“Oh, then, no.” The gray-haired man adjusted his cap. “If your mother or aunt, worse than your wife. For them, you say yes and do what you need to do as a man behind their back. Then hope they do not find out.”
Sitting back, Miki slid his remark in between Edie’s admonishments. “Okay, I’m heading back to the Morgans. I’ll have the cab guy turn around.”
The Russian met Miki’s eyes in the rearview mirror, lifting his eyebrows in question. Shaking his head no, Miki made a face when the cabbie grinned widely at him, showing the large gap between his two front teeth. Edie wound down her tirade with a dark promise to descend upon San Francisco as soon as she finished filing lawsuits on his behalf. Ending the call, Miki turned off the phone and sank into the vinyl seat, tired out from the battle.
“Good! Well done!” The cab driver grunted. “You have no father, yes? Or he would have taught you these things.”
“Nope, but I know one now I can ask.” Miki’s mouth lifted at the corners as he thought of what Donal Morgan would have to say about Edie. “I think he’d have told me the same thing. Well, I hope so. He’s kind of the reason I’m heading up here. Just need to say… good-bye. To everything.”
“Good man, then.” He flipped off the meter. “You, I give you the ride for free. Then you call me when you’re done there. I’ll come get you.”
“Deal,” Miki said, taking the man’s card when the driver handed it to him.
After directing the Russian to drop him off at the corner, Miki gave the driver a hefty tip and another promise to call him back. Giving the man a friendly wave, he gripped the walking stick he borrowed from Donal, easing the weight off of his injured knee.
They’d tussled a bit about Miki heading to Vega’s house but in the end, Miki’s desire to put his ghosts to bed outweighed Donal’s apprehension. As a concession to Donal’s suspicious nature, he took the ancient walking stick Donal pulled from an umbrella stand.
The shillelagh was a gnarled piece of blackthorn Donal’s grandfather used while tramping through the wilds of Ireland, and Miki’d been reluctant to take it with him, but the older man scoffed at his reservations.
“That shillelagh there’s been through greater battles than you’ll find here in San Francisco, boy.” Donal’s lilting scold was light, a cheerful reassurance for Miki to take what seemed to be a Morgan heirloom with him as he climbed the hills of Vega’s neighborhood. “It’ll be good to have a piece of the family with you as you chase your boojums. If you want to do this alone, then at least have us with you in spirit. Now take the damned thing and go. Before the driver starts charging you for sitting there at the curb.”
“I feel like a goddamn leprechaun,” he groused. His knee gave him a little trouble, sending off a twinge or two as he walked up the hill toward Vega’s house, and the blackened, stout piece of wood made it easier to walk. “Or one of those hipster douches at the coffee shop. I could start a new trend. McPimp Mac Daddy fashions.”
It was too damned easy to reach the middle of the street. Miki suddenly found himself staring at his own personal hell. His fingers ached until he realized he was gripping the cane’s knob too tightly. He forced his hand to relax and the tension flowed out into his arms and shoulders, locking his legs with a rigid purpose.
Coming up to the house seemed like a good idea when he’d been cradled in the relatively insane warmth of the Morgan home. Surrounded by echoes of laughing children and steady adults, Miki found a longing inside of him, something whispering a promise that he could find a place at the table during the holidays or even a comforting word from a battered veteran of the fathering wars when he got too lost to find his way out of his head.
Donal asked him if he was ready to say good-bye to the past and step toward a better future. Miki couldn’t answer the man. There’d been too many shadows lurking behind him, and in that moment, Miki knew he had to make a clean break with his demons. He owed that much to Kane.
A tiny, frail voice in the back of his head whispered he owed that much to himself.
The house looked… smaller than he remembered, more worn down and tired around its edges. A bright orange paper was taped over the doorframe, warning people off the property. Fragments of yellow tape flapped their ragged edges from the hedge near the front stoop, more remnant of a tragedy than a warning against entry.