by Eden Butler
Mom looked between us, then gave us both that scary scowl. “I called three times this morning and you didn’t answer.” Her knuckles whitened as she gripped the plates. “And don’t you start fussing at me about cooking for my family. Even the ones who don’t answer the phone. I’m not going to sit around here waiting for this baby to pop out.”
The arched eyebrow, the narrowed left eye…damn. I hadn’t even heard my phone this morning. “Mom…”
“Wildcat, he’s just worried.” Kona said, coming from the sofa. He, at least managed to get the plates from her with an easy kiss on the top of her head.
“Your feet are still swollen. Shouldn’t you keep them up?”
Her glare, this time at least, didn’t send me running, but I did manage to avoid it as she went back into the kitchen. My father watched her walk away, then dusted the residual flour from the hem of his shirt as he set the plates on the table. He must have caught the look I gave him because he answered my unspoken accusation with a frown. “She kicked me out of the kitchen.”
Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic how my father, big two hundred-forty-five pound former linebacker that he was, could be cowered by my mother’s grumpy attitude.
“And you went running?”
“You’re her kid. I know you’ve been on the receiving end of her fury once or twice.” Kona blinked and I didn’t particularly appreciate the way my father rolled his eyes at me. “Not lately, huh? She actually still likes you.”
He didn’t like my laugh, or the way I flopped on to the sofa, dismissing him. “Well, I’m not the one that keeps knocking her up.”
“I am right here, you know.” Mom looked a little funny standing near the kitchen entrance, hands on her slim hips and that huge belly giggling as she fussed.
“I know, baby.” Dad was shooting for smooth. “How could I miss you?” He failed completely and hurried to explain himself as that insulted gasp left my mom’s throat. Still, Kona and Keira—
Fairytale Love. That’s what the media said about them and I guess that was for a good reason. Those two were a little disgusting, the way they carried on, kissing, holding hands, whispering bullshit I didn’t want to know in each other’s ears.
Dad might be pushing forty, but he still had game. Mom’s insulted frown disappeared when he moved in front of her, holding her close to him with his big hand over her stomach. “I just mean…you’re so beautiful, ko`u aloha.”
Jesus. Here he goes. Hawaiian sweet talk. I would have said something, maybe ribbed my father and the whipped way he nuzzled and kissed Mom, but I didn’t have to. Koa watched them from the end of sofa, his small nose wrinkling as Dad moved his mouth to Mom’s neck.
I feel you, little man, I thought, watching my brother.
“Seriously? There’s a toddler watching you.” Koa came to me when I waved him over and settled him onto my lap. “Show me your truck.” A little less ridiculous, my parents went to the love seat, falling into the cushions as though they’d just finished a marathon. “You said you called me?” I let Koa off my lap as a small burst of energy had him disappearing back to his toys.
“Yeah,” Mom said, closing her eyes when Dad moved her bare feet onto his lap and started rubbing them. “I needed you to run to the store for me this morning before you came to lunch. Koa’s prescription is out, I was sick and your dad had a conference call.”
“I’m sorry. I was…” I sucked at spontaneous lies, but my mom had spent the better part of the last year and a half worried about me. I didn’t rest enough, I didn’t have enough friends, I wasn’t the same kid I’d been when we’d moved to New Orleans permanently. Still, that look on her face told me no matter what I said, she’d worry. That doesn’t ever stop, it seems, even after your kid is legally an adult and not living under your roof. “I didn’t sleep well.”
Where my mother worries and frets over everything, my father typically jumps to the simplest, usually wrong, conclusion. At least, that’s what I assumed with how big he smiled at me and the stupid way he waggled his eyebrows. Mom didn’t miss the hint of perversion in his dumb expression and elbowed him in the ribs.
“Why not?” she asked, tapping my father’s hand when he stopped rubbing her feet. “Are you sick? And what did you do to your hand?”
Figures she’d notice that. I looked down at my left hand, shrugging like the bandage knuckles were nothing when both my parents stared me. “I went too hard on the bag this morning at the gym and last night, just a little insomnia, Mom, I’m okay.” She always did that long stare thing when I said something she didn’t quite believe. “I can go for you now.”
“No, it’s okay.” She waved her hand, brushing off my offer and, when she smiled, I guessed her annoyance at me. “Leann’s picking it up. She was on her way out here anyway. In fact,” she said looking at the clock on the wall, “she should be here by now.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, meaning it.
“Help me up,” Mom said, letting Dad take her elbow as she wiggled off the loveseat. “I have to pee again.” She disappeared down the hallway with Koa trailing behind her.
There was more of a wobble in my mother’s walk with this baby than she had with Koa and my father still stared after her like she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. He must have sensed me staring at him, catching that expression that transformed from worry to, God, was that lust? as he watched Mom leave the room. He glanced at me, grinned once and didn’t bother with excusing away his reaction to her before he fell back on the cushions at my side.
I thought my father might take a nap, maybe catch a few minute’s sleep before lunch. Instead, he rested his elbows on his knees and leaned closer to me, giving me that stupid loaded smile again.
“What?” I asked him when he didn’t say anything.
Then Dad leaned in, sniffed at my collar and frowned. “Did…did you have sex?”
“What? No.” The shirt was wrinkled, maybe a little dirty, and I had worn it under my button-up last night at Summerland’s but it wasn’t like I’d slept in it. It, at least, didn’t reek.
“I can tell. You look looser, more…. relaxed.” When I only stared at him, my father shrugged like his question hadn’t been senseless and meddling. “I’m just saying. What’s going on with you?”
“It’s nothing.” That frown deepened and he didn’t look away.
Since coming into our lives, Kona Hale had warmed up quick with his role as my father. He guided, suggested, maybe he teased a little too much, but he was a good friend as well as a father. Surprising considering he hadn’t ever known he had a kid until he and Mom ran into each other in the French Market just before I turned sixteen. We were tight and I respected the hell out of him. Funny thing was, he respected me. That’s something that isn’t easily won, especially not by a kid.
But I wasn’t all that comfortable talking about my shit with him. Even though I knew he’d probably understand. I knew, despite the goofy smiles, my father worried about me as much as Mom.
Slumping, I moved my head, checking to see if Mom was coming back into the room before I glanced at the smile on my dad’s face. “Don’t get excited.”
“Huh. No chance of that.” He sounded like a kid. A grumpy, disappointed, I-Got-Socks-For-Christmas kid. When I didn’t back down, Dad changed tactics, rubbing the back of his neck and exhaling like he wanted to release all that pent up tension stiffening his shoulders. “Keiki kane, your mother is still two months away from her due date and already miserable.”
“And?”
“And,” he said, looking down the hallway, “I haven’t had sex in forever.”
Man. No.
“I’m sorry I asked.”
“Not as sorry as I am.” But my father didn’t go into detail about how sexually frustrated he was, thank God. Instead, he leaned back, looked right at me as though he’d wait for me to talk. As though I had the ball and he wanted me to run with it. “Tell me. What’s going on with you?” He brushed my arm, pulling my attention back to
his face. “Something happened?”
“It’s not that big of a deal. I was with this girl last night.”
“With?”
“No…” Kona Hale looking excited, a little eager, was a funny sight. His eyebrows went up and that cleft in his chin, one just like mine, dented in with his smile. I hated to disappoint him. “She…” A small sigh and I leaned back against the cushions. “It’s not like that. But I got…” I glanced down at my lap, then moved my chin at my father, hoping he got what I was saying. “Well. It’s the first time since, well, since I got…um…hard.”
“Oh.” Then that smile went megawatt. “Oh, well that’s good.” Dad slapped my back like I’d done sacked five quarterbacks. “That’s excellent.”
“It doesn’t feel excellent.”
“Why the hell not?”
When I didn’t answer, just sullenly studied the toy truck that Koa had given me, he said in a low voice, “Ransom, you can’t keep punishing yourself. You were a kid. It was an accident.”
“Please. Don’t start with me.” I didn’t want to hear it.
I was getting ready to tell him to forget everything, pretend that I had even mentioned a girl, but then the front door opened and Leann called a quick “I’m here,” and I jumped to greet her before my father could say anything else.
Leann gave me a distracted kiss on the cheek and I caught the small, white bags she shoved into my arms and followed the whirlwind of a woman as she marched into the living room.
She greeted Mom with kiss when she’d finally made it back from the bathroom and pulled Koa into her arms before Leann offered my father a nod. Then, she turned on me. “Too busy to answer your phone?”
God that woman was loud.
“Didn’t hear it.”
When mom shook her head and reached for the bag in my hand, Leann moved her toward the dining room table. “Sit down, Keira. I’ll fix you a plate. You can have your lunch then rest.”
“You’re not hungry?” Mom asked.
“Big breakfast. Besides,” she said moving her head toward the kitchen before she inhaled, “I’m not really in the mood for one of your classic southern Sunday lunches. No roast for me,” she said, waving my mother off as she handed the baby back to my father. Leann zipped around the room like a firecracker. Our cousin had more energy than even me most days. “Relax,” she said to my mother and nodded to me as Dad and settled Koa into his high chair.
Leann did this, always—bossing, supervising, until everyone around her was settled.
Today was no exception and we all watched her move around us, directing me to dole out plates, set up dishes on the table until lunch was underway. Until Leann’s incessant questions, “Keira, where’s the laundry detergent?” and “Kona, you didn’t fix that shelf?” had my father kicking Leann out of the laundry room and away from his To-Do list.
“Sit,” he told Leann, as he maneuvered her next to Mom at the table, then he helped Koa out of his high chair.
Leann seemed incapable of not fidgeting, keeping her foot in a constant bounce. But that was Leann. She had two sons and hundreds of dance students. Her days were hectic and she never seemed able to slow down.
When Leann’s phone rang and she pulled it from her pocket, my mom smiled at me, sending me a look that told me she was happy her cousin wasn’t bouncing around the room anymore.
Now that things had quieted down a bit, Mom tilted her head, her eyes sharp as she looked me over; I could feel the interrogation coming. “Everything okay?” She leaned forward, reaching for my hand across the table. “What’s going on with you?”
My mom was the strongest person I’d ever known, having raised me alone on nothing but determination and with the help of a couple of good friends. Then, against the odds, she went on to build a career with a kid in tow. Now she had to contend with being in the spotlight; not just her career as a Nashville songwriter, but Dad’s very public persona as a retired football superstar and new defensive coach at CPU, all while juggling a toddler and another on the way. She didn’t need the burden of my fucked up head or the stupid shit I couldn’t seem to let go of, too. So I said what came naturally—something slightly rude, and sure to make her laugh. “It’s all the girls, Mom. They all want me and it’s just so exhausting.”
“Ugh.” Mom’s dramatic disgust was almost as funny as how hard she slapped my hand away from hers. “You are so full of it.”
“That’s genetic,” Dad said in passing, as he moved from the kitchen to the playroom, where sounds of toddler-ish destruction had suddenly arisen.
Mom’s mock disgust had Leann’s attention on her and our cousin tilted her head, frowning when my mother leaned against the table. “You look so tired.” Leann swiped the bangs off my mother’s forehead. “I wish you’d consider hiring a babysitter.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Mom said, brushing Leann’s hand away. “Like I told you last week when you first started nagging me,” Mom’s mock glare at her cousin had Leann snorting, “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of everything on my own.”
“You’re swollen again,” Leann said, drumming her fingers on the table. “Worse than you were with Koa or Ransom. I’m worried that it’s preeclampsia.”
“Remind me where you went to medical school.”
“I’m serious, Keira.” Leann ignored my mother’s eye roll, but still laughed at her attitude. Mom did look more exhausted than she had just the week before and all that lunch prep made her ankles look a little sausage-like. “Part of the time at least,” Leann suggested.
“It’s not a terrible idea, a babysitter.” I avoided my mother’s glare, knowing she probably wouldn’t appreciate feeling like we were ganging up on her.
“It is,” Mom said.
Leann shook her head at my mother’s complaint. “You know of anyone that can help her out, Ransom? There has to be some girl you know that needs a little extra cash. Maybe one of your classmates?”
“The girls I know aren’t the kind that are cool with watching kids.” Another crash sounded from the play room, louder than Dad’s cursing or the amused laughter Koa released. “Especially that kid.”
“What does that mean anyway?” Mom’s voice was higher than normal. “‘The girls you know?’” A small smirk and a lewd waggle of my eyebrows had my mother wincing. “You know what?” She paused dramatically. “I don’t wanna know.”
“Nope. You really don’t.” Mom’s laugh that time wasn’t as amused and just then I spotted the dark circles under her eyes. They made her look even more exhausted than I’d first noticed. Then, something occurred to me. “Hey, Leann? Doesn’t your sister-in-law own a daycare?”
“That’s not an option,” Mom instantly answered for her cousin.
“She’s being picky.” Leann sat back and took to moving her cell between her fingers. “Keira thinks someone from the daycare could be carrying Ebola or something.”
“Koa has been sick a lot,” Mom argued, shaking her head at Leann when she laughed. “I’m just being cautious.”
“You’re being anal.”
“Don’t you have a studio full of dancers to go check on?”
Leann looked at her cell, frowning before she left her chair. “I do, actually. I’ll ask around there. But seriously, keep your eyes open, okay Ransom?”
“Yeah, Leann. Sure.”
She called a goodbye to my dad, kissed Mom’s cheek and was nearly to the door before she turned back to me. “And speaking of the dance studio, don’t you even think about skipping that meeting at 2:00. You promised, Ransom.”
Shit. I had, but damn that had been a month ago when Tristian begged me to help him out with his mom’s recital. Then the little shit took off for a semester abroad in France leaving me high and dry with the volunteering bullshit. I frowned at my cousin, silently praying this volunteering gig wouldn’t have me pushed around a bunch of grinning, awkward dancers who needed a warm body to practice on. Leann had forced Tristian and me to learn technique and dances ages bac
k. We were always guinea pigs for her and her students. It was rarely fun despite us both having a little dance skill. But Leann didn’t need me sitting around listening to a bunch of dancers yammering on about lighting and costumes for a recital that was still months away. “Leann, you don’t really need me, do you? Besides, I just got here.”
“It’s in an hour,” she said as though I hadn’t said a word.
God, the women in this family were stubborn. I was going to say something else, maybe put on some of that Hale charm I’d been born with, but then my mother kicked my leg under the table and I realized it was hopeless. They’d gang up on me, no doubt, and Dad wouldn’t be any help either. He was more scared of them than I was.
“Fine. I’ll be there,” I sighed. When the door closed behind Leann, I glared at my mom, annoyed that she’d pushed me into driving all the way back to town for no good damn reason. “Happy?” I asked her, grunting when she smiled.
“Yeah. Now I am.”
4
November, 2014
He sat on the hood of his car, looking thinner than he had when I first met him. Ransom was still large—too large for a teenager, though I didn’t think about his age, only the beautiful lines of his body and the deep, deep sadness that lived in his eyes.
There were bags under those eyes as he idly watched the traffic passing by, and his shoulders were tight, though he leaned on his elbows. In his hand he held a necklace, too small, too elegant to belong to him and I wondered if it was hers. That girl who was gone. Had he taken it? Had he made certain not everything of her vanished completely?
It was silver and held a charm that I couldn’t make out, even though it dangled from his fingers. The expression on his face reminded me of someone lost in thought, or maybe even praying. His whole attitude was aimless, like a tree branch drifting in a fast moving river, severed from the deep, earthy roots binding him to home.