Page 111 of Petty's Crime

“Because he wasn’t your brother,” Red states firmly, still hanging around close enough to overhear. “Technically, perhaps yes, but you’ve nothing in common with him, and nothing to regret.”

But she looks down to the ground before saying quietly, “I could have been him.”

Red puts his finger under her chin and lifts it. “Sweetheart, there’s nothing to say even with the same hand dealt, that you wouldn’t have been different. Sure, you shared a womb and a mother, but what makes you, you, is in here.” He lays his hand briefly over her heart, then removes it fast before I do it for him. “No one’s going to deny he lived a bad life, but other people do, and move on from it.”

For a moment, I wonder where I’d be if I’d had a different dad, or if mine had lived longer. Nurture had led me, not in making the initial mistake in taking Britney as my wife, but in staying with her. Violence doesn’t solve anything, but if I hadn’t been so wary of hurting her, maybe I could have kept her in line. Or, if violence isn’t an answer to violence, I’d have absolved myself of my responsibilities for her.Women are to be protected, cherished and loved.But not all women, perhaps.

But then I wouldn’t be here today, with a woman who’s as much right for me as Britney was wrong.

Pulling her to me, ignoring how the action jars my ribs, I place a kiss to her forehead. “You’re going to be okay,” I tell her, vowing I’ll be there to ensure it. “And, your dad’s going to come through, I feel it.” I do, if only because the universe couldn’t be so cruel as to send more troubles her way.

She clings onto me, and instead of dismissing my positivity, seems to hold onto it.

While I had no way of guaranteeing his survival, someone, somewhere, must have been listening to me today.

In all, Rufus is in surgery for almost six hours. When the doctor finally appears to say the operation was a success, and that he can have visitors after he’s come around, the atmosphere lightens.

Martina, who’d spent most of the wait playing with the gold cross that hangs around her neck, visibly relaxes and slumps as if a weight’s been lifted off of her. Tears fall again, but this time from relief. RoseLyn again is there to comfort her, but gradually their mood becomes more upbeat.

When RoseLyn disappears to answer a call from nature, Martina comes and sits beside me.

“I liked the man you were in Texas,” she starts.

“I’m still the same man,” I respond, knowing it’s true. RoseLyn has made me drop my mask, and I have no desire to wear it again. “I’m the same man,” I repeat, “All that’s different is that I’m wearing my cut.”

“Rufus didn’t like that.” Allowing her a liberty not often granted, I sit stiffly as she fingers the leather. “But he’ll come around, I know it, if you’ve got good intentions toward our daughter.” She breaks off, and directly enquires, “Can I ask what they are?”

“To never let her go? To protect her? To love her and cherish her forever if she’ll have me? If those are your questions, then my answer is yes.”

“Will you marry her?”

Being of the citizen world, she wouldn’t understand that in my life a claim is more important. “Yes, Martina, I’ll marry her. As soon as my divorce is finalised.”

“What?” Her eyes become slits and her mouth a thin line. “You’re married?”

She should know exactly what kind of man is going to be shacking up with her daughter. I close my eyes briefly, then having gathered the strength to admit my crimes, start to speak. “I married eight years ago. My ex was abusive and violent, but I stayed with her.” I don’t give her a chance to interrupt when she opens her mouth but just carry straight on. “She was sent down a few months into our marriage on abuse charges—not on me, but an innocent bystander who got the worst of her temper. While she was locked up, she refused all contact with me. I was screwed up in my head. I’d vowed to love and cherish her, yet the violent woman I lived with was not what I expected. I didn’t intend to go back on my promises to her, but she’d made certain that there was nothing to sustain my feelings toward her. Eventually, I realised how emasculated I’d been while I was with her, came to my senses, and issued divorce papers.”

“And it took you meeting my daughter to do that?”

Emphatically, I shake my head. “I sent them six years back. She never signed or returned them, but in my head, I believed I was no longer married.” I put my head in my hands and rub at my temples, and then feel a soothing hand at my back.

“Britney’s a bitch, Mom. Clark rightly couldn’t testify in her trial that violence was unusual for her, and she held his lack of perjuring himself against him. When she got out a month or so back, she played on the fact that he was technically still married to her. Clark,” RoseLyn’s voice softens, and now her fingers squeeze my shoulder, “is a good man, and believed he owed that debt to her. But happy families did not play out, and Britney left the penitentiary just as violent as she was when she went in. She wanted revenge, and as you can see, she hurt Clark pretty badly.”

“That’s how you got hurt? She hit you?”

“Broke ribs, and bruised him all over.” RoseLyn continues to speak for me, as now she starts rubbing my back. “And before you ask, Clark stood back and let her. He didn’t retaliate in any way.”

I raise my head and look at Martina. “You need to know the man who wants to marry your daughter. I’m fuckin’ weak. I let Brit walk all over me and took everything she dished out.”

“Weak?” Martina squawks. “Oh, honey, I think that shows fortitude of character. At least I have no concerns about you being abusive to Rose.”

“He’s one of the strongest men I’ve ever met,” RoseLyn speaks over my head. Then I hear the smile in her voice. “But maybe not the brightest. He kind of has forgotten that if he wants to marry me, he’s got to ask me.”

Her words make me smile as she’s completely wrong. I haven’t forgotten at all. But now is not the time nor place to tell her my plans for that.

CHAPTERTHIRTY-SIX

RoseLyn

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