Chapter 11

“What are we going to do about your mother?” asked Bob. They had dropped Trudy off at the homeless shelter after her doctor’s visit. The doctor said she was in remarkably good condition, considering what she’d been through. She’d been proud of that, but had complained that the doctor had run a battery of tests to make sure she didn’t have any STDs. She felt like that meant the doctor thought she was a slut.

Bob hadn’t commented, and all Chastity had done was remind her mother that the doctor was trying to take care of her. Trudy had complained bitterly about being “kicked out of the car” at the homeless shelter, but Chastity had been unrepentant.

“I’ll see how you’re doing in a few days,” she had said, as Trudy finally got out of the car.

Now Chastity hugged her father and bumped her loins against his.

“Nothing,” she said. “She’s in a safe place. She’s not our problem.”

“She won’t give up,” said Bob. “She’s going to show up here, sooner or later.”

“I’ll tell her to go away,” said Chastity.

“She won’t do that, either. She’s going to find out about us, and when she does, she’ll make trouble.”

“You want me to hire somebody to do a hit? I have contacts, you know.” Chastity’s voice held no note of mirth.

Bob remembered the bouncer’s casual “Why not?” when Bob had told him not to kill the men who had assaulted Chastity after her shift.

“No, I do not,” he said. “Let’s try a restraining order, first.”

“I know her. I doubt a restraining order would work. She’ll feel like that’s not fair and violate it.”

“Then she’ll end up in jail.”

“Maybe. I don’t actually care.” Chastity frowned. “I don’t need this distraction right now. Do you still have a contact number for your lawyer?”

“I have a lawyer?”

“The one who represented you in the divorce,” said Chastity.

“I took care of all that myself,” said Bob.

“No wonder she took you to the cleaner and made me wait six years to find you,” said Chastity. “Never mind. I have contacts at school, too.”

“For what?”

“Don’t worry about that. You just keep being you. That’s what I want.”

“Yes Ma’am,” said Bob, saluting.

“Now, about face. March to the bedroom. Double time. Mama’s horny.”

“Maybe we should pick up the kids from Janet’s?” he suggested.

“After I get my bell rung,” she said.

She cocked her head.

“I think I have some stubble. I might need my daddy to help me shave.”

Chastity took it upon herself to deal with the Trudy issue. What she did was use her contacts at law school to engage an attorney who appeared in court and filed papers on behalf of Chastity D. Jeffries, laying out Trudy’s history, and the decisions she’d made to create that history. The claim was that Trudy would be a bad influence on her grandchildren, if granted unrestricted access to them, and seeking a legal order that she only be allowed to see said grandchildren with pre-approval, and no more frequently than once a month. Further, Trudy was to be ordered to stay 1,000 feet away from the house unless she had Chastity’s personal authorization to visit there.

When Bob saw the order, he was shocked. He’d never seen this side of Chastity, the mother bear side, protecting her cubs.

“I thought you said a restraining order wouldn’t work,” he said.

“It probably won’t, but it sets in motion other options.”

“Remind me never to get you pissed off at me,” he said, shaking his head.

“Daddy,” she cooed. “I could never get this pissed off at you.” She frowned. “Unless you stop making love to me. That might do it.”

“And when I need drugs to be able to service my queen?” he teased.

“Then we buy them in bulk,” she said. “Now, I have a choice of having a service processor serve her, or doing it myself.”

“The service processor will file a report that will stand up in court,” said Bob. “Right?”

“You can video me on your phone doing it,” said Chastity.

“You want this confrontation?”

“I want her to know I mean business,” said Chastity. “She used up all her chances. She needs to understand that.”

“She won’t like it.”

“Of course not. But the carrot is that the order gives me the legal option to approve more frequent visits. I might do that if she straightens up and starts making better decisions.”

“That could take years.”

“That’s up to her, and that’s what I want to be able to tell her, myself.”

Trudy didn’t have a phone, yet, so they just went to the shelter to see if she was there. It turned out she had been doing maintenance on a number of things that had been neglected for some time. She was using some of those skills learned in countries where repairing your own things was the only way to get them repaired. She was working to mitigate boredom, rather than from any altruistic streak. They invited her to go eat.

Presenting the court order to her in public was intentional. Bob pretended to be texting to an employee, while he videoed Chastity handing Trudy her official copy of the order.

“I’m serving you, Mother,” she said. “You’re not going to like it, but this is what I think is best. I’ve been having to make my own decisions about what’s best for me ever since you left me alone with Nana. Please don’t make a scene, because if you do, it will only illustrate what I complained to the judge about.”

“Judge?” Trudy looked uncomfortable, and then tense. “What judge?”

“The judge who gave me a no contact order, preventing you from seeing my children without my express consent and supervision.”

Trudy’s lips compressed and got white, but all she did was pluck the paper from Chastity’s hand, open it, and read. It listed the reasons Chastity had presented as evidence that the order was needed.

“This seems unnecessarily harsh,” she finally said. “I don’t think the decisions I made were that bad.”

“You are the only person who can decide whether where you are right now in your life is a great place to be or not,” said Chastity. “From my vantage point, I don’t want you influencing my children to make those kinds of decisions, though, and they are my children. You decided what was good and not good for me when you decided I couldn’t see my father. All I’m doing is the same thing.”

“That was different. Your father was hurting you!”

“How was he hurting me?”

“He was never there! You kept asking when he’d be back. You were miserable. You missed him and he chose something else over you. I couldn’t stand to see you pining away, waiting for him to come home when I knew he wouldn’t come home.”

“So you made it impossible for him to come home and see me?”

“It was for your own good.”

“And this is for my children’s own good.”

“They don’t even have a father!” blurted Trudy.

“You’re not helping your cause,” said Chastity. “I will grant you access to your grandchildren when you display the ability to make better decisions and control yourself. And don’t think they don’t have a father.” She pointed to Bob. “He’s here for me, now. He tried to find me, and as soon as he did, he came back to me and now he’s here for me and my kids. He’s stable and loving, and they couldn’t ask for a better man to be a father figure in their lives.”

“How old were you when he found you?” asked Trudy.

“Don’t even try it,” said Chastity. “This is what I mean. That question could only be asked for one reason, to show he violated the divorce decree. You’re only thinking about yourself. That’s what got you into the mess you’re in and that’s why I won’t let you corrupt my children. When I’m convinced you can think about others’ welfare and actually sacrifice something for someone else’s benefit, then maybe I’ll let you see your grandchildren.”

“I just spent ten years sacrificing everything to help others,” argued Trudy.

“You spent ten years neglecting your daughter and mother,” said Chastity.

“You’re acting like my mother,” sniffed Trudy.

“I shouldn’t have to act like your mother,” growled Chastity.

The other thing Chastity did to shock some sense into Trudy was that she actually took her to Buster’s and introduced her to Buster as a potential dancer.

“She’s a bit long in the tooth, don’t you think?” said Buster, grinning. He thought this was some kind of prank.

“I know how popular pregnant dancers are,” said Chastity. “And she needs a job.”

“Here?” yipped Trudy. “I’m not going to be a fucking stripper!”

“Why not?” asked Chastity. “It’s what I had to do to make money because my mother abandoned me.”

“Don’t you lie to me!” snapped Trudy.

“She’s not lying,” said Buster, still grinning. “She was one of my best dancers. Then her father brought his boss here and saw her dancing and the rest, as they say, is history. I was not one of Bob’s fans when he took her away from here.”

“You ... worked ... here?” Trudy’s voice was hollow.

“Did you say her name was Trudy?” asked Buster, looking at Chastity. “Isn’t that the stage name you used?”

“Yep,” said Chastity.

“You used my name to be a ... stripper?” gasped Trudy.

“It was the only thing you left me,” said Chastity.

To a casual observer, it would appear that their trip to Buster’s sank into Trudy’s brain like nothing else had. Actually, though, her time at the shelter had given her the opportunity to look back on her life, and the decisions she’d made. In Africa she’d been too preoccupied with trying to survive to be reflective. In the shelter, though, she had ample time to contemplate her past ... and her future. She was quiet in the car after they left.

“Why did you take me there?” she finally asked.

“You need a job, and you have no marketable skills,” said Chastity.

“You know I have marketable skills,” said Trudy. “I don’t have formal education, but I have a résumé.”

“I was thinking of something you could get into now, immediately,” said Chastity.

“Were you really? Did you honestly think I’d take my clothes off to make money?”

Chastity kept driving, looking straight forward, and shrugged.

“I did. There was nothing else I could do that would bring in enough money to take care of Nana and let me go to college.”

“Honey, I’m so sorry,” said Trudy, quietly. “I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t know anything.” Finally, Chastity looked at her mother. “You didn’t want to know.”

Trudy didn’t react with anger or defense. Instead, she let her head go back against the head rest and closed her eyes.

“I was running away,” she said.

“From me?” Chastity’s voice rose an octave.

“No.” It looked like she was going to say more, but her mouth closed. They drove on in silence, until finally Trudy spoke again.

“I hated it that I felt so helpless when your father was gone. It didn’t feel like I could do anything. I felt so stupid. And then Bob would come home and all the things I’d put off because I was too stupid to know how to do them, he’d do like it was nothing. And each time he came home, you were so happy. You didn’t pay any attention to me at all when he was home. I felt like you didn’t love me.”

Chastity pulled into the parking lot of a Taco Bell and parked. She didn’t get out, though. She turned in her seat to face her mother.

“I was a kid, Mom. It wasn’t my job to make you feel loved.”

To read this story you need a Registration + Premier Membership
If you have an account, then please Log In or Register (Why register?)

Support the author's future writing by purchasing this book from Bookapy

Dancing For Daddy

Lubrican

$4.50