“Go on.”
“The burden on your shoulders, how do you carry it so well? In all the years I’ve known you, I’ve seen you sacrifice whatever is necessary for the bigger picture. Each time unflinching and unwavering in determination. What is it that makes you such a warrior?”
“I was born a warrior. My name keeps me one,” I answered him but didn’t wait to hear his response, already walking toward Ivy and my chair. I took off my uniform and hung it up for the last time, then took my coat.
“You looked happy working at his shop.” Ivy smiled, rising up, holding on to the photo album and finally looking at me, and when she did her smile faded as if she could read my mind. Turning from me, she gave Gabby a one-armed hug. “Good night, Gabby. I hope I helped.”
“Yep, your wayyyy is better than my teachers.” She hugged back, releasing her and moving to me. “Bye, Uncle! Come more.”
I patted her head. “Why don’t you come to Chicago?”
“Uncle, I’m a kid. I can’t go by myself,” she said as if I were stupid.
“Fine. We’ll wait for your list to come in your place,” I said to her, taking Ivy’s hand and walking toward the door.
“Bye, Giovanni, thank you for the stories.” Ivy smiled at him, and he nodded, waving us off.
Neither Ivy nor I spoke until we got into the car.
I glanced at the window with his name upon it. Giovanni walked to the sign on the front window and flipped it to Closed.
“They are…normal,” she whispered. I understood what she was implying.
“By some cousin to a cousin we were related,” I whispered, starting the engine. “I didn’t understand why my mother wanted me to work for them. She only mentioned them once before I started to work. And she mentioned them as if they were so distant they were the afterthought of an afterthought.”
“Did you ever understand then why she made you work there?”
“Because my mother…saw the big picture,” I said, pulling onto the street. “Make Italians see her son was still one of them. Make them get close enough to see how dark my heart could get. Make them respect me. Make them fear me. Let me see how much they were jealous. But also to remind me, that if I were meant to be a barber, I would have been one. I was born into my family not theirs. My name is a constant reminder of that. If I felt like my life or path was so burdensome, to ponder why everyone else wants it so badly.”
It took me much too long to realize that.
Glancing down and placing her hand on my thigh, I looked at her as she said, “Gabby. I like her.”
“Like no one but me.” It would be easier.
That was the cruel fact of life.
The weak will die.
The strong will live.
I made sure we, the Callahans, were always strong, at any cost.
TWENTY-THREE
“If I am an angel, paint me with black wings.”
~ Anne Rice
ELEVEN DAYS LATER
IVY
“Today, while high on what police are calling the Cocktail, a batch of heroin that was mixed with various drugs, a middle-aged man walked into oncoming traffic naked and—”
Click.
“The Cocktail, the highly deadly drug sweeping the city claimed the life of an innocent pizza man who arrived at the house of two users, only to be beaten to death—”
Click.
“This drug contains only about 2 percent of actual heroin, giving users that similar high but causing them to crash much faster. When they do they often get very violent—”
Click.
“What is the government doing? Where is the police? People are dying out here! The bus driver who drove into a local McDonald’s was the last straw. My kids and I are staying home. You don’t know who’s on that trash—”
Click. Ethan pressed the button on the remote once more, as I lay on top of him, listening to his heartbeat. He wasn’t even watching the screen. His eyes were closed, his hand with the remote dangling off the couch lazily.
“Doctors across the city have reached out to other states for the drug naloxone, commonly used to reverse the effects of an overdose due to heroin or other various types of painkillers, such as morphine, oxycodone, methadone, and fentanyl. However, many states have refused, due to a growing fear this is just the beginning and the deadly cocktails will spread to other parts of the country—”
Click.
“Police say they have a lead on the drug dealers behind the Cocktail, though no other details can be shared at the—”
Click.
“How much longer?” I asked him.
“As long as it takes,” he replied.
I sighed, sitting up. “Ethan, Rory waved at me today. She waved. And I wanted to break her little hand. You told me to wait and I’ve waited. However, she’s not getting punished by this. I need to do it.”
His eyelids lifted slowly and he glanced up at the ceiling. “You’re right.”
“I am?”
“Yes. Now let’s go grocery shopping,” he said, beginning to sit up, and I moved so he could.
“Is that code for something—”
“It’s code for the fridge is empty and we can’t live on kettle corn, alcohol, and sex,” he said, pulling me off the couch.
I smiled. “Then we can talk over what we’re going to do.”
Before he could reply the doorbell rang. The first time since we’d moved in.
“Stay here,” he said to me as he walked out to the living room. But being the nosey person I was, I stuck my head out to see. At the front door he slid the panel beside it, opening the camera, then relaxed. He opened the door and stepped aside, allowing Wyatt, who was still dressed in his burgundy scrubs, into the house. Wyatt stepped inside, his hair disheveled, circles around his eyes.
“Where is the alcohol?” he asked us.
“Kitchen.” I pointed, and he walked there, helping himself.
Ethan started heading back toward the living room when I got in front of him. “What are you doing?”
“Going to listen to the news—”
“Your brother is in there and he looks like shit.”
“And?” he asked.
I wanted to kick him.
“And he obviously came because he wanted to talk—”
“I doubt it.”
Again I stepped in front of him. “If you don’t open that door, I swear, no sex, no alcohol, no kettle corn.”
“Is that a code for something?” he mocked me, so I punched his arm.
“Go—” I stopped when Wyatt walked out holding a bottle of scotch, Ethan’s scotch, drinking from the bottle with one hand and holding the bag of kettle corn in the other. Ignoring us, he walked into the living room, slipped out of his scrubs, and sat his ass on the couch comfortably. Reaching for the remote, he switched to a random movie and just watched, eating and drinking quietly.
“I think he’s broken,” I whispered to Ethan.
“He’s hiding,” Ethan corrected, moving to the living room, pushing Wyatt down to the floor to lie back down on the couch. Wyatt didn’t even argue. He just kept eating.
Nope, not doing this shit.