Longing to Belong - Chapter 27
Chapter 27
Birch Creek, September 2003
The sharp steel glowed menacingly before his eyes, and a shiver coursed all over his body. It was dark, a starless night with just a half moon dangling from the black sky. Cody gulped, and his eyes widened at the threatening huge knife. He knew he had to act quickly, and else he would lose his young life. Instinctively, he turned his face to the man behind him. His terror increased as he found himself face to face with a ghastly vision. A skeletal visage, bloodshot eyes that jutted below a cadaveric forehead, and a broad scar drawn into the sallow skin like a rusty zip.
Cody panicked and moved his hand blindly to defend himself. Yet, he was late… too late. The cold edge of the knife dug into his neck and instantly he felt hot, thick blood trickle down his skin. “I’m gonna die! I’m gonna die!” These were the words that kept repeating themselves loudly in his mind as darkness gradually crept over him.
“Ahhhh!!!” Cody cried, opening his eyes to find himself sitting up in his own bed and recognizing the shadowed shapes around him as the furniture in his room. His body was trembling and covered in sweat. Another nightmare. Another damn nightmare. Cody always boasted about being able to sleep like a log no matter the circumstances. That was not true any longer. Since Lou had threatened him, he slept fitfully, and when he managed to fall asleep eventually, he was plagued by nightmares. It was insane. Cody kept telling himself that the girl had simply tried to wind him up, and he shouldn’t take her seriously. Yet, after his mother confirmed that indeed Lou’s father was in jail, he was troubled and really worried. And then the day after the misunderstanding about the darn Harry Potter book, Cody had overheard Louise on the phone, angrily repeating what had happened and blaming him. Even though Cody had been eavesdropping behind the door, he had been unable to find out who she had been talking to, but it could well have been her jailbird of a father.
Cody told himself that he needed to do something because he couldn’t stand the situation much longer. Whether her threats were genuine or not, he should try to mollify her somehow and bring her to his side. That is why the following day after school he decided to skip his football practice and go to the book store in town. In his opinion Lou’s reaction over the burned Harry Potter book was over the top, but if that was so important for her, then he would buy her another one to replace the one he had accidentally charred. Hopefully, this good-will gesture would soothe her, and his peace of mind would be restored. It was a total hassle to be on the watch-out all the time for undesirable individuals who might have been sent to murder him.
I the local bookshop Cody only found the hardback, which meant he had to cough up more than he had foreseen. As a matter of fact, he didn’t have any money, but he had talked Buck and Ike into forking over some of their spare cash, and he had hoped he could keep the change and give himself a treat. Instead, he had to spend every single cent on the darn book!!!
With the brand-new volume tidily wrapped up in paper with Harry Potter motifs, Cody made his way out of the shop. Outside he noticed a man leaning against a parked car, who scrutinized him indiscreetly from head to foot. The stranger was dressed all in black and had a rough appearance. Like in his dream, the man had a big, noticeable scar on his right cheek, but what startled Cody most was the glint in his eyes as he openly observed him.
“He’s nobody,” Cody thought, trying to calm his nerves. Yet, as soon as he started down the street, he heard steps behind him. Turning back his head, he saw the man from outside the bookshop after him, and he panicked. Quickening his steps, he almost ran, his mind in turmoil. Was he the man sent by Lou’s father? That man wouldn’t harm or… or kill him in broad daylight and with people milling around them, would he? Maybe what he wanted was to find out where he lived, but he would know that already, wouldn’t he? Lou’s father must surely know, or maybe not. Maybe prison inmates weren’t allowed to have any personal details from outside, so maybe his thug was simply gathering some information for later use. Perhaps he’d see where he lived, and then he’d sneak into the house in the middle of the night and kill him while he was blissfully sleeping. Oh God! Should he now continue toward his place or try to lose him? But how? And what to do? What to do?
Cody was sweating and trembling at the same time as he turned the corner. Looking behind him, he realized that the man was still hot on his tracks, and he even tried to call his attention. The man was probably trying to trick him into following into a dark alley where he could kill him, thought Cody. His steps quickened even more, and in the hectic traffic of ideas swirling in his mind, he reached a decision. He would tell Teaspoon. He was a cop, and as a cop, he would protect him.
He almost let out a whoop in relief when his house came into view, and he ran the last few feet. With trembling hands he fished the key out of his pocket, and in his hurry he dropped it. Clumsily he picked it up, but rattled as he was, he seemed unable to insert the key into the lock. When he finally got to pen the door, he bolted inside. “Mom! Mom!” he called desperately, shivering and almost sick to the stomach.
Rachel came into the hall and seeing his shaken state, she grew concerned. “What’s wrong, Billy?” she asked, touching his forehead and feeling it hot and clammy. “Are you sick?”
Right then the doorbell sounded, and Cody’s face turned even paler. “Please, Mom, don’t open the door.”
Rachel was used to her son’s antics and tales, but she had never seen him this nervous. Whatever it was, she wanted to get to the bottom of it. Ignoring his pleas, she pulled the door open, and Cody almost wept when he saw his pursuer in the doorway. “Yes?” Rachel asked the man.
The stranger spotted Cody behind his mother and said, “Boy, I almost didn’t catch you.” The man wiped his glistening forehead with his sleeve and added, “You dropped this.”
Rachel took the wrapped-up object, and Cody realized it was the book for Louise. He must have dropped it in fright when he had been startled by the vision of this man. “Is this yours, Billy?” Rachel asked, and Cody could only nod. “Then say thank you to Mr…”
“Nichols,” the man filled in.
“Thank you, Mr… uh… Nichols,” Cody said in a trembling, gasping voice.
“My pleasure, but don’t go losing things anymore,” the man replied, and after exchanging a few other pleasantries with Rachel, he left.
Rachel turned round towards her son, who still looked ill at ease. Before she could say anything, Cody blurted out, “I can’t stand it any longer, Mom! I can’t live like this. You need to stop her, please.”
“What are you talking about, Billy? Stop who?”
Behind them the front door the front door opened, and Teaspoon and Louise stepped in. “Her!!!” Cody cried out, pointing an accusing finger in Lou’s direction, and then he carried on, addressing the girl. “Look. You win, and I’m sorry. I even bought you the stupid Harry Potter book!” He snatched the book from Rachel’s hands and dropped it in Lou’s. “Just stop it. I beg you.”
Rachel and Teaspoon exchanged a confused look and their eyes seesawed between the two young’uns. Lou kept quiet and serious, her expression not letting much away. “What on earth is going on here?” Teaspoon asked, glancing at his daughter, but it was Cody who spoke up.
“She… she said that she would tell her criminal father to send a guy to kill me!”
Rachel gasped and Teaspoon exclaimed, “Lou…”
Louise would not keep quiet now, and she felt outraged for finding herself the object of such unfair treatment. “And he burnt my new Harry Potter book to ashes!”
Rachel let out another gasp. “Billy!”
“It was an accident, mom!”
“Louise saved for that book for weeks,” Rachel carried on angrily, and Cody glanced down, looking contrite and resigned for the expected punishment.
“Lou, did I hear right?” Teaspoon piped up. “You told a member of this family you’d get him killed?”
“He teases me all the time! He keeps mocking me, tampering with my things! He makes my life very difficult, and I just wanted him to leave me alone!!!” Lou was on the verge of tears, but she wouldn’t let herself cry in front of Cody.
“But we don’t threaten people to death!” Teaspoon exclaimed angrily. “You come and talk to me! You don’t just go and tell a bunch of lies to scare people off!”
At his words Cody looked up and glanced at his mother. “Louise doesn’t really have a relationship with her father.”
Lou’s head jerked in their direction, feeling humiliated and embarrassed, and then she turned back to Teaspoon. “Maybe I will from now on,” she snapped angrily. “I’m sure I’ll be allowed to see my father… my real father if I talk to… to… to…” Lost for words and feeling even more awkward, she let out a frustrated groan, and then swirling around, she almost ran to the door, dying to escape.
“Lou! Lou! Stop there at this moment!”
At Teaspoon’s solemn summon, she had no option but halt. With her hand still on the doorknob, she turned around very slowly to face her father. “Look at me, Louise,” Teaspoon said, and she begrudgingly lifted her eyes to meet his. “I’m very disappointed in you… really disappointed. I didn’t expect this from you, and so you know, you’re grounded with no television until I decide otherwise.”
Lou did not really care about his imposed punishment. After all, she did not go much any longer, and she hardly watched any television. However, the fact that Teaspoon thought she deserved to be disciplined like this made her feel totally affronted and miserable. “That’s not fair!!! He started it!!!” she cried, pointing a finger in Cody’s direction.
“And I’m sure he’ll get his due. That’s up to Rachel, but ‘you’ are my responsibility.”
Lou was seething, and all she wanted was to feel as much pain as she was feeling at this moment. “You’re not my father!!! If I were with my real dad, he wouldn’t treat me so hideously! I really wish I could be with him, and not with you!” Lou hurled lie after lie, and even though her heart contracted with every reference to her horrible father, she couldn’t help herself. She simply wanted Teaspoon, her dear papa Teaspoon to realize he could lose her… she wanted him to admit that he was wrong, and even admit that she shouldn’t have married Rachel and take in her stupid children.
Her words felt like a punch to his stomach. Teaspoon gulped and breathed in as he heard his sweet girl acting so out of turn. It was clearly her way of punishing him, he knew. Lou would never want to go near her real father, and he was aware of it, but even so, it hurt to hear her… it hurt too much. It was just emotional blackmail plainly, and although her words bashed him emotionally, he couldn’t allow her to think that what he had been up to was right. It would be easier to yield, because he didn’t feel comfortable to look at her angry, saddened face, knowing that he had been the one to upset her, but he couldn’t do that. She needed to learn her lesson and realize that this wasn’t the way things were done in their family.
“That’s very well, but as you well know, your father’s still in jail. When he gets out, we’ll talk about what you want or who you want to be with. In the meantime, while you’re living under my roof, you’ll do as you’re told.”
His response enraged and wounded her even more. He doesn’t care about me, he doesn’t care about me at all, a voice in her head kept repeating while her heart broke into a million pieces. Angry tears started trickling down her face as she snarled, “You’re… you’re horrible! I don’t love you anymore!” Then spinning round, she pulled the door open and ran out.
Hurt, Teaspoon watched her climb the lone tree that stood in their garden. Lately it was common to find her sitting on one of its branches, reading or simply enjoying the fresh air. Teaspoon worried that she could fall and break a bone, but no matter how many times he told her, she simply wouldn’t mind him and kept climbing onto her refuge.
Now seeing her perch on the usual branch and sobbing, he wanted to go to her, but he didn’t know what else to tell her. Teaspoon sighed. When he had first been left to look after Lou, he had thought the task a humongous challenge, but hoped things would get better with time. He had been wrong. Lou was being more and more difficult as she grew older, and once again he was questioning his ability as a father. He was aware that she was more detached and inaccessible since he married Rachel, and he tried every day to get her out of this mood of hers, but he kept botching it even more. He kept talking to her, asking about her things, her problems, but she had turned into this solemn, monosyllabic child, and he was at a loss what to do. And it hurt so much to see his little girl drift away from him. Where was his talkative, cheerful, loving Lou?
And now this thing with Cody. It was not right how the boy had treated her, but he couldn’t condone what Louise had done. What worried him even more was that all this battling between Lou and Cody had taken place under his very nose, and he hadn’t been any the wiser. This was seriously concerning. What kind of father was he that he failed to detect this battlefield in his own household? A terrible one, undoubtedly.
A hand on his shoulder snapped him out of his thoughts. “Let me talk to her,” Rachel said with a half smile, and Teaspoon nodded. Rachel was good with people event though Lou was barely civil to her, but she could do better than he did. Teaspoon smiled, patted her shoulder encouragingly, before stepping back into the house.
Louise was still crying her out as Rachel approached the tree. Her body was folded into itself, arms hugging her flexed legs and her head buried in her knees. Rachel stood underneath the tree for a couple minutes, and only when she heard her sobs subside, did she call her name. “Louise?”
Lou lifted her head and looked down while wiping her wet eyes with her hands. On seeing Rachel there, her featured hardened and she said, “Leave me alone.”
Rachel ignored her request. “Why don’t you come down so that we can talk?”
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
Rachel sighed. “Louise, I understand you’re upset. And I more than understand that Billy can be unbearable… at times. What I want you to know is that he’ll have his dserved punishment for having been so mean to you all this time. And if he keeps bothering you, you need to tell me.”
“I’m not a tittle-tattler.”
“Telling me about any disagreements with my son wouldn’t make you one, really. I want us… all of us to be a family, and families talk and tell each other their problems.” Rachel stopped, and watched Lou, who was looking blankly ahead, and with clearly no attention to speak. Rachel did not even know if she was really listening to her. “Louise, I… I know it’s not been easy for you since Teaspoon and I got married. I honestly how you must feel, and I would very much like us to be good friends.”
“I already have enough friends, and don’t need any more.”
Rachel sighed again. “If that’s how you feel, I can’t do anything. I… I just thought that maybe we could join forces and talk Teaspoon into forgetting or at least reducing his punishment for you.” Rachel looked up, hoping to get some positive reaction from the girl.
“I don’t care,” Lou replied, and then buried her face in her knees, adopting the same position she had had when Rachel had come out here.
Rachel knew when to retreat, and this was it. Talking to Lou today was an impossible mission. The girl was distraught after what had happened today. Rachel was aware that there were more issues at stake than her disagreement with Cody and Teaspoon, but this apparently wasn’t the moment to talk about them. As long as Louise didn’t let her in, there was nothing she could do to help far. So feeling defeated and crestfallen, Rachel ambled back to the house.
From her perched position on the branch, Lou heard rustling steps towards the house and her tears started falling down her cheeks once again. Some ten minutes after Rachel had left, she heard the door opening, and this time the steps were heavier, more purposeful. Thinking that her father was coming to find her, she wiped her eyes. He was very angry with him, and the last thing she wanted was to hear him upbraid her any longer.
The steps stopped, and she lifted her head. Glancing down, she was surprised to find Jimmy there, who was looking up at her with a smirk on his mouth. “I heard what happened… that tale you concocted about your father that scared the daylights out of my little brother.” Lou crossed her arms defensively, ready to pounce on his expected teasing or criticism. Yet, to her surprise, Jimmy’s smile widened as he added, “That was good, really good. Very clever for such a young think like you. It was high time Cody got his lesson.” As Lou had not expected this at all, she remained there, agape and speechless. “Maybe when he starts acting like an idiot again, which I’m afraid won’t be long, we can come up with something similar together.”
Jimmy grinned and winked at her, and for the fist time today or probably in days Louise smiled as she said, “Maybe we can.”
Birch Creek, September 2003
The sharp steel glowed menacingly before his eyes, and a shiver coursed all over his body. It was dark, a starless night with just a half moon dangling from the black sky. Cody gulped, and his eyes widened at the threatening huge knife. He knew he had to act quickly, and else he would lose his young life. Instinctively, he turned his face to the man behind him. His terror increased as he found himself face to face with a ghastly vision. A skeletal visage, bloodshot eyes that jutted below a cadaveric forehead, and a broad scar drawn into the sallow skin like a rusty zip.
Cody panicked and moved his hand blindly to defend himself. Yet, he was late… too late. The cold edge of the knife dug into his neck and instantly he felt hot, thick blood trickle down his skin. “I’m gonna die! I’m gonna die!” These were the words that kept repeating themselves loudly in his mind as darkness gradually crept over him.
“Ahhhh!!!” Cody cried, opening his eyes to find himself sitting up in his own bed and recognizing the shadowed shapes around him as the furniture in his room. His body was trembling and covered in sweat. Another nightmare. Another damn nightmare. Cody always boasted about being able to sleep like a log no matter the circumstances. That was not true any longer. Since Lou had threatened him, he slept fitfully, and when he managed to fall asleep eventually, he was plagued by nightmares. It was insane. Cody kept telling himself that the girl had simply tried to wind him up, and he shouldn’t take her seriously. Yet, after his mother confirmed that indeed Lou’s father was in jail, he was troubled and really worried. And then the day after the misunderstanding about the darn Harry Potter book, Cody had overheard Louise on the phone, angrily repeating what had happened and blaming him. Even though Cody had been eavesdropping behind the door, he had been unable to find out who she had been talking to, but it could well have been her jailbird of a father.
Cody told himself that he needed to do something because he couldn’t stand the situation much longer. Whether her threats were genuine or not, he should try to mollify her somehow and bring her to his side. That is why the following day after school he decided to skip his football practice and go to the book store in town. In his opinion Lou’s reaction over the burned Harry Potter book was over the top, but if that was so important for her, then he would buy her another one to replace the one he had accidentally charred. Hopefully, this good-will gesture would soothe her, and his peace of mind would be restored. It was a total hassle to be on the watch-out all the time for undesirable individuals who might have been sent to murder him.
I the local bookshop Cody only found the hardback, which meant he had to cough up more than he had foreseen. As a matter of fact, he didn’t have any money, but he had talked Buck and Ike into forking over some of their spare cash, and he had hoped he could keep the change and give himself a treat. Instead, he had to spend every single cent on the darn book!!!
With the brand-new volume tidily wrapped up in paper with Harry Potter motifs, Cody made his way out of the shop. Outside he noticed a man leaning against a parked car, who scrutinized him indiscreetly from head to foot. The stranger was dressed all in black and had a rough appearance. Like in his dream, the man had a big, noticeable scar on his right cheek, but what startled Cody most was the glint in his eyes as he openly observed him.
“He’s nobody,” Cody thought, trying to calm his nerves. Yet, as soon as he started down the street, he heard steps behind him. Turning back his head, he saw the man from outside the bookshop after him, and he panicked. Quickening his steps, he almost ran, his mind in turmoil. Was he the man sent by Lou’s father? That man wouldn’t harm or… or kill him in broad daylight and with people milling around them, would he? Maybe what he wanted was to find out where he lived, but he would know that already, wouldn’t he? Lou’s father must surely know, or maybe not. Maybe prison inmates weren’t allowed to have any personal details from outside, so maybe his thug was simply gathering some information for later use. Perhaps he’d see where he lived, and then he’d sneak into the house in the middle of the night and kill him while he was blissfully sleeping. Oh God! Should he now continue toward his place or try to lose him? But how? And what to do? What to do?
Cody was sweating and trembling at the same time as he turned the corner. Looking behind him, he realized that the man was still hot on his tracks, and he even tried to call his attention. The man was probably trying to trick him into following into a dark alley where he could kill him, thought Cody. His steps quickened even more, and in the hectic traffic of ideas swirling in his mind, he reached a decision. He would tell Teaspoon. He was a cop, and as a cop, he would protect him.
He almost let out a whoop in relief when his house came into view, and he ran the last few feet. With trembling hands he fished the key out of his pocket, and in his hurry he dropped it. Clumsily he picked it up, but rattled as he was, he seemed unable to insert the key into the lock. When he finally got to pen the door, he bolted inside. “Mom! Mom!” he called desperately, shivering and almost sick to the stomach.
Rachel came into the hall and seeing his shaken state, she grew concerned. “What’s wrong, Billy?” she asked, touching his forehead and feeling it hot and clammy. “Are you sick?”
Right then the doorbell sounded, and Cody’s face turned even paler. “Please, Mom, don’t open the door.”
Rachel was used to her son’s antics and tales, but she had never seen him this nervous. Whatever it was, she wanted to get to the bottom of it. Ignoring his pleas, she pulled the door open, and Cody almost wept when he saw his pursuer in the doorway. “Yes?” Rachel asked the man.
The stranger spotted Cody behind his mother and said, “Boy, I almost didn’t catch you.” The man wiped his glistening forehead with his sleeve and added, “You dropped this.”
Rachel took the wrapped-up object, and Cody realized it was the book for Louise. He must have dropped it in fright when he had been startled by the vision of this man. “Is this yours, Billy?” Rachel asked, and Cody could only nod. “Then say thank you to Mr…”
“Nichols,” the man filled in.
“Thank you, Mr… uh… Nichols,” Cody said in a trembling, gasping voice.
“My pleasure, but don’t go losing things anymore,” the man replied, and after exchanging a few other pleasantries with Rachel, he left.
Rachel turned round towards her son, who still looked ill at ease. Before she could say anything, Cody blurted out, “I can’t stand it any longer, Mom! I can’t live like this. You need to stop her, please.”
“What are you talking about, Billy? Stop who?”
Behind them the front door the front door opened, and Teaspoon and Louise stepped in. “Her!!!” Cody cried out, pointing an accusing finger in Lou’s direction, and then he carried on, addressing the girl. “Look. You win, and I’m sorry. I even bought you the stupid Harry Potter book!” He snatched the book from Rachel’s hands and dropped it in Lou’s. “Just stop it. I beg you.”
Rachel and Teaspoon exchanged a confused look and their eyes seesawed between the two young’uns. Lou kept quiet and serious, her expression not letting much away. “What on earth is going on here?” Teaspoon asked, glancing at his daughter, but it was Cody who spoke up.
“She… she said that she would tell her criminal father to send a guy to kill me!”
Rachel gasped and Teaspoon exclaimed, “Lou…”
Louise would not keep quiet now, and she felt outraged for finding herself the object of such unfair treatment. “And he burnt my new Harry Potter book to ashes!”
Rachel let out another gasp. “Billy!”
“It was an accident, mom!”
“Louise saved for that book for weeks,” Rachel carried on angrily, and Cody glanced down, looking contrite and resigned for the expected punishment.
“Lou, did I hear right?” Teaspoon piped up. “You told a member of this family you’d get him killed?”
“He teases me all the time! He keeps mocking me, tampering with my things! He makes my life very difficult, and I just wanted him to leave me alone!!!” Lou was on the verge of tears, but she wouldn’t let herself cry in front of Cody.
“But we don’t threaten people to death!” Teaspoon exclaimed angrily. “You come and talk to me! You don’t just go and tell a bunch of lies to scare people off!”
At his words Cody looked up and glanced at his mother. “Louise doesn’t really have a relationship with her father.”
Lou’s head jerked in their direction, feeling humiliated and embarrassed, and then she turned back to Teaspoon. “Maybe I will from now on,” she snapped angrily. “I’m sure I’ll be allowed to see my father… my real father if I talk to… to… to…” Lost for words and feeling even more awkward, she let out a frustrated groan, and then swirling around, she almost ran to the door, dying to escape.
“Lou! Lou! Stop there at this moment!”
At Teaspoon’s solemn summon, she had no option but halt. With her hand still on the doorknob, she turned around very slowly to face her father. “Look at me, Louise,” Teaspoon said, and she begrudgingly lifted her eyes to meet his. “I’m very disappointed in you… really disappointed. I didn’t expect this from you, and so you know, you’re grounded with no television until I decide otherwise.”
Lou did not really care about his imposed punishment. After all, she did not go much any longer, and she hardly watched any television. However, the fact that Teaspoon thought she deserved to be disciplined like this made her feel totally affronted and miserable. “That’s not fair!!! He started it!!!” she cried, pointing a finger in Cody’s direction.
“And I’m sure he’ll get his due. That’s up to Rachel, but ‘you’ are my responsibility.”
Lou was seething, and all she wanted was to feel as much pain as she was feeling at this moment. “You’re not my father!!! If I were with my real dad, he wouldn’t treat me so hideously! I really wish I could be with him, and not with you!” Lou hurled lie after lie, and even though her heart contracted with every reference to her horrible father, she couldn’t help herself. She simply wanted Teaspoon, her dear papa Teaspoon to realize he could lose her… she wanted him to admit that he was wrong, and even admit that she shouldn’t have married Rachel and take in her stupid children.
Her words felt like a punch to his stomach. Teaspoon gulped and breathed in as he heard his sweet girl acting so out of turn. It was clearly her way of punishing him, he knew. Lou would never want to go near her real father, and he was aware of it, but even so, it hurt to hear her… it hurt too much. It was just emotional blackmail plainly, and although her words bashed him emotionally, he couldn’t allow her to think that what he had been up to was right. It would be easier to yield, because he didn’t feel comfortable to look at her angry, saddened face, knowing that he had been the one to upset her, but he couldn’t do that. She needed to learn her lesson and realize that this wasn’t the way things were done in their family.
“That’s very well, but as you well know, your father’s still in jail. When he gets out, we’ll talk about what you want or who you want to be with. In the meantime, while you’re living under my roof, you’ll do as you’re told.”
His response enraged and wounded her even more. He doesn’t care about me, he doesn’t care about me at all, a voice in her head kept repeating while her heart broke into a million pieces. Angry tears started trickling down her face as she snarled, “You’re… you’re horrible! I don’t love you anymore!” Then spinning round, she pulled the door open and ran out.
Hurt, Teaspoon watched her climb the lone tree that stood in their garden. Lately it was common to find her sitting on one of its branches, reading or simply enjoying the fresh air. Teaspoon worried that she could fall and break a bone, but no matter how many times he told her, she simply wouldn’t mind him and kept climbing onto her refuge.
Now seeing her perch on the usual branch and sobbing, he wanted to go to her, but he didn’t know what else to tell her. Teaspoon sighed. When he had first been left to look after Lou, he had thought the task a humongous challenge, but hoped things would get better with time. He had been wrong. Lou was being more and more difficult as she grew older, and once again he was questioning his ability as a father. He was aware that she was more detached and inaccessible since he married Rachel, and he tried every day to get her out of this mood of hers, but he kept botching it even more. He kept talking to her, asking about her things, her problems, but she had turned into this solemn, monosyllabic child, and he was at a loss what to do. And it hurt so much to see his little girl drift away from him. Where was his talkative, cheerful, loving Lou?
And now this thing with Cody. It was not right how the boy had treated her, but he couldn’t condone what Louise had done. What worried him even more was that all this battling between Lou and Cody had taken place under his very nose, and he hadn’t been any the wiser. This was seriously concerning. What kind of father was he that he failed to detect this battlefield in his own household? A terrible one, undoubtedly.
A hand on his shoulder snapped him out of his thoughts. “Let me talk to her,” Rachel said with a half smile, and Teaspoon nodded. Rachel was good with people event though Lou was barely civil to her, but she could do better than he did. Teaspoon smiled, patted her shoulder encouragingly, before stepping back into the house.
Louise was still crying her out as Rachel approached the tree. Her body was folded into itself, arms hugging her flexed legs and her head buried in her knees. Rachel stood underneath the tree for a couple minutes, and only when she heard her sobs subside, did she call her name. “Louise?”
Lou lifted her head and looked down while wiping her wet eyes with her hands. On seeing Rachel there, her featured hardened and she said, “Leave me alone.”
Rachel ignored her request. “Why don’t you come down so that we can talk?”
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
Rachel sighed. “Louise, I understand you’re upset. And I more than understand that Billy can be unbearable… at times. What I want you to know is that he’ll have his dserved punishment for having been so mean to you all this time. And if he keeps bothering you, you need to tell me.”
“I’m not a tittle-tattler.”
“Telling me about any disagreements with my son wouldn’t make you one, really. I want us… all of us to be a family, and families talk and tell each other their problems.” Rachel stopped, and watched Lou, who was looking blankly ahead, and with clearly no attention to speak. Rachel did not even know if she was really listening to her. “Louise, I… I know it’s not been easy for you since Teaspoon and I got married. I honestly how you must feel, and I would very much like us to be good friends.”
“I already have enough friends, and don’t need any more.”
Rachel sighed again. “If that’s how you feel, I can’t do anything. I… I just thought that maybe we could join forces and talk Teaspoon into forgetting or at least reducing his punishment for you.” Rachel looked up, hoping to get some positive reaction from the girl.
“I don’t care,” Lou replied, and then buried her face in her knees, adopting the same position she had had when Rachel had come out here.
Rachel knew when to retreat, and this was it. Talking to Lou today was an impossible mission. The girl was distraught after what had happened today. Rachel was aware that there were more issues at stake than her disagreement with Cody and Teaspoon, but this apparently wasn’t the moment to talk about them. As long as Louise didn’t let her in, there was nothing she could do to help far. So feeling defeated and crestfallen, Rachel ambled back to the house.
From her perched position on the branch, Lou heard rustling steps towards the house and her tears started falling down her cheeks once again. Some ten minutes after Rachel had left, she heard the door opening, and this time the steps were heavier, more purposeful. Thinking that her father was coming to find her, she wiped her eyes. He was very angry with him, and the last thing she wanted was to hear him upbraid her any longer.
The steps stopped, and she lifted her head. Glancing down, she was surprised to find Jimmy there, who was looking up at her with a smirk on his mouth. “I heard what happened… that tale you concocted about your father that scared the daylights out of my little brother.” Lou crossed her arms defensively, ready to pounce on his expected teasing or criticism. Yet, to her surprise, Jimmy’s smile widened as he added, “That was good, really good. Very clever for such a young think like you. It was high time Cody got his lesson.” As Lou had not expected this at all, she remained there, agape and speechless. “Maybe when he starts acting like an idiot again, which I’m afraid won’t be long, we can come up with something similar together.”
Jimmy grinned and winked at her, and for the fist time today or probably in days Louise smiled as she said, “Maybe we can.”