by Lacey Dailey
“Oh my fucking God.” Wren was shaking his head, eyes full of denial. “Holy shit. No.”
Sage let out a garbled sound and grabbed the screen. “Ace!” She shook the computer like it was an etch-a-sketch, frantically wishing she could start fresh with a photo that didn’t burn the back of our throats. “Ace, oh my God. That’s you. But it can’t be you. But it looks like you. How in the hell?”
Wren was still shaking his head. Extending his hand, he entwined his fingers with hers. “That’s not Ace.”
“I know. Of course. This was decades ago. Ace was barely a thought in the wind, but holy hell it looks just like him.” Her eyes fell from her face. “Oh my God.”
You look just him.
I swallowed down vomit at what those words now meant, and brought, to whatever this was.
“Ace.” Sage sat forward, her voice dropping a few octaves. “Do you know who that is?”
“Dominic.” Ace’s voice was stripped raw. I felt like someone filleted my heart when my eyes caught sight of the drop of moisture that hit the floor and pooled on the tile.
He was fucking crying.
The look on Sage’s face was a clear indicator she didn’t know if she should feel frantic or perplexed. “Who is… who is Dominic?”
Ace shook his head. Another drop hit the floor. His chest heaved, and I knew he couldn’t. He couldn’t say it, so I tightened my grip and did it for him. I held him up like he'd held me up so many times before and uttered the sentence he couldn’t speak.
“It’s his father, Sage.” The words were like a bomb going off in the room. “That man with Kade is Dominic Jackson. Ace’s father.”
20
Ace
It was fine.
Everything was fine.
I was fine.
Except I actually totally wasn’t. I was the farthest thing from fine a man could be. I just wasn’t sure what I really was or how to make sense of it. So, I defaulted into the world’s most irritating answer.
I’m fine.
The words were nothing but an escape, and I knew now why Brett used them so often in the beginning stages of our friendship. Because he was exhausted. Confused. Trying to wrap his head around how he felt without wanting to repeat every dark, daunting detail to anyone that might not understand. People were vultures. If you admitted for even a second you were anything other than fine, they’d all dig for answers. Answers some people who were just fine weren’t quite capable to give.
The truth of the matter was, I was not fucking fine. I was pissed off. My brain was jumbled. My thoughts were tangled. My heart was scrambled. I hurt. It was weird how emotional pain worked like that. How I could feel it twisting inside my stomach as a wave of nausea passed over me. It made me wish I’d just fallen down a set of stairs and broken my leg. At least with that sort of pain, I knew it’d heal. I would know the process and prepare for all the steps. The cast, the crutches, the eight weeks of being immobile, and the physical therapy that came afterward. With heartbreak, there was no process. No promise of healing or moment to prepare for. And I thought maybe that was why emotional pain was so much harder to cope with. Because when it came to our hearts, how the fuck could we be sure they would ever fully feel?
There was a spot on mine. A hole of sorts. A place toward the center that was scabbed over after the wound was ripped open time and time again. Each time that my question went unanswered, another day that went by and I didn’t know his whereabouts, the wound would make itself known and the scab would be a temporary patch for the next time unknown answers tore up that little bit of my heart.
The moment my eyes caught sight of that photo, it felt like somebody threw a bowling ball at my chest. I shattered under its weight. The ribs that were there to protect my lungs cracked beneath immeasurable amounts of pressure, and all I felt was pain. Pain that wouldn’t subside with an ice pack or some Tylenol. It was the type of pain that broke people. The type of pain one felt down deep in their soul.
The last hour of my life took everything I thought I knew about my father and drowned it all in gasoline. What I recognized as truths lit up in flames and I watched them burn through a hazy film in my eyes. Back in Brett's parent's house, my body was nothing but a heap on the hard floor, my limbs tangled in his. I reminded myself to breathe. Inhale. Exhale. One breath at a time while I watched parts of my life burn.
It was after that that I'd crawled out of Brett’s arms and stood up, clutching the wall beside me in order to give my brain the opportunity to remind my legs how to walk. Brett’s fingers wrapped around my forearm as if to steady me. I shrugged him off and stumbled backward. "I need a second," I told him.
Without looking at anyone, I scrambled from the room and down the hall. Slumping against the wall, I attempted to take a slow breath. I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose, thick tears dripping down my cheeks. I wasn’t sure where they came from, but I thought maybe a part of me was giving up. Passing the torch over to defeat and learning to live with no answers and no closure.
A stronger side of me told that feeling to fuck off. Before I could even consider what a horrendous mistake I was making, I staggered off the wall. Stumbling down the hall, I unlatched the back door and stepped out into the backyard. My feet crunched against grass due for a cut and made my way to the gate. There was a loud creak when I pushed it open and I didn't bother shutting it as I took off around the side of the house. When I made it to my car at the edge of the driveway, I fumbled with my keys. It took two tries to get the car unlocked before I collapsed into the seat and slammed the door shut.
Once inside, I held the sides of my head and screamed, desperate to get far the fuck away, but not knowing where to go. A man couldn’t run from what was lingering inside him. Couldn’t flee the emotions that were too intense to handle. Couldn’t escape the overwhelming effects of the traumatizing truth he was desperate for.
I considered numbing them, dragging my body to the nearest bar to spend some time with my good friend Jack. With the time of day it was, I knew that wasn’t an option. There wasn’t a bar around that would've been open. So, I dropped my forehead to the steering wheel and screamed. My mouth fell open, the muscles in my neck pulled tautly, and I just screamed. I could feel the blood pooling to the surface of my skin, veins bulging from my forehead and threatening to burst. I couldn’t stop though. Didn’t want to. I screamed and screamed and screamed, bursting with the need to get rid of whatever I was feeling and rewind time, so I would’ve never seen that photo. But it was all still there. Scorched into me harshly enough I knew it would change who I was forever.
It was at that moment I grew exhausted. Sick and fucking tired of receiving mind-numbing silence in response to the questions I had about the man who played a part in my existence. It took that exhaustion coupled with unadulterated rage to get me to put my car in drive and step on the gas, hell-bent on getting the answers I'd asked for years ago.
The walk up to the house was short, maybe twelve steps total, but it felt like it took years. Tentatively, the tip of my finger made contact with the little button that served as the doorbell. I stood there and I waited. My breath caught when the door was pulled open, and for a long moment, there was only silence.
And then she spoke. "Ace, honey! What are you doing ringing the doorbell?" She wasted no time positioning her slim arm around my shoulders and ushering me into the house I grew up in. "What are you doing here? Everything okay?"
I shuffled behind her. The beige walls and warm colors of the house did not wrap me up in a blanket of comfort like they used to. I didn't get a goofy grin looking at the dorky family photos my mom had displayed. I didn't bother making a joke about the crack I'd put in the wall with a baseball ten years ago. I didn't help myself to her refrigerator or the stash of Slim Jims she kept just for me. I just sort of stood there in the entryway, looking around but not really appreciating the memories like I used to. Since seeing that photo, my past felt as though it was getting bulldozed over and re
built into something completely different. Something I wasn't sure I recognized.
"Mom." My tongue felt like sandpaper. I swirled it around, coaxing moisture back into my mouth. I forced my heavy limbs to move and slid out from under her grip, pressing my hand to my face and taming the vibrations my body had become victim to.
"Ace Desmond, come sit down this instant. Lord, you look sicker than a dog. What on earth were you thinking driving here?"
Apparently, I wasn't thinking at all. Her scolding only reminded me I had zero recollection of the forty-five minute drive over here. I wasn't concentrating on anything except for why I'd come. "Mom." I swallowed a bucket of nails and subconsciously rubbed the scabbed spot in my chest. “I need to ask you something.”
She ignored me and grasped my upper arm. I let her pull me deeper into the living room. I must've looked like complete shit because she didn't bother scolding me for not slipping my shoes off at the door.
"Sit."
I followed her command and collapsed back onto the suede sofa. She made a big fuss of draping an afghan over my legs and pressing the back of her boney hand to my forehead. "Do you have a temperature?"
"No, mom." I swatted at her hands and patted the spot beside me. "I have a question."
The wrinkles around her mouth deepened. "You drove all the way over here to ask me a question?"
"Yeah, I did." I gave her a look and waited for her to perch next to me and adjust herself so she was facing me.
She smoothed out the mustard colored sweater she was wearing and smiled softly at me. "Okay, honey. I'm listening."
I wasted not even a second. "Was my father friends with Kade Wilson?"
"Kade Wilson?" Her glossy lips pursed. She tucked a short lock of brown hair behind her ear and made a noise. "That man in prison? The one who hurt Wren's girlfriend?"
"Yeah, mom. Was my father friends with him?"
She rocked backward. Her brown eyes darted around the room and her nose wrinkled. "What an incredibly odd question to ask, Ace."
"That wasn't an answer." Impatience filled my system. My eyes rolled back so far, I saw my brain. "I'm not leaving until I get an answer. An honest one, preferably."
"Don't you roll your eyes at me, mister." She scolded me like she used to when I was a kid. The effect it had on me now was nonexistent.
"Mom, I'm not here to talk in circles with you. Was my father friends with Kade Wilson or not?"
Her big hazel eyes held my gaze. As if she were challenging me to drop it and move on. Waiting me out to see if I had the patience to stay long enough for an answer. Truth was, I didn't have the patience. Not anymore. I dug my phone from the smock I was still wearing. With a few clicks, I pulled up the photo that made my stomach roll and shoved it at my mother.
With a low breath, she slid it from my grip and held it in front of her face, squinting at the screen. Her expression remained neutral. Her eyes didn't bulge in shock. Her mouth didn't drop open. She didn't fall to her ass the same way I did. She just sat there. She fucking sat there and stared at the photo of my father side by side with a monster like she'd seen it before. The notion she actually had seen it before was like getting kicked in the stomach.
She tossed the phone in my lap. "Where did you get that?"
"It doesn't matter." My heart transitioned from quick beats to aggressive thumps. "Answer me. Please." I was growing desperate. Her innate ability to skirt around answers and ignore questions was driving me into a fit of turmoil.
I needed to know.
She stood up quickly and fidgeted with the end of her sleeves. "I don't know, Ace. I'm sorry."
"You're lying."
She blinked rapidly. Five or six quick blinks before she closed her eyes for a long moment. When she opened them, she scratched the side of her cheek with the tip of her long fingernail. "Have you had lunch? I'll make you lunch." She turned to make her retreat into the kitchen.
"Mom," I pleaded. "Please."
She froze where she was. The little slippers she had on her feet drifted against the old carpeting as she turned around. "Ace, I don't know." Looking up, I caught her gaze. It was then I finally saw it. The sweat pooling at her hairline, the distressed lines on her face, the reassuring smile she thought looked real.
I stood up and walked towards her. Reaching outward, I took her hand in mine and started to beg. "Mom, I know you're lying. Please, tell me the truth. I'm not a seven-year-old anymore. I can handle it."
"You sweet boy." She flashed me a watery smile filled with nothing but sadness. She squeezed my hand and used her free one to push a lock of my hair behind my shoulders. "You could always handle it. But you should never have to."
"Mom."
She opened her mouth just slightly, shaking her head as if she needed a moment of courage for what she was about to say. The look in her eyes took me back years. To when I was just a kid and she was tasked with the impossible; telling her kids their father was never coming home.
Something lurched inside my stomach.
Her grip on me tightened.
“Ace, your father was not Kade's friend." She blew out a breath. "He was his brother. Kade and your father were half-brothers. They shared a mother."
I blinked.
Then I blinked again.
After that, I sort of just went numb.
All the pain I was feeling only moments ago came to an abrupt stop as I stared at her. The truth was right there, screaming at me. I knew I should’ve felt something. Anger. Sadness. Betrayal. Anything. But what I felt was nothing. I was empty. Numb. And somehow, I knew that was worse. But, God, it felt better. Better than crying or feeling weak. It felt better to just feel nothing. To fight nothing.
I stumbled backward and jerked my hand from hers.
"Ace." Her eyes went a bit frantic. "You need to understand your father was not the kind of man Kade is."
Was.
The word was like a knife in my gut.
"Where is he?" Sudden, hot tears poured out of my eyes and dripped off my chin. "Where is my dad?"
Her own tears coated her cheeks, smearing black makeup down her face. I'm not sure she noticed. "There was a car accident."
It was an accident.
Photos of the accident flashed in front of my wet eyes. I saw every detail. The blood, the dog tags, the sagging seatbelts, and Kade facedown on the pavement. But this time, in this version, there was another detail. My father, trapped behind the steering wheel. My stomach revolted. Moving quickly, I bolted across the room and into the kitchen. I wrapped my arms around the slim trashcan while my body heaved. Everything emptied from my insides. Everything but the numbness.
"Ace. Oh, God." She was sobbing now. Stroking the back of my hair.
"Mom, where is he? Tell me where dad is."
"He's gone, baby. He's been gone for a long time."
Those words, and the meaning behind them, sent me spiraling. The tears dripping off my chin doubled in size. My body tightened and I felt like I was being shoved through a straw. I couldn’t hear, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see. It was just me and darkness, struggling to find the light again. "Tell me what happened. Please."
"Ace." She lowered herself to the floor beside me. Her trembling hands cupped the sides of my face and brushed away the wetness. It was a useless action. "He was in a car accident. The car... it wrapped around a pole."
"On the I-66? At 1:31 in the morning?"
Through the haze in my eyes, I saw that I'd stunned her. "How... how on earth do you know that?"
"Because Kade Wilson was in an accident on the I-66 where the car wrapped around a pole. Police found him facedown on the asphalt, but there was not another person in that car, mom. So where the fuck is my dad?"
Her face morphed into something I haven't seen in a long, long time. Possibly ever. "He's dead, Ace!" Tears of rage pulsed down her cheeks. "He's dead! He isn't coming back. He died in that accident with Kade."
"How? How did he die in the accident and nobody knew? How was h
e there and the police didn't know?"
She looked away from me and swiped a few fingers across her face. "Because Kade pulled him out of the car and tossed him in the river."
"No, he didn't"
"Yes. He did." She sniffed. "Ace, he did."
"His body would've been found. There would've been news reports."
Her head gave a small shake. "No, honey. Kade... he used jumper cables to tie a spare tire around his waist." She caressed my damp cheek. "Your father was an amazing man, Ace. His soul is in heaven. But his body is somewhere in the Potomac River."
My face barely made it in the trashcan before I was hacking all over again. I felt a hand wrapping around my hair and an arm supporting my weight. With each lurch of my body, the grip tightened and held me in place. I lifted my head and saw nothing, blinded by tears and visions of my dad. I tried to put myself in Kade’s fucked-up mind. Tried to come up with a scenario and a reason to justify throwing my dad away like he was nothing. It just made me hurl again.
"How?" The sobs were fierce enough now to affect the way I was speaking. I was a mass of stuttered words and undefinable sounds. “How do you know this? Kade send you some fucked-up telegram?"
"The news, Ace. I saw it on the news." Her sobs slowed while mine heightened. Her body readjusted on the floor and she became a tangle of body parts. It was then I saw the heartbreak etched perfectly on her face. It was there for barely a second before a stoic mask fell over her features. A mask I thought maybe she wore so she could make it through her next sentences. "When your dad didn't return, I called everybody I knew. His work, your grandfather, his friends. I called all the jails. When I saw the report of the accident on the news, I searched all the hospitals and found Kade. I was only able to get in because I was technically family. They already had police outside his door, but I was allowed a moment." An evil snarl curled her lips upward. "He told me your father wasn't driving safely. That it was Dominic's fault the car crashed. I will never understand that man's brain, and I still don't understand his justification for what he did to your father. I still believe it was his fault and he didn't want to add to the charges he was already getting. I always believe in the good your father was."