“Yeah,” he echoes. “She’s been back in town for the last three months or so, and I finally managed to convince her to come over.” He releases a weighty sigh. “I’m hoping…” He glances to the side, and a muscle tics along his jaw. “Well, it’ll be nice to see her again,” he finishes softly.
There’s a shitload of stuff left unsaid in that statement. The fine threads of pain, regret, and worst of all, wistfulness, that lace through his voice fill in the gaps between his words.
“Well, I’m happy for you, Dan,” I murmur. Meaning it. While I don’t have the best memories of his daughter, she’s his kid. And if her being back in Chicago is a chance for them to reconnect, then putting up with eating dinner with her and that huge chip on her shoulder that has probably grown to the size of Wrigley Field is worth it.
Maybe.
“Thanks.” Sliding a hand into the front pocket of his pants, he slightly turns and scans the room, his gaze finding and settling on Mom. We both silently study her as she speaks with Father Donovan. A warm smile lights up her face, and my chest aches. Whereas that particular expression of peace and pleasure used to be as normal and comforting as the sun rising every morning, in the last two years, it’s become a rarity. I hate that. Hate the reasons for the theft of her joy.
He sighs, his attention remaining fixed on her. “I need you to watch out for her today. She and Cypress didn’t have a great relationship, and even though she’s older, I’m not quite sure what to expect. So just…”
He shrugs a shoulder, and I nod.
I get it. He’s protective of her. Almost overprotective.
He’d witnessed his wife crumble two years ago when her son, my brother Connor, died in an MMA match. Then he’d seen her suffer the perceived betrayal of her oldest son—the one she held responsible for leading Connor into a world she deemed violent and barbaric—because he “stole” her dead boy’s wife. So Dan could be excused for wanting to encase her in proverbial bubble wrap to shield her from any more pain.
Knox and Eden hadn’t fallen for each other to inflict more emotional torture on Mom. My oldest brother had been in love with Eden for years. He hadn’t been aware that I’d known, but as the secret keeper in this family, I’d figured out his love for Connor’s wife almost from the beginning. Even after our younger brother’s death, he’d fought his feelings. But then came the moment three months ago, when Eden had announced her love for Knox to the family, to Mom, at a Sunday dinner like this one.
That had been the last time either of them had stepped foot in the house.
Mom couldn’t deal with the knowledge that the woman she’d considered a daughter was now with Eden’s dead husband’s brother. Hell, Mom still couldn’t deal with the fact that Connor was dead. Since then, Dan had gone intoOperation Protect Katherine At All Costs. While I agree Mom is fragile, not making her face the changes in this family—face reality—is doing more harm than good.
But then I remember, years ago, walking into the tiny bathroom off her and Dad’s bedroom in our old Bridgeport home a couple of months after Dad’s death… I remember the crimson-soaked white-and-blue checked tiles. I remember the old-fashioned straight razor Dad used to shave with on the floor, the stainless steel edged in my mother’s blood. Blood that pumped from her sliced wrists…
I remember all of that, and I keep my mouth shut.
If denial keeps her from repeating that desperate, almost too-damn-final act, then I can play along, too.
Hard, pitiless, phantom fingers close around my throat and squeeze. The sense of suffocation surges inside me, shoves at my suddenly constricted chest, and it requires every tattered scrap of control not to claw at my neck.
Panic attack.
My brain transmits the message to my body, my nervous system, my organs, but none of them receive it. The nausea still churns in my gut, my lungs remain seized up, my ears roar with the dull crash of far-off waves. Under my shirt, heat prickles over my skin and sweat pops in its wake, dotting my arms, shoulders, and chest. Black, skeletal fingers of darkness unfurl and reach into my peripheral vision.
Heart hammering away at my sternum, I murmur something to Dan and shuffle out of the room into the empty hallway. Bracing my spine against the wall, I close my eyes, even though it worsens everything. Concentrating on getting my body to relax limb by limb, I force air through my nose, inhaling a deep breath, holding it several seconds, then just as deliberately, release it. I repeat the exercise several times, reminding myself that this is a panic attack, that I’m safe.
As the talon-sharp tips of the assault slowly retract from my psyche, I search for my focus object—the thing that I consciously center all my attention on to ground me. But unlike all the other times, my tattoo machine with its needles, coils, capacitor, springs, armature bars don’t flash in front of me. In its place, a striking face of stunning angles, elegant dips, and sensual curves appears on the backs of my eyelids.
Instead of picking apart the mental image of the machinery that is like a natural extension of my hand and describing the shape, color, and purpose of each part, I scrutinize and label each feature of the face that has haunted me for over a week.
The graceful arch of black eyebrows over beautiful, denim-colored eyes that light up with anger and darken with arousal. The slant of cheekbones that could’ve been carved from marble. The full, wide, perfect mouth capable of reducing a man to begging. That delicate chin with its soft dent in the middle.
I grab ahold of the picture in my brain, go over each feature again and again while continuing the other strategies to calm my emotions and physical responses. And if the fact that the woman who was the hottest, most mind- and body-numbing one-night stand in my life has suddenly become my focus object is unsettling, well, at the moment, I don’t give a damn. As long as it works. I’ll wonder why I can’t seem to erase this woman from my mind later.
Gradually, the anxiety and fear fade even more, and my chest loosens, my breathing moving easier.
Christ. Dragging a trembling hand through my hair, I open my eyes, and the pale-green wall fills my vision. These panic attacks are nothing new. The first was a week after finding Mom on the bathroom floor after her suicide attempt. After I clumsily wrapped her gaping wrists with my torn T-shirt and drove her to the hospital, terrified I would kill both of us since, at thirteen, I’d only secretly driven the car on side streets with Knox. Those ten minutes—my still mother bleeding next to me—had been the scariest and longest of my life.
Afterward, she swore me to secrecy about trying to kill herself and wore long-sleeved shirts in June, the cuffs hiding the bandages from my brothers.
Through the years, the attacks have been sporadic. But lately, with the worry over Mom, the internal split in our already small family, my ex Ana’s own suicide threats, and my guilt about letting Knox down, it doesn’t take a psychology degree to figure out why they’ve been more frequent in the last few months.
Lucky for me, I’ve become an expert at beating them back. And hiding them.
For now.
The chime of the doorbell resonates in the hall, and I push off the wall, straightening as Dan strides from the living room.
