20. Luc
20
LUC
A LITTLE HOPE
“ L uc?” Marc wanders onto the dock down at the hospital one day, deep in the later parts of the summer. September evenings are finally, desperately clawing toward dusk before nine p.m. But even with the hottest part of the season behind us, sweat still dribbles along my spine as I count stock in the back of my bus after pulling a kid out of the lake.
She was seven and had no business swimming on her own.
Luckily, she lived, and if Alex gets his way, he’s about to put a scare on her parents they won’t ever forget.
“Luc?”
“I’m in the bus.” I bring my arm up and swipe at the sweat beading on my brow. It pebbles along my skin, dripping from the tip of my nose when I don’t catch it in time. The heat is frying my brain anyway, so I set my clipboard down and swap my pen for a bottle of water as Marc comes to a stop at the back doors and grins uncharacteristically wide.
His giddiness sets me on alert. “What?”
“The girls asked for help.”
Maybe the temperature has already boiled my brain because my thoughts swing around, Tweety Bird on a swing, singing a song and not doing much else. “You’re happy because the girls need help?”
“They need help moving.” His eyes grow impossibly wide. Very non-Marc-like as they dance. “They’re coming home! Kari is coming home. ”
“No shit.” Be cool. BE COOL ! “When?”
“This weekend. They asked me to drive the truck over Saturday morning and load their shit up. Ang said he can’t help because he’s got some big job coming in he has to do. But he offered his car, so you need to drive that over and haul some shit back.”
“So you’re just planning my weekend, huh?” Bulllllllshit. I’m coming with bells on. “What if I’m busy?”
“Cancel.” He practically fucking tap dances on the smooth concrete. “Kari said she’s finishing up her contract with the clinic and her boss is writing a glowing recommendation for her. The administrators here are already making offers since she’s so fuckin’ smart.”
“Is that, like… a formal recognition?” I tease. “ Fuckin’ smart. Or are you being a weird big brother, gloating about his little pet?”
“I don’t give a shit. She’s coming home!” If he was a woman, and, or, holding a bouquet of flowers, I get the feeling he’d hug them to his chest and twirl in circles.
There are so few things on this planet that make Marcus Macchio happy.
The first, last, and every one in between, revolves around his baby sister.
“You’ll be here too,” he sighs. “You’re at the hospital damn near twenty-four seven. So I know, as my friend, you’ll keep an eye on her. And even though she’s getting an apartment in town, I’ll have her at my place as much as I can get away with. The twins are officially unofficially moving in, too, which means you’ll have a green light to visit as much as you want. So basically?—”
“So basically, you’re setting up your network of spies.” I nod, faux impressed with his deviousness. “You know she’ll skin you, right?”
He laughs, completely unphased by a very real threat. “She loves me. Even if I frustrate her sometimes. And the times that she’s angry at me, just means when she forgives, she spends even more time with me to make up for what we lost.”
“Pretty sure you’re still grossly codependent, bruh.” I open my bottle of water and tip it back to fill my mouth. I don’t mind the extra that dribbles onto my cheeks. I don’t care about the droplets on my chin. My skin is sizzling hot, and the water is blissfully cold.
Hell, I get why a curious seven-year-old thought going for a swim today was a good idea.
“What about her boyfriend?” Be cool. Casual. Non-obsessive . “You know about them, right? ”
He knows. I know he knows. But I want to gauge how he feels about it now that Kari is twenty-four years old and all grown up.
“They’ve been together a while, huh? Is that, like… weird for you?”
He shrugs. “Guy seems nice. And she hasn’t complained about him once since they met.”
“So you just… you’re cool with her dating?”
He scoffs. “Have I ever had a say in the matter? She’s an adult, and she made a point to go away for college to somewhere I wouldn’t be able to stand over her shoulder and watch every move she makes. I’d say my opinion is no longer relevant. And even if I tried, she’d tell me to mind my business.”
“So you…” Stunned, my stomach whooshes with nerves. Opportunity. Hope. “You’re gonna let her date. Whoever. Whenever. And you’re not gonna freak?”
“Well… no.” He drops his hands into his pockets and smirks. “I’m gonna mind my business on the Blake thing, since the dude is more feminine than any chick I know. He’s with her because she’s sweet, not because he’s attracted to women.”
“You…” My heart gives a single, painful knock. “What?”
“He’s gay.”
“No, he’s not!”
Marcus beams, giddy with the knowledge that his baby is coming home. “Yes, Lenaghan. I assure you, he likes dudes. It’s not like I’ve asked Kari, and she hasn’t mentioned it. And I don’t have any problem with guys liking guys, or girls liking girls. Love is love and all that. But I’d bet my entire house he isn’t into women the way we’ve been led to believe.”
“What the fuck?” I set my water down on the ambulance floor, liquid splashing over the lip and onto my hand for a blissful, cooling second. Then I shove up from my makeshift seat and hobble into the mildly fresher air outside the bus. “She’s dating a gay guy? Bullshit.”
“I mean… has she actually said she’s dating him? Or have we made assumptions?”
“I…” I don’t know! “The girls call him Ten .”
Marc’s cheeks turn a sickly green, but he shakes his head, rejecting the idea. “The girls—as in, your sisters—are the biggest troublemakers I’ve ever met. They’d call him Gandhi if they thought it’d get a reaction out of someone.”
“No, she’s?—”
“Blake is not my sister’s boyfriend. Not in an intimate way. I’ll eat my hat if I’m proven otherwise.”
“Saturday?” My heart thunders in my chest. My pulse, physically noticeable in my wrists and throat. Could it be ? Is it possible we’ve assumed shit, the girls have stirred the pot, and Kari is stubborn enough to play along?
Yes.
Is it wishful thinking on my part?
Also yes.
“This Saturday?” I clarify. “Two days from now?”
“Bright and early. I wanna leave here around six, so we can get over there and pack their shit up. It’s time to bring my sister home. I’m not wasting a second.”
After Marcus walks away, a tune on his breath and a skip in his step, Mitch wanders closer. Like they’re playing tag team. Though the latter approaches with a brow raised in curiosity and a long slick of sweat running along his shirt from the boiling heat. “You look like you ingested a couple of funky mushrooms.” He stops in front of what I suppose is my vacant stare and waves his hand in my face. “You okay?”
“Kari’s coming home.” I press a hand to my stomach, nerves battering until I can almost feel the wings of anxiety brushing my palm. “In two days.”
“Kari… Macchio? Marc’s sister?”
“Yeah.” I break my focus on nothing and turn back to the bus to continue working. “Her.”
“The one you sent away all those years ago because she was steak. and you were tofu or some shit?”
“I was steak. She needed to experience the buffet.”
“And did she?” He follows me to the back of the bus, but though I climb in, he presses his hands on the doorframe and remains outside. “Did she glut herself at the all-you-can-eat buffet?”
“Well… no. I don’t think she did. But she saw what was offered.” I turn and grin, woozy with happiness as I meet Mitch’s stare. “She got to sample the buffet. Met thousands of other dudes in her age bracket. She had the freedom to do what she wanted, go wherever she pleased, and do it with whomever she fancied. And now she’s coming home.”
He looks at the ceiling and smirks. “So now you can present your steak on her plate and declare home sweet home ?”
“You’re messing with my analogy. But yes. Sort of.” I glance at the back wall of the ambulance and get back to counting supplies. “I’m gonna help Marcus pick her and the others up on Saturday. We’re gonna bring them home and settle them in at their new apartment. And soon, whenever she starts work, I get to bring Kari to the hospital and be that one person she knows in a big, new, scary place.”
“Oh cool!” he drawls. “You get to pretend to be her white knight. That’s so noble of you, Lenaghan. I’m thrilled for you now that your morals have slipped. I mean… it doesn’t matter that she’s still younger than you, or that her brother is still your best friend. So long as you’ve decided to make a move, then I suppose all is well.”
“You’re thinking like an older brother of a girl you never want to have a dating life.” I nibble on my bottom lip and write notes in our files so we can re-stock the bus before our next call out. “Try coming at this from the point of view of your friend. The one who has been in love with a girl ever since he could remember, but he was honorable and refused to accept her offerings because she was too young to make an informed choice, and he didn’t want to take advantage of a girl too inexperienced to know better. Now she’s a full-grown adult, and Marcus himself admits he doesn’t get a say in who she dates.”
“Cool.” He claps the door of the bus and smirks. “Let me know how that discussion goes when you tell him you wanna bang his little sister. In fact,” he adds playfully. “Let me know before you tell him, so I can pull up a lawn chair and pop some popcorn.”
“You’re being dramatic.” I pull a drawer open and count the contents inside. “You’re making it sound way worse than it is.”
“Alright.” His soft chuckle echoes throughout the bus and into the free air outside. “If you say so. I’m just happy I get a front-row seat to the drama.”
“There’s no drama.” Please, for the love of love, let there be no drama. “It’s under control.”
“ T here was definitely drama,” Kane snickers, allowing sweet Luna to circle his finger with her fist and twist beneath his hand so she becomes a spinning ballerina. “No way there wasn’t drama once she came home. Kari’s too stubborn to just fall into your arms and pretend all the shit that came before never happened.”
“I’m honestly surprised Kari knew about you and Britt,” Jess murmurs. “ She didn’t say anything to anyone else. She didn’t side-eye Britt once in all the years I lived with them. And Britt didn’t know about you and Kari, because if she did, girl code would have had her throwing herself on a sword searching for mercy.”
“Which is why Kari never said anything, I suppose. No point punishing Britt for a crime she didn’t know she committed.”
“Fuckin’ martyrs,” Kane grumbles. “You make the perfect pair.”
“I agree.” I reach out for Billy and smile when Jess hands her over. No delay. No disappointment. Family is family, but a man’s child is a whole other level no one would dare mess with. “We’re perfect together now. Or at least,” I look up when Billy stirs in my arms. Already, Jess turns to prepare a bottle. “Kari is perfect for me. She’s perfect, full stop. Can’t say she got the same kind of luck though, considering she was always carrying us.”
“Stop it.” Jess drops a lump of powder into the bottle and screws the lid on. “She was happy in her marriage, Luc. Stop acting otherwise.”
“She was tolerant of her marriage and accepting of my shortcomings because I loved her, and she was loyal.”
“Bullshit.” She turns from the counter and vigorously shakes the bottle to mix the water and powder. “Stop acting like you made your lives miserable. She adored you, and you adored her.”
“We fought nonstop for the last six months! Because she was begging for me to be home and spend time with her.”
“And you were picking up extra shifts at work, to help pay the utilities and support the babies that were on their way. This isn’t a friggin’ fairytale, Luc. The bills have to be paid, no matter how much you wanted to stay home and snuggle up together. The hospital bills were coming, no matter what, considering you had two on the way and insurance only covers so much.”
“She asked me to help her build the crib.” My words come out harsh, but my hands are gentle as I accept the bottle and bring it to Billy’s plump lips. “She asked me to paint the nursery. Instead, it was her taking care of shit while I was nowhere to be found.”
“You were at work! Sure, maybe hindsight would have you making different choices. Tragedy will make anyone sit back and obsess over the details, desperately searching for a way to change things. But you weren’t screwing off, drinking at the club, and gambling your house away. You were at work, saving every penny so you and Kari could bring the babies home and have one less thing to worry about.”
“Fat load of good that did.” My jaw aches as I clench it tight. As my eyes sting and my nose burns. “I did the work, saved the money, and look at us.” Slowly, I bring my focus up and meet my sister’s eyes. “Billy and I are here all alone. While Kari is…” I draw a shuddering breath and shake my head. “I fucked up, Jess. It’s okay to admit it.”
“You made the best choices you could, using the information you had at the time. No one could have predicted this.” She drags out a chair and brings it closer until the wood hits my knee. But then she sits, blind to the way her daughters cling to her every move. Her every word. “You love your wife, Luc. And you love your children. You were handed a shitty set of cards because someone else chose to drive drunk that day. That’s not your fault.”
“We can deal with that,” Kane adds solemnly. “Ya know… when you’re ready. I’ll ride with you.”
I drop my gaze and exhale a long, weakening breath until my chest caves and practically wraps around the baby. “If I knew then what I know now, I would’ve painted the walls and built the crib.”
“And you would still be here.” Jess sets her hand on my arm and gently squeezes. “Painting the walls wouldn’t have stopped that asshole from getting in his car that day.”
“No.” I study Billy’s long, dark lashes. The curl of her hair, and the smooth sheen of her skin. “But it would have reinforced to Kari that I love and care about her wants.”
“She knew,” Jess groans. “She knows.”
“She shouldn’t have lived a single moment where she questioned it. And being six months pregnant, with twins, and tearing up carpet on your own while the husband you begged to be home by a certain time, wasn’t, was surely one of those moments.”
“You were showing your love in a different way.” She reaches up and swipes a hand over her cheek. “She wanted help with a few chores, you wanted to financially support your family. They’re both acts of love, Luc. They’re just not the same acts.”
“Yeah, well…” I roll my bottom lip between my teeth and lock my feelings back up inside my heart. The way I’ve secured them behind a wall for most of the night. I don’t have time for self-loathing right now. I don’t even have time for regret. My priorities right this moment are to care for Billy and make sure her needs are met. And when it’s time, head back to the hospital to see my wife and son.
“Hindsight,” I finally settle on. “Hindsight can be a nasty, nasty bitch who keeps a man awake at night.” I look down again and watch as Billy glugs her breakfast, swallowing so her throat visibly bobs. “If I knew then what I know now, I would have done things differently.”