Christina Read online

  Christina

  by

  Leanne Davis

  Daughters Series, Book One

  www.leannedavis.net

  table of contents:

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Epilogue

  Thank you

  Excerpt from NATALIE

  Other Books by Leanne Davis

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  ~Christina ~

  “CHRISTINA, CAN YOU GO home and please make your sisters some dinner and start their homework? I just had a call come in that I have to take, so I’ll be late.”

  “What about Mom?” I’m trying to study for a test at the library and I really don’t want to go home yet. I still have at least two hours to go.

  “Your mom isn’t feeling well. Christina, I’m not really asking here,” my dad says, his tone clipped and sharp. He’s not kidding. His frustration almost comes through my cell phone. I roll my eyes. Seriously? He expects me to give up my time to, yet again, babysit my little sisters because poor Mom is holed up in her room, yet again, with some imaginary ailment? I’m pretty sure she’s one of those hypochondriacs who always think they have some new disease. She takes to her bed, locking the bedroom door, not coming out for at least an entire night. Once in a great while, for a couple of days we aren’t supposed to disturb her. When it happens, whatever “it” is, she doesn’t go to work or tend to us three kids. And as long as I can remember, she’s had these strange episodes. And stranger still? My dad allows her to have them. He’s usually Mr. Responsibility. We have to toe the line, follow the rules, and do our shit. Whether it’s chores or homework, we are not allowed to flake on things. Yet my mom? Way too often, she gets to veg. And for the last few years, I’m the one who gets called on to fill in when Mom’s taking one of her mini vacations. I completely resent it. I mean, I don’t mind helping out when both of them are working late, but when Mom is in the house? What the hell? Get up and take care of your own freaking kids!

  At some point, she comes out of her room and acts all fine. She’s smiling and interested and just Mom again, and she continues on as if she hasn’t just checked out on us and life. Sometimes, it’s for mere hours, while others? It’s for several days. Dad has to be in charge of feeding us and making sure my sisters don’t kill each other. But often, Dad has to work late, so guess who gets to pick up all the slack? Yours truly.

  I swear I was born to be their permanent babysitter.

  “Christina?” Dad’s tone is, as usual, insistent.

  I sigh and mumble, “Fine. But it’s seriously stupid for a grown woman to so often be unable to get out of bed and care for her children. I have stuff to do too. You know those straight As you demand of me? I need to study to get them. And I didn’t have three kids, she did.”

  “Christina.” Dad says my name again, this time his tone is low and full of tacit warning. That tone tells me if I continue to speak like that, he is going to make my life miserable when he gets home. No one is allowed to even comment about Mom, let alone, complain, or—God forbid!—point out the obvious to her. At least, not with Dad. He’d throw any one of us kids under the bus to allow Mom to be however she needs to be. It has always been that way, for my entire sixteen years.

  “Fine. Fine. I’m going home. I’ll flunk out. But Mom can get all the sleep she needs.” I click the phone off before he can answer. I hope to God he forgets about it before he gets home. It’s not that I ever worry he’ll hurt me, or anything. He’ll just give me that disappointed look. I hate it when he does that. I still have a childish need to make my parents, including my mom, proud. I don’t like to disappoint them. But sometimes… it gets so old.

  I drive home and pull into the driveway. Light is just fading from the sky. The March evening is cool as the sun starts to sink across the horizon. The lights of our house shine out, nestled in the endless flat spaces and trees of the twenty acres we own.

  I throw my keys and backpack down next to the front door. Melissa, only eleven, is stretched across the couch, watching the TV as if she’s catatonic, and ten-year-old Emily is playing with some kind of crafty thing in front of her. Beading jewelry probably. She makes us all rings and earrings and necklaces… I pretend to wear them out sometimes before ditching them in my car. But her cheeks turn rosy and she gets all pleased and embarrassed whenever she thinks any of us wear her treasured creations. She’s pretty shy and sensitive about almost everything.

  “Is Mom here?” I demand.

  Melissa finally tilts her head up on the pillow so she can answer me. “I think so. Bedroom door was closed when I got home.”

  I sigh and start towards the kitchen to find something to eat. Crashing around, I take out my anger on the food and pans. I’m making tacos and adding meat just to spite my mother, the vegetarian. Both of my sisters are used to the nights I cook and Mom not coming out to interact like a normal person. They, of course, don’t get stuck picking up all the slack. That’s my job. Mom and Dad waited five years between having them and me. It’s like they planned to always have a ready-made, built-in babysitter.

  I dump the food on plates and go off to my room to eat, thinking they’ll figure out how to feed it to themselves. I mutter before I shut the door, “Start your homework after you’re done.”

  Then I slam my bedroom door and try to get back to my stuff.

  My mother… she is a complicated woman. I mean, I know she loves all of us and she takes cares of us on the whole. She’s also a doctor and works almost full time with my uncle, running the town’s veterinary clinic. She’s a good mom and all… she just has some strange quirks. She hates the sight of blood. Yet, she’s a veterinarian. Go figure. Once, when I was eight, I sliced my finger with a knife cutting up some apples, after she told me not to do it, of course. I am the type who, if you tell me not to do it, I almost have to do it just so I can prove it to myself. Anyway, so there I was, bleeding all over the kitchen counter, the cutting board, and the apple, and my mom walks in while I’m holding my injured hand with my unhurt hand. Instead of rushing forward to help me… you know, grabbing a towel, helping me wash up, etc., Mom simply freezes and stares at me in complete silence. She was transfixed by my blood. Her face went waxy and I ran to her, believing she was about to pass out. I helped her sit down as I dripped blood all over the floor until I could finally get to the bathroom to clean up. I remember crying from the pain and all the blood and because my mom wasn’t helping me.

  But there are other incidents I remember that show me more about whatever her episodes involve. When I was eleven, I decided I wanted to start shaving my legs. My mom freaked out about it and would not give me a razor and let me. I snuck in a disposable razor and tried to do it on my own. I didn’t want to risk the safer and much less scary electric razor because my parents might hear the noise. I thought I could sneak my smooth legs by them. However, I nicked a scab and it bled everywhere. It hurt like hell too. I cried out and my mom heard me because she stood on the other side of the door, freaking out. I mean, she was crying and screaming at me and threatening to break the door if I didn’t open it. I didn’t want to open it at first because of the evidence that I disobeyed her.
But finally, I had no choice as I limped to the door, bending down to hold the towel on my bleeding leg. Mom glanced at me and then into the bathroom where the blood was a harsher red against the white porcelain tub and the pink disposable razor sat innocently on the tub edge. I remember her yelling at me. A lot. She took the razor and threatened all kinds of punishment and would not even listen to what I was doing and why. I mean, what middle school girl doesn’t want to shave her legs? Mom acted like I was trying to kill myself with it. It was so over the top. She called Dad and he had to come home from work. She kept saying, “Wait until your dad gets here.” Then she collapsed into a chair and didn’t move or speak again. It was like she was just… gone. I was convinced he was going to come home and really punish me.

  But he didn’t. He came in and found Mom still crying and clutching the razor. It was weird. Like one of those moments that stay with you forever and you never really understand what you witnessed. Dad asked me quickly if I was okay. I was. I had long ago quit bleeding and covered the stupid little nick with a Band-Aid. He squatted in front of my mom and gently said her name as he touched her knee oh so gently. He is a big guy. He has huge muscles and there is never an occasion anyone would confuse my dad for a metrosexual. He nearly screams tough. Until it came to my mom. It breaks my heart sometimes how gentle he can be with her. As if she were a fragile, little baby bird he had to coax into his hand. She glanced at my dad and I swear to God she was confused about who he was. She whispered, “Will?” and lifted a finger to touch his face. Her eyes filled with huge tears that splashed down her cheeks. She still clutched my razor. She grabbed it by the razor head and clasped it in her hand as blood oozed around it. It was like she didn’t even notice it. I mean, who holds a razor like that? It was crazy. It scared me and I started to cry from where I sat watching them across the room. What was that? She had called him home from work, for a pointless reason in my estimation, yet she seemed confused about who he even was.

  Dad nodded and smiled oh so softly and sweet. “It’s me, Jess. I’m right here. Always.” And then he picked her up and carried her off to their bedroom. She kind of snuggled up against his chest and tucked herself up like Emily does when Dad carries her off to bed sometimes still. But this was my mother. It was only three o’clock in the afternoon. I watched them disappear into their bedroom and the door shut and locked. I remember sitting there as the silence of the house seemed to fall over me like a heavy weight. It was oppressive. My sisters were at school still. Mom was supposed to be at work; that’s why I snuck in and tried to shave my legs. Now? Nothing. No sounds.

  Later, like an hour later, my dad reappeared, shutting the bedroom door oh so gently behind him. He came right to me, and without a word, wrapped me up against him just as he had my mom earlier. Only there was no crazy gentleness, it was just a big, warm, bear hug and I started to cry against him. He leaned his mouth into my hair and gently shushed me, mumbling, “It was okay.” He was unlike many dads in that he could hold and comfort and show his affection as easily, and sometimes even better than Mom could.

  “What’s wrong with her?” I said in a whisper. I was angry at her and confused by her actions. Scared by what I witnessed. And worse, so afraid for her.

  “She just has episodes sometimes. She’ll be okay. She has a hard time with seeing your blood. It’s just a thing about her.”

  “She’s not okay. That was not okay. She was clutching the razor! She was bleeding!”

  He shushed me some more as I started to cry again. He leaned me back finally and smiled softly. “Tiny”—his nickname for me, short for Tina, which is everyone else’s nickname for me—“she is okay. She just has more to work out than others, and needs a little extra space sometimes.”

  What does that mean? I stared up at my dad’s face, looking for meaning and answers and seeing only a soft sadness for an answer. He would not explain to me what I witnessed. I shook my head and stared at my fingers, which I kept interlacing. “Why can’t she be like other mothers?”

  He stared at me, his gaze turning hard. “She is like other mothers. She’s an excellent mother to you and your sisters, and you know it.”

  I did. I knew it. For the most part, my mom got up and got us all ready for school before getting herself ready for work. She cooked dinner and drove us to all our scheduled activities. She asked how my day was and held me if I cried, or cheered with me if I was happy. She was funny. My mom was way more fun and funnier than most moms. Sometimes, she was my best friend. Others, like at that moment, I didn’t recognize her at all.

  But why did she have those episodes? Why did she need extra space? I don’t know. My dad would never say, no matter how many times I asked. And I did ask. The older I get, the more I ask, and the more I want to know. Dad is good at deflecting me. The weird part is: I don’t ask my mom. I feel… well, I don’t know, like I’d be kicking an injured puppy to ask her. Yet strangely, most days, my mom is strong and capable and in full control of me. I just can’t voice the question, “What is wrong with you?”

  Most of whatever her episodes are, don’t happen around us. The older she gets, the less I’ve seen; and I don’t think either of my sisters would have a clue of what I was talking about.

  And tonight is no different. I hear my dad enter and I wander out while he’s fixing some of the leftover dinner by heating it in the microwave. He already quizzed Emily and Melissa on their homework statuses and discussed Emily’s baseball practice with her. She’s always in a sport and keeps us all running her where she needs to be. Yup, they volunteer me for carpool duty too.

  Dad glanced up at me. His face changes from the smile at Emily’s silly comment to a scowl at me. “Did you get your chemistry done?”

  He remembers. I hadn’t told him today what class I was studying for. He is like that, he stays involved with me, to the point where I can rarely get away with anything. But I also kind of like knowing he cares so much.

  “Yes.”

  He lifts the taco up and bites it with a sigh of happiness. He misses the meat when my mom cooks. “Thank you. For taking care of your sisters,” he says finally. It’s sincere. He is grateful for my help, and my cheeks heat up in shame. I’ve been resentful and kind of like a spoiled brat about it. I drop my face so he doesn’t see it. He sets his food down and comes near me to draw me into his embrace. When he says it like that, I’m ashamed. So I have to sometimes help out with my sisters. I mean, it’s not like they ignore me, abuse me, neglect me, or beat me… well, God, all they require are some chores and accountability from me sometimes.

  The next morning when I come out to the kitchen, Mom is standing there, flipping eggs in a pan. She looks normal. Her hair is done and her jeans and blouse indicate she’ll be going in to work. She smiles and tucks a strand of shoulder-length black hair behind her ear. She could pass for thirty if she wanted to. She has clear, barely wrinkled skin and a pretty, warm smile. My anger at her melts as I slip onto a bar stool. She crosses the kitchen and leans across the counter to touch my hand. “So how was Kelli yesterday?”

  The current girl drama I have going on. And at hearing her interest, my mouth opens and a fifteen-minute dissertation follows.

  Okay, I don’t exactly have it bad. But sometimes, I just want to understand that thing, the strange, unexplainable thing that I can’t quite put my finger on that goes on. That thing that makes my mom sometimes not my mom. That thing I can’t quite see, but I know with absolute certainty is there.

  Chapter One

  ~Max~

  THE FIRST TIME THE fist smashes into my gut and knocks my breath from my lungs, it feels like I am about to drown and nothing will make me breathe again. The second time the fist connects, it hits just the corner of my chin and sends my neck bending back with a sharp jerk. At this moment, it feels like one of those movie montages. You know, the kind that slows down and is flashed frame by frame. My senses feel heightened. Sounds are louder. Colors become sharper. People around me are cheering and soon become a blende
d mess of movement like watercolors streaming together down a canvas. Their noise fuels me. It burns through my body and powers my fists. I come back at the guy, who’s almost a foot taller than me and outweighs me by a good thirty pounds. I attack him like I am a fucking cougar, let loose on a dog. I pounce on his back and I use my hands to pull his eyelids, giving me a chance to loop my arm around his neck. I let go so my weight hangs off him. I fight dirty. No rules. No mercy. I have to. I am only five foot five and weigh a hundred and fifty pounds. I don’t have a lot of room for error. If he gets me in front of him, he could pound me into a bloody pulp at his feet.

  No way. Spurred by that, I start thrashing hard on the guy’s back and he keeps pulling at me. When the kid finally falls to his knees, I let go. I usually win. I am so good at being totally underestimated. As a rule, I am laughed and mocked and jeered at by the crowd. Most don’t think I am serious when I challenge them to a fight. A fight that I always intend to win. I’ve been doing this game for eight years. I learned from the best, my older brother, a former drug runner who is now in prison for kidnapping and overdosing my other brother’s girlfriend. But for a little while, he taught me how to win, and win no matter what the odds. And although I hate Quentrell, I took those lessons to heart. No one pushed Quentrell around or made him look stupid. And no one would do that to me, either. Between my height and speech problems, most of my youth was spent being humiliated by my peers. Now? I rely on my fists to make sure that doesn’t happen again.

  I have to be careful however, that my adoptive parents and family don’t catch on to what I do. I try not to do it too much or get a reputation. I try to do it only with college kids in the area who don’t know me or mine.

  But this time I fail. As the guy is straining and making weird grunt sounds, I spot her.

  Christina.

  Christina Hendricks is standing in the crowd around us. We’re in the front yard of some faceless, nameless (to me, anyway) farmhouse where these college kids like to congregate. I often insert myself into them, and when I’m sure no one recognizes me, I put on this little show. I start by finding big, drunk jocks who consider me no more than a joke, and never a threat. I make contact somehow. I might bump into them; or spill something on them, or do something to make them bristle and speak to me. When I’m rude enough, the guy wants to immediately kick my ass. I just laugh it off, and say that the jock would lose. I say it loud it enough to challenge the kid’s pride into taking me on. Then the kids all laugh at me because there is no way I could win. Sometimes I don’t. I’ve taken my fair share of beatings in my nineteen years. But most often, I get the better of my opponents before they do more than just tap me with their fists. And even when they do more, I rarely ever feel it. I have an aversion to being touched, but I have no aversion to being hit. Kind of screwed up, I know. Christina has pointed that out to me multiple times. But still, she respects my boundaries, and my proclivities.