Chapter 10 Family
FAMILY
AUSTIN
Pinner Albert narrowed his eyes when I walked in beside Poppy. They narrowed further when I pulled the chair out for her and my hand rested on her spine as she sat down.
In fact, he didn’t take his eyes off me.
“Hey Daddy.”
“Poppy.” Those eyes dug my grave. “Smoke. What the fuck are you doing with my girl?”
Poppy glanced at me, worried.
“Fierce,” I whispered. She nodded and addressed her father.
“I’ve decided I want him.” Poppy grabbed my hand and set it on the little platform between us and the double-thick bulletproof glass.
“Him?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
Pinner chewed on his cheek. “No.”
“What are you going to do, you’re in there. Do you honestly expect me to wait?”
His eyes slid to the guard who perked up with Poppy’s raised voice. “I got friends.”
“Oh yeah? Like my friends? They know.” She leaned in, “And they’re happy for me.”
Pinner glared at me. “How’s Lily?”
“Doing better. The antibiotics are working, and she’ll be out Thursday.” Poppy’s voice was background chatter to the real conversation going on between Pinner and me.
“Why?”
Poppy thought he was speaking to her, but he wasn’t. “Because she must have eaten something at Jewel’s or…”
“Because she’s family, old man. I can protect her faster than you can. And our friends? They’re also around. Like family should be.” I spoke true. If I couldn’t help, the Destroyers would.
“That isn’t good enough.” His eyes dipped to our hands. “Do you love her? Promise not to fucking cheat on her?” He shifted his chair closer. “Even if she can’t give you kids and freezes you out for being a dick about it?”
“If we decide to have kids, that’s us, not you.”
His nostrils flared. “I did her mom wrong. But I hear that club is changing. Can’t say the rumors set my mind at ease none.”
“Daddy?”
Pinner looked to his daughter and his voice went soft. “Yes, baby?”
“Please?”
He flushed red. “Never could say no to either of you two. Yeah, yeah. Do what you want, but if he breaks your heart?” Pinner slid a finger across his throat, holding my eyes as he did it. “And both of you need figure out what to do with Lil. She’s a handful.”
“For now, she’s going to be living with us,” Poppy started.
“Us?” Pinner slammed his hands down and pushed his chair back.
The guard stepped closer, baton ready. “Ease off, my little girl is fucking this clown.” He set both hands on his knees and took a deep breath and held the pose until the guard stepped back.
When he was as out of earshot as he ever could be, Pinner moved forward in slow, careful motions.
“If…you two have kids, I hope it’s a boy. Girls are…”
“A handful?”
“You have no idea, son.”
Son. Damn.
Pinner changed the subject. “That brother of yours?”
I leaned in because his tone shifted to the sotto voice he used in the yard before someone bled. I filled in the details as quickly as possible. “Told to leave town. He’s got a week.”
“Track him. Next visit, tell me where he settles. I’ll get someone on it. That bullshit he pulled won’t fly.”
Pinner leaned back and casually checked the guards before saying anything else.
Then he smiled like he hadn’t just informed me of a hit on my brother.
“You know, Spring is nice, for a wedding. April. The surf where your mom lives calms down and it’s not as rainy.
” He smiled and tapped the glass. “Although, rainy days are also good. That’s how we made you. ” He winked at Poppy.
“I did not need to know that.” She covered her ears but smiled.
“When you visit her, tell her I miss her.”
I glanced at Poppy. Her smile fell slightly, but she rallied. “I’ll make sure Kuku Maile is listening. She’ll freak out.”
Pinner stretched out, a big smile on his face. “That old bat. Your grandmother hates my guts.” He pointed at me. “She’ll hate you, too.” His grin got bigger.
The hour flew by, Poppy doing the bulk of the talking from there, making her father smile.
Every once in a while, he’d glance at me and that grin would fall.
Then he’d smile at something his daughter said and it was as if that moment didn’t happen.
Before the final reminder that our time was up, he held up his hand to quiet Poppy and talk directly to me.
“Brother to brother now, not father, understand?”
I nodded.
“I need you out there. We need you out there. No funny shit. And have an alibi at Christmas.” His chair squeaked as he left.
Poppy sent me a worried glance, but kept quiet until we were on the road. “He’s going to kill your brother, isn’t he?”
“Sounded like it, didn’t it? But that’s not our problem, right?”
She sighed. “It is if they find out he hired someone. I’ll never see him again. Worse they could tie it to you, and maybe think you arranged it.”
I reached across the console dividing us. I was going to tell her not to worry, that Pinner wasn’t going to be able to go through with it. Or, that her fears weren’t valid. But those would be lies. Instead, I said one word in a way she’d understand why it needed to be done. “Lily.”
Her face clamped down. About four miles passed like that, me driving, her quiet. Finally, she pulled out the tube of papers I’d brought with and examined the blueprints.
“This room will be hers. When she visits. And I want French doors to the back porch, not sliding doors in the bedroom.” She tapped the deck I’d sketched that ran the width of the house. “I like this. We need a little wall here, though. That way no one over at Sprout’s can see us.”
“Privacy?”
She nodded. “It’s our bedroom, not theirs.”
Ours. I liked that word.
Two months later, we celebrated Christmas by breaking ground on the lot. Then we walked over to Sprout’s and ate dinner. Our family. Lily, Sprout, Danielle, Ma, Wolf, Tits, just enough to keep the party down to a reasonable roar.
My mom called at about midnight.
Andrew’s car broke down somewhere near Albany.
He tried to walk to the station to get help.
But his calls didn’t go through because of the remote area.
A logging truck didn’t see him in the dark.
There would be a closed casket because of that.
It was the first I’d talked to her in years.
And she was more worried about a damn closed casket than me.
I sat in the living room, processing. Lily sat down next to me. “That call, bad news?”
“Andrew got hit by a truck.”
“Did they back up?”
Her question caught me off guard. “What?”
“You know, run him over, back up, finish the job?” She grinned and made the hand gesture and sounds of a big truck stopping, then backing over the body.
Poppy stood in the framed arch between the rooms. Her eyebrows lifted as if to say, “what did you expect?”
I shrugged. “At least this one wasn’t chopped into pieces.”
Lily made a thoughtful sound. “I wish he hadn’t done that. He’d be out now if he’d’ve just shot the bastard.”
I draped my arm over the couch, protecting her even if I wasn’t touching her. “That bastard is dead. He might have survived a gunshot wound. I’d have done the same thing if it were my child.”
She looked at me with old eyes. “I know.”
There’d been some fights since she was released from the hospital, but she stuck to the program and was getting her shit together.
Jewel had moved out of town, somewhere west, last I heard.
And the old trailer they’d lived in hauled to the junkyard and crushed.
Lily really didn’t have a place to go if she wanted to leave us, but I don’t think that’s what kept her here.
“When are you going to move on? Leave this town?” Leave the past behind. I left unspoken.
She snuggled against me, motioning to Poppy to take the other side. “Never.”
“Never?” I glanced at Poppy, letting her see a little of the terror on my face.
Poppy grinned. She high-fived her sister. “She’s yanking your chain, Smoke. That college in Philadelphia accepted her application. She’s going to start in August.”
Thank goodness. Fall couldn’t come soon enough.
But before that, there was a Spring wedding to plan with two of the most ruthless Alberts I’d ever met on this side of prison bars.
Both demanding a lot of girlie shit. How that would square with bikers and construction workers?
I had no clue how the fiasco wouldn’t be a major embarrassment.
But if that’s what they wanted, I wasn’t an idiot. They’d get it.
“Too bad I can’t go to Hawaii with you.”
I swallowed. No way was Lily hijacking our honeymoon. “Poppy?”
She squeezed me. “You know I’d take her if I knew mom wouldn’t murder her for looking like Jewel.”
“Not my fault.” Lily played with the ends of her now-blonde hair.
Poppy reached over. “Not at all. I love you exactly how you are, baby sis.”
“Love you, too, mamasistah.” They clasped hands with me sandwiched between them.
I pulled both to my heart and let their love and strength soak into me.
This is what mattered. These women shared genuine bonds with only half of their connection coming from blood.
It was Poppy’s light, and Lily’s life that made these women amazing sisters.
Its moorings were stronger than just sharing the same father.
More than growing up together. It took me ten years of hell to discover how life should be with a sibling.
Sure, it was tough sometimes, but these women did it right.
I didn’t even know if I’d be able to stare at a closed coffin without anger.
I reached around and pulled Poppy’s head closer so I could kiss her hair. Then, to not leave Lily out of it I smacked the top of her head too. “I need some air. You two be good.” I grabbed my gloves and jacket.
“Isn’t it too cold to ride?” Lily asked.
“Shush, you’re talking to real bikers here.” Poppy shut her down with a hand gesture.
“Oh yeah? Why don’t I see you on the back of his bike lately then?”
“Because… it’s cold out, duh.” Poppy shuddered, which made Lily laugh hysterically.
“Don’t freeze, Smokey-pop.”
Lily’s nicknames were weird.
I ended up at the cemetery. Brenda’s grave was the flat kind that collected leaves. I moved them away from the stone and studied the etching there. Just her name, birth date, and death date. No mention of anything else. A secret only her mom and I mourned.
The ground was hard and cold. But I sat there for a good amount of time, trying to work up the right words to fix the past. And I couldn’t.
“He’s dead. A truck hit him.”
The silent response felt like an accusation.
“I’m sorry.”
But there was no one there to hear my apology.
“I spent ten years in prison, you know? I beat him up. But I didn’t kill him.
If I had, I wouldn’t be here right now. So…
there’s that.” I stared at the sedate trees and the manicured shadows of hedges and whatnot scattered around the graves to offer privacy for the living.
“I’m not sorry he’s dead. I’m only sorry I didn’t kill him myself. I should have, right?”
An icy breeze picked up, lifting leaves and debris from the ground and tossing it around.
I tugged my jacket tighter and waited it out.
When the wind settled, I flicked at the leaves that had covered the blocky letters.
A red poppy, the kind you see on military graves and tucked into lapels was one of the bits that landed on Brenda’s grave.
I picked it up and spun it in my fingers.
“I’ve got a future now. I wish you did, too.” Ten years… I’d pictured the what ifs, the might-have-beens, and they never felt real. They always were colorless, tainted by the shadow of my brother. Now I had vibrant plans.
Lush greens, sunny yellows, bright pinks, deep blues like the ocean.
I rolled the red flower in my fingers again.
“Her name’s Poppy. I love her. Her sister is a handful and a half, but kind of funny.
And tough, even though she’s really fragile.
I sincerely hope I don’t have to beat someone up over her.
And Poppy and I, we’re going to try to have a family of our own.
It might happen, and then again it might not. But I hope it does.
“I’m sorry, Brenda. I shouldn’t be telling you this. You don’t want to know I moved on, do you?”
The wind picked up again and despite the layers I wore, it was too damn cold to talk to a silent grave.
I had a life to live. But first, I crouched low so not even the wind could hear me.
“I got some justice for you. First by making him hurt, and finally by helping to end his life, even though I wasn’t there.
Some justice, Brenda. The kind you can’t get from the courts or without paying for with years of time.
I hope… I hope that’s enough.” I kissed the tiny flower and tucked it under the edge where the dead grass met stone.
Then I rode to a place where I fit perfectly. Home and Poppy’s arms.