Mending Michael

by J. P. Grider

She bites the side of her lip like she always does. "It's easier to take care of someone else's problems than your own," she says, straightened and serious.

  I raise my eyebrows in agreement. "I don't need your help."

  "Tough." She rolls the paper towels back up, places them on the coffee table, and takes her cup of coffee. Sitting back down next to me, she pats my knee like we're old buddies and says, "I'm here to stay."

  "What? Stay? Who elected you my guardian angel? And what makes you think I want you to stay here?"

  The sparkles in her eyes fizzle out, and I'm pretty sure I just hurt her feelings. Finally. But tough. She came here uninvited.

  "I wasn't talking about actually staying here. I just meant, I'd see you through this, you ungrateful ass."

  "Hey." I cup my hand around her wrist, a habit I really need to break but can't seem to stop myself from doing. "No one asked you to do anything. I don't need you to see me through this or anything else I got going on in my life. You got that?"

  She nods, her eyes flat, her face grim.

  Holly swings her designer purse over her shoulder and leaves my home.

  Leaving me feeling shittier than I had before she walked into my home.

  And if the clenching in my chest is any indication, into my heart.

  20

  HOLLY

  Rather than hanging out with my friends today, I decide to pay a visit to Donny, even though he was rude yesterday. I figure I can't really blame him, considering all that's happening with Kenna. But after spending the whole rest of the night, or early morning actually, researching child services laws, I want to put what I learned into action. Mick may not want me to help, but that little girl needs someone to come to her defense, and well, let's face it, I got nothing better to do with my time. I'm flunking out of college, my friends think of me as just good for a fun time—not anyone special—and well, I really like Kenna. I love her innocence.

  "What are you doing here at twelve in the afternoon on a Saturday? And on your day off, nonetheless?"

  "Can I have a Sprite, Don?" I lay a twenty dollar bill on the bar, "and a steak salad, please?"

  "Here's your Sprite. Now why you here?"

  "Where's Kenna's mom?"

  "Why do you care?"

  "Because I do. Is she in rehab?"

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  "Because she doesn't think she has a problem, I don't know. Why are you getting involved in this, Holly? It's none of your business, and I'm sure Mick doesn't want you sneaking around asking about his life. I heard you leave last night, Holl. You can't get involved."

  "Why not? Someone has to."

  "Not you. You barely know these people."

  Donny's right. I don't know these people, so why do I want to get involved? Is it to forget my own problems? Like I told Mick last night, it's easier to deal with other people's problems than with my own. But the fate of this little innocent girl seems so much more important than my desire to break free from my father.

  Unless of course, she's better off without her birth family.

  "Don? Can I ask you a question?"

  "I'm sure nothing I say will stop you."

  "I thought you liked me."

  Don puts the ketchup and salt and pepper in front of me. "I like you, Holl. I just think you're making a mistake getting involved. Maybe...maybe Kenna's better off without her mother."

  "But her uncle? Mick? Shouldn't she at least be with him?"

  "With a bachelor who works nights and drinks too much? I don't know. He loves that little girl to pieces, but he couldn't even handle this one week with her. How's he gonna get custody of her? And if he does, how's he gonna take care of her? There are things you don't know about that family, Holly. Maybe it's best all-around if Kenna's matched with a good family."

  My heart hurts just listening to him. Kenna's probably scared to death right now.

  "What if..." I stop talking, because all of a sudden, Donny's eyes are blown up, and he's shaking his head very slightly. "What?" I ask, but then I notice Donny's eyes are looking beyond me, and I follow them.

  The wind is suddenly knocked out of me.

  With the same jeans and tee he had on last night, and his eyes blood-shot and swollen, Mick is standing at the bar's side door. "Don't you ever go home?"

  I'm guessing Mick's snide remark was directed at me, since it's no surprise that Donny would be here.

  "Mick, you okay?" Donny asks.

  "You think you can cover again tonight? I just..."

  "Yeah. I got it, Mick. Don't worry about it."

  Tommy brings out my steak salad, then sees Mick. "Mick, man, sorry to hear."

  "Mmmm." Mick doesn't really respond.

  Tommy shrugs it off and returns to the kitchen.

  Mick sits two seats down from me but says nothing. He does, however, stare at me while I eat my salad.

  "Like I said before," I say, taking a sip of my soda before finishing, "take a picture. You can stare at it all day long if you want to." No longer hungry, I push my plate away, take one more sip of my drink, and tell Donny to keep the change from my twenty, before storming out of the bar.

  My mind is so distracted by Mick Ross and his asshole ways, and his niece that stole my heart, that I don't realize anyone is behind me until a cool hand slips around my forearm as I'm opening my car door. "You have got to stop doing that," I demand, yanking my arm from him.

  He removes his hand, but all I hear is his breathing behind me. I open my door and turn to look at him. "What?"

  Mick's shoulders rise and fall along with his increasingly rapid breathing, but still, he just stands there.

  "Listen, if you're done here, I gotta get going." I proceed to get into my car, but the clearing of his throat stops me.

  "What is it, Mick? Do you want my help now or do you want to tell me to fuck off? 'Cause truthfully, you're hard to read, and... I don't have the time to figure you out."

  "I'd like your help," he says so quietly it could have been the trees blowing in the wind.

  I shut my car door and lock it with my remote lock. "Then let's go upstairs and talk."

  21

  MICK

  "Actually, do you mind if we go somewhere? I'd like to show you something." I'm astonished at the uncertainty of my words and the insecurity in my voice. Hopefully, Holly can't hear it.

  "Oh." She hesitates, unsure herself. "Okay. Sure. Um..." she turns to look at her car, like maybe she should drive, but I stop her.

  "I'm not drunk, I'll drive."

  "Oh."

  "We can take my sister's car, or... I have an extra helmet if you don't mind riding on the back of my bike."

  Her eyes widen and those sparkles light up. "Really?" she asks, smiling.

  "You like riding on motorcycles?"

  "I don't know. I never have."

  "Do you want to?" I ask, suddenly nervous to have her sitting behind me...so close.

  "Okay," she says, still smiling, and it catches me off guard that she didn't add some snippy remark with her answer.

  I grab the extra helmet from the back hall and hand it to Holly. She swings her legs over my bike like she's an old pro. and she winks at me before I get on. I don't know if she's being a smart-ass, if she's flirting, or if it's just in her nature to wink for the heck of it. I get on my bike and scoff at myself—I'm putting way too much thought into it.

  "So where we going?" she asks before I turn on the engine.

  "The next town over. Do you trust me?" My tone is serious.

  "Mick," she leans in toward my ear, "I barely know you, how can I trust you? But if you're asking if I feel safe with you, then, yes, surprisingly, I do."

  My shoulders relax, yet my stomach tenses. How can I feel both relieved and nervous at the same time?

  Without further thought, I tell her to hang on tight, and I start my bike. Her arms weakly wrap around my waist. Ignoring the thumping in my chest, I once again wrap my hands around her wrists and pull them in closer
, so that she now has no choice but to lace her fingers together. I rip out of the parking lot, and her chest crashes against my back, her arms tightening even more around me. I'm grateful my heart is not in my stomach, because I'd be embarrassed if she knew just how rapidly my heart is beating at the moment. I'd hate to give her any ammunition to use against me, and I'm guessing if she sees through me, sees she makes me nervous, I'd be ripe for her picking.

  Ten minutes later, we're where we need to be.

  "Where are we?" she asks, applying pressure to my back as she lifts her leg over the seat.

  "This is what I wanted to show you." I take her helmet from her and leave them both on my seat.

  "A one-floor ranch?"

  Leading her up the walkway, I find the key on my ring and unlock the door. "Please excuse the mess." I sigh, dropping my shoulders in grief. "My sister lives here."

  "Oh. Charity?"

  "Yeah." Picking up broken glass and ceramic as we work our way into the living room, I apologize again. "I'm sorry. The house doesn't usually look like this."

  "You don't need to apologize for your sister's house. Is she home? Will she mind I'm here? I mean..."

  "She's not home, and uh, I kind of caused this mess."

  "You broke everything?"

  "Nooo. I said I caused it. I didn't make the mess."

  Holly follows me to the kitchen where I pull out a chair for her and offer her some water.

  "No thank you."

  "Coffee. You'd rather have coffee, right? That seems to be what you give to me all the time."

  She chuckles and says, "I'm good. Now why are we here?"

  "You said I need a place to live." I nod.

  "Sooo... you're going to live with your sister?"

  "My parents left this house to me. It's my house."

  "Oh," she says, eyebrows raised, then dropped. "Sorry about your parents."

  "They're not dead. They're in Florida."

  "Oh." She laughs with her hand over her mouth.

  "They took off the minute Charity told them she was pregnant." I shake my head in disappointment. "They wanted nothing to do with taking care of another baby."

  Immediately, Holly's smile fades, and she sighs.

  "Yeah. They're sweet like that," I joke, non-humorously. "Anyway, they sold my father's screen printing business, took the money, and bought themselves a nice place to live in Long Boat Key, and left me with the house, the taxes, and a pregnant heroin-addicted sister."

  "Oh my." Holly looks like she doesn't even know what to say after that. But after a second or two, she straightens and asks, "So... how did your sister end up with the house?"

  "When Donny gave me the job as night bartender, he let me rent the studio upstairs. Before that, I lived in the apartment out back. I couldn't live with T. She just...her lifestyle was too crazy for me."

  "But she was pregnant. And, then after Kenna was born?"

  "I couldn't stop her, Holly. I tried." I took a swallow of pride and continued our very sad story. "She wasn't as bad back then. She drank a lot. Smoked some weed. Maybe dabbled in harder shit. Recently, though....Anyway, I kept my nighttime job, took early morning classes, and spent part of my days here with Kenna...once she was born.

  "When I would leave for work at night, I made sure my... ex-girlfriend or one of my neighbors would check in on them. Usually Kenna's to sleep by six, so...it worked." I'm trying so hard to hold back my tears, but knowing I failed Kenna is all-consuming, and I can't help myself. Squeezing the bridge of my nose and closing my eyes, I swallow back the impending tears. Once I've regained composure, I open my eyes to see Holly crying—not much, but her eyes sit behind a wave of unshed tears.

  "Now why are you crying?" I half laugh, half blurt.

  "I don't cry," she says emphatically, her eyes betraying her words.

  "That's not what I saw the other day," I remind her, referring to her phone conversation in the corner.

  Rolling her eyes and ignoring my reminder, she asks, "So where is she now?"

  "Who?"

  "Your sister."

  "Oh. Luke and I dragged her to rehab this morning."

  "Dragged?"

  "She didn't go too willingly." I pause, remembering how we had to pick her up and carry her out. "But she loves Kenna...I know she does." With my heart sinking lower with every beat, I admit, "She just has a sickness she doesn't know how to cure."

  "Will she sign herself out?"

  "I hope not."

  For several seconds, maybe even a whole minute, Holly and I just stare at each other—no words to say, but unable to trivialize the heaviness of the conversation by looking away.

  Holly is the first to break the stare when she blinks back those tears she says she doesn't cry. "So," she starts, "your reason for taking me here...do you plan on moving in?"

  I nod. "Yes."

  "Good." Her auburn eyebrows dip in the center while she thinks. "You're going to need to prove it somehow, though, no?"

  "The house is already in my name, I don't know how to prove it otherwise."

  "Me neither, but...we'll find you a lawyer by Monday."

  "Yeah? And how are you going to pull that trick out of your sleeve?"

  "I don't know, but I like to think positive."

  "Can I ask you something?"

  "Yeah."

  "Am I some kind of pet project or something? Why are you doing this? Why me?"

  "You asked for my help."

  "You offered first. Why?"

  Holly shrugs but says nothing.

  "We did get off on the wrong foot, didn't we?" I admit.

  "What does that mean?"

  "It means...oh crap, I don't know what it means. Forget I said anything."

  "It means we haven't been very nice to each other?" she remarks.

  "Not very."

  "You, like, had an attitude towards me from that first day." She fake pouts. "Do you, like, hate everyone who tries to get served illegally?"

  For some reason, this makes me smile, but I don't respond to that question. She is the only one that rubbed me the wrong way when she tried to get served.

  And I can't even put my finger on why.

  Maybe because of the way she reacted when I wouldn't serve her?

  Maybe because I had put her up on this unrealistic pedestal from the moment she walked through the door?

  Maybe because no one had ever caused my heart to jump, stop, and pound ferociously all at the same time?

  Not even Lara.

  I am at a loss for a real reason why my stomach turned every time she'd walked into the bar in the past.

  And now, I'm at a loss for why I can't even recall the feelings of dislike for her.

  Because all I want to do right now is pull her into my arms and have her heal me from the inside out.

  22

  HOLLY

  "It's not a difficult question to answer," I press, still wondering if he hates everyone who tries to get served illegally, or just me.

  Mick just stares at me.

  So I raise my eyebrows, not letting him get off that easily. After all, for the past, what, two and a half, three years, he's given me these looks that had his eyes had the power, they'd have knocked me senseless, or left me for dead.

  "No."

  "No. That's it. No. No what?"

  He hesitates again, but I see his gears turning, so I wait.

  "No, I didn't hate everyone who'd tried to get served illegally."

  I'm a bit surprised. "Just me?"

  "Just you," he says without a nod.

  With a questioning sigh, I lean back in my chair, disappointed in his response.

  "May I ask why?" My arms are pretzeled across my chest, giving me an air of authority, or something intimidating like that.

  "You may. Doesn't mean I'll answer." Mick tries to keep his expression neutral, but his eyes belie the indifference—they're dark, almost black, and they're intense. There's something he's not telling me.

  His eyes burn
darker before he rises from his chair and approaches the kitchen window.

  The awkwardness between us is back, so I try my best to lessen it by saying, "It's okay. I didn't like you either."

  I hear a groan, but he's suppressing a laugh.

  "So the first play in our game plan is to clean up this house and make it look like yours...and childproof it. I'm pretty sure it needs to be childproofed."

  The tone of my voice masks the unsettling in my chest—I'm still feeling awkward. Mick doesn't need to know that. Though the sound his hands make when they slap against the window challenges my already shaky cloak. But I pull on my big-girl panties and step up behind him at the window.

  "You'll get her back, Mick," I encourage quietly, yet not so reassuringly, since my voice loses its confident disguise and cracks.

  "You don't know that," he says just as quietly.

  Gathering more courage, I now stand beside him. "You're right. I don't know it. But I'd rather think positively and do something about making it happen, then do nothing at all."

  He turns his head just slightly to peer at me through narrowed eyes. "Is that how you deal with everything in your life? Barrel through until you get what you want?"

  Yeah. Don't I wish? "Yup. It's the only way to live," I lie, knowing damn well I haven't made one move to get what I want for my future. If only I had the courage to stand up to Daddy, I could walk the talk. Instead, I'm a lame-ass liar telling Mick to do something I'm not sure I'd have the courage to do if I were in his shoes. I'd like to think, though, if an innocent child's life and welfare were at stake, I'd be brave enough to barrel through and make things happen.

  "I admire that," he says, making me choke on the guilt of my lie. "You okay there?"

  "Uh, yeah." I sigh, leaning forward, my hands on the high windowsill. "I lied."

  His head snaps in my direction and I move my hands, clenching them at my sides, then fumbling with them at my pockets.

  "What the heck you talking about?"

  "Barreling through my life. I don't. I'm pretty lame."