Connor

Thursday, I spent the morning meditating. Upon reflection of my weird-ass dream with Laurie and Grandma Betty, I realized I needed to let Alys come to me. More than anything, I wanted to march my ass up to her room and force her to see reason, but that had never worked in the past. In fact, it had fucking backfired each and every time.

Instead, around mid morning, I rolled up Laurie’s old yoga mat and headed into the house for a shower. Then, I called Kenna.

“Yeah?” she answered.

“Jeez, will you fucking cut me a break, Kenna?” I snapped. “I don’t deserve this shit.”

“What do you want?”

My sister was one of my favorite people. For the most part, she was nonjudgmental and accepting of others. She fucking forgave easily. I was finding her attitude a little hard to believe.

“I wanted to know if you wanted to go out for breakfast. I fucking need to talk to someone about this shit, but if you’re going to be a heinous bi—”

She sighed loudly. “Yeah. Come on over.”

Fighting the urge to just check on Alys in her room—I still hadn’t heard anything and wondered if maybe she’d been sleeping in X’s old room in the Plantation House—I headed through the backyard toward the small half. When I was about halfway there, Kenna came out onto the back patio with two coffee mugs.

“Hey,” I said as I approached.

“Morning,” she replied.

Her shaggy haircut was a little wild, and the etchings of pillow creases were still on her left cheek. I realized that maybe she hadn’t been being a heinous bitch but hadn’t been fully awake when I called.

I pointed to the coffee mug. “Is that for me?”

“Uh-huh.”

I took a seat across from her. I wanted to pour my heart out to my sister, but I couldn’t find the words to start. I wasn’t too sure she was awake enough to truly process anything anyway.

“Phil’s sleeping?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Are you still mad at me?”

“No. I’m not sure I was mad at you to begin with. Just the whole situation.”

“Yeah, I get that. I guess I feel that way, too.”

“I’m mostly upset for Alys. She hasn’t had the best of luck where love is concerned.”

“How do you figure?” I asked, feeling my temper spark. “She’s had me and X hot after her—”

Kenna’s green eyes pierced me. “Her husband is dead, and the man she loves more than anything has a baby mama about to drop his kid. You turned your back on her when you didn’t get your way. You broke her heart into a million pieces, Connor. Shit, sometimes I think men are the biggest brats ever.”

I had nothing to say to that.

“Alys…” she said, shaking her head.

“What?”

“Fuck it. Let’s just go get some food. We’ll talk about it while we’re out—less fucking ears and all that.”

I glanced at the house, remembering every person we knew was probably inside it. “Yeah, that’s a good idea.”

We chugged our coffee and headed inside, so Kenna could grab her bag and the keys to Phil’s truck. I supposed he’d given it to her to use whenever she wanted. I’d been driving her old VW since she came back from visiting Gran and Gramps in Scotland.

It hit me that maybe I should get myself a decent fucking car. Growing up in a tight-income home had made me naturally frugal, I supposed.

“Where are you goin’?” came Phil’s booming deep voice from upstairs.

“Breakfast with Connor,” Kenna loudly replied.

Thundering steps hauled ass down the stairs, and a half-dressed, half-asleep Phil showed up. “Where?”

Kenna glanced over at me. “Newsstand Café?”

That sounded great. “Hell yeah.”

“What the hell am I supposed to do then?” he grumped.

Kenna rolled her eyes. “I’ll bring you back po’boys for lunch at the studio.”

Phil walked up to his wife and pulled her in for a kiss that I had to turn my face away from.

He whispered something to her, and she replied with an exasperated, “I won’t.”

“Have fun,” he said. He looked at me and gave me a chin tilt. “See you in the studio?”

“Yeah, man.”

Kenna extricated herself from Phil’s embrace and headed out the door. I followed close behind.

“He’s gotten really laid-back about you being out of his sight,” I joked, hopping into the passenger side of the truck.

“Eh, he’s got a lot of work to do,” she replied. “I think he’s just happy I’m not sitting at home, bored off my ass. In between helping Lili and Lewis with their new place and writing for Mike, I’m nicely occupied.”

My sister was a fucking wizard. She’d been writing articles for Michaela “Mike” O’Flaherty for months now, being published in all sorts of music magazines. Ever since Phil had gone into rehab—not for drug addiction really; he’d just needed to get his shit together after we lost X—Kenna had left the medical community behind. I wondered if her being unable to help Phil through his crisis had killed that part of her or if she just really had no interest in it anymore.

“You don’t miss having your own practice?” I asked.

She shrugged, shoving the key in and firing up the engine. “I do therapy on you guys and the rest of the crew when it’s needed. But…no, I can’t say that I do.”

“Do you still plan on keeping your medical license active?”

“I don’t know. I’ve just sort of been living for the moment. It’s great not to have to wake up at the crack of dawn and go to work. I wake up and do what I want. And Phil’s happy, so that’s a bonus.”

She popped an iPod into the jack, cranking Tool’s Ænima, letting me know she needed a little more time before she was ready to converse any further. Then, she backed out of the garage.

The day was sunny and warm but with a cool breeze. Kenna was wearing her favorite baggy jeans and a Houses of the Holy T-shirt. Her engagement and wedding rings glinted brightly on her hand, which was perched on top of the steering wheel.

In the last two years, she had changed so much, and still…she was the same—cool, aloof. Some might even mistake her for being detached and uncaring. But I knew that exterior contained a soul that felt too much, too deeply.

I also knew that she was more upset than she was letting on about the whole situation with Quinn being pregnant with my kid. I could feel the waves of disappointment rolling off of her, a low pulsing. For some strange reason, I felt the need to beg for her forgiveness for knocking a woman up, and I didn’t know why.

But then I remembered…she had lost Phil’s baby. It was only about five months ago, and not once had she spoken about it since she came back.

Recently, I hadn’t been there for her as much as I should have been. She and Phil had come together stronger than ever on the night of the first NOLA’s Own show, and she hadn’t looked back. I had been wrapped up in healing Alys as fast as I could, so we could be together again.

But I was there for Kenna when no one else was. I was there at the lowest points in her life—when she lost the baby, when Phil nearly killed himself, when she was scalped.

Still, it didn’t sit well with me that Kenna and I hadn’t really talked about…anything really in a long-ass time.

We pulled into the parking lot of Newsstand Café, and she found a spot in the shade to park the truck. Killing the engine, she grabbed her bag and hopped out. I made sure I locked the door before slamming mine shut and following her inside.

We were seated in a booth toward the back of the restaurant. They knew us here and always gave us this one if it was free.

“What can I get you all?” asked our server, Janine. She pointed to Kenna, a bubbly smile on her face. “Large OJ and a latte?”

Kenna smiled back. “Please.”

“I’ll have the same,” I stated.

Janine bounced off to get our drinks, and Kenna opened up a menu.

“You’re getting something different?” I asked.

“You know, I’m tempted to, but I always get the same damn thing.”

Freshly baked French bread, brie, and fruit salad.

“I think I’m going to get the bacon-wrapped avocado with poached eggs,” she said. “It looks so good.”

“Hell yeah,” I replied. “I’m going for the seafood omelet. You wanna order the bread and fruit salad and split it?”

Kenna’s eyes crinkled with her smile, and I felt a bit of pride that I had made her happy in such a small way. It was ridiculous—how easy it was to please her.

“Yeah, we could do that.”

Janine dropped off our drinks and took our order.

“So…” I said. “Is Alys the only reason you’re upset about Quinn being knocked up?”

“Pretty much. Why? Should I be upset for another reason?”

“I thought maybe…seeing as you lost Little Zephyr…”

Kenna shook her head, her gaze drifting toward the window. “No.” Her gaze came back to me. “I’d accepted I was going to lose her before I officially knew there was something wrong.”

“You think it was a girl?”

“Phil does. I think it bothers him more than it does me. Women miscarry all the time. It’s a fact of life. I’m sad that it happened, yeah. But…I don’t know. Even though I loved her so much and, at the time, I wanted her…I can’t explain it properly.”

“You’re doing just fine.”

“I just knew that she was with me because I needed to learn something. She was never meant to be born.”

“What did you learn?”

“That I can love unconditionally. That the love between a parent and child is stronger than anything else. I understood how Mom felt about us, how Gloria feels about us, how Grandma could just give up on life after losing Mom…”

“You didn’t give up on life,” I pointed out.

“I also didn’t get the chance to raise my daughter, know her, and watch her slowly die either. But I can see how life lost meaning for Grandma. And, even knowing all of that…”

“What?”

“I plan on having children anyway, knowing that I could lose them at any given second. I still want to give Phil his babies.”

I nodded.

“What about you?” she asked.

Sighing, I scrubbed my hands over my face. Dropping them onto the table, I admitted, “Kenna, I feel absolutely nothing for this kid, and more than anything, that terrifies the fuck out of me. At this point, I’m doing all this shit because I know it’s the right thing to do. It’s like my emotional center has shut down, and I have nothing for him or Quinn.”

“It could just be the shock of the situation,” she told me, her voice soft. “It shocked the shit out of everyone.”

“No shit,” I grumped. “Da seems okay with it. Mom still hasn’t spoken to me.”

“Yeah, she’s pissed,” Kenna stated. “She was so happy you and Alys were finally together…which is what you really want to talk about, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I haven’t seen her since I got back. Is she staying at the Plantation House?”

“No.”

I sighed. “I guess it’s just best if we avoided each other for now. It’s fuckin’ killing me, Kenna. I can’t do anything about this, and it’s not like I did something wrong.”

“I know. But…are you sure you were careful?”

“Fuck yeah, I’m sure! The only person I’ve had unprotected sex with is Alys. The condom was fine when I took it off. And…shit, Sheri set up an appointment for me to get tested today. Do you know what time?”

“I’m taking your blood sample when we get to the studio.”

“Oh. All right then. You’ve got the equipment at the studio?”

“No. My medic bag’s in the truck.”

“This can’t be what Alys really wants,” I said, desperate for Kenna to confirm this.

“It’s not.”

Thank fuck.

“But I think she really needs this time to find out who she is, Connor. She was X’s wife, and while I’m sure she was ready to be with you again, Quinn was not part of the bargain. Alys isn’t the same person anymore. Her time with X changed her, and…just give her some time, okay? When she’s ready, she’ll let you know.”

“What if she’s never ready?” I half-whispered. “I’ve been waiting nearly my whole life to be with her—not hiding how we feel about each other, but out in the open for everyone to see. It fuckin’ guts me that we had it for a few hours, and then…”

Kenna reached across the table and took my hands in hers. “It’s not forever. So, just do what you gotta do, and it’ll happen when it’s supposed to.”

“Is that what you told yourself, all those years waiting on Phil?”

“When I didn’t flat-out deny it? Sure.” She gave me a half-grin.

“Last night, I dreamed about Mom.”

She perked up at that. “Oh, yeah?”

“I was sitting in the backyard—although it was weird. There were so many fuckin’ flowers, and it smelled like Alys…”

Kenna drew in a sharp breath.

I smiled. “She told me it had been a while since you visited.”

“You were there?”

“I guess you know what I’m talking about.”

“Yeah.”

“Grandma was there, too.”

Kenna’s eyes shimmered faintly, and her smile got big. “What song did she put on for you?”

“‘Since I’ve Been Loving You.’”

“Wow. She usually puts on ‘Kashmir’ for me.”

I laughed. “Yeah, she would.”

Kenna blushed for some reason, and her gaze dropped, but she didn’t lose her smile. “What’d they tell you?”

“Pretty much what you just did. Are you channeling them or something?”

Her eyes lifted to mine. “Always.”

I believe it.