by Linda Grimes
Oops. Blue cheese and raisin bread. Guess it hit you harder if you hadn’t just eaten it. I should ’fess up, but it would be embarrassing to explain my childish hide-the-food behavior. I was supposed to be an adult. I’d find someplace to dump it later.
“Huh, I don’t smell anything,” I said. Which wasn’t a lie, because I really couldn’t smell it anymore. Strong odors cause nasal fatigue, and after that lunch my nose was exhausted. “So, what did you guys do to piss off Mark and get roped into this gig?”
“Are you kidding?” Candy said. “Mark loves us, doesn’t he, Al? We’re his favorite flunkies.”
Al gave her a wry look via the rearview mirror, only taking his eyes off the road for a millisecond. He was obviously from the Mark Fielding school of driving. “Speak for yourself. He hates me ever since I got in a lucky punch in the ring with him. He couldn’t wait to give me a shopping gig.”
“Aw, lighten up, Al. A little retail therapy never hurt anyone,” Candy said.
Personally, I shared Al’s pain, but we pulled up in front of the Doyle homestead before I could express my solidarity. Auntie Mo and Uncle Liam didn’t live far from my parents—same neighborhood, in fact.
Uncle Liam caught me at the door before I rang the bell. “Ciel, hon, could I have a word?” He drew me quietly into his study before Sinead and Siobhan spotted me. Candy and Al waited with the car.
“Sure,” I said. “What’s up?”
“It’s about Billy,” he said, his voice more serious than I was used to from him.
I stilled, a chill taking me from top to bottom, falling over me like some god-awful ice bucket challenge. “What about him?” I said. Please, please, please don’t let him be hurt.
Uncle Liam hesitated. Cleared his throat. “I better give you the background first. I don’t know what Billy has told you about his mother…”
“Is Auntie Mo all right? She’s not sick, is she? Or hurt?” I couldn’t imagine a germ strong enough to take on Auntie Mo and win, but an accident, or Loughlin …
“No, not Mo. Billy’s birth mother.”
“Oh.” We all knew Uncle Liam had married Auntie Mo when Billy was a baby, of course, but nobody ever spoke about his bio mom, least of all Billy. “Has something happened to her? Is Billy all right?”
“I was hoping you’d be able to tell me. I haven’t talked to him since … well, since before he visited his mother a few days ago.”
“She’s alive? I always assumed she’d died soon after Billy was born. Where is she?”
He took a deep breath. Came to some sort of a decision. “You should know. Billy’s birth mother was institutionalized shortly after his birth. She’s been there ever since—it’s a very nice place, and she receives the best of care. But she’s … easily upset. Billy’s known about her since he was quite young. Mo and I were as honest with him as we could be.”
I nodded, trying to assimilate this new information. Why had Billy never told me?
“When he got older, and started asking more questions—he must have been about ten—we explained as gently as we could that the woman who’d given birth to him was in a special hospital for people who couldn’t cope with the world. He got it into his head it was his fault—that he’d somehow made his mother lose her mind.”
God, poor Billy. Back then, all he’d ever been to me was a best-friend-slash-tormenter. I’d had no clue at all—he was always the dimpled charmer, happy no matter what kind of trouble he’d managed to get into.
“I’m so sorry, Uncle Liam. I never realized. It must have been so hard for you,” I said.
His eyes—the beautiful Doyle eyes, Billy’s eyes a few decades older—saddened briefly. “Only until I met Mo. Then life became … what life should be.” His smile, warm and genuine, was overshadowed by worry. “I have an alert set with the home where Chastity lives. That’s her name—Chastity Oglethorp. They call whenever anything out of the ordinary happens.”
“I take it Billy’s visit wasn’t ordinary?” I said.
“You could say that. It was the first time he’d seen her since the day he was born.”
My mouth went dry. “Never before? Not once?” I said.
It wasn’t hard to figure out what had precipitated the visit. The idea of having his own child had obviously spurred him into finally seeking out the woman who’d abandoned him at birth in the backseat of the ’57 Chevy that was now his pride and joy.
“Never. You have to understand how complicated the situation was. Chastity was raised in an extremely strict religious offshoot sect. Think Westboro Baptist on steroids. We met by accident when she was trying to run away. She was hitchhiking. I was driving along in my fine set of wheels”—that would be the Chevy Billy had now—“when I saw her, looking so pretty and scared and in need of rescue. We fell in love and things got … well. When she became pregnant, I wanted to marry her. It was then she finally told me she was already married. She’d been running away from her new sixty-year-old husband when I’d found her.”
Yikes. That was messed up.
“We decided a marriage certificate didn’t matter. We were as good as married anyway. She was always … fragile … but it didn’t matter to me. I was the big rescuer, the one who would take care of her, protect her from the world. Everything was good until the day I came home from work and found two men—big men; either of them would have been more than a match for me—trying to drag her into their car. I found out later they were from her former … I can’t dignify it with the word ‘church’ … her former cult. I lost it. I knew I’d never be able to fight them off as myself, so I adapted to the biggest, burliest aura I had, right there in front of them. In front of her.”
Uncle Liam paused for a second, letting the ramifications set in. Adapting in front of non-adaptors is not done, not unless they are a part of the community and already know about us. It wasn’t exactly a law, but it was the closest thing our community had to one.
“Did it work?” I asked hesitantly.
“Only too well,” he said. “The men let Chastity go and ran off, shouting that I was the devil. Chastity’s water broke, and her contractions started coming fast, one on top of another. There was no time to lose, so I put her into the backseat of the Chevy and headed for the hospital. We lived pretty far out in the country, and I knew an ambulance would never get there in time.
“She started screaming the baby was coming before we were halfway there. I pulled over, totally out of my depth. I had no idea what I was doing. Through the grace of God, I caught Billy, and had enough presence of mind to tie off his umbilical cord with one of Chastity’s shoelaces. I put him on her belly and got back behind the wheel. The car wouldn’t start. I panicked and flooded the engine. Kept trying and trying, until I totally drained the battery, all the while listening to Chastity whimpering in the backseat, mumbling prayers, begging for forgiveness.
“She was so out of it. God, I was terrified, until I remembered we’d passed a gas station four or five miles back. I told Chastity to hold on, I was getting help. And then I ran, faster than I ever had, until I thought my lungs would burst from it. Running as much from the fear I’d seen in her eyes—the fear I knew was of me—as I was for help.
“When we got back to the car—the station owner and I—Chastity was gone. Billy was on the backseat, wrapped in a bloody slip. I thought the men had come back for her, had taken her. But we found her a mile down the road, babbling incoherently about laying with the devil and giving birth to an abomination. She blamed herself, thought it was her punishment for thwarting God’s will by running away from her husband. I’m afraid she never recovered.
“She was disowned by her ‘people.’ Her husband denied the marriage. I was all she had, and she reacted to me like I was the devil incarnate trying to drag her into hell. She refused to even look at Billy. So I found a place. She lives there peacefully, for the most part, spending her days reciting Bible passages to anyone who will listen.
“I did try to see her a few times,
but it always made her so much worse. Eventually I stopped. My days were full of work and taking care of Billy. I moved to the city to get a better job—the place Chastity stays is nice, but it isn’t cheap—and to be closer to my parents, who helped me with Billy. I met Mo through a mutual adaptor friend. She was a godsend—but you already know that part.” He broke off with a weary smile.
I wiped the tears from my cheeks, aching for him, and for Billy. “How did Billy’s visit go? Did they say?”
“Not well, I’m afraid. You know how much Billy looks like me even now? Well, he’s the spitting image of how I looked back then. Chastity thought it was me coming for her again, and reacted badly. Billy took off, and I haven’t been able to reach him.”
“God, Uncle Liam, I don’t know what to say. I am so sorry.”
“By the way, I haven’t told Mo about Billy’s visit to the home. She worries so much…”
I nodded. “I won’t say anything to her about it.”
“I didn’t want to worry you either, but if there’s a chance you might see him or talk to him, I thought you should be prepared. And … well, I’m hoping you’ll have better luck tracking him down than I have. I’d rest easier if I knew he was okay.”
You and me both.
“I’ll do whatever I can, Uncle Liam, I promise. I’ll—”
The door to the study burst open and Hurricane Molly blew in. “Ciel! Tell Mom—ew, what’s that smell?”
I shot a look at my purse, which I’d left on Uncle Liam’s desk at the beginning of his tale. Guess he was too much a gentleman to mention the odd aroma that had hitched a ride with me.
“Never mind,” Molly said before I could explain. “Ciel, tell Mom I can go with you guys. It’s not fair to leave me here. It’s discrimination!”
Uncle Liam scooped her up and twirled her around, coming perilously close to knocking over one of Auntie Mo’s prized Tiffany lamps. “But who’ll watch Christmas movies and drink hot chocolate with me if you desert me, too?”
Molly looked torn. “With marshmallows?”
“Of course.”
“And cookies before dinner?”
“We’ll sneak them out of the cookie jar when you mother isn’t looking.”
“Can we watch the Grinch twice?”
Uncle Liam screwed up his face, considering. “You drive a hard bargain, Molly-my-love. But yes. We can.”
“Yay!” Molly wriggled out of his arms and ran to me. “Why don’t you stay with us, Ciel? You hate shopping.”
I tapped my chin, considering. “Well, I suppose I could … if a certain eleven-year-old wouldn’t mind not having a present from me to open on Christmas morning.”
“Never mind. Go! Go!”
Sinead stuck her head in the door. “Yeah, Ciel, move it. It’s time to ‘go, go!’”
Siobhan’s head appeared next, looking enough like her sister to be a twin, though they were almost a year apart. They were both gorgeous, with chestnut hair and their dad’s deep blue eyes.
Siobhan gestured toward the front door with a hooked thumb. “Let’s blow this joint.”
Uncle Liam nodded at me. “Go on. We’ll talk more later.”
“About what?” Molly said, eyes alight with curiosity.
“Sorry, can’t say. Santa swore us to secrecy,” Uncle Liam said.
“Yeah, right. Oooh, I bet I know! It’s about Ciel and Billy and, you know…” She puckered up her lips and made kissing noises.
Siobhan gave me a giggling poke in the ribs. “You asking for Dad’s blessing to propose to our brother?”
I made myself laugh, but it sounded kind of anemic.
“Can we watch? Hey, we can video it for you! I bet we could make it go viral,” Sinead said.
“Don’t be crazy. I am not proposing to your brother. Man, you guys are the worst. Wasn’t Tom and Laura’s wedding enough trouble for you?”
Or maybe that was only me.
Molly started hopping up and down. “I call dibs on maid of honor!”
“Well, if you get to be maid of honor, then I’ll have to insist they name their firstborn after me,” Siobhan said. I could feel my face freeze. I tried to laugh, but you know. Frozen face.
“Ha! What if it’s a boy?” Molly said.
“It will build his character.”
“Stop it,” a voice rang out, and the rest of me froze to match my face.
Chapter 21
“I’m sure Ciel doesn’t appreciate your planning her life for her,” Billy said good-naturedly, his questioning eyes meeting mine briefly before he was surrounded by Doyles large and small.
Somewhere in the happy jumble of voices I heard him tell his father everything was fine. Uncle Liam didn’t look convinced, but apparently seeing his son whole and sound was enough for the moment. Auntie Mo magically appeared, elbowing her daughters out of the way so she could get at Billy for her own vigorous embrace.
“Billy, you know better than go off without telling us, especially this time of year,” she said, her voice a mixture of exasperation and maternal forgiveness.
Billy was typically pretty good at letting his family know when he’d be gone. He didn’t always tell them where he was going—his jobs, both the ones he set up on his own and the ones he did for Mark, didn’t allow for complete disclosure—but he told them that he was going, so they wouldn’t worry any more than could be helped.
“Sorry, Mommo. I got caught up in something unexpected.” Again, he looked at me with searching eyes. Searching for what? A clue? How the hell did he expect me to react?
How did he want me to react?
“Look at us, keeping the lovebirds apart! Sorry, Ciel—you know how we are.” Auntie Mo took me by the arm and pulled me into the fray, shoving me up against Billy’s chest.
I swore to myself if I felt him stiffen, if he seemed at all hesitant, I’d walk out then and there, and leave him to explain things the best he could. But he didn’t. He hugged me tight, lifting me, putting his mouth next to my ear. He spoke so softly amid the happy chatter that I couldn’t quite make out what he said.
But it sounded an awful lot like “forgive me.”
I clung to him against my better judgment. My mind was wary, calling up the recent hurt, replaying in high-definition his reaction to the plus sign. I was still pissed as hell at how he’d left me to cope with the biggest shock of my life alone, no matter what his reason. But I couldn’t get rid of the image of him, infant him, being abandoned by his mother within minutes of his birth, and my arms wouldn’t let go. Part of him was broken, and, fixer that I was, I couldn’t turn my back on him. I buried my face in his neck, hiding it as well as I could from everyone else in the room, unsure what my expression might reveal.
“Um, Ciel, I hate to break up your reunion, but our heavily armed carriage awaits. To Fifth Avenue or bust!” Sinead said.
“Billy, you can come with us if you like,” Siobhan said. “Sure, it’s supposed to be a girl date, but we can stand you if we must. And I’m sure our bodyguards won’t mind having an extra along.”
Billy set me down and searched my face again.
“Um, guys, if it’s okay with you, I think I need to spend some time with your brother,” I said.
“Hey, no fair!” Siobhan said.
“Yeah, we had dibs on you for today!” Sinead said.
“That’s enough, you two,” Uncle Liam said. Quietly. When Uncle Liam said something, his kids listened. “Billy hasn’t seen Ciel since her apartment burned”—Billy pulled me more tightly to him, and yeah, I couldn’t help thinking that was another time he hadn’t been there for me—“and I’m sure they have a lot to discuss. You girls go ahead. And be careful—you do whatever your bodyguards tell you.”
* * *
“There’s that smell again,” Candy said. She was up front with Al; I was in the back with Billy, who looked at my purse, a grin twitching on his lips. I ignored it, as I did Candy’s comment.
Al and Candy had insisted on driving us to Billy’
s place, and Billy hadn’t argued, since they would have had to follow us anyway. Besides, his car was nowhere to be seen. When I’d asked him where it was, he’d mumbled something about it being in the shop.
Sinead and Siobhan’s security detail would be the ones who had the pleasure of maneuvering them safely through the holiday throngs. If Candy was disappointed to miss the shopping expedition, she didn’t let on.
The ride to Billy’s was mostly silent, even the garrulous Candy realizing, and respecting, that Billy and I weren’t being especially communicative. I sat a little apart from him, pulled back from my initial inclination to forgive and fix by an upwelling of confusion. My compassion for his situation was muddied by the persistent, fiery ball of anger in the pit of my stomach. I was stuck on the tipping point between needing to hug him until my arms creaked and wanting to slap him silly.
Which, come to think of it, pretty much summed up my relationship with Billy going all the way back to toddlerhood.
Candy and Al escorted us up the stairs and checked the condo before going back down to keep watch on the building while Billy and I were there. They would call up a warning if they saw anything suspicious.
As soon as I walked through the door I knew it was a mistake. There wasn’t a place I could rest my eyes that Billy and I hadn’t been intimate. Couch, loft, the rug on the floor, bathtub, kitchen counter. (Um, yeah. But it was only once, and we’d sanitized it afterward. Trust me, once is enough when it comes to cold, hard granite. “Adventurous” can be fun, but “comfortable” doesn’t give your butt cheeks frostbite.)
Billy seemed to know what I was thinking, and shrugged apologetically as he took my coat and purse. He hung them, along with his coat, on a rack made of old steel pipes welded together. “I didn’t know where else to bring you.”
“It’s fine,” I said, and walked to the big window beyond the seating area. His condo was a large open space, modern in design, with lots of masculine black leather, softened by a few colorful (all right, ugly) afghans from Auntie Mo’s knitting phase. She must have made a ton of them, because every time one of us “lost” or “accidentally” ruined one she always had another ready. I fully expected to unwrap one on Christmas morning, to replace the one I lost in the fire. Truth be told, I’d be disappointed if I didn’t.