If the commando business didn’t work out for Will, he could always fall back on cover modeling.
Eventually, I got a flight to Boston. It was quick and uneventful, and as the cab barreled through the streets of Beacon Hill toward my apartment, I couldn’t help thinking something was wrong. I couldn’t put my hands on the source of that sense, but I couldn’t get rid of it either.
My apartment was cold and lonely, and I stopped only long enough to change out of the slim, sexy jeans and lacy lingerie I brought on this trip for Will’s benefit. Cotton bra and panties, old bootcuts, and a fuzzy turtleneck sweater felt instantly better, and I headed out to replace my phone.
I wandered around the store while the salesman configured my new device. “You have a lot of messages coming in,” he called.
For a second, I hoped they were from Will. Maybe he was thinking about me while he drove to Virginia, or found out it wouldn’t be six months until he could see me again, or maybe he just wanted to tell me he missed me.
But Will was the last person on my mind when I saw scores of frantic texts from Riley, all insisting that I call him immediately.
I skipped the call in favor of a quick text telling him I was on my way, and drove straight to the restored firehouse he and Sam shared in the Fort Point neighborhood. Riley was pacing in the kitchen when I arrived, his hands braced on his head. His eyes were bloodshot and his body radiated anxiety, and I realized something awful had happened this weekend.
He pressed his finger to his lips for silence and motioned for me to follow him down the hall, away from Sam’s room. At the far end, he leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. “You were with Captain America again.”
I stared at the stained concrete floors.
“It’s your business. I don’t care what you do,” he said, and the accusation on his face was the opposite of not caring. “But I don’t think it’s too much to ask for you to answer your phone when I call you eighty-nine times in an hour. I needed some fucking help and this was the weekend
you
picked to start ignoring me, too.”
“My phone broke,” I said. “I wasn’t ignoring you.”
But even if my phone was safe and sound, I wouldn’t have known. Will made a point of turning it off, and I chose to interpret that gesture as one of concern rather than control. He wanted me to relax; he wasn’t putting a wall between my family and me.
It was hard to convince myself it was all about relaxation right now.
“Yeah, well, that’s great,” Riley said. He ran his hand through his hair and stared at the ceiling for a moment. “Sam’s not okay, Shannon. I realize that you’ve been too busy with that dude to notice, but Sam’s whole fucking world imploded last week. He didn’t know it and he’ll deny it until he’s blue in the face, but he was trying to kill himself. He made me sit there and watch a fucking suicide attempt.”
A million should-haves hit me at once. Should have listened to Tom when he said something was up. Should have fought Sam harder on seeing the psychiatrist. Shouldn’t have brought up the psychiatrist at all. Should have worked at brokering the peace. Should have forced Patrick off the sidelines and into Sam’s well-being. Should have stayed home this weekend. Should have stayed home every weekend.
“Tell me what happened,” I said. “Start from the beginning.”
“The beginning? The beginning was months ago. You’ve known just as well as I have that he’s been hanging on by threads, and yeah, things were better when he was with Tiel. But now Tiel’s gone.”
Riley shook his head and looked away.
I should have been here, and I should have stopped this.
I’d talked myself out of worrying about Sam, and let myself believe that he was better off without my interference. That he needed to struggle through it on his own. But it was entirely preventable, and Will was wrong about Sam not needing me hovering over him. These boys were my
people
, the only ones I had in this world.
“He crossed the line into alcohol poisoning, went into hypoglycemic shock, and seized six times. That was all before they pumped his stomach. I got a front row seat to that show.” He rubbed his eyes and let his head fall against the wall. “Oh, and when he woke up from all that? He insisted you not know anything about it. Now I don’t know what shit went down between you two—”
“Nothing happened,” I shouted and Riley pinned me with an angry glare before I got the words out. “Nothing happened. I thought he needed some space to work through things after Angus died. I didn’t notice anything—”
“Is it possible you’ve been a little busy with your new pal? A little preoccupied?”
That was exactly it, and I hated myself for putting my libido above my family.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you and Sam,” I said. “We’ll figure this out. I’m not going anywhere, not anymore.”
Riley nodded and wrapped his arms around me. When he released me, he returned to Sam’s room and sat by the bed. He was the most unabashedly affectionate of my four brothers, and his actions always spoke louder than his words. But his words were important, too. He didn’t offer many of them, and when he did, they were either ridiculous or spot-on accurate.
It wasn’t my turn. And after this weekend, I wasn’t even convinced I deserved a turn.
SHANNON
Eight months ago
M
y phone buzzed
on the table—the hundredth time this hour since all of Sam’s clients were now calling
me
with their issues and questions—and I tapped the screen to life.
Will:
Hey
Will:
Back on base. Fucking clusterfuck. Sorry it took so long.
Will:
I need to see you
Will:
What are you doing tomorrow night?
Shannon:
Fuck you
Will:
Very good, fucking me.
Shannon:
Ha
Shannon:
That is NOT happening
Will:
Peanut. Please. I know I was off the grid longer than expected and I’m sorry. That seems to be the theme around here right now. I can get away tomorrow night but I have to be back on base the next afternoon.
Will:
Need to see you.
Shannon:
Believe me when I say I’m finished coming when you call
Will:
Last I checked, you enjoyed the coming
Shannon:
Further evidence why this is ridiculous and out of control and over
A moment later, the distant image of a surfer standing at the water’s edge—the single token of our weekend in Montauk, and intentionally unrecognizable to anyone but me—appeared on my screen. I wanted to ignore his call because I couldn’t manage another disaster right now, but…I didn’t.
“This is over,” I said, bypassing all pleasantries and introductions.
“Mmhmm,” Will said. “I haven’t slept in three days and I don’t have time for bullshit games today, Shannon. What’s really going on?”
“Nothing,” I said. “We had our fun, I got some frequent flyer miles out of the deal, and now it’s over. Nothing more to discuss.”
The line was silent save for the wind gusting through Will’s end. I could imagine him scowling at me, his eyes narrowed, his jaw locked. “Right,” he murmured. “We’ll see about that.”
“There’s nothing to
see about
,” I said, exasperated.
I was mentally and physically exhausted, and I needed him to accept this as our last conversation. There were no more secret weekends for me, and I didn’t have the emotional muscle to be anything more than brusque and flippant at the moment. I couldn’t even think about Will without my thoughts seizing back to Sam, and how I wasn’t there when he needed me most.
“I’m finished with this.”
I knew what was coming next, and I didn’t want to hear. I couldn’t.
I hung up, blocked his number, and drummed my fingers on the table while I waited. Glancing up, I spotted a beautiful, dark-haired woman, and she had to be Tiel. There weren’t that many boho chicks toting violin cases around Boston, and even fewer walking into this coffee shop at the exact time I requested we meet.
“Are you Tiel?” Or, as I was calling her, The Girl Who Broke Sam.
It didn’t take much to find her. Tom pulled the activity on Sam’s mobile phone, and I knew he wasn’t calling and texting the same client forty times each day. She was something of an Internet celebrity, with millions of views on her YouTube strings performances, and a college professor, but looked like neither. Nearly-black hair brushed her shoulders, and beneath her burgundy coat, she wore simple black pants with a gray cardigan. The cardigan was misbuttoned, and I wasn’t certain, but it looked as if she was wearing a Dark Side of the Moon t-shirt underneath.
She stared at me, her eyes roaming over my hair, my Theory suit, my Louboutin heels. Her gaze was contemptuous, as if she decided long ago that she didn’t like me and this moment only served to confirm it for her.
“Yes,” she said slowly.
This was risky. Digging up her number, getting her to meet me, figuring out what the fuck she did to my brother: all very risky. But this girl
broke
Sam. She didn’t dither over commitment like Lauren or meltdown over power dynamics like Andy—and believe me, I was ready to start handing out the ass-kickings when those girls sent my brothers into tailspins—but she
destroyed
Sam.
He nearly drank himself into a diabetic coma, and when that was all said and done, he decided that late February was prime time for an outdoor adventure. His credit card activity placed him in northern Maine, and that was the extent of information I had on the situation. I didn’t know why he ran away, how long he’d be gone, or what he was doing.
“I’m Shannon Walsh.” I extended my hand, but she didn’t notice or she didn’t care. I let it drop to my side, and then gestured to the table. “Thank you for meeting me. Can we talk?”
She wanted to say no. It was hanging on the tip of her tongue as she rolled her eyes and shifted her violin case from one hand to another. “Can you just tell me what happened with Sam? Is he all right?”
“Can we sit? Just for a few minutes?”
I didn’t wait for a response. Instead, I returned to my table and caught the barista’s attention. I ordered the first thing that came to mind, but I knew I couldn’t eat much. I’d been a wreck since returning from Washington. Terrorizing my brothers and best friends for information about Sam, spending most nights sorting and resorting my mother’s things, hoping he’d call, hating myself for letting a guy tell me I shouldn’t look after my family. It’d left me tired, over-caffeinated, and too anxious for food.
“Is Sam all right?”
I focused on the sugar cookie waiting in front of me, first snapping it in half and then tearing each piece until it stopped being a cookie and became a buttery pile of crumbs. That was exactly how I felt: too broken to qualify as whole. I couldn’t press them back together. The structure and integrity were gone, and nothing could unbreak it.
“No, he really isn’t okay,” I said.
I didn’t know whether it was the exhaustion or the stress or something else altogether, but suddenly I was crying in the middle of this coffee shop. I didn’t have any pretty girl tears that gracefully streaked down my cheek. These tears were the quivering, sniffling, hiccupping kind that came with bloodshot eyes and puffy redness all over my face. I hated that I was melting down in front of this woman—the one I came here to annihilate—when I believed crying should be reserved for quiet, private moments far from the view of anyone else, ever.
Tiel grabbed my wrist and yanked my fingers away from the crumbs. “Honeybunch, you need to start talking.”
I told her everything I knew about his decision to leave his home, his work, and his family behind and spend an indeterminate amount of time camping. In the winter. In Maine. And then I waited, hoping she would offer some insight into this turn of events.
Tiel smiled to herself, a small, firm pull of her lips that told me I wasn’t going to get anything I wanted out of this discussion. She sat back and laced her fingers together. “You presume I had something to do with it?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. I believe you were dating my brother at one point, and now that you’re not, he finds it necessary to vanish into the woods.”
She ran her fingers through her hair with a sigh. “Shannon, I’m not clear how that’s any of your business. Sam is an adult and he does not need you or anyone else managing every one of the minute details of his life. Anything that transpired between us was just that—between
us
.”
At first, I was angry. I wasn’t used to defiance.
Then I remembered everything Will had said over the past few months. Were they right? Was I doing this all wrong? All this time, the only thing I ever wanted was to give my family everything they needed, wanted, and deserved.
The tears poured out again, a loud and hysterical mess, and I knew I was causing the kind of scene people live tweeted. I made my way to the bathroom and crouched in a stall, crying into my hands until I couldn’t find another drop to wring from my body.
When I returned to the table, Tiel was still there—a small surprise, all things considered—and she offered a patient smile. I saw it as an opening, and charged through it. “My mother,” I started. “She died when we were young.” I reached for my now-cool latte. “Did you know that?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice lilting in a way that told me she knew everything about my mother, our family, all of it.
“Right, of course.” I nodded and dragged my hand through my hair. “I raised my brothers and sister. I’ve been Head Bitch in Charge since I was nine. All I have ever done is manage the minute details of their lives. When they were kids, I made sure they were bathed and wearing clean clothes. I sewed buttons and fixed hems because there was no one else to do it. I took care of them when they were sick. I signed their report cards and paid bills. I went to work selling houses when I was eighteen so they could go away to college. I got them
through
it. And now that we’re adults? I’m still getting them through it. I schedule their doctors’ appointments. I file their taxes. I register their cars. I can’t remember a time when my life wasn’t about taking care of them. I meddle in their lives because I have been a lot more than their sister for nearly twenty-four years.”