Stay Vertical (27 page)

That was about as much corn as anyone could take, and Lytton was relieved when Ford handed over the tag without any more fanfare. The chain was long enough for Lytton to slide it over his head, and he fingered the upraised lettering on it. “Thanks, brother,” he said again, now feeling lame. “I’ll honor this. I won’t let you down. I know we started off on the wrong foot, but I feel like we’re on the right track now.”

“Exactly. Now go get me another Bud, grunt.”

Lytton was more than happy to serve his brother.

JUNE

I
needed to make Lytton’s new house my own. His offer to let me design the garden loomed large in my head with all sorts of possibilities. Of course I couldn’t build a savannah in a place where it snowed. But thinking of designing waterfalls, pools, positioning a few palms, a flame tree, maybe even a thorn tree, all this gave me hope. And I needed to cling to hope.

A suicidal high school friend once told me the only way to keep on in life was to have something to look forward to, a plan. A vacation, an event, a concert—anything that gave you hope would keep you going. Now I had that. Oh yes, and did I mention my wedding to Lytton Driving Hawk?

Lytton had given me so much. I never blamed him for leaving me alone with Iso. He couldn’t have possibly known of that psycho’s plot to steal my phone, make me return, bash the security code out of Helium Head. And I never asked for details or even for confirmation, but I knew that Lytton had dealt with Isosceles Weaver in the way that biker clubs do.

I refrained from telling the hospital how I’d wound up that way. I said I was too traumatized to talk about it, and could they get blood from a stone? No one could make me talk, especially after my jaw was wired. I had to trust that the club would take care of it for me, and so they did. Never go to the police to settle your beeves, even when cops
are
friends of Dr. Driving Hawk, generous benefactor to the annual charity auction.

I needed to grieve the loss of my innocence. That’s why I hadn’t made love to Lytton since the event. Dr. Petrie suggested that my subconscious might equate Lytton with the event, inasmuch as any man’s penis would remind me of that horror. So I stayed pretty much in my own little world until I was ready. And Lytton had picked the perfect day to surprise me with his proposal and his stunning chocolate diamond ring. His love had allowed me to endure my pain, and it was time to emerge from that shell.

“Check out my new ring, Maddy.”

Madison must have just come in with Fidelia—she’d been picking my niece up from her play group. I thought, as I often did when I saw Fidelia, that I was still on the fence about having kids. I’d seen nothing but bad examples of parenting growing up. Madison had been doing a good job of changing that around.

Either way, I was in no rush. I realized that I’d just had unprotected sex—with my fiancé, no less!—and that was just what had happened to Madison and Ford. It had turned out all right for them. I might let Mungu, and fate, step in and decide for me. My new job was certainly low-stress enough. Now I worked for a family organization.

Madison inhaled sharply, so loudly she drew the attention of several people. Dominique and Brunhilda leaned in to see what was so amazing. “
A chocolate diamond
!” shrieked Madison, like a game show hostess. “
Does this mean what I think it means?
”

“Yes, that’s what it means.”

Once Julie, Sapphire, and Speed’s new old lady Tess joined in, the high-pitched squeals were enough to make my ears ring. I already had problems with tinnitus after Iso’s attack, so I endured it long enough to answer their questions. No, we had no date. He’d just asked me.

“Where are you getting married?”

“Are you going to wear a traditional white dress?”

“Why don’t you get married in Kenya?”

That last one actually
was
a good idea. Something unique, off the beaten track, just like Lytton and me. Even a few brothers took breaks from their darts to wish me happiness.

Faux Pas was gracious enough to say, “I see a lot of Ford in Lytton. They are both intense, powerful, mentally sharp men.” It sounded even more adorable in his very thick French accent. “It’s as though if they focus the power of their mind into one sharp beam, it could cut like a knife. I see similarities that they probably don’t even see because they’re too close to it. I knew they were brothers before the DNA results even came back. They may have grown up separately, but their hearts are one, together. See how they chose two beautiful sisters.”

He was probably wasted, but he always came across eloquently. I was hugged by about thirty people before I remembered what Ford had said. Madison had something urgent to tell me.

“Madison, what’s this urgent thing?”

“What? Oh, right. Here, let’s go onto the side patio, get away from this noise.”

The side patio was where everyone was smoking, so we wound up going around the corner where the bikes were parked. Madison talked as we walked.

“Your phone was on the table just now, and it was ringing. It said the call was from that Olivia Jaymes Hospice Home—”

“Where Ingrid is.”

I sort of knew before Madison even told me. Ingrid’s stomach had been obstructed due to tumor growth the last time I’d visited three days ago. I think I’d already been through so many ups and downs regarding Ingrid’s cancer, I’d already been through the wringer. I’d cried my tears—well, metaphorically, of course. I’d experienced all ten stages of grief within a few months’ time frame, maybe skipping over a few stages. I couldn’t tell if I’d numbed myself to grief, or if I truly had never felt deep emotions when it came to her. I knew that Emma’s love for her mother, which was based on fact as a result of the kind way her mother actually treated her, was definitely a lot deeper and more genuine than whatever I felt for Ingrid.

Was a child obligated to feel so-called “love” for a parent? Just because we’re born blood relations to some people, does that mean we automatically “love” them? There are some pretty heinous relatives, to be sure. We forgive some pretty horrible behavior by people just because they’re related to us. We would have put some strangers in the rearview a long time before the relative wears out his welcome. I never would have taken care of Ingrid if she wasn’t my mother. I felt I had done my duty. I felt clean, purified of guilt. We’d all banded together to go above the call of duty, actually, to put her in a nice hospice. Madison and I just hoped we wouldn’t be doomed to be reborn with Ingrid in a future life as a result of something we failed to do in this one. I felt karmically clean, though.

However, I’d expected to feel more despair when the end came. Nothing like that happened. I just said, “It’s over, right?”

Madison nodded and handed me my phone. “At one-fifteen today.”

We just breathed deeply, staring numbly at the cement. Gregg Allman sang about some woman never troubling him no more. I didn’t know if Maddy noticed the symbolism because we were just staring blankly at a smashed cigarette butt.

Finally it was Maddy who said, “I suppose we should get down there and make arrangements.”

“You’d do that?” I knew Madison hadn’t been to visit Ingrid, not in years.

“Of
course
I would. Anything to help you out. You’ve been through enough.”

“Okay. We’ll go there in a little bit. Let’s enjoy the party some more. We need to leave Fidelia with someone. No sense traumatizing her over some grandma she never met.”

“I’m with you on that.”

With a palpable sense of relief, we stood and went back inside the bar. The party was now in full swing what with everyone having gotten off work, and grill smoke drifted from the kitchen as Bobo Segrist expertly flipped patties and tossed ribs. A drinking game was going on at a long table, and to my surprise I saw that Toby Weingarten was leading it off at the head of the table.

“Look—Land Mines,” said Maddy, drawing me over.

Men roared and hooted as Toby spun his quarter on the table. He was being a good sport at a game he was sure to lose. He needed to chug a beer and then pick up the still-spinning quarter with the same hand he had used to drink. I knew The Bare Bones well enough to know they’d never let a citizen like Toby escape unscathed, and I was right. Duji, Gollywow, Faux Pas, one after the other they smashed Toby’s quarter with their beer cans, forcing him to drink the two shots of beer—well, they used Jack Daniels for the penalty shots.

Toby raised two fists to the ceiling. “Nuclear fallout!” he cried.

“No fucking way!” yelled Duji. “There’s plenty of room left. Don’t tell me you’re out of fucking quarters.”

Toby jutted his jaw out at the well-seasoned, grizzled biker. “I’ve got quarters!” he proclaimed, fishing in the pocket of his kelly green high tide pants.

“Spin! Spin!” everyone shouted.

Lytton came up behind me and circled my waist with his hands. “Everything all right? Spin! Spin!”

Toby failed to chug before his quarter hit a land mine. Now he had to down the Jack Daniels and spin again.

Someone clapped Lytton on the back and gave him the soul shake. “Congratulations, brother.” It was a brother from the Flagstaff charter, and I realized there were a few bikers I didn’t know in The Bum Steer. I reflected. How could I possibly think I knew it all after having been Lytton’s old lady for only a few months? Of course there were other Bare Bones charters. I would
never
know all the patch holders.

There was an annual fish fry and rally coming up, held at the Citadel, where I’d probably see more strangers flying The Bare Bones’ colors. These people, I now knew, were more my family than Ingrid had ever been. I was just stuck with her because she’d given birth to me. But this inked man I’d never seen before giving Lytton a bear hug, he could be relied on. He was trustworthy. He’d go the extra mile for me.

Toby couldn’t choke down the beer before his quarter hit another land mine, and now he surrendered, his hands in the air. “I can’t fit another Dack Janiels into my mouth,” he half laughed, half sobbed.

“Penalty! Penalty!” roared the men, grabbing Toby’s arms.

“Uh-oh,” I said to Madison. “I think I’d better drive Toby back to the ranch. What are they doing?” They were lifting Toby on top of the table.

“Oh, it’s no big deal. He has to squat on the table being a gargoyle until they say it’s okay to stop. Then he’ll probably not be allowed to point and call anyone by name the rest of the night. Sounds easy, but it’s harder than it sounds. You try it.”

During a brief break in the congratulations, Lytton grabbed me by the upper arms and planted a giant kiss on me. He was exhilarated, I could tell, by the events of the evening. “June, June, June,” he murmured against my mouth. “I’m so glad you’re recovering. Wait for me after work tomorrow and we’ll go over the architect’s plans for our house.”

Our house
. I’d never really had a house of my own before. The tract house in Cottonwood, the House of Early Sorrows, had never been a home. I had just camped out in Emma’s home, and then lived in a succession of dorms, apartments, and shacks for another ten years. I was currently occupying one of Maddy and Ford’s bedrooms.
Our house
was something I’d never dared to hope for, for fear it might be taken away from me.

“Wife,” Lytton added, causing me to nearly sob.

To prevent that, I breathed deeply. “I’d best go save Toby. I have some things to do at the ranch right now anyway. I’ll drive him home.”

“Yeah,” murmured Lytton. “It’s hard to ride two up with him when he’s hammered.”

Another stranger grabbed Lytton’s forearm. “Hey, Prospect! There’s no toilet paper in the can!”

Lytton was grinning as he pulled away from me. He didn’t stop looking at me, even when the unknown brother shoved him toward the men’s room. And he never lost that grin. He wasn’t about letting things get him down these days.

“Come on, Toby.” I took the gargoyle’s hand. I had to stop off at Leaves of Grass first before going to the hospice to adjust the sprinklers and make repairs. We were preparing for a harvest, which was as inevitable as change.