by Vivian Lux
Andy made a strangled noise and I could tell he was trying to suppress a laugh. I felt a smile tug at the edge of my tears. "I did, Andy. Right across the jaw. I knocked him right on his ass." I rubbed my knuckle. "Hurt more than I expected it too. How do you punch people so much without hurting your hand?"
He made another muffled noise. "Oh go ahead and laugh," I barked and he burst out in a wild hysterical guffaw. I tried valiantly to keep a straight face, but his incredulous face was too much for me and I felt a little giggle rise up from my core. The tears began to flow even as I began to laugh out loud.
I laughed at the ridiculousness of Robert's face as he looked at me in shock. I laughed at the thrill of standing up for myself for the first time. I laughed at Andy's laugh, his disbelief that his passive sister was capable of her own fury. And I laughed at the irony of finding my love and losing it all in the space of a week.
I laughed until my sides hurt, well after Andy had calmed down. When I finally looked at him again, wiping the hysterical tears from my eyes, his expression was one of calm admiration. The tears began to flow again when I saw him see me in a new light.
"So you're a fighter now too, huh?" he said slowly and once again I was taken aback by the poignancy of his words. I slid my hand over his, feeling the strangeness of the hair on his knuckles. My baby brother was so big now.
"I always fought for you, Andy," I murmured. The hysterical laughter had cleared the turmoil in my head and I was able to see things clearly. See the truth of our past. As bad as things were, it made us who we were now. And anything that did that couldn't be all bad. I resolved to go to my parents with an open heart.
"You did, sis," he exhaled, his voice catching slightly and sending it into a higher, more familiar register. I smiled softly to hear his old voice.
"It's getting all foggy in here," I observed. "Should we go in?"
He sighed and didn't say anything. Only opened the driver's side door and slid out. I let myself out and stretched my legs, as he walked over to me. He now stood a full head taller than I was. The changes just kept happening without me.
He patted my shoulder in an awkward hug, reminding me that for all his deep voice and great height, he was still an awkward teenager, still six months from his eighteenth birthday. He was still my little brother.
And I was still his biggest champion. He had gone too long without me in his corner.
I patted him back and we stepped up onto the low porch and went inside.
*****
My mother had cleaned for me. The lingering scent of Lemon Pledge let me know she had scrubbed everything down, though no amount of scrubbing ever made it seem fully clean. The dark wood paneling and the deep pile carpets hid a lifetime of griminess that always managed to withstand my mother's chemical assault. I breathed in the familiar scent of her cleaning. It's what she always did when we'd have company. Any time someone from the outside was about to enter our little isolated corner of the world, my mother would clean like a demon, trying to erase any traces of the ugliness which permeated our home. It was her way of proclaiming that nothing was wrong.
It was startling to realize that she did this for me. It meant that she now viewed me as an outsider.
I bit the inside of my cheek. I didn't know whether this made me happy or sad.
Andy put his hand on my shoulder. "Got a new couch," he said blandly, gesturing to where the faded blue monstrosity had used to lurk. It was replaced by a cream and brown striped pinback sofa that looked strangely at odds with the rest of the well-worn decor. I could tell in an instant that my mother prized it.
"It's pretty," I replied, just as my mother's slippered footfall sounded on the linoleum.
"I think so too," she said by way of greeting.
I sucked in my teeth. "Hi Mom."
She put her hands on my shoulders and pressed her cheek to mine, greeting me as calmly as if I had just come back from running out for a gallon of milk. Not at all like she hadn't seen me in two and a half years.
"Emilia," she sighed. There was less springiness to her cheek. I could feel a hollow where there didn't used to be one. But otherwise she seemed unchanged. She pulled back from her lukewarm embrace and looked me full in the face. My mother was a tall woman, and whip-thin. Years of restrictive dieting had whittled her down to nothing and I could tell my full-figure still bothered her greatly without her having to say a word. "What are you doing here? And where is Robert?" She looked expectantly over her shoulder. "When Andy said you were coming home, I thought for sure it was to introduce us to your future husband."
I opened my mouth and then snapped it shut with a pop. "He's not here, Mom." I wanted to lie. I wanted desperately not to speak the words to her and open that wound again. My mother would know just what kind of salt to pour in it.
I wasn't lying anymore. That much about my life had changed, even if nothing else had. "We broke up. No wait, that's not entirely it." I chewed the inside of my cheek as her nostrils flared. "I left him."
The rush of air that escaped her made her sound like she was deflating. "Oh Emilia," she gasped, as if I'd struck her. "How could you be so stupid?"
Chapter 19
J.
He hadn't looked at the clock when the club meeting had started. And once Teach had dropped the news, time seemed to stand still. So when they rose from their folding chairs J. still thought he had time. Each man shuffled silently around the other, lost in his own thoughts. Case and Teach were murmuring in a corner of the garage. Their words were inaudible, but their tone was unmistakable.
Shit was bad.
J. picked at a ragged hangnail on his thumb.
"This is a lot of shit to handle," he spoke to no one in particular.
Crash gave a small snort behind him. J. turned to where he was leaning against a workbench. "Never a dull moment," the shorter man remarked. The calm lucidity in his eyes had remained from the meeting. J. looked at him searchingly, waiting to see if he would say something more.
But Crash didn't say anything, just rubbed his hand over his shorn head before cradling it in his hands as if it pained him. He slouched further, splaying his bad leg stiffly in front of him.
"You okay man?" J. wondered.
Crash looked up at him, slowly shaking his head before a light snapped on in his eyes and he gave a short laugh. "Shit gets stuck." He tapped his forehead where the spiderweb of scars etched a memory of the brutal crash that had almost taken his life. "I know it's there, but it's like it's behind glass or something. I see it, but I can't get it."
"What do you mean?"
Crash shifted. "Like, I know I know something. About this club, The Storm Riders. It's there and it's important." He grimaced. "But I can't fucking get to it, can't find the words to say it. " He balled his fist and knocked himself in the temple.
"Hey man, cut that shit out!" J. was appalled, and slightly guilty. He hadn't known Crash before joining the Sons. He knew nothing of the man he was before the accident had robbed him of his mobility and memories. All he knew was that Crash played along. His jovial, boisterous nature seemed to invite joking and mockery. The Sons ripped on him constantly for his memory-loss, his wild mood swings and his singular focus on girls. It had never occurred to J. that there might be more in there, locked behind the gates of his injuries.
"Sometimes it helps to knock things loose," Crash smiled. "I know I ain't the smartest guy here, but I got thoughts. I just gotta get them out."
J. took a breath. "Do you think this is a good idea?" He had never thought to ask Crash's opinion before.
"Guess it kinda depends on who we wanna be, ya know? A group of guys who fuck around with bikes and call each other brothers, or a real-life M.C." He pressed his finger to his temple again, squinting with the effort. "Way I see it, both of them has good and bad. I'll tell you one thing," Crash looked at him shrewdly, "we become a prospective club, your new girl prolly ain't gonna like it." He cocked his head to the side, his finger still prodding the ideas loo
se. "She's already pissed at you for not giving her enough time."
His girl. "Fuuuck," J. breathed. He looked at the closed office door. Emmy had grabbed her backpack. "How long was the meeting?" he barked at Crash as he stared at the door. He didn't want to open it.
Crash looked confused. "We started when it was still light out. I know cuz I didn't feel bad kicking that fine little bitch outta here. I may be an asshole, but I don't send ladies out into the dark unescorted." He puffed up a little as some of the manic energy started to light up his eyes.
"It's dark now," J. realized. "Wait," he looked at Crash and furrowed his brow. "What do you mean she's pissed at me?"
"You dumb fucker, didn't you see her face when you got back here from your mom's? She was all hanging around you, waiting to go off alone. You blew her off like twice in a row."
"I did not."
"Prison fucked up your game something fierce," Crash observed. "First you partied, then you kicked her out for the club meeting." He shook his head, "No game at all." He turned to the closed door. "Wonder if she's in there."
"Yeah me too." J. felt his heart pounding in his throat. "I told her to find someplace else to be for a little while."
Crash sucked on his teeth. "You are one dumb piece of shit," he observed. "If she's still waiting, then you owe her a good hour of pussy-licking."
J. was at the door. "Emmy?" he croaked, pushing it open. His head was whirling. There were too many thoughts, too much shit vying for his full attention. The Storm Riders, the Sons, his sorry excuse for a mother and his crazy bitch of a sister. Case's melodramatic stories and his hopped up imagination. It had all taken over and shut out the one thing that was most important.
The minute he saw her again, he would tell her that. He would beg her to understand and swear to her that there was nothing more important to him. The idea gave him a slight bit of comfort. A plan. He needed a plan.
He opened his eyes, not realizing he had closed them in the first place.
The room was dark. The stool by the phone had been pushed back, like she had sat there and then got up quickly. The front door was unlocked. Her small, inadequate backpack wasn't anywhere to be seen.
She was gone.
Chapter 20
Emmy
She never gave me time to reply. My mother is that quick with her insults. One brief, blinding flash, like a lightning strike, and then it was over. Only the gaping, smoking hole inside of you remained.
She moved on, already done with me. "Go wash your hands, Emilia," she huffed. "I held dinner for you."
I ducked into the tiny powder room set off the hallway and tried my hardest to regroup. I wasn't stupid. I knew that. But there was still that old part of me, the one that wanted to be agreeable to everyone. That part wanted desperately to agree. "Yes mom, I'm sorry. I broke off my engagement to the handsome, wealthy man you wanted for a son-in-law. It was stupid, you're right."
The mirror was still warped in the same place, rippling my reflection into something that didn't look like me. For the longest time growing up, I had thought it did. I wondered how much of my low self-esteem stemmed from that silly ripple.
I ran the tap, smelling the slight mineral scent of the well water. The pipes creaked, just as they always had, but the noise sounded in my ears like the clanging of a bell. All these things that I had grown up thinking of as normal and commonplace now seemed foreign and odd. Coming back here was making little things stand out in a big way.
Like my father's tread upstairs. He hit the squeaky floorboard directly outside of the master bedroom and I was instantly a child again. My senses went into high alert. I began rehearsing my greeting in my head. Should I call him Dad or Daddy? Which would make him more likely to greet me happily?
I took a deep breath, looking at myself in the distorted mirror. "I'm a fighter," I reminded my rippled reflection. The girl in the mirror just wavered like something fleeting and insubstantial.
I stepped out of the powder room just as my father entered the kitchen. We all saw him before he noticed any of us. Andy was already at the kitchen table. He leaned back in a feigned show of nonchalance, raising a challenging chin in my father's direction. My mother's pace at the stove quickened tenfold, until she was little more than a blur of motion.
As for me, I froze behind him, taking him in. Taking in his effect on us. He was the sun, and we orbited him nervously. Our own weird little solar system, contained right here in the yellow-linoleumed kitchen.
"Hi Daddy," I called, breaking the spell.
He turned at the sound of my voice as I stepped forward. For a minute his face was a blank. I sank inward, folding over inside of myself.
If my mother had barely changed, my father had done all her aging for her. His eyes, once so clear and piercing blue, had gone yellow around the edges. His skin sank around his mouth, giving me a clear view of the outline of his gums. His face had a sunken, sallow look and the smell around him was worse as he came closer. I felt tears prick at the corners of my eyes. My Dad was killing himself with drinking.
Then he broke into a wide smile and opened his arms. I went to him and he put one arm around me in a shallow embrace. His grip was still strong. I could still feel the iron strength in his arms. Years of hard labor hadn't left him yet.
"Hi Princess," he croaked and his voice was choked with emotion. "Welcome home."
My cheeks were suddenly wet. "Oh Daddy."
There were a million things I had planned on saying to him. I wanted to give him hell for my hell. But all that went out the window when I heard the vulnerability in his voice. My father, the drunken, unfeeling asshole, was practically weeping at the sight of me.
"I've missed my little girl," he whispered in my ear. I smelled the liquor and the smell of decay, but under that I smelled my father. Dial soap and Electro-Shave. The smell of the man who loomed so large in my life but was now diminished by his own hand.
"I've missed you too, Daddy." As soon as I said it, I knew that I meant it and it shattered something fragile that I had been holding carefully inside of me. I felt Andy's eyes on me the moment the words left my lips, I squeezed my eyes shut to ignore his incredulity.
"Your room is still the same," he whispered in that same ragged voice.
I couldn't reply. I only nodded as the tears continued to fall. I loved him. I missed him and I loved him and it made me nauseous to realize it because it was not what I had told myself for so long. It went directly against one of the central lies I had built my life around.
I looked over his shoulder and saw my mother smiling at the touching tableau in front of her. I could tell she was storing it away in her head, where she kept all the moments that to her made us a normal, happy family. She nodded, beatifically and widened her arms. "Dinner is ready," she called, her tone benevolent. The matriarch she believed herself to be was having her moment in the sun.
I sniffled and nodded. I didn't recognize the tears that were falling. They kept falling, unbidden, like a dam had burst. I stepped out of his embrace and blew my nose loudly into a napkin, hating how crying took over my body. I felt Andy staring at me in mute confusion and could only sob louder as I sat heavily in my chair at my normal place at the table.
"It's good to have you home." My mother pressed her cheek to mine. I wanted to recoil from her embrace. But I couldn't. There was a spell that had been cast upon me the moment I crossed the threshold of this house. I felt inert, like I was moving through water. My limbs felt like they weighed a million pounds each. The effort of holding up my head was getting to be too much for me, and the added weight of her hands on my shoulders was more than I could bear.
"Thank you," I choked.
"Andrew, will you lead grace?" My mother sat down at the foot of the table. My father was already seated at the head. Andy slid forward in his chair like he felt the same weight pressing onto his shoulders that I still felt on mine.
"Thank you God for family and friends and for this food," he mumbled. He darte
d his head up hopefully. "Amen."
"And what about your sister coming home?" my mother prompted.
He ducked his head. "And thank you for Emmy coming back," he muttered again. But this wasn't quite so quick. I shot him a smile before I noticed he hadn't said I'd come home.
The murmured 'Amens' melted into the clinking of silverware as we passed the dishes in silence. My mother cooked with no regard for the season. Tonight's dinner was roast beef, mashed potatoes and frozen peas. As if it wasn't hot enough outside. The heat of the oven made the kitchen even hotter.
The steam rose from my plate and I felt a little dizzy. The weight on my shoulders was still pressing down. I could barely summon the energy to lift my fork.
"Looks delicious, Mom," I croaked. Ever the diplomat.
She smiled tightly and cast a quick glimpse at my plate. I looked down at the abundance of food I had piled on and felt the flames of embarrassment heat my already rosy cheeks. Her own plate was more white space than food.
"You always did enjoy my cooking, Emilia." She looked downward as if this was something I should be ashamed of.
Andy made a small noise into his plate. My father shot him a furious look, then took a small swig of the sweating tumbler at his elbow. The amber colored liquid reminded me of my first time drinking with J. and the Sons of Steel.
I hadn't even told him where I was going. I had just run away.
I felt a twinge of guilt in my stomach. Some fucking fighter I was. J. was probably furious with me. And rightly so.
The weight on my shoulders pressed harder.
"So Em," Andy piped up. "Anything interesting happen in the past two years?" He looked at my parents challengingly.
My mother sniffed and put down her fork. "Emilia broke her engagement." She spoke the words to my father, but her gaze was fixed furiously on her plate.
I opened my mouth to speak, to tell my side of the story. But my father made the coughing noise that signaled he was about to talk. To say anything now would be akin to interrupting him. A mortal sin. We would all have to wait while he gathered his thoughts.
