Page 13 of Theirs to Desire (Club M: Boxed Set)

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“ M other. You called.”

It’s a lovely summer day, but I can feel the storm clouds start to gather.

The last girl was Kayla Perkins, two years ago. My father paid her ten thousand dollars to go away, and Kayla’s mom, who’d never seen that much money in her life, signed the non-disclosure on behalf of her daughter.

My mother hadn’t called me then. She hadn’t called me when they’d paid off Emmy Goodell the year before Kayla. Before that, there was Nora Thomson, and before that, Mary-Jane Morris. Through all of that, there’d been silence from my family.

Five years. No contact. After all, what’s there to talk about? My mother will insist that the girls are sluts and their accusations about my father are false, made up to extort money from the judge.

Nobody can ignore the truth like Della Payne.

She’s calling now, and I can guess why. Money. I can already feel a tension headache creeping on, and my mother hasn’t even started talking.

“Brody, you wouldn’t believe what’s just happened.”

I take a deep breath. “What did he do?” I ask bluntly. “Or should I say, who did he do?”

“Don’t talk like that about your father.” Indignation coats every syllable. My mother is a fucking expert at burying her head in the sand. Ostrich-levels of denial, that’s Della Payne. “I don’t know why these women keep harassing us like this. It’s not right.”

“How old was she this time?” My father likes them young, but so far, he’s been smart enough to make sure his targets are above the age of consent. Sixteen in Mississippi.

“Seventeen,” she replies. She snorts in disgust. “As if I don’t know what this is about. Callie Weiss looks at us with dollar signs in her eyes. It’s about money, Brody. It always is.”

It’s actually about the sad fact that Eugene Payne cannot keep his dick in his pants. “Why are you calling me, mother? What do you want?”

“The greedy whore wants one hundred thousand dollars. Do you believe it?”

Whore. The word sounds strange coming from Della Payne’s genteel Southern mouth. She sounds angry, but I feel only admiration for Callie Weiss. Good for her. “Did he rape the girl?”

My mother inhales sharply. “I don’t like hearing such language from you, Brody Alexander Payne,” she says, ignoring the flagrant double-standard in her sentence. “I brought you up better than this.”

“Did he?”

“Of course not,” she snaps. “Do you think so little of your father?”

Short answer— yes.

“If he’s innocent, you have nothing to worry about, do you?” I walk into Lockhart & Payne’s offices, and Nita tries to flag me down. I wave her away, stick my head into the corner office I share with Adrian, realize there’s someone there, and move to an unoccupied conference room.

Through all of this, my mother doesn’t say anything. Her silence speaks volumes. Finally, she speaks up. “We’re a bit short,” she says stiffly. “If you could help us…”

And there it is.

What does someone do in a situation like this?

I know what the right answer is. I know what I should do. I should turn her down and let my father deal with the consequences of his actions.

Except that I’m from a small town in Mississippi, and so far, my father has, to my knowledge, sexually assaulted more than fifteen women, and there have been no consequences.

The money will at least help this young woman pull together the pieces of her life.

That sounds like a justification, Payne.

All humans crave connection. We’re social animals. It wasn’t easy walking away from my family. For the last seventeen years, I haven’t been back for Thanksgiving or Christmas. I haven’t acknowledged their birthdays. No card on Mother’s Day. Nothing.

Because it was the right thing to do. My father wasn’t willing to change, and my mother wouldn’t admit there was a problem.

But it hasn’t been easy. Though my father is a monster, he’s also my dad. He showed up to every high school track meet. Drove me to practice. Told me he was proud of me.

My mom had a tall glass of milk and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich waiting for me every single day when I got back from school. “Calcium helps your bones grow,” she would say when I used to protest that I was too old for the after-school snack. “Drink up.”

I’m good at hiding the way I feel under a facade of good cheer. When Adrian and I had Sandy, things had been easier. We’d formed our own family then, and I pushed the pain down so deep that I could pretend it didn’t exist.

I don’t know what to do now.

“Give me her name and phone number,” I say into the receiver. “I’ll talk to her.”