Never Did Say

by C. M. Stunich

  “You shouldn't have done what you did, but I'm thankful for it.”

  Ty steps in close, cocooning our little McCabe family unit in a tight warmth that makes my heart swell at the same moment it cracks for Beth. For Darla.

  “I'd do anything for you, Never Ross. I told you that before, that I'd wade through knee-deep shit for you? Well, I meant the fuck out of that. I want you to remember that.” He kisses my forehead and I sigh. “What now?”

  “I think I need to find Jade,” I tell him and he nods, lips pursed. We're both scared for Jade, both see signs of the same darkness that taints our own souls. I put my hand on his hard bicep and squeeze, enjoying the strength of the muscles beneath his inked flesh. “If I'm not back in twenty minutes, come looking for me.” I'm only half joking; Jade can be a real bitch sometimes.

  “I'll miss you to the moon and back,” Ty says with a wink. I give both the McCabe boys a kiss on the cheek and head up the stairs to find my little sister. Not surprisingly, her door is locked, but I knock anyway and lean my forehead against the wood.

  “Go away.” I can barely hear her over the music blasting in the background. I have no idea what she's listening to, but it's God awful, some kind of dubstep-techno bullshit.

  “It's me,” I say and then pause, trying to come up with some valid reason for her to let me in. A heart-to-heart isn't exactly high on Jade's list of things to do. I consider asking for a tampon before I remember that I'm still pregnant. My stomach roils and I rest my fingers gently against the tender skin beneath my shirt. “I found some butterfly earrings on the mantle, and I thought they might be yours.”

  I know that Jade knows Mom was wearing butterfly earrings, that she'll do anything to get her hands on them. I hate that I'm manipulating her, but I chalk it up to tough love and let it go.

  The handle twists and I step back to wait, watching as Jade sticks out a single hand, palm up.

  “Give them to me,” she says a split second before I shove my elbow against the door and force my way in. “What the fuck, Never?” Jade spits, shaking her head in disgust, but she doesn't try to stop me. One good thing about being a prego bitch is that everyone acts like I'm made of glass. I can pretty much get away with anything right now.

  I slam the door closed behind me and flick the lock.

  “There are no earrings. Sorry. Mom must've taken those along with Darla.”

  “Darla's missing?” Jade asks, and from the sound of her voice I can tell so many things. First, she had no idea what our mother was planning. Second, she wishes my mom had taken her instead. I glance over my shoulder and find Jade's face in a rarely seen light – a soft, aching hurt spreading there like cancer. As soon as she realizes I'm looking, it's gone, replaced with a false hardness, like an eggshell. Sure, it keeps the yolk inside, but a small tumble will send it all to shit.

  “Mom took Darla,” I repeat, watching as my sister turns and leans into the mirror, rubbing a bright red lipstick across her mouth. She's only twenty-one, but she looks much older right now, dressed in an old leather jacket that I'm almost positive used to belong to our mother. Jade's makeup is thick and harsh, hiding her natural beauty behind a splattered mask of cosmetics. Fuck. She reminds me so much of myself that it's scary. I have to stop this, to help her, before it's too late. I was lucky; Ty was lucky. Some people don't get so lucky. Some people don't get to live. “You didn't know anything about that, did you?”

  I can see from her face that she doesn't, but she just shrugs and acts like she doesn't give a shit.

  “No, I didn't, so why don't you get the hell out? Why lie to me just to come in here and bitch like Beth? I'll tell you what I told her: I already have a mom, so I don't need another one.” Jade pauses and her expression shifts like a kaleidoscope. “Especially not one that disappeared without a word for five freaking years.”

  I close my eyes tight to gather myself. Jade is used to lashing out with hatred and anger, just so she can get some sort of reaction back. I won't give it to her; I can't.

  “I hate you, Never,” Jade hisses at me. “From the bottom of my heart, I hate every last inch of you.”

  If I let old memories take hold of me and dig their fingers in, I might as well go back to California and start sleeping around again. Things are different; I am different.

  “Why did you tell Angelica all of the things Ty told you? I thought we were better, Jade. I thought we were doing okay. You said you were sorry, I said I was sorry, we were making progress.”

  Silence.

  My sister says nothing, smearing ever more liner across her already glimmering lids.

  I lean against her door and cringe when something sharp pokes me in the spine. It's a reindeer antler, part of some elaborately decorated wreath that would be more at home on an episode of Hoarders than in Noah's beautiful cabin. I wrinkle my nose at it and yank it off the nail, tossing it onto the dresser to my left. If I move away from this door, Jade will bail.

  “Jade, talk to me. I know you're upset about what happened with Angelica in the living room. I saw your face.”

  “You don't know fucking everything, Never. You're not like a sage or something.”

  I sigh but force myself to take a deep breath. Jade and I have done this dance before, more times than I can even count. Our problems started before I left and they're not going to disappear just because I came back. Sometimes, the only way to go forward, is to take a few, careful steps back.

  “What happened with Mom?” I repeat, determined to get down to the bottom of this. My sister might be stubborn, but I know I can beat her out any day. The one nice thing about taking a class at the school of hard knocks is that the tough as nails shit, that crap sticks. Even in the best of times, you get to keep it. “Did it have something to do with the photo album?”

  Jade goes stone still, the hand holding her eyeliner dropping to the vanity top with a thump. She turns around to look at me in her tattered skinny jeans and her red midriff top, like she knows what she's doing, like she's totally comfortable with everything that's happening around her. Only I can see that it's all a lie.

  “I see through you,” I tell her. “And I love you anyway. No, actually, I love you because of what I see.”

  “Nobody loves me,” Jade says, and then tears start to fall, big black streaks that cut across her rouged cheeks like swords. “Not Angelica, not Luis … ” She reaches up to brush her fingertips across the wetness on her face, like she's surprised to find it there. See what I mean? Jade's shell has just cracked, and it was that simple. See, Jade Regali wants to be loved. It really is that simple, but it's not that easy.

  At least, she doesn't think it is.

  For me, it's easy to love her.

  “I love you, Jade,” I tell her, watching as her defenses crumble and she slumps to the bed, makeup falling from her fingers like it doesn't matter anymore. I make my way over and sit down, drawing her head to my shoulder. “And whatever happened, whatever you're upset about, that's okay, too.”

  “I took the album, Never,” she whispers. “I'm sorry. I took it because I wanted to see him again. I … I wanted to see Dad.”

  When she starts to sob, I reach up and press my palm against her cheek, holding her head to me as tears tickle my own eyes. Despite the cloud of mystery surrounding my father, I think Jade is right about that one thing. He did love us. I know that now. I remember that now.

  “Mom came in and caught me looking at it, and then she just flipped out. She said he wasn't my dad, but Never, Luis isn't my dad either.” Her voice hitches on that creature's name, hinting at yet another untold story. Instead of asking about it, I hold her tighter and close my eyes, trying to get a hold of my emotions. “I hope Darla's okay,” she whispers.

  “I hope Darla's okay, too,” I whisper back.

  Knowing Angelica though, that might just be wishful thinking.

  14

  We welcome the New Year in with a phone call.

  It's the kind everyone always dreads getting, bu
t somehow always expects.

  Lacey, Trini, Jade, and I are sitting on the couch in the living room with glasses of champagne (or in my case, sparkling apple cider) watching Ty McCabe take turns dancing with each of my little sisters. Pretty sure India, Lettie, and Lorri are all in love with him. But that's okay. In fact, I'm glad. Ty's a positive male role model and us Regalis, we could really use some more of that.

  Beth answers the call when it comes in, red face stained and puffy, hand resting on her cell for a confirmation call from Zella and Noah, something that says they made it home okay, even if Angelica isn't there.

  I rest my feet on bitch-Never's back, burying my toes in her fur and smile when she stretches and yawns instead of biting me. That's a fucking first. I take this as a good sign, of great things to come. After all, Jade and I just took another step on our journey to recovery. That, and Ty McCabe is a beautiful whirlwind of a man, my other half, my soul mate. Plus, life is made up of hills and valleys. I just plunged deep into one, said goodbye to a baby I didn't really want but that I think I kind of needed.

  I turn the page of the album and brush a thumb over some singe marks.

  “Hello?” Beth asks, voice wary and unfocused, like she's in another world. I'm worried about Darla, yes, but Mom managed to keep us alive all those years and we turned out okay. I think my mother's laziness will win out and we'll end up back with Darla in a very short period of time. I really don't think anything bad is going to happen. Until it does, that is. Guess I'm still in one of those valleys, and the climb up the opposite side seems like a far flung dream. “Yes, Angelica Regali is my mother.”

  I pause in my page turning to glance over at my sister.

  Pause. Pause. Pause.

  Pain.

  It crashes over her in a terrible wave that chills me straight to my toes.

  “Oh my God, no,” she says and the wavering in her voice sends me straight to my feet. I manage to make it over to her and take the phone before it falls from her fingers.

  “Hello? Miss Regali?” The voice on the other end of the line is male, unfamiliar, distant. “Hello?”

  “This is Never Regali,” I say, taking my old name for the sake of convenience. “Beth's sister. May I ask who this is?”

  “This is Bruce Goodkind with the Mississippi State Troopers.”

  Fuck.

  I feel the blood drain from my face.

  Ty is looking right at me now, holding Lorri's hands in his, pausing right in the middle of his silly little slow dance. Our eyes meet and I start to shake.

  “I'm sorry to have to give this kind of news over the phone, but there was nobody at the residence.”

  “We're at my friend's cabin. For Christmas,” I add unnecessarily. Bruce pauses for a moment and continues on, obviously sympathetic but still very professional.

  “Miss Regali, I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but we've just recovered your mother's body from the scene of an accident on I-55.” I stand still and silent because I can't think of anything to say, not a single fucking thing.

  My mother is dead?

  “What about Darla?” I whisper, the intangible whisper of my fear nipping at the backs of my knees and forcing me to the ground. Ty's there to catch me before I hit the floor, pulling me up and hugging me to his chest. “My little sister. There should've been a little girl in the car with her.”

  Beside me, Beth bites back a wail and clamps her hands over her mouth. Tears stream from her too wide eyes like waterfalls, crashing against her shaking fingers and pooling on her cheeks. Somehow it feels like an eternity before the officer answers me.

  I'm already too aware of all the expectant eyes facing my way, eyes who will fill with tears and drip heavy melancholy down a host of faces too young to understand that our mother wasn't worth crying over. I can't tell them their little sister is dead, too. No, please. Fate can't possibly be so cruel. Haven't I been dealt enough bad hands? Haven't I already paid my debts? I gave up my dignity to the cruelty of the world, gave up my father, gave up my baby.

  My head spins and I have to lean even harder against Ty to stay upright.

  “I apologize, ma'am,” he begins and my heart explodes into a million pieces. “But we didn't find anyone else in the car.”

  15

  I hang up the phone and turn to Beth, Ty's hands sliding off my shoulders as he waits for me to explain what's going on. I glance back at him briefly and see it in his face: he already knows. Or maybe, because we're connected by a tangled web of black decorated with stars, he can just can feel it.

  “Darla?” Beth asks, and I whip my head back around to look at her. Strangely, I feel a tickle on my cheeks and reach up to find tears. I tell myself I'm only crying because I'm scared for Darla, that I don't give a crap about Angelica Regali, but I'm also nearly certain that isn't true.

  “She wasn't with her,” I say and Beth's face goes through a series of emotions, each one a fractured sister to the last, all of them pain and heartache and fear. “She wasn't in the car, but they're going to look for her. They want us to send some pictures in.”

  “What's going on?” India asks, voice wavering. I want to turn around and tell her, let the words spill from my lips, but I can't seem to move. Beth and I are just sitting there staring at one another, too shocked to move.

  “Okay kiddos,” Ty says, clapping his hands together in a jingle of bracelets. “Who wants to go outside and bang some pots and pans to welcome in the New Year?”

  “Me, me!” Lorri shouts from behind me. Her voice is so … innocent, like bells or something. When she finds out, will that sound die away like it was never there, snatched away by the wind of fate?

  “I guess,” Lettie concedes as I force myself to turn and look at India and Jade, both waiting with white faces, trembling lips, tightly clenched fingers. I glance at Ty again for strength.

  “We'll help, won't we, Trini?” Lacey says, standing up and dragging her girlfriend into the kitchen by the hand. Ty takes this opportunity to come over to me, bracketing my face between his hands. The bandage scrapes my face on one side while his rings brush against the other.

  “It'll be okay, baby. Really, it will.”

  He kisses the tears from each of my eyelids and then presses a single salty peck to my lips before moving away, leaving me alone with my sisters.

  “We have to find Darla,” Beth whispers, her voice a trembling garble of words, barely understandable. “She could be anywhere. She could've flown through the windshield and died.” Her voice rises with each word until she's nearly hysterical.

  “Darla's dead?” India screeches, shaking like she's having a seizure. “No. No. No.”

  “Darla isn't dead!” I snap, grabbing Beth by the shoulders and squeezing until she looks up at me. Her face is barely recognizable right now, and for once, she looks her age. This, this isn't Beth the nursemaid and the nanny, the mother and the hardworking matriarch of the Regali family. This right here is twenty-four year old and terrified, overwhelmed and overworked, underappreciated Beth Ruby Regali. “Darla isn't dead,” I repeat and sit down on the couch next to her. My brain is firing on all the wrong circuits right now, and I can hardly think clearly. Only … I have to. I have to be the strong one right now and it hurts, really, really hurts. “Darla isn't dead. We'll find her, Beth.” I hug my eldest sister to me and run my fingers through her tangled copper hair.

  India and Jade wait for me to say something, their faces promising that they're already halfway certain they know what I'm going to say.

  “Darla's okay?” India asks, but I'm not sure how to answer that question. The word okay is such a relative term. Is her body in the morgue with our mother? Doubtful. My guess is that Angelica dropped her off with some 'family friend' along the highway. Wouldn't be the first time.

  “Darla's missing,” I say. One, two, three. Breath. Breath. Breath. “Mom is dead.”

  “Mom is … ?” India begins, wrinkling her brow like she can't comprehend what it is that I'm
saying. Jade, on the other hand, oh poor Jade.

  “No!” she screams, sliding onto the floor on her knees. Her hazel eyes look like they've been flecked with red, bloodshot and so frightened I can hardly comprehend the depths of her pain. “No! Not my mommy. Mommy. Mommy. MOMMY!” Jade collapses to the floor and hugs herself with her arms. India tries to go to her, but she's flailing and rolling around on her back. Her screams devolve to the point where none of us can understand her anymore. “I want my mommy!” she cries again, and then I start to cry for her, falling to the floor and crawling over to her frail, shaking form.

  I drag Jade's head into my lap and try to calm her down, but it doesn't work.

  “I want my momma,” she whimpers, snot and tears running down her face, smearing what's left of her makeup. “Bring her back. Bring my momma back.”

  Momma.

  I try to think of a good memory, some part of Angelica that was good.

  She wanted my dad dead.

  And now I'll never really know if that's true.

  Angelica has taken her secrets six feet under.

  I can only hope she doesn't take this family with her.

  16

  “I want a cigarette so bad I could kill for it,” I tell Ty, clutching one of my sister's Newports in my shaking fingers. I put it between my lips, but I don't smoke it. I won't fuck my baby up the way Angelica fucked up me and my sisters. “Smoke one for me,” I beg, but Ty simply steals the cig from my lips and twirls it around in his ringed fingers.

  “It's okay to cry,” he tells me, but we both know I know that. “It's also okay not to.”

  “I don't know how to feel,” I admit, thinking of Jade lying on the couch with her eyes wide and empty. I'm so scared that this event is going to be her trigger, turn her into the miserable, self-hating girl that I once was. But what can I do about it? I can't bring Angelica back, can't change years of bad memories and neglect. “It's so weird losing someone you're supposed to care about, but … but don't.”

  I glance over at Ty, at the silver ring between his nostrils, the perfect curve of his lips. If anyone can understand what I'm going through right now, it's him. I watch as he stares off across the lake, into the darkness and the trees that hide the world's secrets safely away from us.