Chapter 7

It had been a very beautiful wedding. Liv was happier than I’d ever seen her, including the entire time that she’d been engaged to my brother. She and Hunt hadn’t stopped smiling, not since the string trio started playing the wedding march and they saw each other for the first time that day. They smiled as they stood in front of the judge in the living room of their beautiful home, through the party and the dancing, and up until they wished us all good night and closed the front door on their guests. I imagined that they were still smiling at each other now that they were alone for the first time as husband and wife.

“I want my wedding to be like that,” my sister Juliet sighed as we got into the car and started off down the long, dark driveway. “Liv and I are the same age and I bet I’ll find someone soon.”

“Not if you keep leaving your boyfriends when you think you see something better coming around the corner,” my mom put in from the front seat. Addie had driven her own car and somehow Sophie and Brenna had managed to get themselves into it, leaving me, Grace, and JuJu to ride with our parents on our way back to the motel.

Juliet had picked at a sore subject. Our mother had been unhappy all weekend that Liv was now definitely out of my brother’s life; up until the moment that the judge had pronounced her married to a different guy, I thought that Mom still had hope that things could turn around and Patrick might have a chance. Given that all hope was totally squelched, she had gotten more than a little cranky. Not that she wasn’t happy at the same time, because we were all glad that things had turned out so well for Liv. But I’d always believed that our mom liked her almost-daughter-in-law more than she liked some of her actual children, and it was hard to give up the idea that Liv wouldn’t legally be a member of our family. And somewhere in a part of her that she would never admit to, I thought that our mother also recognized how badly Patrick had messed up, and this wedding was a public display of it.

The discussion of JuJu’s potential marriage also gave entrée into the sad state of affairs with me and the rest of my siblings: out of the seven of us, there wasn’t a wedding band to be found. Not a grandchild, either, and not even a promise ring. We were falling down at the job, and Mom started to let the three of us trapped in the backseat know it.

“Nicola will be thirty-one this fall,” she started, and I tried to make my ears deaf to her voice. I decided to think of something else, something totally unrelated to marriage and relationships. I would think of Jude, because he was the farthest thing from marriage for me. He wouldn’t have had me if Hell froze over. In fact, he was still barely speaking to me, although I’d apologized more than once.

“What exactly are you sorry about?” he’d asked after the last time I’d repeated it to him. “You believe everything you said that day, don’t you? You think I’m screwing around with the neighbor across the street, you think I’ll get tricked into being a father for the first time, you think that I’m making bad decisions, and you think I might relapse. Has your opinion on any of those topics changed?”

It hadn’t; I did still believe all of what he’d just recited. “No, I haven’t changed my mind but I’m very sorry that what I said upset you so much,” I’d explained, and that hadn’t led to us making up.

In the past, I hadn’t gotten along with some of my housemates…ok, it was fair to say that I hadn’t gotten along with any of my housemates. They’d been unhappy with me when they’d moved out, all of them except for Liv who’d left to get closer to the man we’d just seen her marry. But even when she’d been there, and even with our background of friendship, there had been issues. She hadn’t appreciated my helpful tips or some of my rules and we’d had several discussions about those topics. In fact, she’d saved the post-it notes I’d left for her and had presented them to me in book form with a crocheted cover. I had been a little surprised to see how thick that book was, even excluding the yarn.

Anyway, I hadn’t always—ever gotten along with my housemates but it had never bothered me quite as much as this current issue with Jude did. I was entirely correct in everything I’d said and there was no doubt about it, but it was still hard that we were fighting. No, we weren’t actively arguing like Brenna and Sophie had been doing since they’d gotten in the car to drive up here for the wedding, but we weren’t speaking to each other except for things that absolutely needed to be said (“you forgot your keys” or “looks like the window in the living room is leaking”).

I shouldn’t have noticed a difference, because I wasn’t even home enough to talk to him very much. But I noticed it, anyway. The silence when we’d been getting along so well, when I’d thought that…

“Right, Nicola?” JuJu nudged me hard in the ribs.

“Ow.” I was a little sore there, because I’d taken some time today to go exercise and had attempted push-ups. “What did you say?”

“Don’t you agree that the seven of us are entirely capable of making our own relationship decisions and that we’re too old to need guidance from Mom and Dad?” she prompted.

“I think that I am,” I said. “I don’t agree about that for the rest of you. You all need guidance but I don’t think our parents are the ones to provide it, not with how their marriage is.”

That statement roused even Grace into a fighting stance, and I was lucky to get out of the car with my life. It was an uncomfortable night in the motel, first because we only had one room for the six of us sisters, and second because Juliet told the rest of them what I’d said and they were generally angry about it even though I was correct. People were just not able to see the truth and they didn’t want to hear it, either.

We left early the next morning to drive back downstate, with everyone still tired because none of us had slept well and with several of our group hungover. Addie took two of my sisters in her car and my mom had apparently planned ahead with my dad so that I was with them, and I was dropped off last. That left her ample time to continue a harangue about my single status, my bad attitude about my sisters, and other topics which didn’t interest me at all. None.

“I have to go to work,” I interrupted finally, and leapt out of the back seat before we came to a full stop in my driveway.

“You always say that!” I heard my mother call, but my dad was also saying goodbye and throwing the car into reverse. He must have been sick of the discussion, too.

The house was empty and quiet, and so was the yard across the street when I looked through the front window to check on what was happening there. I wondered where they all were, and decided that of course they were off and enjoying this beautiful day together. I wondered what they were doing and if Shannon was wearing one of her skimpy little shirts, which she probably was because she really did look nice in tight stuff. She was a lot taller than I was and she was a lot leaner, too. And she was younger, at least by a few years. And she had two kids, which for some men would have been a turn-off, but seemed to be a draw for Jude. He genuinely liked being around them.

Anyway, it didn’t matter. They could do whatever they wanted, and if he couldn’t see why he was wrong to be with her…because he was wrong, wasn’t he? It was silly that he would step into some ready-made family with a woman who behaved like Shannon had with her garden hose. I was embarrassed for her, for him, and even for that blameless piece of irrigation equipment. I was sad for the kids that they had to witness their mother wetting down her breasts to impress a man. And I was so mad—

No, I wasn’t mad. I didn’t care, and I hadn’t been lying when I’d said I had to work. I did, so I left the empty house and drove off.

I should have been done with my shift at one the next morning, and I should have been home not too long afterwards. It was six AM, though, when I finally pulled into the garage, and it was a few minutes later when I walked toward my house. It was still quiet but Jude’s car was parked in the driveway, exactly in the spot that I’d designated for his use. When I walked past it, I paused and leaned against the trunk for a moment before I continued my trudge.

I didn’t think that he would be awake yet and I didn’t hear any noise from him as I closed the door behind me. I was also quiet when I went into the kitchen but there he was, already sitting at the table and wearing a t-shirt and the shorts he’d gotten for exercise (thus adding to his ten-piece wardrobe). I was so happy to see him that I almost started to smile, but he did not.

“What the ever-loving fuck,” he breathed when he saw me, and I put the ice pack back up to my face for coverage.

“I got kicked by a patient,” I said, “and I’m fine.”

“No, that doesn’t look fine.” He was already out of the chair and standing in front of me and the quick movement made me dizzy.

“I just want to sit,” I told him.

“Yep, come on,” he said, and put his arm around my waist as he directed me to the chair he’d just gotten out of. And then instead of leaving, he knelt down next to me. “Let me see,” he ordered and I moved away the cold pack. “Oh, shit. Shit, Nicola.”

“Is it that bad? I haven’t seen it in a while.”

“It’s bad. It looks like it must hurt like hell.”

It did. “It’s a lot better. I took OTC meds at work.”

“They let you drive home?”

“I’m fine. I’m tired because it took so long to deal with the police,” I said, and tried not to yawn because my entire face hurt. Getting kicked in the side of my head seemed to have made everything sore, not only that one area.

“What happened?”

“I could tell that the patient was getting agitated but a dung-for-brains resident kept trying to argue with him and instead of de-escalating, she made the situation a lot worse. I still almost dodged it. I would have gotten his foot in my teeth and nose if I hadn’t moved at the last second.”

“Nicola,” he said, and gently brushed a lock of my hair away from the injury. “Damn. Did they arrest him?”

“Yes. They deal with this stuff differently than they did at Detroit Saint Raphael,” I answered. “The management there was always trying to sweep stuff under the rug and minimize it, but the head of the department at Presbyterian came in to check on me. The resident was so shaken up that she was crying. She should have been crying from embarrassment at how she acted, and I think she is going to get bawled out.”

“Did you cry?”

“No.” It had hurt, though, and been scary. The patient had followed up the kick by jumping out of his bed and the resident had run out of the room screaming rather than helping me. Luckily, security had moved in fast.

“I would have cried if this had happened to me,” he said.

“You didn’t cry when something worse happened to you. You say that you remember me from that night, so don’t you remember how hurt you were?” I asked. “I talked to you and messed up your IV and you didn’t cry. You watched me poke you, over and over, and you didn’t even complain.”

He was watching me again right now.

“The guy who kicked me tonight was drunk but he was so angry. He probably won’t go to jail for very long and I might see him in the ER again,” I said. “He’ll keep drinking and using, and he might kick another nurse in the face. People repeat themselves, over and over. I see it all the time.”

We were quiet for a moment, until he carefully placed the cold pack against my face. “Can I help you upstairs?” he suggested. “You should get into bed.”

“I want to take a shower,” I said. “I have blood in my hair and when I fell, I knocked over a tray of food onto myself.”

“You fell?”

“Right onto my butt on the floor of the ER,” I answered. “I feel disgusting.”

He did help me up the stairs and to the bathroom. It was a narrow stairway so he walked pretty tightly at my side, his arm around my waist because he said he didn’t want me to get dizzy. “Thank you,” I told him when we made it to the top. “Have a good run.”

“I’ll wait the four minutes until you get out,” he mentioned. It may have taken me longer than four minutes, though, because I did get a little dizzy and had to sit down on the side of the tub, and then it took me a while to wrap a big towel around myself, and then I had a very hard time combing out my hair. But when I opened the door again, he was leaning against the wall just outside.

“Ready?” he asked, and I tucked the towel more securely as he followed me into my room. “I got you a bag of frozen peas and a glass of juice, and I made some toast,” he told me, gesturing to an assortment he’d set up on my plant stand chair.

“Ok. Thank you.” I sat down on my bed, too tired to get up to find something to wear.

“You have bruises on your arms and on your chest,” Jude said. “He kicked you more than once?”

“He threw a chair at me when I was on the floor,” I explained. “He tried to pull it off to get at me but I held onto it, which was lucky.”

“Lucky? Nothing about this was lucky. You got beat up at work!”

I started to touch my face but then jerked my hand away. “I think I should sleep.”

“Yes. Yep, ok,” he said. “You should put something on.” He turned and opened a drawer, where all my underwear were carefully folded. “Oh, well…you’ll need a pair of these.”

I sat and let him pick them up, too, not saying a word. He went to the next drawer.

“You wear this sometimes. I’ve seen you in it,” he mentioned, and pulled out a shirt. “Damn, you really know how to fold. These drawers look professional. If there was a professional folder. Maybe that’s somebody’s job.” He stopped and turned to look at me. “You’re making me nervous with your silence, so I’m talking a bunch of crap. Are you all right?”

“I’m tired.”

“Right,” he muttered, and found where I kept sweatpants. “Again, like a pro…ok, is that all you need?” When I nodded, he told me that he’d be outside in the hall, waiting. Like the shower, it took me much longer than usual to get dressed in the clothes he’d found, but I got them on eventually.

“I’m done,” I said, and my door opened.

“Want the toast? The OJ?”

“I’m really fine, Jude. Thank you for doing this but you don’t have to worry.” I scooted gingerly until I was sitting back against the pillows. “I’ll have the juice.”

He stood and watched me drink it.

“You can go for your run and go to work. I’m just going to sleep,” I told him, and also used the bag of frozen peas he’d brought. “I’m fine.”

He finally did leave, and I slept for a lot of the day. Stuff like this always made me tired for hours—not that I’d ever been injured so badly before at my job, thank goodness. I thought that Jude must have come home early, because by four he was gently tapping on my bedroom door and he poked in his head when I told him that I was awake.

“Hi,” I said.

“Oh, damn,” he answered, his eyes wide, and then he grimaced. “Sorry. I can’t believe someone did that to you. It’s hard to see.”

“I’m fine.”

“Right. Also, hi. How are you doing? Do you need anything?”

Just some company. “No, I’m really ok.” I’d gotten up a while ago and recombed my hair, reapplied the ice pack, and eaten the cold toast, chewing carefully because the pain extended down into my jaw. “How was your day?”

“Not too bad,” he said, and sat down on my bed. We proceed to have our first real conversation since he’d gotten so mad at me—since I’d upset him by speaking my mind. He told me about a potential new order for a library table, Sergio’s latest fight with his girlfriend, and equipment issues in the woodshop.

“Anyway, Cal can get a new part pretty quickly,” he said, concluding his story about a problem with a particular saw. “It will be ok.”

This was what I’d needed, exactly this. It was so nice to hear his voice untinged with anger or hurt, and it was so nice to behave like normal people. Normal friends. “I’m sorry,” I told him.

“No, we don’t even use that saw very much, so we can wait for the part to fix it,” he said, and I shook my head a little.

“No, I mean that I’m sorry for what I said to you. I’m sorry that I started an argument about you and Shannon. I’ve been lying here thinking about it,” I explained. “You should be with whoever you want and my opinion obviously doesn’t mean anything.” I’d thought about the resident last night who hadn’t listened when I’d told her that the patient was too agitated and that she needed to back off. She hadn’t paid a whit of attention because she’d decided that what I said didn’t matter. Why would Jude care what I said, either? And what difference did it make if I was right anyway, if it meant that we weren’t speaking and I was so miserable about it?

“I wish I had kept all that to myself,” I told him. “I know that those kids are fortunate to have you in their lives and...”

“And?”

I bit my lip but then I did say, “And for their sakes I hope it lasts, because it will be hard for them to lose you when—if you and Shannon break up.”

“I know you don’t believe that I remember what happened when I was in the hospital.”

“What?” I asked. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“I was also thinking about things today, like how you were saying that you might see the man again who kicked you. You said that people make the same mistakes over and over and you have to be a witness to it. I understand why you would be afraid of me falling off the wagon,” he said. “I would be, too, if I had your background and experience.”

“I wasn’t making a statement about your willpower, or lack of character, or anything like that,” I told him. “I have seen it so many times with so many people who truly wanted to change and I’ve heard it from their families, too.”

“So, it makes sense that you would worry about that. It’s definitely an issue and that’s why I go to the meetings every Saturday—”

“Every Saturday?”

“Every Saturday night,” he said, nodding. “It’s prime partying and drinking time, so it’s a good distraction for all of us there. Then I hang out with a few of the guys and drink coffee for a few hours, which keeps me awake for way too long so that I sleep in on Sundays.”

“Oh.” I thought about that.

“I’m telling you so you know that I’m worried, too. It’s not like I forget. I remember my absolute lowest point in that bed in Detroit Saint Raphael, and I don’t want to go back to that. I’m actively not drinking, actively working on being sober, all the time.”

I nodded, just a little movement because it hurt.

“Also, I’m not with Shannon.”

It took a moment for the words to sink into my brain. “What?” I asked him. “Did you break up already?”

“We never were together,” Jude said. “I’ve helped her with some projects at her house, and I like hanging out with her kids a lot. They’re great. But she and I are not anything more than friends. That might be stretching the word, too. We’re neighborly.”

“I saw the show she put on with the hose.”

“I also saw that. You didn’t get to witness Act One, when she was running it between her legs. The kids were inside when she was doing that, fortunately.”

“She was…” I was sputtering, so I closed my mouth.

“After she doused herself, I left. Remember how I came home? That was when you were upset.”

“And you let me think that the two of you…” I was still sputtering and I stopped speaking again, this time because I was too angry to continue.

“I don’t get mad very often, but you pissed the hell out of me that day, Nicola. You didn’t think I could see through what she was doing? But she’s not a bad person and she’s not some kind of Siren. She’s lonely, she’s working too hard, and she’s worried about the future.”

Well, maybe the two of us could start a club.

“I didn’t like that you thought I was dumb enough to be manipulated by her,” he continued. “I didn’t like that you thought she was evil, either. She’s not, and I’m not an idiot.”

“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I’m very sorry.” I was also so relieved that, had my entire head not throbbed with pain, I would have been smiling with glee. He wasn’t with her? He had seen through the wet t-shirt? Well, we’d all seen through that…

“Ok. Now we’re good,” he told me. “Except for you, because you have a terrible black eye. They checked you out, right?”

“I was at a hospital. Yes, they did check me before they let me leave.” I’d been in no position to drive for a while, longer than I wanted to admit, but they’d medically cleared me to go after I’d promised that I’d get a car home and not drive myself. Which I then had.

“It looks like it hurts so much. And you have more bruises on your chest,” he reminded me, which also reminded me of how he’d seen me in my towel, dripping wet from the shower. Growing up with all my siblings, there had always been a lot of female nudity but I’d never been comfortable with being naked around my former renters (all women) and I certainly wasn’t with Jude. I had been putting in more of an effort to exercise but I was in no way shaped like the not-Siren from across the street. I tugged the blanket up.

“Are you cold?” he asked immediately.

“No, I’m—”

“Don’t say you’re fine. Because I’m looking at you—”

I interrupted him right back. “Can you stop doing that? The more you look and wince and swear, the more it reminds me how awful it must be and how much it hurts. I don’t need much reminding, either.”

“I’m sorry. Let’s talk about something else, then,” he suggested, which was perfect for me. “How was that wedding you went to last weekend?”

“The wedding?” It felt like that had happened a hundred years ago and while it had been a great party, I’d been so unhappy and angry after our argument that I hadn’t enjoyed it at all. “It was fine,” I told him. “Liv made it beautiful—actually, it was probably her big sister Ava who made it so nice. She can always make a party fun. She was my best friend in high school and I got to take advantage of that talent back then.”

“You’re not friends anymore?”

“We got older and grew apart,” I said. “Different colleges, different life paths. I was in her wedding, though.” It felt like that event had been a million years ago rather than a hundred. “It was bigger and fancier than Liv’s but the feeling was the same. They were both very romantic.”

He seemed surprised. “I didn’t think you would like that kind of thing.”

“Romance? Pretty stuff?” I moved my hair back from my face, flinching when I touched what felt like a lump. “No, I probably don’t seem like it, but a lot of pages in my journals are filled with me dreaming about beautiful cottages with billowing curtains. I had so many plans for how I wanted this house to look, and if I ever got married, I also…never mind.”

“What? You had plans for that, too?”

“I had some,” I admitted. “My sister Brenna has it all worked out, down to the last detail. She goes back every few months to review and edit. All she needs is the groom and to make friends with all of her sisters so we’ll agree to be bridesmaids. I had ideas but they’ve changed and I never revisited them like the Brat does. I like how Liv did things,” I volunteered. “It was a party at their house, with good music and good food and everyone enjoying themselves.” Except me and, I thought, some of my sisters.

“That does sound good.”

“I bet that you never planned out your wedding,” I speculated.

“You mean, did I ever choose a tux and the flower thing for my lapel?”

“That’s a boutonniere, and I guess the answer is no.”

He smiled. “No, I never did that.”

“Did you ever think about marriage at all?”

Jude hesitated, and I thought once again that he was about to parse out information rather than telling me the truth. “I did ask one girl to marry me, but I already knew that she’d say no when I did it,” he finally said.

“What? Why did you ask if you knew she didn’t want to?”

“I asked her out of obligation, but she didn’t want me as a husband any more than I wanted to have her as a wife. It’s a long story and it’s for the best that it didn’t work out.”

“I have time for a long story,” I said but he shook his head and refused to respond to that, and he pivoted back to my hypothetical marriage.

“With all the planning you seem to do, I’m surprised that it’s your sister who has the wedding details worked out.”

I’d closed the journal on the wedding plans and never picked it back up. “I didn’t seriously consider it with any of the guys I dated,” I answered. “My lack of a husband was the main topic of conversation with my mom in the car on the way home on Sunday, and it was the longest ride of my life. She’s disappointed in all of us, not only me.”

“You’re all failures?”

I started to nod but that hurt, so I said yes and then explained. “Out of seven kids, my brother came the closest to marriage but he broke up with his fiancée. He’s an idiot. She would have made him, but he didn’t deserve her, either.”

“Maybe he’ll get what he deserves,” Jude suggested, and shrugged when I looked askance at him. “Whenever you mention your brother, I remember that he was the only one who had his own bedroom and that he was your mother’s favorite, even after you did all her work for her.”

“I didn’t do everything. And did I tell you that he was the favorite?”

“You didn’t have to. Everything you say about him spells it out.” He looked down at the plate where toast had been that morning. “Is that all you’ve had today?”

“I wasn’t very hungry.”

“You should eat now,” he said. “You get to have my cooking again. Want to go downstairs? I can help you.”

It was just the funniest thing how we’d gotten right back into being friends again. All it took was for me getting kicked in the head, and I would have tried to do it myself if I’d known that this would have been the result. I leaned on his arm and we went downstairs together, and despite my painful body parts, I felt like a very fortunate woman.