And had failed, obviously.
Bart swallowed down his pain and took a deep breath, lifting his youngest son onto his lap. “Mommy’s not here, Deck. Remember what we talked about?”
Deck nodded. “Uh huh. Mommy is up in heaven with Nana and Odie. But I need her to come home and say the word because the ghost is in my closet and wants to eat me.” He squeezed his dinosaur so hard it folded over his chubby arm.
Bart hugged his son, pressing his face into Deck’s fine, pale hair, fighting off tears and the despair that made them. He didn’t know what to say. What he wanted most in the world was to tell his son that Mommy would be home soon. But Mommy would never be home again. She’d been murdered.
Right in front of their children.
Deck seemed to have no memory of that, but Lexi and Ian both did. They would bear those scars on their memories for the rest of their lives. Lexi, his beautiful girl, who’d loved to sing and dance, would bear literal scars as well. Her leg was a map of them, and she’d never walk without a limp again.
Bart hadn’t told any of his brothers, but he had all three kids in therapy. Their counselor pushed him every time to get help for himself, too, but he couldn’t. He wouldn’t.
A patch didn’t open up to strangers. Ever. So he soldiered on by himself, alone with his loss. His children, however, would always get any help they needed.
“What did Dr. Stan say you should do when you wanted Mommy?”
Deck looked up at him with Riley’s eyes. “Make a movie in my mind of her.”
“Can you make a movie in your mind of Mommy saying the word?”
“Yes, but how can the ghost hear her when she says it?”
“I think Mommy is watching out for you, so she’ll make sure he can hear her. You want to try?”
Deck, not looking especially convinced, nodded, and Bart gathered him up in his arms and got off the bed. He carried his son next door, into his bedroom, and stood him on the floor. Holding tightly to his hand, he said, “Is he here?”
“Yeah.” Deck peered tensely around the open closet door.
“Okay. Try to make a movie.”
With scrunched-tight eyes. Deck concentrated. Bart held onto his hand and watched. Suddenly, Deck went board-straight with a jerk, and then let out a long breath. He opened his eyes and checked the closet again.
“Did it work?”
“Yeah! He’s gone!” He looked up at his ceiling with a bright smile and yelled, “Thanks, Mommy!”
Closing his eyes, Bart withstood that emotional gut punch and then managed to smile down at his son. “That’s great! You think you can sleep now?”
Deck yawned theatrically and rubbed his fists over his eyes. His dinosaur—whose name was Aloysius—rocked back and forth with the motion of his arms. “Yeah, Daddy. I need sleep to be BIG AND STONG LIKE YOU.”
“That’s right. Come on, into bed.” Deck crawled into his race car bed, and Bart pulled the comforter up and tucked him in. He ruffled Deck’s flaxen mop and kissed his forehead. “Sleep tight, little man.”
“Snug as a bug, Daddy.”
“That’s right. Love you.”
“Love you.” He rolled to his side and curled up around Aloysius. As Bart headed to the door, Deck rolled to his back again. “Daddy, why can’t Mommy come back from heaven? Is it because when the bad guys came and made her and Lexi fall down?”
Bart had reached the doorway; now he gripped the frame in his hand. He couldn’t make himself turn around and face his son. It was the first time since that night that Deck had said even one word about it.
Unable to make his mind clear, he had no choice but to be truthful. “Yeah, Deck. That’s why.”
“She was red and she was crying and Uncle Roe picked me up so I could sit with her, and then she got red on me, too, but I didn’t have to go to heaven. Lexi got red on her, too, but she didn’t go to heaven. I don’t want Mommy to be in heaven. Can’t they get the red off her and let her come home like Lexi did?”
Bart leaned his forehead on the frame. He wasn’t strong enough for this. “I’m sorry, Deck. Mommy can’t come home.”
“It’s not fair.”
“No, little man. It’s not fair at all.” Finally, he turned back to his son. “Can you sleep?”
He thought about that. “Yes. I’m going to make another movie of Mommy.”
“Good idea. I think I will, too.”
When Declan turned to his side again and went quiet, Bart escaped to his room. He slid back into bed, pulled Riley’s pillows over, and buried his face in them.
Her scent was fading, but if he breathed deeply enough, he could still conjure her.
He didn’t let himself cry. If he cried, his tears might wash away what was left.
~oOo~
The next morning, he sat at the round table in the breakfast nook with his kids and ate the whole-wheat cinnamon raisin pancakes and sausage patties that their housekeeper, Marta, had made for them. Deck had rested well and was his usual, animated self, pushing sausages through the pool of syrup in his plate and making truck noises.
Ian was, as he had been since the night his mother died, silent, staring at his plate, inserting forkfuls into his mouth with robotic regularity. Bart didn’t push him; Dr. Stan had said that it was too early to draw any of them out of the coping mechanisms they’d chosen naturally.
Lexi, his Lexi. She tried so hard to be strong and grown-up. From the time she’d learned to walk and talk, she’d wanted to be her mom. She was only ten, but she’d reacted to her mother’s death and her own maiming with preternatural calm—the kind of calm that scared Bart. She wanted to take care of him and her brothers. She was trying to fill the void Riley had left and not giving herself the chance to feel it herself. If this was her way of coping, Bart worried that it would do more harm than good.
“Daddy, do you want some more coffee?” she asked now, glancing into his empty mug.
“No, Lex. Thanks, but I’m good.” He nodded toward her plate. Only about half a pancake was gone. “Not hungry?”
“Not really. I think I drank too much milk. I’ll eat more, though, I promise. I won’t waste it.”
“If you’re done, it’s okay. Don’t eat more than you want.”
“Okay.” She set her fork down on her plate. “Do you think you’ll go to work today?”
“I don’t think so, no. Thought I’d do some stuff in my office here.” He could barely stand to be in the clubhouse. The fucking club had gotten Riley killed and Lexi hurt. The club, his club, had ruined his life and the lives of his children. He hadn’t worked in the shop since her death. He hadn’t done anything for the club except attend a couple of meetings since the day he’d put a bullet in Emilio Zapata’s face. Since the day Hoosier had been killed.
He hated the fucking club.
Lexi gave him a worried frown. “Are you okay, Daddy?”
For her, he found a smile and put his hand on her shoulder. Her golden hair brushed over his fingers. “I love you, baby princess. I’m doing okay. How about you?”
She smiled back. “Dr. Stan says that every day is a little easier. Right?”
No, not right at all. But he kept that smile on and gave her a nod. “Right.”
The beautiful, sweet, kind daughter that his beautiful, sweet, kind wife had given him stood then and picked up her plate and glass. As Bart watched her limp to the counter, his fists clenched.
Marta, standing near the sink, who’d known Riley years longer than he had, met his eyes and gave him a sad, compassionate smile.
He looked away.
~oOo~
Bart opened the envelope and pulled out a slim sheaf of papers from the kids’ private school. The year had started more than a month ago, but Bart hadn’t sent them. He was still paying their tuition, and he knew they needed to have something real and normal in their lives again, but he could not abide the thought of having them outside his reach. He wanted them home. With him, where he could see them. If he had to leave, he w
anted them sealed inside the house he’d fortified. If they were out, he wanted to be with them.
The school, of course, knew what had happened—the whole fucking world knew at least a version of what had happened—and they’d been sympathetic when he’d said the kids weren’t ready to start school. But he was holding in his hands the second letter suggesting that they needed to return. The first letter had been gentle and apologetic; this one, as he read it over, was more pointed, indicating that there was a long waiting list for their seats if they wouldn’t be returning. They’d included removal paperwork for him to complete, should the children not be ready to return.
Sighing heavily, he dropped the letter and its envelope on his desk. He stood and stared out the window at Riley’s wildflower garden. Still a riot of vivid colors. He could almost see her out there, in her hat and pink gloves, shooing the gardener away so she could play in the dirt herself.
Everywhere he looked in his house, this life, he saw her. Even here in his office, the only room in the house she hadn’t had final say in decorating, he saw her out the window. He saw her on the desk and walls, in his framed photos. Vacations, road trips, birthdays, parties. He saw her on the shelves, in his vast array of collectibles, all gifts she’d given him over their years together.
She was in the huge, black, studded leather dog collar, a silver disk reading ‘ODIN’ dangling from it, hanging from his desk lamp. Odie had been his dog, a Christmas gift from Riley. It was the collar she’d boxed and wrapped—far, far too big for the gangly puppy who’d arrived shortly thereafter, delivered by the breeder, but a vision of the gentle giant the Great Dane would grow up to be.
What a good dog he’d been. Sweet and protective, infinitely patient with the children, stoic and loving even as cancer took hold of him. The day they’d let him have his rest had been a hard, sad day for the whole family.
Back before their lives had been racked with hard, sad day after hard, sad day.
Ian slunk past his open door, and Bart set the dog collar aside. “Ian! Come see me, bud.”
With an evident sigh, Ian turned and stopped in the doorway. “Yeah?”
Bart thought all three of their kids looked like their mother. Riley would have said—often had said—they all looked like him. He supposed that was a sign that they’d gotten the best of them both.
Bart sat on one of the sofas and patted the leather next to him. “Come talk to me.”
Another sigh, but he came, and he sat. Ian was eight, too young to carry the weight Bart’s life had dropped on his shoulders. Unlike his sister, who was trying to bear it, Ian had let it crush him. Bart’s exuberant, athletic, extroverted son was gone.
“I don’t want to talk, Dad. Not about big stuff.”
“I know. I don’t want to, either. I want to talk about school.” That was ‘big stuff,’ too, but Bart thought it might be slightly safer. And he needed help from Lexi and Ian to know what to do about school. Some kind of sign about what they needed.
Ian looked at him with mild interest. He was a popular kid, and to the extent that either Bart or Riley’s work had allowed their children to have ‘civilian’ friends, he’d had many. He’d been studying karate and violin. He’d played soccer and baseball, and had been in training for football over the summer, before…everything. He hadn’t been tearing up the academics like his sister had, but he’d been holding his own.
Riley and Marta had handled most of that, managing the kids’ schedules and getting them all the places they’d needed to go. Bart occasionally played chauffeur, but he’d had to be told where to go and when. He’d rarely missed a game, tournament, or recital, though.
Since they’d lost Riley, they’d all missed everything.
“What about school?” Ian asked.
“Well, it started a few weeks ago. It’s getting to be time to go back or decide what we’re going to do. I guess I’m asking how you’d feel about going back. Are you ready?”
Without taking any time to consider the question, Ian shrugged.
Bart tried again. “Do you miss anything? Your friends?”
Ian’s head dropped, and his hair fell over his face. He needed a trim.
“Ian?” Bart laid his hand over the back of his son’s neck. “Buddy, I’m here.”
“Nobody can be my friend anymore,” he said, barely audible.
Bart leaned in close, his heartbeat already hammering. “What do you mean?”
“With what happened. Their moms and dads don’t want them around me.” He sat back and turned to his father. “I guess they’re afraid they’ll get killed, too.”
Bart lived with rage every second of every day now, but what filled his veins as he sat next to his son and learned that he’d been ostracized because his mother had been killed was something much bigger, much deeper. His muscles went rigid, and he took his hand off Ian’s neck before he inadvertently hurt him.
No, this topic wasn’t safer at all.
“I’m sorry, son.”
Ian nodded. “Can I go?”
“Yeah, bud. You can go. I love you.”
His son got up and left the room without a word.
~oOo~
That night, he sat alone in a king-size bed, in a room decorated by his dead wife, in a house chosen and decorated by her. He stared at the painting of Riley and Lexi he’d commissioned as a gift for her first Mother’s Day. Since that day, it had hung on the wall so that it was the first thing she’d see when she woke up every morning.
This house, this life, wasn’t right without her. Nothing was right without her. He had brought his family to ruin. His wife, his love, the mother of his children, dead. His children’s lives ruined. Their mother gone, their friends vanished.
They’d seen their mother die. Lexi had pointed a gun at the man who’d killed her, and she’d pulled the trigger. She’d missed and had been maimed, almost killed, for her bravery. Ian was a husk of the boy he’d been. Despite his mind-movies, soon little Declan would forget his mother completely.
Bart had done this. The club had done this. The Horde.
No—not the Horde. SoCal. SoCal had voted to take on these risks. He hadn’t wanted it. He’d fought hard against it. He’d known way back when the question had been put on the table that it was the wrong choice. He’d remembered the horror of the Perros. He’d already lost, already paid for the mistakes of the past. So fucking much, he’d already paid. He’d known better than to repeat them. But he’d been outvoted.
And he was paying again, more than he could bear.
He stood up and crossed the room, picking his personal phone up off its charge mat. It was late two time zones away, close to two in the morning. He didn’t care. He dialed.
Three rings. “Yeah,” a voice hoarse with sleep answered.
“Badge. It’s Bart.”
The President of the Night Horde mother charter cleared his throat. “Hey, brother,” he said in a brighter, but still quiet voice. “You got trouble?”
So much trouble. “I want to talk more about what we talked about when you were here.”
“Yeah?” Badger’s voice was louder, and Bart figured he’d walked to a place where his family wasn’t sleeping nearby.
“Yeah. That offer still open?”
“You know it is. Always. That a decision you want to make in the middle of the night, though?”
“It’s not. I’m just making the phone call now.”
Badger didn’t hesitate. “Okay. Tell me when you need me to put my call in.”
“I’ll let you know.”
“Okay. And Bart—I know it’s hard, but I gotta say, speaking for myself and the Missouri charter as a whole, I’m glad.”
Bart sighed. “I am, too.” As glad as he was capable of being about anything.
~oOo~
A few days later, on a Tuesday morning at the tail end of September, ten weeks after Riley’s death, six weeks after Hoosier’s death, and ten years after Havoc’s death—his best friend, and the worst loss he�
�d once thought he’d ever feel—Bart heard the doorbell ring.
He’d been sitting in his office, staring out the window at Riley’s wildflowers. A lot of his time, when the kids were off in their own worlds, was spent sitting in his office and staring. Hearing the bell, though, he shook off his malaise and went out to see who it was.
He met Marta as she came down the hallway toward his office. “Mr. Bart. Mrs. Bibi is here.”
Calm & Storm (The Night Horde SoCal Book 6) Page 29
