Always Page 2

  Graham reached over both of us to open the glove compartment. “Here,” he said, tossing a box in my lap. “I was going to save your Mother’s Day gift for later, but maybe it will convince you to be on your best behavior.”

  I tore off the wrapping paper, trying my best to conceal my disappointment when I saw that the box was red instead of an all too familiar bird’s egg blue. I suppose Roger had gotten me a little spoiled with his indulgence of my penchant for all things Tiffany’s.

  “Thank you,” I smiled up at him, hesitating over my fear to open the tacky red box.

  “Go on and open it up,” he said.

  I laughed nervously and yanked a shred of paper from Amalie’s mouth. “Eyes on the road.”

  All too quickly he pulled into the restaurant parking lot and turned to me with the engine still running. “I hope you like them.”

  There was no putting it off, I popped the lid off the box and was pleasantly surprised by a lovely pair of pearl earrings.

  “I found them when I was out diving and then took them to have them set just for you.”

  “I love them.” And I really did. “If you’ll just hold your daughter a moment.”

  He took Amalie from me and I removed my current earrings, huge chunky almost too large to look real diamond studs, a gift from Roger of course, and carefully swapped them for the much classier delicate pearls.

  His eyes lingered on the diamonds. “Do you really like them?”

  “They’re gorgeous.” I snapped the lid closed and casually tossed the box into the diaper bag. “Much nicer than those gaudy faux diamonds,” I lied, knowing good and well that Roger had spent an arm and a leg on them because I had taken then to a jewelry store to have them appraised the very day he’d dumped me back in 1963. I’d considered selling them, but… I sighed… I loved those rocks.

  Graham got out of the car and came around to open the door for me. I reached for his hand and felt a stab of guilt that seared all the way through my gut. I had no right to get that emotional over a stupid pair of earrings when I had a man as incredible as Graham who loved me enough to introduce his bastard daughter to a mother who believed her oldest son had hung the moon.

  “Wait a minute.” I took off my pentacle pendant and dug into my purse for the pearl necklace. I found the pearls and dangled them in my hand. “Could you fasten these for me?”

  His face lit up, those amazing dimples of his popping when he smiled.

  “Here, let me hold her,” Graham’s mother said, reaching out to take Amalie.

  The kid who normally shrieks like a banshee when being handed off to anyone other than her Da Da or my best friend, Carmella, giggled happily and hugged onto her grandma like she’d known her since the day she was born.

  “I’ll go on and get us a table,” she said, already taking off without us.

  Graham worked the clasp around my neck and whispered in my ear, “Try to behave yourself.”

  I handed him the ridiculously pink diaper bag and casually patted his butt before taking his arm. “Me, behave?”

  Graham

  No matter how often it happened, Graham didn’t think he’d ever get over the thrill of walking into a room with Dess on his arm. He’d gotten used to being recognized on his own a long time ago. When Dess was with him it was an entirely different level of celebrity. There wasn’t a man with a functional dick who didn’t take notice of Odessa’s striking beauty. There was nothing normal about her with that red hair, long legs, and the way she just commanded attention without even realizing what she was doing.

  He pulled out her chair knowing that no matter how they looked at her, she was his. There wasn’t a man in Florida with enough nerve to try him on that fact. No, make that anywhere, unless that prick Roger Rohde happened to be in town. He looked over at his daughter smiling happily in his mom’s arms and realized that little girl was the one thing he shared with Dess that Rohde would never be able to have.

  “I believe she likes you,” he said, patting his mom’s back as he took a seat between her and his mother.

  “I’m pretty sure this is the sweetest baby I’ve ever seen,” she said, absolutely beaming at Amalie. “I would say the cutest, but seeing as she looks exactly like me, that might be considered vain.”

  “I was so hoping she’d take after her Da Da,” Odessa said, inserting her foot in her mouth and not even realizing it.

  Graham studied his mother’s face and then his daughter’s. He did see the resemblance. They did both have the same chestnut brown hair, hawkish narrow eyes and strong chin. The same chin he looked at in the mirror every morning and almost the same eyes, although both of their peepers were more hazel than blue.

  “She really does favor you,” he said.

  Odessa stared much to intently at his mom. “Maybe so. At least she’s not quite as homely as Graham’s other kid.”

  “Dess.” Graham squeezed her knee under the table just as, much to his relief, the waitress arrived to take their drink orders.”

  “Water, please,” Dess said, before giving him her pouty look.

  “I believe I’ll have a gin and ginger,” his mom said.

  Dess nodded with approval. “Oh, that sounds delish, me too.”

  “And you, sir?” the waitress asked.

  “Sweet tea.”

  “Party pooper,” Dess admonished.

  “Son, it’s okay if you want to have a drink.” His mom tilted her head and smiled encouragingly. “I think we might all need a little something to take the edge off.”

  He didn’t have to be asked twice. “Make that a Jack and Coke, then.”

  Dess patted his thigh under the table and rewarded him with a genuine smile. “Now that’s better.”

  There was an awkward silence as all of them pretended to be busy scanning their menus instead of addressing the real issue of a woman other than his wife and the baby at the table with them.

  “Are y’all ready to order?” the waitress asked after serving their drinks.

  “I am,” his mom said. “I’ll have the beef tips, medium well.”

  Graham glanced at Dess over the top of his menu, hoping she wasn’t going to make a scene over them eating what she referred to as dead cow. She didn’t meet his gaze, seeming to be more interested in her drink than her lunch options.

  “Can I get mashed potatoes instead of baked?” his mom added. “My grandbaby might want a few bites.”

  “Sure,” the waitress said, before turning her attention to Dess. “What can I get for you, ma’am?”

  “I’m not hungry,” Dess said.

  “How about a baked potato?” Graham suggested, not wanting her drinking on an empty stomach.

  “I’ll just have another drink.”

  “She’ll have a baked potato,” Graham said, ordering for her.

  “Loaded?” the waitress asked.

  “Yes,” he said, thinking that’s what Dess would be if he didn’t get some food in her soon.

  “And another drink,” Dess added.

  “What would you like?” the waitress’s face suddenly lit up with recognition. “You’re that wrestler, aren’t you? Graham Edwards. My grandpa used to take me to see you wrestle at the Armory when I was just a little kid.”

  Dess laughed so hard he was surprised she didn’t spew gin all over the table. She politely wiped her mouth and said, “He’s aged well, hasn’t he?”

  “I’ll say.” She nodded in agreement.

  Dess quickly reached for his hand, all of a sudden acting all possessive about a young girl paying him an offhanded compliment.

  “That’s my boy,” his mom agreed.

  Graham let go of Dess’s hand and took a soothing sip of his drink. His mouth was watering for a big juicy steak, but instead he went with something safe and ordered eggplant Parmesan.

  “What?” His mom gave him a puzzled look. “You’re not getting your usual rib eye?”

  “No, I’m in the mood for some pasta.” He downed a more manly sip of Jack, and
before the waitress could gather up their menus, he added, “I believe I’ll have another drink, too. How about you, ma?”

  “Maybe after we get our food.”

  After the waitress was out of earshot, his mom finally said, “I believe the two of you have some explaining to do.”

  “Don’t tell me you don’t know where babies come from,” Dess said, before taking a smug bite out of a breadstick.

  “Maybe I should be the one asking you that,” his mom replied without skipping a beat.

  “Amalie wasn’t exactly planned,” Graham said. “But, now that she’s here–”

  “I’m not placing any of the blame on this sweet child.” His mom hugged Amalie a little closer to her chest. “It’s this whole affair. I can tell just from the way you look at her.” She looked back and forth between him and Dess. “This baby isn’t the result of a one nightstand.”

  “I can assure you,” Dess said, “that I am very much in love with your son.”

  Without giving it any thought Graham reached for Odessa’s hand and she curled her fingers around his, sinking her long fingernails into the back of his hand to where he felt compelled to add, “That feeling is most definitely mutual.”

  “Okay, then what about–” His mom tactfully stopped in mid-sentence as the waitress placed a salad in front of her.

  Graham knew exactly where she’d been going with that question and it was something he didn’t want to answer. He stalled, asking the waitress to bring an extra plate so he could share his salad with Dess. Normally he would have just fed her straight off his plate, but he didn’t think his mother would take too kindly to such an intimacy at the dinner table.

  Dess must have picked up on it too because she got surprisingly motherly and reached for Amalie, saying, “I can hold her while you eat.”

  “Honey, you need to eat a lot worse that I do.” Refusing to let go of Amalie, his mom turned to him and said, “I think you should have bought that skinny little thing some groceries instead of giving her that Mercedes of yours. I know how much you loved that car.”

  Odessa stabbed a cucumber out of his salad, chewed it up and dramatically dropped her fork. “There, I’ve eaten.”

  “We had a big breakfast,” Graham lied, knowing Dess probably hadn’t had anything more than a glass of orange juice or maybe some fruit.

  “We?” his mother’s eyebrow shot up.

  Once again the waitress made the save, returning just in time with that extra plate and another basket of rolls. “Who’s ready for another drink,” she asked.

  “Me,” all three of them said in unison.

  She laughed. “Alrighty then, I’ll be right back.”

  Graham scooped some salad onto the extra plate, and not daring to look up to meet either of their gazes, placed it in front of Odessa. He dug into his salad, grateful to be chewing on lettuce instead of trying to explain his confusing relationship status. Dess rolled a cherry tomato around her plate, acting like a morose teenager instead of a twenty something new mother. His mother expertly balanced Amalie in one arm and dug into her salad with equal dismissive vigor.

  Despite the tension he knew it was all worth it to have his mom accept his child so wholeheartedly. He really shouldn’t have been surprised considering how she’d tackled every other obstacle she’d faced in a life that had been anything other than easy until he’d started making enough money to ensure she was well taken care of. She’d been a teenager when she’d had him and then two more boys before she turned twenty, scraping by the best she could without much help from a not quite as resourceful husband. Thinking of his dad made him drain what was left of his drink.

  His mother gave him a disapproving scowl. “I hope you didn’t get anything more than your good looks from your father.”

  He took a not so calming sip of water before saying, “I didn’t take one drink the whole time Dess was pregnant.” At least not in front of her anyway. “You don’t have to worry about me having a drinking problem.”

  “I haven’t gotten good and pickled since right after his accident,” Dess added. “And neither of us drank when he was in Houston for his eye surgery.”

  “So, she’s the reason Lucy didn’t go with you for the surgery,” his mother stated rather than asked.

  “She was busy with her salon and she didn’t want to leave Damon at home by himself.” This time Graham did take a drink of Jack. “It wasn’t like we could pull him out of school his senior year.”

  “Here I was thinking bad about her not looking after you, when all that time you were with another woman.” His mother also took a drink, as if she needed it to wash away the contempt her words held. She waved the glass in Odessa’s direction. “Did Lucy know she was with you?”

  Graham nodded. “Now Ma, it wasn’t like Dess and I were off on some romantic getaway. I was in the hospital with bandages over my eyes.”

  “This little girl is proof enough that there was some romancing going on while you were laid up in that bed.”

  “Beef tips for the lady,” the waitress said, once again showing up at the most convenient moment to serve the two ladies. “And here’s your pasta.”

  “Thank you.” Graham smiled up at her, already planning to add a little more to her tip for having such impeccable timing.

  “Can I get y’all anything else?” she asked.

  “We’re good,” he said, this time not giving in to the temptation to order another drink.

  Dess made a show out of scooping most of the butter and sour cream off her potato onto a side plate. Graham inwardly cringed when she reached where the pentacle pendant normally hung around her neck. Her face flushed and she clutched the pearls, biting her lip. A sure sign she was channeling or empathing or doing some kind of witchy hocus-pocus.

  None of those options boded well with his mom there at the table with them.

  He reached a hand under the table, trying to be discreet about grabbing hold of her thigh. Sometimes his touch would sooth her enough to distract from whatever was going on inside her head, and then again there were times when she would just freaked the fuck out. From the wild look in her eyes, he feared that Hurricane Dess was about to hit shore.

  “Blessed Goddess,” Dess said with a sharp inhale. “Please bless the cow who provided this butter and sour cream.” She licked the last drop of sour cream off her fork and took a bite of potato. “Also bless the poor cow who died for this meal.” The exact reason he tried not to eat steak in front of her.

  Graham tried to laugh it off by saying, “Thank you, Lord, for this delicious eggplant.”

  Dess’s face contorted into an angry snarl. “How dare you besmirch my faith?”

  He dug his fingers into her leg, trying to quietly get her to knock it off.

  “Get your hands off me.” She smacked away his hand and stood so quickly she knocked over her chair.

  He got up, and forgetting they were in a public place, he grabbed her, wrapping his arms around her to whisper, “Calm down, Dess, it’s okay.”

  “Leave me alone,” she said, nowhere near as quietly. “Just eat your fucking eggplant and leave me alone.”

  He released his grip on her and she stormed away. Graham knew better than to try to follow after her. He just righted the chair and sat back down at the table, not daring to look at his mother until he drained his drink.

  “That one sure ain’t no shrinking violet,” his mom said, calmly adjusting an exhausted Amalie in her arms.

  “Her nurse friend says its something called postpartum depression,” Graham explained.

  She just shook her head. “I never acted like that after having you kids.”

  Graham didn’t know what else to say. He’d given up on trying to understand Dess, much less try to explain her peculiarities to other, long before that baby in his mother’s arms had even been thought of.

  Odessa

  My brain felt like it had splintered into about a million little pieces by the time I leaned against the hood of the Mercedes to
catch my breath. I didn’t have my purse, much less the fucking car keys, so I went and sat on the curb, placing my head into my arms to try to stop the pain that now jolted all the way down my spine.

  Forget about the damn car keys. What I really needed was the pentacle tucked inside my purse. That thing wasn’t for decoration. It was a gris gris, charged by Carmella’s ancient many times removed tante who just happens to be the most powerful hoodoo priestess this side of Haiti.

  I’d always been respectful of the beliefs of others, but I’d never been too keen on the hoodoo until Carmella had placed that pendant around my neck. Then, under the light of a full moon, we’d added our own kick of witchcraft to make that little pentacle pendant a thing of invincible power.

  Until Carmella had given me that pendant I’d been bedridden since I’d returned from the hospital the morning after Graham’s accident. I’d felt that seventy-five pound window crash down on his head just as if I’d been the one that took the blow. Ask anyone there at the Armory that night and they will tell you I started screaming before I’d known exactly what had happened to him back in the locker room.

  I shook my head, shuddering from that horrible memory. No way would I have been able to go to Houston with him and nurse my man back to health if not for the power of that pendant. What had happened that night at the Armory was nothing compared to the emotions that started washing over me as soon as Graham’s mother made that comment about his drinking like his daddy.

  Something really bad had happened to that man and he’d inflicted all upon himself. I’d seen the silver steel of a gun, heard the shoot fired, breathed in the stench of blood and gore, and worst of all felt the bullet bounce around the insides of that poor man’s skull.

  Graham had never discussed the circumstances of his father’s death with me. I’d been so completely spent in the days after giving birth to Amalie that I hadn’t the strength to try to drag the story out of him. Graham had always been such a proud man, silent and strong, completely unwilling to share his feelings with anyone other than maybe Jack Daniels or Jim Beam.