Page 14 of The Locksmith’s Promise (The Promise Duet #1)

Memory Lane

B axter

The overcast sky mirrored my mood as I tucked my hands into the pockets of my thick fleece hoody and trudged along, kicking the leaves up as I walked.

Watching Maggie fall apart when we ran into Jenny gave me a brief glimpse at what I’d done to her so many years before.

It wasn’t like I didn’t know, but knowing intellectually and seeing it play out in front of me were two entirely different things.

If this was how it still affected her after eleven years, I could only imagine the state she was in when she walked in on that fucked-up scene.

Pregnant with our son .

It broke me when I didn’t think there was anything left inside me to break.

I sucked in several deep breaths and blew them out again.

I’d done my work with that situation; made peace with it as best as I could, and I didn’t need or want to rehash it.

But I had a feeling there would come a day when Maggie would.

When that day came, I would be ready to hold that space for her grief and disbelief, her anger, and her broken heart.

Holding Maggie in my arms for those few precious moments only renewed my resolve to give her whatever she needed, and everything she would allow herself to take from me.

I had to be ready. And if that meant revisiting the past one last time, I would do it.

And, my God, her hug healed things inside me she didn’t break. I needed her like I needed oxygen.

Keeping my head down and my hood up as I walked through town kept most people from initiating conversation. I didn’t stop until I made it to the long driveway leading through the woods to my childhood home.

The one I now owned.

God, I always hated walking up this drive, never knowing what version of my father I’d find at the end of it.

Or if I’d find him at all.

The absent version was the one I liked the best.

Those nights, the ones he never came home, brought their own mix of relief and anxiety. Because until I turned 18, he was the only thing standing between me and foster care. What would happen to me if I lost him, too?

Looking back, it was crazy that I returned to Moose Lake at all after college. There wasn’t nearly enough work for both my father and me, and absolutely nothing in the diploma I chose with a flip of the coin.

I had my reasons.

Sometimes the familiar feels safer even when it’s not.

I was lonely. Unable to connect to the people in my classes, I missed Miller, John, and Eric. If I’d been able to lower my guard, things might have been different.

And of course, seeing Maggie again redefined what, or rather who, was home. I wasn’t leaving Moose Lake without her, and I had little faith she’d come with me if I decided to go.

People are crazy complicated.

Even now, knowing he was gone, the same old anxiety that kept me out at all hours of the night to avoid him dogged me with every step forward.

When I hit the turn in the drive, I lifted my chin. What I saw stopped me in my tracks. Set in the middle of a large clearing overgrown with weeds sat the house that loomed so large in my memory.

And it was little more than a shack.

No wonder I had no problem breaking in when he locked me out.

It had two bedrooms, one bathroom, an eat-in kitchen, and a miniscule family room.

The siding, dingy and grey, was the perfect counterpart to the rotting window frames. Dirt and grime crusted the glass of the twin front windows so thickly they reflected no light, their life snuffed out.

The front door my mother had once, in a spurt of eternal optimism, painted a cheery blue, was now a mess of peeling paint.

I pulled the key sent to me by Moose Lake’s one and only lawyer out of my pocket. Funny, when Miller told me he passed, I expected to have to break in as usual. This was the first time in my life I held a key to this house in my hand.

And now it was mine.

Drawing in a steadying breath, I rammed it into the rusty lock and turned.

With a little extra encouragement, the door swung open.

I crossed the threshold and landed in hell.

Where the outside of the house seemed to have shrunk over the years, the inside was exactly the same.

The same faded curtains hung limply at the windows.

The same pockmarked linoleum covered the floors.

And the same threadbare couch sagged in the middle of the family room.

Every inch of the place from one corner to the other carried the stale smell of cigar smoke. I would have opened a window, but I didn’t intend on staying there even a moment longer than necessary.

Cold sweat beaded on my forehead and snaked down my back.

I took a tentative step forward.

It was a straight shot from the front door to the short hallway that led to the bedrooms. There were days those ten steps were tantamount to running the gauntlet.

Even now, my heart thudded warily in my chest. But I’d come this far. I could finish it.

I closed the front door and snarled like an animal caught in a trap. “Get this fucking over with and you never have to come back.”

I crossed the family room easily enough, but by the time I passed his bedroom door, my breath escaped in sharp pants.

I didn’t bother checking the bathroom. When I got to my bedroom door, I paused and swallowed hard.

Making it this far had never been a guarantee of safety.

How many nights had I lain in bed, listening to him clean his gun? Certain he would walk into my room and finish me off like he so often threatened.

How many nights had I wished he would?

The noise in my head increased in volume as the barrage of memories flooded my brain. But as soon as my hand touched the doorknob, they slowed to include the close-up view of the dirty carpet as he pinned me down and pressed the burning tip of his cigar into my arm.

The hiss and snap of his belt whistling through the air and landing with a sharp crack, each one marked with his grunt of exertion.

A fuzzy recollection of Jenny spread across my bed, the one and only time she’d been in my house never mind my bedroom.

Was she crying?

The knife.

The blood pooling.

The hair stood up on the back of my neck.

Run.

I spun around with my heart in my throat and my fists raised to confront a flurry of dust particles spinning in the air.

Huffing out a small, self-deprecating laugh, I turned back to my door and grasped the doorknob. It was time to put those ghosts to rest.

I pushed the door open and gaped. There was not a single surface left unmarked. The walls were destroyed. My old bed, slashed to ribbons. And the contents of my closet spilled out onto the floor.

I could picture him doing it, screaming vitriol, spittle flying from his mouth.

I knew he hated me, but if I had any doubt, this visual montage provided proof.

And it shamed me to admit that truth twisted my guts even after all this time.

How had I deserved this?

Why did he turn on me when Mom turned on both of us?

Walking closer, I nudged the pile from my closet with my foot. Was there anything there worth saving?

My attention snapped to the closet floor.

How could I have forgotten for even a moment when this is what I came for?

Dropping to my knees, I felt along the musty carpet.

Please, please, please.

I closed my eyes to concentrate until I found the seam and drew back the edge of the carpet.

It was there.

Just where I left it.

I pulled the envelope toward me and opened it to check the contents.

Six thousand dollars.

Maggie’s wish list.

And a picture of us laughing together at a bonfire.

I hung my head and blew out the breath I’d been holding. There was nothing else of value in this place. Anything else he’d destroyed, or I’d left with Maggie. And Maggie had it all in the back of Cor’s baby book.

Rolling to my feet, I took one last look around.

I heard a whimper from the past.

Not mine.

Run.

The command became urgent.

Eyes squeezed shut, pulse jackhammering in my veins, I stepped back. Spinning on my heel, I jogged back through the house without looking toward the couch.

I slammed the front door shut but didn’t bother to lock it. The whole house could burn down for all I cared.

Once I hit the driveway, I didn’t stop until I reached my apartment. Tossing the envelope on the counter, I took the photo out and propped it up where I could see it.

Tomorrow I’d find a frame.

The urge to run that hit me in my childhood bedroom had not abated. I paced back and forth, running my fingers through my hair, sucking in air and breathing it out hard until I was light-headed.

My back hit the wall, and I slid down to the floor.

Stretching my legs out in front of me with my ankles crossed, I leaned my head against the wall and considered the case of beer chilling in the fridge.

Five minutes would take the edge off. Ten? Smooth sailing. Fifteen? Twenty?

No .

I knew where that road led, and I wasn’t going back there.

But I couldn’t sit here in the dark, either.

Asking for help was not in my usual repertoire, but tracking down a distraction was second nature. I slid my cell phone from my back pocket and called Miller to see if he wanted to grab a beer at The Loose Moose.

It was probably wrong to take him away from his family.

He picked up almost immediately. “Did you know these two turds have started a band?”

I choked. “What?”

“A band, fucker,” Miller growled.

“How?” I laughed. “Does Mikey play guitar?”

“No,” Miller griped. “Maxine took him into the city and bought him a drum set to go along with Cor’s guitar. He says he’s going to teach himself.”

I snorted. “And they’re playing together?”

He groaned. “It’s every fucking flavour of awful you can imagine. I’m too fucking old for this,” he grumbled.

The longer I talked to Miller, the more the stench of stale cigar smoke faded. I inhaled deeply. “Does that mean you lost your touch, old man?”

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line. “You want to come over and show these young punks how to do it?”

I chuckled with relief. “I’ll be right there.”

By the end of the night, I’d grown a foot and a half.

I’d never felt so goddamn tall in my entire fucking life.

Playing with Miller again, laughing and hitting that groove like I hadn’t felt since my last gig with Drivetrain, with Mikey and Corwin watching, their faces rapt? Fuck. There was nothing like it.

Calling Maggie and telling her I’d bring Corwin home could only have been matched by us going home to her together.

Watching her laugh as Cor mimicked me by playing air guitar.

Standing on the receiving end of her bright smile.

The squeeze of her hand as I left.

Nothing in the past eleven years even came close.

I lay back on my mattress, which had more than fulfilled its promise of plumping up, and took out the harmonica Lucky and Minty gave me.

Holding it to my mouth, I closed my eyes and played softly.

The sweet, crisp notes washed over me and reminded me who and what I was.

Things were complicated, more complicated than when I left, and who would have thought that was even a possibility?

Maggie had raised our son on her own for a decade.

Lucky for me, she wasn’t married to someone else with a few more kids.

She let me hold her. In the midst of the pain I caused her, she let me hold her.

I closed my eyes and let the plaintive notes echo the pleas in my soul.

There was a chance for us.

There had to be.