“Oh shit, yeah, that will stir up the hornets in your head.”
I nodded, sipped my tea, and studied the cracks in the sidewalk. “I’d thought I was alone, but then this child appeared.”
“So, this kid news really shook you, huh?”
“Deeply. She’s sick. Leukemia. And she needs a bone marrow transplant, which I am one-hundred-percent ready and wanting to do!”
“Obvs.”
“Yes, so it’s not that I want anyone to think that I don’t want to save my daughter’s life because I do. It has just been a rush of things coming at me all at the same time. New team, new city, new home, and now a child. And her uncle.”
“Yeah? Is he cute?”
I threw a confused look at Victor. “What? Why would you ask that?”
“Because you said the word ‘uncle’ like you were all up and ready to get into that.” He shrugged, then took a loud slurpy sip of his tea. “Maybe I misread. So go on.”
I stared at him for a long moment, then opted to simply dump it all on his lap. He’d signed up to be called by random drunks looking for help, right? So here I was. A random drunk looking for help. I talked and talked and talked. For hours it seemed, but in reality, only ten minutes had passed. When I ran out of steam after the meltdown at the elevator with the siren song of cold gin in my ears, I kind of stalled out like a broken Vespa.
“Wow, you really have had a ton of shit fall on your head. But hey, you did the right thing and reached out. And fuck but how lucky were you to get me?”
He gave me a wink that broke the tension of my purge. “Incredibly lucky.”
“Damn straight. So, let’s do this thing properly, shall we? The good Reverend has just opened the doors to the church, and I’m betting there’s awful coffee and stale doughnuts waiting for us if we just leave this bench and walk down the block. What do you say?”
He stood up and looked down at me. I took a moment to gauge where I was mentally and found, to my amazement, that I felt a little lighter. And a bit more in control of my dark side. I’d never thought that simply talking to someone who had walked the same path I had would do so much good. Which was why I’d put off looking for a group here. The thought of people knowing me—and everyone here now knew me—and admitting what a fuck-up I was had sat wrong. But perhaps I simply needed a swift kick in the ass by fate to push me into admitting that I wasn’t any better than the sanitation worker sweeping the street. I was a man with a problem that would not go away over time. I’d learned that in rehab, but had been reluctant to share my story with the world. But now I had to be strong. And sober. There was much more riding on my staying on the wagon than some bad press and a trade.
Now there was Sophie and Isaac who depended on me.
“Yeah, let’s go have some bad coffee.”
“That a man.” Victor offered me his hand and I took it. “One day at a time, Jokey.”
“Must you call me that?” I asked as he jerked me to my feet. It was worse than Loafy.
“Does it annoy you?”
“Yes, to be honest.”
“Then that shall be your name forever more. Let’s go. If you show up late, Carl eats all the chocolate doughnuts. What? Don’t fucking judge me. I bought the unsweetened tea, didn’t I?”
Boston was turning out to be a unique and boisterous town filled with surprises. Some good, some bad, and some life-altering.
Chapter Five
Isaac
My daughter.
The words followed me out of that meeting and back to my hotel room, where I sat in absolute silence rocking a fretful Sophie and replaying every syllable on repeat.
“I had to know this could happen. He’s your daddy by blood.” She blinked up at me, her dark eyes wide at the sound of my voice.
“Dadda,” she murmured and curled her hand around mine. She was fighting sleep, and for the longest time, I stared down at her, seeing the shape of her mom’s face, the long lashes, the way her curls were damp with exertion from crying.
She was my daughter. Not in-law. I was only her uncle, but she was my daughter by heart. My daughter. But that’s what Joachim had said, and he had more of that claim than I ever could.
My daughter.
The words had dripped with emotion as if something had clicked into place, and his shock had given way to a warrior’s purpose. I knew without a doubt that, from that moment on, he would put Sophie’s life above his. Wasn’t that all I wanted? I refused to think that I could lose her. Ashley had given her to me. I was her uncle, and I couldn’t think about tomorrows when todays were so hard.
Finally, Sophie’s eyes stayed closed, and her breathing settled.
“Love you, Sophie-boo,” I whispered, then waited a few moments to see if she would remain asleep before I tiptoed out of the bedroom. Even though I knew I’d hear her with the door closed—I’d become very good at waking in an instant if she needed me—I left her door open enough so I could see her from the sitting area. The Rebels hadn’t just given me a motel room, nope, this was a penthouse suite in a hotel that screamed luxury. It had two bedrooms, a marble bathroom, sitting room, and kitchen, not to mention a huge flatscreen TV and spectacular views over the city and harbor that blew my artist’s mind. Two doors opened to a patio area with a table. I was drawn to it, though I didn’t step outside.
Deciding to grab the quickest shower on record, I changed out of my pants and shirt, and stepped into the spa-like shower. When I was finished, I put on my PJs and headed into the kitchen for a drink. The small kitchen had two cupboards, and each was packed with coffee, tea, cocoa, and snacks, and on the counter, there was a big bowl of fruit. What I should have done is have a glass of water, an apple, and head to bed, but it was only eight and still daylight outside the window, plus I had work to catch up on.
Instead, I made a hot chocolate and curled up on the vast sofa with my traveling art kit. I’d become an expert in working for clients, or for myself, in the weirdest of places. Sitting in the hospital or curled on the floor next to Sophie’s crib at home, even in the car waiting for results. Art was my income, graphics for clients, but my private art was where I hid my pain—safely locked away in slashes of black and gray.
“What now?” I asked my sketchbook, then sipped at the smooth chocolatey goodness until the warmth of it began to curl inside me. Glancing around me for inspiration, I felt a hint of an idea.
When he had accompanied me to the room, the manager had apologized that I didn’t have a private pool. I could have joked that I wasn’t the swimming pool kind of boy, given I’d grown up in the Keys and the ocean was my home, but I sensed this was very important to him, and never let it be said I wasn’t good at making other people feel better. Anyway, if I’d said something like that, I genuinely think he’d have a breakdown because he was already concerned that the crib wasn’t big enough for Sophie and that he hadn’t thought to buy some children’s toys. I’d stayed in a lot of hotels since Sophie became part of my life, and not once had there been toys in the room, and the crib was more a full-size bed with rails.
This suite was a palace compared to some of the motels, but it was just as impersonal, and it wasn’t home. I picked up a black marker and drew thick black lines for this week’s comic strip. Wilma Payne was my alter ego, the drawings that I created for me, commenting on grief, fears, social issues, politics, inequality, anything I felt that I wanted to make a statement about. I poured my restless angsty heartbroken heart into this art that was available free on a ton of different platforms.