“You don’t have to stay,” she said. She looked at my father and loosened her grip on my arm as she started to walk toward him.
“Tria,” I growled her name. I had no idea what else I wanted to say, but I didn’t want her to do what I thought she was considering. She looked back at me and shook her head slowly.
“I need to know, Liam.”
“Know what?”
“I need to hear everything else. I only know part of the story, Liam—your part. I need to hear the rest.”
“Bullshit.”
“I know,” she said as she took a few steps toward me again and reached up to cup my cheek. “I know what it is to you, and I understand, but there’s more than just you and me to consider, Liam.”
“I am thinking about the baby!” I said through gritted teeth. “That’s why I don’t want you anywhere near him!”
She rested her hand on my shoulder as she leaned against me.
“The baby needs love,” she told me, “yours and mine, of course, but the love of a whole family, too.”
She glanced over my shoulder, and I could see Chelsea moving up in my peripheral vision.
“You put her up to this?” I said, scowling at my aunt.
“It’s time to make amends, Liam,” Chelsea said. “We all need to move forward.”
I took a small step away from Tria and ended up with my back against the doorframe.
How fitting.
My lungs fought for air as my head began to swim.
“Not now,” I heard myself say.
Tria moved her fingers down my arms until they grasped my hands.
“Come with me,” she ordered.
A moment later she was pulling me back through the foyer and into the adjoining living room, away from the kitchen, where she shoved me down to the couch and knelt in front of me.
“Do you need one of those pills?” she asked.
I was shaking too much to give her a clear answer, but I made sure I held onto her hands. I didn’t want her going anywhere. Thankfully, the Balrog’s Backpack was nearby, and Tria had my anxiety medication in it.
I couldn’t even remember the name of the damn pills. I only knew they worked. The shaking stopped within a few minutes, and I was left with just the desire to sleep it all off. I felt like the morning after a bad night of drinking, only without the headache.
“Better?” Tria asked.
I tilted my head to the side and realized she was next to me on the couch.
“Yeah,” I said. I glanced around and saw Michael just outside the room, looking down at me. My father was several feet away from him as if he were trying to hide or something. Too fucking late for that. Chelsea held a glass of water and asked if I wanted any, but I declined.
“You’re calming down a lot faster now,” Tria observed, “even after such a short time.”
I nodded, but there were bits of the previous conversation still running through my head.
“What did he mean?” I asked as I looked toward the foyer and then up at Tria. “What did he mean about Yolanda?”
“I…I don’t know.” Tria looked up at my uncle, who was shifting back and forth between his left and right foot. “Michael?”
“She was our best way of keeping tabs on him,” Michael told Tria. “Once we realized he wasn’t on the streets anymore—that someone had taken him in—we talked to her and made sure she was going to keep him straight.”
“Made sure?” Tria took the question right out of my mouth.
“We paid her off,” my father admitted. “Enough money to keep her working as a trainer indefinitely.”
“What the fuck,” I mumbled. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around what they were saying.
“She’d been hurt,” Michael said. “She couldn’t fight anymore and wasn’t having much luck working as a trainer. We gave her the funds to get her training business going, and she met with my PI and told him how you were doing.”
“Nice,” I mumbled.
The medicine was making me feel sleepy. I wanted to be pissed off, but I no longer had the strength. I had only been up an hour, and I was ready to crawl back into bed. It was a feeling I fucking hated but was still preferable to ending up in the hospital again.
I closed my eyes, stretched out on the couch, and placed my head on Tria’s lap. I heard someone come over and kneel down beside me, next to my head. When I cracked open one eye, I almost flinched at how close my father was to me.
“Pretty fucking shitty,” I mumbled. “Spying on me like that. Paying her to do that shit. Fucker.”
“Liam,” my father said quietly, “you can hate me for the rest of your life, and I will still make sure someone is looking out for you. Always. You wouldn’t let it be me, so I had to improvise. I think you’re going to understand that someday. I hope you will.”
“Fuck you,” I muttered again as my head swam a bit and everything went dark. By the time I woke up again, Douglass Teague had left and Sunday dinner was indefinitely postponed.
I was never one to count my blessings, but I was glad he was gone.
Chapter 13—Visit the Grave
With a copy of the marriage certificate in my personnel file and Tria added to my insurance through Teague Silver, she got an appointment with Chelsea’s OB/GYN and really started to take care of herself. The doctor even gave her three months’ worth of prenatal vitamins, which were apparently really important.
I didn’t even know there was such a thing.
“Do you think the lack of prenatal care contributed to what happened before?”
We had passed the magical three sessions mark a week ago, and Erin was being pretty fucking aggressive about some of the things we talked about. She said we were going to get around to talking about my current family, but I had to come to terms with the one I lost first. If I didn’t do that, I was going to fail with the family I was trying to create, and I couldn’t let that happen. So, Erin had been pretty fucking harsh. I kind of wished she was a fighter or at least a body builder—I wouldn’t feel as bad if I ended up hitting her.
Of course, she was doing exactly what I asked her to do.
The bitch.
I shuddered a little, and then looked up at Erin.
“I never even heard of prenatal vitamins,” I confessed, “or why Tria needs to make sure she has plenty of folic acid in her diet. I didn’t know any of that shit until we saw Chelsea’s doctor.”
“Is that a yes?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Aimee’s mother wouldn’t ever talk to me or anything, so other than knowing…knowing what I could tell when I found her…well, I never knew anything else.”
In my mind, there was a brief flash—a realization that I had just said her name and it hadn’t made me double over.
“So you never found out what really happened?”
“What difference does it make?”
“Maybe none,” Erin said, “or it might make a lot of difference. It might give you some closure.”
I dropped my eyes and fiddled with my fingers, which seemed to be the one thing I did more than talking during my sessions with Shrink Erin.
“Is there a grave?” Erin asked softly.
I nodded.
“Have you ever been there?”
I shook my head.
“Maybe you should.”
I shook my head harder.
“Why not?” Erin asked.
“I just…can’t go there. If I did, I’d probably lose my mind, and I wouldn’t want Tria to see it.”
“Why would Tria see it?” she asked.
“I couldn’t do that by myself,” I whispered. I couldn’t look at her as I admitted my embarrassing fault—I was too weak to go there on my own. I wouldn’t make it past the gates.
“I’ll go with you, Liam.”
“Really?” I looked at her.
“We can hold your next session there.”
A long breath filled my lungs as I thought about it.
“I don’t
know,” I finally muttered.
Erin leaned forward in her chair and focused on my eyes.
“How are you going to be a husband to Tria and a father to your child when you haven’t let go of Aimee and your first child?”
I hated the very idea, but Erin had this way about her, and it seemed like as soon as I said no fucking way, I found myself doing whatever she suggested. This was no exception, and on Thursday, Damon drove me to the little Baptist cemetery where Aimee and the baby had been buried together. Erin was waiting by the entrance when we arrived.
It took twenty minutes just to get out of the car, and another ten to walk the fifty yards toward the area where she was laid to rest.
Laid to rest.
It sounded so fucking peaceful, but all I could see was her lying on the bathroom floor, covered in blood.
“I can’t do this,” I whispered.
“Take your time,” Erin said. “If it’s too much, we can try again next week.”
Leaning against the rough bark of a maple tree, I tried to stop myself from hyperventilating every time I looked over at the small, flat pair of matching gravestones with nothing on them but their names and dates. There was no way I was going to be able to do this again, not next week, not ever. If I was going to make any kind of progress, it was going to have to be now.
I took a step forward, and gripped the tree bark.
My fingers flexed, and I took another step. I could see the top of the stones with the simple names and dates on them. Aimee’s had both her birth date and the day she died, but the other one only had a single date on it.
“Matthew,” I whispered. I looked up at my counselor. “She named him Matthew, after Aimee’s grandfather. Do people really name babies that…that don’t live?”
“Of course they do, Liam. People mourn when they experience loss, and the mourning needs a name.”
“Matthew,” I said again, even quieter than the first time. “He’d be nine now.”
As the revelation hit me, I lost my balance and dropped on my ass in the dirt between them. A muted stab of pain went up through my tailbone, and the shock of it overwhelmed the rest of my senses. My body convulsed once, and I ended up half flopped over my bent legs. I reached out, my right palm on the grave of my son I never knew, and the left on his mother’s stone—the girl who never had a chance.
I sobbed.
Anguished, terrifying cries rose up into the warm sunshine.
I had no idea how long I was there, or at what point I quieted and realized Erin was there next to me, her hand resting gently on my shoulder.
“I need Tria.” My words were so choked, I could barely understand myself.
“Of course you do,” Erin replied quietly. “Let’s go find her.”
Instead of leading me to the car, Erin took me to the office near the front of the cemetery. There was a small area with a desk and a chair and a room off to one side. Tria was there, sitting on a couch and waiting for me with the Big Bag of Horrors at her feet.
I glanced at Erin, who nodded once.
“She’ll take you home when you’re ready,” my counselor said. She and Tria exchanged a quick glance, and then Erin was gone.
I stumbled toward her as she stood up and helped me to the little couch. I wrapped my arms around her. I was probably holding her too tightly, but I couldn’t bring myself to loosen my grip.
“I’m not going to fail you,” I told her. “I swear…I won’t.”
“You didn’t fail, sweetheart,” she whispered. “You were just a kid.”
I wasn’t going to argue—I didn’t have the energy. All I seemed able to do was hold onto Tria and try to keep my focus on how her fingers felt as they moved over my cheek, up my neck, and through my hair.
“I love you,” I whispered. “I’ll never, never let anything happen to you.”
“I know you won’t,” Tria replied. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you, either. I love you, Liam. So much…”
We clung to each other—Tria’s hand against my cheek and my arms wrapped tightly around her—and I listened to her breathing for the longest time. It was soothing and peaceful, like the slow rhythm of my heart in my chest. I remembered the sound of the baby’s heartbeat when we were first at the doctor’s and moved my hand down to Tria’s stomach.
“I want to believe what you said,” I told her.
“What I said about what?” Tria asked.
“That…that you’re all right. That you’re going to be all right.”
“I will,” Tria said. “I promise, everything will be okay.”
I squeezed my eyes shut as my mind rebelled against the very notion of making such an illogical promise. No one could make a guarantee like that. There were buses just waiting to run over people. There were planes that could fall from the sky. There were tidal waves that could suddenly form in the middle of the river and drown us all.
“I want to believe you.” I looked up into her face. “I’m going to try to believe you.”
*****
Work remained good, for the most part. When I was left alone to sit at my workbench and set stones, the day went by fairly smoothly and quickly. The stones were cheap, but I still felt bad when I broke a few of them as I was relearning how to mold the metal into the right setting for the stone.
I mostly did rings, and I felt like a total shit for never giving Tria one. I was going to have to do something clever about that, but I wasn’t sure what it was going to be. I knew I wanted to make her something, but I’d have to pay for the materials, and I didn’t have the spare cash.
I selected a smaller sized bur and began to carve out the metal to fit the shape of the fire agate sitting next to me on the table. Just as I was getting ready to set the stone, the guy who swept up after-hours came over to me.
“You look really familiar,” the dude said. “I know I’ve seen you before.”
The guy had a greasy mullet and thinning goatee. He did pretty much fit the description of the usual Feet First clientele, so I wouldn’t have been too surprised if he knew who I was. I tried to shrug him off, but the guy wouldn’t take a hint.
“I just have one of those faces,” I replied with a half smile.
“What’s your name?”
“Liam,” I replied.
“You been workin’ here long?”
“Just a few weeks,” I said. “Still trying to get the hang of this.”
I waved a hand toward the workbench and hoped he’d take the hint and fuck off. He didn’t, of course.
“I still think you look awful familiar,” he proclaimed. “What did you say your last name is?”
“I didn’t,” I replied.
“Okay…so what is it?”
Deciding the guy was never going to give up and being far too tired to come up with any sort of clever retort, I just came out with it.
“Teague,” I said. “Liam Teague.”
“Teague? Really?” the dude said with a smirk. “What are you, some distant cousin or something?”
“No,” I replied.
“But you’re related to ‘em, right?”
“I guess,” I muttered.
“Well, how?”
I put down the bur and turned to face the guy.
“I’m Douglass Teague’s son,” I said bluntly. “Now do you think you can leave me the fuck alone?”
He laughed.
“Bullshit!” he called out. “No fucking way!”
“Whatever.” I tried to turn back to my work, but pimple-cheeks was in my face again.
“Who are you really?”
“Jesus Christ!” I snarled. “You want a copy of the fucking birth certificate?”
The shift supervisor—one I didn’t know, since I wasn’t on my normal shift—came up to us.
“Is there a problem here, gentlemen?”
“Get this asshole away from me,” I growled.
“I think you need to calm down,” the supervisor said.
Calm down.
I clenched my fists against my thighs, and I fought against the urge to start beating one of them with my fists while I kicked the other one to the ground to save for later. Remembering that the opposite of fight was flight, I shoved past both of them and made my way to the men’s room where I did a little deep breathing until I calmed down. My shift was almost over anyway, so I made myself fairly invisible until it was time to clock out.
I was going to have to figure out some way of dealing with this, or I was going to end up fired from the company I was destined to someday own. I decided to bring it up with Erin in our next session, but when I got there, I discovered she already had an agenda for the day.
“I think I need some anger management,” I announced as I walked into her office.
Erin laughed.
“I would tend to agree,” she said, “but there are some key things you need to come to terms with first before that would be effective.”
“What’s that?”
“Let’s talk about all the wonderful things in your life,” she said as I sat down.
“Uh…is that sarcasm?”
“No,” she said, “not at all.”
“Well,” I started slowly, “I still have a job at the moment though I probably came close to losing it today.”
“Would that be the reason you inquired about anger management?”
“Yep.”
“Got it. We’ll tackle that later. What else?”
“I don’t know why we’re doing this,” I grumbled.
“Part of healing is recognizing the positives, Liam. There are many positives in your life that you choose to ignore in favor of focusing on the negatives. We have to move past that.”
“The shitty stuff stands out. Everything that’s happening right now reminds me of…of what happened before. Whenever we go to the doctor or Tria says something about how she’s feeling…all of it comes back. I’ve done all this before even though Tria hasn’t. Every other word out of her mouth makes me think about…about Aimee.”
“But Tria isn’t Aimee,” Erin said. “Did you love Aimee?”
I swallowed.
“Yes,” I said.
“And do you love Tria now?”
“More than anything.”
“How do you feel about the baby that is coming?”
“I don’t know if I can survive that long,” I said with a quick laugh through my nose.