by Rie Warren
Cash pulled her over for a kiss to which Max moaned, “Ew.”
“I meant his deeds not his di–”
“Jane-May.”
“Ma’am.” A new call started for Shay, Shay, Shay.
Oh no. What could she say that wouldn’t give me away?
“The lovely Miss Shay, Reardon brought her to us this day, but she’s the one who delivered him back. Please convince her to stay.”
I bit my lip and hid my head.
“Damn,” Reardon murmured, clutching my hand.
“Max, my little star.”
“I ain’t little no more, Momma.”
“I’m not that little anymore, and yes, y’are, always gonna be my baby.” Holding Cash’s hand, she kissed the top of her baby boy’s head. “I hope you always shine, sweet boy.”
About that time, everyone took up napkins or took out hankies.
“For those we’ve been blessed with, and for those we’ve…” She stopped, inhaling a ragged breath. “For those we’ve lost, we take this time to remember.”
Their shoulders dropped, then their heads.
Except for me. Who was lost?
Except for Ransome, clutching the arms of his wheelchair. “What about Will? We always say somethin’ for Will.”
The pairs of eyes reaching for him were stained with pain.
“Where is he?” His gaze ranged around the table, seeing a scene not set before us. “Max is here. Where’s my other nephew got to?”
“He’s going.” Jumping to his feet, Reardon spread a blanket over Ransome’s legs, ready to wheel him inside.
“You can’t make it go away, son. Shay needs to know.” Norrie intervened.
I needed to know what?
Miss Charlotte folded her napkin precisely and walked slowly over. She stared deeply into Ransome’s eyes. “You’re right here, my handsome sailor.”
“Where’s little Will?” His husky whisper was haunting.
Norrie’s eyes never left Reardon.
After a light kiss to Ransome’s forehead, Reardon fell back to his chair.
When he turned to me, foreshadowing agony tampered with his expression. In each clamped muscle, over his downturned mouth, in his clammy appearance, I knew...whatever was said next would bring me to my knees.
“I didn’t want it like this, Shay.”
“Will?” I asked.
“William Ransome Boone.” His voice was shaky.
Jane! Oh, Jane.
I gathered her hands, lost mother to mother. “I’m so sorry, why didn’t you ever–”
She shook her head, pointing me toward Reardon.
William Ransome Boone.
“Boone?” The certainty of it crept into my consciousness.
Everyone watched Reardon. Not Jane. Those pictures of the baby, the toddler, the one with him and Leila. Max’s hair was dark brown as Jane’s. The baby had been blond, like his momma.
I faltered. “Reardon?”
Leila must have custody. They have a son, William Ransome. He’s not here because of her. Those trips away are time spent with him. He never told me! It doesn’t matter, not now, please...please don’t. Not another child. Not Reardon’s boy. Please.
I croaked, “Please?”
Reardon backhanded his eyes. “My son, Shay. He died.”
Tears gathering in my eyes, I rose to my feet. I could hardly force the words through my teeth. “May I speak with you privately?”
Chapter 12
Due Diligence
Reardon stood, motioning me forward.
No one said anything, yet their unvoiced pain screamed inside me.
Up the steps and inside the house, over the staircase and into his old bedroom.
He was at my back. So close. He didn’t dare touch me.
Anger and unbelievable misery shattered me.
I wheeled on him the second the door closed. “Now? You decide to tell me this now? No, wait.” I gave him The Hand instead of the finger, a generous gesture, all told. “You didn’t even have the balls to tell me yourself! I fucking died over Delilah, and you, you knew exactly what I was feelin’, but you didn’t have the backbone to tell me the truth.”
I swung my arm between us. “Like this? You blindsided me again, you bastard!” I fell on him, beating his chest.
He captured my hands. “I’m–”
“Don’t you even say sorry,” I seethed.
“I only wanted you to meet my family first.”
“See if I passed muster, if I was better than Leila?”
His fingers tightened on my wrists. “Don’t you compare yourself to her.”
“Why not? She’s your kind, right? And y’all were happy, I saw the pictures.”
“We were happy when we had Will.” His voice broke apart over his son’s name.
“Were you gonna tell me?”
“Of course!”
“Of course? I don’t even know what I am to you.”
“My lover.”
“But. You. Pay. Me.”
He flinched, releasing me.
“All those photos down there. How could you think I wouldn’t figure it out? When are you gonna stop deceiving me like this?”
“It’s not about lying to you, it’s about looking out for you.”
“Bullshit!” I stabbed his chest. “It’s about protectin’ yourself.”
Of course he was in self-preservation mode; he had every right to be. I’d lived it myself.
“Oh my God, Reardon.” I flew against him, wrapping him in my arms. “Baby, I’m so sorry. I never could have, I never would’ve…” My tears blotted big wet spots on his shirt as his hands crowned my shoulders. “I’m so damn sorry.”
My dampened rage enflamed, I pulled away. “But I’m so completely pissed at you right now.”
“It’s not even that it’s hard, Shay. It’s impossible to breathe when I think about him. About Will.” He rubbed tight circles in his chest. “He was only seven.”
When he sagged to the foot of the bed, I folded in front of him. He kept shaking his head like the motion would rid him of all the memories dredged from his soul, dragged from his mouth. “CML. Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia. He died June 29th, 2005.”
“The boats,” I gasped. “He’s at sea.”
Hands hiding his face, he whispered, “We couldn’t cover him in earth, landlocked. Will would’ve hated it. He was wild as the water, born from the tides. When...fuck.” He wrestled to breathe. “When Will was born, Ransome was overseas. I wanted a piece of him with me always, so we named him William Ransome.” He inhaled sharply. “In case Ransome didn’t make it home. I never figured it would be my son who died.”
Pushing my fingers into his, I clutched his hand.
“I needed Will out there with me on the water. But I couldn’t...to call the boats William, it was too much, too much of a reminder. Naming the boats after both of them–with Ransome back and recovering…”
“It gave you hope.”
Reardon glanced at me, his blue eyes bruised with sadness. “Something like that. Sometimes.”
“And that day with Whistler and Badger?”
“Every year, Shay, we go out every year at the end of June.” His voice lowered. “He fought for three years. Imagine–Christ!–can you imagine it? Four fucking years old! Half his life, he was in and out of hospitals, sick from cancer, sick from what was supposed to cure him. Missing out on school and things everyone takes for granted, that every kid should be able to take for granted. Sports and birthday parties and summer camps and fishing and friends. Normality.”
Sliding into Reardon’s lap, I held his face to my neck, gathering him in my hug.
“No amount of money made a damn bit of difference. I was on top of my game, had my society wife, my son, my successes. I could pay. I would have paid anything. Traded places, given my life to save his! I know what it’s like to feel absolutely impotent.”
I rocked him, sweeping long strokes along his back.
“Sl
aughter wasn’t always this way either, Shay.” He rubbed his wet face against my dress. “He loved Will. I know you can’t see that part of him, but he doted on him, we all did.” A sad smile sat on his lips.
“When the drug treatments were unsuccessful, Shepperd organized a massive effort to find a bone marrow donor. When we were at the hospital, he was there with us, all the time, with the rest of the family. When we were trying so hard to get through every goddamn day, he was the one who remembered things to cheer him up. And me and Leila, we just kept hoping.”
Even though I knew how this would end, I closed my eyes and hoped too.
“Pediatric Oncology. 7B to those of us who moved in with our families. Scrubs and masks. Transfusions. The contusions on his small body. The catheter in his chest, all the damned time. All those children, fighting so hard. You couldn’t, you just couldn’t pretend with them. They never did.”
I pressed my cheek against his, unable to bear the anguish in his eyes.
“Life in and out of the hospital became normal to us. Until the understanding he was going to die.” He rolled us onto the bed. “When you have to accept it. That’s not even, no...that’s not bearable.” Wracking shivers made his words choppy. “Our last hope. It didn’t work. Will’s body rejected the tissue. Hospice was left.”
His words chilled me. “His tiny body stopped working. Right before our eyes. Leila was...she was…”
“Ruined.” I understood her then.
Tears teetering at the edges of his eyelashes fell faster. “All the machines were turned off–because we knew, we all knew. Ma and Dad, Jane and Cash, Ellegee and Shepperd took up residence. We had a routine. Always someone close to him because, because he was going to die.
“They said their goodbyes. Hugs, kisses. We all tried to be strong. We didn’t want Will to worry about going on.” The crease deepened on his forehead. “They went to the hallway. I’d hugged Ma, and she said, ‘This is your last time with him, Day-day. Don’t let him hurt no more.’
“Leila pulled over the rocking chair, the one she’d breastfed him in as a baby. I held him, listening to him fight for every single last breath.” Reardon’s face crumpled in torment.
“‘It’s okay, Will, it’s okay...it’s gonna be okay.’ That’s what we told him. He stayed in my arms, Leila crouched by his side. And he said…” He was shaking his head back and forth, back and forth, too many tears to ever stop coated his face. “He said, ‘I know, Daddy. I love you, Momma.’ I squeezed his hand to let him know it was okay, that he could go. Leila crawled onto the bed, and he was right between us. The same as he’d been so many mornings, before he got sick. He finally let go, he left us.”
We pressed tightly together as the pain passed between us.
“Afterwards...the disbelief. The grief, you know the grief. Then the second-guessing. Did we cause it? Whose genes were to blame? We were too aggressive or maybe the oncologists weren’t aggressive enough?
“I was paralyzed, when he died.” His listless voice gained strength. “You know I never wanted to feel anything. Loving hurts too much. I never wanted to feel for you.”
“That’s no excuse, Reardon.”
“I’m sorry, I was–”
I cut him off. “You could’ve told me you understood, especially with Delilah. Oh God. All this time, when I was so flippant, when I said you didn’t want children.”
“It’s okay.” His whisper was faint.
A ray of sun filtered into the room, striking the gold chain on his neck. My fingertip suspended above the small gold oval he always wore back-to-front. “It’s William?”
“His likeness, close to my heart.” He turned the pendant over, rubbing my soft pad over the miniature embossed portrait. “I’m sorry, Shay. I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did. With you I find myself wanting, wanting things I haven’t needed in such a long time.”
I turned the chain around and around in my hands, feeling the warmth of the metal.
The warmth of the man.
I couldn’t raise my eyes above his mouth.
“I need you,” he said with those ruddy lips, his voice rough with the compelling desire to connect.
“They’ll hear us.”
“Don’t care.” He drew me under him, our hands working furiously with buttons and zippers, tearing panties and briefs out of the way.
His thigh ran across my damp sex, and my nails bit into his shoulders, his back, his ass, bringing him into me, binding Reardon with my flesh.
The sex was fast and hard, then slow and simple. Grateful.
Our bodies brooked no space. Our mouths colliding and kissing and mating, stitching the other back together.
He filled me, chanting, “Shay, Shay,” and I fell into him, flooded to the top of my heart.
Afterward, I asked very quietly, “Were you relieved I was infertile?”
“No, darlin’.” Grabbing a swath of blankets, he covered us.
“It’s not as easy as that, though, is it?”
“I can’t go through losing a child again.” He chucked my chin until I met his regretful expression. “But I’d give everything I have so you could be a mother. I’d give it all up.”
“You would, wouldn’t you?” Even me.
Taking in his childhood room, I saw posters and the trophies and ticket stubs. A ton of old, dusty, junky youthful souvenirs. Things both his Will and my Delilah would never know. I folded my arms around his, over my belly.
I was ready to Steel Magnolia myself right back down those stairs, face his family, determined to have him. Sorting through the mound of clothes we’d ripped off one another, I pulled on my dress.
His eyes strayed to the top of my breasts and stayed there.
I hooked two fingers and pointed to my face. “Up here, baby.”
With a low laugh, he shook his head.
Once dressed, we linked hands, and I think we both felt stronger somehow. More so when he squeezed my hip tight during our walk down the stairs. “There is hope, too, with you.”
“I’m so sorry for ruining the party.” I apologized to Miss Charlotte, patting my wet eyes with one hand, her shoulder with the other.
Hard and fast, her bear hug trapped me. “You got nothin’ to apologize for, Shay.” Setting me aside, she transferred her attention to Reardon. “Fault was–”
“Ransome’s.” Reardon slammed his mouth shut right before he had the good grace to look shamefaced.
Charlotte dropped me like a dirty dishcloth and wheeled on him. “Boy, I oughta box your ears, then let your daddy take you out back to the whippin’ tree.” She stopped reading him the riot act and raised her hands to gently capture his crestfallen face. “When you love someone, you tell ’em the truth, Reardon.”
Rejoining the others, Charlotte sat down and smoothed the plastic tablecloth as if it was fine linen. She snapped her fingers, which commanded Norris to the makeshift bar and back again with a fresh toddy.
“And I…” I stepped back gratefully into the warm man behind me. I looked at each of them, tears splitting my vision. “I’m sorry about Will.”
Reardon was so close to me I heard his painful swallowing. At my hips, his hands clenched, then released and lowered to clasp mine tightly.
With watery eyes, Norrie looked over my shoulder at his eldest. “Damn if any mother or father should have to go through the death of their child. Not for nothin’, our Will was.” He gulped. “He sure was somethin’ else, our grandbaby.”
Ellegee’s powerful hands shot across the table, falling on top of Norrie’s and Charlotte’s. “That he was, that he was.”
Turning me around, Reardon swiped his thumbs across my cheeks, then skipped one over my lips before he asked, “Where’d Ransome go?”
“Cash took him down the banks a way.”
“How’s he doing?”
Jane spoke up, “The episode didn’t last long. Now he feels like a turd in a punch bowl.”
“He couldn’t help it.” Reardon frowned.
“We’ll go talk to him.”
As we walked down the rutted path, feisty fiddler crabs scuttled this way and that. The tang from the marsh was piquant and creek birds nattered away in the hollow of waves washing ashore until we came upon Ransome’s bass voice. “Sure is a looker.”
“Yep, pretty as a penny, that Shay.”
“You two good-for-nothings can stop talking about Shay right about now.”
The boys cracked up as we brushed aside the bulrushes, coming to a stop in front of them.
Peering at his brother, Ransome said, “And next time I have a lapse, I’d ’preciate it if you don’t go grannyin’ me up. Don’t need no blanket over my legs. Not dead yet.”
Everyone gulped.
Ransome let out, “Yeah. I’m sorry ’bout before, too. Man, I’m so fuckin’–shit, sorry Shay–FUBAR today.”
Sloping to the sand, Reardon teepeed his knees and pulled me between them. He reached over and clasped his brother’s shoulder.
“It wasn’t my intention to let slip,” Ransome finished. Pain twisted his face. “I was back with Will.”
Massaging the big shoulder he held, Reardon said, “I know.”
“Miss that little man so much,” Ransome choked out. His eyes narrowed over the sun-shattered water. “Good to talk about him though. Remember the time we had him down here? Oooh boy! Leila was so pissed. Mud up to his armpits and him out oystering with us? Lookin’ for pearls, wasn’t he?” He passed his shirtsleeve across his eyes. “‘Pearls to make my mom a necklace for her birfday.’ What was it he gave her in the end?”
“A handful of magic rocks.” Reardon laughed.
“Bet she still has ’em.”
“She always did.”
“She weren’t so bad.”
“No, she wasn’t.” Reardon tucked a wayward strand behind my ear. “We weren’t ever right together though. Anyway, today you did what I was too–”
“Too pussy to do yourself.” Cash ended the solemn conversation with a tweak of his ’stache.
I smothered my laughter until Reardon jostled behind me.
Bundling me up when he stood, he asked his brother, “We good?”
“Solid.”
There was a round of fist bumps.