Nodding, he didn’t raise his gaze from his daughter’s face as he fell in love all over again.
Inspired
Seated in the hospital chapel, Hoss told Sammy, hand on his bowed head, "Son, sometimes we have to accept we won't ever know. This is one of those times. We can’t know, won't know, so you gotta let that question go. Everything happens for a reason, and I believe meeting Mama was fated for me. Because it brought me you, and now Faith."
He smiled through his own tears, cupping his palm behind Sammy's neck and giving him a squeeze. "I got Hope, and then I got you. And, in all of that beauty that is our family, I got Faith, and I got love. Why don't we head up those stairs and go see your sister, yeah? Let's go say hello."
Sam lurched sideways, plastering himself to Hoss’ side, and he wrapped his arms around his boy. Sam hadn’t spoken beyond asking what had happened and why, and Hoss didn’t know what was going through his head. With a sense of déjà vu, he thought, How in the fuck do people do this? How do they parent through something this profound and damaging? When the potential for screwing things up is so high, how do I make sure he comes out the other end safe and sane, whole and good?
“She loves you so much, Sammy,” he whispered, pressing his lips to the boy’s head. “You know one of the things about you I respected from one of the very first times I saw you? We were in Aunt Mercy’s kitchen and you got up in my face, because you said I made Mama cry. Told me if I wanted to be her friend, then I had to mend my ways. I had to work for it.”
He swallowed hard and then said, “You were right, every time you told me how to be with Mama. From that first day until here, when you told me something, I listened to it, because most often, you were right. And you were right, because you love. With everything inside you, you love. Love her, love your Aunt Mercy, love Jonny and Kane, and love Bingo. Then you loved me, and I realized being inside that love was a hundred million times better than seeing it from the outside, and I knew what kept the smile on her face all the time. Your love.”
Sam’s body jolted and jerked as the sobs tore out of him, and all Hoss could do was hold him, trying to give him back one tenth of what this boy had given him. “I ain’t going anywhere, son. You take all the time you need. We’ll go only when you’re ready.”
“And if”—Sam sobbed, breaths sounding painful—“I’m not ever…” He couldn’t continue, hard hiccups racking him, and Hoss was reminded of times past when Sam cried himself to sleep in Mercy’s lap or when he cried until he was exhausted sitting beside Hoss. Love that deep, he thought, brings risk, but look at the reward when you find the ones worth it all, worth everything.
“Teaching me another lesson sitting right here, Sammy,” he shared. “You’re hurting, son. I know it; I hear it. Son, I feel it in every line of your little body. Your love is huge, so big. Only a love that big could hurt like this. Your momma knew how you loved, knew you loved her huge.” He paused, sorting his words out before he let them loose. “Knew you’d love Faith like that, do your job.”
“My job?” Sam’s voice was still breaking, but he got this out, the question clear.
“Only the most important one.” He repeated Sam’s words from nearly a year ago back to him, and knew he recognized the phrase, because he went still under Hoss’ hands. “You remember what you told me?”
Sam nodded, and then pulled back, looking up into his face, eyes bruised with sorrow, cheeks shining with the wet still streaming down them. “We gotta keep our best girls safe.”
He brushed those tears from Sam’s cheeks. “Faith is our best girl.” Sam nodded again, sniffing hard. Hoss pulled a wad of tissues from the box nearby and handed them to the boy. “Blow your schnozzle, son.” He took a deep breath, desperately wishing Hope were beside him, trying not to imagine she would be there when they went up the hallway. “Let me know when you’re ready.” Leaning back, he looped one arm around Sam’s shoulders, tipping his head up to stare at the ceiling, trying to hold his own shit together so he could help his son.
***
Two weeks, he thought with a sigh.
Coming home from the hospital to find all the places she had made her mark in their home were still there, bittersweet with equal measures of pain and joy. Two weeks of continually stumbling over things that tore the wound in his chest wide open again. “Miss you, baby,” he whispered into the air of the nursery, careful to keep his voice soft so Faith didn’t wake.
Mercy had stayed with them the first couple of days, until after the service. She, Sharon, and Willa had made sure they came home from the hospital to a house filled with friends and the things a brand new baby needed. Hoss had watched the revolving door of keepers, everyone giving, no one demanding anything from him or Sammy that they couldn’t offer. Not conversation or time. Just being there in case they were needed, giving the two of them space to mourn, space to come to terms with what had happened…was happening.
Jerry had driven up with his wife and kids, Mom and Pop flying in the next day. Seeing his mother holding Faith had torn him up. He had to excuse himself from the room more than once when she talked about how the baby looked like him, because he saw only Hope in their baby girl’s face. Wanted more than anything for her to look like her momma, prayed her blonde hair never darkened, that it would look like Hope’s, shining white and yellow in the sun.
Moments like that were the hardest, because he couldn’t even find the words to tell what he was thinking, just kept everything locked up inside, trying to make sense of it all in his head. Gray.
He and his mother had words more than once. Because, as loving as she was, she didn’t know Hope, didn’t know what she would want for her daughter. Sure didn’t know what Hope would want for her son, so when his mother tried to convince him to let Sammy see Hope in the casket the night before the memorial service, he nearly lost his shit.
Thank God, Jerry stepped in when he did, guiding their mother over to sit on the couch across the room. There was no fucking way he would let that be Sammy’s last memory of his mother. If Hoss could have erased the vision from his own memory, he would gladly have done so, because the shell that lay in that fucking box was as far from Hope as white was from black.
His Hope overflowed with light and beauty. Seeing her body lying in the satin-lined casket, hands carefully folded, tamed hair braided and drawn over one shoulder, he knew without a doubt she was gone; he had indeed seen her light go out that day in the hospital hallway. After that, he had no dreams she was coming back, that she would walk back in through the front door. She was gone.
Preacher, the same Rebel who had married them, buried Hope. When the old man’s voice gave out partway through, Tug stepped up beside him, hand on his shoulder, steadying him and taking over until Preach could continue.
The day after the service, his family returned to Alabama, and he nicely but firmly put Mercy out, too. It was time for him and his kids to figure out what kind of family they were now, in their little unit of three. That was also the day he went back into his studio for the first time, standing in the large room.
Turning in a circle, staring at the tables and easels, he felt as if he didn’t know what they were anymore. Saw no place for them in his life. Painting was synonymous with love and happiness for him, and at that moment, he couldn’t see his way back to those emotions again.
Up every two hours with Faith, he gained admiration for Hope with every feeding, every diaper change, because she had done this with Sammy. He wasn’t arrogant enough to think it was the same, because as he had told her about the pregnancy, everything was different when you had people to count on. Before him, before she met Mercy, she had no one to lean on, and he knew he had a thousand brothers he could call. So different, but as he looked down at his daughter sleeping in his arms, it still felt the same. Because Hope was gone.
Closing his eyes, he called up the memory of them laying crossways on their bed, him showing her the first painting she inspired and her stunned reaction that anyone,
even him, would see beauty like that inside her.
“I love you, baby,” he whispered, and his mind supplied her voice telling him, I love you, too. I love our daughter, Isaiah. Make sure she knows that. He felt the ghost of a touch on his arm, looked down to see the skin raised in gooseflesh.
He took a breath, finding it a little easier than yesterday, and leaned in to kiss Faith’s head. “Mama loves you, baby girl,” he whispered, filing the memory of his blue-eyed daughter’s pink cupid bow lips away like a snapshot.
***
Crawling up into Mom’s lap, he laid his head on her shoulder, feeling her warm arms wrap securely around him. “You so got this, Sammy,” she whispered, her lips pressed against the side of his head. Safe. Loved.
“I love you, Mommy,” he said, his eight-year-old voice steady and sure. “I take care of our best girl and love her, too. Pinky promise.”
“You love Hossman, too, right?” She squeezed him tight. Loved.
“Hossman…Dadman.” He grinned when she giggled happily, filling the space around them with bubbles of hilarity and joy.
Thirteen-year-old Sammy woke slowly, letting himself stay wrapped in the warm feelings from the dream as long as possible. Loved. Hearing someone in the hallway, his eyes popped open while he waited. After what seemed like an hours-long hesitation, knuckles rapped softly on his door as his father called, “Sammy, you up, son?”
“Yeah, Dad. I’m awake,” he responded, feeling a swell of pleasure at their simple exchange. “Faynez up yet? She got the first day of preschool jitters?” He grinned, waiting for the reaction to his favorite nickname for his little sister, combining her two names into something that sounded so southern it could be a real name, Faith Inez…Faynez.
The door opened and his dad’s head stuck in, a broad grin on his face. “She’s going to hate you if the kids call her that, you know.”
“I know,” he said with an answering grin. As his dad started to turn and walk away, he called, “Dad?”
“Yeah?” Pausing in the action of closing the door, Dad turned his head, looking back at him.
“I dreamed about her again,” he said softly and saw the gentle smile break across his father’s face. “It was good.”
“I’m glad, Sam. You hold onto that, son. Both hands, you hold onto that.” He walked into the room, sitting on the edge of the bed. “She loves you so much, you know?”
“I know she does,” he said, loving the fact his dad always talked about his mother’s love in the present tense, keeping her alive for him. “She told me I had this.”
With a laugh, Dad reached out and pulled him into a hug. “She’s right; you so do.”
Loved.
Epilogue
“You’ll get it, Samboni,” he heard and grinned, looking at Jonny through the visor on his close-fitting helmet. Gliding to his position, he watched as Jonny bent over, head angled up, eyes focused intently on his opponent across the circle. “Don’t matter you’re my brother, Sugar Kane,” Jonny said, shifting on his blades to get a better purchase. “You’re going down.”
Kane silently glared at him then twisted to look at Sam, giving him a nod of greeting. Then his gaze flicked back to center as the linesman spoke, giving them their instructions. Neither man changed position nor acknowledged the words from the official, their focus entirely on the referee’s hand, waiting for the movement that would signal the start of the game.
Just before the puck dropped, Sam’s eyes went to the box across from the pressroom. There, hands on the rail, bodies bent in identical postures of attention, he saw his father and his sister, here to watch Kane’s first professional start in a hockey game.
As Dad had taught him, he shuffled rapidly through the slices of memories his father called snapshots, finding the one he wanted and bringing it to the front of his mind.
Five years ago, wearing a suit jacket he knew needed to have the shoulders let out again, because he was growing that fast, he stood against a wall in a gallery, watching his father receive the accolades earned through hard work and dedication.
In his first showing since before Sam came into his life, Isaiah Rogers’ artwork was on display, but not for sale. He had made that clear to the agent, ignoring her arguments about the value of the paintings, because he didn’t care about the money. Dad had talked to him about this for weeks before signing the contracts for the showing. Worked to make sure Sam was okay and understood why he wanted these paintings to remain privately owned. Because they were his memories of Hope, and precious to them both.
Faith had been eight and overwhelmed, plucking at seams on the dress Aunt Mercy and Aunt DeeDee helped her buy. First, overwhelmed by the dress itself, because it was far more girly than the jeans and sweats she most often wore. Then, even more overwhelmed when Dad put one of Mom’s necklaces around her neck, shifting her long blonde hair out of the way and wordlessly kissing the side of her head when she reached up to stroke the cameo pendant.
Leaning against the gallery wall beside him, surrounded by the images documenting the love their father had for their mother, he knew her eyes were still on him instead of the paintings when she asked softly, “Tell me the story again?”
Pressing his bottom lip tight against his teeth, he made a face at her and then nodded with a grin. He loved this story as much as she did, and telling it was a way to keep it fresh in his mind. A way to ensure he didn’t lose any part of Mom.
“We were on our way up here from Birmingham, and when we pulled into the parking lot of the place Aunt Mercy worked, Mom was laughing at something I said. She got out of the car and stood there for a second, then turned around and bent down, looking back into the car. She smiled and told me, “Come on, Sammy boy. I got a really good feeling about this. Hop out, bud. Welcome home. Let’s go meet our future.”
Faith spoke up, because she had heard the story so many times she could have told it as well as he did, but she never tried to take over where Mom was speaking, because she didn’t have any memories of their mother other than the ones he and Dad had tried to instill. She knew him inside and out, though, so she spoke over his voice, saying his words along with him, asking the question, “Are we home now, Mommy?”
He grinned, pointed over to where Dad stood talking to Uncle Mason, and said, “And then Daddy talked for the first time, and she said he sounded like home. So, I knew we were.”
“That’s a lovely story.” The soft voice came from beside them and Sam turned to see a woman looking at Faith and him with a gentle smile. She made a small gesture with her hand, indicating the gallery and said, “Your mother is the inspiration for all this beauty?” He nodded and she looked away, her gaze glancing across the pictures before her eyes settled on the piece next to him, one showing a couple standing in a rainstorm, clothes plastered to their bodies, foreheads pressed together, in their close embrace oblivious to the tumult going on around them. An island of stillness and love. The nameplate on the wall beneath it giving the title as, Hush, baby. “Your father’s a lucky man.”
Faith’s voice was small when she said, “Mom died.”
The woman sucked in a painful sounding breath, but then after a moment, instead of the normal platitudes the kids had heard over the years, she said, “That had to be a profound loss for all of you. But, he had this for a time. Look at all the love.” She repeated, “Your father’s a lucky man.”
Focus snapping back to the ice when he heard the shouts and grunts from the battle over the puck, he narrowed his eyes, watching the action closely. Seeing the pass, and then accepting the snap of the puck right on the sweet spot, where the tape covered the blade of his stick, he took off, legs powering through the first strides, stick working the puck back and forth easily, skating into the future.
The End (of this story)
Duck
Rebel Wayfarers MC
Book #8
MariaLisa deMora
Edited by Hot Tree Editing
Cover image by Michael Meadows Studios
Cover model: James Xavier
Cover design: Debera Kuntz
Copyright © 2016 MariaLisa deMora
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination, or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is entirely coincidental.
First Release 2016
DEDICATION
Everyone has three lives: a public life, a private life, and a secret life. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Public or private…or secret, sometimes the right decisions are the hardest ones to make. This book is for all the extraordinary people I know who keep carrying on with those honorable and true decisions, and then building on that, regardless of popular opinion. You’re righteous. Rock on.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Can I be honest with you? I still don’t know exactly how Duck came to be in my head. There’s no one person or moment that defined the character, but rather this was a story that revealed itself to me in bits and pieces, fits and starts. It’s a tale plundered from dream observations, misheard and overheard conversations, and the brilliance of human imperfections.
From the beginning, back when Mica began coming to me as I slept, I liked the idea that she brought along her friends. It was cool to see the people she surrounded herself with. I noticed along the way that there was this one guy who worked in the background to keep her safe. Who tried to steer bad things away from her. An undefined man who often accompanied her, but edged through the shadows.
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