Forever Promised (42 page)

“Why?” he said quietly to Jeff. “Why would she go? I don’t understand. We were going to meet—we had….” His voice choked. “We had
plans.
”

Mikhail walked up to the boy—the giant of a boy, really, the almost-man—and awkwardly patted his shoulder. “It….” Oh God. He’d failed Sweetie in this. He needed to pony up for this boy.

“When you are broken,” he said carefully, “you do not realize where your weaknesses are.”

Martin looked at him blankly, and Mikhail grimaced. Oh, what he would give if only all the people he loved could follow his brain like Shane could.

“Sweetie, she and I—we did some things on the street to survive,” Mikhail mumbled. “Things that we were not proud of. I used them to scare Shane away. I am guessing….” Mikhail looked at Martin for confirmation. “I am guessing she didn’t tell you these things?”

Martin shook his head slowly, his long, handsome dark face impassive. “She didn’t,” he said softly. “I guessed, but I didn’t pry.”

Mikhail nodded. “Because you are a good, respectful boy. That is as it should be. They were her secrets to tell. But… but someone else, in a… fit of irritation, told her that you wouldn’t like her anymore—”

“But that’s
bullshit—
”

“Yes,” Mikhail said, patting his cheek sadly. “It is. You are a boy of worth, I have said that already. But Sweetie… she didn’t trust herself. She… you will have to trust me on this, Martin. She believed that you were too good for her, and so she left. Probably so she did not have to endure your good-bye.”

“But I wouldn’t have
said
good-bye!” The boy was angry, and Mikhail could not blame him. His heart was open and bleeding, and all Mikhail was giving him were the fears of a panicked child.

“No,” Mikhail said softly. “No. You would not have. But she didn’t know that. Doing the things she’s done to survive, it breaks you in unexpected places. None of us knew where she was weak or how she would break. She never
told
anybody where her weaknesses were. And so when they were attacked—”

“She broke,” Martin murmured.

Jeff had been standing at his shoulder the entire time, helplessly patting his back. Martin held on for a moment, because he was a man, and men were stubborn about being strong, but he wiped his face once, twice, a third time, and then Jeff was there, like he had been for his family so very often, hugging the boy who probably topped him by three inches, and murmuring into his ear like he was small.

Mikhail could do nothing but walk away and let Jeff comfort him, and be grateful they all still had Jeff.

T
HEY
tried to keep their sadness from Deacon’s house at Christmas. The fliers, the phone calls, they continued, but there was nothing. Nobody had heard anything. Nobody had seen anything. One slender, dark-skinned girl could, apparently, flit in the shadows of the world, never to be heard from again.

Mikhail and Missy avoided each other. They made no eye contact at dinner; there was no pretense of her trying to please him or him trying to exert authority over her. At one point, Missy yelled at one of the younger boys right in front of Mikhail—something about not pawing her shit for drugs. Mikhail took the boy in the kitchen for ice cream and dispatched Miriam, one of the other counselors, to deal with Missy. It wasn’t until Christmas came and went without any dramatics from that end of the house that Mikhail realized she had probably been trying to get his attention.

He wouldn’t have cared if he had known.

He wanted nothing to do with her. Nothing at all.

He hadn’t realized, though, how much this attitude had seeped into everything he did until they were standing outside of Deacon’s on Christmas morning and Shane gave him the presents for Benny and Parry Angel. “Try not to look like the Grim Reaper when you give them to her, okay, Mikhail?”

That had brought him up short. Shane
never
called him by his given name.

“Do I look that bad?” he asked suddenly, aware of the misty morning in the familiar Pulpit driveway. Deacon had fresh gravel poured, so it was not as muddy as it used to be, but he could not look at his toes forever.

He looked up instead and watched Shane try to answer his question before averting his face. Mikhail felt a little thrill of panic. Was that
hurt
? Was his cop
hurt
?

“What… what have I done?” he asked suddenly, upset like he hadn’t known he could be.

Shane shrugged and tried a sad smile. “She’s been gone for two weeks, Mickey. It’s Christmas morning. You got me a new belt with a nice belt buckle, and that was great. Do you remember what I got you?”

Mikhail actually had to think about it. “Pots,” he said decisively. “Because it was getting hard to cook on that old shit we have at home.”

“And….”

For a moment he went blank, and then: “Satellite radio,” he said, and felt smaller than shit on a shoe. “So I can dance in our home.” He swallowed and looked at his feet in new boots from Kimmy. “They were wonderful gifts. I did not hardly say ‘thank you’, did I.”

Shane shook his head no. “I understand,” he mumbled. “She was special—”

“No,” Mikhail said. They hadn’t yet shut the doors on the GTO, and there was probably some important car reason to do that, but for the moment, it served Mikhail’s purpose. First he set his stuff down in the car. Then he took Shane’s pile of gifts and put them down too. “I don’t think you do.”

He stood on tiptoe and took Shane’s face between his hands. He had warm mittens Crick had knitted him the year before, and the circle of giving was one more thing he had forgotten in the past two weeks.

“You… you have given me so many wonderful things,” Mikhail said through a raspy throat. “You have given me a family, and you have given me hope. I saw that girl, and….” He swallowed and closed his eyes. “I liked her,” he said hoarsely. “I liked her. I cannot lie about that. She was such a sweet child. I wanted to give to her the same things you have given me.” He opened his eyes. “When I failed, I… I realized how much hope I’d had, and it hurts….”

“Sh….” Shane comforted him, as he always did, arms around his shoulders, big, burly chest pulling Mikhail into its warmth. He remembered Martin, and how Martin had cried helplessly, guilelessly as a child, and how Sweetie would not. How was it, he wondered wretchedly through the tears, that he had to learn this same lesson again and again and again?

And then it
really
hit him. If it took him this long to learn this lesson, how long would it take Sweetie? How lucky was he to have found Shane, to have believed in him in time?

His tears were still silent, but they hurt more, and Shane held him, disregarding time, disregarding being late for Christmas breakfast, because these lessons were a long time in the making, and they needed the respect of Mikhail’s broken heart to drill them in just right.

H
E
BARELY
remembered going in after that, or giving gifts. He found himself stashed in a corner of the couch, balancing a plate of food on his lap, and eating because Shane had growled at him to eat, dammit, it was fucking Christmas.

He was very aware he could have spent Christmas at home with a microwaved dinner, sitting on the couch and looking out into the drizzle, and he would have felt just as festive as he did here on Deacon’s couch.

But Benny wouldn’t let him get away with that shit either.

One moment he was on a corner of the couch, staring sightlessly as Parry Angel showed everyone her brand-new wide-wheeled scooter with girl-chattering excitement. The next moment Benny was practically in his lap, leaning her head against his shoulder and cuddling.

“Is there something you wanted?” he asked dryly, and she made a negative sound.

“Not so much, no.”

“You’re just going to sit there and impose on my personal space.”

“Yes. Your personal space was taking over the house. It was distracting. Pretty soon we all would have been pushed out the front door, and it would have just been you, a cranky little Russian bastard, ignoring my brother’s best cooking.”

Mikhail looked down and saw that, among other things—and there was always a lot—Crick had made meatloaf.

“Why is there meatloaf?” he mumbled, taking a bite. Crick’s meatloaf was moist, with sourdough breadcrumbs and onion soup. It wasn’t Ylena’s, but it had been cooked in stewed tomatoes, and it was, in fact, very good.

“Because Shane asked if Crick could make it, special. He said he tried a couple of times, but he didn’t think it was good enough.”

Mikhail felt his eyes burn, which was foolish, because he’d just spent an interminable amount of time crying on Shane as it was.

“His meatloaf is fine,” Mikhail said, taking a bite of Crick’s excellent meatloaf anyway. “What he does is always good enough.”

“Yeah, but I think he felt like he needed some help,” Benny said softly, and Mikhail looked at her for real.

“How are you, little one? You are looking very ‘glowy’.”

Benny’s smile was less tired than it had been, although her complexion was still a little shiny, and her hair, although freshly washed, looked stringy again. Pregnancy was not always kind. “
I
am going to be off bed rest in time for next semester, and I’m very, very happy about that.”

Mikhail nodded and kissed the top of her head as it rested on his shoulder.

“So am I,” he said, meaning it. “And the baby? The baby is good?” For the first time in two weeks, he managed to pull himself out of his own misery. The baby…
Deacon’s
baby. Deacon, who had arrived out of the fog to give them good suggestions and call everyone he knew for more. Deacon, who had given Shane a home before Mikhail had arrived, and this girl was giving him something that he’d obviously hungered for.

Benny nodded and something fresh and sweet blew through Mikhail’s soul—even with the undertone of sadness behind it. “Yeah. Little fish is doing fine.”

“Little fish?”

Benny patted her stomach affectionately. She had a bump there, it was true, but no extra roundness. “Yeah. Kimmy started calling it that since Deacon and Crick don’t want to know the sex.”

Mikhail thought rather wretchedly that Kimmy would probably have gotten fat, and the image sent an unexpected pang through him.

“Kimmy has been visiting, yes?” Mikhail had noticed it dimly. Jeff had been doing a victory dance about it until…. Mikhail looked up and saw Jeff and Collin huddling over Martin’s massive shoulders like nervous parents. Yes. Yes, everybody had his hurts. When had Mikhail forgotten this?

Benny nodded. “Yeah. She’s been keeping me sane, you know? Talking
about hope.” Benny’s voice dropped. “She was so hurt when I got pregnant—”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Mikhail said firmly, and Benny patted his knee.

“I know. She told me. But it was like, as soon as there was a possibility that I could lose the baby, she realized that I could hurt like her, and she was right here, being my friend.”

She reached out and clasped his hand, and he had a sudden flood of memories, of all the times the two of them had watched Parry play and talked about everything from learning to drive to the newest recipes to stretching exercises Benny could pass on to Crick. If Deacon was the father of their little family and Kimmy was his sister, then Benny would be… well, she’d be the simplest thing, would she not?

“I’m sorry,” he said, weaving their fingers together. “You have been a very good friend to me, and I have not returned the favor.”

“Yeah, you have,” she said quietly. “You’ve had a full plate, Mickey. But I’m glad to talk to you now.”

Mikhail tightened his fingers. “You know, I should like nothing so much as to hear about you. Tell me again, why do they not want to know the sex of the child? That seems silly to me. How are we to buy baby clothes if we don’t know?”

Benny giggled. “I’ve been thinking about that. The doctor can
tell
me, right? I mean, the fish is swimming around in
my
belly. So I’m thinking that I tell one person, right? And when I go into labor, that one person tells the whole freakin’ world who’s
not
Deacon and Crick, and then you all can decorate the house. What do you think?”

A sudden thumping pushed at Mikhail’s chest. “You would tell me?” he asked hopefully. Amy was not there. Kimmy… well, Kimmy had been trying to coax him out of his shell too. This was obviously not the first plate of meatloaf Mikhail had been given in the past two weeks.

Benny laughed, and he closed his eyes. When he had first moved into Shane’s home, before Kimmy and before Promise House, Mikhail had visited often. He had learned to treasure Benny’s laughter.

“Of course,” she said, and then she lowered her voice to a whisper. “Is it okay if I tell Kimmy too? And that way it will be you, Shane, and Kimmy, and
someone
will remember the house.”

“Perhaps we can buy clothes too,” he said, smiling. “Although… well, Jeff would buy something on the way to visit you anyway, yes?”

“Yes,” she affirmed. “And that way, we can have the baby shower and people will bring unisex clothes and the important stuff, right?”

Mikhail blinked. “What do they need?”

“Oh, everything! Car seats, cribs, strollers—all of that stuff goes out of code almost before you buy it. Standard operating procedure is to throw a shower, make a list, and then buy the stuff people don’t give you.”

Mikhail smiled a little. “How was your shower with Parry?”

Benny’s face grew… well, sad. “I didn’t get a shower,” she said, trying to smile. “Deacon, Jon, and Amy all took me shopping, and Jon and Deacon took turns fighting over the tab. Every now and then Amy would dive in and get one, because I guess she still had her own bank account then. Deacon had me pick out paint for the rooms earlier—the two of us spent a week cleaning out Crick and Deacon’s old rooms and… well, you know what they look like now, except seven years ago, the paint was fresh, and you don’t have all the times Parry found Sharpies and played artist on the walls.”