Family Love

by Liz Crowe

  “Your beloved father kept a whole God damned rack of fucking guns in his study. You wanna know how I know this?” He held the gun under one arm, his whole body tense with a level of rage she’d never seen in him. “I know because that was where he brought me to tell me my services were no longer needed on his mother-fucking horse farm. Because I had violated his daughter’s reputation.”

  She swallowed hard. Dom’s sobs had calmed to hiccups. He held onto her neck and turned his head to look at his father. “Mother fucking,” he said conversationally, as if testing the words and finding them fun to say. “Mother fu—”

  “Stop it,” she hissed, staring at Anton. “Just stop feeling sorry for yourself right this minute, Anton Love. I am sick of it. I’m sorry there was a misunderstanding that night. I’m sorry you tried to help and got fired over it. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re not sorry, and you’re not gonna listen to me about that money, either. I know you, Lindsay. Better than you know your own self.”

  She sensed a white space in her head, the angry area she’d inhabited for so many years, that had culminated in that hot summer when she made a crucial decision about her future.

  She opened her mouth and said words she regretted for the rest of her life.

  “I’m only sorry for one thing. I’m sorry I ever laid eyes on you. I’m sorry I ever thought that giving my parents the big ‘up yours’ and leaving behind my life for this one—when I get to worry every time I go to the grocery that the credit card will be declined, when I’m doing my family’s laundry alongside every piece of poor white trash in Lucasville, when I sometimes have to let the electric bill be fifteen days late in order to buy diapers and milk and gas for your brewery’s van. And for believing that letting you … take me … was a good plan. That, I am very sorry for.”

  “Mama?” Antony’s voice made her flinch. She turned slowly, shaking all over, the evil words she’d spewed writhing in the air between them like poisonous smoke. “Are you all right?”

  He stood, rubbing his eyes, black hair bed-tousled and the PJs she’d bought at the Salvation Army rumpled. “Mama is fine, honey. Please, take your brothers with you to your bedroom. Mama needs you to be a big boy and help right now.”

  He nodded. She put Dominic down. He skirted Anton and took Antony’s hand. Kieran followed them. She bit her lip, watching her oldest lead his brothers into the room he shared with Kieran, knowing she’d find all three of them in one of the twin beds.

  Anton still stood, loose-limbed, holding that dang gun, his face utterly blank. “Well, then, I’m glad we’ve cleared up that mystery.” He placed the gun on top of the shelf and walked to the front door. “I’ll be at the brewery. Don’t wait up.”

  She followed him, apologies on her lips, but he slammed the door before she could speak.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Her first call was to Marianne. When she wasn’t available to come over, Lindsay tried one of the teenaged girls from church, hoping she could call this an unpaid trial run, since she didn’t have a thin dime to spare that month on a sitter. The girl said she’d be over in thirty minutes, and would happily go without pay this time, to see if Lindsay found her suitable.

  “I won’t be but about an hour, two at the most.”

  “That’s fine, Missus Love. I’ll see you soon.”

  The girl arrived. When her eyes darted to the basketball-impaled television, Lindsay cursed under her breath for forgetting to cover it or do something to ensure it didn’t look as if a pack of wild animals lived here. Then she sighed and apologized for using such a bad word.

  “That’s okay. My mama has a curse jar she uses for herself and my daddy. It’s usually pretty full. They use it to go out to the movies.”

  Lindsay laughed in spite of her anxiety. “That’s a right fine idea. Thanks again, hon. I won’t be long. The brewery number is by the phone if you need us … me.”

  She drove the few miles into town, parked behind the brewery and sat, staring at the shed where she’d first had sex, and simultaneously conceived Antony. Gripping the steering wheel, she sucked in a deep breath and crafted her heartfelt, abject apology.

  It took her nearly twenty minutes to decide she actually did mean it. She wasn’t sorry. But she also was at the same time. She loved her husband and her boys. But many days she did not love her life, and that was the God’s honest truth.

  Finally, she climbed down and used her key to open the back door into the main brewery. It was dark and smelled delicious, meaning today had been a brew day. She ran her hands across the large, stainless steel fermentation vessels, listening for voices and only hearing the low buzz of conversations from the pub in front of the building.

  The office where Anton kept a messy desk he rarely used anymore had a light shining under the door. She tiptoed toward it, figuring he must be in there, probably drinking and fuming, as was his right. She’d been so awful to say those things. The longer she thought about them, the worse she felt.

  She took a long ragged breath, turned the doorknob and opened it. The room had four desks, a single old computer, a fax machine, stacks of labels, six-pack holders, and a chalk board showing the brew schedule. But it was devoid of people. She turned off the lights and shut the door, biting her lip and trying to figure out where she might find him.

  Then she heard it.

  “No, I mean it. No more.” Anton’s voice, low, growly, and with a specific sort of tense tone she recognized immediately.

  She froze, confused, and wondering why he’d be talking to himself that way. When she opened her mouth to call his name, another voice spoke. A female voice.

  “Tony, honey, you need to leave her.”

  Lindsay ducked between a pair of tall lagering tanks, hand over her mouth. The white noise she recognized now as onrushing, irrational temper was filling her head again.

  “Stop it, ’Bella,” her husband said. There was a funny sound, like rustling papers, or fabric. “Isabella, please, don’t.” But his voice was lower now. He hissed, then groaned. Lindsay’s face flamed white hot.

  Isabella was the name of the girl who’d hung out at the barns with Anton and Lorenzo. She’d had it bad for Tony, Lindsay knew. While he’d assured her she wasn’t a “bought and paid for whore,” Anton had admitted that Isabella Josefi had been his mother’s choice of spouse for him. A good Italian girl, from a family the Loves knew well in New York. Isabella had popped his cherry, Lindsay also knew, because she’d been unable to let go of the topic … years ago, before Antony was born.

  “God damn it,” Anton growled. There was a ripping sound, then a feminine squeal of delight.

  Lindsay sneaked out from between the tanks, trying to figure out where they were, but the sound was echoing, deceptive. Except, of course, in its intent. She knew sex when she heard it, especially the sort of sex her husband had. She marched out into the darkened brew area, fists clenched, ready to confront the cheating asshole and his whore.

  “Come on baby, do it, harder, I know you wanna fuck me the way you wish you could fuck her … hey! What’s wrong?”

  “Get out, ’Bella,” Anton said, his voice breaking. “Go. I don’t want you, and I won’t leave her. Get the fuck out, now.” This last was a hoarse yell.

  “C’mon baby,” the slut said. “Let me just do this for you. I know I can make you happy.”

  Lindsay sucked in a breath and saw the shadows thrown by her husband and the woman on her knees in front of him, with his penis in her mouth. Isabella’s shadow’s head bobbed up and down. There were wet, sloppy noises. Anton had his hand on her head, moving her faster. The shadows were almost as vivid as watching it live, and Lindsay could not tear her eyes away. Couldn’t square the horrible, ugly things her Anton was saying until finally he gave a loud grunt. Isabella’s shadow rose, sliding against Anton’s, and they kissed.

  Lindsay made sure to slam the door extra hard on her way out.

  She got home, poured herse
lf a giant splash of cheap bourbon, drank it, then picked up the phone to call her brother. She stopped halfway through the number, realizing that to involve them would entail more explaining than she felt up to at the moment. Instead, she called Tanya Norris, her friend from church whose little boy Paul was Antony’s best friend and partner in crime.

  “Tanya, I can’t explain why, but I need to know if I can bring the boys over for a night. Maybe two.” She winced, knowing that subjecting Dominic’s special brand of high-maintenance on anyone was asking for a lot.

  “Sure thing, honey. Take as long as you need.” Tanya Norris only had one child and wanted a houseful, but would never get them. She was the sort of mother Lindsay only wished she could be.

  “I owe you for this, hon. I can’t really say what it is, but I just need a weekend. I want to visit my friend in Louisville, and Anton keeps putting me off.”

  “No need to explain. Just bring diapers for Dom. I’ve got the rest covered.”

  She hung up, her mind only allowing herself to take baby steps, to plan a few hours ahead. Her next call was to Kathy.

  “I would love to have you for the weekend, Linds! What fun!”

  “Great,” Lindsay said, trying not to let on how numb she was at that moment. “I’ll be there tonight. If that’s all right.”

  “Oh, well, of course. Is everything okay there? The boys all right?”

  “Everything is great. I need a break and, um, my boys are telling me to take one. You know, as far as I can go, all the way to the big city!” She winced at her fake-sounding voice.

  “Well, this will be fabulous! I’ll be up and waiting.”

  Her next call was to the attorney. She got his answering service and wrangled his home phone out of the girl using a combination of guilt and tears. Once that was sorted, she told him she’d be at a branch of the Stockyards Bank in Louisville first thing in the morning to meet him. A girl couldn’t expect a decent weekend in town without funds, now could she?

  Tears stung her eyes. She closed them, but that brought on the shadows she’d witnessed as her husband was being serviced by that Italian bitch. So she got up and went about the gargantuan task of convincing her boys that a weekend with Paul’s mama and daddy was a great plan, even if it meant getting up at ten p.m. on a Thursday night and packing a bag to go there.

  On her last trip inside to grab a few books and toys to haul over, she stopped at the kitchen counter when the phone rang. She knew it had to be Anton. She picked it up, and pressed the hook, leaving the cracked receiver on the table. Deciding not to say anything about what she’d seen him doing, and what she now suspected he’d been doing for a while, she left a quick note.

  Anton,

  I need to get away for a few days. The boys are at the Norrises’. Tanya says they will be fine there all weekend. I’m sure you have plenty to keep you busy at the brewery. I am at Kathy’s. I will be home Monday morning.

  Linsday

  Chapter Eighteen

  Lindsay already knew damn well why she’d avoided visiting Kathy all these years. And it reared its ugly head right away, as soon as she entered her friend’s tidy little apartment on a top floor of a stately home in Old Louisville.

  Jealousy made her face hot, stung her eyes, and prickled her skin, from the second she walked in the door. So she decided to get drunk and stay drunk, hoping nothing of her home truths would come pouring out and ruin everything.

  Kathy worked at a law firm as a paralegal. “A glorified secretary,” she claimed. But she had a closet full of sweet little suits and adorable shoes. There were no piles of toys and secondhand books, dirty dishes, or filthy laundry, and her house did not smell of sweat, piss, and shit like the Love household did most days.

  Together, they put away a bottle of cheap white wine the first night, which helped Lindsay pass out into a dreamless sleep for an astounding, uninterrupted seven hours.

  She woke with a gasp, hearing her boys crying, until she realized it was birds chirping outside the window of Kathy’s living room, where she’d been sleeping on the couch. Acknowledging that she missed them, she tiptoed to the kitchen and dialed the Norrises’ number, twisting the phone cord around her fingers while she waited for someone to pick up.

  “Oh honey, we are just great here. You go on and have a great time. You deserve it.” Tanya Norris’s words made her feel like the world’s most selfish human being, unfit to be a mother. But she hung up, found the percolator, and brewed a pot of strong coffee, nearly polishing off the entire thing by the time Kathy made her sleepy-faced appearance at nine a.m.

  After Lindsay met the bank attorney and signed the papers giving her direct, unfettered access to more than two hundred thousand dollars, her share of her parents’ estate, she stared down at the crisp twenty dollar bills the friendly teller had counted out for her, two hundred dollars in all. She held them for a few seconds, acknowledging that she had never in her entire life handled that much cash. Kathy touched her shoulder, startling her. Anton’s face rose. She mentally shoved it away.

  “Let’s go shopping,” she said through clenched teeth. “After Bloody Marys at the Seelbach.”

  After buying outrageous and unnecessarily expensive gifts for Tanya and Marianne, plus a whole stack of new books for the boys to read, they stopped for lunch at The Brown Hotel, accompanied by a bottle of much less cheap white wine. Kathy chattered for hours about nothing, exactly the way she used to do. It soothed Lindsay’s frazzled nerves on one level, but made her wish she could tell the woman to hush up for a few seconds so she could catch a breath.

  As the day waned, Lindsay found herself pining for the boys again, wondering if Dom had behaved, if Antony and Paul had managed to not get into too many wrestling matches, if Kieran was missing her. She stared out the window of the cab she sprang for so they would have time to get home and fixed up to go out, really out, to a nice bar and then to dinner. Lindsay had bought a new dress, shoes, a satin garter belt and two pairs of the sort of silk stockings she used to take for granted, all for the night out they had planned.

  If Kathy noticed Lindsay did very little talking, she didn’t comment on it. By the time they were spruced up, Lindsay wished she’d made an appointment with a real hairdresser and nail technician. She hadn’t had a real haircut or manicure in … well, since she’d been married.

  Which had been her choice, of course, her conscience yammered at her. Poor Anton had more or less been buffeted along by the force of her focused personality. She’d initiated the sex, the wedding, all of it.

  She glared at her reflection in the mirror. She’d bought new makeup, too, and applied it carefully, covering the lines and wrinkles and whatnot she’d developed while serving as Love family baby factory for the past however many years. The phone rang, making her nearly leap out of her skin. Convinced one of her sons had been run over by a truck or drowned in the Norrises’ pond, she ran to the kitchen. But it was another of Kathy’s career girlfriends, saying they would meet up at the bar in thirty minutes.

  Lindsay slumped in the doorway, relieved and yet dreading a night of explaining herself as wife and mother of three boys, at her age, living in an overgrown shack of a quad-level on a few acres in Lucasville. But she wanted to go out. So she figured she’d endure it.

  The night proceeded about the way she figured it would. The career ladies were all serious and put together, talking about their “savings plans” and “advancement opportunities.” She’d only needed to explain herself once, thank the Lord. After discovering her story—married, pregnant, housewife to a former stable hand—the girls had more or less ignored her while they sipped their martinis.

  That was fine and dandy with Lindsay. She sipped hers and perused the darkened bar. When they ordered a second round, she sipped a little slower, knowing her tolerance had to be nearly nil after years spent pregnant or nursing, only having beer when she did drink.

  Her gaze rested on the line of taps at the long, fancy bar. She had to stifle a gasp. All the ti
me she’d spent looking at Love Brewing handles, labels and six-packs in one context—at the brewery, at home or in the Love Pub—had not really prepared her to see them anywhere else.

  She got up without saying anything—rude, she knew, but she no longer cared. Taking a seat to the left of the line of taps, she studied the distinctive, hand-carved wooden heart on top of a bottle. It mesmerized her. It was a real thing, this brewery. People outside of Lucasville drank the beer her husband made, packaged, and shipped out into the world.

  “Hey, do I know you?” A voice broke into her slight trance. She blinked and looked to her right. “Well, I’ll be damned. Lindsay Love. What’re you doing here?”

  She took a breath, sipped her martini, and shot Joe Patterson her winningest smile. He seemed to flinch, then he smiled in return, raising his glass of what she could only assume was the Love Brewing option currently available.

  After another drink, she’d decided to have her little party with Joe and not that pack of twittering wannabe wives. “On the make,” she said, leaning into Joe’s dress-shirted arm. “Every last one of ‘em. Out for a rich office husband.”

  He glanced over at the table. “Hmm … maybe.” When he draped an arm over her shoulders, she edged closer to him. “Let’s go have dinner. I’d love to hear your opinion of the investor I found for the brewery.”

  She looked at him from her way-too-close vantage point. He smiled. She leaned away and narrowed her eyes. “Are you flirting with me, Joe Patterson?”

  He put a hand over his heart. “I declare I am not, Missus Love. Can’t help wanting to take the best-looking woman in town out for a nice meal.” He glanced down into the cleavage she’d allowed show. Her years spent breastfeeding hadn’t caused too much sag there yet. If anything, her boobs were fuller than they’d ever been. Her skin prickled when he whispered, “Unless you want me to flirt, of course.”

  She waggled her finger in his face, slid off her stool and tucked her hand into his elbow. The whole table looked up at her, hanging off the arm of a tall, very handsome man. “I’ll be along later, Kathy. I need to chat with Joe here about his investments. Toodles.”