Travis (Pelion Lake) by Mia Sheridan

You either lose it all. Or lose it all.

I suddenly felt sick to my stomach.

I pulled my wallet out and retrieved a ten, placing it on the counter just as my phone rang. I snatched it up without glancing at who was calling.

“Travis?”

“Hi, Mom.” I sighed internally, standing up, covering the mouthpiece. “See you around, Gage.”

He gave me a tip of his chin. “Travis.”

I gave Maggie and Norm a wave as I headed for the door. “What’s going on?” I asked my mother because if she was calling, it was always something.

“There’s a bad leak in my apartment.”

I opened the door to my cruiser, getting inside. “Call a plumber,” I said. I was up to my eyeballs in leaks already.

“I don’t have the money for a plumber,” she whined, “because of those medical bills I had to pay last month.”

Medical bills.

She’d been to her plastic surgeon for something that wasn’t overtly obvious and I didn’t ask about.

I ran a hand over my face, about to tell her I’d call a plumber for her. It would be yet another expense when I was still fighting with my insurance company over what they wouldn’t cover, facing the likelihood that I’d have to buy at least several pieces of new furniture, not to mention the cost of staying at the B&B. And I was saving every penny possible to start building on my land sometime in the next decade.

“And I have something I want to give to you. Something that was your father’s.”

That old yearning crept over me. Something that was your father’s. “What is it?”

“Some photo albums . . . papers, things like that.”

I sighed. “How quickly do you need me there?”

“Oh, I don’t know! I might be flooded by tomorrow! Drowned in my bed!”

I scrubbed my hand down my face again. Melodrama. Christ. I came by it honestly.

“Okay,” I sighed. “I’ll come check it out after work.”



**********



My mother’s apartment was small, but nice. Not the nice by which Tori Hale had become accustomed to once upon a time, but nice by any other objective standards. There were hardwood floors, granite countertops, and even some custom molding. I’d helped her out with extras when necessary, but I lived on a small-town chief’s salary, without the benefit of the town income my father had enjoyed, and so that’s all I could reasonably do while paying my own rent and saving so I could retire before I was ninety-five. Frankly, it could be argued that I shouldn’t do anything at all. She probably deserved to live in a homeless shelter after what she’d done, and what might have resulted. But . . . she was my mother, and I didn’t have the heart to abandon her completely, despite the suspicions that had lasted eight years, and beyond her fervent denials. She was still the woman who’d read to me before bed, and clapped at my little league games, the only one in the stands after my father had left. After my father had died. She’d shed tears at my graduation, and even looked on with pride when I’d joined the Pelion Police Department, regardless of the fact that she had more lofty ambitions for me. It was confusing and heartbreaking and it made me feel ashamed. Mostly I just wanted to avoid her. The fact that she lived out of town made it easy enough.

She’d vowed time and again that she hadn’t meant for anyone to get hurt when she’d alerted a drug addict with a debt to settle about Bree’s whereabouts eight years ago. She’d wanted to “persuade” Bree to move away from Pelion, yes, but she had never intended for someone to get shot. “I was protecting you, Travis!” she’d said, tears filling her big blue eyes. “I panicked when I thought everything would be taken from you. Again.”

Again.

Likely, she was more concerned about everything being taken from her, but I doubted I’d ever truly know. Nothing had ever been proven, and it was worthless to continue asking her. Whatever she’d say to me was what she’d convinced herself of. Tori Hale had always been a good liar, because she believed her falsehoods.

“Where’s this leak?”

“In the kitchen, under the sink,” she said, hurrying behind me as I walked to her gleaming kitchen, setting my toolbox on the table.

I knelt on the floor and opened the cabinet, peering inside. There was a small spot on the bottom where it looked like a few drips of water had dried, leaving a water spot, but other than that, nothing. I peered over my shoulder at my mother.

“Do you see the spot?” she asked.

“That’s what you were worried about? A spot? It looks old. And dry. And it might have come from anything. A bottle of cleaner, who knows.” Irritation skated down my spine. It’d taken an hour to drive here, and now I had to drive an hour home. Still, just to make sure, I stood, turning on the faucet and letting it run, and then kneeling back down to examine the pipes.

They remained dry, nary a drip in sight.

I stood slowly, turning off the faucet. “I don’t think you’ll drown in your bed tonight.”

She laughed faintly. “What a relief.”

I leaned on the sink. “How are you?” She looked as put together as she always had, but there were more lines on her face, and her mouth looked pinched. Even Tori Hale couldn’t manipulate gravity forever. She’d called me here not for a leak in her plumbing, but because she was lonely. My heart softened just a bit. She suddenly seemed very human to me when, for much of my adolescence and even beyond, she’d seemed larger than life and almost completely untouchable.