“What are you doing?” He turns on me, furious.
“You don’t need to listen to that poison.”
“She’s my mother!”
“Yes, but right now she’s not acting like it. Right now, she’s in pain and she’s lashing out at you because she knows you’ll take it. And I’m not having it.”
“That’s not your choice!”
“It is my choice. Right now, it is my choice. Because, unlike her, you are the most important thing to me. You are who I’m worried about. You are who I love, and there is no way I’m going to stand here and listen to your mother systematically destroy you because she’s a selfish, bitter, angry old woman who can’t deal with her own culpability in this situation.”
“This isn’t the time for this, Chloe. I need to call her back, need to find out about funeral arrangements. Need to—”
“What you need is to breathe,” I tell him, taking his hands in mine and holding them to my heart. “You’ve just had an unbelievable shock. You need a little time to process it, to let your mind accept what’s happened. And so does your mom. Calling her back right now isn’t going to do anything but give her a chance to spew more poison at you. She just lost her son. You just lost your brother. The three of you were at terrible odds, locked in a horrible battle, when it happened and that makes everything so much worse. You need to let it rest tonight, just let it rest. In the morning, you can call her back and the two of you can talk. But for now, you need to leave it alone. Tomorrow is soon enough to take the weight of the fucking world on your shoulders.”
He closes his eyes for a moment, drops his forehead down to mine as a long, slow shudder racks his powerful body. In this moment his pain is a tangible thing, so real and loud and out there that it sucks up all the air in the room.
I wrap my arms around him, hold him to me as tightly as I can. As tightly as he’ll let me.
It’s the only moment of weakness he allows himself. And then he’s pulling away, his face a blank mask so anathema to the man I love that I barely recognize him. “Why don’t you go eat?” he suggests as he takes his phone back from me. “I have some calls to make.”
Get something to eat? Did he really just suggest that? Is he really sending me away like some kid who can’t play at the grown-ups’ table? “I’m not going to let you push me away,” I tell him firmly.
“I’m not pushing you away. I have to make some calls.”
“Can’t they wait until tomorrow? It’s late on the East Coast—”
“No, they damn well can’t wait until tomorrow. I want to know what’s going on. I want to know how he died. I want to know what the investigation looks like so far. I want—”
I cut him off with a kiss that he doesn’t return. But he doesn’t push me away, either, and that’s something, I suppose. “I want to help.”
“There’s nothing for you to do—”
“There’s nothing for either of us to do! But if you’re going to be making phone calls and dealing with this, then so am I. For better or worse, remember? You’re stuck with me.”
“Yeah, well, I’d like to know when the better’s going to start. Because, God knows, we’ve had the worse.”
He doesn’t mean them to, but his words cut like knives. Especially considering the fact that I’m carrying his baby right now—something I’d had every intention of telling him tonight, before all hell broke loose.
I shove the hurt down deep, though, refuse to let it affect me. Partly because I know he doesn’t mean what he’s saying and partly because this—here, now—isn’t about me. It’s about my husband. And no matter how much he despised Brandon, no matter how many terrible things Brandon did, he was still Ethan’s brother. His baby brother. That connection runs deep, no matter what Ethan says. Look at Miles, who put himself on television tonight and did a full mea culpa to help his baby sister. We may not talk much, there may be a bunch of bad blood between us now, but it is blood that’s between us. It is family.
And so I shove my own feelings aside to be examined later and concentrate on being there for my husband. He’s giving every indication that he doesn’t need me, that he doesn’t need anyone, but I held him in my arms. I heard that one sob he couldn’t hold back. I felt him shaking like a leaf. He needs me and I’m not going to let the bullshit of the past, all the old hurts and horrors, keep me from being here for him.
Which is why I kiss him a second time, wrapping him up in a hug that I hope shows all the love I have inside for him and none of the turmoil that’s shredding me a little more with every second that passes.
“Make your phone calls,” I tell him softly. “I’m going to get you some food—”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I know. But you need to eat. The calories will help fend off the shock.” At least, I’m pretty sure that’s how it works. I think I read it somewhere.
He doesn’t say anything else. That could be because he’s lost in his own head or because he’s scrolling through his smartphone. Or it could be because he just doesn’t have anything else to say to me right now.
As I walk back down the hall to the kitchen, I really pray it’s not the latter.
—
The rest of the night passes in a kind of surreal daze. Ethan spends it trying to cut through a bunch of bureaucratic nonanswers from various friends he has in various positions in the government. Though murder is usually a state crime, because Brandon was a candidate for federal office, the FBI—in conjunction with the Secret Service—has taken over the investigation. And except for the initial confirmation that Brandon is indeed dead, they aren’t talking. It takes three hours for Ethan to even get someone to admit that it definitely looks like foul play and not self-termination.