Chapter 6
It was an impulse, one Gail was still questioning as the phone rang in her hand. When her sister answered, she was breathless, and yet happy that Gail had called.
“Apparently there’s a reason for your phone call,” Debbie stated curiously, when Gail remained strangely silent.
Gail didn’t quite know how to get it out.
“I’m not sure what’s bothering you,” Debbie began, “but, after everything we’ve been through, I would like to think you could tell me anything.”
“Maybe,” she replied, “but it’s just really hard.”
“Well, spit it out. It can’t be anything worse than everything I’ve been through so far.”
Gail thought about that and asked her, “How hard was it to come clean?”
“Brutal,” she stated immediately. “Absolutely brutal. But I had already destroyed somebody’s life, and my life was next. And I just … couldn’t do it.”
The way she phrased it revealed so much. “And when you say that you’d already ruined somebody’s life, did you ever contact Riley and apologize?”
Silence came from the other end. Then shame coloring her tone, Debbie said, “No, I have not. And I still need to do that. And yet I hope to never be in a position to do it because it’ll be incredibly hard.”
“Right,” she muttered. “Did you know what Dad did to Riley after hearing about you being pregnant?”
“What are you talking about?” she asked, her tone deepening with concern, curiosity, or worry.
Gail wasn’t sure which. “Are you aware that Dad somehow pulled strings and got Riley sent into live action in the Middle East?”
“No, he’d been training dogs. Here at the airport. That’s all he was doing.”
“Yes, that’s what he was doing. And Dad apparently used his influence with somebody in the military and got Riley sent to where he would be right in the middle of the action in a war zone.”
Dead silence ensued. “I did not know that,” Debbie said in barely a whisper. “But I guess we shouldn’t be surprised,” she added, her tone careful, “knowing how he is.”
“Yeah. Knowing how he is, is part of it.” Gail chuckled, now hysterical.
“The other part of that is Riley was badly injured over there, and I’m pretty sure, from our father’s perspective, it’s just too bad that Riley survived at all.
I just found out what Dad did today, and the old bastard doesn’t even deny it. ”
“What do you mean, you just found out?” she asked curiously. “How did that even happen?”
She took a deep breath, knowing there would be hell to pay.
Once she shared this, it would travel. “I’m only going to tell you if you promise to not tell Mom and Dad right now.
I’m barely speaking to them,” she shared, “after having run-ins with both of them today, and I don’t want any more problems.”
“Come on, Gail. They’re not speaking to me anyway.”
“Yeah, but I also know that, in the past, you have gone to Mom and Dad telling tall tales.”
She snorted. “That was a long time ago,” she declared, “so I’m not sure what you’re worried about or why you would want to keep something from them.
No wait,” she said. “I absolutely know why you would want to keep something from them, but you know that you can tell me. I am not the same person I was, and God knows I learned my lesson.”
“That’s a good thing,” Gail replied, “because I just spoke with Riley.”
There was silence, and then she exploded, “Oh my God. What do you mean you spoke to him? How did that happen?”
“He’s in town. He got a medical discharge from the military, and guess why?”
“No, no, no, don’t tell me,” she cried out.
“Yes. Exactly that. According to him, Harold Montoya pulled strings to get him sent into war zones, even though that’s not what he was supposed to be doing in the military.
Yet he was shipped out anyway, right in the middle of the live action.
” She heard her sister crying on the other end.
In a way, Gail was sorry, but yet she wasn’t.
Debbie had caused them so much pain and torment over all this.
When she could, her sister finally choked back her sobs and asked, “And when will this ever be over? When will I ever be done paying for what I did?”
“I don’t know,” Gail admitted, “because he’s lost most of one leg, some ribs. He’s got steel rods in his spine. There could be more but that’s all he told me about. The man’s been through hell … again.”
“Meaning, other than the hell I put him through?”
“Yeah, you and me both,” she admitted, “because I am now seriously aware that I was no better. I’m having to face who I was at the time too.”
Her sister tried to hold back the tears and sniffled, while processing what Gail had just shared. “Surely you’re not blaming yourself for this.”
“I absolutely know that you are responsible for the bulk of it,” Gail stated brutally, “but I didn’t believe Riley. I never asked him for his side of things. I was so very, very angry. And, if Dad had asked me if I wanted to get rid of him, I would have said yes in a heartbeat.”
“Well, maybe but you would have said that in a temper, but not for any other reason and surely not to kill Riley,” she stated. “Nobody will hold that against you.”
“Well, I do because now that I know that our father literally sent him into a highly dangerous situation that he wasn’t supposed to be in, all because of me,” Gail spelled out, “you can damn-well believe that I feel guilty. I feel guilty as hell.” And she added, “I’m incredibly angry, not only at myself but at all of us for what we did to that innocent man, then thought nothing more about it. ”
More sniffles and sobs came, as Debbie cried even harder. “I know,” she muttered. “I have thought about it many, many times.”
“And yet you never reached out to apologize to Riley.”
“No,” she conceded. “I was dealing with the fallout from the family, and, honest to God, I didn’t have the time, energy, or bandwidth to deal with any more. I figured you were already dealing with that.”
“Oh, I was,” she quipped, “by closing the door in Riley’s face and kicking him out of my life because of everything you had concocted.
” Now Gail felt the tears in her own eyes, as the words came out.
“God, I was as bad as you were. I mean, you at least were protecting your boyfriend from the wrath of the family. What was I doing? I tossed my boyfriend to the wolves and eventually into a goddamn war, and I don’t even have an excuse. ”
She slumped under the weight of that realization, her eyes full of tears. “Right now, I don’t know if you can imagine, but maybe you can,” she shared. “I don’t think I could hate myself any more, and that’s saying a lot right now.”
Her sister started to sob. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine. I put you in a terrible position,” Debbie wailed. “Trust me that I’ve been paying for it constantly ever since.”
And Gail knew that. She absolutely knew that to be true.
She knew Debbie was as sorry as any person could possibly be, but sorry wouldn’t cut it anymore.
Not now that Gail knew the extent of her family’s complete betrayal of somebody who didn’t deserve it.
When she had the chance, she ended the call and just sat here wondering what she was even supposed to do with her life.
Her phone had been ringing off and on. Her mom, her dad, and oddly enough, the corporate lawyer, and then a couple family friends. She knew the lawyer would send out threats. Family friends would tell her to buck up, and, whatever was bothering her, she needed to get over it.
Her mother, of course, wouldn’t understand because to her there was one thing and one thing only, and that was the family name.
Gail had watched her parents process the shock and horror of Debbie’s actions, but neither of them had at any time considered what they had put Riley through.
The fact that he could even talk to her was miraculous.
Had she really kicked her father out of her apartment?
God, she was grateful that she had paid for it with her own money.
Otherwise, her father would immediately revoke the lease and get her ass kicked out.
Even now he was probably buying the apartment complex to get her evicted for what she did today.
Yet she didn’t find it anywhere in her heart to even want to excuse his behavior or her own.
Gail was reminded of Riley’s statement, one among many at the coffee shop.
Her father reminded Riley of a mob boss.
She frowned, as that one line repeated itself over and over in her mind.
She finally got up and did two things. She pulled up the Montoya Ltd website and read its public-facing wording.
Then she signed into her corporate account and tried to get into the financials.
She was promptly given an error code that popped up, saying, Only Persons with Proper Clearance Can Access these Records.
She went to bed that night, full of tears, recrimination, and absolutely hating everything in her life. Only as she started to fall asleep did she realize she hadn’t even once contacted her fiancé.
Nor did he contact her.
She gave a broken laugh at that, and, for good measure, she added, Nor did Peter contact her.
Gail knew whose fault that was. That would be her parents telling Peter to give Gail her space, to give her time, all to get over whatever this was, and to not talk to her right now because she was obviously overwhelmed by something, and it was so female of her.
It was probably that time of the month, so things were too emotional, but he hadn’t even once sent her a text asking if she was okay. No text, email, call, or even voice mail. Nothing.
If ever something was so indicative of what they had or didn’t have together, it was that. Even as she was in bed, looking around at her world, thinking about how wrong everything was, she realized that some things were even more wrong than she could have believed.
Her sister phoned her early in the morning. Debbie asked, “Are you okay?”