Between Here and the Horizon (32 page)

Amie nodded gravely. “It’s
really
weird.”

“I get that. I’m sorry…I haven’t come to see you before.”

Amie nodded. “Feelya said you were sad, so it’s okay. Are you still sad now?”

“I think I might be a little bit,” he said. “But I’m getting better.”
 

Was he telling the truth? Was he getting better? Did he hate Ronan a little less every day, and miss him a little bit more? It was so hard to tell with him. As soon as anyone mentioned Ronan’s name, it was as though a heavy, metal roller shutter was slamming down in front of him. He didn’t want to talk about him. He didn’t want to reminisce. As far as I could tell, he didn’t even want to
think
about the fact that he had a twin a lot of the time, which made it difficult to talk freely about the situation we were in now. Sully glanced around the kitchen awkwardly. I could tell that he didn’t really know what to do with himself, which made me unreasonably proud. This was such a huge step for him.

He paced slowly toward the table and stopped in front of Connor. “What are you making, man?” he asked.
 

“I don’t know,” Connor replied. “A picture of under the sea?”

Sully tipped his head to the side, trying to take a better look. Connor leaned over his picture, hiding it from view, though. “Hey, that’s okay. Artists don’t like sharing their work until they’re finished, right? I’m sorry. I forgot.”

Connor glanced quickly up at him and shrugged. “I’m not an artist. I’m just a kid.”

“Well, you’re way better at art than I am, either way.” Sully shot me an anxious sideways look. He clearly thought he was drowning, making zero headway with the little boy; he didn’t realize just how amazing it was that Connor was interacting with him at all, though.
 

“Are you staying here for lunch with us?” Amie asked, clambering up so that she was standing on the seat of her chair, glue spatula in one hand and a dog-eared picture of Victoria Beckham in the other.
 

Again, Sully looked at me, worry lines forming on his face. “Ahhh, I’m not sure. I guess I hadn’t thought about that.”

“Maybe Sully will stay, depending on a few things,” I told her.
 

“What few things?”

“Well, depending on if you guys all like each other and want to hang out, I suppose.”

“
I
like him,” she said. “
And
I like Connor, and I like you. I think we should spend all day together.”

“That’s very nice of you, Amie, but we’ll just play it by ear, though, okay?”

She accepted this with a tiny frown on her face, and didn’t push the matter further. “You can sit here,” she said, patting the table across from her. “Would you like some beers?”

Her offer surprised me since we didn’t have any beers, and I hadn’t had any in front of her.
Ever
. Maybe Ronan used to have a drink or two when he got home from work or something. “That’s all right, Amie. It’s ten fifteen in the morning. It’s a little early to be drinking beer,” Sully said, smiling.
 

“Daddy used to like drinking beers,” she replied. “Daddy had beer for breakfast all the time.”

Ronan used to drink beer for breakfast? Jeez. He’s lost his wife. He’d been fucked up enough to take his own life. The fact that he was knocking back a beer or two before heading out to work was pretty sad, though.
 

Sully looked like he was about to snatch up his jacket in the hallway and bolt out of the place, never to return, so I grabbed him by the hand and sat down at the table, sealing the deal. No escaping now. Normally Connor would have been surly and snappy if he found himself in a situation he couldn’t control. He didn’t seem that way today, though. He seemed too stunned to be anything but silent.
 

“Why don’t Sully and I make a picture, too, and you guys can tell us what you think, huh?” I picked up a couple of the magazines in the middle of the table and offered one to Sully. He took it gratefully and began to cut out pictures with the tiny kiddie scissors I’d been using earlier, his hands far too big to wield them efficiently.
 

An hour later, Rose let herself into the house and came into the kitchen to find Connor and Amie laughing raucously at the picture we’d just completed. We’d turned Lady Gaga into a nun, and some famous-right-now model had been given a makeover, transformed into a vampire, complete with drawn-in fangs and evil laser eyes, courtesy of Sully. In the middle of the page, a huge picture of some English boy band member was riding a stallion that Amie insisted was a unicorn, and the rest of the band members’ heads had been cut from their own bodies and glued onto the bodies of cats.
 

Rose stood in the doorway and took in the scene, her arms filled with groceries, amusement written all over her face. “Looks like I’ve been missing all the fun, doesn’t it?” she said.
 

“Come and draw with us,” Amie squealed. “I made a Triceratops! Look!”
 

Rose dutifully looked at the mess of images Amie had stuck down on the paper and nodded, telling her what an excellent job she’d done. She then turned to me and said, “O? Think you could help me put these groceries away for a second?”

“Sure.”

Sully was so engrossed in his conversation with Connor, debating with him whether or not a skinny bikini clad woman from one of the fashion magazines we’d cut up was actually an alien, poorly disguised as a human, that he didn’t even look up when I left the table.
 

Rose dragged me into the pantry and pulled the door half closed behind us. “What the hell is going on?” she hissed. She was smiling, delighted, but at the same time she seemed concerned, too.
 

“He asked,” I said. “I didn’t drug him and bundle him into the trunk in order to get him over here, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“I wasn’t thinking that at all. But now I am!”

“There’s nothing to be worried about, Rose, I promise. I explained about Sully to them, and both of them agreed that they wanted to see him. The whole morning’s gone really well, actually.”

“Hmm. I don’t know. I never thought he’d change his mind. He’s not the kind of guy to go back on something once he’s sworn to it once or twice.”

“I know.
I know
.”

“Do you think he’s gonna do what Ronan asked and take them, then?”
 

“I don’t think so. I don’t know.”

“All right, O. But god, just be careful, okay? Sully’s a good man, and he’s definitely mellowed since he met you, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he freaks out on you after this. Just watch for it, honey. I’d really hate to see you or the children get hurt.”

******

Sully stayed for the rest of the afternoon, and it was worrying. Worrying, because I spent the entire time waiting for the other shoe to drop. Amie was giggly and silly with Sully, playing with him and screaming at the top of her lungs when he chased her around the living room. Connor was quiet for a long time, but soon warmed up and joined in the fun. It was surreal. I kept getting hit with the strongest sense of déjà vu, back to the night before Ronan killed himself, when he was charging around the same living room, wearing that pirate patch.
 

Four o’clock rolled around, and Sully said he needed to leave. Amie looked like she was going to cry. “But I didn’t even get to ask for another skeleton,” she whispered.

“Well, maybe, if Sully comes back again another day, you can ask him then.” She’d spoken loud enough that he heard what she said anyway, and he winked at me. He seemed light. Carefree. Less like the world was weighing down on him from all angles. He’d changed so much over the past couple of weeks that it was almost hard to believe.
 

“Why don’t you go and relax for a little while, too?” Rose said, as I went to see Sully out. “I’ve got things handled here. If this is what happens to Sully Fletcher when he falls in love, then you two should definitely spend as much time together as possible.”

I nearly died. No one mentioned being in love. I hadn’t. Sully sure as hell hadn’t. Why would she say something like that? It felt like the ground was yawning open and about to swallow me up whole. I glowered at Rose over Sully’s shoulder, subtly trying to let her know how mad I was, when I saw Sully’s reflection in the mirror on the wall right next to us, along with my own, and realized that he’d seen every single frown and glower I’d sent her way. Perfect.
 

“I always knew a woman could speak volumes with one look. That was a whole new level, though, Lang.”

Embarrassment nearly drowned me. I must have been red. No, scratch that. I must have been
purple
with horror. “Forget the last three minutes,” I said, grabbing my purse. “Thanks, Rose. I’ll be back later, okay? Goodbye, guys.”

Connor and Amie got up from the table and gave me a hug, one at a time. Connor seemed to be growing more and more tactile by the day, so I wasn’t all that surprised when he wrapped his arms around my waist and gave me a very brief, tight squeeze. I
was
shocked when he shyly held out his hand for Sully to shake, though. “It was very nice to meet you,” he said in a quiet voice.
 

Sully swallowed, looking down at the little boy. He seemed a little lost for words. “You too, little man. Any time you want to hang out, you just let me know, okay?”

Connor considered this for a moment, and then nodded. “Okay.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The Lamest

Over the following weeks, Sully came to the house more and more. At first it had to be by formal invitation. Would he like to come for dinner? Would he like to come with me to take the children down to the beach? Was he free to come build forts in the library? But then as the days and the weeks passed, he just started showing up. He would come by the house at around ten in the morning, have lunch, come with me to pick Connor up from school, and
he
would be the one to help him with his homework while I cooked dinner with Rose.
He
would be the one to take Amie to bed at seven.
He
would be the one to sit through endless episodes of
Peppa Pig
, and
Marvel Action Hour
re-runs.
 

The change in him was spectacular. And in amongst the quality time he spent with the children, he was constantly pulling me aside, hands all over me, mouth rough on mine, touching me, caressing and kissing me. Never in front of the children. But when they weren’t looking? Boy, that was a different story altogether.
 

“I just can’t believe it,” Rose told me, one day toward the end of January. “I swear, I’ve never seen him like this before. This is…well, it’s kind of shocking. I never thought I’d see him smile like that again.”

Sully was lying on his back on the living room floor, and Amie was straddling his chest, sitting on his stomach. Her tiny hands were pulling at his cheeks and his forehead, mushing his face into strange expressions. She giggled at the top of her lungs every time he growled or poked his tongue out. Her laughter was infectious. Connor might not have taken to Sully so quickly, but the little boy loved having him around. He sat Indian style on the floor a couple of feet from them, watching, smiling, not saying anything but clearly happy.
 

I leaned my head against Rose’s shoulder, sighing. “I know. I’m scared.”

She glanced out me out of the corner of her eye. “I get that. I can see why you might be worried. But
I’m
not anymore. I don’t think this is a flash in the pan, O. He didn’t have PTSD when he came back from Afghanistan, thank god. He was just...
angry
. He might
still
be angry, but look at him. He’s happy now, too. He’s found some sort of balance. That’s pretty damn special.”

She was right about him still being angry. There were days when he was so prickly and unapproachable that I wanted to kick him in the balls. Days when I came so close to doing exactly that. But all it took was calling him out on his crap and he pulled his shit together. It was remarkable that he was able to flip the switch so easily. When I asked him about it, he simply said, “War puts things into perspective, Lang. Sometimes you lose sight of things. Sometimes it takes a riled up SoCal girl to kick you into touch, but nothing is ever as bad as it seems. Feel free to remind me what an ass I am as many times as you like. If I’m too unbearable, then toss my ass out of the house.” I hadn’t had to do that just yet, but he knew I was prepared and willing. Perhaps that’s why he was clearly trying so hard to make this work. Weeks passed. A month. Valentines day arrived, and with it single pink rose and a simple handwritten card on my pillow.
 

Lang.
 

You’re not as smart as you think you are. I’m impervious to your wicked ways. I am not in love with you. When you leave this island, I won’t care.
 

The world won’t stop turning.
 

I won’t feel hollow, or bereft.
 

I won’t look out of the windows of my lighthouse and see only greyness and misery where there was once beauty.
 

I won’t stare at my cell phone, waiting for you to call.

I won’t mourn the loss of you.
 

I won’t cry (in a very manly way).

I won’t pray your parents decide to close down their restaurant after all and move to the east coast.
 

I won’t watch The Sound of Music over and over again, wishing for my too-good-to-be-true girlfriend to return to me.
 

Every second.
 

Every minute.
 

Every hour.
 

That would make me the lamest guy in the world.
 

Yours, temporarily,
 

Sully Fletcher.