ST3.5 | "Goodbye Tommy"

PROMPT: The saying goes that necessity is the mother of invention, and this month, in honor of Mother’s Day, we want your stories focused on Mama Bears backed into a corner. What will they do to protect their cubs? How do they invent a justification for crossing the uncrossable line? And was it all worth it? Remember, the tagline for Rock and a Hard Place is “bad decisions and desperate people.”

GOODBYE TOMMY

by TAMMY BLAKLEY

I swear I told Darlene over and over again not to get messed up with that Jenkins boy, Tommy. That whole family wasn’t nothing but no good. Hell, what’d ya expect from that clan. Old Man Jenkins had been in prison for the last fifteen years for killing that schoolteacher that failed Tommy in fifth grade for setting the gym on fire. Little fucker was twelve years old and already an arsonist.

Darlene had a chance to make something of herself. She’d always been a good student, bringing home mostly As and Bs. Told me once she wanted to be a nurse so she could help people. This was after she watched her daddy die from emphysema. I’m surprised we all didn’t die as much as he smoked. Maybe that’s what messed her up.

Senior year about three months before graduation, Darlene told me she was gonna marry Tommy. He gave her some dime store ring and an empty promise of getting her out of this one-horse town.

I laughed when she said all this. “Baby, he don’t even have a job.”

“Mama, you don’t know! You just don’t know! He loves me and I love him. We’ll show you.”

A week later she’d dropped out of school and run off to the courthouse with Tommy. Twenty bucks later, the justice of the peace pronounced them man and wife. They spent their wedding night in Tommy’s twenty-year-old pickup truck because he didn’t even have enough money to get a thirty-dollar room at the flophouse motel out by the interstate.

I spent the next week in a daze, not eating or sleeping, wondering what I’d done so wrong to Darlene to send her off to this two-bit jackass. She finally called me and said Tommy found them a place to live. The yard manager at the sawmill had an old tool shed he’d rent to them for fifty bucks a month. It had electricity and running water but no bathroom. A port-a-potty the mill workers used sat close by.

“Honey, you can come home. Your room’s still like you left it.”

“Mama, I’m a married woman now. I belong here with my husband. It’s gonna be alright. Tommy’s saving money so we can get a better place.”

Tuesday of the next week I went to get my hair done at Maxine’s. She’d done my hair for as long as I’d lived here and was my best friend. We’d been through a lot together. Most of it we had to keep secret because Maxine’s husband was a deputy. When I walked in, she had a look on her face.

“There you are. Where’ve you been? Why aren’t you answering your phone?” Maxine grabbed my arms.

“What are you going on about?” I’d known Maxine for a long time and never seen her so out of sorts.

“It’s Darlene. Jimmy’s been looking for you. He got called out to that shed Darlene and Tommy live in, workers passing by heard screaming and called dispatch. When he got there, Darlene was all beat up. Black eye, busted lip. Tommy was holding onto her and telling her it’d all be ok. Told Jimmy that she tripped and fell and hit her face on the table. He said, ‘Ain’t that right, Babe?’ and she nodded. Said she’s clumsy and fell.”

Bile rose in my throat as I thought of what Tommy did to her. “Where is she? Is she okay?”

“Paramedics went out there and patched her up, but couldn’t nobody ever get her to admit he’d touched her so there was nothing Jimmy could do.”

“Goddammit, I knew this was gonna happen. Told her not to get messed up with that family.”

Maxine put a hand on my shoulder. “Honey, there’s more. They took her to the hospital anyway because she was . . . bleeding.”

My breath caught in my throat. “She’s pregnant?”

Maxine nodded.

The panic I felt gave way to red hot rage.

“We’ve got to go.” I stormed to the door.

“Right behind you.” Maxine took off her apron, grabbed her purse and locked the front door, flipping the sign over to Closed.

We got to the county hospital and found Darlene’s room. She was propped up in the bed with an IV hanging out of her arm and a tube up her nose. Her eyes were closed, one of them swollen shut. Darlene looked like a paper doll, lying there, crumbled, just another thing for Tommy to burn.

A nurse was taking her vitals and writing them down on a clipboard.

“What did that mother fucker do to her?” I ran to Darlene’s side, grabbing one of her hands and brushing the hair back off her forehead.

“Hi, I’m Bethany. I’m her nurse. Are you her mother?” Bethany set the clipboard down and gave me one of those smiles that weren’t the happy kind but the I’m so sorry kind.

“Yes, how is she? Is she gonna be okay?” Seeing her like that, imagining that son of a bitch doing this to her set my blood boiling. I could hear Maxine and the nurse talking but their words didn’t register. All I could focus on was my broken baby girl and the fact that Tommy still burned everything he touched.

“Why don’t we come sit over here and I’ll get her doctor to come talk to you?” She guided me toward a hard plastic chair by the window. “I’ll be right back.”

Maxine came up beside me, rubbing my back. “She’s gonna be okay.”

Inside, I felt my pulse drumming through my head like a sledgehammer. I clenched my fists so hard both palms bled from my fingernails.

“Hi, Mrs. Sanders, I’m Doctor Wilson.” He pulled another chair over in front of me and sat down. “Your daughter is stable now, but she’s not out of the woods. I’m afraid she suffered some internal bleeding. We think we have that taken care of, but we are still monitoring her. The next twenty-four hours are critical. I’m afraid we couldn’t save the baby.”

Nodding, I bit my lip and glanced over at Darlene. Three weeks until her birthday. Nineteen. I remembered all the sleepless nights when she was a baby, her first steps, the skinned knees, fevers, sore throats, joy at Christmas, heartbreak at not getting invited to Sarah’s birthday party, the first time she drove off by herself. I remembered eighteen other birthdays, trying to find the right gift, but I already knew what she was getting this year.

“Thank you, Doctor. I need to take care of something, then I’ll be back. You make sure she’s okay. She’s got a birthday coming up.” I stood.

“I’ll do everything I can for your daughter.” He shook my hand on his way out.

I went over to Darlene’s bed. “I’ll be back, Baby Girl.” I bent down and kissed her forehead. “Mama’s got this.”

Maxine followed me out. We were in her car before either of us spoke. She stuck a cigarette between her lips and lit up.

“Where to?”

“The hardware store.” An eerie calm settled over me as I watched the red-hot end of her cigarette glowing when she inhaled.

I made my purchases and loaded them in the trunk of Maxine’s car. The sawmill was only a mile away. Lunchtime. All the workers would be on break at the diner just up the road.

Maxine parked behind a stack of logs. I could hear Tommy snoring through the screened window as we got out and crept up to the shed. Maxine held out her hand. I took it and squeezed.

“This time’s for Darlene.”

It always amazed me at how fast paint thinner got an inferno going. A couple gallons, less than ten bucks, splashed outside that old wooden shed full of paint cans and solvents.

Flames shot up faster than the school gym did back when Tommy set it on fire.

And the best part? I could hear Tommy screaming over the roar of the fire.

“You play with matches, Tommy . . .” Maxine and I watched, waiting for his screams to stop before getting back in the car. I felt the heat through the passenger side window as the shed collapsed. Fire cleanses, leaving nothing in its wake.

“Take me back to the hospital, Maxine.”

Tammy Blakley (on Bluesky @tammywritesbooks.bsky.social; on Twitter / X @tammy_blakley) lives in the Pacific Northwest where she spends her days writing mysteries or staring out the window at her gorgeous view of Mt. Baker. She completed her first manuscript with no formal training and a total lack of adult supervision. She enjoys the support of her amazing husband who, so far, hasn’t recommended medication. She has previously published stories in Punk Noir Magazine and Urban Pigs Magazine.