Restored (The Walsh Series Book 5) (8 page)

"Who are you trying to convince with that? Me or you?" Tiel asked. "Everyone in your family knows everything about everything."

I gestured toward the road, as if the cars and signs and sky could encapsulate the feelings I had about Shannon and Erin's war of silence. The two were surprisingly close-lipped about it all, never amassing allies or inciting skirmishes. While they certainly interpreted moves from any of us as acts of allegiance or treason, their relationship was never open for discussion.

Ever.

I scratched my jaw, scowling. "There was a cannonball."

"A cannonball?" she repeated.

"Yeah," I said. "You know how there are little monuments in old town squares and cemeteries around Boston? Where they have a stacked pyramid of cannonballs, and some shiny old cannons or statues?"

"Vaguely," she said.

"Erin stole a cannonball."

"Erin. Stole. A cannonball." Tiel stared at me, her expression packed with skepticism. "Is there more to this story, or are they at odds over the cannonball itself? It's far-fetched but it wouldn't surprise me if your siblings went to war with each other over historical artifacts."

"I believe it was some kind of prank, and she got arrested," I said. "Erin brought the high school baseball team with her, and they took out the entire pyramid of cannonballs. They relocated it to a rival team's field. Home plate, to be exact. They all got arrested, and it was a big deal because the players were disqualified from a state championship game. It was in the news, and…it was a big deal."

Tiel was silent for a beat, her arched eyebrow conveying all of her incredulousness. "Okay. That sounds like a well-executed senior prank with some unfortunate consequences, not the grounds for a years-long cold shoulder. Shannon's tough but she's not ridiculous. And you don't have to share this with me if you don't want to, but you're either not telling me the whole story or you don't know the whole story. Which one is it?"

Too damn perceptive, my fiancée.

"Shannon sorted out the legal shit but basically locked Erin's ass down, and then…things declined pretty quickly."

I paused, not wanting to continue with this topic. A part of me believed that Shannon and Erin would stop what they were doing, wherever they were, and call to rip me a new one because they sensed this topic was afoot and I knew better than to air their dirty laundry, even to my future wife.

"We are climbing all the way up the trust tree right now, Sunshine."

"And in the trust tree we shall stay," she said.

A frustrated grunt rattled in my throat. "The cannonball was the tipping point," I said. "Shannon was really worried about Erin. She was always pushing her to see a therapist, and—"

"Wait, go back," Tiel interrupted. "Why was she worried? Start from the beginning."

I supposed this was reciprocity. I'd seen all of Tiel's family baggage this weekend, and now she was seeing mine.

"My father took out a considerable amount of anger on Erin," I said, and I was aching for the day when those memories didn't turn my stomach. "He hit anyone who crossed his path, but he aimed for Erin as often as possible. The things he did to her…fuck. I don't want to think about it."

"I'm sorry. I didn't realize this was such a thorny topic for you. I shouldn't have pushed." Tiel set her cup in the center console and grabbed my free hand. "We don't have to talk about it."

I'd often heard that it was best to get these things out in the open, to discuss and grieve and process, but fuck if that wasn't the worst idea in the world. As far as my siblings and I were concerned, talking about the heinous shit we survived under Angus was a destination of last resort, but that didn't mean we weren't dealing with it in our own ways. Matt and Patrick exorcised their issues by pounding the pavement, Riley solved all his problems with weed, Shannon was a big proponent of therapy, Erin pulled crazy stunts, and I went on months-long sabbaticals to the wilderness.

No single approach was right, and none were completely wrong, either.

We didn't come together to compare war stories, and not because we wanted to keep secrets or sweep these horrors under the rug. Some monsters were better left in the closet.

"It's fine," I said eventually. "When Patrick and Shannon finally got Erin out of my father's house, she was not okay."

"But Erin didn't want help?"

"Oh, hell no," I said, laughing. "You can't tell her anything. She does what she wants, and God help you if you get in her way. If you think Shannon is strong-willed, Erin is doubly so."

Tiel laughed into her coffee cup. "How is that even possible?"

"Erin is the vodka-Red Bull to Shannon's whiskey-rocks." I shrugged, not sure there was a better way to describe their fundamental similarities but wild differences. "Shannon became Erin's custodial guardian, and Erin lived with her for about two years. Those were two
long
years. It was like Erin wanted to see how much she could push Shannon, and it turned out that she could push really fucking hard."

I hated thinking about that time. I was away at Cornell, trying to reinvent myself, and Shannon was back in Boston, trying to save the world. A piece of her died inside those two years, and another piece died when Erin left.

"There was the cannonball incident, and Shannon went hard at the counseling angle after that," I said. "And then it got
really
bad." I grated my fingers against my chin scruff until I was ready to continue. "It got really bad, and then it got worse, and then…everything fell apart. Erin fell apart."

"Oh, God," Tiel murmured. "Is she okay? Now?"

"I think so, but Erin works hard at keeping a lid on things. As far as I know, she hasn't discussed this with anyone since she picked up and left Shannon's apartment a month or two before her high school graduation." I scratched my jaw again. "Things happened between them that you can't erase."

I still remembered Shannon's call that day, every word of it. She was terrified that she'd made the wrong decision, but even more terrified that it had been right.

"She hasn't spoken to Shannon since. It's going to be nine years this spring."

"Whoa," Tiel said. "I'm not sure what I expected, but it was
not
this. Where did she go when she moved out?"

"In with Matt," I said. "Erin stayed with him until she left for college, and he's the only one she consistently talks to."

Tiel was silent for the next three miles, then said, "That was one hell of a cannonball."

D
ecember

D
ecember

I
hated time zones
.

More specifically, I hated that time zones made it impossible for me and Ellie to get on the phone when one of us wasn't running to a sound check or falling asleep. The European leg of her band's tour was packed with performances—they often had two shows each day—and now we were resorting to email.

I hated email, too.

It wasn't our mode of communication. Me and Ellie, we were auditory in nature. When we were together, our conversations were laced with belted-out lyrics and hummed melodies because that was our native tongue.

I wanted Ellie in my ear while I thumbed through dresses because there was no possible way I could choose one without her real-time input. I needed her talking the crazy out of me.

Okay, perhaps I was exaggerating the dress issue. Riley insisted that I'd love the atelier co-op where a friend from RISD was developing a new line of funky formal wear, and that did sound intriguing. Andy and I had a dinner and dress-shopping date lined up for tomorrow night, and I knew I was in good hands with her taste and Riley's recommendation.

Andy knew we were shopping for The Dress, although she didn't know The Day was right around the corner. For all her intensity and precision, she was pleasantly laid-back when it came to operating without complete information. Whenever I told her I didn't know, or didn't want to discuss something, she shrugged and moved on as if it was a non-issue.

I would have given anything for her kind of calm because the crazy? Yeah, that wasn't going away.

I didn't want to feel this way. I wanted to wrap up the fall semester without a bucketful of regret over my complete lack of meaningful research and paltry publication totals. I wanted to find heartfelt Christmas gifts for my future in-laws, and finally succeed at sending holiday cards. And more than anything else, I wanted a taste of the bride experience.

Never once did I believe that walking away from my mother's dining room table would result in a clean break. Oh no, I knew better than that. No repossession of self was ever complete without watching as the roots snapped, receded, shriveled.

And it fucking
ached
.

At first there were voicemails. My father, my sister, my Aunt Daphne. Some of my cousins called, but I knew they were primarily interested in a spin on the drama llama.

I deleted the messages without listening but that didn't mean I wasn't curious. What were they so insistent on sharing with me? Was it anger? Rejection? Sorrow? Or was it something else altogether? Did they even comprehend the reality of it? After all these years, it was possible that everyone else experienced that day as one in a long line of "Tiel, you're a mess!" incidents, and nothing more than that.

There were emails, too, and that was another reason to hate email.

Sam had found me in the showers-turned-studio space at the firehouse last week, fighting back tears as I read a message from Agapi about the pain and anguish I was causing our parents, and it wasn't going to surprise her if one of them suffered a heart attack or stroke and died as a result of the misery I'd inflicted upon them. Oh, and I was a fat, stuck-up bitch with a fake engagement ring.

From that point forward, I handed my phone to Sam whenever I saw notifications from my family, and he read and removed them for me. Most of the time, he offered a quick shake of his head while he scowled at the screen, and that was his way of telling me not to worry about the message.

Instead of worrying, I got swept up in the final weeks of classes before winter break, and tasked myself with building The Best Wedding Playlist Ever. It was all Van Morrison, The Lumineers, Jack Johnson, Neil Young, Ed Sheeran, Ellie Goulding, Mumford & Sons, Corinne Bailey Rae, David Gray, and The Fray. It wasn't enough to create a playlist; I was also obsessed with recording my own versions of these tracks and forcing my syrupy love songs down the unwitting throats of my YouTube subscribers.

But it didn't diminish the phantom limb pain that radiated through my body as the messages tapered off, finally grinding to a halt in the most screeching silence I'd ever heard because I knew it was
over
. I was a train wreck, a disappointment, a cautionary tale, and I didn't belong to my family anymore.

That was when crazy came to town and set up the circus.

Sam had tolerated my ups and downs without much more than an arched eyebrow for weeks. Sympathy shone in his eyes every time I launched into extensive arguments about lazy undergrads or laundry soap that left our clothes smelling of grape juice or our inability to agree on a wedding cake. His touches were longer, deeper, and every day began and ended with him fucking me until I lost the power of speech.

It was his attempt at replacing what I'd lost, at tattooing unequivocal love into every fiber of us until everything else faded away, and I doubted that I'd ever be able to properly acknowledge what he was doing for me. And it was that deep sense of gratitude that held my wobbly moods in such sharp relief. I'd been irritable and impatient and aching, and willing to argue about anything that crossed my path, and he was taking every punch I could throw.

I knew I was funneling my hurt into misplaced anger but it felt like a rock rolling down a mountain, out of my hands and gaining speed and mass until it
was
the mountain, earth and stone and sky all ambling downward until it crashed.

Until
I
crashed.

L
eafing
through the mail after the most boring department meeting in the history of department meetings, I stopped when I found a large envelope from my bank. I tore into it, expecting to see new policies and disclosure statements, but found a letter stating that my student loans had been paid in full.

I reread the letter until the words stopped making sense. Eventually, I dialed the number on the top of the page and waited to be connected with a real human person who could explain this madness. She confirmed that the letter was correct, thanked me for my business, and ended the call before I could mumble out a "Thank you."

Glancing around the kitchen, I spotted Sam's phone and keys on the table. Letter in hand, I went in search of him, and stopped first in his workshop before heading to the basement gym. I heard the rhythmic pounding of his feet against the treadmill before I rounded the corner, and if I hadn't been dumbstruck by the dissolution of my debt, I would have admired the graceful coil and stretch of his shoulders, or the light sheen of sweat on his bare back, or his perfectly biteable rear end.

Okay, so I took a minute to admire those things.

"Hey," I said, positioning myself beside the machine and moving into his line of sight. "What is this about?"

Sam squinted at the letter as he slowed to a walk. "Is there a problem?" he asked, panting.

My eyes wide, I looked between him and the letter. "Tell me you didn't."

He reached for a towel and rubbed it over his face and chest before responding. "Do you want the truth," he started, "or do you want me to tell you I didn't handle this?"

"
Handle this
?" I repeated. "I'm something that needs
handling
?"

"Tiel," he growled, his stare pointed. "Stop."

"I'm trying to be calm about this," I said, my voice rising as it quivered. "But here's a list of the things I do not understand right now. First, you stalked my stuff. How did you even find my balance and account numbers? I mean, that's—"

"
Tiel
," he interrupted.

"
Sam
! I'm going to say what I need to say, and then you can be shirtless and sweaty and glare at me with your thick lumberjack arms crossed, but not until I'm finished."

He lifted an eyebrow and leaned against the treadmill. He gestured toward me and then folded his arms over his chest, forcing me to gaze at his taut forearms. And chest. And goddamn it, a shirtless Sam was a weapon of panty destruction. "By all means. Continue."

"Okay, so you have the bright idea to pay off
my
loans without talking to
me
," I said. "What am I supposed to say right now? Thank you?"

Sam shook his head and shrugged, and that gesture tripped me far into the freak-out zone.

"I like doing things my own way, on my own time," I said, and the words were coming fast and frantic, and the sting of accusation was heavy. I knew I needed to throttle back, but I couldn't. I'd fought too hard for my self-sufficiency. I'd worked too long to claim my independence. I'd surrendered so much of myself to this man, and trusted him implicitly, but I didn't want him
keeping
me. "I don't appreciate you swooping in and deciding that you can just…just…
wife
me."

He rubbed his forehead, chuckling. "Are you using wife as a
verb
?"

"That's what you want to talk about right now? Parts of speech?"

"I'm not
wifeing
you. That's ridiculous, and I think you know it. And are you forgetting that we're getting married in six days, and anything that isn't already shared between us will definitely be shared then?" he said, his hand waving at the room. "You're not allowed to have a problem with it."

"I'm not
allowed
?" I shrieked. "You are fucking outrageous right now."

"Oh, I'm outrageous? You're the one acting like we're getting married and starting a family, but we'll live fully independent lives otherwise. Do you think I haven't noticed that you
still
keep the credit cards I gave you in your jewelry box?"

Oh my fucking God. Not the credit cards again.

Sam had given them to me after I moved in, and I figured it was like when your parents handed over a credit card when you went to a high school marching band competition in western Kentucky and it was to be used in extreme circumstances only. But when the statement arrived last week, he noticed that I had yet to make any charges. That happened to be the same day he came home to find me mending some fallen dress hems and coloring in a bleach spot on a black skirt with a Sharpie, and he went a little apeshit.

Sam earned a lot more money than I did, and as often was the case with people for whom money wasn't an issue, he didn't see the problem with that. He didn't feel any inequity with what I brought to the table, but I felt it. I hadn't stopped feeling it.

"I don't want to need you," I cried, and I hated those words before I finished saying them. His eyes crinkled as he flinched, and I deflated, torn between tending my pride and soothing the hurt I'd created.