Page 15 of Absolute Valor

From the left, the front door opened, followed by the overhead light turning on. There in the center of the screen was Harmony, or Virginia, I still wasn’t sure. We all watched and listened as she swore while pulling the guitar down. For the next fifteen minutes, I listened as the truth was revealed. All those months of lies and deception I believed. When she came to the part of the story where she confessed to sleeping with her brother, a gasp from my right grabbed my attention. My parents, Claire, and Lainie stood inside the door. My Momma’s eyes were large as saucers, her hand over her mouth. As the video showed Audrey on the floor trying to avoid being punched, Priscilla crossed the room wrapping her in a hug I could feel from where I sat.

As the screen returned to blue, I leaned into the back of the couch. “I can forgive a great many things, Virginia.” My eyes flicking to hers, the innocent look gone with the truth. “I can forgive the lies you told me, and even the money you stole.” Shaking my head, I tried to rid myself of the image of her being so in love with her own brother, she crossed the line of the relationship. “But what I can’t forget, what I won’t ignore, is the way you were so careless with the last thing I got from the man who helped to make me a man.” Standing from the couch, I moved toward her, as I wanted her to understand every word. “I will make sure you are charged for everything you’ve done. I will be at every hearing and sentencing you are ever involved in. I will make it my mission to let every attorney in this city know just how badly you’ve treated the memory of Forrest VanBuren.”

Ignoring Virginia’s pleas of being set up, I walked over to Austin, prepared to grovel if I need to. No amount of apologies was ever going to be enough. “You tried to tell me and I wouldn’t listen. I should never have doubted you, I’m sorry.” I was counting on the way we had always settle arguments, that is until I got lost in a lie created by a psychotic bitch.

“Chase, do you remember when Momma and Nana were making all those cookies for the church bake sale?” Staring in his blue eyes, I sorted through all the memories I had of those two women making cookies. “It was the time Daddy bought all of those goats to clear out the pasture.” An instant smile took over my face as I recalled the afternoon he was talking about.

Momma and Nana had worked for two days to make one thousand cookies. The ladies of the church had taken orders from all over the state. Matthew Bates lived up the road—he was a few years older than Dylan, but the two didn’t get along. Daddy hired him to help build a pen to put the goats in. When Austin and I went out to see the goats, one of them head butted me, scaring the piss out of me. Matthew laughed and said the only way to make a goat like you was to feed him something sweet. Austin and I ran back in the house, collecting as many bags of the cookies as we could and ran back out to the pen. For almost half an hour, we fed cookies to those goats. After they were gone, I opened the pen to see if the goats would play with me. Instead of standing still for me, all forty of them rushed past, heading straight for the flower beds momma worked hard on. The amount of sugar and levels of chocolate made those goats so sick they started vomiting and shitting all over the flowers, the walkway, and momma’s front steps—practically everywhere. Our old dog, Buster, who happened to be the biggest chicken any dog has ever seen, pushed open the front door and ran inside. Unfortunately, so did the goats, who headed straight for the kitchen. By the time Dylan and Daddy got all the goats out of the house, not a single cookie remained.

“You and I made a pact to never tell it was us who started the whole thing.” Austin nodded, his eyes showing once again the respect he held for me. “I never told, even when you made me angry the next summer. I kept my word as your brother to keep our secret.” Pulling him in for a hug, I slapped his back three times. “Girls are gonna come and go, but you will always be my brother.”

Dylan stood off in the corner, his cell to his ear as he spoke animatedly to whomever was on the other end. Momma knelt at the foot of the couch, her soothing words bringing a teary smile and repeated nodding from Audrey. “Hey, you okay?” Claire wrapped her arms around my deltoid, pulling my attention to her bright face.

“I’m trying to catalog everything, figure out what to do with it all.” I admitted, attempting to balance my attention between Claire and Audrey.

“Well, why don’t you start by reassuring the brave young woman sitting over there, who’s terrified she is about to lose her job, since she was in the office after hours, in her pajamas.” Standing up a little straighter, I took a harder look at Audrey. Sure as shit, she was sitting in a blue night shirt, two little lambs embroidered on the left pocket. I looked back at Claire, “Go on, make it right,” she whispered, squeezing the muscle on the underside of my arm.

Closing the distance toward her, I felt as if every eye was trained on me. Audrey wiped a tear from her cheek, while momma told her everything would be all right. “Hey,” I knelt beside momma, taking Audrey’s hand from her lap. I looked deep into the eyes I’ve fantasized about every morning since I’d met her. “Why are you cryin’, Sweetness?”

Audrey’s watery smile faded into a frown, a quivering chin stirred the need to make her smile again, “I’m so sorry. I should have told you the truth from the start. I could have prevented all of this.” Her words were spoken around broken sobs, her eyes half full of tears and her hands shaking.

“Audrey Helms, let me set you straight about a few things.” I grasped her hands tightly in mine, shaking them gently. “I am a prideful man, one who is head strong with beliefs given to him by some of the finest men this world has ever known. And as much as I respect them and would lay down my life for any of them, I chose to believe the word of a common whore.”

The whore herself showed the room she was offended and screamed for me to shut the fuck up. Without looking away from Audrey’s remorseful face, I hollered to my brother. “Dylan can you do something about the noise in here? We do have ladies present.” Audrey kept her eyes on mine, either too afraid, or having no desire to look away.

“Now, maybe you could have convinced me she was being dishonest, maybe you couldn’t. Either way, I believe you now.” Her shoulders relaxed slightly, but it wasn’t enough for me, and I knew it was nowhere near enough for momma, who was still sitting beside us.

“From what Virginia said, Lucas still has it out for me. He can certainly try and do something to hurt me, but I have my doubts he’ll be able to do much to me. However, it’s you I’m concerned with.” Her tongue slid out to moisten her lips, a part of her body I wanted to taste, to lose myself in for days.

“I have a proposition for you, Sweetness.” I let my words marinate out in the open, sweetening the reward I’m about to collect. “I’d like you to come with us, riding on the back of my bike this weekend in my Granddaddy’s memorial.”

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