Till It Hurts by Cora Brent
Jace
Now
When Colt returns from the hardware store, he finds me spackling over an inexplicable hole just below the ceiling in the living room while McClane chews a piece of rawhide in the corner. The old house has good bones but needs a lot of cosmetic work, along with some attention to more serious issues on the plumbing and electrical side. Still, Colt insists we can take care of it ourselves and I believe him. Besides, I kind of like getting my hands dirty.
“Jace.” He stops at the foot of the ladder and something about the tone in his voice sends my heart racing.
I jump down from the ladder. “Is it Tori?” This is always where my mind goes first.
Colt shakes his head vigorously. “No.”
I relax. Anything else isn’t a big deal. “Then what is it? Did Dave’s run out of hot sauce?”
The way he looks at me is like an apology. “I saw your father.”
“Fuck. Where?”
“In town. I was stopped at the light at the corner of Massey and Sage. He was next to me driving a Ford F-150. He’s put on some weight for sure but it was him.”
“Shit.” I throw the scraper. McClane barks. “SHIT!”
Colt winces. Growing up, he had a front row seat to many epic moments featuring the elder surviving Jace Zielinski. “I watched to see which direction he’d go. As expected, he turned right.”
I nod. “He’s going to the house.”
“He won’t be able to get in. You changed the locks, remember?”
“Something tells me that won’t stop him.” I snap my fingers at the dog. “You stay here.”
Then I turn to Colt. I haven’t told him about my theory regarding the mystery of his existence. Colt’s paternity was always a topic that was off limits. I have no right to bring it up now.
“I’ll be back,” I tell him. “Don’t let our buddy over there eat any paint.”
Colt peers at the dog and nods. He’s running his hand over his beard. I’ve noticed he does that when he’s uneasy. “Hey, don’t let the shithead get to you, okay?”
It’s a little late for that. “Sure.”
The five minute drive to Gloria’s house is spent trying to come up with a dollar amount that would serve as a bribe for him to stay gone from my life permanently. Maybe I could just hand over the proceeds from the New York house when it sells.
Yet a sinking feeling tells me it wouldn’t be enough. Nothing would. My father is a parasite that will never willingly detach from its host.
The Ford truck is there, parked in a way that blocks the driveway. I just pull in behind it. He’s not inside the truck. I don’t see him anywhere.
I approach the house slowly, keeping an eye in every direction, like I’m in danger of being ambushed. Which, I suppose, isn’t too far from the truth.
The front door is still locked, just as I left it before heading over to the new property this morning. Still, I open it with caution. I can’t quite explain the dead weight of dread sitting low in my belly. My father, for all his many gruesome faults, never laid a hand on me and he’s certainly no physical threat now.
Nothing is out of place inside the house. As I walk through the living room, my eyes land on the photo of me and Tori and Colt. Tori left it propped up on the piano where the sheet music would go and I haven’t moved it. Those three kids smile at me from the past and I’m struck with the futile urge to dive into the photo and protect them from the pain of the future.
The house is so empty that the faint buzz of silence is in the air. I keep moving, down the hall and then to the back door. By now I’ve figured out that he’s likely in the backyard, yet I still exhale with a hiss when I find him sprawled on a piece of patio furniture.
My father removes his sunglasses but doesn’t sit up right away when I step outside. “About time you showed up.”
“You say that like you’ve been invited here.”
He gestures loosely. “This is my house.”
“I have some legal documents that say otherwise.”
This irritates him enough to lurch heavily to his feet. “Thanks. I needed the reminder that my own mother disinherited me.”
“Cut the crap. You weren’t disinherited. You received her retirement accounts and nearly all the cash she had in savings. You blew it all on bullshit within weeks. Now I’m the one who has the privilege of subsidizing you.”
He reddens but then evidently decides there’s nothing to be gained from arguing this point. His posture relaxes and he studies me. “You look good, kid.”
“You don’t.” Since I saw him last, he’s gained more weight in all the wrong places, his eyes look jaundiced and his skin is flushed and blotchy. I would also guess that he’s hung over as hell at the moment.
He scowls and is about to insult me back but then stops himself and glares out at the yard instead.
“I had to read on the internet that you’d come back to Texas. That’s also how I heard that you’ve thrown your career away.”
“I didn’t throw jack shit away. I wanted to quit and so I quit.”
“Can you fucking explain why you would ditch everything you’ve worked for and hide out here? You couldn’t even be bothered to tell me. For weeks I’ve been calling you, leaving messages like a broken record. What the fuck are you even doing here, Jace?”
“Well, I fixed a toilet this morning. Then I repaired a wall dent. I think I did a good job.”
He looks at me like I’m speaking in tongues. “What?”
“At my new house. It’s on a nice piece of land on the west side, not technically within town limits but close enough.”
“You’re planning to stay here? HERE? In fucking shitsville Arcana?”
“Yup. Forever.”
“JACEK!” He screeches my full name as if it will make a difference. I used to hate the fact that we shared the same name because it linked me to him in a way that I didn’t want to be linked to him. Now I don’t care one way or the other. I don’t give a damn what his name is or what he does when this conversation is finished, as long as he goes far away and doesn’t come back.
I decide to ignore the fact that he’s breathing as hard as a pig and about to explode. “The house needs a little bit of work. Colt Malene’s been helping me. He mentioned that he saw you on the road a little while ago. You remember Colt, right? My best friend. He lived next door.”
I watch my father carefully, searching for any kind of meaningful reaction. There’s none. None at all.
“Yeah,” he grumbles, “thought I recognized him.”
“Anyway,” I continue, “we’ve been fixing up the house together. I plan to install a large fruit orchard, maybe a chicken coop. Whatever Tori wants. I’ll turn it into the home she always dreamed of having.”
“Tori.” Now he’s more alert. And furious. “You don’t mean Tori Malene.”
“Yes, of course Tori Malene. I think you remember her too, don’t you? The love of my life. Right, I’m sure you remember. You must also remember that you couldn’t be decent enough to show her the slightest bit of respect or compassion. Well, you won’t get the chance to disrespect her now. I won’t let you fucking get near her.”
“Tori Malene,” he repeats and throws his arms up. “Janna’s fucking daughter.”
He disliked Tori from the beginning. Back then, I assumed the reason was nothing more significant than him being an asshole. My father would have objected to anyone who turned my head away from the football destiny he was plotting for me. Now, however, I think there’s more to it than that.
“You hate her,” I say and nod, sure that the conclusion is correct. “You hate Janna Malene. That’s why you’ve always had such a problem with Tori.”
He rolls his eyes. “I never understood what you saw in that girl back then. And now? You could have any woman you want and yet you choose to come back here to slum it up with that trash. Shit, I don’t get it. From what I recall, the girl takes after Eric’s side of the family. She’s not even that hot, didn’t get her mother’s looks at all.”
He’s lucky that he has no clue how badly I want to crush his throat right now.
“If I ever hear you talk about Tori like that again, then so help me, I will knock every one of your teeth out of your lousy mouth.”
The combination of my words and the fury in which they are delivered shocks him. He blinks and takes a step back.
“All right,” he says. “All right, I might have been a little harsh. Sorry for what I said.”
I’m not letting him off the hook so easily. He’s got things to answer for. I stand my ground and fire the question off before I can think about it too much.
“Are you Colt’s father?”
His eyes flare with surprise. A deep crease appears between his brows. Then he shrugs, deciding for once that there’s no point in lying. “Maybe.”
“Maybe? Didn’t you ever care to know one way or the other?”
Annoyance twists his mouth, like he can’t believe I’m even bringing this up. “Look, Janna was screwing around with Clay Hempstead too. We were all having a tough time. Marisol was on my case about being unable to find another job. Janna was left to fend for herself with a newborn while Eric was on his global adventure. And Clay’s wife had temporarily given him the boot. The three of us would hang out and get messed up. Shit happened. Didn’t mean for it to happen.”
“Mom figured it out, didn’t she?”
He thinks about this and his jaw sags a little. “I loved your mother. Marisol was so beautiful. Sure, we had our bad times, but I loved her. Janna knew that and just had to get in the middle, to take what someone else had. She was always like that, even in high school. I think she did it on purpose.”
“You’re seriously blaming Janna Malene for the fact that you couldn’t keep your dick contained? Janna was your friend’s wife. And you were married with a baby on the way for fuck’s sake.”
He’s pouting now, his lip jutting out like a child in the midst of a tantrum. “I told you, I loved your mother.”
I give him nothing. No words. No expression. Just a flat stare.
He raises an eyebrow. “What, you don’t believe me?”
“You don’t love anyone. And you lie more easily than you tell the truth.”
“What fucking difference does it make at this point? Colt’s a grown ass man, not a little kid in search of someone to call daddy.”
“Do you have any idea what this did to his life? Eric Malene never treated him like a son. Colt was stained with scandal before he was even born and everyone in town knew it.”
He shifts his weight. “Not a thing I can do about that now.”
“Did Gloria know?”
Finally, a fleeting look of shame. “There were rumors. And Janna went running to her after Eric came home and had a fit. My folks cornered me and asked outright.”
“But you denied it.”
“Like I said, I wasn’t the only one who’d gotten Janna Malene on her back while her husband was away. But they wouldn’t let it go. They should have just let it go.”
“So that’s why you left. And then you were too much of a coward to even visit them, not even when your father got sick.”
He crosses his arms. “I don’t know what the hell you’re complaining about, Jacek. I’ve always done right by you.”
This fucker exists in an alternate reality. He really does. He needs a quick history lesson.
“You think you were a good father? You dumped me at my grandmother’s front door like a bag of laundry, visited only when you had nothing better to do, kept my mother’s death a secret, hassled me ruthlessly about football and did your best to drive away the girl I love.” I shake my head to emphasize my contempt. “Yeah, you’re father of the century.”
He’s getting bored with the conversation. His flabby arm swings in a wild gesture. “Look at where you are in life! You think you would have gotten there if I didn’t push you until it hurts?”
“Yeah, it hurt all right. And I suppose Colt can also thank you for where he is in life.”
With a grunt of disgust, he kicks at a pebble. “Goddamn. You’re like her, just like my mother. You don’t know when to let shit go. You need to learn to leave the past in the past.”
But it’s not the past. Not really. We continue to be shaped right now by things that happened then. There’s no undoing what’s been done. What I can do is shake off the most toxic pieces of the present.
I give my father one final look and realize that I will not miss him at all. “I will arrange for a sizeable wire transfer to your account. It will be enough for you to live comfortably as long as you’re not careless enough to piss it away. And I do it only for Gloria, because she could never quite let go of you. But I can. After today, you and I will not be speaking again. This is goodbye, Dad.”
The color drains from his face. He croaks my name. “Jace.”
I turn my back. “Leave. Or you won’t even get that much.”
This is a chance I’m taking. He could very well run to the tabloids, ink a tell all book deal. There are still ways he could hurt me. And Tori. And Colt.
The strangled noise he makes now might be a sob. The last time I saw him show any emotion was the day he broke the news that my mother had left us. Even then, with our family broken and his own mistakes glaring him in the face at every turn, he could have chosen differently. He could have decided to love me more than he loved his own bitterness. He could have reached out to the little boy he very well might have fathered. There are many things he could have done and refused to. Now he’s left with nothing, which is exactly what he deserves.
“You’re my son and I love you,” he sobs, a last helpless plea that comes too late. Far too late.
Without glancing back, I walk through the patio door and lock it behind me. A minute later, as I stand in the hallway and feel the seconds ticking by, I clearly hear the engine of his truck fire up and then drive away.
Cutting that man out of my life is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I should feel better about it. If not for Gloria, then I think I would. My grandmother didn’t believe that anyone was beyond redemption. She was more generous than I am.
With this in mind, I wander into her bedroom. Her room is a work in progress. The new furniture has arrived and cheers the space up a bit. The room will be finished before Tori’s homecoming.
I’m thinking of my father’s confession and all its ramifications. Gloria knew there was a strong chance that Colt was her grandson. I suppose there wasn’t much she could do about it, not with my father unwilling to admit the truth and Colt himself being innocent of any such possibility. So she did whatever she could to show him love and support without being intrusive. She baked him cakes on his birthday. She bought him gifts. She opened her home to him. She even included him in her will. It’s only now that I understand she wasn’t just trying to reunite me with my best friend. Gloria was very aware that Colt might be my brother.
Taking a seat on the plush new area rug that stretches across the room’s center, I reach for a large wooden storage chest that was handmade by my grandfather decades earlier. It’s one of the last things I haven’t looked in. I suspect deeply personal effects are stored there and so I’ve been hesitant to rummage through it. Well, there’s no one else in line for this task and no better time to get it done. I lift the lid and the hinges groan.
The contents are an eclectic treasure trove, fragments of Gloria’s colorful life. High school yearbooks, community theater programs, pressed flower bouquets, a yellowed wedding dress, love notes from my grandfather, childish artwork, some of which must be mine and the rest likely created by my father. There are random objects like smooth river rocks and the remnants of a bird’s nest, things she saved with care because they meant something to her, although I’ll never know what. I pause over a manila envelope labeled, simply, JACEK. Considering the number of Jaceks in Gloria’s life, I can’t guess from the outside which one of us she’s referring to.
The metal prong flips open with ease and a collection of papers spill out. I recognize them instantly, all of them. Never in my life did I expect to see them again. They were torn to pieces and tossed into a garbage bin in Bredon a decade ago.
McClane’s bark echoes from outside, followed by the sound of the front door swinging open. The dog sniffs me out in a matter of seconds and presses his wet nose into my hand, ruffling the stack of pages I’m holding.
Colt shows up in the doorway. “I wanted to check whether you needed any backup, but I can see his truck is gone.”
“Yeah, he went with it.”
Colt nods and then notices the papers in my hand. His expression shifts to amazement and he comes closer. “Holy shit. Is that what I think it is?”
Some of the pages are dirty. All still appear to be legible, thanks to the painstaking effort someone made to flatten them out and tape them back together. “It’s a story I wrote in high school. Tori gave it back to me the day we broke up. You probably don’t remember, but you watched me rip it up and throw it away in front of your house. I didn’t realize Tori saw that, but I guess she must have.”
“No, she didn’t see,” Colt says with certainty.
I stare up at him and slowly climb to my feet. “It was you.”
He nods. “I waited until you were gone and then I grabbed the pieces out of the trash. They were a freaking mess. Took me hours and hours to tape them back together. The next week I cut school one afternoon and hitched a ride to bring them to Gloria. I figured you might want them back someday.”
I sift through the pages. Before this, my stories were mostly dystopian horror tales that featured loads of brain eating gore and swashbuckling fight scenes. With this one, for the first time I took a crack at a deeper plotline. There was still all the end-of-the-world drama with the twitching undead and unkempt villains aplenty but there was more than that. Two best friends risked all and braved a horrific landscape on a rescue mission. The girl they were desperate to save was loved by them both for different reasons. Along the way, they were separated. They suffered. They fought. The story I had in mind was one of romance and friendship and family and triumph but I never finished it. I left them, all three main characters, in a state of perilous limbo, their fates uncertain. They deserve better. They deserve a happy ending.
“You were right,” I tell Colt. “I did want this back.”
A passage catches my eye and, to my surprise, I remember writing it. I remember sitting at my bedroom desk and scribbling out the dialogue longhand before typing it out on my laptop.
The two buddies were hiking through the volcanic wasteland their hometown had become and recalling their vanished high school days.
Jared squints across the barren terrain. “Does this look like the view from the fifty yard line to you?”
Cale considers the idea. “Can’t tell for sure. Why don’t you try screaming your head off like Coach and see if that jogs my memory? Tell me that if I don’t push until it hurts then I’m not doing life right. Make sure you spit like a fucking sprayer hose the entire time.”
Jared laughs in spite of the constant threat of danger. As if the menace of mutant super-strong band geeks with an appetite for human organs wasn’t enough, now there’s The Horde to deal with. Still human, unlike a lot of the things crawling the earth these days. But nasty as fuck. Last week a guy stumbled into their camp, wild-eyed and missing six of his fingers. He’d been caught by The Horde while out scavenging and they kept him in a cage with a bunch of other unlucky souls. The Horde leaders cut human fingers off to use as poker game currency. Rumor is, they have thousands.
Yup, they’re nasty as fuck all right. And now they’ve got Tami.
Remembering this comes with a surge of terror that nearly sends Jared to his knees. He looks at the sky. It’s never really sunny anymore. It’s either dark or semi-dark. Sometimes the sky gets kind of a reddish hue, which is the way it looks right now.
“Night is falling,” Jared says to his friend.
Cale nods. “Yup.”
“We won’t be stopping, right?”
“Nope.”
“And we’ll get her back.” He needs to hear that Cale believes this too.
Cale stops walking. “Of course we’ll get her back. My sister’s stronger than anyone I know.”
“I love her.” Jared has never said the words out loud. He should have said them to Tami when he had the chance. He needs to get the chance again.
Cale nods. “I know you do. So keep walking, Jared. Keep walking.”
When I lower the pages, I see Colt has been patiently watching while I read. He seems pleased that his ten-year-old good deed is getting some appreciation.
“Thanks for this,” I tell him.
He smiles and then cocks his head. “Just so you know, I never hated you, Jace. It was not possible.”
“I never hated you either.”
He takes a step toward the door. “Well, I know it’s almost time for your daily call with Tori so I’ll leave you alone.”
“Want to go grab some takeout after?”
“Sure. Give my sister my love.” He retreats into the hallway.
“Hey, Colt?”
He pops his head back in. “What’s up?”
I almost don’t have enough nerve to ask. “Do you ever consider finding out who your father is?”
His chin drops. He’s thinking. He thinks for a long, silent minute. After a deep breath, he raises his head and meets my eye.
“Not today,” he says.
Maybe he suspects and maybe he doesn’t. Either way, he’s left the room.
I sit down on the bed and neatly arrange the loose pages before carefully inserting them back into the envelope.
Then I check my phone and get excited. In two minutes my girl will be calling.
My heart leaps at the first ring and I answer in record time.
Tori is breathless today. She has a surprise and she can’t wait to tell me.
“Jace. I’m coming home.”