Текст книги "Family Love"

Автор книги: Liz Crowe

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

There was no blood. No one seemed to be dead. But, for some reason, Dominic was sitting on the very top of the large bookshelf that held various framed photos, a few books, and was the repository of Anton’s massive collection of signed Kentucky Wildcat basketballs. Dom had somehow climbed up and pushed half of them to the floor where they rolled around at her feet. One of them must have hit the floor lamp, causing the crash. Kieran stood at the top of the short flight to the bedroom hall, thumb in his mouth, tears running down his cheeks.

Anton reached for Dom, cursing a blue streak. The boy squished himself into a corner, as far from his father’s grasping hands as he could get.

“Shit!” Dom echoed, merrily. “Fuck!”

He tossed another ball over Anton’s head. It hit the front of the television hard enough to shatter it. Kieran shrieked again and put his hands over his ears. Anton had his foot on second lowest shelf, knocking over photos and scattering magazines.

“Shit fuck! Shit fuck! Shit fuck!” Dom had started crawling along the top shelf. As he was about to pick up something Lindsay couldn’t quite make out, Anton snagged him by the ankle. “Daddy!”

“I’ll Daddy you,” Anton growled, pulling the boy down to the floor and giving him three, then four, then five hard wallops on his diaper-clad behind. Tears filled the boy’s eyes as he tried to turn and look at his father.

“Stop! Hurting my brother,” Kieran said, running to Lindsay. She hauled him into her arms, but he was getting almost too big to pick up.

Anton’s face was so red Lindsay worried he might pop a blood vessel. He had hold of Dom’s arm and was shaking him hard enough for the boy’s head to wobble.

“You are the biggest troublemaker. I swan I will beat it out of you if I have to,” Anton said, preparing whack the boy’s backside again.

Dom let out a wail of dismay so loud, Anton let go of his arm and just stood there, his eyes wild. He dropped into his recliner and put his head in his hands. Kieran wiggled until she put him down so he could run to his brother.

Dom shoved him away and headed straight for her, climbing up her legs and into her arms, pressing his face into her neck. He’d shed his PJs at some point, which he did almost every night. His body temperature had always been such that he could go without a coat in the cold and wanted as little as possible on him when it was hot. He was burning up now, shaking and sobbing.

She glared at her husband. “He’s still just a baby, Anton. That was a mite excessive.”

He raised his face from his hands. “Well, I’ll tell ya what, Linds.” He got up, stepped on the second shelf again and fished around until he found something and pulled it down so she could see it. “Next time I’ll let him grab this and see what he might get up to with it, okay?”

She stared at the shotgun, her pulse racing, while she held Dom, Kieran clutching her legs. “You have a loaded gun in my house. Where our sons are fully capable of getting their hands on it.” She framed them as statements, not questions. “Were you going to let me in on this?”

“Your beloved father kept a whole God damned rack of fucking guns in his study. You wanna know how I know this?” He held the gun under one arm, his whole body tense with a level of rage she’d never seen in him. “I know because that was where he brought me to tell me my services were no longer needed on his mother-fucking horse farm. Because I had violated his daughter’s reputation.”

She swallowed hard. Dom’s sobs had calmed to hiccups. He held onto her neck and turned his head to look at his father. “Mother fucking,” he said conversationally, as if testing the words and finding them fun to say. “Mother fu—”

“Stop it,” she hissed, staring at Anton. “Just stop feeling sorry for yourself right this minute, Anton Love. I am sick of it. I’m sorry there was a misunderstanding that night. I’m sorry you tried to help and got fired over it. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not. You’re not sorry, and you’re not gonna listen to me about that money, either. I know you, Lindsay. Better than you know your own self.”

She sensed a white space in her head, the angry area she’d inhabited for so many years, that had culminated in that hot summer when she made a crucial decision about her future.

She opened her mouth and said words she regretted for the rest of her life.

“I’m only sorry for one thing. I’m sorry I ever laid eyes on you. I’m sorry I ever thought that giving my parents the big ‘up yours’ and leaving behind my life for this one—when I get to worry every time I go to the grocery that the credit card will get declined, when I’m doing my family’s laundry alongside every piece of poor white trash in Lucasville, when I sometimes have to let the electric bill be fifteen days late in order to buy diapers and milk and gas for your brewery’s van. And for believing that letting you … take me … was a good plan. That, I am very sorry for.”

“Mama?” Antony’s voice made her flinch. She turned slowly, shaking all over, the evil words she’d spewed writhing in the air between them like poisonous smoke. “Are you all right?”

He stood, rubbing his eyes, black hair bed-tousled and the PJs she’d bought at the Salvation Army rumpled. “Mama is fine, honey. Please, take your brothers with you to your bedroom. Mama needs you to be a big boy and help right now.”

He nodded. She put Dominic down. He skirted Anton and took Antony’s hand. Kieran followed them. She bit her lip, watching her oldest lead his brothers into the room he shared with Kieran, knowing she’d find all three of them in one of the twin beds.

Anton still stood, loose-limbed, holding that dang gun, his face utterly blank. “Well, then, I’m glad we’ve cleared up that mystery.” He placed the gun on top of the shelf and walked to the front door. “I’ll be at the brewery. Don’t wait up.”

She followed him, apologies on her lips, but he slammed the door before she could speak.

Chapter Seventeen

Her first call was to Marianne. When she wasn’t available to come over, Lindsay tried one of the teenaged girls from church, hoping she could call this an unpaid trial run, since she didn’t have a thin dime to spare that month on a sitter. The girl said she’d be over in thirty minutes, and would happily go without pay this time, to see if Lindsay found her suitable.

“I won’t be but about an hour, two at the most.”

“That’s fine, Missus Love. I’ll see you soon.”

The girl arrived. When her eyes darted to the basketball-impaled television, Lindsay cursed under her breath for forgetting to cover it or do something to ensure it didn’t look as if a pack of wild animals lived here. Then she sighed and apologized for using such a bad word.

“That’s okay. My mama has a curse jar she uses for my daddy. It’s usually pretty full. They use it to go out to the movies.”

Lindsay laughed in spite of her anxiety. “That’s a right fine idea. Thanks again, hon. I won’t be long. The brewery number is by the phone if you need us … me.”

She drove the few miles into town, parked behind the brewery and sat, staring at the shed where she’d first had sex, and simultaneously conceived Antony. Gripping the steering wheel, she sucked in a deep breath and crafted her heartfelt, abject apology.

It took her nearly twenty minutes to decide she actually did mean it. She wasn’t sorry. But she also was at the same time. She loved her husband and her boys. But many days she did not love her life, and that was the God’s honest truth.

Finally, she climbed down and used her key to open the back door into the main brewery. It was dark and smelled delicious, meaning today had been a brew day. She ran her hands across the large, stainless steel fermentation vessels, listening for voices and only hearing the low buzz of conversations from the pub in front of the building.

The office where Anton kept a messy desk he rarely used anymore had a light shining under the door. She tiptoed toward it, figuring he must be in there, probably drinking and fuming, as was his right. She’d been so awful to say those things. The longer she thought about them, the worse she felt.

She took a long ragged breath, turned the doorknob and opened it. The room had four desks, a single old computer, a fax machine, stacks of labels, six-pack holders, and a chalk board showing the brew schedule. But it was devoid of people. She turned off the lights and shut the door, biting her lip and trying to figure out where she might find him.

Then she heard it.

“No, I mean it. No more.” Anton’s voice, low, and with a specific sort of tense tone she recognized immediately.

She froze, confused, and wondering why he’d be talking to himself that way. When she opened her mouth to call his name, another voice spoke. A female voice.

“Tony, honey, you need to leave her.”

Lindsay ducked between a pair of tall lagering tanks, hand over her mouth. The white noise she recognized now as onrushing, irrational temper was filling her head again.

“Stop it, ’Bella,” her husband said. There was a funny sound, like rustling papers, or fabric. “Isabella, please, don’t.” But his voice was lower now. He hissed, then groaned. Lindsay’s face flamed white hot.

Isabella was the name of the girl who’d hung out at the barns with Anton and Lorenzo. She’d had it bad for Tony, Lindsay knew. While he’d assured her she wasn’t a “bought and paid for whore,” Anton had admitted that Isabella Josefi had been his mother’s choice of spouse for him. A good Italian girl, from a family the Loves knew well in New York. Isabella had popped his cherry, Lindsay also knew, because she’d been unable to let go of the topic … years ago, before Antony was born.

“God damn it,” Anton growled. There was a ripping sound, then a feminine squeal of delight.

Lindsay sneaked out from between the tanks, trying to figure out where they were, but the sound was echoing, deceptive. Except, of course, in its intent. She knew sex when she heard it, especially the sort of sex her husband had. She marched out into the darkened brew area, fists clenched, ready to confront the cheating asshole and his whore.

“Come on baby, do it, harder, I know you wanna fuck me the way you wish you could fuck her … hey! What’s wrong?”

“Get out, ’Bella,” Anton said, his voice breaking. “Go. I don’t want you, and I won’t leave her. Get the fuck out, now.” This last was a hoarse yell.

“C’mon baby,” the slut said. “Let me just do this for you. I know I can make you happy.”

Lindsay sucked in a breath and saw the shadows thrown by her husband and the woman on her knees in front of him, with his penis in her mouth. Isabella’s shadow’s head bobbed up and down. There were wet, sloppy noises. Anton had his hand on her head, moving her faster. The shadows were almost as vivid as watching it live, and Lindsay could not tear her eyes away. Couldn’t square the horrible, ugly things her Anton was saying until finally he gave a loud grunt. Isabella’s shadow rose, sliding against Anton’s, and they kissed.

Lindsay made sure to slam the door extra hard on her way out.

She got home, poured herself a giant splash of cheap bourbon and drank it as she picked up the phone to call her brother. She stopped halfway through the number, realizing that to involve them would entail more explaining than she felt up to at the moment. Instead, she called Tanya Norris, her friend from church whose little boy Paul was Antony’s best friend and partner in crime.

“Tanya, I can’t explain why, but I need to know if I can bring the boys over for a night. Maybe two.” She winced, knowing that subjecting Dominic’s special brand of high-maintenance on anyone was asking for a lot.

“Sure thing, honey. Take as long as you need.” Tanya Norris only had one child and wanted a houseful, but would never get them. She was the sort of mother Lindsay only wished she could be.

“I owe you for this, hon. I can’t really say what it is, but I just need a weekend. I want to visit my friend in Louisville, and Anton keeps putting me off.”

“No need to explain. Just bring diapers for Dom. I’ve got the rest covered.”

She hung up, her mind only allowing herself to take baby steps, to plan a few hours ahead. Her next call was to Kathy.

“I would love to have you for the weekend, Linds! What fun!”

“Great,” Lindsay said, trying not to let on how numb she was at that moment. “I’ll be there tonight. If that’s all right.”

“Oh, well, of course. Is everything okay there? The boys all right?”

“Everything is great. I need a break and, um, my boys are telling me to take one. You know, as far as I can go, all the way to the big city!” She winced at her fake-sounding voice.

“Well, this will be fabulous! I’ll be up and waiting.”

Her next call was to the attorney. She got his answering service and wrangled his home phone out of the girl using a combination of guilt and tears. Once that was sorted, she told him she’d be at a branch of the Stockyards Bank in Louisville first thing in the morning to meet him. A girl couldn’t expect a decent weekend in town without funds, now could she?

Tears stung her eyes. She closed them, but that brought on the shadows she’d witnessed as her husband was being serviced by that Italian bitch. So she got up and went about the gargantuan task of convincing her boys that a weekend with Paul’s mama and daddy was a great plan, even if it meant getting up at ten p.m. on a Thursday night and packing a bag to go there.

On her last trip inside to grab a few books and toys to haul over, she stopped at the kitchen counter when the phone rang. She knew it had to be Anton. She picked it up, and pressed the hook, leaving the cracked receiver on the table. Deciding not to say anything about what she’d seen him doing, and what she now suspected he’d been doing for a while, she left a quick note.

Anton,

I need to get away for a few days. The boys are at the Norrises’. Tanya says they will be fine there all weekend. I’m sure you have plenty to keep you busy at the brewery. I am at Kathy’s. I will be home Monday morning.

Lindsay

Chapter Eighteen

Lindsay already knew damn well why she’d avoided visiting Kathy all these years. And it reared its ugly head right away, as soon as she entered her friend’s tidy little apartment on a top floor of a stately home in Old Louisville.

Jealousy made her face hot, stung her eyes, and prickled her skin, from the second she walked in the door. So she decided to get drunk and stay drunk, hoping nothing of her home truths would come pouring out and ruin everything.

Kathy worked at a law firm as a paralegal. “A glorified secretary,” she claimed. But she had a closet full of sweet little suits and adorable shoes. There were no piles of toys and secondhand books, dirty dishes, or filthy laundry, and her house did not smell of sweat, piss, and shit like the Love household did most days.

Together, they put away a bottle of cheap white wine the first night, which helped Lindsay pass out into a dreamless sleep for an astounding, uninterrupted seven hours.

She woke with a gasp, hearing her boys crying, until she realized it was birds chirping outside the window of Kathy’s living room, where she’d been sleeping on the couch. Acknowledging that she missed them, she tiptoed to the kitchen and dialed the Norrises’ number, twisting the phone cord around her fingers while she waited for someone to pick up.

“Oh honey, we are just great here. You go on and have a great time. You deserve it.” Tanya Norris’s words made her feel like the world’s most selfish human being, unfit to be a mother. But she hung up, found the percolator, and brewed a pot of strong coffee; nearly polishing off the entire thing by the time Kathy made her sleepy-faced appearance at nine a.m.

After Lindsay met the bank attorney and signed the papers giving her direct, unfettered access to more than two hundred thousand dollars, her share of her parents’ estate, she stared down at the crisp twenty dollar bills the friendly teller had counted out for her, two hundred dollars in all. She held them for a few seconds, acknowledging that she had never in her entire life handled that much cash. Kathy touched her shoulder, startling her. Anton’s face rose. She mentally shoved it away.

“Let’s go shopping,” she said through clenched teeth. “After Bloody Marys at the Seelbach.”

After buying outrageous and unnecessarily expensive gifts for Tanya and Marianne, plus a whole stack of new books for the boys to read, they stopped for lunch at The Brown Hotel, accompanied by a bottle of much less cheap white wine. Kathy chattered for hours about nothing, exactly the way she used to do. It soothed Lindsay’s frazzled nerves on one level, but made her wish she could tell the woman to hush up for a few seconds so she could catch a breath.

As the day waned, Lindsay found herself pining for the boys again, wondering if Dom had behaved, if Antony and Paul had managed to not get into too many wrestling matches, if Kieran was missing her. She stared out the window of the cab she sprang for so they would have time to get home and fixed up to go out, really out, to a nice bar and then to dinner. Lindsay had bought a new dress, shoes, a satin garter belt and two pairs of the sort of silk stockings she used to take for granted, all for the night out they had planned.

If Kathy noticed Lindsay did very little talking, she didn’t comment on it. By the time they were spruced up, Lindsay wished she’d made an appointment with a real hairdresser and nail technician. She hadn’t had a real haircut or manicure in … well, since she’d been married.

Which had been her choice, of course, her conscience yammered at her. Poor Anton had more or less been buffeted along by the force of her focused personality. She’d initiated the sex, the wedding, all of it.

She glared at her reflection in the mirror. She’d bought new makeup, too, and applied it carefully, covering the lines and wrinkles and whatnot she’d developed while serving as Love family baby factory for the past however many years. The phone rang, making her nearly leap out of her skin. Convinced one of her sons had been run over by a truck or drowned in the Norrises’ pond, she ran to the kitchen. But it was another of Kathy’s career girlfriends, saying they would meet up at the bar in thirty minutes.

Lindsay slumped in the doorway, relieved and yet dreading a night of explaining herself as wife and mother of three boys, at her age, living in an overgrown shack of a quad-level on a few acres in Lucasville. But she wanted to go out. So she figured she’d endure it.

The night proceeded about the way she thought it would. The career ladies were all serious and put together, talking about their “savings plans” and “advancement opportunities.” She’d only needed to explain herself once, thank the Lord. After discovering her story—married, pregnant, housewife to a former stable hand—the girls had more or less ignored her while they sipped their martinis.

That was fine and dandy with Lindsay. She sipped hers and perused the darkened bar. When they ordered a second round, she sipped a little slower, knowing her tolerance had to be nearly nil after years spent pregnant or nursing, only having beer when she did drink.

Her gaze rested on the line of taps at the long, fancy bar. She had to stifle a gasp. All the time she’d spent looking at Love Brewing handles, labels and six-packs in one context—at the brewery, at home or in the Love Pub—had not really prepared her to see them anywhere else.

She got up without saying anything—rude, she knew, but she no longer cared. Taking a seat to the left of the line of taps, she studied the distinctive, hand-carved wooden heart on top of a bottle. It mesmerized her. It was a real thing, this brewery. People outside of Lucasville drank the beer her husband made, packaged, and shipped out into the world.

“Hey, do I know you?” A voice broke into her slight trance. She blinked and looked to her right. “Well, I’ll be damned. Lindsay Love. What’re you doing here?”

She took a breath, sipped her martini, and shot Joe Patterson her biggest smile. He seemed to flinch, then he smiled in return, raising his glass of what she could only assume was the Love Brewing option currently available.

After another drink, she’d decided to have her little party with Joe and not that pack of twittering wannabe wives. “On the make,” she said, leaning into Joe’s dress-shirted arm. “Every last one of ‘em. Out for a rich office husband.”

He glanced over at the table. “Hmm … maybe.” When he draped an arm over her shoulders, she edged closer to him. “Let’s go have dinner. I’d love to hear your opinion of the investor I found for the brewery.”

She looked at him from her way-too-close vantage point. He smiled. She leaned away and narrowed her eyes. “Are you flirting with me, Joe Patterson?”

He put a hand over his heart. “I declare I am not, Missus Love. Can’t help wanting to take the best-looking woman in town out for a nice meal.” He glanced down into the cleavage she’d allowed show. Her years spent breastfeeding hadn’t caused too much sag there yet. If anything, her boobs were fuller than they’d ever been. Her skin prickled when he whispered, “Unless you want me to flirt, of course.”

She waggled her finger in his face, slid off her stool and tucked her hand into his elbow. The whole table looked up at her, hanging off the arm of a tall, very handsome man. “I’ll be along later, Kathy. I need to chat with Joe here about his investments. Toodles.”

She let him pull her away as she stifled her tipsy giggles. Joe got them a cab, and they ended up at a classy but forgettable restaurant on the Ohio River. A glass of rich red wine later, she was almost seeing double so she switched to water.

Joe was in full frontal flirt mode, and she ate it up. It had been so long since any man had paid attention to her, other than the man who knocked her up the second he looked at her. Every time Joe mentioned Anton’s name, she changed the subject. It was utterly harmless, this little date. And they did talk about the brewery a lot.

He explained the angel investor’s goals, and how much he was willing to give in exchange for only a small ownership percentage. Joe almost had her convinced by the time he pulled her chair out, helped her to her feet, and guided her out of the place, his large, warm hand steady and reassuring on the small of her back.

They were sitting in the cab in front of a tall building where she presumed he lived. She was shaky, still drunk, but at least not seeing double anymore, thanks to the food and about a gallon of water. Joe studied her for a quiet few seconds. His face was so angular, his eyes that odd shade between brown and green. She fixated on his Adam’s apple, which bobbed when he swallowed.

“I need to go on up,” he said, his hand on her knee. “I’ll pay the cabbie now to take you wherever you want to go.” But he didn’t get out. “Unless, of course, this might be my lucky night.”

She sucked in a breath. The memory of the shadows, of Isabella’s voice telling Anton he should leave, and, of course, the way she had put his cock in her mouth and sucked it danced across her vision.

She waved her hand in front of her face to dissipate the images. Joe caught it, put it to his lips. She shivered and felt her nipples harden, pressing against the pretty new bra she’d bought today. “Yes,” she whispered. “I think it might be.”

They stood apart in the elevator. Lindsay had already begun concocting ways to escape, to not do this terrible, adulterous thing she’d been prepared to do not three minutes ago. Joe held out a hand when the doors parted. She walked ahead of him, stopping when he touched her elbow. He unlocked and opened his door. She hesitated, knowing full well that to step across that threshold would send her spiraling away from the only world she knew—and ruin everything she had in the process.

Not that it had stopped her husband from getting a blowjob from some old girlfriend.

He turned, took her hand, and guided her into his space. “Let’s have a drink,” he said, smooth as silk, while he tugged off his tie and hung it across the arm of an expensive-looking chair. He probably had women up here all the time. A different one every single night. She stood, clutching her bag and gaping at his nice things like a hayseed.

Gathering her memories of herself, of that girl who’d defied her parents and married the wrong man on purpose, she dropped her purse on the table, took the three steps between them, lifted her arms to his shoulders, and went up on her tiptoes to kiss him. It was his turn to freeze, but only for a few seconds. He grabbed her, picked her up so she had to wrap her legs around his waist, and carried her into his bedroom.

He set her down and yanked her skirt up, reaching for her panties. But she didn’t care anymore. She wanted it as badly as he did. She felt the sort of yawning emptiness she’d experienced before she first had Anton. Their tongues tangled. Teeth clicked together as he yanked her panties down. She unzipped him and palmed his dick, marveling at the differences, yet knowing the goal was the same.

His fingers teased and tantalized her flesh. He slid the straps of her dress down with his other hand. With a sigh of pleasure he pressed her onto his bed, suckling her breasts, fingering her, giving her the exact amount of pressure and speed she needed until she cried out with pleasure.

“Now, that was very nice.” He put his fingers in his mouth, closing his eyes for a second. He loomed over her, parted her legs and slid between them, penetrating her so quickly she gasped. Before she could make him stop, reminding herself that this would be the most dangerous time of the month for her to have sex with her husband, much less this man who was not her husband, he reached up high, going slow and rocking against her in a way she’d never experienced.

She wrapped her legs around him, dying to feel every single inch. His chest was mostly hairless, and she found herself comparing him to Anton until she noticed he’d stopped moving. He was looking down at her. His arms on either side of her head shook.

“I … need to … oh, God.” He groaned and gave a huge thrust, banging her head into the headboard. “Oh God, oh God, oh God.” He kept banging into her as he shuddered all over, then stilled. The familiar warmth filled her, and she burst into embarrassed, horrified tears.