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And yes, one I very much wanted to fuck.
Until she threw up a wall and coldly left in the wake of the conversation about Clara. I tended to give people the benefit of the doubt before thinking the worst of them. Most people weren’t assholes. They’re just late for work or they got bad news about a family member or didn’t sleep well, or were worrying about paying their bills.
People were inherently good.
A belief my father instilled in me and my brother Beau. And one that preserved even after we lost my mother far too soon, even after all the shit went down with my fiancée, and even when Naomi left. Because that was the best thing she could’ve done.
But my niece—my fierce, intelligent, shining-bright niece, battling a burden no child should ever have to know… I’d burn down the world for her. I’d do anything to protect her. And Calliope’s reaction to her sickness made me question all my instincts. Shut myself away from my feelings toward her.
I’d been wrong before, after all.
Regardless of the treatments, the shitty season, the bills to be paid, staffing problems at the restaurant and the general sense of overarching dread I’d been battling since Clara’s diagnosis, I still thought of Calliope.
The strand of midnight hair that had escaped her tight bun and the overwhelming urge I had to brush it behind her ear. The fire in her icy eyes, the ones that I wanted to watch heat up. Her body, full of curves. Her stride, confident and aggressive yet somehow effortlessly sexy. Those bold red lips. Her sharp tongue. All of it and more.
Which made me angry at myself. Thinking with my dick had almost ruined my life once before. I wouldn’t let it happen again.
I resolved to push Calliope out of my mind and focus on my family, on getting my niece healthy so I didn’t have to face the reality of losing her and then my brother. Because I knew in mycore that if my brother lost his daughter, he’d set off on a boat and never fucking return.
Naomi turned up out of the blue with a black eye and a test showing she was a bone marrow match for Clara.
She didn’t look happy about it and refused to see her daughter, muttering about getting the procedure, “…over and done with so I’m home free.”
We, especially my brother, struggled with her presence. I knew his first instinct was to protect his daughter by promptly sending Naomi away. We didn’t want her poison anywhere near Clara. But if she was telling the truth, she could save her.
“She’s playing some sort of game,” Beau seethed through his teeth, pacing the room while glaring at the door she’d knocked on a handful of minutes ago. The exchange had been short, her presenting the results, telling him to schedule the surgery, then leaving after giving him a number she could be contacted at.
I stood at the kitchen island, containing my own need to pace, to rage, because my brother needed a tether to himself and his character.
“That was my first thought,” I agreed. It was too good to be true. There were too many questions. We’d tried to contact her when the chemo stopped working, when we learned she needed a transplant, but we’d had no luck. Her phone number was no longer in service, no one at her old address, no family knew where she was. How she even knew about her needing a transplant was a mystery. “I don’t know what she has to gain from this,” I told my brother, having wracked my brain in the short time since we’d closed the door.
His gaze shot to me. “Money. Her own sick thrills, power, who the fuck knows. There’s a game here.”
The cold certainty in his voice made me incredibly sad that the world had turned my brother into a cynic. But how could itnot? With a sick child, one tended to lose all sense of wonder or hope in the world.
“Or maybe she’s not a wholly evil person and wants to save her daughter’s life,” I suggested. I’d lost a lot of my wonder but not all of my hope.
Beau scowled at me, but I could see it there, in the corner of his mind… Our father’s voice of reason. He was out with Clara. Thank God she wasn’t there when her mother arrived. We were careful about the way we talked about Naomi. Beau showed her pictures, told her the truth about where she was when Clara asked. She wasn’t ready to be a mother, and she knew that Beau would take care of her when she couldn’t. The urge to lie to her about Naomi, say she was dead instead of willingly abandoning her, had been tempting for all of us. But Beau had resolved to be honest with his daughter. Something I admired. And something that had paid off since Clara was objectively the coolest and kindest kid I’d ever had the honor to know.
“We don’t have money, she knows that,” I reminded Beau.
Which was true. But if she asked for it in exchange for the surgery—which very well would make her truly evil—my brother would rob a bank for it, and I’d be driving the getaway car.
“Is it that hard to believe that this is it? What we’ve been waiting for? Hoping for?” I kept my tone even, not wanting to get either of our hopes too high. “That you’ll be holding the shotgun when her prom date comes to pick her up, walking her down the aisle?”
My brother stopped pacing to stare right at me. I watched fury and pure despair battle on his face.
“You know that having hope is dangerous,” he whispered. The expression on his face chilled my blood. My brother had never been a cheerful man, but this past year had sucked the life from him. He was a husk.
I walked over to clap him on the shoulder, not letting any of my own dread show on my face. My brother needed an anchor right then. He needed someone to lean on. “It’s all we have right now, brother. And for that little girl,” I nodded my head to the framed photo of Clara on the island, one of many around the house along with every finger painting and drawing she’d ever done, “we’ll do anything.”
My brother gritted his teeth, and because he didn’t allow himself an ounce of emotion, his eyes remained dry. He was staying strong for his daughter, even if it meant shutting off every other feeling.
But he relented, nodding even though I knew it pained him to have hope that this horrible fucking nightmare might be coming to an end. That our salvation might’ve laid in the hands of the woman who abandoned her baby years before.
Though even I was doubtful of the hope trying to worm its way beneath my skin, the proverbial other shoe never dropped. We made a call to Clara’s doctor, who knew the importance of time and who pulled a fuck of a lot of strings to get the surgery scheduled as soon as possible. Clara was at the hospital, starting preparation for the transplant. Only for a night or two before the long stay leading up to the transplant and afterward.
You never got used to it. Seeing a small, perfect being in such a large bed, being pricked with needles and no longer crying because it had happened so often. Smiling at nurses and sucking on a lollipop. A fuckinglollipop. Allwe could give her for enduring pain grown adults could barely fucking handle. Beyond drugs that made her stomach hurt and her head cloudy.