King's Country (Oil Kings #4) - Marie Johnston Page 0,26
softener. Bristol’s doing. The bathroom was where I could take my first full breath. The smell lingered in the stained flooring and the whitewashed walls, but everything was scrubbed as well as it could be. The porcelain in the sink was chipped, same with the tub. There were stains in the toilet made by humans and the hard well water, but it was clean enough to use without wanting a biohazard shower immediately after.
Bristol braved the rest of the trailer to come here? She used her energy to keep this space habitable, but the rest had been too much for her to face so soon after her dad had died.
Me and the whole town were a bunch of fucking assholes.
I get Danny Cartwright might not have accepted a lick of help from anyone. He might’ve turned kind offers into major insults. But Bristol had been written off with him when she’d been nothing but a child. As an adult, no one gave her a chance. No one understood the stress she was under every day just to live her life.
I’d seen enough. The trailer had stood this long, it’d wait a few more days. I’d deal with it later.
Outside, I sucked in a few lungfuls of clean air. The smell of cows and manure was a welcome relief after what I’d left behind. Bristol was still in the RV.
I hurried across the yard. Part of me was curious to see how she lived and the rest wanted to hold her again.
The squeak of the RV door broke the silence of the yard and the distant mooing of cattle. Bristol sat on the couch of her RV and stared out the window that faced her dad’s place. Inside the RV was as I’d expected. Neat. A soft floral smell from candles that lined the counters. None of them had been burned, but their scents were enough to brighten the place. And I’m sure she’d gotten them cheap.
The RV was a couple decades old. The wood accents of the interior were darker browns, but Bristol had brightened the space with a few throw pillows and a couple of plaid blankets like the ones I’d seen in the discount bins for five bucks. They were both a decoration and useful.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Could’ve been worse.” I shuddered to think about how it would’ve been without Bristol’s efforts.
Several moments of silence went by with her arms crossed and her gaze stuck on the trailer across the yard. “I think he thought giving a second chance to an addict was never a wrong decision. It bit him in the ass over and over again, but I can’t help but wonder how much he saw himself in them. The biggest issue was that those men he hired were never in recovery or trying to get into recovery.”
Just like her dad.
“There’s this whole population . . .” She sucked in a breath and gestured behind her where the other two campers sat. “The people Pop brought home lived in a similar way. Some days, I felt like I shoveled more shit from them than I did in the barn. But, still. People live like this. They fly under the radar of ‘normal society.’ ” She used air quotes. “They don’t qualify for assisted living, and even if they did, they wouldn’t accept the help anyway. They’re their own legal guardians and there’s not much the rest of us can do.”
Other than become their guardian, but that was a legal—and emotional—battle few could afford. “Your dad was sick.”
She snorted. “It wasn’t like he could go to a few sessions with a therapist and be cured. He barely hung on by a thread when I was younger. Add twenty years and he’d probably need therapy for a hundred.” She shook her head. “It was lonely. Nothing I could do, but I was the only one there for him, and the rest of the world hated me for it.”
I sank onto the thin cushions next to her. “It’s too easy for people to take the righteous road. I’m guilty. I’m sorry.”
“I wish I could’ve done more. Found a way to help.” She tilted her head to look up at me. The light caught the spun-copper strands of her hair, lightening them to the color of a spring sunrise. “You’re the only one who’s taken the time to learn a little more about him than what was obvious.”
Guilt sawed into me. It hadn’t been soon enough to help her