Damn, but I hated the fact that sometimes the Lord answered those prayers in ways we never really thought about. My only regret was not getting to finish CJ’s letter.
Chapter 19
Unthinkable
Double-D
I knew the other men were headed to the clubhouse to regroup and brief everyone else on what we’d found, and more importantly, what we hadn’t found. I was fucking beat. The ride home had been a long and hard haul with a stopover in West Virginia and Georgia. Yeah, it was out of the way, but we wanted to make contact with the other chapters of the club as we rode so that we could stress how important it was to keep looking for Deck. Ghost was on board, but I could tell some of the younger men assumed he was dead by now.
I didn’t have the luxury of assuming that. I promised my baby girl I would bring her man home, and I couldn’t let her down. I’d already done enough of that in her lifetime. Merc and Trunk both assured me that they would pass along the information we had and the whole lot of nothing we’d discovered while gone out on the road searching for clues again. It had been months since our last lead panned out with any information at all. I knew our own men were beginning to give up hope too. Hell, I saw it in Merc’s eyes as I left him at the clubhouse. He didn’t believe we’d be bringing home a live man, if we got to bring him home at all.
Surprisingly, it didn’t take long for me to get back to the house. Then again, I had Lucy on my mind the whole way. I missed her so damn much when I was out on these runs trying to track down any fucking leads about where Deck might be. It made me miss the time we were able to spend together alone on our cross-country RV trip we took roughly five years earlier. I had been begging Lucy to go on another with me, and just when I was sure she would relent, Ever had told us the news about the new baby on the way. She and Deck had been trying to expand their little family since not too long after the twins were born and it just wasn’t happening, so there was no way we could go away when I knew Luce would want to be a part of that with our daughter. Hell, I wanted to be a part of it too. I had still been very much on the outside of things with Ever back when the girls were first born. Plus, we had to split the celebration between her and Anna who had their children weeks apart.
I only allowed my mind to drift to the past so often. Living in the past had cost me a great deal in life and I refused to do it. Instead, I had to think about how the hell we were going to bring Deck home, and how much I couldn’t wait to get my woman in my arms. I knew it was selfish to think that when my daughter couldn’t do the same with her man, but I wouldn’t lie to myself either. I missed Lucy while I was out on the road.
“Luce?” I called out into the empty house. It was strange because I saw her car in the driveaway and I could hear the soft sound of music playing upstairs, but it felt cold and unoccupied inside. I checked the rooms downstairs, just to be sure and she wasn’t around. I took the stairs almost two at a time thinking maybe I’d catch her in a bath. “Lucy, love? Where are you?”
The door to our bedroom was cracked and I realized quickly that the music I’d heard playing had actually been her ringtone. It cut off while I was still in the hallway and then started once more. That was odd. Lucy was almost never without her phone when I was out of town, but especially now that Ever had the baby. “Lucy, babe, your phone is ringing,” I called out as I rounded the corner and pushed the door open. She was there, in her cozy reading chair, gripping onto a piece of paper. I smiled at the sight. She had obviously fallen asleep reading something. When I glanced down, I noticed a very familiar box and groaned out loud. She had one of my boxes. The old letters I’d written her every single time we were apart. There was one in each of those boxes for each day we’d spent separated, plus two more for good measure. The one I wrote to her before I went out on the road in search of Deck and the other that I wrote her the day before we left on our RV trip I’d reminisced about earlier.
I moved across the room quietly, so as not to wake her, and bent down to retrieve the piece of paper that had fallen to the floor. I glanced down at the writing there. Well, she definitely had the one I wrote to her prior to our trip. I grinned as I remembered how nervous I had been to be with just her. From the moment we truly got together, we had a family to care for, and never really got that all-encompassing alone time most couples get before they start a family together. I had honestly thought she’d end up hating me and having divorce papers ready before our trip was done. That hadn’t happened though. Instead, we ended up closer than ever and even after Merc and Tiger Lily had joined us, we still managed to grow even closer.
“Aw, babe,” I cooed as I leaned in to take the other page from her fingers. That’s when it hit me. Something wasn’t right. I looked up from the page and stared, waited, counted the seconds, and nothing. She wasn’t moving. Not in the sleepy stillness kind of way, in the way that signified something far more final. Her chest didn’t move with each breath. There was no noise, no sound of her breathing, just quiet until her cell phone rang from over on the table beside her. I glanced over and saw that it was Ever calling and Lucy had more than a few missed messages.
The door downstairs banged open. “Dad!” Anna shouted.
“No,” I whimpered. I took Lucy’s hand in between my own and knew immediately that it held no warmth there. “No, baby, no!”
“Dad, where are you?” Anna again, closer this time.
“Please,” I begged. I didn’t know who the hell I was begging here. Lucy to come back, God not to do this to my family again, Anna not to see her mother like this. Me to leave and come back to a different scenario. I didn’t know. “No! No! No!” I moaned as I dropped my head into Lucy’s lap while still holding her hand in my own. “Baby, no. You can’t go. You can’t leave yet,” I cried.
“Daddy?” Anna called out, so close that time I knew she had to be in the room with me now. With us. “Oh God!” Her gasp of surprise forced my head up and I turned to see my daughter standing there with her hand hovering over her mouth as she took in the room around her. “Daddy? Momma?”
“Anna, did you find her?” It was Joker’s voice, and came from downstairs.
“Don’t bring the kids up,” Anna shouted quickly.
“What? Why?” I could hear the change in his voice. My son-on-law was all business then. I heard him say something to his children before his fast-paced footsteps made their way up and the stairs and down the hall to where we were. “Anna, what’s going on?” Joker asked just before he turned the corner and entered our bedroom. My bedroom. No, that didn’t sound right. Why had I thought that?
I ignored him as he came into the room and took my youngest daughter into his arms. “She’s gone,” Anna informed him just before she collapsed against his chest and cried. I turned back to my love and took hold of her hand once more.
“Please, come back,” I begged. I knew it couldn’t happen. Hell, I’d begged and bartered with every deity I could think of when Toby died. None of it ever worked.
“Go downstairs with the kids, sweetheart,” Joker told my baby girl in a calming tone. “I need you to sit with the kids while I help your dad, okay?” I should have been able to take care of my daughter, but it would have to be one more way I failed my children because I couldn’t get over the fact that the love of my life was sitting lifeless in a chair in our bedroom.
Joker was still talking long after Anna left the room and went back downstairs. It took me an inordinate amount of time to figure out he was on the phone. Time passed. I’m not sure exactly how much, but before long, Joker was holding onto my shoulders and moving me away from Lucy. “Let them do their job,” he tried to convince me.
“She’s gone,” I mumbled back.
“I know, D. I’m so fuckin’ sorry.”
“How the hell am I supposed to…” I couldn’t even get the words out. How was I supposed to go on? Live without her? Be on this Earth knowing that she wasn’t? Breathe? Make my heart beat again? There were so many ways to end that question and every
fucking one of them was relevant.
I stood and watched as they took my Lucy away while Joker spoke softly to me. None of his words penetrated though. I stared back at the door for far too long, praying that this hadn’t just happened. “I came home wanting nothing more than to see my love,” I admitted. “I just wanted to crawl in bed and hold her to me, inhale her scent, feel her warmth, hear her laughter. I needed that. I needed her. I needed her to tell me it was going to be all right when I had to deliver more bad news.”
It wasn’t Joker that responded though. It was my other daughter, Ever. “Daddy, you don’t need her to tell you that. It’s true. I know you were trying. You were missing time with Momma out there while you were searching. I’m so sorry about that,” she told me as her body slammed into mine. Ever wrapped her arms around my waist and just clung to me there as we cried together. “She was the best thing that ever happened in my life. I love you too, but she was there for me when I didn’t even want to live anymore. I always wanted to thank you for being my dad, if for no other reason than because it made her my mom.”
Her admission killed me inside while also making me proud as fuck of my old lady. She had stepped up when I failed, and I would owe her every single one of my breaths for the rest of my life and then some for the goddamn honor she bestowed on me. “She loved you for the both of us when I was too damn stupid to be the man she knew I could be,” I admitted.
“Well, she did a fine job of it.” Ever hugged me tighter before easing back and looking me in the eye. “You know what else?”
I just shook my head in answer.
“She loved you with a fierceness that is unrivaled, even when you were a giant jackass.” She grinned at me and I couldn’t help the chuckle that burst free.
“You are so much like her.”
“What can I do?” Ever asked.
“Nothing,” I answered as honestly as possible. “She’s gone. The only thing I need is for someone to bring her back to me, and that can’t happen.”
“Dad,” she whispered as she leaned in and hugged me again. “I’m so sorry you lost your other half.”
“I’m sorry you’ve lost yours too, kiddo. We’ll get him back. I promise you that your happy ending is still in the making.”
“I know, I feel it.” We were both silent for a time before she spoke again. “What’s all that?”
“Letters I wrote her from time to time.”
Ever moved closer and looked at the items on the tabletop. “This has my name on it. Did you write to us too?”
“What? No. I mean, I did, but those aren’t the ones I left.”
Ever picked up some envelopes and shuffled through them. “They’re addressed to me, Anna, you, and…” she sucked in a breath as she read something on the front of the last envelope. “Toby,” she finally managed to choke out before Ever glanced up at me with a question in her eyes. “Why would she leave a letter for Toby?”
“Maybe she wrote it a long time ago?”
“I don’t think so. This seems pretty fresh, and look,” she pointed to the box of envelopes and the letter pad sitting just under the chair. “Do you think she knew?”
I shook my head. There was no way Lucy knew her life was coming to an end when she hadn’t tried to call anyone to say goodbye or to come help her. “No, I don’t think so.”
I don’t think I can read this just yet to find out,” Ever admitted.
“Me either. I’m sure Luce wouldn’t mind us getting to them in our own time.” That made my daughter smile.
“No, that actually sounds just like her. I can hear her telling us to get to them whenever our hearts are ready.”
“That’s what we’ll do then.”
Chapter 20
Buried
Ever
When the plans were made to put Momma-Luce in the ground, I made sure dad included Toby. She was being laid to rest in the plot beside his, and I didn’t want the workers to accidentally cover his space and leave him out. That sounded silly, but it was just something I needed to have done. He was still our family, and if the only way he could be represented there was with a cold, hard stone memorializing his life, then that was what was going to happen.
That was how I found myself staring at Toby’s headstone while some man droned on about life and heaven receiving an angel. Blah, blah, blabbity blah. That asshole didn’t know my mother. He could fuck right off. Numbness had set in between the time I held my father next to my mom’s corpse and, I didn’t know how to cry and get it all out. I just felt like there was this block on my emotions and no matter what I tried, I couldn’t get around it. Instead, I stood there, holding onto my daughters. One of their little hands was wrapped up in each of mine and I stared off toward my brother, eyes never focusing on any one aspect of his grave for long. Just taking in the fact that it was there. He was there. He would look out for her. That did it.
It started as a burning sensation in my nose and behind my eyes, then the next thing I knew, I felt a drop of something land on my hand.
“Momma, you’re getting my hand wet,” Amber complained.
“Sorry, baby girl,” I told her as I let go of her hand long enough to swipe away the tears that were falling. Not once did my eyes stray from my brother’s grave as I did though. There was something… A little glint caught my eye. Something shiny was sitting on top of his stone and I couldn’t make out what it could be from where I was standing. No one would understand if I just wandered off during the never-ending speech this windbag was giving.
“Who hired this guy? He just drones on and on,” I mumbled. At least, I thought I mumbled it. Then everything went deathly still. Imagine that, in a graveyard, in the middle of a funeral. I had blabbed my complaints out loud. But the next thing I knew J-Bird was howling with laughter.
“Shit!” He hissed out through his laughter. “I thought I was the only one ready to stab that fucker in the neck to get him to shut up.”
“No, man! I was waiting to see how many more graves we would need to dig because he was about to run some people out of their natural lifeline,” Joker teased. Anna snorted out a laugh and snot bubbled up from her nose from where she’d been crying before. Her face immediately took on the red hue that let me know she was mortified.
“Sorry, Dad,” I managed to get out while stifling my giggles.
He just shook his head and then the best thing in the world happened. My father grinned at me and that grin turned into a wide, beautiful smile. “I was just thinking Lucy would be ready to punch the bastard for stealing her show and boring us to death.”
That admission from my father sparked more and more Lucy stories and, before I knew it, the funeral from hell turned into a true celebration of my mother’s life. I turned back to Toby’s grave, confident that I could finally move close enough to see what the shiny object was, only when I looked back, it was gone. “Good one, Toby!” I whispered. “Torment me to get my frustrations up and make me say something stupid. I should have seen that one coming a mile away.” Maybe it was just the stress or emotional overload, but I could have sworn I heard his laughter on the wind that day.
“Are you doing okay, little sis?” I turned to see Kane standing there with his two-year-old daughter Grace in his arms. I smiled at the little girl and reached forward to tickle her a little. The men of Permanent Marks had started calling me little sis years ago, and it struck a chord today. Thinking Toby had been here with us in some way earlier and having another man call me his sister, it just sent a wave of both undying gratitude and love through me.
“As well as can be expected,” I offered with a shrug.
“I know you’ve had a lot to handle lately, Ev. Just know that we’re here. Whatever you need, okay? All of us. You aren’t alone. You have me! You have Gretchen, Zeke, Erin, and even that insufferable child Sully has your back.”
“I appreciate that,” I told him before leaning forward and planting a kiss on Grace’s chubby little cheek. My own girls were in my father’s
arms. They both held on to him tightly as he spoke to Merc, as if they knew he needed that lifeline. Tiger Lily was pushing the stroller that my son occupied back and forth as her shoulders shook. My momma was her best friend. I didn’t know how any of us were going to move on without the woman who made us all far better people than we should have been.
Jay, Christina, and their son Pike, who was attempting to toddle around at their feet, were looking in my direction. I hated the emotion I saw on their faces because it too closely resembled pity. That was the last thing I needed. This day wasn’t even about me. Yes, I lost the best mother I’d ever had, my friend, my confidante. My loss was miniscule compared to my father’s though. I wished everyone would rally around him and make sure he didn’t have a moment alone. I knew all too well what that first one would feel like. The first time that you were left to your thoughts. I may have been young, but I remembered what it was like after my birth mom died.
She may have been the whore who the men of the club claimed she was, but to me, she was always a good mother. Except for the part where she failed to tell me who my father was and allow me to be a part of his life. In that respect, she had been a selfish bitch, but I hadn’t known that when I first lost her. I simply knew she was my whole world.
Then, when Toby died, those first moments alone after, they were a different kind of pain that was laced with all my regrets for not making things better between us sooner. I could have helped our relationship along quicker. I didn’t and that would always be a weight on my heart.
When I’d finally been told that Deck was missing, that was an entirely different kind of pain. While it was one laced with hope that he’d return, it still killed tiny little pieces of me as I tried to breathe and live without him by my side for the first time since we were married. So, yeah, I didn’t know exactly what my father was going through, but I knew that the love of his life was gone. They had been married for 29 years and they had met and started their journey together almost 38 years ago. I hadn’t been alive that long. My parents had loved one another for almost a decade longer than I’d been alive, and I couldn’t wrap my brain around just how devastating a loss like that would be. I was damn near crippled by Deck being missing, and there was still a chance that he might come home to me.
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