by Liz Crowe
“Excuse me,” I said, shoving Antony aside so I could stand in front of everyone, behind the table, and facing the line of increasingly pissed off readers and fans and one woman who, if my eyes did not deceive me, could be my youngest brother’s female twin. She had his odd, hazel-shaded eyes, plus his nose and lips, his somewhat heart-shaped face. Tears were pouring down her cheeks at that moment. “I’m sorry,” she said, glancing behind Aiden to my parents, who were still frozen in place.
Mama’s eyes were so wide I thought they might pop right out of her head. Daddy had his arms crossed and looked … not angry, but grim.
Rosie and Mandy appeared on Aiden’s other side. Mandy slipped her hand into her father’s. He glanced down, seeming surprised to see her.
“What’s wrong, Daddy?” she said. “Are you okay?” Rosie looked at me. I shook my head and shrugged, still utterly confused by this whole scene.
“Who’s that?” Mandy pointed to the crying lady. I sucked in a breath, noting that little Amanda Lindsay Love was a miniature version of the woman. Aiden dropped the arm he’d had raised and put it around his daughter’s shoulders.
“Apparently …” he said, his voice loud enough to make the five or ten people behind the woman stop talking. He cleared his throat and closed his eyes a split second.
Mama grabbed his arm but he shook her off, hard, shocking me. Dom ducked around to catch her, since Daddy did not seem too inclined to assist her when she stumbled.
“Je-sus,” I heard Kieran. “What fresh hell is this?”
“Apparently, this is my sister. Or my half-sister,” Aiden said, speaking to Mandy, but keeping his eyes on the woman in front of him. “It would appear that my father—” his voice broke.
Antony moved quickly to Aiden’s side of the table, but Aiden shook him off, too, reaching for his wife instead. “My father has just died and left a little revelatory note in his will for his children. About me.” He whirled fast. Mandy frowned. Rosie had her hand over her mouth, staring at the Aiden-twin woman who’d stopped crying and was standing there, looking resolute.
Dominic had his arm around our mother. She looked horrified, glancing from Aiden to the woman and back to Aiden. My heart raced. Kieran was making noises behind me, but I no longer heard him.
“Mama,” Aiden said. “I’m guessing there is something you’ve neglected to tell me? Perhaps you should do it now.”
The agent lady stepped between them, steering Aiden around the table and whispering in his ear. My brother’s face was so red I feared for his life. He glared at the woman, then dropped into his seat and put his head in his hands. I shoved my way past Kieran, Daddy, Dom, and Mama, and crouched down beside him.
“Aiden, honey,” I said, smoothing his hair. He was shaking and muttering under his breath. “Listen, let’s keep this show going. People paid good money to meet you, and the natives are getting restless. We’ll work this out later. Okay? Pull it together.”
He glanced at me. His non-Love hazel-colored eyes were bright with unshed tears. I put my hand to his cheek. “Chill out, brother,” I said. “Seriously.” He nodded, swiping at his eyes.
Rosie put her hands on his shoulders. I stood up and gestured for the woman to move away from the front of the table. Looking into her eyes freaked me out, I won’t lie. She was such a perfect female version of my brother it made my chest ache. “Let’s move this into a more private place, okay?”
She nodded.
Behind me, I heard Mama’s voice. “I never meant … I didn’t …”
“Not here,” Daddy said. “Let Aiden finish. We’ll finish this up at the hotel later.” He took a deep breath. “Bring your mother, boys. I need some air.”
He met my gaze for a split second. His dark eyes were sad, but he didn’t look furious or even mildly irritated. Just sort of resigned. Then he turned and walked away from us, heading for the elevator. Mama broke away from Dominic and ran after him. “Anton, wait!”
But he got into the elevator, turned, and held up his hand. “Not now, Lindsay,” he said. She stopped and we all watched the doors close on him in silence.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“You know, I never thought anyone could top my crazy-ass shit,” Dominic said, passing me the bourbon bottle. “Dang,” he said, staring out into the cold New York midnight sky. We sat in the rooftop bar of Aiden’s hotel, empty but for me and three of my brothers. “Especially not my own mother.”
“Yeah,” I said, taking a hit from it and passing it to Antony. He waved it away, so I gave it to Kieran, who took a long pull.
“Who’dve guessed? Mama …” I let my voice trail off.
“They are only human,” Kieran said. “They were young, and Daddy’s about as stubborn as they come. I finally read Aiden’s book. It’s pretty, um, revealing about a lot of things. I didn’t realize Mama had told him so much about, you know, early marriage days. Money troubles, Daddy refusing to allow Mama to use her Halloran inheritance money, fights, stuff like that.” He shrugged.
“For fuck’s sake,” Antony growled, getting up to pace the empty bar.
“You were the reason they got married you know,” Kieran said.
“You think I don’t know that, Francis?”
“What a mess,” I said, leaning into Dom. He draped an arm across my shoulders and we drank and reflected on the appalling scene in my parents’ hotel room earlier.
“I tried to convince Aiden that, since Daddy had known or figured it out pretty quick and had not booted Mama out of the house over it, he ought to just get over it. He is a Love brother. We all know it. Right?”
“Yeah,” Dom said. “But no, at the same time. I mean, it’s weird. It would freak me out, for sure. I don’t know.” He sighed. I sighed. We watched our drunken oldest brother pace the floor.
I rubbed the bridge of my nose. Our father had done his own little revealing as well, and the idea that my parents had each had affairs did a number on me. On the one hand, I understood it. But the little girl part of me refused to accept less than perfection—from my father, at least.
“When you’ve been married as long as they have, and gone through what they’ve gone through …” Kieran shrugged again.
“Stop fucking making excuses for them,” Antony said, halting his tenth circumnavigation of the empty bar. “God damn it.” He stood there, quivering with rage, as if he’d been the wronged husband who’d—as Aiden had put it—had some other man’s son passed off as his for almost forty years. “Give me that,” he said, lurching at me to grab the near-empty bottle.
“Nope,” Dom said, snagging it and finishing it off. “Chill the fuck out, Antony. This is not your fight.”
The two of them glared at each other. The sound of Aiden’s voice made us all jump. “Hey,” he said. He stood with his hands jammed down into his trouser pockets.
I got up and hugged him. He held onto me, then took a deep breath. “So, um, Lindsay and Anton are gonna leave a few days early. No big surprise, I guess, huh?”
Antony stomped over to him. Aiden held up a hand. “No, this is my issue. I don’t need your righteous indignation on my behalf.” He looked up at the ceiling, then down at us. “I’m sorry, y’all. It’s, um, not exactly how I wanted this weekend to go.”
I put my arm around his waist. But he was stiff, practically quivering with a combination of emotions I didn’t want to pretend to understand.
“It’s done, Aiden,” Kieran said in his teacherly voice. “It happened a long time ago, and, well, Daddy knew, and he didn’t do anything about it. You know he loves Mama. They love each other. I think you—”
Aiden shook his head. “Let me fill you in on my perspective. I just found out that I am not a blood member of this family. I’m not a Love. I’m a Patterson, whatever that means. This man, my real father, died, and he was a rich SOB, and now I’ve got some serious dough coming my way.
“So I’m gonna take it, and we’re moving. Rosie’s turned down too many promotions at the bank in the name
of keeping the Love family together. Now it’s obvious we should have been thinking about our own family.” He shrugged.
“That is bullshit,” Antony growled, dropping into a chair. “Oh, fuck me, I’m drunk.” He leveled his dark glare at our youngest brother. “Stop acting like a teenager with a bug up his ass over nothing, Aiden. You are a member of this family. You’re a Love brother. You always will be. Take the money and … I don’t know, buy a bigger house or something.” He leaned forward, elbows on the empty table. “Don’t leave. That’ll kill her,” he finished with a low voice.
“Yeah,” Aiden said. “I died a little myself today, Antony. Thanks. This is our decision, mine and Rosalee’s. I can’t stand to look at Mama right now, or Daddy, for that matter.” He turned away from us.
“But, what about …” I began. He faced us again. In spite of my own wild-ass life choices, I’d never felt so desperate. The crazy that represented my family’s life was about to drift apart, and it flat out terrified me. “Aiden, don’t.”
He frowned at me. “Fine talk coming from the girl who’s done nothing but leave the family behind her entire life. Maybe it’s my turn now. Maybe I need space again from all this fucked-up, stupid drama.”
“Fair,” Dom said, getting up and stretching. “I’m gonna hopefully find my room now.”
Aiden glared at him, then got into the elevator and let the doors close behind him without turning to look at us again.
I bit my lip and glanced at my remaining siblings. Antony was sprawled in a chair, overwhelming it with his bulk, hand over his eyes. Kieran still sat on the barstool where we’d been gathered earlier, leaning on one elbow, looking contemplative.
Dom stood, looking at me, his dark eyes unreadable. “He’ll never do it,” he said. “He’ll never leave.”
A week after Christmas, a For Sale sign appeared in the yard at Rosie and Aiden’s modest little bungalow a few blocks from downtown; and they were, indeed, gone. There had been no final blowup or fight. They simply faded, leaving behind my parents who, according to Kieran, were starting to resemble polite but not-quite-friendly roommates.
Aiden called me a few times, asking about schools and whatnot in the city. I tried to get him the information he wanted, praying they would move close to me. But in the end they chose the West Coast, as if saying “this is as far as I can get from you and still be in the contiguous United States.”
“Why not move to Hawaii?” I asked, aggravated with him and his dogged determination to excise himself from the family.
“It was on the table,” he said. “But San Francisco won the coin toss.”
“Expensive as shit there,” I said, staring at the freezing cold February night outside my windows.
“I can afford it, never fear. Oh, hey, did you hear about Cal?”
I closed my eyes. “No, I didn’t, but I have a feeling I’m about to.”
“He and his wife split up. Dom said Diana said it was amicable enough.”
“Oh,” I said, sliding down the wall of my tiny kitchen.
“You should call him, Angel.”
“Don’t you start giving me advice, mister.”
“Fair enough. Wallow in your spinsterhood.”
“Nobody uses that word anymore. I’m a carefree single woman in New York. I love my life.”
“Right,” he said, without his characteristic chuckle.
“Go fuck yourself, Leonardo,” I said. “I’m hanging up now.”
I sat on the floor for an hour, staring at Calvin’s name on my phone screen, waiting to get past my own nervousness so I could call him, then deleting it instead.
Chapter Twenty-Four
One Year Later
The next Christmas galloped up fast, surprising me a little. I’d spent the year since the Love family’s implosion working my forty hours, taking home my paycheck, going out on a few dates, but shocking myself with my unwillingness to have sex, even a one-night stand.
“I’m about to be that lady, the one who only goes out to get a bottle of gin and kitty litter,” I said to Kieran a few weeks before I was to go home for the holiday.
“You gotta at least have one cat for that,” he said. “Did you talk to him?”
“He said he was coming, for the kids’ sake.”
“Well, that’s good, I guess.” He sighed. “Mama’s full speed ahead, in denial mode. But planning the typical over-the-top Christmas day festivities.”
“How’s Daddy?”
“Working too much. He and Dom fight daily, but I think Dom does it just to give him a feeling of normalcy. We’re pretty sure he and Mama are sleeping in separate rooms. But Lindsay puts up a good front, as you know.”
“I do know.” Guilt over not setting foot in Lucasville for the past twelve months made me dizzy. “They don’t … fight or anything?”
“If they do, it’s when no one else is around. I have this feeling that they don’t. Which in a way is worse.”
“Yeah,” I said, toying with my coffee cup. “I’ll be in on the twenty-third. Don’t tell them. Maybe I can surprise Daddy in a good way. I can’t wait to hold that sweet little girl.”
“Ugh, it’s killing me, I won’t kid you. We’re too old for it.” But I heard the happiness in his voice.
“Liar. If you could, you’d have a litter of ‘em, just like Mama and—” I stopped.
“I’ll see you next week, Angel. Send me your flight info. I’ll pick you up.”
***
“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Mama said, wiping her floury hands on her apron and accepting my kiss to her cheek when I trooped into the kitchen the following week. “Anton,” she said, her voice neutral. “Your baby girl is here.”
Daddy walked in from the living room, holding a magazine. I gasped at the sight of him. “Daddy, are you sick?” He gathered me close and kissed my hair. He must have lost twenty pounds he couldn’t afford to lose.
“No, Angel. I’m fine.” He let go of me and wandered into the living room again. No admonishing me about helping Mama or asking my mother what she wanted him to do. He sat in his recliner and stared down at the open magazine.
I bit my lip, and then returned to the kitchen. Mama handed me napkins to iron. Cara and Diana both shot me sympathetic looks from their corners, where they were prepping food. I held the pile of Irish white linen fabric, glancing between my parents, my heart thudding.
Christmas day brought snow, kids, and brothers. When Aiden and his family arrived, it was a flurry of strange reunion. He was polite but cool with Mama and his usual loving self with Daddy.
The weird awkwardness saturated everything until Dominic burst in the door alongside his now-teenaged, tall, and very handsome son Jace, with a big announcement about Jace’s college basketball career. That broke the tension for a while, once everyone got over the fact that Jace would be wearing a Louisville Cardinals uniform the next winter, and playing for the archenemy of my father and brothers’ beloved Kentucky Wildcats.
Daddy brought out U of L hats, and everyone put them on, wincing as if they burned. But he was damn proud of Jace, and I knew it. I hugged Jace before returning to the kitchen.
When the doorbell rang, I ignored it until Mama told me to go answer it. Wiping my hands on a dishtowel, I set the silverware on the huge dining room table in passing. Everyone got real quiet as while I walked down the steps to the front door. I glanced over my shoulder as I opened it.
“Angel,” a familiar voice said. I turned slowly and came face to face with Cal Morrison, brandishing a huge bouquet of roses and a bottle of wine.
“Mama,” I called out, not taking my eyes from his. “What have you done?”
“Just what’s best for my children,” she sang out from the kitchen.
Dominic reached around me, snagged the flowers and wine, and gave me a push toward him.
Something in me gave way then. All the almost-unbearable tension from the past year, the failure of a marriage, all my rotten, stupid life choices, seemed to l
ift up and out of me like steam off summer morning grass.
I smiled. Cal opened his arms.
Our holiday dinner was loud and chaotic. My father seemed to have recovered his appetite and joy at having the family around him. My mother served, bossed, joked, and laughed at her end of the table. But they didn’t ever speak directly to each other. An omission that hung over us like a thundercloud.
Cal held my hand tight the whole time. I let him, loving it and him, and fighting an inner battle with myself over how I might ponder a real future here, in the city I’d despised so intensely for so many years.
Dom played Santa, and when he gave Diana a beautiful diamond ring at the end of the gift frenzy, she burst into uncharacteristic tears. All pretty typical Love family drama, but in a good way. Aiden stayed aloof, but I could tell he was glad to be home, at least for a while.
Mandy was surly, and had been the whole year, according to Rosie. Separating her from her beloved grandma had been brutal for everyone.
Cal helped dry the serving dishes. Mama treated him like family, bossing him around while bragging on him and his new job as head of emergency services at the fancy new county hospital.
Once we were done, the wrapping paper all disposed of, the table cleared, kids getting grumpy, and Daddy about to pass out on the couch, Cal grabbed me and pulled me down to the bottom basement. I’d spent plenty of time making out in that space as a teenager, but when he kissed me then, I knew I wouldn’t want another man’s touch or lips but his, ever again.
