by Cassia Leo
Reluctantly, I pushed up from the desk chair and headed out of my office. As I passed through the hallway, I averted my eyes from the framed photos of Jack Jr. on the walls. A tremor of rage rolled through me and I clenched my fists. How could I be expected to answer emails and phone calls when everything I loved had been taken from me?
Looking through the peephole in the door, I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw my father standing on the porch.
I pulled the door open and stepped aside for him to come. “I’m assuming Jade called you?” I asked as he glared at me. “Come on in, Dad.”
My dad was wearing his usual golf shirt, cargo shorts, and the baseball cap that hid the bald spot on the crown of his head. It was a sunny sixty-two degrees outside in the end of October in Hood River, Oregon. Ever since he retired, my father, an East Coast native, never wore pants unless the temperature dipped below forty.
He shook his head in disappointment as he stepped into the foyer. “You reek of alcohol, you know that?”
I shrugged as I pushed the door closed. “Could be worse.”
My dad glanced down the hallway and around the corner into the kitchen before he turned to me. “Where’s Laurel?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
I shrugged as I headed into the kitchen. “I mean I don’t know where she is. She left for her mother’s house last night, so she might be there. I don’t know.”
My dad shook his head as he watched me grab a bottle of beer out of the fridge. “Are you two separated again?”
I opened the bottle with the opener I’d installed under one of the kitchen cabinets, then I tossed the cap into the trash can under the sink. “What do you mean again?”
“Don’t play dumb with me. I’ve been married to your mother almost forty years. I know you and Laurel were separated for at least a few weeks.”
I sighed as I leaned back against the counter. “We’re separated for good now.”
“Bullshit.”
I laughed. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me, young man. I said bullshit,” he replied, looking as if someone had lit a fire under his ass. “There’s nothing you or Laurel could do that can’t be forgiven or fixed. That’s how it works when you’re married. You might not forget, but you always forgive. And no matter how hard it gets, you never stop fighting to make things right.” He snatched the beer out of my hands and poured it down the sink. “This is the problem with you kids these days, you think everything’s supposed to be easy or it’s not worth your time.”
“With all due respect, Dad, you’re hardly the first person I’d take marriage advice from.”
He nodded his head. “You’re right. I was a terrible husband for the first twenty years of my marriage. I gave your mother plenty of reasons to give up on me. The point is she didn’t. She knew why I did the things I did and, though she didn’t excuse my behavior, she tried her best to understand it, rather than punishing me and you and your siblings. Your mother didn’t stay with me because she was weak. She stayed with me because she was strong — stronger than any of us gave her credit for.”
I rolled my eyes as I fought the urge to get another beer. “You’re trying to tell me I’m weak for giving up on my marriage? You know nothing, Dad. You have no clue what Laurel did.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I never figured you for a quitter.” He pointed a thick finger at my face. “Don’t roll your eyes at me, kid. I’ve known you your whole life and I’ve never once seen you quit something just because it got tough.”
“I seem to remember not being allowed to quit.”
“And it sure seems to have worked up until now,” he challenged me.
On the outside I was seething, but inside I was smiling a little. My dad had lived in Portland for forty years, but when he was really angry, you could just barely hear a hint of his old New England accent. My siblings, Jessica and John, and I would sometimes try to get in trouble just to hear it come out of him.
I pushed off the counter and headed for the French doors leading out onto the back patio with my dad right on my heels. “You don’t understand. You couldn’t possibly understand because you’re the one who always messed up with Mom. I know I haven’t been the most attentive husband since Junior died, but I’ve had good reason for my distractions,” I said, taking a seat on the black and cream outdoor sofa and putting my feet up on the glass-top coffee table, which Laurel had wiped clean recently. “While I was trying to find out who murdered my son, she was trying to deny he was even dead. But I still did what she wanted. I went to that fucking therapist. I did everything except get on my knees and grovel, and she still went behind my back and did God knows what with her fucking neighbor.”
“What neighbor? What are you talking about?”
“See? You don’t know everything.”
He cocked one of his silver eyebrows. “Enough gloating and tell me what the hell’s going on with this neighbor.”
I removed my feet from the table and leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “There was some conflict at Laurel’s mom’s house yesterday. One of my guys — Laurel’s bodyguard — had a confrontation with the next-door neighbor and it got…ugly. The guy ended up with a bullet in the leg and I still had trouble restraining him until the ambulance got there. Fucker was out of his mind.”
“What do you mean? Like, out of his mind on drugs or something? I told you guys not to move to Portland. It’s overrun with homeless and junkies now.”
I shook my head. “No, it’s not. And I don’t think he was on drugs. Actually, I don’t know. All I know is Laurel went absolutely fucking berserk when she saw me holding him in a headlock. I mean, the guy was shot in the leg, he’d already wrestled the gun from my bodyguard and shot him in the arm, and he was still trying to fight us off. What the fuck was I supposed to do? Let him go Rambo on all of us?”
My father was quiet for a moment before he responded. “So, you were just holding onto him until the ambulance got there? You didn’t… kill him, right?”
I looked back at him over my shoulder. “Are you serious, Dad? Do you think I’d be sitting here if the guy was dead?”
He waved away my response. “Okay, okay. Continue.”
I rolled my eyes at his impatience, which I had inherited. “No, I didn’t kill him. I was just holding him still. When the paramedics got there, they shot him up with some kind of sedative and he calmed down pretty quick, but it didn’t help Laurel. She tried to climb into the back of the fucking ambulance. And when they wouldn’t let her, they had to sedate her, too.”
This time, my father’s silence felt like a bad omen.
“Jack, you realize what was happening, right?”
I looked back again and narrowed my eyes at him. “Yeah, something’s been going on between her and her neighbor and I just found out in the worst fucking way.”
He let out a heavy sigh. “No, son. Laurel was reliving the night Junior died. There is nothing else to it. And I can’t believe you don’t understand that.”
I shook my head adamantly. “No, I would know if that was it.”
He leaned forward so he could look me straight in the eye. “If you think what you saw that night didn’t profoundly change the two of you, you’re an idiot. If you think you’ve seen the worst of what that night did to your marriage, you’re wrong, pal. The pain will never go away, and even if they catch that bastard and put him away for the rest of his life, you’ll never have all the answers.” He tapped my knee as I turned away from him. “Look at me and listen good. If you let Laurel go, you’re letting that son-of-a-bitch win. Because even if you find him and serve him the justice he deserves, you’ll still be left empty-handed. No son. No wife. And no hope. And what kind of life is that?”
I shook my head, too angry to speak.
“It sure as hell isn’t the kind of life you fight for,” he said, answering his own question. “You know what you have to do.”
I
clenched my jaw as I tried to think of a reason why my father might be wrong, but I couldn’t. He was infuriatingly right. After a long pause, I nodded in agreement.
“Nope, you’re not getting off that easy, kid. I want you to look me in the eye and say the words, so I know you mean it.”
I let out a heavy sigh as I turned to face him. I’d inherited my blue eyes from my mother. Looking at my father reminded me of how much I loved Laurel’s brown eyes. Every quality she had became my favorite quality in a person.
Her silky blonde hair, round brown eyes, the way her top lip was fuller than her bottom lip. The way she snored softly when she’d had too much to drink. The way she coiled those long, gorgeous limbs around me when I was buried deep inside her. I could never find someone to replace her, because there was only one Laurel in this world. And she was everything I’d ever wanted and everything I would ever want.
I sat up straight as I looked my father in the eye. “I have to fight for my wife.”
Chapter 2
Isaac
My eyelids were heavy as they fluttered open, the blackness slowly lifting, revealing a dimly lit hospital room with glass paneled walls looking out onto a bright nurses’ station. I blinked a few times as the memories came back to me in flickering images: lifting the gardening shears off the worktable in my garage; rounding the fence that separated my property from Laurel’s; a behemoth walking out of Laurel’s backyard and pulling a gun on me.
Then, nothing.
Oh, fuck. Where’s Boomer?
The machine I was hooked up to beeped loudly as my heart rate soared. A nurse with dark hair pulled into a tight bun ran into my room, her eyes widening as she raced toward me.
“Where’s my dog?” I shouted. “I need my dog!”
I reached for the railing on the left side of the bed, but the nurse grabbed my hand and pinned it to the mattress.
“Your dog is fine,” she said, pushing my shoulder back as I tried to sit up. “Your friend Dylan left a message. He’s taking good care of your dog. Your dog is fine.”
“I need my dog. He can’t be alone,” I pleaded with her, no longer shouting.
She nodded as she held down both my shoulders and looked into my eyes. “I know, sweetie. Your dog is in good hands. I promise.”
I clenched my jaw as I realized she knew. She knew it wasn’t Boomer who couldn’t be left alone. It wasn’t Boomer who needed me. It was I who needed him.
She slowly let go of my shoulders and kept a close eye on me as she pressed buttons on the IV machine. Mere seconds passed before I drifted off, thoughts of Boomer and Laurel vanishing in a black haze of morphine.
The second time I woke, I thought I was dreaming. My mother and father stood at the foot of the bed facing each other, my mother consoling my father, who was in tears. I had only seen my father cry once, from about fifty yards away, as I hid behind a tree, so no one would see me at my twin brother Dane’s funeral.
A sharp, female gasp made me turn my heavy head toward the sound.
“He’s awake,” Nicole said, my ex-fiancée’s green eyes wide with shock. Her gaze locked on mine as she stood from the hospital chair.
My nostrils flared as I stared at the toddler in her arms, his blond, sleepy head resting on her slender shoulder.
My mother rushed to my bedside. “Isaac!” she cried. “Honey, how are you feeling? Do you need anything? Are you thirsty?”
“I’m fine, Mom.”
“Oh, God.” She clapped her hand over her mouth as she began to sob. “I’ve missed your voice.”
My father’s jaw clenched as he remained at the foot of my bed. “We’ve been worried sick about you, son.”
Nicole slowly made her way to the other side of the bed as my nephew lifted his head from her shoulder. “We got here as soon as we could.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Why are you here, Nicole?”
Her brown eyebrows screwed up as if she was in physical pain. “I was worried about you.”
“Sweetheart, please don’t be upset. We’ve all been very worried about you,” my mother begged as she reached for my hand.
I pulled my hand away. “Getting shot doesn’t change anything,” I said, looking at my mom so I wouldn’t have to look at my nephew and see myself in his blond hair and wide hazel eyes. “I don’t want her here.”
My mother nodded at Nicole and I closed my eyes as I listened to the soft tap of her footsteps leaving the hospital room. When I opened my eyes, my father was at my bedside, the whites of his eyes still red, but the tears were gone. He was not pleased.
“I expected better of you.”
My mother gasped. “Bill! Don’t say that. He needs our support. He doesn’t need that.”
My father nodded. “I’m sorry, but Nicole has been a good mother to that boy. She’s as much a part of this family as you are, son. You need to forgive her, sooner rather than later. And not for me or her. Do it for yourself.”
I closed my eyes as the dull ache in my right thigh began to throb and the shame of not being good enough for my father rolled back into my life like an ocean tide. “I’m sorry I… I need help. I need someone to get my dog.” I took a few breaths and opened my eyes again, keeping my gaze focused on my mom’s round face and shoulder-length blonde hair. “The nurse said my friend Dylan is taking care of my dog, but I don’t know where he lives. Can you ask the nurse for the address and go pick him up? He’ll… He needs me.”
I had no idea how Boomer, my PTSD service dog, was getting along with Dylan. Boomer worked as a bomb detection dog in Afghanistan with one of my buddies. Then, he was retired and I brought him home with me when I returned from my third and final deployment. We’d spent the last few years glued to each other’s sides. He was probably more attached to me than I was to him. No matter how good Dylan was treating Boomer, my best canine friend probably wouldn’t rest easy until he saw me and knew I was okay.
My mom nodded. “Is…” She stopped herself mid-sentence, looking up at my father as if asking for permission, then she decided to continue. “Is it all right if Emily comes to visit you? She’s quite worried.”
I scrunched my eyebrows together in confusion. Emily was not part of the family. She wasn’t even a friend of mine. In fact, I’d never seen her face or spoken a word to her. But I knew her voice. I knew it well.
Emily had been leaving me voicemails, a few per week, for the last two years. Messages from my mother and my VA case worker were relayed to me in Emily’s crisp, melodic voice. Sometimes, when something was funny, she’d laugh, and I’d listen to those messages more than once.
But she was still a stranger. She might feel as if she knew me, but I knew nothing about her.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to meet her,” my mother continued. “But she feels… Well, I’ll let you think about it and you can let me know later.”
I nodded because I didn’t know what to say. Then, a nurse entered the room, saving me the trouble of rummaging through the rubble of my mind for the right words.
Chapter 3
Laurel
Three years ago
My phone was whispering to me that it was half past nine in the evening, but my heart didn’t want the night to end. Watching Jack play peek-a-boo and hide-and-seek with my best friend Drea’s two- and four-year-old boys felt like falling in love with him all over again.
But the night was wearing thin and the boys’ energy was waning. Screams of joy and wide-eyed excitement was slowly morphing into tired pink-rimmed eyes and chubby fingers twirling through silky brown curls. If Drea and her husband Barry wanted to avoid tantrums, they would have to leave soon and get the little ones tucked into their beds.
“You’ll pick me up tomorrow?” Drea asked as we watched from the porch while Barry and Jack strapped the boys into their car seats. “I don’t know how long my car will be at the dealer, and I don’t want to miss another yoga class. I think I’ve gained a stone tonight. Your chocolate cake is bloody evil, you know that?”
I laughed. “Oh, please. You could probably eat that whole cake and not gain an ounce.”
She flashed me a lazy smile. “You’re absolutely right. It’s sickening.”
I punched her arm and gave her a bone-crushing hug before she left with Barry and the kids. The edges of Jack’s dark hair were painted silver by the moonlight as he made his way up the flagstone pathway toward me.
His full lips curled into an alluring grin as he climbed the steps. “You look happy tonight.” He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me close. “What are you thinking?”
I smiled as I gazed into his icy-blue eyes. “Just thinking of how much I love you and our life.”
He chuckled. “How about the new house?”
“Love it.”
“Nothing you would change about it?”
I pressed my lips into a hard line as I pretended to think hard about this question, then I shrugged. “Why? Do you have any ideas?”
I was afraid to say that we should turn one of the five bedrooms into a nursery. Though I knew Jack wanted to have children, we had never really agreed on how long we had to be married before we started trying for a baby. If this wasn’t the right time for him, I didn’t want to guilt him into something he wasn’t ready for. Because I would always be ready.
He shook his head as we stepped back inside. “You’re a spoiled princess. You know very well you’re going to get whatever you want,” he said, closing the front door behind me. “I’ll do the dishes if you take a shower with me.”
I smiled. “Deal.”
“Can you do me a favor?” Jack asked as I stepped out from under the stream of hot water. “I keep getting an error on the update code. I need to submit it by Monday and it’s driving me insane.”
“I’ll look at it after yoga tomorrow,” I said, laying my hands on his smooth chest. “Pass me the body wash.”
