Holding On To You (17 page)

'Dad', he says again.

'Come in son', comes the response.

River pushes the door open, but stays on the outside. Inside, River's mother lies dead on the ground, her chest opened by a shotgun bullet, a rat licking at the still warm tissue at the edge of her wound. Her right eye has been closed up by a lump that has since turned purple, and there is blood pooling on the floor below her body, sweeping towards River as though attracted there magnetically. River moves into the room slowly, stepping through the blood in an attempt to see his father. He finds him sat on the chair next to the bed, a shotgun under his chin, one of the chambers still loaded.

'You made me do it boy', he says, but for some reason his father no longer has his own face. The shotgun is still held by his father's rough hands but now points instead to the horses head sitting where his own was, moments before. This is his father's body with the head of Lightning.

'You should never have been born', his father says and before he can stop him, he pulls the trigger.

River wakes up screaming, sweat making his neck cold. He pulls himself upright and realises immediately that Maddy is already awake next to him, and might have been for a while. She looks at him with a mix of concern and fear.

'What happened?' she says, reaching out to touch his arm. River pulls away. He's embarrassed at showing her a vulnerability.

'Nothing', River says. 'Nothing happened. Go back to sleep.'

He gets up and goes to the bathroom, while Maddy watches him, unsure what she might say to him when he eventually comes back. River splashes cold water across his face, drying it again with a towel. He drinks some down, and then spits the rest out into the sink. Sometimes his dreams are so vivid he wonders whether they'll ever bleed out into his real life. He wonders too, how long he can keep running.

When he comes back into the room, and gets back into bed, Maddy pretends to already be asleep. Only when his breathing has settled, and she is sure he's almost drifted off again, does she slide a little closer and hug herself into him. River doesn't hug her back, but he's happy that this time he's not woken up alone.

Chapter 13

Misty morning light creeps in through a gap in the curtains, spilling pools of brightness across the otherwise darkened bed, shimmering like reflections on the top of a swimming pool, as the fabric dances in the cool morning breeze.

Claudia stirs, turns over to hug her husband, and finds the bed empty next to her. As she walks through the corridor, which is full of children's toys and dirty clothes in piles that need to be washed, she realises the children aren't even up yet, and wonders where Javier has gone. It's unusual for him to be up so early, even if it's a work day.

She takes a brief moment to check on her children, Miguel six, Connor four, and Elouise eighteen months, all still asleep, and all crowded into the same room that also somehow manages to find space for Miguel's wheelchair and the machine that keeps him alive, before heading to the place she expects to find her husband.

Javier is a loving father and a man that would do anything for his family. He has been screwed over by the United States government from the moment he stepped into the country and despite repeated attempts to 'make it' the only way he knows how, he has for a long time considered himself a failure. His eldest son, a sickly child from birth - something he blames on the lack of immediate treatment they received during complications in Claudia's pregnancy - has been a constant reminder to him of his inability to provide.

Working for Madeleine Parker has never provided him with enough money to afford the care Miguel needs, especially with Claudia still out of full time work. The three children should not be in the small bedroom that they are in and Miguel needs urgent medical attention and care if he is going to survive into adulthood. It is for those reasons that Javier has justified what he's doing. He doesn't care about the money, he only cares about giving his family the life that they deserve.

'Javi', Claudia whispers softly, pronouncing the word in her husband's native tongue, when she doesn't find him where she usually does, hunched over the kitchen table with a large mug of coffee, sometimes with sugar, never with alcohol, pouring through the latest bills that have come in that month, deciding whether they can afford to pay the electricity and water, or buy better drugs for Miguel.

Instead, she finds him in the small utility room that doubles as the office space, an area in which Javier set up his computer and files all those years ago, when he was passionate about going self employed, in the days before Claudia's first miscarriage, when the future was bright and their lives seemed impossible to spoil.

That room has since taken on a new purpose, as the family have expanded, but Javier's computer and files still remain, looking out of place, amongst tools, hanging clothes and a washer drier, another reminder of what could have been.

'Javi, what are you doing?' Claudia says.

He hasn't noticed her arrive, and jumps a little at the sound of her voice. Immediately he clicks open a different window on the computer, hiding the one he was working on, unsure what she has already seen.

'You scared me honey', Javier says.

Claudia wraps her arms around his chest and kisses him on the top of the head. Bent over like this, you can see a new bump forming, where several others have already come and gone.

'Come back to bed sweetie', she says.

'I will baby, I promise', Javier says, turning around to her. 'I just need to do something for work, that's all.'

'Can't it wait for when you're actually in work baby?' Claudia says.

'I wish it could honey', Javier says. 'It's a pitch for a new account, that if we get it, could mean a huge bonus and a salary hike. It could make a big difference to our lives. A massive difference.'

Claudia looks at the cursor blinking on an empty word document. She's known her husband for long enough to know when he's hiding something, but trusts him to be doing whatever it is he can't tell her about, for the benefit of the whole family. He's never let them down before, and she knows he would never do anything to hurt them. What she saw of the document he was working on before trying to hide it however, didn't look to her like any kind of project pitch she has ever seen. If anything, it looked like something she's only ever seen on TV or in crime films, but decides, to give her husband the benefit of the doubt, to keep that observation to herself. If there was anyone more creative than Javier, she was yet to meet them, so it was perfectly possible, that what she saw was destined to form part of a role playing exercise, designed to stand out enough against the competition to secure them the job. That version of events, no matter how unlikely, is what she chooses to believe.

She kisses Javier on the top of the head again, and squeezes him tightly. A little more tightly than usual.

'I love you Javi', she says. She's been in love with this man from the moment she set eyes on him, a bright eyed, olive skinned eighteen year old, with a heart of gold, and not a single bad bone in his body, who had the confidence to approach her with a rose and tell her that all he wanted was to see her smile, and if she gave him the opportunity to do so, he would try his best not to fail. That rose she kept and dried, and it now sits in a vase on a shelf in their bedroom, sixteen years after he bought it with the only money he had to his name, and gave it to the prettiest girl he had ever seen.

'I love you too baby', Javier says, and smoothes the slight bump just under his wife's belly button. 'You know, I think it's going to be a girl.'

'What makes you say that?' Claudia asks him. She's olive skinned too, from Italian immigrants two generations removed, although American in every way but her blood line. She can't cook pasta to save her life, which would make her grandmother red with embarrassment, and despite her parents desire to pass on her real mother tongue, she remembers very little of that now completely obscure language, having replaced what she might have originally learnt with Javier's native Spanish. She is brown eyed, tall like her mother, delicately postured and incredibly beautiful.

'I've just got a feeling', Javier says.

'You had a feeling about all of the other's too', Claudia says and laughs.

'I can't be wrong five times in a row', Javier says and smiles.

'I wouldn't count on it. Ok, work. I'm going back to bed', Claudia says, 'unless you want to come and join me?' She lifts up the T-Shirt she likes to sleep in to reveal a beautiful little bump and a sexy pair of panties. Turning around, she sticks out her pert little bum just enough to emphasise it, before dropping her T-shirt back down.

'You know where to find me', she says and smiles at her husband, who looks longingly at her as she walks back out of the door.

'Mommy', come the shouts of her four year old child, no sooner than she has made it back out to the kitchen. 'Mommy', he shouts again.

'Coming Connor', she says, glancing at the clock on the kitchen wall on the way. It's 6:45am, and much earlier than he normally gets up. Claudia quickens her pace, and finds him waiting for her at the top of the stairwell. She rushes past him and into the bedroom, knowing immediately that something serious is happening. Inside the tiny bedroom, Elouise is awake, standing quietly in her cot, watching her older brother Miguel throw up on the floor. Claudia rushes to him, while Connor makes his way back into the room and stands by his mother's side.

'He was sleeping and then all suddenly he sicked up over the floor', Connor says, all too aware of the frequency of this situation and the importance of reporting it as soon as it happens. 'I couldn't find you mommy', he goes on.

'You found me baby, you did good', she says to Connor, while rubbing Miguel's back, his ribs showing a little too much through his thin skin for her liking. Connor climbs back up the ladder to the bunk above, careful not to tread in the sick on the way, in the same way he was careful not to tread in it on the way out of the room to find his mother. The vomit, dotted by specks of blood, has managed to find its way neatly into a patch of carpet between several of the boys toys. The only thing that doesn't seem to have escaped unscathed, is a single wooden train compartment - an old toy from when the boys were much younger - that forms part of a much longer chain, long since disassembled or lost.

Miguel is naturally darker skinned than his younger brother, taking on more of his father's genes, but looks much paler due to his illness.

'Sorry mommy', he says. 'I didn't mean too. It just came out.'

'That's ok honey', Claudia says while she rubs his back, tears running freely down her cheeks. 'Do you need to be sick more?'

Miguel shakes his head, and lies back down in his bed. Claudia takes a wet wipe out of the packet she keeps constantly at the side of the bunk bed and cleans his mouth.

'It was a good shot', Claudia says. 'You missed the bed sheets and everything. Do you want some water?'

Miguel shakes his head again.

'I'll get you some more water', Claudia says, 'just in case you change your mind.'

She rolls the blanket up so it covers his chest, and kisses him on the forehead.

'Mommy', Miguel says, 'I don't want to be sick anymore.'

'I know sweetie', Claudia says. 'I promise you'll be better soon. I promise honey.'

Claudia pulls away from him, to clear the room up and get the children ready for breakfast and school. Elouise has been quietly watching them, but soon enough she'll be screaming for a cuddle. If she doesn't clear up the vomit now, it'll only get harder to do so as it sinks into the carpet, but Miguel won't let her go.

'Please mommy, don't go', he says.

'I'll be right back darling', she says. 'I'll be just over there in the bathroom. I'll leave the door open so you can see the light.'

'Don't go mommy', he says again. 'Stay for just a bit longer, I'm scared.'

'Hey champ', Javier says from the door. 'You had a rough night again?'

Miguel nods gravely. Claudia turns around to her husband, more pleased than ever to see him standing there. 'He's been sick again', she says, wiping the tears away from her eyes. 'Can you help me clear it up?'

'Of course', Javier says. 'Stay there, I'll be right back.'

By now, the day has already begun, and so much light has filtered though the makeshift curtains they've put up in the children's bedroom, that there'll be no chance of any of them going back to bed. Connor peers down from above, lying flat on his bed with his feet pressed against the wall. From here the vomit looks like a pizza to him. As predicted, Elouise begins to cry. She holds her arms out in the air and screws her face up and lets out a bawl loud enough to let everyone know where she is. Javier hurries back into the room with a bucket full of hot soapy water, a dustpan and brush, a spray cleaner and an industrial size roll of paper tissue, which he puts on the ground next to the pile of sick, before ruffling Connor's hair, and lifting Elouise out of her crib. He cuddles her a little, rains kisses all over her cute little body, and passes the still unsettled bundle of unhappiness across to Claudia. Elouise settles a little more in her mother's arms, but she's still not placated. It's more than attention she needs, and she won't stop crying until she gets it.