Page 11 of Demon's Angel

“Why did she fuckin’ have it, Hell? If she was going to have so little regard for it? Or, if she’s a fuckin’ pro-lifer, why not put it up for adoption before it was born? Why the fuck keep it until it’s five months old, then pass it off under dubious circumstances to someone in a fuckin’ mall? How the fuck can a woman do that?”

“Jeez, Demon. Ask something hard, will ya?” Hell shakes his head. “I don’t know. Maybe he started looking like the man who assaulted her, maybe she’s seeing things in him now that weren’t there when he was born.”

“Did Mom?” My teeth are gritted as the words come out. “Do I look like him, Hell?” Three months. That’s all the time I’ve had to get around how I was brought into existence. Seems it hasn’t been long enough.

He laughs scornfully. “What d’you think? You look like me. I look like him, which means you resemble him too. We’re brothers, Demon. You know this.”

I know that. Yeah. My head sinks into my hands. Twelve weeks or so ago I found out Hell wasn’t my father. Now Violet’s brought feelings to the fore I never knew I had. My initial reaction had been overwhelming thankfulness that Hell and Mo had brought me up never letting me think for a moment I was anything other than their child. Even when my half-sister and half-brother came along, I was treated no different. I’d never have been told had I not stumbled on the truth by accident. Hell and Mo were going to take that secret to the grave.

What would have happened had Hellfire not stepped up and led everyone to believe I was their son? Alone, would Mo have gone through with that abortion? Or, would she have birthed me and had me adopted, or, as I grew to resemble the man who abused her, could she have acted the same way as Violet? Abandoned me to an unknown fate?

“One thing I’m certain of, is that we don’t know the whole story.”

“You think?” I know that. I’m also not certain I want to know what happened to her. Despite having promised her brother I’d keep an eye on her, I all but forgot her existence. If I’d been there for her, acted in a brotherly role, would I had been able to stop it happening in the first place? Or been there to support her, so her only option wasn’t leaving the baby the way she had, but to go down the proper route to have him adopted?

Pushing aside my untouched whisky, abruptly I stand.

Hell does, too, his arm held out to stop me crossing to the door. “You’re not going back down there. Not until you calm down.”

“Not going to ask her any more questions, Hell. I don’t want to hear answers that might make me want to kill her. No, I’m going to visit her parents.”

I need to let her talk, listen to her. But I want facts from another’s mouth first. I don’t trust a woman who passes off a child in the way she has. Yeah, I’ve got questions for her loving mother and father. At the very least I’d like to ask where they thought their daughter and grandchild had been headed today. If, as Hell obviously still suspects, she’s having a hard time coping as a single mom, why didn’t they get her the help she so clearly needed?

Hell sighs tiredly. “I’m coming along. Don’t want you to go off half-cocked. You have got the Black temper.” So has he. He’s had longer to learn to control it.

I look at him wryly. He knows me too well.

It’s doesn’t take long to get to our destination; certainly not enough time for the ride to clear my head. The Palmers live on the edge of Pueblo in a decent enough ranch-style house on the edge of the desert. Returning today for the first time since Nathan’s death reminds me of when I knew this place as well as my own home. The old ramshackle buildings Nathan and I used to play in look even more run-down now. When was I last here? The day of Nathan’s funeral, that’s when. I now feel guilty for that. My own pain being so great, I couldn’t deal with anyone else’s. And Bill and Delilah, Nathan and Violet’s parents, had each other to help them grieve. I’d leaned on my club brothers and relied on keeping track of Violet through mutual friends.

The driveway is potholed, our bikes bumping even though we try to avoid the worst of the holes. When we eventually pull up and turn off our engines, the noise echoes around, mingling with the only other sound, birdsong. But from inside the house comes the hum of someone vacuuming.

I take the lead as we walk to the door. In days long past I’d have gone around the back and let myself in, but such familiarity is long in my rearview. Instead I press my finger to the doorbell and hold it until the sound of the housework ceases. Footsteps, then the door is opened.

The person who answers is younger than I expected; not much, but she can’t be more than forty or so. A relative? Maybe.

“Can I help you?” She’s holding the door only open a crack, her eyebrows knitted together in confusion.

“Is Bill or Delilah here?” Hell’s the one to ask, his rich baritone even and non-threatening.

“Bill? Oh my gosh, no. Were you a friend of his? Oh, I’m so sorry. If you don’t know... Oh my gosh. How can I tell you?” The confusion has gone, to be replaced by sadness instead.

“If we don’t know… what?” Hell asks, but her reaction has given me a good idea what we’re going to hear.

“Bill died. It was a sudden heart attack, let’s see, that was eighteen months ago. Right as rain one moment, dead the next. Mind you, if you ask me, his heart wasn’t in living since the death of his son…”

It seems like she’s going to continue. Rapidly I’ve worked it through and remembered that timing fits with when Violet said she’d come home. To live with her mother? Maybe. “Mrs Palmer? Is she in?”

The woman’s eyes narrow. “You really don’t have any idea, do you?”

Holding out my hands in supplication, I realise I’ll get more information if I offer some up myself. “My name’s Dave,” I tell her, “This is my father, Carter Black,” introducing Hell. “I used to spend half my life here with Nathan before he joined up. I sort of lost touch with the Palmers when Nathan was killed.”

“You’re David?” She beams. “In her more lucid moments, Delly used to talk about you and Nathan all the time.” Her eyes squint. “Yeah, I can see the resemblance now. She had all these photographs. Used to show them to me. I’m the caregiver, you see; I’ve been helping out a couple of times a week.” She steps back and opens the door wide. “You better come in. There’s a lot you don’t know, and it’s not to be discussed on a doorstep.”

Within moments we’re seated on a sofa but have declined any refreshment. The woman, still nameless, doesn’t waste time bringing us up to date. “Delly was going downhill long before Bill died. It was a blessing in a way, some days she hardly knew he was gone. She’d talk about him and Nathan, and you, David, as if you were all going to walk in the door. Other times, well, she’d be near-catatonic. When Violet came home for the funeral, she knew she had to stay. She wanted to be here for Delly’s more lucid moments, which we already knew would become fewer and fewer.”

“Violet had a baby…”

“Oh, yes. You know that?” Her lips purse, she looks either like she didn’t approve, or she knows the whole story which, as yet, I don’t. “Delly was quite good with the baby. Whatever she did was out of the goodness of her heart. But she’d get muddled you see. Once she ran a bath of nearly scalding water. Violet had thought Theo was asleep, so she’d gone to lay down for a nap herself. She heard screaming, ran in to find Delly putting him in the tub, already had his toes in the water.” Her eyes squeeze tight at the painful memory. “Took him to the hospital, he was fine. Fully recovered, but Vi? Vi near lost it. A second or two later…”

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