At Peace Page 31

  Except when he went over to have dinner when Sam and Melissa were there last night.

  That’s when he knew he had to do something.

  Because the girls acted like he was over all the time (which he was, they just didn’t know that). They acted like he wasn’t a stand in. They acted like he was a welcome staple in their lives and they’d welcome it if he became more of a staple. Keira teased him. Kate even grabbed his hand and clutched it when she laughed at something he said. Like their mother, they were sucking him in, using him to plug that hole their father left and their combined power was almost unbeatable.

  But it was also because he liked Sam and Melissa. Sam acted toward Vi like Cal remembered Uncle Vinnie acting toward his Mom. He didn’t hide his affection for Vi and her kids. He loved him. The world shone in his eyes when he looked at them and he let them know it. He was fucking hilarious too and an easy man to like. His woman was the same, funny and easygoing, a straight-talker and she felt like her man did about his family. It wasn’t like she’d been in their lives since she met Sam. It was like she’d been in their lives the length of it. They were a unit, bonded tight and unbreakable. A family that was blood but their bond ran deeper than blood.

  What Cal had always wanted.

  And Vi behaved just like her girls. She wasn’t demonstrative with Cal but she found her times to give him looks, touch him, promise things with her eyes that needed no words.

  They’d gone to J&J’s after dinner and Sam and Melissa proved they were what they were, funny and able to have a seriously fucking good time. Vi let herself loose with them, laughing more than he’d ever seen her laugh, her face relaxed, happy and even more beautiful than normal because of it.

  If he let himself go, he would have enjoyed it. Instead, he had his word with Sam and got the fuck out of there.

  His word with Sam didn’t go as easy as his words with Tina and Dane did. Sam wasn’t going to stop and told Cal this flat out then he took the time to explain. Cal understood his reasoning, even admired it, but he gave it back to Sam straight that he was playing with fire and, he got burned, so would Melissa and Vi.

  “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.

  Chapter Thirteen

  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 thro
ugh 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.

  Suddenly, the door popped open and Cal was in my house, he’d forced the door open with his shoulder.

  I stared at him in his black t-shirt, his motorcycle boots, his jeans but he didn’t stare at me. He came at me.

  I ran.

  I ran over some glass, feeling it cut
open my bare foot but I didn’t cry out. There was no pain. I felt it, but it wasn’t pain. The pain was in my heart, my gut, my head; there was no room for any other kind of pain.

  Before I could take another step, I was swung up, finding myself in Cal’s arms and instantly I fought him. Out-of-control kicking, punching, bucking, if I could get my mouth on him, I would have bit him.

  “Vi, baby, calm down,” he muttered, struggling to hold me and control my flailing limbs.

  I didn’t speak, just grunted through my thrashing.

  He sat in a recliner in the study, easily subduing my struggles with a big hand wrapped around both my wrists, he locked a strong arm around my waist and he yanked me to his chest, my hands held fast between us.

  I snapped my head back and glared into his sky blue eyes.

  “Fuck off, Cal!” I shouted in his face and watched him flinch.

  I kicked out with my feet but I felt my ankles get caught in a firm grip and I looked that way.

  Colt had hold of my ankles. He was in a squat, looking at my foot then he looked at Cal.

  “She’s bleedin’.”

  “The glass,” Cal muttered.

  Colt looked to his right. “Baby?” he called, not letting go of my ankles.

  “Gotcha,” I heard Feb say but I didn’t look her way.

  “Violet, honey,” my Dad’s voice drifted to me.

  I kept my eyes glued to Colt, not looking at Cal.

  “Get him out of here,” I ordered Colt. “Get them both fucking out of here!”

  Colt’s expression registered surprise, he looked to his right again then to Cal.

  “That your Dad?” Cal asked me but I didn’t look at him so his hand tightened on my wrists. “Look at me, buddy.”

  I looked at him and demanded, “Let me go.”

  “That your Dad?” he repeated.

  “Yes,” I spit out.

  “What’s the deal here?” Cal asked.

  “Sam’s dead,” I announced and I watched Cal close his eyes. I watched it and it was slow. So slow, it felt like it took a year for his eyes to close.

  “They found him yesterday,” my Dad said softly, Cal’s eyes opened and he looked over my shoulder but I didn’t see anymore. My Dad confirming with words what I knew in my soul went straight through me, so devastating, its wake was immeasurable. It made my eyes close and my body went slack on Cal’s.