by J. J. McAvoy
Taking the gold ring from Donatella, I slid it up his finger, repeating the words back to him. “With this ring, I bind my life to yours, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. It is a symbol of my eternal love, my everlasting friendship, and the promise of all my tomorrows. An outward reminder of our inner unity. I forsake all others, I choose you, until death do us part.”
“What God joins together, let no one put asunder. May you both be blessed. Mr. Callahan, you may kiss your wife.”
He kissed me as if…as if we’d spent the afternoon making love in his room. I tried not to give in…but damn his lips, they were sinful and drew me right in.
“Mr. and Mrs. Callahan,” the priest called, forcing us to break apart, to the snickers of his family. Reaching up to the corner of my lip, I wiped it. “Congratulations,” the priest added.
“Well damn, I feel old, the boy is married,” his uncle Neal said, a big man, his beard hair grown out from the photo I’d seen of him and graying.
“Boy?” Ethan asked.
But Neal ignored him and was the first to hug me and whisper, “Try to love him and end his brokenness.”
I was so stunned, and he let go so quickly, cracking a joke I didn’t understand or follow before his wife, Mina, her hair cut short, kissed both sides of my cheeks.
Next up was his uncle Declan, whose dark brown hair had little flecks of white in it. He didn’t hug me, just looked me up and down and then glanced back at Ethan. “She’s far too pretty for you.”
His wife, Coraline, whose brown skin had not a single imperfection, smacked his arm and hugged me tightly. She smelled like fresh rain and it made me relax.
“I was the closest to Ethan’s mother,” she said and for some reason both Neal and Declan scoffed and tried not to laugh. When she glared at them, both of them looked away. Her brown eyes back on me, she opened a box…inside was a Revolver.
“Of fucking course.” Declan shook his head. “Excuse me, Father.”
“I believe in the 2nd Amendment,” he said with his hand actually on the Bible.
“There are two?” Ethan muttered, his eyes fixed on the gun. He reached into his jacket, picking out the same gun. It was only slightly bigger.
“Thank you,” I said, running my hand over the barrel. She closed the box, stepping back. Dona was next up.
She hugged a little too tightly, whispering, “You betray my brother, I’ll kill you with that gun.”
The wedding of my dreams, I thought sarcastically.
“Welcome to the family.” Wyatt nodded and didn’t bother hugging me.
However, his cousins made up for it, all of them surrounding me, making me laugh as they hugged me, lifting me from the ground.
“Guys…” Helen called out, standing beside Evelyn, whose arms were both wrapped in bandages. She lay there with an oxygen mask over her mouth but her eyes on me. I couldn’t imagine the pain as she raised her arm to push the mask off her face.
“Leave…but Ivy,” she said, and I looked at Ethan, who stared at her. I could see his body tensing up, his hands balling into fists, his rage returning. Not him nor his uncles or siblings or cousins even dared to disobey her.
One by one they all left me alone with her.
“Sit,” she said to me.
Listening to her, I sat beside her bed. She didn’t speak, and the longer I sat in silence, the more I swayed left to right anxiously before I couldn’t take it any longer and leaned forward, asking, “Did you want to threaten me too?”
She smiled, not a full grin, but a small smile.
“Look in the Bible.” She tilted her head toward her bedside table. Reaching for it, I nearly dropped it, causing a letter to fall out. “It’s for you.”
Curious as to how she wrote it, I put the Bible in my lap along with my…well, her flowers, reading.
To the woman who has come to replace me in my son’s heart,
“This is from his mom?” My eyes shot up at her.
“Read, Ivy. The damn woman always knew exactly what to say.” She frowned, annoyed, and it was kind of funny.
To the woman who has come to replace me in my son’s heart,
Know you are not good enough. You will never be good enough. I went to hell with a smile on my face for my son. Ethan has a place in my heart no other human being can ever touch. And so you will never live up to the woman I’d imagine for him because the truth is no one will ever be good enough. Don’t take comfort in that admission. Before you act, imagine if I were to judge…imagine that horrid mother-in-law in every film, know that I would be worse, and try to impress me anyway. You are now the head woman of this family. Act like it and make them talk about you as they talked about me. Make them remember you as they did me. Haunt the woman who will one day come and replace you as number one in your own son’s heart as I did Evelyn and as Evelyn did Margaret. Make them fear you as much as they fear him. I trust my son enough to know he didn’t choose a pretty idiot with a heart of gold…he does not need that. That will only lead him to death. No, instead, feed his dark side, enjoy being there with him. Don’t change him. I made him and he is perfect. There is nothing to change.
If you can, maybe I’ll hate you less…
Thought about it. I’ll still hate you.
Melody Nicci Giovanni Callahan
“Well, she’s just great.” I couldn’t help but smile. For some reason I could feel her anger, pain, and love through it perfectly. I could also see where Ethan got his personality from.
“Burn it,” she said.
“What?”
She nodded. “It’s for you only.”
I thought about it. I looked back down at the letter, at the woman I was, as she said replacing her, and stood up, placing the Bible and flowers back on the bedside table. Leaning over to her, I kissed the side of her head.
“Evelyn, thank you, but I’ll keep the letter—”
“You can’t…Ethan will see...”
“I know.” I nodded. I pressed the button for her morphine. “I’m going to show him. Like she said I’m the head now. Don’t tell me what to do with my letter. Just rest and don’t die for a long time.”
She glared at me, but I just winked at her.
“Sleep tight,” I said when the pain medicine started to work. Before getting up and walking toward the door.
“She’s sleeping,” I told them and walked up to Ethan, lifting the letter. “She wanted me to burn this.”
His eyebrows frowned together as he took it. His eyes skimmed the first line before realizing who it was from…slowly he read until he relaxed and then that smug smirk of his returned to his face. I could tell from the expression on his face he held his mother’s words as gospel.
“You think you can do it?” he asked.
“I already am. Thank you very much,” I answered, snatching it back. I folded it, throwing it into my small purse. At least something else but a lipstick was there.
“Do what?”
Both of us, almost as if we had forgotten everyone was around us, looked at Donatella, whose eyes were glued to my purse.
“Nothing.” I obviously lied and I did it cheerfully, facing Ethan again. “Does this wedding come with food or am I supposed to just keep being a jewelry holder?”
Ethan looked at me as if I were mad, seeing as how I’d stuffed myself with fancy rich people pasta, bourbon meatballs, grilled scallops, popcorn, and ice cream at the mansion before coming over here.
“Say anything that I’ll take as you calling me fat.” I dared him to comment.
“And you’ll do what?”
“Oohh…dumb question.” His uncle Neal groaned, putting his hands over his mouth. Declan just covered his mouth with his hand, shaking his head at him.
“You’ll regret that one, believe me.”
“Is this secret marriage meeting done?” Sedric asked curiously before walking over to me and putting his hand over my shoulder. “If so, I’m totally liking where cousin-in-law’s mind is at with th
is food business.”
“Hands,” Ethan said to him.
Sedric made a face and lifted his hands up in surrender.
“It’s already here,” Coraline replied, checked her phone, and not a second later the elevator pinged. When the doors opened the guards, much more of them now that so many of us were here, scanned them before letting them forward.
“Set up in the room,” Coraline directed her private chefs.
I was thinking pizza but apparently I was still thinking small as I watched the men in white chef hats roll their carts toward the room. There was even a wedding cake with the initials E.I. on the top.
“Well, come on.” Cora looked back at the rest of them.
“What would we do without you, Mom?” Darcy tried to hug her, but Declan stuck his hand out, pushing him and taking his wife forward, making everyone laugh.
I saw Wyatt trying to make his escape. I was sure Ethan saw too but didn’t say anything.
So while everyone was walking forward, I said, “You said you’d help the victims, right?”
He froze and looked at me, dressed in his blue scrubs.
“Well, a church fell on me this morning. My wedding is being done in a hospital room and no one from my side of my family is here. You’re adding insult to injury by leaving…do no harm, Doc,” I said, trying to act really hurt.
“You’re going to be a pain. I can tell,” he muttered to himself before walking past me toward his grandmother’s room.
“Takes one to know one.” I spun back on the balls of my feet.
Ethan watched him go in.
“Don’t glare at him. You know you want him here,” I whispered, taking his hand.
He glanced down at it and then at me, saying, “How the fuck are you still hungry?”
“I almost forgot I was annoyed with you. Thank you, dick.” I snapped, pulling my hand away and marching to the room by myself.
ETHAN
I was confident if my mother were still alive she’d have no idea how to handle Ivy. The woman was the very definition of a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. She didn’t react or say anything the way anyone else would. I’d had a man’s balls cut off and she’d slept with me. I’d mentioned she’d eaten too much and she was ready to never speak to me again. She smiled when she was supposed to be scared and judged complicated things simply. There was no due north with her. However, she reacted purely based on her own moral code, which was just as skewed as mine.
“A delivery.” Toby came in with a giant basket of sunflowers.
“From?” I asked. Everyone paused eating to look up at them.
“The Moretti Family. They were also in the church. All of them came out alive, though.”
“All of them?” Ivy questioned, and Toby nodded, making her frown as she spoke again. “That’s weird.”
“What is?” my aunt Mina questioned.
“I was sure I left Klarissa bleeding out on the floor before leaving the church. She asked for help, but I left, and smoke was pouring in there. I guess some people really have nine lives.” She shrugged, licking marble cake off her spoon. Her eyes lit up and she turned to me. “This is really good!”
Everyone else was silent, trying to process what she’d just causally admitted to.
“You left her bleeding out?” Mr. In-His-Damn-Feelings, asked her.
Ivy looked at him and nodded. “A piece of the door went into her thigh.”
“And you just left her?” Wyatt still pressed.
Shaking my head, I reached for the wine as she went on.
“What did you want me to do? Carry her on my head?” she questioned, and I snorted, fighting back a laugh. Me. They were all just as shocked as I was, looking at me. Ignoring them, I wiped the corner of my mouth.
“You could have—”
“Next time a church falls on top of you, you can let me know what I should have done. But in all honesty I left her not because she would’ve been heavy and obviously slow me down from saving my own life, thanks for asking, by the way.” She made a face at him, and I really was dying to laugh inside, but held my composure as she went on. “I don’t like her. I’m kinda disappointed. I really wished the big guy had handled that one for me.”
No one said anything, just stared at her, and she shifted uncomfortably in her seat, sighing before turning back to Toby.
“Is she at least okay?” she asked him, but her tone clearly not giving two shits.
“Both her legs are broken,” Toby replied.
“Well, that’s something, I guess.” She shrugged and then turned to me, pointing her spoon at me. “Are you going to eat your cake?”
Lifting the plate, I handed it to her and you’d think I’d given her a gold bar.
“Thank you.” She ate happily, either ignoring or not noticing the looks everyone around the table was giving her.
Both my uncles glanced at me. I knew that look. Approval.
Who I chose to marry wasn’t just my business, it was family business. And while they seemed like happy-go-lucky married men…they were Callahans. They accepted my choice, because they had to. Approval was why my Aunt Cora set up this dinner, the last time we would have together for a long time, as they’d leave Chicago again. Once my father had died and I took over, they wanted no confusion to who the head of the family was…and they were tired. Burnt out. Uncle Declan and Aunt Cora lived on a boat. Yes, a damn boat. They’d spent the last couple of years sailing together. They were almost always unreachable, only making exceptions for emergencies. While Uncle Neal and Aunty Mina lived in the outskirts of some place in South Korea, like normal people.
“Just this once I’m going to pretend to go to the ladies’ room so you all can have a moment to talk about me,” she replied, acknowledging the fact that she did notice their gazes, then got up to do just that.
Nari’s brown eyes shifted to me and I nodded for her to follow Ivy out of the room.
“Well, she’s honest.” My aunt Cora grinned.
“That’s what makes her so…” My aunt Mina drifted off when she looked at me. “Perfect for you.”
“Nice save.” Uncle Neal snickered and shifted forward, placing his elbows on the table, stroking his beard as he eyed me carefully.
“Yes?”
“Out of all the women in the world you found one who’s crazy enough to put up with you, and cold enough to make your mother proud. On top of that a looker. Call me crazy, but it seems like one hell of a coincidence, especially since your father didn’t believe in them.”
“Luckily I’m not my father.” Something I’d been repeating for far too damn long.
“Neal, did you think of all that on your own?” Uncle Declan gasped in mock shock, applauding him.
Uncle Neal reached for the silverware and would have stabbed him had Aunt Mina not grabbed his arm and Aunt Cora already smacked Uncle Declan…I’d seen this clown act almost as many times as people compared me to my father.
“Didn’t you know?” Donatella cut a glass of wine at her lips. Her face was expressionless, her voice almost numb. “She came from prison…I’m sure seven years will mess with a girl. As for being pretty, Nari helped with that.”
“Prison?” Uncle Declan’s voice became serious. However, I ignored him and focused on Dona.
“What mess is she, Dona?” I asked. “I don’t see anything wrong with her. Am I a mess also?”
Aunt Cora grabbed her arm, squeezing it, trying to warn her to drop it, but Dona being Dona could never back down.
“Yes. All of us are a fucking mess!” She snapped.
“Here we go.” Aunt Cora sighed, taking her napkin and putting it on her plate. Dinner was over…it was almost midnight anyway.
“Look at us! We’re having a wedding dinner inside a hospital room, our grandmother’s hospital room, laughing it up as she’s drugged up—”
“You’d rather we laugh while she was in pain?” I pushed back.
“Goddamn it, Ethan!” she hollered right be
fore rising to her feet. “Uggh, forget it! Forget all of it. I’m heading home—”
“SIT DOWN!” I roared at her. I’d only yelled at her one time in all of my life, and so she jumped slightly. “SIT! Or you’ll make everyone question if I really am your brother.”
Fist clenched, she sat back into her seat.
“Listen, and listen well, because if I have to repeat this someone will get hurt,” I said through my teeth. “Ivy is now my wife. You insult her, you insult me. I do not stand for insult from anyone, blood or not. You will respect her; you will not treat her like she’d a goddamn alien for saying every fucking thing you all think. I have far too much shit already on my plate to start getting on your emotional roller coaster, Donatella. If you want to be pissed, be pissed in silence. If you want to judge...” I looked at Wyatt. “Judge in fucking silence. Because if I see it, I’ll answer Grandmother’s last question to me…would I hurt family? Didn’t Father answer that question already? It is wife first, family second, clan third. Remember that order.”
Rising to my feet, I walked over to my aunt Cora, placing my hand on her shoulder.
“Thank you for dinner and everything else,” I said to her before heading toward the door, glancing one last time at my grandmother, who slept silently.
In the morning she’d be gone. Uncle Declan and Aunt Cora would stay with her in Ireland. I hated goodbyes. She knew that. She’d understand.
IVY
Sitting on the bathroom counter, I looked at my hands…thin gold band that sat next to the diamond…I was married just like that. Reaching for the letter in my purse, the one from his mother, I smiled. She had horrible handwriting…just like me.
“Melody wrote God only knows how many letters to her kids before she died,” Nari said softly as she came into the bathroom. “I got one the day I gave birth. It was my only ever letter from her.” She thought back, leaning against the sink next to me. “She really knows how to gut people and empower them at the same time.”
“You really look up to her.”
“Yea,” she said as if it were obvious. “She changed everything. Before, the Callahan women were just pretty accessories on their husbands’ arms. The daughters like prizes to close families. That seems so…it’s all medieval, but that was the tradition.”