by A. J. Downey
I sniffed and wiped at the moisture under my eyes, and leaned the two pictures up against the main part of the black stone, along the little ledge where it attached to the carved, thicker base.
“He’s so beautiful, and such a sweet boy. It was hard, being all alone when I had him. I didn’t know what to do and things didn’t go… well. Not to say he didn’t come out perfect! He did, I just… I just wish you’d been there. I wish anyone had been there. I wish you were here now to see your beautiful son and I wish I had a chance to fix things. I wish a lot of things, but I guess… I guess I don’t want you to worry about us. I’m trying really hard and Noah is healthy and happy and Archer is letting us stay with him. Who’d have thought, right?” I laughed but it came out forced and broken.
“Why did this have to happen to us?” I whispered brokenly, and it was the sixty-four thousand dollar question. One with no answer except a cold slab of silent marble set in new spring grass under an endless blue sky full of fluffy, fat white clouds.
I let my gaze stray from that endless sky to a stone set about forty paces outside the fence, further along on the hilltop where Dragon’s lumbering frame knelt, head bowed, hand on a white marble stone. The lone, deep crimson rose he’d purchased sitting in a bronze fluted vase with a lovely green patina that was attached to the headstone. His shoulders shook as he wept openly and I didn’t feel nearly so alone in my grief. It’d been so long since I hadn’t felt alone, like it was simply me against the world, standing between it and my son…
I looked back down at Grinder’s name carved into the black marble, my gaze riveting to the picture I’d taken, so long ago with his phone. I missed him with a fierce burning ache, deep in the center of my chest where my heart still beat, battered and bruised. I lay down on the grass and stared into the sky like we used to do a thousand times back home, picking shapes out of the clouds.
I tried to think of every question he would possibly ask me about Noah, and I answered every single one. Telling him everything about his son, and how we came to be here and I have to say… I felt better. Much lighter than I had before. When I finished, Dragon was waiting back at his Harley, wraparound sunglasses in place. I said my goodbyes and left Noah’s pictures with his father and headed back down the hill to go back to my son and make good on everything I promised in the time I’d been there.
Dragon’s expression was inscrutable from behind his wraparounds but I could tell, now would come the questions he spoke of before. The first thing he asked was what exactly the hell was going on with the Arizona chapter that they would send me all the way out here on a wild goose chase?
I told him everything and of course, the next question on the heels of the first, was about Dom, specifically what it was about him that made me say no.
“I’ll tell you on one condition,” I said softly and braced myself.
“What’s that?” he asked me.
“That Archer, Rush, and Nox won’t be in trouble for not selling out their brothers,” I said.
Dragon huffed a bit of a laugh, “They ever involved in what I’m worried might come out your mouth?” he asked.
“Only insofar as looking the other way. They never had a direct hand in it that I know of. Of course, I’m just a dumb club whore and this probably falls under club business… At least it did according to Dom.”
“You worried he might come out here holding a grudge?” Dragon asked.
“Insightful,” I said. “And yes, yes I am…”
Dragon sighed, “Just what’re you runnin’ from, Sweetheart? We can’t protect you if we don’t know what the big bad is all about.”
“It’s nothing club related. I went to the club in Arizona to find out where Grinder had gone, remember? They told me, they just conveniently left out some of the important details.”
“Right now, I’m just askin’,” he said gently. “Don’t make me have to order you, Honey. I don’t want to be like the guys you just left.”
He pulled off his glasses and even red rimmed from weeping, his gaze was so sincere… I told him. I told him about Dom and turning out the girls. I told him about all of it and then I begged him to keep it between us unless it became absolutely necessary to tell Noah’s uncles.
He nodded, “Your secrets are yours to keep, I’m satisfied with what you’ve told me and I gotta say, you understand you’re safe out here right? That the club is gonna protect you and your boy. Archer explained to you that you’re being treated as Grinder’s property with all that entails, yeah?”
I nodded, “I guess it’s just been so long, you know? Feels like if I didn’t have bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.” I huddled in my jacket, “Usually, if it’s too good to be true, it undoubtedly is, you know?”
He nodded and sighed, “Maybe you’re just due for a little good luck, eh?”
“I don’t disagree, but it’s still so hard to believe.”
“Well, believe it Sugar, you’re gonna be okay. We aren’t perfect, but as far as this club is concerned, you and your boy is family. Speaking of which, you ready to get back to him?” he asked; I nodded. “Okay, let’s go.”
Dragon was as good as his word, he took me back to my son, who was sitting and playing in the midst of the media room floor with another, younger baby, while everyone stood around cooing and awing. I was passed to Ashton and Hayden who took it upon themselves to introduce me to the rest of the ol’ ladies while Dragon quietly called a church meeting.
There was Everett, who belonged to Dray and Mandy her best friend who was the mother of the little girl my son played with; she belonged to a brother named Revelator. Shelly was next, and she positively glowed, her belly just beginning to show. She belonged to a brother called Ghost. Dani introduced herself; she said the love of her life was a man who went by Thirteen. I felt adopted right into their circle and it was the first time in a long time I felt like I belonged anywhere. It was nice, even when the men came out looking equal parts pissed off and grim. Archer, Rush, and Nox stared at me and I cringed inwardly, afraid they would take my candor as a betrayal.
“You good, Mel?” Archer asked and I felt some of the tension in my chest ease. I nodded and he gave a quick nod before turning and putting his head together with Rush’s and Nox’s. The women provided fantastic distraction from the goings on around me and Noah, and for that, I was grateful. My son remained happy and safe, and above all, oblivious to the very adult goings on around him.
The rest of the early evening passed into night and when I took Noah home, Archer riding before us like some kind of vanguard, the anxiety returned and I worried what awaited me when I got us there. I put my sweet little sleeping boy down and turned, expecting Archer to have something to say, but all he did was drop heavily onto the couch with a sigh.
“Nothing?” I asked softly.
“Yeah, g’night Mel,” he said gently and I went back into the bedroom a little shocked. I closed the door and changed for bed, but lay awake. This time for a completely different reason than the thumping and bumping of bass through the walls.
Chapter 14
Archer
It’d been weeks, more than a month, I couldn’t say for sure if it’d been more than two, but Mel, Noah, and I had settled into a kind of routine. In that time, Mel had even gotten a job; working a day shift over at some diner taking care of the lunch rush. She was bringing in good tips, and I’d told her to keep ‘em to get her and Noah set up.
I say all this, because it was weird as hell that she’d be calling me in the middle of the day at the garage. She should be at work, slinging plates to a bunch of blue collar working stiffs like myself.
I picked it up on the third buzz and asked, “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, I was just calling to let you know that Rev called me, said Noah wasn’t feeling well. Jake is letting me off to go get him, so I’ll be home when you get there.”
“You usually are,” I said tucking the phone between my shoulder and ear so I could turn a socket wrench
and get a bolt off my latest project.
“Yeah, I usually am, but not with a sick kid… I just figured you’d want to know in case things get ugly.”
“Ugly how?”
“Could be anything,” she said, “A snotty nose, rapid diaper changes, throwing up…”
“The joys of mommyhood,” I said sarcastically and I think I heard her smile, which she still hadn’t really done since getting here; leastways not around me. “Thanks for the warning,” I said.
“No problem.”
“See you later then.”
“Yeah, bye.”
I put in the rest of my hours and headed home, giving Mel a call before I headed out, it took her a while to answer and she got the phone right before it went to voicemail.
“Yeah, hello?”
I could hear Noah squealing in the background and Mel sounded frazzled, “Not sick I take it?”
“One awful diaper later he was right as rain, I think he just had an upset tummy because he’s acting fine now. Noah, stop running!”
“Was calling to check and see if you needed anything from the store for him but it sounds like you’re all good.”
“All except for him making up for lost time,” she said and I could hear her blow her bangs off her forehead. Yep. Definitely worn out chasing after the kid. Of course, it wasn’t like Mel ever seemed fully rested. “Noah, I said stop!”
“I’ll let you go so you can rein him in,” I said and she said something but even I heard Noah hit, a loud thump coming over the line followed by him crying in the background.
“I’ve got to go!” Mel cried and the line went dead. I sighed and tucked my phone away, starting up my bike. I knew something was wrong when about three minutes into my eight minute ride home my phone started buzzing off the hook. It stopped, probably when it went to voicemail, but then immediately started up again.
“Aw shit,” I muttered under my breath and poured on the speed. I parked the bike and took the stairs two at a time, my keys already at the ready to get into the apartment. Mel sat at the dining table, Noah in her lap, a wad of bloody paper towels pressed against his forehead while the kid just screamed in those hiccupping sobs. Mel was white as a fuckin’ sheet and sobbing just as hard as her son.
“What happened?” I demanded and she was tripping over herself to get it out, talking so fast I couldn’t understand her, Noah screaming even louder over her and it was so fucking noisy and he was obviously bleeding and it looked bad… fuck!
I finally had to grip the back of my head with both hands, fingers laced and take a few deep breaths so I didn’t scream at them both to just shut the fuck up and tell me what the fuck had just happened. Finally, I put it together from Mel’s babbling that Noah had been running around the apartment, unsteady as fuck being a fairly new walker, hell, toddlers his age were always unsteady, it was what it was. He’d tripped over his own damn feet and had crashed headfirst into the doorjamb to the bedroom, except he’d gone down just right and had hit his head on the corner of the strike plate, where the thing from the doorknob went into.
“Alright, legit, let me see,” I ordered and she pulled the paper towels away. That was going to need a stich or two. No doubt about it. “Right, we’re going to the hospital, gimme your keys, I’ll drive. You try to keep him calm; can you work on that? Can you do that?” I asked over the noise of Noah’s rhythmic howling. God, it was enough to drive anybody nuts.
“I don’t have insurance for him!” she cried and I looked at her.
“Doesn’t matter, I’ll figure it out, but let’s get that looked at, come on.” I grabbed her keys off the counter where I spotted them and we rushed down to her cage. I didn’t bother dealing with my cut on account of the emergency, and had already decided we were lucky to be nearest Doc’s hospital. I opened the back door for Mel and she got in the cage, I got in the front.
“What if they think I hurt my son?” she asked and I shook my head.
“If anything they’re gonna take one look at me and think I hurt him,” I told her. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now, the important thing is to get him looked at. That’s what we’re doing. One problem at a fucking time,” I grated and I knew I sounded pissed. I wasn’t pissed at her, or anyone for that matter. I guess I was more pissed that there wasn’t anything I could do other than what I was doing and that didn’t seem like very damn much at all. I couldn’t fix this one, and that chapped my fucking ass.
We pulled into the parking lot at Doc’s ER and I let Mel out the back door, “Go in, get everything going, I’ll be right there.”
She nodded and carried Noah in, she hadn’t let him go since I’d gotten to them, and I didn’t see that changing. I parked the car and took a couple extra deep breaths, hitting the steering wheel a couple of times to vent before I went in there and tore into any hospital people, making this any worse than it already was.
I got out the car and went in, to find no sign of Mel and Noah, they were in the back already. Good. I went that way and ignored the nurse behind the admin desk who yelled out, “Sir, you can’t go back there!” The fuck I couldn’t, Noah was blood. I’d be damned if anybody would keep me from him.
I found Mel and Noah in an alcove and sat down. A hospital security guy pulled back the curtain a second after me.
“It’s okay,” Mel said, “he’s my baby’s uncle.”
“You can’t be back here without one of these,” the admin desk nurse said holding up a ‘visitor’ sticker. I plucked it from her fingers and stuck it on the front of my cut.
“Happy?”
“No!”
“Too damn bad,” I said and put my hand on Mel’s shoulder giving it a squeeze. “Doc look at him yet?”
“No, I ain’t looked at him yet, he only just got here. Should’ve guessed it was you when one of the nurses said it was a biker causing trouble in my ER, what seems to be the problem?”
Mel looked up at Doc; a disarming mix of wide-eyed and dumbfounded while he pulled some latex gloves out of a box on the wall, slipping his hands into them. “He was running,” she said, “I told him to stop but he tripped and hit his head on that metal door thingy before I could get to him to make him stop,” she said and Doc looked at her funny.
“Metal door thingy?” he asked.
“Strike plate,” I said.
“You saw it?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I lied. I’d heard everything; that was close enough. Mel looked startled but kept her mouth shut. The admin nurse and the security guard wandered away when Doc waved them off.
“Let’s have a look,” he said rolling over a stool and pulling the paper towels away. “Oh yeah, see that’s not so bad. If he were a little bit older, I wouldn’t even stitch it, I’d just put a couple butterfly bandages on it, but given he’d likely just pull ‘em off… Let me have a nurse set up a suture kit. You hold this here, like you been doing and I’ll be right back.” He pressed a thick square of fresh gauze over the cut and threw the paper towels away before stripping off the medical gloves he’d put on, and throwing them in the trash right behind the bloody mess.
Noah was quieting down and sat huddled against Mel who held him like somebody was going to snatch him any second. She mouthed ‘thank you’ over his light blond curls and I nodded. A nurse came by a few seconds later with a tray full of the goods Doc was going to need.
Noah screamed bloody hell when Doc gave him the shot of the numbing agent. Melody looked green and I asked her if she wanted me to take him. She remained mute, but adamantly shook her head. Stitches went it, one and two and the boy was all done. Doc slapped a Scooby-Doo Band-Aid over the cut and he was done. It really wasn’t nothin’.
“Might want to get him some pediatric drink, he might be a little dehydrated from the diarrhea you said he had and all this cryin’.”
“I’ll do that,” Mel said quickly.
“And for you, I’m prescribing a glass or two of wine or a margarita or something,” he looked up at me, “Thi
nk you can handle that?”
I gave a sharp nod, “I believe I can,” I told him and held out my hand. We shook, and he gave me a lopsided grin.
“Y’all need to stick to seeing me at the club,” he said and I nodded again. I could do without this shit and Mel looked like she was shattered into a million fuckin’ pieces.
“We’ll do that, too,” I said.
“Go on, then. Get on out of here.”
“Thank you, Doc,” Mel said and she sounded bottom of her heart grateful.
“I got no problem takin’ care of family,” he said and with that, he left us.
I took Mel and Noah home, and left ‘em just long enough to go get some of that drink shit at the drugstore, like Doc recommended. By the time I got back, Noah was napping in his crib and Mel was sitting on the edge of the couch staring at him.
“You need to go get a shower, and come on back out here and have a drink,” I uttered.
“Do you think the hospital is going to call child services?” she asked.
I snorted, “No.”
“Am I a horrible mother?” she asked and tears leaked out of her eyes, she still hadn’t looked at me. Her gaze locked on her sleeping son.
“Naw, I’d say you’re a damn good mom,” I said.
“You really think so?”
“What I really think is you need a hot shower and to take the medicine the doctor prescribed you. I picked up your favorite Tequila along with his juice stuff.” She finally looked at me and I said, “It’s pretty bad when the clerk rings you up and says ‘I know exactly how you feel.’”
Nothing. Not even a smile. Just that vacant, traumatized stare. I sighed and gave her an order, “Mel, I’ll watch him, go take a shower.”
She got up as if pulled by strings and floated over to the doorway leading into my room, she stopped and looked down at the strike plate, her shoulders bouncing once, twice, a third time before she rushed into the bathroom and closed the door. I could hear her crying but sometimes, with bitches, that’s all they needed was to cry it out, so I left her to it while I went and grabbed a couple of shot glasses down. I took one shot while she cried, and downed another when the shower started up.
