Page 53 of A Love So Hard

Both T-Bone and Deck tipped their chins at me before T spoke. “Trunk and me went by Permanent Marks the other day to see Ever and I learned some things I’m going to share with you all today. I need you to really hear what the fuck I’m saying though. This,” he pointed around the room, “is supposed to be family. We are supposed to be family. That means those people who walk by our sides without kuttes on too. That means the club kids, the women who care for them and for us. We are all supposed to look out for one another, and for the most part we do that. I’ve always been so fuckin’ proud to be a part of this club. I’ve always felt welcome, loved, cared for, and fuckin’ protected by these colors. For whatever fucked up reasons you all have, my sister has never felt that from this club.”

“She,” PeeWee started, but T-Bone slammed his fist down on the table in front of him then pointed a finger directly in his face.

“SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP. I will get to you in a minute.” I don’t know if it was the authority in my son’s tone, or the murderous look on his face, but PeeWee actually listened to him, taken aback by the fact that my son was not the type of man to get in someone’s face in that way. He was usually the one who joked around. Sure, he’d throw a punch if needed, but he never spoke disrespectful to his brothers. Not once before.

Deck placed a hand on T-Bone’s shoulder. “Maybe I should start this out?” T nodded his head and then took the seat next to where Deck still stood. “T-Bone and Trunk came by to see Ever. I was there for that, and the things we learned that day will stick with me forever, and I mean its something that will haunt me.” He made eye contact with each of the men sitting around the table. The thing is, when it was all said and done and the dust settled I thought of a way to fix,” he stopped there. “No, that’s not right. There’s no fixing what has been done.” His eyes moved back to me then. “I know you think you’ve been looking for a way to fix things, but I think that’s part of the problem. You can’t fix it. There’s no way to do that. You can’t undo the past. Wish that you could,” he added.

“You can heal it though, and I have an idea for doing just that.” He pushed his sleeve up and held out his forearm showing the tattoo that he told us Ever had drawn for him. Once again, especially since I was getting a closer look, I marveled at my girl’s talent. A small smile lit my face then and when I looked up at Deck he returned it. “That,” he pointed to my face, “is how I know this will work.”

I nearly lost my shit, because it was the first time I’d heard someone give me hope about the situation I’d created for myself and my daughter.

“I don’t get it,” Crow dared to interrupt. “What does your tattoo have to do with us?”

“Well, it was drawn by Ever, and you’re all going to get one drawn by her too.”

“The fuck?” Crow asked as I just sat there and smiled. Yeah, I wished I had thought of that myself, but Deck just earned a special place in my heart that he did.

“Ever is nineteen years old. She’s been with this family for 11 years. For those 11 years you all have played a part in making her feel unwelcome, unloved, or just plain hurt. She’s bleeding out those feelings and emotions with every breath she takes, because the wounds never got plugged. They still fester, because the only way for her to get a clean start is to peel herself away from everyone – including her mom and her sister. She doesn’t want to do that. She can’t let you guys take that from her too.” He turned to his brother then. “You stripped out mom from her life with the shit you pulled. That didn’t just hurt Ever, it devastated our mother.” He turned to his dad, “you allowed that shit to happen. You’re the president of this club. It might have been his responsibility to nip all this in the bud a long time ago, but when you didn’t see that happen you could have stepped in. You never did. I’m so fuckin’ disappointed in that.”

Merc looked like he wanted to say something; instead he bit his tongue and nodded to his son. “Go on,” was all he managed to get out.

“So, what’s going to happen is this,” Deck spent the next few minutes detailing how we were going to allow Ever to bleed out the pain each man in the room had caused her into an inked design, and then as part of our penance we would wear that pain on our skin for the rest of our lives.

“Why the fuck would I do that?” Pee Wee asked. No telling what that little bitch would put on me.

“Call my daughter another fuckin’ name in my presence, or where I can hear about it later, and I promise you I will lay you the fuck out,” I told the man in an eerily calm tone. PeeWee seemed startled for just a moment, but he still wasn’t having any part of this tattoo business.

“I’m with him. I’m not getting ink on me that I don’t fucking get to approve ahead of time. I’m also not down for this at all anyway. I feel the way I feel about that girl. Fuck all if I’m gonna change that because she’s butt hurt that not everyone in life likes her.”

The most animalistic sound I’d ever heard uttered by a human being growled out from across the table. It came from my son, and his next words made me feel every ounce of that growl. “She tried to kill herself! She wasn’t fuckin’ butt hurt, she was so broken that she didn’t want to live anymore! You, all of you, we nearly killed my sister. It may have been her who tried it, but it was us who put those pills in her hands. It was us who filled that tub. It was each and every one of us who had a hand in putting her in that place.” It took a minute for those words to sink in all the way and make sense in my head.

“What?” I asked as I sat there stunned by the things my son just spouted out. “What are you talking about?”

“A couple weeks before our graduation,” Toby started, pointing between himself and J-Bird. “It was Ever’s birthday. Her sixteenth.” I remember Lucy begging me to help get Ever a car for her birthday, and I told her to put a fuckin’ bow on her old car and I’d get Lucy something new. I remember seeing tears in her eyes that day, and at the time I’d thought they’d been happy tears, because she’d been on me for a while to replace her car with an SUV that could fit teenagers and all their shit. Listening to how Toby’s story was starting out, and thinking back, there wasn’t a happy face with those tears. I hung my head as I continued to listen to my son.

“She was supposed to have this big party, and she had the friends for it too,” he swallowed hard. “At least, she did before J-Bird said that shit in front of the whole school. After that, she had one friend. She didn’t even have Jay or me anymore.” I looked up to see my son hanging his head in shame now too. He took a minute. “The party had to be canceled. Lucy tried inviting the club family, but everyone had excuses for why they couldn’t come or why their kids couldn’t be there.”

“Fuck,” I heard Merc hiss out.

“She didn’t have a party. I don’t know if anyone but Lucy and Anna even remembered her birthday. I didn’t. That year, I was too busy listening to everyone shitting on my sister to be there for her. So, for her birthday, she drew herself a bath.” He had to stop and take a breath, and I didn’t miss the tears that had set themselves free on my son’s face either. “She drew herself a bath,” he repeated. “And she had a bottle of pills there to take. I don’t know what stopped her. I thank God for whatever the fuck kept her from following through. Instead, she got so pissed she threw that bottle across the room and screamed until her voice was raw. Mom said Ever didn’t even realize she’d come rushing into the room when the screaming started. She just kept going until she’d rung herself dry, and then she broke down on Mom.”

“Lucy,” I whispered. “She walked in on that?” Toby nodded his head. How had my woman walked in on something like that and never told me?

“She got her out of that tub, and held her that night. She didn’t leave her alone, until she could get her in to see some woman who has been her therapist on and off ever since. Mom promised her she’d never tell anyone. Ever made her promise, she said Ever kept telling her that it would just be one more reason for everyone to hate her. Momma tore through the house after that in order to throw out the liquor and any pills that weren’t necessary. She locked shit up like we had a baby in the house again.”

“That,” I said remembering asking Lucy why she’d gone nuts about shit. “I remember when she did that,” the words came out without my permission. “We got in a fight because she’d emptied my liquor cabinet. It was the one and only time she has ever talked down about the club to me. She told me I could go drink my life away with my shitty-ass brothers in my fucked up gang if I didn’t like the fact that there wasn’t any alcohol in her house.” I glanced over to Merc then because I’d actually gone to his house to see him that night to bitch about it. I didn’t know what was going on, but I honestly thought I might have been looking at the end of my marriage for a while there. Lucy wouldn’t touch me. She barely spoke to me for weeks. I blew it all off as her being hormonal or whatever. I thought she was just having a hard time because of Toby getting ready to move out of the house and into the clubhouse.

“Mom told me that Ever had no one, and if all she could offer that girl was her love and loyalty she would offer up every piece of it she had to give.”

“Why did she tell you all of this now?”

“Because Ever slipped up and told me about it herself the other day when Trunk and me stopped by her shop. All mom did was fill in the details, and she even called Ever first to make sure that was okay to do.”

That was all I could take. Every fucking emotion running through me crashed together all at once and I was out of my seat throwing a chair through the fucking wall behind me before I even realized what I was doing. I tore through our meeting room where we held church, wrecking the place with anything I could get my hands on and then with just my hands when I ran out of shit to throw and break. I wasn’t quiet as I did it, but I can’t tell you if any words came out of my mouth. I don’t know how long it took to come back to myself, I just know that when I did I was sitting and Merc’s hand was clamped firmly to my shoulder.

“Jesus, what the hell kind of a father have I been all this time to not see how much she was hurting, or that we were the ones doing it? Fucking Lucy tried to tell me, and I didn’t want to…”

“We’ll make it right, brother.” Merc promised me.

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