by Callie Hart
Young Alessandro giggles, deep dimples marking both of his cheeks. His smile forces his eyes closed as he laughs at the prospect of such gluttony. “Yes, Mama. Let’s eat the whole thing. And then dessert!”
My mother, in her floral print wraparound dress, sits straight up in her seat, jerking to attention. “Dessert? Who said anything about dessert?” She opens her mouth wide in pretend shock. “Did you look inside the fridge, little sparrow?”
The little boy covers his mouth with his hands, trying not to laugh even harder. He turns to me, the older version of himself, sitting next to him at the table, and he cups one hand around his mouth, whispering loudly. “There’s panna cotta in there. Did you see it?”
I nod slowly. Sadly. “Yeah, buddy. I saw it.”
I saw it just now, when I snuck a peek inside the refrigerator, even though Mama told me not to. I saw it eleven years ago, before the darkness, and the suffering, and the broken bones, and the prison bars.
“You cheated,” Mama cries, addressing both of us. “That was very naughty.” Her eyes dance with delight. “Dessert is only for birthday boys, you know. I don’t think I know any birthday boys.”
Two voices fill the kitchen, loud and excited, quiet and withdrawn. “It IS my birthday.”
My mother continues to feign surprise. “It is?”
“Yes!”
“Oh, my goodness, little sparrow. I had no idea!”
“You did, you did!” I insist.
Her smile makes me light up on the inside. “All right then. I suppose, in that case, then there might be a little something sweet in the fridge for you after dinner. But first, mi amore, I need your help with something, okay? Do you think you can help your mama with one small job really quickly?”
I never feel more special, more needed, than when she asks me to help her. Excitement blooms in my six-year-old eyes. My seventeen-year-old heart beats a little faster. “Of course, Mama! I can do anything!”
“I know you can, my precious boy. You can slay dragons, and save the princess, and make the whole world right again. That’s why I love you so much. You’re the strongest little sparrow in the whole entire world. Come on. Come upstairs with me. This won’t take a second.” She holds out her hand to the small boy, and he accepts it happily without a second thought. The woman in the wraparound dress with the wild brown curls avoids looking at the older version of me as she takes her young son and begins to lead him up the stairs.
“Don’t go up there, Alex.” My voice is so cracked, so broken. Excruciatingly quiet. I feel like I’m screaming the words, but the little boy doesn’t hear me over my mother’s soft humming.
I follow them because I have to. I’m pulled up the stairs behind them, the smell of lilies and fresh summer fields flooding my head, intoxicating and terrifying. My legs are heavy as lead weights, resisting the pull of time and what has already come to pass, but cannot be avoided.
This isn’t how it happened…
This isn’t how it happened…
None of this is right.
The kitchen was a sun pocket, warm and bathed in the happy memories of my childhood. When I step onto the landing, completing the climb up the tight, carpeted stairway, I walk right into winter. There are no happy memories up here. Only fractured shards of grief that bite sharp teeth into my skin, twisting in the pit of my stomach, a cold sense of trepidation filling me from head to toe. Blue and grey, black and heavy.
My mother guides me into her bedroom, the room where she used to swaddle herself up in her depression, only tossing back the covers on her bed when she wanted to scream and curse at me—hate-filled words that never sounded right spewing from her mouth
I enter behind her, and fog forms on my breath. The place is as icy and frigid as a meat locker. As a morgue. My mother is no longer holding my hand. She’s lying on the floor, legs contorted and splayed at odd angles, the hem of her beautiful dress soaked red.
In her hands: a shining, silver gun.
Her eyes find mine, swiveling in her head. “What are you waiting for, baby? You know what you have to do. It’s okay. Quick and simple. Let’s just get it done.”
“N—no, Mama. No.”
Her eyes roll, too much white showing, like a terrified horse rearing before a snake. “Everything’s going to be okay, baby. It’ll all right. Pull the trigger and you’ll see. We can go back downstairs and have dessert afterward. That’s what you want, isn’t it? We can celebrate your birthday.”
Hot, metallic fear climbs up the back of my throat—the taste of death. The small boy reaches out for the gun, wanting to make his mother happy. To stop her from hurting. His small hand shakes with uncertainty.
The older version of myself steps over my mother, crouching down between the little boy’s slender frame and my mother’s prone body, but it’s too late. He’s already touching the heavy steel. He’s a second away from taking the gun from her. I clasp my older, wiser hands around his, holding them fast in place, preventing the moment from happening.
“Don’t listen to her,” I whisper. “This isn’t the help she needs. This…this never should have happened.”
I’m invisible to the little boy now, though. I’m a future he cannot foresee. Only I can look back on what was and see him, trembling, afraid, wanting to give the brightest light in his world the only thing she has ever begged him for.
His small hands cut through mine like my grasp is so much smoke, the irreversible action already pressing forward, appeasing the gods of time.
What has already passed cannot be undone…
“Don’t,” I plead. “For fuck’s sake, listen to me. Hear me. Don’t do this. We can still make it right. We can change everything. We can set it all right! If we save her, then we can save Ben!”
I’m lying to myself. There’s no fixing this. There was never a way to fix any of it. When I look down at my mother again, her face is a bloody ruin, half her jaw ripped away. A pool of blood soaks into the threadbare carpet, thick and viscous, so dark it looks black.
No longer capable of asking me with her words, she begs me with wide, panicked, fearful eyes. Do it. End it. Make it stop. Pull the trigger, passarotto.
What happens next was written in stone eleven years ago, but I can’t stop myself from hoping for a different outcome. I wait for the little boy to drop the gun. I hold my breath, lungs seizing in my chest, hope soaring as I pray for him to drop the terrible weapon in his grasp and call out for help.
He whimpers, tears chasing down his cheeks, catching on his dark eyelashes. My vision blurs. I can barely see…
The recoil nearly takes my arm off.
I stagger back, the kick of the gun everywhere all at once. I feel the impact of the bullet in my chest, and suddenly I’m lying on my back in a library, the sound of screaming in my ears.
“Oh my god, Alex, Alex! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to! I didn’t fucking mean to, I swear!” A girl with long black hair and ruby red lips stands over me, her hand fluttering at her chest. Her pale Snow-White porcelain cheeks are spattered red. Pain spreads through my chest like the roots of a tree, burrowing deeper, taking hold, wrapping around my bones…
The girl with the black hair takes hold of my younger self, pulling him tight to her chest, wrapping an arm around him protectively. “It’s okay, Alex. It’s okay. You did what you had to do. You did what you had to do. You did what you had to do. You did what you had to do. You did what you had to do. You did what you had to do…
8
ALEX
“You cleaned the carbs out? Air filter, too? And it’s still not turning over?”
The trailer’s a fucking bomb site. I never spent a fortune on the furniture or decked it out real nice, but I kept it fucking clean and tidy. Since Zander moved in, it looks like he’s made a few changes. Plates and dishes clutter the counter tops in the kitchen, and mugs of half-drunk coffee are busy growing mold at random spots all over the place. Piles of clothes litter the floor, along with empty cartons of greasy
Chinese food and crushed beer cans. In the hallway in front of the bedroom door, there’s a piece of toast sitting on the hardwood, covered in peanut butter and dust bunnies. A piece of fucking toast. He’s only lived here for fourteen days. This level of destruction is kind of impressive.
“Can you get it on a trailer? If you can bring it over here, I can take a look at it. I don’t have time to drive out there today, though.”
Zander’s voice is muffled and echoey, like he’s conducting his phone call inside a tin can. Lord, who talks to someone on the phone while they’re sitting on the shitter? It’s obvious to all parties concerned that you’re defecating. I wait in the living room for him, back up against the wall, tire iron in my hand. It feels good to have something heavy and solid to fuck around with while I bide my time. Saves me from repeatedly driving my fist into a wall instead, just to feel a different kind of pain.
“What are you doing, Alex? I don’t even like it here. Let’s go.”
Ben’s voice has joined my mother’s, it seems. My mind tortures me at frequent intervals throughout the day now, adding Ben’s imaginary thoughts and feelings to my inner monologue as it sees fit. Before too long, there’ll be so many dead people talking to me that my own voice will be fucking drowned out by all the chatter.
In the bathroom, Zander ends his call and flushes the toilet, confirming my suspicions. Dirty bastard. The door opens, making the same creaking groan it made when I lived here, and the son of a bitch trundles through to the kitchen, slamming about as he rifles around for god knows what. When he staggers into the living room in a vest and boxers, his hair all over the place and a fresh cup of coffee in his hand, I push away from the wall and step out in front of him.
His reaction is violent. Dressed head to heel in black, my face concealed behind a ski mask, I don’t look like I came here to try and sell him home insurance.
“Hell fucking no!” Zander hurls the cup of coffee at me, launching its steaming hot contents at my face. I’m ready for him. Ducking neatly to one side, I avoid the projectile, which explodes against the wall above his television. A quarter of a second later I have him by his throat, pinned against a rickety bookcase, and I’m hefting the tire iron above my head.
“What the fuck!” Zander shoves me in the chest, but I ain’t going nowhere. Gouging my gloved fingers into his esophagus, I keep on digging until I feel something pop. Only then do I ease back. End of the day, I don’t want to destroy his vocal cords. I want the fucker to talk, and that isn’t going to happen if I render him mute for the rest of his miserable life.
“S’up, Hawk,” I snarl. “Thought I’d bring you over a housewarming gift.”
Zander hacks and splutters, wheezing as he attempts to scramble away from me. “Alex? What the fuck, man? I thought you were gonna kill me. Why the hell are you wearing a ski mask?”
I keep a hold on him, slamming him back against the bookcase again. “It’s cold out,” I say flatly. “Plus, I wanted to scare the living shit out of you.” I pull the ski mask off, throwing it into his face.
Zander’s expression is priceless. He’s a strong guy. We’re matched in a lot of ways. He knows how to fight. He taught me plenty in juvie. Right now, he can feel the rage rolling off of me, though, and it’s put him on the backfoot. He scowls, throwing a half-hearted jab into my ribs. When I lean forward, putting all my weight against his throat again, he quits any ideas of fighting back. “You’ve been a whiny little bitch ever since I showed up in Raleigh, Alex. What the fuck’s your problem now?” he grouses. “Let me guess. You got yourself a papercut and it’s somehow my fucking fault, right?”
Hah. So much attitude. He won’t be sniping at me in a motherfucking minute. He’ll be lucky if he still has all of his fucking teeth. “Ahh, y’know. Spent a lot of time at the cemetery yesterday,” I reply. “We buried my little brother. He was in a car accident. Bled inside his skull until he died. It was a whole thing—”
“Jesus, Alex. I know. I’m sorry! You should have fucking told me the other night. Just…let go!” He wrenches himself free at last, lurching away, holding his hand against his neck. A pair of baleful, dark brown eyes glare at me from across the living room. “I know shit’s been tough, okay. I know you’ve had the worst run of all fucking time. But Christ, dude. No need to break into my place and murder me for it.”
I hold a set of keys aloft, jangling them in the air. “Didn’t break in. I forgot to mention I kept a spare set inside one of the breezeblocks around back.” He catches them when I toss them to him. “As for murdering you, I don’t know yet. I’ll admit, I’ve been thinking about it. See, someone paid me a visit yesterday. Someone I suspect you’re well-acquainted with.”
He looks at me like I’ve lost my mind, eyebrows arched, top lip curled in confusion. Slowly, he paces to the old couch I left here when I moved out and collapses down onto it. “Spit it out, man. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“My old man. Daddy Dearest. Giacomo Moretti. You might know him as Jack? He waltzed back into my life for a friendly little chat like he’d never even been gone. And d’you know what he was wearing when I set eyes on him for the first time in ten years? Care to hazard a guess?”
Zander’s face blanches white. He isn’t looking too well. Leaning forward, he grabs a can of beer from an open case on top of the coffee table and cracks it open. “Alex. I had no idea your old man was a Dreadnaught. Not until I came out to Raleigh. I’d never even heard his name until he showed up a couple of weeks ago at the club house. I’ve never even spoken to the guy.” He tips the beer back, chugging the liquid, and doesn’t stop until the can’s empty. Wincing, he discards it on the floor, rubbing at his throat. “You really fucked up my shit, dude. You could have broken my neck.”
Ignoring his pussy griping, I grab a beer from the case and sink down into the armchair opposite him, searching his face. “I don’t believe you. You’ve spoken to him plenty. And I’m betting you knew him before, too.” I pop the tab on the beer, holding the rim of the cold metal to my lips. “You know him before juvie, Zander?”
“Look, I just told you—”
“Zander.”
He curses under his breath. “Fine. Yeah. Fine. Jesus. I’ve spoken to Jack. I know him. But I didn’t know he was your old man until we’d already become friends at Denney. I pieced it together based on the stuff you said about him, okay. And it didn’t seem like a smart move to let on that we had ties when you obviously hated the guy so fucking much.”
I swill the beer around the inside of my mouth, hoping it’ll wash away the metallic taste of blood that’s been lingering on my tongue for days now. When I swallow, it’s still all I can taste, though. “You contacted him? Told him I was inside with you?”
“Sure. He already knew though, dude. It wasn’t news to him.”
“He asked you to keep an eye on me?”
Zander laughs, letting his head fall back onto the couch. “He didn’t say much of anything about it. Just grunted on the other end of the line. He didn’t tell me to do shit. I had your back because we were friends, man. For real. That had nothing to do with Jack.”
I don’t know if I can believe him. It all seems a little too coincidental to me. I don’t have the emotional wherewithal to unpack unimportant bullshit friend stuff at the moment, though. I just need to figure out what Jack’s game is and put an immediate stop to it. Because there is some sort of game here. There has to be. “And now? You show up at my place of work? You’re enrolled at the same school as me? This is all because we’re friends and you wanted to come hang out? I don’t buy it.”
“I told you why I came to Raleigh,” Zander replies wearily. “Q owed Monty a favor. He wanted me to register at Raleigh and figure out who’s been taking a chunk out of his coke business ever since that stuck-up Kacey bitch got sent away. That’s it. The end. Jack was never even near this deal. There’s bad blood between him and Monty. As far as I was aware, you couldn’t pay Jack to come to Raleigh, no matter how much yo
u offered him.”
“So then what? He just shows up out of nowhere of his own volition one day? That’s a load of shit.”
“Like you said, man. You buried your little brother yesterday. He was Ben’s fath—”
I hurl the beer can across the room, roaring at the top of my lungs. “I WISH—”
Deep breath. Take a deep breath, mi amore. That’s it. Shhhhh. Breathe….
I pause second, waiting for the tidal wave of anger to subside. “I wish people would stop calling him that. Giacomo was not Ben’s father. He’s not my father, either. He’s a scum sucking piece of trash that uses and abuses things until he breaks them. He never cared about us before. He didn’t give a shit about us when my mom died. He didn’t care about us when we were thrown into the foster care system. There’s no fucking way in hell he showed up yesterday because he was affected by Ben’s death. So, don’t give me that ‘he was Ben’s father’ bullshit. It won’t fucking wash.”
Zander lets out an exasperated sigh. “What the hell do I know, man? I’m just doing what I’m fucking told, trying not to get my ass handed to me by dudes with way more clout than me. My dad kicked it three months before I was even born, so all this,” he says, gesturing angrily at me, “makes no fucking sense to me anyway. I’m sorry about Ben. I know how bad you wanted him to come stay with you. For what it’s worth, I know you’d have taken awesome care of him. But I don’t know anything about Jack coming here. I don’t keep tabs on the man. I was hoping things’d be cool with us if I came here. So long as you don’t try and snap my neck again, I still think that’d be dope. But that is literally all I got for you right now.”
I swallow, regretting that I hurled my beer across the room. Feeling a tiny bit bad that Pabst Blue Ribbon is currently running down my old living room wall.
