His eyes darted my way but I turned toward the window, not wanting to share my anger and frustration with anyone.
He cleared his throat before he spoke again. “The laws and jurisdiction are different on and off the reservation, Aubrey. Money isn’t. Money talks. I can’t know what the hell will happen to Jerry without it. I gave that cop money to get things moving.”
I just shook my head because I wanted his answer to be different. I wanted so many things to be different and before I could stop the words from flying out of my mouth, I blurted, “My grandmother vanished into the darkness of the night. My mother used to say a dark cloud rolled through the reservation and swallowed her up. Then, not long after, my mother was raped.”
Jax white-knuckled the steering wheel before he swerved to pull over.
We stared out at the open road, me shocked at what I’d just revealed and him trying to digest it. “What do you mean? Your father?”
I shook my head. “No, it isn’t important. I just …”
“Start at the beginning, Peaches.”
So, I did. I told him what Margie told me and how I’d been questioning everything ever since.
He listened until I finished. “The world is a pitiful fucking place, Peaches. Your mom did her best.”
“Was her best just being with another man that abused her so she didn’t have to go back to something worse? Did she think she was protecting me?”
Jax didn’t answer my questions. He just replied, “We’re all doing what we can to make our world a little better. Focus on us doing what we could today and on what we can do tomorrow.”
We let silence descend upon us for the rest of the drive, his words echoing in my head.
In that car, after the shock of almost losing Ollie wore off, I changed. I promised myself to do just as Jax said. Focusing on doing what I could to make my life and the world around me better meant facing my demons, stepping out of the shadows and confronting the monsters that had kept me suppressed for so long.
Starting with my father.