“I’m okay, mom,” I cried. “I’m sorry I scared you.”
She needed for me to get it together.
She needed me to put my mask on.
She squeezed me tightly, and I heard her whimper against my shoulder.
“You’re okay,” she whispered. “You are stronger than you know.”
I pulled away, lifted my hands to her face and wiped away her tears and forced the smile she needed to see.
“I am strong,” I assured.
She searched my eyes and for the first time I wished I had her eyes and not my dad’s maybe then I’d be more convincing. Finally, she nodded, leaned forward and kissed my forehead.
It took a while for her to leave my room, afraid I’d switch masks, but I kept it together long enough to convince her I just needed a break. I called Daniela in front of her, even put the call on speaker, so she could listen and be at ease, knowing I was trying to put one foot in front of the other. When she finally left me alone I showered, threw something on and twisted my hair into a top knot. I could still see the concern etched across her features when I went downstairs to say goodbye.
If she thought she’d succeed she probably would’ve tied me to the chair and not let me leave.
I met Daniela at the Dunkin Donuts on 86th street, ordered an iced coffee and pretended to listen as she rambled on about her birthday. Her birthday was Monday, but she wanted to celebrate tonight since it was Saturday night. One of the guys in Noah’s fraternity had a hook with Kettle Black in Bay Ridge and promised to get us in without I.D.’s.
“You’re going to come aren’t you?”
I didn’t want to.
I wanted to go back to bed but, that wasn’t an option with my mother suspiciously watching me—looking for signs I was more my father’s daughter then hers. So, I decided to keep my mask on and be the happy-go-lucky girl everyone thinks I have the ability to be.
“Yes, I’ll be there,” I promised, taking a sip of my coffee as I turned my head toward the window.
My eyes zeroed in on the Harley across the street and for a moment I assumed it was Mack’s. That guy was a permanent fixture in my life and has been camped out at my mother’s house for the last month. My mom brings him coffee in the morning before she goes to work.
Yeah, she does.
He even changed my stepfather’s tire the other day.
One big happy family.
“It’s going to be so much fun,” Daniela beamed. “Now, I have to figure out what to wear.”
My fake smile diminished as I continued to stare out the window and spotted Blackie walking out of the liquor store across the street. He straddled his bike and then his head turned and our eyes locked.
I saw him.
He saw me.
Another stolen moment to add to the story.
He flipped his sunglasses down and I knew even with the tinted glass over his eyes he was still watching me but then he turned his head and pretended like he never saw me.
Like I never existed.
I watched him peel out of the spot and speed away.
“What do you think?”
I think I lost my fucking mind.
I glanced back at Daniela.
“I’ve got to go,” I said, standing up. “You’re going to pick me up at nine right?”
“Yes,” she replied, confused.
“Okay, I’ll be ready.” I promised, before I grabbed my empty coffee cup and chucked it into the garbage. I gave my friend one last fake smile before leaving the coffee shop. I heard Mack’s engine before I even reached my car. I hope he’s ready to drive around in circles because I had no idea where I was headed but I was on a mission to find peace.
Or my mind.
Whichever.
I wasn’t picky.
An hour later, I pulled into Green-Wood cemetery. I wonder if I’m the only one who gravitates to this place hoping to find answers. I don’t know what it is, but when I’m here I’m almost as much at peace as the souls that call this place home.
I climbed the hill and glanced over my shoulder to see Mack bowing his head. He didn’t get off his bike, allowing me privacy for which I was grateful. I stared at the tombstone, ran my fingers over my brother’s name as I dropped to my knees.
“Hi, Jack,” I whispered as I glanced down at the Yankee cap resting in front of the stone. “I guess dad paid you a visit,” I murmured, tracing the N and the Y on the cap before I broke down in a fit of tears. I don’t remember ever crying as much as I did right then and there. It was as if all the tears I should’ve been crying over the last thirteen years emerged at that moment.
“I’m so sorry,” I sobbed. “It’s all my fault you’re here and not…doing what every other teenage boy is doing. This hat should be on top of your head, not resting on your grave. You should be here but you’re not because I didn’t do anything to help you. I stood there and watched you run into the street. Me! I did that! I’m the reason you wound up underneath a car and I’m the reason Mommy and Daddy don’t have their son. I’m the reason, Jack,” I cried.
“Lacey,” my father’s voice croaked.
I lifted my head and saw my father standing behind me. His hands were balled into fists and he kept them at his sides as he stared at me with an unspeakable amount of grief pouring from the depths of his dark, soulful eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I shrieked. “I’m so sorry, Daddy.” I dropped my head into my hands as my body writhed with sobs. I felt him drop onto the grass behind me before he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me against him, rocking me in his arms as he laid his chin on top of my head.
“Shh,” he whispered against my hair. “You have nothing to be sorry for,” he murmured.
“Not a damn thing,” he assured, his voice cracking as he spoke.
“It’s my fault. I should’ve called for help and I didn’t,”
“You were five years old Lacey,” he gritted, pulling back and turning my head so I could see his face. “You were just a baby yourself. It was my job…” he paused, his lower lip quivered as he fought to control his emotions. “…it was my job to protect your brother and watch after him,” he ground out. “Mine and only mine.”
He lifted his hand to his head.
“I wasn’t thinking straight,” he admitted.
“You couldn’t think straight,” I whispered.
“My maker…,” he started.
“…was speaking, and you had no choice but to listen,” I finished.
He stared at me speechless and I watched the man most people feared, the man who I thought was larger than life—I watched as a tear slid down his cheek.
“You had no control over what your head was forcing you to believe. The voice was so vivid, so real, you believed every word. It didn’t matter that your heart knew better, you weren’t the one in control anymore. You were a victim of a brutal attack of words that ripped apart your world and fed you straight to the devil. Maybe you tried to fight, wear your maker down, but you can only fight for so long, until you’re exhausted and you have no choice but to surrender.”
I stared at my father as he swiped his hands over his face and looked back at me with remorse. His apology for what his voice couldn’t bring himself to say.
He knew.
And I was the one to tell him.
I was the one to break the silence.
My voice.
And not the voice of my maker.
“Lacey,” he croaked, reaching for me as I pushed off the grass and rose to my feet.
“I’m sorry you lost a son. I’m sorry you were left with me and I’m sorry I fell in love with your friend but like I can’t control my mind…I can’t control my heart.”
His face changed instantly. His eyes hardened and his jaw clenched.
“You what?”
“I fell in love with Blackie but you don’t have to get all bent out of shape about it because he doesn’t feel the same way. I should’ve listened to my maker, but I didn’t. She knew hi
s loyalty was with you and not me. She knew he could never care for me the way I cared for him. She knew everything, but I tried to fight.” I paused, watching my father’s face contort with mixed emotions. “I surrender,” I whispered. “I’m ready to admit I’m crazy,”
He was on his feet in a flash, forcing me to blink and stare at him in shock as he grabbed my shoulders and leveled me with a stare.
“Don’t you dare,” he hissed. “You are not crazy,” he ordered. “You hear me? You are not crazy and don’t ever…,” he paused, shook my shoulders to drive his point home. “Don’t you ever let anyone tell you otherwise!”
He released his grip on me and took a step backward, pacing the small area in front of Jack’s grave.
“It’s not your fault,” I called out to him. “You didn’t do this to me.”
He turned around, and I peered into the eyes of the mentally ill man who tried so hard to escape his maker. I saw determination and anger fight to break through the sorrow and grief reflected in his eyes.
“Sure I did,” he rasped.
Freedom has a price.
The price of my freedom became my father’s torment.
I’m sorry, daddy.
I’m so very sorry.
Chapter Twenty-nine
I’ve lost one child.
Held him in my arms as his body turned cold.
Watched his Mama kiss him one final time.
Kissed his lips before they closed the coffin.
Had my brother’s hold me down so I wouldn’t follow his casket into the earth.
Burying your child, knowing your life goes on and his doesn’t is hell in its purest form.
I wake up each day and it’s the first thing on my mind.
Another day I’m here and he isn’t.
The day ends and I close my eyes only to see his face.
Since Jack Jr.’s death I have told myself there is no greater pain, nothing worse than knowing my illness and my pride is what took my son’s life.
But there is a pain that might not be greater but just as harsh and just as annihilating.
I didn’t see it coming, or maybe I chose not to see it. Who wants to believe that their child is sick? My ex-wife voiced her concerns months ago when I dropped Lacey off after that shit went down with Blackie but I ignored it.
I told Connie she was crazy.
Lacey was just feeling some girl shit for my vice president.
She was a typical girl with a crush.
What the fuck did I know about any of that?
Nothing.
I knew nothing.
But I know what it is to be manic-depressive. I know the villain that lives inside my head, someone I call my maker.
And I know that motherfucker well.
So does Connie, she’s the one who pleaded with me for years to get help. I ignored her then just as I ignored her now when she told me she was concerned Lacey may be manic. I blew her off, told her she couldn’t blame my illness on everything wrong with the world.
I didn’t want to believe that I could be the reason my daughter lives in eternal darkness, the lights were already turned down for one kid and as fucked up as it sounds, at least he was at peace.
Lacey doesn’t know peace.
And I know what that’s like.
Hearing her say the words, watching the pain in her eyes as she introduced me to her maker made it real and broke every chamber of my heart.
As a parent we want what is best for our children. We want to give them a shot at life, one we weren’t granted…at least that’s the kind of parent I tried to be to Lacey. I wanted to protect her from the evil. I tried so hard to keep her away from my club. I thought that shit was evil and destructive but, all the while she had evil and destruction living inside her head.
Lacey lives and suffers with a mind that feeds her uncontrollable temptations, forcing her to swallow what she knows and believe the doubt that her maker inflicts. She can be happy for a little while but then her mind takes over and shatters her happiness by making her think it wasn’t real or she didn’t deserve it.
She crashes and when she does all there is darkness.
And a bottle of lithium.
Or in her case nothing.
Connie had called me earlier in hysterics and after listening to her plead her case I went downstairs and stared at the photos that covered my walls. I slowly removed one of the frames and stared at the gaping hole in the wall, a reminder—I’m a manic depressive and I waited too long to get help. A hole that mimics the one left behind when my son left this world.
Jack I’m telling you, she’s not right. I know the signs I lived them—with you. You need to talk to her. Please. You’re the only one who can help her.
I called Mack, and he told me Lacey was at the cemetery. I knew then that Connie was right. I don’t know why, but in my heart I knew there was something wrong with our girl. I wasn’t prepared to find her sobbing, blaming herself for Jack’s death. I wasn’t expecting to hear her tell me she was in love with Blackie.
But the thing that killed me was when she finished my sentences.
She confirmed my nightmare.
Then my precious girl told me it wasn’t my fault.
But it is.
If I didn’t have this shitty illness, she wouldn’t either.
I gave it to her.
And now I had to make it better.
I had to help her find her sunshine and pull her back from the darkness.
I had to protect her from her maker.
Because being her father meant being her protector, the one person who was never supposed to hurt her.
I’d make it right.
I walked over to her car, opened the door for her and took her hand as she climbed out. Connie opened the front door, instantly grabbed Lacey and enveloped her into her arms.
“I’m okay,” Lacey assured her mother as I followed them into the house, closing the door behind them. Connie’s husband, Rob, rose from the couch and extended his hand.
“I’ll give you guys a minute,” Rob offered.
Rob’s been good to my daughter, treated her like his own and he earned my respect. I shook his hand, gripping it hard.
“You’re as much a part of this as the rest of us,” I told him. “Stay.”
I felt Connie’s eyes on me and turned my head so our eyes locked.
“Lace, give us a minute,” I requested.
“So you can talk about me and make decisions for me? I’m an adult you can’t do that. I have as much— “
“So I can apologize to your mother,” I interrupted.
“Jack, you don’t have to apologize,” Connie whispered, wrapping her arm around Lacey’s shoulders as she stared back at me.
I held up my hand and shook my head, stopping any further words from spilling out her mouth.
“I should’ve listened to you then and now,” I asserted. “Maybe things would be different.”
“Or maybe they wouldn’t,” she said. “No one knows better than you and I, sometimes you don’t get a choice, sometimes there’s a bigger plan.”
I stared into her eyes, bloodshot and full of unshed tears and swore to myself to take the pain away from her eyes. I put that pain there, all those years ago, when the lines on her face weren’t yet visible and before we leave this earth and are reunited with our boy, I will take that pain away.
“Got a chance this time to make it right though,” I rasped, reaching out and taking Lacey’s hands, pulling her out of her mother’s arms. I bent my knees, stared into her eyes and hoped she’d find the will reflected in my eyes. “Say your peace and say it loud, give your truth to your mother and let us help you.”
Lacey stared back at me, her lip trembling as she breathed through her mouth.
“It’s okay,” I whispered. “You’re going to be okay but to get better you have to accept it. You need to say it out loud and not be scared or ashamed.”
She nodded as she took my hand and turned around
to face Connie.
“I need help,” she admitted, hesitantly. “Because there are times, more often than not when I can’t control my thoughts, when everything I think I know is ripped from me and I can’t make sense of it all anymore. I have tried to; I swear I’ve tried…but I’m so tired of fighting with myself. I just want to be normal but I’m scared,” her voice trailed off as she cried along with her mother.
She diverted her eyes to mine.
“I’m scared the medicine won’t work and that I’m stuck like this. I’ve known for a long time there was something wrong with my head but I never said it out loud. If I go get help and it doesn’t work there is no hope so, I fight and I hold off because I’m not ready to live the rest of my life knowing I’ll never be happy…truly happy. I’m silent because in silence there is hope.”
“Look at me,” I said, grabbing her shoulders. “I’m your hope, okay? When you doubt yourself and your ability, you look at your old man and know there’s a hope. A bastard like me doesn’t deserve peace, but I got it, and I’m hanging onto it. You, Lacey, you’re sweet and you are loving, you’re a good girl with a great big future and if I got it, then you better believe you’ll have it too because I can’t believe that God would give me good and not you.”
She brushed away her tears and choked back a sob before a smile slightly formed on her face.
“You’re happy,” she whispered.
“I am,” I admitted. “I found happiness, baby, and you will too,” I whispered. “I promise you. We will get you the best help there is and do whatever we got to do to make sure that bitch of a maker shuts the fuck up,” I said hoarsely as I winked at her.
She let out a giggle and glanced over her shoulder at her mother.
“I might not have said it that way but your father’s right,” she smiled reassuringly.
“That’s because you never agree with me,” I teased, blowing out a breath as I brought Lacey into my arms.
“What happens now?” she asked against my shoulder.
“I’ll call my doctor in the morning and set up an appointment,” I looked at Connie, who nodded in agreement.
“Until then, why don’t you get some rest? Tomorrow’s another day,” Connie added.
“We’ll order dinner, or I can go to that take-out place you like and pick it up,” Rob offered.
The Tempted Series: Collectors Edition Page 146
