Mending Michael (9 page)

HOLLY

"It's not a difficult question to answer," I press, still wondering if he hates everyone who tries to get served illegally, or just me.

Mick just stares at me.

So I raise my eyebrows, not letting him get off that easily. After all, for the past, what, two and a half, three years, he's given me these looks that had his eyes had the power, they'd have knocked me senseless, or left me for dead.

"No."

"No. That's it. No. No what?"

He hesitates again, but I see his gears turning, so I wait.

"No, I didn't hate everyone who'd tried to get served illegally."

I'm a bit surprised. "Just me?"

"Just you," he says without a nod.

With a questioning sigh, I lean back in my chair, disappointed in his response.

"May I ask why?" My arms are pretzeled across my chest, giving me an air of authority, or something intimidating like that.

"You may. Doesn't mean I'll answer." Mick tries to keep his expression neutral, but his eyes belie the indifference—they're dark, almost black, and they're intense. There's something he's not telling me.

His eyes burn darker before he rises from his chair and approaches the kitchen window.

The awkwardness between us is back, so I try my best to lessen it by saying, "It's okay. I didn't like you either."

I hear a groan, but he's suppressing a laugh.

"So the first play in our game plan is to clean up this house and make it look like yours...and childproof it. I'm pretty sure it needs to be childproofed."

The tone of my voice masks the unsettling in my chest—
I'm
still feeling awkward.
Mick
doesn't need to know that. Though the sound his hands make when they slap against the window challenges my already shaky cloak. But I pull on my big-girl panties and step up behind him at the window.

"You'll get her back, Mick," I encourage quietly, yet not so reassuringly, since my voice loses its confident disguise and cracks.

"You don't know that," he says just as quietly.

Gathering more courage, I now stand beside him. "You're right. I don't know it. But I'd rather think positively and do something about making it happen, then do nothing at all."

He turns his head just slightly to peer at me through narrowed eyes. "Is that how you deal with everything in your life? Barrel through until you get what you want?"

Yeah. Don't I wish? "Yup. It's the only way to live," I lie, knowing damn well I haven't made one move to get what I want for my future. If only I had the courage to stand up to Daddy, I could walk the talk. Instead, I'm a lame-ass liar telling Mick to do something I'm not sure I'd have the courage to do if I were in his shoes. I'd like to think, though, if an innocent child's life and welfare were at stake, I'd be brave enough to
barrel
through and make things happen.

"I admire that," he says, making me choke on the guilt of my lie. "You okay there?"

"Uh, yeah." I sigh, leaning forward, my hands on the high windowsill. "I lied."

His head snaps in my direction and I move my hands, clenching them at my sides, then fumbling with them at my pockets.

"What the heck you talking about?"

"Barreling through my life. I don't. I'm pretty lame."

"I wonder if I'll ever figure you out," he whispers.

"Probably not," I answer truthfully.

Returning my gaze out the window, I finally take a look at his backyard. "Was that a pool?" I ask, referring to the faded turquoise concrete rectangle filled with leaves that looked to be dead for several decades. Where a rusted ladder climbs out of the deep end of the hole, lies a pool of dark brown water. Crunchy leaves as old as the ones that fill the pool outline it. If the trees around the yard weren't blooming with flowers, it'd look like we were in the midst of a snowless January.

"Yeah," Mick says slowly. "That was a pool."

"Guess you're not much of a swimmer," I joke.

"No."

Okay, he's not in the mood for jokes. I get it. He's hurting.

Forcing my hand toward the back of his shoulder, I pat it. "Let's start cleaning this place up. I bet we get a lot of thinking done while we clean." I rummage through the cabinet beneath the kitchen sink. "And we need to think if we're going to come up with a plan."

"What are you doing under the sink?"

Pulling my upper body out from the cabinet, I stand, saying, "Where's all your cleaning supplies?" In my house, we keep them under the sink.

"Oh. I keep them up high in the linen closet." Mick shrugs as he drops his gaze to his feet. "I was always afraid Kenna would get to them when I wasn't here, so..."

His dark eyes look back at me, and they're full of shame and embarrassment, as if it were his fault his sister is a drug addict.

I follow Mick to the linen closet down the dark hallway. "Is there a light switch somewhere?"

Over his shoulder, he says, "No. No light fixture."

In the linen closet, Mick pulls out a flashlight and shines it on the disheveled closet. Like he said, the cleaning stuff is on the top shelf, so he pulls them down, along with a bucket and some used rags.

"Go to town," he says, shoving the bucket and cleaners at me. "If you really think this is gonna work."

Following him back to the living room, I tell him, "It's better than doing nothing at all."

He bends down and picks up some broken pieces of glass he hadn't gotten before.

"Got any brown paper bags? You should put the glass in a bag before you cut your hands."

He stands from his crouched position and smirks. At me.

"What?"

He groans out a soft laugh and says, "Nothing," but he leaves the room and goes into the kitchen. Seconds later, he's back with the brown bag.

After a while, Mick and I separate, and we each take over different rooms to clean and put in order. I'm surprised by the junk that lies around this house. Like the brown leaves out back, most of it looks decades old. Even the few pictures on the wall look ancient. And they're not new photographs meant to look vintage. They actually
are
old. At least fifteen years old, maybe more. In fact, recalling each room I've gone through, I don't remember seeing anything that could have been purchased after the 1990s. Come to think of it, the TV in the living room, the only TV in the house, is one of those ancient tube TVs encased in dark wood.

"Mick," I call, walking into the back master bedroom where he is packing old knick-knacks in cardboard boxes. "You say Charity lives here
now
? Like, yesterday?"

He nods, eying me speculatively. "Yeah. Why?"

"It just... it looks like no one's lived here for years. I mean, nothing's new, and I don't even see recent pictures on the wall."

Mick bites on his cheek again, and returns to packing the boxes.

"Oh...'kay?" I shrug and walk out of the room.

I reenter what looks to be an old boy's room. Only at closer inspection, the room doesn't have that abandoned look. It's tidy, not much dust, and a
Cycle World
magazine from last month sits atop the nightstand, along with an alarm clock that reads the correct time. Though I'm only here to clean and straighten, I peek inside one of the mirrored dresser's top drawers. Three pairs of white ankle socks and three pairs of plaid boxers. The drawer beneath it reveals several faded t-shirts, the top one promoting a 2010 Bike Week in Daytona Beach. I close the second drawer and leave this room alone. Clearly, it belongs to Mick.

The cute little ranch-style house, as my mother would put it, is not as small as it looks from the outside. Pushed back behind the cluttered and dusty dining room are two more bedrooms. The smaller one on the right has to be Kenna's room, since it, at least, has colorful, and thankfully current, toys tossed about the room. Pink blocks are piled up next to the white castle-looking plastic toddler bed, and a baby doll that I recognize as one of those itty-bitties from that huge doll company in the city, sits in an old white rocker. Taking care to put her puzzles back together and gather her doll stuff neatly into the corner on the floor, I spot a framed picture of Mick about the time I'd first met him. He's holding a newborn baby girl who I'm guessing is Kenna. Mick is not looking at the camera, and he's not smiling. Instead, he's gazing agonizingly at the sleeping baby, as if it hurts him to be holding her. Then I wonder...who on earth would ever frame such a heartbreaking picture?

I toss the thought to the back of my mind, place the picture on the tall white dresser, and finish straightening up the little girl's room.

Across the hall is another small room, just a hair bigger than Kenna's room. Without a doubt, this bedroom belongs to Charity. Tiny female clothes are strewn about the floor. A pair of ripped short denim shorts lay at the bottom of the bed where a pair of worn black ankle boots sit on the floor beneath them, as if she took off her boots and shorts and climbed up into the stained sheet-covered mattress. Not knowing if any of the clothes were clean or dirty, I pick them up and throw them all in the wicker basket that sits outside the curtain-covered closet.

It is when I am tearing the sheets off the bed that I see them. Carelessly laid out on her nightstand is paraphernalia I'd only seen in drug-related movies. Small burnt pieces of foil, a blackened candle and charred spoons, used cigarette pieces, cut-up aluminum cans, broken rubber bands, a few used books of matches and a lighter, and skinny syringe-style needles, all just waiting there for a junkie and her three year old to help themselves to.

I am rendered immobile and speechless when, behind me, Mick says, "I see you found my sister's room."

MICK

It's almost surreal to watch my sister's secrets reveal themselves to Holly. I'm embarrassed, and I'm angry.

And I'm terribly sad.

Returning to my senses, I hastily brush the contents on top of the nightstand into the garbage bag I had in my hand when I walked into the room. "I'll get this room, Holly. Maybe you...take a break. You've done so much already..." I stop, because she's still standing there, dumbstruck and quiet. The dark blue bandanna she now has tied around her head like a headband adds to Holly's naivety and innocence.

I let my hand rest on her shoulder and take a fortifying breath. "She hasn't always been this bad."

Her dark eyes finally turn from the nightstand to me. "What if Kenni got to this? What if..."

"She didn't. And that's why we're doing this, right?"

She nods. "Yeah." I watch as she slowly fingers that dimple between her collarbones. "I just...it's so... I've never seen this kind of...." She stops, obviously too in awe of seeing real live drug paraphernalia. It'd be nice to say I was as naive to the unpleasant world around us, but sadly, I am all too aware of it.

"Look. Let's just... we'll both take a break," I suggest.

My instincts are to take her hand and lead her out of the room, but my head says we're barely tolerating each other as it is. That may just be too much. So I walk out in front of her and figure she'll follow me out.

"How 'bout I order us a pizza?"

We've moved to the living room, which I'd already vacuumed, straightened, and dusted.

"Sure," Holly says, her back to me, her eyes scanning the old pictures sitting on the piano.

"Are these...of you guys when you were small?"

"Pretty much. You like anything on your pizza?" I ask quickly, deflecting the question that will obviously come next.

"Um. Anything. Sausage, pepperoni, pineapple. Anything."

"Yeah. Pineapple. I'll get that," I say sarcastically.

"Who's the..."

"Play something."

She turns to me with crazy eyes.

Which makes me laugh.

"I know you play. I heard you on the keyboard at Donny's."

"No one was paying attention to me. That was different."

"I won't pay attention," I lie.

She shakes her head and rolls her eyes. "Just order the pizza." She grabs the huge remote. "This thing is ancient," she says, turning the remote in her hand. "Is it from this century?"

"Ha, ha."

Aiming it at the old television, she asks, "Do you have cable or doesn't this TV go past thirteen."

"Again, very funny," I say dryly, but pick up the remote that's sitting on top of the stereo. "Look. A cable remote." Then I point to the digital box in the cabinet beneath the TV. "And what's this? A cable box." I aim the remote at the box, turn it on, and toss it to her. "Here. Watch to your heart’s content. I'm gonna order the pizza then go get some snacks. My sister has nothing here. Want anything?"

"No, but I'll come with you."

"Then I won't be able to strap the pizza to the back of my bike, so..."

"Have it delivered."

"I gotta run out anyway...for the snacks. Make yourself comfortable."

I order the pizza and get the hell out of there before she asks me about those pictures again. I'm just in no mood to talk about my past.