Six Feet Under (Mad Love Duet Book 1)

by Whitney Barbetti

  “Griffin. Yes, she’s mine.” I glanced at Norah again. “She’s friendly. A little stupid, probably, but she’s the nicest thing I know.”

  Brooke moved to come toward us, hesitating slightly. “How is she around kids?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. She hasn’t eaten any, so that’s probably a good sign.”

  Brooke didn’t laugh at my lame attempt at humor. She eyed me and the dog, deciding if it was safe. I could see it in her eyes. Though she no longer wore her emotional weight, she still carried it with her. I guessed it was good that she was cautious, anxious, especially with Norah in the picture.

  She bent down, getting eye level with Griffin. “Hi Griffin,” she cooed, touching her—testing—before allowing her daughter to do so. “Oh, you’re sweet, aren’t you?” she asked when Griffin flopped over her feet like Brooke’s mere pat on her head had invited her to lay all over Brooke’s feet.

  “She’s good,” I said, though given my track record, I knew it wasn’t a ringing endorsement. It wasn’t like I was known to hang around good people.

  Norah reached a chubby hand toward the dog and squealed gleefully when Griffin shoved her snout in it.

  “She does that a lot,” I said, as if Norah could understand me. I didn’t even know what age kids started understanding simple sentences. “She’s nice,” I said, and Norah echoed the word, dropping the n.

  “Yes, nice dog,” Brooke whispered as they both took turns spoiling the shit out of Griffin with a million pets. “Well, since you’re here, do you want to come in?”

  I hadn’t expected that, and knew it had to be thanks to Griffin’s presence. Maybe she somehow normalized me. Look, she has a dog. She can’t be too crazy. I guess Six wasn’t as much of a bastard after all.

  I nodded, following Brooke and Norah up the cement steps into the tiny foyer of the tiny house.

  She shut the door behind me, and I was acutely aware of Griffin’s massive size. She took up the entire foyer and was nearly wide enough to take up the whole hallway too. Brooke motioned for me to follow her to the back of the house, where a dollhouse sized kitchen looked out onto a sun porch. A half a dozen toys were scattered throughout the area and Griffin took it upon herself to scoop one up in her mouth. Brooke hadn’t noticed, so I pried it from the jaws of the beast and wiped the drool off on my leg before joining Brooke in one of the wicker chairs that sat across from one another.

  Norah toddled to a pile of toys and Griffin pooled into a puddle of fur at my feet.

  “She acts like she’s exhausted.”

  I raised an eyebrow and said, “She thinks she is. Until we get back to my apartment, and then she’ll eat and whine to go back out again five minutes later.”

  “I’m surprised to see you with a dog.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, because you seemed so attached to that fish.”

  Henry the Fourth. “I don’t know if I was attached to him,” I said, as my memory reminded me of his pathetic funeral under the purple flowers outside. “But he was easy to take care of. A lot easier than a dog.”

  “Which is why I’m so surprised,” she said and separated the large blocks that Norah handed her. “A dog doesn’t seem like you.” She looked down at Griffin and shrugged. “Maybe not that kind of dog, at least.”

  “Why? Because she’s fluffy and a little too friendly?”

  “That. And, I don’t know, she’s nearly the same size as you. Seems like you’d choose something smaller.”

  “Well, I didn’t pick her. Six did.”

  “Oh, so he’s back?”

  I nodded but didn’t say anything else. “I mean, he is, but he’s gone again, on another job.”

  “He does that a lot,” she commented.

  “Not as much as he used to. Doesn’t need to now.” Shut the fuck up, Mira, the voices warned, so I did. “Norah is big.” Obvious statement of the year, that one.

  “She is. She’s ninety-ninth percentile in everything but weight. She actually needs to eat more, but ever since she started walking, now all she wants to do is run.”

  Norah stood and carried over another chunk of blocks, bypassing her mom’s awaiting hands and bringing them to me.

  I took them but looked at Brooke to make sure this was okay. It was surreal, to be sitting on Brooke’s back porch, watching the baby I’d held, cared for—the baby who was no longer a baby—and trying to figure out what this made Brooke and me. We weren’t friends, hadn’t ever been. But I’d still never had closure from what had happened. And I harbored a bit of resentment over how quickly Brooke had been able to walk away from me.

  Not that I wanted her to know that. Sometimes eating up the anger was easier than attempting to eradicate it.

  “Is your mom here?” I asked, remembering she’d told me she was moving in with her mom when she’d left Six’s.

  “No, she’s back in Chicago. I live here alone, with Norah.”

  “It’s a cute place.” The small talk was making me as itchy as a wool sweater made my skin. “The…” I lowered my voice, “dad?”

  “Not in the picture. Haven’t heard from him since we walked out.”

  I breathed a small sigh of relief. “That’s good.” Just thinking of sweet little Norah’s personality being changed by that, by witnessing that kind of violence, made my hands clench under the table. “I’m glad,” I said and tugged at my tank top to relieve the itch.

  “Yes. Things are good. I’m still at the bakery.”

  “Who watches Norah?” None of your business, Mira.

  “The owner’s wife. She lives above the bakery, so it’s convenient. And in a few years, Norah will be in school and if I’m still at the bakery, I’ll have to figure something else out so she stays on an appropriate schedule. But it works for now.”

  I wished I had water. I didn’t know what was coming over me, that made me so antsy being in Brooke’s place with Norah playing nearby. It wasn’t like this erased the frustration I’d felt from the last couple years, but it was hard to remember the frustration, since I was right here, helping Norah disconnect her blocks only for her to reconnect them with terrible coordination.

  “Kids are like little drunk adults.” I hadn’t meant to say it. I’d been watching my words carefully, indulging in small talk instead of tough talk. But the thought had blipped through so quickly that there it was, on the glass table that separated us.

  Luckily, Brooke laughed. “That’s one way to put it. When she gets really excited, she tries to do this running-in-place thing, and usually falls on her bum. On an adult, it’d be embarrassing. On her, it’s adorable.”

  Had my mother ever spoken of me the way Brooke spoke of her daughter? Her love, her devotion, so crystal clear? Had my mother protected me before I could remember, from strangers, from dogs, from people like me? I’d only known a love with my mother that was broken, not a love like Brooke’s; pure and whole.

  It was so strong, the rush that enveloped me in my wondering, that I had to look away from her.

  “You do look good, Mira,” Brooke said. “Stronger, maybe.”

  I let out a small laugh, expelling the demons that haunted me, inherited from my mother. “I’ve been training a lot more.” I rubbed my lips together. “Helping other women.”

  Brooke blinked. “That’s good. Really good.” She looked at her daughter and folded her own hands in her lap, rocking back and forth slightly in place. And then she spoke again. “I never really thanked you. Or, maybe I did. But I don’t think it was enough.”

  I couldn’t look at her. I hadn’t come here for this. I’d wanted to come here, for purely selfish reasons. To check in on Norah. To glance at the life Brooke had built for herself. She’d made a home with her daughter. It’d been a good thing that she’d left Six’s house and moved on. Because, ultimately, we weren’t her family.

  I could forgive Brooke for leaving me—because she didn’t owe me anything. I couldn’t forgive my mother, but I could forgive another mother, who left
to give her daughter the best thing. Because ultimately, it was Norah that I wanted more for. Because I was once young too, innocent. And now, Norah could grow up without the weight of abuse.

  Maybe I was projecting. Maybe I was holding a mirror up to Brooke, judging her as I judged my mother. But, Brooke was a good mom. She was good to Norah. And though I couldn’t easily let go of the hurt that had remained when Brooke left, I could let go of the worry I’d harbored for her ever since. Norah would have a chance, more than I did. And that satisfied the part of me that hadn’t been settled ever since Brooke had moved on.

  “I know things were weird when I left. I didn’t know how to handle it. I could blame it on postpartum, I could blame it on the heartbreak.” She dug her nail into the pattern carved on the glass table top. “For a while, I blamed you.”

  I looked up at her, even as Norah shoved more blocks into my hands.

  “I had a house before. I had a man who—despite his faults, of which there were many—kept that roof above my head. It was a family, the family I’d built. And then you pulled me out of there.” She stopped speaking for a minute, but I didn’t breathe a word. She looked like she wanted to say more but was working through her thoughts. I wondered what it’d be like to toss a myriad of thoughts in front of you and decide which ones to use. I usually just said whatever I thought, or I didn’t say anything at all. The idea of organizing thought into coherence was foreign but interesting.

  I separated Norah’s blocks and resisted, barely, running a hand over her hair.

  Brooke continued. “It’s hard to see the abuse when you’re in the midst of it. I didn’t believe I was a victim because I was choosing to stay. I...” She laughed. “Foolishly, I believed it made me strong. To endure it.” She blinked and pushed a finger under her lower lid before sniffing. “It took a while for me to realize that abuse wasn’t something I had to endure. I was sorting through those feelings while I lived with you, and I’m sorry that it took me so long to figure it out. When I left, I was still upset. With you, but mostly because of myself. Even when I came to live with you, I imagined myself going back to him. I imagined that he’d welcome me with wide open arms, and things would be better because she—” she paused, licking her lips as she looked at her daughter, “would be here. That a baby would fix him, I guess?” She scratched her head and then shook it, like she couldn’t believe even what she was saying. “It sounds so stupid now. He hurt me while she was still inside of me. He could have hurt her in the process, so many times. He once…” her voice trailed off and she swallowed. “No, I don’t want to relive that. But, the point is, if he could do it to me, someone who could stand up to him, why wouldn’t he do it to someone as innocent as her.”

  I watched her let out a long exhale, her hands braced on her knees. It was like watching someone confess their sins, but hers were so insignificant in my eyes that I couldn’t understand why they took so much from her. Maybe that’s what happened when you became a parent. Maybe becoming a mom made everything more magnified. More illuminated.

  One more reason for me to never have kids, I realized.

  “Anyway. I’m grateful you got me out of there. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I should have reached out to you. After all, I knew where you lived. You didn’t know where I lived.”

  I debated but decided against telling her I’d looked her up. “It’s fine,” I said, the itchiness subsiding. “Norah needed this. You did too. I was just a stepping stone.”

  “That may be, but I don’t like feeling the way I’ve felt—like I took advantage of you and never actually thanked you. Or Six,” she quickly added. “Will you tell him for me?”

  I gathered that she was still somewhat intimidated by him, which was the reason she didn’t want to thank him herself, in person. So, I nodded. “I should head out,” I said, but I didn’t have plans; no reason to rush out of here. But Brooke had laid out her feelings on the table, and they were a little too heavy for me to carry right now.

  “Will you visit again?” she asked, running her fingers delicately under one eye. I couldn’t look her directly in the eyes, not when my own feelings were tied up in knots.

  “Sure.”

  “Dod! Dod!” Norah said, toddling over to Griffin as Griffin joined me. She’d practically ignored the dog the entire time we were on the porch, but now that she was leaving, Norah was verklempt, wrapping her arms around Griffin’s neck much the same way I wrapped myself around Six when he tried to leave. A tentacle.

  I waved goodbye to them both and resumed Griffin’s walk on the sidewalk. The sun was lower in the sky now and fewer people dotted the sidewalk. This neighborhood was a place for families, I knew. My only experience with a family had been my mother and myself, and it’d always looked incomplete, somehow. Brooke and Norah, however, were complete. Just the two of them. A family wasn’t comprised of a mom and a dad and their two-point-two children. Six and I could be a family.

  As if he could hear my thoughts, his name appeared on my phone, accompanied with a buzz.

  “Hey,” he said, and the sound of honking and people yelling followed his voice. “Where are you?”

  “Uh,” I said, flipping my head back and forth as I searched for a street sign. “Good question.”

  “Are you near my house?”

  “Yes.” I thought.

  “Can you meet me there?”

  I stopped my steps. “You’re here? In the city?”

  “Just landed. I’m getting a taxi, but lost my keys.”

  “On a job?” I asked.

  He was quiet for a minute. I heard a car door open, close, Six rattle off his address, and then his voice again. “Yes. I’ll be about an hour.”

  He was so good at guessing time. It was an art, I thought. His guess of an hour was exactly how long it took me to figure out the way to his house, which hadn’t been as close as I thought. I’d no sooner unlatched the front door before the cab pulled up and Six piled out. He leaned into the passenger window, handed over some bills and then turned to me.

  Would I ever get tired of looking at him after being apart? He just looked so good, all the time. His eyes were tired, and he was dressed a little warmly for summer in his black tee, jeans, and signature leather jacket. His hair was tousled, like he’d dipped his head into the Pacific and then had let it dry like that—windblown and wavy.

  The side of his mouth curved when he saw me. That bright flash of white made my stomach flip over on its side and Griffin tugged hard on the leash, finally noticing her favorite person’s presence.

  She was stronger than me, much stronger than I often gave her credit for. She bounded toward him and he dropped to one knee expectantly as she launched her hairy body into his arms.

  Maybe it was a trick of the light, how the sun barely grazed over the tops of the homes around us, but something about seeing Six cuddling my dog as the sun glinted off his hair turned something in me. Like another stick around my heart was obliterated, opening wider, accommodating the room he seemed to keep filling up inside me.

  I loved him at a nine in that moment. It was more than I thought I was capable of dealing with, but somehow—he made it easy.

  “Hey,” he said in that low, gruff voice before his arms came around me. It was like one of those movies I put on for background noise when I was sick of infomercials. The kind where the man and woman smile at one another, feet away, before falling against one another, knowing they can support each other’s weight.

  “Hi,” I managed, sounding breathless more from the rush that filled me than from the long walk I’d just endured.

  Griffin, the selfish little shit she was, leapt up until her front paws were on Six’s chest, forcing us apart. He laughed, rubbed her head and gently eased her back to the ground. “I see those training classes helped her jumping problem.”

  “Big time,” I said. “Totally not a waste of time.”

  “I’m glad to see you,” he said, not continuing the conversation. It always threw me off.
I was used to it, in my head. The constant switching between thoughts. But it caught me off guard when Six did it. Gone was talk of Griffin, now was time for Six’s arms to circle my waist, for his face to be pressed against my hair as he breathed me in, and pressed kiss after kiss to my head.

  I wanted to make him feel the same way he made me feel. Full. Complete. Worthy of a love like his.

  “I’m happy you’re home,” I said, but it sounded robotic. I didn’t often have to say how I felt—I showed it pretty clearly, especially when I was pissed the fuck off. But when it came to emotions that I was still understanding, my reactions were always more subdued. Subtle. But still, it was important for him to know how I felt. And, at the moment, I was—I realized—happy. Bone deep happy.

  “Mmm,” he murmured against my hair, rocking me back and forth in place. He pressed kiss after kiss to my head and I sank deeper against him. It amazed me sometimes, how far we’d come in nearly five years. “You feel so good.” His hands moved down the sides of my body, squeezing softly, priming me unnecessarily.

  “You too,” I whispered, digging my nails lightly into his biceps. They flexed under my hold and I kissed his neck. He smelled clean, warm.

  He lifted me to set me on the counter behind us and cradled my head, guiding me to his mouth. It always surprised me, his capacity to give and give again. And that’s what he did. His hands were hungry, but they gave before they took. He peeled my shirt off of me, then lifted me to pull my pants down my legs. Gently, he laid me back so I was flat on the cool granite. I shivered a bit from the sensation and he appeased the chill by dragging his hands down my body squeezing and letting go so that the blood rushed to the surface of my skin.

  He kissed up the length of one leg and his mouth hovered over my center, breathing just hot enough to make me squirm. Then, torturously, his mouth went down my other leg. He was all about the sensations, keeping me focused on him so that my thoughts didn’t wander. Not that they could, not with how he was always touching me somewhere, somewhere that would elicit a response of some kind. Like the arch of my back off the counter when he covered my center with his palm and pressed.