Page 29 of Resilience

She looked out the side window at her family home. She was so still, Sam wasn’t sure if she intended to answer, or what she intended to do at all. But eventually she looked at him again. Her eyes blurred with unshed tears as she began to sign.

“If you went after him yourself, you could get hurt or in trouble. If you needed backup, then my dad would find out, and I don’t want him to know it happened. I don’t want anybody else to know it happened. I don’t want to be the reason the most important people in my life get hurt or end up in prison.”

She was right; he’d need help. He had no idea how to hunt down and hurt—kill, he wanted to kill—a guy and get away with it.

“We wouldn’t,” Sam said. “The club knows how to get things done without trouble.”

Athena gave him exactly the look that ridiculous claim deserved. His own father had spent years in prison because he’d gotten caught in club trouble.

She’d already made her point, but she drove it home anyway: “I wonder what your dad would say about that.”

“Okay,” he relented. “Okay. But it kills me to think of him going about his life like it doesn’t matter what he did.”

Leaning over the dog, Athena picked up his hands and held them to her chest for a moment. She was telling him she loved him, that they were okay, in the most profound way she could.

When she let his hands go, she signed, “It happened to me. I didn’t get a choice when it happened, but I get to decide what happens now. I told him he had to quit his job immediately so I never have to see him again. I told him if he didn’t, I would tell my family what he did to me. So if he doesn’t quit, I will have another decision to make, and we can have this discussion again. Okay?”

Losing a fucking job seemed like the lightest possible consequence, but it wasn’t his decision.

“Okay,” he signed.

“Promise me.”

He didn’t hesitate. “I promise, Frodo. It’s your call. I’ll follow your play.”

Finally, she relaxed. She even almost smiled. “Thank you, Samwise.”

Sam pulled her close and hugged her hard.

His chest was full of knives.

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~oOo~

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It was late afternoon when Sam arrived home. The sun shot deep golden rays across the roofs of the houses and other buildings, and shadows stretched long and skinny over the wide gravel lane. His mother was halfway between the house and the chicken yard as he pulled up and parked; she stopped and watched him, the egg basket cradled at her belly.

As he opened the door and jumped out, she called “Hey! Everything okay? You’re supposed to be home tomorrow.”

The truck bed was full of random party crap that needed to get put away in various places, but he ignored all that and strolled to his mom first. He needed a mom hug. “It was a shitty weekend.”

Inside the house, Tank barked frantically. His person was home, and he couldn’t get to him. But Tank and chickens were not a good mix, so he had to stay inside when they opened that gate.

“Aw, hon.” Setting the basket on the ground, she outstretched her arms, and he settled in with a sigh. “What happened, baby?”

He couldn’t tell her the really important thing, but he told her what he could. “Lark and I broke up. Athena and whatshisname, too.” The shithead’s name did not deserve to come out of his mouth.

“Wow. I’m sorry to hear that.” She kissed his cheek. “You want to help me get the eggs and talk while we do?”

“Sure.” Sad to lose the hug, Sam stepped back and picked the basket up. Getting the eggs was his brother’s job. “Where’s Mace?”

“On a date. He went to a movie with that girl from Pritchard’s.” Pritchard’s was a drive-up burger and ice cream stand in Grant that was a major hangout for high school kids and those who’d recently graduated (or dropped out) and weren’t quite ready to let it go. Mason fell into that second group.

Most of the couples Sam had known in high school had started off by flirting at Pritchard’s. Mom’s description didn’t narrow the field down much.

“He was really hurt you didn’t invite him this weekend, you know that,” she said.

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