“This was Judy’s car until she decided that she was going to save the planet… with a Prius, pardon me while I barf…! Anyway, I don’t need it, Judy doesn’t want it, so I was wondering if you’d maybe like to borrow it until you can get your own car, or make me an offer for this one. You’re going to need a car to for work, and this is just gathering dust, so…”
I was speechless. I tried to thank him but he just waved it off.
“You need it; I don’t, so it’s yours for as long as you need it! You may need to use the battery-charger over there; the car’s been sitting for several months so the battery’s probably dead.”
We puttered around with it until we got it started using the jump-box David had. Once it started we let it run for a few minutes, then turned it off and I hooked-up the battery-charger, just to make sure. While we waited, I thought I’d do a little digging of my own.
“So, David, where are you taking my Mum this weekend?” I grinned, watching him blush again.
“I was thinking of a nice Italian place I know on Colonie, I know Julia likes Italian,” was his response. I looked quizzically at him.
“You really like her, don’t you?” I asked and he grinned ruefully.
“That obvious, huh?” and I grinned happily, glad to have something to take my mind off our troubles.
He continued.
“She’s different to most of the women I meet. The dates I’ve been on recently, well, perhaps not all that recently, were all with women who were either gold-diggers or opportunists looking for a doctor for a husband. Judy used to spot them and launch into them, and I came to trust her instincts, so I kind of fell out of the habit of dating. Your mother, now, she’s different; for one thing Judy likes and trusts her, and she’s self reliant; she’s not looking for a free ride. I know she’s had a hard life over the last few years, and I think she deserves a little pampering. Judy filled me in on what it’s been like for her, and yet she’s kept her head up, and made a life when everything fell apart, and I find her wholly admirable, and beautiful, of course. So, to answer your question, yeah, I really like her, and I hope she likes me too, because I plan on seeing a lot more of her, with your permission of course!”
I grinned again. “She’s over 21, David, and I’ve only been back in her life a few days; you really don’t need my permission, but for what it’s worth, I approve, and I feel sure Ashley will too; my mum needs a good bloke, hopefully that’ll be you!”
We chatted some more as we walked back to the garage, where I unplugged the charger and tried turning the engine over. It started immediately, and I grinned over at David.
“Are you absolutely sure about this?” and he nodded back.
“Go ahead, she’s all yours for as long as you need her, my pleasure, Nick, I’m just glad I can help! Oh, and almost forgot; don’t worry about tags and insurance, she’s fully covered and you’ll be covered to drive it. If you decide later on you want to buy her, we’ll worry about that stuff later.”
I jumped in and waved at him as I headed home; I had a car, I had a job, and I had a beautiful girl waiting for me at home; my life was coming together, and things were changing for the better for my family, except for just one detail; the knowledge of who had raped Ashley, and why, still sizzled in the pit of my stomach. I knew it wasn’t New Year’s, but I made a resolution; I would do all I could to make those people pay for what they’d done to my Ashley, but I’d keep out of it until the time was right, then anything I could do, I would do. Punishment was due to somebody, and I promised myself I’d be there to see it handed out.
++++
I pulled into our driveway and parked behind Mum’s car, bursting to give her my good news. As I came in, the first person I saw was Ashley, her smile lighting up the room as she saw the expression on my face.
“How did it go, Nick?” she asked, and I couldn’t help grinning.
“I start a week Monday! I’ve got a job!”
Ashley squealed and jumped on me, and Mum came out of the kitchen to see what all the noise was about.
“Mum, I got the job, I start a week Monday!” I exulted, making sure I kept all trace of what had happened earlier out of my voice. “And I’ve got a car, come see!”
Mum and Ashley came outside with me, Mum astonished at the car, and Ashley looking curiously at it. I explained the deal with David and the car; Ashley looked at me oddly as I explained, but said nothing. After we’d had dinner, I asked her if she’d like to go for a drive so I could show her off.
Ashley looked at me with a big, artless grin on her face.
“So tell me, brother of mine, who are you going to show off; me or the car?” she asked almost innocently, and that earned her a pinch on the bum that made her jump and giggle as I shooed her out the door.
“Perhaps we need to visit a ‘quiet place’ again, Nick!” she murmured in my ear, and I smiled to myself as I picked-up on what she was saying.
We took a long meandering route this time; I guessed she was taking me to one of her more rural hidey-holes. We drove a fair way out of town, eventually skirting a large lake and following a path through the forest to park in among a stand of broad-leafed hardwood trees; maple, I guessed, although I’m no botanist.
I admired the view; there was a lot to admire, wild-looking woodland and forest alive with bird sounds and the sound of the wind soughing in the trees, and the occasional glimpse of the dark water of the reservoir just visible through the trees.
“Ashley, where are we?” I asked, and she hooked her arm in mine.
“That’s the Tomahannock Reservoir down there, Vermont State line’s over that way, and Massachusetts is over there. Daddy used to bring us out here and detour over to the Berlin State Forest because he used to say you can see three states from there. I never saw it, though; one clump of trees and poison ivy looks pretty much like another!”
I leaned back against the car, holding her and enjoying the warmth and smell of her, a delicious light flowery scent with undertones of vanilla; she smelled delicious. She leaned against me, her head on my chest and her arms around my waist, enjoying the silence together.
After a while she began drumming distractedly on the small of my back, a light tapping that I noticed she did when she was thinking, a rhythm that seemed to focus her concentration.
“Nicky,” she asked, hesitantly, “If I ask you something, will you be completely honest with me?”
I nuzzled her, enjoying the feel of her hair against my lips. “Of course, Princess, always, you know that! Just ask away.”
“Nicky, when you came in earlier, when you saw me you looked like a deer in the headlights; why? All afternoon Mom’s been all sweetness and light and all is good with the world. I thought at first she was just happy about having a date for Friday, but then I realised she was acting exactly the way she used to be when she’d come back from the hospital and I’d ask her about daddy, and she’d say he was fine, when we both knew it was all going badly.”
She paused, looking back up at me with her clear, frank gaze.
“Then there’s you, acting happy-clappy and peppy, not your normal self with your little jokes and puns and that goofy grin of yours, and now Dr. Nixon suddenly gives you Judy’s car. Tell me something OK? Why? What the fuck is going on? And don’t even think about lying to me, I can read you like a book, big brother!”
Shit.
I tried to squirm my way out of it. “It’s nothing, babe, I’m really happy I got a job so quickly, and mum’s just happy for me too…!” I trailed off as she slowly shook her head.
“Nick Davis, right now I can see a great big ‘I Am Lying’ sign flashing on and off over your head. What am I missing here? Talk, English-boy, or sleep on the porch, and I mean it!”
I was busted, and she was right, I couldn’t lie to her, or to anyone, come to that; I just wasn’t set-up that way.
I sighed and wrapped my arm even tighter around her, cuddling her close to me.
“Look baby-girl, it’s about … what… happened to you.”
Ashley looked up at me. “I was raped, Nicky, say it, it’s OK, it doesn’t have any power over me anymore; you can mention it, you know!”
That was encouraging.
“Baby, about the … rape, we had a letter today, from England, from… Barbara. She sent it Friday, the day…”
“… the day she died, Oh Nicky, I’m so sorry!” finished Ashley, her hand suddenly cool and reassuring on my cheek. I cleared my throat and continued.
“In the letter she gave details, lots of details, about what happened to you. I’m so sorry, I wish I didn’t know …”
Ashley looked worried.
“What Nick, what is it? Tell me!”
I stared at the ground as I began to speak, unable to look her in the face.
“Baby, what happened to you, it was planned, it wasn’t some random lowlife, it wasn’t an opportunist crime; someone was sent to do that… by my father…”
Her eyes were two saucers, shock and outrage growing in them. I could feel her tensing and drawing away from me, and I was already regretting my honesty, but it was too late to backtrack now.
“You knew this… and you yet still brought me out here? Why, why would you keep something like that from me?”
I swallowed.
“Baby girl, there’s more, oh God it gets worse…!”
She looked at me big-eyed and fearful. “Worse, what do you mean, how much worse…?”
I avoided her eyes. “When that… creature… did what he did to you, it wasn’t you he was waiting for; you just happened to walk in at the wrong time…!”
Her eyes narrowed, then widened in horror. “You mean…!” she gasped, her hands flying up to her mouth.
I nodded miserably.
“He was waiting for mum, that’s what it was about; my father, that sick, twisted rat-bastard set it up, we saw the emails, Barbara sent them all; he’s fucking insane! This was his way of punishing mum for leaving him! Remember I told you he was vicious and vindictive? Well now we know just how far gone he really is. Barbara said he’d never let her go, I should have listened to what she was telling me…