Let Me: An O'Brien Family Novel (The O'Brien Family Book 2) (10 page)

He takes his duties and his role seriously, leaving the house freshly groomed, and somehow returning the same way. My mother  . . . she was the one who used to iron all his shirts. She was the one who’d kiss him goodbye. She was the one who’d hurry from the kitchen to welcome him home and draw his smile, gushing about her husband, “the big boss”.

Yet she no longer does that. She hasn’t in years because she can’t.

But I really wish she could.

“Sol?” my father says.

I bow my head, not wanting to think about the first time my father had to iron his own shirts. He doesn’t know I saw him cry. Yet I did, crying enough for both of us when I ran back to my room. “He’s a nice man, Papi,” I say.

“He’s a fighter.”

Which is one of the reasons I like Finn. He’s strong. I could use some of his strength . . . especially now. “That doesn’t mean he’s not nice.” I lift my head. “Or that he would hurt me.”

“Don’t lose sight of what’s important,” he says. “We’re counting on you.”

“I know,” I respond. I’m counting on me, too.

We both stand there in our chosen spots, neither of us appearing to want to move. I suppose moving means pushing on, something both of us seem almost too exhausted to do. Or maybe it’s because when we do move, it’s not to relax, or escape. It’s to once more deal with what’s happening.

“Where’s Mami?” I question, realizing I’ve waited too long to ask.

“In our room, watching television.”

I nod and start for the stairs. “I’m going out,” he says. “Just for an hour.”

My hand slides along the smooth surface of the banister. “Where are you going?”

“I need some air,” he answers.

Again, I nod, because what else can I do? My father has never “needed some air”. Even during the worst of times he internalizes his pain and simply deals with the stress. But he hasn’t been dealing well lately, not since this last incident with my mother. He’s mourning her. Well, at least who she was.

I suppose that makes two of us.

He’s through the door before I reach the second level. I want to beg him not to go, not to leave me, knowing I’ll be alone as soon as my aunt leaves. Am I afraid she’ll hit me? Not really. I’m more afraid that I’ll find her in the way I hate most: absent of anything that resembles my mother.

The door to my parents’ room is partially open, giving me a view of a television that’s almost as old as I am. There’s a black and white movie playing, a Mexican classic whose name I should know, but one that escapes me. I remember watching it years ago with my parents when I was a child. But it’s late, too late for movies that make me wish for better days.

I open the door slowly, like a little girl unsure she should enter, and hoping for more than I expect to find.

But I find what I expect, and because of it, my heart finishes breaking.

“Hi, Tía,” I say, softly.

Apparently, it’s too softly. She doesn’t hear me, and she doesn’t know I’m there.

My aunt was a battered woman. Although she’ll deny it, I think one or more of those blows she took damaged her hearing. But it’s the emotional toll the abuse took that robbed years from her life. Although only in her fifties, remorse and exhaustion deepen her wrinkles, making her appear more a great grandmother than grandmother.

“Hi, Tía,” I say again.

She startles when she sees me, yet manages a small smile, a gesture I don’t think her own children see from her much. But my attention doesn’t stay on her, it travels to my mother where she’s sitting on the bed.

My aunt perched my mom so her back rests against the old headboard fashioned from fake wood, a pillow placed behind her head to keep her comfortable, though I doubt my mother cares. She stares blankly ahead, to the right of the television screen, her short, curly hair standing on its ends. Tía probably tried to wash it, and comb it, too, by the looks of it. She meant well, but all it does is add a crazed look to my mother’s appearance.

Not that she needed help with that.

“It’s
Cucurrucucú Paloma
,”
Tía says in Spanish, motioning to the television. “One of her favorites.”

I swallow the lump that’s building, forcing a smile as Tía rises from the rocking chair to hug me. “Do you want me to stay with you?” she asks. “Or would you prefer time alone with your mother?”

My aunt doesn’t drive. She can’t leave until my father returns and takes her home. But I’m not blind to what she’s asking. As much as it saddens me to find my mother this way, Tía is sad, too, and she’s been with her long enough.

“I think I’d like some time alone, Tía,” I answer in English.

She nods like she understands and leaves, but not without one last glance at my mother.

I slip out of my boots and slide across the bed. “Hi, Mami,” I say. I take her hand, but as it lays flaccid in mine, I very much doubt she feels my touch. “I went on a date tonight with Finn O’Brien,” I begin. “Remember the O’Briens―the family who lived across the street from Tía? I’ve known him in passing for a few years, but I’m getting to know him more now.”

I turn to her, not expecting her to respond, but hoping she will anyway. “Sofia married his brother Killian,” I remind her. “Finn was at their wedding. He’s a really nice guy, but of course, Papi already hates him.”

Again, no response.

“He makes me smile,” I say, my words forming tears that blur my vision. “And laugh, too. I can’t remember laughing this hard in a long time.”

I sniff. “I wish you could meet him, Mami, so maybe he can make you laugh, too.” The tears fall before I can stop them. But I don’t turn away. She can’t hear me, or see me cry, and probably doesn’t even know that I’m sitting right beside her.

Yet that doesn’t stop me from pleading with her. “You have to get better. This way you can meet him, okay? This way you can let me know what you think and assure Papi that he’s a nice man.”

By now I’m crying, remembering all those times she
could
hear me―all those times I’d beg her to lay in bed with me when she came to say goodnight―so I could talk excessively about my day, my friends, my
dreams
―remembering those times she was still my mother, and I was still her world. Because this woman, who doesn’t laugh, who no longer remembers me―who can’t even look me in the eye is no longer the mother I remember.

No matter how badly I need her to be.

CHAPTER 11

Finn

“Finnie―
Finn
. God damn it, wake up.”

Someone with a death wish is shaking me. If the “Jesus Christ and all the fucking elves―
wake up
” comment didn’t make me realize she was my sister, I might have woke up swinging.

“What?” I mutter, rubbing my eyes.

“The counseling center is on the phone, saying you missed your appointment.”

“It’s not until eleven,” I grumble, sitting up.

“Yeah, and it’s twelve now, asshole,” Wren snaps.

Okay, now I’m awake. “Shit.” I open my palm for her to smack the phone in my hand. “Hello?”

“Finn, it’s Mason.”

“Hey. Sorry―Look, I’m on my way.”

“I can’t take you now, I’m only calling to see if you’re okay.”

Or maybe to make sure I’m alive.

“This is court-ordered counseling,” he begins, as if I don’t already know. “And while you haven’t missed an appointment until today, I don’t feel we’re moving in a positive direction.”

“Sorry,” I mutter, mostly because I realize the word has become my fucking mantra. “I slept late―weird, I didn’t realize how tired I was.” That’s the truth. I’ve always had a ton of energy, and my mind is always going a mile a minute, I’m surprised I’ve never needed ADD meds. If anything, unless I’m hung-over, I’m usually up by seven at the latest.

“I believe you,” he says.

“That I was tired?”

He pauses, and I can almost picture him smiling with those thin lips of his. “That and that it wasn’t intentional.”

“Good. Cause it wasn’t,” I say.

“I can tell given the colorful verbiage between you and your mother,” he says.

I grin at Wren who’s standing in front of me with her arms crossed. “That was my sister,” I say, adding to her, “He thought you were Ma.”

She doesn’t like the compliment and flips me off. I stay focused because Mason believing in me means a lot.

“I want you to be successful, Finn. And I want to help you get to a more positive place. Look, I don’t do this often, but I’m willing to stay after hours so your missed session doesn’t count against you.”

I throw my legs over the side of the bed. “Okay. Thanks. When can I come in?”

“Tonight from six to seven.”

“All right, I’ll be there.”

“Very well. But Finn, as much as I’m willing to stay, I won’t wait around if you’re late. Am I clear?”

In other words, don’t fuck this up. “I’ll be there,” I assure him.

I place the phone on the side table when he disconnects, dragging my hand through my hair when I realize Wren’s still standing there. “What’s wrong?” I ask her.

Wren can be a mothering pain in the ass so I expect her to lay into me for missing the appointment. Instead she sits beside me, careful not to get to close. “How you doing?” she asks.

“All right,” I tell her slowly, wondering what’s up.

“Did you drink last night or take anything?”

I frown. “No, I’m just tired.”

Her blue eyes blink back at me and her lips press tight. “Are you sick?” When I shake my head, she simply stays there, watching me.

“You’re creeping me out,” I tell her, because she is.

She keeps her arms crossed, turning her attention to the MMA poster I have framed on the wall. “I’m not trying to,” she says.

Maybe she’s not, but when she doesn’t leave, and keeps sitting there, I know something isn’t right. And I’m not so sure it’s solely about me.

My sister’s real name is Erin. She earned her nickname because my older brothers initially had trouble pronouncing her name―but it doesn’t really fit her. I mean, it does because that’s how I’ve always known her―but it doesn’t because she isn’t exactly the delicate little bird her nickname suggests.

She’s tall for a girl, five-eight, with long lean muscles that can kick some serious ass. I know because growing up I witnessed that ass kicking more times than I can count. Once, when I was on the receiving end―the time I cut a chunk of her straight black hair off. In my defense, we were out of string and I was trying to make a kite. The other times were when she was fighting on the street. In one incident, me and Killian were jumped by a group of assholes on our way back from school. The boys left her alone, but a bigger boy came after me. Wren defended me, even though she was a lot smaller then. I didn’t like her much before that moment―didn’t like how she bossed me around. But that day she bled to keep me safe, proving she loved me.

I returned the favor by kicking that bastard’s ass. He may have been a few years older, but he hurt my sister so I wiped the pavement with him. We’ve been tight ever since. “Tight” in our own way. We don’t share secrets, we don’t tell each how much we mean to each other. We’re just still willing to bleed for each other, if that makes sense.

I nudge her with my elbow because that much I can do. “What’s up?”

“Your life is shit.”

I nod. “Thanks. I’m glad we had this talk.”

The corners of her mouth curve just a little. “Believe it or not, I’m not done.”

I fall back on my bed. “I have no doubt.”

She swivels so that her dark hair swoops against her thin shoulders. “The thing is, Finnie, your life doesn’t have to be shit. It’s only like that because you continue to mess up.”

My arm falls over to drape over my eyes. I know what she means. The thing is, it’s not as easy as that. “It’s one appointment, Wren. Back off, will ya?”

“But that’s how everything starts with you―that’s what you don’t get.” She pauses. “Are you listening?”

“Yeah.”

She bumps my leg with her knee. “I’m serious, Finn. No more drinking, no getting high.”

I drop my arm away. “I haven’t been high in years. What?” I ask when all I see on her face is disappointment. “Why don’t you believe me?”

“I want to, I do.”

“So then why don’t you?” I challenge, frowning. “I missed one fucking appointment.”

“It’s not just that. It’s like ever since that day, a part of you has been dying.”

My eyes widen. She doesn’t need to tell me which day she means. She and Kill were the ones who saw me immediately afterward, the ones who realized what happened. They were the ones who took care of me, and made it as right as they could. We don’t talk about “that day” ever. For her to bring it up now . . . it pisses me off. She didn’t hurt that day, she didn’t beg Norman to stop―

I jerk out of bed, rage searing through my body like it’s burning me alive. I don’t think of him―or his name. It gives him power over me, just like he had that day.

“Shut the fuck up!” I snap.

You want to know something about me, I don’t talk to my sister this way―I don’t talk to any woman this way. So I expect her to start screaming at me, start cursing me out. Instead her eyes soften in a way that they do those rare times I’ve seen her cry, adding to my already mounting fury.

“Finnie,” she says, her voice breaking. “I’m sorry―”

I wrench away from her when she tries to squeeze my arm, my feet stomping toward the bathroom. I’m in my boxers and didn’t bother grabbing any clothes. With a crash, I slam the door behind me, hard enough to splinter the wood frame. I whip off my shorts and blast the water, swearing as I jump into the shower and cold water drenches my skin.

I hurry to adjust the temperature, cursing again when I snag the bottle of shampoo and drop it at my feet. I bend down to retrieve it and drop it, again, my hands shaking so badly I can’t keep my hold on it. “God
damn
it!”

The water is scalding hot now, and still I shake. Not from cold. Right then I’m all rage. Right then, I’m that scared little kid taken by some evil bastard who’s now burning in hell. He’s dead. Norman’s
dead
. The brain-injured fucker died last summer after battling pneumonia.