Guess he was right.
“What kind of favor?”
“Do you remember Laurie?”
Yes. I did remember Laurie. I was surprised that he did.
“What about her?”
“I got a call from Mom and Dad; she left the twins.”
“Left them? Left them where?”
“I’ll explain everything to you when I see you-”
“When you see me? When are you going to do that?”
“I... I need you to come stay with the kids awhile.”
“At your house?”
“Ron,” he said with frustration, “the kids are flying in tomorrow night from Mom and Dad’s. I’m on emergency leave from the Navy, and it’s only going to last for the next two weeks. Laurie is nowhere to be found, and I need you to take care of Chris and Nikki. Are you going to do it or not?”
“I have to ask Michael first,” I said.
“Is he there? I can talk to him for you. Give him the phone.”
“No! No need. You said they’re coming tomorrow?”
“So I need you here today or latest tomorrow morning. They get here at night. You also have to pick them up from the airport; Monterey Regional.”
I frowned. What had Bart ever done for me to make him think making a request like this was even okay?
“How long will I have to stay?”
“I can’t say for sure; I just need to get them away from their mom. If it’s better for you, you can take them to live with you and your husband.”
Tell him now or tell him later...? Tell him later.
“I’ll be there tomorrow morning,” I said to him.
He thanked me like I had just agreed to give him some of my bone marrow. In the event that he needed some, I wouldn’t be able to give him any because of the whole blood relation thing. Bart always knew he was adopted, but I had to be informed of the fact later in life; that he was my brother, but not in the way that other people’s brothers were their brothers. It was at school one day, I was about six, and someone called my brother a terrible word beginning with ‘s,’ used to refer to Mexicans. I asked him what it was, and he beat that kid up. The consequent trip to the principal’s office and call to our parents was when I learned that babies come from a lot of places, including other people.
Technicalities aside, he was still first born and my older brother, so it didn’t matter whether our DNA matched or not. We were as close as a brother and sister could be expected to be, but then he turned nineteen and decided it was in his best interests to drop out of college and join the Navy. Then he did us one better and announced he was becoming a SEAL, a cute acronym for a very intense and difficult branch of the armed forces to join.
A couple of years after leaving to enlist, we all met Laurie, mother of his children and ex-girlfriend. My parents were tremendous people. Not only did they accept the strange woman who had shown up saying her newborn twins were Bart’s, but they also helped her move up to Berkeley from Monterey so they—and I—could be close to the kids.
Yes, I gave them all the love and attention that I had been unable to give my own children. Yes, Laurie couldn’t stand me, but getting rid of me meant paying someone to babysit, and she knew what side her toast was buttered.
I could get to Monterey in under two hours, traffic permitting. I had my own car—Michael had bought it, but it was mine. It was a little fucked up seeing Bart again given the way the last several years had gone. He was the first person I had seen from my family since I had left Michael. I had never been to the house in Monterey, but it was nice. The USN was taking care of him. He was waiting for me at the door and helped me haul my suitcase and duffel into the house.
“Your hair looks different,” he said to me after we had muttered our salutations. He wasn’t wrong.
“Yours looks the same,” I replied. What did you tell someone after you hadn’t seen them in forever?
“I’m sorry to make you come here like this,” he said. “You brought a lot of stuff.”
“Yeah, I wanted to be careful. Don’t know how long I’ll be staying.”
“Is Michael okay with this?”
“Mm-hmm.”
I grabbed the duffel bag and started up the stairs.
“You aren’t going to call him and tell him you got here safely?”
He doesn’t care.
“Sure... later.”
“Ron, let me call him. It isn’t fair to him to steal you away like this.”
“Bart, there’s no need, really.”
He didn’t believe me. I saw him looking around the room until he spotted what he was looking for, my purse on top of my suitcase. I lunged for it, but I was too slow. He pulled my cell phone out and held it up out of my reach.
“If I call Michael right now, what’s he going to tell me?”
“He’ll say sorry for your baby mama drama and ask for me.”
“Are you in trouble? Are you running away from him?”
“No! I mean, it’s complicated.”
“What happened? Did he kick you out?”
“No… we… lost another baby.”
“Another?” he asked. I hadn’t told him after the first one.
“I had a miscarriage earlier this week. The last time this happened, he made me feel like shit for a year and a half. I’m not going to do it again.”
“I’m… I’m really sorry, Ron,” he said.
“No, you aren’t. You never liked him anyway. None of you did. It doesn’t matter now.”
I stiffened as he wrapped his arms around me in the most uncomfortable sibling hug conceivable. It was wooden and awkward, but his intention was to show that he was sorry, even if it felt like he was trying to touch me and not touch me at the same time. I waited a few seconds before wriggling out of his grasp.
“What’s going on with the kids?”
“I got a call from Mom; they’ll be here by this evening.”
“Have you spoken to them? How are they?”
“They’ve never lived with me. I think they’re nervous. They don’t know where their mom is and now they’re moving away from home.”
“Still no word from Laurie? How long has it been?”
“Nearly two weeks now. Chris says he woke up one morning and they didn’t see her anywhere. There was breakfast on the table, but she was just gone. There was enough food for them to last the whole day but once night fell, they got scared. Chris used the emergency cell phone she leaves at home to call Mom and Dad. They went and got them, and they’ve been staying with them since. They went back to the house to pack up their clothes for their trip here and still nothing. Nobody has any idea where she is.”
“Those poor babies, they must have been scared to death.”
“I wouldn’t trust them with anyone else but you, Ron,” he said seriously. “I’m only on leave for a short while, and then I’m leaving too. I want to petition for full custody of them, and I want you to help me.”
“Do you need a lawyer or something?”
“No, I want you to become their legal guardian. Nobody knows when Laurie’s coming back and frankly, we can’t trust her to show up before the kids have to start school, or in case there’s an emergency, and one of them goes to the hospital. I don’t want her living with them again.”
“Are you really going to separate them from their mother?”
“What kind of mother leaves her kids alone to fend for themselves like feral cats? If she shows up again, and it turns out she has a good reason for her absence, then maybe she can have visitation, but she isn’t living with them. Not anymore.”
“You expect me to stay here until your deployment is over? How long is it?”
“There are six months left,” he said carefully, “I’m sorry for expecting you to be free for me to ask this of you. I didn’t know who else to go to. My kids were not going to foster care.”
“It’s okay, I understand. I’ll stay with them, but I have to warn you, I don’t have a job.”
“You don’t need one. They—all of you—will be supported on my salary and there are benefits and services for you guys from the military. A lot of guys have wives who are stay-at-home moms. You can get a job when they go to school if you want to. Is Michael okay with this?”
“I don’t know; I haven’t asked him...” I looked up to see Bart staring at me. “I’m divorcing him.”
“Oh, Ronnie, I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry for me. You hated him. You were right; the marriage was a bad idea.”
“I’d never wish for you guys to split up.”
“Well, it’s happening,” I shrugged. “Now I can be your problem.”
He smiled. He opened up his arms again, and I let him hug me. This one was much better.
“It’s good to have you back Ron,” he said. He released me and looked at me at arm’s length.
“Why’d you cut all your hair off?” he asked.
“I needed a change,” I said, lightly, fingering the jagged ends. “You don’t like it?”
“No, it’s nice. It’s the way you had it before I left for the Navy.”
“Sixteen-year-old Veronica? Just the look I was going for.”
I stood at arrivals watching the crowd for either my parents or two morose unaccompanied minors. I saw the former, my father with a kid on either side of him. Christopher smiled and waved at me, letting go of Dad’s hand to run up to me. I squatted down so I could hug him. Nicolette smiled shyly at Dad’s side.
“Veronica,” my father said to me.
“Dad. Thanks for bringing them.”
“I didn’t know you were here in Monterey, when did you leave San Jose?”
“I just got here this morning.”
“How is Michael?” he asked politely. He always asked how Michael was despite the fact that I was sure he didn’t care. Mom demonstrated her disdain a lot more ferociously, but at least Dad would pretend and try and talk sports with him when they saw each other.
“He’s great,” I said. Maybe a lie, but there was no real way to be sure. I had kept my phone on airplane mode, so I wouldn’t get his phone calls. I was going to talk to him—eventually—but I wanted him good and frustrated first. If he was mad, maybe he’d want to divorce me quicker.
“Bart says you’re going to take care of the children; when are you going back home?”
I shrugged. I wasn’t ready to tell him. We were at the airport, and it wasn’t something that could just be said and left at that. He would have questions, and I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t even know if Michael had gotten the papers yet. Just a little while longer. I wasn’t ready to have that conversation yet.
“It’s all up in the air right now, but we’ll figure it out. How’s Mom? Have the kids eaten already?”
“She’s fine. She would send her greetings if she knew you were here,” he said. How painful was it for parents to watch their children fucking up and not be able to say anything to them about it?
“I’ll call her. It’s nice to see you,” I said to him. He hugged me briefly before saying bye to the children. Christopher and Nicolette grumbled all the way to the car as I dragged their suitcase with us. Bart wasn’t home, and they hadn’t eaten yet, so dinner was pizza on the couch in front of the television where they stayed until they started to pass out. They each had a room to themselves upstairs where I led them to bed down for the night.
I was just about to turn the lights out in my own room when I heard a knock at the door. I sat up as it opened, and two little faces popped back into view.
“What’s the matter? You guys can’t sleep?” I asked them.
“Nikki’s scared… can we sleep here tonight?” Christopher asked. I smiled and lifted the comforter, patting the bed.
They jumped onto the bed, burrowing under the covers on either side of me, before peacefully falling asleep.
3
Thaddeus
I nearly didn’t believe it when I saw the name on my phone. Bart Kingsley was calling me. My first question was how. My second question was what the fuck did he do?
I was so bummed when he told me that all it was was he’d been issued emergency leave. I’d been telling him to ditch the Navy for years now, and he hadn’t listened. Whatever, he was in town, and I wasn’t going to let him leave without dragging him out to raise hell. Whether he was on leave or not, he always acted like an on-duty SEAL. He wasn’t going to drive to Vegas with me to make mistakes. He did let me convince him into getting some beers that night though. He’d been a SEAL so long he hardly knew how to behave when he was off-duty. At least he didn’t run around Monterey in his white dress uniform.
He joined me at the bar and held his hand out for me to shake. He had even asked for a glass to pour his beer into. That last thing was less the years removed from civilian life and more the fact that he behaved like an old man at the age of twenty-eight.
“Emergency leave, huh? I thought you were going to tell me you broke your contract.”
“No such luck, I’m not a deserter like you,” Bart said.
I laughed.
“Don’t be mad because you didn’t walk away when you had the chance. I saw an opportunity to make my pay worth my effort, and I took it.”
“Your job is technically illegal in most countries around the world.”
“Not in this one,” I took a sip of my beer. You couldn’t blame me for expecting bad news when Bart called saying he was back in town. He had last deployed about two months before for an eight-month deployment. Usually, when you were back early, it was because you were in trouble or they were letting you go.
Bart was devoted to the SEALS. He’d be one of those guys they would have to retire by force after twenty years. I could see the cover of his best-selling Navy SEAL memoir already. He had a bright future corresponding on CNN and consulting for Hollywood war movies once the force was done with him. We had started at the same time, but I was out after my contract ran out the first time. Our military careers took extremely divergent routes after that.
“I actually have to ask you something,” he said.
“What?”
“I’m getting my kids back tomorrow,” he said. My eyebrows raised. A lot of guys in the Navy were married, which meant a lot of guys in the Navy were divorced. Bart was neither. He did, however, have a pair of twins with—if the stories were true—the battiest chick back where his family lived in the Bay.
“Really? You don’t sound so excited.”
I could empathize—I hated kids too. Alright, maybe Bart didn’t hate his kids. They were his; he probably liked them a lot, but he was a SEAL. He needed kids the way he needed seasickness.
“I got a call from my parents; apparently, she left them.”
“Left them?”
“In the house, alone. Two seven-year-old kids, she just left them. They called my parents because that’s who I taught them to call in emergencies, and they went to get them before CPS had to intervene.”
“If they’re with your parents then what’s the big deal?”
“That means Laurie could get them back. I need to have them here where I could get full custody of them. That’s where you come in.”
I nearly choked.
“You want me to babysit your kids?”
“No, Ron is going to do that. I just want you to watch her?”
“Ron? Why do you want me watching your babysitter?”
“No, man. Ron’s my sister. I just want you to keep an eye on her. Let her call you when she needs help. Stuff like that.”
“Help? Bart, I know we’re friends, but I’m not gonna hold your sister’s hand while she raises your kids.”
“Please Thad, I wouldn’t ask you for this unless there was no other way out.”
“Why does she need help anyway? Is she a kid?”
“No, but she’ll be new here. Just tell her where everything is. I’m gonna have to leave soon, she’ll be alone. Just fill the role that I would for her.”
I grimaced a little.
“You’ve known me for too long to truly believe that I would be a good choice for this.”
“You’re a deserter and a mercenary; would I really come to you unless I had another choice?”
I didn’t desert from the fucking Navy.
Bart liked to hold it over my head, but really, he was just busting my balls. I served every last hour that I had to according to my contract and then I peaced out, on to bigger and better things. I took offense to the term ‘mercenary,’ but it wasn’t a complete lie. We preferred the term ‘private military contractors.’ Whether it was a lie or not had nothing to do with how good a tour guide and emergency hotline I could be for his sister. Short version was I didn’t want to do it. All the people Bart could have asked to do this for him were SEALs too, meaning they were still deployed out wherever he was going to be returning soon. I was his only friend on civvie-street. The worst—yet only—option.
“What’s she coming to Monterey to do anyway?” I asked.
“I asked her to do this for me. I want to get full custody of them; maybe she can become their legal guardian.”
“And she’s just gonna do it? She’s just gonna come here and be your nanny for free?”
“She’s my sister. That’s what you do for family. I know you were raised by wolves; you aren’t familiar. It’s not your fault.”
I scoffed and took another swig of my beer. Raised by wolves… I had done just fine for myself.
“Are you going to do it or not?” he asked me. I looked at him. He hid it well, but he was obviously bugging. I didn’t have kids, something I thanked the Lord for every day, but what their mother did if she really did just leave them to survive on tap water and their fingernails was wrong. I sighed.
“Whatever man, I’ll do it. You don’t have to twist my fucking arm.”
“Thank you, Thaddeus. I owe you one.” I flinched a little hearing him call me by my full name. This was crossing into sincere and heartfelt a little too much.
Thaddeus (Heartbreakers & Troublemakers Book 2) Page 2
