I walk with Riona down along an avenue of birch trees. Their leaves have fully changed from green to gold, later in the year than usual, as it’s been a warm autumn after a lengthy Indian Summer.
I’m surprised that Mom told Riona about Ellis, but also glad in a way I can’t quite express to her. It’s a story I wouldn’t have told without my mother’s permission. And I want Riona to know it. I want her to know everything about me.
As well, it shows that my mother thinks highly of Riona. She trusted her with our family secrets. She obviously has intuited how I feel about Riona, though I haven’t explicitly told her.
The other part of the story is something that our family has never shared with anyone. I never expected to tell it myself, even to a future partner. But Riona is different. As she said, her family has its own dark secrets, its own history of violence. I know she won’t be shocked by anything I tell her. I can trust her to take the story to her grave. Only a mafia daughter understands true discretion.
So I’m not nervous as we walk along.
I’m just rolling the story over in my head, trying to think how best to explain.
“My mother had a friend,” I say. “A boy she knew from the time she was little. Similar to Bo and Duke. They went to elementary school together. Eventually his family moved back to North Carolina, to Cherokee land. But my mother and Waya still kept in touch—he would visit her when his family came back to Silver Run for any reason. Though at the time she got married, she hadn’t seen Waya in almost three years.
“She also had two younger brothers—maybe she told you?”
“One of them was named Abott, and he was big like Grady, right?” I say.
“That’s exactly right. Uncle Abott. The other was Uncle Earl. At the time she got married, they were only thirteen and fifteen years old. But they were both tall, and hardened, if you know what I mean.”
I nod. I’ve never experienced poverty, but I’ve seen boys become men at a young age.
“Before Mom got married, she was still seeing her siblings regularly. Still taking care of them. As soon as she moved into Ellis’s house, he cut her off from them entirely. They weren’t allowed to call or visit. And my mother was barely allowed out of the house at all. Never without Ellis right beside her.
“Of course, they were worried about her. And not just because there was nobody to take care of them anymore. They tried to slip notes to her, when Ellis would bring her into town. And two or three times they tried to visit.
“There were gates all around the property, and cameras. Uncle Abott climbed the wall and managed to speak to her when she was pregnant with me. Right before she was about to give birth, actually.
“She tried to tell him that she was alright, and he needed to leave her alone. But she was wearing a white shirt, and he could see bruises all over her arms, even through the shirt.
“So he left. But he called Waya. He said, ‘Celia needs help. Will you help her?’ And Waya drove in that night, with two of his sisters.
“They waited outside the property all night, till the early morning, with Abott and Earl in the car, too. They were scared, arguing over whether they should go in right away. They were worried that Ellis might be hurting her, if he’d seen Abott on the camera. Which, of course, was exactly what was happening. But they also worried he might do something worse to her if he caught them trying to break in. My mother had told them that he had dozens of guns in the house—one in every room.
“So they waited, staying up all night. Then, in the morning, Ellis didn’t leave for work at the usual time. They debated again what to do. Finally Ellis’s black BMW pulled away, with him sitting in the driver’s seat.
“They waited for him to get all the way away from the property. Then one of Waya’s sisters went to the door. They knew Ellis wouldn’t recognize her on the camera.
“She had to climb the fence. Then she sprinted up to the door. She rang the bell, terrified in case nobody answered. In case my mother couldn’t answer.
“But she did. My mother peeked through the window, then opened the door. Her face was so battered and swollen that she couldn’t even really see Ama, only out of one eye.
“Ama said, ‘We’re leaving right now. What do you want to take?’ And my mother said, ‘Nothing. I don’t want a single thing from this house.’ She stripped off her wedding ring and left it on the floor in the front hall.
“They had to run across the property, knowing that Ellis was probably already speeding home as fast as he could. They got to the wall and my mother couldn’t climb it, because of how pregnant she was. Ama got down on her hands and knees so my mother could get on her back, then she boosted her up. Waya was on the other side to catch her.
“They drove off as fast as they could. They’d left the car down the road, out of sight of the cameras, so Ellis wouldn’t know who had taken her.”
I pause. The next bit is the part that nobody outside my family knows. Or at least, nobody still alive. I look over at Riona. We’ve been walking side by side all this time, not touching each other, but the closest thing to touching. Our hands only an inch apart.
Riona looks tense and expectant. Her face is paler than usual, I think out of sympathy. I know she likes my mother, and doesn’t enjoy thinking about her beaten, battered, and heavily pregnant.
It’s strange to think that I was technically present for all of these events. Just a nearly-grown fetus, carried along for the ride. I don’t remember any of it, obviously. I’m only going off what my mother told me after I found her wedding certificate in the attic.
She was willing to tell me everything, once I knew the truth. She described it all in perfect detail, and Waya added anything she didn’t know, or couldn’t remember.
It’s all burned into my brain. It was the most unexpected thing that’s ever happened to me. I was so safe and secure in my life. I had never suspected for a second that Waya wasn’t my “real” father.
God, I was so angry at them. I’m ashamed of it now. I can picture them standing there, my mother sick with guilt and regret, Waya looking at me with his gentle dark eyes. Both of them trying to say anything they could to comfort me. And me shouting at them, wrapped up in my own emotions without a thought for what they’d been through, or what they were feeling.
It was dumb luck I found the wedding certificate. It was all folded up, stuffed into a folder with a bunch of documents. I wasn’t looking for it. If you can believe it, I was looking for an old set of ninja turtle action figures I’d stashed up there, thinking maybe I could sell them on eBay for a couple bucks.
Instead I found the old certificate, which was actually a copy ordered later, so my mother could finish the paperwork to get remarried.
She looked horrified at the sight of it. Like it was a snake that might bite her. I’m sure she wished she’d thrown it away. At the time, I wished she had, too.
Now I don’t regret that I found it. I only regret how I reacted.
Some things can’t be taken back.
I’ve taken too long to continue, lost in thought. Riona reaches out and touches my arm, saying, “Are you alright?”
I clear my throat. “Yes. Of course. Where was I? Oh, right . . . My mother wanted Waya to stay with her. She was so scared. But he passed her over to his sisters, and they drove back over the border to Cherokee land, not stopping once. Waya stayed with my uncles.
“The next bit was the tricky part. They had to make sure that everyone in Silver Run knew that my mother had run off, and that Ellis was looking for her. But they couldn’t let him actually get close to finding her.
“So Waya, Uncle Abott and Uncle Earl, and some of my mother’s younger siblings kept watch everywhere they could. It was easier than they hoped, because Ellis was in a fucking rage. He went to the sheriff and reported my mother as kidnapped. He went to the bar where she used to work. He went to her old high school and her friends’ houses. My grandparents’ house, too.
“He screamed at them and threatened them. Even smashed a couple windows in their house. Beat my grandfather within an inch of his life, though he was probably too high to notice. Then Ellis grabbed one of the youngest siblings—my aunt Kelly. She was only four at the time. He grabbed her and acted like he was going to drag her out of the house. Maybe he thought he’d keep her hostage or something, to force my mother to come back.”
“Jesus,” Riona whispers.
“Well, Uncle Abott came running into the house with his junior league baseball bat and he said, ‘Let go of her or I’ll crack your fuckin’ skull.’ Ellis let go of Aunt Kelly and left.
“They followed him around for three days. At one point he came face-to-face with my auntie Lane as she was tailing him outside a gas station, but he just looked right through her and kept going. It was ironic, because Ellis had given her a skateboard as a gift when he was pursuing my mother. But he didn’t even recognize her face. Maybe he was just too enraged to notice.
“Anyway, on the fourth day, some people in town were spreading the rumor that my mother had been seen on Cherokee land. Ellis hadn’t heard it yet as far as my uncles knew, but they also knew it was only a matter of time until he did.
“So they put a slow leak in the tires of his car while he was eating at the bar where my mother used to work. He kept going back there to threaten the owners and harass the other customers. He bribed a few, too. It didn’t work—if anybody knew where my mother was, they didn’t tell him.
“Ellis got back in his car, more than a little tipsy. He started speeding down the road, back to his property. At first he didn’t notice that the tires were getting flat. Waya and my two uncles were following along behind him, in a borrowed car. Ellis kept speeding, even when the back right tire was wobbling and flopping.
“Finally the car started to fishtail, and he swerved and went off the road. He rammed the BMW into the space between two trees. It was jammed in there tight. So tight that he had to climb over the seat and go out the back door.
“He had a big cut on his forehead, but otherwise he was fine. Just swearing and complaining. Still dressed in one of his fancy suits.
“Waya pulled up and said, ‘You need a lift?’
“Ellis might have been suspicious if he hadn’t been drinking. But he just said, ‘Yeah,’ not even saying thanks. And he started walking over to the car. He got about five feet away and he stopped and squinted at the car windows. I think he saw that there was somebody in the back seat.
“Waya opened the driver’s side door, and Ellis reached into his jacket, like he was gonna grab a gun. He had one, but he’d lost it in the crash. By the time he realized, my two uncles and Waya had all jumped out of the car and surrounded him.”
I pause, glancing over at Riona to see if she knows what’s coming next. I can tell by her solemn expression that she does.
“They dragged him off into the woods. Uncle Abott wanted to kill him slowly. He wanted to cut and burn and beat Ellis, like Ellis had done to my mother. But Waya said no. It would be messy and noisy and leave too much evidence. And he said, ‘We’re not like him.’
“So they just marched Ellis a full ten miles out into the woods and shot him in the back of the head. Then they dug a hole and buried the body under enough dirt and rock that no animal would dig it up. Waya and Abott did it. Uncle Earl stayed behind to move their car, in case someone came along and saw the crash.
“Then Waya drove my uncles home, and he went back to his own house, where my mother was staying with his sisters. She went into labor a week later.
“After I was born, he told her what they had done. He didn’t want to upset her, but he didn’t want her worrying about Ellis finding her, either.
“She wanted to go back home to her siblings. Waya convinced her to stay. He said they had to wait—to make sure there wasn’t going to be any trouble for her. He thought it would look suspicious if she came back home, like she knew Ellis was dead.
“Ellis was reported missing at first. His work called it in. The sheriff found Ellis’s car shortly after. There was a hunt through the woods—they thought maybe he hit his head in the accident and wandered off, confused. But they didn’t think an injured man could wander far, so they only went a few miles in. They found some blood on the ground. So some people thought an animal had got him.
“Everybody knew he’d been drinking at the bar. He wasn’t a local, and he wasn’t liked. So nobody looked too hard for him.
“Meanwhile my mother stayed where she was. She fell in love with Waya, or fell in love with him all over again. They’d always cared about each other, growing up.
“Uncle Earl came to live with her, so did a couple of her youngest siblings. She got pregnant with Grady. Married Waya. Then a couple years later, she had Bo.
“Ellis stayed a missing person for several years. Then eventually, his work wanted to claim their insurance policy on him, so they did the necessary footwork to get him declared dead.
“When they did, my mother found out that she was the beneficiary of a pretty hefty insurance policy herself. Plus Ellis’s estate. He had no will, so it all went to her.
“She sold the house they’d lived in together without ever stepping foot inside it again. She used the money to buy the ranch. We all moved here.
“Of course, none of us kids knew anything about what had happened, or where the money had come from. Kids don’t think about things like that. We were all just excited to have such a big house. Except for Bo—she was pissed that we were leaving. She loved living on Cherokee land, with all our dad’s family around us.
“He used to take us back all the time. That’s how Bo and Duke stayed so close. They were cradle mates—born the same week in August. My mother and Duke’s mother became close friends during their pregnancies, and they’d put the babies in the same hammock together to nap.
“Bo and Duke used to fight like wild animals as they got older. But they were best friends, too.”
“They got in a fight at the dance,” Riona tells me. “Duke was dancing with another girl.”
I roll my eyes. “I guess he’s desperate. Trying to make Bo realize that she’s jealous.”
“You think they have romantic feelings for each other?”
“I know they do. You can’t have a best friend that you’re attracted to. That’s what being in love is. It’s wanting to fuck your best friend.”
Riona laughs. “That’s all love is?”
“That’s what it should be.”
She looks up at me with those sea-glass eyes, then drops them again just as quick.
“What?” I say. “What is it?”
“I was just thinking . . . there’s a third part.”
“What?”
“You can fuck a lot of people. And anyone can be a friend. But there’s a third part to love . . . admiring the person.”
“Admiring them?”
“Yes. That’s a lot more rare. There’s only a few people I really respect.”
In this moment, I want more than anything to be one of those people. To be respected and admired by a woman like Riona is a real accomplishment. I know she doesn’t give her approval easily.
“Do you count me in that favored few?” I say, trying to keep my tone casual.
“Yes,” Riona says evenly. “I do.”
The way my chest swells up, you’d think I just won the Kentucky Derby.
“Thank you,” I say. For some reason, my throat feels tight. “You know that I think the world of you, Riona.”
“I do know that,” Riona says, her green eyes looking up at me, clear and wide. “You’re better than me at showing what you feel.”
“I think I’ve got a pretty good guess with you,” I say. Then I grin. “Most of the time, at least.”
“What am I thinking right now?” Riona asks quietly.
I know what I wish she were thinking. But I don’t know if I have the courage to ask her.
I gently touch her cheek, our faces only inches apart. Her expression is more vulnerable than I’ve ever seen before. I don’t know how I ever called this woman an Ice Queen. Riona isn’t only one thing. Once you chip past the frost, she has a whole universe inside of her.
I open my mouth to speak, but before I can say a word, Bo comes jogging up to us, red-faced and irritated.
“Shelby’s having the baby! Mom’s going over to their house to watch the boys, and I’m gonna drive them to the hospital. I’ll probably stay there in case they need anything—so Grady doesn’t have to leave.”
“What do you need me to do?” I say.
“Handle the horses. Get ‘em all fed and put away for the night.”
“Sure thing.” I nod.
“Why’d you two walk so damn far?” Bo complains, turning around to jog back to the house.
I look back at Riona, wanting to pursue our conversation. But the moment has passed.
She says, “We better hurry back, sounds like.”
“Yeah,” I say. “You’re right.”
