28. Thunder

THUNDER

Igot the news about Dan’s passing the next day before we left the hospital, but I didn’t tell her right then and there. Let her enjoy motherhood for a little while longer, but there was still one last thing left to do before I could put this all behind us.

Kieran, you know what to do. When is the funeral?”

“No one knows for sure; they have to do the autopsy for the murder case, so it might take a while. Good, that gives us time. Go to that house and find anything to do with my wife, anything.”

“You’ve got it, boss.” I wasn’t expecting there to be much, but I didn’t want her embroiled in this mess. I was sure no one else would dare enter the place since there was police tape all around it, but that never stopped my people from doing their job before.

I got off the phone and went back to the room where her mother and my sister were busy packing up. She’d hounded me all through the night whenever she woke up about letting Joy be more involved and doing things with her so that she didn’t feel left out.

I’m ashamed to say it never entered my mind that there would be any sort of problem, but she has a point. For a very long time, it had been just the two of us, Joy and me, and she’d be going off to college in another year, which was a big change as well.

But see, that’s why I love my woman; that’s the kind of person she is, selfless. I tried not to let anything show on my face when I walked back into the madness, but she was so preoccupied I needn’t have bothered.

I, too, got caught up in the happiness and excitement of taking our kids home and was able to put everything else aside for the time being. Tomorrow will be soon enough to go back to destroying the only two people who were left to deal with.

When I started this, I had no intention of anyone dying, but I can’t say that I’m too broken up about it. Whatever reasons he had, whether it was his mother’s influence or his own innate weakness, makes no difference to me, the end result was the same.

He’d hurt her, humiliated her, and damn near broke her with the shit he had done and allowed to do. She’d told me all of it, and I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that someone had dared treat her so horribly.

Deidre is a con artist, there’s no two ways about that, but the rest of them, Dan and his mother, had fallen for her bullshit and dragged my woman into it with them. I won’t let them off, even if they all die.

There was a lot to do to get my family home, so there was no time to dwell on outliers. For one, we needed a new car seat that fit three instead of two, so we had to wait for release until all of that had been taken care of.

The idiot doctor who told us to prepare for two didn’t face any consequences for making me have to wait to leave this place, but I’ll deal with her later. Right now, I just wanted to get them home where I know they’ll be safe.

It looked like no one had left the night before because the same faces were there when we finally left the room with the babies. I got my first taste of what my life was going to look like as soon as we stepped outside.

I’m not sure how people have been raising kids since the beginning of time, but my guess is that all parents, the ones who give a damn anyway, must live in constant fear and anxiety.

I almost gave myself whiplash as much as I looked around for any danger between the door and the car. No one else seemed to be as hyper-alert as I was, not even the men and women I paid to do this shit.

The babies each had their own detail, which their mother did not know about just yet because I didn’t want to deal with her shit right now, but even that wasn’t enough to put my mind at ease.

As if that’s not enough, my mind keeps getting ahead of me, and I find myself worrying about things that are years ahead. I guess I’ll have to read up on this crap and see if I’m the only one or if this is the norm. I’ll be damned if I’m going to ask the Doc, though.

Speaking of which, I called one of the women on my payroll and asked her to find something suitable as a gift for the Doc since I knew my girl wouldn’t see anyone else, no matter my grievance against the annoying ass woman.

Angel had already reminded me weeks ago about a push present for her sister, something I knew nothing about, but when it comes to buying gifts for my girl, I’m an expert.

The family that owned the vineyard where we got married weren’t exactly looking to sell but neither were they averse to it once they heard how much I was willing to offer, so now she owns her favorite place as a vacation spot.

She doesn’t know about it yet, though; I’m waiting for the right time to tell her once we get home. The ride home was uneventful, though I got a lot of flak for the motorcade that followed us back to the house.

* * *

AMANDA

* * *

I’mmarried to a crazy person. We got home to the men in my family reorganizing the nursery. That in itself wasn’t the issue; it’s the fact that my husband had apparently bought out the baby store for his daughter.

In his logic, girls need more stuff than boys. I’m not sure where he heard that, but I could already see that I was going to have trouble on my hands if he kept this up.

“Thunder, let me ask you a question: first, when did you do all this? I don’t recall you leaving the hospital, and the babies were born at night when the store was already closed.”

“That lady gave us her card, remember? She said to call if we needed anything.”

“Okay, and you called her while she was off?”

“Yeah, she has a store to sell shit; who cares what time it is?”

“Fine, how did you choose all these things? They don’t have an online store.”

“I told her to send everything she had for little girls. Isn’t that what you did for the boys?”

“No, we have a lot of stuff for the boys because there are two of them; you only have one daughter. She does not need every outfit in every color that they have in the store.”

“Also, she’s going to grow out of most of this stuff in no time because that’s what babies do.”

“So just get her more when she grows out of it.” I’ve always heard the phrase more money than sense, but until now, I have never seen it enacted.

It wasn’t just clothes either. He literally bought everything the store had for girls; at least, that’s the way it looked to me and everyone else who came into the nursery. The only one who didn’t see a problem with it was Evelyn and that’s because she had gone out first thing this morning and done some shopping of her own for her Goddaughter.

Not only that, but he’d changed the cribs he’d insisted on in the beginning because, apparently, the dark wood wasn’t suitable for girls. I drew the line when I overheard him asking Dad if the blue paint on the walls should be changed.

“You know, I never got the sense that you were crazy before.” I think he was having some kind of episode, if you ask me. All night, he’d stayed awake staring at the kids. Each time I opened my eyes, he was either standing over them or pacing back and forth with one of them in his arms, usually his daughter.

This is the man who kicked up a stink at the mere possibility that we might have a girl; now, he seems to have gone completely around the bend in the opposite direction. I blame Google. I wasn’t paying close attention in the early hours of the morning when he told me he was looking up things about being a dad to a little girl.

I don’t know what he learned, but whoever put these ideas in his head should be shot. The man is a maniac. I should’ve left well enough alone because apparently the crazy doesn’t only extend to his daughter but his wife as well.

For the first week after getting home, I wasn’t allowed to leave the bed except at bath time or to feed the babies, who he had moved into our bedroom for some unknown reason.

All the women in my family were in and out each time I opened my eyes, and I had no idea what was going on until Joy filled me in on the schedule her brother had come up with, which had all the women we knew on rotation while he was busy in his study, interviewing nannies.

He was in and out at mealtimes and feeding times, had called the doctor numerous times as if she were his personal assistant, and was now an expert on raising kids. He bought some contraption and claimed it would make my life easier if I expressed milk, some of which was to be frozen.

He sat up in bed when one of the babies needed feeding and held us both while I fell back asleep with a child attached to my chest. I couldn’t help but compare his treatment to what I could’ve expected had I had a child with Dan.

No doubt his mother would be hovering and criticizing everything I did. But I knew deep in my heart that I wouldn’t be getting the care and attention I was getting.

That’s why, by the middle of the first week, I was feeling rested and ready to get back on my feet. All the women in my life teased that they were jealous of how well he was taking care of me.

Then the night came when I saw that look on his face. For a moment, I expected him to tell me that this was all too much. That he didn’t want to do this with me. That’s how dark the look on his face was.

“Is something the matter?” He sat on the bed in his clothes, something he hardly ever does. When he pulled me into his arms, my heart almost beat me to death because I was so scared. “You’re not leaving me and the babies.” I couldn’t keep the tears from my voice.

“What the heck are you talking about, baby?”

“Isn’t that what you’re going to say? That it’s too hard taking care of all of us?”

“Please, you’ve met more than half my team. Compared to that bunch you and the munchkins are a walk in the park.”

“So why do you look so upset?” It took him a minute to answer, and I started getting nervous again. I got even more nervous when his arms tightened around me, and he kissed my forehead before saying anything more.

“I’m upset because I have to do something that’s going to hurt you, and I never want to do that.”

“Just tell me what it is because you’re freaking me out.”

“Dan passed away.”

For a few seconds, I didn’t think I heard him right. “What did you say?”

“You knew he was attacked, my Deidre, right? Well, he passed a week ago. I didn’t tell you then because you’d just given birth. Not because I didn’t think you needed to know, I made a judgment call because you’d just given birth, and I thought it might’ve been too much.”

My eyes were wide as saucers, and I didn’t know what to feel or even if I was supposed to feel anything. As if reading my mind, he pulled me in closer and kissed my forehead. “Baby, it’s okay to cry. You can cry for the boy you once knew, for the person you married.”

As if all I’d needed was permission, that’s just what I did. My heart broke for the mess we’d become and for all the broken dreams and promises. In my mind, I didn’t see the man who’d betrayed me, but the goofy kid who I’d spent the best part of my childhood with.

Throughout all this, Thunder did not say a word. He just sat there and held me until I realized what I’d just done. “I’m so sorry; I didn’t mean to get carried away.”

“Sorry about what? Do you think I’m jealous that you’re crying over your dead ex-husband? I seem that weak to you?”

“No, it’s just. I’ve never been in this situation before, and I don’t know how to react.”

“You’re doing fine. You’re allowed to cry. Look, you had a whole life before you met me, and so did I. I’d have killed you both if you still wanted to hang out and be best friends and all that bullshit, but this is different.”

“You’d kill us both?”

“Well, yeah.” He said it so blasé that I couldn’t help but laugh, which eased the pain in my chest. I felt so much better by the time my eldest son started screaming down the house to be fed. It’s not that I think I won’t think about Dan again; I’m sure I will. But I think I’d cried all I was going to over him.

I wasn’t happy that he’d died or the way that he’d died, and I doubt we would’ve ever become friends, but it was sad that our lives had become what they had and that that person was no longer here. It felt surreal to me that someone who had been such an integral part of my life was gone just like that.

After feeding the baby, Thunder and I sat and talked. He’d taken me out to the rooftop to get some air, leaving the doors open so we could hear the kids if they woke up. Thunder does not trust monitors alone, even though their nursery, which I doubt they’d ever use, had more surveillance than NASA.

We sat in one of the lounges together. The one that he liked to joke was where our kids were conceived, and we talked about Dan and life in general. If it wasn’t for him, the news probably would’ve hit different.

But because of his care and patience, I was able to handle it a lot better. “What about his son? What’s going to happen to him with his father gone and his mother in jail? That poor baby.” Having my own kids has changed my perspective on a lot of things and I realize that once you have a kid, you have to put them first always.

Now, this was one less thing for me to hate Dan over, the fact that he’d chosen his son over me. I won’t forgive him for the affair; that’s a separate issue. But I know that I would do anything to hold onto my kids and keep them in my life, so I can see why he allowed her to get away with so much back then.

* * *

CECILE

* * *

The funeral was a disaster,at least from my point of view. There was hardly anyone there from his friends’ side and I got to learn about another fallout from his divorce. I hadn’t known that he’d lost most of the people in his circle because of the affair or that most of them still held grudges against him even in death.

What’s worse is the ones who did show up kept mentioning Amanda and her new family. That’s when I learned that she’d had triplets the days Dan died. Triplets, the news burned a hole in my gut, and I raged in the car all the way home, alone, since my husband, the heartless bastard, had left the cemetery with his mistress, and my daughters were together somewhere.

She had a girl and two boys, and my Dan was in the ground. How is that fair? There must be a way I could find out if she was taking birth control while married to my son and stringing him along; that way, I could fight for my rights to her kids. There must be some kind of law.

I won’t let that bitch be happy while my son is dead because of her. No matter how my family blames me for encouraging Dan to give in to Deidre after she became pregnant, I won’t see it as my fault. Didn’t my son deserve to have a family like he’d always wanted?

I pulled into the driveway next to a car I didn’t recognize and walked inside to see a strange woman I didn’t know sitting on the couch with the babysitter and my grandson. “Oh, hi, are you a friend of Dan’s?”

“No, ma’am, I’m sorry. I’m from child protective services; I have an order to remove your grandson from the premises.”

“What? What are you talking about? Get out of my house.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I can’t do that. I only waited around because I am aware that you buried your son today, but I have a court order to take the child with me. I can call the cops if you’d like, and they will forcefully remove him from your home.”

“I don’t understand. Why are you taking him?”

“His next of kin has filed a petition with the courts, and a DNA test has been ordered. In the meantime, we think it’s best that the child be placed with someone else until everything has been decided.”

“What are you talking about? He’s my grandson. What DNA test, what next of kin?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, that’s all I’m at liberty to say at this time.”

“No, you can’t take him. You can’t take him away from me; he’s all I’ve got left of my son.”

I think I was losing my mind by the time she got out her phone and called the police. Nothing was making any sense. This was a bad dream; the last three years were nothing more than a bad dream. Once I wake up, I’ll be sure to make some changes. I just need to wake up.