by Amy Lane
Yeah.
That’s what her father was doing.
He was her hero—she’d always known that.
But standing here, holding this kid as he came unglued, she saw how her dad, who could be so goofy, so comically unprepared for adulthood, could also be a hero to the world at large.
He never closed his arms if he could possibly help it. He went out and did what needed to be done.
Elton had gotten hurt, and all she could think about was Elton.
Aaron had gotten hurt, and they’d both made themselves think about a bigger world.
The idea was terrifying. She couldn’t make herself brush her teeth some days. How was she supposed to extend beyond herself and help somebody else?
But she couldn’t just leave this boy. He needed her. He needed someone who would hold him and tell him it would be all right—even if that person didn’t know for sure.
Just like her father had when she and Christiana had been small. For the first time, she remembered those early days when they’d moved to Colton, and he’d been a single father and trying to convince both of them that he wouldn’t desert them—not like their mother had. He wouldn’t neglect them, suddenly finding them distasteful and tainted. He had worked long hours into the night—because he’d spent all their waking time together being everything he could for them. He’d made a game out of everything from eating their vegetables to saving money on the heating bill so they could afford the vegetables, so they would feel this, right here, this safety in the world.
Olivia had spent so much of the last few months obsessing about her mother, wondering if she was going to be just like Alicia, cold, distant, so immersed in her own personal pain that she lashed out at the people she should have loved most, that she’d forgotten the basic, most important lessons her father had taught her.
It all started with this right here.
It started with a hug when someone felt bad. A soft voice when someone was afraid. A safe haven when the scary monsters threatened.
It started with touch.
EVENTUALLY SHE shepherded Jaime and the other boys in. Even the dog had been played out and was content to flop on his pillow in the entryway, watching the people move around the kitchen and prepare him wondrous leftovers.
Olivia tended to the chocolate Christi had started, using the Larx method of throwing in all the things that made it tasty. Cinnamon? Yes. Nutmeg? A dash. Pumpkin spice? Sure. Some white chocolate cocoa—the last little bit in the canister? Perfection. And, oh hey, there were marshmallows, so everything was hunky-dory, right?
Yoshi was the one who pulled out two giant tubs of Cool Whip so they could pour the concoction over big fluffy pillows of fake cream and pretend sugar shock wasn’t a thing.
Jaime drank his cocoa with them in the kitchen, laughing with the rest of the table when Kellan tried to lick a big dollop of cream off his nose, and Elton pretended to explain how he got high on hot chocolate, no alcohol necessary.
Yoshi had ordered pizza—in spite of the fact that Christiana and the boys had already started a stew in the Crock-Pot, and there were sandwich fixin’s in the fridge—and everybody dug in cheerfully when it arrived.
Yoshi’s boyfriend, Tane, arrived about ten minutes into the pizza, with Jaime’s brother at his heels.
Berto looked like Jaime—pale skin, dark hair, dark eyes—but he looked like Jaime would if somebody had beaten him with a lead pipe at some point in his life—probably because they had.
His nose was squashed and sideways, and his jaw sported two or three lumps as well. His arm hung oddly at his side, his thumb twisting out at bizarre angle, and he walked with the measured limp of a man who would walk in pain for maybe the rest of his life.
He looked like he’d been crying for hours, and he held on to his little brother like a man hanging on for dear life.
“Come in,” Jaime urged him. “Berto, they’ve got a dog. Just for a minute. We’ve got pizza—you can eat pizza and feed the crust to the dog and….” His voice wavered. “Come see that it’s not awful here, okay?”
Berto nodded weakly, and Olivia gave the boys their distance. Yoshi tapped her on the shoulder when she came inside.
“Hey—could you go upstairs and get a couple of changes of clothes for your dad and Aaron? Maybe take your sister? He’s having sort of a busy day today, and I think he’s going straight to the hospital afterward.”
Olivia yawned, ready for her depression nap. “Wow. Poor Daddy—this has got to really suck for him.”
Yoshi nodded and looked compassionately at Tane. Tane—thin, bark-colored from the sun, heavily tattooed, and as lean as old shoe leather—had the same sort of weariness around the eyes that Berto did.
With a shock, Olivia realized that Tane wasn’t okay inside either. Uncle Yoshi—cheerful and sarcastic and so damned capable—had always worshipped Tane, but Tane had never been part of their circle. Olivia had never even wondered why until now.
Now she knew why.
He’d been shattered too, just like Berto.
A little bit like her.
“Yeah,” Yoshi said after a moment of communing with his beloved. “Bad day all round. So if you could go get him some sweats and some toiletries and slippers—they’ll let him shower at the unit, and he can stay with Aaron tonight, make sure he’s all good.”
Olivia nodded. Suddenly, fiercely, she wanted Aaron to be all good not just for Aaron, or for his son, or even for herself, so she didn’t have to endure the labor of grieving.
She wanted Aaron to be okay for her father, because Aaron was to her father like Yoshi was to Tane: the glue that held them together.
“I’ll grab Christi,” she said.
It was Christi’s idea to put the Garfield slippers in the bag.
“In the hospital?” Olivia asked, sounding way too grown-up, even to her own ears.
“Livvy, if there’s any place in the world that you need cheering up in, it’s the hospital. Trust me. We spent, like, a week there in the fall when Kellan’s boyfriend got hurt—people saw my purple Snoopy pajamas, and it was like they’d never seen the sun before. If it’s quirky, keeps you warm, and is brightly colored, people need to see it.”
“Ugh,” Olivia said, looking at her father’s hooded sweatshirt drawer. “That is the opposite of his clothes collection. You’d think now that he has a boyfriend, somebody would buy Dad some purple.”
Christiana regarded her with deep disgust. “It’s like you’ve never met your own father.”
Olivia eyed Christi dispassionately—her sister could be a total stinker, and everybody knew it. “Don’t tell me you didn’t think it. We’ve lived in Colton too damned long for our thoughts not to have redneck non-left-wing overtones.”
Christi smirked. “I gave him purple socks for Valentine’s Day,” she said, smiling so hard her chipmunk cheeks popped out. “I couldn’t resist. It’s like when Schuyler bought me overalls for Christmas.” She sighed. “I’m gonna miss Schuyler.”
Olivia swallowed. Sure, a high school breakup wasn’t the end of the world—but Olivia remembered when it felt like it was.
“Sorry about the breakup,” she offered tentatively. “I wasn’t really… in a place to hear about it when I got here.”
Christiana reached around her and grabbed a standard gray hooded sweatshirt, two pairs of white socks, and a couple of pairs of undershorts. “Well, when you pull your head out, come talk,” she said frankly as she was stuffing the clothes in a canvas bag. “I miss you.”
Olivia wouldn’t let herself get defensive about that—she figured she’d had it coming. “I promise.”
Christi looked around the bedroom again. “Want to grab some more pajamas for Aaron?”
Shrug. “Sure.” It would make Larx happy. Olivia was all about that.
BERTO AND Tane stayed for about twenty minutes, and Jaime managed to get him to eat a slice of pizza and sit on the dog pillow while petting the dog for a good long time. When they left, Berto was proba
bly wearing half a coat of big blond dog on his jacket—and Dozer wasn’t going to move until absolutely necessary. Ever.
When they were gone, Jaime gave her a beaming smile and wiped the back of his cheek with his hand before going to the kitchen to help clean up.
His brother wasn’t okay—but he had help. He’d eaten pizza, he’d petted a dog—Jaime would take that hope and cling to it.
Olivia found she was in the mood to do the same.
Elton had gone back into the living room and was channel surfing dispiritedly in the recliner. She walked in to him and took his free hand.
“Hey,” she said, keeping her voice quiet. “El?”
“Liv?” His smile was tentative and hopeful, and she realized with a pang that she’d rebuffed him pretty hard these last few months, while yearning equally hard for his kindness, his quirkiness, the way his blue eyes took in the world with unexpected wonder.
Had she become so selfish in her pain that she inflicted it on other people, like her mother had with Larx?
She sank to a crouch in front of him and took his hands. “My sister got Larx’s bed ready for us. Don’t get too comfy—I can see the snow plow on the forestry track from here, so we’ll probably be moving into Aaron’s house tomorrow.”
“We?” he asked wistfully.
Oh. “Well, yeah.” She brought his knuckles to her lips and kissed them, letting the affection she’d kept so bottled up escape. “I’ve missed you since Thanksgiving. If you… if you want me, after all this—”
“Oh, I do.” He nodded earnestly, and she couldn’t help it. She laughed.
“Good,” she said softly. “I’m… I’m still sad inside, El. I’m still lonely. And I need to talk to my dad, and maybe to a few other people as well. But….”
“But?”
She allowed her legs to fold, and she sat, resting her head on his knees. “I care about you. So much. I care about this baby. I’m scared. And I hurt. But there are so many big things to be scared about—so many worse ways to hurt. I want to get help. But I want this baby, and I want you in our lives. Can we try that?”
“Come here,” he said, his voice thick.
She climbed into his lap, because he was still bigger than she was, and she rested her cheek on his shoulder. His arm around her reminded her what safety was, reminded her that people could be kind, could fill in the empty places in your soul.
“I love you,” he whispered into her hair.
“I love you back,” she told him, and giving him the words felt liberating. She no longer had to trap them against her chest, afraid they’d die if she set them free.
They wouldn’t die—they’d heal.
And Elton deserved healing too.
PATCHES OF SKY
LARX STAYED two nights in the hospital with Aaron, but on Thursday morning school started up again, and he was needed.
He kissed Aaron goodbye early in the morning, eyes bright and shiny and lips soft on Aaron’s temple, promising to come by in the evening with kids in tow.
Aaron was looking forward to seeing the kids again—but dammit. He wanted some time with Larx, because the last two days felt like he was missing something—something big, important, life-changing, but Larx was the only one who knew what it was.
How did that happen? How did Aaron get shot and Larx get the life lesson to go with it?
The thought buzzed through Aaron’s head most of the day as he read from the tablet the kids had brought by the day before and flipped dispiritedly through daytime TV. Larx had authorized him three new movies through the tablet, but he knew he didn’t get to go home until Sunday, and he wanted to save them for a time he wasn’t irritated and pissed off.
Something was wrong.
Eamon stopped by around lunch, and Aaron relaxed for the first time in two days.
“How you doing, son?” Eamon asked kindly.
“Peachy.” Bitterness dripped from his voice and pooled around the bed, but Eamon only laughed.
“Pissed off yet?”
“Bored as fuck. I need to learn to knit.”
Eamon tilted his head back and laughed, and something about the sound pricked Aaron’s antennae. Eamon wasn’t in a good mood either.
“What’s up?” Aaron asked quietly.
Eamon shrugged. “I… I thought I was leaving you with a good house,” he said after a minute. “Next year the election comes up, I shoo you in, and I leave Colton safe and protected. Georgie and I take a few vacations and come home to a good place.”
“This is a good place.” Aaron had to believe it, but Eamon shook his head.
With a sigh he ventured into the room, unzipped his jacket, and sat, knees spread, elbows balanced on knees, hat in his hand. “I… my house is not in the order I thought it was. I thought the town could deal with you as sheriff and it would be not a problem—”
“Second thoughts about me?” Until he said it, Aaron hadn’t realized how much he wanted the job.
“Hell, no.” Unequivocal, Eamon’s denial settled Aaron’s stomach a little. “I just… I guess this is a preemptive apology. I can’t fire Percy Hardesty for you. Dammit—I looked at ways to try, and the most I could do was write an incident report and put it on his record. I can’t demote Warren from deputy to… I don’t know… paper pusher. I can’t sway the next election so that miserable woman Larx has to deal with on the school board can go the fuck away. I… I wanted to leave you a good house. And it’s sound—I believe it to my bones. But it’s not what I wanted.”
Aaron swallowed against the ache in his ears, the lump in his throat. “Nobody can unfuck the whole world at once, Eamon. You did your best. What did Percy do now?”
Eamon laughed a little, his eyes still fixed on his hat. “Your boy said almost the same thing, do you know that? Except Larx—he wanted to know which job would unfuck it quickest.”
Aaron smiled, wanting Larx—the real Larx, not the super sweet, super competent nursemaid who’d been there for two days—next to him again. “That’s easy. His.”
Eamon’s chuckle was a little richer this time. “That’s what I told him.” He sighed. “Right before Percy drew down on him.”
Aaron knew better than to try to sit up quickly, but he did it anyway, and his whole body hurt. “The fuck? Why were weapons even needed?” He fell back against the pillows and caught his breath. “What happened?” he finished weakly.
The look Eamon shot him said important things about how much Larx hadn’t been talking. “Did he tell you what happened the other day?”
It was Aaron’s turn to frown. “He said you found the girl at a train station. Why?”
Eamon stood up and scowled, then whipped out his phone and texted rapidly. When he was done, he sat back down and gave a grim smile.
“Uh….” Aaron wondered what he’d just said to whom—because Eamon was not the semidefeated man he’d just seen. This man was grumpy and irritated and ready to go kick some asses and take some names. “What happened? You guys found her at the train station and took her to CPS, right? Why would Percy even have his gun out?”
Eamon’s chuckle held an edge to it. “Oh, Aaron. Let me tell you the story of a man named Larx….”
Aaron took a deep breath—as deep as he could manage with his healing lung and the cannula, anyway. “I am not going to like this,” he muttered.
“About as much as Larx liked you getting shot.”
“Oh my God—what happened?”
Eamon shook his head. “Son, I don’t know who you thought you were sleeping with when you took on your mild-mannered principal, but I’m telling you, you got a superhero instead.”
Aaron closed his eyes. Superheroes were fun to talk about but had lousy love lives. If Larx’s saccharine withdrawal over the last few days told him anything, it was that Aaron was hospitalized proof.
“Hit me,” he said grimly.
Twenty minutes later the nurse came in because his respiration was elevated and his heartbeat was racing. And he had still not f
ound words.
When he’d stopped gasping for breath, he managed to put a few together for at least one of the thoughts racing through his mind.
“Tell Percy—” Gasp. “—if he draws on Larx again—” Gasp. “—I’ll kill him.”
“Sure, Aaron. That’s the takeaway here.”
Aaron glared at him.
“Aren’t you going to ask why he didn’t tell you?”
Aaron shook his head. He knew why Larx wouldn’t tell him. Aaron was stuck in the hospital, and Larx couldn’t do a damned thing about it. Why would Larx tell him about battered children and an asshole with a gun—two assholes with guns—when there wasn’t a damned thing Aaron could do about it?
Larx didn’t tell Aaron about his day for the same reason Aaron hadn’t told his wife about his days.
For the same reason Aaron had fallen apart when Larx’s arm had been grazed back in October.
Because love should be a straightforward thing, but sometimes it was like a nautilus—a thousand chambers of pain and denial until you got to the heart of the love.
EAMON LEFT shortly after that, and Aaron fell into a restless, fitful sleep. When he woke up, his daughter Maureen was there, and so were Kellan, Kirby, and Christiana.
“No Larx?” he asked, disappointed.
“Told you,” Kirby said, holding his hand out for money.
Christiana dug into her purse, saying, “It doesn’t mean he wanted to see Larx more than you. It means he wants to see Larx as much as you.”
Maureen chuckled weakly, looking strained. “As long as he wanted to see me,” she said primly.
Aaron smiled. “Of course. What brings you home from school?”
“My father. Apparently he got shot. How you doin’, Dad?”
I’m missing my boyfriend, which sounds stupid, because we’re getting near fifty and too old for this boyfriend shit. “I miss home,” he said.
“Well, I’d say home misses you, but mostly I think it’s just Larx.”
Aaron clasped his daughter’s hand. “Larx has been here,” he said. “I’m glad you came.”
