Worthy of Love

by Carly Phillips

  “Why don’t you two give it some thought? It’s not something I’ll be finding out today anyway. Want to hear more or can I stop now?” she asked, with that same knowing grin. “You’ll get to hear him every month.”

  “Or her,” Nikki said.

  Kevin raised an eyebrow. “Changing your mind? She thinks it’s a boy,” he said in response to Dr. Molloy’s questioning look.

  Nikki shook her head. “Just covering my bases.”

  The doctor lifted the machine and flipped the power off. She handed Nikki a towel. “Everything looks fine. You can clean up a bit and meet me in my office. I’ll answer any other questions you have.” With that, she slipped out the door.

  Kevin and Nikki were alone. The sheen of tears in her eyes matched the emotion stirring inside him. “Do you have any other questions for her?” Kevin asked.

  “Not right now.” She crumpled a white paper sheet and wiped down her stomach, while he granted her the courtesy of turning away.

  “Will you be okay if I put you in a cab and send you home? I need to run an important errand.”

  “Not a problem,” she said, her words warring with the questions in her violet eyes.

  No doubt she wondered why the man who professed not to want to let her out of his sight was suddenly willing to put her in a taxi alone. But she didn’t ask where he was heading. And he didn’t offer the information.

  This short appointment had altered his entire life. To be more precise, Nikki had altered his life. But these last ten minutes had shown him what true bonding between people meant. For the first time, he understood some of what Nikki wanted from him—apart from the nights they used to share beneath the covers.

  He heard the ripple of paper as she tossed the sheet into the trash and moved to his side. “As long as I’m in the city, I’d like to go to Janine’s anyway.”

  “I can pick you up on my way home.”

  She shook her head. “No need. I don’t know how long I’ll be.”

  “It’ll be too dark for you to take a cab… Never mind.” Forcing himself to back off wasn’t easy.

  But words he’d read in Nikki’s photocopied literature came back to haunt him. Questions for adult children of alcoholics, the paper had read. And Kevin had taken to reading them over at bedtime, when he was alone. He’d rather have been with Nikki, but she’d refused, citing his need to control and his inability to reach out to her. Questions he hadn’t wanted to take seriously, but questions he couldn’t ignore.

  Did he anticipate problems when life was going smoothly? Did he isolate himself from other people? Did he have trouble with intimate relationships? Did he feel responsible for others, as he did for his drunken father? There were more, but those were the ones that stayed with him. Day after day, night after night.

  He looked around him, at the room where he’d heard his baby’s heartbeat for the first time. At the woman with whom he could share his life—if only he could learn how.

  There was a way, he thought, recalling the literature once more. But he didn’t know if he had it in him to take the steps he needed to take. He didn’t know if he could ever stop blaming himself… for many things.

  If he failed at this, he wanted to do it alone, if not in peace. But if he won, if he conquered this next demon, they both had a chance at a future.

  “Kevin?”

  He blinked at the sound of her voice. “What is it?”

  “Thank you.”

  “For?”

  “Being here. And letting me go.” A soft smile curved at her lips.

  He understood her, just as she understood him. And that was their start.

  * * *

  One by one, they filed out of the Al-Anon meeting room. Men and women looking just like him. Most held steady jobs. Some were married, others single. They looked like well-adjusted adults. But the one thing they had in common made Kevin question the last. They were all adult children of alcoholics.

  He sat in his seat long after the others were gone, thinking about the most important things he’d heard here today.

  He wasn’t responsible for Max’s alcoholism, nor his recovery. That much he’d known going in. He’d told Nikki the same thing when she’d asked him if he’d read the information she’d given him.

  He shouldn’t do things for Max that he could do for himself. In other words, he shouldn’t be paying his rent when his father was an adult capable of holding down a job and earning money to pay the rent himself. If he chose to spend a paycheck on booze instead of necessities, that was his problem, not Kevin’s. Yeah, like he could live with himself if his father got thrown out on the street.

  But if he didn’t stop aiding Max, Max’s life would never be separate from his. And if he didn’t get the lousy parts of Max’s life out of his own, he didn’t stand a chance with Nikki.

  He glanced up to see the meeting leader standing in front of him.

  “Glad to have you here,” he said. “I hope you found us helpful.”

  Kevin heard the sound of his baby’s heartbeat echoing inside his head. He saw Nikki’s expectant face. He nodded at the man. “Helpful enough that I’ll be back.”

  * * *

  “Did you tell Kevin about your meeting at the college?” Janine asked.

  Nikki folded the last sweater in her brother’s closet and turned to face her sister-in-law. “No.”

  “Avoiding?” Janine asked in a teasing tone.

  Nikki was grateful she could laugh in the midst of this chore. It made what was to come just a tiny bit easier. “You could say that.”

  Janine grinned. “I just did.”

  Nikki nodded. “Speaking of avoiding… Remember when we started this a few days ago?” She gestured to the bags and boxes scattered around the room.

  “Like I could forget? Why?”

  “Well, Kevin came by that day. And I told you he’d been by the station house and wanted to let you know they’d found a box of some of Tony’s personal effects and they’d turn it over to you soon, remember?”

  Janine grabbed for a pillow on the bed and hugged it tight against her rounded stomach. “Go on.”

  “Well, they’d already done it. But I wanted it to be the last thing you dealt with, not the first. So the bag’s in the living room. Along with his uniform from that night.” She held her breath, waiting for Janine to yell at her for withholding something of Tony’s or for making decisions she had no right to make.

  Instead, she exhaled a long breath. “Thank you,” she murmured softly. Her fingers curled tighter around the pillow until they were lost in the feather-like softness.

  “So you’re not angry?”

  Janine shook her head. “I’m scared to even see his uniform. Last time I did, he was wearing it. And it was covered in…” Her eyes filled with tears and she swiped at them with the back of her hand.

  Nikki’s throat constricted and the pain in her chest was overwhelming. “Listen, we don’t have to open the bag. We can put it aside and you can deal with it back home, or we can just…” She shrugged, unable to even suggest they throw out their last link to Tony.

  “No. We’ll go through it.” Janine straightened her shoulders. “I have to do this. It’s… closure, you know? Then I can go home and let the good memories take over.” Tossing the pillow aside, she placed her hand over her stomach.

  “You’re sure you can handle this?” Nikki asked.

  “Are you?”

  She grabbed for Janine’s free hand and clutched it inside of her own. “Hey, I’m as tough as you and don’t ever forget it,” she said, striving for a lightness neither of them felt.

  Janine smiled. “Tony was proud of you, you know. If he never said it, it was because he was a big tough guy. But he loved you and he always knew you’d make something of yourself.”

  “So instead I got myself knocked up. Good thing he wasn’t around to see it.”

  “Only because Kevin’s face would be battered beyond recognition.” Janine laughed. “Tony loved him like a broth
er, but for laying his hands on his baby sister… Then again, he married you, so all would be forgiven. And Kevin is officially part of the family now.”

  “Too bad he doesn’t feel that way.”

  “Then make him feel it.”

  “Don’t you think I’ve tried?” Nikki slammed her hand against the mattress. “He’s like this fortress and the harder I try to get in, the more he shores up his defenses.” And it hurt. She didn’t know how many more times she could handle being rejected. “Besides he hasn’t come to think of me as anything more than an obligation. Like you said, he did the right thing. Doesn’t mean he’s enjoying it.”

  Janine shook her head. “Tell him about school.”

  “What will that accomplish?”

  “Maybe nothing. But maybe when he realizes you won’t need him for long, it’ll scare him out of that complacent shell of his and show him exactly what he has. And what he might lose.”

  Nikki rose from the bed. “You may have a point.”

  “I usually do. Now let’s get this over with.”

  Not pretending to misunderstand, Nikki headed for the family room and returned with the bag Kevin had brought the week before. She placed it on the center of the bed while Janine stood off to the side, wide-eyed, staring at the sight as if it might come to life at any moment.

  Nikki sighed. If her life ever got easy, she might not recognize her role in this universe. “Want me to open it?” she asked.

  “Please.”

  Her hands shook as she untied the knot on the heavy plastic bag. Her breath caught as she pulled out the dark blue uniform her brother had worn for his last day on earth. And her heart constricted as she listened to Janine’s soft cries as the blood stains on the material became apparent. She shut her eyes and tears fell anyway.

  She wished Kevin were here to support her. Did he long for her presence when he put himself through a difficult task, like confronting his father? Or was he merely glad she was gone?

  When Janine gingerly took the uniform out of her hands, Nikki stepped back. “Want me to give you some privacy?” she asked her sister-in-law.

  “No. I really need your support. I need you.”

  “You’ve got me.”

  “You know it’s not like I haven’t accepted things.”

  “Hey, you’re human. This isn’t easy for me either, so don’t be so hard on yourself. Have you given any thought to what you’re going to do with it?” Nikki asked.

  “Burn it,” Janine muttered. “But I wanted to make sure I got all his personal things first.”

  While Janine patted down the clothes, searched through the pockets and looked through assorted pieces of paper, Nikki put the rest of the sweaters and other clothing into the last box. She turned back around to see Janine staring at a sheet of paper.

  “What’d you find?”

  “A report. A goddamn discipline report dated the day Tony died.”

  Nikki walked up beside her. “Mind if I take a look?”

  Janine slammed the paper onto the bed and retreated, closing herself into the bathroom. Wondering what on that paper had Janine so upset, Nikki eased herself onto the mattress. She picked up the scrap of paper and turned it over.

  “Failure to follow procedure. Not the first incident,” she read aloud. Various other papers had scattered across the bed and each one she unwrapped contained another discipline report. Same complaint. Which didn’t come as a surprise to Nikki, or Janine, she supposed, or anyone who knew her rebel brother well.

  Including Kevin. But he’d chosen to shoulder the burden anyway, she thought, and was transported back to the night in Kevin’s apartment.

  The night Tony had died.

  * * *

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Nikki said.

  Kevin grunted. “Tell that to your brother. I’m inside babysitting my drunken father and he gets an emergency call. Why take the time to go back inside for me?” he said, his voice full of self-loathing. A bottle of scotch sat on the kitchen table.

  “Because it’s procedure not to go out on a call without backup?” Nikki asked.

  “I should have been in the goddamn car.”

  “And Tony shouldn’t have gone off alone.”

  “If I hadn’t been distracted, he wouldn’t have.”

  She shook her head. Arguing with Kevin when he was in this mood wouldn’t do either of them any good. “And you think this is going to help?” she asked, lifting the half-empty bottle.

  “I’m no better than my old man and at least this proves it,” he muttered. “And maybe if I finish it off, it’ll help me forget.”

  She walked up beside him and held out her arms. “I’ll help you forget… if you’ll do the same for me.”

  * * *

  The discipline reports proved what she’d known all along. It wasn’t Kevin’s fault. Her renegade brother wouldn’t think twice about taking a call solo, especially if Kevin was tied up with family. Family was important to Tony, just as it was to Kevin. He just didn’t realize it yet. It was so like Tony to protect the people he loved.

  Just as it was like Kevin. Only that time, it had backfired on her brother. He’d sabotaged his own life, just like Kevin was slowly sabotaging his.

  FOURTEEN

  Kevin hit his father’s doorstep first thing in the morning, hoping to find Max sober, or at worst, hungover. He stood in the hall banging on the door too long for Max to be inside having a morning cup of coffee. He groaned and steeled himself for the confrontation ahead.

  The last confrontation, he hoped, until Max got his act together—or didn’t. Kevin didn’t want to think about the latter possibility. He reached into his pocket for a key just as the door swung open wide and Max greeted him in all his naked glory.

  With a groan, Kevin pushed past Max and entered the apartment, pulling his father along with him. “Is that how you normally greet your neighbors?” Kevin asked.

  “If they wake me then they get what they deserve.”

  “Well, go get some clothes on. I’ll make a pot of coffee.”

  “I don’t need any.”

  Kevin raised an eyebrow. “Maybe not, but I do. Then I want to talk.”

  Max retreated, muttering something about an ungrateful and intrusive kid. The man never looked in a mirror, Kevin thought. He headed for the kitchen and dug out the coffee maker he’d purchased for Max years ago in the futile hope he’d actually make the stuff himself and aid in his own sobriety.

  It took Max forever to pull on a pair of jeans and an old shirt, and by the time he sauntered back into the kitchen, Kevin had two cups of coffee ready and waiting.

  “Have a seat, Dad. It’s black. Just the way you like it.”

  Max threw himself into a chair.

  “It’s Monday. Don’t you have to be at work?” Kevin asked, although he already knew the answer.

  “I quit.”

  “More like you were fired,” he muttered. He’d followed up on Max’s last job and learned his father hadn’t been a reliable employee. No big surprise there. “They needed someone who’d actually show up for work.”

  Max shrugged. “So now I have more free time.”

  “How are you going to pay your rent? Buy food?” Buy alcohol, Kevin thought bitterly.

  “You always come through for your old man.”

  Yes, he had. And he hadn’t done either of them any good. But at least Max had just given him the opening he sought. “And why do you think I do that?” Kevin asked his father.

  “Because I gave you life and you owe me,” Max muttered. “Coffee tastes like mud.”

  “That’s the cotton in your mouth from last night’s binge. I do it because you’re my father… and I love you.” Once the words escaped his lips, Kevin realized it hadn’t been as difficult as he’d anticipated.

  Caught off guard, Max lowered the mug from his lips and it hit the table with a thud, sloshing liquid over the rim and onto the white Formica top. Kevin resisted the urge to wipe it up. It wasn’t his mess.
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  “You’re… I mean… you’ve been a good son,” Max muttered, and Kevin understood how difficult even those words had been for his father.

  The ones Kevin was about to say were even tougher because, though he didn’t know it, he was about to give Max cause to rethink his opinion.

  “Things have to change, Max.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Max yawned. “Are you through? I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

  Kevin shook his head. “I’m not through. I’m going to be a father. You know what that means?”

  “You weren’t using protection?” Max said and laughed at his own bad joke.

  “It means you’re going to be a grandfather.”

  The rewording of the news seemed to take Max by surprise. He sat back in his seat and eyed Kevin in silence.

  “I’d like you to be a better grandfather than you were a father, but that’s up to you. Whether you see your grandchild or not, that’s up to me.” Kevin pushed his seat back and stood. “From here on in you’re on your own. I’m not paying your rent and I’m not leaving food in the fridge.”

  “You’ve said that before. You’ll always be there for your old man.”

  He shook his head. “Wrong. I never had anyone else relying on me before. Now I do.” He had Nikki and he had a baby on the way. He’d do whatever it took to keep them in his life, even if it meant cutting Max out until he caught on to the concept of sobriety. Hell, at this point, even if he didn’t have Nikki or the baby, he’d had enough. He wanted his life back.

  “It’s the end of the month and rent’s due by the fifteenth. I suggest you call on your employer. I talked him into giving you one more shot if you want it. That choice is up to you.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Don’t test me or you’ll find yourself out on the street.” Kevin’s heart thudded inside his chest. He knew the phone calls that would come, the pleas for money, the guilt because his father had no food in the refrigerator. He didn’t know how he’d get through it.

  Yes, he did. Nikki. If she hadn’t washed her hands of him completely, she’d support him through this. And if she had, well, he’d see himself through. Either way, Max would sober up or Kevin was finished.