“They put glue in her hair.”
The fuck did he just say? Sounded like some kindergarten shit, but his reaction says otherwise. “What?” He explained further, and I finally got it.
“Right, her dad’s coming over to check on her soon.”
“No!”
“Pardon?”
“I said no, he’s not. Tell him not to come here. I’ll go to him.” I covered my eyes with my fingers and tried to think of a way around him and what was coming.
“Gabe!”
“Pop!” Did he realize he was holding his chest? His heart, fuck me, he’s rubbing his heart, and his eyes, those eyes so like his mother’s, now filled with a new light. I rested my head back against the chair and prayed for patience and the strength to get my son through this. The hurdle from childhood to manhood can be vicious as hell.
GABRIEL
After my little talk with Pop, I was still nowhere near close to being calm, but I was able to speak without grinding my teeth. “You can call him, let him know she's fine, but it's going to be a while before I can get to him. I’ve gotta get back to her; she should be finished with her bath by now.”
I started to leave to go back to her. I’ve been nervous the whole time away from her, something else that’s new. I don’t do nervous energy.
“By the way, I’ve got the guys working on fixing the door.” It took me a second to figure out what he was talking about.
“It might be a wasted effort.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s no need for a door if the house is no longer standing.”
He muttered the word ‘fuck’ under his breath, but I heard him all the same. I wasn’t interested in hiding my anger this time, wasn’t in the mood to wear the mask of tranquility that usually shields my inner thoughts. In fact, I haven’t handled any of this with my usual practical calm.
Even as it’s happening, I know that there’s no way to pull myself back. The anger and need to put my fist through something instead of waning only seems to be growing stronger the more I think about what had been done to her. By the time I made it back upstairs to my room, it was a madhouse.
All the females in my home had decided to congregate around my bed, it looked like. Ma had carried out my orders and then some. Gianna was sitting up in bed with a dinner tray across her lap and tear tracks on her cheeks while the twins tried to console her in their own way, which included threats of violence against Victoria the next time they saw her. That, at least, put a small smile on her face, but I could read in her eyes that she was drained.
Ma had wrapped one of her four-thousand-dollar Hermes scarves around her hair to cover the now dried glue, and she was wearing a pair of silk pajamas so new the shine was still on them. No doubt they came from the belly of the twins’ closet where shit they buy and forget goes to die. Other than the tear tracks and that wary look in her eyes, she didn’t look any worse for wear.
“Oh, Gabe, you’re back. Your dinner is on the table in the sitting room. I thought you’d want to eat up here with Gianna.” Why does my mother sound so weird? Or is my head still fucked up? No, she’s been looking at me strange since I went downstairs to talk to her earlier. Now she’s doing it again.
“We’ll leave you two alone now.” She ushered the others out of the room, each of them calling out some form of goodbye as they left.
“You don’t have to eat all of that if you don’t want to, but you must eat some.” She was just playing with the pasta on her fork while staring down at her plate.
“Look at me.” I waited for her to lift her head so I could study her eyes. “Ma told you about the stylist?”
“Yeah, and I saw the paper you printed out. Thanks for the information; it made me feel better.” As expected. I thought the quickest way to give her solace was to collect as much information as I could about how to get glue out of hair, just so she’d know that it was possible.
“Good, so you don’t need to worry anymore, okay.” When she didn’t stop playing with her food, I took the fork from her hand. “Open!” She looked affronted. “If you didn’t want me to feed you, you should’ve eaten on your own; now open.”
“I can do it myself.”
“Too late!” I raised my brow until she opened her mouth and let me feed her. Meanwhile, my food was growing cold.
As if reading my thoughts, she stopped me while I held about the tenth forkful to her lips. “What about you? Your food’s getting cold.”