by Nelson, Cara
“That doesn’t make it any easier on you.”
“I figure if I made it through that, nothing can touch me, you know. It made me stronger. What doesn’t kill me or something like that.”
“That’s a song, I think. You would’ve been strong without that. You’re strong because of who you are. The same way your mom is strong. It’s not from experience so much as you just know your own power, like she does. You don’t doubt yourself…except for that time Ashley ripped into you.”
“I’m not sure why that bugged me so much.”
“She said you’d be a shitty dad and that got under your skin, I’m guessing,”
“I thought you weren’t my shrink.”
“No, I said I wasn’t your confessor.”
“I thought you were my bitch mitten,” he teased.
They ordered their ice cream. She was fighting the drips on her mint chocolate chip and stealing bites of his strawberry when his phone rang.
“It’s Olive,” He said. “Here, hold this.” So Shea balanced two dripping ice cream cones while he answered the phone like an excited kid. “Hi, hey, yeah, it’s me. What’s up?” His smile faded instantly. He covered his other ear to listen, took a few steps away, listening intently. Then he looked back over his shoulder, nearly in a panic.
“Shea!” he called.
She was frantically licking ice cream and trying not to eavesdrop, but she joined him. He hugged her to his side and kept saying, “I’ll be right there. I’m coming. I’m coming. Wait there,”
When the call ended, he looked in Shea’s eyes. His expression was so shattered that she dropped the ice cream to the pavement and threw her arms around him.
“What happened?”
“She’s at the police station.”
“Is she okay?”
“She’s shook up. One of her teachers reported them to DFS, and a social worker found—found a meth lab in the home, Shea,” His voice sounded broken, but shot through with rage.
“That would explain why Ashley was so hot in the cold restaurant.”
“You told me. You mentioned it. I didn’t want to believe it could be true,” he said. “We have to get there. They wanted to take her to respite care, but she—she kept saying she had to call her dad.” There were tears in his eyes, a muscle in his jaw bulging as he struggled for control.
Shea hugged him again, tears on her face, and they ran for her car.
CHAPTER 9—KYLE
While Shea was telling him who they were and demanding to see Olive, Kyle hadn’t heard a word the police sergeant said to him. They were in some kind of little room with no windows, grungy linoleum and just the one bench. It was nothing but the roar of blood in his ears, the thrumming of adrenaline as he bounced up and down on the balls of his feet, unable to contain the restless energy, the rage to get to his daughter. He had made himself turn the knob slowly so he wouldn’t rip the door off the hinges in his haste.
Olive was sitting on a bench, holding a Styrofoam cup of coffee. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying. One of her thumbs looked like it had been bleeding from where she had bitten the nail too deeply. When Kyle entered as quietly as he could, not wanting to startle her, she looked up and burst into tears. He dropped to his knees and opened his arms.
She sloshed the coffee onto the bench and vaulted into his embrace, sobbing. Every sob that racked her skinny form was like a bolt of agony in his chest. He wanted to kill whoever had done this to her—the parents who made meth in her home, the authorities who separated her from her mom, anyone and everyone he could blame. This was the worst—he knew how to throw punches but not how to comfort, how to even ask what he could do for her.
He raised his eyes to appeal to Shea. Surely Shea, being a nurse, knew how to deal with crisis. She hung back and shook her head.
“They took my mom,” she wailed, her sobs so raw that it hurt his throat just to hear them.
“I know, baby, I’m so sorry,” he said.
“I want to see her!”
“I don’t think you can,” he faltered.
“Please? Please?” she cried. He felt something twist in his chest, and tears came to his eyes.
“I’ll go ask,” Shea offered, leaving the room.
“Olive, I don’t think they’re going to let you see her. She has—stuff she has to do right now. Like, be booked and searched and—shit, I’m not good at this. I got arrested before when I was in a dust-up and broke some guy’s jaw back in high school. It’s not great, but it’s not as bad as in the movies, I promise. There was a lot of sitting around waiting for stuff to happen and the food was bad,” he tried to explain.
“Are they hurting her?” she hiccupped.
“No. They won’t hurt her. They’re not allowed to hurt her at all. They have to check her in and get her a lawyer to talk to,” Kyle said.
Shea came back in with a shake of her head. “You can’t see her now, but tomorrow we can bring you back, and you can talk to your mom,” Shea said.
Olive launched into a fresh volley of wrenching sobs. Kyle looked helplessly at Shea as he held his heartbroken daughter. After a few minutes of unrelenting tears, Olive curled up on Kyle’s lap, still crying pitifully. He picked her up and carried her back out to the front desk.
“She signed it,” the officer on duty told him, holding out his copy of the short-term guardianship form that Ashley had signed, giving Kyle temporary custody of their daughter.
“Thanks,” he said, pocketing the form and shifting Olive’s weight to his hip. Her legs were long and gangly, but she drooped against his shoulder like a baby.
By the time they reached Kyle’s apartment, Olive was asleep in the backseat. Unfastening her seat belt, he carried her up the stairs and settled her on the couch.
“We can’t get in their apartment to get her stuff because it’s a crime scene. I’m going to get her some pajamas and stuff,” Shea said.
“Thank you,” Kyle said, handing her his wallet. “All she has is her phone. She’ll need shampoo and shorts and tops and underwear and socks and—a hairbrush. She has a lot of hair,” he said with a ghost of a smile.
Shea stood on her tiptoes and kissed him softly. “You were amazing,” she said.
“I’m scared shitless.”
“I know. But you’re handling it well.” She left.
When she returned with the bags of stuff, she found Kyle on the couch beside his daughter. The TV was on—some sort of adolescent comedy on Disney—and sticky, half-full cups of hot cocoa were on the coffee table between their feet. Olive lay in the crook of his arm, asleep. Shea kissed the top of his head, dropped the bags, and made to leave, but he caught her hand and shook his head. Easing out from under his daughter and settling Olive’s head on a throw pillow, he covered her over with a blanket and motioned for Shea to join him at the table.
“Cocoa?”
“No, thanks, it’s summer,” she said.
“She wanted hot chocolate, and it turns out we have milk and stuff. Zoe does the shopping.”
“So what are you going to do about food when Zoe and Aaron move out?”
“I’ll have to start making a list, I guess. She wanted yogurt, but we didn’t have any. I don’t know why anyone buys that stuff. It’s goop,” he said.
“Girl food. I bet she also wanted cereal. Women eat that for supper all the time,”
“Really? Supper is meat and potatoes.”
“Maybe back home in Ireland, Danny Boy, but around here, it’s cereal or frozen egg rolls.”
“So I’m not to count on you for the cooking?” he teased.
“Nope.”
“I’m glad you came with me today.”
“I didn’t do anything but drive,” she protested.
“You were there. It made a huge difference to me.”
“Okay.”
“I want you with me all the time, Shea.”
“I have a job,” she said, looking down at her hands uncomfortably.
“I know tha
t, and I do, too, but if you lived here…”
“I don’t—Kyle, that’s not—I can’t,” she stammered.
“I thought…I guess I thought, when you came and found me after I went off the rails and you didn’t give up on me, I thought you were all in,” he said.
“What does all in even mean?”
“It means we’re together and we stay that way.”
“I’m not a fan of defining the relationship myself, but, Kyle, your life just made a big shift. You went from single to being a surprise dad to being a custodial parent. Now’s not the time to make more changes and move me in. I don’t—”
“I don’t want a live-in babysitter, lass. I can deal with my own daughter. We’ll learn as we go. I want you, have since you stood up to me in that class and argued and then stomped my foot. You made me bring my A-game. You didn’t put up with my shit, and you like me. I can tell you like me, so don’t pretend you don’t.”
“I love you, Kyle. That’s the problem. I’m not going to be the Band-Aid that holds this little drama together until Ashley gets out of jail and your kid goes back home and you look up and realize I was just a convenience. Someone to have around during a rough time.”
“I’d want you if there wasn’t a daughter, wasn’t a short-term guardianship paper in my pocket. I was going to ask you anyway. As soon as Zoe said that they were moving, it felt perfect to me. The whole meth-lab thing wasn’t in my plan. It’s more like something I have to sell you on. Like, hey move in with me! It’ll be fun and we’ll have lots of sex! Or, we could have a nine-year-old who’s going through trauma, so move in with me anyway and eventually we’ll have fun and sex,”
Shea smiled, and Kyle felt something tight in his chest uncoil a bit, a loosening.
“Tell me that’s a yes,” he said.
“Yeah, I guess so,” she said.
“It’s only fair to tell you, though—and you can’t back out now, no way—that I don’t want Olive going back to live with some meth-head, even if her mom’s charges are dropped or something. I want custody. This isn’t going to be temporary. I’m not going to be her temporary dad,” he said.
“I can respect that. I’ll even help. Look, I got her ponytail holders and a cotton candy LipSmacker. I used to love those things,” she said. “We need to get her some nutritional supplement shakes and make sure she drinks a lot of water.”
“I’ll do that. Thank you, Shea,”
“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” ahe said in an excited whisper that came out squeaky. It made him laugh.
“Shhh, don’t wake her! She’s had a hell of a day,” Shea whispered.
He kissed her, and she smiled against his mouth. “I’m glad you didn’t tell me no,” he said.
“Has any woman ever told you no?”
“I wouldn’t have made it,” he said seriously.
“Why? You can let people beat your head in but you couldn’t handle a no from me?”
“It would’ve hit me harder. Ever since I was a kid, I knew nothing could hurt me, nothing was a big deal. Ma always told me how strong I was, how I’d faced down my own father, so I guess I felt like I was bulletproof. Today I found out I’m not invincible. It took a kid crying in a police station to teach me what can undo me. I’ve got two women in my life now, and you both could destroy me,” he said with a rueful shake of his head.
“Kyle Dolan, I’ll never destroy you,” she said, winding her arms around his neck.
CHAPTER TEN—SHEA
“It won’t fit,” Zoe told her.
“Sit on it,” Shea said.
“I am sitting on it. Get in here and sit on it with me,” Zoe called from the bedroom of their old apartment.
“If I sit on it too, who’s going to fasten the suitcase?” Shea demanded. “I knew I should’ve gotten a cat.”
“Cats don’t do stuff like that,” Zoe lamented.
“I could’ve trained it,” Shea said. “If I can get some of these CNA’s to learn to check the chart instead of giving everybody acetaminophen, I could teach a cat some household tasks.”
“Here, I think we can smush it down and zip it now,” Zoe said, shifting and flattening herself across the overstuffed bag. “I can’t believe you’re with Kyle now. I mean, I knew you should be, but mostly no one listens to me,”
“Not true. Carla Dolan listens like you’re a prophet.”
“That’s because she never had a daughter. And also because I’m precious!”
“Of course you are. I didn’t actually think I’d wind up with a Dolan boy myself, but here we are.”
“Is yours a brooder, too?”
“Mostly not, but he was a mess when he found out he had a kid. Flipped out completely. It was weird, because he was usually so—shiny and sure,” Shea admitted.
“They’re an infuriating pair, but cute as hell.”
“I wouldn’t describe Kyle as cute. That’s like saying a military-grade assault rifle is adorable. He’s not exactly harmless and cuddly. Cute is a puppy and kitten word, not some fierce, ripped fighter,” Shea mused.
“Fine, so they’re not cute. But they’re loveable,” Zoe conceded.
“Just don’t trip over the ego or the poetry. Kyle quoted The Tempest.”
“Aaron’s more a Dylan Thomas guy but, yeah, the poetry. It’s like, where the fuck did that come from? It’s not like they’re all that intellectual…”
“It’s the mom. Kyle said she read to them and made them listen to all these audio books from the library and stuff. I guess they soaked it in without meaning to. It’s nice though, not to have that dumb thuggish thing to deal with.”
“Nobody could accuse them of being dumb,” Zoe agreed. “Maybe a thing about having to defeat or protect the whole world…”
“Superhero complex,” Shea nodded sagely.
“Is that a medical term?”
“Nah. I made it up. We’ll call it the Dolan Syndrome.”
“As long as it doesn’t come with sexual dysfunction, I’m fine with them having a syndrome named after them.”
“Whatever it is, we’ve caught a bad case of it,” Shea said. “Now, help me throw some clothes in the trash bags. I have an apartment to move into.”
***
Carla Dolan kicked the door to her sons’ apartment three times, balancing the Crock Pot full of stew carefully. Zoe swung the door open.
“Dolans! Get over here and carry something heavy. You don’t spend hours working out to sit on the couch while your mom hauls stuff around,” Zoe hollered good-naturedly.
Aaron and Kyle vaulted off the couch, vying to take charge of the stew. Carla shooed them away and deposited the appliance on the counter, dropped her purse into a chair, and set her hands on her hips matter-of-factly.
“Where is my granddaughter?” she demanded.
Olive disengaged herself from the video game and stood up, tugging at the hem of her t-shirt self-consciously. It had My Little Pony on it. She had protested, but Shea had told her to quit being a punk and enjoy being nine, so she admitted to thinking Pinkie Pie was cute…”in a little kid kind of way”. Now she seemed impossibly small and lost in the roomful of Dolans and Dolans’ women, facing off with her grandmother.
“You look like me. Like, a lot,” Olive said.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Carla said, sizing her up. “Now, in my purse, I’ve brought a photo album full of pictures of your father as a little boy, doing a lot of embarrassing things like trying to pull off his diaper. Want to see?”
“Yeah!” Olive’s face lit up.
“Take your drink!” Kyle reminded her as she bounded off into her room with her grandmother in tow.
Olive smirked, but grabbed the supplement shake and took it with her.
“I think those two will be dangerous together,” Zoe said.
“You know it,” Shea agreed, burning herself on the Crock Pot as she tried to remove the lid. “Shit!”
“Run it under cold water,” Zoe told her.
Carla and Olive emerged from the girl’s room hand in hand.
“That’s settled,” Carla pronounced, “and as I live and breathe, I’ve found my soul mate. She is Capisci through and through, with a hint of the Dolan stubborn streak, I suppose.” She said proudly, “We’ll be spending the summer together. I’ll come here in the mornings, and I’m teaching her to cook and appreciate poetry. She’s going to teach me to appreciate hip hop and dystopian YA fiction, apparently.”
“What’s ‘dystopian’?” Olive put in.
“You said you wanted to read The Hunger Games. It’s a story about a cautionary society—a place where something is seriously wrong. I think we’ll find the book vastly different from the movie, and it’s glad I am that I’ve lived to see a grandchild—a fully grown one with interests, who is out of diapers. It’s as if I’ve won a lottery,” she said fondly.
“She’s really coming here every day, and she’ll stay with me so I don’t have to hang out in the fight school all day. Just for my class. I’m starting a class there next week,” she informed Carla.
“You’ll need to look out for yourself, that’s for certain, if you’re running with this shady lot,” Carla cautioned teasingly.
“Oh, Zoe’s nice, but I still think her boyfriend’s mad at me,” Olive said in a stage whisper, and everyone laughed.
“Her boyfriend is your uncle,” Kyle reminded her.
“Yeah, but I’d rather claim Zoe,”
“At last, a female you’ve failed to win over, Aaron,” Carla told her younger son.
“I think I’m her favorite Dolan so far,” Kyle told Aaron.
“No, I think Ma’s her favorite,” Aaron shot back.
“Alas we both lose, then,” Kyle said.
“Another generation of Capisci women to keep us in line, more like,” Aaron grumped, sniffing his mother’s stew appreciatively.
