A Mother Would Know (59)

My heart rate has finally returned to normal, but his words strike me as odd, and I remember how little he brought with him when he moved in. “Why did you only take a few things?”

“Because that’s all she’d let me take.” He says it matter-of-factly, but it’s anything but. I’ve met Natalia. She’s tiny. There’s no way she could have stopped Hudson if he’d picked up a box and wanted to march out with it. How could she force him out without his stuff?

“What, did she, like, hold a gun to your head?” I joke.

“Pretty much,” he says, bouncing his right leg up and down in agitation. “That chick’s crazy.” My mouth goes sour at the sound of that word from my son’s mouth. “Like, for real. When she got mad, she lost it. The night she kicked me out, she was screaming and throwing things. She was so loud, the neighbor guy came over to see what was going on. Natalia immediately went into victim mode, and of course the neighbor bought it, so I got the hell out. Just took a duffel bag of stuff, along with my guitar. Luckily, the bat was in my trunk because I’d played ball with some buddies the week before.” He strokes his beard. It’s something he does a lot. I doubt he even notices. “I tried to go back later, but she wouldn’t let me in. We had this chain on the door, and she had it locked. Probably could’ve busted the door in, but I wasn’t gonna do that. I figured she’d come to her senses. But no, she didn’t. She ended up changing the damn locks, so then I went to her store a few times. I just wanted the rest of my stuff, you know? But you know what she did?”

I did know, but I shook my head like I didn’t.

“She had a damn restraining order taken against me! Can you believe that? All ’cause I wanted my stuff. I told you—chick’s crazy.” He leans back in his chair.

There’s so much I don’t like about what he said. Darren would call me crazy, too, whenever I’d get upset about something. As though his emotions were completely valid—he could get angry over the smallest things—but mine were unreasonable, hysterical.

But I do get why Hudson is so mad. I would be as well if someone held my belongings hostage.

And I’m glad that he finally came clean about the restraining order. Maybe he had no intention of keeping it from me. Maybe he just needed to feel more comfortable. He does seem to be coming out of his shell more, becoming more talkative lately.

“Why do you think she filed the restraining order, though? That seems really extreme, especially if she was the one acting violent?”

“’Cause that’s what Natalia does. She likes drama. Playing the victim. When we met, she told me her ex cheated on her.” He shakes his head, his lips curling in disgust. “But that was a lie. He never cheated on her.”

“What?” She had told me the same thing. Had it really been a lie?

And if she’d lie about that, what else would she lie about?

“Yeah.” He throws his hands up, his eyebrows rising in tandem. “I guess she did it for attention. I mean, I definitely felt sorry for her, and, yeah, I wanted to protect her. You know how guys are. We’re drawn to that damsel-in-distress shit. And when she kicked me out, suddenly that neighbor guy was around all the time. I bet she did it to get her hooks into him, same way she did with me. He’s probably over there right now standing guard, her personal watchdog.”

It’s quiet a moment. I want to say something helpful, but I have no idea what that is. So I finally settle on, “I’m sorry.”

He shrugs in response.

I don’t know Natalia, and in our one interaction, she didn’t exactly win me over. But saying she took out a restraining order to get attention from another guy seems like a pretty weak defense. In raising my kids, I often found that their explanations were black-and-white—while the truth was somewhere in the gray.

Bowie stirs on the ground. I continue playing with the edge of the blanket.

“Are you really gonna go to that meeting?” Hudson asks, breaking the silence.

“I don’t know.” I frown. “I mean, I feel like I should. It’s my neighborhood, and I have every right to know what’s going on.”

“Weird how they didn’t invite you, though,” he muses. Turning, he peers out the front window, his forehead creasing. “John didn’t seem surprised when I went out there. Didn’t even seem scared that I had a bat. It was almost like he was expecting me.”

“Well, I mean, he had to figure we’d confront him if we caught him snooping on our property.”

“Exactly,” Hudson says. “So, why our yard? If he saw something in Bill’s, why was he in ours?”

The hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention. “Good question. Better view?”

“Or is keeping an eye on us part of the neighborhood watch?”

Now I know the answer to Hudson’s earlier question. “I guess I’ll find out tomorrow night.”

“So you are going?”

“I don’t think I have a choice.”

“Do you want me to go with you?”

I mull it over a minute and then shake my head. I’m sure Leslie has told them all sorts of bad things about me, but it’s nothing compared to the gossip she’s spread about Hudson. “No, I think it’s best if I go alone.”