Family Love

by Liz Crowe

  “Aiden, my sweet,” she said, using her old phrase, and making my brother flush deep red while Dominic snickered.

  “Ma’am?” He’d served himself a second helping of everything and had been digging into it.

  “I warned you about that Renee, if I’m not mistaken. I know she came here last night. I do have ears.”

  Dominic snorted and choked on his coffee. Daddy punched his shoulder, making him wince and then scowl. I glanced at Antony. He wore a self-satisfied smirk. I looked at Kieran. He nodded.

  Intrigued, recalling Dominic’s laughing recollection of last night’s scene, I watched Aiden’s face stay red while he chewed and swallowed the bite of biscuit and gravy, then use his napkin, mirroring her, stalling, I knew.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m real sorry about … that.” He blinked in the face of her hard glare. He rarely, if ever, displeased her. Even when he was a knucklehead.

  “No need to discuss it any more.” My father leaned his head, indicating me.

  “Oh for heaven’s sake, Anton,” Mama snapped, making all of us look at her, recognizing the tone. “She’s a grown woman.”

  “I am well aware of that, Lindsay,” he said, slowly, indicating his own rising temper.

  I stood at the same time Kieran did, both of us picking up plates and moving toward the kitchen, hoping to escape a looming argument. Mama glared down the table at Daddy, her fork gripped tight in her fingers. Aiden got up to help.

  “Shame on y’all, makin’ all that noise,” I said, bumping his hip with mine at the sink. “Whose lousy idea was that, anyhow?”

  He put his dishes down and sighed. “Oh, well, Renee came to pick me up last night and we … um …”

  “You were fucking in the pool and they all heard you.” I made this a statement.

  “Well, kind of.”

  When I turned, everyone was piling into the kitchen with their dishes. Antony and Dom brought the empty platters. Mama and Daddy were right behind them.

  “Please, I dare anyone in this room to claim they haven’t done the same thing in that pool.” Mama refilled her coffee mug and turned to face us. We all stared at her, slack-jawed. “Well? Go on. Anyone who hasn’t had sex in the pool raise your hand.”

  I glanced at my brothers. They all stood in various stages of shocked embarrassment, fingers tucked in jeans pockets or hooked in belt loops. Daddy glared at them, then at Mama. Neither of them raised their hand, either.

  “Oh, my sweet Lord, that is way too much information on a Saturday morning for me,” I said, winking at my brothers. They all chuckled nervously, glancing between our parents’ stony faces. “Somebody wipe off the table.” I threw a wet rag in the general direction of the Love Brothers peanut gallery, then turned to the sink.

  “I have a project for you while you’re home,” my mother said, taking the dishes I handed her and loading the dishwasher.

  “Oh?” I left off the bit about me planning not to be here much past her surgery.

  “Yes, the downstairs family room, I want to strip the paint off the paneling and restore it.”

  “You can’t pay to have it done?” I wiped the slightly worn Formica counters, wondering why in the world she never did anything to upgrade the kitchen other than replace an appliance every few years.

  “Why would I do that when I have a couple of my youngest children in town?”

  I sighed and reached into the broom closet for the final set-in-stone stage of kitchen cleanup.

  “All right, Mama,” I said, unwilling to engage. The day stretched like a long ride to nowhere right then. “I think I’ll go fetch AliceLynn, and we’ll go shopping. Or something.”

  “That’s fine,” she said. “Dominic, you were in early last night.”

  “Yeah, well,” he said, pulling his long hair into a ponytail. “My date didn’t quite go the way I’d planned.”

  “You’d better be behaving like you were raised right,” she said, giving his face a not-so-gentle smack.

  “Why’re you staying here anyway?” I asked, handing him the broom and dustpan to put away.

  “Want to be nearby, in case she needs anything.”

  “That rathole of an apartment over the old brewery needs fumigating, probably,” Antony muttered, ducking to one side when Dom threw a punch.

  “Get on out, now. This place is too small for all you boys,” Mama said.

  They stood in a line, looking at her like so many overgrown puppy dogs waiting on their mama to tell ‘em where to pee. She crossed her arms. “Shoo, beat it. You starin’ at me won’t make the cancer disappear.”

  Aiden and Antony headed out. Dom and Kieran stayed, and we three got the lecture on the whys and wherefores of our mother’s latest redecoration concept. She’d bought the stripper already and had it sitting on the lower family room coffee table, with drop cloths and scrapers. Once she’d finished and headed down to do laundry or ironing the three of us collapsed on the couch and flipped on the TV.

  “Where’s your sweetie, Francis?” Dom asked.

  “Fuck you,” Kieran mumbled.

  “I heard that, Mister Love. My swear jar best be a dollar richer when next I see it,” Mama called from the lower level.

  Dom smiled sweetly at Kieran and got flipped off in return. “Mama, he’s—” But Kieran lurched across me and tackled Dom before he could get out another word. While they rolled on the floor I kept lifting my legs up so I wouldn’t get squashed.

  “You boys are the sorriest pack of so-and-so’s,” Daddy said, coming in from the patio. “If y’all are bored enough to be rassling, I’ve got work needs doing outside.”

  I jumped up, eager to do something to get me out of the way of the brawl on the floor. “No, not you. You need to help your Mama.”

  “Help her do what?” I could hear the whine in my voice and hated it.

  Kieran got to his feet first, straightening his clothing, his suck-up smile fixed in place. I adored him, but he and Aiden would be hard-pressed to sort out who was the bigger brown-noser between the two of them. “I’ll help,” he said, giving Dom a hard shove, flattening him when he was trying to get up.

  “Help her get the house in order for while she’s gone. You know how she is.”

  “No, I don’t. But whatever,” I said, throwing up my hands in the overgrown teenager-ish way I realized I’d adopted the longer I stayed in this house.

  Ignoring my snit, he took off his ratty UK Wildcats ball cap and wiped his forehead. “Docs say she’ll be ten days in the hospital after they do the surgery, so they can sort out the … whatever comes next.” He looked closer to crying than I’d ever seen him before, which freaked me all the way out. I didn’t stick around to watch the three of them head outdoors.

  Once I’d slaved over laundry, bed sheet changing, bathroom scrubbing, and vacuuming of rooms that didn’t need it, I told Mama I wanted to sit out by the pool for a few minutes before we got dinner together, and didn’t wait for her reply. Dom and Kieran were out there, skimming and checking chemical levels.

  “Be sure and dump enough in there to kill Aiden jizz,” Dom said, tossing the few leaves and blades of grass he’d skimmed over the chain link fence.

  Kieran nodded, added a bit more liquid from a jug, and then tested the water again. “Don’t go in there,” he said, getting to his feet with a wince. The ugly scar running from mid-thigh almost to the top of his foot was a deep pink, fully visible against his pale skin. “You might sprout a third eye.”

  “I won’t,” I said, getting comfy and listening to the oh-so-familiar sounds of Love family life—brothers squabbling, baseball game coming from a speaker on the patio, all set against the buzzing backdrop of a lawn mower.

  Chapter Seven

  My mother’s radical mastectomy was scheduled for eight a.m., so we all trooped in behind her and Daddy at seven, per the nurse’s instructions. The wait was unbearable, thanks to the nervous pacing and fidgeting and twitching all the Misters Love were doing.

  “Will y’all jus
t sit, already? Here, I brought a pack of cards,” I said, pulling them from my purse after finishing my fifth, or maybe eighth, cup of coffee.

  Distracting them as a group seemed the best plan. So we played Texas hold ‘em for about an hour. By eleven, I’d taken all their change, and Antony was getting pissy about losing to me so often. He stomped off, making noises about finding food. I closed my eyes, content to listen to music on my phone, but still aware of the tension wafting through the small family waiting room.

  By the time a scrubs-clad tall man knocked on the door and entered, we were all like a pack of nervous cats, jumping at every sound or hint of one. “Yes,” Daddy said. “It’s done?”

  “Yes, Mister Love.” He looked around at the group, his smile sending relief shooting down my spine. “She’s in recovery for a while. We got everything we could locate. But you should know that she’s in for some pretty hardcore treatments going forward.”

  “I know,” Daddy said, wiping a shaking hand down his face. “We decided to do everything we could, based on what everyone was recommending.”

  “When can we see her?” Aiden asked the question on everyone’s lips but mine. I didn’t want to see her. I was terrified of witnessing my mother reduced by anything, much less nearly four hours of surgery.

  “You can go in now,” he said, indicating Daddy. “When she’s moved to a room, probably in about two hours …”

  “Why two hours? Rosie said her Mama was only in recovery for thirty minutes after similar surgery,” Antony interrupted, looking like he was about to jump clean out of his skin.

  The doctor frowned and glanced at his computer tablet, poked on it a few seconds then sighed. “Missus Love had a cardiac incident during surgery,” he said.

  We absorbed this news. He looked at his tablet again. “But we were able to revive her. She needs to stay under longer. You can go in,” he said again to my father, whose mouth was hanging open.

  “Cardiac incident,” Kieran said, his voice dipping deep into pissed-off Love male territory. “Is that a heart attack?” He moved closer to our father, I suspected to prop him up.

  “Yes,” the doctor said, clutching his tablet to his chest and looking a little defensive.

  “Then why not just call it that?”

  “It doesn’t matter now, son,” Daddy said, putting a hand on Kieran’s arm. “Y’all start making calls and letting everyone know she’s out and she’s fine. I need to see her.”

  He followed the doctor out.

  Dom blew out a breath and flopped onto the couch. “Je-sus,” he said. Kieran pulled out his phone and made a call, as did Aiden. I watched them, still stunned from the early morning wakeup, the hours of pent-up tension, and now the news of a “cardiac incident” and “hardcore treatments” from her doctor.

  Three hours later, we circled her bed, watching her breathe. She’d had a tough time coming out from under the anesthesia, according to the harried-looking surgeon. But she was stable now, and breathing on her own with no trouble. Sleeping and liable to stay that way for about six more hours, they said. Nurses came and went, adjusting her IV and sticking needles into the lines. So many drugs, I thought, my mind reeling from the sight of her—such a frail wraith, barely a lump under the thin hospital blanket.

  “Oh, bless her heart,” I heard a woman say and looked up to see Rosie. She went straight to Antony and hugged him. “I’ve been praying.”

  He nodded and swiped at his eyes. Aiden moved away from them, frowning and moving toward the door.

  “Your refrigerator is overflowing, Mr. Love,” Rosie said, touching Daddy’s arm. He nodded but kept watching my mother’s face, brushing it with his fingertips, tucking her hair behind her ears and fiddling with her covers.

  Rosie turned to look at the rest of us. “I’ve made up a little schedule so someone’s always with her, but no one has to stay for too many hours at a time. It’s great you’re here, Angelique.” She smiled, but I was barely able to return it.

  “I’m not leaving,” Daddy said, his voice low and firm. “Not for a good while, anyway.”

  “Okay, I figured that much,” Rosie said, pulling out a piece of paper from her purse. “I’ll stay with you tonight. Let the boys and Angelique go on home for now.” My brothers all nodded, their expressions reflecting mine, which felt slack, loose, and helpless from seeing our powerful, dominating mother laid out like a corpse.

  “Come on,” Antony said, tugging at Kieran, who turned away from Mama’s bedside, his face pale. “Let’s go.” Antony put an arm around Rosie’s shoulders and kissed her hair. “Thanks, honey. I’ll be back at …” He stopped, blinking as if losing his train of thought.

  “Seven a.m.,” Rosie reminded him. “Aiden’s opening the garage.” She glanced over at Aiden. When he visibly flinched, I knew as sure as I knew my own jeans size that something was going on between them. But right then it simply didn’t matter. I grabbed hold of the raised bars on my side of Mama’s bed.

  “I’m gonna stay a bit longer,” I said, leaning against my father. He put an arm around me. “Rosie, do you think you could find us something to eat?”

  “Of course,” she said, ever chipper and hyper-organized. “Give me fifteen minutes.”

  Once the room had emptied out, I felt more in control of myself and the situation. I made Daddy sit in the lounge chair I scooted close to the bed and got us both a soda from the machine. “Doctors say she’s doing great,” I said from my perch on the other chair across the room. “She’s not about to die on us, Daddy. I just know it. And you know she’s not a quitter.”

  He nodded but didn’t reply, holding onto his untouched soda can until I took it from him and set it on a nearby tray. He barely acknowledged the pizza Rosie brought, but I made him eat one slice—one sixth of what he could usually put away.

  “It’s almost eight o’clock. Want me to find the baseball game?” I flicked on the television mounted on the wall opposite the bed. He nodded, but he kept his gaze on my mother’s face, where it had been riveted for the past however many hours we’d been sitting and waiting, watching, and expecting her to sit up any minute and start bossing everybody around.

  It was not the first time I’d been privy to the powerful connection my parents shared. Aiden was even trying to sell novels about it … about us, I guess, but with the names changed. But today, sitting here in this stuffy room that now smelled of pizza and rubber and bleach, it made me burst into tears.

  Startled, Daddy looked over at me, blinking fast, as if I’d waked him up from a deep sleep. He was white knuckling the railing

  “I’m s-s-s-sorry,” I blubbered. Not even sure why I was doing it, other than being in mourning for my upside down life and my poor, miserable-looking father. Or maybe, if I was completely honest with myself, I was accepting that I would not be returning to New York anytime soon.

  Chapter Eight

  Lindsay Love is no slacker. She’d proven that over and over, and her speedy recovery from the surgery was no exception. Once she got past the first twenty-four hours in a haze of lingering anesthesia and narcotics, she improved markedly every twenty-four hour period afterward, until she had the nurses lobbying for her earlier-than-expected release. Not that they didn’t love her. They adored her. But she wanted to go home. So, home she came, five days post-surgery.

  The chemotherapy was to begin four days later, so she used the days at home to try and eat, and when that didn’t work out so well, drank protein shakes to build her stamina. The creepy tubes coming from her surgical sites she drained herself, matter-of-factly, without asking for anyone’s help. The visiting nurse Daddy had lined up could be found sipping coffee or playing cards with Mama instead of tending to her medical needs.

  But chemical poison is chemical poison, and the first round of chemo sent her into a cycle of puking, crying, weeping, and wailing, and not allowing a soul near her but Daddy. He sat with her in the bathroom upstairs with the door closed, his low, soothing voice underlying her—at times—scree
ching one.

  “God had better watch Himself,” Dom said while he heated up one of the many casseroles dropped off by church folk. “Lindsay is righteously pissed off at Him.”

  “Mm-hmm,” I said, staring out the kitchen window and trying to ignore the whole thing. I wanted to help, but had no idea how I could, since she refused every time I offered.

  “Go and strip those walls. That’ll help me,” she’d say, hands covering her face, her whole body shaking with the effort not to puke and puke and puke until her very guts came out her mouth.

  So I did. I spent hours at it, ear buds in, jamming to the loudest, most profanity-riddled rap I could stand. Aiden made a few jabs at it, but was busy working for Antony and, I suspected, trying to figure out how to steal his woman. I tried not to think too hard about that, because it made me mad. But it wasn’t my business. So I let it go.

  I stripped the hell out of that paneling, all day every day. I’d eat, usually with my father and one or more of my brothers, from the never-dwindling supply of dishes dropped off daily, but only in the evening. My lunch consisted of a piece of fruit and glass after glass of water. I’d forgotten how good the water from the well on our property tasted.

  Long about day eight or nine, when Daddy brought Mama home from her chemo and they’d had their hour or two alone in the bathroom, I looked up from my dinner to see a familiar face at the door.

  “Hey,” Bobby Foster said, giving me a little wave. “Heard you were home.”

  I grinned and let him in, let him hug me, and offered him food from the freshly replenished pantry and fridge.

  Later that night, we swam, and of course we kissed. Bobby … now Robert, he informed me, now working at the insurance company Crystal’s parents owned … had been my first love, my first sexual experience, and the first boy I’d ever let in on my secret. The one about my mother hating me. He used to tease me about it just to break the tension when I’d sneak into his basement after curfew so we could screw and smoke pot. In hindsight, a girl really could have done worse for a first. Bobby had a pretty solid set of skills early on. He had not been a virgin, and he’d been madly in love or lust or something with me.