Page 67 of Keys

“After everything you learned, you still don’t want a relationship with her anymore?”

Her head slid side-to-side again, slower that time. “I can’t. There’s too much going on up here right now,” she told me while pointing to her head. I tiny gasp of anguished surprise caught our attention. We both turned in time to see June moving swiftly away while Jack stood there looking helpless.

“I’ll go deal with her,” Keys told him as she trailed off after her mother. I wasn’t sure that was the best idea, but I got it. She was on the fence, worried about the woman who had raised her and angered by the woman who had knowingly made her a victim too. It was a lot to take in, work your head around, and deal with.

“I wish she would change her mind about her mother. If only she could have seen her a week ago even, before that asshole came and dragged his filthy claws back into her.”

“Sarah knows that, but she also realizes how easily her mom fell right back into his world, even as the man came and stole her away. There is something broken in those people. Plus, she only just learned the true nature of her parents’ fucked up relationship.”

“June was messed up for a long time. When we met, she just started making some serious breakthroughs with therapy. She was honest with me from the beginning, after I refused to believe that she was ‘too broken’ for a relationship with a man.” He chuckled lightly.

“Those were her words, not mine. Swear to God, man, I had no clue what I was getting into when I basically told her, ‘Challenge accepted’.” Jack shook his head back and forth, as if he still couldn’t believe it. “I wouldn’t change it for anything though. That woman deserves something good and true in her life.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, though I was thinking of Keys and not her mom when I did. “Makes you wonder how they managed to have a kid that turned out like that,” I said as I tipped my head toward the amazing woman in the other room who had stolen my heart without any effort.

Chapter 26

“You can’t go home again.” Wasn’t that the quote, book title, or whatever that said every damn thing about my whole situation? I could never go home again, and that had nothing to do with the way the walls had been changed, brightened, and memorialized. It had nothing to do with my mother’s marriage. No. I couldn’t go home again because learning that the only home I had as a child was nothing more than a cage to keep my mother prisoner changed my perspective on everything.

It didn’t change my feelings about my mother though, despite what her therapist, husband, and even Quickshot thought should happen. I understood their perspective. My mother had been a victim, and apparently that victimization started early in her own childhood. The fact was, I’d always known my mom as June. That wasn’t her real name, and she wasn’t the one who told me that. My father hadn’t been her boyfriend, he’d been her captor. She didn’t tell me that either. My mother never offered me a single truth herself. She allowed others to advocate for her instead.

In fact, she never even asked me to forgive her. Jack had done so and while she pleaded with her eyes that I acquiesce to his request, the words never came from her. Maybe that made me petty, or a bitch, or something, but damn it why in the hell couldn’t she take responsibility for herself? Why couldn’t she put me above her own feelings? I didn’t even know if the feelings holding her tongue were remorse, shame, regret, anger, sadness, or fear of my judgement. In the end, it didn’t matter because whatever kept her silent, where I was concerned, meant that it was more important than me.

My father had always taken top slot for her as I grew up, and even if she had always hated him – which I seriously doubted. She could spin her stories for her therapist and new husband, but I knew better. My mother hero-worshipped my father. I saw the crazy love and adoration in her eyes. He may have had a part in taking her, but she saw it as him being her savior. Her therapist couldn’t have been too fucking smart because she was easily hoodwinked to believe otherwise.

Spare me the riot act about Stockholm Syndrome and all that jazz. I know what it is and how it works. I also know that I can’t see past the mom I knew growing up. Maybe that’s my failing, but since she refuses to speak her truth to me directly, I’m going to continue believing she lied to everyone else too. It wasn’t my fault she told different lies, depending on what worked for her. I’m sure lying became a coping mechanism for her since she had to do it so often in order to be with my father. It was also a skill she no doubt picked up from her years in the system.

“Hey,” JoJo said quietly as she approached me and took the seat to my left. I was supposed to be checking on a lead down here in my think tank, for Legs. She got another tip about her daughter. I hoped it panned out for her, but I knew, after years of running these checks for her that chances were, it would be another dead end. Still, I ran them. “Wanna talk about it?” JoJo asked, breaking me out of my thoughts for a second time.

“Sorry,” I huffed while continuing to click away at the keys.

“Don’t be sorry for anything. Figured you were thinking about your mom.”

“How so?”

I turned my curious eyes on her as she grinned at me and started mimicking my facial expressions. “I was standing there at the door when you didn’t answer, and at first your face looked like this.” She gave me a solemn, tight-lipped, flat stare. I chuckled lightly at her imitation of me. “Then, your brows furrowed in like this and I honestly thought you might punch one of your beloved monitors.” She pulled out her trusty taser. “Don’t worry, I had your back and was going to drop you before I let that happen.”

“You were going to light my ass up to keep me from punching my monitors?” I asked incredulously. She gave an emphatic nod of her head in answer, to which I grinned. “You’re a good damn friend.”

“The best,” she countered with a laugh. Then her lips turned down in the frowniest of frowns and I swear, she must have picked up on some of her Broadway loving, drama queen brother’s acting chops because her eyes teared over. “Then you looked like someone went a few rounds in the ring with a hoard of puppies.”

“That’s…” I thought for a moment, unfortunately getting a visual on what she was putting out there. “Disturbing. Who the hell goes all Fight Club on puppies, JoJo?”

She chuckled again. “Hopefully, no one. If we ever find someone who does, I call dibs on ripping their nuts off.” She chucked me in the shoulder with her tiny little closed fist. It didn’t hurt, but only because she didn’t mean for it too. For being a tiny little pixie of a woman, JoJo was a beast in the ring. Fighting full-grown humans – never puppies.

“Seriously, I figured the only thing that could make you run that gamut of emotions would be your mom. You wouldn’t be sad over your father, and I saw you laughing with Quickshot yesterday when you didn’t think anyone was watching.”

“Correction: I didn’t care if anyone was watching.”

“If you say so,” she told me as her shoulders bounced up and down in a weirdly awkward, off center shrug.

“Something wrong with your shoulder?”

She groaned. “Kinked it up while working on that old Buick at the garage. If Mrs. Klein doesn’t start bringing it in more often, I’m going to take it from her and tell her to ride a fucking bicycle to work.” We both laughed because Mrs. Klein was one of JoJo’s best clients, but only because she had one hell of a beater of a car. The woman refused to drive anything else. It had belonged to her husband before he died and was the last thing that she had of him thanks to the house fire he perished in a few years back. The fire took her husband and all of their mementos too.

JoJo bumped my shoulder with hers. “Seriously, if you want to talk about it, I’m here.”

“You have your own shit to worry about,” I told her.

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