Page 38 of Free to Breathe
Ali slams her fist down on my counter. “Damn, Phil. If you don’t do something about that waste on the floor, I swear to God I will. And that will mean calling Keene.”
“Oh, fine.” Phil looks at his now-swollen hand. “I could just hit him again, you know?”
“And Ali would have to defend you to get you out of jail,” Em retorts. “Just pick him up and put him out in his car.”
“Would one of you be kind enough to get his keys?” Phil’s face is still etched with fury. “If I touch him for longer than I have to, I’m afraid of what I’ll do.”
I back away. “Not a chance.”
“Cori has an excuse. Someone else find his keys and follow me out while I haul him out of the house,” Phil growls.
All of us point at Em. “What? Why do I always get stuck with the shitty jobs when it comes to cleaning up Phil’s messes?” she demands.
“Because, darling, normally it’s your mouth spitting them at me,” Holly sputters as Phil begins to haul Jack to his feet. “Get his keys now while you can.”
Em curses under her breath but manages to find Jack’s key fob quickly. Soon, Jack is hoisted over Phil’s shoulder. He has Jack’s key fob in his hand, and Em is scrubbing her hands in my sink to an inch of her life.
Seeing Em at the sink reminds me of how a doctor scrubs up. My chin begins to wobble. The wine bottle trembles violently in my hand. I sink to my knees in my kitchen. The false front I’ve held up for so long has left me.
There’s nothing I can hide from the people who truly love me. They won’t let me.
* * *
“And that’show I found out,” I conclude. I’m probably on my fourth glass of wine. I can’t tell for sure since I chugged a good part of the bottle earlier.
We’d tabled all talk until after Phil hefted Jack in a fireman’s hold and dumped him in the back of his car. “He can wake up and get the hell off our land. Otherwise, I’m calling in your men.” Phil glared at Cassidy and Ali. “Let them cart that piece of shit away.”
Em and Holly proceeded to shoo me out of my kitchen to heat up trays of stuffed mushrooms and baked ziti, after slapping down a platter of white bean dip with pita chips and bruschetta to munch on. I’d just finished telling the group at large about the night with Colby in detail. How Jack had taunted me on the way out the door. And how after I fell in front of the crowd, I found out about the tumor the next morning.
“How have you been able to be around Colby without braining him, Cori?” Ali demands. Then she winces. “Sorry. Bad choice of words.”
I snort into my glass. “Please. If you knew the number of times I thought about buying steel-toed boots and kicking him in the dick…”
Everyone laughs. Cassidy shifts next to me and takes my hand. “Honey, I hate this, but was Colby the catalyst for you telling us? Or is it something else?” Her perception is scarily accurate. Cassidy, for all intents and purposes, finished raising us. Now that she’s become an actual mother, her skills are so sharp her twins, Laura and Jonathan, had better watch out. They will never get anything past her.
I roll my glass around between my hands. I hear heels click on the floor. “Dinner in twenty,” Holly murmurs. She moves to sit next to me on the other side, while Em, who is right behind her, goes and sits next to Ali and Phil.
Here it is. The terrible moment of truth.
“Do you all remember me mentioning Bryan over the years?” I begin as I lean forward to put my wine on the coffee table.
Phil grins. “The guy I’ve been betting is your booty call in Baltimore? Hell, yes. Do we finally get to meet him?”
Everyone laughs except me. I bite my lip and look down.
“Shit. What did I say?” Phil panics.
“What is it, Cori?” Em asks softly.
I take a deep breath and go for broke. “Bryan exists, but not quite in the way you’ve been thinking.”
A mild rumble of disappointment goes through the room with Phil’s comment of “Damn. Who do I owe money to?”
Amidst the biggest confession I’m about to make to my family, I crack up. Of course they bet on my sex life, because that’s what we do. Ali won a ton off of us when she bet Cassidy and Caleb christened our office during the planning for our biggest wedding to date.
“Honestly, Phil, I have no idea. You can settle up later though.” I take a deep breath and let the words flow. “You’ll get to meet him, because he’s transferring from Johns Hopkins where he’s been monitoring my brain tumor to take over the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery at Greenwich Hospital.” Swallowing hard, I add, “Pretty much in time to perform an essential brain surgery on me.”
Silence, right before the tidal wave of pain washes over me.
