True North

by Amy Knupp

  “Blaspheme. Peanut butter cups are one of my favorites, but if you want hard-shelled candies with peanut butter, M&Ms hands down.”

  She punched in the number for Peanut Butter M&Ms, and then she hit another number, and he watched the Plain M&Ms fall to the trough. She bent to retrieve both, then handed him the plain. His appetite was in negative numbers, but he took them anyway.

  “Let’s sit,” she said, and she led him down one of the aisles of tables to a booth with high backs in semidarkness.

  They seemed to have the whole area to themselves, and he couldn’t think of a better place to wait for news. The thought of returning to the circus upstairs made his stomach hurt.

  “Your brothers seem friendly,” she said as she slid onto one bench, careful with her dress, and he sat across the table from her. “Well, Gabe was friendly. Mason seemed preoccupied and upset, which is understandable.”

  “Gabe’s okay. He gets along with everybody.” He was the one Cole was closest to, though the word close was misleading.

  Sierra nodded. “What’s Mason’s story?”

  “Uptight oldest-brother overachiever syndrome, I think they call it.”

  She smiled as if she knew what he was talking about as she tore off the corner of her candy package.

  “He’s the one who always does the right thing. Well, Gabe mostly does too, but Mason thinks he’s better than everyone because he does.”

  “Jackson’s an overachiever too,” she said of her brother, who he knew was the oldest Lowell sibling. “You probably have to be to be the CEO of a large, fast-growing company.”

  Cole gave a halfhearted scoff. “You might be on to something. Mason is the CEO of the family business.”

  “Family business?” Sierra asked, her brows dipping in confusion as she popped a handful of M&Ms in her mouth.

  He took a swallow of hot, over-strong coffee that would surely burn a hole in his gut if he had more than one cup. When he set it back on the table, he said, “North Brothers Sports.”

  “What?” Sierra’s eyes doubled in size and she leaned forward. “The North Brothers Sports? On Hopkins Road?”

  “Hopkins on the west side, Gateshire on the east, plus stores in Memphis, Knoxville, and Chattanooga,” he recited.

  “And those North brothers are yours.”

  “Originally, the North brothers were Harrison and Hamilton North, my dad and uncle. Now it’s Mason and Gabe and some cousins.”

  “But not you,” she said. “Why not you?”

  The answer to that was long and convoluted, but he simply said, “Not interested.”

  “So Mason’s the CEO. Sort of explains the suit.” She checked the time on her phone and he could see it upside down—11:42 p.m. “Sort of not. Does he sleep in it?”

  That was the closest Cole had come to smiling since Gabe’s first text tonight. “I suspect he might but there’s no proof.”

  “And Gabe does what?”

  “VP of Human Resources.”

  “What about your other two brothers?”

  “Drake works part time in the Hopkins store by choice. He’s also a personal trainer and somewhat of a flake. Zane is in the military.”

  Sierra crunched on another handful of candy. “I never once put together your last name with the sporting goods chain.”

  That was just the way he liked it. “It has nothing to do with me.” He’d made sure of that when he graduated from high school and made an adamant point of signing away his rights to his financial share of the company. He didn’t want to talk about it anymore, although the subject was slightly better than thinking about what might be happening upstairs with his mom.

  A wave of fear washed through him at the thought. Cold, black, nauseating fear centered in his chest. He picked up the unopened plain candy package from the table, gripped it hard, shoved it in the pocket of his suit jacket. He fought to get back to the inane chitchat of sixty seconds ago, to put the fear out of his head, but he couldn’t escape it this time. It was as if the numbness defense was wearing off, like some Harry Potter spell. Suddenly burning up, sweating, he whipped his jacket off, set it aside on the bench. He unbuttoned his shirt sleeves and pushed them up, his heart hammering with anxiety.

  “Cole? Are you okay?”

  He rotated to the end of his bench, feeling trapped in the small booth. “Yeah,” he lied. He stood, free of the booth now but finding no relief. He paced deeper into the labyrinth of booths and tables, seeing nothing but the images in his mind of his mom, her warm smile, her love and concern for her sons that shined in her eyes, always.

  He tried to think whether she’d looked tired or pale or unwell lately but—fuck—the truth of the matter was that he hadn’t seen her for a few weeks. That was on him. Son of a bitch, that was all on him. Sunday nights were family dinner night, every week, without fail, and Faye North cooked her heart out for her boys every single time, but Cole hadn’t made the effort to show up for at least a month. Not for any reason other than spending time with his family was not something he enjoyed, and he hadn’t felt like dealing with it.

  “Is there anything I can do?” Sierra was right behind him, and her closeness startled the shit out of him.

  “I just… Give me a minute.”

  His phone vibrated in his pocket and he pulled it out, fear hammering through him. Gabe’s name was on the screen, and Cole unlocked his phone to read the whole message.

  Mom had a severe blockage. When they were doing the cath, her heart stopped and they had to shock her back. They’re prepping her for bypass surgery now, moving us to ICU waiting area on third floor.

  Physically reeling, Cole leaned against the closest table.

  He managed to type, Can we see her before surgery?

  Three dots appeared and then No. Condition is critical.

  He felt Sierra move in close.

  “What’s it say?” she asked gently.

  He didn’t know if he could speak, so he held his phone out to her. She angled his hand so she could see the screen, read the message, blew out a breath without dropping his hand. Cole pulled it away from her instinctively, so used to handling everything alone. This, though… He wasn’t sure if he could handle this at all, alone or with someone by his side.

  The images flashed through his mind again, of his mom, his loving mom. He loved her, respected her, admired the crap out of her. She was everything Cole wasn’t—devoted to her family, giving, unselfish, forgiving… She was the glue that held their family together, before and after their dad’s death. Cole was the opposite, doing his best to keep his distance, to keep himself separate.

  The backs of his eyes burned. Bypass surgery was serious shit—he didn’t need a doctor to tell him that. Heart stopped? Did that mean she’d momentarily died? His mom had always seemed strong and unbreakable, but now that seemed like an illusion. A heart attack could break the hell out of a person. Could kill her just as easily as a car wreck had killed his dad.

  Acid bubbled up in his throat, sheer, burning fear that was on the verge of leveling him. He wasn’t ready to lose his mom. Dammit, he couldn’t lose her.

  Sierra hoisted herself up on the table right beside him and brushed her fingers up and down his forearm. “She’s going to be okay, Cole. The doctors know what they’re doing. She’s getting the medical expertise she needs.”

  All of his fear tangled up with all of his love for his mom and formed a big, painful ball in his throat that was doing its best to suffocate him. He didn’t pull away from Sierra this time because it was a relief to have someone there. He hadn’t let his family be there for him for years and years, maybe most of his life, but he allowed himself to take strength from Sierra’s presence, to lean on her this once. Because he wasn’t sure how else to get through the darkness that was clawing at him from the inside.

  “She has to be okay,” he said, his voice a low, unrecognizable rumble.

  “The doctors are taking care of her.”

  The bitterness of regret pulsed
through every last inch of him, constricting the air out of him, and his inhales felt like big, ugly gasps. He was losing his shit and he knew it, couldn’t even begin to care that he had an audience. He shot away from the table and started pacing again, rubbing his hands up and down his face, feeling as if every breath was a fight. He’d never experienced such an overwhelming, panicked blackness before. Its grip on him was all encompassing—physical, mental, emotional. He couldn’t process a coherent thought. It was as if his skin was suddenly too small, tight and suffocating, and he couldn’t do anything about it except try to walk the sensation off.

  He didn’t know how many times he’d passed Sierra when she reached out and grabbed his wrist, halting him.

  “Cole. Stop for a minute. Breathe.”

  He hadn’t seen anything at all as he paced, but he did stop, focused on her, registered that she hadn’t moved from before. She kept a grip on his arm, and though he could’ve easily pulled away, he didn’t. Because he needed grounding. Calming. Something.

  “Sit,” she said gently, scooting over so her feet rested on the bench, butt on the table, making room for him next to her.

  He was suddenly so bone-tired that he couldn’t imagine standing any longer, and he sank down onto the table, pulled his feet up to the bench, tried to shake off the mental paralysis. He realized he was sweating and swiped a hand over his forehead.

  Sierra thankfully said nothing more, just sat next to him, her body up against his, and entwined her arm with his. He did as she’d said and tried to get a couple of deep breaths in, willed himself to stop being carried away by the vortex of black fear.

  A thought was scraping at him, the words pulsing to get out. He hated to give them any power, but they wouldn’t let go of him. “What if she dies?” he finally let out in little more than a whisper.

  Instead of giving him some bullshit line that she wouldn’t, Sierra merely held tighter to his arm and leaned her head against his shoulder. He allowed himself to breathe in the scent of her hair, taking comfort in the femininity of it, in having someone to lean on for once.

  Several minutes ticked by with them not moving other than to breathe in and out, for him to stop losing his shit to the point he couldn’t form a thought. The thoughts that finally filled his head were ugly, harrowing, painful as fuck. He’d never, ever been a talker, was the opposite of a sharer, but now, as the pressure inside of him built, he was compelled to let some of it out, desperate to get it out into the light, so to speak, to sort through it, try to find some kind of relief. Any relief.

  “I don’t know…” he started, his voice full of gravel and grief. “I’m not a good son. She might not know I love her.”

  “Ohh, Cole, she knows. Moms know.”

  “I haven’t told her for years. Haven’t showed her.” Anytime he stepped foot into her house, the house where they’d all grown up, he set his defenses sky-high, determined not to let anyone in.

  “I’ve never met her, but I still bet she knows,” Sierra said, her voice like a soothing balm in the middle of a walk through shards of glass.

  That didn’t mean he believed her.

  Cole buried his face in his hands, and the images he normally blocked out filtered into his mind against his will. His dad, back when Cole was a teenager and a thorn in the old man’s side. Harry North had been a good man, a hardworking man, involved in his sons’ lives to the nth degree, from baseball games to grade reports to girlfriends, as much as they would let him. Cole had done his best not to let him, had argued with his dad over pretty much everything. Argued to the end.

  The regret that lived in every single cell in his body, no matter how hard he worked to push it down, roared to life, flooded his system as if it sensed his weakened state and was moving in for the kill.

  “I…” He swallowed hard, again feeling the burning need to spill the bad shit out, as unfamiliar as that was to him. “I told you my dad died when I was seventeen,” he managed, and he felt Sierra nod against his shoulder. “The last time I talked to him, we had an argument.” He pushed air out of his lungs. “The last words I said to him were hateful. I stormed out, and the very next day, he got broadsided on his way home from work. Died at the scene. I never got to make peace with him,” he forced out.

  He’d never told anyone that secret. Had held it close for all these years, fifteen years, so close that on most days it was buried too deep even for him to think about it. But it was always there, that awful truth. And now Sierra knew.

  “God, that sucks,” she said, and he braced himself for whatever she would say next, needing it to be something other than the loathing he deserved. “That must have made his death so much harder to come to terms with.”

  He didn’t answer. He felt her head lift from his shoulder, sensed her peering at him from the side, but he couldn’t meet her gaze.

  “You were a teenager, and teenagers are hard,” she said, and he blew out a scoff. “Your dad knew you loved him, just like your mom does. They know, Cole.” She squeezed his hand as if she thought she could force that supposed truth in through his skin if she applied enough pressure.

  He wished it was that easy.

  “He couldn’t have known,” he said.

  “Did you love him?”

  Cole nodded, squeezing his eyes shut.

  “He knew.” Sierra said it with so much conviction that he wanted to believe her, but fifteen years was a long time for his doubts to burrow in.

  They sat in silence for a while, a long while, watching across the way as a middle-aged woman shuffled to the vending machines and purchased several items, then walked back out in a daze, without noticing them. Cole breathed in Sierra’s shampoo scent, focusing on it as if it were a security blanket, drawing what comfort he could from it and the quiet sounds of her breathing.

  It was well after midnight when he straightened, ready, finally, to head up to the third floor to face his brothers and his mom’s fate.

  Chapter Eight

  The ICU waiting room was an upgrade from the ER, and thank God, because Cole and three of his brothers had been there for hours. Instead of hard plastic chairs, there were couches and recliners, and a nurse had offered them blankets, though Drake was the only one who’d taken one. The youngest North brother was with Gabe and Mason when Cole and Sierra had finally come upstairs. Their family had had the smaller, dimly lit waiting room to themselves the whole time, so it was impossible for Cole to distance himself from his brothers, but oddly, he found he didn’t want to. Crisis situations brought out some weird shit sometimes, he figured.

  They’d persuaded Sierra, who’d looked close to collapsing with fatigue, to leave not long after they’d found the ICU waiting room. It’d taken all four of them to convince her, and she’d scrutinized Cole’s face until she’d apparently seen the truth—that he was okay with her going. She’d pulled him through his personal shit storm of a reaction with the patience and understanding of a saint…and that thought reminded him of her use of the same word, saint, at her sister’s wedding. Hard to believe that was only a few hours ago. His whole world had gone ass over elbows since then.

  It was after three in the morning when Drake, fully reclined in the chair in the corner, said, “Someone should offer pizza delivery at this hour. It’s time for fourth meal.”

  “Only you could think of your stomach at a time like this,” Mason said from a couch on the opposite wall, and Cole realized one side of his own mouth was tugging upward in a hint of a grin. They didn’t have reason to feel lighter, no cause for relief, but there was something about the hour and the extreme circumstances, the isolation of the waiting room, that made everything feel surreal. Surreal beat the hell out of cold fear, Cole thought.

  “Wrong. If Zane was here, he’d agree with me,” Drake said from his nest of blankets. “Probably could even be convinced to go out and find some food for us. And beer. I could use a beer.”

  He was probably spot on, as the twins’ united goal in life had always been to eat the fa
mily out of house and home. Cole figured that’s where the majority of their dad’s life insurance had gone—toward feeding the three active, athletic sons who’d still lived at home. Drake and Zane seemed to have an ongoing competition for who could eat the most.

  “Anyone talk to Z yet?” Cole asked. Last he’d heard, their brother was deployed overseas somewhere, but he wasn’t sure how up-to-date his info was.

  “I sent him an email,” Mason said. He’d staked a claim on the other couch, next to Cole’s chair. “There’s not much else we can do at this point.” The truth hung heavily over their heads that if they needed Zane home for a funeral, their options for contacting him would increase. “I haven’t heard back yet.”

  It was almost funny how, even now, with all of them in their thirties or late twenties, the brothers still fell into their usual roles. Mason was the leader, acting as the spokesperson with medical personnel. He couldn’t not take the lead in anything in life, Cole was pretty damn sure of it.

  Drake was the baby, the one who got by on charm alone, who’d managed to convince a good-looking nurse to share a piece of the chocolate cake the medical staff had behind closed doors in celebration of a fellow nurse’s birthday.

  If Zane were here, he’d probably fill the hours by talking their ears off about his passion—planes and flying—just as he had since he was a grade-schooler.

  Gabe was the quintessential peacemaker, the guy who made sure everyone was okay, or as okay as they could be with their mom currently under the knife.

  And Cole, he was the asshole brother, the keep-to-himself guy, the black sheep. Tonight, he’d mostly just sat quietly, pensively, consumed by thoughts of his mom and brothers and his relationships with each of them. His conclusion? He sucked at relationships. Always had.

  These were his brothers, the people he’d grown up with. With their mom’s condition in question, it was clear that they needed to pull together, that his distancing was stupid.

  Or maybe he was over-fucking-exhausted. Delirious.