Losing Francesca (23 page)

And even though I can't know for sure that our time together is short, I can feel it.

And it hurts to have her here, it hurts so bad to know that she is only temporary.

Chapter Thirty-Three - Francesca

Sean is waiting for me on the porch again. I sit next to him in silence and the swing sways with my movement. "Is this our alone time or something?" I ask.

He turns and smiles. "Sure." He hesitates. "I like this."

"Yeah, me too." Coming home to an older brother waiting on the porch just so he can steal some time with me is all sorts of wonderful. "I'm not sure how things got so…" I struggle to find the word for a second.

"Easy?" Sean adds after my hesitation.

I nod. "Easy. That's the perfect word." I turn to look at him. "You guys are so nice. Way nicer than I deserve, really. I sorta wish I hadn't wasted all that time fighting in custody. I wish I had just said OK and come home. Because I would've had so much more time."

Sean swallows and nods, but stays silent.

"He's coming."

Another nod from Sean. "I know. I can feel it too."

"I want to stay, I hope you know that."

"But you won't, will you?"

I look at him, study his face. He's a very good-looking boy and if he wasn't my brother, I'd even think he was hot. "Tell me about you, Sean. I know nothing about you."

He laughs a little. "What do you want to know?"

I shrug. "I don't care. Just something more than what I have. Because all I know about you right now is that you love me. And I'm not even sure why you love me, but I feel it so completely, it's like a blanket that just falls over my whole body and wraps me up."

"You're my sister." He shrugs. "I have two more, but in my mind you're my
real
sister. In my mind we are blood and we have always been blood. And all I want for you, Fiona, is to never leave me again. Maybe I never obsessed about you the way Brody did, not in public anyway. But I had the nightmares too. And while it was a big blow to lose Mom, the truth is, her and Frank were not happy. If we had all come back from Italy together, they'd probably have gotten a divorce."

He shrugs again.

"I need you," he says. "I need us. Because it's been Frank and me for so long, and I don't mean that in a bad way towards Angela, Lindsey, Aimee, Jake, and Quinn… but it's just been Frank and me, holding ourselves together in this grief and loss for so long, we almost forgot what it was like to have the missing pieces to our souls. And maybe three is not as good as four. Maybe a triangle is not as good as a square, but it's a hell of a lot better than a line that just leads nowhere. And now that you're here, I can't let you go. And if you leave, and Brody wants to go steal you back, I'm in."

He stops again to look at me. A hard look this time.

"I'm in."

I scoot over and hug him.

He squeezes me just hard enough for me to feel everything inside him.

And the tears that fall out this time are nothing like any of the tears I've cried over the past two months. These tears are heavy. So, so heavy. And my heart has hurt before, but never in my life have I felt it weigh me down like this. It's like my heart is a mass of sadness inside my chest and it wants to get as close to Sean's heart as it can. It wants to fuse with it, until there is no space left between us.

"I love you," I say.

He nods his head. "I love you, too, Fiona. When he comes, just tell him you want to stay."

I nod this time, but I don't say anything. Because I'm just not sure I can do that.

Sean pushes me up a little and gets to his feet. "Come on, we better get to bed. The show starts at eleven tomorrow, but this place will be crawling with people and horses by seven AM."

I get up and hug him one more time and then head for the door as he hops down the porch stairs.

"Night, Fee. Love you."

"Night, Sean," I say in a whisper. "Love you, too."

The house is dark and quiet when I slip inside. Just a few hallway lights illuminate things here and there. I start to go up the stairs, then hesitate when I spy a phone in the formal living room off to the right. I hadn't noticed it there before. I walk over and pick up the receiver and listen to the dial tone. I could call him. I could call him right now and tell him to relax, just let me have this time with the Sullivans.

I set the receiver down softly. Because the scene I imagine in my head if I called and said those words to him is nothing short of catastrophic.

What would happen if I said no? It's so hard to even picture it.
No
. I practice it in my mind as I walk up the stairs.
No. I'm not coming.

I say it again, only this time I mouth the words and let them out in a little whisper.

I go into my room and start a bath. If have to get up super early to do barn chores and work, I might as well clean up now and enjoy it in my sleep. I start a conversation with my dad in my head. I imagine his face when he finally gets to see me again. Will it be here at the farm? At the airport? Will he wait in another country and have Nic come get me?

I don't know, and this bugs me. If I could picture it properly then I could have a real plan. I could practice it better.

I say the words again, only this time I whisper them a little louder. "No, I'm not coming."

Should I be angry with him?

Do I have a right to be angry with him? I'm not sure.

Did he steal me? Did he kill my mother? Did my mother hate Frank and run away? Am I Fiona Sullivan?

I know none of these things. The only thing I do know is that I'm not Fifi, Fritzi, Francine, Francesca, Fannie, Faith, Fatima, Faye, or Filia. Because none of those names are my real name. None of them are the name Frank gave me or the name my dad gave me.

And even though I've been pushing it away since they told me I was supposed to be Fiona Sullivan the third day I was in custody, it's just too weird. It's just too freaking weird that my two real names are so very, very close. They are so close, they might as well be identical.

They might as well be the same name.

I might as well be the same person.

"No," I say it again, only louder this time. "No." It echoes off the walls of the bathroom a little. "No!" It comes out loud enough to make me stop and listen for signs I disturbed the boys down below. "I'm not going."

But that part is not loud and strong.

It's a whisper again. It's weak and soft.

I sigh and pull the plug on the water, then get out and get dressed in some shorts and a tank top. I slide in between the covers and even though my mind is still so busy thinking about my dad and Frank and Brody and Sean… I slip away easily.

And in my dream, I am Fiona Sullivan.

And in my dream I never go home, because this
is
my home. And I'm already here.

Chapter Thirty-Four - Brody

Grip is back in my garage, not for his car, but for his curiosity. "Make yourself useful and hand me that fucking socket wrench, will you?" I reach my hand out from under the Jeep and he drops it in my palm. "Thanks."

"Well?" he asks.

"Well, what?"

"How the hell did she get back here? You gotta tell me, I'm going crazy picturing it. I mean, Fiona fucking Sullivan, after all these years? The whole town is talking about it. I bet Frank has never seen his stupid horse show so packed. Everyone's going just to look at her."

I push my creeper out from under the Jeep and stare up at him. "You're fucking with me, right? They would not be that rude."

"Dude, this is Woods on the Lake, it doesn't take much to work us up into a frenzy, you of all people should know that. Oh, hey, that reminds me, my uncle said he can get you out of that ticket Abe gave you. Emotional distress or some shit."

"How the hell does he know about my ticket?"

He spreads his arms. "Like I said, doesn't take much. Your ticket was major news that day, until we all found out Fiona was back."

I push myself all the way out from under the Jeep and stand up. "Maybe I should go over there? You think people are messing with her?"

"I doubt they'll be mean, if that's what you're asking. But she's running the shaved ice truck with Quinn and Jake, and her cash register is the only one with a line." He shrugs. "They want to see her. You can't blame them, she's big news."

"Yeah, but I'm not sure this publicity is good for her personally. Her dad has taken all sorts of insane precautions to keep her hidden."

"The news is there, anyway. Trying to get an interview."

"No."

He nods. "Yeah, all day, I guess. I was over there earlier, bought a pineapple shaved ice from her and everything. Of course, I've already seen her, so it was no big deal, but she sure the fuck looks like Fiona. The news crew was camped out next to the trailer, waiting for her to go on break or something. Frank was pissed, but it's a public event, so nothing he can do."

I pull my shirt off and wash my hands, then go inside, jog upstairs, and pull on a clean one. When I come back down to the garage, Grip is still talking, like I never even left.

I grab the keys to the dirt bike and head out.

"Hey? Where you going?"

I start it up, kick it into gear, and head down the road. As soon as I turn the corner onto the road that leads to the Sullivan farm, the whole place is clogged with trailers and trucks. I have to slow down and weave my way through and people are shouting at me as their horses shy away from my bike. But I do not care.

"This is my fucking road, you assholes. You're lucky I let you park here." It is too. We own half and the Sullivans own half.

They stop yelling as soon as 'fuck' comes out of my mouth. It's like the magic word with these snooty horse people.

I rev the bike a little as I pull in. It's a fucking madhouse. TV crews, crowds of kids, parents, horses—everything and everyone who can possibly be crowded in front of the shaved ice truck is.

Frank and Angela are pushing the reporters, Lindsey and Aimee are crying, Sean and a camera guy are almost throwing punches and the fucking cops are pulling in the front driveway, lights flashing.

Horses go crazy. Kids start screaming.

I ride right up to the crowd and rev the bike again. People shoot me dirty looks but I keep going. "Get the fuck out of the way or I swear, I will mow you down!"

They move and I ease my way through to the back door of the trailer and pound my fist on it.

Quinn appears. "Dude," he says. "Make them go away!"

"Fiona! Bring her here, I'll take her out." The crowd starts to push their way into me and I elbow someone in the face.

Fiona appears, a hoodie draped over her head, and slips on the back of the bike. The crowd is crazy again. "This is insane!" she yells.

I nod and kick the bike in gear, then move forward. A camera guy is right in front of us, shooting the whole thing. "Move your fat ass or I swear, I will knock you down. You've been warned."

He hesitates and I gun it. We lurch forward and he steps aside, loses his balance, and slams down on the ground. I maneuver past him and weave my way through the crowd.

Everyone is taking a picture.

Fiona's face would be everywhere if she wasn't covered.

I zip past Abe in his patrol car thinking I'll make my escape down the front drive, and then have to skid the bike abruptly to the left to avoid hitting a long black limousine.

I hear Fiona gasp behind me.

She grips my waist tightly.

The limousine has little flags attached to the roof. Flags I do not in any way recognize.

And I realize—
it's happening
. Right now—
it's happening
.

More cars pull past us. Cops are everywhere, men in suits are everywhere, those little red laser lights are flashing through the shadows of the trees as men take up their positions. The crowd is being held back by a whole slew of police cars, more than this little town owns, that's for sure.

Sean and Frank walk up next to us and stand calmly.

The door of the long black car opens and a man gets out. His legs come out first, then his hand grasps the window and he pulls himself up to his full height.

And I see it immediately. As soon as his eyes settle on Fiona, then track up to my face like he's a predator and I'm about to be killed, I know it as soon as I look at him.

This man is definitely Fiona's father because she looks just like him.

He's got a white dress shirt on, sleeves rolled up haphazardly, and some dark slacks, but the coat and tie that probably went with it are long gone. And almost every body part that's visible, aside from his face, is covered in tattoos.

In that one instant, I know
what
he is as well.

He's not a drug dealer, he is Russian Mafia.

His silver eyes are almost shut, that's how hard his scowl is, but I can see them clearly in the small patches of sun that creep in through the trees and light him up. The steady gaze passes over me, stops on Sean, and then rests on Frank. We all look at Frank. Every head turns to Frank.