Fracture

20. Dylan

CHAPTER 20

DYLAN

I’m not entirely sure why I’m here. Maybe I’m looking for assurance that what I’m about to do is justified. Maybe I just need to be sure.

And the target of my curiosity doesn’t take long at all to appear.

Molly stumbles out onto the back porch of Stella’s family home, the requisite glass of wine clasped in her hand. She’s barefoot, her hair loose down her back, and at a distance it’s almost possible to see the young Molly Hartmann, the woman Harold Langford fell for all those years ago. Her hair is darker than Stella’s, graying at the temples now, and the alcohol has worn her skin to an unhealthy pallor.

But when she tips her face up to the dusky pink sky, there’s a glimpse of her - not the alcoholic, not the neglectful mother. Just Molly. As she should have been if she wasn’t an addict.

I wait at the tree line, knowing she’ll find her way over here soon, and I don’t have to wait long. Voices waft from the house, and Molly’s head snaps to look over her shoulder, a sigh lifting her chest. She makes her away across the soft green lawn, coming closer and closer to where I stand in the shadows.

I don’t speak until she’s 10 feet from me, stepping out into the dimming light.

“Hello, Molly,” I say quietly, and she jumps, spilling dark red drops of wine at her feet.

“Jesus, Dylan!” She brushes her hair from her face, eyes wide. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“You remembered my name, Molly. Good for you.”

She narrows her eyes, and takes a steadying gulp of wine. “I’m not completely useless, you know.” She tilts her head, gaze straying to the house before returning to me. “What the hell are you doing out here? What do you want?”

“You know, I wasn’t even sure what I wanted when I came up here,” I reply, tucking my hands into my pockets. “But now, I think I know that what I really wanted was to have a little talk with you.”

“A talk?” Molly raises an eyebrow. “Sure you don’t want to drag me off into the woods and take off my head? Hiding out here in the dark like a serial killer?”

I laugh softly, shaking my head. “I don’t have any interest in killing an old drunk like you, Molly.” She winces slightly at my words, but I ignore it. I’m not here to make her feel better. I’m not going to assuage her guilt. “But I do want some answers.”

“Answers?” She laughs into her wine glass, before draining the last of its contents. “Answers about what?”

“Did you know?”

Her eyes flash to mine, her mouth pulling into a firm line. She exhales heavily through her nose, and turns away from me to gaze up at the last of the sunset. Crickets sing in the woods around us, and she brushes a bare foot along the grass. It’s an inappropriately idyllic scene for Molly Hartmann to admit to knowing her daughter was being abused. But admit it she will.

“You know, I always wanted to be a mother,” she says softly, eyes fixed on the green ground beneath her. “You probably don’t believe me, but I did. I’d play dollies all damn day as a girl, I carried my babies around with me everywhere. I’d cry if someone dropped them, if they weren’t dressed for the weather, because they’d be cold.” A small laugh bubbles from her lips, and she pressed the back of her hand to her mouth with a gasp. “Crazy, right? To want to be something so badly, and then completely fail at it.”

“I’m not going to feel sorry for you, if that’s what you want.” I lean against the tree behind me, regarding the woman before me coolly. “Your failure to be a good mother was a choice.”

She shakes her head, still looking at the ground. “You’re right, and I don’t expect you to pity me, Dylan. I don’t deserve that.” She nudges a twig with her toe, the wine glass clasped in her fingers. “I’d love to tell you I didn’t know. That it blindsided me as much as it blindsided you.” She lifts her eyes to mine, and gives me a weak smile. “But that would be a lie.”

I grunt out a harsh laugh, and run a hand over my mouth. “Jesus Christ, Molly. How could you?”

“I didn’t know .” She emphasizes the last word with an outstretched hand, but that determination quickly drops from her face. “But there were signs. So many signs, and I ignored them all.”

“Why?”

She shrugs, lifting the wine glass to her mouth, and quickly remembering it’s empty. Without her emotional support wine in hand, she eyes me helplessly, and shrugs again.

“It all started innocently enough. You marry a man with hopes of being the president, you know he’s going to use everything he can to make himself look good. I was considered a trophy wife once, can you imagine?” The laugh she lets out almost makes me feel sorry for her. “And then I gave him a picture perfect baby, I mean, I’m sure you’ve seen pictures of her. She was beautiful. And her eyes, that orange color, like an exotic cat.” She sighs, her hand brushing over her stomach for a brief second, as though remembering a time when she could shield Stella from all the evils of the world. “Stella has been turning heads since she was born.”

The words twist my stomach, just as much as Molly’s tone. Her meaning is more than obvious.

“So, what was this innocent start?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest, suddenly feeling a chill despite the warm evening.

Molly reaches out to stroke her fingers down the trunk of a tree, smiling softly. “Baby pictures make great Christmas cards, that’s what Harold said. So we had a photographer take pictures of Stella in her red and white Christmas outfit, and sent those out. And Harold’s office was flooded with thank you cards.” Another sad sigh. “And then it was every holiday, pictures of Stella waving a flag for Fourth of July, dressed in a little camo dress for Memorial Day. Her chubby little hand held up in a salute.” Molly runs a hand over her face, pushing a stray whisp of dark blonde hair back over her head. “I could never have guessed…” She trails off, looking at me with big, sad eyes.

“When did you start to suspect something was wrong?”

Her eyes become a little unfocused, and I’m unsure if I’m about to lose her. She sways on her feet, gazing up into the trees.

“Just after her third birthday.”

The words threaten to knock me off my feet, and send a searing rage through my veins that’s so violent, I have to hold my arms against my body to stop myself laying into the fucking tree behind me. Her third birthday .

“When she was still a little baby?” My tone threatens to reveal the maelstrom of emotions within me, but Molly doesn’t seem to notice, still swaying and gazing up at the evening breeze snatching at the bright green leaves waving overhead.

“I asked him, isn’t it weird to send out pictures of a little girl in her swimsuit? In her little star-spangled banner gym suit? I didn’t like it, but he told me it was normal. That these men had kids themselves, and wouldn’t think anything of it.”

“Easy to objectify another man’s kid, I guess.”

Molly laughs bitterly, flexing her toes into the ground. “I was so stupid, Dylan. I was so, so stupid.” She sighs, her gaze dropping back to the gardens around us. “That was about the time things went south between me and Harold, and the divorce happened pretty quick after that. I told him I wanted Stella, but he said I wasn’t fit to be a mother. Which, well…” She trails off, leaning her shoulder against the tree next to me. “I failed her, Dylan, and nothing I say will make that right.”

“No I guess not.” I push away from the tree, the smell of alcohol rolling off her making my already churning stomach threaten to empty its contents all over the damn ground. “You know it didn’t stop at pictures, right?”

I pray to see horror in her face. I hope and pray that she didn’t know. Please, you can’t have known. No mother could know that was happening to their little girl, and do nothing. Please, please, tell me you didn’t know.

But Molly’s sagging shoulders and shining eyes, the down-turned corners of her mouth, confirm my very worst fears.

“I’m so sorry, Dylan.”

“Save it,” I snap, my hands trembling against my body. “I don’t need your fucking apologies.” I take a deep breath, gritting my teeth, trying to get a handle on my fury. “When did she tell you?”

“When she had the abortion.”

My heart fucking stops. Abortion . I try to kickstart my brain, to absorb what that word means, to make sure I actually understand it. Stella had an abortion .

“What abortion?” I ask, watching as Molly continues to sway on her unsteady legs. “Molly, when did Stella have an abortion?”

She rubs her forehead, closing her eyes. “Her first year of college. She was a mess when you both went inside. She slept with everyone, anyone who’d look at her. She was throwing it around like a little wh-”

I lunge at Molly, baring my teeth like I’m a fucking wild animal, and cage her in against the tree. Her eyes widen, and she hiccups loudly, covering her mouth with her hands.

“You call your daughter a whore and I will fucking end you, you disgusting old drunk. Now tell me what happened.”

“I-I don’t know, some guy she slept with got her pregnant, so she had an abortion.” Molly sounds almost indignant, shaking her shoulders and looking up at me. “You think you were the only man for her? That she’d wait for you? I told her to forget about you and move on, but then she rang me crying, saying she’d had an abortion. I was berating her for it, telling her she should take responsibility for herself and not just erase her problems.”

She jumps when a growl echoes through my chest, and her eyes widen a little.

“I was wrong to say that, I know that, OK? I… I was in shock. And then…” She sweeps a hand through the air. “Then it all just came out. She told me everything, what her father forced her to do, what she’d been subjected to.”

“And then what?”

“She asked me to come home,” Molly says, her hands jerking upwards in a little helpless gesture. “She was upset, said she wanted me there.”

“And?” I lean closer into Molly’s face, even though her breath is heavy with wine and liquor and makes me want to gag. “Did you come home to your daughter when she needed you?”

“No,” she spits back, and instantly her face is overcome with shame. Her eyes drop from mine, her shoulders sagging. “No,” she says again, softly this time, her voice full of defeat. “No, I did not. I told her I’d call her aunt, and have her come to her.”

“And how’d that work out?”

Molly sighs, shrugging heavily and pushing me away. “What do you want from me, Dylan? I fucked up, OK? I was a terrible mother, and I fucked up. I let her down.” She lifts a finger. “But I am here to tell you that Stella is no saint.”

“You fucking disgust me.” I turn away from her, sure I'm going to beat the shit out of this woman if I have to look at her any longer. “You all really just abandoned her, and then blamed her for the fallout.”

“Stella is an adult now, she has to make her own choices.”

I round on this stupid old woman, clutching her pathetic empty wine glass, and she suppresses a shriek. “Have you seen what she’s made of herself? Have you even fucking opened your eyes and seen how brilliant she is? How far has she come, and all on her own? Do you even see how amazing your own daughter is?”

Molly nods briefly, her face full of indignation. “Yes, of course.”

“Good. Then know you had absolutely nothing to do with that.”

Her face drops back into that expression of helpless shame, her brow furrowing, lifting the wine glass to her lips like it will somehow magically refill and she’ll be able to drink away all her guilt.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

I spit at her feet, and she recoils, taking a step back.

“ Brudny .” Filth . “Fuck you, Molly. I told you, I don’t need your fucking apologies.” I jab a finger in her direction. “You come near my girl with your poison again, and I will be a fucking problem for you, you understand?”

Molly blinks slowly at me, her mouth gaping. “Are you telling me to stay away from my own daughter?”

“You lost the privilege to be near her when you left her with a fucking predator. You are not welcome around her anymore. And I will enforce that. Trust me.”

I don’t wait for a response. I turn and storm through the forest, back to the edge of the property where my bike waits. My whole body is lit up with rage, the injustice of everything that happened to Stella shifting further and further into focus. Everyone let her down, not one person was there for her.

And that includes me.

While I was sitting in prison, raging over Stella’s letters that meant nothing, not for one second thinking what she was going through, she was out hurting herself. I hate that the thought of another man getting her pregnant has me seeing red. As the engine of the bike roars underneath me, as the growing night whips past me and I weave my way through evening traffic to head back to her house, I loathe the insane part of me that cannot get that thought out of my head - another man came inside my girl . Another man got her pregnant.

This shouldn’t matter, not after what I now know. Not after what Molly just admitted to me. But I’m an animal. I’m completely crazed by the time my phone pings, the tracker showing Iverson’s location.

I pull off to the side of the road, getting a handle on my possessive rage, and send Levi a text.

Iverson’s family is gone, he’s on his way home.

The little dots circle as Levi types out his reply.

Stella just left to meet Zee. I’ll see you soon.

I take a deep breath, steadying myself, focusing on the task ahead. I know Stella had a life after me, I know she had one since me, the years in between that didn’t belong to me. But the thought of her lying in a hospital bed, crying and alone while going through something like that… Even if she wanted the abortion, even if that was entirely her choice, I wasn’t fucking there for her .

Not now .

I tip my head back, gazing up at the darkening sky and the rising moon. I need to be ready for this.

I rev the engine of my bike, heading along the winding street, past the huge sprawling estates in the rich part of Bellford Heights. It’s a Friday night, the houses all dark as their occupants escape to one of their weekend getaways, up in the mountains or out at the beach.

An alarm beeps, letting me know Iverson is only a mile from his house. I rev my engine, tearing down the road at a speed that is definitely not legal, until I spot Levi’s blue Alfa parked by some trees.

I pull up beside him, and he gets out of his car, tucking the handgun Eric obtained for us into the waistband of his jeans.

“Fucker is almost home,” I tell him.

“Good.” He hands me a black mask, and rolls one down over his own face. “Let’s go take our friend Stanley for a little trip out into the woods.”