Brenda Novak - This Heart of Mine

“She took Jacob and me to breakfast yesterday morning at Just Like Mom’s. Why? Is that the reason you’re here? Did someone tell you about that?”

“No. But I’m surprised you didn’t.”

“This is the first time I’ve seen you. Did you want me to file a report?”

She perched on the edge of his couch. “That would’ve been nice. You’re not the only one who has a stake in this, you know.”

“Where’s Dad?” he asked.

“On his way to the golf course with his friends.”

“He was willing to miss the ‘Phoenix’ talk?”

“He’d miss my funeral for a good golf game.”

Riley couldn’t help chuckling.

“So?” she said.

“So, what?”

“How did she act?”

They were back to the nitty-gritty details of his first visit with Phoenix. “She was very...polite.”

“Of course! She wants to impress you.”

“She wants to know her son, Mom. She’s made that clear, wouldn’t you say?”

“That’s what she’d like us to believe, but she hoped to get you before, and I’m sure she’d be thrilled to land you now. You remember how fixated she was on you.” She picked a piece of lint off her slacks. “You wouldn’t want to start something like that up again, would you?”

Even that aspect of Phoenix’s actions had been exaggerated over the years. “She deserves the chance to prove she’s changed.”

“What are the odds she changed for the better in prison ?” his mother responded.

“Don’t make it sound like that’s impossible. Otherwise, why would we let anyone out?”

“Because there aren’t enough cells to keep all the murderers locked up. But I didn’t come here to debate the penal system. I was hoping to get you to reconsider being so flexible. She’s probably seen things you and I can only imagine. Who knows what kind of people she met in that place? I don’t want her to become a negative influence on Jacob after all we’ve done to raise him right.”

Riley’s temper was beginning to chafe. “Mom, Jacob’s sixteen. Almost an adult. We can’t protect him forever.”

“He’s at a very impressionable age!”

“Still, we need to trust in who he is. It’s up to him to decide whether he wants his mother in his life.”

“But he doesn’t know what’s best.”

“Neither do we ! That’s the thing!”

“We have a lot more to base our decision on than he does.”

With a sigh, Riley slouched into the chair opposite her. “I’m not so sure. I’ve been wondering if we were wrong to keep them apart. It hurt Phoenix deeply, and I honestly don’t think she’s all that bad.”

His mother’s eyes widened. “Maybe you need to talk to Lori Mansfield’s family, to be reminded of how much they’ve suffered from losing their beautiful daughter.”

“I’m sympathetic to the Mansfields. I know you and Corinne are close friends, that her happiness is important to you. But they’re not the only ones who’ve suffered. And if Phoenix has been telling the truth about the events of that day, her punishment was completely unjustified. I’d hate to add to that.”

His mother got to her feet. “Now you believe she’s innocent?”

“There’s nothing to prove her guilt or her innocence.”

“Then look at the facts. That’s what they convicted her on, isn’t it? She was jealous when you started seeing Lori. So she tried to take her out of the picture. It was Phoenix’s car that ran her down, and Phoenix was behind the wheel. There was even a witness inside the vehicle!”

Who might have been lying, but he could tell the argument was only going to escalate if they continued talking about this. “We don’t know exactly what happened,” he insisted.

“What’s gotten into you?” she asked. “Just last week you were wishing along with the rest of us that Phoenix would go somewhere else.”

That was before he’d met her for breakfast, before last night. Both encounters had had a profound effect on him. It was much easier to malign someone who wasn’t around. Now that he’d seen the contrast between the real Phoenix and the monster they’d created in their minds, he understood that everyone’s negative comments and opinions had fueled fears in him that might not be well founded. “I didn’t want her to come back. I wrote her and told her as much.” He didn’t say that was one letter he wished he could un send. “But Whiskey Creek is her home as much as ours. She can come here if she wants, and there’s nothing we can do to stop her.”

“So you’ve made up your mind? You’re going to support a relationship between her and Jacob?”

“If that’s what he wants, yes—unless she does something that seems...wrong.”

“By then it might be too late.”

“That’s the chance I have to take.”

“When they’d both be better off if she’d just move somewhere else?”

He thought of the shopping he and Kyle had done. His mother would not be happy if she learned that they’d helped Phoenix, but he didn’t regret it. Giving her those things had felt right.

“How would they both be better off?” he asked. “She has nothing to start over with. At least if she stays here she’ll have a free place to live until she gets on her feet.”

“That dump out there isn’t even sanitary. A normal person wouldn’t want to stay there.”

He felt slightly defensive. “She’s doing what she can to clean it up.” She’d told him as much.

“Either way, the Mansfields won’t put up with her living in this town.”

Riley scooted forward but rested his arms on his knees. He didn’t want to come on too strong. “There’s nothing the Mansfields can do.”

“Of course there is,” she said.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m saying someone should warn her. Maybe that’ll make her think twice about burdening us with her presence.”

He’d been uncomfortable with this conversation from the beginning, but now he was downright concerned. “ Warn her? Really?”

“Yes! I’ve heard Corinne say that Buddy won’t allow it. You know how close he was to Lori. They were thirteen months apart and did almost everything together growing up.”

“I know he’s angry that his wife left him last year. He always seems to be out causing trouble now that she’s gone. But Phoenix has nothing to do with his current misery.”

“How can you say that? She’s at the root of it. He’s never been able to get over Lori’s murder.”

“So it’s also Phoenix’s fault that he goes from job to job? That he’s currently making minimum wage working as a clerk at the hardware store and living with his parents?”

“You can’t judge him!”

Although Riley had spent a lot of time around Buddy through the years—thanks to the friendship between families—he’d never cared for him. Buddy had always been an egotistic braggart. “But he can judge others.”

“In this instance, I think he’s got the right. Anyway, he wrote Phoenix before she was released. But either she didn’t get his letter, or she ignored it, like yours.”

Riley felt his muscles tense. Buddy was six feet four inches tall and weighed probably 230 pounds. A single blow from his meaty fist could cause significant damage. Even with a bat, Phoenix would never be able to defend herself. “What did Buddy say in that letter?”

“I don’t know. It’s not as though Corinne read it to me. But it was something to the effect that she’d regret it if she came back here.”

No wonder Phoenix had reacted the way she had when she’d heard them on her porch last night. She must’ve thought the Mansfields were coming for her. “He’d better not hurt her,” Riley said.