Children of Redemption

by J. J. McAvoy

  I’d hit the bottom of the barrel.

  Exhaling, I looked down at him. “Before I can go any further, brother, I’m going to need you. And if you can’t pull yourself out, I’m going to drag you out. Uncle Declan can set me on fire, I don’t give a damn…if I need to threaten Helen to get to you, I will. And I’m sure you heard her; she’s willing to do anything to get you back.”

  His eyes snapped open again, and he defiantly glared.

  “Look at you.” I smirked sadly. “You’re really in love with her, aren’t you?”

  He couldn’t speak but in his eyes, his message was clear. I simply did what any older brother would do and ignored it.

  “My number one priority is you, little brother, so if I have to torture her at your bedside in order to get you up, I will. I swear on our parents’ graves, I will.”

  I could see the anger; his whole face twitched.

  I smirked down at him, nodding. “That’s the only way you can save her. If you don’t fight, I will force you. If you’re trying, try harder, because if I can’t see you move, I won’t even have to drag her in here. She’ll come herself…she even tried to bite her tongue off to get in here.”

  His nose flared.

  “She refused to believe you’d leave her. No one wanted to tell her. So over and over again she’d bite her tongue, and we’d have to put her to sleep.”

  His mouth began shaking until he finally opened his mouth and bared his teeth at me. The pain in his eyes masked over by the rage.

  “She tried to rip out her IV. I don’t even think she’s noticed the fact that they had to reconstruct her hand. The bullet shattered it, and her index finger was nearly ripped off. When they brought her in, it was bent completely out of—”

  “…”

  “What was that?” I leaned in.

  “S…sto…p,” he muttered out with all his strength.

  I shook my head. “Make me, little brother. Make me.”

  Because I hated this shit, too.

  But what else could I do? Out of everything in the world, the only thing that got him to react was her.

  I was hurting him. But I preferred hurting…it meant he was still living. So I had to keep torturing him like this. “Her hand wasn’t her only injury…”

  HELEN

  My lungs hurt when I woke up, and the throbbing feeling in the back of my throat came back. Ignoring it, I looked to my side, expecting him to be there, but all I saw was my mother. She slept softly, her hand on mine.

  “Wyatt—”

  “Don’t do this again to me.”

  Looking to my left, there he sat leaning into the back of the chair. He rubbed his eyes before focusing his attention on me. “If you call out Wyatt’s name one more time, I will unplug him.”

  “Don’t be mad at him.” I begged, reaching out for my father’s hand. “I’m the one who started it.”

  “He should have walked away.” He frowned, taking my hand. “He should have been the smart one and walked away.”

  “Maybe…but I’m glad he didn’t.” I wasn’t sure what else to say. “I love you, Daddy. I really do, so please… please don’t hate him because of me.”

  “A bullet shattered all the fingers in your right hand. You suffered a concussion and even took another bullet to your left thigh. On top of that, you’ve had anxiety attacks for the last two days….and all you want from me…is that I don’t hate Wyatt?” he repeated slowly, angrily… his jaw tense.

  I nodded. “Everything else will heal. I’ll get better. But if you hate him—”

  “What? You’ll choose to be with him no matter what?” he snapped at me. “You’re twenty-five years old, Helen. Why are you acting like a teenager? Think about what you’re saying, what you’re asking me to do? I raised you both. I watched both of you grow up, and now you’re claiming he’s the love of your life. It’s just a crush—”

  “It’s gone further than that,” I confessed, and he pulled back like I’d slapped him. “And I am an adult. That is why I’m begging you not to hate him, Dad. Because if you do, I’m going to pick him. Dead or alive, I’m going to pick him. So don’t make me choose. Just support me. Don’t blame me for loving him the way I do.”

  He was silent, and he wouldn’t look at me.

  “Dad.”

  He got up and walked toward the doors, and I couldn’t feel how badly it hurt because of Wyatt. I bit back tears, looking out the window

  “Helen?” my mother whispered, lifting herself off my bed. She rubbed her eyes and looked at me. I wasn’t sure what face I was making, but she stood up and put her hand on my face. “It’s okay, sweetheart, stop crying. Wyatt’s going to be alright.”

  “What? How? What happened?” I was trying to sit up, but she pushed me back, not answering.

  “He’s apparently the very opposite of brain dead,” Ethan said as he entered the room. He looked different, but I didn’t know how to describe it, not that it really mattered to me now to figure it out.

  “I don’t understand?” I looked to my mom.

  She smiled at me, and despite how tired she was, I knew she wasn’t forcing it. “He opened his eyes for you.”

  “He’s awake?” I asked, my vision blurring, but I could still see her nod. I let out a cry, all of me shaking with relief.

  Lying back on the pillows, I put my good arm over my face and cried, happy, tired, overwhelmed—but mostly happy.

  CORALINE

  He sat outside her room, glaring at the glass doors across from him in the hall. Sighing, I took a seat beside him, but he didn’t look at me. He didn’t speak. He just sat there like a protective, pissed-off father. The lines on his face looked like they had gotten deeper.

  “You’ve become an old man,” I whispered as I rested my head on his shoulders.

  He exhaled before leaning into me. “Can I call you an old woman now then, too?”

  “Only this once,” I muttered, taking his hand and squeezing. “Because right now I feel like one.”

  He let go of my hand and wrapped his arms over my shoulders. Kissing the top of my head, he said, “She’s going to be alright.”

  “Only if Wyatt is—”

  “Don’t,” he muttered, letting go of me and sitting up on the edge of his chair. “What’s going on? How could they do this? I kept wondering why in the hell Wyatt sent us off, and now I realized it was to fool around with my daughter? Is he fucking mad? There are some lines you just don’t cross. I didn’t realize I had to explain to him why the hell his cousin was that goddamn line.”

  “She said she started it—”

  “Whose side are you on?” His head snapped back to glare at me. “Tell me you didn’t know about this?”

  “Calm down. I learned about it when you did. You know I wouldn’t have kept something like that from you—”

  “Then why are you so calm? You need to talk to her—”

  “And say what, Declan?!” I didn’t want to fight with him. I was tired. “I can understand why you’re upset. But I can’t bring myself to care right now because she’s alive. They’re both alive. We got so lucky, Declan…when I found out…when I saw her and heard about him, I thought the world was ending. I kept thinking that we were going to have to bury them. I kept thinking she’d never wake up. And now she’s awake. And he’s awake. The only thing that has changed from last week is that they are a little broken and bruised…and they’re in love with each other.”

  “They’re kids! They don’t know what love is—”

  “Wow,” I said with a gasp. Maybe it was the exhaustion. Maybe it was because he didn’t realize how old and stupid he sounded right now.

  “Wow, what? What!” he snapped. I was about done with his mood.

  “Declan, I was two years younger than Helen when I met you!” I yelled, and he stared at me like he didn’t even realize. “I walked away from my family, my whole life, and everything I knew before you, and I hadn’t even known you a year. Why? Because I fell in love with you. If I had
a father who loved me as much as you love Helen, he would have tried to stop us, too…and who knows where we would be now.”

  “Here,” he whispered, but didn’t turn to face me. “We’d still be here because no one could have stopped me. I hear you. I get what you’re saying. But…I still don’t want this for her. Call me a hypocrite, but I can’t…she’s my daughter. Mine. Everyone has tried to take her away from us, to say that she is somehow less than our child…And I…We did everything to make sure no one ever questioned who her parents were. If she’s with him…”

  “It means to them, she wasn’t really our daughter all along.” I understood his pain.

  “They will ridicule her, mock her, and—”

  “They won’t do it to her face,” I reminded him. “And if they do, just like you protected me, he’ll protect her.”

  “She can protect herself,” he muttered and pouted not at all caring that he was contradicting his own point. He just didn’t want to think of Wyatt in that role.

  And this was one of the many reasons I loved him so much. Sitting up, I wrapped my arm around his.

  “She’ll always be our daughter,” I said, kissing his arm. “No one is ever going to be good enough. And I get you. They’re going to have their own mountains to climb, just like we did…but I’m begging you. Don’t be one of the things they have to overcome, too. All I want, all I have ever wanted was for all of you to be healthy and happy.”

  Again, he leaned against me, putting his head on mine. “I’ll kick his ass when he can move his ass.”

  I held on tightly, laughing, and he wrapped his arm around me. “Do you need a shot gun and a rocking chair, too?”

  He snickered and then groaned. “Over three hundred million people in this country. Five million in this damn city, and they pick each other?”

  “You don’t pick who you love. You just love.” That’s why love was so maddening…once you fell, there was no right or wrong. You just had to surrender to it.

  “Don’t go encouraging them until…until…” Until he could accept it.

  “Okay.” It was a crazy request, but what could I do? I loved him, and that’s what he needed. So, I surrendered, knowing he loved Helen, hat he’d learn to accept her choice.

  WYATT

  Rose?

  The scent filled my nose, and when I felt the warmth I knew…

  Helen.

  She was next to me.

  I didn’t know how many days had passed. I just knew the darkness. It was like being buried alive. Like they’d already put me in the coffin. It was dark and cold, and there was no room to move. They couldn’t hear me. But I could hear them, sobbing, praying, yelling...apologizing. I’d been to so many funerals growing up that sometimes I couldn’t help but wonder what mine would be like...I knew it would be a show. My Nana would send me out in style. I figured Ethan would give some carefully crafted speech, but still come off as if there was a stick up his ass. Dona wouldn’t say a thing….and Helen. I never thought about what her reaction would be. But it didn’t matter because I was wrong. I was wrong about everything. It wasn’t going to be some big send off. It was going to be regret.

  Each time I heard them, I felt it…and heard it in their voices. Regret that we didn’t do more, that we didn’t act differently, that we never said what we were really feeling…and it hurt. The darkness didn’t bother me. The coldness didn’t bother me. They did. Their pain did, and the more they cried and begged, the more desperate I became to reach them. I thought when I heard Ethan’s cries…I’d hit rock bottom, that it couldn’t hurt any more than that, but I obviously knew nothing.

  But when Helen came.

  When I smelled the roses, and she screamed as if I were killing her…when I heard her begin to hyperventilate…I panicked. I couldn’t hear anything other than her struggling to breathe…

  Help!

  Please help!

  Not me. Her. Helen! Come on, baby, breathe! Then it was like the lights were suddenly turned on for a brief second. I didn’t know how, but then everything was so bright. And when I looked, there he was… my ass of an older brother, with red eyes and a stupid grin on his face.

  HELEN!

  I tried to scream out to him, but my mouth wouldn’t open. And just like that, my eyes closed again, and the light was gone. But I had an escape. I knew what to do. I just thought of that sound…her gasp for air, and when I did…just like that, my eyes opened.

  “Wyatt?”

  I felt her hand on my face. Slowly, she came into focus. She had cuts all over her brown face. Her hair was a tangled mess, and worse, her natural scent was mixed in now with the smells of the hospital…but even still, she was beautiful.

  “You nearly gave me a heart attack,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. “Stop leaving me.”

  Blinking, it took all my strength to respond, “I…I’m…not…go…going…any…where.”

  How could I? When she was apparently my driving force.

  “Good, we’re going to have to a long talk,” Uncle Declan grumbled as he came up beside us, glaring down at me.

  “Dad—”

  “I…look…for…forward…to…it,” I replied, and when the look on his face didn’t change, I tried to smile, adding, “Sir.”

  He clicked his tongue, but didn’t say anything, causing Darcy to stand up beside him. “You do know we’re going to have to fight about this later.”

  “Bring…it.”

  “Guys, he needs to rest,” Helen said, and they all looked at her as if she were insane. Before I could say it, Ethan called her out before I could.

  “Those who do not take advice shouldn’t give it,” he said, and then his gaze shifted to Darcy. “You fight on your sister’s behalf. I’ll have to fight you on his.”

  “And the all lived happily ever after…but what happened to King Ethan?” Sedric gasped, placing his arm around his mother as he leaned into the circle forming around us. “Well, in Callahanville they say—that Ethan’s small heart grew three sizes that day. And then—the true meaning of family came through, and Ethan found the strength of ten Ethans, plus two!”

  Everyone was silent, and nothing, not even my current state, stopped me from looking to Ethan to see his reaction. He green eyes stared at Sedric, who just kept grinning, his eyebrow raised. “What is that joke supposed to be referencing?”

  Everyone let out a sigh.

  “It’s the Grinch,” Uncle Neal replied, but Ethan just stared at him blankly. “You know, the Christmas movie where the green monster tries to steal Christmas, because he’s a grouch.”

  “But in the end, he comes to love everyone and returns Christmas, then carves a chicken,” Sedric filled in more.

  “It’s a turkey,” Uncle Neal corrected.

  “Turkey. Chicken. Whatever.” Sedric rolled his eyes. “They eat a fat bird, and everyone is together at the end.”

  “We could make millions if we used them as a comedy skit.” Ethan shook his head, and I finally spoke again.

  “He’s…seen it. He’s…messing…with you.”

  He snickered at them both. “But please, go on, tell us the whole story. I’ll be Mr. Scrooge next.”

  “He’s making fun of us, pops,” Sedric said to his father, making a face. “I’m not really sure how to react to this Ethan.”

  “Let’s give it a few days. He might be in shock,” Uncle Neal replied, as if we weren’t all there.

  And for some reason, Helen started to laugh. I could feel the whole bed shaking with her. It wasn’t that funny, but her laughter was contagious and maybe a little bit odd, making everyone else laugh along with her. Everyone other than the Grinch, of course, though he did smile.

  Death tried to come for this family…for me. But apparently, we Callahans weren’t the dying type.

  As they talked, I glanced over to my grandmother, who held back tears just watching us. Finally, her gaze fell on me. She smiled; I didn’t. I just stared at her as her eyebrows frowned together.

/>   I tried to think of what to say. But I realized I had nothing to say to her. Instead, my eyes moved on to the other side. I looked up at him, and he paused, meeting my eyes.

  I knew he understood.

  So I pushed it to the back of my mind, focusing on her.

  She was the only thing that made sense to me anymore.

  Loving her had always saved me.

  Helen…thank you for kissing me.

  EPILOGUE

  “The truth does not change

  according to our ability to stomach it.”

  ~ Flannery O'Connor

  WYATT

  “Do you feel this?” Doherty Han, Chief of Surgery at Chicago Medical, asked me as she pressed into my legs.

  “Yes, now fire the morons who declared me brain dead,” I snapped at her, glaring out at the glass at the bloody idiots who apparently didn’t have the balls to face me since I’d regained my speech and upper body movement.

  Three weeks.

  Three fucking weeks just to get to this point, and my legs still felt like damn logs. I knew the feeling would come back, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t be pissed at how long it was bloody taking.

  “Your condition was dire when you were brought in. They followed protocol—”

  “If you mean they almost had me buried alive, yeah sure,” I snapped, annoyed. Now that I wasn’t trapped and was in full control of myself, I was goddamn pissed!

  “You wouldn’t have been buried alive,” she replied, shining the damn light in my eyes. “You would have most likely gone into shock and then died of hypoxia.”

  Looking away from her and toward the man beside me casually eating my damn applesauce, I asked, “Why is she still the chief of this hospital?”

  Ethan blinked like he hadn’t been paying attention, needing to recall the question before answering. His green eyes looked to her and then back to me, “She gives us a discount.”