TWENTY-FIVE
I read Joe’s letters. Not all of them, God knows it would take weeks to get through eight years of random thoughts, love letters to a daughter he missed like breathing. His words, not mine. But I did read many. My father, it seems, is a poet. He tells me it’s just the Irish way, that there are bits of lyric in each strand of DNA. Perhaps it is the suffering his folk have endured that forces eloquence, the romantic. Long-held sorrow and melancholy make for beautiful expression. Perhaps he just spent years remembering his life with us and his heart grew fonder; his imagination filling in the spaces left blank by a slipping memory.
In many of the letters, Joe mentions Declan; how proud he was of him. How strong he was, how frustrated he made my father. They are normal complaints and boasts of a parent. Lacking technicalities, Declan is Joe’s son. There is no blood tying them together, no familiar features that bond them to the same family tree, but my Dad has been a father to Declan, when his own did not bother.
Declan is my stepbrother. His mother’s death and the end of her marriage to Joe aside, he is still my stepbrother. So what am I to do about that? It should disgust me. It should make me feel like I’ve committed some unpardonable sin against morality.
It does not.
I finish my father’s last letter from two years ago, when Declan had moved to the States and left Joe alone in Galloway. He’d been in Utah, playing his freshman year as a first string wing at Brigham Young. Dad had been proud that Declan had managed a scholarship; prouder still that his talent and intelligence had been rewarded. But Joe’s concerns were not that Declan would feel ill at ease in a foreign country. He seemed concerned that Declan would not let himself enjoy life; that he had grown too like his mother.
“He does not smile often, does Declan,” the letter reads. “And I cannot tell if this is his nature, to be sad like his mum, his bitty moods not on display for the world to see; or if he truly is an unhappy lad. My hope is that he finds a smile, that his laughs are open, like yours were, Autumn Honor. I wish that he would find someone that makes him smile as my Evelyn did with so small an effort for me.”
My father rolls on the bed, adjusts his pillows and I look up from the faded page to offer him a smile. “How was your nap?”
He tries to speak between a yawn, covering his mouth with the back of his hand. “Do you know, love, I believe I sleep better when you’re near.” I laugh, remembering how quickly Joe will flatter when he isn’t sure if he’s in trouble or not.
“No need to charm, Dad. I’m not so angry anymore.” The letter in my hand shifts when I fold it back and my father watches as I replace it in the envelope. “You said Declan didn’t often smile,” I say, point at him with the letter.
Joe’s eyes are gray today and bright with small flecks of blue peeking out between the red lines. But his features are relaxed, and he reaches for me, urging me to leave the recliner and sit next to him on his bed. I am careful with him, laying on my side to nuzzle against his shoulder. “Moira was such an unhappy woman, love. Even when we were first wed, she never smiled and for such a time I feared that Declan had taken on her manner. I was sore with worry over him, if I’m being honest.”
“What changed?” I ask, playing with the ridges on Joe’s thumbnail.
He exhales, links his fingers in mine. “You changed him, sweetheart.”
“I don’t think—”
“Joe?” I hear behind the quick whoosh of the door opening. I sit up, on guard when Heather enters the room. I don’t know why this scrawny tart is here or how she even knows my father, but when she rushes to the bed, pulling Joe’s hand out of mine to take it, I have to restrain myself from punching her in her awful button of a nose. “I was so worried about you.” When she backs away from greeting my father, there is a garish pink lip print on his skin. I feel Joe’s back straighten. Then, Declan stands at the foot of the bed and he and Joe exchange an expression I can’t quite read. Annoyance, perhaps anger, but then Heather bounces next to Declan and loops her arm in his and rational thought becomes a remote, forgotten concept. I want to kill her. I want to kill him, bring him back and kill him again.
Mostly, I want to leave this room.
When I start to leave Joe’s side, he grabs my wrist, keeping me next to him. There is a calm, restrained tone to his voice when he speaks, but it is absent of any warmth. “Heather, thank you for your kindness, but I’m here with my daughter.”
Her reaction is immediate. Glints of shock, of confusion, shadow under her eyes, flicker like a sparkle in the way her smile widens and then, utter giddiness. She thinks I am no threat, that Declan and I couldn’t possibly be involved now.
“Daughter?” Heather says, her smile so disgustingly wide I can see the small gaps in her molars. “Oh, well. Then Autumn and I are like family, aren’t we?” She smiles at Declan and his face pales. He tries to dislodge Heather from his arm, staring at me like there is an excuse tilting against his tongue, but just then, a nurse enters the room, bustling around Joe and forcing me off the bed.
While the nurse fusses, I check my cell, eager to avert Declan’s long stares and the way Heather keeps trying to hold his hand. Ava has called three times. I hear the squeak of Declan’s shoe against the floor and I know he wants to speak to me. But it’s too much. That smirk on his face, the one I’ve always connected to his sarcasm, his lecherous advances, don’t match the sad boy Joe mentioned in his letter. Well. They didn’t. Now, however, there is no humor in his eyes, only the long gawk over my face as he steps closer, and the deep shades under his eyes. I can’t do this, not now. He brought Heather to my father. Heather, who he swore was a stupid tart, who pissed him off enough that he lectured her on the finer points of Geek Pride. Heather, who I discover from her brief mention as the nurse checks Joe’s vitals, has cooked for my father in his home. She plans to cook for him again once Joe is able to leave the hospital.
It took one day. My fear, his betrayal, gave Heather an opening and she stepped right in, stealing back Declan as though I was nothing. And he let her. He told me he loved me, but it’s Heather who has comforted him. Heather who is looking at him like he’s a prized calf she intends to fatten up for the slaughter.
Declan’s steps are slow, barely a nudge toward me, but I cannot stand to be near him. I feel the deep hum of my heart pounding, my anger boiling and know that if I don’t leave right now I won’t be able to stop myself from striking out.
“Joe, I have to go see Ava.” He tries to argue, tries spitting the thermometer out of his mouth, but I stop him. “It’s fine, I’ll come back tonight.” My eyes slip toward Declan, but can get no further than his nose. “I’ll stay with him tonight.” Heather takes his hand, holding it tight and I look back at Joe, though my remarks are not for him. “I’m sure you could use the rest.”
“Thanks,” Heather speaks for Declan.
I ignore them both when Joe pulls me down to his bed. He wants to tell me something. He wants to say something that will keep me calm, root me to this spot, but he is still sick, still healing. He has no business trying to coddle me. I make the worry leave my face, pull my lips together so there is no expression. “I’ll be back, Dad.” I hug him and can’t help the tears that slip past my eyelids when his arms tighten, when it feels as though he won’t ever let go of me.
“My sweetheart,” Joe says. “I love you.”
“I love you.” One brief kiss over his heavy whiskers and I dart from the room, eager to leave before my anger, my fear, has me making a complete idiot out of myself.
“Autumn!” Declan calls after me, just as I punch the down button on the elevator. I won’t yell and scream in the middle of a hospital. “Thank you. You being here, it means so much to Joe,” he says to my back.
“He’s my father, Declan,” I say, punching the button again. “He’s all I have left.” When I slip inside, wait for the doors to close, I catch a glimpse of his face. It’s drawn low. Lines that weren’t there yesterday wrinkle around his mouth, across his forehead and I have to ball my hands into fists to keep from touching him. To keep from hitting him.
My best friend is a stubborn brat when she’s angry. It’s something we have in common. But when I try her cell again, for the fourth time, she lets the rings linger, waiting until just before her voice mail picks up to answer.
“Oh, so you remembered you have a best friend?”
Damn it. She’s going to yell at me. “I’m sorry. I was with Joe,” I say, hoping that sympathy will soften her annoyance.
She’s silent, breathes into the receiver and I can almost hear her thinking. There is likely a sarcastic gibe desperate to escape her mouth, but then she clears her throat and relaxes her tone. “Oh. Well good. I’m still super pissed at you for refusing to talk to me.” Another beat and her voice lowers. “How is he?
“Okay. Healing. And I know you’re mad at me. I’m sorry. I just needed some time.”
“Sweetie, I was just worried. Are you okay?”
“Ha. Not even a little, but I’m dealing.” I come to the benches in the courtyard on campus and I think about sitting, but it’s too familiar. Declan kissed me on this bench. I don’t want to remember the feel of his skin, his lips.
“What about the Irishman?” Sayo says and I nearly run into the groundskeeper when I close my eyes, trying to sort out the best way to respond without sounding bitter.
“He showed up at the hospital with Heather.”
“You have got to be shitting me.”
I laugh at Sayo, but don’t find anything funny. “I shit thee not, friend.” I take a breath. “It doesn’t matter. It would be too weird.”
“I get that. There’s just one problem.”
“Yeah?”
“You love him and not at all in a step-brotherly way.”
I hang up on her.
I want my mother. I want her to tell me the truth. I want to know what happened, why she kept me from Joe. Why she couldn’t forgive him. I’m not angry at her. If I’m honest, my anger at Joe died a long time ago. He made a stupid mistake. He’s paying for it now. While he slept and I read his letters, the doctor came in, explained the condition, explained that Joe is quite healthy, but his stress has to be contained, that it likely caused the heart attack. I try not to let guilt overwhelm me. It’s irrational, but if I had not agreed to date Declan, none of this would have happened. But he pursued, he pushed. I didn’t pull away.
None of this is even Declan’s fault. He doesn’t…didn’t deserve my anger. Not until Heather. Beyond that, I know that Declan was my replacement. I could forgive that, eventually, I’m sure, and I know it’s stupid, likely selfish to feel this way when he was just a kid dealt a rotten hand. Just like me. But he told me he loved me. No matter what promises he made to Joe, he should have never touched me, not until I knew the truth.
Irrational, immature, but I can’t let this go. I can’t forgive him, especially after seeing him with Heather today. I want to, but there is a knot festering in my gut, stretching into my heart and I hold onto this rage, for pointless, useless reasons.
I need Ava, missed her at her office. My friends would offer comfort, but they wouldn’t make me see reason. I don’t need echoing agreements about what an ass Declan is. I need gentle consideration, a slight push away from the irrational thoughts that make it impossible to unclench my fists.
I am here, where my mother rests, staring at the black and white picture covered in resin on her headstone and the smooth, flawless skin over her cheeks, the easy smile Joe spoke of. God, how I miss her. It’s like a fever, boiling over my skin, a sudden rash flushing to burn pain, despair into my bones.
This black and white image doesn’t do her justice. Neither does this cold, colorless place where she is laid to rest. Not caring about the frosty temperatures or the light mist on the ground, I lay next to the tombstone, let my fingers run over the picture.
What would she say to me now? Had she survived, if Joe had returned then, would she have forgiven him? Would the pain, our fractured bodies, the fear of death been enough to make her release her anger? What if it had been me? If I had died and she’d been left alone, would she have told my father?
I imagine them together, clustered close, over my grave, weeping, clinging to each other as my body sinks into the ground. Death would have healed them. It should have healed me.
“You’re going to catch a cold.” Ava’s voice is soft, just above a whisper.
“I don’t really care.”
“You want a room next to your father’s in the hospital? Come on, sit up.” She pulls me by the hand so that I am next to her on the cement bench next to my mother’s headstone.
I rest my elbows on my knees, cover my face in my hands and Ava hugs me, rubs my back. “Oh, sweetie, you’re the bad karma kid.”
“Well thanks, Ava,” I say, jerking my head at her.
“I just mean that if bad things happen, they’re going to happen to you. I’ve always thought so.”
She’s not wrong. I was always the kid in school who fell off the monkey bars; the awkward, lanky girl who couldn’t make her legs keep time with her feet. Busted knees, broken arms, all injuries I suffered before my parents thought getting me into sports would help me learn balance, control over my body.
“Joe told me why he left.” I look at Ava, her worried, near apologetic expression. “Did you know?”
Her excuse is quick, but there isn’t any guilt clotting her words. “I could never betray Evelyn’s confidence. But yes, she told me. She never wanted you to know.”
“Ridiculous. Why the hell not?”
“Autumn, you don’t remember what it was like for your mom.” Ava takes my hand, refuses to let me pull away from her. “She was crazy in love with Joe, more so with you. And you both loved her back, but you had this idea that Joe was this invincible, infallible superhero. You idolized him and Evelyn didn’t mind being in the shadows. And then Nichols finds out about Joe’s wife in Ireland.”
“Nichols?” She can’t mean my always absent, mildly perverted boss. “What the hell? Is everyone in my life harboring secrets about my past?”
“Nichols had a thing for Evelyn when they were in graduate school.” Ava shakes her head, puckers her lips as if there is a memory of him that she finds ridiculous. “He was quite pathetic. He had a cousin from the same village Joe grew up in. He told Evelyn what he knew.” Ava shudders. “It destroyed her and she knew that if you discovered the truth, you would hate Joe. You’d likely hate all men. She didn’t want you bitter.”
“Didn’t work very well, did it?”
“She never once talked poorly about Joe in front of you and you know it.” I nod, agreeing. My mother was always careful not to curse my father in my presence. She offered no real explanations, vague excuses that I didn’t understand. And she was so sad about him that I didn’t want to push. I hated seeing her upset and didn’t want to be the cause of it. “And now you know. Do you think you can forgive Joe?”
“I think I already have. I told him I loved him. I’ve lost one parent, Ava. Joe has been a shitty, shiftless father, but I know he loves me. And right now, I’m just happy he’s not dead. I’m happy he’s here. I’m not happy about all the lies and I feel like a complete—Declan and I—” Ava catches my meaning, understands with one look what has me shutting up.
“I didn’t realize things had gotten so serious.”
“He says he loves me.” I don’t wipe my face dry, don’t let Ava either.
“Do you love him?” It’s as if I have no control over my body; I can’t stop the tears, the blank surrender on my face as Ava watches me, as my face flushes and my chin moves on its own. “Oh, baby.” I fall into Ava’s lap, let her stroke my hair. “Don’t you think there’s been enough anger? Enough arguing and resentment?”
“He got my dad, Ava. I know it’s stupid. I know it doesn’t make sense, but I can’t look at him the same. I feel like an idiot, that he was with me all those times and he knew, like he was laughing behind my back. He got Joe. He had my dad for years and years.”
“And you got Evelyn,” she says, pulling my hair out of my eyes. “He didn’t have a mother, did he?”
“It’s not the same.”
“Isn’t it?” She lifts me up, takes my face in her hands. “Wasn’t he lost too? Didn’t you get something he never had a chance at? You got a mother who loved you. You had a blood tie, something that connects you to this world for far longer than Declan did. Joe was a surrogate father and I’m sure he was a good one, but he never had blood, sweetie. He can’t ever have that again.”
“He lied to me.”
She shakes her head as though my excuses are thin, not worth the energy it takes to think of them. “He was protecting you, honey. Can’t you see that?”
Declan said he couldn’t help himself around me. He told me we weren’t right for one another, made me feel ridiculous for the connection I thought we had. But then he wouldn’t stay away, wouldn’t let me go. My confusion, doubt must be on my face because Ava exhales, squeezes my fingers.
“What?” I ask her.
“You’ve always been trying to find things that have been in front of you your whole life, Autumn. You were angry at Joe for leaving. Then you were angry at every man that came into your life because of Joe. I understand that, believe me. But you never realized, instead of focusing on what you didn’t have, you never saw what wonderful things you did have. You had fourteen years with Joe. Declan never had a day with his father. You had twenty-two years with Evelyn, some folks never get an hour. You have been loved, even from afar, your entire life. You’ve been searching for this quiet, for this serenity that has always been in the palm of your hand, just waiting for you to reach out and catch it. It’s still there, right now, but you refuse to see it.” Ava’s not angry, not being cruel, but I still feel the bite from her words. “Autumn, why are you wasting time with me? Go get what’s waiting for you.”