Page 24 of In You

Moms

Caleb

Twenty Two Years Ago

"Look at Mommy's little whore," William sneers, laughing with the other men running besides me.

He lets out a raunchy, childlike sounding moan that turns my stomach so bad I almost vomit.

"Oh, mommy! That feels so good, mommy. I love your hot snatch, mommy.

I don't remember it feeling this good when I came out of you, but now I get to come in you! "

They all laugh callously at me. Mocking me mercilessly.

I ignore them.

William and some of the others broke into the psychiatrist's office and read his notes in my file. About what happened to me. And life's been hell since.

"Hey, Bowers. How does it feel to have your mommy bouncing all over your cock, huh?"

"I'm gunna beat your ass so good when we get back to barracks, pendejo," Colin McDermont says, throwing William a look so full of promise that I know he's probably going to get kicked out tonight.

Lightning flashes in the distance, echoing my countenance, and I listen to the splashing our feet make as we run through puddles, heading into the storm, instead of out of it. I'm going to get fucking pneumonia. I'd be willing to bet I am.

I keep my face stony, and bite my cheek so hard I taste blood, and I definitely don't react. Don't let them know it hurts, Caleb, I think to myself.

I need to be here. I have nothing else. Nothing else besides my half-sister, Flora. I promised her I'd make her proud. It's the least I can do considering she adopted me after I'd killed my mother almost eleven years ago. I was seven.

Seven.

I pump my legs as hard as I can, focusing on the burn and letting it drown the sounds of him and the others nearby taunting me.

I've had problems ever since I've enlisted and it’s only been exasperated by the fact that I won't go out with the guys to go fuck random women.

And it's become a problem for me. They keep on antagonizing me to get a rise, but I'm so focused on our run that I put their words in the back of my mind.

I can have self-control.

I won't let them fuck up my second chance.

"Everybody halt!" General Jackson yells above the pounding of the rain, and everyone stops running, some bending to put their hands on their knees.

The rain pounds down even harder, but I keep my spine straight and my eyes on our general as he stands at the head of our entourage, pursuing us with the sharpness of an eagle.

"Get your asses in formation!" Captain Thompson yells out in his deep voice, and we all fall in line quickly, spreading our legs and putting our arms behind our backs. The rain batters us, but no one dares complain.

I stare stoically ahead, wrestling my ego into place. Willing myself to not break down in front of a hundred men who want to see me fail, and cry while I'm at it.

General Jackson walks between the lines, his salt-and-pepper hair half hidden under his cap.

His medals gleam on his uniform, and he stops right in front of William who's standing directly to my left.

I tense all over at the sight of General Jackson's face.

Everyone avoids him on a good day. However right now, this looks like a very bad day for General Jackson, and he's directly to my left.

Fuck.

I sneak a look. at him out of my peripheral and his almost silver eyes flash as he leans into William’s face.

"William, what did you just say to Bowers?" he asks in a bone chilling tone. "Because I know what I thought I heard came out of your mouth, didn't."

I can't see William’s face, but I can hear the barely veiled terror in his tone. "General Jackson, I-"

"Did I ask for your fucking excuses?"

The air around us plummets at least ten degrees and I shiver, not dare looking.

"No, sir."

"Did I ask you to stammer?"

"No, sir."

"Then why the hell do you have the nerve to do either of those things in my goddamn face like a godforsaken idiot?" he shouts in his face.

I do dare to peek over now. Just a tad. William shuts his mouth, and General Jackson narrows his eyes, taking another step into William until they're almost nose to nose.

"Now," he says in a voice so threateningly low I just know his slight against William is personal.

"I asked you what you said to Bowers. And if you stammer one fucking time, you better add a prayer in there somewhere because I'll send you straight to Jesus Christ himself," he snarls. "Do you understand me, son?"

Despite the rain, I can see a dark stain spread to the front of his pants, and I turn my face back to the front, tightening my lips.

I blink the rain out of my eyes, feeling a chill that has nothing to do with this storm go up my spine.

The stare of a hundred men are firmly on my back, and I just know I have a target on me now with how our General is putting William into place.

"I asked Bowers how it felt to be mommy's little whore," he says in a low tone.

"Oh. Is that what you said?" General Jackson asks simply, taking a step back and then turning to look at Captain Thompson. He clears his throat, bringing his attention back to William whose shoulders hunch. "Say it louder."

William’s face tightens, and he shouts, "I asked him how it felt to be mommy's little whore."

General Jackson takes one step forward and spits directly into William's face. Utter silence falls over our group as General Jackson just stands there stoically, staring into Williams' eyes. "Thompson."

"Yes, sir."

"Get this boy's ass out of my rank. Now."

Captain Thompson nods. "Yes, sir." He goes to stand adjacent to William, who turns to give me an evil look before stepping out of line.

"And Stefan, Luthers, and Petrol, as well," General Jackson calls out the other men who were taunting me along with William.

I keep my stare straight ahead as they break rank and leave with Thompson. I have no clue how he heard them, but he got all the ones who've been tormenting me for the last month. The month I'd been forced to start seeing the on-base psychiatrist because of "unusual behavior."

Meaning I wasn't fucking random women like my fellow soldiers, I wasn't making time to make friends, and I wasn't speaking with my family back home.

I was reclusive, depressed, and had a mad chip on my shoulder my commanders wanted fixed.

"Rule number five!" General Jackson shouts, walking along the line and not sparring me a glance when he passes me.

"Always stay humble. Or life will humble you.

" He stops at the front of our procession, folding his arms and acting like we're not in a raging storm.

He looks over us all, his posture hard, his eyes full of judgement even harder.

"Life is not fair, it's the furthest thing from it.

Which is why we do what we do. To help balance the scales of justice.

Always go into it with good intent." He pauses before tilting his chin up.

"It is my absolute privilege to be the one to humble you first. Life's going to fuck you hard, men.

But I'll fuck you harder every time, I promise. "

His eyes go to mine, and he nods ever so slightly.

The next solid month of camp is pure hell for my entire squad as General Jackson proves to us that he is the Judge and the Jury indeed, and we're all paying for William and the other men's lack of "manhood." Even me.

The men never come back, and when I go searching for them when I'm out, I find out they hadn't been heard of shortly after they got released from General Jackson's rank. It wasn't until many years later, did Frank admit he "took care of them."

Present Day

I watch quietly as Tamryn stares out the window, clutching a purple glass vase of flowers in her hands. I itch to reach over and take her hand in mine, to tell her I'm here with her, share in the intimacy Camilla and I had this morning.

But she won't let me touch her.

It took an hour and a half to get here, but now that we are, she can't seem to make herself get out of the car.

Settling in for the long haul, I've taken my seatbelt off and pushed my seat back a little, spreading my legs.

Even put a soft rock station on in the background to try to help her with her inner thoughts.

We've been sitting here for thirty-five very long minutes. But we'll sit here for three more hours if she needs it.

I'm tempted to crack open a beer but I didn't bring one. Took the cooler out of the jeep before the kill.

"My mom was the best father I knew," she says quietly, bringing her hand up to wipe a tear away. She'd been silent for so long that the sound of her voice shocks me a little.

"Yeah? Tell me about her?" I ask. "What was she like?"

Tamryn turns to face me with a sad smile on her face.

"Ohhh she was one very brave woman. Fearless.

Single mom. Had no siblings, or parents of her own because they died kinda young.

Raised me single her whole life. Said she never remarried because she was scared I'd end up being a statistic.

" She makes a face and then takes a deep breath, looking down at the flowers.

"Well, we see how that played out, don't we? "

I stay silent. Because that's actually fucked up how it worked out that way. It makes one of Frank's rules pop into my head, but I beat it back.

"She took her parent's life insurance money and used it to buy us a house, and then got a factory job that paid well, but it was a long way away from home." She goes silent, and I see this is a sore spot for her. My fingers twitch, itching to touch her.

"How far?" I ask conversationally.

"Almost an hour and a half away," she answers almost absentmindedly, turning her head to look back out the window towards the grave markers.

"She sacrificed because she didn't have a college education, and it was one of the best jobs with the best health insurance.

So, I learned how to be a latchkey kid at the age of eleven. "

"Wow," I say gruffly, remembering that though at that age I was with my older half-sister at that point, and she'd let me be a child, I didn't feel like a child anymore. "Was that hard?"

She looks back at me. "It was lonely. Very lonely."

"Where was your dad?" I look out my window. "Is he buried here too?"

She shakes her head. "No. I never knew him. Mom wouldn't talk about him. Must have been bad, whatever happened, because he's not even on my birth certificate."

"Hm," I hum, sitting back further in my seat. "A little girl without her daddy."

"A little girl without her daddy," she breathes. "Fuck. Sounds really depressing when you say it out loud, huh?"

"Little bit," I concede, not wanting to lie to her. But I'm also wondering how much longer we have until Camilla shows up and sees the flowers in her lap.

She gets a funny look on her face and then bites her lip. Sucks her entire bottom lip in her mouth and then bites down so hard she winces.

I frown, eyeing her. "Whoa, whatcha doin' that for, sweetie? Your lips are going to hurt."

She cuts her eyes to me and then blinks.

"I just realized, she never got a chance to see me with Calvin.

" A tiny smile breaks across her face that seriously concerns me and almost makes me fly into a panic.

But before I can say anything, she puts her fingers to her mouth as a little disbelieving giggle escapes her lips, and she makes wide eyes at me.

I roam her face, not knowing what to do.

"Don't you see? She never got to see me be a statistic anyways. She died before she got to meet Calvin. The day I met him, actually."

"Oh wow," I say, feeling stupid. "Well, that's…"

She huffs such a deep breath that the flowers shudder in her lap and I tense, ready to snatch them out of her grip should she try to throw them through the window.

"Fortunate, Caleb," she says loudly, scaring me. "That's what it is. Like divine intervention or something!" She snaps her eyes to mine. "Do you believe in that?"

I arch a brow. "What?"

"God. Caleb," she says with a little eye roll. "Do you believe in God?"

I pause, taking a deep breath of my own and narrowing my eyes at the tombstones around where we're parked.

Each one of these was a life lived, a story told.

And one day, she and I will be in the ground right next to all of them.

And I wonder for the first time that if there is a life after death, where would I truly end up.

"You know, Tamryn," I say lightly. "I think I do now."

She smiles. "Yeah. I think I do now, too."

"Really?" I ask curiously. "Even after everything?"

"Yeah, I lost my faith there for a while, but my life has been so fucked up with one thing after another that there has to be a plan for me, I think."

The silence swells between us while I muse her words. Wanting to put myself out there, but then not wanting to be rejected. "Do you think I'm a fuck up?" I ask gruffly, feeling vulnerable.

She gives me a long, slow look that causes every muscle in my body to tense up. "I don't know. I think it's fucked up you won't let me go. I understand your reasons, but I still think it's fucked up because I won't tell on you."

Not sure I believe her, I nod, going quiet. "I get that…I'm sorry. Hey," I say, sitting back up and turning to face her. I gather some courage and touch a hand to her fingers over the vase. "I'll walk with you and carry the flowers for you, alright? You don't have to be alone."

If you would have asked me even three hours ago if I'd ever visit another person's mother's grave with them, the answer would have been a solid no. But I can't tell this woman no. Only when she asks me to let her go.

On our way to her mom's headstone it hits me like a ton of bricks that Tamryn just alluded for the first time that she remembered I killed Calvin that night. It gives me a sliver of hope that this identity integration method might just work after all.

Tamryn doesn't switch back to Camilla. Staying in town for a bit longer we have dinner and go get a facial. Apparently it's her and her mom's thing. And now, it's ours.

I got one too.