Love Is The Bond: A Rowan Gant Investigation (16 page)

“That may be true, but she did,” I told
him.

“Well, I’m un-involvin’ ya’.”

“Aye, it’s not as easy as all that,” Felicity
replied.

“Yeah it is.”

“Monar
!” she
spat. “He’s your father!”

Ben didn’t even bother to ask for a
translation of the Gaelic epithet. He simply shook his head at her
and said, “Yeah, whatever. Just trust me, Felicity, let it go.”

“Let it go?” she barked as she started toward
him.

I reached out and took hold of her arm,
stopping her dead in her tracks. She whipped her head to the side,
looked down at my hand with absolute contempt, and then locked on
to me with an incendiary stare. I knew immediately that I had just
joined Ben as an object of her ire, but I didn’t let go. Instead, I
simply held her fast and shook my head.

“Back off, hon.”

“Why?” she grumbled. “Someone needs to wake
his sorry arse up to reality.”

“Awww, Jeezus fuckin’…” Ben groaned at her
comment.

“Why don’t you let me talk to him,” I told
her.

“Aye, what if maybe you hold him, and I’ll
beat some sense into him then,” she countered then shot her glare
his direction.

Still holding her arm, I turned to face
Patrick who had remained perfectly silent through the entire
exchange. “Do you still have some of that imported chocolate you
were telling me about?”

“Yes, Rowan, as a matter of fact I do,” he
replied without hesitation.

“I think Felicity would really like to try
some if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” he replied with a knowing tilt
of his head. “Dear lady, if you would like to accompany me
downstairs.”

“Chocolate?
Fek
!
Damnú
ort
, Rowan! What are you?…” my wife sputtered angrily.
“I don’t want any goddamned chocolate!”

“Yes, Felicity, you do,” I told her
sternly.

“No, I don’t!” she argued.

“Felicity, please…” I appealed. “Let me
handle this.”

“Why don’tcha’ both go have some,” Ben
chided.

“Rowan…” Felicity widened her eyes at me as
she almost snarled her protest.

“Please…” I repeated. “Just let me handle
it.”

We were all tired, time was short, and I
simply couldn’t afford to let Felicity continue to go off on a tear
right now. I wasn’t sure if it was the rum finally affecting her or
a combination of it all, but somehow Ben’s disdain for his father
had struck a serious nerve with her. My wife’s legendary temper was
fully alight, and she simply wasn’t going to help the current
situation at all.

She drew her lips into a thin frown and
remained silent. The fact that her glare hadn’t softened in the
least was more than enough to tell me there was going to be some
form of retribution in my near future. However, that was something
I would have to deal with when the time came.

I just hoped Patrick was correct, and
the chocolate really was
that
good.

Felicity jerked her arm from my grasp and
brushed past me, starting out the door ahead of Patrick. He gave me
a quick nod and followed along behind, drawing the door shut in his
wake.“You’re in trouble, white man,” Ben announced as I stepped
farther into the room.

“Uh-huh,” I agreed with a sigh. “And not the
good kind I’m afraid.”

“Yeah, well, ya’ brought it on yourself for
nothin’,” he told me. “I already told ya’ I’m not goin’ ta’ see
‘im.”

“Okay,” I replied as I found a recliner
opposite my friend and perched myself on the edge of the seat.

He shot me a puzzled look. “Okay? That’s it?
Ya’ mean you’re not gonna try and convince me I should go?”

I shrugged. “Seems pretty futile.”

“Yeah, well I told ya’ that before.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Okay, so what’d’ja step in the shit with
Firehair for then?”

“Just saving you from an ass beating at her
hands is all.”

“Yeah, right…” he chuckled.

“Seemed like the thing to do at the time,” I
offered.

“Yeah, maybe so, but man… She’s pissed.”

“Yeah, she is, but it’s my problem now.” I
leaned back in the chair but continued watching him. “You have to
admit, the tension level is quite a bit lower now.”

“In here,” he nodded. “But I sure’as shit
wouldn’t trade places with ya’ later.”

“Yeah, well, she’ll calm down. I hope.”

I remained silent after that, trying to find
a segue into what I was really here to do. My attempt at defusing
the situation had worked, for the most part anyway. He had actually
chuckled at my comment about Felicity, and the tension truly had
moved down the scale perceptibly. Unfortunately, now it was my turn
to dial it back up. If nothing else, the call from Helen had
impressed upon me the urgency of the situation, and it was weighing
on me along with everything else. I didn’t have the luxury of
leading him down the garden path to an enlightened realization. I
needed to take a shortcut straight through the thorny hedgerow, and
I suspected it wasn’t going to be pretty.

As long as Ben and I had been friends, I had
made it a point not to press him when he didn’t want to talk. If he
wanted me to know something, he would tell me, sooner or later. It
was a rare occasion when I would break that unspoken rule, but now
was just going to have to be one of those times.

“So. You want to talk about it?” I finally
said.

“No. Not really.”

“Why don’t you do it anyway?”

“What? Now you’re gonna start after all? What
happened to ‘okay’?”

“I’m not pushing you to go see him. Just tell
me why you won’t.”

“Because I don’t fuckin’ wanna, okay?!” he
barked.

“It might help.”

“Goddammit Rowan! What did…” He shouted the
curse then let his voice trail off quickly as he gave me a
suspicious look. Raising an eyebrow, he gave his head a quick shake
then harrumphed out a half-chuckle. “Yeah. Nice try, white man, but
don’t play psychologist with me. My sis’s already got that base
covered.”

“I’m not,” I replied then shrugged again and
amended the statement. “Okay, well, maybe a little.”

He grunted, “Uh-huh.”

“Okay, so that didn’t work.”

“Nope.” He shook his head. “Got anything
else?”

I lied. “Not really.”

“Then, why don’tcha grab a cigar and kick
back for a bit?”

“As much as I’d like to, I’m going to need to
dig myself out of this hole with Felicity, and I doubt that would
help much.”

“You’re prob’ly right.”

“Yeah. Guess I’d better head downstairs.”

“Yeah. Guess you’d better.”

“Well, just so you know,” I offered, “Helen
says he’s in bad shape.”

“Yeah,” he mumbled then took a drag on the
cigar and allowed the smoke to billow around him. “He was in bad
shape this afternoon too.”

“Apparently now he’s worse.”

“Good.”

“He probably won’t make it through the
night.”

“Even better.”

While I was used to my friend’s occasional
bursts of brutal honesty with regard to his feelings, I was wholly
unaccustomed to seeing anyone with this level of animosity toward a
parent. Whatever had happened between the two of them went deeper
than I wanted to imagine. On top of that, it was obvious from his
comment that he and Helen had gone into it more than once, and if
she was unable to pull him from the depths, I seriously doubted
there was anything I could say that would make a difference.

We sat staring at one another for enough
heartbeats that I eventually lost count. He quietly puffed on his
cigar, once taking a moment to knock down the ash before returning
it to the corner of his mouth. The look in his dark eyes was one of
unabashed hatred. The scariest part was that it was not born of an
emotional rage; it was cold and brooding, deep and without limit.
The feeling was so palpable in the air between us that given my
hypersensitivity to emotions, it made me physically ache.

I knew full well that it wasn’t directed
toward me, but I fell within its dark swath, and it was a place I
knew I simply couldn’t remain for long.

I took a deep breath and cleared my throat. I
don’t know exactly why, since I clearly had his full attention, but
it seemed like the thing to do, especially since I was preparing to
play the hold card I’d lied about. I was about to blindside my
friend, and I wasn’t feeling good about it. Unfortunately, I didn’t
seem to have any other choice.

“I’m not going to press you on this,” I
finally said.

“Smart man,” he replied.

“I do, however, think that you should
consider Helen in all of this.”

“Don’t ya’ think I have, Rowan? She made her
decision.”

I stood and pushed my hands into the pockets
of my jacket then regarded him for another moment. “I believe that
you think you have.”

“Whaddaya mean by that?”

I sighed and pressed forward with my plan.
“Family is important, Ben. Felicity and I consider you an important
part of ours. I want you to know that.”

He nodded. “Yeah. Same here.”

I continued. “I’m serious, Ben. You’re a rare
kind of friend. The kind of friend that either one of us would walk
through fire for; and, I know you would do the same for either of
us.”

“Yeah, I would. That goes without sayin’,” he
replied in a confused but serious tone. “So?”

“So, you have other family, my friend. Blood
family…”

I pulled my hand out of my pocket and in it
was my cell phone.

“Jeezus… Fuck me… Rowan, don’t…”

I had flipped it open and thumbed the speed
dial for Helen’s cell while it was still concealed, so I put the
device up to my ear. Her strained voice was already coming across
the line.

“Rowan? Rowan, are you there?”

“Hold on a second, Helen,” I replied.

I took the couple of short steps toward Ben
and laid the phone on the end table next to his chair then looked
him in the eyes once again.

I gave him a shallow nod then as I turned to
walk out, I said, “I think maybe it’s time you walked through some
of that fire for your sister.”

* * * * *

Before I even hit the bottom of the stairs, I
could hear that Felicity and Patrick were engaged in an animated
conversation. From what I could make out, I had to assume that it
was about Gaelic history. I suppose that shouldn’t have been a
surprise.

When I came out of the back room, my wife
shot me a quick glance over her shoulder.

“Did you convince him to go see his father,
then?” she asked, her Celtic brogue heavily underscoring the
sentence. I knew she had to be just as exhausted as me, and it
wasn’t out of the question that the rum could be playing a part as
well. It was hard to say at this point, and the dull throb that was
still residing in my own skull wasn’t helping me to reach any
conclusions.

“We’ll see,” I replied. “He’s on my cell with
Helen right now. Or at least I hope he is.”

“You hope he is?”

“Yeah. Long story.”

“Okay, so what should we do now?” she
asked.

“Go home.”

“You don’t want to wait?”

“He’ll either go or he won’t.” I shrugged.
“We’ve done all we can do, and I can get my phone back later.”

She considered me in silence for a moment
then asked, “How’s your headache?”

“Still there,” I replied. “How’s your
drinking problem?”

“Still there.” She echoed my answer.

Without missing a beat, Patrick interjected,
“Somehow I don’t think I want to know what the two of you are
talking about.”

“You don’t,” we replied almost in unison.

Felicity shook her head and turned back to
me. “Aye, let’s just go home. I’ll beat you after I’ve had some
sleep.”

I awakened to the sensation of something soft
tickling my cheek, and out of reflex I brushed at it without even
opening my eyes. I had no idea how long I’d been lying in the bed.
It felt like it had only been a few minutes, but I really couldn’t
be certain. The truth was, I barely remembered crawling beneath the
covers. I was simply so exhausted at that point in time that I had
been operating on autopilot.

Whether it had been a few minutes or a few
hours, however, what I did know for sure was that my head remained
filled with the same ache that had plagued it when I first shut my
eyes.

The softness brushed against my face a second
time, and again I automatically dragged the back of my hand across
my cheek. But, no sooner had I done it than the light tickle
returned. The annoyance suddenly disappeared of its own accord only
to just as quickly reappear. It was at about this time that I
realized there was a weight on my chest.

I opened my eyes and found myself staring
into the grizzled face of our geriatric calico cat, Emily. She was
pushing seventeen years old and still going strong, although she
was moving a bit slower these days. Presently, she was perched on
my chest, almost up to my throat, her nose mere inches from mine
and one paw resting on my cheek. The moment she saw my eyes open,
she let out a pathetic “mew” directly into my face.

I was instantly blasted with the feline
equivalent of morning breath.

I scrunched up my nose, and figuring that
mine probably wasn’t any better, I blew my own return volley at
her. She didn’t seem particularly impressed by the force of my
retaliation and remained unfazed; she simply patted my cheek with
her paw and “mewed” again. I reached up and gently nudged her off
my chest then rolled over on my side; hooking my arm around
Felicity’s mid-section, I nuzzled in close and closed my eyes.

Unfortunately, I didn’t even get a chance to
settle in before the doorbell rang and the dogs began barking. This
developing theme of people getting me out of bed with phones and
doorbells was really starting to wear on my nerves.