Unruly

by Cora Brent

  I poked him in the arm. “Be nice.”

  “Really Claud, who the hell manages to fuck up spaghetti?”

  “You are free to use the kitchen if you think you can do better.”

  “Are you guys fighting?” Allie asked.

  “No,” we answered in unison. Then we glanced at each other and laughed.

  Right then Jack came lumbering into the kitchen. He looked at us kind of funny and we stopped laughing. He patted Allie on the head, nodded at Easton, and accepted a coffee mug from me.

  “Daddy?” Allie asked, looking at our father with some uncertainty.

  “Yes, Allison?”

  “Uncle East and Claudia and me are going to play today.”

  “That’s good. You have to go back to school tomorrow, Allie.”

  “But it’s summer.”

  Jack sank into a chair and grimaced. He’d been sleeping on the couch all week, unable to bring himself to return to the bedroom Anya had died in. “No it’s not, not yet,” he said. “School tomorrow.”

  Allie finished her donut and then ran off to her bedroom. Jack swallowed some coffee and sighed, staring mindlessly at the surface of the kitchen table.

  “You hungry?” I asked my father. “East brought donuts. Or I could make you something.”

  “Maybe later,” he frowned. “I’m gonna shower and get down to the shop for a while.”

  “It’s Sunday, Jack,” said Easton.

  “Well, I’ve been having nightmares about how shit’s been piling up there. Someone’s gotta take care of it.”

  “I’ll do it,” offered Easton. “I’m sure Rocco and Getty will come down too. You can spend the day with Allie instead.”

  Jack acted like he hadn’t heard him. He finished his coffee and rose from the chair. “I’ll probably be gone most of the day,” he said. “If you and the boys want to come to the shop that’s fine. If not, that’s fine too.” He left the room without asking what we were going to do about Allie all day.

  “He’ll be okay,” said Easton once Jack was out of earshot, but he said it like he wasn’t at all sure.

  “He will,” I agreed because he had to be. There was a little girl to raise and she needed her father.

  I excused myself to go shower and when I returned Easton was in the front yard, examining caterpillars with Allie. It made me remember the words I’d impulsively said to Anya as I sat at her bedside. Words about life and love. And Easton. I wondered if she’d heard me. I really wanted to believe that she had, and that she would have approved.

  We took Allie to the park, stopped for lunch at a diner, and then caught a movie in the afternoon. A few times I noticed Easton staring at me intensely and part of me would ache over the memory of being with him. After all, powerful sexual attractions didn’t just disappear. But then he’d look away and laugh over something Allie was doing and the spell would be broken.

  When we got home Jack was still gone but Betty Hollis, Sheryl’s mother, had stopped by with a chicken casserole and a salad. Easton didn’t stay for dinner. He grew evasive, saying he had a few things to take care of. For all I knew he was off to go nail some random chick and I was angry at my sudden flash of jealousy. I had no claim on him. Easton had no idea how I felt and now certainly wasn’t a good time to bring it up, not when we were all still reeling over the loss of Anya.

  My grandmother floated into the room in an expensive pants suit. She handed Allie a napkin and looked around. “Did that boy leave?”

  The sound of my grandmother’s voice had a tendency to curdle my insides a little bit. We’d never gotten along. “You know his name is Easton. He’s not a boy.”

  She shrugged and examined a thick gold bracelet that hung on her thin arm. It must have been a gift from her husband. There was never money for fancy jewelry when she was married to Carmine. Now she and her second husband spent their time golfing down in Florida and going on exotic cruises six times a year.

  But she’d be leaving tonight and I didn’t know when I’d be seeing her again. Estelle didn’t visit often and although she was originally supposed to stay through the following weekend for Rocco’s wedding, she’d changed her mind, mumbling something about needing to return home because her husband was having kidney problems. It was obvious she was uncomfortable staying in her old house.

  “Rocco still taking you to the airport?” I asked.

  She squinted out the window. “Yes. I think your father forgot I was leaving today.”

  “He’s a little out of it at the moment.”

  “When your grandfather died I got right up again the next day to serve a Ladies’ Club brunch at Holy Family Church.”

  That was different. Your children were grown and you and Carmine hated each other.

  “Good for you,” I said, more sharply than I’d meant to.

  Estelle turned around and looked at me with surprise. “I’m just stating a fact, Claudia.”

  “I know. You always tell the truth.”

  “What does that mean?” For a moment she got distracted by my little sister and snapped, “Allison, you’re old enough to know how to wipe your face.”

  Quietly I handed Allie another napkin as she gobbled a plate of Betty’s casserole. I winked at her to let her know it was all right.

  Allie stood up. “I’m done eating. Can I go play in my room?”

  “Take your plate to the sink,” Estelle said at the same time I said, “Go ahead.”

  Allie looked confused. I took her plate to the sink myself and kissed the top of her head. “Go on, sweetheart. I’ll be there soon and we can have the princess party we talked about.”

  My grandmother faced me with her hands on her hips as Allie scurried down the hall. “Care to explain that comment, Claudia? I’ve always done right where you’re concerned.”

  “I know. I was only marveling over the astonishing nature of your honesty.”

  She stared at me. “What is it exactly you blame me for?”

  “Nothing,” I sighed. This was a conversation that should have happened years ago. It was futile to begin it now. “Jack would have put me up for adoption. You didn’t give him a choice.”

  “I never said any such thing to you.”

  “No, you didn’t. You said it to him.”

  She was taken aback. “Is that what your father told you?”

  “Yes. You know how Jack can be. He just kind of blurts things out.”

  She shook her head slightly and looked away. “Well Claudia, he gave you the incomplete version.”

  “Why don’t you elaborate then?”

  My grandmother faced me again without flinching. “I didn’t want to keep you. That was all Carmine’s decision.” The revelation seemed to take the air out of her. She sat down and smoothed her dyed blonde hair back from her forehead before speaking again. “We’d been on shaky ground for a long time, me and Carmine. Rocco was supposed to be the baby who fixed everything and that didn’t work. Then, suddenly there was you, another baby to take care of. I didn’t really want to be a grandmother at age thirty-seven. I didn’t want my eldest son to be forced to reshape the rest of his life when he was only a child himself.”

  What does a person say when slapped by such difficult words?

  “Oh,” was my numb, detached response.

  My grandmother seemed to realize she might have said something hurtful. She rose from the chair and stepped in my direction. For a split second she seemed on the verge of hugging me but then backed off because, like her son, and like me, she’s never been the hugging type.

  “We always loved you, Claudia,” she said quietly. “All of us, from the moment we met you. That wasn’t it. At first I thought Sarah, your mother, would keep you. But with every passing day she was more distant and when her family made the decision to move upstate she jumped at the chance to escape.”

  I tried to picture it. After all, I’d been there to see it all even if I didn’t remember anything. I only had one photo of me with my mother. It was taken when
I was probably a few days old. She held me in her arms loosely, away from her body. Her long brown hair was pulled into a girlish ponytail and she was trying to smile but her wide brown eyes were confused, terrified.

  Estelle wasn’t done talking. “He chased her, you know. Once. Jack put you in the backseat of the Chevelle when you were nearly a year old and drove upstate without telling us where he was going. When he returned eight hours later his eyes were red from crying, you were a howling mess with a wet diaper and all Jack would say was, ‘She’s not coming back. She’s never coming back.’”

  I’d never heard any of this before. “So he did love her?”

  “No.” Estelle shook her head. “I don’t think so. Actually it seemed as if he barely even liked her. He was distraught over Sarah’s abandonment because of you. That night he cleaned you up himself and held you in his lap on the back patio for hours. Even though it was chilly out there Carmine warned me to leave him alone so I did. Finally he brought you inside and you’d long since fallen asleep on his shoulder. I watched him carry you to your crib, tuck you in, and it was the first time he had ever really looked like a father to me. He kissed your sleeping face before he left the room. I heard him whisper, ‘I love you.’ And for years, whenever I would get furious with Jack for his absurdly juvenile behavior, I would think of that moment, of a teenage boy tucking his baby daughter into her bed, and I couldn’t be angry anymore.” She was looking at me earnestly. “So you see, Claudia. The love was for you. Always.”

  I sighed. “She never did come back, did she?”

  “Sarah?” Estelle frowned. “No. I tracked her down a few years back. You may as well know she was killed in a car accident in New Hampshire about five years ago. She had a husband, no children. I never said anything to Jack. I’ll leave it to you if you want to tell him. I don’t see what good it would do.”

  I’d been curious about Sarah Holstein my whole life, even long after I’d given up the idea that I would ever know her. Now it was certain I never would. “What was she like?”

  Estelle was thoughtful. “I have no idea what kind of a woman she turned into but as a girl she was careless. She was silly.” My grandmother tipped my chin up and her hazel eyes seemed to gaze into my soul. “Not like you,” she whispered.

  Rocco swung by a short time later to take his mother to the airport. Allie and I stood in the front yard, waving to our grandmother, and she smiled before waving back.

  Jack didn’t come home until it was dark. He paused in the doorway of Allie’s bedroom, his face smudged with black grease, as I sat on the floor with my sister and played an elaborate game with evolving rules. I was an evil princess while Allie was the good princess who had to save the world from my misdeeds and turn me back to the good side. It was like a five-year-old girl’s version of Star Wars.

  Eventually Jack tiredly lumbered off to the shower. I’d heard the clink of bottles hit the kitchen table when he walked in and figured it was going to be another night where he drank himself to sleep, passing out on the couch.

  “Are you hungry?” I called after him. “Do you want me to heat up a bowl of casserole for you?”

  “No,” he called back and shut himself behind a door somewhere.

  “Claudia,” said Allie as she temporarily broke from character. “Will we see Uncle Easton again tomorrow?”

  Easton.

  I wished he were here. I was still digesting my grandmother’s confessions and Easton was the only one I could imagine confiding in right now.

  “I hope so,” I told my sister.

  Allie was satisfied. She resumed the game and ordered me to stop destroying the galaxy.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  JACK

  The light hurt Jack’s eyes even before he opened them. There was a panel missing from the blinds on the east-facing window in the living room. He could easily fix it but somehow he always forgot all about it until the next morning’s rays hit him in the face as he sprawled on the couch.

  He heard Claudia’s voice in the kitchen. She was talking to Allie, telling her how everyone would be excited to see her back at school. Jack knew he should go in there and say something bright and encouraging to his youngest daughter on her first day back to school following her mother’s death. It was his job to do things like that. He’d been good at it for a long time, tending to Anya, taking care of Allie, and doing it all cheerfully so no one would detect the heaviness in his heart. But as long as Anya was still living there was hope. Now that she was gone, Jack had no choice but to stare down into the immense crater of anguish. He’d lost her. There wouldn’t be a miracle.

  Jack heard whispers. He opened his eyes and saw his daughters standing over him, staring. Claudia gave Allie a gentle nudge and the little girl leaned forward to give her father a quick kiss on the cheek.

  “Bye, Daddy. I’ll see you later.”

  Jack blinked at her. Had she grown in the last few weeks? It seemed like she had. “Bye, Allison. Have a good day.”

  A car honked out front and Claudia walked Allie out to the carpool van. Jack wanted to fall back into the black oblivion of sleep but the room was too full of light and there was too much to do. The shop had to reopen today and then Jack only had four days to get everything caught up and running smoothly before Friday. When Jack had refused to allow his brother to postpone his wedding, Rocco had then offered to cancel his honeymoon to the Bahamas. Jack wouldn’t allow that either. Life needed to go on, even if he had to force it to.

  Getty had always been rather lazy around the shop because he was never as passionate about cars as he was about music. Jack was thankful for Easton. The kid was a workhorse with a natural knack for mechanics. But then, he wasn’t really a kid anymore. How old was he now? Twenty five or so? Jack was sorry that his pitching career had ended so prematurely, but he was grateful that Easton had been around for the last seven months. He knew how much comfort it had given Anya to have her only brother nearby. Just like Jack’s heart had swelled when he saw his oldest daughter standing on his doorstep weeks earlier, stubbornly announcing that she planned to stay.

  In truth, Jack didn’t know how he could have done without them these days, Easton and Claudia.

  Easton and Claudia.

  Anya had always clung to a strange hope that the two of them would end up together. Jack couldn’t say he shared the sentiment. Even though as far as he could tell Easton had been behaving himself lately, he had the soul of a player. Jack cared about him a lot - maybe as much as he loved his own brothers - but if Easton Malone ever did a single thing to hurt Claudia that would change forever. Jack just couldn’t imagine that he was good enough for her.

  But then again, to the father of a daughter maybe no man was ever really good enough.

  Jack had at least risen to a sitting position when Claudia returned. She started to close the front door and then changed her mind, keeping it open.

  “It’ll let some air in through the screen,” she explained.

  Jack didn’t answer. His head hurt. He’d had too much to drink again last night, but for the last week that was the only way he could find sleep.

  Claudia approached him slowly and he sensed her hesitation.

  “Am I in your way?” he asked grumpily, rubbing the back of his neck.

  “No.” She paused. “Are you going to work soon?”

  “Planning on it. Those engines won’t rebuild themselves.”

  “Well, I was wondering if you wanted me to sort through things in the bedroom.”

  He froze. “What things?”

  Anya’s things.

  “I’ll box everything up and you can decide what you want to keep for Allie-“

  “No!” he snapped. “Just back the hell off, okay?”

  Claudia bent her head and Jack was ashamed. She was the last person in the world he should be talking to like that. The only thing that might be worse would be screaming at Allie.

  She raised her head and pushed her hair behind her ears. Bleakly Jack won
dered where he’d misplaced all the years that turned his daughter into this stunningly beautiful woman.

  “Okay, Jack.” she said quietly. “It’s okay. You say the word if you change your mind.”

  Claudia retreated to the kitchen and Jack showered for work. When he was halfway there he realized he hadn’t remembered to tell Claudia he was leaving, or when he would be back.

  He was surprised to find Easton, Rocco and Getty already knee deep in cars. He’d thought he was getting ahead of the game but then realized the place had been open for an hour. Goddammit, he really needed to get his shit together.

  Three brake jobs and a water pump replacement later, Easton brought him a sandwich from the deli. Jack gulped it down in five minutes and returned to work. He found some pleasure in doing what he was good at, what was familiar to him. This had been his second home since before he was a teenager. With his hands greasy and his face under a hood, he found some relief.

  Jack spent the next few days putting in fourteen-hour shifts to try and catch up, and to avoid thinking. His regular customers approached him with awkward condolences and he accepted them silently.

  On Thursday Jack looked at the clock and realized it was after 8pm. Rocco and Getty had taken off hours ago to attend a rehearsal dinner for the wedding. Jack had promised that he would be there when he was finished, but the thing was probably already over. Easton had stuck around for a while and then left reluctantly when Jack pushed him out the door. He just wanted to be alone.

  Jack was in the back working on an old 1957 Chevy that had been his pet project for nearly a decade when he heard the front bell. He crawled out from underneath the car, irritated at himself for failing to lock the door and put the Closed sign up. Then, as an afterthought, he grabbed a wrench in case the visitor was less than friendly.

  “Hi, Jack,” said a female voice attached to a great set of legs. His gaze traveled slowly north until he was looking into a face he knew. Her name was Kate McDaniel. He’d met her when she was Claudia’s high school English teacher.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting you. I saw your light on,” she said and gave him a dazzling smile as she tossed her red hair over one shoulder. She was one of the many things he’d done that he wasn’t proud of. She was probably about thirty-five now and she still looked really good. They’d screwed around for a while. He couldn’t remember how long. A few months maybe. What he did remember was bending her over a broad wooden desk at Lutztown High late one night and fucking her a dozen different dirty ways. And from the look on her face, she remembered it too.