Lost & Found: A Charm for Trinity Ch. 02

She paused to gather herself, then continued after a few breaths.

"Suddenly your father was there, I don't know where he came from, but he dragged that bastard off of me and just beat the hell out of him. He dragged him out into the yard and beat him unconscious. Marnie Kulick from across the road saw what had happened and she told me how Scott had done the same thing to him just a few weeks earlier, when we were still up in Billings, and that's when I finally believed you, Trini; my pastor tried to seduce me, and when it didn't work, he tried to rape me, and he would have raped you if Scotty hadn't been there..."

She was crying now, her hands white-knuckled and trembling, and I was torn; part of me wanted to take her hand and reassure her, but part of me was grimly satisfied that she'd found out the hard way just what a low-life fucker her precious Pastor Bell was, and that was the part of me I'm still ashamed of to this day. Mom dried her eyes and looked into mine.

"Your father was going to kill him; he stomped on him and beat him until he was just all over blood. Sheriff Boone had to drag him off and cuff him, because I think your daddy really was trying to kill him. When word got out of what your daddy did to the bastard, and why, women all over the parish came forward; he raped at least six other women, he tried to rape you, Trini, thank God Scott was there to save you, and he would have raped me, too..."

I was grimly unsurprised; leopards don't change their spots that easily.

"What happened to him?" I heard myself ask, and Mom looked at me, her eyes wide and innocent, and just a hint of satisfaction in her voice.

"Deputy Carl Haas was taking him from the jail to the court-house for arraignment but somehow he got free and tried to grab Carl's gun; Carl shot him. He had to empty his gun into him to stop him. Bell's dead. It's kind of fitting, and just, too; Carl's wife was one of the poor women that bastard raped..."

I knew there was more, and Mom knew I knew there was more to it, too, but I also knew she'd never say another word; sometimes justice needs to be quick and harsh.

Her expression softened.

"Trinity, Scott, I came to tell my babies I'm sorry, I was wrong, I was foolish, and I want to ask your forgiveness, both of you, but especially you, Trini; you were my little girl, and I never treated you like the precious little girl you were, I left that to Scotty, you were right about that; please forgive me, baby, both of you, I was so blind, and so wrong, and I'm sorry."

Scotty looked at me, indecision in his eyes, but also...sorrow, and maybe, just maybe, a tinge of guilt as well. I think he might have seen the same thing in my eyes too; Mom had apologized, not once, but several times, and it didn't feel right, or good, or satisfying, making her do it again and again. It felt mean. I'd had my say now. She'd finally heard our side, so I was satisfied. Scotty nodded slightly, and I knew what he meant. He looked at Mom, and that hostile expression was gone; it still wasn't exactly friendly, but at least he didn't look angry anymore.

"Okay Mom, you say you're sorry, and I believe you. I know what Trini and I did was wrong, and for that, and for not telling you, I'm truly sorry too. We were wrong to do what we did; we didn't stop to think what it would do to the family, we were just so caught up in each other. What happened to you, well, that must have been real scary, and I do feel for you; even after all the stuff you said, you didn't deserve that, no-one does, and I'm real sorry it happened to you."

He paused to run his hand through his hair, raking it back with his fingers, the way he does when he's thinking.

"But there's one thing you got to understand, Mom; Trini and me, we're a family now; this is our home, and we can't come back, not like we are now. Trini's not my sister, she can't be, not anymore, and I'm not her brother, either; she's my wife now, and the biggest part of my life. I won't give her up just to please Dad, and if we can only be your kids if we let each other go, then I'm sorry, but it's not gonna happen. Sorry ma, that's just how it is now."

Mom actually smiled.

"I know, Scotty, and I won't ask you to do that; I can see how much you mean to each other, and I won't ever try and come between you again; look where it got me last time!"

Even Scotty smiled at that, and Mom's face brightened.

"Look, babies, I know now and accept that what you have is real, and I won't ask you to do anything except what's right for you. Too much has happened to keep this up any longer, and I won't even try; you both have to be what you have to be. I only came here to see my children; two years without you has been sheer Hell; the house is silent, I wake up at night and think I hear your voices, I go and check your rooms, just in case I heard right, but you're not there, you're never there, only emptiness and silence, and I sit and cry there alone because it's my fault."

She paused to sigh, her eyes unfocused as she looked away from us, looking at nothing at all.

"It's just your daddy and me, alone in that house; there's no laughter, no happiness, just regret and sorrow, and I can't live like that anymore; I need my children. Your father doesn't know how to ask your forgiveness, but he's hurting that he hurt you; all he does is go to work, come home, and sit silently with your pictures in his hands, looking at both of you over and over."

Her fingertips drummed lightly on the side of her empty cup, a habit I remembered so well from my childhood, usually a sign that a lecture was on the way, or another list of my shortcomings, but now it was different, now she looked contrite, caring, like a mom's supposed to.

"He's hurting really badly, and he misses you so much; we know we don't have the right to expect you to come back into our lives, but I know his sincerest wish is that somehow there will come a way for him to unsay what he said, to say instead what he should have said, to be your daddy again, and to have both of you back in our lives again. As for me, for two years now I've gone over and over in my mind what I said to you, regretting every single stupid word, and if I too could find a way to turn back the clock so I never said those nasty, hurtful, hateful things to you, believe me, I would."

She stopped talking while she dabbed at her eyes, then smiled up at us again.

"But I can't. All I can do is ask you both forgive me one day for being such a bigoted, intolerant fool. I just want you both to be happy, and I can see you are. The door's still open at home, if you want to come see us, whether as Scott and Trini, my kids, or as my son or daughter and their partner, we'll be there waiting. I love you, you're my kids, and I lost you, all I want is a chance to find you again."

Scott sat on one of the easy chairs, and I perched on the arm next to him, his arm around my waist. As I sat there, I realized Mom could see up my short skirt, and I flushed slightly, because I wasn't wearing any panties; but then, I never did at this time of day, not when Scotty came in from work, because the first thing he always did was allow me to drag him into the bedroom so we could make love, our own signature way of reconnecting after a whole long day apart. Mom didn't even miss a beat, and I mentally tipped my hat at her for showing, at last, a little savoir-faire.

"Scotty, Trini, I know what your father and I did was wrong, and we want to fix it; will you give us a chance? That's all I'm asking, so please think about it; this time we'll listen, this time it will be different, this time we'll be there for you, I promise..."

Scotty looked at me, checking out my eyes; I knew he could almost read my mind at times, and this was one of those times. I was willing to consider giving them a chance; perhaps enough time had passed to temper the hurt a little. Mom had made the first move, which kind of gave me a hint as to how serious she was about reconciling, and I think he saw that in my eyes. He looked back at her, his eyes no longer hard and unforgiving, but there was still mistrust in his voice.

"Look, Mom, I know what you're saying, and I guess I do still love you, even after all those things you said about us, but most of all about Trini, and you have to understand, it's kinda hard to let all of it go just like that; we have to talk about this, and we'll have to sleep on it for a few days. We'll call you Saturday morning, that's three days from now. If you don't hear from us, well, I guess you'll know what our answer is. I'm sorry, but that's the best we can do, Mom, take it or leave it."

Mom smiled sadly, not looking at us, instead running her finger pensively around the rim of her coffee cup.

"I'll take it Scotty; I'll respect your decision, no matter what it is. I hope you do let me back in, even though I have no right to ask, not after the way we hurt you, but I'll wait for your call and hope for the best. Just remember, whatever you decide, I love you both, I'll always love you."

She stood up, as Scotty and I did, and she made to leave. As she did, there came a knock on the door, so I opened it, to find Stella standing there holding my wrap.

"Honey, you left this at the parlor..." she trailed off as she saw Mom standing there. Her eyes widened.

"Stella?" said Mom, her eyebrow raised in surprise, and Stella flicked a glance at me, then looked at Mom again.

"Maudie? What are you doing here...?" she trailed off, then did a double take as she looked from Mom to me, and back to Mom.

"Wait a second, are you Trini's mom? I never knew that...this is...well I'll be damned!"

Scotty and I exchanged glances. They knew each other? I had to get to the bottom of this.

"Stella, how do you know my mom?" I asked, and Stella grinned.

"Maudie and I went to school together in Springfield, honey; Maudie's daddy is my mom's cousin, your mom and I are second cousins once removed, I think, on the Hennessey side; how weird is that? You ran all the way over here and you still found family!"

Mom reached out to touch Stella's arm.

"However they got here, thank you, Stella, thank you for looking after them for me!"

For a moment, I thought she'd try to hug, or even kiss, us and I wasn't ready for that, not yet. I think she sensed that, so, with a wistful smile, she said her farewells. Scotty and I stood with Stella and watched her leave, then once more exchanged glances.

"Well that was weird!" grinned Stella, "From what you told me, I expected some bible-thumping, vinegar-faced old buzzard; instead, your Mom's my cousin and old school friend!"

Stella marvelled at the coincidence, obviously completely taken with the idea that we'd been family all along.

"Maudie sure must have changed; she was the class clown; every boy carried a torch for her, and any trouble you could get into, Maudie was probably the one who got into it first! Your mom, Jonah Hollister, Sarah Novak, your mom's big sister Kathleen, Myra Donnelly: we did everything together, all of us cousins together in Springfield. I often wondered what became of Maudie; Sarah, Myra and I were still just kids when her family moved out of state. Kathleen fell out with your gramma; I don't know what happened there; last I heard she was in New York, married to a firefighter, but I didn't know where, or who, and I didn't know where your mom's family had moved to."

She paused, her eyes soft and far away.

"I went on vacation one summer, was just turned fourteen, to my aunt in Santa Fe; when I came back your mom's family had gone; they just upped and moved out of state, some big family bust-up, but I never got the straight of it. No-one would talk about it; about all I got was that Kay was married somewhere in New York, but it wasn't really a safe subject to talk about. I'm guessing Maudie married George Corden; he must have tracked her down; if anyone would, I'd have bet it would be Georgie, he had it bad for your mom all the way from kindergarten. I should have known from your name. Well I never, Maudie Donnelly's your mom, I still can't believe it! You do know your Gramma Kathleen's baby sister still lives in Springfield? Rosie Moran, she married that no-account Jerry Dolan..."

*

After dinner that night, we talked about what Mom had offered. I was unsure, now that she was gone; without her there in front of me, I was able to feel a little more objective, and to be honest, after Daddy's hypocritical denouncement of me, even thinking about having him back in my life made me uneasy.

Scotty was right, I wasn't his sister anymore, he couldn't even think of me as his sister, only as his wife, and there was no way in his head for me to stop being his wife and become his sister again. I felt exactly the same way; I could only think of Scotty as my husband now. Too much of my life was invested in him and our life now as spouses to ever be siblings again.

Going home would be a disastrous backward step: it could destroy us, and that was something I could never allow; for good or ill, Scott was my husband now, I was his wife, and I was going to make sure it stayed that way.

Scotty was inclined to be a little more flexible; he wasn't prepared to entertain any negotiation of our status, and he was only prepared to accept the olive branch on condition they made no attempt to consider or deal with us separately as their 'kids'; that boat had sailed, and we were now Scott and Trini, husband and wife.

If they balked at that, well, the door was there, we could walk out the way we came in, and nothing would have changed for us; we'd still be together, still be a couple, and Mom and Dad would have to deal with it or do without us, period.

That night, Scotty made tender love to me, none of the frenzied fucking we were so fond of; this night seemed different, somehow, as though telling our mother that we were husband and wife had finally made it so in fact, and we made long, slow, gentle love to affirm to ourselves that our relationship was everything it should be. Scott was my husband for real, and as he plowed his thick cock relentlessly into me, I squeezed and clasped him inside me, willing him to fill me up, to make me his wife in reality.

His kisses seemed to have a different quality too; always tender, always freighted with love and desire for me, this night there seemed to be something extra, a part of his heart that had opened up fully at last and was sharing itself with me, and with that understanding came orgasm, a blinding intensity of overpowering love and need coalescing into one huge explosion of glittering, sparkling light and breathless, gasping fulfilment.

*

We spoke with Mom on the Saturday morning, as we'd promised, Scott setting out exactly what and who we were, not laying down the law, Scotty doesn't do that, but making sure Mom and Daddy knew we'd changed, and grown, and were no longer subject to their rules, beliefs and prejudices; we had lives of our own that we were willing to share with them, if they'd only meet us half-way.

Mom had cried a little, but she'd also sounded happy that we were going to work on a way to reconcile together. Dad was still unaware that Mom had come to see us, so now she had to find a way to break it to him, and give him a way to make that apology she said he wanted to make; that was good enough for both of us. Mom had promised that they wouldn't make an issue of what we were now. They were past that. Now we had to work on learning how to love each other again.

Scotty and I spent the rest of the day shopping in Springfield, buying a birthday present for Stella, and generally having a lazy day. There was one especially nice mall in town, so I got to do what I seldom had the opportunity to do: roam around from store to store, try-on anything I liked, and buy what I wanted. I had my own credit cards, but Scotty never audited my spending, because he knew I was even more scared of debt than he was, and I very rarely took the opportunity to splurge, but today he'd insisted I treat myself as much as I wanted; he said he just loved the way my eyes shone when I shopped, so I took him at his word.

While I mall-raided, Scotty went off and wandered around the hardware superstore opposite the mall, a huge DolanCo, which is where I found him a couple hours later, staring wistfully at a display of fancy ride-on lawnmowers.

"One day, baby, one day...!" I promised him, leading him away from the gaggle of power tool-obsessed husbands and fathers who always congregate in places like that, staring with misty-eyed adoration bordering on worship at weed-whackers, snow-blowers, chipper/shredders and chainsaws. He looked so sad, leaving all that gleaming, turbo-charged powered equipment that I took pity on him and showed him the bag with the Victoria's Secret logo; that caught his attention and took his mind off lawnmowers; now he could hardly wait to get to the car.

As we walked across the parking lot to the car, a late model Escalade slid up next to the Torino, Scotty's pride and joy. A tall, beautiful girl with big gray-hazel eyes and bright red-auburn hair stepped out and looked at our car, cocking an eyebrow at Scotty.

"Yours? Nice, very nice!" she smiled, and then smiled even wider at Scotty, completely ignoring me. Scotty's eyes narrowed at the slight.

"Yeah, right, whatever, thanks, c'mon babe, let's get outta here!" he grunted, turning his back on her while taking my bags and putting them in the trunk, then opening the passenger door and handing me in. I glanced back at the redheaded girl as she stood looking at us, and I saw hurt and sadness flicker across her face before she schooled her features, looking at him impassively while he ignored her completely, instead climbing into the car and wheeling away from the parking lot without a backward glance. Obviously, she was used to dealing with rejection and I wondered why a girl who had so much going for her would need a skill like that. From the set look on Scotty's face, I knew that something had happened, so I slid up next to him and squeezed his arm gently.

"What was that about, baby? Who was that girl?" I asked him, and Scotty grimaced, dropping his hand from the wheel to squeeze and rub my thigh.

"That was the owner of DolanCo's daughter, Casey, or Stacey Dolan, something like that; she's a real piece of work, if the stories I heard about what she and her family did to her brother are even half-true; stories get around, and they all say the same thing: that she's a spoiled, vindictive little rich bitch who thinks she's a princess because her daddy and his family own everything in this town. I'm sure glad I don't live in a place that has to put up with the likes of them!"

I was intrigued by all this, and I had to know more; that name was familiar, too; where had I heard it before?

"What did they do to him, Scotty?"

He grimaced again, looking straight ahead as he drove.

"Bad stuff, baby, some real bad stuff; the story goin' around is that there was something wrong with the brother, or he wasn't quite right, I dunno, so they kind of...treated him like he was a freak or something, acted like they hated him, never gave him anything. I heard he used to walk around in beat-up, raggedy old clothes because they wouldn't buy him anything, and they're the richest family in the state. I also heard they did all kinds of other mean stuff to him, too. This was their son, her brother, but the story is they just didn't want him around, and I guess they were hoping he'd disappear, or drop dead, or just go and never come back; they made his life a fucking misery, and she was the worst of them."

He stopped talking to run his fingers through his hair, something he only does when he's agitated.

"No-one in this town did or said anything. Well, they wouldn't, I suppose, not when they all work for that family and have to keep their mouths shut if they want to keep putting food on their tables, but even so, you'd think one person, just one person in this whole damned town might have done something, anything for that poor kid; but no-one did; no-one even tried. The whole fucking town just looked the other way while his high and mighty family made his life hell, so I guess they're as bad as that family, and they pretty much deserve each other. That's why I'm glad we live in another state, well away from people like this; what happened here, to that poor guy, it sort of makes what happened with us look pretty tame, now that I think about it."