Breaking the Rules (54 page)

Life coach, his ass. Brainwasher, was more like it. Not to mention hate monger. Izzy cut the connection and went to Greg’s voice mail, to see if, like many people, he failed to delete his messages after listening to them.

But out in the entryway, Ivette and Greg were both getting shrill—
more shrill—so he pocketed the phone to listen later, and went back to join the big show.

“And you honestly think”—Ivette was damn near screaming at Eden, who still stood with Jenn outside on the stoop, her face pale but determined in the glow from the porch light—“that Ben would be better off with you?! Look at how well you take care of him—you lost him. Again. As if what happened during the hurricane—you abandoning him at the Superdome—wasn’t disgraceful enough!” Ivette turned to Dan, who still had Greg against the wall, as tears streamed down her anger-twisted face. “Honey, your sister Sandy and I didn’t tell you this—you were under enough stress as it was, being over there in Iraq at the time—”

“I
didn’t
abandon him,” Eden interrupted. “I went to find insulin. Ben was
dying!
What was I supposed to do?”

“Maybe that would’ve been for the best,” Greg intoned. “Considering …”

“—but if you’re actually thinking about sharing a home with her”—Ivette spoke over them both, talking earnestly to Danny—“you really need to know the type of person she is—that she was screwing her own sister’s husband, right under the same roof.”

“That’s
not
true,” Eden said hotly. “And oh, my God, didn’t you hear what Greg just said about Ben?”

“
I
heard,” Izzy said, and she met his gaze—just long enough for him to see her fear. She was afraid—terrified—that he was going to believe the stupid shit her mother was spouting.

“Ron said it was going on for months,” Ivette shot back.

“Yeah, great,” Eden said. “Trust the crack addict. Because he’ll
never
lie.”

“Eden was
fifteen,
” Izzy said, and Eden looked at him again, even as Ivette countered.

“Going on forty,” she scoffed. “He had disgusting pictures of her on his cell phone.”

“Because he used to walk in on me in the bathroom,” Eden countered.

“Oh, so now you’re back to saying that it never happened?” Ivette sucked furiously on her cigarette. “Because that’s not what you told Sandy—”

“I told Sandy the
truth.
”

“That you sucked her husband’s cock,” Ivette shot back. “That he
made
you. How does that work, exactly? Without him holding a gun to your head?”

“Oh, my God,” Jenn said, putting her arms around Eden, as if trying to protect her.

“Jesus Christ,” Dan said. “You make me sick.”

Out on the stoop, Eden flinched, as if she were certain her brother was talking to her.

But he wasn’t—he was looking at his mother like she was some kind of monster. “Do you even hear what you’re saying?”

“You don’t know what she did,” Ivette implored him. “What she’s capable of. She was home with the kids, babysitting. After Ron relapsed, Sandy and I had to get second jobs, waitressing. We were working that night—”

“With a hurricane coming …?” Dan asked. “You left Eden home alone with three kids with a category-five hurricane—?”

“We didn’t have a choice. If we didn’t go in, we’d lose our jobs. Besides, they weren’t alone. Ron was there.”

“A relapsed crack addict?” Dan gave voice to Izzy’s own disbelief.

“He was clean,” Ivette said.

“He was
not,
” Eden countered. “He was using again. He was high, and when the time came to evacuate, I was
not
going to let Ben and those little girls get into his car with him.”

“Ron said they had a lovers’ quarrel,” Ivette countered, talking to Danny, “and she left him behind to die.”

“We argued,” Eden said. “And he hit me and he knocked me down and he tried to
rape
me, but Ben hit him with one of our cast-iron porch chairs. I grabbed his keys, and we got into the car and locked the doors, and he started trying to smash the windows—with his own daughters inside!—so Ben got us the hell out of there.”

“Except Ben conveniently doesn’t remember that,” Ivette said.

“He doesn’t remember much about any of it,” Eden said. “The hurricane
or
the Superdome … And I thank God for that!”

“He also conveniently doesn’t remember you abandoning him,” Ivette accused her. She turned to Dan. “She left him and Sandy’s girls with a
stranger
, so she could go meet Ron at the store.”

“Yeah,” Eden said. “Right. I left my brother, who was going into a
coma
from lack of insulin, and I waded through water that was up to my
shoulders
, so I could meet Ron at the store and give him a blow job. What planet do you live on? Although you’re right about one thing. I sucked him off. And I
didn’t
have a gun to my head.” Her voice shook. “Okay,
Mom
? Are you happy to hear me admit it? You’re right, I didn’t
have
to do it. I could’ve left the store without the insulin—I could’ve just walked away, and let Ben die.”

“Ah, Jesus,” Dan breathed. “There was insulin at the store.”

Eden nodded. “We went there, every day, after school. There was a minifridge in the back. I knew the power would be off, but I thought maybe it would still be cool enough. And I figured it was better than nothing. But when I finally got there? Ron was already there. And at first, I thought maybe he’d be sober and, I don’t know, maybe just a little bit glad to see me—to know that Kimmie and Kendra were alive. But he was still high, so he didn’t give a shit. You can relate to that, huh, Ma?”

“I’ve heard this sob story before,” Ivette started, but Izzy stepped forward.

“Shut up.”

There must’ve been something in his eyes, something dangerous, because she shut her mouth, fast.

“Sweetie, you don’t have to explain anything,” Jenn told Eden, who was still standing there, defiant, chin high, and ready for them all to side with her mother and call her a liar. “You did what you believed you had to do—”

Eden looked through the screen, directly at Izzy, and whispered, “He said I could have the insulin if I gave him a blow job. And I
figured, I’d done worse with John Franklin, and it didn’t kill me, you know? It didn’t mean anything. It was just … sex. I just kept telling myself that. That it was nothing. It meant nothing. Except it did. It meant … that I was exactly what everyone said I was.” She looked at Danny then. “What
you
said I was, when you came home for Charlie’s funeral.”

Danny looked ill, but he didn’t get a chance to say anything, not so much as an
I’m sorry
, or a
God, Eden
, because Greg couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

“We don’t speak his name in this house,” he said.

“Who? Charlie?” Dan asked, his disgust dripping from his words. “He was a hundred times the man that you are—
you’re
not allowed to speak his name.” He turned to Eden. “Eden—”

But she didn’t let him speak. “It
didn’t
mean nothing, but it
got
me nothing,” she told him, told her mother, told Izzy with eyes that were resigned and devoid of all hope that any of them would believe her. “Because I never made it back to the Superdome. I got picked up by a boat that took me to one of the highway overpasses, and I couldn’t get back to find Ben or the girls. I tried, and I
tried
, but I kept getting stopped by all these men with guns and … I offered them what I gave to Ron—you didn’t know
that
, did you, Mom? Come on, let’s hear you condemn me for that—for doing anything—
anything
to try to save Ben. But I failed.”

“Oh, honey …” Out on the stoop, Jenn tightened the hold she had around Eden. “But he was all right. Ben was …”

“He survived. Barely. Because a stranger gave him insulin. He
was
all right.” Eden shook her head, rigid in her self-hatred. “No thanks to me.”

“You tried,” Izzy whispered, through a throat that was tight. He’d imagined the hell that she’d lived through in the aftermath of the hurricane, but he hadn’t come even remotely close.

Eden looked right at him. “There is no try,” she said. “Remember?”

“This time,” Izzy told her, “Yoda’s wrong.”

“Ben
was
all right—no thanks to you.” Ivette couldn’t keep her mouth shut. “And, for the record? That’s
not
the story Ron told us, and he was
very
convincing …”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Izzy didn’t have to say it, because Danny did.

“Don’t you talk to your mother that way!” Greg said as Ivette gasped and then burst into a fresh flood of tears.

Dan ignored them both. “Get Eden away from this poison,” he ordered Jenn tersely. “Get her into the car.”

Jenni nodded, but Eden wasn’t ready to go anywhere. She stood her ground, still thinking first and foremost about her little brother. “Was there any sign of Ben?” she asked Izzy.

“I don’t think he’s been here,” he told her, but he couldn’t withhold the potential bad news. “But I found Greg’s cell phone, and he was talking to the people over at Crossroads earlier this evening. There were three different calls.”

“Oh, my God,” Eden said as Dan tightened his grip on Greg.

“You had
no
right,” he started.

“I have every right,” Greg countered. “No son of mine—”

“He’s
not
your son!” Eden shouted.

“Okay,” Jenn said, “sweetie, this isn’t helping.” She raised her voice to be heard inside the house. “Mr. Fortune, did you make arrangements for Crossroads to pick up Ben from Eden’s apartment?”

“I did,” Greg said. “And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Eden stood there, stricken, and Dan looked like he was damn near ready to choke the life out of the bastard as both Greg and Ivette continued to make a shitload of useless noise. Greg was proclaiming that he also had the right to call the police after they left, and have them all arrested for home invasion and assault, and Ivette chimed in with a still-teary and incredibly misguided belief that Crossroads was like a great, big camp, where “Benjy” would go and have fun, maybe meet some nice girls, because maybe he just hadn’t met any nice-enough girls …

Izzy had had enough. He put on his deadliest war-face, and
stretched himself up to his full height. “Everyone! Shut!” he shouted. “The fuck! Up!”

The sudden silence was deafening—there was definitely fear in both Greg’s and Ivette’s eyes. Good. He pointed to Greg. “Fuck you,” he said, and then he turned to Ivette, “and fuck you!” Back to Greg. “I always knew you were a worthless piece of excrement, but you?” Back to Ivette, whose eyes were wide. “I always thought that there must’ve been at least
some
thing halfway decent in you, because you brought Dan and Eden and Ben into the world. I thought you were somehow responsible, but it’s clear that they became the outstanding human beings that they are not only without your help, but with your hindrance. So thank you for showing me this, for this little display tonight. Because now my respect for all three of them is completely off the scale.” He turned to the door, where Eden and Jenn were staring at him, too. “Ladies, to the cars. Danny, my friend, I’ll take Greg from you, from here. I want a few words in private with your asshole pseudo-parents before I join you at the cars, where we
will
go—immediately—to Crossroads to pick up Ben, where he
will
be waiting for us.”

Izzy had it all figured out. Illegally obtained drugs, plus addictive behavior, plus threat of arrest and incarceration …? He was going to use what he’d found in that oven in the kitchen to buy Danny and Eden everything they wanted—Ben’s release from that prison of intolerance,
and
a signed letter granting the fifteen-year-old permission to go to San Diego and live with either his brother or his sister.

Izzy had it all figured out, until Greg opened his ugly-ass mouth, and smugly informed them, “He won’t be there. Crossroads has a half a dozen sister organizations, all across the country, used when certain family members are uncooperative. Benjamin is on his way to an undisclosed location right now. Even
I
don’t know where he’s going. All I know is he won’t come back until he’s cured.”

“You
son
of a
bitch!
”

If Izzy had had to put money on which of the Gillmans would lose their shit first on account of getting that kind of bad news about Ben, he would’ve picked Eden. But it was Danny who went over the edge as
he tightened his grip on Greg. The older man flapped and flailed, but he didn’t stand a chance as his stepson choked the jumping bejesus out of him.

And maybe Danny was just trying to scare him. Maybe he was intending to stop before the old dude actually stopped breathing, but it sure as hell didn’t look like it.

Ivette didn’t think he was going to stop, either—her screeching started up again.

Jenn, too, was on that bus. “Please, Danny, don’t,” she said. She looked at Izzy beseechingly in a silent
do something
as she opened the screen door, stepped inside, and tried to pull Dan back. But all she succeeded in doing was hugging him—there was no way she could manhandle him away from Greg.

There was no way Izzy could do it, either. Not by force. Well, he
could
do it by force, but not without seriously damaging Greg in the process.

So Izzy did the only thing he could. He took Jenn’s lead, and just put his arms around Dan, too, holding on to him from behind.

“Don’t do this, brother,” he said quietly as Ivette wailed from where she’d fallen, prostrate on the floor. “This doesn’t make it better, it only makes it worse.”

And then Eden spoke up from her place of exile, still out on the stoop. “Danny, Ben needs you,” she pleaded. “And … I do, too.”

And with that, Danny finally released Greg. Izzy caught the old man and kept him from falling as the asshat gasped for air. Damn, he smelled bad.

“I’m done,” Danny told his mother. “Sending money, answering your calls … It’s over. And I’m taking Ben, even if I have to drag you to court to do it.”