Son for Hire Interlude: Thunderbird Part 3 (Patreon)

I am writing like a wild man trying to get as much to you all as possible before I can't.  I hope the quality is holding up.  This might be the last chapter I get out for awhile.  We'll see what tomorrow brings.  If it is though...catch y'all on the flip side!  ❤

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With Alan at her back, his hand now back on her shoulder in a gesture of emotion support, Kitty stands staring at the wide chrome stylized bird on the grill of the old car.  Suddenly this wasn’t fun and games anymore.  And Alan wasn’t just the patsy that the rest of them danced around.  She’d come up here to play with him and learn a few things about cars but his honesty and the genuine concern in his kind heart had disarmed her of these notions completely.

“Alan.”

“Kitty.”  He says softly.  “If Donny is hurting you or abusing you, if you need help in anyway, Evelyn and I are here for you.”

She sighs and shakes her head.  “Why do you have to be so damn nice?”

“It’s okay Kitty.”  His deep rich voice was like hot cocoa on a cold rainy day.  “You’re safe here.  You can talk with me.  He can't hurt you here.”

Slowly she turns around to face him, though her bowed head meant that her curly hair covered her eyes from him.  She could not bear to look at him directly right now.  Alan could see the young woman was in vulnerable state.  Afraid and confused and unsure of what to say.

“Take your time Kitty.  It’s okay.”

Unable to stop her self Kitty dashes forward and throws her arms around his thick torso.  Burying her face into his pecs she holds to him.  Alan hesitates…then wraps his big arms around her.  His strong embrace holding her, his big burly body shielding her, Alan envelops Kitty into a cocoon of warmth and safety.

“It’s okay.”  He whispers.

Kitty just holds to him, savoring this caring fatherly hug for every last second that she could steal.  She wished it could go on forever.

“Alan.”  She says at last, her arms loosening and his following her lead.  “Donny is many things, but he is not what you seem to think he is.”  She steps back.  “He’s a good man Alan.  He can be selfish sometimes, and a bit stupid too.  But he’s…innocent.  Tender.  He gives me faith in this shitty world.  He gives me strength when nothing else can.  I love him with all my heart.  Donny would never hurt me…and I would give everything I have to protect him.”

Alan lets out a sigh of relief.  The carefully controlled anger he’d been holding in his shoulders relax.  “The baby?  It wasn’t because of him?”

“No.  It was me.”  She covers her face with a hand.  “It was me.”

“Kitty.  Sometimes these things just happen.  Sometimes God just…”

“No Alan, no.”  Kitty pulls away from him and goes to lean back against the counter.  “It was me.  Not God, not nature…me.   Because of me…”  Her eyes stare out into the night, as if looking for something…or someone.  “…because of me…some kid won’t get to have their first birthday.”  Only then does her voice finally crack.  Kitty was tough as nails but even she had her limits.  “It was me Alan.”

Alan comes up beside her and puts a hand on her shoulder.  “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”  She wipes a tear that had escaped her eye away.  “I’m a big girl.  It wasn’t even…” She lets out a gasp.  “…a real baby…just a clump of cells…it’s better this way.”  She sniffles as the tears sparkle in her eyes though her chin is held high in defiance of the emotions that threatened to break her to pieces.  “What kind of mother would I have been?  Huh?  It’s better this way.”

Once more Alan pulls Kitty into another hug.  “I am so sorry Kitty.”

She cries a little before bottling it up again, thankful for the much needed hug.  Pushing away from Alan she grabs the nearest rag and wipes her cheeks and blows her snotty nose.  “God damn it.”  She huffs and shakes her head.  “Really stirred some shit up.  I thought I was over it.  Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay.  You don’t get over something like that so easily.  I know.”  He then smirks.  Pointing at her right cheek he says.  “You’ve got a little…um…here, give that to me.”  Taking the cloth from her he gently wipes the smudge of oil that had streaked across her soft cheek.  “There you go.”

Kitty touches her cheek and looks up at the big man.  It was just a swipe of a smudge yet the caring gesture meant so much more to her in this moment.  “You are such a Dad.”  She chuckles and sniffles one last time.

“Guilty as charged.”  He grins.  Such a fine handsome honorable grin.

A great sadness washes over Kitty as she realizes what she was about to say next.  She knew she couldn’t stop the words from coming even if she wanted to.  The house of cards had begun to collapse.  The only thing she could do now is try to keep a few key falsehoods standing and limit the damage.  As always she would protect her brother’s interests to the best of her ability but the rest simply had to come out.  It would send this budding friendship up in flames but she could only stomach so many lies to this gentle giant.

“Alan…I need to tell you a few things.”

“Okay.”

She licks her lips and swallows as she steels herself for what was to come.  “I wasn’t pregnant.”

In the blink of an eye an invisible wall comes up between them.  He takes a half a step back, his posture stiffening.  “I see.”

“Not since you’ve met me anyway.”  She clarifies.  “I was once, years ago.”  She takes a a long deep breath.  “And I did lose that one.”

“Okay.”  He stands back looking down at her with a stern yet curious expression.

“I…I’m a junkie Alan.”  It breaks her heart to see his face go cold but she continues.  “That was why I had that spell when we met.  I was barely a week off the stuff and going through withdrawals.  You misread the situation and…and I let you.  I did that. That was my decision and I am sorry.”

“Why?”

“Would you have rented to a junkie?”

“Hrm.”  His lack of an answer answers her question loud and clear.

“Exactly.” She says softly.  “Donny brought me out here to help clean me up.  So that I could heal.  He didn’t have to do that, but he did.  He saw the chance and he took it.”  She lets out guilty sigh.  “I’m no bookkeeper.  I’m going to study to be one…but I barely know anything about it yet.  I’ve only got my high school diploma.”

He turns this over in his head then asks.  “Money?”

“Donny’s got a side hustle.”  Her mouth tastes like tar as she is forced to partially lie on this one.  “It pays the bills.  It’s not illegal or anything but the less you know the better.”

“Shit.”  Alan’s eyes look out to the hedge that Donny had disappeared behind as he stormed off in a huff then back down to her.  “The scar?”

“My mother.”  She says directly.  “She was…she was a monster.  Beat me bad.  Real bad.  I’ve got more if you want to see them.”

“No.”  He says.  “And the baby?  The real one?”

Kitty’s pretty face flinches, her wounded soul coming through in her far staring eyes.  “Drugs.  It was drugs.”

“I see.”

“Yeah.”  She scoffs as her inner city inflection comes out loud and clear.  “You see.  In this nice soft life of yours, you see it all, huh?  You know me like that?  Huh?”

“Mmm.”

“Donny wasn’t the father.”  She says, more confessing to purge her own soul than to clarify for him at this point.  Some of this stuff she’d told only to Papi before this moment and it felt like such a relief to let it flow and be heard after all of this time of holding it in.  “It was years ago.  The father was a guy named Henry, I think.”

“You think?”

“I think.”  She says again boldly.  “Could have been one of my Johns but I was always careful with them.”

“Johns!?  Oh my God.”

“Pretty sure it was Henry though.”  

Alan gives her a look of shocked disapproval.

She laughs a bitter laugh.  “He didn’t believe me either.  Called me a bitch.  Called me a slut.  Called me a whore.  Called me all sorts of things.  He slapped me up, I kicked him in the nuts, and I never saw him again after that.  I went on a tear…lost the kid that very night.”  She rolls her shoulders as the memories of that melee reignites her anger and regret from that fateful night.  “Pretty fucked, huh?  Not the good Christian girl you thought I was, huh?”

“You could say that.”  Alan bristles.  “But he should have stayed.  At least until the paternity test.”

“Paternity test?  Ha!  You sweet, sweet man.  You think that would have mattered?  Guys like him don’t stay Alan.  Not ever.”  Her voice softens as she peers up at him.  Reaching out she touches his arm.  “It’s men like you who stay.”

“Of course I stayed.”

“You say of course, it’s not like that for most men.”  She says.  “My Dad tried.  For awhile.  He really did.  But some guys just don’t have it in them.”

“So you knew your Dad?”

There is a long silence as Kitty’s mind cast back…back to something she’d always protected Donny from and not even told Papi before.  Alan had a strength and a calming paternal energy that made her trust him but in the end he was just some guy that fate had happened to bring her to, little more than her new landlord.  With what her brother was doing with his wife he was more a threat than an ally.  And yet the flood of emotions that she started to express could not be stopped midway through.

“A little.”  She says at last.  “I told Donny that I didn’t remember my Dad, that I was too young to remember.”  She shudders.  “But…I remember.  Not much, but I remember.  Not even real memories.  Little moments, feelings, just impressions really.  He was funny.  I remember that most of all.  Quick with a joke.  Always made my Mama laugh.”  She smiles.  “And me too.  He’d play dolls with me, watch cartoons with me…oh how we’d laugh.”  Her smile turns bittersweet.  “And then he was gone.  Just, gone.  One day he just wasn’t there anymore and my Mama had a new guy.  All he left me was some foggy memories.”  She swallows the lump in her throat.  “No trips to the zoo.  No weekend ice cream at the park.  No teaching me to ride a bike or drive or…fix a car.  Nobody watching out for me.  Nobody to keep the boys in line.  Nobody to tell me that…it was gonna be okay.”  Her breath is ragged and shallow.  “Nobody…like you.”  She whispers.  “The only Daddy I ever really had was a kind old bus driver that took pity on me.”  Once again fighting tears, her voice trembling with contained weeps, she shrinks into herself and asks in the tiny fragile voice of a desperately hurt and scared little girl.  “How come he didn’t love me Alan?  How come my Daddy…didn’t…”

Try as he might Alan could not maintain his gruff aloofness in the face of such pain.  Seeing this small sassy woman with the heart of a fighter break down in front of him was just too much.  The deceptions, the drugs, Kitty’s hard living past, the fact he barely even knew this woman, all of that fades to insignificance as his father’s heart melts in an instant.

“Aw Kitty.”  Once more he takes her into a bracing hug.  Holding her head tight to his chest and his other arm around her back he holds her tight.

“How can a man not love his own little girl?”  She sobs, the tears coming now all at once.  “Why’d he go away!?  I don’t understand.”

“I don’t know Kit.”  His muscles tauten as his huge body encompasses her as tightly as he could without hurting her.

“I idolized that man…h-h-he was my whole world!”  She weeps.  “How could he not know that?  How could he not care?  How could he leave me…with her?”  With a pitiable mewl that came up from her the very center of her soul Kitty cries out.  “I loved my Daddyyy!”

“I know.”  Alan whispers and kisses her curly haired head.  “I know baby girl.  It’s okay.  It’s gonna be okay.”