Chapter Thirty-Five
Pacino
Before I can head home, I have a stop to make. And just as I’d expected, the built-in vases on Mom’s headstone sit empty. I can imagine how long it’s been since anyone brought flowers here, and I’m glad I stopped to get some.
I’ll have to get word to Tanner that this is his fucking job now. One Father and Ryan never thought necessary.
“Hey, Mom,” I say, setting the flowers into the holders. “It’s been too long since I was last here. I’m sorry about that.”
I used to come visit her weekly. But when I left Vegas, I never came back. Not until now. It was too hard to come here realizing the life I’d been raised in let me down.
“Father’s gone. Or will be. I’m not really sure if he’s passed yet or not. Just between us, you managed to pull strings and give him cancer, didn’t you?”
That’s all Father is. A cancer. And he was the darkest part of Mom’s life. It’s karma that it’s what’s taking him out, and I’m pretty sure he somehow caused Mom’s cancer.
When Mom got sick, he barely cared. She was just the woman who gave him three sons. We had a sister, but she was stillborn, and he couldn’t have cared any less. But he sure as hell got after Mom for mourning the loss of her little girl.
But it wasn’t a son. Get over it.
That’s all he cared about. To him, women were expendable. And he ran around on Mom. I learned that too late, but had I known before she died, I’d have made sure he never fucked again.
“I met someone,” I say, sitting down and fiddling with one of the roses. “She’s nothing like Joanna. Which is probably a good thing considering I just found out she was only with me to let her father kill me.”
God, that fucking hurts. I believe them when they said she tried to call things off with her father when she fucked up and fell in love with me, but it doesn’t take away the pain of realizing how it all started. The only reason she wanted to be with me was to help end my life.
“I suppose you know that, though, huh? I thought it was Joanna who brought Phoebe into my life, but I don’t know if that’s true anymore.”
No, I don’t believe that for a minute. It was a silly thought. Comforting to make me feel less guilty, but there’s no reason to feel guilt anymore.
“You’d like Phoebe, though. She’s one hell of a baker, and she’s sweet. Her life hasn’t been easy, but she chooses happiness every day. Perky. It drove me absolutely fucking crazy at first, but now, I don’t think I can live without it.”
I smile as I think about what it would have been like to bring Phoebe home to Mom. She’d have told her she was too thin and needs more meat on her bones. And then she’d have force-fed her the way Phoebe does everyone else.
And Phoebe would love it.
Jesus. That’s why her insistence on getting to know me was so damn endearing. It’s what Mom did. How she still would be if she were alive today.
“You sent her to me, didn’t you?” I ask with a chuckle. “The bright and shiny and happy opposite of me. The only person who could lighten my darkness. She proved there’s sunshine even with my rain clouds.”
As I continue to tell her all about Phoebe, the ache in my chest lightens. Learning the truth about my past hurt. It hurt more than I thought anything could, but talking about Phoebe reminds me that it all happened for a reason. I wouldn’t have her if things hadn’t worked out the way they did.
Damn it, she’s making me an optimist.
A short breeze blows through and brushes against my cheek. Like a kiss.
“I’m going to marry her, Mom. And if I get what I want, I’ll be seeing you again shortly. I really wish you were here to meet her. Both of you are the good in my life.”
A tear slides down my cheek, and I wipe it away. The last thing I expected was to cry at Mom’s grave today.
“I miss you, Mom.”
Dad didn’t want to spend the money on etching her picture onto the stone, so I covered the cost. I run my fingers over her smiling face, and I fight back more tears. She was the one bright spot in our hell of a home with Father.
She came from the life like the rest of us, and she loved Father for reasons I’ll never understand. But just like Phoebe, she chose to be happy and push the bad to the back of her mind. She focused on only the good.
“I’m always thinking about you, Mom. There’s never a day I don’t. I’m just not in as much of a hurry to see you again as I used to be.”
Another breeze brushes by, and I sigh. Mom understands. And the kisses in the wind tell me she’s here. She loves me. And she approves.
Part of me breaks as I walk up to Joanna’s headstone. Like Mom’s, her smiling face shines back at me, and I sit down and just stare.
I wasn’t around when this picture was taken. It was before I came into her life. I always blamed myself for her dying so young.
“You never smiled like this with me,” I say. “You look so free here.”
The printed picture on her funeral programs is the same, and she shined. There was a brightness about her, and as I think back, I never saw this. There was always a heaviness with us.
“It’s because you knew your father knew while I thought we were a secret, isn’t it?” I ask.
There was passion and intensity, but I didn’t laugh with her. I didn’t smile. The threat of getting caught made everything seem so much more extraordinary. And running away together felt romantic. But it’s just drama.
And real relationships don’t survive on drama.
“How could you play that game? I never would have done that to you, Jo. My father could have ordered me to seduce you and make you vulnerable to get to your father, and I would’ve told him to fuck off.”
That’s how I fell in love. I thought it was both of us, but it was just me.
John learned my routines. Where I drank coffee. Where I ate. The places I went to collect money owed.
Joanna was suddenly always there, out of the blue. I thought it was fate. Our destiny. But it was just strategy.
He knew how to weaken me. How to get into my head, and how to get into my bed. He used his daughter as a pawn and essentially whored her out to get to me.
“I just don’t understand. What changed? How did it suddenly change from a murder mission to a rescue operation?”
I’m flooded with memories, and I smile softly as I realize when it happened. We were out together, enjoying our time together, and I slipped away to deal with some business. When I returned, Joanna was gone.
Walking around, I looked for her, only to find her being dragged into an alley by an associate of my family. I ran to them and freed her. Billy was his name, and touching her was the last thing he ever did.
Joanna stood there in awe as I killed someone for touching her. Someone who was part of the organization. When we fell into bed together, it was different. We’d been fucking, but that night, it turned into love.
And I suddenly understand.
“If you could play me for your father, you had to believe I could be doing the same for mine. But when I killed an associate, you knew I wasn’t playing any games. That’s when it stopped.”
It wasn’t about love. Not right away. But there was love. As I sit here and stare at her beautiful face, I know it’s true. Nothing I learned today changes that.
“I met someone, Jo. Her name is Phoebe, and she’s the opposite of me in almost every fucking way. And you, too,” I say with a chuckle. “I think that’s what I like best about her. She’s my fucking sunlight.”
There was a plan with Jo. We were going to run away and get married. Solidify the relationship to stop our fathers from trying to tear us apart. But it was fueled by fear and excitement. It’s why it was never destined to work out.
“I’m going to marry her,” I say. “With her, I don’t have anything to prove. I don’t have to hide or run. She knows everything about me, and she accepts me.”
A strange sense of calm fills me, and I know it. Father’s dead. He can’t hurt anyone I love anymore.
There’s a small twinge of something at the thought. Not grief. No, pity, maybe. Or maybe the final nail in the coffin that my past life is officially over. Dead and gone.
“When you died, I left this world we came from behind, and I don’t ever plan to come back. I may have left, but you haunted me. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw yours. Every woman I saw became you. My heart was shattered, but it’s time for me to move on.”
The tears surprise me, and I can’t stop them. It’s time. I’m finally letting Joanna go. Releasing the hold she’s had on me for over a decade.
I’m taking back my heart and no longer feeling guilt over being happy.
I’m free.
“I don’t know if I’ll be back,” I whisper, wiping my eyes.
“I just need you to know that I finally know the truth. And I still love you. But it’s not the same as before.
I need to move on, and I’m madly in love with the woman who helped me put the broken pieces back together and still loves me. Flaws and all.”
Standing, I let myself stare at her headstone longer than I should. This may be the last time I’m here, and it’s harder than I thought it would be.
I kiss my fingers and gently touch her picture. “Goodbye, baby,” I say, letting out a shaky breath.
Then I turn around and walk away. It’s time to move on.