Boone and I met him at the end of the front walk, and it shook me, seeing him.
Not in a bad way.
In a good one.
Because he visibly looked sober.
Healthier, better color to his skin, his eyes alert.
And those eyes were darting between me and Boone.
They ended on Boone.
Boone was the one who handled it.
Succinctly.
“Our shit is over, man,” he declared.
Brian appeared thrown.
Then he said, “I was a dick.”
“And it’s over,” Boone said with finality.
“I was an extreme dick,” Brian kept at it.
So did Boone.
“Yeah, bud, and it’s over.”
Brian stared at him like he was from another planet before he turned to me.
“Ryn—” he started.
“Mom’s on her way, and I love you, you love me, and that’s it, Bri. That’s it. You with me?”
His eyes got misty.
“Dude, do not cry or I’m gonna lose it,” I warned.
His head twitched.
Then he muttered, “You are so weird about crying.”
“Whatev—”
I didn’t get that whole word out before we heard, “Aaaaaaauuuuntieeeee Rynnnnnnnie!”
I turned toward Angelica’s house to see Jethro barreling out of it, arms wheeling, heading straight to me.
Okay.
Shit.
So I was going to cry.
My nephew hit me like a train, and I went back on a foot.
I also bent over and wrapped my arms around him.
“Hey, bucko,” I said, my voice funny.
His head shot back.
“Hey!” he yelled in my face.
God, he was cute.
And God, until that moment, I didn’t allow myself to feel it.
But I missed him so fucking much.
“How you doin’?” I asked.
“Awesome,” he said.
I was uncertain that was true on the whole. More like true because I was there.
Which worked for me.
He pulled away and shouted, “Hey, Dad! You’re back!” and then he barreled into his dad.
Boone put a hand to the small of my back.
I looked up at him to see him looking at the house.
I turned my attention there.
Angelica was bearing down on us.
Oh boy.
“Jethro, get in the house!” she barked.
Jethro turned to his mom, then to his dad, to me, and finally, his eyes caught on Boone.
“Who’re you?” he asked.
“Jethro, what did I say?” Angelica demanded, arriving at us.
“I’m your aunt’s boyfriend,” Boone answered.
Jethro gave Boone a scrunch-nosed gross face.
He also totally ignored his mother.
But she made it so the rest of us couldn’t.
“Of course you are. Of course a stripper would land a hard body,” Angelica sneered.
New improved Ryn, I kept my mouth shut.
Boone stared down his nose at Angelica.
Brian murmured, “Angie.”
That got him her attention. “What are you doing here, Brian? I’ve already let you see the kids today.”
“I was worried about Portia,” he told her.
“I told you, there’s nothing to worry about. She’s throwing a tantrum. The best way to beat a tantrum is not to give it any attention,” Angelica Mother of the Year retorted.
“She’s too thin, Ang,” Brian said.
“She’ll eat when she’s hungry,” Angelica returned.
“You think?” Brian asked. “Because she can’t have lost that amount of weight by skipping a couple of meals.”
“You do not give in to a kid who is acting out,” Angelica decreed.
“She just wants to see her aunt. And her aunt is right here,” Brian pointed out, motioning to me with a hand.
“I say who the kids see, and I’ve told your sister she is not welcome here,” Angelica shot back.
“Ang, let’s talk this—” I began to try to make the peace.
She swung on me. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
I was about to say something, but Brian spoke first.
“You don’t say who the kids see, Angie.”
She swung on him. “I do.”
“I get where you were,” Brian replied. “But you see where I am. Regardless, in all that, I’m always their dad and we make decisions together about our kids. Or I make decisions on my own when one of them isn’t in a good place and you aren’t seeing to her.”
“So you’re their dad now, hunh? You weren’t their dad when you walked out on us, leaving me on my own to raise two kids,” Angelica stated.
“I didn’t walk out, you kicked me out.”
“You gave me no choice.”
“And you weren’t raising them alone, Angelica.”
“Might as well have been.”
Brian flinched, even though, maybe sister prejudice, I thought that was way not fair.
He might have been drunk during some of it (okay, maybe a lot of it), but he was all over having them when it was his time to have them and he made certain Angelica was covered in a lot of ways, financially and with family to take her back.
He recovered and said carefully, “I wasn’t just talking about me. And we both know you weren’t raising them alone, Ang. Far from it.”
Now that was totally true.
Angelica, being Angelica, wasn’t about to cede the point.
So she didn’t.
She said, “Well, we wouldn’t have needed them if you hadn’t left us before you actually left us.”
“I hear that but let’s not revise history, okay?” Brian asked.
I worried that neither of them realized Jethro was right there.
Angelica proved she didn’t care as she launched right back in and tried another tack.
“You gave up the right to be their dad when you picked the bottle over your kids,” she declared.
“I’m not making that choice now.”
She hooted then asked, “So I’m supposed to believe you’re all better?”
“It doesn’t matter what you believe. What matters right now is where Portia is at,” Brian retorted.
“Maybe you guys can take this somewhere else and me and Boone can take the kids out for ice cream,” I suggested.
She swung back to me. “You aren’t taking my children anywhere.” Her eyes went beyond me, her face paled, and they came back to me, narrowed and vicious. “You fucking bitch.”
Boone got closer to me.
I turned to see what brought that on and saw Angelica’s mom, Brenda, bearing down on us.
“Jethro, baby, go in the house,” Brenda called.
“Yeah, Jethro, go in the house,” Angelica added.
“He’s not gonna go in the house ’cause Jethro doesn’t do anything Mom tells him to do ’cause Mom’s not our mom.”
All eyes went to the walkway, where Portia’s voice was coming from.
And I took a step back, or half of one, hitting Boone.
Oh my God.
Oh shit.
Oh God.
I started trembling, in summer, under the Denver sun.
Full-on shakes.
Boone’s arm wrapped around my chest from the back.
And that was a good call because someone was about to cut a bitch.
“Oh my God,” Brenda whispered.
“Portia, take your brother and go into the house,” Angelica demanded.
“No,” she replied. “Auntie Ryn is here, finally, and I’m going with Auntie Ryn.” She looked to me. “I’m gonna live with you. Me and Jethro are gonna live with you. If Dad can’t take us ’cause he’s tryin’ to get better, we should get to live with our real mom.”
Angelica’s body moved like she’d taken a blow.
I quickly recovered from what should not have been a surprise—just how much Portia had taken in with all this fucked-up mess—stepped away from Boone, but mostly Angelica, and put my arms out low and to the sides.
“Come here, honey, I’ve missed you. Come give your aunt a hug,” I urged.
“No,” she replied. “I’m gonna go pack.”
On that, her thinner-than-thin body turned, her not-as-healthy hair swinging out, and she’d started moving up the walk, when Angelica called out, “I’m your momma, baby girl.”
Portia whirled.
“Yeah?” she asked sarcastically. “You are? Really?”
“Yeah. Really,” Angelica said in small voice.
“You’re all mad at Dad ’cause he’s drinking. And you’re all mad at Auntie Ryn ’cause…” she shook her head, “I don’t know why. And you’re all mad at Nanna ’cause she won’t help out anymore. And you’re all mad at Gramme ’cause she’s all in your business. And you’re all mad at me ’cause I’m a bad kid. Only one I see in all that you aren’t mad at is you for bein’ a bad mommy.”
“You should mind better, Portia,” Angelica told her.
“You should be a better mom, Mom.” She looked past her mother to me. “Can I live with you?”
“No,” Brian said, moving to her. “But you can live with me.” He reached in, grabbed Jethro’s hand and finished, “Let’s go get you packed.”
“Brian, you are not taking my children,” Angelica warned.
He turned on her, and calmly stated, “I am, Ang. I’ll tell you straight up, I’m not at a place where that’s good right now, but you’re at a place where they’re better off with me. And that messes me up, my part in that, and that they got two parents who are so colossally screwed up. And it messes me up more, you don’t see your part in that. Where I’m also at is a place where I know my damage right now, so if I mess up again, I’ll call Mom,” he jerked his head, I looked that way, and saw I hadn’t noticed Mom had joined us, “or Ryn or Brenda. But, babe, until you get your shit together, the kids are with me.”
He barely finished that before Portia took his hand, tugged, and demanded, “Let’s go, Daddy.”
Brian gave Angelica a gutted look that had the effect of gutting me.
Then he let his daughter drag him up the walkway, Jethro trailing behind.
“You are not taking those kids from my house!” Angelica shrieked and made a move as if to follow them.
She got nowhere.
Brenda was in front of her.
“I swear by the great God Almighty, you stop that man, you’ll never see me again,” she threatened.
“Mom—” Angelica started on a whine.
“Shutyourmouth,” Brenda said so sharp and so fast, it was all one word. “Did you not notice the state of my granddaughter?”
“I’m going to help Brian,” Mom said softly, hustling up the walk.
Angelica did not answer her mother.
She turned to me before I could follow Mom, face twisted with rage.
It was so bad, Boone actually moved to get in front of me.
“This is all on you!” she screamed.
But Brenda turned her back around with a vicious wrench of her arm and pointed a finger in her face.
“It’s on you.” She dropped her hand. “By God, where did I go wrong with you?”
“I don’t know the big fucking deal,” Angelica snapped. “She’s just throwing a tantrum.”
“When your daughter wastes away to nearly nothing, Angelica, that is not just a tantrum,” Brenda informed her. “Now I know why you didn’t let me come over and it makes me sick to my stomach. Sick to my damned stomach.”
“We should help Mom and Brian,” I murmured to Boone.
Angelica whirled again to me.
“You’re not stepping one foot in my goddamned house.”
“We’ll wait in the car,” Boone murmured to me.
“You won’t. You’ll go in and help pack up my babies so this scene can be done for them and they can be at home with their father,” Brenda decreed.
Angelica was whirling again. “He’s a drunk, Mom.”
“He’s not. Not at this moment. He called me weeks ago to get Bob’s number and Bob tells me he’s doing the work.”
Who was Bob?
“So he’s a drunk hanging out with drunks,” Angelica derided.
“You know better than that. Bob’s been sober for nine years,” Brenda returned.
Oh.
All right.
I didn’t know Bob.
I just knew Bob got Brian to a meeting.
So I really liked Bob.
Boone took my hand and we skirted the dueling pair.
There was no hope Angelica would miss it.
And she didn’t.
“Right, there she goes. She took everything else from me, now she’s going to take my kids.”
“You know, Ang,” Brenda began, “the sad part of this, the part that breaks my heart, the part that just kills me, is that it took your man nearly killing himself, and definitely losing his kids, to snap out of it. But you? Brian’s going to take those kids from this house, he’s going to get his act together, he’s going to father those children, and you are going to spend your time convincing yourself how everyone done you wrong, until you’re certain you’re right, and then you’re still not going to be a good mother. Or maybe even a decent person. You’re going to book a massage.”
Ouch.
Boone pulled me in the house.
Once in, I let his hand go and made a beeline to Portia’s room.
I got to the door, and I stopped.
Her dad was folding clothes into a little pink suitcase.
She was shoving stuffed animals in a garbage bag.
Apparently, Mom was with Jethro packing his stuff.
Portia looked to me and it was good she melted when my eyes filled with tears because she was so scary skinny.
“C’mere, baby,” I whispered.
She dumped her stuffed animals and raced to me.
I crouched down and caught her in my arms, then fell to my ass when hers went around me.
Her delicate body racked with a sob.
Mine returned the gesture.
“Don’t go away again, Auntie Rynnie,” she bawled into my neck.
“I won’t, honey.”
“Promise.”
“Swear.”
She held tighter.
I didn’t let her go.
Boone asked, “What can I do, bud?”
“Finish her stuffed animals?” Brian requested.
“On it,” Boone said.
I kept Portia close and got a lock on my tears before she did hers.
And I held her in my lap after she’d wound down to sniffles.
I continued to hold her in my lap as she peeked out from under spiky-wet lashes and whispered, “Your new boyfriend is really cute.”
Boone was in profile, now helping Brian stuff clothes into a different garbage bag.
I still saw his lips twitch.
“That he is, my girl, that he is,” I agreed.
She rested her head on my shoulder, and after a beat, asked, “After we drop our stuff at Daddy’s, can we still go get ice cream?”
To this question, from two different male mouths, she got two very firm answers of “Absolutely.”
Epilogue
“My Hero”
Boone
Boone sat in the grass, knees up, elbows at them, holding his pop loose between his legs, as he stared at Ryn and the kids racing around the backyard of her flip.
It had started with Frisbee.
But ten minutes ago, the Frisbee had flown over the back fence, no one went to get it, so he had no idea what they were doing now.
“I cannot believe I wasn’t there through that shit.”
That was her brother, who was sitting next to Boone, same position, with a pop, eyes on his sister and his kids.
Boone had just told Bri
an about Ryn, Cisco, dead bodies, and how they still needed to look after their girl.
It was a lot to lay on a guy who was a full three weeks sober.
But from the sound of his voice, Boone suspected it wasn’t going to drive him back to the bottle.
He sounded like he now had more than two very important reasons to keep his shit tight.
He always had.
It was just good he was finally seeing that.
“Don’t kick yourself in the ass too much, there’s nothing you could have done,” Boone told him.
He knew Brian was facing him when he asked, “Does Mom know about the dead guys?”
He looked to Ryn’s brother and shrugged. “Don’t know. Just know if she doesn’t, it isn’t me who’s going to tell her.”
Brian’s eyes wandered back to his sister. “If she’s keeping it from her, and you did that, Ryn’d have your ass.”
“Mm,” Boone hummed in agreement.
Though she already had his ass, just in a better way.
There was silence as they watched a now-much-healthier-looking but still underweight Portia nearly take a header but Ryn caught her at the waist, pulled her up, and they were laughing uncontrollably.
At what, Boone had no clue.
But fuck, his woman was beautiful when she laughed like that.
And that right there was going to be his life.
Three kids (eventually).
And Kathryn.
It still tore him apart that Jeb was in such a bad place he couldn’t see that future for himself.
But Boone could.
He could see it clear.
And if his dad was right about God being everywhere, then Jeb knew Boone was going to have it.
And it settled something in Boone, because he knew Jeb would like that a fuckuva lot.
It’d only been a couple of weeks since the scene outside Angelica’s.
She’d threatened to sue for custody, though no one knew how she would manage to do that since she still had no real job, and as she also didn’t have the kids, so she had no financial help from anyone.
Including Brian.
And Brian was going to evening meetings and he was doing that daily. Boone knew this because he and Ryn had the kids a lot when he did.
“We should talk about the hospital.”
Boone turned to Brian and stated, “I told you that was done. I don’t need it.”
Brian turned to him. “I know this is gonna make me sound like a selfish fuck, but it’s cool you don’t. I’m glad about that. Says a lot about you and a lot about the man you’re gonna be for my sister. But I do.”
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