Rexanne Becnel - Leaving L.a.

Just as well.

I fed Tripod, all the while conscious of the heavy rhythm of Daniel’s music shuddering through the ceiling. I was up on all kinds of music, from hardcore punk to ambient noise, to hip hop, to grind core. But I didn’t recognize this band. As I started up the stairs, though, I got a brilliant idea. Daniel was fourteen or so, just coming into his own when it came to musical preferences. If I chatted him up about his music, it would probably piss the hell out of Alice. But it could also be the start of a great article: Tomorrow’s Music Connoisseurs—What They’re Listening To Today. Plus, I needed to learn how to relate to kids.

I knocked twice before Daniel cracked the door. He looked like a younger version of G.G. when he was in a foul mood. Lowered brow, downturned mouth.

“What?” he asked. I couldn’t hear the actual word due to the volume of his music, but I could read his lips.

I smiled. “I was wondering who that was. I don’t recognize the band.”

“What?”

“The band!” I shouted. “Who is it?”

“Oh.” He opened the door to let me in. Then he lowered the volume and handed me the CD cover. Power of Odd.

“Never heard of them. Are they local?”

“Sort of. One of them went to Covington High School and they’ve played at a couple of youth revivals.”

“Youth revivals? You mean they’re Christian rock?”

“Yeah.” He gestured me to sit on his bed, then picked up a handful of CDs for me to look though. As I checked them out I listened to Power of Odd. No reference to Jesus in the lyrics, at least not directly. No wonder I hadn’t pegged it. With the pounding drums—it sounded like a double set—and the howl of angst delivering the lyrics, it had more in common with Metallica or White Snake than what I thought of as saccharine church music. Debbie Boone it was not.

“These guys aren’t as fierce,” he said, as he reloaded the CD player with a different group. “More lyrical. Good for relaxing.”

“While Power of Odd is better for raging?”

He ducked his head and shrugged. “It’s been a weird day, you know?”

“Tell me about it.”

We listened to the beginning of the first song, about temptation and love and getting your strength from above.

“Why’d you come back here?” he asked me.

I straightened up. No way was I discussing this house and my half of Mom’s inheritance. “Doesn’t it make more sense to ask why I left?” Another bad subject but not quite so dangerous.

“Okay. Why’d you leave? How old were you, anyway?”

“Seventeen. And this place was nothing like it is now.” What a monumental understatement.

“You ran away?”

“Yep.”

“How come?”

I laughed. “My mother, of course. She was crazy. And cruel. And selfish.”

“Just like mine,” he muttered.

“Oh, no, buddy boy. No way. Your mother is nothing like our mom.”

“Oh, yeah? Well you never had to live with a religious fanatic who thinks you’re five years old!”

“That’s true,” I admitted. “But at least you know she loves you. Cares about you. My mother treated us like we were adults. We had to feed ourselves, clean ourselves, take care of the house and pets—and her while she was loaded, which was most of the time. It was up to us to keep this place functioning while a bunch of pothead dopers crashed here whenever they wanted to.”

He stared at me in shock. “Grandma was a drug user?”

He didn’t know? If Alice hadn’t told him that, it stood to reason that she would be furious when she found out I had. Digging up all our buried family secrets and baring them to the light.

But too bad. It was his family history, too.

I slid onto the floor, sat cross-legged on the rug and leaned toward him. “My mother—your grandmother—lost her father when she was five. He died in Korea. Her mom promptly had a nervous breakdown. That’s what they called it in those days. Anyway, my mother was raised here on the farm, for the most part by her grandparents, who were already old and devastated by the death of their only son. From the stories she used to tell, it seems like nobody really took control of her, and she grew up pretty wild. By the time your mother was born, both of the old folks had died. So it was just Mom and Alice out here on the farm and, later on, me.”

He was listening intently, chewing on one side of his lower lip. “Even though Mom’s last name was Blalock, Grandma never married my mom’s father, did she?”

“No.”

He nodded. “That’s what I figured. But Mom won’t ever talk about it.”

“It wasn’t easy for us, growing up around here.” Another understatement. “Back then Vidrine Farm was known as Hippie Heaven. You know, a commune.”

I could tell by his blank look that he didn’t know what I was talking about. I rolled my eyes. “Go to the library and check the local newspaper during the seventies and eighties. There are lots of articles about Caro Vidrine and the Vidrine Farm.”

“Maybe I will,” he said, frowning. “Once I’m not grounded anymore.”

“You’re grounded? Why?”

“They said I split for four hours without telling them where I was going. But I did tell them!”

“Yeah, I heard you.”

“And anyway, it’s not Carl’s place to ground me.”

“Carl grounded you?”

Daniel flung himself on his bed. “He thinks he’s my dad or something. But he’s not.”

I considered a long moment, then decided, so what if I was pumping the kid for information? “Are your mom and Carl, you know, a couple?”

He shot me an aggrieved look. “If you mean, like, are they getting married—” The rest was muffled when he slapped a pillow over his face and screamed into it.

I stared at him in shock. He was a strange mixture of polite kid and raging teenager. Homeschooled and protected but part of a sick family history of neglect and depravity. Self-control versus self-indulgence, that sure described me and my poor, uptight sister. And now Daniel was trapped in a new version of the same hellhole. Mom the drug addict; Alice the religion addict; and me the—

What?

What was my addiction? What made me feel safe and in control? Shopping? That was temporary. Adulation? Unfortunately that too was temporary, especially since I didn’t have enough talent as a model, actress or singer to make the big time.

So where did I turn for comfort? Certainly not to men. Men have their uses. But after my first disastrous love affair, I’ve never had any delusions about them.

My hand moved once more to my stomach, and that’s when it dawned on me. This child. I was banking on her—or him—to be my happiness.

I’d never wanted children. Certainly I’d been very careful to always use birth control. Always. But somehow I’d managed to conceive this child. And once I’d figured out why my breasts were so sore and my period was late, I’d become fixated on her.

Me, a mother.

I was determined to do it right, to do it as close to perfect as I could. That’s why I needed to get settled down in the right place and the sooner the better. My child would have the safest house and the best mother any child ever had. At least I hoped so.

Daniel sat up abruptly, startling me back to the moment. “How long are you staying here with us?”

“I’m not sure. Why?”

“What do you think of Carl?”

Now that was an interesting question. I decided to be honest. “He seems too old for Alice. And too rigid. And mean.”

He snorted. “Nice description of the man who’s trying to be the next pastor at our church.”

“You’re saying he wants to run the church and marry the former minister’s widow?”

“You got it.”