“You know, she’s Opal. She claims the witches from
Harry Potter
were talking to her last night.”
“Why would they talk to her? She’s not even a fan, and I doubt she has even read a book or seen any of the movies,” interrupted Aria. She bounced into the kitchen freshly showered. She was dressed in snug jeans and a ribbed tank top that would have the guys at SGC studying her instead of their coursework. She was oblivious to that kind of thing, though.
“Exactly what I said to her. If anything, they should have been talking to me last night—I’m the super fan,” I said, stifling a laugh.
“Right!” screamed Aria as she grabbed some OJ from the fridge.
“Oh, you two, at it again. I always feel so lost around you two,” Mom said, shaking her head with a smile. “Aria, if you need gas money, there’s some in the cow on the counter,” Mom said.
She pointed to the cookie jar they never kept cookies in. It never held more than thirty dollars at a time.
“No, I’m good. Dac gave me some money,” she said as she headed back to the bathroom to finish getting ready.
“Dacey, you don’t have to spend your money on your little sister. It’s not easy in the dorms,” Mom chastised.
“Mom, it was twenty dollars. It’s okay. It’s not going to break the bank. I’ll just take it from the cow later or something.”
“Well, okay. But really, how is your aunt Opal? She sounds even nuttier,” she said, not unkindly.
Aunt Opal was my mother’s aunt. She was the only living relative I had connecting me to my birth mom, but she was batshit crazy and got crazier by the day. It wasn’t always that way. When my mom died, Aunt Opal pushed her way into my dad’s life, insisting to talk to me every week or she would raise hell and high water—her words, not mine.
“Tha thar is a piece o’ my niece you got, an’ I aim to make sure she knows her heritage,” Opal would say. And if by heritage Aunt Opal meant having lunch with her, cleaning out her attic for her, helping her with her dog Rufus, or playing bridge with her, then yeah, I knew
plenty
about my heritage, all right. Opal had been labeled the “town crazy” right around the time Ann came into our lives. Every town has one. They say the mind is the first to go, but Opal was a proud woman and refused to go into a retirement community. So I went over every morning to check and make sure she didn’t accidentally set her kitchen on fire trying to boil cheese...again.
“She is. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I found her in the backyard again this morning, only she didn’t remember how she got there. And when I tried to take her back inside, she looked at me and called me Susan.” Susan is my mom—well, that
was
my mom’s name.
“Oh, Dacey. I’m sorry. It seems she is getting worse,” she said soothingly as she reached out and patted my hand.
Schoolteachers had that about them—they were gentle, especially the ones who taught kindergarten like Ann did. It was one of the things I loved about her so much: she was gentle. It may have been that gentleness that Wally saw in her that caused him to fall in love with her thirteen years ago. Love at first sight was what they called it. Wally had been called to the school because I was sick, and he bumped into Ann. Literally bumped into her on his way in. The rest, as they say, is history.
“Yeah, well, that’s the problem. After about a minute or two, she came to her senses, or as much senses as Opal can have, and acted as if nothing had ever happened. She started telling me about the witches. But when I asked her if she had seen her doctor about it, she waved it off as just a ‘confusion episode’ that old people are prone to, like it was nothing to worry about.”
But I was worried. I would never say it, but Opal was the last connection I had to my mother. Although the lady was certifiable, there were times when she would tell me about my mom—things that I would never know on my own—and I cherished those times more than anything.
“You can only lead the horse to the water, Dacey,” Mom said as she got up and put her coffee cup in the sink.
“What does that even mean...lead the horse to water?” I muttered under my breath. She was always saying things like that.
“Who’s a horse?” asked Aria with her strap purse crossed over her shoulder so that it hung at her hip.
“Apparently, Aunt Opal is,” I said.
“Oh, a mom-ism,” Aria said with a knowing glance my way.
“Yeah.”
“It’s not a mom-ism. It’s an idiom. It means people, like horses, will only do what they have a mind to do,” Mom said in a tone she would use with her kindergartners.
“Did she just call you an idiot?” joked Aria.
“Clearly.”
“Clearly you need to get going to school, and you need to stay in it,” Mom said, pointing first to Aria, then to me. She kissed us both and went out the backdoor muttering about how weird we were.
“You should hurry up. What time is your first class?” I asked Aria.
“Um, eight forty-five. It’s an intro class.”
“It’s your first year. They are probably
all
intro classes.”
“Smart ass,” she said, then stuck her tongue out at me. See, she didn’t take my shit. I loved this kid.
Just then, the door opened to my parents’ bedroom and Wally came out in his uniform of Wally’s Tire & Co., a blue work shirt and gray pants. “Why are you still here?” he directed at me, of course.
Really?
“I was actually just leaving, Dad, just saying bye to Aria,” I said dryly.
“Have a great first day at school, kiddo,” he said, giving Aria a big hug—hugs, I might add, he would never afford me.
“Thanks, Dad,” she said, squeezing him around the middle.
Wally was the only dad she could remember. Her biological father died of a heart attack when she was four, and Wally married Ann when Aria was five, so that’s why she calls him Dad. He never treated her like anything other than as his own biological daughter—doting on her where he didn’t me, giving her hugs and kisses when she fell off her bike, where I got none. But I never felt any animosity toward her for it. It was quite the opposite, actually. I had always just accepted that my time for all that had come and gone, and it was hers. He gave her the moon, and I got the dust, but I guess I didn’t complain too much because Ann gave me the stars. Aria never rubbed it in my face. She was aware Wally was not her biological father, and she was also aware of the way he treated me like I was the redheaded stepchild, even though my hair was black and I was actually not the stepchild. Aria never acted like she was better than me just because my father treated me like shit and her like non-shit. It was another reason why I loved this kid.
“Come on, Aria. I’ll walk you out,” I said.
“Okay. Bye, Daddy. Have a good day at work,” she said as she leaned up to kiss Wally on the cheek.
“See you, kiddo.”
I got no such good-bye. I actually got a grunt as he looked at me, turned, and walked out the backdoor. This I was used to. It had always been this way. Why break with tradition, right?
Chapter 2
I grabbed my purse, walked out the front door, and told Aria I would see her at school. I had about an hour before my first class and wanted to catch Trevor before he went to work. It was always hot in Florida, and today was no exception—a blistering 92 degrees. In Shaddy Groves, there was only one of everything. One high school, one college, one animal clinic, one hospital, one...Well, you get the picture. And, as in all small towns, everyone knew everyone. As I walked out to my car, I waved hello to
all
the neighbors on my parents’ street. I grew up in this house and knew all of them since I was born.
“Hi, Mr. Jones.”
“Mrs. Damson.”
“Mrs. Elliot.”
“Mr. Simmons!” I yelled, as he was a little deaf.
They all waved back in turn from their respective lawns or driveways. When I was little, I hated the attention, as I could never get away with anything. The whole neighborhood was on watch, literally.
My phone range with a familiar ringtone, letting me know it was Trevor. “Hey, you. I was just going to come and see you before I go to class,” I said into the phone.
“I love it when you surprise me at work, baby, but today is no good. Boss man is on a warpath.” He breathed into the phone.
Trevor Martin and I had been dating for a year and half, and it was pretty serious with us. We were practically living together and spent every moment together. When I was not in school and he was not working, we were together. We’d gone to the same schools since the first grade and were friends throughout high school, and then
after graduation we became something more. Trevor made me feel wanted, something Wally never made me feel, and I instantly clung to him.
“Oh, pooh. I had an hour before class. I was going to bring you some breakfast,” I whined. I wasn’t a whiner by trait, but he brought it out in me. He brought a lot of things out in me.
“Unless it’s naked breakfast, no can do, babe.”
“Oh, but you can do naked breakfast, you perv?”
“Baby,” he said patiently, “there is always time for naked breakfast.” He said the last part lowly, in
that
way.
“I’m hanging up now, Mr. Naked Breakfast. Will I see you after class?” I asked.
“Of course. Love you,” he breathed.
“Love you too.”
I smiled into the phone as I hung up. I would never get tired of saying those words. It took me awhile to say them, since I thought I couldn’t. I wasn’t even sure I knew how to say those words, since they were never said to me until Mom came into my life. But Trevor was so willing and eager to love me and for me to let him in, it was just...easy. My family loved him, except Wally because, well, he didn’t love anything associated with me, and Trevor loved my family, even crazy Aunt Opal. He loved everyone, except my best friend Justina, and believe you me, the feeling was so mutual. They had a love-to-hate-each-other relationship. Tina and I had been best friends since the sandbox at kindergarten. Outside of my family, she was one of the only people in town whom I would go to the extreme for—the other being Trevor, of course.
Tina lived on the other side of town in a very nuclear family. Her mother was a stay-at-home mom, and her father worked at the local hospital as a general surgeon. Tina and I did everything together. Even when we had boyfriends, we still did everything together. People, namely our boyfriends, found it strange, but we just found it normal. If one of us got into an argument with our boyfriend, it was perfectly normal for us to text one another at two o’clock in the morning to discuss it, and it didn’t matter what the other may or may not have not been doing or about to do. When we called each other, it was an emergency, since we usually communicated through text messaging alone. It was a thing.
Since my plans with Trevor were shot, I decided to see what Tina was up to, so I sent her a text.
U up?
No
Great coming over
Window locked find ur own way in ho
Challenge accepted C U in a few
I placed my phone in the cup holder, buckled up, and pulled out of the driveway and headed over to Tina’s house. Tina still lived with her parents because her mother did not want her to live on campus. She thought it wasn’t safe for her “baby girl” at the age of twenty-two to live all alone. This was something Tina hated and rebelled against by staying at my place as much as possible. My place, my hole-in-the-wall dorm room, was a single, thank god. Despite its small size, it had become the unofficial hangout for Aria, Trevor, and Tina, and a tug-of-war ensued most nights as to who got to stay.
Aria usually lost first because of her age, and then came Tina. Her mom usually nagged the hell out of her to come home so that she would be safe. So that left Trevor the victor.
Driving through Shaddy Groves is like watching time stand still for twenty-two years. Everything is the same as it was since the day I was born. The same signpost, the same shops, and the same owners of said shops. There have been only a few renovations to our small town: the addition of a Starbucks to accommodate the college kids, the SuperTarget to accommodate the college kids, and the megaplex on the outskirts of town to accommodate, you guessed it, the college kids. Other than that, Shaddy Groves remained untouched. I’m sure if I didn’t have my familial ties here, I would have left too.
Truth is, I hated this town and all its smallness. But as long as I had my family and Trevor and Tina, I wasn’t really going anywhere. They were the only family I had, and as weird as it sounds, I didn’t want to give them up. However, if anyone asked, I would deny that I ever said that.
As I pulled into the Delgados’ driveway, I waved good-bye to Dr. D as he was pulling out, no doubt headed to work.
“Front door is unlocked, Dacey,” he called out the window of his SUV.
“How did you know I was coming to just leave your door unlocked?”
“Please, my wife is a black belt. I’m not worried,” he said as he drove off.
Oh. Well, I had forgotten Maria Delgado was a black belt in some crazy form of kick-your-ass martial arts, although you would never know it by just looking at her. She was a small woman with tiny hips and a short frame. She stood about five feet four and weighed about a buck five. I had never actually seen her kick ass, but I was told she could be quite scary.
As I walked in, I knocked. Loudly. I wasn’t stupid. I did value my head. “Hello, Mrs. D!” I yelled just to be on the safe side.
She came around the corner wiping her hands on her apron, looking just as fresh as the morning sun. How she was up and dressed before eight o’clock, looking this perfect, baffled me.
“Hi, Dacey dear. How are you this morning? Have you had breakfast?” She smiled lovingly at me.
“I’m fine, and no. Thank you. I’d love some. I’ll go wake up Tina,” I said as I headed for the stairs.
“She’s going to be grouchy,” Mrs. D sang.
“Isn’t she always.” I laughed, bounding up the stairs. I rounded the corner to Justina’s room and went in without knocking. I threw myself onto a huge pile of pillows and blankets, as I knew she was underneath them somewhere. When I heard a “ghhof,” I rolled over. “Get up. I’m hungry.”