by Liz Crowe
“There.” She pointed over his shoulder. “Pantry.”
He yanked open the light ash-wood cabinet door and grabbed what he sought then went about assembling a sandwich, mainly for something to do with his hands since he had zero appetite.
Renee Reese was in his kitchen, wearing a bigger diamond than his mother had ever owned, looking younger than ever, and sleeping in his father’s bed.
He dropped the head of lettuce and watched it roll to the edge of the counter before falling to the floor. She picked it up without a word and put it in the sink. “What the actual fuck, Renee,” he asked her, his eyes hot in a way that did not bode well in the daily headache department.
She straightened, tugged her shirt down over the short skirt thing that barely covered her firm thighs. “Stop staring at me like that, Terrance,” she said.
He barked out a laugh, unable to stop himself. “Oh, that’s rich. You’re using your step-mama voice on me now? How cute.”
“Listen,” she said, slumping against the counter across the kitchen from him. “Terry, I told Mike…um…your father, that he should tell you. Somehow, even if he just sent an email. But he’s stubborn, as you know, and I, well…I…” She wrung her hands together and looked everywhere but at him.
A tickle of amusement hit his brain then, easing the fury he was desperately trying to keep at bay. He called on the training he’d endured as a Delta that had forced him to coral his temper, to channel it into a deep well of patience, because waiting around was something he did a fair bit, in between bursts of violent, dangerous activity. One training exercise in particular hit him then as he stared at the woman who, as a teenager, had explored sex with him with an enthusiasm that matched his own and who, apparently, was now married to his asshole, banker father.
It had been less training, and more initiation, but he’d never forget it. Snatched from his bunk in the dead of night, blindfolded and made to sit on a cold chair for at least an hour in total silence until lights flooded his eyes when the cover was ripped from his face and he realized he was sitting in a room full of targets. The fake bad guys who would never pass muster in any racial sensitivity training back in corporate America were all around him, made of thick wire, fabric and plaster, coded so the hits they took could be recorded to determine a kill shot versus an injury.
By that time, he’d learned how to keep his breathing calm and his pulse steady in the face of the kind of adversity that would send a normal man into screaming fits. He sat, impassive, watching the closed door. Sure enough, it burst open, revealing his superior officer and the men who’d spent the last six weeks pushing him to the ends of his endurance, hoping to break him. They came in shooting. Shooting live rounds—as in bullets—taking out every single target that surrounded him. Some of them as close as a few inches.
He got it. He was the hostage. And Deltas never killed hostages.
In later years when participating in that particular initiation rite for others, he recalled how, afterward, he had stuffed his ruined underwear deep down in a garbage bag, then tied it up and tossed it into a dumpster, hoping no one saw him.
“It’s been a damn long time,” he said. He felt deflated, exhausted, drained and wished for nothing more than eight hours of uninterrupted sleep, if his fucked up brain would allow that.
“It has been,” she said, keeping her voice neutral. “I love him, Terry. He loves me. It’s not what you think.”
“I’m sure it’s not,” he said, feeling even worse as he surveyed the mess he’d made on the kitchen island. “Is my room, I mean, uh…” He cleared his throat and tried to summon his inner grown man, the one who’d survived not only that terrifying initiation, but several real life instances of it. The same man felled by a fucking piece of shrapnel hitting his head so hard he’d been in a medically induced coma for two weeks to keep his brain from swelling up and oozing out his ears.
“Your room’s been updated, but your, um, bed’s still in it.” She had the good taste to blush, he noted. “Terry, I’m sorry you had to find out this way. Mike…your father and I, we dated for three years. I didn’t want…I mean I wouldn’t marry him even though he kept asking me. I’m not a gold digger. I made more money than—I mean, shit. I didn’t even sleep with him for a year and half,” she ended, her voice raised in squeaky self-defense. “I never meant to fall so hard, Terry. So help me.”
“Spare me, please,” he said, holding up a hand. “Just don’t tell me I’m getting a baby brother or sister, all right, Mom?”
Her lips twitched, then she giggled. Which proved contagious. They laughed, and that eased a small bit of the tension. She took the mustard bottle from his clenched hand and put it away without a word. “Why don’t you go lie down,” she said, softly, as she tidied up his chaos of uneaten sandwich fixings.
“This is too weird,” he said, watching her, but no longer angry. He didn’t have the energy for that at the moment. “How’s Kieran?”
She smiled and wiped down the front of the stainless fridge, ever the compulsive cleaner. “He’s principal over at the high school you know. He and Cara got back together. I’ll swan, those two…they have two little boys, just as fire-hydrant redheaded as both their parents, and Cara’s expecting again.”
She poured two glasses of iced tea and handed him one, then perched herself on a tall stool at a raised counter next to the surface mounted cook top. “The Loves provide us all with serious drama, as usual.” They clinked their tea glasses together and sipped. “He’s missed you,” she said, setting her glass down. “Why didn’t you at least contact him? I get why you and Mike…your father…fell out but Kieran was really hurt by your silence.”
Terry snorted and drank of half the minty, lemon-flavored beverage. “Sounds like he’s been busy.” He drained the tea. “I’m gonna go see him at the school. I’m hoping he needs a soccer coach, or a janitor, or something over there.”
“You never finished your degree, did you?” she asked.
“Nope,” he said, standing up and stretching, not willing to go down that conversational path now. “I’m a trained killer though, in case you were wondering.”
“That’s nice,” she said, glancing at the Rolex on her wrist. Terry tried not to take that sort of inventory but something in him wouldn’t stop. “Why don’t you go on upstairs a while? I’m gonna finish here then we…um I have a tee time in an hour.”
“A tee time? La-ti-dah, Miss Renee,” he taunted, unable to keep the edge out of his voice. “You’re even taking up the old man’s old man hobbies now?”
“If you must know, we met for the first time at a charity golf scramble. One I organized for cancer research and his bank sponsored. I’ve been playing golf for something like ten years now. Don’t make assumptions. My handicap is better than his, and I don’t use the ladies’ tees, either.”
He held up both hands. “All right, all right. Sorry.”
She looked at her watch again, then glanced over his shoulder. “Go on, now. Rest. We’ll…I’ll…we’ll be home for dinner. God, this is weird. I never meant for it to happen like this.”
He shrugged, so tired he wondered if he should crash on the couch in the family room. She’d updated it too, bringing in a light, airiness in direct opposition to the dark paneling and leather furniture style his mother favored.
He missed his mother then, with the sort of bright, sharp urgency he’d never felt. His mother—with her ever-present cigarette, sharing a drink with his father at the end of every day, putting out dinners that were utilitarian, unimaginative, but nourishing. A great prep for Army food that he’d acknowledged more than once in the past few years.
Geraldine Francis O’Leary’s dark hair was always perfect, even when she was doing her non-stop gardening work—secured with a wide, colorful band, many times emblazoned with the University of Kentucky Wildcats emblem. She’d graduated Magna Cum Laude, president of the Chi Omega sorority, and with a shiny future banker husband on one arm.
Terry’s
most vivid memory of her growing up—that she seemed to live on nothing but her smokes and carrot sticks, occasionally partaking of whatever roast or meatloaf or baked chicken she’d conjure for the men in the house—stuck with him. Whenever he smelled cigarette smoke he could see her, sitting at the kitchen table, head wreathed in it, her smile bright, a snack ready for him and his brother after school, her late model station wagon ready to cart them to their next soccer practice.
He missed her right then so much his throat ached. He blinked it away as he wandered into the family room, divested of its dark paneling and heavy furniture. The damn room even boasted skylights now, with light colored wood floors, that same cool gray-green paint and a sort of combo mid-century modern-trendy furniture. He didn’t have the energy left to hate it. Besides, what did he care anyway? The couch seemed long enough to accommodate him. He lurched toward it, his eyes already closing.
“Where’s my sweet lady,” a deep voice boomed from the front of the house, making Terry wince.
“What’re you doing here, Mike?” Renee called out, her voice high and strained. He sat, sprawled, waiting for it.
“Thought I’d catch you at home first,” Mike O’Leary said, his low voice hitting Terry’s memory banks like a ton of bricks. “C’mere, gorgeous.”
“Not now. Seriously, Mike, stop.”
“Nope, no stopping. You made me take that pill this morning and I am so pent up I had to leave the office before I embarrassed myself.”
Oh my sweet Lord, Terry thought, sticking his fingers in his ears and dropping over onto his side. This is exactly why they say you can’t go home again.
“No, honey, don’t. I need to, hey, cut that out.” He could hear Renee’s voice and giggles through his fingers, so he gave up and pressed two pillows to either side of his face, praying they’d leave for their stupid tee time and let him sleep.
But when something poked his shoulder, he opened his eyes and sat up, meeting his father’s blue gaze. Renee hovered nearby.
“So, what did I do to be so honored with your presence?”
Terry rose slowly to his feet. He’d gotten his height from his father’s side of the family so the two men stood eye-to-eye. “You came to Texas, to the hospital, I’m told,” he said. “Sorry you couldn’t be bothered to stick around to make sure I came out of it all right.”
“Your doctor assured me you would. And based on the way you greeted me when you saw me sitting next to your bed, I figured you didn’t care if I stayed or not.”
Feeling light-headed, he grabbed the back of a nearby chair. “I… I don’t remember anything about that.”
“Whatever,” his father said, crossing his arms. “So, obviously you came out of it all right. What brings you here? Between missions or whatever you call it?” His steely blue eyes remained flat, devoid of emotion. For a split second, he wondered what in the hell Renee had seen in the man.
Terry swallowed hard. When he’d gotten the unwelcome news about his discharge due to the severe concussion and ongoing pain issues, he’d not even given half a thought to telling anyone, least of all his father. The only people he gave a crap about already knew because they’d been with him when it happened.
Standing here, like a little kid trying to explain a broken window, or a teenager, sneaking in and getting caught reeking of pot and sex, made him dizzy with anger. He put a hand to his head, as if that might ward off the headache.
“No. I’m out. Discharged. So, here I am, the prodigal son returned.” He held out both arms, grinning like an idiot.
“Discharged,” Mike said, his eyes narrowing. “Why? You get in some kind of trouble?”
“No, Daddy, I got my bell rung, remember? You saw me with the damn cage around my head in the hospital, remember? After they’d drilled into my skull to release the pressure? Pretty serious shit.” He gulped back the onrushing nausea that usually preceded a whopper of a headache. Not now, he thought, clenching his jaw. He couldn’t show weakness now.
His father looked down at the floor, hands on his dark suit-clad hips. As Terry tried to erase the memory of what the man had said to Terry’s high school girlfriend a few seconds before, his mouth opened and he spoke before his sluggish brain clicked into gear.
“Sorry I interrupted the afternoon delight with your sweetie britches over there,” he said, still grinding his teeth as his vision began to gather fog from the outside in. “If you don’t mind me asking, Daddy, did you give all my old girlfriends a ride on the old pony before culling that one from the herd?”
Mike’s face flushed red when he looked up. And still Terry kept running his fool mouth, even as his inner smart grown up guy tried to stop him. Even as he saw Renee approach him from what remained of his peripheral vision. “She’s the only one I fucked here, in my old room. You were probably watching, weren’t ya, you old pervert. Just biding your time…”
Renee’s slap came out of nowhere, catching him unaware, and sending him down to his ass on the couch. When his skull jounced against the back, reverberating down his spine, he groaned, leaned over and threw up on the nice, clean floor.
“Jesus,” Mike said, jumping back. “Renee, call nine-one-one. Now.”
“No, no,” Terry groaned, holding up a hand and staring down at the mess of puke—mostly clear liquid since he’d ended up skipping breakfast anyway, in his anxious haste to get on the road and get this glorious father-son reunion over with. He’d not reckoned on the step-mama angle, of course. “I’m fine. Sorry, I’ll clean it up.”
But when he tried to get up, the room did an alarming three-sixty on him. The floor under his feet seemed to warp. Someone grabbed his arm. Someone else was talking, but he could no longer distinguish words from the ringing—the clanging really—in his ears. Someone groaned, loudly, and when he realized it came from him, he let the darkness take him.
Chapter Eight
“Mama! I don’t like it! I’m not going!”
Mariah sighed and slumped back against the stack of boxes still sitting unpacked in her living room. It was hotter than Hades and the A/C was on the fritz so she had some fans running and the sliding door to the outside wide open. Perfect for anyone passing by to hear Cole’s ear splitting screeches.
In the week since they’d arrived, she’d been determined to give Cole all the attention he required so he could adjust, to ease his way into the new life she’d sorted out for them. But he resisted her at every step. He wouldn’t eat, barely slept, and threw at least two breathtaking tantrums a day.
Like now, as they sat in their swimsuits, a bag packed with snacks and towels by the door. All they had to do was walk out that door and down the sidewalk to the condo complex’s pool. There were a few other kids there, she’d noted and when she’d asked him if he’d like to try it, he’d seemed enthusiastic enough. Until now, when it was actually time to leave.
He seemed terrified of anything outside his small realm of toys and familiar DVDs. When he did sleep, he stayed curled up next to her, making them both sweaty and irritable when they woke.
She watched him as if from a long way away, pondering her next move. Deciding to go with the advice a pediatrician friend of hers had offered when she’d called, terrified and desperate in the face of his small boy vehemence, she got up and headed into the kitchen to grab some ice to put against her neck. Sticking her entire face into the blessed cold of the freezer distracted her a few seconds. When she felt something wrap around her calf, she smiled, grabbed a popsicle and closed the freezer. “Here buddy, let’s just sit and have one of these, okay?”
He nodded, his eyes watery, his nose runny, his small hand clutching her leg. And they sat, staring at yet another episode of Sponge Bob, the fans blowing her hair around her face, Cole pressing so close to her their skin stuck together. By the time she finished her popsicle, she realized he’d fallen asleep and his had melted in her lap, leaving a wet puddle of grape juice under her butt.
She cried then, for the thousandth time as Sponge Bob and his B
ikini Bottom buddies went about their business on the screen in front of her. She must have slept because the room was dark and the TV off when her eyes opened next. She sat up, alarmed, but not truly freaked out until she saw the open screen door.
“Holy shit.” She lurched to her feet, not caring that her rear end was stained purple and her thighs stuck together. “Oh my God. Oh shit, Cole!” she shrieked like a crazy woman as she tripped over a light saber and impaled her foot on a Lego block before getting to the door. She ran out barefoot onto the sidewalk between the garages for her building and the next one, head swiveling, taking in the small, duck-infested lake in front of her.
“Cole,” she whispered, running over to it, wondering if she could dive in without hitting her head on the bottom.
Her vision narrowed. Heart pounding in her ears, she studied the calm surface of the man-made water feature. Right as she prepared to jump in, convinced he was sitting on the bottom, his tiny lungs filling up with water as he grabbed for the fish and asked them where Patrick Star was, someone touched her shoulder. She yelped and jumped back from the lake’s edge.
“Sorry,” a woman said. “But are you looking for a little boy? Brown skin? About yay tall?” She held her hand down next to her upper thigh.
“Yes,” Mariah whispered, her vision clouding with tears. “Did you see him fall in?”
“Oh no, honey, he’s not in there.” The woman laughed, a tinkling, merry sound that put Mariah at ease. She had to hold herself back from dropping to her knees and grabbing onto to the woman’s legs in relief. “He’s at the pool, with my boy.”
“The…the pool?”
“Yep. We found him wandering around the outside of the fence, looking lost. He said his mama was taking a nap and he wanted to swim. I could tell he was on the verge of a fit, if you know what I mean, so we brought him in, stuck some floaties on him and he’s over there splashing away with my Henry.”