I watch him mull over everything he’s just said and wonder if Tommy has ever said this to our parents. If he did, Mama wouldn’t be so apt to call me for help.
“Since college it’s just been hard finding things to do with my degree. It should be easy. Marketing. I just don’t want to live in a corporate world. I went to school with uptight assholes who were interested in one thing — money — and that’s not why I wanted to get my degree in it,” he says, rubbing his hand across his stubbled cheek. “I don’t know, Bri. I want to help the little guy.”
I study him closely.
My brother’s a man now and I’ve been blind to that for a while.
But he’s a lost man.
“So, you don’t want corporate America. You’re coming to New York with me, that’s been decided, and you know Greg and I could use some help with the marketing end of the business,” I say, watching him nod his head in silent agreement. “So you start out with us, helping us, and once you get the word out you start your own business doing marketing for other businesses in the area. You have to start small, but with your background and mine and Greg’s in entrepreneurship you’ll be fine.”
“You sure this’ll work?” He questions me with fear in his eyes. He’s such a homebody, more of a mama’s boy than me, but he can do this.
“All you have to do is believe in yourself. Having a beautiful woman to bounce ideas off of helps, too. We’ll find you one of those when we get to college town,” I say, clapping him on the shoulder and walking out of the room to wake Britt up for breakfast.
I’m heading up the stairs when I hear the back door open again and Tommy whistle.
Whiskey comes barreling into the house and the sound of puppy nails sliding across the kitchen floor as he tries to gain traction makes me cringe. I try not to let my mind wander to what that dog just did to the hardwood floors I helped Dad refinish before I left for college.
Flattening myself against the railing so I don’t spill my coffee, Whiskey runs as quickly as he can up the stairs. Or hops. It’s more like he’s hopping because he’s still small.
Shaking my head I follow him up to Britt’s room at the top of the stairs and find him licking Britton’s face as the boy squirms underneath the covers trying to get away.
“Okay, okay, that’s enough, pup. Get down,” I say picking him up, cradling him like a football that’s sprouted a head, tail, and legs that seem to keep running though there’s nowhere to go.
“Dad.” He says it with a lilt in his voice and I’m not too sure what’s coming next, so I just set the puppy back on the bed.
“Right. Consider this an early Christmas present. Uncle Tommy and I got him last night ... uh, his name’s Whiskey Sour,” I say shyly, because there is no other way to tell your kid his dog is named after a chick drink. “Time to get up and start the day, so get dressed and I’ll meet you two downstairs.”
Someday my son’s going to grow up and ask me about this exchange and I know for a fact I’m going to blame Tommy. I walk out of the room taking another sip of my coffee and try to figure out how the hell I’m going to explain this one to Stella.
Mama’s standing over the sink when I get back downstairs.
Sidling up next to her, I set my mug down and reach into the sink to grab a potato. We stand beside one another silently scrubbing until the silence hurts more than one of her smacks to the skull.
“You know, that boy did nothing but talk about Stella and Stephanie last night when he was helping me with pies,” she says to alleviate the quiet. “I was worried about you leaving, about him not being near family, but I have to admit I was wrong to fret over it. When’s the wedding?”
“What wed— okay, I know I didn’t tell you, but,” I say looking at the grin on Mama’s face. “I just wanted to talk to Dale first. It was important, you know?”
“Oh, I know, sweetie. I know. Jenny told me you’d asked Dale to lunch and we had a good laugh over it,” she says, giggling.
My mom is giggling.
At my expense.
My head starts throbbing again. Must have more coffee.
Pouring another mug, I tell her no one knows yet that we’re planning to get married, at least no one outside of Dale, Jenny and, apparently, my mom. And she breaks into hysterics.
“You’re serious, baby? You think no one knows?” She’s looking at me in all seriousness, trying desperately to hide the smile though her eyes are shimmering with glee. “Let me tell you a little something I’ve known since you were just a little boy, about your Britt’s age. That child up north?”
Mama looks at me as she scrubs another potato while I lean on the counter drinking my coffee. I wait. I know she isn’t done.
“She’s your soul mate, Brian. You should’ve heard the way her Nana would go on about the two of you. I think it broke her heart as much as yours and Stella’s when we left,” she says, a sadness in her eyes I can’t place. A flicker of grief and it’s gone. “How long have y’all officially been seeing one another?”
It’s only been a couple months. It doesn’t feel like I should be this consumed by Stella, but I am. I tell Mama the whole story — from the day I sat down across from her to the night she showed up in the rain to the conversation on the side of the road.
Never once does her expression change. She doesn’t interrupt me. She lets me talk.
It feels good to share this with her.
“The thing is, she doesn’t just love me, Ma. She’s as much in love with Britt as she is with me. I’m thinking about asking her if she’d be willing to adopt him when we get married,” I say, swallowing the last of my coffee. “Emily gave up her rights. I don’t think I’d even need to get her involved.”
“You, my boy, do whatever you need to do to make your family whole,” Mama says as she gets up on her tip-toes and plants a kiss on my cheek. “And don’t hesitate to start working on giving me and Jenny more grandbabies. We aren’t getting any younger and want plenty of time to spoil them rotten.”
I feel my cheeks heat and nod at Mama with a simple “Yes ma’am” but nothing more as I feel my phone vibrate in my back pocket.
“Tell your bride-to-be I said hello and we’ll be up for Christmas,” Mama says as I answer the phone and she waves me away from the counter.
***
The call connects as I step into the living room.
“Hey beautiful, I was just talking about you,” I say, hearing the smile in my words. “What are you up to this morning?”
I hear the silence from Stella and the oven door open behind me as Mama slides the turkey in.
In the quiet, something comes to life on her end of the phone, something that sounds like a doctor being paged over a loudspeaker.
“Stell, what’s the matter?” I ask as my heart starts pounding in my chest.
“It’s Steph,” she says, drawing in a deep breath I can hear from more than seven hundred miles away. “She was attacked on campus last night. We’ve been at the hospital since a little after midnight.”
“I’m coming home,” I say as I start for the stairs so I can grab our bags. “I’ll start driving now.”
“Brian, slow down. She’s okay, I promise. Mom, Dad, and I have been with her since Max was able to sneak me in while she was still sedated,” she says, rambling like the information can’t help but get out of her head.
“Who’s Max?” I ask, stopping mid-stride across the room on my way to the stairs. “Stella. Who is Max?”
“The police officer who was the first on the scene, the same one who stopped when we were on that back road,” she spits out. “He’s been with us since the ambulance brought her in.”
Mama comes around the corner, concern drawn on her brow and I know all she heard was my end of the conversation — me asking my fiancée about another man — so I quickly try to explain.
“Mama, Steph’s in the hospital. Max is the cop. I’ll explain everything before I leave,” I say to her before turning my attention back to Stell
a. “How bad? What did he do to her?”
I try to control my temper as Stella tells me the details she knows, the only thing that keeps me from punching the wall is when she says Steph’s underwear were torn off but the guy didn’t have a chance to touch her much after that. It’s the “much” I worry about. It’s the “much” that keeps my anger on a hair-trigger.
“Tell me he didn’t rape her, Stella.” I need to hear her say it.
“Not that we are aware of. She was unconscious when Colt found her, and just coming to when Max got there.” Pause. “The doctor who examined her ran some tests and said there wasn’t evidence of trauma there. ... But does it even matter? She’s traumatized everywhere else.”
Letting her strength falter and fall, she allows herself to cry. I imagine her sitting in the hospital, holding her phone to her ear ... weeping. And I’m not there.
I can’t handle this.
“Stella, I’ll fly home and be there in a few hours. Tommy can bring Britt home in the truck,” I say moving toward the stairs again.
I hear her sniffle and pull in a ragged breath.
“Baby, I can’t ask you to do that. They’re going to release her later today after she talks to Davis and Max again. I can’t ask you to ruin your time with your parents when there’s literally nothing you can do here where this is concerned,” she says, putting up those walls again.
“I can take the time to hunt him down and kill him. I can make sure he never touches her again. I could do that,” I say, the words seething and venomous. “Can’t I come home and at least do that?”
She snickers. Stella’s laugh cuts through the line straight to my heart.
“I love you. And yes, you could, but I wouldn’t advise it,” she says softly. “Davis told my parents they had a lead on him and the state police are involved now. I don’t think he’s going to get too far.”
“Was Steph able to identify him?”
Stella’s confidence takes over as she gives me more details from the nightmare her sister’s been though today. “He apparently tried talking to her before he attacked her. She knows it was him, and has given the police all his information.”
I take a deep breath, noticing Mama standing at the doorway again, as I hear puppy paws start down the stairs and Britt’s footsteps right after.
“He wasn’t using his real name when he started seeing her and he’s wanted for a lot of the same charges in another state, Ohio I think,” Stella continues. “Only thing is, the last woman he did this to didn’t survive.”
She says the last part so quietly I hope I heard her wrong until she continues, saying, “Steph’s guardian angel got a real workout with this one. We could have been planning a funeral, instead we just need to help her with a cast and bruises and a broken spirit.”
“Stell.” I say her name like she’s the air I need to breathe. “Please, don’t tell me not to come home. I need to see you and Steph and your parents. I need to see for myself she’s okay.”
Standing in my parents’ dining room, I let the tears begin to fall while my son runs through with his new puppy to play outside and my mom catches me in her arms, taking the phone from me on my way down.
“Stella, honey, he’ll be home tomorrow. I’m going to feed him and put him to bed,” I hear Mama say and then pause. “It doesn’t matter if she’s okay or not, he’s not going to believe until he sees. You know how he is. Is your mama close by? Put her on and you go get yourself something to eat.”
Ma leaves me sitting in the middle of the room. She takes my phone and I hear her saying soothing words to Jenny as she goes back into the kitchen.
Just like that, Mama makes everything okay and puts things in motion.
Burying my face in my hands, I let everything out. The fear for Stephanie’s safety I’ve been holding in. The anger that anyone would hurt her in the first place. The devastation knowing I wasn’t able to do anything to prevent this from happening.
I’m grateful she wasn’t more seriously injured.
I hate that we couldn’t protect her.
I cry it all out, the release working through my body like a serum.
Taking a deep breath, feeling the calm wash over me, I sit back on my heels and open my eyes.
Whiskey.
Sitting obediently in front of me, head cocked to one side, the pup stares back at me before bending his little body down and nudging my hand.
“Maybe ... maybe you’ll be able to help her survive this,” I say, picking his little body up to nuzzle under his chin and hoping Britt thinks sharing his Whiskey with Steph is as good an idea as I do. He nips at my nose and licks my face. “I think she’d love the hell out of you.”
***
After getting the phone back from Mama, I sent Stella a text letting her know Tommy and I would head out first thing in the morning and be home for a late dinner if she was up for eating with us.
I didn’t tell her about the puppy.
I didn’t mention the nearly naked moonshine escapade.
I did remember to tell her I love her.
Twice.
Despite the absolutely shitty terms Tommy, Britt, and I are leaving Tennessee on, we make our way through dinner and dessert thankful we’ve been able to share the holiday together.
“So when is the wedding?” Dad asks as he pulls a second piece of pumpkin pie onto his plate.
I just stare at him. Tommy starts laughing at me and Mr. and Mrs. Blumenthal from the ranch down the road wait for my answer.
Mama really wasn’t joking when she asked me if I seriously thought no one knew.
“Damn it, you guys all know?”
“Dude, you’ve been head over heels over that girl since we were kids. Yeah. We know.” Tommy’s such a jackass.
I look at Britton sitting next to me as he sneaks Whiskey a piece of pie crust under the table.
“Don’t feed him scraps, Britt. We don’t want him thinking he can beg at the table,” I say, watching as he sneaks another piece of crust to the dog. “So, did you know, too?”
“Know what?” he looks up at me and asks innocently. “That Stella’s going to be my mommy? I knew that.”
And he goes right back to feeding the puppy his crust like all of this is totally normal while every adult at the table but me bursts into laughter.
“Yeah, that.” Well, shit.
“Are we going to live at her house or our house? Uncle T should live at our house. I like Stella’s better. It has a secret stairway where we could have epic lightsaber battles. When can I start calling her mom? What does epic mean?”
My eyes go wide because he hasn’t talked this much all at once since we got to Nashville. It throws everyone into another fit of laughter.
“I have no idea. You have to talk to her about calling her mom. Epic means something is impressive, but a long time ago before the word was ruined by people calling everything from kick-flips to buildings ‘epic’ it was used in reference to long poems,” I rattle off, answering all of his questions. “Like, really long poems. About real epic battles.”
This kid.
I take another bite of apple pie.
“We haven’t set a date for the wedding. I don’t know if she wants to do anything big. We only started talking about it a few weeks ago and I really don’t know who all up there knows about it yet, even though it seems the entire Volunteer State is aware of my pending nuptials,” I say, shooting my mom a withering stare.
“You can’t blame me for this one, Brian. Your Daddy gets on that computer and emails back and forth with Dale darn near every day,” Mama points at Dad. “It’s his fault.”
The evening continues on with much of the same until I force Britt to get a bath, and wreck his entire night by not allowing Whiskey in the tub with him.
A sadness overwhelms him when I tuck him into bed and as much as I would love for him to have more time with my parents, I don’t want to make that drive home without him.
I try to ease the pain, the homesick
feeling he’s grappling with before we even leave. “Grandma and Gramps are coming to New York for Christmas. I don’t know how long they’ll be there, but it’s only a few weeks away, Bud.”
I rub my thumb over his forehead. It’s been a busy day and harder than I hope he ever has to know. It was hard enough trying to tell him we’re heading back to New York early, but then I lied to him to protect him from the truth of Steph’s situation.
“I know,” he says through a yawn as Whiskey curls up on the pillow beside him. “Can I see Stephie when we get home?”
He knew something was wrong when he came in from playing in the yard and was looking for the puppy. He saw me in the dining room, half fallen apart and trying to put my pieces back together so I could function until we leave.
Britt’s going to see her and think she was in an accident. That’s what we told him. Steph had an accident. He’s five. He may just assume a car accident. I won’t correct him. It was easier to explain to him this way than trying to put into kid terms what really happened.
“Yeah, kiddo, we’ll go see her when we get home. Stella said she’d be home tonight. Maybe we can get her some flowers,” I suggest.
He contemplates it, mulling it over like the decision would change the course of history. “No. Not flowers, Dad. Steph needs chocolate.”
“You got it, little man. Chocolate it is. Get some sleep.”
I kiss his forehead, make sure his blankets are secure, give Whiskey a pat on the head and text Greg on my way back downstairs.
Me: I need you to save me at least a half-dozen chocolate chip chocolate muffins tomorrow. They’re for Stephanie.
Greg: You got it man. I’ll drop them at your house so you don’t have to come to the shop. How’s she feeling? Caryn told me.
Me: Stella said she’s acting tough. Waiting for it to really hit. Thanks for the muffins. Should be back tomorrow around dinner.
Greg: Give your Ma my love. I know she must miss me.
Me: Absolutely. You’re her favorite non-son.
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