Page 8 of Claimed By the Don

“It was unexpected,” she says, slipping back into a neutral accent. It probably took her years to talk like she was doing a pronunciation video for people that don’t speak English, cause that’s what it sounds like to me.

“Tell your mom I hope she gets better,” I say.

“Thanks,” Daisy says, holding her grocery bag.

“I could walk you home.”

“Oh, please don’t,” she blurts out, maybe a little embarrassed and it makes me want to laugh.

“Maybe next time,” I say with a grin, using my best PR smile on her.

I step aside and she brushes past me. Forget my pride, I watch her walk away. Things have changed, she’s been away a long time. We’re older, maybe even wiser. But that girl has the same switch in her walk she always had. Watching her, the familiar set of her shoulders and droop of her head as she looks at her phone, I feel something click in place for me. Like the piece I’d been missing found her way home.

5

DAISY

Well, son of a bitch. If I was looking for Benny Falconari, I wouldn’t have scoured his old neighborhood, and I wouldn’t have had ‘getting a frozen Coke on the corner’ on my bingo card either. But there he was in all his goddamn glory. He had on a white t-shirt—a lot better fabric than the old three packs of Hanes he used to wear, and his jeans fit him like every broken-in crease was created just for that ass.

My cheeks go red as a slap because the hot skin of my palms remembers the bunch and flex of the muscles in his back when my knees bracketed his rib cage as he worked inside me, relentless and slow.

I roll my lips under and bite them. My libido dried up and left town ages ago because I had to survive, get a job and a place to live and health insurance and make sure my son hit his milestones and ate his vegetables. I didn’t have time to think about any of the foolishness that got me in trouble in the first place.

I get the bright idea to stop at the store for some good coffee and in swaggers all my worst impulses looking like sex on legs.Muscles I forgot about start to clench and I go hot and then chilled all over like I have a sudden and terrible sunburn with a fever and maybe smallpox or the plague.

He's a big shot now. I know by looking at him that the low-level enforcer I left is decidedly higher on the ladder. Everything about him is confident, powerful, settled like he let go of the cockiness of youth and is sure of himself right down to his bones.

He acts so normal, like this is nothing. Like I should call him up and say hi sometime. Like he didn’t ruin me for any other man. And I can’t even access the anger I used to feel.

Going home, I’m not sure which way is up. Everything feels like a dream or a nightmare, like I’m moving too slow in a world that’s brighter and louder than it should be, distorted like I followed a white rabbit down a hole. Only what I follow isn’t a cartoon bunny at all. It’s the pure need gripping me, the scalding realization that what I dismissed as a teenage summer fling, an ill-fated case of opposites attracting and the affair burned itself out—that’s a story I told myself for consolation.

Because this thing with Benny and me—it’s loud and sharp and intense and completely alive. Not in the past—right there in my face, filling my lungs, making blood rush to places I forgot I had. It’s got to be chemistry—or a curse. Neither of which gets to run my life.

I stop on the back porch before I go into my mom’s house because I need to take a deep breath.Calm down, dumbass, you’re an adult now and a mother. Don’t lose your damn mind.

I briefly consider turning the garden hose on myself. Once I head inside, my chest fills with joy as soon as I hear their voices. Liam is asking my mom questions, and she’s showing him verypatiently how to play gin rummy. I peek around the kitchen doorway to see my little boy, his brow furrowed as he studies the cards in his hand. He pulls out a card and frowns at it.

I slip my phone from my pocket and snap a photo of them together. This is one of the things I longed for while I was away—more time for my mom to get to know my son, more moments like this. Pictures of them together, the ability to freeze this one instant and look at it forever. I press my lips together and turn back to the counter.

Even though I want to slip in and out of this neighborhood, help my mom and keep my head down and avoid questions about Liam’s father, I can’t help feeling this was a gift. A warning shot to wake me up.Your mom isn’t going to live forever,Daisy, so quit being selfish and hiding.

I want a safe life for my son far from the danger of his father’s business. But I feel like part of me has been acting out of fear for so long that I wouldn’t know what was reasonable if it kicked me in the shins.

I call to them that I’m back and that I’m starting supper. In no time I’ve got the chicken nuggets in the oven for Liam alongside the marinated chicken breasts for my mom and me.

Liam wanders in, hugs my hips and then hunts for crackers in the pantry.

“Not now, baby. We’re going to have supper soon.”

“I need crackers!” he whines. Then he says it about five times in a row. I’ve got my hands on my hips ready to let him have it, when my mom hobbles in on her walker like she’s been summoned to an emergency and gets him a box of crackers.

“Mom!” I say, dismayed.

“What? My grandson wants a cracker. I’m gonna give the boy a cracker. You think you never ate between meals? You were the queen of snacking about half an hour before supper.”

I get a drink of water and decide to let this one go. She should get to enjoy having her grandson in the house and spoil him a little. I just bristle at it because I’m used to being independent and not having anyone question my parenting. I take a deep breath and go give her a hug. “Sit, please,” I say, “You’re not supposed to be walking around with that thing.”

“I’m not letting you starve my only grandchild,” she says mischievously.

---