“I can’t believe you are flying home on a personal jet. I want to squeal right now, but I know this isn’t the right time….oh…bye, Vick,” she waved as I walked out of the apartment. I hadn’t been living there long, but the place had begun to grow on me. For the first time in a long time, I was on a good routine away from my self-destructive days.
As I entered the elevator I sent a text message to the driver that I would be down in ten minutes. He replied that the jet was ready. As I walked toward Luc’s door I noticed it was open a crack. I wondered if he was rushing this morning and forgot to lock-up. It seemed unlike him to do something like that. He always checked the locks and made sure everything was secure at night. As I stepped into his apartment all the lights were off but the sun shone through the blinds providing enough light for me to see where I was walking. I made my way up the stairs quickly. When I reached the top step, I stopped dead in my tracks. Luc was sitting on an armchair in the hallway, he was leaning far off to the side, holding a tumbler with amber liquid. Beside the armchair was an old fashioned marble table with a large bottle of the same amber liquid floating inside. The bottle looked half empty.
“Holy shit, Luc, you scared the crap out of me, what’s going on?” I asked, knowing something was off if he was drinking alcohol. He hadn’t touched a drink in two years, his life had been about control and making amends. Something bad must have happened to him today for me to find him in this state.
“Get out of here,” he slurred. “Get out of here now, Vicky,” he screamed, his tone full of warning.
“Luc, you are drunk, what happened?” I asked, feeling like my nervous stomach was being tied into knots. This day kept getting worse.
“Vicky, get out of here, I am drunk and dangerous. I don’t want to hurt you,” he said through huffed breaths. His face had reddened and his green eyes were bloodshot. He was angry but it looked like he was trying to maintain his self-control.
“Luc, please talk to me, I’m not scared of you, what is going on?” I urged him to speak as panic enveloped me. Was he relapsing? I didn’t understand.
“Dammit it, you stubborn woman,” he said with a raised voice. Then he took the tumbler and smashed it into the wall behind me. The tumbler shattered into a million pieces of broken glass and I flinched taking a step backward.
His bloodshot eyes looked angry and consumed by a darkness I didn’t understand. I knew he threw the tumbler to scare me away but I wanted to show him that I wasn’t scared, that he wasn’t dangerous.
“Cut it out, Luc, tell me what the hell happened to you,” I demanded. I wasn’t his ex-wife; I knew him and I thought I knew him from the inside out. He said he became a monster when he was drunk. I could see that the alcohol had a negative effect on him, but I wasn’t going to turn my back on him.
“Vicky, leave, I don’t want you here,” he said, pointing his finger at the staircase.
I placed my hand on his arm, to show him I cared, to show him I wasn’t going anywhere but he whipped his arm back violently throwing my arm off. “What the hell has gotten into you?” I asked drawing my brows together. I now felt insulted by him.
“You, Vicky, you have gotten into me and now I need you to leave. I don’t want to be with you,” he said huffing into my face. At that point the blood drained from my face, and I felt like I couldn’t take his shit right now, not today and not ever. This is why I didn’t want to try to be with him, because I knew at the end of the day, I would be the one hurt. I would be the one left alone and today that realization hurt more than anything.
As Luc stood towering over me accentuating how big and bad he was, I relented. “Bye, Luc,” I said looking him squarely in the eyes. When he didn’t respond. I went into his bedroom tiptoeing over the shards of glass and got my things. When I stepped back out of his room he was still sitting in the same place throwing back more amber liquid and looking straight ahead so we wouldn’t make eye contact. Walking down the stairs I felt grim, like I was leaving a part of me behind with each step. I finally opened the front door and left his apartment. By the time I made it back down to the SUV I was a shaky mess. My entire life was crashing down before me, and I didn’t think I would be strong enough to handle the fall out.
“The jet is waiting,” Derek said smiling through his rearview mirror.
“Thank you,” I replied solemnly. As the SUV made its way through the stuffy traffic in New York, I tried to think back to my morning with Luc, but nothing stood out to me as a warning signal. He was so gung-ho about our relationship. He was willing to risk his heart and he was giving me everything he had to offer, which was himself open and true. Things were real and good. I know I wasn’t imagining it.
I sent Joe a text message about Papa and then I put my head back on the headrest and took a few long breaths. My chest felt so tight that it felt like I had forgotten to breathe. As we entered the airport, the SUV got on a side road and then turned onto what looked like a tarmac as it finally came to a stop in front of a gleaming white jet that said Tyson on the side. My mind was saying 'holy crap' on repeat. This was real. As crazy as my life had become, this was definitely an adventure I had never anticipated. I was grateful to Bryce, knowing I would be home to take care of things soon. I would also be forced to face my reality once again. Working at Tyson and riding on a jet, it all felt like an escape to me and it was so welcome.
“Vicky,” Derek said, holding the door open for me. I stepped out of the SUV. “There will be refreshments on board,” he said smiling while passing me my bag.
“Thank you,” I replied.
“You take care of yourself, Vicky,” Derek said with a solemn smile. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you, Derek. Bye.”
I climbed the steps and entered through the side door of the jet.
A blonde stewardess greeted me. “Hello, Miss Molino, I’m Kathy. I will be in charge of your in-flight service. Right this way, you can choose a seat or there is a bedroom at the back of the plane through the door on your left.” She motioned with a bright smile.
Before I had come to New York I had read a lot about Bryce on the Internet and I had seen the Tyson Towers and I knew how rich and powerful he was, but the jet somehow made the idea hit home.
“Thank you, Kathy, I will just take a seat up front,” I said getting into one of the chairs. The plane was beautiful with white leather seats and dark wood moldings.
“Sure, hon,” she replied with a smile. “You will want to buckle up, we are scheduled for take-off in five minutes and flight time is two hours.” I nodded my head and did up my seatbelt. Had the circumstances been different I may have enjoyed this adventure. Kathy walked off to the front of the plane, and I stared out the window as the plane reversed, and then picked up speed as we took off. I tried to close my eyes and get some rest but I was overtaken by anguish. Everything kept slipping through my fingers all at once: my father dying, Luc falling into some dark hole. I tried to make sense of what could possibly cause him to drink. He was right; alcohol did bad things to him. He managed to scare me, especially when he whipped the glass against the wall. Nonetheless, I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that he had complete control. That he made himself out to be a monster to push me away. I just didn’t understand, why now? After all that we shared and had been through, why was he pushing me away? His rejection had stung right through my heart.
***
Two hours later I was exiting the jet on a small tarmac in Thunder Bay. I didn’t even know that this little airport existed. It wasn’t meant to handle the commercial airlines, only local plane flyers. Bryce was right when he said he could get me home much faster. As I got off the plane, a cab was waiting for me. Bryce really thought of everything. Luc was right to say that he was a kind man. The cab driver took me to the home I grew up in. The home that had been filled with happy memories once, a home that was now empty and lifeless. As I walked through the front door, I felt overcome with loneliness and dread. I pictured my mother wal
king down the stairs at any moment and my father reading the paper at the kitchen table. The ghosts of them haunted me. As I turned to enter the kitchen, I heard the door creak open behind me, I startled and turned my head.
My eyes went wide and my heart warmed. “Joe, you’re here,” I said taking fast strides toward him before wrapping my arms around his neck.
“Yeah, Vick, I just can’t believe it,” he said shaking his head. His eyes were red. I could tell he’d been crying. Papa was not my biological father, but I loved him all the same even with all of his mistakes.
“I know Joe, I knew he was headed down a bad road but I didn’t expect things to unravel so quickly.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean, Marie called me a couple weeks ago…”
“You answered the phone for Marie?” I asked, sounding wounded.
“I knew something was wrong if she was calling. I knew you were just calling to talk everyday…” he answered hesitantly. He winced before I even had a chance to rebut.
“You saw my daily phone calls and you didn’t have the courtesy to say a small hello. 'Hey, Vicky, I’m alive no worries'…something, Joe, dammit.” My voice had raised about ten octaves and I felt my blood boiling. My older brother had always been responsible. I knew he felt just as broken as I did when Mama died. I knew she left him a letter too, but I didn’t know what it said. I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell him that she wasn’t his biological mother because she treated him like a son in every way. I would never taint that. I didn’t know what he knew exactly, but I was pissed that he left without staying in touch. That was straight out selfish, he was the only older brother I knew. This wasn’t the time to attack him but we would need to talk soon.
“What did Marie tell you?”
“She said that Hal stopped by a week ago and Papa was looking thin. He thought he might have stopped eating…” he frowned.
“And no one thought to call or inform me of this? I just get the damn call. 'Hi Vicky but I’m sorry your father’s dead.' Maybe I would have come home sooner. Maybe I could have done something….” I threw my hands up in the air with frustration; my heart was beating a mile a minute. Joe was too damn infuriating.
“Marie asked me if she should call you, but what for Vicky? We both know he didn’t want to live anymore, or else he would have taken us up on our offers for help. He wanted to die and none of us thought it would be healthy for you to sit around and watch that happen. Especially since your reaction to Mama’s death had been drastic, and Marie said that you were just getting your life back together in New York,” he trailed off sounding defeated. Maybe this was a no win situation.
“What?” I winced. “I never told Marie about my life in New York,” I muttered angrily.
“She said you had your reasons for being there and to leave you be,” Joe argued back. My brother was a Molino through and through, tough and stubborn. “The truth was that I was on my way back here anyway. After spending a little too much time on the beach in Mexico, I felt the need to come home. I was staying in Toronto a few days when Marie contacted me to say that Papa died. I’m cursing myself because I should have come home sooner to say goodbye, but it was so hard to say goodbye…instead, I hung around Toronto because I was too damned scared to come home and see more death,” he said, shaking his head back and forth as tears filled his eyes. He was a big guy but a cuddly teddy bear at heart. I walked back over to console him. Clearly I was being too hard on him. He’s just as messed up as me. Now was not the time to tell him about Mama’s letter either. I was beginning to think I might never tell him. My older brother was the only family I had left and I didn’t want to push him away.
“Come, Joe, I’ll make you some tea,” I said, patting his back and walking into the kitchen. As I entered the kitchen I noticed the clean floors and counter tops. I’m sure Papa hadn’t kept it this way. Especially since he was in such bad shape. Joe took a seat at the kitchen table and I hit the kettle. I leaned on the counter waiting for the water to boil and watched Joe with his head between his hands. This was a fucking mess.
“What were you doing in Mexico?” I asked, trying to make conversation despite the dreary mood.
“I was trying to clear my head, run away, I don’t know, Vicky, but whatever I was doing wasn’t working and it began to weigh on me hard.”
“How was New York?” he asked, throwing me off. I couldn’t believe Marie told him I was in New York. I hoped she hadn’t told him about Mama’s secret.
“New York was good,” I answered solemnly.
“Isn’t New York like really expensive? Everything was dirt cheap in Mexico so I managed…”
“Yeah, you managed for a year and a half Joe. It wasn’t cool how you took off and you could have at least replied to my text messages. Shit! After everything I had been through, I didn’t expect for you to up and leave and forget I existed,” I bit out and I knew I was being too harsh again he had just lost his father.
“Shit, Vick, I’m sorry I was really messed up, I needed to get my shit together and I had a hard time facing you. You always have everything under control and I didn’t. I needed to find my balance,” he explained regretfully.
“You think I have my shit together, Joe?” I laughed, it was so high pitched I almost sounded like a hyena. “If you only knew. Yes, I stayed and worked in the diner to help keep this place running but I was lost and I did my share of fucking up. Look, I am not blaming you for feeling shitty or taking off, all I am asking is that you don’t forget me. You are all I have now,” I said sadly as I took a mug out of the cabinet. I dipped the tea in the cup and walked it over to Joe.
Joe looked at me with his droopy eyes. “I know, Vick, I’m sorry but that’s why I came home, we have to face this mess together.”
“I know, Joe,” I said walking over to the cabinet to make myself a tea.
“Hey you two,” Marie, my mom’s best friend, walked into the kitchen looking pale. She was about forty years old with shoulder length auburn hair and warm brown eyes.
She came in embraced Joe in a hug then she walked around the counter and gave me a warm hug too. She had been like a mother to us since our mother died. She knew my mother better than anyone.
“You cleaned the house didn’t you?” I asked with an accusing smile.
“Yes, hon, the place was a wreck. I didn’t want you walking into that. I have set things up with the Mueller Funeral Home. The wake will begin tomorrow and the funeral will be held on Saturday,” she explained.
“Thanks so much for taking care of things, Marie, do you know what happened?” I asked, wanting to know how Papa died.
“I’m not certain. Hal came in here to check on him. At first he thought he was just passed out, but then he didn’t have a pulse. Hal called me and we called the paramedics. They came to take him and said it may have been a heart attack. He was probably drinking too much and not eating enough….” Her voice drifted off sadly and she got a faraway look on her face. “Oh, kids, I’m so sorry. We can’t judge his choices though. We all deal differently with grief…” she paused holding her hand over her heart while she stared at us through teary eyes. “If you kiddos need anything just holler. I better get home,” she said, giving my shoulder a light squeeze as she looked at me sympathetically. I hated that look; it reminded me of when Mama died. People in this town stared at me with sad droopy eyes for almost two years. It’s part of the reason I finally felt like I had to get away.
I followed her out to the front door. She knew the reasons for my trip. “He’s really nice,” I whispered to her. She knew I was talking about my biological dad back in New York.
She put a hand up to her heart. “I’m happy for you, baby girl,” she grinned.
“Thanks, Marie,” I said quietly then I turned to step back inside the house. My brother was perceptive and I didn’t want him asking questions, at least not yet. As I made my way up to my room, Joe followed behind me and went to his old room. Being home didn’t feel right. It was depressing. Joe
and I would have to decide what we were going to do with this place. The happy place it had once been was part of a different lifetime, now the place held only sad memories. It was the place that both my parents lost their lives.
I went to go lie down on my old bed. With my cell phone in my hand, I couldn’t help but steal a glance at the screen hoping Luc had come to his senses, but there were no missed calls or voice messages. Lying back on the bed made me feel nauseous and the back of my throat burned like fire. As a bout of nausea hit me hard, I ran into the bathroom and heaved over the toilet until clear liquid came out of me. My stomach was empty; I had nothing to get rid of.
Joe came running out of his room and stopped at the bathroom door. “Are you okay, Vick?” he asked with his brows drawn together.
“Yeah, I don’t know, I guess this is too much for me, and I haven’t eaten anything…”I trailed off as I got to my feet.
“I’ll go get you water. I don’t think there’s any food in the house. We may have to go pick something up,” he suggested.
“Yeah, sure,” I replied. I didn’t want to worry him, but I was feeling run down and the bout of vomiting did nothing to curb my nausea. Joe and I both got ready in our rooms. When I looked in the mirror, I realized how pale I looked. I wasn’t hungry but I didn’t want to worry him more. My phone began to ring and I was hoping it would be Luc, but Bryce’s name lit up the screen.
“Hello,” I whispered.
“Hi, Vicky, I just wanted to make sure you got home safely and that everything was okay.”
“Yes, Bryce thank you so much for letting me use your jet, you were right I made it back quickly. Now I won’t miss anything, the wake begins tomorrow and the funeral is on Saturday,” I explained sadly. Saying the words hit home and made everything seem more real.
Wild Cards Page 24
