And hope she’d forgive him.
“My fucking father had cleaned out all the bank accounts.” Sailor’s hands fisted behind ísa’s back. “Brian even took the money from my and Gabe’s accounts. That was money our mother had put in literally five dollars at time so we wouldn’t miss out at school, so we’d have the money for supplies and extracurricular activities.” Sailor could barely bring himself to say the next words. “I loved that bastard so much.”
“You were a child.” Ferocious words, hands fisting in his hair to force him to hold her fiery gaze. “And he was your father. Of course you trusted him.”
Spreading his hands over her T-shirt, he pressed his forehead to her own and told her the worst of it. “I look like him.” He’d been fifteen when he’d stared into a mirror and seen the truth. “Mom never did anything dramatic like throw out all pictures of him. She’s always said that he’s our father and she wasn’t going to deprive us of our history.”
“I want to steal your mother,” ísa said seriously. “She’s the kind of mom I want to be one day.”
Sailor caught the hesitation before the last words, wanted to punch himself. No, ísa should be the one to punch him. He’d even give her a boxing glove so she could pound his stupid face without hurting herself.
“Hey,” she said when he went quiet, “don’t think you’re done yet. Keep on talking.”
God, he was crazy about her. “After Dad came into our life, I never really felt the need to look at photos of Brian. Dad was the one who was there for us, the one who did my homework with me, the one who held my hand when we crossed the road.” Joseph Esera had shown Sailor what it meant to be a real father, what it meant to show up and do the job with love and a quiet strength that told Sailor it was okay to lean on him when he needed it.
“But,” he continued, “then we did this family-history class in high school, and I decided to open up that can of worms.” As far as life decisions went, it hadn’t been one of his best. “I found a picture of Brian from when he and Mom first got married. It was like looking at an older reflection of myself.”
Sailor could still remember his dawning sense of rage. “Gabriel has the black hair, but he’s got our mother’s eyes. As for my brother’s build, I don’t know where that came from.” A grin born of old memories. “I used to say he took all the good food in the womb, leaving me the scraps.”
ísa wrinkled up her nose. “You’re not exactly small.” Her hands on his shoulders, massaging with a proprietary touch that gave him hope. “What are you? Six two?”
“Good guess.” Only next to Gabe’s six five did he look in any way short. “I guess from your point of view, shorty, I’m a giant.”
ísa poked him in the arm. “I’m a respectable five six, I’ll have you know.” The words were followed by a scowl. “So you look like him. It doesn’t mean you’re in any way who he was.”
“It’s not just that,” Sailor said. “I remember a lot of things from my childhood before he left. More than usual when you consider I was only five when he took off.” He’d never told anyone else the depth of his memories, not even Gabe.
“Not surprising.” She kissed him, tender and affectionate, his ísa looking after him as she looked after all her people. “That was a dramatic time in your life.”
Sailor decided that if it turned out he had to fight dirty to keep her, he’d fight dirty. Even if it meant admitting to his most pitiful emotions and stripping himself bare. “Sometimes I feel like I’m picking up the memories brick by brick and looking at them. And what I see is that I have so many pieces of him in me.” He began to play with a lock of ísa’s hair. “I almost didn’t become a gardener.”
ísa’s eyebrows drawing together over her eyes. “But you love it so much.”
“He didn’t work much—Gabe remembers more, tells me Brian was always more interested in get-rich-quick schemes, the next big score,” Sailor said, wondering if Gabriel truly had conquered his own demons when it came to their father; he was Brian’s oldest son, after all, and they’d had a different relationship than Sailor had had with Brian.
His brother was so tough and so together that it was hard to think of him as a child, especially when he’d always been Sailor’s rock. “I remember holding tight to Gabe’s hand the day we were evicted. I was so scared, but I saw that Gabe wasn’t crying, so I didn’t either.”
ísa’s lips curved. “I can just see you, two tough little men. That must’ve helped your mom so much when she was fighting to fix things.”
Sailor hadn’t felt so tough back then, but ísa’s words showed him a new way to look at the terrible memories so they weren’t about abandonment but about love and strength and being family.
Yeah, he wasn’t about to let go of his redhead. Not ever.
“The odd times when Brian did work,” he continued, returning back to what he’d started to say, “it was often for landscaping companies. He gave me a child-sized spade a couple of months before he left. Mom likes gardening too, but I’ve always associated it with him.” With the man who’d left his family behind. That choice, Sailor might’ve one day forgiven, but to clean out the accounts so that his wife and children didn’t even have enough money for food? Who did that?
And how did a man get past such a vile genetic legacy?
“But one day,” Sailor said, curling ísa’s hair around his finger, “I decided the dream was mine. He’d stolen so much from us—I wouldn’t let him steal this too.” He looked into the soft, moon-washed gray-green of ísa’s eyes. “Do you see?”
Expression gentle and her heart unhidden, ísa said, “You need to do this yourself, because your father took and took. It’s not rational and maybe it’s not even sensible, but it’s important to you.”
He shuddered because he was a fucking lucky man; she got it. Got him.
“Your parents and brothers love you,” she said decisively. “Involve them in nonfinancial ways and I think they’ll be happy. Talk to them about choices you need to make for the business, ask for feedback. And keep on accepting the frozen dinners and grocery deliveries.”
There she went, being ísa again. Looking out for everyone but herself.
Well, fuck that. If she wouldn’t do it for herself, he’d do it for her.
“You know how I said there were two things?”
She nodded.
Taking a deep breath, Sailor decided to lay himself at her feet. “I was imagining the future and thinking of how if everything went according to plan, I’d have a very successful business with a high turnover.”
He made sure his hands were locked behind ísa’s back—just in case she decided to leave him in her dust a fourth time. “And since I’d be rich, I’d be able to buy houses and other nice things for my family.”
ísa frowned. “I don’t think your family expects that.”