by K. L. Kreig
When we reach the far corner, he opens another condo door before dragging me in behind him, slamming it shut. The instant we’re in what I would guess is his living room, which seems to be a mirror of Mira’s only backward, he lets my arm go like it’s venomous and starts pacing while stabbing his fingers through his hair. I have to push down the memories of doing that just hours ago when he was fucking me so hard I couldn’t see straight.
I hold in a sob, knowing I’ll never have that again. I knew it when we boarded that plane and left Memphis.
Finally stopping a foot away, he glares deserving daggers into me. I don’t think he’ll hurt me, but that doesn’t stop the “fight or flight” instinct from coursing through my veins. My feet ready to run. “Please tell me I did not see what I think I just saw.” Each word is punctuated hard. Each feels like an invisible fist to my gut.
“I was going to tell you,” I respond quietly. Lamely.
“Going to tell me!” he roars, his entire face turning a dark shade of red. “When the fuck were you going to tell me? When you asked me to walk her down the goddamned aisle at her wedding?”
His anger rains down all around me. It’s sharp as arrows, piercing my skin, leaving trails of remorse and shame behind. Guilt that I let things go this far eats my insides until I think I may just bleed out right here on his perfect ivory carpet.
“Connelly, I—”
“Jesus. Fucking. Christ, Nora! You mean to tell me all these years I’ve—we’ve”—he waves back and forth between us—“had a daughter and you didn’t have the fucking decency to even tell me? How could you do that?”
I feel myself buckling under the weight of my lies and deceptions. I knew what I was doing. I didn’t have definitive DNA proof but the older Hazel got the less I needed it. Deep down I knew the truth. I could see it in her captivating smile, hear it in her melodic laugh, feel it in her boundless love. I knew it in my soul. Hazel is as magnetic as Connelly and she’s his as surely as I once was.
But the surer I became she was his, the more scared I became at the same time. After so long, how could I go to Connelly and say, “Hey, surprise, Daddy! Sorry, it took me years to figure out she was yours.”?
I couldn’t.
“Did you want to get away from me that bad, Nora?”
“It wasn’t like that,” I whisper lamely.
“Wasn’t like that? Then what the fuck was it like, Nora? I had the best night of my life and then I never fucking saw you again. You told me you loved me. We created a life and you…you…fuck! How could you do this?”
Every muscle is his body is vibrating as he stands there, his hard gaze boring holes into me. It burns so much. I deserve every bit of the fiery hell I’ve now found myself in.
This would be the time, Nora. Tell him what you did. Tell him what you saw. Tell him why.
But the words crawling up my throat get stuck in the back. They won’t budge, no matter how hard I’m pushing.
As if reading my mind, he whispers brokenly, “There really was someone else, wasn’t there?” He slumps into a leather lounger and hangs his head between his hands, mumbling. “Ah fuck. That’s the only thing that makes sense. You didn’t know if she was mine, did you?”
“Connelly…” Tell him. Tell him. For the love of all that’s good and right, tell him, Nora. But acid slowly dissolves the confession that was stuck, so I stop talking and swallow down the vile fragments instead.
Seconds, minutes, maybe years pass. I feel as though time has frozen us in perpetual purgatory. Connelly certainly doesn’t belong here, but I do.
When he finally lifts his head, the naked, brutal pain ravaging the depths of his being shames me. Pain that my selfish actions caused. Just hours ago we were in each other’s arms, professing our love and promises of a future I knew we could never have, but held out hope for anyway. His raw agony shreds me. I begin to softly cry.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” he grits furiously. Standing, he walks to the kitchen, pulls out a bottle of amber liquid and a tumbler. He pours himself a healthy amount, drinking it all in one swallow before repeating the same process two more times. A glance at the clock shows it’s early…just half past ten.
“That’s why you didn’t want to move to Chicago. You didn’t want me to know.” His voice is eerily calm and monotone now as he stares at the cupboards, a full glass of alcohol in hand, his back to me.
It’s not a question, so I don’t respond.
“Is this what you were going to tell me in Memphis?”
Now he just sounds ruined.
“Yes,” I answer on a sob.
The silence is deafening. Thick and nauseating. I want to throw myself in his arms and have him hold me, comfort me. It makes me mentally crumble in a heap to know I’ll never know the feel of him again.
Tossing back another glassful, he fills it up yet again before facing me. The water I see in his eyes makes me cry harder. “What hurts the most is that you just walked away from me, from what we had, without a fucking backward glance. I was in love with you, Nora. Every single part of me was yours yet you got on that plane and I never saw you again. You left me behind like yesterday’s trash, like the time we’d spent together meant absolutely nothing to you. Like that night meant nothing to you.”
“It meant everything,” I mumble almost inaudibly. It meant more than everything and then you destroyed us.
“You’re a fucking liar!” he spits on a thundering boom. “You clearly hopped from my dick right onto the next guy’s so goddamned fast you didn’t even know whose fucking kid you had!”
Quicker than a lightning bolt, his accusation stirs an angry fire deep within my belly. Instead of fighting it, I harness that energy, using it as a shield, because how. Fucking. Dare. Him. He had his dick in someone else first.
“Oh, that’s rich, coming from someone whose zipper gets used more than the revolving doors at Macy’s.”
He stiffens and slams his glass on the counter, sloshing his precious liquor over the edges and onto the black granite. His eyes would burn me into a pile of ashes if I stood any closer. Hell, that’s probably what he hoped for.
“You wanna know why I am like I am, Nora? Why I can’t commit? Why I fuck a different woman every night of the week? Well, take a look in the mirror, sweetheart. Take a good, long, hard fucking look and the answer will be staring back in those lying fucking eyes of yours.”
I shake my head, fury hazing my vision. “Your manwhoring ways are not my doing, Connelly. You couldn’t keep your cock in your pants even back in high school. You wouldn’t understand the words fidelity and commitment if someone read the definitions to you slowly from the goddamned dictionary.”
With each word his face pinches further and I don’t miss the fact he’s curling and uncurling the fists clenched at his sides. But that doesn’t stop me.
“You want to know the real reason I didn’t tell you about Hazel?” I continue, panting my rage. “I need a father for Hazel, not some fucking asshole who’s going to come home smelling of women’s perfume, her panties stuffed in his suit pocket. Children need stability and role models and commitment, and you have none of those qualities.”
“You never gave me that fucking chance!” he bellows so loudly I know the floors above and below us had to have heard.
“You didn’t deserve it!” I scream back, the reverberation stinging my vocal cords.
Several loud knocks rap on his front door. “Go away,” he yells, turning his attention back to his mind eraser, swallowing hard.
“Open the fuck up, Connelly,” Mira’s stern voice resonates through the now quiet space.
I head to the door, not waiting for Connelly’s permission. This has spiraled so far out of control, I’m afraid our hurtful words will cut so deep, they’ll leave permanent scars. He needs time to digest and we both need time to cool off.
“Are you okay?” Mira asks the second I pull open the heavy wood. She’s grasping my shoulders and searching my face and body for wounds
, but she won’t find them on my flesh. Mine are all hidden so far inside they’ll never heal.
“I’m fine.” I’m the furthest fucking thing from fine. Just looking at my sister cramps my stomach knowing she may have been intimate with the man I love more than I will ever love another.
“Butt out, Ella,” a dark menacing voice behind me growls. Fresh tears well at how much I want him to wrap his arms around me right now. I’m so alone.
“You can fuck off, Conn,” she growls back, unfazed by the waves of fury I feel painfully thrashing my back. “You’re going to have the cops here in about ten minutes if you don’t knock it off.” She stands there pinning us both with her steely glare. “Now, I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but it doesn’t take a genealogist to guess it’s about that little girl in the next apartment, who also has ears by the way.”
“Point made. Now go,” Connelly gruffs.
“I’m not leaving without Nora.” Mira looks past me, staring down the angry bear behind me with zero fear.
A hot, pungent wash of alcohol reaches my nostrils when he blows out a long frustrated breath. But what cuts me to the quick are his callous, heartless words that I will carry with me for eternity, even in death.
“You can fucking have her. There’s nothing here for her anymore.”
Chapter 21
Conn
“He’s here!” I hear my twin yell to someone.
I sigh, knowing it was just a matter of time before they found me. It’s what we do. One of us spirals out of the sky in a plume of smoke and ash and the others are there with a fire hose. It’s what I love about us. Our camaraderie, our bond. The fact we know when someone needs the other without even asking.
But as much as I love it, I hate it equally when I’m on the receiving end. I’m not ready for purging yet. I’ve barely wrapped my own mind around the fact that I have a daughter. A child who has grown up without me. Who doesn’t even know I’m her father, for the love of Christ. I can hardly breathe when I remember the only woman I’ve ever loved has committed an incomprehensible betrayal, completely fucking me over in the process. Days later, I still cannot wrap my head around it. Any of it.
My heart feels shredded. Black. My mind a jumble of unanswered questions. I can’t handle Ash right now. I can’t handle anyone. I’m so goddamned furious, I could drown Nora’s duplicity and deception in a bottle—or twelve—of Macallan. Hell, I was well on my way in my apartment the other day when I stopped cold; if I’d let myself sink into the warm oblivion of alcohol, I may never have found the surface again.
I did that once. Look where I am because of it.
So I came here instead, hoping fourteen-hour days of manual labor would drive me to exhaustion and help me find the clarity I need.
It hasn’t.
Nothing can, I’ve decided.
For the three days, I’ve been here trying to work out what the hell my next move is, all I’ve managed to do is to get myself in over my head in a completely different way.
I sit back on my haunches, my eyes glazing over the mess before me. The uncovered subfloor and broken stone pieces in the corner mock me. With each inhale I take in dust and failure. I seem to remember laying tile was a bit easier than this.
“Home improvement time?” Ash drawls from behind me.
“Yep,” I answer plainly, not bothering to make a move.
“Phone broken?”
Nope. Just had it off.
“I left instructions with Lydia.”
“Out of the office due to a death in the family?” he snorts. “Rather cryptic don’t you think? And how come I didn’t know about this little family mishap?”
Damn her. “She wasn’t supposed to tell you that.” She was supposed to tell my brothers I’d been called out of town on an emergency business trip and she didn’t know when I’d be back. She was supposed to tell everyone else of a family death so they’d leave me the fuck alone.
“She didn’t,” he says lightly, stepping around me into the debacle I’ve created. “Got a call from Fred Callahan wondering where he could send flowers in condolence.”
Shit. Didn’t think that all the way through.
Brushing my dusty hands off on my dirty jeans, I roll back to my heels and stand, my aching thighs protesting the entire way up. “How’d you find me?”
“Mac.” Good ol’ trusty Mac. Our Mackinac Island groundskeeper. “He called on Saturday because he saw a light on in the house and wasn’t aware anyone was coming. When I couldn’t get ahold of you, I put two and two together.”
I raise my head and take my first look at my twin. I wonder if he’ll be able to see the anguish raging like a storm in my soul. I wonder if I look different on the outside now that I’m a father. “So you’ve known I’ve been here for three days?”
He nods, eyeing me carefully. He’s trying to work out the puzzle of my disappearance. I don’t run. I face challenges head-on. I’m the levelheaded one. I talk problems out. I see reason, believe in the whole “don’t go to bed mad” theory. I yank other people’s heads out of their asses for them. I’m not generally the one with my head shoved up my own or in the damn sand.
But for the life of me, I can’t work this mess out.
I want her pain, her suffering, her pride.
I want to absolutely fucking ruin her.
Most of all, though…I want my life back the way it was.
Don’t I?
I don’t know and therein lies the problem. I don’t know which way is up, down, or sideways. Part of me wants to rewind to just a few days ago when I was blissfully happy and ignorant. Another part of me wonders how long Nora would have gone without saying a word had I not caught her red-handed.
Out of my periphery I see my other two brothers saunter up and hang out against the wall opposite the bathroom I’ve been trying to remodel. Trying being the operative word.
“This an intervention?” I ask with a little derision, pissed they can’t just leave me be.
“That depends,” Luke brogues, stuffing his hands in his jeans pockets. “You need one?”
“What I need,” I start, “is some help putting in this goddamned floor.”
The three of them exchange a look like I’ve just asked them to each donate a kidney to the black market. But in true Colloway brother spirit, without a word they shrug off their coats, roll up their sleeves, and we get to work in utter silence.
Five hours later we all stand back, admiring our handiwork. It would have taken me another week to get this damn floor laid and quite honestly, I’m not sure I didn’t need the time. Now my excuse for being here has just run out. The upstairs bathroom countertop has a chip in it. Maybe I could replace that.
“I don’t know about anybody else, but I need a fucking beer,” Luke announces, making his way to the kitchen.
“Grab four,” Gray yells after him.
“Don’t you guys have somewhere to be?” Like with your happy, perfect families?
“All right. I’ve kept my mouth shut long enough,” Ash drones. “What the fuck is going on, Conn?”
“If I wanted to talk about it, you’d know by now,” I retort hotly, pushing my way past him and Gray. I stride into the kitchen and grab an open bottle of beer, chugging half the contents in one swallow.
“It wouldn’t have anything to do with Nora looking like she had to just bury her puppy, would it?”
Christ. Just hearing her name almost causes my knees to buckle in anguish. Yet why does part of me feel vindicated and elated that she’s suffering just as much as I am? No…there’s no way in hell her pain equals mine. I was the one left in the dark. I was the one fucked over, not her.
“Not sure what you didn’t understand the first time, brother.” I find myself slumping into a chair wishing I was anywhere else but here right now.
“I understand when emotions get too hard for you to handle, instead of numbing yourself with alcohol like normal people do, you numb yourself with a hands-on project,” Ash
challenges. Can’t deny that one. My mother has a whole new set of cabinets in the garage she never needed or wanted when I found out I’d never play basketball again.
“I also know a brother suffering when I see one,” Gray adds with concern, sliding into an empty space across from me.
“Look,” I breathe in and out heavily, “I appreciate your concern. I appreciate you all driving out here to check on me. Truly I do, but I’m just not ready to talk about it yet.”
“This is about Nora, though, right?”
“What part of I’m not ready to talk can’t you wrap your head around, Ash?”
The corner of Ash’s mouth ticks up. I look away, not even able to drum up the energy to fire off a threat about wiping it off.
“Do you remember what you told me when I’d run to New York after I found out Livvy had been married?” Gray asks me pointedly. I don’t remember the exact words, only the gist. Gray was an emotional wreck. He needed support, but he also needed a goddamned kick in the pants. He needed the truth. Suddenly I don’t like where this is going. My situation is nothing like the one he and Livia went through.
Before I have a chance to say a word, Gray continues. “You told me I had that gleam I’d been missing back in my eyes since I reunited with Livvy. You told me to talk to her. Find out the truth. Even if it wasn’t what I wanted to hear that I’d at least have closure. You were right. Without you pushing me to make that first step, I’m not sure I would have Livvy right now. Since Red has been back in the picture, you have that gleam, Conn. I’ve never seen one on you before. Whatever’s going on, you need to face it, not run from it. Face it so you can end it, no matter what that end is.”
I snort at his insinuation there’s actually an ending for me here. There is no end, only the beginning of a new life I’m nowhere near prepared for.
Asher’s phone rings, interrupting us. He answers immediately, talking soft and soothing. His tone is filled with love and concern. I catch a few words here and there, but the one that sticks out is “nauseous.” When Ash gives us a look—a worried but thrilled look—as he asks Alyse if she’s eaten anything, I know something’s up.