Mermaid in a Bowl of Tears (Exit Unicorns Series) (44 page)

“Bobbie—” he began, reverting to the familiar form of Robin’s name, the one only he had ever used. The line of Robin’s body stiffened perceptibly, the crack in his seams closing over as fast as the word could be said, held together more tightly than the stones that rested beneath his hand.

“Do ye ever speak of it, man?” Casey asked, aware he was scratching at a wound that had never likely healed.

“No I don’t, an’ I don’t speak of him either.” Robin’s voice was harsh, his stance that of a stubborn little boy, shoulders hunched in defiance against a cold night and an even colder world.

“It’s only,” Casey hesitated, knowing Robin was as likely to knock his block off as to admit to what was really bothering him tonight, “when the itch got into ye before ‘twas about what ye were runnin’ from, not runnin’ to.”

“Aye, well the two of us are old enough to know there are things no boy nor man can outrun, as many miles an’ years as he may put between him an’ what he’s tryin’ to escape.” Robin’s hand was hard against the stone, white with a terrible tension that spoke volumes about how close the demons of the past hovered about him tonight. Casey, wiser perhaps than he’d been at seventeen, smoothly changed the tracks of the conversation, looking up at the sky, where the smoky twilight had deepened to a crystalline blue, the stars delineated by their unearthly fire as if they looked down on a planet newly born.

“Look at that star, will ye? It seems as if ye could climb a tree an’ catch it in yer hand.”

“Arcturus?” Robin asked, the relief evident in his tone as he pointed to the twinkling silver-red light above the thick fringe of the pines that sheltered the back of the house.

“Aldebaran, it’s too early in the season an’ the evenin’ for Arcturus,” Casey corrected, fishing two cigarettes out of the pack at his side and handing one to Robin without thinking. There was a comfort to be found in old friends that could not be found in the new. The movements and words of it were not thought out, nor formulated to please, they just were. It was instinctive, he supposed, when the comfort of another’s presence went this deep. Like an old song whose words never left your mind nor your heart, even when you hadn’t sung it in years.

“Never could keep my star seasons straight,” Robin said, taking a deep drag on the cigarette, the tip glowing hot in the cool air, “never bloody knew how you an’ yer brother an’ daddy did. Christ,” he said, a stillborn laugh choking off in his throat, “I didn’t even know the stars had names until I met ye. Remember how we used to lay up on the roof, an’ ye’d name the constellations for me an’ tell me the myths that went along with them. I think,” he paused to scratch the back of the hand that still lay against the stones and Casey bit down on his tongue as the smell of scorched hair reached his nose, “I think that was the first time I thought there were possibilities in this world. I’d never seen it before.”

“I know Bobbie,” he replied gently, wondering how fierce the hurt was to drive Robin to making such an admission.

“He’s dead ye know,” Robin’s words were clipped as though he’d had to force them out.

“No, I didn’t know man, when?”

“Five years ago now, though he was dead six months before I found out. Went to visit my Auntie Min, she lived in the Murph, ye remember?”

Casey nodded, not wanting to interrupt whatever it was Robin needed to say.

“She gave me tea an’ a stale biscuit an’ told me flat that he’d died after some pub brawl, choked on his own vomit layin’ in the street, where they’d thrown him. Dignified eh? Fittin’ though.” Robin took a jerky puff on his cigarette and then ground it viciously against the stone, as if he could grind the ashes of the past out of existence along with it.

“Christ Bobbie, I’m sorry,” Casey said, knowing the words to be of little impact on the tangle of emotions Robin had always had to deal with concerning his father.

Robin shrugged. “It’s of no matter really, it shouldn’t bother me, all things considered, aye? Should have felt like dancin’ in the street when I heard the news.”

“’Tisn’t so simple, man.”

“Why can’t it be?” Robin asked, his voice as full of as much mute misery as it had been, at times, during childhood. “Why can’t I just wash my hands of the bastard, the way he did me an’ the rest of my family? Why do I still feel like I’m five goddamn years old when it comes to him?”

“Because he was yer father, an’ there’s never anything simple about blood.”

A fleeting smile touched Robin’s lips and then was gone. “How is it ye can take a few words an’ make clear what’s so tangled up in my mind?”

Casey shrugged. “Maybe it’s only that I’m standin’ on the outside an’ can see more clearly. It didn’t seem anywhere near so simple when my own father died.”

“I was sorry to hear of it. I couldn’t believe it when I did hear,” Robin met Casey’s eyes clearly, “didn’t seem possible that a man with that much life force an’ compassion could be gone. He was good to me, ye know, when no one else could find the patience nor the want, he did.”

Casey merely nodded, feeling an uncomfortable tightness in his throat. He leaned forward to stub his cigarette out in a small tin can he kept handy for the purpose.

“Casey, I came here tonight because I wanted to say that I’m sorry for all those years ago.”

“I’ve told ye it’s of no matter,” Casey said gruffly, busying himself with gathering his tools.

“Is that why ye won’t look me in the face when I speak of it?” Robin asked, a sharp edge of desperation in his voice.

Casey dropped the electrical cord he’d been wrapping around his hand, standing abruptly. “Why the hell do ye want to dredge this up, Robin? I said it’s the past, now can we just let it lie there?”

“No, because I need ye to forgive me,” Robin said, fine lines of tension spreading out from his mouth.

“Alright I forgive ye, now can we stop talkin’ about this?” Casey said impatiently, drawing up to his full height instinctively.

“I need ye to mean it.” Robin too had squared his shoulders. Once as teenagers they’d gone toe –to-toe over a minor quarrel, both too stubborn to admit they were wrong. Neither had come out of the resulting scuffle looking pretty.

Casey sighed, wishing he could absolve the man’s guilt with a healthy swipe to his jaw, but knew things were not so simple between the two of them anymore.

“Why the hell is this so important to ye?”

“Because ye were the only person other than Jo who ever really mattered in my life.” Robin replied, “Didn’t know that did ye? My parents were both drunks an’ didn’t care for me. My father was handy with his belt an’ his fists an’ little else. Ye knew what my life at home was like better than anyone, but I was too humiliated to tell even you the full truth. Do ye remember how we met?”

Casey snorted. “Not likely to forget, am I? Went home with a loose tooth an’ two black eyes an’ then Da’ let me have it for brawlin’ in the streets.”

“Aye well, I had the eyes to match, a nose that bled on an’ off for a week, an’ a rib that’s bent to this day. What I’m referrin’ to is the end of the fight, though, ye’d have won fair an’ square but ye helped me up off the ground instead an’ shook my hand. No one had ever dealt fairly with me before, not teachers—Christ I’d already been given up at school for a lost cause—not the neighbors who always gave me the eye an’ called me that little no-good Temple boy from the house on the corner. Then ye asked me to come an’ play rugby with ye the next afternoon, said ye could use someone with a head as thick as mine appeared to be.”

Casey smiled ruefully. “Sounds like somethin’ my daddy would have said.”

“Yer a great deal like him, ye likely don’t see it, but I remember him clear, an’ I see it.”

“Thanks,” Casey said gruffly, feeling a flush of pleasure come over him.

“Aye well,” Robin grinned suddenly, “yer still an ugly bastard an’ make no mistake of it.”

“Ah well, not all of us can be pretty as the north end of a south-runnin’ mule.”

“’Tis true,” Robin said pinching out the remains of his cigarette between thumb and forefinger, “but it’d hardly be fair to the lassies otherwise.”

“So many women,” Casey began—

“An’ so little time,” Robin finished. “Though some of us get less time than others.” In a twinkling he’d gone from joking to somber. His moods had always been that way, changing on a dime, laughing one minute and dark as the devil the next. “Does it seem like that to ye man, as if time just runs like sand through yer fingers an’ ye can’t account for the years?”

“Aye it does.”

“How can it be that she’s eleven years gone, when I can still see her face as though it were yesterday?” His voice cracked and Casey stepped closer, not needing to be told who Robin was speaking of, what ghost lingered more closely than any other. He knew, old friends always did.

“Bobbie,” he said softly, wrapping his arms around the other man, feeling as though he were taking a broken-winged bird into the shelter of his embrace. Robin was a big man, but Casey stood taller by a good two inches and was slightly broader of shoulder. “It’ll be alright boyo, ye’ll see.”

And knew even as he said it that neither he nor Robin believed a word of it.

“EVERYTHING ALRIGHT?” Pamela muttered sleepily, one eye half open, as Casey sat on the edge of the bed.

“Aye, all’s fine Jewel, go back to sleep.”

She yawned and half turned, brushing sleep-tangled hair out of her eyes. “I tried to wait up but it got so late and I couldn’t,” she yawned again, stretching toward him in welcome, “keep my eyes open.”

“I’m sorry,” he bent down and kissed her, “I’d no intention of bein’ so late. Robin showed up at the house, though, an’ wanted to talk. I’d no notion of how much time had passed.”

“Robin?” she said, the question clear in the two syllables.

He nodded. “Aye. He was feelin’ a bit blue an’ needed to talk to someone who knew him from the old days.”

“You mean,” she said, sitting up, “he needed to talk to
you
.”

“Well I suppose. There’ll be things that I understand without it bein’ necessary for him to spell it out, an’ that makes it simpler for him. Not havin’ to put it all into words.” He bent forward to take off his socks, depositing them neatly by the bed as he did each night.

“You’re a good listener. Not so many people are, you know.”

“Hmmph,” he grunted as he did when pleased by something, “when a person speaks, ye listen, I don’t think it’s a matter of bein’ good at it or not. I see little choice in the matter unless a man is deaf. Ye’ve ears—ye hear.”

“But you hear all the things a person is trying to say under the actual words, most people don’t. You also make a person feel as if you can take any burden they’ve a need to rest from.”

“There are some burdens,” he said, swinging his legs under the quilts, instinctively seeking her warmth, “a man cannot carry for another, though, no matter how much he might like to.”

“
Eeeagh
,” she squeaked, trying to scuttle away from him, “you’re half frozen.”

“Aye, an’ it’s yer duty as my wife to warm me up,” he replied, wrapping one arm around her and pulling her tight to him, relishing the sleepy heat of her.

“I do not remember anything of that nature being in our vows,” she said, giving up her struggle, half-hearted as it had been, and snuggling tightly along his length.

“Don’t ye? ‘Twas right after the bit about keepin’ me happy in bed an’ always havin’ a hot meal on the table—ow!” He tightened his grip in response to the sharp pinch he’d received on his thigh.

She nestled back into her pillows, with every intention of going straight back to sleep. Casey was fidgeting, though, and his restlessness communicated itself directly to her. She sighed, knowing she’d not sleep until he was easy in both mind and body.

“What’s wrong?” She propped herself up on one elbow and peered down at him in the dim light.

“Nothin’,” he said, trying to inflect a sleepy tone into his voice.

“Do you have a bridge to sell me as well?” Her voice was crisply sarcastic.

“Taken up mind readin’ have ye?” It perturbed him that the woman always knew when something was niggling at him.

“Casey Riordan, I’d be a sad excuse of a wife if I didn’t know you well enough to see when something is clearly bothering you. Now tell me what’s wrong.”

He turned over on his back, eyeing the ceiling with a contemplative frown. “Ye know how there are things that ye just know, but ye don’t speak of them, because it would be wrong to put words to certain things. Like it would trivialize them somehow?”

“Yes,” she replied, and he knew it wasn’t just a word but that she really did understand. It was one of the first things he’d loved about her, that she didn’t expect everything to be said, she knew that sometimes a silent understanding was enough.

“I suppose that’s how Robin an’ I were about his da’, I knew an’ he sure as hell knew, but we rarely spoke of it. I think he was humiliated that the man was his da’ to begin with.”

“Why?”

“Well in the first place ‘twas said rather freely about the neighborhood that Manny Temple’d not drawn a sober breath in twenty years. He’d go on binges for days at a stretch, an’ Robin’s mam would have no idea where he’d gone nor when he might come back. He’d leave them without a scrap in the cupboard to eat, an’ drink up the few wages he managed to earn. The neighbors had little enough themselves but they took turns providin’ for Ginny Temple an’ her kids, though some of the women considered her nothin’ but a charity case an’ made sure she felt the shame of it. She’d refuse food for herself, but she’d not allow the kids to starve.”