I reach out a hand but Beth slaps it away. She's on a rant now and there's nothing I can do to stop her.
“We are orphans, Never. Orphans. My sister, basically my daughter, is missing, and I can't do shit about it. I have no money, can only pray that I get custody of the girls, can only fucking hope that I get the house.”
Beth sits down heavy on the floor and stops only when Ty presents a plate to her, Mickey Mouse pancake smiling up from a sea of butter and maple syrup. She stares at it for a long moment before finally reaching out and taking it.
“Thanks.”
I look over at my husband. He winks and salutes me before going back to his cooking. This guy, this damaged little bad boy of mine, apparently he's just this good at taking care of broken girls. Or maybe broken people in general? Ty really should become a therapist or a psychologist or a social worker or what-the-fuck-ever because I think he could heal a little piece of the world, one butterfly armed hug at a time, one well-placed bit of advice smattered with the F-bomb. Ah, Ty.
“I think we should have a funeral,” I say, even though I can't believe the words are slipping past my suddenly dry lips. Then again, funerals aren't for the dead but for the living. My sisters, especially my little sisters, I think they need this. Beth, whether she wants to admit it or not, needs this.
“We can't afford a funeral, Never,” Beth mutters, but at least she's eating her pancake. That's something, isn't it?
“We can't afford to dress in black, dig a hole out back and put Angelica's ashes to rest?”
Beth says nothing, but that's okay. I can take care of this for her because I'm the strong one now. Not sure when that happened, but I can see that it's true. Beth needs me, needs Ty; she needs us.
20
Listening to the gravel ping against the windows of Beth's minivan is hard for me, almost too hard. Old memories reach up like a sea of undead hands from the grave, grabbing at the loose layers of black that flow around my ankles. I'm wearing one of India's dresses because I haven't got any of my own, not any that would be appropriate or that wouldn't hurt. Waistbands and tight fitting shirts are still agony for me, rubbing against my belly and reminding me at every possible moment that life isn't easy, nor is it black and white. Life is a million shades – but not of gray. No, I've learned that whole shades of gray crap is bullshit. Life is all color, whether it's good or bad. It's a fucking rainbow that shoots across the sky and bathes everything in light. Yes, I lost one baby, but I discovered another.
Zella is waiting in front of the house, a nippy midwest wind tugging at her hair and whipping it around her face. It's blonde now, much like that of the boy that stands beside her, close but not too close.
As soon as Ty stops the car, I'm out the door and closing my eyes against the sight of the old farmhouse, against the memories. The gravel hurts my bare feet, but in a way, it also feels good, like no sensation right now could be a bad sensation. It just is. I just am.
“I know I said I liked you barefoot and pregnant, but this is taking it a little too far, don't ya think?” Ty scoops me up in his arms like I weigh nothing, like I'm simply a swallowtail alighting on his muscular arm. “The ground is frozen as fuck, babe. And seriously, I really like your toes. If you lost some to hypothermia, we wouldn't be able to do all those weird little foot fetish things I've never tried.”
“I didn't know you had a foot fetish,” I tell him, putting a hand on his chest and feeling the beat of his black, bloody heart. He raises his pierced brow at me.
“I don't, not really. I just like everything about you. You're my fetish.”
I smile and lean in for a kiss, just a quick one though. It feels wrong to make out on a day like this, especially since Darla is still missing. My worry for her has twisted into a thin snake of ice in my gut. I try to ignore it, but it refuses to be left alone. The cops have promised they're looking for her, but how, when even we don't know where to start looking? We're her family, so we should have some idea at least.
“I'm … glad you guys are back,” Zella whispers as Ty carries me over to the porch and sets me down on the bottom step. She reaches up and subconsciously fiddles with her freshly colored hair. “It was lonely here without everyone, but I thought, maybe, if I waited that Darla might show up somehow.”
I nod, but there's nothing I can say to make things better, so I turn around and watch as Ty jogs back to the van to grab our son and help the rest of the kids out. Beth is barely there inside her own head, eyes distant and a scary sort of vacant. She clutches the box of our mother's ashes to her chest, but forgets to get Autumn and Maple out of their carseats. Nobody mentions the empty seat in Jade's car, the one where Darla should've been sitting.
“Let's get this fucking over with,” Beth says, her voice a monotone. I exchange a look with Zella before slipping inside the house and grabbing some boots. There's a big, black pair of worn, dirty combat boots that Ty left here before we took off for the cabin. I slip my feet inside, feeling small when the shoes sag and slip around as I make my way back outside.
India has a shopping bag on her arm, filled with candles, and a bouquet of flowers in the opposite hand. It's not much, but then again, my mother doesn't really deserve anything other than a scowl and some spit. Honestly, I would hock one on her grave if I thought it would help. It won't. I know that now. Even if she did have my father killed. Too bad the truth will forever remain a mystery. Unless, I suppose, I ask Luis. The chances of getting anything out of that rapist/murderer though is slim to none.
Ty has Little Noah in the Sharpie bullet baby carrier, so I slip my hand through his, letting his rings kiss my skin with warm metal. We swing them between one another as we make our way between the house and the barn, past the tractor where Ty and I made love, until we stop in a bit of dead, frozen grass. The property is mostly flat with hardly any trees, so there's not really a 'good' place to bury Momma. All we can do is choose a random spot, a final resting place for a woman I should be devastated over losing, should be crushed by missing. Only I don't. All I want right now is Darla. All I want is for my family to be fucking whole.
“I dug as deep as I could,” Noah says as we pause beside a fairly shallow hole. It's carved into the flat, midwestern earth like a scar, like the earth is gaping in an openmouthed frown. “But the ground is frozen, solid as a rock.” He pauses next to the pile of dirt and runs his tongue across his lower lip. Zella watches him for a moment and then looks away. Christ, if all of this shit going down can't spur these two idiots to deal with their differences, I don't know what will. Life is too damn short. Look at our bitch mother. She screwed around and lazed about like she didn't have a care in the world, shirked her love and her responsibilities, and now she's about to be buried in a foot deep whole, trapped in a cardboard box for the rest of eternity. I mean, if she has a soul – which is doubtful – then this can be her personal hell, to watch the family she should've loved from afar, never again to touch or hold or speak to any of us. Maybe then she can finally learn her lesson?
“You want me to dig deeper?” Ty says, and the words send a chill down my spine. Or maybe it's the icy January wind, nipping at my bare arms as I cross them over my chest.
“No,” Beth says firmly, stepping forward and gripping the box with fingers so tight they look like bone. “This is good enough.”
“Can I pass out the candles?” India asks, looking over at my little sisters, Lettie and Lorri. Their faces are drawn and puffy, little tear stains cutting across their cheeks. They're young enough that maybe, just maybe, they'll remember our mother in some sort of falsely brilliant light. Good. I don't ever want them to know her many faults, how she was the Evil Stepmother from all the fairytales without even being a step anything. I don't want them to know that sometimes, a bad guy can be a super villain without beating anyone or hurting them sexually, that the mental torture and the feeling of abandon can be just as bad.
Beth says nothing, so I take the flowers from India's hand while she passes out a
few white taper candles. Jade is holding Autumn, so she doesn't take one, but I can see she desperately wants to, so I switch her out mine for my niece, bringing the baby's sweet smelling head to my lips for a kiss. Maple clings to Beth's skirt, but in some strange parody of my mother, Beth ignores her. It hurts my heart, but I know it's only temporary, born out of grief and fear.
Once the candles are lit, clutched close and protected with open palms against the wind, Beth steps forward and sets the box in the ground. I think I see a single tear hit the cardboard lid before she stands up, but I can't be sure.
“Does anyone have anything they want to say?” Beth drawls, a slight Southern accent creeping into her words. I hardly ever hear it, but it's there now.
“Don't you?” Jade asks, her voice high-pitched and on the verge of hysteria. “She was our mother.”
“Yeah, and because of her actions, Darla is gone. What could I possibly say right now that would be appropriate?” Beth raises her brows at Jade and purses her lips. “Do you want me to talk about the fact that our mother got engaged to a murderer, that she drove her own daughter away?” Beth points at me, and my throat closes up. Fuck. Jade already has a target on my back, uses me as an emotional punching bag. This? This is only going to make that worse. “That she had eight children with six different men? That she barely made enough money to feed us, sold our food stamps for cash, and disappeared at the worst times possible?”
Jesus.
Jade's face lights with a fury I've never seen, not even on the night I ran away, when she told me she hated me.
“Take it back,” she growls, stepping forward, right up to the edge of the hole that is our mother's grave. “Take it all back!”
“Why?” Beth asks, nonchalant, broken, her spirit in tatters and hanging around her like a desecrated flag. “It's all true.”
Jade moves forward, but I stop her with a hand on her arm.
“Angelica Regali was a master of tribal belly dance, with over twenty years of experience under her belt. She was the mother of eight gorgeous daughters, and grandmother to three and a half beautiful babies.” I put my hand on my belly and take a deep breath. These are some of the most difficult words I've ever spoken, each one like a piece of glass cutting across my lips, but that's okay. To heal, sometimes you have to bleed first. “She made mistakes, but she was human, and capable of great things.”
I dig as deep as I can for that elusive spirit we all have inside of us: forgiveness. Fuck, but it's hard. I push aside years of neglect and frustration and I find something, just a little something to tell. Hopefully it's enough.
“I remember how when Beth, Jade, Zella and me were little, after teaching her dance class at the community center, Mom would take us to the little diner by the railroad tracks. We'd order one mammoth sized ice cream sundae to share, and then we'd all get sick after.” Jade chuckles and sniffles, so I know I'm on the right track here. “It must've been because back then, all she ever fed us were veggie burgers on toast. And sometimes, after we crawled into bed and she thought we were asleep, you could hear Mom singing Black Velvet in the living room.”
I take a huge breath and glance over at Ty. He's looking right at me, lips curved in the most perfect smile. I am worth it. I look back over at the pile of dirt and move towards it slowly, Ty's boots crunching across the ground beneath my feet. Reaching down, I grab a handful of frozen rocks and soil and turn to look at my mother, one, last time.
I forgive you.
I toss my handful on the box and say my final goodbye.
“You know,” Ty whispers as I rejoin him on the opposite side of the hole, leaning down to breathe hot and warm against my ear, “you have the biggest fucking heart I've ever seen, read, or dreamed about.”
“Even if it's as dark as the night sky?”
“Especially because of that.”
21
Ty's silly tabby cat molests him while I watch from the opposite side of the bed, glaring at the beast from hell with narrowed eyes. Chuck Norris won't stop rubbing his cheek against my husband's lip ring, and kneading the ever living crap out of his bare chest. Ty indulges the behavior and gives me a look with both brows raised.
“You look a little bit jealous,” he says, wrapping the cat in his beautiful arms, pressing a kiss to the top of its head.
“Of a cat?”
“The only pussy he can have is mine, is what you're thinking. Come on, just fess up and spill. I get it, babe.”
I roll my eyes, but it feels good to be sitting here with him, cloaked in the darkness of my old bedroom with our dog sleeping by our feet and our son in his crib. If we can exchange witty banter, the world's not completely gone to shit, right?
“You okay?” he asks when I don't respond right away. I look down at my pajama pants, the red and black striped zebra ones that I've had for forever and a day. I pick at a hole with my fingernail and then glance back up. Ty's hair is mussy and disheveled, but in the most perfect way, like he styled it to look like that in the first place. And who knows with him, maybe he did? His tattoos glow in low light like this, pop off his skin until I'm halfway fucking sure they're going to take flight and flutter over to me, land on my eyelashes and press little butterfly kisses to my cheeks. In memoriam of my late mother, he's wearing all black piercings, rings, and bracelets today. I like the contrast against his skin, the clatter of glass as he reaches over with his smoky black bangles and touches the side of my face.
“I'm … I think I would be if Darla were here, Ty. Is that wrong? Is it wrong that I don't miss my mother? I feel like I've already cried a sea of salt for that woman. I just don't feel like I have anything left in me.”
“Totally normal, natural, and perfectly expected.” Ty brushes my hair back and I sigh, leaning into his touch. “Blood is absolutely not fucking thicker than water. Sure, that shit can stain like nobody's business, but that doesn't mean it has to dictate everything. Angelica was your mother, sure, but she lost her chance with you last year, Never. When you fight against everything inside of you to extend an olive branch to someone, and they snap it in half, it's hard to make things right. Angelica didn't want to make things right with you.”
“I feel guilty is all,” I say with a sigh, but Ty is having none of that. He sits up and scoots over, gently sliding his arm around my waist, so he can tug me down to the pillows before leaning over and flicking off the light. We're plunged into moonlit darkness, but I don't care. I'm at home in the dark. The little monster inside of me lived here once and even though I evicted her bitch ass, I still know my way around.
“Guilt is a disease best left cured. Don't let it eat you alive, babe. I'm a selfish asshole, me. I want all of you to myself. Each hole that fucker eats is one less piece I get to ravage at night.” Ty kisses my ear and I shiver, my entire body lighting up like a firecracker on the 4th of July. Jesus fuck. Only, like, five freaking weeks to go. Shit. We're never going to make it. “Besides, guilt cripples people like nobody's business. Get up, give fate a rabbit punch to the throat, and move on.”
I burrow into Ty's side, breathe his scent in and let it coat my lungs. This, this is how I want to die, lying next to the love of my life with the gritty perfection of bad boy and cigarettes and fucking soap filling my nostrils. I'll die happy then, truly I will.
“Will you still love me when I'm old and wrinkled?” I whisper randomly. Everybody has these thoughts at some point, don't they? I have no idea why I decide to ask this question at this exact moment, but I do. Maybe it's because I know Ty will give me the answer I want to hear. What I don't say, but that he probably already knows, is that lying next to him like this is the most soothing balm my twisted soul could ever ask for. Sleeping next to a guy, knowing him, not fucking him. It's the most intimate thing I've ever done. And the fact that I have Ty's baby inside of me? My stomach explodes into a swarm of butterflies, and I actually feel nervous being around him, excited. I hope this feeling never fades.
Ty pulls me just a little bit closer, hu
gs me a little tighter.
“I'll love you because you're old and wrinkled. Nev, some people get freaked out at the thought of being old, but you know what? If you get that far, you should just consider yourself lucky. I'd rather die old and toothless in your arms than drop dead tomorrow. Sure, I'd leave a pretty corpse, but it wouldn't be worth it. Each second with you is a fucking gift.”
I laugh, lifting up his shirt with my left hand, so I can lay my fingers against bare skin.
“You're too much, you know that? Do you come up with this shit on the fly or plan your lines in advance?”
“Um, I'm a bad boy, remember? I got lines for days, baby cakes.” Ty presses a kiss to my forehead and then quickly moves his lips down to mine for a deeper taste. “And tomorrow,” he continues, still kissing me, punctuating his words with hot, quick bursts of his beautiful mouth. “I'm going … ” Ty's tongue slides across my bottom lip. “To find … ” Just a bit of teeth, a nip that leaves me gasping and arching my back. Have I ever been kissed quite like this? No. The answer is no fucking way. “Your … ” The little devil pushes my arms back into the bed when I try to reach for him.
“Please say clitoris,” I moan, but he only kisses me harder, shushing me.
“No, your sister.” I pause and so does Ty, looking down at me in the dark. I notice how the asshole has somehow draped himself just so over my upper body, just enough that he can hold my arms down, kiss me, tease me, but without hurting me.
Never Did Say Page 8
