Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Pfeiffer
A whole week has passed since Fiero was here, and I haven’t been able to get out of bed since.
Dad, thankfully, has been back to his old self. He’s been thinking clearly, remembering well and moving around the apartment quietly. I’ve been feigning a migraine and doing a very convincing job of it, apparently.
Dad brings me buttered toast and cups of tea, but I can’t touch anything. My stomach feels bruised from all the tears I’ve cried in the night. The last thing I want to do is fill it.
During the day I watch anything I can find on TV that doesn’t allow my thoughts to stray to him. But at night, I don’t have that luxury. I close my eyes and he fills my vision.
One minute he’s assessing me from across the room, a cigarette in his hand and a sneer on his lips.
In another, he’s moving inside me, pressing his hot breaths to my neck and groaning as he comes undone.
I wake up shivering, crying, aroused. All in the same night sometimes. And I’m exhausted. And empty.
So empty.
It happens slowly, falling in love. You don’t realise how each encounter deepens your roots until you’re entangled.
So what happens when those roots are cut? Where does the love go?
Parts of them remain, damaged but breathing. But the branches no longer blossom—there’s nothing to feed, nothing to inspire awe. There’s just… nothing.
Nothing but an empty ache in an empty stomach.
Day eight arrives and though I still can’t bring myself to eat, I do manage to make it to the shower.
My cheeks are crusted from salty tears and my hair is matted from lying on a pillow for a hundred and sixty-eight hours.
Standing under the hot water makes me feel significantly less gross and marginally more human again.
Enough so that when I return to my room I actually switch on my phone.
My heart sinks for a moment when I don’t see any messages or missed calls from Fiero. He really did heed my desire for him to walk away.
It was the right thing to do, I remind myself.
So why does it feel like the bottom just fell out of my world all over again?
There’s a message from Shane. I type out a quick response, and then I turn to the last lone message—from Hallie.
I hold my breath and open it up.
Hallie: Hey honey, you haven’t shown up for your last few shifts. Just checking in to see you’re ok. Call me. Kiss kiss
I guess Fiero hasn’t told anyone I’m not coming back.
Throwing the phone onto my bed, I open a drawer to find some clean clothes and my gaze lands on the money.
I sigh tightly. I don’t want to accept it, but now that my dad has a diagnosis and a prescription, I need it. There’s no other way I can pay for it.
But, I remember, I just worked a month for free. This is money I’ve earned, fair and square. I’ve bled for it in every way a person can. I deserve it.
I’m boiling up pasta for lunch when the doorbell goes. Dad and I look at each other blankly.
Not enough time has passed for Callum’s disappearance to become suspicious, so the only other likely cause is a bill collector or a mailman with yet another package too large for the mailbox.
I drop the spatula on the side. “I’ll get it.”
My gaze is fixed on the floor when I open the door, expecting a box to be waiting there, but instead I’m met with a pair of soft-soled sneakers and navy scrubs.
When my gaze has climbed to a warm, pink face, the woman beams at me.
“Hi, I’m Ronnie. I’m here for Frank.”
I blink at her.
“You’re… what?”
She glances down at the folder in her hands. “In-home support? Daily care assistance?”
I continue to stare at her, none the wiser.
“We haven’t arrange—”
“It’s already been paid for,” she says brightly.
I shake my head. “There must be a mistake.”
“No, my love. It’s all legitimate. Now, where is Mr. McAllister?”
I follow her inside, my head spinning with questions I dare not ask in front of my father.
I’m damn certain the hospital wouldn’t have sent in-home support, and the only people who know about my dad’s health are Hallie, Vivienne, Shane, and… Fiero.
The hairs along my arms bristle. I haven’t exactly managed to go a whole day without thinking about Fiero since that night, but I had just reached the milestone of only thinking about him once every ten minutes, and now that’s shot to shit.
The nurse is just the beginning.
Over the next week, more people arrive unannounced, all with folders, bright smiles and the same line: “It’s already been paid for.”
First came a man who fixed all the alarms, adding new ones to the kitchen, bathroom and my father’s bedroom.
Then came a man who switched out the kitchen cabinet doors for fresh ones in a different color, and another who re-tiled the floor.
It took me a few days of shock afterward to realize the whole area looked entirely different from when I used to be backed into a corner and touched against my will.
Someone else patched up the water stain spreading across the kitchen ceiling. Another fit rails in the bathroom and checked the boiler.
Two more weeks pass and I come home from the grocery store to hear Dad laughing. Then Elena’s voice regaling some story that has him in fits.
I stand in the kitchen doorway listening to the sound with my hand pressed over my mouth because I can’t remember the last time I heard Dad laugh so hard.
Then my own smile falls, because I know who’s doing this. But he doesn’t call, doesn’t text, doesn’t show his face—ever. And that makes all this so much harder to accept.
Three days later, my car starts on the first turn of the key.
I turn it off in surprise, then try it again. It starts—I don’t even need to pray. There are no weird clangs or coughing sounds. It sounds like the entire engine has been replaced.
I collect the cookies Gayle made from the hardware store and return home to find Dad scribbling something down on a piece of paper.
“Oh, there you are, Fi. Someone just called for you.”
He holds out the note. He’s taken down a number and the name ‘Casey’.
“Okay, thanks.”
I take the note and dial the number, almost dropping the phone when the person on the other end answers with, “Good afternoon, you’ve reached Hudson Vale Hospital, Casey speaking. How may I help you?”
“Um, Casey… This is Pfeiffer McAllister returning your call.”
I hear the brightness of her smile. Another one? What is with all these people coming into our lives with bright smiles and happy voices?
“Pfeiffer. I’m so pleased you got back to me. We need someone to cover some agency shifts at the hospital and you’ve been highly recommended to us.”
“What?” I glance up at Dad who’s beaming at me despite having no idea of the nature of our conversation. Though, he does that a lot these days—beams.
“You want me to work for you?” I ask, just to be sure I’m not imagining things. “As a nurse?”
Dad gives me two thumbs up before grabbing a bag of chips and heading into the living room.
When I hang up, I sink into one of the newly replaced kitchen chairs and remain there motionless for a few minutes.
Fiero Bellucci isn’t here, but he’s rebuilding my life, quietly, from afar. Piece by piece. Without asking for anything. And here I am thinking he’d already ruined me.
Another week passes and another shock arrives at the door. In person this time.
I open the door and my limbs stiffen. “Remo.”
Part of me wishes I had the nerve to slam it in his face, but that’s not me. That’s never been me. So, instead, I invite him inside and thank heavens Dad is at the store.
I gesture to a chair but I don’t sit. After the way he and his brothers blanked me whenever I saw them, I don’t trust him entirely. But he looks tired.
“I owe you an apology,” he starts.
I fold my arms over my chest and wait.
His eyes lift to mine. “The thing with Fiero… the revenge. You deserve to know the truth.”
I swallow and lower slowly to one of the other chairs.
Then he talks.
He tells me about the day I humiliated Fiero in class and exactly what happened when he came home. I knew he’d been beaten, but not the severity of it. I didn’t know he’d been dragged outside and left to rot in a dog pen for so long. I didn’t know his brothers were forced to watch.
When Remo recounts the way a starving Fiero was forced to eat dog food I have to excuse myself to the bathroom where I throw up the contents of my stomach.
He tells me enough that I finally understand they didn’t hate me. They hated what I represented: their father’s abuse. I didn’t hurt them, but what I did was the catalyst for so much hurt—so much pain.
I wait until he’s finished and we sit in silence for a long moment before I’m able to speak.
“Why have you come to tell me this?”
He looks down at his hands clasped on my kitchen table. He still looks hard and ruthless but with his explanation has come a softer edge.
“I’m trying to make it right,” he says, quietly. “I’m trying to recover the only good thing that came out of those years: my brother’s love for you.”
My chest tightens painfully.
He looks up. “He’s dying inside, Pfeiffer.”
My heart thuds in recognition. Maybe that’s what I’ve been feeling with the nightmares and the lack of appetite and not being able to get out of bed for so long.
Maybe that’s why my thoughts stray so often, my heart cracking a little more down the centre every time. Maybe I’ve been dying inside too.
“It isn’t bad for business to be honest,” he half-chuckles. “He’s more ruthless now than he’s ever been.”
He frowns and looks distracted for a moment. “He’s developed quite a good friendship with the Irish actually, which I’m not too sure about.”
Then he flicks his gaze back to me. “But otherwise, the only thing that gets him up in a morning is the prospect of doing something good for you.”
His head tilts to one side.
“You’re the only reason he keeps getting up.”
I blink, completely disarmed. I’ve worked so hard these last few weeks to mend my heart and entertain the mere thought of being whole again. I can’t allow these ideas to derail me.
Remo scrubs a hand over his face. “He’s loved you since he was a kid, Pfeiffer. Longer than any of us realized.” His eyes lower briefly. “And I nearly ruined him because I couldn’t separate my own damage from his.”
Emotion climbs thickly up my throat.
“I don’t know if I can trust him again,” I whisper.
Remo nods slowly. “That’s fair.”
Then he looks at me properly.
“But if anyone’s capable of loving you enough to spend the rest of his life making up for what he did…” His voice roughens. “It’s Fiero.”