“Nick!” Someone slaps at my face. “Open your eyes.”
“C’mon, man, stay with me.” A rough hand shakes my shoulder hard, and I wanna tell him to fuck off, but I don’t have the strength.
“Don’t be a pussy.” Python’s unmistakable growl. “Open your eyes.”
The SUV rumbles to life, and my fucked-up body jostles against the hard floor of the cargo space. They keep yelling at me to stay awake, but all I want to do is sleep. Anything to make the pain stop.
Cheryl’s and Portia’s faces float above me again. I try to reach out to them, but just like in my dream, they disappear. I struggle to call out to them, but a powerful quicksand drags me under.
CHERYL
By the timeA Charlie Brown’s Christmasis over, I can’t stall any longer or make believe it’s not seven o’clock. An hour after Nick said he’d be home.
Izzy got here around five-thirty, and now she’s trying desperately to distract Portia and not ask me too many questions.
“Mom, where’s Dad?”
It feels like the one hundredth time Portia’s asked aboutNick, and me saying “He’ll be here soon,” isn’t cutting it anymore.
“I don’t know.” Might as well be honest because I had a feeling we’d all have to accept the fact he wasn’t going to be home for dinner. I’m disappointed, but not surprised. Portia is another story. The look in her eyes is heartbreaking, and I vow to never let it happen again.
When Nick woke up this morning, he seemed like a different person. Full of joy and promises, but, logically thinking, how could that be even possible? People don’t change overnight. What people do is tell you they are going to change, and then, when you believed, them they go back to their old ways. As in, Samson calling earlier and Nick leaving to take care of some crisis at Wicked.
My head wanted to believe him so hard, and now my own emotions are all over the place. He was so convincing, but I’d put too much hope in Nick’s words. Wished so hard he could or even would make a change. That he would be a willing and active part of our little family. I lost sight of reality, forgetting that wishing doesn’t make things come true.
Wherever he went definitely had to do with business, and, as usual, he got tied up with some problem more important than us. If it had been the old days back in New York, I’d actually be afraid for his safety, but he’d sworn off that part of his life. This was just a matter of not being able to hold up his side of the bargain. Same old story, just another day, but this time it really hurt because I’d hoped so hard just to be let down again.
I could handle it all if it wasn’t for the disappointed look on Portia’s face as every minute crept by. I wish my daughter would rant and scream, maybe even have a tantrum, but that isn’t Portia’s way. She’ll internalize it, then act like it doesn’t bother her. A coping mechanism she’s acquired along theway. A way to deal with disappointment in the early days when our life hung by a very frazzled thread. I’d worked hard and long to make our life more stable, and I would not allow anyone, including Nick, to upend it.
Although Portia was the image of Nick in appearance, she was inwardly like me in so many ways. Keeping her hurt inside, making the best of things, hiding her true feelings, because I also learned at an early age that crying was a wasted emotion.
Whenever Nick finally came home, I would put on a good face for our daughter, and do exactly what I accused her of doing—being positive while inside my heart breaks into a million pieces.
Then, when Nick and I were alone, I’d confront him. I don’t care what excuse he comes home with—nothing could make me forget the disappointment on Portia’s face yet again, and nothing on earth would make me let this happen again. I’d rather go through the rest of my life alone than see my sweet girl disillusioned for no reason.
The doorbell interrupts my thoughts, and Izzy and I share a look. Nick wouldn’t ring the bell, and who would be visiting at this time of night?
Of all the people I expect to see on the other side of the door, my father covered in what looks like . . . blood isn’t one of them.
“Oh my God, what happened?” I open the door wider and grab on to his arm. Surprisingly, he walks into the foyer quicker than I would’ve thought possible with all this blood.
“Where were you?” I fire the question at him. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
“Then whose blood is that?”
“It’s Nick’s.”
19
NICK
A flash of light startles me awake, then I squint against the brightness. I turn my head from side to side, confused and so fuckin’ thirsty. There’s a constant ticking behind my head and a curtain drawn around the cubicle where I’m lying in a bed. Not my bed. A flurry of people are moving quickly around me. I try to focus on their words, but it all meshes together.
Then the sound of material ripping as a nurse slices through the fabric of my shirt. Fuck, that’s a five-hundred-dollar shirt. A quick memory of buying it with Cheryl at one of the shops at Aria flashes through my muddled brain.
A guy in a mask leans over me. “Can you tell me your name?”
