Black Swan Affair (22 page)

L
ast year
our family had a hell of a scare. And let me tell you, there’s nothing that brings broken factions of a family together more than the dreaded word “cancer.” No matter how far apart you are in proximity or beliefs or morals, there are two things that are guaranteed to rally a family: new life and the ending of one.

During a routine Sunday family dinner, I noticed a bump on my father’s neck. It protruded from the left side and was barely visible to the naked eye, but I’d always been fascinated with this particular birthmark on his throat in the perfect shape of a horseshoe. He told me when I was little it was his good luck charm, that he knew it meant he was destined for great things. I used to wish I had one, too.

And this lump was right underneath that birthmark. It was large enough that it distorted the shape just slightly, which was what drew my attention. Apparently it had been there quite some time and my father had been ignoring it. But I was relentless until he visited his local physician, who sent him to a specialist in Des Moines, who, after some initial tests that were inconclusive threw around words like lymphoma and leukemia. After several weeks of poking, prodding, scans, and biopsies he was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, an autoimmune disease that causes your body to turn on itself, destroying your own thyroid. Some simple meds and frequent tests to be sure they were working properly were all it took to get him back to new.

Yet, here we are again. Back in the hospital. Pacing. Scared as hell. But this time, it’s far, far more serious than inflamed nodes. I bite my nails. Bounce my leg. Tap my fingers until the pads are numb. I wait for word. Any word. Any news.
Anything
.

I hate hospitals. I hate the smell. The sterile, cold surroundings. The desolate feeling that overtakes your senses. The pain and suffering that permeates every part of you until you feel a dozen miles or showers or years won’t wash it away.

A flash of color draws my attention away from chewing the skin raw on my thumb.
Killian
. In his red windbreaker. Busting through the emergency room doors in a rush.

He scans the room briefly before his concerned gaze lands on me. With three long strides, he eats up the distance between us and without even asking wraps his arms all the way around me. He holds me close. Strokes my hair. Whispers it’s going to be okay.

“Any word yet?” he breathes.

I haven’t been surrounded by Killian’s broad body in over three years now. And it feels…foreign. Different than I thought it would after all this time. I’m used to Kael’s lean frame. That little rasp he has in the back of his throat when he hums in my ear. I’m used to those extra two inches he has on Killian. How I click perfectly into the dips of his body.

“He’s still in surgery,” I mumble into Killian’s chest. He releases me but holds my cheeks between his palms. His thumb lightly caresses my chin. My skin tingles there. My breathing picks up when I realize we’re close.
Too
close. His breath drops in billowy clouds over my face as he glances between my eyes and lips. For a split second, I’m afraid he’s going to kiss me. For just the hair of another, I feel as though I would let him.

Just that
one
brief, fleeting second.

Then it’s gone. I’m pulling back, breaking his hold. His eyes shift, landing on my mother. He leaves my side—reluctantly, I can tell—to go to her, drawing her into a tender hold. She sniffles. I half wonder if it’s fake, but the red of her eyes and the draw of her face tell me it’s not. She loves my daddy in her own strange way.

“Where’s Kael?” Killian asks as if suddenly realizing my husband isn’t present. Thank the good Lord he’s not after that blatant, inappropriate display of affection we just shared.

“Minneapolis,” I reply absently.

As he did months ago, his brows draw in confusion and I add, “He’s on his way. He’ll be here soon.”

Daddy was brought to the local Dusty Falls ER three hours ago with chest pain. This time, words like “massive heart attack,” “unconscious,” and “severe damage” were the phrases tossed around. They immediately transferred him to Des Moines, over an hour away. Mother and I piled into my Chevy Malibu, following the ambulance the seventy-nine miles to Mercy Hospital where they have some of the best cardiac specialists in all of Iowa.

A surgical team whisked him away and we’ve been waiting ever since.

“Have you talked to Jilly?”

The muscle in his jaw jumps a few times before he answers. “She’s at the airport. She was able to get on an earlier flight. It leaves in an hour and a half.”

I feel the muscles in my own jaw clench. Our father could be dead in an hour and a half. Apparently Jillian flew to Chicago for the day with some friends.
“To shop.”
Oh yeah…that was said with loads of sarcasm. And God forbid she rents a fucking car and drives the five hours needed to be with her father who could possibly be dying. She’d be halfway home by now. That’s what I would have done. Then I would have driven like a bat out of hell to get to his side.

My relationship with my parents is strange. Strained is probably a better descriptor. They’re my parents and I love them regardless of their flaws or faults. They gave me life. They raised me well. They taught me morals and values and I never wanted for anything. They may not support a lot of my decisions; then again I don’t necessarily support theirs, so I guess that’s fair.

But there’s something missing in our family dynamics and I’ve always had a hard time putting my finger on exactly what that is. It’s not love. They love me. I’m pretty sure my daddy would lay down his life for me. My mother? She might, but I wouldn’t bet my bakery on it. I guess maybe it’s that they usually put themselves first. Their wants. Their desires. Their goals. Their friends. Their business. Their charities. We were always an afterthought.

At least that’s how I felt. Jillian doesn’t see things the same way I do, though. She was a suck-up as a child. Still is. I think that’s why she has a better relationship with them than I do, particularly with my mother. She’s a pleaser. She kowtowed to them where I rebelled. If they wanted her to go left, she would, happily. No questions asked. Me, though? I’d argue ten minutes on the prudence of taking that left. Why not right, straight, backward, forward, up, down, or sideways? Why
left
? It infuriated my mother. Daddy, on the other hand, thought it would make me business savvy.

And it has. Just not the business he wanted for me, which was to run DSC. When I was little, I imagined myself at the helm. We talked about it even. I’d visit Daddy in his big corner office, sitting behind his oversized desk in an oversized chair. He looked so important. Sounded so authoritative. He spoke; people reacted. I wanted
that
. Respect. Power.

But all that changed when Killian came back. Only he didn’t come back for me—he came back for Jillian. For my father. For another life that didn’t include me. And only a masochist would subject herself to working with her former lover turned brother-in-law daily. I’ll never forget my conversation with Daddy the day I handed in my resignation. He gave me a hard time, challenging my choices, but eventually he acquiesced. He knew how hardheaded I can be when I want something. He taught me well.

Two weeks later, I walked out of DSC with a heavy heart but a weightless soul. I later told Daddy that the bakery had been a dream of mine for a long time when in fact, it was a spur-of-the-moment decision the second my hate-filled gaze landed on my sister’s hand twined with Killian’s.

“Hey.” Said traitorous hand circles around the top of mine. Killian’s fingers slip to my palm and squeeze. I don’t pull away. I know…I’m still apparently far too weak when it comes to him. “You know the devil’s probably kicking him out as we speak because of all the grief your father’s giving him right now, don’t you?”

I half snort, wiping off a waterfall of tears. “You’re probably right,” I lie.

Dread sits stiff like a gigantic rock in the pit of my gut. My father is going to die. I saw it in their faces back at the Dusty Falls ER. It was compassion. Sympathy. When they saw the pallor of his skin, they knew, as well as I, that we’d be planning a funeral in the next twenty-four hours.

“I’m not ready to lose him yet.” My breath catches on a sob.

“I know,” he offers softly. He understands the complicated relationship I have with my parents better than anyone except maybe Kael.

Sitting back, he brings me with him, throwing an arm over my shoulder. The couch we’re on allows his thigh to be snug with mine. Under any normal circumstances, this would be acceptable: my brother-in-law comforting me platonically in a time of distress. But we aren’t normal. And our past is anything but platonic. This is wrong. Letting him hold me tenderly. Slanting into him. Laying my head on his shoulder. Clasping one hand with his. But I need an anchor and right now, he’s it.

“It’s going to be okay, Small Fry.”

I don’t respond. I know he’s just placating me. It’s the fallback phrase used during crisis. What everyone wants to hear. What people say because there’s nothing else to be said. So we fall quiet. We don’t move, except for our breaths, which are now in sync with the other. I tense when he whispers, “I know this makes me an ass, Maverick, but fuck…it feels so good holding you in my arms again. No matter the circumstances.”

Guilt sweeps over and through me, making my skin prick and my face flame. I take stock of how his fingers feel trailing lightly up and down my arm, of the unique smell of woods and Killian pressing into my nostrils, the texture of his bulk against my chest and realize I don’t miss this as much as I thought I did. I crave everything Kael right now more than air. “Killian—” I make to pull away, but his grip tenses.

“Don’t. Just a few more minutes. Please.”

I can’t. I can’t do this to Kael after everything he’s done for me. It’s not fair. To him. To me. To any of us. I’m breaking away when I feel the heaviness of my husband’s stare push me into the cushions.
Oh. Shit
. I can just imagine what we look like all twined around each other. I lift my eyes to find his scorchingly hateful glare not on me, but on his brother.

“Kael,” I cry, jumping up and into his arms. They curl around me, but they’re stiff and cold. The hug feels forced. It’s soul destroying. I start to sob and they soften. Then they crush me to him. A palm cups my head and the other wraps snugly around my middle. I wind my legs around his waist and he carries me across the waiting room before sinking down in a chair, me still in his lap.

“What have they said,” he asks brusquely, but I ignore him.

“It was nothing,” I assure him. “I was crying. He was comforting me was all.”

“I don’t want to talk about Killian, Maverick. Tell me about your father.”

I drag myself back enough to bore straight into his eyes. Twining my arms around his neck, I bury my fingers in his hair. “I love you.
You
, Kael. Please do not doubt that.”

His lids look heavy as they fall slowly shut. He wets his lips before opening them back up again. Some of the ire has left, but I see it still simmering, hardening the outer edges of his irises to a dark chocolate. “Your father.”

I swallow hard past that thick lump now sitting in the middle of my throat. He doesn’t want to talk about what he saw? Fine. This isn’t the time or place anyway. But I’m tired of dancing around him. We’re going to have this conversation sooner rather than later. Then we’re going to exorcise Killian once and for all.

“He had a massive heart attack. He’s been unconscious since the ambulance picked him up at his office. They took him for surgery the second we pulled up here. It’s not good, Kael. We didn’t even get to say good-bye,” I choke.

His face falls when he says quietly with sincerity, “I’m sorry, Swan.”

Just then, I hear my mother’s name called. I look over to see her, Killian at her side, standing in front of a salt-and-pepper-haired gentleman in green scrubs and a long white coat. His hands are stuffed in the pockets. His shoulders slumped. The weary doctor stands next to a man who can’t be missed.

A chaplain.

Oh God no.

Then my mother cries out. It’s a piercing noise I will never forget.

Her legs buckle.

Killian catches her.

My vision blurs.

A sob escapes from somewhere deep inside me.

My husband holds me together as life as I know it shatters around me.

My father is gone.

T
he next few
days blow by in a blur of condolences, casseroles, and crying. Apparently my parents had their funerals all planned and paid for, so our decisions on music, burial plots, caskets, and even readings at the mass were minimal. Franklin Parrish, the funeral director at Parrish, Parrish, Winewsky & Billings Funeral Home was an old classmate of my father’s. He took care of the smallest of details for us with compassion and empathy. I honestly don’t know how you couldn’t be emotionally broken dealing with death and grief day in and day out. It takes a special soul to help others through the very worst time of their lives while keeping yours intact.

Kael’s been a rock. I couldn’t have gotten through this without him. He’s been with me every second of every day. Never leaves my side. I insisted on staying at my parents’ house with my mother. He insisted on staying with me. She was distraught, not handling the death of the man she’d spent the last forty-three years with well at all. I wish she would have shown her love for him in life as much as she has in death.

But Kael took care of not only me, but my mother as if she were his own. He made sure she ate and got out of bed. He drove her to the funeral home. He helped pick out the suit my father would wear to his final resting place.

And me? He held me when I cried myself to sleep at night. He helped wash me this morning—the day we’re saying our final good-byes to my father—when I fell into a puddle on the tiled floor of the shower and wept uncontrollably. He dressed me when all I could do was stare at that black sheath as though if I slipped it on,
I
was the one who would end up in the ground instead.

But I didn’t. I made it through the car ride to the funeral home. I made it through mass at Saint Bernadette’s. I made it through standing at the graveside and walking away on wobbly knees with the knowledge that as soon as everyone was gone, they would lower my father’s remains into the ground and cover him with dirt.

Now I’m here, at the requisite luncheon where people trade stories about my father’s life then move on with their own when they walk out the door. The chatter in this small space, which is bursting to capacity, is almost deafening. I want to be anywhere else. I want to rewind time to only days ago when Daddy and I shared a beer in my sunroom and I told him the barley pop story. He laughed. Then he asked me how my business was doing, for once not making a dig about my choices.

I think back to that conversation. It was nice. Easy. I felt connected to him more than I had since I was a child. My father wasn’t an emotional man by any means, but he was filled with raw feeling when he told me,
“I love you, Tenderheart. More than you know. So does your mother. We just don’t always show it very well.”

I’ve replayed that conversation—the last conversation we had—a hundred times in the past six days. It’s almost as if he knew our time was up.

“How you doing, Mavricky?” I feel a hand on my shoulder and tilt my face up, grateful to get out of my own head for a while. The corner of my mouth tries to lift, but the muscles aren’t cooperating.

“Why do we have fifteen Marshmallow Fluff salads and no lettuce ones? Daddy hated marshmallows.”

MaryLou grabs the empty chair next to me, the feet scraping obscenely loud along the floor as she yanks it out. She plops down. Leans forward with her chin in a palm, asking, “Do you want a lettuce salad? Because if you do, I’ll go whip you up the biggest, baddest, bestest lettuce salad on the planet.”

Now that smile comes. Barely, but it’s there. “You would, wouldn’t you?”

“Damn straight.”

I shove away the plate of food I’ve only pushed around instead of eaten. “I can’t.”

“I know.” She grabs my hand and holds on. “I know.”

I gaze over the crowd. There are so many people here; I think the whole town has shut down in mourning. I don’t give two shits about most of them, present company excluded. Half of them are here just to be seen anyway. It’s not as if Richard DeSoto was the easiest man to get along with. It wasn’t just me.

My attention lands on Jillian across the room. Normally the center of attention, she’s off in a corner by herself. She looks sad and lost and alone. She’s pale. She’s lost weight. Her clothes hang haphazardly from her thin, fragile bones. She’s a hot mess. I wonder what’s less than size 0. Negative 1 maybe? I’m so far away from that number I honestly don’t have a clue.

“I kind of feel sorry for her,” MaryLou surprisingly announces. MaryLou hates my sister with a passion and empathy is the last emotion she’d ever have for her. But right now, I think she needs it.

“Me too. She’s taking it really hard.” Jilly’s been completely withdrawn from everyone since Daddy passed away. That in and of itself doesn’t surprise me. Death either bonds or breaks a family. She’s chosen to break. What does surprise me is how at arm’s length she’s keeping Killian. She’s slept in her old bedroom down the hall from us. She refuses to let him stay. She refuses to talk to him when he calls or stops by. She didn’t even want him to be by her side today, but he put his foot down and told her to stop acting like a spoiled fucking brat. Everyone handles grief in different ways I guess, but the whole thing is beyond bizarre.

“Have you seen Kael? I can’t take any more of this fakery. I just want to go home, take a bath and drink a bottle of wine.” Sleep in my own bed in the safety of my husband’s arms. I’m completely drained of everything, including pleasantries. I think I’ll find Killian first, though, and ask him to spend the night at Mother’s. I don’t care if Jilly protests. She’s clearly in no shape to be taking care of anyone, herself included.

“I haven’t. Want me to find him?”

“No.” I push my swollen feet back into my black heels and heft my weary body up. “I need to move before I fuse with this plastic.”

Her mouth turns down into a sad smile. “Call if you need anything?”

“You know it.”

“Don’t worry about the bakery, Mavs. I got it covered.”

“Thanks,” is all I can muster. We’ve been closed all week. MaryLou insisted we open tomorrow and that she’d take care of everything. I agreed knowing it’s probably best. I have no idea when I’ll be back, but it’s not tomorrow.

I take off in search of my husband, leaving my best girl behind. I make a beeline to Arnie and Eilish, asking them to be sure my mother gets home. They readily agree. I find my mother. Tell her good-bye. Tell her I’ll be over first thing in the morning.

It takes me fifteen more minutes to weave my way through the crowd because I keep getting stopped. I don’t spot either Kael or Killian. A quick walk through the sanctuary shows it empty. I traipse the halls, even check the men’s room. Nothing.

Pushing through the outer doors, the cool March air hits me square in the face. I take a moment to drag it in and clear my head. Then I scan the parking lot, noting a few people milling about, but see no sign of the Shepard boys. I’m just about to head back inside when Killian’s deep, angry boom carries from around the corner. My hairs stand on end as I near the edge, shamelessly eavesdropping.

But just as I get to the brick corner, Kael flies around it and runs smack into me, almost knocking me over. He’s breathing hard. His face is beet red. Eyes are bright and wild. He’s clearly pissed.

“What’s wrong?”

Grabbing me in a bear hold, he squeezes the air from me. “Nothing. I’m sorry I left you so long. You okay?”

My eyes lift over Kael’s shoulder and latch right on to ones that remind me of long fall days when we used to rake piles of leaves and jump into them. “You’re upset. I can tell.” I’m not sure which Shepard brother I’m talking to right now. Killian is a replica of Kael. Can’t they get along just one fucking day?

Kael’s lips find my neck and he just presses them there, letting them remain while he breathes me in. Killian’s eyes flare with unmistakable jealousy. “You ready to go?” he mumbles against me.

I just nod, my gaze not able to break with my past.

Kael releases me but immediately slides his hand in mine and starts walking toward the parking lot, not even acknowledging Killian.

We’re a good twenty paces away when I remember. “Wait,” I say, tearing away from his hold. I rush over to Killian and stop, probably too close. I feel my husband’s eyes boring into us. Killian has to as well, but he doesn’t yield to the temptation to gloat. “I need you to stay at the house tonight. Watch over Mother.”

“You’re going home?”

“Yes,” I breathe lightly. “I need a break.”

“You hanging in there?” he asks with such concern my eyes prick with tears. He raises his hand but drops it back down a second before it touches me. I shiver when a fingertip grazes my arm on the descent. I bite my lip to stop the burn stinging like a thousand suns behind my lids.

Nodding is all I can manage.

Killian looks down at his feet momentarily. “Okay. Sure. Anything else?”

I shake my head and am starting to turn away when I do something completely selfless. I turn back around and tell him, “Yes, there is one more thing.”

“Anything. Name it.”

Looking him in the eyes, I’m reminded of how much he still loves me. It’s there and it’s beautiful yet painful all at the same time. But death makes you reevaluate your own life. Your choices. Your future. I know. I’ve been doing it for days, always coming back to the same conclusion: I am where I’m supposed to be. Then I take a deep breath and demand, “Take care of Jillian. She’s a wreck.”

That jaw tick is back. I can tell he was hoping for something different. “She’s being stubborn.”

“You’re the King of Obstinate, Killian.”

“If you’re the Queen of Will, Maverick.” My mouth twitches, causing the corner of his mouth to quirk and his dark eyes lighten somewhat. “Any more impossible tasks, Small Fry?”

“I’m sure I’ll think of one or two. Give me a bit.”

“I’m sure you will,” he retorts smartly, fighting a smile.

I stand still for just a second longer before I say fuck it. We all lost a man we loved. Out of respect for Kael, I’ve worked hard to keep my distance from Killian since that day at the hospital, but he’s family and I’m sure he’s hurting in his own way. I lean in and quickly wrap my arms around him faster than I can blink. Before he even has time to return the hug, I’m stepping back, mumbling, “Thank you.”

I watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down. “Anything for you, Maverick.” I don’t let his raspy voice affect me.

With a quick smile, I retreat back to my husband. I throw my arms around his neck and hold tight, whispering in his ear that I want him to take me home and make love to me. Make me forget for just a little while that I have this hole inside me now, which will never be quite filled.