by J. J. McAvoy
“Thank you, now, tell them that once you are all better—”
“Calliope, promise me something.”
“You all are really making me rack up debt with these promises.”
She smiled. “Promise me, that the same way you dedicated your life to gaining everything you wanted now, will be how dedicated you are protecting and keeping this family going. No matter how much they annoy you or offend you or how angry you are at Ethan, you will remember to lay down your life to make sure they keep living. And that you will never leave him. You’ll always be beside Ethan.”
“Evelyn, don’t give me too much credit or so much faith. At the end of the day, I will always do what I think I must to survive, that my children survive. My heart is small; it only covers so much.”
“It will grow, and one day, you might end up hiding in the shadows to make sure your kids and their kids and the rest of the family is whole. So, promise me.”
“Only if you promise me that you will live at least half a decade.”
She smiled but didn’t answer.
“Evelyn, Liam is still—”
“I’ve said so much to my son already; he knows,” she cut me off. “So, promise me.”
I sighed heavily. “Fine, I promise. Now you have to stay alive to make sure I don’t break it.”
She laughed gently. “I’m glad Ethan has you. Let me know when he gets here.”
Ethan, where are you? Don’t you know it’s rude to keep a dying woman waiting? I thought, watching as Gigi climbed back onto the bed to lay next to her.
Over the next few hours, everyone came into her room…even Mina. She spoke to each person, and she made them all promise her something. Every word she spoke was about family. After each person, she would tell me to let her know when Ethan got here. And as the sun began to set and the sky darkened, I wanted Ethan to be here more for her than anything else.
There was still no word.
And as the moon shined in the night sky, we all felt it—she wasn’t going to see the sunrise. She got weaker and weaker despite Wyatt’s best efforts. Everyone surrounded her as she waited for the last person to make their way to her.
Taking out my phone, I walked over to her bedside, kneeling by the bed again. “Evelyn?”
“Is he here?” she asked, her eyes not even opening.
“He’s on a flight back right now,” I lied. “I have him on the line, what do you want to say to him?”
Her eyes flittered open the tiniest bit, looking at the phone, and she smiled. “You’re okay. I’m so happy that you’re okay, Ethan. I’ve been waiting. I know you. You’d be mad if I left without saying anything. I know you’re sad, right?”
Silence.
“It’s okay. Ethan, it’s okay. Promise me…promise me you’ll forgive them…and you’ll forgive yourself. You don’t have to be perfect. I love you, and this family loves you all the same. Even when I am not here, know that I love you, and I trust you. You are going to do so well. This is just the beginning for you I know it. I’m sorry I couldn’t see more. But know, I will always and forever be on your side. Just like your grandpapa.”
It was as if those words, that promise was the force keeping her alive, and after she said them, there was nothing left but the name.
“Sedric.” Came from her mouth.
That was it. At 9:47 pm on December 30th, surrounded by almost all of her family, the rock, the foundation of the Callahan family, Evelyn Callahan passed away with a smile on her face.
22
“Freedom for the wolves
has often meant death to the sheep.”
~Isaiah Berlin
CALLIOPE
It was 7 am.
I’d been up since 5 am.
The funerals would be at 8 am.
And still, even with all the news and press that I’d put out, there was no word from Ethan. He had to be here. There could be no valid reason, no excuse that would cover him not being here…at the funeral of his only grandmother and uncle. No reason but death. The only reason he wouldn’t be here was that he had died. He hadn’t died. The son of bitch wasn’t allowed to die. I had to torture him, I had to make him suffer, I had to make sure he knew nothing less than groveling for years would make me even consider forgiving him. After all that I had given up for him, he needed my permission to catch a cold, let alone die.
So, I waited.
Quietly, I waited in the living room by the fireplace under the family portrait that was no longer an accurate representation of this family. A haunting reminder of the cost this “victory” came.
All the people who had hurt me growing up were dead. I now sat in a luxurious mansion, with people at my beck and call, covered from head to toe in precious jewels and clothes. This was a victory. My rewards were funerals.
That was what I got for winning—death, pain, and tears.
A home filled with aching silence.
“Ma’am?”
Looking to the door, I saw O’Phelan waiting.
“What?”
“The family is ready,” he said.
“Is Ethan here?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then the family is not ready,” I replied, looking away from him. Because he was smart, he understood that I would not discuss it any further and left. But the foolish one came in his place. I knew his voice by heart now.
“You are the one who pushed for these funerals. We shouldn’t be late,” Wyatt said.
“Ethan is not here.”
“Ethan hasn’t been here in days. That didn’t stop you from planning all of this.”
“Now I have finished planning, so I must wait,” I said, looking to him.
Like me, like everyone, he was dressed in all black with a green Callahan pin on his suit lapel. His hair was combed a bit, he’d shaved, and yet with all the cleaning up he had done, you could clearly see the worry and exhaustion…the defeat in his eyes.
He exhaled slowly before stepping inside closer to me. “I understand why you want to wait for Ethan. But, Aunt Mina, Uncle Declan, and everyone out there is waiting to bury their grief. Making us all wait only makes them stand in pain longer. We can find an excuse—”
“There is no excuse for him not to be here. If you all like, you may go. Gigi and I will wait here for him to come back and leave with him for the funeral.”
“Calliope—”
“What? You don’t like the idea of standing out there as everyone watches the family, wondering where Ethan and his family are? You don’t want to be stuck there with the choice of whether or not to start the ceremony?”
“I’m not trying to argue with you, Calliope—”
“Good. Then everyone will wait—”
“What if he—”
“Don’t say it,” I cut in coldly, narrowing my eyes on him. “Don’t become any smaller in my eyes, Wyatt. When will you start to have faith in him?”
His jaw cracked to the side. “I have faith! I—”
“No, you don’t. All of you lack faith. It’s bothersome.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. Ethan often rubbed his temples, but he did this, too, sometimes. A trait they had picked up from their father. I’d seen Liam do it almost twice a day, every day.
“We will wait then,” he replied, but instead of leaving, he took a seat across from me on the couch.
I tilted my head to the side, wondering what he was doing.
He shrugged. “I’d rather stick around you than deal with them right now.” He’d nodded to the door when he said them…them being his family. He leaned back on the couch, and I looked away from him, hoping he didn’t want to talk.
But of course, I didn’t have that type of luck.
“Ethan upset you, and you still blindly trust him. Why?”
I exhaled. “It’s not blind trust. I trust him with my eyes open. No one asked you to be blind, Wyatt. You can see Ethan for all he is. A liar, a killer, a selfish, manipulative son of a bitch—”
“Y
ou do love him, right?” He chuckled.
“You can see all the flaws in him. You can see all of his mistakes. You see it, you accept it, and you have faith in him anyway.”
“And what if that leads you to getting hurt?”
“You get hurt. But the hurt you go through with him is most likely less than the hurt you would go through without him…as you may have noticed.”
He pursed his lips and rolled his eyes. “Ethan has always been different from me, from all of us. I tried following him. But it’s sometimes very cold next to him. He keeps everything in his head. He never says what he wants. Instead, he goes through these elaborate schemes to force us to do what he wants. Sometimes I want to smack him and just say ‘speak you dumbass.’ If you want us here, tell us. If you want us to do something, tell—”
“Then, you’d argue with him.”
“So? We argue. He explains. If we argue more. He yells and threatens. We won’t like it, but we will fall in line. After all, he yelled at us to accept you, and here we are.”
“Your girlfriend slash cousin, and then your cousin both tried to kill me.”
His jaw cracked to the side for a second, then almost like a kid, he pouted, looking up to the ceiling. “You are not fun to talk to. You’re biased in his favor.”
“Good to see the last few weeks hasn’t knocked the childishness out of you.”
The corner of his lips turned up, though he still stared up at the ceiling. “That’s good to see? I would have thought you would call it annoying.”
“It is. But it is you,” I replied. “You are childish. Smart, stubborn, dedicated to your family, but childish. Nothing is to going to change who you are at your core. Same as Ethan. He’s never going to tell you everything. He’s having so many thoughts and conversations in his mind he forgets about the people around him. His way is the only way. There is only one compromise.”
“And that is?”
“Me.”
“You?” he scoffed, not understanding.
I nodded. “I don’t mind silence or conversation. I get Ethan. I see his flaws, and I will fill them. And if it takes me holding your hand for you to calm your ass down and listen, fine. I’ll do it, I guess.”
“No fucking thank you.” He chuckled. “I think I’ll figure out how to mend things with my brother without using his woman.”
“Is that so?”
“I have known him longer.”
“Then why do you keep doubting him?”
“Now we’ve talked ourselves into a circle,” he replied.
We had.
But before I could get another word in, there was a knock on at the door.
“They are most likely worried we are killing each other, or they want to know when we will leave,” he said, rising from the chair. “Come—”
“Enter.” I cut in, reminding him who owned this place now.
O’Phelan entered.
“What?”
“Mr. Callahan and his sister are here,” he said.
“What?” Wyatt gasped, stunned.
I glanced at my watch. 7:57 am. We’d be a few minutes late to the funeral, but we’d all be there. Calmly rising from the chair, I walked out into the entrance foyer, and there, walking in from the front doors, was Dona, princess blah…blah. I didn’t really care. It was the man behind her that Gigi dashed to. He caught her before he lifted her into her arms. He stood tall, a dark head of hair, dressed in all black, with not a fucking scratch on him.
“Papa, where did you go?” Gigi hugged him so tightly that if he let her go, she’d probably just hang from his neck.
Dona went to the rest of her family, hugging them. But Ethan scanned the entrance until his green eyes landed on me. We stared at each other for a moment before he kissed Gigi’s head and whispered something. She shook her head, so he whispered again. Finally, she agreed to allow him to put her back down on her feet.
It was only then that he walked over to me. I stood, waiting, but with each step he took, I remembered what he had done to me, why he had done it to me. I remembered what he had gone to do. I remembered how long it had been since I had heard his voice and why this all felt so…heavy.
“Calliope,” he said, and my name and heart did stir a little. “I’m sorry—”
My fist, along with the ring he had given me, collided so hard into his face his head went back first before his body began to stumble. It was then he groaned, holding his side and shaking his thigh slightly in pain.
“Oh good, you are injured, and here I thought you went on vacation without me.” I had hit him hard but not hard enough to send him stumbling over if he weren’t actually hurt.
He inhaled deeply, not once, not twice, but three times, gritting his teeth as he got up off his knees, wincing in pain as he tried to stand straight again. “I—”
“Suck it up. You’re already late enough. Today is not about you,” I said, walking around him to the rest of the family. “Dona, thank you for coming, I know you are very busy these days.”
Dona turned slightly to face me. Her eyebrow raised with a look of superiority on her face to match her title. “There is no need for a thank you, this is my family, so of course I would be here. However, I would like to stop coming back for funerals, if possible.”
“Yes, I will pray for us to gain immortally at the church. Now, Your Highness, please, after you,” I said, waving her to the door. “We really are running late.”
She eyed me up and down, then nodded before she elegantly, in a black gown that flowed like water on the marble, walked back toward the door linked arm in arm with Helen. One by one, they all begin to walk out as well.
“Calliope,” Ethan whispered from behind me, his breath tickling the back of my ear.
“Whatever you have to say or tell or explain, do it later, Ethan. Right now, just fucking lead the family through this so I can take a damn break. I deserve that, at least,” I replied, reaching out to take Gigi’s hand.
She looked back at her father, but he stepped up on the side, and we all walked out as a family.
The world shook, there was thunder and lightning, fire and brimstone, hell on earth…even death. Yet the Callahans walked calmly together out into the world to face is it all as one united family.
That was the image everyone would have burned into their minds.
One family.
No one would ever know of the cracks, the pains, tears, sorrow, blood, and death—we walked on top of.
Was it all worth it?
Yes.
Yes, it was.
Winning was always worth it.
I glanced over to Ethan, who stared out the window, completely lost in thought, yet holding Gigi almost as tightly as she was holding onto him.
KILLIAN
You would have thought a king or the president or maybe even the pope had died from the number of people who came to Grandma Evelyn and Uncle Neal’s funeral. I had thought my mother’s sendoff was lavish; after all, Helen had put her all into it, and there had been almost two hundred people in attendance. But this…this was beyond expectation. Outside the manor, people had laid flowers and cards. At the church, there were lines of people waiting outside. There was no way for them to enter, but they still came to pay their respects. People were weeping…for us. No. For Evelyn and her son…but mostly, I had to believe it was Evelyn. Apparently, all that charity amounted to more than just a good cover story. People really thought highly of her, missed her, grieved her loss with the rest of the family. I wanted to mourn, too, but for some odd reason, I felt nothing but anger.
Not a raging anger, but like a cold numbness deep within myself. During the service, I couldn’t look away from the back of Ethan and Calliope’s heads. I was simply one row behind them. I could easily pull out a knife and stab them both. I could easily strangle them. I watched them pretend for the cameras and for the people watching—for each other…both of them acting like…like they didn’t have a hand in the deaths that befell us all. They were
all together—Ethan, his wife, and daughter. They were whole while the rest of us were hurt, broken, and mourning losses.
We took the hit for them.
The family took the hit for them and their plots. And they moved on like we weren’t owed anything from them.
It pissed me off.
I was angry. Watching them stop and accept the priest's words, then give speeches before we even made it to the burial grounds made me want to scream. But I, like the rest of the family, said nothing. All the world was moving around me. And I just let myself be moved because if stopped, if I spoke, I knew there would be bloodshed, and I didn’t want to tarnish the woman who was like my grandmother or my uncle’s final day of rest.
Today, I would go along with this, but tomorrow…tomorrow—
“I know what you are thinking,” my father spoke from beside me as I watched them pour dirt on the open graves.
“What am I thinking then?” I asked.
“How to get revenge,” he replied, his voice barely over a whisper. “How to make them pay for this…make them pay for using your mother, too.”
“Someone has to.” I bit my tongue to keep from yelling.
“Don’t you get it?” he asked. “The world will make them pay as it has always made this family pay. Look around you. Look at how many Callahan are buried here. Not one of them died a natural death; not one of them had peace. They paid.”
I did look around. And I saw them all. Names of people I didn’t even know but with the last name Callahan anyway.
“I do not have time to wait for the world, Dad.”
“You don’t have time to take it into your own hands, either,” he shot back. “You’ve always wanted to be the leader. Wanted to correct the injustice you think was done to us. That had my father lived, I would have led after him and you after me. You think old man Sedric stole it from me.”
“You were young—”
“I was smart,” he cut in. “I made it clear I wouldn’t fight Neal or Liam. Why? Because I wanted to live a long life. I wanted to see my kids grow up. I didn’t want to pay for our lives with my own. Old man Sedric didn’t steal anything from me. I made a choice, and in the end, I am the last one standing.”
