Songbird (Bellator Saga Book 7)

by Cecilia London

  She then offered to drive me home but I needed to be by myself. I had a timeline and a plan for how my personal transition would take place, and I promised I’d call her as soon as I got settled. Or rather, I pinky swore. Caroline took the tail end of our slumber party rather seriously when it came to emulating the practices of preteen girls.

  I didn’t like January 20. It had nothing to do with inaugurals or winter or seasonal affective disorder or anything else. Roger Bailey may have freed me from my whitewashed cage earlier in the day, but he couldn’t erase the memory of a wintry night spent traveling from Bryn Mawr to Harrisburg to points further north. Things had started to fall apart long before then, but that was the date that stuck most vividly in my mind.

  I hadn’t been to the cemetery since Christmas morning, when I’d met Caroline at the dual gravesite. Then, as now, my agents had the wherewithal to keep their distance. Snows had fallen and melted and fallen again, and the ground was still hard. Spring wouldn’t come for months. The bouquets I’d laid across the markers had dried and frozen in place in the month I’d been away, and I replaced them with freshly cut flowers. Ridiculously expensive since they were well out of season, but worth the cost.

  I always talked to Jessica first. It was easier that way.

  “I brought you some lilies,” I said softly. “They were hard to find, but they’re your favorite, so…” I crossed my arms over my chest, hugging myself. “It seemed like the right thing to do.”

  Two headstones, next to each other. Father and daughter. Both stamped with the Sullivan crest and the family motto, Lamh foistenach abứ. Loosely translated as the gentle hand to victory. Very fitting.

  Two headstones, marking where no bodies lay. I tried my best while in office to discover where they were taken, how their bodies were treated, whether they were allowed dignity in death. I had yet to receive the answers I wanted. All I knew was that I was alive and they weren’t.

  “You have to settle for forget-me-nots, Thomas,” I said, laying the flowers on his headstone. “Because you never once tired of lecturing me on my lack of sentimentality.”

  I knelt in the snow, knowing the action would likely destroy my wool dress pants. “I’m not president anymore. But you know that.”

  A small amount of slushy mud had accumulated on the Siobhan on Jessica’s headstone, and I wiped it away. “Can’t go covering up your glorious middle name. I may not like it very much but your father does.”

  It seemed so silly to be so irreverent while kneeling on this consecrated ground, but it was the only way I could get through my visits without crying. Alas, my efforts to stay remote were for naught, because a sob slipped out.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “You’d be twenty-five now and it’s hard for me not to think about what you might be like if you were still here. If all of us were together. You’d love your nephews. They’re little and cute and hyper and all they want to do is give me kisses when they’re covered in sticky stuff. Susannah’s a good mother. Better than I was. I’ve been trying really hard with her.”

  Well, that was a blatant lie. The spirit world was certain to recognize prevarication when they heard it. “Okay. I’m going to try harder with your sister. I want you to know that. But we’ve got a lot of things to fix before we get to where we need to be.”

  I wiped my eyes and averted my gaze. “Tom. I hated this past month in the White House but you would have loved it. I don’t know what I’m going to do now. I’m going home after this. To our house. I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle it, so I hope you’ll help me out.”

  A tear rolled down my cheek and plopped into the snow. “It’s been almost three years,” I whispered. Or, two years, eleven months, and twenty-four days, if you were counting. And I was. “Three years of knowing everything would be so much easier if you were here.” I fished around in my coat pocket for a tissue, blowing my nose. “I know why you both did what you did. I’m grateful for it. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for your valor. But I’m still having a hard time reckoning the necessity of it all.”

  I blew out a breath. “Caroline and the girls are doing well. So is Jack. Susannah’s trying to get me to date again but…” I patted the flowers on Tom’s headstone. “It doesn’t feel right. I know she means well. I know she misses you as much as I do. I just feel like she’s pushing it more for herself than for me. Maybe she’s worried about me, I don’t know. She hasn’t said anything but you know how it is between us.” I started weeping again. “How am I supposed to find a man who treated me with the gentleness you always showed? Who loved me the way you did? She keeps pushing this lawyer from her firm on me and the last thing I want to do is have some man making bad legal jokes in a cheap attempt to get into my panties.” I stole a glance at Jessica’s headstone. “Jessie, you should probably stop listening when I’m talking to your father.”

  Washington had given me a host of convenient excuses over the past few months. I hadn’t had to think about the house in Bryn Mawr. I’d been able to defer my grief, too focused on the tasks involved in rebuilding a country to worry about rebuilding myself. I’d brushed off Susannah’s repeated attempts to play matchmaker, but had failed to put my foot down and eliminate the possibility entirely. I was fairly certain my diffidence would come back to bite me at some point, but I wasn’t going to worry about that now.

  I wiped my eyes again before standing up. The knees of my pants were soaked. I blew a kiss before brushing my fingertips across the tops of both headstones.

  “I love you,” I whispered. “I’ll be back soon.”

  I turned around, heading toward the waiting limo. It was time to go home.

  Chapter 4

  “Homecoming Queen,” her mother said. “Wow.”

  “How many boys did you let feel you up so you could rig the vote?” her father asked.

  Christine spotted the empty bottle on the table. She didn’t want to get too close to him. She knew he’d reek.

  She’d come home with good news. Really good news. News that would make any normal parent proud. She never got into trouble but she picked and chose what she told her parents, even the good stuff. National Honor Society and Key Club and Science Fair awards and everything else didn’t mean much to them, mostly because of her father’s desire to keep her mother in a state of perpetual fear and ignorance. But Homecoming Queen… Christine had hoped that would matter. In some way. Because it was one of those weird accomplishments that wasn’t really an accomplishment at all, merely a cultural touchstone that could bridge generational gaps. What parent wouldn’t gloat at the idea of their daughter on the Flint Central High School Homecoming Court?

  Why did her father always say such hurtful things? He knew her mother had raised her properly. But he tossed those insults at her anyway. She was too beautiful, too smart, too talented…it had been silly to hope he’d be proud of her for simply existing in the first place.

  Nothing was good enough, whether it was success or failure. She didn’t know what she had to do to keep him happy except avoid his unpredictable wrath as much as possible.

  “None, daddy,” she said softly. “You know I don’t—”

  “Nothing else explains it,” he spat.

  The boys had never touched her but maybe he was right. Maybe she’d done something to lead them on somehow. Maybe the people who had voted for her didn’t really like her at all. Maybe this was all some superb plan for her humiliation. She didn’t have many friends. What if it was all a joke?

  No, she knew better. True, she never let anyone get too close to her, because that would mean admitting to her friends exactly what her home life was like. But her grades didn’t lie. Her academic awards didn’t lie. The votes didn’t lie.

  I’m pretty, she thought. And smart. And I have a future. And that drives you crazy because you have no control over those parts of me.

  But she knew what came after the comments and the lectures. Especially with that empty bottle of Thunderbird dripping its dregs onto the tab
le. It hadn’t been his first drink of the day and it surely wouldn’t be the last. She had to mitigate the damage. “I—”

  “I’m proud of you,” her mother blurted out. “Really proud.”

  Disagreeing with the man of the house was not the best way to keep yourself safe. Christine’s mother knew that. What was she doing?

  “Thanks,” Christine whispered.

  “Don’t fucking congratulate her,” her father slurred. “She hasn’t earned shit. Never has. No one in this family earns their keep.”

  Garbled nonsense language that made no sense, but it rarely did. Not even when he was sober.

  “Go upstairs, Chris,” her mother said quietly, gesturing toward the corner of the table.

  Mail. Lots of mail. Some of it even looked good. All with her name on it. Usually Christine put up a defense, made her mother beg her to leave the room more than once. Tried to delay the inevitable. But today she didn’t have the courage to protect her.

  Christine scooped up the packets and brochures and didn’t wait for the yelling to start. The screaming.

  The hitting.

  He didn’t even have the decency to wait until Christine got upstairs before she heard the first smack of his palm against her mother’s cheek. She ran to her bedroom, locking the door behind her. The only private place she managed to have in a house that felt nothing like a home.

  Music. She needed music. She hit play on her boombox, hoping a few Madonna songs would lift her rapidly dwindling spirits.

  Christine had received a ton of brochures from colleges and universities ever since she’d gotten a sky-high score on her SATs. Not that her father cared; things like that weren’t important if you were a Spencer. Working folks, that’s what they were. Didn’t need a fancy-pants education to do good honest work.

  Funny how he didn’t say it as often now that his work had vanished.

  Her father probably thought she’d cheated anyway. Or flashed the proctor. Or done whatever else he seemed to think intellectually gifted and/or beautiful people did to screw those below them on the societal ladder.

  He truly believed they thought he was beneath them. Christine didn’t intend to correct him. In her mind, he was. And it had nothing to do with his level of intellect, his grimy hands, or his ugly face.

  He’d been laid off, called back, laid off again. It happened so often that she could time her watch by his mood swings. Or by whether an unemployment check was coming or not. Most of the time, it was not. She knew she couldn’t blame him for Fisher Body closing; the fault for that lay with General Motors. And one Roger Bonham Smith.

  Christine had a number of voodoo dolls dedicated to him scattered throughout the house, with pins placed in very fitting locations. She suspected her mother did too but as a devout Catholic, she was probably more inclined to light a candle and sneak in a less-than-charitable prayer while doing so.

  She pulled a cardboard box out from under the bed, flipping through the contents. So many glossy booklets, advertising educational wares she could not afford. She’d look at all those smiling faces—because the students seemed so happy—and dream of getting away… far, far away. Maybe Los Angeles, or Boston, or Philadelphia. Philadelphia seemed nice.

  But she knew it wouldn’t happen. She sure as hell wasn’t going to get any money for college. She’d have to do it on her own, which meant East Lansing or Ann Arbor, if she was being realistic. Even then it was a stretch. But she’d applied to MSU and the U of M nonetheless. She’d already been admitted to Michigan State. No word yet from the University of Michigan.

  Was this the day she was waiting for? It was unusual for her mother to be so focused on the mail. The pile she gathered up no doubt consisted of brochures for more faraway schools—nice layouts with beaming, toothy teenagers and school logos, promises of piles and piles of financial aid and low student/faculty ratios, all at institutions she’d never be able to attend. A tease. A cruel reminder that there were some kids who were able to waltz into that world no questions asked, and more kids who would forever be waiting outside the gates. The mailings in that box were pipe dreams. Nothing more.

  But hidden under the pretty pictures was an envelope. A thick one. With a school seal and a return address in Ann Arbor. She tore the packet open. Inside was an admissions letter. A scholarship offer. And another letter inviting her to apply to the LSA Honors Program.

  The Honors Program meant the potential for more financial aid. Meant security. Meant a way out of this fading company town. Meant Christine could write a ticket to anywhere, including medical school and beyond.

  She stared at her bedroom door, listening. Madonna’s sultry lyrics and Christine’s desire for survival had helped her block out the sounds coming from below. Unless they were no longer fighting. Sometimes her father got tired and started drinking again while his wife curled up on the couch trying to figure out how to yet again hide her bruises from the neighbors.

  Christine flipped through the papers. She could do this. She could apply. There was no harm in trying.

  She picked up a pen and began to write.

  *****

  A lot of people fled Flint in the 1980s. Once I got a free ride to the University of Michigan, I joined them. I hopped a bus to Ann Arbor, kissed my mother, promised to call (but almost never did) and never looked back. I had ambitions that Genesee County couldn’t contain.

  I left Chris Spencer, Flint Central Salutatorian, Homecoming Queen, and Prom Queen behind, along with a handful of acquaintances and my parents. My brains had gotten me out of that dilapidated house just outside downtown, but book smarts wouldn’t be enough to eradicate my fear of a destitute existence. It took every bit of my intelligence and tenacity to keep me from ever having to go back to that life again.

  I stared at the array of photo frames with familiar faces staring back at me from on top of the living room fireplace mantel. The usual suspects—several photos of Tom and me, a couple of Caroline and her family, or both of our families together, a few rather dated pictures of my children… and the image I hadn’t expected: my parents standing next to me at my high school convocation. Neither of them looked particularly joyful but I looked as happy as a damn clam. I still regretted not being able to coax a smile out of my mother that day. But she knew—we both knew—that the day I received my diploma was the day everything changed.

  The picture on my mantel was surely Caroline’s doing, since she’d gotten the house presentable for me. I couldn’t blame her for putting it there. I’d been about as tight lipped as you could when it came to my parents. She knew little more than that my childhood had been difficult, because that was the extent of the information I was willing to volunteer. And yet, to see that man with his arm around my mother, knowing the way he treated us and in particular, the way he treated her…

  No, I couldn’t be mad at Caroline. Some well-meaning cleaning person had probably found the picture shoved in a corner with a bunch of other debris and thought it valuable. In her inimitable way, Caroline thought she was doing me a favor by framing a forgotten family photo.

  In contrast, I could make sure that rat bastard found his way into the wastebasket with the rest of the garbage. I had better pictures of my mother the way I wanted to remember her. The way I wanted to forget my father.

  I took the picture out of the frame and tore the corner off. I could have found a pair of scissors and cut my father out properly, but it was much more effective to let my unresolved anger manifest in brutal rage. Maybe it could be a salvageable photo of just my mother and me. And maybe the rest of the house wouldn’t be as unsettling.

  I didn’t have much to unpack, except for clothes. I went from room to room, checking for dust out of habit, blocking out any and all memories that cropped up. By the time I put fresh sheets onto the bed Tom and I had shared, I was exhausted. I gazed at the picture of the two of us on the nightstand. Taken when I was sworn in as a United States Senator. Oh, how things had changed since that day.

  “I don
’t know if this is going to work, Thomas. Something’s off.”

  *****

  Christine didn’t mind eating alone. She preferred it. She could swallow her food faster, hit the books sooner, put in all the extra work she knew she’d have to do to make herself a success.

  The University of Pennsylvania. Oldest medical school in the country. She’d busted her ass in Ann Arbor and it had paid off in spades. Her only regret was that she hadn’t spent much time with her mother before leaving for Philadelphia.

  As she aged, her mother had grown less skilled at hiding her bruises. Her father was still a rotten, mean, unremorseful drunk. Christine had spent the better part of a day trying to get her mother to come with her to Pennsylvania, but in the end, her efforts had been unsuccessful.

  Once her mother started talking about love and marriage vows and commitment and loyalty, Christine had to tap out. Though she did promise that if her mother ever changed her mind, the offer was still open.

  Christine knew her mother would never leave her father. But she kept suggesting it anyway.

  She balled up the cellophane in her hand, tossing it in the garbage can next to the park bench she’d been seated on. Her afternoon was free. She was about to head to a study carrel to squeeze out a few more hours of reading when she saw a tall, reddish-blond young man walking toward her. Straight toward her. There was no one else around so he had to be coming for her.

  She thought he looked familiar. Was he in her class? There was no time for her to ponder it further, because he was right in front of her.