by J. J. McAvoy
PART THREE
THE FUTURE & FURTHER INTO THE FUTURE
THE FUTURE
THEA
He’d been upset for the whole weekend, but had just kept it bottled up until now. He looked back at me, and I nodded. Taking a deep breath, he stood straighter, and, holding a piece of paper in his hands, he knocked.
“Come in.”
Tiptoeing to the door with the sippy cup top I’d just finished washing, I cracked the door a little more to hear. Levi glanced up from his desk, his glasses low on his nose.
“Ulric? What is it?”
Again, Ulric turned back to me, and I winked at him. He turned to his father and lifted the paper to read. Levi glanced at me, and I tried not smile, but I couldn’t help it. He rose from his desk, and walked around to our son.
“I, Ulric Pierre-Od … Oid-ss—”
“O-id-hche.” Levi helped him pronounce, still confused as to what was happening but patient, nonetheless.
“I, Ulric Pierre-Oidche-Black, am quitting baseball...”
“What?”
“Levi,” I hissed out his name, and he glared at me so I glared right back. We battled through our eyes until he finally looked back down at our son.
“Go on.”
“I, Ulric Pierre-Oidche-Black, am quitting baseball ... not because it is hard. But because … because…” He sighed. “Because everyone sucks, Dad.”
“Ulric!” I stomped into the room.
“It’s true! I’m the MVP, but why do I have to do everything?”
Levi released a breath of relief, dropping to eye level with our seven-year-old MVP of the Boston Beagles Little League.
“Kiddo, I know you are upset about losing the championships, but remember, it’s a team sport. You can’t let your teammates down.”
He groaned. “But they let me down.”
“So you want to quit? That’s not what sports are about, son.”
“No … ugh.” He scratched his curls and lifted the paper again to read. “I’m not quitting because it is hard, but because I want to play tennis. And I promise not to quit again.”
“Tennis?” Levi looked at him like he was an alien.
But Ulric grinned, happily nodding his head. “If I play tennis, I still get to be on a team, but each game is just me and somebody else. It’s like what you and Mommy say Willow and I have to do.”
“Share?” Levi asked, still frowning.
Ulric shook his head. “No, co-promise.”
“Compromise,” Levi corrected.
Ulric nodded. “Yeah! There is a team I can join. And I want to learn. I just want to play by myself! Then, if I win or lose, it’s my fault.”
Levi looked to me, as if he were begging for help.
I shrugged, unsure what to tell him.
“Sorry, Dad.” Ulric’s shoulders dropped, and he hung his head. “I know you like baseball, and I like it, but I don’t wanna play. I mean, I’ll still play with you if you want.”
My heart felt like it was hit by a truck. Levi, heartbreakingly put his hands on his head, running them through his curls. “It’s okay. Thank you for telling me. I’ll talk to the coach. Then we can look into this tennis stuff.”
“Really? Thanks, Dad.” Ulric hugged him, and then made a run for it right past me.
“No running in the house!” I yelled after him. “And check on your sister!”
“I blame you,” Levi muttered, picking up Ulric’s written declaration. He frowned at it, as if it were a dead animal. “I knew you’d poison him against the game.”
“Hey!” I pointed Willow’s sippy cup top at him. “You heard him … he doesn’t want to carry the team anymore. He was so crushed on Saturday. He cried in the car while the other kids were drinking juice boxes in the shade.”
“If the other kids’ parents would have taught their kids how to catch a damn ball. Or at least run down everything—”
“Levi, they are seven. Ulric is the weird one,” I reminded him, laughing.
“Hey!” He pointed back at me. “Ulric, isn’t weird; he’s dedicated to—”
“Winning. He loves winning,” I reminded him, walking farther into the study.
“So? He’s not a jerk about it.”
I made a face. Ulric said the same thing when I told him he loved to win too much. ‘I’m not being mean to them about it, Mommy.’ And he’s exactly right. He can’t play with the older kids because he isn’t big enough. He doesn’t feel like everyone is working hard like him. And when he loses, he can’t blame himself because he thinks he did everything he could, and everyone else let him down. He’s right. So instead of yelling at everyone, and being a little monster, our son wants to play a sport where he can only blame himself if he loses. This is good.”
He still pouted, dropping the paper on his desk and leaning back against it. “I know nothing about tennis.”
“You can learn together.”
“Or I can find him an All-Star seven-year-old team.” He thought about it, and I smacked his shoulder.
“Let him at least play tennis. You never know … he could end up hating it and missing baseball.”
He sighed, and reached out, putting his hands on my hips. “Promise me he’ll hate it.”
“You are ridiculous!” I wiggled away from him and back toward the door. “Now, come on and help me. Willow’s friends will be here soon.”
“How is she two already?” he muttered to himself as we walked to the living room. Willow sat on the floor, her curly hair in two big pigtails as Ulric gave her all his baseball stuff.
“Ulric, what are you doing?” Levi asked.
“I’m giving Willow her birthday gifts,” he replied happily, rubbing salt deep into Levi’s open, bleeding wounds.
“It looks like you’re trying to get rid of your old stuff by giving it to your sister.” I crossed my arms and eyed him up.
“No, she likes this stuff.” He grinned, still trying to weasel his way out of it. Before I could get a word in, Willow threw the ball right at my head. I ducked, even though Levi caught the ball. She started to giggle, and then looked for something else to throw.
“Willow!” I pointed at her as she picked up the mitt and threw it. For how heavy it was for her, she threw it pretty far.
“Look whose got Daddy’s arm.” Levi grinned, rushing to her, and scooped her off the ground, causing her to laugh harder. When she laughed, her smile took up her whole face, and her eyes squinted together hiding her beautiful hazel eyes.
“Don’t cheer her on,” I warned him, walking up to them. “No throwing.”
“Ulric, take all of your stuff back upstairs.”
“It’s her stuff.”
“Ulric.” I stared him down.
“Yes, Mommy,” he grumbled, picking the items up one by one.
“And you.” I pointed to Levi, who stared at my finger, then back at my eyes. “Don’t you go trying to replace Willow for Ulric in baseball.”
He grinned, just as sneaky as his son. “Just for a little bit, and watch, he’ll want to play with us too. Right, Willow, right?”
“And if they both hate it…”
He made a face at me. “Seriously? Why not just rip out my heart already?”
“No throwing in the house.” I pointed to them both as I headed to the kitchen.
“How long you think your big brother will play tennis? Huh? He’ll come back when we start to play. Willow, you’re so smart,” I heard him say after I walked away.
Rolling my eyes, I did my best ignore him.
FURTHER INTO THE FUTURE
LEVI
“Why is it so hot?” she complained, looking into her purse. “Have any of you seen my fan?”
I glanced to the right, as our daughter popped the bubble gum in her mouth, staring at me. The fan buzzed in her hand. She leaned back, trying to hide behind my body. Snickering to myself, I leaned forward some.
“Nope,” I answered my wife.
“So weird … I thought I…�
�� Thea trailed off as she glanced at me.
“Yeah.”
“I thought I told Willow to throw it in here for me.” She moved to see her, but I leaned to block her view.
“Really?”
“Willow!”
“Mom, my face is melting!” Willow whined when Thea shoved me, reaching over for the fan.
“Whose fault is that I told you to buy one at the gift shop? But no, you wanted that shirt, so fork it over.” Thea wiggled her fingers, waiting.
Willow looked to me, holding the fan to her chest with a pout on her face. Her big hazel eyes teared up. “Daddy, help—”
“Don’t you dare,” Thea snapped at me.
Taking a deep breath, I leaned back, allowing them to fight it out on their own. “This is why he didn’t want us to come.”
“Excuse me—”
“Ladies and gentlemen, on Centre Court,” the announcer cut in, “competing in his first ever Wimbledon, Ulric Pierre-Oidhche Black.”
Everyone clapped. I, on the other hand, stood up and cheered him as he came out.
“DAD!” Willow hissed.
“LEVI!” Thea pulled on my jeans.
Ignoring them both, I pointed to him.
He pulled his hat down more, but raised a small fist for me, causing a few people to laugh.
“Sit down!” Thea yanked, and I finally did, grinning from ear to ear. “This isn’t baseball. You can’t be hollering like that.”
“Thea.” I smiled at her. “Our son is playing in Wimbledon.”
She melted, her grin spreading. She put her hands to the side of her face and yelled, “I love you, sweetheart!”
I laughed, as he covered his face with both hands.
“O-M-G. You guys are so not cool,” Willow groaned, trying to hid her face.
“We know,” we said simultaneously. We happily gave up on being cool nineteen years ago. Looking back on it … it was the best choice we’d even made.
Sneak Peek at CHILDREN OF VICE
***Reader Discretion Advised***
VICE
nounˈvīs
a: moral depravity or corruption: wickedness
b: a physical imperfection, deformity, or taint
c: an abnormal behavior pattern in a domestic animal detrimental to its health or usefulness
PROLOGUE
“Monsters make choices.
Monsters shape the world.
Monsters force us to become stronger, smarter, better.
They sift the weak from the strong and provide a forge for the steeling of souls. Even as we curse monsters, we admire them. Seek to become them, in some ways. There are far, far worse things to be than a monster.”
~ Jim Butcher
ETHAN
I’m not sure when it happened…
When it began to crack and alter shape…
Looking back, there are so many moments that could be the one, the origin.
If you asked anyone who wasn’t family, they’d say it happened the day I was born.
That the moment I came into this world as a Callahan, the innocence, the morality, and the virtues that are normally common to everyone else were defective. Like a house with fractured windows. If you asked anyone within my family they’d say the windows were not fractured, but frosted and bulletproof because that is how they should be. After all, the people who were pointing at my windows were the same people who used blinds. That was my family all right…stupidly rich, dangerously powerful, unspeakably ruthless, and obsessed with extended metaphors. But the thing was…I didn’t care if I was a house with fractured or frosted or bulletproof windows. If people were curious to know the type of man I was, they were free to find out at their own peril.
What I cared about was when.
When did it happen?
When did I understand what it meant to be a Callahan?
To be Ethan Antonio Giovanni Callahan.
Staring up at the waters above me until my eyes drifted closed, one memory, one moment came forward…
ETHAN - AGE ELEVEN
He looked like what everyone said Santa Claus was supposed to look like…with everything but the long white beard, though, which made his red faced, white fat body, cloaked in red robes disturbing to see.
“Why is there a screen here if I can still see you?”
He laughed. “Is this your first confession, boy?”
I don’t like hi,. I thought immediately and for three good reasons too.
One, he laughed when I was being serious.
Two, he didn’t answer my question.
Three, he called me “boy.”
“Yes,” I answered anyway but only because Mom told me to be respectful in church.
“By your seat there is a card. It will tell you what you have to say.”
I really don’t like him.
Why would you put a card in a dark stall? It was stupid.
Reaching around me, I got the small little card and lifted it up, reading.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned…but no, I haven’t.” I looked back up at him.
“Really now?” he said, his voice going up. “You haven’t done anything wrong?”
“Nope.”
“Sometimes we may think things aren’t wrong or so small that they aren’t sins, but God cares about them all,” he replied.
“Okay, when I have something, I’ll come back,” I told him, putting the card down.
“So you’ve never said anything to hurt someone? Maybe pushed your little sister—”
“Why would I push my sister?”
“Or hit your brother?”
“Didn’t do that either.”
“Yelled or fought with your parents?”
“No. My parents would kill me and then bring me back to kick my ass to Ireland so every Callahan there could kill me again.” I laughed at that. I liked Ireland. Everyone was kinda like Uncle Neal.
“Callahan?”
The way he said the name made me pay attention to him. He said it like…like it was shocking or scary even. No. When I looked into his blue eyes they were wide-open and shaking. I didn’t know that was possible. Maybe his whole head was shaking and I could only really see his eyes.
“Yeah.” I nodded, adding, “I’m Ethan Antonio Giovanni Callahan, first son of Liam Alec Callahan and Melody Nicci Giovanni Callahan. Are you new to this church?”
He didn’t reply, so I knocked on the screen.
“Why are you scared?”
When I spoke, he sat up straighter and focused in on me. “I’m not scared.”
“You’re lying…you should confess that.”
His whole jolly priest shtick went away when he spoke again. “Understanding who your parents are, I now see why you are so ill-mannered and pompous at such a young age.”
Hurt him!
I wanted to, but I kept talking instead. “Who do you think my parents are? I’m sure—”
“It’s not who I think they are. It’s who they are. Murderers.”
“So?” I asked him.
“So? So?”
I nodded. “Moses was a murderer. King David was a murderer. Actually almost everyone in the Bible is a murderer…except Jesus. But since he’s part of God, doesn’t that make him a murderer by connection? Because God tells people to kill people too and—”
His voice started to rise. “You are twisting God’s words.”
“No, it’s there. I’m sure.”
“You…” He took a deep breath. “In the Bible, boy, God is seeking justice, a righteousness for the whole world, in a world in which there are bad people who hurt people, because back then there were no jails. There was no way to stop people from continuing to hurt and cheat others. The church teaches us that every life is precious and in a modern world, jails do exist. As such murder is a sin.”
“What about the army?”
“It is for the overall wellbeing of the country and only approved by the church if it is absolutely necessary.”
&nbs
p; Are all adults dumb like this?
“So then being a murderer is okay. You just need permission. And you can only get permission if it is necessary. My parents only do things if it is necessary—”
“Nothing your parents do, boy—”
“Stop interrupting me!” I snapped, glaring at him as I stood up in the booth. “Stop calling me boy. I told you my name is Ethan Antonio Giovanni Callahan. I haven’t interrupted you once. I’ve allowed you to speak your mind. And you’re the one being rude. I told you they are my parents and you still want to talk bad about them to me. If gossiping isn’t a sin, it should be and you should confess to it. My parents only act if it is necessary. People attack us all the time, and we defend ourselves, our families, and our people. If my parents weren’t murderers…if I wasn’t a murderer. We’d be dead!”
He gasped. “What did you just say?”
I didn’t reply. The more I looked at him, the angrier I got.
“You’ve killed someone?”
“Yes, but I’m not asking for forgiveness.”
Again he made another huffy sound.
“What have they done to you? How old are you that they turned you into a monster?”
“Thanks be to God.” I quoted the last line from the confession card he’d told me to pick up before, which meant we were done. Opening the door, I blinked a few times, adjusting to the light.
“Ethan, what took so long?” Dona popped up right in my face. Her dark brown hair was curled up a lot and it made her look funny, but she still liked it. She was grinning like she knew something I didn’t. Dona’s smile always made me smile no matter what, though.
But before I could say anything, she was already heading toward the booth I’d just exited.
Grabbing her arm, I pulled her back. “Don’t go to him.”
She looked at me for a long time before nodding and stepping back next to me. “All the other ones are full. Daddy, Mommy, and Wyatt went in.”
I looked around the cathedral and in the wooden rows were all of Mom and Dad’s people. Two were directly behind Dona, speaking to each other, and a few others moved through the crowd to be closer to one of the stalls where I guessed Dad, Mom, or Wyatt were.