Page 53 of The Prices We Pay
“Until now,” she repeats softly.
The four of us share a silent conversation, and regardless of whether or not they think I did the right thing by keeping this from them, I can tell they all understand why I did it. Finally, his jaw unclenches and his shoulders relax as he turns back to the woman who has turned our worlds upside down and asks, “Are you ready to tell us everything?”
He doesn’t command that she does. No. He merely asks. Which, for a man who has the world bowing at his feet, is a monumental feat.
Dante rubs his hand up and down Joe’s arm, and she inhales a shaky sigh. I watch as she visibly lowers the carefully constructed defenses she’s built over time. “I’m ready.”
The four of us sit on the sectional, staring at Joe, who’s sitting by herself on the loveseat. She’s sitting cross-legged while playing with the hem of her dress pants. Taking a deep breath, she begins:
“I had a really great childhood… until I was about nine. We were your typical all-American family. I grew up just outside of Billings. My dad, John, worked on our family friend’s ranch, and my mom stayed at home to raise Jasper and me. Her name was Sarah. She was beautiful.” She huffs out a sarcastic laugh. “Shit, we even had a golden retriever. Her name was Honey. She was the sweetest girl you’d ever seen.” Her eyes shine with unshed tears at the memory of her childhood dog. Sniffling, she continues, “Jasper and I were involved in all kinds of things, my parents were active and loved members of the community, and our house was filled with so much love that some people might have found it nauseating.
“Anyway, I remember one day, a few weeks after Christmas, we were about to get a really bad snowstorm, so Dad had to go work the cattle to move them into a pasture that would be easier to access once the snow came. Mom got a call around lunchtime from the owner of the ranch, Mr. Taylor, that Dad’s horse stepped in a hole that they couldn’t see because of the snow and broke his leg. When the horse fell, it fell on top of Dad and broke his leg, too. He ended up getting medevacked to the hospital in Billings. Shattered his femur and needed surgery to get all kinds of rods and screws put into his leg. Dad was given oxycodone post-surgery and throughout his months of physical therapy for the pain.”
“Shit…” Enzo mumbles, all too familiar with the direction this is heading.
“Yeah… turns out Dad was an addict in waiting. All it took was one pill, and it was like a switch flipped inside of him. By the time my ninth birthday rolled around in September, he was a completely different person. He did anything he could to get his fix, blew all of our family money, stopped showing up to work, and stopped caring about whether his family was taken care of or not. All that mattered was getting his next high. A couple of months later, the bank took our home, and we were forced to move to a one-bedroom apartment because that’s all my mom could afford. The only job she could get with hours flexible enough to still be able to take care of me and Jasper was as a teller at a local bank, and she barely made minimum wage. Neither of my parents had siblings, and all of our grandparents were dead. We had no family to ask for help, and Dad had pushed Mom away from all their friends. She truly felt like she had no one to help us. I remember there were some nights she wouldn’t eat dinner just so Jasper and I would have enough to eat.”
“Love…” Not wanting her to sit alone any longer, I get up from my spot, stand her up from hers, and sit down in the loveseat before sitting her across my lap. With my arms around her, I let her continue her story.
“The problem with living in the city is that when the opiates stopped being strong enough, Dad was able to find stronger stuff at the drop of a dime. Heroine quickly became his new best friend. And when he wasn’t high, he was drunk. And as the weeks went on, the more violent he became. Mom did her best to protect us from him, and I did my best to protect Jasper when she wasn’t able to. He was only seven. And even though I was two years older, it felt like a lifetime.”
My heart breaks as I watch a tear stream down her cheek. “It got really, really bad for a while. By the time I was thirteen, I had been to the emergency room with countless broken bones, bruises, and burns. So had Mom. Thankfully, Jas was spared for the most part. By the time he was finished with Mom and me, he was just too tired, I guess.”
“No one ever called the police?” Dante growls, his anger mounting.
“Mom was terrified that if the police found out how we were living, they’d take us from her. He had her convinced thathewas our best option. It wasn’t her fault. She sent us to the ranch as muchas possible, and the Taylors did everything they could to take care of us, but neither Jasper nor I liked spending too many days in a row away from Mom. She did the best she could to keep us safe while living in her own personal hell. Dad made her weak, but she was as strong as she could be for us.
“Dad’s addiction got bad enough that between the ages of fifteen and seventeen, we barely saw him. He would spend weeks on end out on the streets. Only coming by every so often to steal whatever money Mom was able to save since the last time he stole from us. I was two weeks away from turning eighteen, and Jasper was hardly ever around, spending as much time as he could at the ranch when Dad came by one last time. He was in the worst shape I’d ever seen him in. A shell of the man I loved with all of my heart when I was a child. He was so high that night that I’m surprised he even knew who we were.
“I don’t know what prompted Mom to stand up to him that night, but she wouldn’t let him come into the apartment. He completely lost it. He busteddown the door and attacked Mom.” Joe’s voice cracks as she recalls the worst day of her life. “I tried to stop him. I really, really tried. He beat me within an inch of my life. Used the lamp from the end table to hit me. Hit my leg so hard that my femur broke through the skin. Besides the one you can’t see, that left the biggest scar.”
My eyes well with tears at the thought of her witnessing something so horrible. At being the victim of such a brutal attack… of such a brutal life. And when I look at my three best friends, I see the same expression on all of their faces. Each of them is experiencing a visceral wave of sadness for the horror she endured, all while trying to keep the beasts inside of them from breaking free.
“I was lying on the ground, completely unable to move, while he bashed her head in. I heard everything. Every scream of pain, every nasty word he spewed, every gasp for breath as the life slowly left her body. I heard it all, and I couldn’t do a thing to stop it.”
Enzo, Dante, and Luca all rise from the couch and move toward the chair. Enzo and Luca crouchon the ground in front of her, each placing a hand on her legs, while Dante stands behind us, silently stroking her hair.
“I’m still not sure how long it was; it could have been minutes, could have been hours, but Jasper found us. Mom was pronounced dead, and I was taken to the hospital. Less than forty-eight hours later, the cops arrested Dad for murder, and he was placed in jail. Hasn’t seen the light of day since.
“I stayed in the hospital for a little over two weeks, and Jasper was by my side the entire time. Since I was eighteen by the time I was discharged, I officially became his guardian. The Taylors insisted we come live with them, so we did. I planned Mom’s funeral, reenrolled Jasper in the local school outside of Billings, and stayed until he graduated high school. The moment I knew he could take care of himself, I left. I made a name for myself, and so did Jasper. We became successful adults despite everything that piece of shit did to us. He and the Taylors are my only family. I haven’t seen or spoken to Dad since the day of his sentencing, nor do I ever want to. I have no idea what he wants fromme. I’ve never opened a single letter. They’re all sitting in a box in my closet.”
Luca’s eyes dart to mine. “Seb?”
“He’s still locked up. Life sentence. No possibility of parole.”
He stands abruptly. “Which prison?”
“Luca…”
“Which fucking prison, Sebastian?”
Josephine stands up slowly from my lap. “Luca, look at me.” Luca’s chest heaves with unmatched rage as his stare remains locked on me, waiting for me to tell him which prison John Jenkins is rotting away at so he can have him killed. But that’s not our choice. The only people who can make that decision are Joe and Jasper. They simply say the word, and his life is over, but until then… we can’t take that choice away from them. She places her palms flat on his chest. “Luca. Look. At. Me.”
And in a way I’ve only ever been able to accomplish, Luca takes a deep breath before locking eyes with Joe. I watch in awe as he stares into her eyes for a mere moment, and then, as if he were under her spell, his entire body relaxes. His breathingslows, his shoulders relax, and his hands go from fists at his side to being wrapped protectively around her waist. “The past is the past…”
“He hurt you, Vita Mia.”
“Yeah. He did. And he’s rotting away in a cell where he belongs. Do not waste your energy ending a life that means nothing. His life is already over. He’s just trying to fuck up mine.”
