased the home on the next street when he learned his grandmother moved in with Decklan. She was frail, and there wasn’t much life left in her now, and she needed someone to help look after her. Not that Decklan was ever good at that. Sam was sure it was the other way around and that her moving in would take years from her life instead of adding to them. He watched her sit on his bed for hours and pour over his old photo album. Sometimes she would cry and clutch the album tight to her heart. He liked to see her distraught and unhappy. At least someone missed him.
Today was the first time Sam felt different about his grandmother. He watched her sit and spill her guts to Sloane and was desperate to know what she’d said. He didn’t like the way it made him feel—like he’d cut himself at a crime scene and left splotches of blood behind. He tried not to panic when Sloane slipped back into his room when no one was looking and stole away his old notebook—the one he wished he hadn’t left behind. It hadn’t mattered until now. No one seemed to notice it was even there. And now Sloane had come along and abducted it from its place of eternal rest. It was unforgivable that she defiled him that way. Those were his private thoughts, the ones no one else should ever see, and she needed to be punished.