Caleb
Dad showed up a little after midnight. I figured he would. Couldn't sleep much knowing he was out looking for trouble. He always did, especially on days like these when the warmth of his whiskey wore off and he had nothing left but anger slow burning in his blood.
Some kind of fight was coming. I felt it right behind the dull kick of dad's morphine, just ahead of the pain. There wasn't any sense in running, or trying shake off the truth as a bad feeling, so I stayed awake ‘til my eyes turned red.
The old tree house kept me calm for a little while, as calm as a place full of good old country boy memories could. Me and my brothers loved the hell outta this place. So much that we bled for it. Took a whole summer, but we cut, sanded, and dyed the whole thing ourselves.
Guess you never stop loving something you built with your own hands. Strange knowing that I was only one of us who'd ever come back here again. At least it wasn't lonely anymore.
I kept real quiet for a while, just sat there listening to the wind tear through the trees while Hailey tried to sleep off a bad day.
Maybe Jack wouldn't find us out here, maybe I stillhad a place in this world he couldn't get to. But every time something snapped in the shadows, the inside of my mouth went drier than dead leaves.
Jack stepped outta the dark when the wind died down. I figured he followed us after the cops left the house. Guess he was waiting for the woods to settle so he could kick up the dust. He didn't say much of anything at first, just stood there under the June moon, staring out at nothing.
For a minute, I thought that maybe he couldn't see me sitting ten feet up, that maybe he was scared he'd come all this way with nobody left to find. But he called up to me, all choked up and sloppy like he'd been drinking and crying.
I knew how well he could drink whenever he got sad, but he never cried—never in front of me.
"You lost old man?" I said.
He stared up at me from the bottom of that trunk, like he expected me to say something different, like I owed him more respect than I was willing to give. I didn't owe him anything, not an explanation, not a hello, not a thank you, nothing.
Ten feet had me feeling more like a man than I ever would've if we'd been standing toe to toe, but he didn't need to know that. He could click his combat boots together and make his way back home as far as I saw it.
He didn't belong here. He didn't belong anywhere further than two steps away from hell.
"I wanna talk, Cal,” he said.
"I don't have anything to say, so go on home."
"Can't hide up there all night, Caleb. Come down, or do you want me to drag you down."
"Go home, Dad."
He shouldn't have left the house. The way he was tripping over his tongue, he'd probably been sober enough to find his way out here, but too drunk to head back now. I didn't need this tonight. I didn't have any fight left in me to take it.
"Answer me something, son. What happened to my boys? Huh? The pigs told me one hell of a story, but I wanna hear yours. Speak up, c'mon. Or will the truth slip your mind again like it did this morning?"
The old dog started in on me again. He'd push and keep on pushing ‘til I snapped. He didn't care what had happened to me, he only gave a damn about his boys. The first three were the only three as far as he was concerned. He didn't want another son after Cillian. He didn't know I knew that, but I did.
All three loves of his life were born and raised with Dublin in their blood, but I came into the world kicking and screaming in Manassas. He got drunk and kinda rough with Ma the first night the family moved stateside and I showed up nine months later.
He hated me everyday after that 'cause I was proof of his mistakes.
Ma tried telling me every time I got sad that he loved all of us the same, but he didn't beat anybody else the way he did me. Every scar I had from him spelled out the kind of love he had for a son he didn't want.
Seventeen-years of that, and the only thing he could manage to ask me after everything, was what happened to his boys. I happened. That's all he wanted to hear. Didn't matter if that was only half the truth, half was good enough for him.
"They died, Dad. You saw the bodies. There’s your story."
If he could've hit me, he would’ve knocked my teeth out. The soft spot halfway down my jaw got sore just thinking about it.
"Listen to that lip. The way you're going on makes it look like you did it. And God help you if I find out you did."
"Think what you want. You didn't see what happened. You can't see shit past your own front porch so don't think for a minute that you know a damn thing."
"I know what the cops are saying. They're saying you're their man, Caleb. You and that girl a' yours."
"I didn't kill anybody. You know I'm not that stupid."
"Do I, Caleb?"
My throat closed up tighter than tight. I knew he thought everything was my fault, but hearing him say it like that tore a piece outta me only he could.
"You want the truth so bad, here it is," I said.
I shoved my hands out in front of me under the moonlight so he could see the bloodstains still on them. Half of it was mine. None of it came off no matter how many times I tried rinsing my fingers.
Didn't matter if I wanted it gone, the stains stayed darkest in the groves between my fingers. Even at midnight there was no mistaking that color.
"You see this? That's what the truth looks like. It’s been hours and my hands are still red. You know why that is? You know whose blood this is, Dad?"
"‘Yours, Cal."
"Cillian’s. Those pigs you love so much shot him clean through the gut and I couldn't stop it. Marcus let me leave with my life, and he died the second I turned my back and I couldn't stop it. You didn't see anything, Dad. You still can't."
"You want me to believe that, Caleb? The cops are saying all kinds of things about you."
"You don't have to believe anything but this. I'm still here. I'm still here, but I don't wanna be."
I quit talking cause there wasn't any use in trying to get him to listen. He shouldn't have come out here. I shouldn’t have let him get into my head, but he always did. He had a gift for that.
The kid in me wanted him to tell me that things would be okay, that there was nothing I could’ve done, that I did what I could, and that was good enough.
I wanted him to be somebody he wasn’t, to say things he never knew how to say to a son like me. But he did and said whatever he wanted, and all he wanted was somebody to blame.
"Why'd you help me, Dad? Why'd you pick me outta that field if you want me here?”
He said something quick and quiet under his breath, enough so I couldn't hear him. I'd be damned if I didn't get a straight answer, so I headed down the ladder to him.
Bout' halfway down, I started feeling everything again. The rattling pain around my ribs got pocketknife-sharp the more I kept moving, but I kept moving anyway.
Everything within a couple inches of my gunshot burned like hell. The damp feeling in my bandages had me scared that I was bleeding out again. Last time, Hailey had been there to stop it, but now she was ten feet up and the only person I had to help me was the one guy who wouldn’t.
Three steps from the bottom, I slipped and fell backwards straight off that tree. Jack grabbed me under both arms before I could knock myself out on the roots. I steadied up quick as I could 'cause I didn't want his hands on me, but he didn't let go.
He sunk down against the bottom of that big white oak, and held me to him ‘til the two of us landed in the dirt. I kept waiting on him to take a swing, or push me face first into the ground from behind, but he didn't. Outta nowhere he did the one thing I never thought he'd do.
He cried—just held on to me and cried.
That was the first time in all the broken and bruised years of my life that I really felt like his son. I can't say I knew how to be close to him like that without being afraid but it was easier knowing the both of us were hurting too much to keep trying to kill each other.
"I wouldn't have left you out there, Caleb. I meant what I said when I thanked that Hailey of yours."
"What'd you thank her for?"
"Bringing you back. She ran into the road crying her eyes out 'cause a you, Cal."
I was going straight to hell for all the times I'd made that girl cry. Turns out, I didn't even have to be conscious to do it, but I'd make it up to her.
"You know something, Caleb? I didn't think I'd see you again after you left. I can't blame you for it. Leaving was the right thing for you boys. But I wouldn't have let any of you go if it meant I'd be digging early graves," he said.
I wanted to tell him that everything that went wrong wasn't all because of him, but ‘cause Liam got messed up. Last time Dad saw Liam, he was a different kid, the kind of brother who wanted to protect this family, not put them in the line of fire.
Back before he got desperate enough to sell out to a guy like Anderson, he would’ve given his life for me. He would've died before taking a dirty job for dirty money.
Maybe it was something about losing Ma and trying to raise our family on his own that drove him off the edge. Whatever had happened to him, it wasn’t something any of us could understand. We stopped trying to.
Dad didn't need to know how far gone Liam was at this point either. The truth about everything would’ve killed him, and he’d already died twice today.
"There's nothing you could’ve done, Dad. A lot happened, we were stupid, and got caught up in a bad situation. But I'm gonna fix what I can."
He cocked his head back and looked straight up at the stars, like he was seeing them for the first time.
"I can't tell you what you should or shouldn't be doing at this point, Caleb, but you've gotta look after yourself. You can’t stay here, the pigs will come back when they figure out that I lied about knowing where you were."
"I know."
"Just get that girl home. Leave in the morning for wherever it is you're going and don't turn around. Once she’s back with her family, you own up to what you've done, Caleb, you hear? If it means you living another day, you turn yourself in."
I never thought he'd say anything like that to me and mean it. For a man who spent a good part of his life beating the hell outta me, finally hearing him give a damn about whether or not I kept breathing was strange.
Chances were, he wouldn't remember this conversation in the morning, but I really didn't care about all that. I just liked hearing him say it.
"I'll take care of her. I promised I would. I even told her that she could take me in to the cops herself or shoot me if I try to run. I won't run though, not from her."
The worn leather corners of his mouth curled up into a smile. Jack never smiled.
"Does she know you like her this much?"
I tried acting like I didn't hear his question, but he knew better. No sense in trying to hide what he'd already figured out.
"No, she doesn't," I said.
"Have you tried to tell her?"
"No, I haven’t."
"Do it, then. Can't hurt worse than a kidnapping," he said.
"She'd call me crazy if I did something like that, Dad. Hell, she already thinks I am."
He broke out into a laugh straight from the belly, loud and hardy like I hadn’t heard in a long time. Either something had changed, or the whiskey was working miracles tonight. Didn’t matter to me.
"Just tell her when you can. She'll be glad to hear it," he said.
"You don't know that."
"I may not, but when I picked her up off the side of that road, crying her eyes out, and scared outta her mind 'cause a’ you, that told me something. But do what you want. I won't push you."
"I know, thanks."
"Shut up and sleep, boy. You need it tonight."
Neither of us said much after that. We sat there in the dirt over the earthworms hoping to hang on to a feeling we were still trying to understand. In a couple hours, I'd wake up and maybe he'd be there, maybe he wouldn't.
But none of that mattered, 'cause for the first time in a long time, the kid in me felt a little less lonely.
I leaned up against that big old tree I loved so much and took in the night. The way I saw it, things were a little better than alright with me and my dad, if only for a little while.
God must’ve been watching out for us, ‘cause sitting under all those hazy Manassas stars He let us be something we never had a chance to be, peaceful.