Always (3 page)

“I can assure you,” Dess said, “that I am
very much in love with your son.”

Without giving it any thought Graham reached
for Odessa’s hand and she curled her fingers around his, sinking
her long fingernails into the back of his hand to where he felt
compelled to add, “That feeling is most definitely mutual.”

“Okay, then what about–” His mom tactfully
stopped in mid-sentence as the waitress placed a salad in front of
her.

Graham knew exactly where she’d been going
with that question and it was something he didn’t want to answer.
He stalled, asking the waitress to bring an extra plate so he could
share his salad with Dess. Normally he would have just fed her
straight off his plate, but he didn’t think his mother would take
too kindly to such an intimacy at the dinner table.

Dess must have picked up on it too because
she got surprisingly motherly and reached for Amalie, saying, “I
can hold her while you eat.”

“Honey, you need to eat a lot worse that I
do.” Refusing to let go of Amalie, his mom turned to him and said,
“I think you should have bought that skinny little thing some
groceries instead of giving her that Mercedes of yours. I know how
much you loved that car.”

Odessa stabbed a cucumber out of his salad,
chewed it up and dramatically dropped her fork. “There, I’ve
eaten.”

“We had a big breakfast,” Graham lied,
knowing Dess probably hadn’t had anything more than a glass of
orange juice or maybe some fruit.

“We?” his mother’s eyebrow shot up.

Once again the waitress made the save,
returning just in time with that extra plate and another basket of
rolls. “Who’s ready for another drink,” she asked.

“Me,” all three of them said in unison.

She laughed. “Alrighty then, I’ll be right
back.”

Graham scooped some salad onto the extra
plate, and not daring to look up to meet either of their gazes,
placed it in front of Odessa. He dug into his salad, grateful to be
chewing on lettuce instead of trying to explain his confusing
relationship status. Dess rolled a cherry tomato around her plate,
acting like a morose teenager instead of a twenty something new
mother. His mother expertly balanced Amalie in one arm and dug into
her salad with equal dismissive vigor.

Despite the tension he knew it was all worth
it to have his mom accept his child so wholeheartedly. He really
shouldn’t have been surprised considering how she’d tackled every
other obstacle she’d faced in a life that had been anything other
than easy until he’d started making enough money to ensure she was
well taken care of. She’d been a teenager when she’d had him and
then two more boys before she turned twenty, scraping by the best
she could without much help from a not quite as resourceful
husband. Thinking of his dad made him drain what was left of his
drink.

His mother gave him a disapproving scowl. “I
hope you didn’t get anything more than your good looks from your
father.”

He took a not so calming sip of water before
saying, “I didn’t take one drink the whole time Dess was pregnant.”
At least not in front of her anyway. “You don’t have to worry about
me having a drinking problem.”

“I haven’t gotten good and pickled since
right after his accident,” Dess added. “And neither of us drank
when he was in Houston for his eye surgery.”

“So, she’s the reason Lucy didn’t go with
you for the surgery,” his mother stated rather than asked.

“She was busy with her salon and she didn’t
want to leave Damon at home by himself.” This time Graham did take
a drink of Jack. “It wasn’t like we could pull him out of school
his senior year.”

“Here I was thinking bad about her not
looking after you, when all that time you were with another woman.”
His mother also took a drink, as if she needed it to wash away the
contempt her words held. She waved the glass in Odessa’s direction.
“Did Lucy know she was with you?”

Graham nodded. “Now Ma, it wasn’t like Dess
and I were off on some romantic getaway. I was in the hospital with
bandages over my eyes.”

“This little girl is proof enough that there
was some romancing going on while you were laid up in that
bed.”

“Beef tips for the lady,” the waitress said,
once again showing up at the most convenient moment to serve the
two ladies. “And here’s your pasta.”

“Thank you.” Graham smiled up at her,
already planning to add a little more to her tip for having such
impeccable timing.

“Can I get y’all anything else?” she
asked.

“We’re good,” he said, this time not giving
in to the temptation to order another drink.

Dess made a show out of scooping most of the
butter and sour cream off her potato onto a side plate. Graham
inwardly cringed when she reached where the pentacle pendant
normally hung around her neck. Her face flushed and she clutched
the pearls, biting her lip. A sure sign she was channeling or
empathing or doing some kind of witchy hocus-pocus.

None of those options boded well with his
mom there at the table with them.

He reached a hand under the table, trying to
be discreet about grabbing hold of her thigh. Sometimes his touch
would sooth her enough to distract from whatever was going on
inside her head, and then again there were times when she would
just freaked the fuck out. From the wild look in her eyes, he
feared that Hurricane Dess was about to hit shore.

“Blessed Goddess,” Dess said with a sharp
inhale. “Please bless the cow who provided this butter and sour
cream.” She licked the last drop of sour cream off her fork and
took a bite of potato. “Also bless the poor cow who died for this
meal.” The exact reason he tried not to eat steak in front of
her.

Graham tried to laugh it off by saying,
“Thank you, Lord, for this delicious eggplant.”

Dess’s face contorted into an angry snarl.
“How dare you besmirch my faith?”

He dug his fingers into her leg, trying to
quietly get her to knock it off.

“Get your hands off me.” She smacked away
his hand and stood so quickly she knocked over her chair.

He got up, and forgetting they were in a
public place, he grabbed her, wrapping his arms around her to
whisper, “Calm down, Dess, it’s okay.”

“Leave me alone,” she said, nowhere near as
quietly. “Just eat your fucking eggplant and leave me alone.”

He released his grip on her and she stormed
away. Graham knew better than to try to follow after her. He just
righted the chair and sat back down at the table, not daring to
look at his mother until he drained his drink.

“That one sure ain’t no shrinking violet,”
his mom said, calmly adjusting an exhausted Amalie in her arms.

“Her nurse friend says its something called
postpartum depression,” Graham explained.

She just shook her head. “I never acted like
that after having you kids.”

Graham didn’t know what else to say. He’d
given up on trying to understand Dess, much less try to explain her
peculiarities to other, long before that baby in his mother’s arms
had even been thought of.

Odessa

My brain felt like it had splintered into
about a million little pieces by the time I leaned against the hood
of the Mercedes to catch my breath. I didn’t have my purse, much
less the fucking car keys, so I went and sat on the curb, placing
my head into my arms to try to stop the pain that now jolted all
the way down my spine.

Forget about the damn car keys. What I
really needed was the pentacle tucked inside my purse. That thing
wasn’t for decoration. It was a gris gris, charged by Carmella’s
ancient many times removed tante who just happens to be the most
powerful hoodoo priestess this side of Haiti.

I’d always been respectful of the beliefs of
others, but I’d never been too keen on the hoodoo until Carmella
had placed that pendant around my neck. Then, under the light of a
full moon, we’d added our own kick of witchcraft to make that
little pentacle pendant a thing of invincible power.

Until Carmella had given me that pendant I’d
been bedridden since I’d returned from the hospital the morning
after Graham’s accident. I’d felt that seventy-five pound window
crash down on his head just as if I’d been the one that took the
blow. Ask anyone there at the Armory that night and they will tell
you I started screaming before I’d known exactly what had happened
to him back in the locker room.

I shook my head, shuddering from that
horrible memory. No way would I have been able to go to Houston
with him and nurse my man back to health if not for the power of
that pendant. What had happened that night at the Armory was
nothing compared to the emotions that started washing over me as
soon as Graham’s mother made that comment about his drinking like
his daddy.

Something really bad had happened to that
man and he’d inflicted all upon himself. I’d seen the silver steel
of a gun, heard the shoot fired, breathed in the stench of blood
and gore, and worst of all felt the bullet bounce around the
insides of that poor man’s skull.

Graham had never discussed the circumstances
of his father’s death with me. I’d been so completely spent in the
days after giving birth to Amalie that I hadn’t the strength to try
to drag the story out of him. Graham had always been such a proud
man, silent and strong, completely unwilling to share his feelings
with anyone other than maybe Jack Daniels or Jim Beam.

If I had known, I would have empathed his
grief. The protection of that pentacle kept me so shielded the only
emotions I felt were those of my own. My hand went back to my neck
and I tried rubbing the pearls as I attempted to center myself.
This was the first time I’d had an episode since we’d cast our moon
lit spell. Carmella said the pregnancy hormones had also helped in
numbing my empathic and psychic sense, but I knew it was the power
of that pentacle that kept me shielded.

I had to pull myself together and go back in
there to get my pendant. Not to even mention, try to convince
Graham’s mom I really wasn’t some raving lunatic. I knew I’d made
such a horrible impression on a woman I’d wanted so badly to
impress.

If I could just stop the pain knifing around
inside my head…

In desperation I yanked down my hair,
roughly combing out my red tresses with my fingers. Aah… that felt
a little better.

Now for a little spell work...

One of the first things Carmella’s family
taught me when they took me in at age thirteen was that true magick
comes from the inside out. A real witch can make due without any
accessories or tools of our trade. Things such as pentacles and
candles and stones only heighten and channel our power.

Our dearly departed Tante Essie’s rich
lyrical voice rang in my ear. “Odessa, child, no magickal wands or
other knick knacks are required for those of us with true
powers.”

Keeping that in mind, I pulled off my
uncomfortable so-called sensible pumps and followed a trail of
grass behind the restaurant down to a little stream. I squatted at
the water’s edge and used one of my long fingernails to trace a
star in the dirt, drawing a circle around it to create my on
makeshift pentacle.

I opened my arms and called out, “If there
are any snakes here I sure could use your company.” I doubted I’d
find one of my favorite rattlesnakes, but one of the wonderful
things about living in Florida is there are almost always some
snakes in range of my outside voice. “Here snakey, snakey,
snakey.”

Just as I was about to give up a little
ribbon snake can slithering out of the grass. Not my first choice,
but I didn’t want to hurt the little snake’s feelings so I was
polite and let it snuggle against my foot.

“Hello, little snakey,” I said as I traced
one of the three yellow lines down his narrow brown back. “Would
you mind assisting me with a little spell work?”

He seemed cool with the idea, so I picked
him up and placed him on my lap. With the snake properly situated
to balance my root chakra, I imaged us enveloped in an intense
orange swirling light. No, make that yellow this time, to match his
ribbons of that color.

“Take this pain from my brain. Make me whole
once again.”

Not the greatest spell I’d ever conjured,
but every time I repeated those words my headache got a little less
intense. Once it eased down to a dull thud I could finally focus on
the real matter at hand.

“Blessed Goddess, hear my plea.” I stroked
the snakes back to try to keep centered. “I want Graham’s mom to
like me. Or at the very least not hate me. Oh, who am I kidding, I
really just want her to accept Amalie. So, if you could help me
with that, I really would be most grateful.”

I waited a moment, soaking in the brilliant
yellow circle of energy I’d created with the help of my little
snakey friend, until I felt a calm lightness that assured my words
had been heard.

“So it is, and so it shall be.” I kissed the
little snakey on the top of his head and set him free.

By the time I made it back to the parking
lot my panty hose were in tatters.

“Oh, fuck this shit!”

I leaned against the car and tore off the
hose. I hardly ever wore panties, much less hose. That’s how badly
I’d wanted to impress this woman. I’d tried to be all prim and
proper and ladylike, when not one of those words had ever applied
to me.

Tossing the remains of my panty hose into
the bushes, I realized that a witch I was and a witch I’d always
be. Graham loved me just the way I was and if his mother loved him,
she’d have to learn to at least tolerate his feelings for me. He
and Amalie were the important ones where she was concerned. It
didn’t matter what she thought of me as long as she accepted her
granddaughter and tolerated her son’s love for me.

Graham