If You Fall

Forty Six

The next evening I was getting some coffee in the kitchen of the big house when Don appeared and beckoned me into his room/office down the hall. 

I wasn't excited but went, and he shut the door. He sat on his side of the small desk and I took one of the chairs on the other side. He picked up an old fashioned orange-flecked paperweight and examined it. 

I stirred my coffee and wished he would get on with it. The door opened and Amanda slipped in, in a cloud of cigarette smoke and some floral scent. She had her own coffee in a large glass jar, most cream than actual coffee. "Hi, here I am, did you tell her already?"

"We just sat," he said, tossing the paperweight now from hand to hand lightly.

She turned to me, her hair in a bun on top of her head, her eyes clear and blue. "How much do you know about Reed's foster home?" she asked without preamble.

"More than I want," I admitted. He didn't talk about it much but those two times he'd gotten drunk and broke down, it had been about that. "Cops found him when he was eight after his mom died, system put him with the family. A couple who both abused him for the next two years." I got hot even thinking about it, from the helplessness. I did not like being this pissed so early in the day and resented it.

A lot.

She nodded. "When we raided that place, we got all six kids out, and dealt with the woman. The man got away, and we never found him."

I was stunned. How could they allow that to happen?

They saw it on my face. "I know," she said, nodding more. "But we tried. Of course, we tried. To save all the others he would end up with, wherever he relocated to. But for our own selfish reasons, too. We desperately wanted to give that gift to Reed."

They both looked grim. She continued. "This monster," she said, her French accent growing more pronounced. "Has had the audacity to return, and to the same town in Southern California. And now we have a problem. Because there's no way we can not let Reed know, and there's no way to keep him from going there."

"No," I said immediately, all the various things that could happen flying through my head. "No, you have to take care of it. And then tell him." My heart was ramping up.

They were both shaking their heads, the fucking twinsies. "We can't do that to him. He would know, for starters. And I'm not going to lie to him about this," she said, matter of factly.

"Nor am I," Don said, almost apologetically. The white hairs at his temples and in his goatee seemed to have multiplied in the last few weeks. "His trust has already been so compromised, I won't make it worse for him. Plus, you have to see, Addy, he has to do this for himself."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "There must be a way around this," I protested, but I could see there was not. I could even understand why.

"He has to," she said simply, and she was apologetic too. "I hate it, Don hates it. Dane and Ari will hate it. But unless the asshole drops dead of natural causes in the next few hours, we're going to have to tell Reed."

Super fucked.

"Well, after this I'm getting this house some fucking puppies," I said, and half-assed stormed out.

Reed came back from the hospital with Dane and went to take a shower in the cottage. Dane went in to talk with Don. 

When he came out he was less than happy. "Bloody mess, this is," he grumbled, sitting at the other end of the couch I was on.