Chapter 24
I t took me three days, but of course, I drove the four hours back up to my childhood home and parked next to my dad’s truck.
I hadn’t wanted to talk to Aunt May while she was in the city, and I didn’t want to take the mamas away from fawning all over Anna, who had announced she was pregnant a few weeks ago. So, I’d waited.
Which had been the worst. I missed Jenna so much I was near a catatonic state.
My life was nothing without her. I felt like I was sleepwalking. I felt like I couldn’t breathe or need to breathe.
I had no sense of taste, slept ten hours a night, and went to work on autopilot. The only place I could concentrate was at work. That was it.
I’d even gone to the season closing meeting and ended up just skating around like a kid at a roller rink when the slow songs came on.
I was numb.
I was dazed but also eager to find out what Theo had meant when he said I should speak to Aunt May.
It didn’t take a genius to know what this was all about, but I was drawn to her nonetheless.
“Hey, Dad,” I greeted my old man who was standing in the garage, the doors open wide.
“Hey, son.” He pulled me in for a hug. He smelled like old spice and sawdust, and I was immediately grounded.
“Still high off your win?”
I nodded. “Felt good.”
“I’ll bet. Your mama been giving you grief again? Too long without seeing you?”
I smirked. “I can’t help being her favorite child.”
He squeezed my neck. “Something tells me your mama has nothing to do with this particular visit.”
They all knew.
I don’t think Jenna would have said anything, but the fact she wasn’t Velcroed to my side all night, where I loved her to be, was probably the biggest giveaway.
I stared out, down the driveway. “Hey, Dad, can I ask you a question?”
“You already know the answer.”
I internally groaned. “You don’t even know what I was gonna ask.”
I turned back to face him, but he was scrubbing harder than I thought he needed to.
“Sometimes the guilt of leaving your mama alone with you kids ate away at me, but she never once asked me to give it up. She knew it wasn’t something I was able to do. I’m not too proud to say the thought of leaving had dread settling in the pit of my stomach. I wanted to serve, wanted the Special Ops, and I wanted to be her husband. Selfishly I wanted her to raise my family for me while I went off doing my thing. But I loved her with everything I had, I still do. In fact, I love her more—not sure how that’s even possible. She’s a special kind of woman. The kind that knew the man her husband was and loved me anyway.”
He looked up from the Basswood he was sanding by hand. “Say, do you happen to know a girl like that?”
I stared him down and his smirk only grew wider.
“Go see your aunt and then bring her back for supper.”
I nodded and turned, but he said my name again.
“Scott.”
“Yeah?”
“Did I fuck up?”
The question blindsided me and I swallowed past the lump in my throat that had formed in less than a second.
“No. I don’t think you’ve ever fucked up a day in your life. This has nothing to do with you. Or Mama.”
“I don’t know, son. I think there are things I could have handled differently. Maybe you were too young, but you were so mature for your age. I should have never assumed you were handling it well. But the things you used to say and do.” He shook his head. “There was so much conviction behind the duty you felt. When you were little I always tried to reason with you. Explain nothing fell on your shoulders, but you’ve been a shield for all of your siblings and the mamas since you could walk. A natural protector. A leader. Our little guardian. We talk about it all the time and worry you always put others before yourself.”
I was shaking my head now too. “There was nothing you could have said or done to make me change how I saw my place in this family. And there’s nothing anyone can say to make me change my mind about Jenna.”
“We’ll see.”
With a salute, I took the short walk to my aunt’s house, knocked on the red door, and waited.
“Scott, honey, what are you doin’ here?”
She looked well. Her shiny brown hair was freshly styled, not a grey hair to be seen, and she had on a loose blue blouse and what she and my mama called house pants. How they were different from the pants they wore when they went out was completely lost on me. They looked exactly the same.
Her smile was wide and the hug she gave me was warm and long, but I could never look at her and not see desolation marred across her beautiful face.
“Hey, Aunt May. Can I come in?”
“You sure can, but why are you knockin’? You shoulda just come right on in.”
I tipped my head as I passed by my uncle’s photo, taken on the day he became a lieutenant. The one that’s been hanging there since they moved in here.
Young and proud in his FDNY dress uniform, he looked every bit the hero , and yeah, I’d called him that.
“What can I git you? Coffee . . . tea?” She looked at me and screwed up her face.
“Ah, somethin’ stronger.”
“You know why I’m here?”
“I have a hunch. I’ve been waitin’ on this visit for a while now.”
“I don’t understand. Theo was just as cryptic when I spoke with him. Has he called?”
She shook her head, no. “Come on, now take a seat, and I’ll fix us some drinks. I need to go fetch a few things anyway.”
Aunt May’s living space was open plan, so I watched her as she grabbed the glasses and a bottle of gin, and then rustled around in her purse, smiling sadly when she retrieved an old cell the size of a house brick.
She also went over to a cabinet behind the TV and pulled out what looked like an answering machine and a few tapes.
She powered up the old cell and with shaking hands, keyed into it.
“You have twelve saved messages. First message.”
“Hey, babe, it’s a big one”—the sirens whooped in the background—“just checkin’ in, you know? I know it’s the kids’ bedtime, but I just wanted to tell you I’m coming home. Okay, I love ya, baby. I love you with everythin’ I got. Kiss the kids for me, will ya? I gotta go.”
To delete the message press one, to save message . . .
“Hey, babe. This one’s a real shit show. It’s late, but I just wanted to tell ya how much I love you and I thank God he gave me you and my boys. I’m so proud of ’em. Theo wanting to be just his like his old man and Troy, man that kid is somethin’, isn’t he? Shit, I’ll see you in the mornin’, okay baby. I’m comin’ home. I’ll see you in the mornin’.”
My uncle’s voice rang out over and over again. Until Aunt May’s face paled, and she played the last of the twelve messages and my heart thundered in my chest.
Chaos reigned around him. The noise almost drowned out his voice, and the line crackled and broke, but he made sure she heard him.
He made sure she knew.
“Babe, this, this is it. It’s hell over here. We’ve lost contact with . . . I have to . . . We’re on our way in. I dunno, I dunno if . . . fuck . . . I don’t wanna leave this, but I wanted you to hear my voice.” He got louder. Spoke with more urgency. More conviction. “’Cause if you ever doubt what we ha . . . have, you listen to this . . . You need to know how my heart aches for you, baby. I never seen anyone more beautiful than you . . . I got nothin’ to give you, May, nothin’ except my heart, and it’s yours forever. And if . . . you are the best thing that ever happened to me, ya hear? You and my boys. I’m so prouda them, so damn proud. Sometimes I think my heart’s gonna beat out of my chest when I look at them, I love ’em so much. I couldn’t ask for a better life. A better wife. I love you. May . . . Tell Jackie, tell him . . . ah hell, he knows what to do. I love you all. I love you, baby. I love you.”
I sat, stunned, as tears rolled down my cheek. I pawed at them, but it was useless.
It took Aunt May a while to look back up from the phone once she’d powered it off, but eventually, with leaky eyes, she did.
“He told me to erase each of these the very next day. Every time he’d step foot back inside this house, he’d say “Delete that answer phone message. I think the adrenaline makes me a lovesick fool.” Said he shouldn’t be callin’ me like that and then he’d wrap me up in his big strong arms and kiss me stupid. But you know what? I have a year’s worth. Do you hear his voice? Scott, he did his job because he loved it, and he was good at it. And thanks to his lovesick fool antics, I’ve lived these past twenty years knowing I was adored by a man who would have given me the whole world if he could. I’ve missed him for double the time I had him. We were together for twelve years. And he’ll have been gone twice that long. But I don’t regret a day I spent loving him. And I’d do it all over again.”
I blinked and then blinked again.
There was no way she would sign up for that. Was there?
“You would? You’d marry him and have kids with him knowing he was always gonna leave?”
“I would, honey. In a hot second. I’d live a hundred lifetimes exactly like this one if it meant I got to spend twelve of my years with him. It takes courage to love the way the men in this family do, but it takes a strong woman to love you men. Jenna is that strong. Surely you see that?”
I nodded. She was strong. She was strong and willful. She was independent and empowered. She was a force. Not in the same way Wren was—she wasn’t like a bull at a gate. She was quietly fierce, like my mom and sister. Like Anna.
Like my Aunt May.
Shit.
“Thanks, May. I don’t know what to say. I can’t believe you have these.”
“A true gift.”
She hugged the phone to her chest. “But the real gift was those years we spent together. Don’t let fear hold you back. Lord, look what happened to Casey, or Anna’s poor family. It can all go wrong in the blink of an eye. But it can also not. Take your mama and daddy. The places he’s been, the danger he’s faced—and he came back every single time. Don’t deny yourself this kind of love. And I know you love her, Scott. It’s written all over your face.”
I hung my head. What had I done?