The Captain's Dirty Little Secret

Chapter 109: Chapter 109 - For Roxxane

Instead of crying to sleep, Roxie packed angry.

That was easier than packing scared.

She dragged the old duffel bag from the bottom of her closet and threw it onto the bed. The zipper caught halfway, so she yanked it hard until it tore open with an ugly sound. She opened her drawers and started pulling clothes out without folding them.

Shirts.

Jeans.

Socks.

Practice shorts.

Old hoodies.

Everything went into the bag in hard, messy handfuls.

Claire wanted her out in two weeks.

Fine.

Roxie could pack.

She could shove herself into bags and leave like she had only been borrowing space here. Like her room was already someone else’s. Like the bed, the desk, the cracked mirror, the old posters, the little dents on the wall from years of living, none of it had ever belonged to her.

Her breathing came fast, but she kept moving.

She opened the closet and grabbed hangers. Clothes slipped from them and fell to the floor. She kicked them toward the bed. One hanger snapped under her foot.

She did not care.

The room looked smaller the more she emptied it.

That made her angrier.

Claire had probably thought Roxie would cry. Beg. Ask where she was supposed to go. Ask how her own mother could sell the only place she had and call it practical.

Roxie refused to give her that.

She pulled a stack of folded uniforms from the shelf and threw them on the bed. Her cheer jacket landed near the flowers from Senior Night.

The flowers were still on her desk.

Red and white.

The plastic wrap had wrinkled from how hard she held them. A few petals had bent at the edges. They looked out of place in her room, too soft and too cared for.

Roxie looked away.

She grabbed another drawer.

Inside were old things she had stopped looking at years ago.

A broken bracelet.

A school picture from seventh grade.

A packet of birthday candles with three missing.

A small stuffed rabbit with one ear hanging loose.

Her hand slowed.

The anger did not leave.

It changed.

She picked up the rabbit.

Its fur had gone flat from years of being shoved into drawers. One plastic eye was scratched. The loose ear had been badly sewn back once with black thread because Roxie had been ten and that was the only thread she could find.

She stared at it.

Then she threw it onto the bed too, but softer this time.

The next thing under it was a small picture book.

Roxie froze.

The cover was faded blue, with little yellow stars printed along the edges. The corners were bent. The plastic over the front had peeled at one side. She knew it before she touched it.

Grandma’s book.

Her throat tightened.

It was the only thing her grandmother had left her.

Roxie had forgotten it was in the drawer.

She sat on the edge of the bed with the book in her lap. Clothes spilled around her. The duffel bag sat open beside her, already half full and ugly with everything she had thrown inside.

For a while, she only held the book.

Then she opened it.

The first picture was old, slightly yellow at the edges.

Her grandmother sat in a rocking chair with baby Roxie in her arms. The chair was the one Claire had thrown into the backyard on their first day back in the house. Roxie remembered it sitting in the grass for two weeks until rain ruined the wood and Claire dragged it to the curb like trash.

In the picture, the chair looked warm.

Her grandmother looked tired, older than Roxie remembered from the few real memories she had, but she was smiling down at the baby in her arms like nothing in the world mattered more.

Roxie touched the plastic over the photo.

Baby Roxie looked round-cheeked and furious, one tiny fist curled against her grandmother’s sweater.

Loved.

That was the first word that came.

Roxie’s eyes filled so fast she blinked hard.

She turned the page.

Her grandmother holding a bottle to Roxie’s mouth.

Her grandmother on the porch steps with Roxie sitting between her feet.

Her grandmother standing in the yard, both hands out, while Roxie took one wobbly step toward her.

Each page carried another year, or pieces of one.

A birthday cake with one candle.

Roxie in a red coat too big for her.

Roxie asleep against her grandmother’s chest, mouth open, one hand twisted in the old woman’s blouse.

Roxie stared at the pictures until tears slipped down her face.

She made no sound.

She had spent years wondering what would have happened if her grandmother had lived longer. If Claire had left her here. If she had grown up in this house under the care of the woman in the pictures instead of being taken to Ohio and dragged through apartments where landlords knocked hard enough to shake doors.

She would never know.

Claire had only come back when Grandma died.

When there was a house.

When there was something to take.

Roxie wiped her face with the heel of her hand, but more tears fell.

She turned another page.

Her grandmother in the kitchen, holding Roxie on one hip.

Her grandmother in the living room, sitting on the floor with blocks around them.

Her grandmother near the front gate, Roxie’s tiny hand wrapped around two of her fingers.

The house was in the background of almost every photo.

This house.

The cabinets. The porch. The yard. The window in Roxie’s room before it stuck when it rained.

It had belonged to something before Claire made it smell like smoke and old bottles.

It had belonged to someone who held Roxie like she was wanted.

Roxie bit her trembling lip.

She turned to the last page.

There was one photo there.

Her grandmother stood in front of the house with Roxie in her arms. Roxie was maybe two. Her hair was tied into two tiny puffs, her cheeks round, her face turned toward the camera with a confused little frown. Her grandmother smiled beside her, one hand supporting Roxie’s back, the other resting against the porch rail.

In the corner, written in faded blue ink, were the words:

For my darling granddaughter, Roxxane.

Roxie stared at her name.

She hated her full name.

Roxxane always sounded too formal. Too heavy. Too much like something teachers said when she was in trouble or when forms needed filling.

But in her grandmother’s handwriting, it looked different.

Soft.

Careful.

Loved.

Roxie touched the writing with one finger.

Her tears fell onto the plastic.

She wiped them away quickly, afraid of damaging it.

Her chest hurt so badly she had to press her hand against it.

For my darling granddaughter, Roxxane.

Claire called her name like a complaint.

Her grandmother had written it like a gift.

Roxie almost closed the book.

Then her finger caught on something near the inside corner of the back cover.

A bump.

She paused.

The back cover had a clear plastic sleeve, the kind meant for extra photos or notes. The edge was cloudy with age. Roxie had never noticed it before because the last picture covered most of it.

She ran her finger over the corner again.

There was something underneath.

Flat.

Folded.

Hidden behind the last photo.

Her tears slowed.

She sat straighter.

”What the hell,” she whispered.

Carefully, she slid her nail under the loose edge of the plastic. It resisted at first. The old adhesive pulled with a soft, sticky sound. Roxie held her breath and peeled slower, afraid the whole page would rip.

The plastic lifted.

A folded paper slid halfway out.

Roxie stared at it.

Her heartbeat changed.

The paper was old but clean, tucked so carefully behind the picture that it had stayed flat all these years. It was folded in thirds, the edges yellowed. There was a stamp on one corner, faint but still visible.

Her fingers shook as she pulled it free.

For a second, she only held it.

Then she unfolded the paper.

The words at the top looked official.

Certified Copy of Deed of Transfer.

Roxie stopped breathing.

Her eyes moved down the page.

There were names.

Her grandmother’s name.

Evelyn Woods.

Claire’s name appeared once.

Then another line.

Grantee:

Roxxane Jones.

Roxie stared.

The room went silent around her.

She read the line again.

Grantee: Roxxane Jones.

Her grip tightened on the paper.

The house.

Her grandmother’s house.

Claire’s house.

Her house.

Roxie’s breath came in shallow.

She looked at the photo book still open on her lap. Her grandmother smiled up from the last picture, standing in front of the house with Roxie in her arms.

For my darling granddaughter, Roxxane.

Roxie looked back at the deed.

Her hands were shaking again, but the panic had changed.

It had a shape now.

A question.

A possibility.

A rage so sharp it made her sit completely still.

Claire had told her to pack.

Claire had told her the house was hers.

Claire had found a buyer.

Roxie read the line one more time.

Grantee: Roxxane Jones.

Then she stood.

The duffel bag slid off the bed and hit the floor.

Roxie barely heard it.

She held the deed in one hand and the picture book in the other.

Her face was wet.

Her chest hurt.

But her voice, when she finally spoke into the empty room, came out flat.

”No.”

She looked toward the door.

Claire was on the other side of the house.

Claire had told her she had two weeks.

Claire had been selling something that might not even be hers.

Roxie folded the paper carefully, slower than she had folded the dress at the Robinsons’ house, and pressed it against her chest with the photo book.

The anger came back.

This time, it stood up with her.