At Peace

by Kristen Ashley

  I made a split second decision and it was the same decision I almost always made with my girls. Complete honesty.

  “I, honey… I didn’t have the money. I knew you wanted him really badly but I couldn’t afford him. I told Joe and he thought you should have a puppy so he gave me the money so you could get Mooch,” I admitted, wishing this wasn’t playing out there, in the living room with Tim’s folks and Joe’s folks looking on. In fact, wishing it wasn’t playing out at all.

  Keira and Kate were both staring at Joe.

  Then suddenly Keira surged up and I jumped at her movement then froze, wondering what she was going to do. Mooch yapped and ran away and I watched in stunned silence as Keira threw herself full body at Joe. She ended with her knees to the floor, her body between his legs, her torso in Joe’s lap, her face in his chest, her arms wrapped around him and, before I could open my mouth or even move, she burst into tears.

  “I knew you were always lookin’ out for us,” she cried into his chest, “I knew it!”

  That lump hit my throat again but it was so big this time, it choked me.

  Joe’s hand dropped to Keira’s hair and he bent forward. “Baby, hey,” he whispered.

  “I knew it!” she sobbed into his stomach.

  What I knew was this wasn’t about Joe and the dog. This was about my sweet, crazy, strong, beautiful daughter losing her Dad and losing her uncle and living in a world that was uncertain, being afraid of that world and needing something to hold onto. They’d been strong a long time, both my girls had. And I was proud of them. But even the strongest person in the world needed something to hold onto.

  And the man who bought you the dog you always wanted was the perfect choice.

  Further, my daughters’ sudden connection with Aunt Theresa and Uncle Vinnie wasn’t weird. It was them grasping onto any family they could get as the bedrock of their own kept shifting. It was just pure luck that Joe provided such excellent additions.

  When Keira kept sobbing into Joe’s chest, I blinked away my tears as Joe twisted and handed me his coffee mug then he put his hands in her pits and hauled her up into his lap.

  “Keirry, honey, what’s this?” Joe whispered into her ear when he had her in his arms and she’d burrowed in closer. He, too, knew it wasn’t about the dog.

  She yanked her head out of his neck, looked at him and demanded in a fierce tone, “Don’t ever go away, Joe.”

  At my daughter’s words, I felt my breath choke me so hard I heard it too and that choking sound wasn’t just coming from me.

  “I’m not goin’ anywhere, honey,” Joe replied gently.

  “Promise!”

  I hiccoughed with my effort to swallow back my tears and heard Kate’s small whimper in an effort to do the same.

  “I promise,” Joe said, his tone just as fierce then he put an arm behind her knees and he straightened from the chair, Keira held to his chest.

  I straightened too, murmuring, “Joe.”

  “I got this, buddy.”

  “Joe –”

  “Got it,” Joe repeated and walked from the room down the hall.

  I stood there, staring down the hall. Then I turned and stared at our group, seeing Bea and Theresa flat out crying. Gary and Vinnie were both looking at their laps. Vinnie had his arm around Theresa.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice sounding suffocated. Kate’s arm wrapped around my leg and she pressed in tight.

  Bea got up and walked to me. Taking the mugs out of my hands, she said gently, “Nothing to be sorry for, Violet,” she gestured to a chair, “sit down, honey.”

  I didn’t sit down. Instead, I bent down and pulled Kate up to her feet.

  Then I told everyone, “Please, I’m sorry, we need a minute.”

  “Anything you need,” Bea replied instantly.

  I nodded, put my arm around Kate’s waist and led her down the hall to Keira’s room. Joe was in bed with a still crying Keira tucked into his side. His eyes came to us as we entered the room. Without hesitation, we all crawled into Keira’s double bed and curled into Joe.

  It would be much later when I wondered why my girls and I did this and why it seemed so comfortable. Me, maybe, my girls, no.

  And when I thought about it later, I would come to the conclusion that it just came natural because it was us and it was Joe.

  In other words, the new us.

  So when a situation became emotional, what else would we do?

  After awhile, when the Winters girls got their shit together, I took my cheek from Joe’s shoulder and looked at his face.

  “That didn’t go as planned,” I told him.

  “Far’s I can see, buddy, it couldn’t have gone better,” Joe replied.

  I looked at him and saw he believed what he was saying and his belief made me smile at him. Even so, my smile was shaky.

  When Joe leaned into me, his kiss was firm.

  When Joe was done kissing me and I was feeling a lot less shaky, Keira’s head came up from Joe’s other shoulder and she looked at him.

  “Sorry I went all wussy on you,” she whispered, her eyes not quite catching his, her voice trembling and I realized that she was worried she’d disappointed him and my stomach lurched.

  Joe’s arm went from around me and he turned toward Keira. Kate (who was tucked in front of me) and I came up on our elbows. We watched Joe put his hand to Keira’s jaw to tip her face up further toward him.

  “Never bury somethin’ deep, baby,” he murmured. “Takes twice as much courage to be who you are, say what you think, feel what you feel and let it show then it does to bury it. That shit you been holdin’ onto will destroy you. You got a safe place to get rid of it, and you do, then you get rid of it like you just did. Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” Keira whispered, a shaky smile on her lips too.

  I stared at Joe thinking maybe he was Superman.

  There was the sound of a throat being cleared and we looked to the door to see Gary standing there.

  “Um… sorry to interrupt, Joe, Vi, but… there’s a young man at the door. Says his name is Dane. I tried to –”

  My body jolted when Kate screeched, “Aiyee!” and leaped from the bed, ran passed her grandfather and then disappeared.

  Keira sat frozen against Joe for half a second then she followed her sister with just as much energy. Joe was not far behind but he was hindered since he was dragging me with him.

  “I thought I told you!” we heard Kate shout as Joe hustled us down the hall.

  “Katy –” we heard Dane.

  “No!” Kate interrupted him. Then she asked a very familiar question. “Do you have your head sorted out?”

  Oh shit.

  There it was. Proof that my daughters were soaking up all things Joe.

  We hit the living room and Theresa was standing behind Kate like a sentry. Bea was close too, though not as close as Theresa. Vinnie was standing by the television, his eyes on the scene playing out in front of him. Keira was sitting on her knees in the couch, facing the door. I felt Gary come up behind Joe and I but the minute we hit the room, Dane’s eyes shot to Joe and his face paled.

  I was thinking there were a lot of good reasons to have Joe around but at that moment his putting the fear of God into pipsqueak boy-men (no matter how cute they were) who hurt my daughter was at the top of my list.

  I crossed my arms on my chest and stared at Dane as he swallowed and his Adam’s apple bobbed. Then Dane plucked up the courage and stepped forward.

  “Mr. Callahan,” his eyes came to me, “Miz Winters, I need to talk to Katy.”

  “You need to talk to Kate, why you talkin’ to us?” Joe enquired and I looked at him to see his arms crossed on his chest in a new sinister, scary pose. This one was both alpha-male and man-of-the-house-slash-father-figure-you-did-not-mess-with.

  “Uh…” Dane muttered, struck dumb by Joe’s sinister, scary pose.

  “Your girl’s standin’ right in front of you, kid,” Joe prompted when Dane seeme
d frozen to the spot and this lasted awhile and that while included a number of people as his audience, all eyes on him. “You came to make a move, make it.”

  Dane swallowed again, nodded and looked at Kate. “Can we talk?”

  “Only one thing I want to hear you say,” Kate replied and I was proud of my girl for sticking to her guns and not letting some boy-man (no matter how cute he was) treat her like dirt.

  “Can I say it out on the back deck?” Dane asked.

  Kate looked over her shoulder at Joe and Joe tipped his chin at her.

  This was when I realized that I’d lost a little bit of both my daughters. They’d taken it from me and given it to Joe.

  Other women might be jealous of this or they might be alarmed.

  I wasn’t.

  Joe had given us everything. It was just our way of giving back. Not a lot of men would appreciate the gifts Keira and Kate were giving him and doing it so freely, but I reckoned Joe did.

  “Back deck,” Kate agreed and turned, leading a flush-faced Dane through the living room and study and out the back sliding glass door.

  “That’s Dane,” Keira announced to the room unnecessarily when the sliding door closed. “He’s Kate’s boyfriend and he’s in the dog house.”

  Vinnie chuckled in the direction of Gary who was pressing his lips together.

  “I need more coffee,” Theresa declared. “Bea, do you need more coffee?”

  “Yes, yes, I think I do,” Bea said softly.

  “I’ll make another pot,” I offered.

  “No, cara mia, you sit, relax or better yet, find a place to eavesdrop.” Theresa’s eyes went to the back deck. “I’ll make it.”

  “I’ll help,” Bea moved with Theresa to the kitchen.

  “I can make it, that’s okay. I don’t eavesdrop on the girls,” I told them and Theresa and Bea stopped dead and turned to me.

  “You don’t?” Theresa asked, her voice horrified.

  “I trust my girls,” I said carefully, not wanting to be insulting by intimating she hadn’t done the same with her children.

  “Well,” Theresa threw a hand out, “I guess I can see that, bein’ girls and all. My Carmella was an angel but I also had three boys. Three hot-blooded Italian boys with more hormones than the Chicago metropolitan area could contain. If they weren’t gettin’ in trouble with girls, they were fightin’ with boys. Bloody knuckles. Bras in their beds. Did my head in.”

  Bea just stared at me, knowing that hormones weren’t exclusive to hot-blooded Italian boys. Hormones went both ways and they didn’t discriminate by culture, they just ran rampant through teenagers as a whole.

  “It’ll be okay, Bea,” I assured her. “I had a talk with Kate and Joe had a talk with Dane.”

  “Yeah,” Keira put in, “and Joe scares the crap outta Dane.”

  I watched as Gary came forward and clapped Joe on the shoulder. “Saw that,” he muttered. “Liked it,” he went on, looking at his wife not at Joe and my heart turned over with happiness. Joe had Gary’s seal of approval or at least it was heading that way. “Hon, could seriously use another cup,” he said to Bea.

  “Right, love,” Bea whispered and moved to the kitchen, Theresa on her heels.

  Joe was looking out the sliding glass doors, seemingly oblivious to everything going on around him, his mind on what was happening on the back deck. I walked to him, put my hands on his chest and pressed him down in the armchair. He resisted but not much, especially when I climbed into his lap once I got him seated. Maybe sitting in his lap was a bit too much but I figured since we’d already had a variety of dramas, the best way forward was just to be ourselves.

  If Bea and Gary didn’t like it, I couldn’t help that.

  Then again with all the dramas, I reckoned they wouldn’t have any problem with it.

  “We don’t eavesdrop,” I told him as his arms came around me.

  “Don’t have to, buddy.”

  I cocked my head to the side. “We don’t?”

  “Dane isn’t stupid. He’ll do right by Kate. He doesn’t, Kate isn’t stupid. She’ll dump his ass,” he paused before finishing, “again.”

  I got closer to his face and whispered, “You ready for at least four straight years of teenage girl boy drama?”

  Joe’s face shifted to tender then his eyes moved to Keira and I saw humor light them.

  Then he looked at me. “Keira’s up next so we might need to talk to Doc about Valium.”

  “You think you’ll need Valium?” I asked, surprised.

  “Was thinkin’ for you.”

  “I’ll be all right.”

  “Keirry’s a bit wild, baby.”

  I got closer. “That’s okay, I’ve got you to help me deal.”

  The humor left his eyes and they went intense. I held my breath because I was certain he was going to kiss me and do it hard. I was certain of this because he’d looked that way before, right when he kissed me and did it hard.

  To stop Joe kissing me hard in front of Gary and Bea (and Theresa), something I figured they might have a problem with (especially the way Joe did it), I continued. “And to scare the bejeezus out of any boy who gets ideas.”

  Joe grinned at me right when we heard Gary ask, “What in the hell?”

  I looked in his direction. He’d moved to stand at the back of the couch by Keira but he was looking out the window.

  “Granddad!” Keira shouted and jumped off the couch as I stared through the window at my father walking along the front of the house.

  “Oh my God,” I whispered, my body solid, hoping my mother wasn’t with him and also wondering what was next. The sky falling? The earth standing still? Perhaps a meteor would crash into the Atlantic Ocean and a tidal wave would wash half of the continental United States into the sea.

  “What the fuck?” Joe muttered tersely but his body was not solid. He was not thinking of meteors. His thoughts were something else entirely.

  He surged up, his arms still around me taking me with him. He planted me on my feet, let me go and stalked to the door.

  By the time he got there, me hot on his heels, Keira had it open and she was giving my father a big hug.

  “It is a family reunion!” she cried with excitement then asked, “Did you bring Mel with you?” and she looked beyond my father out the door. I noted she didn’t ask if Dad brought my Mom but instead she asked after Mel. My girls weren’t big fans of my mother. No one was, of course, since my Mom was a bitch. But Madeline Riley had been a cold, hard, disapproving mother and she was no less of any of those things as a grandmother – even not having been around very often.

  Joe came to stand behind Keira and the second she cleared my father, his arm hooked around her chest and he stepped back, taking Keira with him and not letting go. His eyes were on my Dad and they were far from welcoming.

  I moved to stand by them. “Dad, what’re you doin’ here?”

  Dad was looking at Joe then his eyes came to me and I noticed belatedly that something wasn’t right about him as in really not right. He didn’t seem to process that Joe was looking unwelcoming and pretty much no one but a blind person could ignore Joe’s unwelcome look.

  Therefore, I braced.

  “Left your Mom,” Dad announced, straight out.

  “What?” I whispered.

  “Fuck,” Joe muttered.

  “What!” Keira shouted.

  Dad yanked an agitated hand through his hair, shaking his head from side to side, not even aware he had a further audience than just Keira (who shouldn’t be hearing this), Joe, (who he didn’t even know) and me (who didn’t want to hear this).

  “I… I can’t take it anymore, Vi. She… with Sam… and when Tim…” His eyes shot to Joe then came back to me and I watched as his face crumbled and he whispered, “Jesus, sweetie, I lost my son.” Then his hands covered his face and he dissolved into shoulder shaking sobs.

  My heart right back in my throat threatening to choke me, I moved forward and wrapped my arms aroun
d my father.

  “Dad,” I whispered.

  “I lost him, I lost Sam,” Dad moaned into his hands, not taking them from his face. “And because of her I didn’t have you, I didn’t have the girls, my boy was gone and I didn’t have anything.” His head came up and his watery eyes caught mine. “You kids, both of you, living with that woman, you were my shining lights. The way she was when you… with Tim…” His breath hitched. “Then you were gone and my world dimmed but I still had Sam. Now I don’t have Sam and you come to the funeral and you don’t even look at me and my grandchildren are nearly grown and I barely know them!”

  He ended on a shout and ripped out of my arms.

  “Dad,” I muttered, trying to get close again but he took two angry steps into the house and turned with a jerk to face me.

  “This morning she found out about the money, that money I gave Sam to give to you and she went berserk,” Dad yelled. “Sam’s dead not even a month and she finds out I gave you and the girls a little something and she acted like I sold State secrets!”

  “Dad,” I put a hand to his arm but he shrugged it off and walked further into the house then started pacing.

  “Who does that?” he shouted. “Her son is dead and what? What’s important to her? How obvious could it be that you’d made the right decision just at the wrong time? Tim was a good kid, he became a good man. He took care of you, the girls. How much proof did she need that she was wrong and you were right? How hard is it, when what lies in the balance is something you love, to admit you’re wrong? How much more proof does she need that life’s too damn short to be such a ridiculous, screaming bitch!”

  “Pete,” Joe said coming close to me but Dad stopped pacing and glared at him.

  “And you! Who are you?” Dad bellowed, throwing an arm in Joe’s direction.

  I heard the sliding glass door open but couldn’t tear my eyes away from what was happening in front of me.

  Keira burrowed into Joe’s side as she answered, “Granddad, he’s Joe.”

  “I know he’s Joe, sweetie,” Dad yelled at Keira and at my father’s angry words aimed at her, Keira burrowed closer to Joe and when she did I watched with no small amount of concern as Joe’s face went so hard it looked carved from stone but Dad was on a tear and he kept talking. “My daughter has a new man in her life and all I know is that he’s Joe.” Dad looked at Joe and demanded to know. “Where do you come from? What do you do? How did you meet? Can you provide for my daughter? Can you take care of her? Protect her? Protect my grandchildren? The only ones I’ll ever have!” He was shouting when he was done and Kate, in from outside, edged around him and pressed into my side as he did it.