Family Issues Ch. 12

"She's more like a teenager now. Rebellious just for the sake of annoying me."

"Maybe she's fed up! How would you like it if people treated you like you don't count?"

"I'm... It's tough nowadays to even know what she wants. She says one thing and means another."

"No, it's not. She wants the same as everyone else, Nadine. To feel safe, to feel like she belongs, to feel valued, and to feel loved. It's not that complicated. How come she can't read?"

"She's very stubborn."

"Bullshit!" Kevin stomped. "Ben learned to read and write when he was six. My mom and dad sat with him for hours every day. She doesn't have Down syndrome."

"The doctors predicted she'll have an eight-year-old's mental age."

"Bullshit! She's way beyond that. Time to have her assessed again."

"Okay, okay."

"It's amazing, you're drowning in money, and the person you care for the most suffers from neglect."

"Okay, just don't get mad."

"And stop using employees as caregivers and teachers. What can she learn from Madam Hulk or Aleki? You have enough money to hire normal teachers. Qualified people."

"Well, Cecilia can be gentle— All right, all right!" she said when he frowned. "Don't yell at me. Jeez. People might think we're lovers." She pulled him close and gave him a kiss on his neck. "Thanks, Kev."

"What for?"

"For being you," she said. "You know you're safe here, right? You belong here. You're very much valued and that last thing you said, well, that too. Very much."

Kevin nodded, and Nadine felt like crying or kneeing his balls. He didn't use the opportunity to tell her he had feelings for her too. Swallowing her pride was becoming a habit around him. "When is the court session?"

"Twelve."

"Nervous?"

"Happy. At least someone will tell the truth. That defense lawyer they gave her is totally useless."

No matter how much she tried to get inside Kevin, there was always that one wall she couldn't breach: Helen. Nadine hated her. "I thought you were a prosecution witness, Kev?"

"I have no idea why he's calling me to the stand. Maybe he believes I'll support Marianne's version of events. He's deluded. Marianne is a fucking liar!"

"How do you know?"

"Helen didn't murder anyone, and she didn't steal anything."

"She didn't cheat on you either?"

"I don't know anymore." Kevin rubbed his blond spikes with the towel. "I was shitfaced and super angry when we last talked. I've never heard her side of the story."

"I told you she was into Lace Boys."

"Okay, maybe she did cheat. I'm—" Kevin's eyes narrowed. He gave her a thorough scan, and Nadine felt herself doing something she hadn't done in years. She blushed.

"Be honest, Nadine. Those photos of her and your Lace Boy?"

"Dima."

"Did you ask him about it? Did you have anything to do with—?"

"No!" She cut him off, hoping he wouldn't see through the bluff. "I've told you already, that was Suzan Owens. That was her thing."

"Fucking with my life?"

"Blackmail through embarrassing photographs. My business is super discreet; I wouldn't have clients if it weren't. Remember that time in Sin's basement when she had you videoed?"

"But why Helen?"

Nadine shrugged, but her heart skipped several beats. Kevin wasn't stupid, and she dreaded the day he got to compare versions with Helen. She'd be forced to do multiple loops and flip-flops when it finally happened. "Maybe Suzan blackmailed Helen? Maybe Helen worked for her and didn't deliver, and she wanted to put pressure on her through you?"

"Don't you Syndicate people know who works for whom?"

"It's not an organization, Kev. I run my own gang, Brigitte runs her own project, and Suzan, may her rotten soul rot in hell, used to run her own thing. The Syndicate coordinates. Makes sure certain territories aren't breached. Law and order."

"And executions."

"That's Brigitte's job, not mine."

"So you're saying Helen worked for Suzan, and she lied to me the whole time?"

Nadine watched the curve of Kevin's mouth. She was always hungry to taste it. She hated herself for being so weak, and yet it excited her. "Maybe? I don't know."

"I refuse to believe that Helen is a liar."

"She is a liar. Since when is cheating on the person who loves you not lying?"

--

Their eyes met across the courtroom, and Kevin shuddered. Nadine reminded him several times on the way to court that Helen was the one who broke his heart, but one look, and everything she meant to him resurfaced. All he wanted was to tell all these respectable people—jury, judge, cops, and prosecutor included—to go fuck themselves, and to run over and kiss her. Anything to ease the hurt he saw there.

"She was my landlord."

"Don't look at her, look at me." Larry Hannan, the prosecutor, smiled at Kevin. "She can't harm you anymore."

"Helen never hurt me."

The smile disappeared. "When did you and the defendant first meet?"

"In July."

"In her house?"

"Yes."

"She summoned you to a meeting because you were late on your rent, am I correct?"

"Five months late. Six, actually." Kevin nodded slowly. He thought the prosecutor was going to ask questions about Helen's job, and he didn't like the direction his inquiry was taking.

"Why didn't you pay on time?"

"I didn't have the money."

"You had your tuition to pay for, you had to support yourself, and you also had to support your family back then?"

"I should have paid. My personal issues were irrelevant."

"But a decent landlord might have cut you some slack."

"Six months is a lot of rent."

"Not for someone as well-off as the defendant." Larry switched his unpleasant smile back on again. "She offered you a deal. She offered to wipe out the debt in return for something. Well, an offer is hardly the correct term." Larry turned to the jury. "What person would throw his family under the bus? She didn't really give you any choice, did she? Can you tell this court what she wanted in return?"

"Ob-objection!" Kevin stammered. "It's irrelevant."

Larry gave him the sort of smile the teacher reserves for the stupidest kid in class. Kevin had just attempted to outsmart the teacher and fell on his ass trying.

"It's actually a good objection." Judge Henley was happy to wipe that smile off. "I too fail to see the relevance."

"Your Honor, my esteemed colleague, in her opening statement, presented the defendant as a normal member of society. Not just normal but a decorated war hero. A respected and valued member of society who managed to climb the corporate ladder despite the prejudice. A role model for the American dream. The prosecution would like to show that for the defendant, extortion and blackmail are a way of life."

"You may proceed, but tread carefully, Counselor."

"Okay, Mr. O'Brien, let me refresh your memory. Did the defendant force you, in return for wiping your debt clean, to prostitute yourself to her little sister?" Larry's smile turned smug. He knew that the initial deal's headline said 'boyfriend,' but prostitute sounded way juicier. Listening to the crowd whispering, he mentally patted his shoulder. He was a matador about to give the coup de grace.

"It, it was nothing like that. I'm not a prostitute. Helen never asked me to do anything like that."

"What then?"

"It's a lie."

"Mr. O'Brien, let me remind you that you're testifying under oath."

"Everything is a lie! Everything you're saying about her. Everything that liar said," Kevin pointed at Marianne in the back row. "Helen never hurt anyone."

"Your Honor, I would have to request at this point to instruct the witness to answer the question."

"Son," Judge Henley looked somber, "I understand that this is a difficult moment for you. However, if you continue along this path, I will be forced to find you in direct criminal contempt. It means you will be sent to jail, young man."

Kevin buried his face in his hands. He had hoped his testimony might offer a straw that Helen so much needed, and instead, he just hammered another nail into her coffin.

--

Kevin brooded on the courthouse steps, wrapped in a dark blanket that didn't protect against the December chill. Bored-looking city workers in orange helmets and yellow coats were nonchalantly erecting a Christmas tree in the small square nearby, and the courthouse wall was already decorated by a mesh of colorful blinking lights. But the world felt like a big shadow was cast over it, and Kevin couldn't see a single beam of light. He wouldn't be surprised if the city workers planted Sauron's revolving eye on top of the Christmas tree.

He'd never felt more alone in his life.

"Kevin O'Brien?"

He looked up at the unfamiliar gaunt figure offering his hand. A small head with a Jockey cap, and a weird checked jacket. "I'm Frank White, from the Daily Independent."

"A reporter?"

The man pulled out a small digital recorder. "Do you have time for a short interview?"

"No, he doesn't." Brigitte idled her motorcycle at the foot of the courthouse steps. "Kev, you coming?" Nadine always made sure he was escorted to and from the Astor mansion. She said it was for his own protection, but he suspected that she also didn't trust him enough to come back.

The tall man turned to her, holding the recorder like a shield. "I didn't ask you. I asked him."

"I'm answering."

"And who might you be?"

Brigitte slowly got off the motorcycle, walking a bit stiffly on her injured leg. "I'm the girl who's gonna shove that recorder up your ass if you don't make yourself invisible in three seconds. One."

The reporter was as tall as she was, but a single look into her eyes, and his balls shriveled to the size of olives. He strutted off, mumbling something noncommittal about bitches.

"Dude, I said no interviews." Brigitte shoved a short, slim man who reached out for Kevin.

"Brigitte, that's my dad." Kevin jumped to his feet.

"Oh, fuck. Sorry, Kevin's dad."

"Hey." Finn tried a faint smile.

Kevin nodded, then turned five again.

Since his mother's and little brother's death, the roles were reversed. Finn almost drowned under his depression and the doctors' bills as his feeble heart betrayed him. Kevin adopted the responsible adult role in their relationship. He struggled to hold his father's head above water, providing both financial and emotional support. Now the roles had reverted to the natural order of things. Father and son did something they hadn't done in years. Finn reached out and hugged him tightly to his chest.

They stayed like that for a long time. Finn's arms were a shield. It felt like a beloved sweater Kevin used to wear, and now he wondered why the hell he ever stopped wearing it. Different than anything his mother ever offered but still something he needed—an island of warmth and support in the darkness that surrounded him.

"Are you his personal bodyguard?" Finn asked Brigitte.

"Yeah...no."

"It's nice how you parked your bike on a court of law's steps in a no parking zone."

Brigitte's eyes narrowed. "Problem?"

"No, I like your thinking outside the box. Is it okay if I borrow my son for dinner?"

Brigitte shrugged. "Call me when you're done, Kev. I'll send someone to pick you up."

"Interesting lady," his dad said when she drove off. "Who is she?"

"Brigitte." Kevin tried to come up with a proper way to describe who was she and her role in his life, and he failed. He and his dad lived on different planets these days.

Finn picked a small place on a side street because it was called the Happy Sardine, and sardines were his favorite bait for his favorite pastime—sea bass fishing. A frenetic host in a skimpy Santa outfit looked ecstatic when they entered her small diner.

"Did you make a reservation on our Sardine-OpenTable app?"

Kevin looked around. There were only two occupied tables. "No."

She looked genuinely disappointed. "Sit wherever you like. If you download our app and order through it, then dessert will be on the house."

"Hungry?" Finn asked, and Kevin shook his head. "We'll just have a Guinness."

"Anything else?"

"A refill." Finn always kept a straight face, even when he was jerking around. "I have no idea what people did before there were iPhones and apps. I've asked my twenty-five brothers and sisters, and none of them knew either."

Kevin laughed, and there was some sting to it because it was another thing they hadn't done for a long time. He inherited his love for humor from his father. Samantha never told jokes. But Kevin, Ben, and Finn used to spend hours together on the beach, making fun of everyone and everything.

"Remember that Christmas morning when we met Old Bob on the pier?" His father smiled. "And Ben wanted to see Bob's tail and his bells, and we had no idea why on earth he was certain that Bob had a wagging tail tucked up in his jeans?"

Kevin laughed. Only a lengthy inquiry revealed that Ben took "Jingle Bells" literally, and he thought that 'Bells on bobtails ring' was a reference to their fisherman neighbor, Bob.

His father sighed. "What's going on with you, Kev?"

"I'm okay."

"No, you're not."

"No, I'm not."

"I've read everything there is to read about the trial."

"Helen never did any of the things they say she's done."

His father gulped the Guinness down to half in one go, and Kevin followed suit. Drinking as if it were the first drink he'd had in years. It was a tradition. The O'Briens' roots lay in Derry, Northern Ireland, and Finn took his Guinness-drinking seriously.

"Do you love this woman, Kevin?"

"I broke up with Helen...well, sort of."

"That's not what I asked."

"I don't know anymore. Sometimes I wish I had never met her in the first place."

"I've met her, and I believe you when you say she's innocent. She seemed like a decent person." Finn gulped down the remaining beer and asked for a refill. "There was one thing she told me, though, that was hard to listen to."

"About Diana?"

"She said you somehow blame yourself for your mother's death."

"I should have—"

"Your mother had made her own choices long ago, Kevin."

"I—"

"And none of them had anything to do with you. Driving in a storm to meet Roy on that cursed day was her choice and her choice alone." His father shook his head. "I never want to hear that it was somehow your fault. Never!"

"Dad, I—"

"I've sold the shop, Kev."

"What?"

"And most of the equipment, and the house, and the restaurant. Should have done it a long time ago. I paid Diana everything I owed her."

Kevin stared at him, shocked. Everything he'd gone through to keep his dad on his feet was for naught. "How will you...?"

"I'll manage. I've found a job running an electronics shop. I've still got a working brain and my work ethic. It's time for you to start living your own life, Kev."

Kevin wanted to tell him that the gesture came too late, but he choked. "I did everything, so you could keep your business."

"You never asked me what I wanted." Finn reached over and touched his son's hand. "You decided on your own that the world was sitting on your shoulders. That somehow things were your fault. You lied whenever I asked you if the payments were too much. It kills me to think that you forced yourself to be with that woman. I would have never let it happen."

"I wanted to protect you."

"You remind me of her so much."

"Remind you of whom?"

Finn gulped down on his beer and smiled. "You share more than just purple eyes. Your mother married me so you could grow up in a real family. She wanted to shield you from poverty."

Kevin closed his eyes. "You're saying I'm the source of her and your misery?"

Finn shook his head. "You don't understand anything, Kev. Your mother loved Pastor Roy Anderson when she married me, that's true. But she loved you a million times more. You were our source of joy, not our misery. You know who else loved you right from the very beginning?"

"Who?"

"I did."

Kevin opened his eyes.

"The moment you came out into this world. The nurse placed you on your mother's bosom. You opened those big purple eyes and blinked into the light, right at me, and I knew immediately. I didn't care whose child you were, you were mine. It was a done deal."

Kevin stared at the frail man who sat across the table. When he'd lived back home, he took Finn's love for granted.

"You're not me, and you're not her. I've watched you grow up to be a man, and I'm so proud of you, son. You still are and always will be my joy and my pride, not my misery. Don't make the same mistakes as your mother and I did. Don't spend your life on what-ifs. If you love this woman, then you should fight for her."

--

It was like a never-ending rollercoaster. One day she was high, only to plummet a day later into dark despair. Kevin's outburst in court was an injection of pure joy. He hadn't forgotten about her. He still had feelings for her, she was sure. But yesterday her attorney, Andrea McKinley, came to talk to her about her testimony. She used their meeting to try and convince Helen to opt for a plea bargain.

"The police have found no CCTV image of you leaving the hotel." Andrea had an annoying habit of playing with her glasses when she talked, bouncing them on her knee or chewing one of the temples.

"How is that even possible?" Helen raised her voice but then toned it down because the FBI agent supervising the procedure stopped looking bored. He narrowed his eyes, maybe speculating whether the one-eyed murderer was going to blow up. "There are thousands of CCTV cameras in the city, and it's a half an hour drive. One must have caught my Audi on its way to the office. They couldn't have possibly stolen all the footage."

"No footage, Helen. And without the office's security footage there is nothing to back up your version of events."

"You don't believe me, do you? You think I've murdered my boss."

"What I think is irrelevant. I'm just trying to give you the best counsel, and the chances don't look good, Helen. Take the plea."

"Twenty years?"

"I may be able to cut it to eighteen. You'll be out in less than fifteen."

"I'd be forty-five and a convicted murderer."

"Beats being sentenced to life with no parole. Plus, there is always the remote possibility that the prosecution will play the special circumstances card."

"What special circumstances?

"Like murder planned and carried out for financial gain."

"What does that mean?"

"Special circumstances is the prerequisite for the death penalty in the state of California."

--

Kevin dialed the number.

"Hello?" The familiar dark mezzo-soprano, a beautiful voice. She could sing like an angel and sting like a nasty wasp.

He paused on his end, suddenly shy. "Ginger?"

"Speaking."

"It's Kevin."

"Kevin from Brax— Oh..." She remembered, and it was her turn to go for a ten-second trip to Awkward Street. "How are you doing, Kev?"

"Great! Just great."

"Yeah, I've heard about Helen. I'm so sorry."

"Me too."

There was another embarrassed pause.

"They're killing her, Ginger."

"Who is?"

"In court. Her attorney is a useless, good-for-nothing joke. They're making her look like a Charles Manson and Bernie Madoff combination."

"She should replace him then."

"Her. That's why I've called."

"I...I'm, my firm, we're personal injury specialists with a small criminal department. But you know what? Let me get back to you—"

"You're a criminal lawyer, Ginger."

"Me?"

"Yeah."

There was an embarrassed laugh on her side of the phone. "Kev, I just received my bar-exam results. My license is exactly a week old. Helen needs a big shark from a well-known firm, not someone fresh out of law school."

"I don't have any money to pay for an attorney, shark or small fry."

"Helen's rich."

"Her bank accounts are frozen."