Family Love

by Liz Crowe

  “Angel,” he gasped when we broke the lip-lock. “Oh God, honey, I have missed you.”

  “Take me home, Cal,” I said. “I mean … I’m real sorry about your divorce.”

  He thumbed my chin. “It’s all right. She knew I was only half with her the whole time. She found somebody else, and I don’t blame her.”

  “Only half with her,” I said.

  “And half with you,” he said, smiling before taking my hand and leading me upstairs.

  “Go on,” Mama said from her spot in her chair, reading glasses on and book on her lap.

  “But I was staying here,” I protested, knowing I had to do that.

  “No, you’re not,” she said, smiling at me.

  We rode through the swirling snow to Cal’s tidy house in one of the older neighborhoods. He unlocked the door, pulled me inside, and held me close. “Promise me something,” he said into my hair.

  “Anything,” I said, gripping the back of his shirt.

  “Never leave me again.”

  I nodded, took a half step away, and slipped out of my shoes and dress. He sucked in a breath. But I put my finger to his lips, unbuttoned his shirt, unbuckled and unzipped his trousers, and left everything in a puddle at our feet.

  “I love you,” I said, letting my finger trail along his jaw, down his neck and torso. “And you are stuck with me now. I hear I’m a real handful.”

  He smiled, scooped me up and took me to his bedroom.

  The sound of a ring tone like the one from the kitchen of my childhood jolted us both awake. Cal got up and found his phone in the pocket of the trousers we’d left on the floor. I lay still, arm over my eyes, so completely happy I was scared to let myself feel it.

  “Okay,” Cal was saying as he walked into the bedroom. “I’ll tell her.” He ended the call and stood in the doorway, his dark eyes serious.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, holding the sheet to my chest. “Spit it out, Calvin. I know I’m not going to be allowed to be this happy without the axe dropping sometime.”

  “Your father is moving out of the house,” he said, coming to gather me in his arms. “Antony and Kieran are helping him. He’s all right. But he insisted on it … late last night, I guess. Big blowout fight, or something.”

  I pushed away from him and scrambled out of bed, wrapping myself in a quilt. “It’s Love family crap, Cal. And I shouldn’t subject you to it.” I headed out into the living room to find my clothes. “I’m sorry.” Blinded by tears, I stepped into panties and tried to locate my bra.

  “I’m disappointed in you,” he said, watching me slip the dress down over my bra-less body.

  “Yeah? Well, take a dang number on that one,” I said, grabbing my shoes. “I gotta go to him. He needs me.”

  Cal had on a pair of jeans and soft blue button-down shirt by the time I emerged from the bathroom. “You promised me, remember?” He spun his keys on his finger. “And I’m not letting you break it this time.” He dropped to one knee and held out a ring box.

  I sighed dramatically and took it. “Oh, Lord have mercy, Calvin, you have the worst timing in the world. My parents’ marriage is breaking up, and you want to propose? And me without my coffee?” But I smiled and slipped the tasteful, classy diamond onto my finger as if there had not been ten years between this time and the last time he’d done it. “Get up, already. We have to go deal with Anton and Lindsay.”

  “I adore you, Angelique Love.” Calvin kissed me in that way he always had, making me want to ditch all the drama and drag him to bed again. But I pulled away and gripped his arms.

  “I am a handful,” I repeated.

  “I’m aware. I have big hands. Let’s go. We can bring everyone coffee and muffins from Jen’s,” he said, naming his sister-in-law’s popular deli.

  My brothers, Calvin, and I all loaded a few things into the brewery van, then carried them up the metal stairs to the apartment over the old brewery where Dom had lived for a while. They all stood around, looking lost and useless, making noises about getting some beer, or maybe pizza, until I shooed them the hell out.

  Calvin shot me an odd look when I told him to go on, that I needed a few minutes alone with my daddy. But I put my palm alongside his scruffy jaw, kissed him gently, and he left without another word. I watched him a minute and surprised myself by saying a quick, mental prayer of thanks that I finally had found my Prince Charming.

  “Sit down, Daddy,” I said, once I got past that moment. He stood in the middle of the small combination dining and living room, stubborn on his face and in every line of his body.

  I reached into my bag and pulled out a bottle of expensive bourbon, plunked it on the small table, and said it again. “Sit down, Daddy.”

  He sat. I poured us healthy portions into a couple of juice glasses and held mine up. He didn’t join me. Just tossed the liquor back fast.

  “Why?” I asked him, gesturing at the piss-poor accommodations. I had no other question, really.

  “Not your business, Angel,” he growled, reaching for the bottle.

  I picked it up. He sat, glaring at me. The silence took on a life of its own for a while. “It is my business. You and Mama are being ridiculous.”

  He leaned forward, elbows on the table. “I can’t pretend anymore that I don’t care what she did.” His slightly swollen knuckles bulged above the grip of his fingers. “I do care. But I didn’t, then. I couldn’t, you know?”

  He glanced up at me, the abject plea on his face forcing me to take a step away and wonder why I’d initiated this potentially devastating discussion. “I was no better. I was worse. I … I cheated, lied, told myself to stop. Stopped. Then would start it up again. Always with the same girl.”

  I raised an eyebrow, forcing myself not to voice the words in my head about And that makes what she did okay?

  He groaned and put his forehead down on his hands. “I knew what that damn piece of paper was. Where she’d been figuring out the blood types. I’m not a total idiot.”

  He pushed his empty glass to me and I refilled it. They’d been yelling about some piece of paper in the hotel, confusing everyone except them. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from saying anything, willing myself to listen for now.

  He sighed and leaned back. “I think I knew it the minute she got home from that weekend.” I got a glimpse of him as a man, a frustrated young father, husband to a supremely aggravating woman he adored, and attractive to other women.

  That freaked me out so much I gulped my drink, almost choking on it.

  “Marry Calvin Morrison, Angel. He’s a good man. He’ll take real good care of you. Better than I ever did of Lindsay.”

  “Daddy, that’s self-pity talking now. Stop it.”

  He shot me a dark look. But I surged ahead, needing to say these things before I chickened out. “Y’all are only good if you’re together, warts and all. You say you knew, but you raised Aiden as your own. She says she knew about the … the … that woman.” I had to stop and pour myself another one to get past that fact. “And all Mama did was make you fire her, no questions asked. Why make this such a thing now? Such a huge thing. A thing that makes you move out of your own dang house?”

  He got up and started pacing the small space, dragging his fingers through his now almost all-silver hair.

  I sat, drinking and waiting, and—surprisingly—praying in my mind. Finally, he stopped and turned. “I need space, Angelique. I have to think this thing through now Aiden knows. Now he … he’s so mad we kept it from him that he’s gone and moved to California. And now I know she honestly believed she could keep such a thing from me.” He pointed to his chest. “Me.” He yelled, pounding it now, over and over again.

  “From me! I’m the only one who ever got her, understood her, loved her the way she deserved to be loved. But I fucking knew what she’d done and who with. Not because of that damn paper with the blood types, either.”

  He slumped against the fridge. “He told me. Joe Patterson. He was a good
man, but a man all the same and Lindsay was a beautiful, headstrong, tempting woman.”

  My father looked up at the ceiling. When he met my eyes, his were hard and set. “Joe and I had ourselves a conversation, and an understanding. And I expected her to tell me herself after that. But she never … fucking … did. She hid it behind trying to be a supermom and wife. Don’t think I don’t know that. But I love her. God save my soul from the depths of hell, I still do.”

  I was gripping the bottle so hard it hurt when I let go, but I did, and got up and went to him. But he sidestepped me, running fingers through his hair again and looking frantic. “Go on. Leave me be.”

  I dropped my arms. We stood glaring at each other for a solid minute.

  “Tell her this, Daddy,” I said, my voice rough, tears burning. “You have to. You can’t just give up.” I grabbed his arms. He looked startled. “You are not allowed to give up. Not on this. Not on her.”

  He plucked my hands off his arms and held them to his lips. “Oh, Angel,” he said. “My Angel. I think I already have.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The new Love family reality hit everyone hard. Having lurched from terror at the idea of losing our mother to cancer, through her various setbacks and eventual recovery, we were all raw around the edges. Every brother had experienced his own bit of trauma in between, plus me and my nonstop ability to screw up my life.

  But this, this actual, physical separation of the one unit we’d all considered our touchstone—it was a knife in our backs. It hurt, bad. And we couldn’t reach around and yank it out to stop the pain.

  I held off any talk of weddings for a few months, until circumstances dictated that we should elope and have ourselves a kitschy Las Vegas ceremony. We returned from that to learn there were attorneys involved now. My father had actually initiated a divorce. Mama was stoic, annoyingly so, unwilling to discuss it with any of us.

  We hit early spring with a riot of flowers and color. I tried to get my brothers to help me host our parents’ traditional Derby Day party, but they were lukewarm about the idea. Antony was having trouble with his son Josh, he claimed. Kieran was swamped with the end of the school year approaching, plus a bunch of bizarre tension between some new suburbia kids that had moved in, upsetting the delicate balance that is a large high school’s social environment. Dom didn’t even want to discuss having that “stupid fucking party.” He seemed to be the most torn up over our parents’ looming divorce.

  “Honey, I think it’s probably not worth the effort,” Cal said to me one late April morning over breakfast. He smiled and put a strawberry to my lips. I took it, wincing at its early season sourness. “You have enough going on already.”

  I sipped some coffee, then stood up so fast my chair fell over. I barely made it to the toilet before I threw up.

  “Oh, my Lord,” I said, leaning against the tub. “Is it gonna be this bad for long?”

  I looked up at my husband who leaned in the door, looking pleased with himself. “Well, help me up, already. Just because you got me knocked up when my Italian stallion husband couldn’t.”

  He smacked my ass. “Some of us are just better at some things than others. And remember, dear heart, I couldn’t knock up the first Missus Morrison, either. And I assure you it was not from lack of trying.”

  I brushed my teeth. When I turned around, he pulled me close. I shoved him away, flat out, irrationally jealous over thoughts of my Cal making love to anyone but me.

  He looked me up and down, making me tingle from head to toe. “Guess the DNA combination that was meant to be is ours,” he said, his voice perfectly calm, as always.

  I sighed and let him hold me after I administered a quick, stern inner lecture about my basic self-centeredness. He cupped my breast and bit my earlobe. “God damn, you are hot. Let’s go back to bed.”

  I’ll admit I was tempted. Ever since getting my good news a few days ago, I’d been insatiable, as if my hormones had revved into a weird kind of overdrive.

  I reached into his shorts. “Mmmm …” I said. “Okay, let’s.”

  He sighed. “Forgot, can’t. I have to get to work. Oh, Jesus.” He groaned when I pushed him out into the hall, yanked his shorts down and slid my lips over the head of his cock. He let me mess with him a while, then pulled me up to meet his lips. “Turn around,” he whispered. I did, bracing my hands on the wall and sighing when he slid into me.

  Later that morning, I sat at the desk in the newly-expanded studio office, pondering resumes and wondering what in the hell made me think I could run a business. I kept sipping tea and eating saltines between bouts of throwing up. After a couple of hours setting up interviews and assigning classes to the three instructors I had already hired, I gave up.

  When I pulled into my parents’ driveway, I blinked, not even realizing I’d meant to come here. But I got out and headed for the door, knowing it was high time I told my mother the news.

  “Hello?” I opened the door, expecting the usual greeting from the kitchen. But the house was silent. I went up the steps to the main living room, figuring maybe she was napping. But it was empty. The kitchen was tidy, tucked away and seemed a little unused, which was odd. There was no smell of morning coffee or toast. Panic bloomed in my chest. I ran upstairs, calling for her. The bathroom and all the bedrooms were clean and devoid of people.

  “Shit,” I muttered. “Mama! Where the hell?” I stopped at the top of the stairs to the lower family room.

  “Down here,” she called. I dashed down the steps to the bottom basement. She sat on the butt-sprung, ratty old couch my brothers and I had played on, sat on while drinking illicit beers, and made out on with various partners over the years. The room was neat as a pin. The toys Mama kept around for her grandbabies were all put away. It smelled of fabric softener and starch.

  She sat on the couch, fists on her knees, tears streaming down her face. “I have to get him back,” she said. “Angelique, please, you have to talk to him.”

  I sat next to her and put my arm around her thin shoulders. To my utter shock, she leaned into my neck and sobbed like a child. Feeling all sorts of awkward, I patted her shoulder. Finally she sat up and dabbed her eyes. “We are too dang old for this nonsense. Divorce. Lord have mercy. It’s not like he didn’t … and it was so long ago …”

  “Well, Mama, I guess—”

  She shot me a sharp, familiar look. Then she sighed and seemed to fold in on herself. I patted her knee, at a total loss. The sum total of our relationship didn’t include a whole lot of moments that would give me any real frame of reference for this one.

  “I’m gonna have a baby,” I said.

  She blinked fast, then grabbed my hand. “Oh, honey. I’m so happy for you.”

  Then she started crying again—loud, gut-wrenching, anguished sobs that scared me. After a while, she got up and started pacing the room, the way Antony tended to do when he was upset about something.

  I sat, swallowing a sudden surge of nausea.

  “I’m sorry. I told him I was sorry.” She twisted her fingers together, then ran them all through her hair. “I told them both that. Now I’ve lost them both. My sweet baby boy and … my …” She dropped to her knees, startling me even further. I got up and went to her, unsure what to do.

  She grabbed my legs and held on for dear life. I pulled her up, gave her a hug and said, “Let’s go have some tea.” She swallowed hard, then chuckled. Then she giggled. Then she laughed.

  I held onto her, thinking I should call Cal, or maybe the guys in the white coats, ’cause my Mama had just gone the rest of the way ’round the bend. Finally, she calmed.

  “Oh, honey,” she said, wiping her eyes. “Oh, my sweet girl.” She patted my cheek. “I always wanted a girl, you know. But kept getting all those damn boys.”

  I moved away, nervous now, and a little aggravated. “Couldn’t prove it by me,” I said, picking up the pile of clothes she must have dropped on her way to laundry room.

  “Oh don’t
be silly, Angelique.” Her dismissive tone had returned. She stood, arms crossed, face red and puffy, but yet still managing to force me in the irrational teenager role.

  “I’m not silly, Mama. You hated my ever-loving guts. Don’t deny it.”

  She put a hand over her lips and closed her eyes. “No,” she finally said, staring at me from across the expanse of old, smelly couch. “No, I didn’t hate you. I hated myself.”

  I frowned and crossed my arms, mirroring her. “What is that supposed to mean? Unless you’re fixin’ to tell me I have a different daddy, too?”

  She moved fast, shocking me with the slap. I put a hand to my stinging face. “I’ll take that as a no,” I said, turning to go upstairs.

  “Angelique, wait.”

  I stopped. Calvin had told me more than once I should try harder with her, give her a shot at being a good mother without jumping in and causing trouble with my smart-ass commentary first. Respectful of my love for that man, and for no other reason, I faced her with my mouth shut.

  She had her arms held out as if in supplication. They were shaking. “I was so … so very tired. I didn’t want another baby. My body definitely didn’t, even though I’m still mad at your Daddy for letting those surgeons tie up my tubes while I was out.”

  She bit her lip. I stayed quiet. “I was disappearing under a mountain of babies and diapers and toys and puke and shit.” Her lip quivered. She cleared her throat.

  “After Aiden, I swore I’d make everything right with him, with Anton. I mean, he’d done it, too—let that slutty woman—” She stopped and ran hand down her face. “It doesn’t justify what I did. I knew it was my fertile time of the month, and I did it anyway. I let Joe Patterson fuck me.”

  I took a step backwards, more shocked by that than any slap she might administer.

  “I needed something. And I got it. I got Aiden, the sweetest, most wonderful little baby boy. And I also got to keep the most terrible secret, carry it around my neck like a stone all day, every day, picking it up every morning, and letting it color everything about my view of myself and my inability to be the wife and mother I should be.”