by Liz Crowe
“Cut it out.” Antony smacked it away. “Get a hold of yourself. Don’t you dare pass out you damned pussy.”
“Fuck you.” Flipping over onto his side, he groaned with pain when his shoulder got constricted then flopped onto his back again. “Fuck you. Fuck her. Fuck all y’all.”
“You can’t afford to plug Mama’s swear jar that much so shut your stupid mouth a few minutes.” Antony waved toward the house. “Over here!”
A huge wave of nausea crashed into Kieran, forcing him to lie back and shut his stupid mouth. It hurt less that way, generally speaking. His chest burned, his throat ached, and the world kept waning in and out on him. He willed it to fade and stay faded, as in for good. Shivering so hard his teeth rattled, he reached for the quiet that loomed, easing into it with a sigh.
When he woke to a blindingly white ceiling, yammering voices filled the room, pressed in on his ears, crushed his chest. He coughed then couldn’t stop coughing. A nurse pushed through the mass of humanity gathered around his bed.
“Let’s give him some space, all right folks?” she suggested in a way that came out more like an order. He didn’t care much, as long as the coughing would please, dear Lord, stop. It racked him, until his neck and shoulder sang out in pain. The scary, flailing around for a life-giving-breath sensation reminded him of the attacks he used to get as a kid.
“Do you have asthma?” The nurse studied at the screen that he assumed displayed his vital signs.
Spit dribbled out of his mouth as he tried like hell to draw a full breath. Another nurse came in wielding an implement familiar to him. She stuck one end of the plastic device into his mouth and flipped a switch. The whirring motorized sound and rubbery-plastic odor of a nebulizer filled the room. He gripped it and took deep breaths, or as deep as he could and visualized the medicine opening his bronchioles allowing life giving oxygen to enter his bloodstream. Holding onto the thing with both hands he dropped onto the pillow.
But the nurses forced him to sit upright and he finished the treatment before his mother peered around the door. At the sight of her, his faced burned. He accepted her cool palm on his cheek in silence. It sent him spiraling back to when she’d babied him for weeks after his broken leg until Antony and Dominic had insisted that he get his sorry ass up and stop moping.
“Oh, my boy, my sweet Kieran,” she crooned in that way she had. “Rest. Sleep. It’ll be fine.”
“No, it won’t. I...I’m...we broke up again. My fu—I mean my car is ruined and it was the last money I had. I lost my job. I can’t do anything right.” The words sounded like they were coming from someone else’s mouth, they were so unbelievably lame.
“Oh, my love, it’s a real hitch to be certain. But you’ll find your way.”
A sickening rush of fury lit the edges of his self-pity. “No, I won’t. Go on and leave me alone.” He flopped onto the pillows, arm over his face.
When he moved his arm and sought her comforting gaze, he found an empty room. Another piece of his soul broke off and dropped to his feet.
The next time he woke, daylight filled the room—of what day he had no idea, and cared less. The inside of his mouth felt coated in week-old spit, his face prickly with stubble. He swung his feet to the floor and sat hanging onto his throbbing shoulder. A few shuffling, wincing moments later he faced the mirror, taking stock of his aches and pains and acknowledging that he needed a drink, many drinks, as in right now. He held onto the doorway, head fuzzy from whatever pain meds they’d forced into him.
“Yo, you look like something I’d sweep off the side of the road, no offense.” His brother Dominic sat, flipping through a stale magazine.
“Get the hell out. I don’t like visitors.” Kieran groaned when he tried to turn his sore neck. “I mean it. I’m not in the mood, unless you brought some beer.”
“Huh, that’s funny. I figured an idiotic stunt the likes of which landed you in the hospital for five days is the longest you’ve gone dry in a while.”
“What-the-fuck-ever.”
“Nice mouth. No wonder Mama thinks you need psychiatric help. That made me feel pretty good, actually, as it makes two of us.”
“Great.”
“Ginger, you know I could give a rat’s ass how you abuse yourself with alcohol, basketball, or bitchy women.” Dom rose and stretched. Kieran caught sight of another bit of ink art gracing his skin.
“Yeah? Well, then leave me alone, all right? And does Mama know about that?” He pointed to Dom’s side. The other man shrugged and lifted the shirt as if he’d forgotten about the image of a heavy chain that wound around his waist. Kieran sighed. “Beat it. I’m no fun. And I don’t need babysitting.”
Dominic walked over to his side, but Kieran studied the wall, ignoring whatever tough- love bullshit his family had tossed at him via the most unlikely brother imaginable.
Dom’s grip tightened like a clamp.
“Let go of me.”
But his brother leaned down until their noses nearly touched, never taking his claw-like grasp off Kieran’s biceps.
“Need I remind you, Mr. Perfect, our mother is still sick? We need to rally for her sake. This pity party you’ve been throwing since you busted your leg is gettin’ way old.”
“I’m not throwing a—”
“Now you listen to me, ya stupid, brown-nosing ginger. Our family needs you to hold your shit together. I know you lost your job. I heard about that bitch, and I say good riddance to that hot mess. It’s been a real mixed blessin’ of a week for you my brother. You need to realize that for what it is and the sooner the better.”
“You have no idea what I’m going through. You have no—”
“Lookit, Francis, that dog don’t hunt no more. You’ve been walking around inside your self-absorbed bubble nearly two years and I am over it. So you got rid of that slut, you can find a new job, you move on.”
“Go to hell.”
“Thing is, that’s not so bad a place, once you get used to it.” Dom’s lips lifted in an ironic and unpleasant grin. “And lay off the sauce. You know Hallorans and Loves dead from liver failure litter the family tree.”
Kieran flipped his brother off by way of farewell and tugged the blanket over his head, dropping into blissful unconsciousness.
In what felt like three minutes he jerked awake, sensing someone else in the room. He sat, rubbing his face, and trying to fight through the fog of painkillers.
“Son.” His father’s deep voice made him shudder on reflex. While he’d been the one son who went his whole life without a strapping, he’d learned how to deflect, to be a little sneaky, or at least not as overtly stupid as his other siblings. But on the whole, he had stayed “that kid,” the good one, the peacemaker, the true athlete.
The loser.
“They’re discharging you tomorrow. We want you to come to the house.”
His parents always called it the house as if there were some other place they would call home. It grated on Kieran at that moment so much he had to grit his teeth against the urge to curse. He shook his head.
“I have a place. I’ll go there. I don’t need twenty-four-hour care.”
“You need somethin’,” his father said. “I’ll be damned if I know what it is right now, but your mama wants you home. And I’m about gettin’ your mama what she wants. So I’ll be here to fetch you in the morning. Be ready.”
Chapter Eleven
Cara held on tight when Kent swung the boat around so it bumped against the dock. Her stomach gave a sickening lurch at the sudden switch in direction. She shot Kent’s mother and father a weak smile as they climbed in and took their seats, settling a picnic basket between them.
“You look a little peaked, hon.” Mrs. Lowery patted her knee. “Hope it’s not catching.” She shot her husband a classic she’s not strong stock I told you so arched brow.
Ignoring his mother’s commentary, Kent steered out toward the anchored pontoon boat where they’d be dining this evening. Cara blushed when h
e raised his sunglasses and winked at her. They’d been going at it nearly nonstop for the last few weeks, ever since the reunion¸ as he liked to call it, at the cheesy B&B.
She sipped ginger ale in a feeble attempt to manage her newly discovered nausea. The wind whipped a strand of hair loose. The sun heated her face as she tilted it up, feeling like a snake basking on a rock, although she knew she’d regret it in a few hours. No matter how much sunblock she used, her nose, cheeks, and ears would get pink and sensitive after a while. And her freckles would multiply, something that had given her no end of grief as a teenager.
Touching her flat stomach, she smiled. If there were ever any doubt that she’d indeed be walking down the aisle, tying her future forever-and-ever-amen to this rich, snooty family of lawyers, it no longer taunted her, not even when she thought about Kieran.
“Here we are. All aboard,” Kent declared as he executed a perfect maneuver and pulled alongside the pontoon boat, latching them at both ends before assisting his mother then Cara onto the deck. She’d already set the table on her first trip out here. They’d made out for a while under the awning until it became obvious that if they went much further they’d be putting on a show for fellow boaters.
“I adore you,” he’d said, staring deep into her soul as they caught their breath. “I’m so happy. You make me so very happy.” He’d placed his palm on her stomach. “I’m even happy we have to get married now.”
“I’m happy you’re happy. We can’t tell your mother though. She’ll just die and then toss me into the lake.”
“Oh, you might be surprised. I can count you know, and my older brother’s birthday is suspiciously inside a nine-month window after their wedding anniversary.”
“No, I can’t take the embarrassment. We’ll hope the baby is small and we can call it premature.”
He’d frowned at her.
“What?” she’d asked.
“I don’t want lie to my parents. Not about this.”
She’d sighed. “Well, at least not today, please, for me? We have to talk engagement teas and all sorts of things that already make my head ache. I can’t take her thinking I’m a gold-digging slut on top of it.”
“My love, she thinks that already. She thought that about Robert’s wife, too, and that woman makes more money than my brother ever will.”
And now, as they settled in at their seats around the table anchored to the deck, using fine china and crystal for their chicken-salad sandwiches, deviled eggs, and coleslaw meal, Cara knew he was going to do it—to inform his mother that they were in the family way…bun in the oven…preggers. Cara’s stomach lurched and she had to concentrate hard on not puking.
Kent held his Waterford wine glass to the middle of the table. They all touched theirs to his. Cara put her lips to the edge of the glass but didn’t take a sip. Truth be told, being pregnant didn’t freak her out. It gave her something to focus on that did not concern her inexplicable lukewarm feelings toward her future husband.
Mrs. Lowery noted her lack of drinking with the eagle eye of a woman fixated on her son’s future. When she touched the edge of the linen napkin to her perfectly lipsticked mouth, Cara ducked her head, feeling all sorts of busted.
She should know better than to put one of this magnitude over the formidable Vivian Lowery. The group ate in silence for a few moments, the only sounds chewing, and metal on china. Cara’s nerves stretched thin in a way she didn’t much care for.
A sudden, unwanted vision of Kieran Love burst across her consciousness. After the accident in Antony’s pond, he’d moved in with his parents for a few while. She’d gone to see him once, at his mother’s direct request.
“I know it will cheer him up to see you,” Lindsay Love had insisted as they blocked shoppers at the big Publix grocery on Highway Twelve. “Please. Humor an old woman, will you?”
And of course, Cara had caved, agreeing to come by the next day, around two thirty, after a short day at the clinic.
“Don’t let on I begged you, all right, hon?”
Cara had nodded and resisted the urge to fold the woman into a hug. She’d always adored Kieran’s mother and the woman had seemed so frail and unhappy that day.
Once there, she’d nearly marched right back to her car, twice. She’d had no business there. None whatsoever. The man inside no longer played a part in her life, not anymore. And the house’s familiar front door, its comfortable edges and nooks and crannies held so many memories—all of them good—she didn’t want to relive them. It would make her pine. It would make her weak. It would make her not want to marry Kent even more.
“So, you kids have something to tell us? That’s why we’re out here having dinner in the middle of the lake?” Kent’s father intoned interrupting the memory of her awkward visit with her ex-boyfriend earlier that day. Kent Senior studied her like a specimen of something he didn’t understand—not like his wife’s overt fake enthusiasm, but somehow worse. Not a new thing, that, and something she’d gotten used to, but the tips of her ears flamed hot in a way that did not bode well for her blood pressure. Kent’s parents were insufferable. What made her think bearing them a grandchild to carry on the family name and tradition of stuck-up lawyering would help change that?
“Son?” Vivian prompted, sipping her wine.
Kent cleared his throat, wiped his mouth, and put the napkin on the table before reaching over to help Cara to her feet. Yet more red tendrils escaped her sun hat she shook her head so hard. A drop of sweat rolled down her face as he crushed her close to his side. She tried not to struggle away from him. That would surely not look good at this declarative moment.
“Mother, Daddy,” he began, gripping her hard as if sensing her need for escape. “Cara and I....” He stopped. She glanced at him, perplexed. The man was never at a loss for words even in the face of his know-it-all parents. “We’re gonna have a baby.” The sentence burst out of his mouth and hung in the air over the remains of their lunch.
Kent’s mother narrowed her gaze. His father blew out a puff of air as an expression resembling extreme relief spread over his face. Cara blinked, trying to process why he would appear as though someone had called in his death-row pardon. His mother stayed seated while Kent Senior pulled the two of them into an uncharacteristic bear hug. He smelled of old booze and cigars and at that moment, Cara realized she faced the shotgun barrel of her future.
“Son, that is....” Mr. Lowery gripped their elbows. “That is the best news I’ve heard in a long time. Let’s celebrate. Viv? Darlin’ did you pack that champagne like I asked you to?”
Kent dropped his arm from around Cara so fast she nearly fell over. He watched as his mother rose to her feet, slim, perfectly put together for a day on the lake in her designer capris, tank top, and sandals revealing her expensive pedicure. The expression on Kent’s face was one Cara would later recognize as anguish.
“Well,” she said, her dismissive tone firmly in place. “How...nice.”
The very air bulged between them all, fraught with things she couldn’t begin to fathom and didn’t think she wanted to until Mr. Lowery snagged her, and turned her around in a little circle under his arm on the deck of the pontoon boat, making the boat sway and bob and sending her stomach into a death spiral.
“Oh good heavens let go of her, Kent Senior.” Vivian gave her son the wine bottle without meeting his eyes. “The poor dear is positively green around the gills. I know how it is, honey, and I’ve just the thing. Come over here and let’s talk baby names or something.” She patted the seat Cara had vacated, her expression not even close to matching the apparent kindness of her words. They remained flinty, accusatory, hard in a way that made Cara want to jump into the speed boat and get as far from her as she could.
“Now, now, don’t be mad, Junior,” she said, giving her son a hairy eyeball. “Takes me a bit longer to absorb the joyous news is all. Relax. A Lowery baby is cause for happiness.”
But when she shifted her gaze to Cara who’d eased into
her seat, her face did not relay one iota of happiness. Cara frowned at Kent as he and his father snipped off the ends of their cigars, willing him not to leave her alone with his mother and her laser-beam death-glare.
“So, you kids don’t use birth control, or did the mood grip you too hard?”
“Don’t start. You have no space to judge.” Kent kept his voice mild as he studied his cigar.
“Why, I declare I’m not. Only asking, you know, how we all talk in this day and age, in an open way.” She batted her lashes at him. He frowned, but to Cara’s dismay, climbed into the small boat and cast off so he and his father could putter a few yards away to poison the air with their smoke.
“Viv, you be nice. That girl is our grandbaby’s mama.” Kent Senior’s parting shot floated over to the two women who were locked in a minor stare-down. The words that girl rattled around in Cara’s head like marbles. Her ears got hot again.
Vivian broke the staring contest first. She took some of the lemon slices they had out for tea and squeezed them into a sweating glass of ice water, stirred it around, and gave it to Cara like some kind of a temporary peace offering. Although she was sorely tempted to refuse it, Cara couldn’t resist the strong smell of lemons, which did seem to settle her stomach, so she took it, sipped, and waited for the woman to speak her mind.
“I always thought Robert’s wife would be first, you know?” Vivian fussed around with the plates and forks. “Kent’s so...flighty about women. Always had a new sweetheart every time I saw him.” She tucked the fancy napkins into the movie-set-perfect picnic basket. “How long have you and Kent been...together?” The words implying something more along the lines of: how long have you been seducing my precious younger son, corrupting him with your sluttish, hillbilly ways?
