Page 10 of My Thursday Throwback

“I want to save the girl,” Michael said softly.

“Then might I suggest that once this storm is over and the flood waters subside, you start looking for a senior’s home for your Grandmother, save the girl, and get on about making me some grandchildren,” Wilke said.

“Yeah right.”

“Michael, we allow ourselves to hide in our heads to keep from dealing with an ugly reality. Your ugly reality is that you have always had to stand as if you were alone. The truth is that you have never been alone or fought by yourself. You love that girl. When you were with her, there was a light in your eyes. The same light I see when Zelda looks at that funny looking guy of hers,” he said.

“Yeah, they are going to have some ugly ass children with bucked teeth and mustaches at the age of two,” Michael said, chuckling.

It was out of the norm for Wilke to use profanity, but his thought came out as it was formed in his head.

“Shit, your children are going to look like circus clowns with funky colored hair. The thought of all of them kids running around with their hands stuck up some wooden dolls ass trying to throw their voices is really fucking creeping me out,” he said, laughing.

The idea of a houseful of weird little children made Michael laugh as well. Loud laughter rang through the house as the winds picked up, howling into the night. The windows rattled, the trees bent, and branches could be heard cracking as Wilke and Michael sat at the table, formulating a strategy to rid Pip of her money-grubbing mother and to move Lula into a safer community. Her current home was in the direct line of Hurricane Harvey and more than likely would be washed away with the rest of the bad dreams that circled his head like hungry buzzards seeking a last meal.

“You deserve some happiness,” Wilke told him. “Don’t run from it.”

“I won’t,” Michael said quietly. “Thank you. I didn’t know if I ever told you how valuable you have been to us, to me. I appreciate you.”

“Thank you for trusting me,” Wilke said.

The wind picked up to a thunderous roar as Lula ran from the back room, pink rollers in her hair, eyes wide, and her Bible clutched to her breast. “It’s the end of the world!” she screamed.

“Come on, Grandma, let’s get to the center of the house so we can be safe during the storm,” he said.

“Wilke,” he said, pausing, “I love you, man.”

“I love you too, kiddo,” Wilke replied, swallowing down the emotions as fear snuck up on them while the wind picked up, rattling the windows behind the closed shutters. Michael had storm-proofed the house, but Wilke wasn’t so sure about the damage after the storm.

A different storm was brewing in Las Vegas as Zelda sat patiently waiting for Scott to return from the bathroom after his shower.

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THURSDAY NIGHT LASVegas

“I want the happily ever after,” Zelda said to Scott as he entered the sitting room in the hotel suite.

“And you shall have it,” he said, taking a seat, his hair still damp, curling and clinging to his forehead.

“That’s not possible with the secrets you are hiding of having tawdry affairs with old women,” she said, looking at him out the corner of her eye.

“I was 13, Zelda, a lifetime ago.”

“True. You were also 13 all over again when you saw her today, so you haven’t truly healed,” she said.

“You are one to talk,” he said.

Zelda opened the diary and read a passage to him from the blue journal with the delicate flowers. He listened in disgust as she read the words aloud to him. Each time she said the word punishment, he cringed.

“Your father was a sick man,” he said.

“At the age of 13, the idea of sex terrified me because I was taught it was punishment for when you do something bad. At that age, the sense of right and wrong is determined by the adults around you,” she told him. “You can’t fully understand how wrong what she did to you was, considering she was your tether, the teacher, and a person your parents hired to care for you. Scott, she abused you.”

Scott burst into laughter.

“This is no laughing matter. Scott, you were sexually abused by that woman!” Zelda said with more emphasis.

“I’m laughing because if you had any idea some of the things I did to ‘that woman’, you would feel sorry for her,” he said, chuckling. “Zelda, trust me, I had years of counseling over Samantha. I’m a grown man. I can handle an encounter with my past. The question is, can you?”

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