Surprise Daddy

“Protest what?” Dad barks. That’s the prize question no one’s ever answered.

From the old reports I read, Marshal went into a fury as soon as he was on the ground, tackled by my brother, fighting for his life. He screamed incoherently about something that happened overseas, something terrible he thought Jackson did.

“I’m sorry. It doesn’t matter anymore, I suppose. Let me talk to Jacky,” dad says quietly. But he can’t hide the soft, slow breath leaving his lungs once mom takes his hand, pushes her fingers through his, and squeezes. Please, her grip says. A cry from a sensitive side we thought was lost in her mind. “I don’t like this, but I’ll tolerate it.”

My heart flutters hopefully. My parents are quiet the entire time I step forward, throw my arms around them, and hug until my arms hurt.

For once, I’m grateful. Without my brother in the mix, it’s actually possible for us to solve our disagreements without screaming across the room like howler monkeys.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. One more day to cobble together gifts and figure out how I’ll deal with Jackson at dinner after he’s done licking his wounds.

I take a long shower, trying to sift through today’s shell shock in my head. The steam helps, but by the time I’m drying my hair, the only thing I really know is uncertainty.

This is a ginormous risk. Nothing less.

I don’t know if the knee-jerk decision to take his extended nanny offer is a huge plus, or the worst decision of my life.

I don’t know how I’ll find the strength to look my brother in the eye, and prove that I still care about him, despite working with the man who freaked out on him years ago.

I don’t even know why I miss them so much already.

Not just the little girl.

I miss him, too. Miss his brooding, his mystery, the sideways glances he gives that always make me wonder if he wants to give me a tongue lashing, or just take me against the nearest horizontal surface.

Marshal is a conundrum and it makes him irresistible. That, in turn, is what makes him so dangerous.

I’m laughing in the mirror, combing my hair, finally face to face with the awful truth.

This can only go one way: I’ll come out of this job better off, or completely wrecked.

4

Lost Again (Marshal)

I must be off my fucking rocker.

It’s seven o’clock on Christmas night and I’m sitting in my truck outside a stranger’s house, heat running full blast, Mia singing carols softly in the kid’s seat. My stomach growls. No good reason after I filled it with two slices of the best apple pie in town.

It’s been a long day for us both. If I hadn’t taken the notion to swing by Red’s house and sit outside like a stalker, I could easily say it’s been the best Christmas in years.

This year, I was ready. I woke up with a smile at the ass crack of dawn when Mia barged into my room screaming, ready for presents.

I sat down while she attacked everything under the tree. Sipped my coffee calmly, spiked with a shot of Irish whiskey like the happiest man alive. I actually smiled watching my daughter rip through her gift pile, summoning endless patience for the butterfly kisses she dive bombed into my cheek every time she revealed something new. I got everything she wanted and then some.

Dolls. Books. Games. Imported chocolate with names neither of us can pronounce.

I even cooked an entire turkey dinner. Couldn’t do the dessert justice, which is why I decided to take her into town, after she woke up from her nap.

Sheryl’s Diner has a reputation for the best pies in the county going back before I was born. There’s no better day than Christmas to get our fix.

I only had to sit through one small gaggle of pricks on the other side of the restaurant giving me those looks, and then quickly shifting their eyes away the second I looked back. On any other day eating here in town, I’d have to worry about at least a dozen sets of eyes doing the same, and then the whispers, which always make it to Mia’s innocent ears.

Daddy, are people talking? I tried everything the first five times I heard that question.

Denials, little white lies, warped admissions that weigh on me later like a cancer.

Sure are, honeybee. They’re talking shit because they don’t know daddy got in big trouble a few years ago for flipping out on a fucking murderer.

Those thoughts never leave my head, of course. I’m not insane.

We had a lovely time at the diner with our Christmas treats anyway. Apple pie a la mode dripping with warm caramel for Mia, and flaky, tangy cherry for me. I was so in the zone I didn’t even think about the last time I had cherry pie for Christmas, not long before the mission, scrapping cheap imitation cherry goo out of an MRE.