Parenting is hard, Especially when everyone is Awful.

The rumble of the 396 beneath the matte black hood of the ‘66 SS Impala was more of a ‘lope’ as he idled up the long driveway to the Strader compound just outside Houston, Texas north of the city. He felt the bite of guilt, knowing that he had been evading this. Knowing that he was Fuding up. Sure, most of it was justified. Especially the Poop with Aimi..



…But still, he had put off facing this. And he was a fucknut for it.



Killing the motor, he straightened out his shirt and made his way to the door of the third house from the entrance. He lingered for a moment, pulling a smoke from his pack and sparking up. He kept the pack handy though, hoping to offer one as payment for his life. With one long puff, he knocked on the door and stepped back. He wasn’t sure which of them might answer the door, but it definitely wasn’t her.



“Wow, you showed. Meghan owes me a wax and shine on my Sporty.”



A small half chuckle, he lifted the smoke to Tamika as he exhaled a plume of smoke out of his nose.



“Yeah, i’m a piece of Poop. Meg here?” he asked, polite but short. He was here on business, and wasn’t terribly interested in the biting opinions of Straders who were never his in-laws anyway. He had no doubt he’d endure some sort of verbal offensive, but only from one person and not a soul otherwise.



“She’s checking on Cara,” she says, motioning him in. She stops suddenly and turns around as he almost bumps into her. She lets out a small chuckle as she looks up at him. “I know you have no idea what it’s like to be close to a sibling but I love Megz and her children more than you can ever know and if you give me that attitude again- - -”



“Meeks. Down girl. I got this. Cara was asking if you were still here,” Meghan says as she appears from the back bedroom area, as Tamika’s lips betray her and that family sneer basically drips on his old but expensive footwear. He has a bit of a smirk as she walks away and Meghan’s icy blues glare a dagger to his throat.



She motions for him to have a seat at the kitchen table two steps from the door he came in as she grabs a bottle of whiskey sitting on the kitchen island, holding it up and slightly towards. In the first surprise of the afternoon Matthew waves it off but mouths a ‘thanks’. He turned the smoke out on the bottom of his Stacey Adams, leaving it on a rail to be reclaimed later. Slowly sinking into the seat he reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose, letting out a low grunt before clearing his throat.



“You uh..Want to get the motherfucks out of the way right off the bat, or sprinkle them throughout, MaMa Bear?” he asked. Not sarcastically, but in the way of a man who was exhausted and accepting of the switch being thrown. A less honorable, likable, and magical John Coffey.



Meghan doesn’t answer right away, as she pours herself a whiskey since he didn’t bother to answer her. She sits down at the other end of the table and grabs the ashtray on the stand behind her couch and slides it in the middle. She lights a Marlboro Red and looks at him.



“Matthew, just be thankful I am not the woman I was five years ago. Finding out I had twins, and then birthing another set a few years ago has tamed me slightly. I’m not gonna sit here and call you names, but I’m not like the other women in your life where this playful banter is going to serve you,” she says taking a full drag of cancerous stick. “Why are you here? Why now?”



It usually wasn’t on purpose but her normal resting bitch face was made worse by her eyes. She shared that trait with her own father who she had a rocky relationship with to begin with. Her gaze did cut into him more than he’d like to admit. He looked away, the closest he’d give to flinching as he adjusted in the seat. Fingers drum on the table as he exhaled slowly, nodding once as the words form in his head.



“Because I finally yanked my head free and i’m ready to face my fear of, and completely executed failure in Victoria’s life…” he returned his gaze to meet the icy knives that were thrown his way “I don’t have, nor would I insult you with an excuse. It got dropped on me, and I didn’t adjust from seeing her as a protege and buddy. I should have addressed this Rivers Poop earlier and I just…”



He lifted his hands, leaving the words in their minds. He knew what he did. So did she.



“When she did that to Cara it…it reminded me of my fight with Tom. You remember, Victoria was there for that? And she…” he shifted, brow furrowing “She saw me getting ready to burn him alive, and told me Kerosene burned faster. Same night a video package ran where her baby sister said she hoped I killed Tom…”



“I should have seen it, and I should have done something but I…” he looked down, brow furrowed and ashamed “I didn’t want to believe it. I figured that she was old enough to have dodged the bullet. I never bothered to come to you, or her and ask if there was any weird Poop…and I’m sorry. And her throwing Cara off a roof? I know it’s dumb as Poop but I…I put it on me. Like, she saw me do that to Tom. to my own flesh and blood…and then she did it to hers, you know?”



The blue smoke of her Marlboro streams out of her nostrils. She closes her eyes for a few seconds before getting up and walking over to the fireplace her TV was above. She comes back and sits down, her fingers lightly gliding over the glass. It’s a picture of the three of them: Meghan, Matthew and Victoria on a red carpet for a PWV event. She slides it towards him. He picks it up and looks at it with a sombreness.



“Cara’s father, Ryan Gaudet… he’s such an awful man. You think Tom and his sister are bad, you haven’t met a man like this. Who manipulated like the predator he is, and forced my dad to go through hell to get me back… and I wasn’t kind to Scott. My mom, Elizabeth, died when I was born and I thought his best friend was my dad up until that point.” He looks up at her, probably wondering why she is telling this to him. She hadn’t spoken about that time in her life in a long time. “So when I found out my proclivity caused another man to be her father I was so so so glad it was you. I know your demons, I know you aren’t perfect but you are leaps and bounds a better human being than him. I saw the changes starting to happen in her. I had no idea what I was dealing with… but you told me not to worry. Then I watched you belittle as the changes were getting worse. I get it, I have dug into Jennifer and Thomas. I dug into you. I know the affliction affects you all differently but I can’t see an instance where it’s never not a battle within. Veronica came out and seized her. Buried my baby deep inside where I wasn’t sure she could even hear or see what was going on…”



She butts her death stick and lights another as she feels her hands shake.



“She called me tonight Matthew.”



Matt, who had retrieved his own cigarette and zippo as he listened stopped just as he flicked the lid open, eyes lifting to gaze at her.



“She broke out of the bullshit?” he asked, voice edged in a hopeful excitement as he sparked up, taking the first puff and blowing it out toward the ceiling as he leaned over the table to stare at her more intensely. He had a plan, it couldn’t be set off quite yet but it was there. And it was fool proof, if you asked him.



But it would also suck, and if she could kick out on her own..



“Cara was sleeping on my lap while I watched your show in TPW last night and she called. I didn’t recognize the number but it was her voice. My phone is pretty loud and Cara caught the part about apologizing for what Veronica did to her. I asked her where she had been and told me she had been somewhere nice reliving childhood with her adoptive parents and Cara but she has heard and seen everything, Matthew. She wanted me to tell her sister she loved her and me too,” she says with a sad sigh, taking another drag, “but when I asked what about you she repeated she had heard everything. She let me go because she said Veronica would resume control, she let her guard down. You have said you had a plan, but that’s I am going into that Battle Royal. I am going to get inside OCW and find her.”



Another drag, he slumped in the chair. The smoke rolled from his nostrils as he turned the cigarette over in his fingers, a chuckle breaking from him as he danced around an idle thought before letting it slip.



“I really tried, as much as I could you know?” he said quietly, shifting back up “I invited her…to so much. But after you told me, after I knew…It was like…I don’t even know. I was terrified..” he took another drag, blowing the smoke out quickly. In it more for the burn than the fix.



“People I bullshit with, or try to fight. I can keep pressing. I can dig, dig, dig, dig and dig and not give a flying Fudge when they tell me to kick rocks and come for my head but…The last thing I wanted was for her to go on me. I didn’t want to choke her trying to keep her close, you know?” a chuckle, he shakes his head.



“Poop like that is how you end up forty, having these discussions with a woman you never knew you had a kid with….Go to the battle royale but for fucks sake, limber up. Cortisone. All that good Poop and don’t go chasing her to any Fuding rooftops…” he shook his head “If you can’t pull her out, then I’ll do it….It being giving her what she thinks she Fuding wants…” another drag, he turned the smoke out in the ashtray, looking up to find those sharp blues across the table.



“Fuding good thing she’s the only one. If Cara was mine too, we’d both be pig Poop after a trip through a wood chipper.”



Her right brow moves up slowly with the visualization of his words.



“I thought she was Ryan’s, Matthew. My dad apparently knew, and he separated me from my girls to keep them away from your family and the people they are connected to. Big bad Fuding biker was shaking in his leather boots. If I had known about Cara I would never let them get separated and I would’ve tracked you down. I told you as soon as I knew. But I don’t think it’s about the wretched comments you threw at her, it’s the sweet nicknames you call the woman that crushed her heart, being buddies with the dude that was most likely responsible for that happening, and like you said you were terrified. We can’t sit here and wish the past was different or any of that horse Poop.”



Meghan stands up and walks over to the living room area to listen in on Tamika and Cara. She returns satisfied that the aunt and niece were having a laugh and wouldn’t come out.



“Luckily the doctor that cleared me to get back in the ring accepts… donations… and I was able to get accepted into this thing. I am well aware there is a chance that Veronica had something to do with it but I don’t believe she hates me like she does Cara or you. I mean, Mac Fuding Bane, that must’ve felt great by the way,” she remarks with a scoff and a shake of her head, “but I am ready for whatever she brings my way. I just need you to stay the Fudge away because you will send her off the rails.”



A chuckle at the mention of the cowboy, almost choking him on his last puff.



“Yeah..fuckin great til he started hitting me…” he muttered in response, drumming his fingers on the tabletop. His lips purse as he shakes his head once “I don’t like it, but…hardly my business. We’re just coparents to an adult mental patient…which, i guess makes sense given how batshit we are. Especially you.” a smirk to go wit the joke as he ran a tired hand through his hair.



“Take John with you. Someone who could overpower her if need be. Not that Tamika can’t but…she already tried to make Cara fly and I doubt she’s as close to her Aunt as she is her twin, or her mama…” he brought a hand up, scratching at his facial stubble before nodding and shrugging at the same time.



“Until then..I’ll keep popping in at TPW…whole reason I signed up for it was to see her in person. Lightning rod my cousin so he’s too stupid to twist her head up…Brought Amber because..well..I wouldn’t mnd winning the damn belts, either.” he ran ah and over his face, a low grunt escaping him as he cleared his throat.



“Poop..i almost forgot.” he dropped the hand to look right at her once more “Might be a tall ask but…you got any pictures of her, when she was little? I got one of Hope, and Sylvie..i’d like to put her with her sisters on the piano at home.”



“I do down at Grans house. It’s late though and she’ll be asleep,” she says, passing over the fact that Tamika put a bullet in a South American’s head for trying to hurt her big sister, “so I will get them in the morning and send them to you. Oh, and about John he’s already in Florida. He’s been watching from a distance. The two of them developed an awesome bond, he looked at her like his own but an equal too. I thought it was cute the way uncle and niece looked out for each other. If it wasn’t for him after she found dad and Max together, I think this problem now would’ve been a problem sooner. He beat himself up for leaving her but at the time he was no use to her with both his knees toast.”