Lost by Helen R. Myers

Author:Helen R. Myers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

32

6:47 a.m.

The feeling that he wasn’t alone brought Harold Bean awake faster than a cold shower. Opening his eyes, he saw his mother glowering at him through his car’s driver’s window. It didn’t surprise him that she’d spotted him—parking behind the utility shed might have hidden him from the street, but not the trailer—he was amazed that she’d actually come out of her self-made prison, let alone ventured this far across the yard.

She smacked the glass with her fleshy, white fist. “Get out of there. Come out, or I swear I’ll take a brick to this window!”

Believing her, he dragged himself upright and eased his sleep-stiff body from the car. “Jeez, Mama, all you have to do is say, ‘Good morning.”’

“I’ll good-morning you. Where’ve you been all night?”

“Here.”

She cuffed the back of his head.

“Mama!”

“I went to bed at midnight, and you were nowhere around here. Now what the hell’s going on?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t play me for a fool, boy. The police were here. The chief himself. Asked me a lot of questions about you and your whereabouts in connection to that Ramey girl. You know how embarrassing that was?”

He hurried to the trailer, hoping his mother would follow before her caterwauling roused the busybodies in the trailers on either side of them. He also had to move for another reason—it was later than he’d intended to sleep. There were things to do.

“I was in jail, okay? They arrested me!”

His mother tugged the door shut behind her. Her huge caftan muted the click of the lock, but nothing could camouflage her ominous stare. “Thank heaven your father is gone. It would kill him to hear this.”

“You sound as though he’s dead. Did you get a death certificate that I don’t know about?”

His mother turned gray, then a dull purple-red. “I haven’t had my medication yet this morning. You be careful what you say to me.”

“Then shut the fuck up.”

The outburst surprised him, but he also wished he had a camera to capture the shock on her face. She looked like she’d just been gutted. About time, he thought with growing satisfaction. She was long overdue for a reality check.

“How dare you speak to me that way!”

“Yeah, yeah. Tell you what, as soon as I get my stuff, you don’t have to listen anymore.”

“Where’re you going?”

To kill the morning taste in his mouth, he grabbed a can of diet cola from the refrigerator and popped the tab, then guzzled half of the disgusting stuff. “You think I’m telling you so you can call the cops?” He burped. “No thanks.”

“What’s going on, Harold?”

Unable to tolerate more, he left the unfinished soda on the counter and headed for his bedroom. “It’s all coming apart, that’s what. My life’s closing in on me, thanks to you.”

“What have I done, except to try to raise you right?”

“You’ve never cared about me,” he scoffed. “You used me the same way you use everything and everybody to get your next meal and keep some kind of roof over your head. But you know what? I’m through.

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