Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 56606 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56606 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
In some ways it’s been a miracle for our family. Getting Anna help with our son, she’s not as tense. She doesn’t call nearly as much for me to come home. The times she gets all tangled in her head about having a bad day, she brings him to the office and goes on getting her time away from the stresses of motherhood. I don’t know what is normal for moms. I have very little experience with babies. What has happened to Anna since giving birth has been hard on her mentally and physically. Granted, things weren’t necessarily smooth sailing before she had Hollis. Since leaving Idaho she’s been anxious. After giving birth, though, everything is ten times more dramatic to me, but nonetheless important to her. As a man, I don’t understand what she is going through. The hormones, the changes in her body, and the added responsibility of motherhood is too much for her most days. My cousins have always said she was a high maintenance bitch, but now they don’t even try to speak to her because to them, she’s a raving bitch. I don’t know. When we were younger, things were easier. The light she was in my life, I can’t deny or walk away from the potential to see that in her again. This is a season; we have to get through it and come out stronger on the other side.
Maritza and Vida have been absolute gifts to my son and me. They don’t ever get upset when Hollis is dropped off. If Anna doesn’t come back before we close, they follow me home in their cars since I’m on the bike to bring him to the house. If I have to work after hours, they take him home to my house and stay until I get there unless Anna is home and tells them she has him.
Hollis is thriving. He is meeting and surpassing all of his milestones. Even as young as he is, they talk to him constantly telling him numbers and colors. I don’t know if all of that helps him learn, but they do it and he coos and pays attention like he’s absorbing it all. From crawling to walking and now running, they have been working with him continually. His first steps were to Maritza. I think they spent days practicing and working up to those first few steps. Vida, embracing her role as a surrogate grandmother, video-taped the whole thing after calling me and the others over from the shop. I walked in just as it happened. As soon as Vida had the video done, her first text to send it was for Anna. They embrace her as Hollis’s mom. It’s a beautiful thing, the way all of the women want to uplift, encourage, and support her. Anna wants no part of the bonding with the women, even if they are taking care of her son. I don’t understand her disconnect. Vida and Maritza, though, they don’t take it personally and keep on focusing on my son. I swear they have baby proofed the mini storage office so much it’s like entering a real daycare. All of it without allowing me to pay for anything. From the swing, playpen, crib, changing table, and toys, oh the toys. My son wants for nothing around those women.
“It’s me or that gang of yours, Dillon?” She puts the ultimatum out there while backing away from me.
“Fuck! Seriously, Anna, don’t do this shit again. It’s not a motherfuckin’ gang. I won’t keep going over this with you.”
“I said what I said, Dillon and you know I’ll stand behind it.”
Frustrated, I don’t know what else to do. “Anna, you don’t know what you’re asking of me. And you won’t like the outcome.”
She laughs in my face, “No! You won’t like the outcome. I have your son. If I say drop your little friends, you drop them. This is our family!”
Fucking crazy. How did things get so out of control between us?
Entering the room, I take it all in. The weather here isn’t as stifling hot as back home. Deal’s Gap, North Carolina is a small town that isn’t an official town. I think the zip code comes out as Robbinsville, North Carolina. Not that a zip code matters. Deal’s Gap isn’t known by many. It is a starting point to riding The Tail of the Dragon for the Hellions MC. A ride everyone wearing this cut takes with pride.
The hotel is nothing special and I swear the curtains and wallpaper are from the eighties, maybe even the seventies. It’s a place to crash for tonight. Tomorrow, we ride.
Tomorrow I am a Hellion. Ride until I die.
I look at my phone, hopeful. The blank screen stares back at me cutting me deep. She isn’t calling. She isn’t coming.