Everyone cheered. Reardon shook his head. Ransome had a
fuck yeah
look on his face.
I bumped Reardon’s shoulder.
“Ransome still stands tall, Reardon’s the know-it-all. The bigger brother, he takes care of us all.”
I squeezed his hand.
Jane continued, “Cash is a big talker–”
“Aw, baby, I ain’t like that,” he complained.
She ignored him and lowered her lashes. “A good man. And he ain’t just big in his words.”
Cash pulled her over for a kiss to which Max moaned, “Ew.”
“I meant his deeds not his di–”
“Jane-May.”
“Ma’am.” A new call started for
Shay, Shay, Shay
.
Oh no. What could she say that wouldn’t give me away?
“The lovely Miss Shay, Reardon brought her to us this day, but she’s the one who delivered him back. Please convince her to stay.”
I bit my lip and hid my head.
“Damn,” Reardon murmured, clutching my hand.
“Max, my little star.”
“I ain’t little no more, Momma.”
“
I’m not that little anymore
, and yes, y’are, always gonna be my baby.” Holding Cash’s hand, she kissed the top of her baby boy’s head. “I hope you always shine, sweet boy.”
About that time, everyone took up napkins or took out hankies.
“For those we’ve been blessed with, and for those we’ve…” She stopped, inhaling a ragged breath. “For those we’ve lost, we take this time to remember.”
Their shoulders dropped, then their heads.
Except for me.
Who was lost?
Except for Ransome, clutching the arms of his wheelchair. “What about Will? We always say somethin’ for Will.”
The pairs of eyes reaching for him were stained with pain.
“Where is he?” His gaze ranged around the table, seeing a scene not set before us. “Max is here. Where’s my other nephew got to?”
“He’s going.” Jumping to his feet, Reardon spread a blanket over Ransome’s legs, ready to wheel him inside.
“You can’t make it go away, son. Shay needs to know.” Norrie intervened.
I needed to know what?
Miss Charlotte folded her napkin precisely and walked slowly over. She stared deeply into Ransome’s eyes. “You’re right here, my handsome sailor.”
“Where’s little Will?” His husky whisper was haunting.
Norrie’s eyes never left Reardon.
After a light kiss to Ransome’s forehead, Reardon fell back to his chair.
When he turned to me, foreshadowing agony tampered with his expression. In each clamped muscle, over his downturned mouth, in his clammy appearance, I knew...whatever was said next would bring me to my knees.
“I didn’t want it like this, Shay.”
“Will?” I asked.
“William Ransome Boone.” His voice was shaky.
Jane! Oh, Jane.
I gathered her hands, lost mother to mother. “I’m so sorry, why didn’t you ever–”
She shook her head, pointing me toward Reardon.
William Ransome Boone.
“Boone?” The certainty of it crept into my consciousness.
Everyone watched Reardon.
Not Jane.
Those pictures of the baby, the toddler, the one with him and Leila. Max’s hair was dark brown as Jane’s. The baby had been blond, like his momma.
I faltered. “Reardon?”
Leila must have custody. They have a son, William Ransome. He’s not here because of her. Those trips away are time spent with him. He never told me! It doesn’t matter, not now, please...please don’t. Not another child. Not Reardon’s boy.
Please.
I croaked, “Please?”
Reardon backhanded his eyes. “My son, Shay. He died.”
Tears gathering in my eyes, I rose to my feet. I could hardly force the words through my teeth. “May I speak with you privately?”
Chapter 12
Due Diligence
Reardon stood, motioning me forward.
No one said anything, yet their unvoiced pain screamed inside me.
Up the steps and inside the house, over the staircase and into his old bedroom.
He was at my back. So close. He didn’t dare touch me.
Anger and unbelievable misery
shattered me.
I wheeled on him the second the door closed. “Now? You decide to tell me this now?
No, wait.” I gave him The Hand instead of the finger, a generous gesture, all told. “You didn’t even have the balls to tell me yourself! I fucking died over Delilah, and you, you knew exactly what I was feelin’, but you didn’t have the backbone to tell me the truth.”
I swung my arm between us. “Like this? You blindsided me again, you bastard!” I fell on him, beating his chest.
He captured my hands. “I’m–”
“Don’t you even say sorry,” I seethed.
“I only wanted you to meet my family first.”
“See if I passed muster, if I was better than Leila?”
His fingers tightened on my wrists. “Don’t you compare yourself to her.”
“Why not? She’s your kind, right? And y’all were happy, I saw the pictures.”
“We were happy when we had Will.” His voice broke apart over his son’s name.
“Were you gonna tell me?”
“Of course!”
“Of course? I don’t even know what I am to you.”
“My lover.”
“But. You. Pay. Me.”
He flinched, releasing me.
“All those photos down there. How could you think I wouldn’t figure it out? When are you gonna stop deceiving me like this?”
“It’s not about lying to you, it’s about looking out for you.”
“Bullshit!” I stabbed his chest. “It’s about protectin’ yourself.”
Of course he was in self-preservation mode; he had every right to be. I’d lived it myself.
“Oh my God, Reardon.” I flew against him, wrapping him in my arms. “Baby, I’m so sorry. I never could have, I never would’ve…” My tears blotted big wet spots on his shirt as his hands crowned my shoulders. “I’m so damn sorry.”
My dampened rage enflamed, I pulled away. “But I’m so completely pissed at you right now.”
“It’s not even that it’s hard, Shay. It’s impossible to breathe when I think about him. About Will.” He rubbed tight circles in his chest. “He was only seven.”
When he sagged to the foot of the bed, I folded in front of him. He kept shaking his head like the motion would rid him of all the memories dredged from his soul, dragged from his mouth. “CML. Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia. He died June 29th, 2005.”
“The boats,” I gasped. “He’s at sea.”
Hands hiding his face, he whispered, “We couldn’t cover him in earth, landlocked. Will would’ve hated it. He was wild as the water, born from the tides. When...fuck.” He wrestled to breathe. “When Will was born, Ransome was overseas. I wanted a piece of him with me always, so we named him William Ransome.” He inhaled sharply. “In case Ransome didn’t make it home. I never figured it would be my son who died.”
Pushing my fingers into his, I clutched his hand.
“I needed Will out there with me on the water. But I couldn’t...to call the boats William, it was too much, too much of a reminder. Naming the boats after both of them–with Ransome back and recovering…”
“It gave you hope.”
Reardon glanced at me, his blue eyes bruised with sadness. “Something like that. Sometimes.”
“And that day with Whistler and Badger?”
“Every year, Shay, we go out every year at the end of June.” His voice lowered. “He fought for three years. Imagine–Christ!–can you imagine it? Four fucking years old! Half his life, he was in and out of hospitals, sick from cancer, sick from what was supposed to cure him. Missing out on school and things everyone takes for granted, that every kid should be able to take for granted. Sports and birthday parties and summer camps and fishing and friends. Normality.”
Sliding into Reardon’s lap, I held his face to my neck, gathering him in my hug.
“No amount of money made a damn bit of difference. I was on top of my game, had my society wife, my son, my successes. I could pay. I would have paid anything. Traded places, given my life to save his! I know what it’s like to feel absolutely impotent.”
I rocked him, sweeping long strokes along his back.
“Slaughter wasn’t always this way either, Shay.” He rubbed his wet face against my dress. “He loved Will. I know you can’t see that part of him, but he doted on him, we all did.” A sad smile sat on his lips.
“When the drug treatments were unsuccessful, Shepperd organized a massive effort to find a bone marrow donor. When we were at the hospital, he was there with us, all the time, with the rest of the family. When we were trying so hard to get through every goddamn day, he was the one who remembered things to cheer him up. And me and Leila, we just kept hoping.”
Even though I knew how this would end, I closed my eyes and hoped too.
“Pediatric Oncology. 7B to those of us who moved in with our families. Scrubs and masks. Transfusions. The contusions on his small body. The catheter in his chest, all the damned time. All those children, fighting so hard. You couldn’t, you just couldn’t pretend with them. They never did.”
I pressed my cheek against his, unable to bear the anguish in his eyes.
“Life in and out of the hospital became normal to us. Until the understanding he was going to die.” He rolled us onto the bed. “When you have to accept it. That’s not even, no...that’s not bearable.” Wracking shivers made his words choppy. “Our last hope. It didn’t work. Will’s body rejected the tissue. Hospice was left.”
His words chilled me. “His tiny body stopped working. Right before our eyes. Leila was...she was…”
“Ruined.” I understood her then.
Tears teetering at the edges of his eyelashes fell faster. “All the machines were turned off–because we knew, we all knew. Ma and Dad, Jane and Cash, Ellegee and Shepperd took up residence. We had a routine. Always someone close to him because, because he was going to die.
“They said their goodbyes. Hugs, kisses. We all tried to be strong. We didn’t want Will to worry about going on.” The crease deepened on his forehead. “They went to the hallway. I’d hugged Ma, and she said, ‘This is your last time with him, Day-day. Don’t let him hurt no more.’
“Leila pulled over the rocking chair, the one she’d breastfed him in as a baby. I held him, listening to him fight for every single last breath.” Reardon’s face crumpled in torment.
“‘It’s okay, Will,
it’s okay...it’s gonna be okay
.’ That’s what we told him. He stayed in my arms, Leila crouched by his side. And he said…” He was shaking his head back and forth, back and forth, too many tears to ever stop coated his face. “He said, ‘I know, Daddy. I love you, Momma.’ I squeezed his hand to let him know it was okay, that he could go. Leila crawled onto the bed, and he was right between us. The same as he’d been so many mornings, before he got sick. He finally let go, he left us.”
We pressed tightly together as the pain passed between us.
“Afterwards...the disbelief. The grief, you know the grief. Then the second-guessing. Did we cause it? Whose genes were to blame? We were too aggressive or maybe the oncologists weren’t aggressive enough?
“I was paralyzed, when he died.” His listless voice gained strength. “You know I never wanted to feel anything. Loving hurts too much. I never wanted to feel for you.”
“That’s no excuse, Reardon.”
“I’m sorry, I was–”
I cut him off. “You could’ve told me you understood, especially with Delilah. Oh God.
All this time, when I was so flippant, when I said you didn’t want children.”
“It’s okay.” His whisper was faint.