Page 40 of Scotch: Unraveled

Thank the good lord.

“Can I see the babies?” I ask.

“They’re fine.”

“But they need to see me.” I slowly push up from the stool and attempt to stretch the kink out of my neck and back, courtesy of spending an entire day hunched over.

“You ain’t their ma,” he says.

“I didn’t give birth to them, but they’re mine…please. Even five minutes, then I’ll come right back here if that’s what you want.”

We walk to a different room than the one where they’d kept the babies earlier, farther back, still clearly rooms off a warehouse. When he opens the door, Brighton looks up from where she’s been sitting on an old coil-spring cot with a threadbare mattress. My girls are next to her. She gasps and pushes from the cot to run to me, throwing her arms around my neck and squeezing tight enough to choke me. My body screams under the pressure from her arms and I teeter on the verge of passing out. But as I can’t catch my breath, I can’t tell her.

In my head I find myself thanking whatever divine power in the universe reminds her of my injuries and my need to breathe in order to survive. She shoves me back saying, “Ohmygod” in a jumbled mess of words. “I was so scared when they took you away. Did they hurt you?”

I slowly, and with a tremendous amount of wincing, shake my head. “Bri, I only have a few minutes. Are you okay?”

“We’re fine. They left us in that other room for a really long time and then they moved us in here with the cot and the TV mounted to the wall.” Brighton points to the television as if I can’t see it there or hear the soft sounds in the background. “They only let me have one channel, but spending the day with fifties and sixties sitcoms is better than having nothing to do.”

Mollie and Macie smile and babble their baby gibberish, happy to see me.

“Hey, sweeties, I missed you.” As I couldn’t safely hold them both, Brighton first places Macie on my lap. I hold her with my good arm, kissing the tip of her head. “Your daddy must be missing you something fierce,” I say between more kisses. “He loves you. I love you, baby girl.”

Brighton lifts Macie, placing her in her carrier so she can hand me Mollie to hold in the same spot on my lap Macie just vacated. “Mollie, girl… I missed you, too.” Her head gets the same kisses as her sister. So many kisses.

“Time to go,” Scud’s gruff voice calls over to me. I don’t want to put Mollie down so soon, but I refuse to do anything that’ll put them in jeopardy.

“Okay, babies, Frankie has to go. You be good for Auntie Brighton.” With silent tears running down my cheeks, I give each girl a final kiss. Brighton helps me to stand again. My best friend gets a cheek kiss as well. Then I limp back over to Scud.

The farther away from the girls we walk, the more I think I’m being tested. It’s slow-going, but despite the pain, I keep up with Scud. On the opposite wall from the girls, he lets me through a door that leads to the outside.

“What’s going on?” I ask. Scud doesn’t answer, shoving me toward an outbuilding. Panic fills me as I think I’m about to die, but he simply opens a door, no lock, and shoves me inside. Just as he’d said earlier, there’s a cot, a toilet in the corner, a TV hanging on the wall, and a bowl of what was probably hot soup when they first brought it in here.

He slams the door shut behind me and I’m alone. Definitely a test. I could walk out that door right now. But would he be waiting out there for me? And really, how far would I get with all my injuries? Not to mention, how badly would they hurt Brighton and the girls before they killed them to get back at me?

I limp over to the toilet first and take care of business. Then I ease myself down onto the cot and use the remote sitting next to the soup to turn on the TV. Like with Brighton, there’s only one station. I drink the soup and crash to the sounds ofThe Andy Griffith Showin the background.

They think they know me? What I’ll do? They have no idea.

They will not break me.

13.

Frankie

“Thefuck?”

A man’s shrill voice snaps me awake. I open both my eyes today. The swelling on the bad one went down enough overnight to allow that to happen.

I push up with my okay hand to stare at Scud. “Is something—” I clear my scratchy throat and try again. “Is something wrong?”

“You’re still here,” he says somewhat angrily.

“I gave you my word. So long as they aren’t hurt, I won’t try to escape. I’ll do whatever you ask of me.”

“Fuck if I thought ya meant it.” He scratches his head. “Get up.”

As directed, I slowly stand from the cot. He roughly grabs my upper arm to drag me from the room. A shed. Now I’m really confused because I don’t know what I did to earn this treatment. But when we get inside, I realize that they haven’t lived up to their end. When we pass by the room she was staying in, the door is wide open and Brighton looks like she’s had the ever-loving-shit kicked out of her.

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