Half My Blood

by Lauren Gilley

  And it was their house, hers and Mercy’s. And little Remy’s.

  Two weeks before, Mercy had come home from work buzzing with energy, as jittery as a kid on Christmas morning. He’d had a real estate flier in his hand, the kind of pamphlet they put in the information boxes up at the street with For Sale signs. “I talked to the agent,” he’d said, without even pausing long enough to kiss her hello. “And she said there’s other people interested, and we’d have to move fast if we wanted it.”

  “Wanted what?” she’d asked, bewildered.

  “This house!” He’d shoved the flier at her, breathing through his mouth like he’d run a race.

  They’d gone first thing the next morning to look at it, arriving early before the agent could let them in, walking through the backyard and peering through the windows, hands cupped around their eyes against the glare of the sun as they pressed inquisitive faces to the glass.

  Not a big house, no, but much bigger than the apartment – three bedrooms, two full baths, a decent yard, two-car garage, and a basement with enough floor space and high enough ceilings that Mercy could finish it out, if they wanted, should the need arise. Say…if they had all five of the children he had only half-joked about siring.

  The place needed some TLC, but didn’t everything? Didn’t giant Cajun biker poets need some good loving in order to turn into responsible, house-buying husbands? Yes, and yes.

  Ava had been plagued with reservations, mainly because of their lackluster finances. But also because leaving the apartment put an awful lump in her throat.

  Mercy had confessed that, barring rent and a biker part here and there, he’d been exceptionally thrifty for years. And so with only a little loan from Dartmoor, and the bank’s grudging approval, they’d become homeowners. Felix Louis and Ava Rose Lécuyer, sign where the arrows indicate, please.

  And now it was moving day.

  “You’ve got good light in here,” Maggie said as they stepped into the master bedroom.

  It was at the end of the hall, decently separate from the two spare bedrooms, and it had windows on three sides, pouring in hazy summer sunlight.

  “The bed can go under that window,” Maggie said, indicating the center of the far wall. “And your dresser there.”

  Ava nodded and adjusted Remy so her arms were more comfortable. He was a heavy little bundle. “Yeah, that’ll work.”

  Maggie turned to face her, her smile warm and knowing. “It’s a lot, isn’t it?”

  A lot to think about, a lot to organize, a lot of change. Yeah – a lot.

  “It is,” she said with a sigh. “I realized, two nights ago when I was packing boxes, that I’ve never moved before. Not like this.”

  “It’s hell. When your dad I moved out of his apartment, after you were born – Jesus, you never saw such a disaster. We had to be out by midnight, and we were cutting it too close. On the last trip, the car was so stuffed that your dad filled your carseat with a stack of t-shirts and let Aidan hold you while he rode shotgun.”

  Ava felt her brows leap up her forehead.

  “When they pulled up to the house,” Maggie said, shaking her head and smiling at the memory, “and I saw you in Aidan’s lap, I almost had a full-on coronary standing in the driveway. My nerves were shot at that point, and I screamed at Kenny so bad, the neighbors stuck their heads out the window and asked if everything was alright. If there was ever a way to make a terrible first impression on the non-outlaws…”

  “Can you imagine Dad doing something like that now?” Ava asked, a slow grin spreading across her face. “Captain Caution.”

  “He’s a better daddy than he used to be,” Maggie said. Then she reached her hands out in an unmistakable gesture. “Here, pass the hot potato. You look like your arms are getting tired.”

  Grateful for the break, Ava eased the sleeping baby over into her mother’s arms and then wiggled her hands, willing the soreness from her tendons. A part of her regretted the loss of the small heartbeat against her breasts, the regular damp breaths on her skin. Every day of motherhood was a struggle between rationality and the powerful need to keep her baby wrapped safely in her arms.

  Maggie tucked Remy up on her shoulder, a hand cradling the perfect round shape of his skull. Her expression became the thoughtful, X-ray assessing one that missed nothing. “You miss the old place, don’t you?”

  Ava glanced through the naked window, out at the overgrown gardenia bushes and their profusion of star-shaped blooms. “Yeah,” she admitted. “It was special, you know? It was him for me.”

  Maggie was quiet a moment, then: “Maybe it’s good to start fresh, then. This place can be both of you.”

  Ava sent her mother a small, thankful smile. “Yeah,” she said, and the word echoed in the small hollow, aching part of her that didn’t like letting go of the past.

  There was a loud clomp of boots somewhere else in the house. Aidan called to them: “Where you’d guys go? Merc just got back with the refrigerator.”

  Ava hitched up her shoulders and drew in a deep breath. “Back to work, then.”

  “Uncle Wynn?” Holly called, pausing at the entrance of the barn. The smells of hay and warm animals and the pleasant tang of barn dust welcomed her, pungent in the summer heat.

  There was an answering bray from one of the donkeys.

  And then Wynn called, “Back here, darlin’!”

  She knew the inside of the barn well at this point, and she navigated the slightly meandering aisle flanked by irregular stalls with familiarity. The overhead lights were off at this time of day, and sunlight streamed in dusty shafts through the open windows. All the animals were outside, save one. Wynn waited for her outside a large box stall, leaning on the door.

  He glanced up at her approach, smile splitting his broad face. “You’re just in time; he’s just wakin’ up from his nap.”

  “Oh, good.” Holly felt a flutter of true excitement in the pit of her ever-expanding stomach.

  Michael’s uncle Wynford was a big man, tall and big-boned, with great careful paws for hands, and a square jaw gone soft with age. He looked nothing like his nephew, and instead looked more like the brawny, working-man types Holly had known growing up. Known…and dreaded. But Wynn had proved himself immediately as kind, respectful, and gentle. A storybook farmer, at times. The first time Holly slipped and called him uncle, he’d smiled and invited her to keep doing it.

  He smelled like hay and cow hide and damp dog hair as Holly sidled up beside him at the door of the large box stall.

  Inside, Daisy the Jersey cow stood watching her two-day-old calf surge awkwardly to his feet, staggering on stick-legs, the fat knobs of knee and hock incongruous in the slender limbs as he got his balance. Daisy had been bred to a neighbor’s Angus bull, and so the calf looked very much like one, coal black and nicely formed.

  “My God,” Holly breathed, breath catching. She clenched her hands on the top of the stall door, not minding the prick of splinters. “He’s adorable!” She’d had the same reaction to little Remy Lécuyer, heart stuttering at the up-close sight of something so small and fragile and beautiful.

  “He’s been nursing real good,” Wynn said of the calf. “And runnin’ around in the stall. I’m gonna walk ‘em out to the paddock. You wanna watch?”

  “I can help,” she offered.

  “Nah, nah, you just stand off to the side.” He waved toward the opposite side of the aisle. “Don’t want you gettin’ trampled now, do we? Michael’d have my hide if something happened to you or the baby.”

  A true statement.

  Feeling unwieldy and useless, Holly stepped clear and watched from a safe distance as Wynn hooked a line to the sweet cow’s halter and opened the stall door. Daisy plodded out after her master, the calf leaping to keep up.

  There was a small, half-acre paddock that ran alongside the barn and that was where Wynn took Daisy and the baby. When he unclipped the lead, Daisy threw her face down into the thick summer grass and began grazing with g
usto. The calf flicked his big ears, switched his tail, and surveyed this new domain with outward nervousness, glued to his mother’s side.

  “It’s a shock, I guess,” Wynn said as he latched the gate and came to stand beside Holly at the fence. “To go from in there to out here.”

  “I’d think so,” Holly said, gaze on the little Angus as he sniffed experimentally at the grass.

  “It’s gotta be kinda what it’s like for a real baby, you know?” he continued. “It’s all warm and dark where they are, and then they’re out in the bright big scary place.” He shrugged. “Then again, I don’t know that for sure. I don’t remember bein’ a baby and I never had one.”

  Something in his tone struck her. He’d been thrilled from the first when she and Michael had told him they were expecting. “Do you wish you’d had kids?” she asked, gently.

  He made a face, sun striking harshly against the lines in his cheeks. “I dunno. Maybe, sometimes. I know I wouldn’t have been any good at it, so it’s just as well, I guess.”

  “That’s not true,” Holly scolded. “You would have been wonderful. You raised Michael.” And in her book, men didn’t turn out much better than Michael McCall.

  The old man laughed. “That boy coulda raised himself. I was just there to get high things off the shelf.”

  Holly smiled.

  “I’m just glad I’ll get to be a great-uncle,” Wynn said, turning to face her. “That’s almost like being a grandpa, isn’t it?”

  She nodded. “I think so.”

  “Have you picked out a name yet?”

  There went that stone again, sinking through her gut, a lot like dread, heavy on top of her womb. They’d just found out that it was a girl. Not an it – a she. But as far as names went, she hadn’t the faintest idea. The more real motherhood began to seem, the more it terrified her.

  “No,” she said, letting her gaze drift off toward the clump of sweet gum trees at the edge of the paddock. “I haven’t put much thought into it.”

  “Oh my God.” Ava let herself go limp and fell backward across the bed. The double bed, not truly big enough for the two of them when one of them was six-foot-five, was the only thing “right” in the house. Before she’d left for the night, Maggie had instructed the boys in reassembling the wood frame and situating box spring and mattress. She’d snapped on fresh sheets, put cases on the pillows, and done it up invitingly, covers turned down and ready for them.

  Mercy, already flat on his back beside her, naked save for frayed plaid boxers, his clothes a heap on the floor beside the bed, stared up at the ceiling and said, “I need a shower. But I just don’t care anymore.”

  “ ‘S’okay,” Ava said. “We can be smelly and dirty together.”

  She’d fared a little better than Merc, though, having at least arranged her dirty clothes in a stack by the door, and pulled on one of his old t-shirts to sleep in. It smelled like the flowers of their detergent and his shampoo, while her skin smelled of sweat and work and exhaustion.

  As a couple, they didn’t own much, but lots of hand-me-down furniture donations had seen their way into the moving truck. In just the one day, they’d moved all their meager belongings – most of them books – and acquired a secondhand fridge, microwave, washer and dryer, since all the appliances at the apartment had had to stay, by mandate of the landlord.

  The entire club had shown up, in shifts, to help with the move. Walsh had brought two chilled bottles of decent champagne; Ava had only had two sips, because she was breastfeeding, but the others had toasted the hell out of the new house. Walsh had given her a deft wink and said, “We’ll celebrate for you, love,” and taken a swig straight out of the bottle before passing it on to Mercy.

  Michael had helped Mercy wedge the new dryer into its place in the narrow laundry closet alongside the guest bathroom. Since Ava had told Holly she was in no way to lift or tote anything in her condition, Michael had brought Holly’s contribution -– a prepared lasagna ready to slide into the oven when they got hungry, along with rolls and chopped salad – and promised in his shy, awkward, stern way that his wife would come by tomorrow to help with organizing, along with Ava’s friends. When Michael had held back from the end-of-the-night celebrating, Mercy had shoved a champagne bottle at him and said, “Crack a smile, man,” with a broad, good-humored one of his own. Poor Michael was being sucked into a friendship with Mercy whether he wanted it or not. Judging by the quiet gleam in his eyes when no one was looking, Ava thought he wanted it.

  The place was a shambles of boxes, and there was so much left to do, but finally, they were alone, and sleep was like a lead blanket hovering over them, ready to fall.

  “Where’s the little gator bait?” Mercy asked, voice dreamy with exhaustion.

  “Sleeping.” Ava rolled onto her side, so she could see her husband’s noble Frenchman profile, so striking with his Cherokee coloring. “I put him down in the crib next door” – the room that would be his nursery – “so we could eat, and he’s still out cold. So I left him.” She felt a sudden spasm of maternal emotion. He’d been sleeping in their tiny bedroom at the apartment in his bassinet. She was used to falling asleep to the light patter of his breathing.

  Mercy’s head rolled toward her. “Does that mean we’re alone?”

  “It does. But I’m so tired – you get on if you want, but I can’t promise I’ll be real exciting right now.”

  He chuckled; the way his chest lifted, burnished in the lamplight, made her want to rethink that “tired” part. “Even I’m not that cruel, fillette. I’d just embarrass myself anyway.” He reached to stroke her cheek with the back of his hand and she closed her eyes, sighing with contentment.

  She loved when he was inside her, but loved when he was beside her, too. Like now, that undemanding love that was steeped in so many years of friendship and love and understanding.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, as he studied her face, and she was reminded that, thanks to all those years, there was no hiding anything from him.

  “Nothing.” She sent him a faint smile. “Just a little homesick.”

  “A lot of memories in that old place,” he consented with a thin smile of his own.

  The place he’d claimed as his own when he moved to Knoxville. The place he’d taken her when she was a girl, where they’d sat on the floor alongside the shelves beneath the window, looking through his collection of paperbacks. The place where she’d come to him, seventeen and green and wanting him; where he’d pressed her down into the couch and showed her the meaning of pleasure. The place where he’d left her sobbing. The place he’d reclaimed for her, when they were man and wife. The place they’d brought their baby home to.

  She felt the tears building at the backs of her eyes. “It’s stupid, I know,” she said in a small voice. “But it wasn’t just an apartment…”

  “No it wasn’t.” He’d grown serious. “I’m sad to leave it, too.”

  She reached for him…

  And his phone rang, shattering the moment.

  Mercy leaned over the side of the bed to dig it out of his jeans pocket. He held it up over his face, read the screen, frowned, and let it drop to the carpet.

  More alert now, Ava propped up on an elbow. “Who was that?”

  Mercy looked disgusted. “Colin.”

  “Colin….”

  “O’Donnell.”

  It had been a year since their honeymoon in New Orleans, but the name O’Donnell hadn’t faded from memory. She still saw Evangeline’s tear-stained face in her nightmares, as the woman begged forgiveness for a betrayal Ava could never excuse.

  She sat up, pushing her hair back. “Larry and Evie’s son?” she asked, shocked.

  Before he could answer, the phone started to ring again.

  “Is that him?”

  “Probably.” Mercy shrugged, expression dismissive. “Whatever.”

  “Do…” Her mind was spinning. “Do you know what he wants?”

  “I dunno. I didn’t listen to a
ll his messages.”

  “All of his messages?” She felt a swift, certain dread, and couldn’t explain it. “Merc, how many times has he called you?”

  “Like…” He squinted at the ceiling. “Ten, maybe? Something like that.”

  “Mercy!”

  “What?” He shot her an annoyed frown.

  “You…” She groped for the right words, wanting to insult him and shield him at the same time. All too well she remembered his mother, the notorious Miss Dee with her diseased paper-thin skin and her ugly laughter, mocking them. “Like father like son…” According to her, Remy Lécuyer – the original one – had fathered a child by his best friend’s wife. Mercy had refused to entertain the notion that he had a half-brother – his father would never have done that. But a part of Ava feared the evil old hag had been right.

  She took a breath and started over, calmer this time. “Usually, if someone calls you ten times, they have something to say to you.”

  He made a give-a-damn noise in the back of his throat. “I ain’t seen the guy in twenty years. What’s he want with me?”

  Ava plucked at the decorative gold piping on the topsheet, struggling for delicacy. “Well, his dad did die…”

  At the business end of Mercy’s shotgun.

  He stiffened all over, rigid with sudden, violent anger. “His dad died because he’s was a fucking traitor bastard. And if anybody thinks I ought to apologize–”

  Ava shook her head, hand upraised in a defenseless pose. “No, baby,” she said quietly. “I don’t think you ought to apologize.”

  Some of the energy bled out of him; he was too tired to be properly furious. But his gaze was wary. “No?”

  She smiled softly. “No.”

  Because he was her darling monster, and she didn’t care if he played by anyone else’s rules. She’d married a professional torturer, and she had no illusions about that.

  He settled further, letting his head rest back on the pillow. “I can’t help Colin,” he said, tone reflective. “I don’t want to talk to him.”