Good Girl Complex: An Avalon Bay Novel

A few days after filing charges against Shelley, I receive a call to come to the police station. On the phone with the sheriff, I learn that the cops picked her up in Louisiana, where she must have forgotten about all the unpaid parking tickets she’d left behind after her “fella” kicked her to the curb. When the South Carolina warrant popped up, the sheriff in Baton Rouge had her transferred back up to the Bay.

Mac and my brother come to the station with me, but I make Evan wait outside while we go in to speak to Sheriff Nixon. Evan was equally furious to learn that Shelley robbed me blind, but I know my brother—he’ll always have a soft spot for that woman. And right now I need to keep a clear head, not allow anything to cloud my judgment.

“Cooper, have a seat.” Sheriff Nixon shakes my hand, then settles behind his desk and gets right down to business. “Your mother had about ten grand in cash on her when the Baton Rouge boys brought her in.”

Relief slams into me like a gust of wind. Ten grand. It’s a couple thousand short of what she stole, but it’s better than nothing. Hell, it’s more than I expected. She was gone four days. Shelley is more than capable of blowing twelve grand in that amount of time.

“However, it could be a while before you get the money back,” Nixon adds.

I frown at him. “Why’s that?”

He starts rambling on about evidence procedures and what not, as my brain tries to keep up with all the information he’s spitting out. First things first, Shelley will be arraigned in front of a judge. Mac asks a lot of questions because I’m kind of in a stupor about the whole thing now. All I keep thinking about is Shelley in an orange jumpsuit, her wrists shackled. I despise everything that woman’s ever done to us, but the thought of her behind bars doesn’t sit right. What kind of son sends his own mother to jail?

“She’s here now?” I ask Nixon.

“In holding, yes.” He rubs a hand over his thick mustache, looking every inch the part of a small-town sheriff. He’s new to town, so I doubt he knows much about me and my family. His predecessor, Sheriff Stone, hated our guts. Spent his afternoons tailing Evan and me around the Bay all summer, looking for a reason to glare at us from his unmarked cruiser.

“What would happen if I changed my mind?”

Beside me, Mac looks startled.

“You want to withdraw the charges?” he says, eyeing me closely.

I hesitate. “Will I get my money back today?”

“There’d be no reason to hold it in evidence. So, yes.”

Which is all I wanted in the first place.

“What would happen to her after that?”

“It’s your prerogative as the victim. If you’re not interested in prosecuting, she’ll be released. Mrs. Hartley was only held in Louisiana at the request of this department. Whatever fines she faces there are a separate matter. We aren’t aware of another warrant for her at this time.”

I glance at Mac, knowing it isn’t a decision she would make for me one way or the other, but wanting the confirmation that I’m doing the right thing. I guess in this situation, it’s all degrees of shitty either way.

She studies my face, then offers a slight nod. “Do what you feel is right,” she murmurs.

I shift my gaze back to the sheriff. “Yeah, I want to drop the charges. Let’s get this over with.”

It still takes about an hour to sign the paperwork and wait around for an officer to appear with a plastic bag of my cash. He counts out every bill, then has me sign some more papers. Another huge wave of relief hits me when I hand Mac the cash to stuff in her purse. The very next thing I’m doing is sucking it up and depositing the money in the bank, the taxman be damned.

Outside, Evan’s waiting for us by the truck. “All good?” he says.

I nod. “All good.”

We’re about to leave when Shelley walks out of the building rubbing her wrists.

Shit.

She lights up a cigarette. As she exhales, her gaze lands on us, catching our attempted escape.

“I’ll get rid of her,” Mac offers, squeezing my hand.

“It’s fine,” I say. “Wait in the truck.”

In typical Shelley fashion, my mother strides over with a cheerful smile. “Well, what a day, huh? Someone sure screwed up, didn’t they? I don’t know where they got their wires crossed. I told them, I said, call my boys. They’ll tell you I didn’t take anything that didn’t belong to me.”

“Jesus, give it a rest, would you?” I snap.

She blinks. “Baby—”

“No, don’t baby me.” I can’t take another second of her bullshit, her smiley evasions. I’ve been choking on them since I was five, and I’m fucking full. “You found my stash and stole from me, and that’s why you skipped town. Hope it was worth it.” I stare at her. “Mom.”

“Baby, no.” She reaches for my arm. I take a step back. “I was only borrowing a little to get set up. I was going to send it right back after I got on my feet. You know that. I didn’t think you’d mind, right?”

Amazed laughter trickles out of my mouth. “Sure. Whatever. I don’t want to hear it anymore. This is the last time we’re gonna do this. I don’t want to see you anymore. Far as I’m concerned, you don’t ever need to come back here. You have no sons, Shelley.”

She flinches. “Now, Cooper, I get you’re upset, but I’m still your mother. You’re still my boys. You don’t turn your back on family.” She looks at Evan, who has remained silent, lingering behind me. “Right, baby?”

“Not this time,” he says, gazing off at the passing traffic. Emphatic. Stoic. “I’m with Coop. I think it’s better if you didn’t come around anymore.”

I fight the urge to throw my arm around my brother. Not here. Not in front of her. But I know the pain he’s feeling. The loneliness. Evan lost his mom today.

I lost mine a long time ago.

Shelley makes one last attempt to get us in line until she realizes we aren’t budging. Then the act falls apart. Her smile recedes to flat indifference. Her eyes grow dull and mean. Voice bitter. In the end, she has little in the way of parting words. Barely a glance as she blows smoke in our faces and walks to a waiting cab that carries her off to be someone else’s problem. We’re all better for it.

Even if it doesn’t feel that way right now.

Later, as Mac orders us a pizza for dinner, Evan and I take Daisy for a walk. We don’t talk about Shelley. Hell, we don’t talk much at all. We’re in somber spirits. Each of us is lost in our own thoughts, and yet I know we’re thinking the exact same things.

When we return to the house, we find Levi on the back deck, sipping a beer. “Hey,” he calls at our approach. “I came by to see how it went at the police station.”

Evan heads inside to grab two beers for us, while I stand at the railing and fill our uncle in. When I reach the part where Shelley disappeared in a taxi without so much as a goodbye, Levi nods in grim satisfaction.

“Think she got the message this time?” he asks.

“Maybe? She looked pretty defeated.”

“Can’t say I’m sorry for her.” Levi never got along with Shelley, even when she was around. I don’t blame him. The only redeeming quality about either of my parents was giving us a decent uncle.

“We’re orphans now,” Evan remarks, staring at the waves.

“Shit, guys, I know this ain’t easy. But you’re not alone in this. If you ever need anything…”

He trails off. But he doesn’t need to finish the sentence. Levi’s tried his damnedest to make us feel like a family despite all the missing pieces, and he’s done a pretty good job considering what he had to work with.

“Hey, I know we don’t say it enough,” I tell our uncle, “but we’re only standing here because you were there for us. You always are. If it weren’t for you, we would’ve ended up in the system. Shipped off to foster care. Probably separated.”

“We love you,” Evan adds, his voice lined with emotion.

It gets Levi a little choked up. He coughs, his way of covering it up. “You’re good boys,” is his gruff response. He’s not a man of sentiment or many words. Still, we know how he feels about us.

Maybe we never got the family we deserved, but we ended up with the one we needed.