Page 88 of No Fear
She shoved him playfully, “I never went to band camp but yes, I did play the flute.”
“Oh baby, that is never going to not be funny.” He caught her hand when she started to hit him again, “You said middle school. You didn’t play in high school? Did you quit band?”
“Had to. In high school you have to be able to provide your own instrument and we never had the money for that so…” Rachel shrugged and then shook her head, “Don’t think I didn’t notice you changed the subject.”
“I know. I’m just trying to figure out how to explain it. I don’t understand why I did it myself most days so…” He shoved a hand through his hair and sighed, “There weren’t many good days in my childhood. Most of the stuff I remember, its Decker drunk and stomping all over everything. The twins cowering with fear. Chrissy… she uh… you know…”
“Yeah I know.” Rachel found his hand and twined their fingers.
“Well, there was this one day that I’ll never forget because amid all the darkness it was… perfect. We were all over at Aunt Mary’s house. That’s my Uncle Duke’s wife. Do you know her?”
Rachel shook her head, “No but I’ve heard of her. She’s pretty reclusive, right?”
“Yeah. Only leaves her house to go to church I think. She’s very religious which is hilarious considering she married Duke Bomar.” He shrugged, “I don’t know the whole story but suffice to say, she got pregnant and her father insisted Duke do right by them and marry her. They don’t believe in divorce or, hell, birth control apparently, because there’s five Bible Bomars and there’d probably be more if Uncle Duke hadn’t spent most of his life in prison.”
“Six.”
“Huh?”
“There were six of them. Joel died but that doesn’t mean he never existed. There were six of them.”
Remy blew out a rough breath, “You’re right. Of course you’re right. It’s just… Abel refuses to talk about Joel. He freaks out if anyone even brings up his little brother’s name. Sometimes it’s easier to forget.”
“I understand that.”
“I know.” He nodded and then shrugged, “Anyway, the point was, that day at Aunt Mary’s house was the best day of my life until I met you.”
“Such a sweet talker.” Rachel kissed him lightly. “Continue.”
He nodded, “We had this big meal and all my cousins and uncles were there. It was a madhouse. I was probably ten, nine or ten, but I remember looking around and knowing that this day was important. I don’t know if it was someone’s birthday or what but everyone was happy which was so damn rare in my world.”
“That sounds nice.”
“It was.”
“So you got the tattoo for your Aunt Mary?”
He snorted, “No, nothing like that. It would’ve made sense I guess but… no. It was… Aunt Mary had a piano. One of those big, stand-up ones like they have at churches? She had one and we weren’t allowed to touch it but that day, after we ate, I remember hearing music coming out of the living room so I went to see who I could get into trouble for touching Aunt Mary’s most prized possession.”
“Nice.”
“Yeah, well, you’ve met my cousins. They were always in trouble anyway.” He shook off the smile, “It wasn’t one of my cousins playing though. It was my… It was Chrissy.”
Rachel’s eyebrows rose, “She knows how to play the piano?”
“Knew, probably. Yeah.” He thought back to that day and the way she’d looked sitting on the piano bench, so young and blonde and beautiful. Untouched by the harsh realities of her life or the harsher drugs that had already started to turn her brittle. ”I doubt she’d even know what a piano was if she saw one anymore.”
Rachel squeezed his hand again but said nothing. For that, he was grateful. As the memories swirled, the guilt and the anger were swiftly rising up inside him again. Sometimes he wondered if he hadn’t dreamed that entire day. It was fuzzy and out of focus after all these years, so oddly out of place in the dark days of his childhood, that he honestly couldn’t be sure and he didn’t know what was worse, if it had been real and so rare or that he’d dreamed it up entirely.
“She sat me down beside her and she showed me one key at a time how to play the song she’d been playing. Over and over and over she would show me and then play it and then let me play it. We must have sat there for hours.” He continued, his throat tight with emotions, “My… mom… she taught me how to play Mary Had A Little Lamb on the piano when I was ten years old and it was one of the best days of my life because she was there, with me, just me.”
Rachel stroked his cheek, “It sounds like a beautiful day.”
“It was this one perfect moment in a relationship that would go so, so badly just a few years later.” He bit out with a wince, “I just, I guess I clung to that as proof that she wasn’t always a monster. Like maybe that one, beautiful thing she did would be enough to wipe out all the bad but it wasn’t. It didn’t. It doesn’t.”
“Oh, Remy…”
“I don’t know why I got the tattoo. It’s stupid.”
