Chapter Fifteen
dinner, Echo sat down with her computer and tried to puzzle out the code my father had left for her, but after an hour of getting nowhere, she gave up and decided that it would be wise to wait until the next message arrived. As I watched her working, I thought about how much my father must have trusted her to have left his entire life's work in her care. He had not been a easy man to live with, and his trust was something that took a long time to earn, but once it was, it was solid.
I watched her working and smiled as she frowned at the screen and bit her lip when the codes didn't turn up the information she wanted. She'd gathered her long blond hair in a loose ponytail at the back of her neck as she worked, but a loose strand kept falling forward causing her to pucker her lips and blow it out of her way in a manner that was both cute and incredibly sexy. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. Truth be told, I wanted to kiss her, but I wouldn't. And I couldn't get the feeling of her hands on my head out of my mind nor could I forget about how soft she'd felt when I'd held her against me. I reminded myself that she belonged to someone else, and that I had no desire to alienate her with my unwanted advances. I needed her help, and if that meant that I had to take more than one ice cold shower a day to keep my desires under control, then I would.
I stepped out onto the balcony and dialed Eva's number. It rang several times and then went to voicemail, so I left her a message asking about the status of my father's autopsy report. I asked her to get back to me soon knowing that she would probably ignore my call and that I'd have to go to her mother's to track her down.
"Everything okay?" Echo asked when I came back inside.
"Yeah, I was just trying to get ahold of Eva," I said as I tossed my phone on the coffee table. "She's probably at the yacht club getting blasted with her rich friends."
"She sounds like a piece of work," Echo said looking up at me as she rubbed her eyes.
"Oh, she is," I nodded. "I have no idea why my father married her. She's not particularly bright, and she's completely narcissistic. She's nothing like my mother was."
"Maybe that's the whole point," Echo said looking back down at her computer screen as she sighed and said, "I give up. None of this stuff makes any sense."
"I thought that, too," I replied.
"That it makes no sense?"
"No, that my father married Eva precisely because she's nothing like my mother," I said.
"Do you remember her well?" she asked hesitantly.
"Very well," I nodded. "She was kind and smart and beautiful, and she knew how to calm my father down when he'd fly into one of his rages."
"She sounds like she was amazing," Echo said looking up at me with soft eyes.
"She was," I affirmed.
"You must have loved her very much," she said as she tilted her head to one side and smiled warmly.
Looking at her, I wanted to walk over to the table and lift her up out of the chair so that I could kiss her deeply. Instead, I simply nodded and looked away afraid that she'd see desire written across my face.
"My mother was a kind person, too," she said as she closed the computer and stood up. "She used to take us girls on some amazing adventures when we were young. I know now that she did it to keep us out of my father's way when he was unable to control his depression and anger, but at the time it felt like such a grown-up thing when she'd take us to the city to have tea and cookies, or to browse in the stores on Michigan Avenue."
"My mother covered for my father, too," I said. Echo looked at me expectantly, but I didn't know what else to say. I didn't want to betray my father's memory and cause her to see him as someone different then the man she knew, but I did want her to know about my mother.
"It's okay, you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to," she shrugged. I could tell she was a little hurt by my withholding of information, but I felt trapped, and so I said nothing more. She looked at me for a long time before she nodded and said, "I'm heading to bed, then. What time do we need to leave in the morning?"
"By nine, to get to the funeral on time," I replied.
"I'll be ready," she promised as she climbed the twisty stairs and went silent.
#
finally fell asleep sometime after midnight, but it was fitful and I was awake again before dawn. I'd hung my dress blues on the shower rod the night before hoping that most of the wrinkles would be gone by morning and that if they weren't, that a hot steaming shower would do the trick. Echo had understood the futility of this, and had pulled out her ironing board and iron before going to bed and left them sitting in the kitchen.
At four in the morning, I stood pressing sharp creases into my dress pants with a hot iron as I thought about what I would say to Opie's parents. He'd talked about his family a lot, in fact, so often that I frequently threatened that if he didn't shut his pie hole, I'd fill it with my boot. He'd always gotten a laugh out of that, as he'd tell me how much he loved the taste of overcooked leather.
"Fuck!" I yelped as the edge of the iron made contact with my fingers. I quickly ran them under cold water in the sink and stood cursing myself for not paying attention to what I was doing. Once the initial pain had subsided, I finished my task and set the iron on top of the fridge to prevent further injury.
"You okay down here?" Echo yawned as she descended the stairs and walked into the kitchen.
"Yeah, fine. Sorry I woke you up," I said sheepishly.
"No, I was up before you started scorching your skin," she grinned as she pulled out a tube of burn ointment from a drawer and handed it to me. "Coffee?"
"Love some," I said as I moved out of her way and tried to pretend that I hadn't noticed that she was wearing only a thin pink nightgown and that there was nothing underneath it. She'd piled her hair on top of her head in a messy bun making her look even lovelier than she had the night before. "I'm going to shower, okay?"
"Have at it," she said as she measured coffee grounds into the filter and flipped the brew switch. "It's going to be a few before this is ready."
In the shower I looked down and muttered, "Please behave today," as I looked at my stiff shaft jutting out at an angle from my body. I wanted to take care of it, but I knew that if I did, it would only make things worse. It was better to let myself suffer then to encourage the idea that some real relief was immanent.
Fifteen minutes later I was standing on the balcony watching the first rays of light begin to wake the city as I sipped the first of many cups of coffee I was sure I'd be drinking that day. Echo had wrapped a throw from the couch around her and was sipping her coffee with her eyes closed, as if she was drinking in the very essence of the day.
"So, where are we headed?" she asked startling me for a moment.
"To the Bronx," I replied. "Opie — er, John Michael was from a big Irish family. He was one of the middle ones, so there will be lots of younger kids there, eight, I think."
"Wow, that's a big family," she said her eyes widening.
"He had five older siblings," I said watching as her eyes got even wider.
"I can't even imagine," she said shaking her head.
"From what I understand the funeral will be held at Saint Frances and then we'll all go back to the house for the memorial," I said.
"No one goes to the burial?" she asked.
"His parents will go and probably some of the close relatives," I said. "But the outsiders will wait at the house until they get back. At least that's what John Michael told me an Irish funeral in his family would be like."
"I see," she said as she stared out at the street. "It's such a horribly sad thing to have to do. Bury a child."
"Agreed," I nodded not knowing what else to say. She turned and looked up at me and my heart began to pound. Her messy hair and sleepy eyes looked so sensually inviting, and all I wanted to do was scoop her up and carry her inside where I could pull her hair free and push her nightgown up so that I could explore the naked body underneath it. Instead, I swallowed hard and looked down into my coffee cup.
"There's more if you want it," she said mistaking my sudden interest in my cup for a desire I wasn't feeling. She stood up and said, "I'm going to go shower and get ready so we can be on time."
"Good call," I said as I turned and looked out over 13th Street and wondered how long I could maintain my mask of neutrality before the cracks began to show. I decided that after today's ordeal it would probably be a good idea to start looking for another place to stay.