Family Love

Dom let out a wail of dismay so loud, Anton let go of his arm and just stood there, his eyes wild. He dropped into his recliner and put his head in his hands. Kieran wiggled until she put him down so he could run to his brother.

Dom shoved him away and headed straight for her, climbing up her legs and into her arms, pressing his face into her neck. He’d shed his PJs at some point, which he did almost every night. His body temperature had always been such that he could go without a coat in the cold and wanted as little as possible on him when it was hot. He was burning up now, shaking and sobbing.

She glared at her husband. “He’s still just a baby, Anton. That was a mite excessive.”

He raised his face from his hands. “Well, I’ll tell ya what, Linds.” He got up, stepped on the second shelf again and fished around until he found something and pulled it down so she could see it. “Next time I’ll let him grab this and see what he might get up to with it, okay?”

She stared at the shotgun, her pulse racing, while she held Dom, Kieran clutching her legs. “You have a loaded gun in my house. Where our sons are fully capable of getting their hands on it.” She framed them as statements, not questions. “Were you going to let me in on this?”

“Your beloved father kept a whole God damned rack of fucking guns in his study. You wa

She swallowed hard. Dom’s sobs had calmed to hiccups. He held onto her neck and turned his head to look at his father. “Mother fucking,” he said conversationally, as if testing the words and finding them fun to say. “Mother fu—”

“Stop it,” she hissed, staring at Anton. “Just stop feeling sorry for yourself right this minute, Anton Love. I am sick of it. I’m sorry there was a misunderstanding that night. I’m sorry you tried to help and got fired over it. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not. You’re not sorry, and you’re not go

She sensed a white space in her head, the angry area she’d inhabited for so many years, that had culminated in that hot summer when she made a crucial decision about her future.

She opened her mouth and said words she regretted for the rest of her life.

“I’m only sorry for one thing. I’m sorry I ever laid eyes on you. I’m sorry I ever thought that giving my parents the big ‘up yours’ and leaving behind my life for this one—when I get to worry every time I go to the grocery that the credit card will get declined, when I’m doing my family’s laundry alongside every piece of poor white trash in Lucasville, when I sometimes have to let the electric bill be fifteen days late in order to buy diapers and milk and gas for your brewery’s van. And for believing that letting you … take me … was a good plan. That, I am very sorry for.”

“Mama?” Antony’s voice made her flinch. She turned slowly, shaking all over, the evil words she’d spewed writhing in the air between them like poisonous smoke. “Are you all right?”

He stood, rubbing his eyes, black hair bed-tousled and the PJs she’d bought at the Salvation Army rumpled. “Mama is fine, honey. Please, take your brothers with you to your bedroom. Mama needs you to be a big boy and help right now.”

He nodded. She put Dominic down. He skirted Anton and took Antony’s hand. Kieran followed them. She bit her lip, watching her oldest lead his brothers into the room he shared with Kieran, knowing she’d find all three of them in one of the twin beds.

Anton still stood, loose-limbed, holding that dang gun, his face utterly blank. “Well, then, I’m glad we’ve cleared up that mystery.” He placed the gun on top of the shelf and walked to the front door. “I’ll be at the brewery. Don’t wait up.”

She followed him, apologies on her lips, but he slammed the door before she could speak.

Chapter Seventeen

Her first call was to Maria

“I won’t be but about an hour, two at the most.”

“That’s fine, Missus Love. I’ll see you soon.”

The girl arrived. When her eyes darted to the basketball-impaled television, Lindsay cursed under her breath for forgetting to cover it or do something to ensure it didn’t look as if a pack of wild animals lived here. Then she sighed and apologized for using such a bad word.

“That’s okay. My mama has a curse jar she uses for my daddy. It’s usually pretty full. They use it to go out to the movies.”

Lindsay laughed in spite of her anxiety. “That’s a right fine idea. Thanks again, hon. I won’t be long. The brewery number is by the phone if you need us … me.”

She drove the few miles into town, parked behind the brewery and sat, staring at the shed where she’d first had sex, and simultaneously conceived Antony. Gripping the steering wheel, she sucked in a deep breath and crafted her heartfelt, abject apology.

It took her nearly twenty minutes to decide she actually did mean it. She wasn’t sorry. But she also was at the same time. She loved her husband and her boys. But many days she did not love her life, and that was the God’s honest truth.

Finally, she climbed down and used her key to open the back door into the main brewery. It was dark and smelled delicious, meaning today had been a brew day. She ran her hands across the large, stainless steel fermentation vessels, listening for voices and only hearing the low buzz of conversations from the pub in front of the building.

The office where Anton kept a messy desk he rarely used anymore had a light shining under the door. She tiptoed toward it, figuring he must be in there, probably drinking and fuming, as was his right. She’d been so awful to say those things. The longer she thought about them, the worse she felt.

She took a long ragged breath, turned the doorknob and opened it. The room had four desks, a single old computer, a fax machine, stacks of labels, six-pack holders, and a chalk board showing the brew schedule. But it was devoid of people. She turned off the lights and shut the door, biting her lip and trying to figure out where she might find him.

Then she heard it.

“No, I mean it. No more.” Anton’s voice, low, and with a specific sort of tense tone she recognized immediately.

She froze, confused, and wondering why he’d be talking to himself that way. When she opened her mouth to call his name, another voice spoke. A female voice.

“Tony, honey, you need to leave her.”

Lindsay ducked between a pair of tall lagering tanks, hand over her mouth. The white noise she recognized now as onrushing, irrational temper was filling her head again.

“Stop it, ’Bella,” her husband said. There was a fu

Isabella was the name of the girl who’d hung out at the barns with Anton and Lorenzo. She’d had it bad for Tony, Lindsay knew. While he’d assured her she wasn’t a “bought and paid for whore,” Anton had admitted that Isabella Josefi had been his mother’s choice of spouse for him. A good Italian girl, from a family the Loves knew well in New York. Isabella had popped his cherry, Lindsay also knew, because she’d been unable to let go of the topic … years ago, before Antony was born.