Family Love

by Liz Crowe

  “Hey,” he said softly as he pressed me up against the side of the pool. I’d turned off all the outside lights, hoping to get him to do this. I was pretty pent up, having been used to a steady diet of sex, at least in the last six months or so.

  “Hey, yourself,” I whispered, reaching into his shorts.

  “I missed you, Angel,” he sighed into my ear, gripping my ass with one hand while I stroked him under the water.

  “Shut up and kiss me some more, Bobby.” He did, his lips and tongue and very taste so much a part and parcel of the life I’d resumed here, it seemed just about perfect. He teased my nipples under the cheap bathing suit top I’d unearthed from one of my mother’s endless plastic bins, each labeled with the name of one of her children.

  My body went into overdrive at his touch, and I shifted so his thigh was between my legs, giving me the friction I required. He teased and stroked and I squeaked out an orgasm on his leg, still gripping his cock, my other hand tangled in his hair.

  He chuckled, studying me as my breathing calmed and I got my second wind. “I’m afraid to do this, Angel,” he said, hips thrusting against me as I stroked faster.

  “Don’t be. I’m on a magic birth control shot now. You aren’t diseased, are you?” My breathing was short again. I needed this. I wanted him inside me. I could taste the need on the back of my tongue.

  “No,” he groaned when I turned and gripped the pool’s edge. “Oh, Jesus. God, I have missed you.”

  He slid my bikini bottoms aside and shoved into me, making me gasp. My body pulsed, hummed and throbbed all while he stroked and fucked me until we both came with a shudder, Bobby’s face pressed into my shoulder to absorb his groan of pleasure.

  “Mmm,” I said, reaching over my shoulder to grip his hair, not wanting him to stop. The connection was too real, too important to me at that moment, never mind that it was with the man I hadn’t spoken two words to since that abortion my mother paid for. I turned to face him, kissing him and realizing I might be setting myself on a path that would be hard to step off when the time came. But I no longer cared.

  “Let’s do it again,” I whispered, biting his earlobe. “You have a place?”

  “Yep,” he said, smiling and kissing my nose before pulling his shorts up and climbing out of the pool. He reached down to assist me, and when he tugged me all the way into his arms, I had a brief qualm, but smothered it under the delicious thought of having as much sex as I wanted for the next few hours.

  I ran inside, kissed Daddy on the top of his head, and grabbed some clothes from my room.

  “And where do you think you’re going?” Dom was also there, oddly out of place on a weekend night, clutching a beer and staring at the TV.

  “Out,” I said. “I’ll be back in the morning.”

  Before either of them could protest, I was out the door and in Bobby’s front seat, the music blaring while we barreled through the darkened streets of our hometown toward his apartment.

  When he dropped me off the next morning on his way to work, all suited up and slick, and looking mighty fine, if I do say so myself, I was sore as hell between my legs, but my mind was calm for the first time in days. When I reached for the car door, Bobby snagged my leg and kept me in place, leaning over to kiss me in such a way that I nearly told him to blow off work and take me to his tiny apartment for a few more hours.

  “Can I take you out tonight? Dinner?” He kept his hand on my leg.

  “Not sure. I’ll text you once I get the mood of the house.”

  “Sounds good. It sure was a nice reunion.” He grinned and waggled his eyebrows at me. I studied him a second, taking in the all-American good-looking face, his short blond hair and broad shoulders.

  “Yes, it sure was.” I grinned and got out, waving before he reversed down the drive. With a sigh of satisfaction, I turned toward the house.

  My mother was standing in the doorway, hands on her hips, looking like she’d never had surgery or long episodes of puking in the bathroom.

  In fact, she looked about as pissed off as I’d ever seen her.

  “Young lady, I am not running a hotel.”

  I frowned up at her, my happy, sated mood destroyed. “What are you talking about?” I tried to get past her, but she blocked my way. “Mama, excuse me. I need to take a shower.”

  “I’m not letting you in, Angelique, until you promise me you won’t treat my home like a halfway house.” She crossed her arms. The incongruity of the still-dangling tubes under her arms made me gulp and experience a small twinge of guilt.

  “I told Daddy and Dom …”

  “They said you only told them you were ‘out’ and would be ‘back in the morning.’” She hooked her fingers around my exact words.

  “Well, yeah …”

  She held out her phone. “And this,” she said, brandishing it. “You forget how to use one of these?” Her eyes were bright and shiny.

  I realized she might very well be high on painkillers.

  “I was worried sick. Sick, I tell you.” She pressed her fingers to her mouth while tears slid down her face. “Oh, Lord help me, I am so sick of being sick!” She shrieked the last word, whirled and ran inside. I could hear her hurling her guts out all the way from the kitchen.

  I dumped my bag on the table, noting the mess my brother had left on his way out to the brewery, and followed her. Daddy’s van was gone, so it was just her and me today, I surmised.

  Something about that pleased me.

  I watched her clutch the bowl that I’d cleaned the day before. Her red hair hid one side of her face and was trailing close to the toilet seat, so I pulled it back and secured it with a hair tie I always kept on my wrist.

  She pounded the toilet seat, wept, and threw up for the better part of thirty minutes. Then she flopped onto her butt, leaning against the tub. Her skin had a nasty greenish tinge that alarmed me, but I took it in stride, finding a cloth, wetting it with cool water, and putting to her face. She was surprisingly hot to the touch.

  “Mama,” I said. She grabbed my wrist, tugging me close until I sat next to her and had to put my arm around her thin, shaking shoulders. The moment was so very strange, so out of context, I felt as if I were watching someone else comfort their redheaded, too-thin mother on the floor of a bathroom. But we sat there for a while until I got a little sweaty from the heat rolling off her.

  I touched my lips to her forehead, parroting what she used to do with my brothers or me when we’d claim we were sick, and then peeled her off me. She swayed, her eyes seeming to go all unfocused and weird. “Mama,” I said, touching her flushed face. “Do you hurt? Did you take a pain pill?”

  “Don’t … know,” she said, slurring a little. “Can’t read the words. Too small.”

  I pulled her up, but when she almost crumpled to the floor I scooped her up and into my arms, shocked at how light she was, how barely there.

  I put her in the bed, covering her since she was now shivering so hard her teeth chattered. “T-t-t-tired.” Her eyes drifted shut. I sat, wiping her face, and then finally pulling the shade closed once she fell asleep.

  After cleaning the kitchen chaos and the path to the bathroom, I pulled down her plastic tub of pills, studying each bottle for side effects. Figuring she must have taken the muscle relaxer and the pain med together, which combined might lead to lethargy, I called Daddy to let him know what had happened.

  “I’ll be home about two, Angel. Thanks for managing her.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said. “I’m sorry I didn’t come home last night.”

  “It’s fine. You’re a grown-up. But please check in with her next time. So she won’t get frantic.”

  “I think she’s out for a while. I’m gonna try to finish the walls downstairs.”

  I hung up and then spent two solid hours scraping between the grooves of the endless paneling. Finally, sweaty and tired—Bobby and I had only slept a couple of hours the night before—I put on a swimsuit, checked to see if Mama was
still asleep, then headed for a lounge chair by the pool.

  I awoke to loud shouts. Someone was yelling my name. I wiped my face and jumped up, alarmed and wondering how long I’d slept.

  “Angel!”

  I ran for the house, heart thudding in my chest. The lower patio door was open. My eyes took a few seconds to adjust to the indoor gloom.

  “Oh Jesus, God, no. Mama!” Aiden. It was Aiden’s voice coming from the bathroom. I flew upstairs and found him, holding her in his arms. “Call 911, now,” he hollered. I froze, watching him cradle her to his chest. “Fucking-A Angelique, call the goddamn ambulance!”

  Chapter Nine

  The mystery infection my mother contracted landed her in the hospital for a solid week. Once the antibiotics did their work, she was, of course, itching to get home again. This time, she declared herself finished with the stronger chemo and demanded treatments that were less harsh so she could at least live her life free of that level of misery. The doctors adjusted it, and she rallied, big time.

  We’d even resumed our old bickering ways. She found nothing but fault in everything I did or said. I lashed out at her. We argued. My brothers avoided us. My father watched baseball and ignored us.

  Status quo.

  We headed into Halloween week with my mother in full-throttle party mode. After absorbing the rather shocking news that Aiden had actually asked Renee Reese to marry him, and given her our Nana Halloran’s emerald engagement ring, we figured that three out of four of them engaged to be married would make for some interesting coordination in the coming months.

  I wondered what had happened to force Aiden and Rosie to sort themselves out, but, kept my opinions to myself.

  I had enough trouble getting Bobby Foster to believe me when I told him—repeatedly—that I had no interest in him beyond sex.

  The Wednesday before Friday’s Annual Love Family Halloween Party, Mama had a checkup. Daddy went with her, while I finished applying the last layer of varnish to the newly exposed maple paneling in the lower family room. It did look nice. I hated to admit it, but she was right. As I stood admiring it, doing a few touch-ups to spots I’d missed, I heard the front door slam hard.

  Glancing at my watch, I realized I hadn’t started dinner, and I’d promised to do it, so I hurried up to the kitchen and started hauling out the ingredients for my mother’s meatloaf. I got the onions and green peppers finely chopped and sizzling, then pulled out her secret spice combo and sprinkled it into the ground turkey, eggs, ketchup and bread crumbs. I knew we might be feeding all the Loves, so I tripled it according to her directions, then dumped the peppers and onions into the mix. Once it was all hand-folded together, I formed two large loaves, covered them in foil, and stuck them in the oven.

  Then I made an executive decision to go with macaroni and cheese instead of mashed potatoes, and was pouring the pasta elbows into boiling water while stirring the cheese mixture slowly on the stovetop when Daddy dropped into a kitchen chair.

  “Pour me a drink, Angel.”

  I turned, surprised. Hard liquor was usually consumed on weekends, if at all, in the Love household. But his face was set and stony, so I skipped the questions and went to the sideboard in the dining room for the bourbon. I put a glass on the table, dropped in a single ice cube and poured a splash. He made an impatient gesture toward the bottle so I poured another splash.

  “Get yourself one, too.”

  Shrugging, I checked the macaroni and the cheese sauce, then got my own glass. Once I’d filled it, he held his up. “To family,” he said, his usual toast. I clinked mine to his and sipped, wary and suddenly afraid of what he would say next. He downed the double pour in one swallow. The sound the glass made hitting the table made me flinch. He still had it gripped tight in his hand.

  “What’s wrong?” I put my glass down and tried to pry his out of his grasp. He made a strange sort of growling sound, grabbed the bottle and sloshed more into his glass. “Daddy?”

  After knocking that back and pouring another, he sucked in a deep breath. “I’m gonna lose her after all,” he said, clear as day. He looked at me. His eyes were dry and hard. His jaw clenched and unclenched.

  “Lose her?” I got up to stir the cheese, cursing under my breath when I saw it was stuck to the pan. My mind refused to process what he was saying anyway, so I attempted to focus on the food.

  “You heard me, goddamn it.” His raised voice made me flinch. I’d never heard it outside the realm of his extreme fury at one of his sons, usually Dominic, but sometimes Antony. I dumped more shredded cheese into the pan, stirred in more milk, unwilling to acknowledge what was going on behind me. I felt in my pocket for my phone and sent a quick text to all my brothers at once.

  “Something bad is going on. Come over.”

  I took the meatloaf out of the oven, drained the pasta, combined it with the slightly lumpy cheese, and poured the steamed green beans into a bowl. When I turned again, sweat dripping down my face from exertion, stove heat, and terror, my father had disappeared. I glanced at the blank phone screen, figuring I’d be dealing with this one on my own.

  I turned off the oven and the burners. After washing my hands, I poured a big glass of water, drank it, then poured another one and took it into the living room. Daddy was in his leather recliner, bourbon bottle in one hand, remote in the other. The TV sat dark and silent. I approached him slowly, like you might a rabid animal trapped in a barn.

  “Daddy, here. Drink some water.”

  He put the bourbon bottle to his lips and drank that instead. I sat on the couch, watching him. No sounds came from the upstairs rooms. I got up, thinking I’d check on Mama.

  “Stop,” my father said behind me.

  I did.

  “You don’t even care, do you?”

  My face flushed hot. I heard the slur in his voice. My parents were not hard-core drinkers. That bourbon bottle had probably been a Christmas gift, and been sitting in the liquor cabinet for months. Deciding that silence might serve me better, I kept my mouth shut.

  Daddy pointed at me, one eye shut, one hand still clutching the neck of the bottle. “She’s dying, Angel. My Lindsay. My …” He lurched forward, scaring me. But he just got to his feet and starting stumbling around the room, muttering under his breath.

  Furious at my brothers for having lives that kept them from appearing and assisting me with this, I eased the bottle from his grasp and lowered him onto the couch. He was cursing a blue streak, which surprised me.

  “I wish she loved you more,” he finally said, putting a heavy hand on my shoulder. “I don’t know what happened.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said, getting up to toss the bottle in the trash. When I got to the living room, he was where I’d left him, hands on his knees, face red, jaw locked. Before I could say or do anything he jumped up and ran down the steps to the lower family room then out onto the patio. I followed him, wondering how I might cajole him into the house and down onto one of the couches. He’d pass out, I knew, given half the chance.

  But he stripped off his shirt and dove into the pool, scaring me to death until I saw him emerge at the far end, wiping his eyes and shaking out his hair.

  My phone buzzed with a message from Bobby. “What’s up?”

  I stared at it, confused until I realized I must have sent him the same text I sent my brothers.

  “Can you come over? My daddy’s in a bad way.”

  “Be right there,” he said.

  I dropped the phone when I saw Daddy dip beneath the water again. Something seemed pretty final about that move, even though in my logical brain I knew better. I felt Dom’s Harley pull in, the distinct exhaust noise filling my chest and head. He overran the drive, making me think first “Mama’s gonna be pissed about her lawn,” then yell at him when he jumped off and let it drop onto its side.

  “He’s under, the deep end.”

  Dom shucked off his hat and dove in fully clothed. I ran to the side, trying to make heads or tails of the ro
iling and thrashing going on under the water. I leaned forward, hoping to grab onto one of them. Dom forced him up and to the surface. If Bobby hadn’t shown up just then and hung onto me, I would’ve ended up in the pool with them.

  We dragged a spluttering, cursing Anton Love out onto the concrete. Dom pulled him all the way onto the grass with little effort and threw him down, hard. “What the fuck, old man?”

  He swiped at his face, glaring down at Daddy while I knelt beside him. “Jesus, this family …” He stomped toward the house, not waiting for a reply.

  Daddy lay there, blinking up at the bright blue sky as if hypnotized by it. I patted his shoulder, unsure what to do or say, whether I should leave him alone or worry he’d try and drown himself again.

  “I wasn’t gonna drown,” he said. He rolled onto his side and then went up on all fours, his head hanging, water dripping onto the grass. “God damn it,” he muttered.

  “What is it?” I asked, taking a seat on the grass next to him. I had never seen my father lose it that way, and I was bone-deep terrified about what he was going to say.

  He sat, facing me. The October evening was hot. I kept plucking blades of grass for something to do with my hands while I waited for him to speak. I watched his lips move, heard the words come out. But my brain would not accept it. I jumped up and ran for the house. Daddy caught up with me while I was trying to yank open the sliding glass door, blinded by tears, choking on the bullshit he’d just told me.

  “Honey, stop. C’mon, settle down, okay?” He pulled me into his sopping wet embrace and I let him. “We’ll fight it, of course. She’s not giving up, you know that.” He let go of me and tilted my face up to meet his gaze. “She doesn’t want anyone to know until after the party.”

  “Fuck that,” I spit out. “The boys need to know …”