At Peace (41 page)

“This is your
business because…?” Sam asked.

“Because Vi
asked me to have a word,” Cal replied.

“And because
you’re fuckin’ my sister,” Sam returned.

Cal stared at
him and didn’t respond. He wasn’t surprised Sam had figured this
out. Vi might have found her times but that didn’t mean no one was
paying attention.

“She talks
about you, so do the girls, they like you. I’m cool with that,” Sam
told him. “She needs good shit in her life and the minute I saw
you, brother, you struck me as good people. I’m happy for her. But
you installed a security system that rivals the Pentagon’s to help
keep her safe so, I’m guessin’ you know where I’m comin’ from.”

He did, he just
didn’t agree with it.

“I’m tellin’
you, you need to stand down,” Cal repeated.

“And I’ll tell
Vi-oh-my you did what you could. But I’m not standin’ down.”

Cal again
didn’t respond.

Sam held his
stare for awhile and finally asked, “We good?”

They weren’t
anything or they wouldn’t be.

“Yeah,” Cal
replied.

“Fantastic.
When we come back and Vi makes her risotto again, I’d hate to see
you sittin’ there glarin’ at me while I’m eatin’ it. Shit’s fuckin’
ambrosia and, brother, you’re kinda scary. Would ruin the
risotto.”

Nothing would
ruin Vi’s risotto that shit was the best thing he’d ever tasted in
his whole fucking life.

Cal wanted to
laugh. He didn’t because he knew, Sam came back, he wouldn’t be
sitting at Vi’s table eating anything.

He finished
their pool game, said his good-byes to a surprised Melissa and a
shocked Vi and he got out of there.

He went home,
called Nadia and set it up for the next day.

It needed to be
done.

It didn’t
matter Cal didn’t open the door, the three of them were charging
through. Vi, Kate and Keira, female battering rams who were
relentless.

And he needed
to close it down, cut her loose, cut all of them loose so he could
close himself off and open the way for them to move onto a good
life.

But Vi had to
end it. It had to be her decision this time so there was no going
back.

So he was
forcing her hand.

* * * * *

He was sitting
in the dark, in his living room, in his father’s chair with a
bottle of bourbon, a glass half full in his hand when he heard the
sliding glass door open.

He’d been home
an hour. It took longer than he expected for her to come over.

She slid the
door closed and stood at it, her back against the glass, a shadow
silhouetted by the moonlight. He didn’t know how she knew he was
sitting there. He’d never been sitting in his living room when she
came over then again he usually met her at the door. But she
knew.

“Did you fuck
her?” she whispered.

“None of your
business, buddy,” Cal forced himself to say.

“You don’t use
protection with me, Cal, so yeah it is. Did you fuck her?”

He didn’t hear
any words after she called him Cal. His body had frozen, his mind
had blanked.

“I asked you a
question,” she prompted, still whispering.

“You want this
scene then yeah, I fucked her, Vi,” he lied.

She was
silent.

He knew she’d
hate it when he reminded her softly, “You don’t get to do this,
buddy, this isn’t what we have.”

“I know about
Nicky.”

It took
everything he had not to surge to his feet.

“Come again?”
he asked only after he unclenched his teeth.

“I know about
your son, Nicky, your Dad. I know about Bonnie. I know
everything.”

Cal swallowed
the acid taste burning his tongue then he said, “Everyone knows. It
isn’t a secret, Vi.”

“You’re
empty.”

He stared at
her silhouette. How she knew that, he had no fucking clue but she
wasn’t wrong.

“Yeah,” he
agreed.

“Nothing can
fill you up,” she stated.

“Nope,” he
agreed again.

“You won’t let
it.”

“Barrel’s got a
hole in the bottom, buddy, everything leaks out no matter how much
you pour in.”

She was silent
a moment then she whispered, “Right.”

She turned to
the door and his hand gripped his bourbon so hard he had to focus
everything on loosening his grip or the glass would shatter.

Before she
opened it, she turned back. “You don’t know, Cal, you have no idea.
You’ve shut yourself up for so long in this fucking house with your
tragic memories, you have no idea what’s about to walk out your
door. Kate, Keira and me, we could have plugged that hole. We could
have filled you so full, you’d be bursting. We would have loved
that chance. We’d have given it everything we had, no matter the
time that slid by, graduations, weddings, grandbabies, you’d have
been a part of us and we’d have given everything we had to keep you
so full, you’d be bursting.”

Cal didn’t
reply.

“Joe,” she
whispered, “you let me walk out this door, you’ll lose your
chance.”

Cal didn’t
move.

Vi waited.

Cal stayed
seated.

Vi slid open
the door, walked through and slid it to. He didn’t hear her calmly
walking across his deck to the steps, he heard her running.

When he heard
that, the glass shattered in his hand.

The Beginning

It was bad timing. Then again, it was never
good timing for shit like that.

Never.

Ever.

But this was different. This was the
worst.

Because Cal was home.

He had been home once in the last two and a
half months. Once, for a night, gone the next day. I hated myself,
but I’d looked. I always looked to his drive, even through the
windows, a million times a day at first. I was getting better,
bucking the habit. Now I only looked when I drove home, or drove
away, or got in or out of the car. Progress.

Though I wore his t-shirts to bed every
night. I knew I shouldn’t, I kicked myself every time I pulled one
over my head. I just couldn’t stop.

The gifts had been coming; Colt and Mike had
been dealing with them. Cal wasn’t around to care. Not that he
would have cared if he was around, but he wasn’t around.

It wasn’t regular or steady but the girls
knew about the gifts now. Keira had found the next one to come
which was two days after the end of Cal and me. A Tuesday, another
first. I didn’t know what was in them and Mike and Colt didn’t
share. They told me they were keeping in close contact with Tim’s
partner Barry in Chicago and they also told me they’d ordered
cruisers to cruise our street randomly, which they did. It wasn’t
the same safety I felt when Cal was in my house, in my bed or even
next door, but it made me feel a little better.

I didn’t care much either. Let him send
gifts. Whatever. I had a life to lead. That was hard enough. Fuck
Daniel Hart.

The girls had taken Cal’s exit from our lives
as I knew they would and I kicked myself, hourly at first then
daily, for wrapping them up in that shit.

Just so I could have good sex, just so I
could get off. A booty call. I’d hurt my girls for a booty call.
Cal said it wasn’t that but it was. It was exactly that.

They didn’t know the extent of it and I tried
to act normal and hide from them how it cut me to the quick, not as
bad as I suspected, no, even worse, far worse, him being gone. But
they were my girls, they felt deep, they sensed things, they knew
me and I knew they knew something big had happened and it involved
Cal.

At their accurate assessment of the
situation, they rallied around their mother.

Keira had done an about face. Cal didn’t come
up hardly at all. In fact, in the house he ceased to exist, even
Dane had obviously been handed the edict that he didn’t talk about
Cal. But when Tina mentioned Cal at that barbeque, Keira called him
Mr. Callahan like he was a shadow in our lives, nothing more.

Kate refused to talk about him, switching the
subject when he came up at the barbeque and it seemed almost that
she hurt even more than her sister. Keira had always been Cal’s
champion but they’d formed a bond somehow, Kate and Cal. Maybe over
music preferences and pancakes, I didn’t know. What I did know was
that Kate was cut to the quick, just like her Mom.

And Cal came up only when Tina brought him up
at the neighborhood barbeque Jeremy and Melinda had a month ago and
she’d brought him up three times in front of me and my girls, the
stupid bitch.

Not taking Cheryl’s advice, I didn’t reel
Mike in. I kept him on the line but I’d put my hand way too close
to the fire and got burned. I was trigger-shy.

With patience, he stayed as close as I would
let him. We dated. He even came over for dinner with the girls who
were both very nice to him. I made him my pork chops and he’d said
he’d loved them and ate them like this was true, something Keira
approved of greatly and let this fact be known to Mike effusively.
We made out and it was as good as ever. I’d even spent the night at
his place when both of the girls were at a sleepover and his kids
were with Audrey. We’d watched a movie in his room, fooled around
in his bed but we hadn’t had sex. It was just that it had gotten
late so he’d invited me to stay. I’d slept in his big bed, in one
of his t-shirts and in his strong arms and I liked it. It felt
healthy, it felt safe, it felt sweet but it didn’t make me vibrate,
it didn’t electrify me, it didn’t make me feel alive.

But I didn’t need that shit. Healthy and safe
I needed, sweet was a bonus. I didn’t need to vibrate and feel
alive because, when it was gone, it led to feeling dead and that
was no fun at all.

Mike didn’t push it. I suspected that he’d
sensed things had changed with Cal. And he knew I needed it slow,
he knew this because I told him, so we took it slow.

He didn’t introduce me to his kids, he wasn’t
certain which way I’d lean and he knew they didn’t need that shit
in their lives. If I leaned the wrong way, they shouldn’t be caught
up in that. He was a good Dad. A better Dad than I was a Mom, I
knew that for certain.

So it was bad timing that Cal was home when I
was dusting in the living room and I saw the Jag turn into my
drive. I knew who was in that Jag and I knew why they were turning
in my drive. There was only one reason they’d come all the way down
here to turn in my drive and I knew that reason.

Just seeing the Jag I knew it.

I knew it, knew it,
knew it
.

And it burned a hole in me.

I walked to the door, Keira’s new puppy,
Mooch, following on my heels, yapping his puppy yaps. I disarmed
the alarm and opened the door, dust rag still in my hand and Mooch
ran out into the yard but I didn’t really notice.

The situation was worse; I saw the minute
I walked out.

Feb was kissing Colt good-bye by his GMC,
Jack in the crook of her arm.

Myrtle was trimming her rose bushes.

Tina was sunbathing in her front fucking yard
when there was no need to do this, considering she had sun loungers
on her back deck, and I knew why.

She was in a bikini in her front yard because
Cal was washing his truck in his drive.

All of them were looking at the shiny,
burgundy Jaguar in my drive. I knew this because I swung my head
around to take them all in.

Then I looked at my Dad who was walking
across the yard toward me, his face sharing the news before he said
a word. My Mom, slower, unfolded out of the car, her eyes on my
house, her face not communicating hideous loss like my Dad’s but
registering dislike.

“Sweetie…” Dad said when he got close and it
burst out of me.

It was loud, shrill, high, so much of all of
those, it was a wonder all the windows didn’t explode in every
house in the block.

“
No!
”

Then I turned, ran through my door and
slammed it, locked it and stood with my back to it, looking around
my living room.

I dropped the dust rag and, mindless, I
ran to the shelves, picked up the photo of Tim, the girls, Sam, Mel
and I that Tim and Sam took for-
fucking
-ever to set up on that stupid
fucking
tripod and then another
fucking
age to program the stupid
fucking
timer to take a picture of us all that Christmas
day. Mel and the girls and I had laughed at them, laughed and
laughed at their antics, how long it took, teasing Tim and Sam,
giving them stick.

Good times.

The best.

I threw the frame across the room and the
frame cracked, the glass shattered.

Then I grabbed the next one, me in my
hospital bed, a newborn Keira in my arms, Tim on one side, his arm
around me, he was holding a squirming Kate, Sam on my other side,
his arm around me too, both of them had one leg on the floor, one
leg on the bed. All of us scrunched up in that damn hospital bed. I
looked tired but we were all smiling (except Kate, who was
squirming). Sam had sat with Kate and Tim’s parents in the waiting
room the whole time Tim was in with me and Keira in delivery. The
whole time, he never left. Not for a second. He didn’t tell me
that, Tim’s parents didn’t, I just knew.

I threw that too and the glass shattered.

“Violet!” I heard my father shout, pounding
at the door. “Honey, let me in.”

I grabbed the next frame, Sam wasn’t in that
one at all and still, I threw it.

More pounding at the door, more of my Dad’s
shouts, pleading to let him in.

Then I threw anything I could get my hands
on, stupid knick knacks, more frames. I didn’t even see what they
were, I just grabbed them and threw them, trying to force out the
feeling that had my heart and gut and mind in its grip, so tight,
God, it was going to kill me.