Page 122 of Remiss

“Megan, wait! Just listen to me for a second. The night you and Reb came home, I’d just found out about Rule jumpin’ outthe window. The rectory had just burned down. I was a fuckin’ wreck–”

“I’d just been released from the hospital, Christopher. My hand isstillin a cast. I had the orthopedic boot on. I was crushed over Rule and worried about you and the kids. You don’t think Iwasn’ta wreck? You don’t think I needed you to tell me everything would be fine?”

“You want Mort to beat me up? He the closest thing you got to a big brother.”

“No, and I don’t want you, Diesel,orAxel to repeat what I said to anyone.”

“Too late, Mom. I’m already composing a text to my men.”

“I’m talking on your phone.”

“It’s in my head.”

“We will talk,” Aunt Meggie said.

“My ass so fuckin’ ashamed–”

“Don’t be ashamed, Christopher–”

“That motherfucker should be,” Axel yelled. “He’s fifty-eleven thousand pounds and ten feet. You’re two feet and five pounds.”

“I’ve been on the phone longer than I intended.” Unlike when she first came to the phone, she sounded heartbroken. “We’ll talk soon, Christopher. I love you, Diesel. Tell the boys I love them. Kiss Jo for me–”

“Megan, baby, wait. Please?”

“What, Christopher?” she said tiredly.

“I did you so fuckin’ wrong and I ain’t got an excuse for that. Ain’t no other woman compare to you. You the best fuckin’ thing that ever happened to me and I got my fuckin’ ass on my shoulders, thinkin’ I knew best when you been holdin’ me the fuck down since you was eighteen-years-old. You demand the best from me whether you see me as Outlaw or as Christopher. You keep me grounded. In line. On my fuckin’ toes. The dayI met you was the day my entire fuckin’ world flipped upside down and that ain’t never fuckin’ changed. I’m so fuckin’ lost without you. Please, just give me another chance. Please, baby. Please. I fuckin’swearIma listen to you. Let me know every motherfucker who disrespected you and Ima beat the fuck outta them. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinkin’ ‘cuz you ain’t ever been no pushover. I wouldna respected you if you let me walk the fuck all over you. I ain’t been listenin’ to you cuz you been tellin’ me I was fuckin’ up. Baby, please. I fuckin’swear…Iswear, Megan, I ain’t ever handlin’ you so rough again and I ain’t ever fuckin’ puttin’ another woman ahead of you. I ain’t meant to with Torie.”

“You need to remember I’m me. Not her.”

“I know that, baby!”

“I’ve considered dinner with Easton DeLuca,” Aunt Meggie announced.

Uncle Christopher choked.

“I don’t know how to make you see me again, Christopher. Matter to you.”

“Megan, I fuckin’ swear if you look at that motherfucker, Imakillhim.”

Everyone blinked. Uncle Christopher looked and sounded like an unhinged wild man.

“Not if we’re separated.” Aunt Meggie’s words shut him up immediately. “That would be my choice. If you hurt someone I was dating, I’d never talk to you again.”

Uncle Christopher paled.

“But I don’t want a legal separation and it would be gross to go to dinner with a man just to make you jealous. I’m just stuck because either I have to live with me not mattering to you or live without you. Or with being a laughingstock, a joke, or worse at the club.” She started to cry again. “There are so many rumors that I’ve slept with different bikers, so I can’t even show you howit felt to have you put another woman ahead of me. They’d just call me more names. A whore. A slut–”

“Who, Megan?” Uncle Christopher snarled, jumping to his feet.

“Mom, don’t cry,” Axel said, beginning to sniffle himself.

Diesel had never felt so helpless. Even when he’d come home and found his mother gone, it was a different type of powerlessness. She was already gone and he’d hoped she returned. By the time he realized she wouldn’t, he’d looked the few places he suspected she’d go and had come up empty.

That had been a slow, painful experience. Unlike now, when he was watching his family fall apart in real time. When he was an adult, as complicit as Uncle Christopher in driving Aunt Meggie away.

“It’s okay, Mom,” Axel said, his tone reminding Diesel he was just a little boy faced with adult issues.