Page 66 of A Love So Hard

“Stop. Don’t let what mom had to say at the cemetery weigh you down like that. She was bleeding out her pain. She couldn’t take her anger out on the person truly responsible she went for everyone else. You have to know that.”

“It doesn’t matter if what she said was actually true, Ever. It was true. First, I failed her, then you, and now my son and grandchild. I can’t take any of it back. She’s right though. I should have put my foot down solidly a long time ago. It never sat right that the whores were running around the clubhouse, most of the time unchecked, after what happened to me all those years ago. I couldn’t stand it. For the longest time just having one of them brush up against me in passing sent me straight to the nearest trash bin or bathroom to be sick.” I couldn’t believe I was telling them this.

“Your club should have done something about that back then, for their brother. They didn’t. That is on them. You’re right, but it isn’t on you. You are one person. Please, don’t take this on yourself. Toby wouldn’t have wanted that. He called me the day you had him tell Merc and Sandman, you know?”

“He did?”

“Yeah,” my daughter smiled down at me then kissed my head and moved to take a seat in front of me. “He called me and told me how sweet is was to be at home and see how you and Momma-Luce were being all playful and teasing one another. He also told me how he wouldn’t be able to look her in the eye anytime soon because she was half naked, not realizing he was there.”

I chuckled at that. “He’s lucky I hadn’t snatched her shirt off before she ran downstairs.”

“Ew,” Ever agreed with a shiver. “Yeah, probably. The thing was, he also told me about you guys being able to sit down and have a talk. Dad, he was so happy about that day. It didn’t matter that you were talking about some crazy stalker he had. It was the first time he felt you guys had a man-to-man real conversation and it was the best feeling in the world for him. That you guys had that, and…”

“And?”

“And that it was where your relationship would be going in the future,” she admitted with tears in her eyes. I dropped my head to my arms as they rested across the table. My hands were swept up into Ever’s and she held on while I cried out my grief. I wouldn’t get that relationship that my son had hoped for. It was a point, I realized, that every man had with his dad eventually. It was that moment where his father no longer saw him as his boy, but as his own man. He was right too. It had been a turning point that I was looking forward to as well. You would think it would have happened when he patched into the club, but I still hadn’t seen him as a man then. The way he stepped up and went to bat for Ever with the tattoos had been the moment where things started to change and I began to see him differently. We just hadn’t had the chance to have that talk alone since because he was busy with his new girl, a stalker, and I was busy getting to know Ever, taking care of Anna, and relearning my Lucy now that we were in a new place in our lives.

My head snapped up when I heard something crash upstairs. I was on my feet and moving before Deck or Ever even reacted. When I got upstairs Lucy was standing there in our bedroom and she had another framed photo in her hand. From the looks of it, the last she had picked up – our wedding picture – had been hurled across the room. She turned her head and the look on her face sunk me. It was just empty. My Lucy wasn’t in there right now.

“Get out,” she hissed quietly.

“Luce,” I called out with my hands in the air, as if in surrender.

“Get out! Get your shit, and get the hell out of this house. You don’t belong here. You’re not welcome here!”

“Momma!” Ever called from the door to our bedroom.

“He has to go. I can’t look at him right now.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Momma-Luce. Let’s sit down and have a talk, then when you’re feeling…”

“When I’m feeling what? Better? Worse? Like I died in that hospital right beside my son and grandbaby?” Her voice cracked on the last. “I can’t do this.”

“I’ll give you some space, Luce,” I told her. Just a bit though. You get today, and then we’re going to talk because we can’t get through this alone. Neither of us can.”

She looked like she was going to say something, but then she clamped her mouth shut and turned her back to me. She refused to turn back around even after I was finished going through the room to grab some things to take to the clubhouse with me. Even after I cleaned up the mess she’d made from our wedding photo launching into a wall. She still didn’t acknowledge me.

I moved behind her, ignoring Ever’s protest as I did so. I didn’t touch her, but I leaned to Lucy and whispered in her ear, “I can’t fix what’s happened, but I will see to it that things change or I won’t be a part of it anymore. I promise you this, Luce. I know it seems too late, but we were trying. Toby and I, we spent our last day together setting those wheels in motion in a way they couldn’t ignore it this time. I know you don’t believe that now, but you’ll see.”

She turned, tears flowing down her beautiful cheeks that had taken on a sunken look from her lack of sleep, constant crying, and just being brought low by grief. I moved to swipe the tears away, but she flinched back and I dropped my hand to my side again. She took me in a moment more, and then just spun around and gave me her back again. I took a step back away from her, then another. And with each step back I watched her shoulders sag in relief that I was getting further away from her. There is a point in your life, a point in the middle of the worst of it, where you wonder if this is the thing that will finally break you. I didn’t have to ask that question though because I already knew the answer. If I lost Lucy, I would never find myself again either.

I turned and was immediately faced with Ever’s sympathetic look and Deck’s watchful eyes as he held onto my daughter the way I wished I could be comforting Lucy right now. “Stay with her,” I whispered. Ever nodded her head.

“We have her,” Deck let me know and then I left my house with a packed bag not knowing what my future held for the first time in almost 18 years.

I had not kept a room at the clubhouse all these years. The fact was that I hadn’t needed one so I’d left it open to whoever had needed it instead. When I got there I let Merc know that I would be taking the room behind the kitchen again since it was open. It was the only one open since we had so many visiting members from other clubs. The families with room in their homes were putting quite a few of the brothers up since there wasn’t room for everyone at the clubhouse. Still, I guess even the guests didn’t want to be in this room. Couldn’t blame them. I knew what they called when they didn’t think I could here. It was the “rape room” and I hadn’t been back to the scene of the crime in all these years. Twenty-two fucking years and this section of the clubhouse had remained off limits to me.

I wasn’t stupid. I knew why I chose to hunker down here instead of going to get a hotel room. I wanted to punish myself just as much as Lucy wanted to punish me. If I had pushed harder when that shit happened to me, maybe my son wouldn’t have… I crashed down on the bed and dropped my bag on the floor next to my feet. It didn’t take Merc long to follow me in here.

“What the hell? Why aren’t you with Lucy right now?” He was angry.

“She woke up,” I told him as if that explained everything.

“So?”

“She didn’t feel any differently than she had at the cemetery. She told me to get out.”

“Shit!” Merc came and sat down beside me. “You know she doesn’t mean that shit,” he told me.

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