“Donny boy”it said fondly.
Donny remembered a thousand mornings greeted just like that, a warm voice beckoning, making him promises for a future that hadn’t yet arrived and screwing together broken parts.
“Dad?” he said, shakily.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWONINA
John was as bold and encompassing as ever, thrusting himself into Donny’s midst and heaving him off his feet, colliding with a wide-eyed Gunner like he was returning from a trip. “My boys!” he said over and over. “Pick your jaw up, lad. You haven’t forgotten me, have you?”
I wondered if the Colsons had ever been apart for longer than a day in their lives, or if the spirals of their genes were so intertwined they were not many people, but one. They came crushing back together like thunderclaps.
Around the corner came Scottie, looking nervous, and a quiet Theo, three shades paler than I remembered him and gaunt with exhaustion.
My mind reeled. “Theo?” I said, more surprised to see him than I was to see any of them. For the third time in my life, I’d believed we had parted ways for good.
And I knew that I’d told him to leave, and that there were things severed between us that couldn’t be fixed, but without thinking, I went to him and embraced him.
His arms encircled me just as fiercely.
“Lord,” I said wetly, some well of emotion I couldn’t identify leaking through. “Just can’t shake you, can I?”
“I’m persistent,” he said weakly, his whole frame leaning into me. “You’ve got to give me that, at least?”
Gunner shook his head, incredulity giving way to a smile so wide hisbeard crackled like burning paper. “Can’t hardly believe it,” he laughed, eyes traveling over his father like he was a mirage. “Patty sent that scribble, but we didn’t dare hope it were true.”
John laughed and locked Gunner’s neck in the crook of his arm. The two of them seemed so alike. Reflections. “Didn’t I tell you I’d be back, eh?”
“You’re a fair bitlate,” said Tess, who was standing apart from the reunions. Her face was more thunderous than I’d ever seen it.
She looked between me and John as though she couldn’t decide which of us she found more detestable, and I realized that Theo’s hand still rested on my shoulder. I disentangled myself quickly.
John smiled toward his wife, but I thought there was something strained about it. Something wary. “Hello, darlin’,” he said tentatively.
Her eyebrows lifted. “You fuckin’dare?” she asked, shrapnel in it.
The Colson brothers grew still and quiet, confusion brewing. Patrick, however, only sighed and sagged.
Scottie smacked his lips together and cleared his throat. “Well,” he interjected, just as it seemed tensions would snap. “As much as I don’t mind standin’ with the rats in the gutters, we oughta find some sort of cover, eh? Before we’re pinched.”
Patrick was looking between his parents as though watching an approaching disaster. “We’ve got a place,” he said. “A couple of rooms above the pub.”
“It needs to be somewhere private, Pat,” Tess pressed. “Away from anyone who might be listenin’.”
And what other place was there to retreat to in Scurry, with ears that had long ago stopped listening?
Patrick and John took my father upstairs and put him away like a coat, tucking him into the bedroom and shutting the door behind him. He’d hardly lifted his head when we arrived. Someone had left him with a bottle of liquor while we were away—John, I suspected.
In the kitchen, animosity thickened. Tess had been given a chair to sit in, but she’d refused it, opting instead to lean against the counter. She watched me with a contempt I could not fault her for.
“I warned you, girl,” she said to me, finally. “I warned you I would pull the trigger myself, didn’t I?”
I was grateful she’d said anything at all. Better than the silent contemplation. Better than the group of us, standing in the too-small space and choking on unspoken wrath.
I nodded.
She tsked bitterly. “If you were smarter, you’d have scarpered while you could.” She eyed me with open loathing. Gunner and Donny did the same.
Hot shame flooded me, but I knew better than to let my chin droop. “If it helps,” I told her, “I love your son.”
