Sins of the Father

Chapter Eleven

"Is it cool if I stay the night?" They were lying on the couch, watching a VHS tape of 'The Mummy.' Mercy was looking up at Happy from her place, cuddled up to his hard chest.

Happy gave her was of patented are-you-stupid looks. Then he tightened his arms around her waist. "You never gotta ask that question, baby girl. The answer's always 'fuck yes.'" He chuckled. "You will have to tell me when to take you back to your mom's place though. I'm gonna avoid that shit like it's the cops."

Mercy giggled as she got comfortable again on his chest. She wondered if it meant anything that Happy had said, 'your mom's place,' and not 'home.'

"Mercy, baby?" Happy was lightly running his fingertips up and down her spine through her t-shirt.

"Yeah?" She was starting to space out, and she was only half-watching the movie.

"You're a cherry, aren't you?" Happy asked the question so casually that it was ridiculous.

Well, Mercy was wide awake now...and slightly frozen in terror. Happy clearly noticed when his girlfriend went stiff as a board on top of him. He didn't say anything; he just hugged her to him tightly.

"Not many guys want to deflower the daughter of a serial killer," was how Mercy answered the question.

"Good," Happy shocked her by saying. For a moment, she was deeply hurt...and then Happy explained. "I don't have to undo any damage caused by some unworthy punk who came before me. I get to treat you right straight out of the gate." He kissed her forehead.

And Happy thought she said all the right things? To the outside world, he may be the big, bad biker, but behind closed doors, the man was Prince Charming in a kutte.

"We're gonna wait until the charity ride," Happy continued. "I want to do something special."

The whore in Mercy's head started doing the math to work out just how long she was gonna have to wait. The whore turned into a shocked nun when Happy once more changed the subject.

"I know your mom's fucking nuts, but you can talk about him, you know. Your mom's probably not down with that, but I am if you need to talk." Happy's tone had a reassuring huskiness to it.

Mercy sat up so she could turn at look at him in the eye. "You mean him him?"

Happy sat up and nodded. He grabbed the remote control off of the coffee table and stopped the tape in the player.

Mercy didn't know what to say. No one in her life had ever offered to listen to her talk about her father before. Her father had always been a taboo subject in her life, even when he was still alive. "He was never really out of my life. He kept in contact with me until he was executed when I was in the fourth grade." She wasn't sure why that was the first thing that she chose to share, but something amazing happened when she did. The heavy weight that always seemed to be on her chest eased up just a little.

"You loved him." It wasn't a question. It was a statement without an ounce of judgment.

Mercy felt the tears pool in her eyes, but she could do nothing to stop them from falling. "Of course I did. He was my daddy." The dam that she had kept tightly sealed since 1989 finally burst.

She would never be able to explain it to someone who had not lived it, but sobbing into her boyfriend's chest and thoroughly soaking his t-shirt was the best way she could have spent her birthday that year.