Текст книги "Family Love"

Автор книги: Liz Crowe

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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

“We’re getting reports of shots fired,” the reporter said. I watched the cops and EMTs enter the building. Then kids started piling out, running as far from it as they could get. I shook my head, unwilling to accept anything my own eyes observed.

My phone buzzed again. Daddy this time. “Where is your mother?” he barked when I answered. “We’re on our way over there now.”

“Cara’s clinic,” I whispered. “Daddy. He called me. I …”

“Who called you? Kieran?”

I nodded, unable to say his name, then dropped the phone and slid down the wall. I watched on the TV when the brewery van screeched up to the perimeter. Daddy got out slowly while Dom headed straight through the line of cops still circling the building, having jumped over the temporary barricades. I watched him punch a couple of uniformed guys who tried to stop him.

“We have a rogue witness,” the talking head said. “A man has broken through the police barrier and is headed into the building.”

My phone buzzed non-stop. Calvin sending me texts mostly. I told him where I was and that I was all right. Then I called Diana and spoke to her before trying Mama again. But she had her prime directive—get to Kieran’s wife, the girl we’d all known growing up, the mother of Kieran’s two sons and toddler daughter.

“Reports are coming in that the shooters have been contained,” the reporter said.

“Any news of casualties inside?”

“Not yet. Wait, there seems to be someone being led out.”

I saw Dominic again, being dragged through what was left of the school doors by three burly-looking firemen. When they let him go out on the large front lawn, he dropped to his hands and knees. I sucked in a breath, got up, and ran out to my car, driving on autopilot to my old high school. But I couldn’t get anywhere near the building by then, thanks to all the media and gawkers.

I screamed that my brother was in there, that he was Kieran Love, the principal. That I had to get to him.

Someone touched my arm, and I whirled, furious and heartsick over what I already suspected. Mama and Cara stood there looking shell-shocked. I held out my arms and we stood, holding tight to each other, surrounded by strangers, praying as hard as we could.

On one level I refused to accept that my life could be so perfect and then shatter into a million pieces at the drop of a karmic hat. But I prayed hard, asking God to forgive my years of ignoring Him if He would please let my brother walk out of that high school, take us all in his arms, and tell us everything was fine.

Epilogue

14 Lucasville High School Students and Staff Dead,

Nearly 30 More Saved by Principal

From the Lexington-Herald Leader and Associated Press

By: Mia Koutras, Staff Reporter

Lucasville (AP) – Kieran Francesco Love, principal of Lucasville High School, faced an educator’s greatest fear yesterday afternoon when he bargained for the lives of his students during an armed assault and hostage situation that left many dead in the wake of the massacre. Formerly a local sports star, Principal Love, 45, is in critical condition at a local hospital, having literally stepped between the assailants and the remaining students when negotiations spun out of control.

Witnesses state that two teenaged gunmen burst into the gymnasium and opened fire on students during an Honor Society meeting with administration and staff advisors for the upcoming graduation ceremony. Ten students and one teacher were mowed down in a hail of gunfire before Love leaped into the fray.

“It was unbelievable,” one tearful witness said. “Mr. Love jumped in, like some superhero, and shouted at them to stop, to talk this out.”

Another said, “If it wasn’t for Mr. Love, we’d all be dead. He’s a real hero. He saved us.”

Reports from witnesses reveal that all the students trapped in the gym were forced to sit on the floor behind their principal while the gunmen staged a mock trial, during which Love negotiated for the better part of an hour for their safe release.

The building was on lockdown, almost since the first gunshot, thanks to a quick-thinking physical education teacher who barricaded her last period students in the locker rooms and called 9-1-1. It is believed that her initial call for help saved the lives of countless students and faculty, as police were mobilized early on, forcing the gunmen to take hostages instead of planting and detonating the homemade bombs concealed in their duffel bags. “They had enough explosives to level the entire building,” confirmed Lucas County Sheriff Mark Garnet.

Sheriff Garnet also revealed that one of the trapped students had been secretly texting information to a friend outside the building, who was then passing the information to the police command post. The student was caught texting by one of the gunmen. “All eyewitness accounts confirm that a gunman raised his weapon to execute the student after discovering his active cell phone, and Principal Love rushed the gunman as several shots were fired. The gunfire prompted the order for our forces to breach the building, eliminate the threat, and secure the hostages,” Garnet said in his official statement.

Details remain unclear as to the motive for the attack that left fourteen dead, including the two gunmen, and a community in deep mourning. Memorials are planned well into next week for the victims of this senseless tragedy.

A spokesman for the Kentucky Governor’s Office told reporters this morning that the governor would personally award Principal Kieran Love the Kentucky State Police Citation for Meritorious Achievement in a public ceremony after his recovery. This citation is the agency's highest civilian award, bestowed upon individuals who performed an extraordinary act of service or heroism in direct support of officers of the agency engaged in the official performance of duty.

***

 

“Angelique.”

I heard my name being called from far away. I wanted to stay under, lightly sedated and unaware of my surroundings.

“Honey, wake up.” When I realized it was Cal, I opened my eyes. He was smiling and holding something. “Meet our son,” he said, his voice breaking. “He’s perfect.”

I took a breath, and held out my arms, tears blinding me. “Where’s Mama?”

Cal stepped aside. My parents appeared. They were holding hands, something they’d been doing more or less nonstop for the past six months.

I held the blue blanket away from my baby’s face, confused and a little scared by the unfamiliar rush of emotion that gripped me as I looked down at him. Mama touched my cheek. “You all right? You scared us a little.” Daddy patted my leg, looking shell-shocked. I nodded, unable to speak, unable to take my eyes off the baby in my arms.

“You don’t have to name him … that.” Mama said. Daddy put an arm around her.

“Of course we do,” my husband said. “It was my idea.” Cal crouched down to be on my eye level. He looked his usual calm self, but I could tell how rattled he was. It had been a damn long week but the sight of his familiar face calmed my racing pulse, as it always did. “Ready for more visitors, Angel?”

“Might as well,” I said, putting my nose close to the baby’s head and breathing in the most intoxicating smell I would ever experience, no matter how many times I smelled it on the three babies I’d eventually have—one boy, and my set of twin girls.

Rosie, Diana, Cara and Margot came next. Cara looked slightly less haunted, but still rail thin.

“I hope it’s all right,” I said to her as she gazed down at my boy, who was starting to make whimpering noises. “His name and all.” She nodded before stepping away from the bed without a word. Margot followed her. Rosie and Diana both sniffled and clutched tissues. “I’m glad y’all are staying,” I said to Rosie. She nodded.

“Me too. Aiden was miserable out west. It was a shitty year.”

“Yes, it was,” I said. “But it’s all we have, really, isn’t it? Family love. Drama and all.”

My brothers came in next. Aiden looked undone, face puffy, bags under his eyes; Dom seemed distant, and thin; Antony pissed off, as usual. He was pushing Kieran’s wheelchair.

“Damn,” Kieran said, “y’all are all the biggest bunch of crybabies. Lord. Give me my namesake, Angel, before he drowns.”

Mama had a hand on my shoulder. Daddy was at her side, the place he had resumed without any more discussion of separation or divorce. Calvin stood at the foot of my bed, giving me his unwavering support by his very presence.

“Mama, would you say a prayer?” I asked, unable to take my eyes off the sight of my brother, miraculously restored to us, sitting in a wheelchair and holding my son.

She pulled Cara in between her and Daddy. I experienced some peace at the sound of my mother’s words, but no matter how many times I sat, holding one of my own babies close and thanking the Lord for their existence, I would always have issues with Him, or the universe itself, for making me live through a moment when I believed I had heard my sweet, red-headed, ever-the-peacemaker brother’s voice telling me to “Shush a minute” for the last time.

“It all evens out, somehow,” Mama said, startling me. I hadn’t heard her say “amen.”

Cara went around the bed and put a shaking hand on Kieran’s shoulder. He tensed at her touch, as if surprised by it. She bit her lower lip. “The doctors say this most recent surgery was the last thing they could try,” she said. Kieran frowned up at her. She met his gaze. I pondered them, and how, exactly, they’d weather this shitstorm life had thrown at them.

“Guess I’ll be the first Lucasville High principal who can pop wheelies in the hall,” he said, his tone light, his gaze back down on the bundle in his arms. My brothers formed a half circle around him and Cara. Tears ran down her flushed cheeks.

“I’m so sorry, Angelique,” she said. “I just can’t seem to stop.”

I held out my hand to her. She grabbed it, sending me straight back to the long night after the attack, when she and I and my mother huddled together in a waiting room, seemingly unable to let go of one another.

My brother had saved a lot of lives that day. And had been shot three times, once in the spine. He was alive, thank the Lord, but only barely for the first few hours. He would probably not walk again.

I talked with Cara almost daily throughout my pregnancy, which dovetailed with Kieran’s many surgeries and recoveries. Our bond was strong after that horrific first forty-eight hours.

Plus, I sensed her need to have someone who loved Kieran as much as she did who would listen to her darkest fears. He barely slept unless on strong medication, thanks to constant nightmares. He berated himself over the kids he didn’t save. His own kids were scared of him anymore. He’d hardly even look at them, much less let them near him in his “condition.”

I spent a lot of hours talking with Mama and Daddy and Margot and Cal about how best to help him and Cara. Kieran once told his wife he wished he’d died, according to her, when she’d called, apologizing all over the place for bothering me. Death, he claimed, would be better than living as an impotent cripple.

I’d been so furious at that, I’d marched, huge pregnant belly and all, into the room where he’d taken to moping around every day. I slapped him on the face, hard, twice.

He’d sat silent, taking it, his eyes full of frustrated tears, fists on his unfeeling legs. “I can’t … be a man any more. Don’t you get that? Doesn’t anyone in this family fucking get this new hell I have to live in now?”

“You are more man than any male in the universe, Kieran Francesco. And if I hear tell of you breathing another word about wishing you were dead, I’ll … well, I’ll kill you my own self.”

I had to sit then, winded and dizzy with fury. I tried to take his hands but he kept them balled up on his denim-clad thighs. “You saved people’s lives, honey. And we got to keep you, in spite of it being touch and go for days. You are alive, Francis. And we all love you, each and every one of us. Most especially your wife and your children.

“If anyone can handle this,” I put my fists on his thighs alongside his, “it’s you. Get your stubborn ass to that PTSD specialist Margot found for you. Rejoin the family. We are sick of hearing you whine.”

He’d rallied some after that, Cara claimed. But just a week later, I went into early labor and spent several days in the hospital, hooked up to various drugs, praying harder than ever that I wouldn’t lose the baby, despite Cal’s calm reassurances to the contrary.

Now I looked into my brother’s eyes. “You all right, Ginger?” He grinned and handed the baby to Cara, who gave him to me.

“Yeah. I will be, I think.” He took his wife’s hand, and then glanced over his shoulder. “Who’s got wheelie duty?” Dom grabbed the wheelchair handles, dropping Kieran back so far Cara yelped and put a hand over her mouth. Kieran laughed. And of all the sounds in the world, I was never more grateful to God for letting me continue to hear that one.

My father and brothers all trooped out. Cara followed after pressing her lips to my forehead. Cal got called away by a nurse, leaving my mother standing next to me, her firm, strong hand on my shoulder.

My tears plopped onto my baby’s face, making him flinch. “Life’s not fair,” I said to him.

“No, it’s surely not,” she said, taking little Kieran from my arms in a preemptory manner I figured I’d best get used to. “But it does go on.” She smiled down at her grandbaby. “No matter how much we might protest it. Don’t let anger keep you from being the mother I wasn’t for you. Kieran will be fine. But I swan I don’t know what to think about …”

I stopped listening then, as she described her latest worry about one of her grandkids.

Finally, she put the now-squawking bundle into my arms. “Feed your boy, Angel. He needs you more than anyone else does now.”

The End.

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