“He offered me a job. I took it.”
I lost interest in the envelope and stared.
Then I said, “Birch, he’s a nice guy, but he’s also—”
“So am I.”
I shut my mouth.
“I’m good at what I do, Pepper,” he stated.
And he did it proudly.
He proudly stated he was good at crime.
“Birch—”
“It isn’t safe the way I do it now. But it will be, if I have Cisco’s protection.”
“It won’t be,” I said softly. “That kind of thing never really is.”
“Trust I know what I’m doing.”
“By continuing to forge illegal documents?” I asked, forcing my voice not to rise.
“It’s what I do.”
“It’s a crime.”
“Getting Mom safe, those women safe, Saff safe, those are crimes?” he asked.
“So this is entirely altruistic,” I noted, and I had to admit, there was some sarcasm there.
“No, what it is, is my life,” he shot back. “I got kids I want fed well, in good homes in good parts of town so they can go to good schools. I got women I fucked over that the least I can do, the very least, Pep, is take care of the babies I made with them so they don’t have the bulk of that responsibility weighing on them. Now, I can get a job at a gas station, or I can do this. I choose this. And for you, Pep, you gotta learn from what happened. You love someone because you love them, not in spite of the things you don’t love about them.”
Okay, that shut me up.
Because that kept me apart from my sister.
And she may not have shared where she was at.
But the judgment part was all on me.
“Now, that church sucked,” Birch said. “And Dad’s a dick. But Mom wasn’t and Saff wasn’t. We both gotta learn, because we almost lost them, and with Mom, we might not have much time to let her know we give a shit. So yeah. We gotta learn.”
So yeah.
He was right.
The only thing I could do was nod.
He put me in a headlock, which was big brother for hug.
Shit, I missed this man.
I relaxed into it in an I give gesture, which was little sister for the same.
My ass binged with a text just as Joshua and Arya came running up to us.
“Where’s Juno?” Joshua asked.
“She’s—” I started to request they give her space, doing this still pulling out my phone.
“Outside,” their father told them.
They pushed through us to race outside.
They really were super cute.
And I dug that they seemed to like Juno a lot.
I looked up at Birch. “What was that about Hannigan women?”
“You need people to fuck off, and then you need to snap out of it.”
He certainly hadn’t forgotten much about living with his sisters.
I laughed as I looked down at my phone.
And I saw I got from Aug,
Something just came up,
baby. Be late for dinner,
but there as soon as I can.
So I replied,
Message received. We’ll
wait for you to eat
unless informed otherwise.
Love you. See you soon.
Love you too.
Reading his words, I felt it welling up, and he was probably busy, but it was always a good time to give something like this.
So I did.
Just to say you were
so wrong.
Sorry?
You were wrong.
About what?
Life isn’t dodgeball.
Life is softball.
Sometimes you just
hang out in centerfield
under the sun, ready
for something to
happen.
And sometimes you race
for the ball hit in your
direction.
You might catch it
and be the hero of
the game.
You might miss it
because it’s out of
reach.
You might drop it
and feel like crap.
But in the end,
it’s over.
And you go get ice cream.
There were a lot of dots going and then I got,
I was wrong about
something else.
I don’t love you.
I love the fuck out
of you.
Is that your way of
saying I’m right?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Instead of bursting into happy tears at his response, I sent him a sly-face emoji to communicate the depth of my smugness.
He sent an eye-roll emoji to communicate how adorable he thought I was (or, at least, I took it like that).
Then I turned to my brother and said, “I need to make a pie. You and the kids wanna go to the store with us? Enticement, in the end, there will be pie.”
My brother smiled down at me and said a familiar word.
“Absolutely.”
* * *
By the by, this was what was in the envelope.
Pepper,
There are things in life you regret.
Some time ago, I ordered one of my men to point a gun at you.
On my list, which I’m sure you can imagine is long, that’s very high on the things I regret.
I can’t imagine, especially having Juno, what went through your mind in that moment. I don’t want to.
But I live with knowing I made you think whatever those thoughts were.
What’s in this envelope is not about me making myself feel better, it’s about restitution.
It’s about forcing you to contemplate the end of your life and what it might mean for your daughter.
It’s about making that right.
Don’t return this, I won’t accept it.