by DC Renee
It was then that I noticed she didn’t have a cup of coffee in her hand. In fact, I hadn’t seen her with a cup of coffee in roughly a week – since she’d started making mine.
“Oh God, have you been putting something in my coffee this week?” I asked.
“No, now drink up,” she ordered.
“Yeah, Lise, that’s gonna be a no.”
“Ugh,” she said and threw her hands up. “You’re so frustrating, and you really know how to kill a surprise,” she told me as she grabbed the cup from my hands. I watched as she poured the remainder of the coffee into the sink before bringing the cup back to me. “There, surprise killer, take a look.”
I took the plain white mug from her but continued to look at her expectantly.
“Inside, Nolan,” she said with a roll of her eyes as she pointed at the cup.
I looked down, read the words, and looked back up. I knew I looked like I was in shock— happy shock—as my eyes started to glass over. Inside the mug that looked identical to all our other mugs was written, slightly blurred from the coffee remnants, “Congrats Daddy.”
“Lise?” I asked, hope blooming throughout my chest.
“I had this grand plan, getting that mug made specially for this. I figured you’d drink, look down, and voila. This isn’t exactly how I pictured it going down, but yes,” she said, nodding. “We’re having a baby.”
“We’re having a baby,” I repeated. “We’re having a baby,” I said once more, awe in my voice. And then it hit me. I was going to be a dad. Annalise had a little piece of me and her inside her right now … made from love.
I put the mug down and scooped her up in my arms, twirling her like we were in some kind of movie before capturing her lips with mine. I kissed her hard before pulling away and then setting her down. She was laughing.
“I didn’t think I could love you more,” I told her, “but I do.”
“I love you too,” she told me, her happiness apparent for another moment before I saw the brightness start to dim before my eyes. “I’m scared,” she admitted. “We’re not fighting for just me and you anymore, Nolan. Tell me we’re going to be okay. Tell me we’re all going to be okay.”
I would do everything in my power to make it so. I’d die trying if I had to. “We’re going to be okay.” I hoped I wasn’t lying.
She nodded in response and pulled me to her, placing her head on my chest, hugging me close. I felt her silent tears, the way her body shook as she held onto me as if I were her life raft to prevent her from drowning.
If I hadn’t believed it before, I believed it then that I’d done this to us. I’d broken us before we were even fully whole.
“We’re going to be okay,” I repeated over and over as I rubbed her back, willing her to believe me … willing the words to be true.
I woke up with a gasp. I’d lied. The words weren’t true. And looking back, I think she knew.
“I’M GETTING COMPLAINTS, Nolan,” my father told me after he found me sitting in my living room, staring at nothing.
He’d been checking on me every day since the funeral, more often than not finding me in the same position. The first few days, he sat with me. Not saying a word, he gave me comfort with his presence and solidarity with his silence. For the next week, he tried to talk to me. Small talk, really. Things about my cousins, things about the business, things about Lily, even things about the world around us. I barely responded, and when I did, it was one-word answers.
Everyone was going on about their lives like the sun hadn’t permanently set. Because that was how I felt. When Annalise died, she took all the light with her. There was now only darkness, morning, noon, and night. How did one function in a pitch-black world? You didn’t. You just rode it out until the darkness consumed you like a black hole.
After that unsuccessful week, my father brought Lily, and together they took turns trying to talk to me. For my dad, it was still small talk, but Lily turned on her motherly charm and tried to get me to open up about Annalise.
“Don’t let her memory die on your lips, Nolan. Don’t forget her inside your heart and keep her hidden inside your soul. Tell me something about her,” she urged. “Tell me something good that I don’t know.”
My head immediately filled with good memories, each one threating to spill out of me like a broken dam, but I couldn’t bring myself to say the words. It was too painful.
When I stayed silent, Lily did stuff around the house. She cleaned up after me, doing the laundry and preparing food. Then she’d try to talk again, but it was no use. I was a shell of who I’d been, and shells didn’t have voices.
This lasted another few days before my dad tried again.
“I’m worried about you,” he told me at last. He hadn’t needed to say the words for me to understand his concern, but he finally voiced them out loud. I’d been waiting for them to come.
“I know,” I told him.
“I lost your mother when you were only eight years old,” he told me. “I wanted to do exactly what you’ve been doing this past month, Nolan, trust me on that, but I had a little boy who needed me, so I couldn’t do it. I had you to live for. I know you don’t have that, Nolan, and I know I’m the reason. I know I took it away from you. Believe me when I say I’m living in my own version of hell, spiked with a heavy dose of guilt and regret, but it meant saving you. Don’t let that go to waste. Don’t survive this life as if I’d shot you too. Live because Annalise’s death gave you life.”
“Don’t,” I threatened. “You …”
“Hate me, Nolan. I deserve it. I know I do. I don’t want you to, but I want you to have some emotion. And if it’s hate, then so be it. Rage at me, hit me, kick me out, do something.”
“I can’t,” I whispered. I wish I could do those things. But the truth was that I didn’t hate my dad. I hated what he did, but I didn’t hate him. I just didn’t think he had a right to discuss Annalise’s death or my life. But even if I did hate him, I couldn’t muster the emotions to do anything about it. My dad was right; I was surviving, not living. How could I when I was dead inside?
He tried this, telling me he was worried, encouraging me to get up and live for another few days. Still nothing.
That was when he told me about the complaints.
“The family is worried that you’re emotionally unstable.” I snorted at this. I wasn’t emotionally unstable because I simply had no emotions.
“I just lost my wife, at my hand, for all they know. Am I not allowed time to grieve?”
“Grieve, yes, Nolan, but not fall off the face of the earth. You’re being irresponsible.” I knew those weren’t his words. He was just relaying what my family was muttering under their breaths just loud enough for all to hear, my father included, especially my father.
Despite what the movies portrayed, we didn’t have a Don or a Godfather in our family. We had elders, whose words held more weight because of their age and knowledge, and then we had the responsible parties and the not-so-responsible parties. Those roles just came naturally as children grew into adults. The elders saw who could handle what and steered them into those positions. I had always been considered responsible, so I held an executive position for that reason. And right now, I wasn’t responsible. I was neglecting my duties. I was neglecting all that the family held dear. I wasn’t doing my job. And that meant, essentially, that I was turning my back on the family. And we already knew how important being a part of the family was.
“So what do they want me to do?” I asked, emotions finally finding purchase inside me, my words filled with venom, my anger almost sarcastic.
My dad blinked with a bit of shock but cleared his surprise a moment later. “You know,” he said more quietly.
“Return to work,” I stated flatly. “Like everything is fucking peachy.”
“Don’t give them more reason to hate you, Nolan. No matter what, we’re family. And family is always there for each other.”
“Except when they’re not,�
� I shot back.
“Except when they’re not,” my dad repeated the words back to me, his tone solemn.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll be back at work tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” he told me. He knew if it were up to me, my family could go to hell. They’d done this. When I needed them, they turned their backs on me, casting their vote toward the snake in the family. “Family.” Ha, what a fucking joke. Families didn’t kill their own. Except mine …
I didn’t agree to go back because of them. They could kill me if they wanted, and I wouldn’t give a damn. No, I agreed because I couldn’t do that to my dad. I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, he felt a type of guilt I couldn’t process because of what he’d done to save me. To die too would mean Annalise’s death—murder—was in vain.
“But,” I said as he made his way to the door, “they’re my family no more.”
He nodded his understanding and turned back to the door. Walking out without glancing back, he left me to my grief, my solitude, and my pain once more.
IT’S AMAZING THE kind of muscle memory you retain. I’d been back at work for three weeks, and I was going through the motions. I showed force when I needed to, I smiled when appropriate, and I said all the right words, yet something was missing. It was obvious even to me, so I knew everyone around me felt it too.
I couldn’t say I was ever truly passionate about my job. I was good at it and despite the illegal nature of my family’s line of work, I was proud of it. You could credit my family with saving some leaders, mitigating some conflicts, and even stopping some attacks. Of course, there were the occasional issues when information went to a less than reputable source. I felt guilty about those instances, unlike some of my family, but I just attributed it to the cost of our type of business—the good outweighing the bad.
I liked working with my family, especially my dad. And I liked working with many members of my family. Some not so much.
The point was that before Annalise’s death, I was an active member of the family business. I busted my ass when necessary, I fought when I needed to, and I put pressure on the folks that needed that extra nudge. And I did it all happily and willingly. There was, for lack of a better word, a sort of spark within me when it came to my job.
Now, it was just something I did because I had to. And I honestly didn’t have the desire or care to try to pretend otherwise. I still did all of the above, and I did it well—I thought—but I didn’t do it with the same enthusiasm as before, the same care.
“You’re being sloppy,” my dad warned me.
“I’m doing the job, and I’m doing it well.”
“No, Nolan, you’re making careless mistakes.”
“Nothing that is of substance,” I responded, waving him off.
“Don’t dismiss me. I’m not the only one noticing these things.” I knew he wasn’t chastising me so much as he was trying to protect me. But look what protecting me got me—a widower with my unborn child dead.
“How come no one breathed down Rick’s neck every time he fucked up?” I shot back.
“Because Rick is a fucking screw-up, and everyone knows it. That’s why he gets the shitty jobs and the low-level work. And how many times did you breathe down his neck, Nolan? Too many to count, so yeah, he’s gotten his fair share of wrist slaps.”
“Okay, so I’ll get a slap on the wrist too.”
“No, son, you won’t. You’re in a high position for a reason. You’re doing what you do because you don’t mess up. Your little screw-ups might not mean anything now, but if the family keeps letting them slip, they feel like they’re telling you it’s okay not to be in top form. And you know what that could lead to? Big fucking screw-ups. They don’t want to risk that. You’re becoming a liability.”
“I haven’t done anything to cost us.”
“Yet,” he said, the declaration that I was bound to do something major hanging unsaid in the air.
“I won’t.”
“That’s not good enough. The family wants assurances that you’re not going to rain trouble on them, that you’re not going to cause a war or get people landed behind bars. You need to get your head in the game and stop fucking up. Show them that this was just a little blimp on your radar, and you’re back to your responsible self. Show them they can trust you not to do something that can’t just be swept under the rug.”
“I’ve been doing a damn fine job all my life, and they have the gall to judge me for a few little slips here and there right after I lost my wife. Thanks to them, I might add.”
“You don’t get it. You lost your wife for the same reason. Because they’re a scared bunch. Family or not, you know the rules. You fuck up, you’re out. Don’t give them a reason to get to that point. Shape up. If not for you, if not for Annalise, then for me.”
He was right. But it didn’t mean I could do it. But for him…
“I’ll try.”
“Don’t try, Nolan. Trying will get you killed. Do.”
“I’ll try,” I repeated.
He sighed in response, shook his head, and walked out of the office door.
I knew he was living through his own hell, but he wasn’t living through mine. I was trying the best I could, but it just wasn’t good enough. I’d try a little harder … and I hoped it’d be enough.
“OH, HOW THE mighty have fallen.” Rick’s voice grated on me. His sarcastic tone, the smugness behind his words.
Rick and I were third cousins, but we’d been close growing up. He was the cliché dumb jock, but the values our family held dear had been instilled in him, and he was never mean. Dumb, yes, but not mean. When we both officially joined the family business, it was no surprise that he was more a grunt person, and I was more of a representative. Things were okay for the most part.
Enter Vanessa, his bitch of a wife.
She was just as dumb as Rick, which made them a good pair in that sense. But that was where things ended. She was pretty, I’d give her that. But that was also her problem. Men fell at her feet, which had her thinking she was hot shit. She wanted Rick because she knew who he was and the kind of power that came from being a part of our family. Except, she thought she deserved more than she got—namely that Rick deserved my position since we were roughly the same age, went to the same school, and were from the same family. She hated me, and she manipulated sweet but dumb Rick until he was no longer sweet, only dumb and mean. And suddenly, we had issues. Even then, it wasn’t so bad. We just were no longer close.
Then Annalise came along. Are you at all surprised that Vanessa hated her on sight? I wasn’t. I just didn’t think anything would come of her idiotic hatred. Except, I was wrong. And now, I hated Rick and Vanessa with everything in me. Their petty jealousy and blatant stupidity were directly responsible for Annalise’s death. They campaigned for her death, and mine too actually, and we both would probably be gone if it weren’t for my dad. He managed to save me but at the cost of Annalise.
I’d been fortunate enough to somehow avoid Rick ever since I’d gone back to work. I had a feeling it wasn’t a coincidence so much as my dad making sure Rick and I didn’t cross paths. Because he knew what would happen when we did.
I didn’t know how or why he made it into my office, but there he was. I didn’t bother giving him a response, didn’t even give him a warning. I was up, out of my seat, and swinging before he knew what was happening.
The next few minutes were a mix of punches, limbs, shouts, and knocked over furniture.
And then we were being pulled apart, my dad’s voice saying something, but I couldn’t hear him over the blood pounding in my ears.
“Not like this,” he whispered, and I finally heard his words. “Be smart. Don’t start something when you’re already down.”
He was right, but I couldn’t process his words, not with the rage vibrating through my very soul. I pulled out of his arms and stormed away, not hearing or caring about the shouts and taunts coming from the office. No one followed me as I fo
und myself in my car and on my way home.
It wasn’t until later, after the pain in my face was a dull ache in the background, that I realized the implications of my actions. I fucked up. I knew I did. I just didn’t know how much.
MY DAD WASN’T going to tell me. I knew it. I also knew he was trying to figure it all out on his own, but I wasn’t sure what he could possibly do about it.
When I’d attacked Rick, as justified as it was, I’d shown the elders that I was no longer the level-headed, responsible guy they’d known all their lives.
“Grief changes people,” I heard them whispering.
“He’ll bounce back once he can clear his head of the pain,” I heard the counters in my favor.
People seemed to think that I didn’t hear them. Maybe they thought my stoic expression somehow had made me deaf and dumb. I mean, really? Did they actually think I couldn’t hear if they said it quietly when I passed by? Or maybe they just didn’t give a shit. That was probably the more plausible answer.
Plenty of members of my very own family thought I was a loose cannon. And loose cannons, apparently, couldn’t be trusted. They talked, and they spilled secrets. They “jeopardized the entire family.”
“It’s not that he’ll do it on purpose,” I’d heard said about me. “It’s just that in that state of mind, he might say things he can’t take back.”
In other words, most of my family was afraid I’d give us away on accident because I wasn’t thinking straight. Well, they were right about the state of my thoughts, but they were dead wrong if they thought I’d ever sell anyone out—even on accident. Fucking idiot animals. Betraying their own family – me – after I killed my wife for them, as far as they knew.
If the powers that be got their way … I was a dead man. If I thought I’d get to see Annalise in the afterlife, I’d happily take the hit, but I had a feeling she was smiling behind the pearly gates while I’d be sentenced to the burning fires of hell. And I deserved it too. Plus, I couldn’t take my life in vain … not when she was murdered to save it.