Finally Finn (Los Rancheros #4) (5 page)

“Hey, what’s that up there?” Hannah asks from
the living room. I round the corner and see her pointing to a tea
set on the highest shelf of the inlayed entertainment center. I
take a deep breath.

“That’s a long story.”

“Can we play with it?” Bridgette asks. I roll
my lips in and bite them in hesitation.

“Sit down on the couch and I’ll tell you
about it, okay?” The girls sit on my modern, white leather couch,
their little legs sticking out straight so that I can see the
bottom of their shoes when I set the tea set down on the coffee
table in front of them. It’s an antique, bubblegum pink with
flowers painted all over. On top of the teapot is a neon pink
wig.

I wedge myself between the girls and put my
arms around their skinny shoulders. I wonder for the first time, as
they snuggle into me, if they’ve been missing affection. I’m so
used to being alone that my guilt has me immediately pulling them
closer. All of these thoughts swirl around as I try to talk about
Rachel. Batty and I never have after that first day, but it feels
right somehow to tell them.

“I met your Uncle Finn when I went to a
hospital to see sick kids.”

“Why did you go see them?” Bridgette
asks.

“Because . . . they have to stay there,
sometimes for a long time and it’s not fun. Uncle Finn dresses up
as Batman and tells stories to them. It makes them happy.” The
girls giggle, making me smile. “I saw him in his Batman cape and
decided I would be his sidekick.”

“Robin?” Hannah asks. I look at her,
surprised. She shrugs.

“The boys at school are always talking about
their superheroes.” When she rolls her eyes, it makes me
giggle.

“Rachel was a sick little girl that had
parents that liked to go to church.”

“What was wrong with her?”

“She had cancer, her body was sick and the
doctors had to give her really strong medicine that made her not
feel good.” I look from one to the other to gauge how my
explanation is going.

“She had cancer like my mom?” Hannah asks in
the weakest voice I’ve heard from her and my body breaks out in
goose bumps. I swallow hard and give her a nod. She looks down and
fidgets with the hem of my shirt. “My mom wouldn’t take the
medicine,” she mumbles. If it wasn’t so silent, I wouldn’t have
heard her. So many puzzle pieces are fitting together, yet there
are still so many holes.

“She didn’t want the medicine?” I ask gently,
not knowing if she needed to talk about it or if I was being a
selfish bitch wanting to know what happened.

“Grandpa says that she had wanted to have us
more than she wanted to get better.” Oh. My. God. My nose burns and
my eyes flood, but Hannah isn’t crying and neither is Bridgette, so
I don’t, either.

No one says anything for a few minutes until
I whisper, “Do you want to hear about Rachel?” Both nod eagerly,
seeming to shake themselves out of their thoughts. I lick my lips
and look back at the tea set as I finger comb their hair absently,
hoping to sooth all of us.

“Rachel’s parents were gone on Sundays to
church, and that’s the day Ba—Uncle Finn and I go to there. This
time I went, Rachel was really sick and she couldn’t eat anything,
but she wished she could. Her mouth hurt from the medicine so I
asked her if she wanted to pretend. I asked her what color hair she
would want, if she could choose any color in the world. I nod to
the wig on the teapot. “She picked pink and we had a tea party in
her room with stuffed animals and dolls and imagined we were eating
our favorite foods in the whole world.”

“Even Uncle Finn?” Bridgette giggles.

“Yes. Even your Uncle Finn. He loves tea
parties.” Both girls giggle and the air in the room is light for a
minute.

“Rachel died, didn’t she?” Hannah asks with
her too grown up eyes. I nod, unable to tell her I was there. That
she was laughing and playing one second and the next she was just .
. . gone.

Bridgette sits up abruptly and faces us.
“Hey! It’s the weekend! Can we stay here until Sunday? We should go
to the hospital. Uncle Finn can’t come so we should go so the kids
won’t be sad. Can we go? Can we please go?” She bounces on the
couch, shaking Hannah and me. I look to the other twin.

“It’s up to you. The kids don’t want you to
feel sorry for them, even if they don’t have any hair and can’t get
out of their beds sometimes. They want to be normal like you two.”
Hannah studies my face solemnly.

“I wanna go. Do you want to go Bridge?”
Bridgette jumps up and starts bouncing around the room.

“Can we have a tea party like you had with
Rachel? Please, please, please!” Bridgette crashes back onto the
couch.

“Yeah. Let me see what I can find in the
closet for guests.” I get up and move to the hall closet where I
look through bags of toy guns, dolls, stuffed animals, and pretend
snakes. After months of giving kids their last wishes, I’ve
accumulated a ton of props. I hand over several stuffed animals and
dolls then sit on the floor, using the coffee table as the dining
table.

The girls have on tiaras and sunglasses, boas
around their necks as they hold their teacups with two fingers. I
laugh until I cry and then I laugh because I can’t stop crying.
It’s such a perfectly imperfect moment that I think if there are
angels that Rachel and the kids’ mom would be here right now, maybe
sharing a drink with the turtle and giraffe.

I put a hand to my heart as it starts to
burn, feeling too big for my chest. Jesus, am I the Grinch?

“Are you okay, Aunt Sadie?” Bridgette asks. I
sniff and hold up my cup.

“No, Lady Brennick. I’ll take another sugar
cube in my tea, please.” That sets the girls off again and I watch
with a smile as I sip my pretend tea, and eat pretend cake. It’s
the best meal I’ve had in a long time.

I make a pallet of blankets on the shag rug
in the living room and we have a slumber party. The tea set is put
away and the girls are passed out when the phone rings. I step out
onto the deck to answer it then sit in my favorite chaise.

“Hello?” I answer quietly.

“Hey, baby. Sorry I didn’t call you sooner,
how was your day?” He sounds so tired, maybe as tired as me.

“Long. How was yours?”

“It’s hell trying to get faxes and sit in on
board meetings while my phone rings nonstop and try to be here for
my dad.”

“How is he?”

“Good today. They’re making him walk, which
is painful to even watch, but they’re worried about blood clots and
fluid in the lungs so he has to start getting mobile. He hasn’t
made it out of the room yet, but he’s getting stronger every day.
Is that waves on your end? Where are you?” I blink.

“Well, I thought you knew since I set it up
with your secretary. I had to take the kids with me to L.A. to see
your lawyers about the case.”

“What? You didn’t drive all that way, did
you? I could have set up a plane and—”

“That’s what I had your secretary do, but
we’re not flying back.”

“Why, what happened?” he asks, concerned.

“Hannah has sensitive ears. She screamed the
whole time. It was awful.” I decide to give him some of that. I
have been brushing everything under the rug, but he needs to know
she can’t fly.

“Oh my God, I had no idea. Is she okay? Do I
need to come home?”

“What? No. She was fine as soon as we landed.
We’re just going to drive back.”

“I’m getting a flight tonight. I can be there
in a few hours.” He’s in a full panic.

“Finnigan Brennick, listen to me right now!”
I say in my sternest voice. “These kids are fine. I would have
called you immediately if there was something wrong. I’ll have them
call you in the morning, but they’re all passed out on the floor
from the party we had tonight.”

“Party?!” I roll my eyes with a smile.

“Tea party.” My voice gets lower. “We had a
tea party.”

“Jesus fuck, Sadie. I don’t have many nerves
left to shoot. Why would you . . .” he breaks off. “A tea party?
Oh, Sadie with your grandma’s set? How did you deal with that?” he
asks with full understanding.

“Yeah,” I whisper shakily. “Well, they wanted
to know about the wig, so we talked about Rachel.” I swallow and
clear my throat. “Then they told me how their mom had cancer,
too.”

The waves crashing suddenly sound
deafening.

“They talked about her?” he asks, his voice
raw.

“Some. Uncle Finn.”

“Yeah. They’re Aiden’s kids, Aiden’s wife.”
My eyes narrow.

“That you take care of. That you loved.”

“Of course I loved her. She was my brother’s
wife.” I’m shaking my head and standing before he’s done talking.
I’ve been rolling it around in my head all night.

“You don’t tattoo your whole chest for your
sister-in-law. Aiden should have that tattoo, Finn.”

“He does,” he snaps back. I close my eyes as
the fight leaves me.

“You both loved her.”

“Yeah, and she picked him. What’s your
fucking point? It’s ancient history, Sadie, dead and buried.” He
gasps and I let the silence string out.

“They call me Aunt Sadie, Finn, and you call
me baby. So you better figure out what my fucking point is.”

“I never knew you had a baby mama,
Fandy.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t know you were a baby
mama, Sadie girl,” he says, pulling me into a one armed hug.

“Ollie’s up there too. The kids get along
pretty good,” Danny offers. I nod and take the girls up the stairs
of the two-story penthouse.

“Who is that man?”

“Why are there so many people here?”

“Why are there so many cameras?”

At the top of the stairs, I answer as best I
can. “I have to work with the guys downstairs, you’ll stay up here
and play, and I’ll be done in a few hours.”

It isn’t until I close the playroom door that
I realize my little speech could have sounded like I was shooting
porn. Hopefully they don’t repeat any of that.

Since Fandy’s house is a lot more posh than
Danny’s or mine, the producers want us in silk and cashmere pajamas
for the nighttime shoot. I almost fall asleep in the makeup chair.
With the comfy pajamas and horrible night sleep I got, I’m lucky I
didn’t end up with mascara on my forehead with how much my head was
bobbing as I dozed. Turns out an ultramodern, white leather,
minimalistic couch does not make for comfortable sleeping.

Add to that a day with two Tasmanian devils
of energy and me wanting to make up for the night before’s
emotional mess, I had the genius fucking idea to take them to
Universal Studios for the day. I thought it would make them happy
and I could just walk behind them, maybe wave. No, this was no
carousel. There were a million freaking people and they all kept
bumping into each other. The adults have to ride most of the rides
with the kids. I was jerked and twirled until I thought seriously
about puking.

I’m hoping the kids sleep past predawn. If
not, I’m never doing that again.

“Alright, you’re set.” The makeup crew
dismiss me and I move to another room in the house where people are
taping microphones to the men’s chests. I nudge a woman who’s bent
over fixing the battery pack to the back of Danny’s pants.

“How do you apply for a job like this?” She
looks at me, not amused. I shrug. “You know, just in case I need a
job one day.” Still nothing. I roll my eyes. “Oh, come on, there
are worse things than feeling up these two.”

She straightens and finally gives a little
smirk as she stretches a piece of tape out. “Your turn. Shirt
off.”

“Ohhhh. Well, that’s not awkward at all,” I
say over the guys laughing their asses off.

“This dude is so up his own ass, he’s going
to be hell to coach, you mark my words,” Fandy declares. Danny
rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, because you’re so humble.” Fandy
throws his hands up.

“Exactly! I know this dude. He’s me ten years
ago.”

“Fifteen,” I cough into my hand. Fandy shoots
me a middle finger and Danny laughs. “Look, he’s got the looks,
he’s got the raw talent. Yeah, he’s a little Bieber for my tastes,
but people are going crazy for that right now.”

“Alright, alright. I say we see him live.”
The boys look at me like I’ve grown another head and I roll my
eyes. “Seriously. How are we going to know if he’s just a hot head,
or if he can captivate a crowd of teenage girls? We have to go see
him.” I shrug, that’s all there is to it.

“Well, if we can do that, then there are a
few more that I want to see. I had planned to have a nay vote, but
if this is an option, I would rather see what they have before
nixing them,” Danny says as he clicks through the bookmarks of the
people we want in. There are a hundred links there, and only twenty
will make it to the live shows. After the production crew stops
freaking out about this new twist we came up with, we will have
some hard decisions to make.

“Alright, tag the ones you want. I want to
watch them all again later.” I sit back.

“Me too,” Danny agrees.

“Okay, let’s find some more,” Fandy says,
clicking through videos we’ve already watched to find more. There
are people from all over the world that sing, I had no idea. It
takes hours for us to look at the ones we want. Since we appointed
ourselves with finding the talent, we don’t want to miss
anything.

“This one is good.”

“Really good.”

“Saved. Try that one.”

And on it goes. Finally, we have to stop
because the kids are falling asleep or crying upstairs and the
sound cuts into the feed. But we still need to perform something
for the camera. The kids get popsicles and we decide to do a Taylor
Swift song called “Shake It Off.” It’s really popular and we’ve
watched it enough to pick up the words. As we tend to do, nothing
is rehearsed, and one of us automatically takes the lead. We work
well together. Fandy stands up with his dreads and begins a soulful
rendition of the fast song, and I fall into the chorus. At the
semi-rap part, Danny comes through again, giving the most
hysterical girl impression a six-foot something weight lifter can
possibly pull off.