“Prospect.” While I don’t doubt my son, I’d still rather hedge my bets. He all but snaps to attention. “Get her some food, and ask Bronwyn to look at her arm, yeah?” I jerk my head toward the door he’s guarding.
After he nods, I follow in the direction Ace has gone, but hastening my steps, I reach the clubroom at the same time as him.
“There he is!” Rattler bounces over to us. “Where the fuck have you been? Bullseye had us searching far and wide.”
Ace answers, “We stayed the night with Trixie.” I sigh, wishing he’d kept that quiet.
Rattler whistles and cocks his head to one side. “Suppose there’s nothing like keeping it in the family. A threesome? Put it there, Ace.” He holds out his hand to be slapped.
I knock it away, and none-too-gently, say, “Shut your fuckin’ mouth, Rat, or I’ll do it for you.”
“Get out of here,” Bullseye, coming toward us, tells him.
“What have I done?” Rat holds out his hands in a gesture of innocence. But receiving a piercing glare from the prez, turns on his heels as if suddenly realising he’s got things that need doing somewhere else.
“Ace, it’s fuckin’ good to see you. You alright?”
As my son nods, I address Bullseye. “We’ve just woken up. It’s been a long fuckin’ night. Let me go clean up, then I’ll be back down.”
“You better. You’ve given us a problem to deal with,” Prez states, then waves us away.
Ace showers first, and I take mine after. Once we’re both dressed, he moves toward the door.
“Hang on, kid.” I indicate my bed and pat the mattress. “Want a word.” He raises his brow, looking so much like me atthat moment, it’s like looking in a mirror.How have I never really noticed that before?It’s hard to see anything of Josie in him. The only thing she left him with is his autism, which is more of a blessing than a disadvantage. When he sits beside me, I continue to stare at him until he shifts uncomfortably. “Pretty fucked-up twenty-four hours it’s been.” Then I realise it’s been twice as long for him. “Fuck, Ace, I didn’t even know you were missing until a day had passed. I’m so fuckin’ sorry I didn’t come up looking for you earlier.” My gut wrenches as I realise just how terrifying the whole situation had been for my son. A lump forms in my throat. “I’m so fuckin’ proud of you.”
“Proud?” He shakes his head. “I didn’t mistrust Toni for a moment. Or not until it was too late. Then, I couldn’t get away.”
“Can’t blame you for that. I gave her my fuckin’ trust as well. I fuckin’ thought you were safe with her,” I growl. “I should have said fuck the club and come looking Saturday when neither of you answered your phone.” Thumping my fist into my palm, I snarl. “I thought up every excuse to tell myself I had no need to worry, but I was so damn wrong.” How could I ever make it up to him?
It’s now the child comforting the father. “I knew you would come, Dad.” As if he finds my distress awkward, he moves along.
“Was… was Toni anything like my mother? Was that why you liked her?”
I roll back my head, twisting it to get out the kinks I’d gotten courtesy of three people spending the night on a cramped queen-size bed. Not that I’m complaining. At that moment, it had felt absolutely right. But now Ace has asked me a direct question, and I have to think about how to answer. I could delay it, just say his mom was totally different, or I could give him the truth. If he’s old enough to get kidnapped and come out the other side relatively unscathed – oh, I’m sure he’ll have his moments and flashbacks that he’ll have to learn to deal with –it’s time he knew the truth. Look where keeping that shit locked away had gotten me.
I shift back on the bed, lean against the headboard, and link my hands in my lap. Fuck Bullseye, he’s just going to have to wait.
“Josie wasn’t the love of my life,” I admit. “I wasn’t really there for much of the relationship. I wasn’t just an Army grunt on normal tours. Remember, I was a Delta operator.”
Though he knows that already, Ace’s eyes widen. “Cool.”
“Yes, it was cool.”And hot, uncomfortable, bloody. It really wasn’t very glorious at all. It was challenging, and the reward came with getting the job done.But I keep that part quiet and focus on how to broach my relationship with his mom. “I was absent more times than I was with her…”
I continue the story, telling him everything he deserves to know about how he was brought into the world, and how, with no fault of my own – except as far as I’d previously committed to serve as an operative for the requisite three years, with the expectation I’d be in uniform until retirement – I wasn’t able to be there for her late pregnancy, or his birth. When it comes to explaining that, unbeknownst to me, she was bipolar, he startles. And then I complete the sorry tale, just changing it slightly, presenting her death as an accident in the midst of the confusion that ensued that night. He really doesn’t need to know his dad was responsible for killing his mom, however unintentional.
He’s quiet when I finish, and I allow him the space to process my words.
“Did you even like her?”
“Son, I moved her into my apartment. First time I ever let a woman get close. Would we have stayed together? Well, I admit I already had my doubts. But thinking back, it might have been due to her personality change when she was messing around with her medication.” I brush my hands down my face. “Shewas lively, vivacious. She had this joy of life. Until she didn’t.” I shrug. “I thought it was something I’d done, or that she was pulling back from our relationship. Maybe I never really had a chance to know the real her. One thing I do know is that she wanted you, Ace. She loved you. It was only her lack of management of her condition that sent her off the deep end. If she’d been in her right mind, she’d never have harmed you.”
“Is Toni bipolar?”
“Not that she’s ever been diagnosed,” I respond truthfully. “I was worried about that, which was why I was reluctant, in the beginning, for you to get to know her. I had Pippa look into her medical records. There was nothing there.”
“My autism comes from Mom, doesn’t it?”
I can’t lie. “The chances are that it does. But that doesn’t make you less of anything, Ace. It makes you more.”
