“That’s how it is. Peaks and valleys. Some days you’ll feel like you can scale a mountain and other days life kicks you in the ass and you’re laid low. Getting to the top of that mountain feels like an impossible task. But if you take it one step at a time, youwillreach the top.”
He was speaking from experience. Connor had struggled with drug addiction for years. He’d hit rock bottom and had lost everything, including the girl he loved. But now he was clean and sober, had been for more than two years and he and Ava were on solid ground. “And then what? I’ll be king of the mountain?”
He chuckled. “Exactly. Then you look around, snap a few selfies, give yourself a pat on the back, and climb back down.”
“Wow. All that work for nothing. What’s the point of climbing a mountain?”
“To get to the other side. You don’t come back the same way you went up.”
Connor was only four years older than me, but he was an old soul. Deeper and wiser than most guys his age. “You’ll be a good sponsor someday.”
“Thanks.”
“What are you sketching?”
“A mountain. For you.”
I smiled and leaned back on my hand, conscious that if I leaned forward, I would very likely plunge to my death. That was me though, wasn’t it? Always pushing the limits. “What kind of mountain?”
“A big rock candy mountain. Do you want an inky black sky with stars or a sunrise?”
He might be joking but maybe not. I considered the question, wondering if there was a right or wrong answer and what mine would mean. “I want a strawberry moon.”
“Good choice. Did you see it last night?”
“Yeah. It was beautiful.” It was pointless to ask if he saw it. I knew he had. Connor was a moon and stargazer, an artist and a dreamer. Ava’s nickname for him was Rocket Man. I’d never asked why but I’d drawn my own conclusions. It probably had to do with the Elton John song, and his druggie years, and the way his feet never seemed to be planted on solid ground, the opposite of Killian who was steady and grounded. If Killian was the rock, Connor was the moondust.
“Hey,” I said. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
“Call me anytime. Day or night.”
“Thanks. I will. You’re my two in the morning person. I hope Ava doesn’t mind sharing.”
He chuckled. “As long as it’s you, she’s cool with it.” He paused a beat. “We all love you, you know.”
I blinked back tears. This was why I’d sacrificed so much. To be able to be in my brothers’ lives, to try and catch up on all the years I didn’t even know they existed. To try and make up for the sins of my mother and the sins of my father. My brothers wouldn’t agree, but I felt like I owed them for everything they’d been robbed of, for the life they’d been subjected to after my mother left them with that monster who had raised them. And then again for the way my father had set up Connor.
Of all my father’s crimes, and there had been many, what he’d done to Connor was the hardest one to forgive. He’d used Connor as a pawn in his sick and twisted game. Had used his connection with the dirty cops in his back pocket to get Connor arrested for drugs he hadn’t bought and had coerced him into playing the role of informant. All so that my father could get revenge on a dealer who had cheated him out of money. My father’s men and the dirty cops had confiscated the drug dealer’s drugs and cash and killed him, execution-style. No mercy. No remorse. He hadn’t even needed Connor’s help. He’d done it to teach him a lesson because Connor had come down to Miami, looking for my mother, and had asked too many questions about my father’s business.
I was proud of Connor for taking the stand and testifying against my father. I’d watched my mother’s face while Connor was on the stand, but it had given nothing away. It was almost like she’d convinced herself that Connor and Killian weren’t really her sons. It scared me that she had the ability to do that.
“Love you too. Bye Connor.”
After we hung up, I stayed firmly planted on that stone wall for hours. My butt went numb from sitting on the hard surface and my skin tingled from all the sun I caught. But I stayed. Cars flew past but thankfully none of them stopped and nobody invaded my solitude. I stayed long enough to watch the sun set in a glorious burst of pink and orange and then I got back in my car and drove home. As usual, I drove too fast, like the hounds of hell were chasing me and I needed to outrun them. I vowed to stop dwelling on the past. I couldn’t fix it or change it. Thinking about it was a waste of time and energy. From now on, I’d live in the moment.
With that resolve in mind, I was so cheerful on Monday morning at work that Tate kept giving me funny looks. Panel beating, one of the new skills he’d patiently taught me, didn’t usually elicit chortles of glee. He should know by now that my moods were as changeable as the phases of the moon but apparently, he didn’t.
“What’s the big smile for?” he grumbled as he came to supervise my work. Earlier, we’d removed the dented door of a van and set it up on a stand which saved my knees from having to kneel on concrete for long periods of time. The key to doing a good job at panel beating, I was told, is patience and light blows. Fifty to a hundred soft blows of the hammer rather than a few hard bashes which would be far more satisfying but less effective. Tate had taught me how to listen to the sound the hammer was making as it hit the metal with the dolly underneath, and I felt like I’d gotten the hang of it. Enough to be left unsupervised, for the most part.
I winked at him. “I got lucky last night.”
He snorted and shook his head. Pete, one of the mechanics, wandered over to join the conversation, wiping his hands on a greasy rag he pulled out of the back pocket of his coveralls. He was around Tate’s age, in his forties, with a barrel chest and a deep baritone voice. Sometimes he sang Elvis tunes while he worked. If the mechanic gig didn’t work out, he’d be a good Elvis impersonator. Tate, on the other hand, was lean and wiry and not much taller than my five foot nine. You’d never catch him singing. He was tough and hardened by a life in an MC followed by a stint in prison for armed robbery. Tate was Connor’s NA sponsor which always surprised me. He wasn’t exactly a chatty guy, but I guess he gave tough love and from what I’d heard, he had helped Connor turn his life around. Just by being there and never giving up on him. Which I suppose is what people really need when they’ve hit rock bottom.
“Who’s the lucky guy?” Pete asked, a true romantic if there ever was one.
“I was joking. I didn’t get lucky. I have no time for guys. I just love my job.” Which was true. I loved this job. It was also true that I didn’t get lucky. I hadn’t seen Deacon since Friday night and probably wouldn’t see him again if his last disappearing act was any indication.
“You should make time,” Pete said, scratching his head with grease-stained fingers. Like Tate, he rarely wore gloves to protect his hands which meant they were never clean, even after scrubbing them with the orange-scented GoJo, the pumice hand soap Tate kept the restrooms stocked with. “A young girl like you…you need to have some fun. Get out there. Before you know it, you’ll have a mortgage, two kids to put through college, and a wife who complains that you never send her flowers anymore.”
