At Peace (67 page)

Vinnie and Theresa sat on the couch, Gary
with them. Bea sat in an armchair. The girls sat on the floor. Joe
sat in the other armchair and I perched on the arm.

Everyone stared at everyone else and sipped
their coffee.

Vinnie had eaten two pieces of coffee cake
before I said, “Bea, the girls need to go to get their school
supplies. We waited for you to get here because we thought you’d
like to come with.”

“Yeah, we need notebooks and pens and rulers
and stuff. You always came with us to get our school supplies,”
Keira reminded her and Bea smiled at her granddaughter.

“That’d be just fine.” Then she pulled in a
visible breath, her smile turned timid and looked at Theresa.
“Theresa, would you, uh… like to come with us?”

Theresa glowed. “I’d love to.”

“Good,” Vinnie declared, “gives Cal and Gar
and me a chance to do man stuff.”

I bit my upper lip, wondering how Gary would
take to being nicknamed “Gar”, not to mention being sucked into
“man stuff” with two men he didn’t know when he’d come down to see
the girls and me.

“Like what?” Kate asked.

“Anything that doesn’t include shoppin’,”
Vinnie answered and Kate giggled.

“You can look after Mooch,” Keira suggested,
Mooch in her lap squirming to get out in order to lay waste to
something. “He doesn’t like to be in his box much.”

“What kind of dog is that?” Gary asked his
granddaughter.

“American Husky,” Keira answered and Gary’s
eyes came to me then they went back to Keira.

“What else?” Gary asked and Keira tipped her
head to the side.

“What else?”

“Yeah, he got anything else in him?”

“Nope, pure bred,” Keira replied proudly and
Gary looked back at me.

“That’s luck, Vi, finding a pure bred puppy
at the pound,” he commented, knowing I didn’t have the money to buy
a pedigree dog.

“We didn’t get him at the pound. Keira’s
friend’s dog had a litter. She fell in love with them so Joe bought
him for her,” I blurted, not thinking, too freaked out by the
morning to watch my words.

“What?” Kate and Keira asked in unison.

“Shit,” Joe muttered as my body tensed and I
looked at my girls.

“Um…” I started.

“
Joe
bought him?” Keira asked and the look on her face
was a look I’d never seen before on my daughter. She had a great
number of expressions. Her face always spoke volumes most of which
I was fluent in. This one I was not.

“Um…” I repeated trying to read her
expression and Keira looked at Joe.

“You bought him?” she whispered.

“Vi,” Joe murmured on a prompt, clearly not
wishing to wade in this time.

I made a split second decision and it was the
same decision I almost always made with my girls. Complete
honesty.

“I, honey… I didn’t have the money. I knew
you wanted him really badly but I couldn’t afford him. I told Joe
and he thought you should have a puppy so he gave me the money so
you could get Mooch,” I admitted, wishing this wasn’t playing out
there, in the living room with Tim’s folks and Joe’s folks looking
on. In fact, wishing it wasn’t playing out at all.

Keira and Kate were both staring at Joe.

Then suddenly Keira surged up and I jumped at
her movement then froze, wondering what she was going to do. Mooch
yapped and ran away and I watched in stunned silence as Keira threw
herself full body at Joe. She ended with her knees to the floor,
her body between his legs, her torso in Joe’s lap, her face in his
chest, her arms wrapped around him and, before I could open my
mouth or even move, she burst into tears.

“
I
knew
you were always lookin’ out for us,” she cried into his
chest, “I
knew
it!”

That lump hit my throat again but it was so
big this time, it choked me.

Joe’s hand dropped to Keira’s hair and he
bent forward. “Baby, hey,” he whispered.

“
I
knew
it!” she sobbed into his stomach.

What I knew was this wasn’t about Joe and the
dog. This was about my sweet, crazy, strong, beautiful daughter
losing her Dad and losing her uncle and living in a world that was
uncertain, being afraid of that world and needing something to hold
onto. They’d been strong a long time, both my girls had. And I was
proud of them. But even the strongest person in the world needed
something to hold onto.

And the man who bought you the dog you always
wanted was the perfect choice.

Further, my daughters’ sudden connection with
Aunt Theresa and Uncle Vinnie wasn’t weird. It was them grasping
onto any family they could get as the bedrock of their own kept
shifting. It was just pure luck that Joe provided such excellent
additions.

When Keira kept sobbing into Joe’s chest, I
blinked away my tears as Joe twisted and handed me his coffee mug
then he put his hands in her pits and hauled her up into his
lap.

“Keirry, honey, what’s this?” Joe whispered
into her ear when he had her in his arms and she’d burrowed in
closer. He, too, knew it wasn’t about the dog.

She yanked her head out of his neck, looked
at him and demanded in a fierce tone, “Don’t ever go away,
Joe.”

At my daughter’s words, I felt my breath
choke me so hard I heard it too and that choking sound wasn’t just
coming from me.

“I’m not goin’ anywhere, honey,” Joe replied
gently.

“Promise!”

I hiccoughed with my effort to swallow back
my tears and heard Kate’s small whimper in an effort to do the
same.

“I promise,” Joe said, his tone just as
fierce then he put an arm behind her knees and he straightened from
the chair, Keira held to his chest.

I straightened too, murmuring, “Joe.”

“I got this, buddy.”

“Joe –”

“Got it,” Joe repeated and walked from the
room down the hall.

I stood there, staring down the hall. Then I
turned and stared at our group, seeing Bea and Theresa flat out
crying. Gary and Vinnie were both looking at their laps. Vinnie had
his arm around Theresa.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice sounding
suffocated. Kate’s arm wrapped around my leg and she pressed in
tight.

Bea got up and walked to me. Taking the mugs
out of my hands, she said gently, “Nothing to be sorry for,
Violet,” she gestured to a chair, “sit down, honey.”

I didn’t sit down. Instead, I bent down and
pulled Kate up to her feet.

Then I told everyone, “Please, I’m sorry, we
need a minute.”

“Anything you need,” Bea replied
instantly.

I nodded, put my arm around Kate’s waist and
led her down the hall to Keira’s room. Joe was in bed with a still
crying Keira tucked into his side. His eyes came to us as we
entered the room. Without hesitation, we all crawled into Keira’s
double bed and curled into Joe.

It would be much later when I wondered why my
girls and I did this and why it seemed so comfortable. Me, maybe,
my girls, no.

And when I thought about it later, I would
come to the conclusion that it just came natural because it was us
and it was Joe.

In other words, the new
us
.

So when a situation became emotional, what
else would we do?

After awhile, when the Winters girls got
their shit together, I took my cheek from Joe’s shoulder and looked
at his face.

“That didn’t go as planned,” I told him.

“Far’s I can see, buddy, it couldn’t have
gone better,” Joe replied.

I looked at him and saw he believed what he
was saying and his belief made me smile at him. Even so, my smile
was shaky.

When Joe leaned into me, his kiss was
firm.

When Joe was done kissing me and I was
feeling a lot less shaky, Keira’s head came up from Joe’s other
shoulder and she looked at him.

“Sorry I went all wussy on you,” she
whispered, her eyes not quite catching his, her voice trembling and
I realized that she was worried she’d disappointed him and my
stomach lurched.

Joe’s arm went from around me and he turned
toward Keira. Kate (who was tucked in front of me) and I came up on
our elbows. We watched Joe put his hand to Keira’s jaw to tip her
face up further toward him.

“Never bury somethin’ deep, baby,” he
murmured. “Takes twice as much courage to be who you are, say what
you think, feel what you feel and let it show then it does to bury
it. That shit you been holdin’ onto will destroy you. You got a
safe place to get rid of it, and you do, then you get rid of it
like you just did. Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Keira whispered, a shaky smile on her
lips too.

I stared at Joe thinking maybe he
was
Superman.

There was the sound of a throat being cleared
and we looked to the door to see Gary standing there.

“Um… sorry to interrupt, Joe, Vi, but…
there’s a young man at the door. Says his name is Dane. I tried to
–”

My body jolted when Kate screeched, “Aiyee!”
and leaped from the bed, ran passed her grandfather and then
disappeared.

Keira sat frozen against Joe for half a
second then she followed her sister with just as much energy. Joe
was not far behind but he was hindered since he was dragging me
with him.

“I thought I told you!” we heard Kate shout
as Joe hustled us down the hall.

“Katy –” we heard Dane.

“No!” Kate interrupted him. Then she asked a
very familiar question. “Do you have your head sorted out?”

Oh shit.

There it was. Proof that my daughters were
soaking up all things Joe.

We hit the living room and Theresa was
standing behind Kate like a sentry. Bea was close too, though not
as close as Theresa. Vinnie was standing by the television, his
eyes on the scene playing out in front of him. Keira was sitting on
her knees in the couch, facing the door. I felt Gary come up behind
Joe and I but the minute we hit the room, Dane’s eyes shot to Joe
and his face paled.

I was thinking there were a lot of good
reasons to have Joe around but at that moment his putting the fear
of God into pipsqueak boy-men (no matter how cute they were) who
hurt my daughter was at the top of my list.

I crossed my arms on my chest and stared at
Dane as he swallowed and his Adam’s apple bobbed. Then Dane plucked
up the courage and stepped forward.

“Mr. Callahan,” his eyes came to me, “Miz
Winters, I need to talk to Katy.”

“
You need to talk to Kate, why you talkin’
to us?” Joe enquired and I looked at him to see his arms crossed on
his chest in a new sinister, scary pose. This one was both
alpha-male and
man-of-the-house-slash-father-figure-you-did-
not
-mess-with.

“Uh…” Dane muttered, struck dumb by Joe’s
sinister, scary pose.

“Your girl’s standin’ right in front of you,
kid,” Joe prompted when Dane seemed frozen to the spot and this
lasted awhile and that while included a number of people as his
audience, all eyes on him. “You came to make a move, make it.”

Dane swallowed again, nodded and looked at
Kate. “Can we talk?”

“Only one thing I want to hear you say,” Kate
replied and I was proud of my girl for sticking to her guns and not
letting some boy-man (no matter how cute he was) treat her like
dirt.

“Can I say it out on the back deck?” Dane
asked.

Kate looked over her shoulder at Joe and Joe
tipped his chin at her.

This was when I realized that I’d lost a
little bit of both my daughters. They’d taken it from me and given
it to Joe.

Other women might be jealous of this or they
might be alarmed.

I wasn’t.

Joe had given us everything. It was just our
way of giving back. Not a lot of men would appreciate the gifts
Keira and Kate were giving him and doing it so freely, but I
reckoned Joe did.

“Back deck,” Kate agreed and turned, leading
a flush-faced Dane through the living room and study and out the
back sliding glass door.

“That’s Dane,” Keira announced to the room
unnecessarily when the sliding door closed. “He’s Kate’s boyfriend
and he’s in the dog house.”

Vinnie chuckled in the direction of Gary who
was pressing his lips together.

“I need more coffee,” Theresa declared. “Bea,
do you need more coffee?”

“Yes, yes, I think I do,” Bea said
softly.

“I’ll make another pot,” I offered.

“
No,
cara mia
, you sit, relax or better yet, find a place to eavesdrop.”
Theresa’s eyes went to the back deck. “I’ll make it.”

“I’ll help,” Bea moved with Theresa to the
kitchen.

“
I can make it, that’s okay. I don’t
eavesdrop on the girls,” I told them and Theresa
and
Bea stopped dead and turned to
me.

“You don’t?” Theresa asked, her voice
horrified.

“I trust my girls,” I said carefully, not
wanting to be insulting by intimating she hadn’t done the same with
her children.

“Well,” Theresa threw a hand out, “I guess I
can see that, bein’ girls and all. My Carmella was an angel but I
also had three boys. Three hot-blooded Italian boys with more
hormones than the Chicago metropolitan area could contain. If they
weren’t gettin’ in trouble with girls, they were fightin’ with
boys. Bloody knuckles. Bras in their beds. Did my head in.”

Bea just stared at me, knowing that hormones
weren’t exclusive to hot-blooded Italian boys. Hormones went both
ways and they didn’t discriminate by culture, they just ran rampant
through teenagers as a whole.

“It’ll be okay, Bea,” I assured her. “I had a
talk with Kate and Joe had a talk with Dane.”

“Yeah,” Keira put in, “and Joe scares the
crap outta Dane.”