Pieces of it All (23 page)

"I'm hardly a pro, but I do know how to play." Since Heather let the cat out of the bag, no point to downplay it.

Mark waited on the opposite side of the table while she leaned over to break. She noticed his intense stare on the white ball, not the view from her shirt, a change of pace from Harvey stealing a peek any chance he got. Did this mean he wasn't interested? No. Win or lose she had a date with him.

She didn't have time to worry about what it meant, if anything. She pulled the stick back and slammed into the ball, pushing it across the table. The balls separated from each other, spread out across the felt. Her feet left the floor in excitement and relief when the striped yellow six ball went into the corner right pocket.

"Yeah! Way to go Beth!" Heather gave her a high five.

"Okay. I'll admit my pride is a little broken, but plenty of opportunities lie ahead of me."

Heather bopped her head to the tune on the juke box while she watched Beth and Mark compete back and forth, the game an even playing field. Twenty minutes later, only the eight ball remained. Beth stared at the black ball sitting on the table. If she missed, she'd be going on a date with Mark. If she made it, the outcome didn't change.

She worked her way around the table, checking out every angle. She had two choices guaranteeing a win. As she approached each pocket, she saw Mark out of the corner of her eye trying to read her thoughts.

The last time she played she was fourteen. Her dad spent months teaching her, and he taught her so well eventually she won every game. She thought he let her win them all, until she annihilated him ten games in a row, and he sulked on the couch. His face was full of defeat, and she hated it. Hated what her own pride had done. They never played pool together again.

She didn't want Mark to feel the same way. If he did truly like her, and wanted to go on a date with her, surely he would change his mind if she beat him. She glanced over at Heather, who gave one nod, agreeing with Beth's strategy.

She bent into the table, lining up her strategy. "Center," she called and pointed to the pocket.

He tapped the cue stick on the floor. "Are you sure?"

She studied the area again, pretending to try and find another spot to shoot. "Positive," she said confidently. She took the shot, and as she'd hoped, she missed.

Mark let out an unconvincing sigh. "Ah, too bad. Pick you up at six tomorrow."

Chapter Twenty Eight

The music box sat on top of the picture, claiming its own seat in the car. Harvey barely slept the night before. If his mother stood right in front of him, what would he say? Would they pick up where they left off years ago? That didn't seem possible. His stomach twirled like a roller coaster as he played the event in his mind. After all these years, finding his mom should be a happy time, but she took off for a reason. The fault could be laid on him, maybe he had been why she packed up, left, and started over, like Beth. People leaving him seemed to be a recurring nightmare in his world.

This time it was his turn, except he was walking
into
someone's life. The restless sleep at least sobered him up, but he couldn't drag himself into the shower. The thought of eating made his stomach churn even more, so once he finally decided to roll out of bed, he only brushed his teeth and ran a comb through his hair. He didn't bother to shave, leaving a layer of stubble on his face. His father laid passed out on the couch when he sneaked past at seven.

During the drive to Sue's house, his cluttered thoughts bounced between how to start the conversation as well as how Maggie would react when she got a hold of him. Nelson tattled on him like a whiny first-grader. What a stupid fuck! Not only did he need to mend things with Beth, but now Maggie. He flushed his sobriety down the drain, so much progress lost. He couldn't erase what happened, at least he could start over, a clean slate. He'd be working again, his mom, Beth and Maggie back in his life, pushing him through and supporting him. He'd move in with his mother and get away from his asshole father and be happy. Yeah. That was the plan.

Seven-twenty seemed too early to knock on Sue's door, but Harvey couldn't take the time to care. The courage sitting in the pit of his stomach started to dissipate and he had to get this done. Years of searching came to this particular moment. He pulled into the driveway, a shiver darting through his body. He put his foot on the brake and the car into reverse. He couldn't march up to that door and just burst into her life. He wasn't fucking crazy? Who
did
that? Leaving him to put the pieces of his life together, motherless and practically alone, qualified as insane, too, if not more so. No. This must be done. He deserved this moment. He placed the car in park, grabbed Leslie's pissy music box, and hopped up the stairs.

The door stared back at him, and he took a glimpse of himself in the tattered window to the left of the entryway. A shower may have been a good idea, and a better choice of clothes. His
Red Hot Chili Peppers
shirt paired with ripped blue and gray plaid shorts didn't give the best impression. He cleared his throat, and clutched the music box to his chest. His heavy fist hovered in the air, fear pushing back at him. He inhaled deeply, exhaling loudly as he tried to release all the tension, and knocked.

A lock wrestled and the door opened, Sue standing before him, nostrils flaring. "What the hell do you want?"

He froze, his hands hot and sweaty as he pushed the trinket into his stomach.
Say something. Anything.
"I brought the music box." Sue opened the door a crack to grab the item, but he tightened the hold against his body. "Can I come in? I need to talk to you."

She peered at him, her eyes burning through his, her fury over what he had done speaking through the flecks of blue. "I would rather you didn't. I don't want to speak to you. In fact, I'm a little shocked you'd show up here asking to step foot in my home after what you did." This time when she reached for the box, Harvey obliged. She opened and closed the cover, and flipped it over, making sure there wasn't any damage. "Everything appears in order. No dents or markings. Please leave now. There's nothing for us to discuss."

Harvey grabbed the door knob as she tried to shut him out. "Please." He said calmly, yet the pleading in his voice stern. "I won't take up a lot of your time, I promise."

She scoffed at him. "You
promise
? That doesn't mean much coming from a thief."

Ouch, those words hurt, but she was right. He
was
a thief. A lot of what he owned originally belonged to someone else, yet plenty was stolen from him. His childhood, his mother, his sobriety. "Sue, please. I'm begging you to talk to me." He held his hands together in plea, the photograph stuffed between them.

Ralph called out in the background to Sue. "It's okay, Ralph," she turned to say. "Harvey is returning the music box. I'll be right up." She pointed to a bench outside on the patio. "I'll talk to you, but over there. I don't want you in my house."

"Fair enough." She didn't sit next to him. She just closed the door behind her and stood over him, her arms crossed.

"Say what you need in five minutes and then get off my property." The concrete took a beating from her tapping foot. "Or I'll call the police to remove you."

He examined her, trying to match his features to hers. Did they resemble each other? Did he have her eyes? Were there any prominent dimples on her face? If they didn't look the same, possibly his bee allergy came from her. Did she alway play with her hair too? These were all questions he needed answered.

"Well?" She urged.

"I don't know how to start." A breeze he waited for all summer swept off the lake and over his face. A scent of lavender trickled into his nose and his hair pulled against the wind.

"Just start." She demanded he get on with it, but this wasn't information to drop casually like sprinkling sugar on cereal. Even though he had gone through the conversation in his mind many times on the way over, the words buried themselves underneath layers of fear.

Start at the beginning
- what Maggie said to him his first session with her. With that, he just dove in. "When I met Beth, I was in a pretty good place in my life, despite my asshole of a father, which took a long time to achieve. I don't want to go into every detail, but things haven't been easy. I needed her to move forward. I thought so, anyway." He stopped to review the picture. "I've wondered if the day would ever arrive that the pieces would come together and I could be whole again. I'd be sober, someone I love at my side, and .... my mother. I felt like what I imagine dumb little girls do, dreaming of a picket fence with the perfect little house, but I never had that. Even though I met Beth, something was still missing. And then when she introduced me to you ...."

"What?" She pointed at her wrist at an imaginary watch. "Keep talking. You're running out of time."

"Your face ... I knew I'd seen you before." The sun blinded his eyes for a moment as he squinted.

"Okay." She rolled her hands in the air in a wrap it up motion.

He didn't want to rush this, but she wasn't giving him much of a choice. "I think this is you." He handed her the picture.

She ripped it from his hands. "What?" Her eyes bounced back and forth between Harvey and the photo.

"This is you, right?" He touched his finger to the woman holding him.

She didn't say anything. She stared at it, her mouth open, trying to find words to speak. She clutched the picture in one hand and used the other hand to guide herself onto the bench. "Where did you get this?"

"I found it in my father's drawer."

"Oh, so you stole this from him." She accusing, turning back to the photograph. "Is this your father?"

"Yes, of course. And I'm on your lap." He pointed again at the woman. "Aren't you my mother?"

Chapter Twenty Nine

The photo started to flap in the breeze. "Sue." He ducked under her hanging head. The picture dangled from her fingertips, her other hand clasped on her mouth. "Sue. Say something." Anything. She needed to speak, or let tears fall, something to acknowledge him.

"I ... I ..." She trailed off.

"Are you my mother? Is that you in the picture?"

She removed her hand from her mouth, placing it on top of her head. "Yes, I'm in the picture." She nodded, unable to stop.

"Wow. I can't believe this." Harvey's heart drummed in his chest. "Wow. I just ... wow!" The final piece placed itself and now the puzzle was complete. He had everything. Once Beth forgave him, he'd be clean again, and pay back his debts. His future sat right next to him. He let out a snort to hold his happy tears captive.

"Harvey, please don't cry." She put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed. "I'm holding you, but I'm not your mother."

"What do you mean? You just said that's you." The picture nearly tore in half when he ripped it from her hands. This made no sense.

She pointed to the other woman in the photo. "That's your mom."

He never considered, in all the years of examining the photo and trying to put everything together, he should have been searching for someone else. He always assumed the lady holding him was his mother.

"Where is she? What happened?" She held him in the picture and obviously had some sort of information. "Tell me. I need to know." His chin trembled as he fought the tears. Blinking them away, he whispered, "You know who she is."

Sue rubbed her hands together, and then pressed her fingers to her lips. "I never even made the connection with your name. No one called you Harvey."

"I stopped going by Edward at thirteen." After his dad got him the prostitute.

"Eddie. We always called you Eddie."

"I thought going by my middle name would make me a different person." He didn't want to be himself after those awkward few minutes with the sick woman willing to screw a young boy for cash. He couldn't be Edward because Edward became a stranger.

She rubbed her ear lobe. "You were about six years old the last time I saw your dad. I had no idea where he went once he left Horace. You live in the same town as Beth? All this time and you lived minutes away." Her hands fell into her lap.

"My father does. I don't call a permanent place home. I stay with him if I have nowhere else to crash. I'd rather not be near him."

"Didn't your dad ever tell you what happened with your mom?"

"He's an asshole. He told me she left because he got sick of her whoring around." He continued through her gasp. "I knew she wasn't. This picture ... no one so beautiful could ever be like ... that." She removed her hand off his shoulder and moved her thumb over Harvey's mom as though she could really touch her. "So can you tell me about her? Where is she? I've wanted to find her for years. Help me."

"I'm not sure. It's difficult," Sue said.

Harvey reached out in a gesture hard for him to express. He put his hand on this woman's knee in a comforting, reassuring manner. Intimate, but not in the way he would with others. Sincerity didn't come easy for him, but in this moment, he had nothing else. "Please. I need your help." As difficult as this may be for her, the truth proved more so for him.

She took a deep breath and let out a sigh. "Her name was Marie. We grew up in the same neighborhood, went to school together. I don't think best friends came any closer than she and I. Oh, Marie was quite the sight - absolutely gorgeous. Men lined up for her, and she had her pick, although boys never interested her. The tomboy in her only wanted to play sports and get dirty with the guys. She'd rather be a friend than a girlfriend. When we were nineteen, we played on a coed softball league through the local rec center. All the boys would fawn over Marie, playing in her short shorts, her long legs going on for miles. None of it phased her. Then one day, your dad approached her after a game. We beat his team. Marie pitched and struck him out every single time he bat."