Page 18 of DOG Part 2
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“I blame my dad for it,” I continued after another minute, suddenly spilling my guts to this woman I had only just met.
“Is it his fault?”
I bit my lip. “I don’t know anymore. It’s like sometimes I’m so angry at him that I can’t even see clearly anymore, you know?”
I chanced a glance at her to see her slight nod as she looked up at the ceiling.
“Loss comes to everyone,” she mused. “No one is immune to it. Not even a big guy like Kane.”
“I know,” I whispered.
“It’s hard to carry around anger. I guess I don’t have to tell you that.”
I gave a wry chuckle. “Hell no. Sorry.” Quickly, I pressed my palm against my lips.
Adele laughed. “Oh, don’t act like I haven’t heard curse words before.”
“Still, I’m sorry. I’d like to say it’s the motorcycle lifestyle rubbing off on me, but it’s not.”
“Would you like to see some more photos?”
“Okay,” I said slowly, feeling self-conscious upon realizing that she somehow seemed to know I’d already spent hours poring over pictures of Kane.
She got up and went into the living room and in just a minute was back with two heavy photo albums. The edges of their pages were yellowed with age, but they were clean and dustless. Adele leafed through them slowly, showing me first the dozens of photos of a toddler Kane and then the corresponding ones of him growing up through the years.
There was Kane and a beagle puppy. Kane opening presents underneath a Christmas tree. Kane blowing out candles on his tenth birthday. Kane at his high school prom, his arm looped around the waist of a leggy brunette.
With each picture he became more and more of the Kane that I knew, his features becoming more chiseled as baby fat gave way to a strong jaw. The pictures became less and less as he got older, with him throwing up an arm in one to shield his face from the camera.
On the last couple pages the mood changed, the noticeable difference being a red-haired young woman who suddenly cropped up in half the photos. She was at the beach with Kane, smiling on a boardwalk in a bikini as the man next to her wore a grin that rivaled her own, and then sitting at a table in a restaurant with Kane and his parents, everyone looking healthy and joyful.
Unable to stop myself, I reached my fingertips out and grazed them lightly over the young woman’s face. She looked around my own age, and the Kane next to her appeared to be the same. His hair was longer, brushing his ears in dark waves, and he had on a beaded necklace that made him look like some kind of surfer dude. The image brought corresponding pangs of joy and agony.
“When were these taken?” I asked.
From next to me Adele gave a light sigh. “Let’s see... Kane was twenty-three then, so about five years ago? That’s right. That was Amanda’s graduation party, so she was twenty-two.”
“I didn’t know he could smile that wide.”
Adele chuckled, but there was a sadness to it. “He used to smile like that all the time.”
I bit my tongue gently, wondering if it was really appropriate to ask what I so desperately wanted to know.
“She was Kane’s only serious girlfriend,” Adele said, reading my mind. “They dated for four years. He might have married her.”
“Oh.”
I looked back down at the photo, at Kane’s smile that showed almost all of his teeth. I’d never seen him smile in that way, and it killed me. I wanted to make him that happy; to make him feel as if the whole world was lit up just for him.
“You’re the first woman he’s looked at in the way he looked at her,” Adele softly continued. “He stays away, but I’m still surprised we’ve never met you.”
I took a deep breath. “Well, the truth is that I don’t have much to do with the motorcycle club. I, um, don’t exactly care for it. Actually, I hate it. It’s the reason behind everything bad in my life.”
“Hmmm,” Adele mused, staring back down at the photo.
“You’re not disappointed that Kane is in the Rugged Angels?”
