“He’s going to another facility, right? You won’t put him out on the street.” Meredith was jumping to conclusions, but they ignored her. I placed my hand on her arm, trying to provide comfort.
“Well, they called me when they couldn’t get a hold of you again, asking if you had made plans. You should have texted a heads-up.” Grace lifted her head, trading a look with him before something clicked. She shifted in her chair, putting me in the hot seat. “Why didn’t you tell me Dad picked a fight with you?”
“Why is Dad picking fights with Aunt E?” Meredith’s eyes were getting wider, and if I didn’t defuse this situation, it wouldn’t be long before she exploded.
“Not…like this.” I had told Grace we would talk about this later, but she hadn’t listened to me.
“Why am I always the last person to know?” Meredith screeched, waving her hands around. “What else are you withholding from me?” She directed that at Grace.
Grizz flipped Pumpkin to his other shoulder before wrapping an arm around Meredith. “Hey, this all just went down this morning. No one’s hiding anything from you.” He tried to smooth it over, but she jerked her head in his direction.
“You knew, and didn’t tell me, Jonathan?”
“Told you. My money’s always on Buster.”
I needed to step in before something was said that none of us could come back from. “Your father…not healing.” I coughed, taking a sip of my orange juice. “Mean.”
“Dad’s not bothering to listen to the physical therapists,” Grace filled Meredith in. “They said he sits in a chair and snaps at them…” She shifted her gaze towards me. “…and at you.”
“Why the fuck is he yelling at you?” Meredith forgot Grizz for a minute, turning to face me again. “I’m going this week. You can’t stop me.”
Grizz’s mouth dropped open as if he was going to say something, but I held up my hand. “No. He’s mad...at the world.” I waited a minute. “We heal…” I waved my hand between us.
I tried to keep talking, but my mind wouldn’t process. My lips moved, forming incoherent words, but no sound escaped. Gerry’s behavior had already crossed into dangerous territory, and there was nothing I could say to smooth it out, but as I stared at my niece, it was my sister’s sorrow staring back at me.
The room curled in on itself, leaving a black cloud in its wake.
“No,” I whispered, gripping the edge of the table to ground me. It didn’t last long. My fingers went numb, and I was no longer aware of my surroundings.
My sister’s voice floated through the darkness. “I wanted to be the first to tell you, Lizzie.”
Madalyn had called on a Monday morning, asking if she could stop by, and I had thought nothing of it. It wasn’t until she walked in the door by herself that my stomach knotted.
“I’m pregnant, and I didn’t want you to hear it from anyone else but me.”
This was the moment my heart sank. My knees buckled as my stomach rumbled. I wasn’t sure I could make it to the restroom in time before I lost my breakfast.
“I thought you didn’t want more.” The words sounded more like an accusation. “After what happened with Peter.”
“I don’t know how you do it. If something happened to Grace, my heart wouldn’t be able to beat. It’s bad enough that sometimes I sleep in her room, making sure she’s still there.” Madalyn slid to the floor in front of my refrigerator. She tilted her head back against the cold stainless steel, closing her eyes. “I tried to explain all of this to Gerry, but he said I was being unfair. I stopped sleeping with him, and he became unbearable, so I gave in.”
I braced for the next part of the conversation that would break me all over, but the dark quickly faded, and I was staring into a pair of concerned brown eyes—Madalyn’s baby.
“Hey, give her some room to breathe.”Thunder.
“Where did you go?” Meredith whispered, holding my hand in hers.
“Your mot…th…ther…” My hand reached up to touch her cheek.
“Why does he keep doing this? Doesn’t he love us?” Tears welled at the corner of her eyes, and all I could see was the little girl she’d been when Madalyn had left this world—lost.
I was angry at Gerry all over again. “This has nothing….to do…with…y…y…you,” I told her, knowing it wouldn’t matter. She’d still question his behavior, trying to find where she could have done something better.
I would take a bullet for them and not ask who had pulled the trigger.
Chapter 5
Some Thing's Never Change