Escaping The Shadows Anthology: Shenanigans'19 @ The West Midlands Book Signing.

by Maria Lazarou

  Perhaps she doesn’t want to get hitched?

  Fuck, I hadn’t considered that.

  I stand when she places her hands on her hips.

  “You seriously using your daughter to get me to agree to marry you, Heart? When you know I won’t be able to disappoint her now you’ve put the idea of being a bridesmaid in her head.”

  I hadn’t looked at it that way. I recover fast. We haven’t been together all this time without me having the ability to read her. Her indignation, I suspect, is fake. Yeah, Marc would make me work for it.

  “I might have another weapon in my armoury as well.” I smirk.

  Fuck me. I hadn’t meant it that way, but when her eyes find my crotch, my fucking dick starts swelling. I lean closer.

  “That’s for later, babe.” Discreetly turning around, I adjust myself before Amy can ask what I’m doing. Once I’ve got my cock under control, I swing back.

  “This,” I reach into my cut and take out a small box, “is for now.”

  She stretches out to take it, I move it away, opening it myself. Then, show her what it contains.

  Her hands cover her face as she looks at me with almost the same childish wonder when I give Amy a toy she’s been hankering over.

  “Heart. It’s perfect.”

  “If it doesn’t fit, we can get it resized. If you don’t like it…”

  “I love it.”

  Now I’ve got two happy, excited females in my arms. Marc tries the ring on, it’s a near perfect fit. Maybe could do with being made a fraction smaller, but it will serve for now.

  “Can I tell Auntie Sam and Auntie Sophie I’m going to be a bridesmaid?”

  We give her permission. The compound is safe and secure, neither of us worry that she’s running down to the clubhouse on her own. It gives us a moment to be together. I’m still grinning at my daughter finding her forthcoming role in proceedings taking precedence over the momentous decision I’d taken to ask Marc to be my wife. To legally bind us together for the rest of our lives.

  “Why, Heart? What changed your mind? If you’re not right with this.” Marc, no longer having to pretend in front of Amy, lets her brow furrow. “I don’t need it, if you’ve got any doubts.”

  “Hush.” I touch my fingers to her mouth, needing to ease her fears. “I’m not replacing Crystal. I know that now. I’ve got enough love for the both of you. It’s time, Marc. It’s time I fully embrace my future.”

  “You swore you’d never…”

  She’s right. I had. Though I hadn’t realised it, my grief had come full circle. I’ll never forget the time I had with Crystal, she’ll always have a place in my heart, but the pain has eased to the point it’s getting hard to remember. When I look at Amy and see my dead wife, it brings fond memories, not the devastation of losing her.

  Pulling my woman into my arms, I try to fathom words that will reassure her.

  “I want this, Marc, more than anything, and I hope you do to. Can’t really fuckin’ explain it, but it feels right. It’s time, babe. Time to let go of the past completely. Time to move forward. Only need one more word from you, and that’s a yes.”

  “Yes.” The breathed out word carries so much commitment, my heart feels completely healed. “You do know, don’t you? That you’ve just created a monster. Amy’s going to be impossible.”

  Chuckling, I hold her tighter.

  “You, my love, are going to have to get pretty damn familiar with frills and lace if I know our daughter.” My lips curve as I remember. “Crystal would love that, you know? She always liked Amy dressed in pretty shit.”

  Chapter Four

  It had felt so right asking Marc to marry me. The relief and delight I’d experienced at her answer had confirmed it. Our relationship might seem back to front to other people, but to us, the timing was perfect.

  It’s the third anniversary of Crystal’s death, and the time to do something else.

  Approaching the gravestone, I crouch in front of it, laying down the flowers, which will soon dry and shrivel up in the heat of the Arizona sun. but hey, isn’t bringing some to show a mark of respect, the done thing?

  I stay still, opening my senses, allowing the life around me to soak in. Hearing the birdsong as wildlife goes about its business. Noticing the saguaro standing tall in the distance, breathing deep, lung fulls of the fresh air. My eyes finally focus on the words on the tombstone. The chosen words make me smile.

  “Trust Drummer to use my club name, Crystal.” Once again, I’m reminded of the debt, I owe to the president of my motorcycle club. Crystal’s mother had buried her daughter, my wife while I had still been in a coma. She wouldn’t have bothered with a stone to mark where she lay. So, Drummer stepped in, providing one for her himself. Today’s the first time I’ve ever seen it.

  My leg muscles protest at the position I’m in, so I take my weight on my ass, sitting more comfortably, pulling my knees up and wrapping my arms around them. Taking a blade of dried grass, I put it between my teeth and chew it. After a few minutes of quiet contemplation, I raise my eyes to the headstone again.

  “I thought you were it for me girl. That you and me would ride together through life. Grow old side by side. See Amy develop into a woman, have a couple more kids just how you wanted. Never expected you to be taken so soon.”

  A rustle of air blows my hair, a swirl of dust, and the weight of a hand on my shoulder. I put mine up to cover it, unsurprised when it lands on the bare leather of my cut. I learned long ago she wouldn’t show me any visible sign of her presence, but she was always there, always with me when I was on the journey which ended with me finding myself, finding Marc.

  Today’s the first I’ve felt her for so long. She’d left me once she’d known I was happy, as if her job was done. I feel bone deep that she had a hand in bringing Marc and I together.

  “I couldn’t take it at first, Crystal. That’s why I haven’t visited before.” Why I’d left her grave unattended for almost three years. “At first, it was too painful. I wanted nothing more than to join you.”

  More dust swirls, a weed bends in a breeze which isn’t there.

  “It wasn’t my time, I know that now, but yeah, I’ll admit I was suicidal.”

  That I was, I think as I look back. I did what I could to die. To enrage my brothers so they’d make it easy for me, but it didn’t work. All that happened was they sent me out as a Ronin, a lone biker on the road for six months. Without the support of a club behind me. I’d left them no choice.

  I’d been so angry. My wife was dead, buried while I was unconscious. The pain unbearable when I came round and found out. A physical ache, as if I was being torn in two. A burning inside me, a hole that couldn’t possibly be filled. In such a bad place, my three year old daughter only served to remind me of what I’d lost, so I’d left her too.

  “I’m sorry about Amy,” I say, contritely. “I shouldn’t have abandoned her.” But neither could I have been a good dad. A spitting image of her mother, she was a constant reminder.

  “I was consumed with rage, Crystal. I’d never physically hurt her, you know that, but I couldn’t trust myself not to lash out verbally. Fuck, I did to everyone else. Drummer stepped in again, as you probably know. He and his old lady looked after Amy as though she was their own. Bought her, her first bike that Christmas. When I didn’t even think to send her a toy.”

  Brushing my hair back from my face, I remember that festive season I’d spent alone. Well, not completely by myself. I’d stayed in the Wretched Soulz clubhouse. The MC who are the dominant club over the south-western states, and a fair amount of the rest of the US. I’d offered myself like a sacrificial lamb, hoping to die by their hands, but it wasn’t to be. Instead they’d taken pity on a lone rider, given me a room to stay, not pressuring me to join in the celebrations. I’d hidden away, not riding out on my bike, avoiding seeing Christmas lights, unable to cope with people being happy.

  “You always loved Chri
stmas, didn’t you?” I reach out my hand, resting it on the grave once again. “That’s why I couldn’t bear it, my love. Couldn’t cope with seeing families together, remembering we’d already been planning to add to ours. Is it wrong I was pleased that you hadn’t been pregnant when you had died? The loss of a child as well as you? Nah, babe.” Pain blasts through me at the thought. We’d been trying, it had been a possibility.

  “So, I survived Christmas.” I’m trying to be more positive. “It was hard, babe, not denying that, but I got through. Of course, the voice on the end of the phone helped me.”

  Marc, the police officer needlessly investigating the death of my wife when my club had already taken care of the culprit. Relentlessly calling with negative updates, just to stay in touch. A strange relationship, yeah, I’d seen her a couple of times when I’d been in hospital. My grief so intense, I hadn’t taken much notice of her then at all. Perhaps that had been the reason I’d started speaking to her, disclosing my feelings. The anonymous voice on the line had understood. I found out she’d suffered a loss as great as my own. Her fortitude in surviving, coming out the other side, something I could hold onto. The seductive promise that, in time, my hurt would become bearable.

  Then, that had seemed impossible, but if I couldn’t kill myself, and others wouldn’t do it for me, I was going to survive. I needed to learn how I could.

  Alone, by the grave, memories make me chuckle.

  “She got under my skin, Crystal. I’ll never believe anything other than you had a hand in that. Bringing her to me, someone who understood. Someone who knew the danger I was in.”

  I need to make a confession. “I couldn’t remember anything of what she looked like, whether she was tall, short, blonde, dark, skinny or curvy. I came to know her only by her voice and her words, but she was becoming special to me even then. She became my friend when I needed one.”

  I break off, and chuckle. “Never expected you to send me a fuckin’ cop, babe. Never made things easy, did you? Drummer lost his shit when he found out. A cop and an outlaw biker? How the fuck was that ever going to work out?”

  At that moment, as if on cue, I hear a wail from behind me. Turning, I see Marc expertly pulling the twins onto her lap. She’s sat on a blanket, managing to juggle books, toys, cookies, and drinks seemingly all at the same time. My breath catches at the beautiful sight. Her quick grin and nod are easy to see from here.

  I’ve got it covered. You carry on.

  As if she’d spoken, I grasp her message quite clearly.

  “It worked, though, didn’t it babe? Everything came through as you planned. It wasn’t my time to join you. By sending Marc to me, you made sure of that.” I shake my head, smiling. “Drummer and the brothers thought she was a fuckin’ man, cause I didn’t give them her full name. Prepared the house for a fucker, stocked up with condoms and beer.”

  Marc and I had many laughs about that. Crystal would have rolled over clutching her belly. Glancing up, I hope she knew and had enjoyed my brothers’ confusion when they eventually found out, Marc’s full name was Marcia.

  “When the Demon Sons took me, I could have given up. I was getting what I wanted, wasn’t I? Death, and not at my own hands. I was coming to join you, Crystal, we were going to be together at last. It wasn’t my choice; I could do nothing to prevent it. There was no way out.”

  My legs, broken and fixed twice now, twinge as though to remind me.

  “The pain, Crystal, so bad. I was ready to give up, if only to escape from the physical agony, but you didn’t want me with you, did you? It wasn’t my time. You sent Marc to me for a reason, to keep me alive, and you weren’t going to stop there.”

  For a moment, painful memories flood through me. Marc had walked into the Demon Sons’ club, offering herself up. I’d been so scared at that moment, believing she was sacrificing herself. I hadn’t immediately known; she was cleverer than that. She’d had my brothers behind her, somehow having persuaded Drummer to bring them along. I’d thought she’d been alone, had doomed herself to die with me, but no, my Marc laid everything on the line for me; a cop working with bikers, condoning murder, and committing it herself.

  Against the odds I’d been rescued. I was still alive, and grateful for it. Once I’d come face to face with death, I hadn’t wanted to die anymore. Crystal would still be waiting when it was my time.

  “What were we going to do, Crystal? She was a cop; I was a biker. It would never work. Drummer made me break off all contact with her. Well, you know the rest. She was in danger. As she’d kept me alive, club owed her a debt. We brought her under our protection. Babe, I couldn’t keep my hands off. You’d been gone so long, I’m a man. I fuckin’ hated myself. Hated her. Hated that she got on with Amy. Hated that she was the first woman since you to interest my cock.”

  My mind’s lost in the past as I reminisce.

  “Miracles happen, don’t they? But you had a hand in that too. You had to have done. That one night stand? Enough to get her pregnant, even against all the odds.”

  I remember Marc’s pain when she told me she couldn’t have children. She’d proved the doctors wrong. Not only was she expecting a baby, we ended up with twins. Now, though I’m still having difficulty getting my head around it, she’s expecting again.

  “I never betrayed you, Crystal. Just read the signs it was time to move on. The shove and push that I needed, and which I’m certain, came from you.”

  The second Christmas I’d spent without her. The tree glowing with lights in the corner of the clubroom. That fuckin’ puppy I seemed to have adopted, and that newly pregnant woman by my side. A breeze had blown through even though there hadn’t been a wind blowing, a touch on my back, a whispered goodbye in my ear.

  Until today, that had been the last time I felt Crystal’s presence. Now I feel more than that. A whispered question in the air.

  “Why am I here? Why today?”

  A white cloud passes overhead, for a moment my attention is caught by it. I smile, then reply.

  “I wanted to introduce my women. You’d have liked each other. Oh, Marc is different to you, Crystal. She doesn’t let me get away with shit like you did.” She’s more adventurous in the bedroom too, but that I’ll keep to myself.

  “I didn’t replace you with someone the same, babe. Could never have done that. You weren’t going to make it easy for me, were you? You sent me someone who’d challenge me every step of the way.” Chuckling softly, I stand up. “Ready for this, Crystal?”

  In the still morning air, a tumbleweed blows past. A tinkling sound of what could be laughter reaches my ears, and a whispered you bet from close by.

  I walk back through the graveyard, heading for Marc and my kids. Reaching her, I take Jacob from her, pausing to admire his stunning blue eyes as they fix on me, and a grubby hand stretches out, fingers curling around my cut. Then I hold out my free hand, and help pull her up. Isabel’s sucking her thumb, looking so cute. A lump comes into my throat as she puts her hand trustingly into her mother’s, and toddles along by her side.

  If it hadn’t been for Marc’s voice on the phone, these children wouldn’t have been born.

  “Ready?”

  It must be strange for her, but Marc doesn’t hesitate, moving slowly at Isabel’s pace, proceeding forward until she’s at the graveside. Her free hand, she reaches out, and rests on the marker.

  She clears her throat. “I needed saving as much as Heart, but you knew that, didn’t you? I never met you, Crystal, but I like to think we’d have been friends. That’s how I look at you, not a stranger, but an angel who’s given me a helping hand through life. I would never have taken Heart from you, but accept him as the gift you gave.” She breaks off, and I see the tears in her eyes. “As for my children, I never dreamed…” As she can’t hold back a sob, my arm goes around her, holding my wife and my two miracles together.

  “Next time, we’ll bring Amy,” she resumes having got control of herself. “We didn
’t want to upset her, needed to see you first for ourselves, but Crystal, you’d be so proud of the little girl you gave birth too. She’s six-years-old now, starting school soon. A handful at times I’ll admit, but she loves her little brother and sister, and will anymore we’ll be blessed with.” Her fingers tighten around the gravestone she’s still holding. “She loves you too, her birth mom. I’ll make sure she never forgets you. She remembers you in her prayers every night.”

  I feel an ass, recalling the time I thought Marc was trying to erase Crystal’s memory, in mine and Amy’s heads. Now I know her better, I hate that I ever considered it, when the exact opposite is the truth.

  Jacob’s wriggling, his strong legs kicking at my arm, as though he’s trying to get into first gear, his fingers tightening on my hand as though pulling at the clutch. My son, a biker to follow me, who’d never have been born if I had given up. As he wriggles and I’m about to let him down, suddenly he stops and stills. Next to Marc, Isabel does the same, pausing mid skip. Then suddenly, both twins are smiling, chuckling, leaning their heads back and looking up.

  It’s just like someone was patting their heads.

  Marc looks over at me and nods. “She’s here.”

  She is.

  Marc had been right to suggest I come. After three long years, to be brave enough to visit my first old lady’s resting place. An amazing woman, Marc knows she will take my name and become my wife but accepts she’ll share my heart. I grin, thinking one place is reserved for Crystal, her place on the back of my bike. Marc refuses to ride behind me, she doesn’t need to. She’s got her own motorcycles, and though I’d never tell her, can outride me. Especially on her rat bike. Her place in my heart is equal to Crystal’s, and Marc’s confident enough to be aware of that. Crystal’s my past, Marc, my future.

  I’ve said all I need, no necessity for lingering goodbyes. Now I’ve broken the ice, I’ll be back often, and bring Amy, as Marc suggested. Maybe, I’ll even bring Grunt, that fuckin’ mutt puppy who’s grown wolfhound size. That would give Crystal a laugh, she always wanted a dog.