I was notified, if that’s what you want to call it, the day I became a father. The doctor, though it wasn’t in her scope of practice and it went against everything she believed in morally and ethically, called my office number, interrupting me in the middle of breaking down the last of the No Name No Color bikes we’d picked up. She let me know there was a baby girl named Apple Of’May O’Malley on the fourth floor of Mt. Sinai. And, after the mother had initially had some emergent circumstances that had led to the method of delivery changing from what was originally planned, both mother and infant made it out of the delivery and both were healthy.
And fuck you. Before you call me an asshole, she didn’t offer that information. The only reason I know it is because I asked. However, the part I didn’t realize she hadn’t answered at the time because I was so busy thanking God they were both okay was if they were both healthy and happy. She’d only alluded to the healthy part of my question. But she’d already hung up. And I’d already started praying to God, praising him and telling him, “Thank you.”
It didn’t even dawn on me that I never heard that part of the story. And I wondered if I’d ever know. I wondered if the pain from the new memories I had would ever be so difficult to live through that I decided to find out if my Vagabond and our little girl were happy.
I guess things like happiness in the end are all vague assumptions. At least that’s where I’ve settled it within my soul. And my ma never told me that it had to settle well, just that it had to settle.
“Jacques, my sweet boy... If it’s good with God, then it’s well with your soul…”
I shut off the over head lights hanging over the ten bikes in the garage and head out to meet with King and the rest of the DDDs members before they drive out. And I mutter the most recent part I’ve added to my mother's remembered words, wiping the grease caked into my hands. “And if it’s well with my soul, then it’s well with the Lord. And it never happened—I’ve been forgiven by the blood of Jesus Christ—It never happened. A-fucking-men.’”
Right? I pray to fuck so, because I don’t know how I’m gonna get through hunting down my own cousin and then killing him. Not with the birth of my recent child stirring up all of this nostalgia and shit that’s better left unstirred.
“How’s a motherfucker supposed to kill his last fucking family member with all this goddamn nostalgia in the fucking air?!” I holler as I throw the door open and step through the hidden nook.
As I slam the door closed behind the bar, Slim and Dreads silently step aside and make room. Dreads is holding a beer out to me, and as soon as the ice-cold bottle touches my lips, I hear Slims’ old lady whisper something about a baby and the color pink. Then a fucking migraine slashes through my frontal cortex for the first time in days.
I swallow half the contents in the bottle and slam it on the bar before growling, “Stop! Until we know what’s going on, until I’ve talked to this one”—I point at Dreads—“I don’t want anyone discussing anything that’s not Ben Cain! Is that understood? One thing at a goddamn time!”
I’ve recently stumbled across memories. For so long, I fought them, and I didn’t even know I was doing it. I thought they were dreams, wishes, or I don’t know. I just know the feeling I had every time I remembered her. It was worth the headache and migraines that accompanied it. And the faster I figured that out, the quicker the memory of Eve O’Malley came back to me. The memory of her in the tree the first time I met her. The time I found her in the bus station at baggage claims in Chicago. And her smartass mouth. Then the night I spotted her in my club and I was already drunker than shit—I knew I should have stayed away from her, especially after all of that damn coke Ben was shoving in front of me and I was coincidentally shoving up my nose. But I didn’t fucking know who she was then! I just remembered who she reminded me of. Besides, she didn’t fucking look six-fucking-teen that night!
Shit, you were there. I may not remember exactly what it was she was wearing, but even now, I know that it wasn’t something a young girl should be wearing! And, as far as I knew, we were all following the main rule that night. The one involving underage girls not being allowed on club grounds after curfew! I swear to God Eve looked every bit of twenty-one to my drunken eyes that night.
I should have known that Ben was more than off his rocker then. I really should have. And I probably would have had I listened to Dreads, but I wanted so badly to think Ben was different than his dad.
I know differently now though. I know correctly. I know, unfortunately, that my uncle was always off. I know all the shit about the dealings he had in the skin biz. The dealings that started back in the ’80s, when he and some new gang named NNNC out of Seattle started hanging out. I know that’s the main rift King was having trouble getting around with my father. When my father refused to give up information and was forced by New Orleans’s MC to pay the fee that was required for withholding said information. My father and King settled their matters over a poker game involving Eve’s mother.
Eve’s mother wasn’t born into this life. No more than Eve or Eden were. She was a rich bitch who ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time and found herself being handed over like a present to a big MC prez instead of being sold. By Chase Cain and to fucking Renee O’Malley. My father was just there to save her. Just like he saved my ma ten years earlier. But not from King. He took Ilsa from King to keep a better eye on her since she came back on Chase’s radar ten years later. My pops was only at that poker table to clean up my uncle’s fucking mess. And there was Ben, always getting caught up in it.
I knew when we were kids. Sometimes, the shit he’d say or do—I knew the kid was thrown off then. I just didn’t know the extent. I didn’t know how far into the dark side he’d traveled. Now that I realize just how bad he’d gotten…
It scares the living hell out of me.
It’s been hard to come to grips with the fact, but it’s still the fact. At some point, I will find my only living family relative: the kid who pushed plastic toy bikes up and down the boneyard dirt and gravel driveway when we were kids. I’m gonna have to find him and then fucking kill him. And it kills me. Almost as much as the thought of my child being born today and I wasn’t there when it happened. I wasn’t there to see her.
Because I can’t have a life with her. I can’t provide one that will shelter her from the real and the ugly that cloaks the lifestyle I live in. The life Uncle Chase reinforced unwillingly in my life. But I know my Vagabond can…
As long as I act as though I couldn’t care less about her or our child, the more Ben will leave them both alone. Ben doesn’t want them. He wants me.
And I know that Vagabond can do this without me because I know her.
Finally, I know her. And I know she can.
She’s smart. And funny. And strong. And she has the love and the support of a family run by a man like King. A man who’s never had to deal with the sins of his father’s past. A man who’s in charge of an MC that’s a different type than mine. DDDs has never been linked, even remotely to anyone in the business of trading young women and children. Never. The only reason he had Ilsa in the first place was by accident. There was some mix-up between the different clubs and the drug lords. Wrong package was shipped, and apparently, my good ol’ uncle Chase decided to unload the seventeen-year-old Ilsa AND clear out some old debt of the club’s. Trying to make his damn older brother proud, no doubt. It happened. It still happens. Just not in my club. Not any more. And, hell, today, even in the drug trade, if King’s voice is whispered, it’s whispered. And whoever is whispering won’t talk if you corner him. And I’ve tried, believe me. On numerous occasions.
Nah… Vagabond is better off without me. I’m not sure what happened when Dreads talked to her the day before he had to go down South to double-check that Ben wasn’t there. But, now that he’s back and Eve is where she needs to be, or at least headed there, I can finally breathe. Talk to the motherfucker and find out what she said after she’d read my note when the docs weren’t around. And find out if she was hurting anywhere near as bad as I am. Especially since she had my kid less than a week ago.
I’ve chugged three beers in the time it takes for my mind to process my next few options and which problem I should address first when I set the last one down and lock eyes with Dreads, ready to cut to the most painful subject of the present night. “Her and the kid been discharged yet?” I ask him, knowing that the rest of the people in the room will know enough to answer for him.
Behind the bar, Lynette steps forward with another beer held out for me. “Yes, darlin’, they were discharged this morning. Eve and the baby are doing great. Eve’s going to follow up with a doctor down in New Orleans. I think King and Ty finally got her talked into settling down there with her dad. At least until the baby is older. Or Ben is found. She’s ready to open a hair salon up and get back to working. King said…”
My eyebrows rise when she looks up from wiping the bar and blushes then looks back down.
“Sorry. You said only talk of Ben. I’m…”
“No.” I step forward, feeling anxiety kick up in my chest. Suddenly, I want to know the rest. I want to know everything anyone can tell me. “No, continue. What’d King say? That’s not gonna be a problem, is it? If it’s a matter of security, we have a few extra men.” I glance at Dreads, but he shakes his head.
“Not now, brother. Come on, Jackie boy. You and I need to talk before we discuss anything further where Vagabond is concerned with King and Phil. You and me. Your office. Now would be good.” He opens the door I just slammed five minutes ago and takes a mixed drink from Lynette before handing it to me. “Drink this. I’m not sure where you were hoping this shit would end up. But you had to know it wouldn’t be good. We’ll discuss having Slim follow me down there. But, first, I gotta find out where your head’s at, brother.”
Once I’ve been ushered back down the stairs and we’ve made our way into my office in the back of the garage, I sit behind my desk, take a long swig off the cold drink in my hand, and lean back.
“I just want you to tell me she’s happy and healthy,” I say. “If she wants a fucking hair salon, I want her to have it. She’s the mother of my child—” My hand comes to my chest and I rub at the ache. “That can’t be too much to ask, bro. And I refuse to let it be. She should never have to ask me for shit. Not after the hell I’ve put her through. What’d she say about my letter? Hell, what’d she say about everything?” I growl, sit up, drain the rest of the drink’s contents, slam it on my desk, and lean back. Then I pin his light-brown eyes with mine, trying to decide if I should go ahead and pop some Zantac now.
“What do you want me to tell you, Jacques?” He narrows his eyes tighter. “You want the truth? No, when I saw her last Tuesday, she wasn’t happy. She was a wreck. She wanted that time with you. She needed it, I would even wager to say. She fucking needed it, brother, and you didn’t give it to her. But, then again, she’s needed a lot from you and you wouldn’t give it to her. Whether because you couldn’t or wouldn’t—it doesn’t matter. She didn’t get what she needed, and now, because of it, she’s hurting. Something wicked, our little Pipsqueak is hurting. And there’s not a damn thing we can do to fix it.”
He shakes his head, and I’m fairly certain the last of my heart crumbles to chunks when he tells me what I already know.
“After a girl like her takes so much, she reaches a point. My dad used to tell me about how my sister was like a diamond when she was a little girl. Loralei was much younger than I was, but she never seemed that way. She always seemed so much older. Almost older than the adults, somehow. She’d had cancer from the time she was a baby. I think her first words were spoken when she was getting blood drawn at one of the special hospitals for kids. Anyway, my dad always said there were people out there, and the only ones he’d ever met were women, but they were all special in some way. And you knew this because they could take so much. Whatever life threw at them, they either took or dodged, and no matter what, over and over, they came out on top smiling. Not weakened, but slowly strengthened. He said his ma was like her too. A diamond. And they could just take and take until they couldn’t take anymore.
“And then, when the coal and the ore broke away, what you were left with was the transformation all that shit and all that pressure put on her...and in the end, when you look back, you realize she was a diamond all along. That’s what your Vagabond is, Jackie boy. And I’m telling you you just fucked it all up. That butterfly won’t be where you left her when you’re ready for her to come back. I know that shit. In the marrow of my bones, brother. I know that shit.”
He turns to leave, and as I try to muddle my way through all the shit he just spout at me, I come up short on the fucking answer I wanted to the goddamn question I specifically remember just asking.
“And the letter?! What the fuck did she say about the goddamn letter, bro?!”
Dreads doesn’t turn around as he leaves. He just throws his words at me. And I know a fucking grenade when I see one. Even when it’s as close as it is to the remains of my heart…
“She fucking didn’t, you idiot. My only guess is she’s tired of the riddles you keep trying to leave behind. She tore it up before reading it, bro. I’m heading out. I still gotta pack. I’ll text before I leave. Night.”
The door slams, leaving me alone with a shit-ton of information and answers that, I have to be honest and tell you, I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do with.
I’ve never been here before. I’ve never cared enough before. And, the one time I did, there wasn’t a kid in the picture. And I know where the fuck Ben is. I’ve got to, to keep not only her safe, but my kid now too. I don’t know how to tell you this shit, but I don’t think I’m the fucking man for this job anymore. I thought I would be; I thought I could do it.
I thought maybe…
But then the reality of the situation clears. And the further Ben falls down the rabbit hole, the more distance he puts between me and him, the more his escape seems inevitable.
And what if I can’t get him? Just because I know his whereabouts doesn’t mean I’ve got this shit locked in the bag. What happens if I mess up? Again?
As a man whose club that can be so tightly tied to countless missing young women and girls…I have no right overseeing the care of not only the woman I love, but the little girl we made.
None whatso-fucking-ever. And I’m sorry if you don’t understand that. I’m sorry if you hate me for the decisions I’ve had to make. But Eve’s a bright girl, as I’ve said before. She and Apple will be better without me in the picture. Eve will figure it out, and had I not known that, it would have hindered me from moving forward.
Instead, one week after my daughter’s birth, I make further peace with what my life has and will continue to become. What my father’s always should have been, had he not fought the loneliness so hard with substitutes for what he had with my mother…
I now know the difference between men like me and men like King, and it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with money, like Ben always used to say. Well, like all the men in my family used to say. It has to do with what it takes to be a good enough father. It has to do with knowing when it’s time to bow out. Something my father never learned to do. And something Ben hasn’t been smart enough to figure out.
There’s a vast difference in being a man and being a man who’s responsible enough to run an MC. And what my father and his brother never realized—though my father, I think, knew it someplace deep—is that you can’t let things like greed and need push your actions when you’re in charge of others’ lives. It makes things too confusing; it blurs the lines too much. The lines between what’s right and wrong, what’s for family and what’s for the good of it. And the difference between good and bad on a fundamental level. Knowing that just because something feels right doesn’t mean it is.
And, hopefully, one day, I’ll get a second chance with Apple. I know I’ll never get it with her mom. I know I’ve lost the only last chance I had with my Vagabond. And I’ve made peace with it.
I just pray to Christ I’m half the man Apple needs as a father when she comes looking for me. And, if she’s anything like her mother, she’ll be too curious. And she’ll come a lookin’. If I know the two people who made her, and I do, then I know it’s only a matter of time.
I straighten my cut and stand, not at all prepared but lying to myself about being ready for it. I’m about to look into Renee ‘King’s’ face and lie. But I’m cutting my limb off to spite my heart, so please forgive me when my words get caught in my throat as I answer King’s call from the steeple.
I cough twice. “This is Jacques. Headed your way, old man.”
“Good. We’re downstairs in the steeple as planned. Eve’s just boarded her plane with Dr. Lily. They should land before midnight. My cher bebe. God bless her and the tiny bebe. I can’t wait till she’s back where she belongs.”
Me and you both, Renee.
“Dreads is heading out with us, correct?” he asks.
“Yes. Dreads is heading out. I’m not sure if he’s told you or not, but if Slim or Nails are needed, they’re at your disposal. Whatever we can do, King. I’m—” FUCK! I choke on my words.
“This isn’t your fault, son. I hope you know, if your pops were here, he’d tell you that. The shit your unc did, the shit Ben’s done to me and mine—those aren’t your sins, son. You understand that, yeah? You need to forgive yourself. No one else will if you won’t.”
His words raise the hair on my arms, and I squeeze my eyelids closed then blow out a breath.
“Yes, sir,” I say. “I believe my father told me that same shit. Repeatedly in the few months before his death, if I remember correctly. But that damn memory of mine. It’s fucking riddled with holes. I’m just attending this meeting to square away our shit. Make sure any water under the bridge is just that. Water. No blood. And, after Ben’s gone, there won’t be anyone else’s blood? Right?” I focus on the point before moving on to the next. The one that’ll need an entire meet-and-greet between the three of us to get around.
“Correct. No one’s but Ben’s.”
“And after... You’ll keep me informed? At any time, I’ll need full access to any pertinent information where Eve or Apple is concerned. You said it was my right, old man. One that was taken from you—one you wouldn’t ever take away from anyone else. Even from your own worst enemy. I need both of us to maintain the lines of communication if I’m gonna get through this without them. Tell me you understand me, King.”
His laugh did nothing to help my rattled nerves. “Their names fall off your tongue already so easily. I’m not sure which should alarm me more.” His chuckle turns into what I can only explain as the strongest fear-eliciting sound I’ve ever heard. “The fact that you expect me to grant your request …Your family? You said, son? I believe they are MY family. But that matter will be further discussed in our meeting. What I lost was taken. You’ve given your prize away. With both hands, you handed me my cher bebe, yeah?” His words cease for a moment. Then he says, “Five minutes, Jacques. I told my boys we were heading out in ten.”
Renee ends the call.
After I’ve buttoned my cut I run my hands over it’s soft leather. And then I head towards the steeple where this come to Jesus meeting is about to commence between my daughter’s grandfather and I.