49
Beverly
The days that followed consisted of sex, sex, and more sex. Luke and I were so strung out on each other, enough was never enough. We’d forgone several meals to have each other. Dax had one of his family’s cooks come in and make us a gourmet meal we’d not eaten until the following day for breakfast.
Other than inviting us to dinner, and although we were under the same roof, Dax and Laura made themselves scarce as well.
“Luke,” my call whispered across the dark room. He stood in front of the window staring out at a moonless sky. A few stars fought the darkness and broke free but weren’t strong enough to break up the thick darkness.
“Yes,” he answered, his gaze wandering aimlessly at nothing. His ivory skin glowed in the darkness, providing my eyes a lighted pathway to him.
“Will you tell me what happened to you?” I asked. “One day,” I added, in an attempt to stamp back my eager desire to know more about him. In spending time with him, I’d picked up the fact that demons from his past were hunting him.
He slept like he was being tortured in his sleep. I wasn’t a therapist, but something terrible had happened to him and he either hadn’t let go or couldn’t let go. I didn’t know if it was something that happened before or after the military.
He presented a calm, well put-together man for everyone to see, but I knew far too well what post-traumatic stress could do to a person. He was shouldering something heavy, and I prayed he trusted me enough to let me into that part of his life.
We were all haunted by our past, but Luke’s demons were more pronounced, more insistent on plaguing him with reminders that caused his mind to drift. He always seemed happy to return to me, or at least I hoped so because I was happy to receive his affection and the abundance of care he was capable of dishing out.
He stepped away from the window, letting the heavy drapes fall back into place. I didn’t go to him right away when he climbed back into his side of the bed. The last thing some people wanted when they talked about difficult subjects was to be touched.
When he opened his arms, I went, draping my arms around his waist. The tension in his body spoke volumes, and for a while, we sat in the darkness allowing the sound of our breathing to fill in the quiet space.
“My mother died when I was too young to know her,” he started. “My father said I was three when she passed away. Sometimes he claimed I was four and sometimes five. I honestly don’t think he knew. All he’d tell me was that she’d died from natural causes. There were no pictures, no reminders, no letters, clothes, nothing left of her to even let me know who she was or that she’d even existed.”
He paused, and I could hear him thinking.
“My father, Luther was his name. He was an uncaring man. There were no hugs or pep talks or helping with schoolwork, just his taunts and constant reminders I was stupid, worthless, and that I took after my dumb ass mother. After a while, I started to believe that maybe I was stupid, even though I did well in school. I’d always been on the honor roll, even though I don’t think my father knew it. He didn’t care about grades or school.
“All he cared about was the number of bodies that came into the business. He’d never wanted me. He dealt with me because I’d inherited the title of son. I didn’t know enough to understand at the time, but death was a lucrative business, yet my father barely kept the lights on or food in the refrigerator. He did the bare minimum where it concerned the household. As far back as I can recall he drilled it in my head that I’d be doing my part to earn my place. He ensured I got familiar with seeing dead bodies early on.”
I remained quiet, allowing his words to soak in.
“At first, my job was to clean up after my father embalmed the bodies. I’d take out the trash, cut the lawn, cook, and clean the house. By the time I was twelve, I knew how to embalm and cremate bodies. I was skinny, tall, gangly looking, the ideal look of an undertaker. School wasn’t a pleasant place. Home was twice as bad, so I learned to appreciate the better of two evils. It wasn’t until I was about fourteen I discovered my father’s gambling problems were so bad he’d gone into debt with some nasty people he called his friends.”
I continued to sit in silence, grateful he was sharing this part of his life with me. When I’d first got him talking on the plane, I could tell his father was a huge part of what troubled him.
“There was one night those friends arrived, prepared to collect money my father didn’t have. They took the payment out of his flesh. Even though my father never showed me an ounce of care, I gripped the bat I kept in my room and attempted to defend him. With three guns in my face, my father bloody at my feet, I was as helpless and useless as he’d always insisted I was. The men taunted us, ensuring I knew I was as worthless as my father. His debt was over a hundred thousand dollars, and they gave him a week to pay. He offered the deeds to the funeral home, which they took along with me.”
A deep gasp escaped at that statement, pausing his words. I melded my body into his, pulling him closer, knowing that things would get so much worse. My action caused a weak smile to trace his lips.
“My father had a week to produce the money, or they promised they’d kill me. They tied a rag around my eyes and took me to one of their houses. There, I was tossed into a dirt hole, dug in the backyard and shut in like an animal. The suffocating scent of decay revealed I hadn’t been the only person thrown down there. Others hadn’t made it out of that hole alive.”
To prevent my reaction, my grief was shoved down my throat after I slammed my eyes shut. I had to maintain control so he would keep talking.
“Cold and as silent as night was dark, all I had was me and the loud call of my mind to keep me company. Being in all that dark silence caused the voices in my head to sound like screaming trains. My captors would crack the metal door that led into the hole and toss down stale bread and an occasional bottle of water. I made myself believe it was water, but the scent revealed the truth. I wasn’t always drinking water.”
“Luke, baby, I’m so sorry,” I eased out. I was unable to keep quiet any longer. A knot of sorrow became wedged in my throat as tears stung my eyes. My gut clenched and I fought to keep my body from quivering with sadness at his horrifically tragic reveal.
He stared down at me. “It’s okay. I’m here with you, aren’t I?”
His words enticed my sad smile before he continued.
“The men that had me were worse savages than my father. A few weeks had come and gone, and I’d never been released from that hole. My father came up with enough of the money for them not to kill me right away. However, my father being who he was, had won all the money, but couldn’t bear to release it all to help me. My captors informed me that he’d lost the rest of the winnings at the craps table. After what I assumed was a few more weeks, I accepted my father’s gambling habit was the only thing he cared about.”
I stirred, attempting to get a glimpse of his eyes. I brushed my lips across his cheek and kept it there until the tension that had risen in him lessened.
“To cling to a little piece of my sanity, I started digging to keep myself busy, hoping I’d tunnel my way out of the hole. The longer I was down there, the more my human behaviors started to vanish. My mind started to turn against me as I fought the rats for the scraps they’d toss down. They told me they were not going to open that door again until my father paid them. They said I’d find out how much my father cared about me. Staying true to their word, they stopped coming, and all I had was silence, digging, and my warring mind. Voices I knew weren’t there called, and images I wished were real showed up.”