Dawn Atkins - His Brother's Keeper

The first few years, Robert’s friends came to the cemetery to honor him. At the funeral, Robert’s friend Mad Dog, new in the Doble, had muttered about revenge, a piece shoved into his waistband. Gabe had gotten in his face, made him swear not to retaliate. He’d obeyed out of respect for the Ochoa name, but he’d held a stone-cold hatred for Gabe ever since.

Now he ran the Doble.

Gabe put the desert poppies his mother had brought into the stone vase and watered them at a standing faucet. Mary studied the fresh copy of Robert’s school photo she’d brought to replace the sun-faded one in the silver frame. “He would be thirty-one. What a fine man he would have been.”

“But see what a fine man you still have.” Giorgio nodded at Gabe.

“You have always been my rock,” she said to Gabe. “If only Robert had had your strength and good sense. You looked out for him.”

But not enough. Not nearly enough. He swallowed the lump in his throat and looked out over the grass. The acres of graves always hit him hard. All these people dead and gone. What had their lives meant? What had Robert’s meant? His own?

When Gabe gave his boys a place to sleep, a number to call, a loan, a job reference, he hoped he was making up in small ways for failing Robert. Was there more he should do?

Sensing his distress, Trina reached up to run her fingers through his hair. “Look at this mess. Can’t you hear your split ends crying? ‘Help us. End our suffering.’”

“Cut it out,” he said, smiling at her effort to cheer him. His sisters had been his joy during those hard years. They still made him grin.

They started toward the stand of mesquite trees that hid Robert’s grave, Gabe leading the way, the marble vase cool and heavy in his hands, followed by the twins. Giorgio held Mary close and they walked more slowly.

Gabe made the turn around the trees, startled to see that a woman knelt at Robert’s grave. She’d laid flowers down. They were rust-colored snapdragons—the same flowers Robert used to bring to their mother.

Hearing them approach, the woman turned. It was Cici. He should have recognized the flyaway hair. “What the hell are you doing here?” he said, burning with fury.

“Gabriel!” his mother said from behind him, thinking him rude.

“It’s Cici, Mom.” He kept his eyes on the interloper.

His mother gasped.

“You need to leave,” Gabe said. How dare she invade their private tragedy?

“I came…to…g-give respect,” Felicity stuttered.

“Respect?” Gabe’s mother said. “You left him to suffer in jail. Where was your respect then?” She advanced toward Cici.

Gabe caught her arm. “Easy, Mom.”

“You dare to come here? Boo-hoo-hoo. Poor me. My boyfriend was killed.”

“Leave. Now,” Gabe said again, but Felicity seemed frozen in place, her face dead-white, her eyes wide and wet.

“When I visited him in jail, he only asked for you,” his mother went on. “‘Where is she, Mom? Have you seen her, Mom? Has she called?’”

“We…moved… I couldn’t… I was… It was…” She was struggling to speak.

“He was just a toy to you. A toy you threw away. He was never the same because of you. Always with gangbangers after that. And mean. Bitter. That was the end of him and you caused it!”

Gabe’s mother dropped to her knees in the grass, sobbing. Giorgio kneeled and put his arm across her shoulders.

“Don’t cry, Mom,” Trina said, crouching down. She clutched a purple teddy bear Robert had won for them at the fair. “Please don’t cry.”

“I’m so sorry,” Felicity said. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. I just…” She gave him a helpless look. What? She thought he would tell her what to say?

He couldn’t bear to see his mother crumpled on the ground, the way she’d been those first few months. Felicity had brought it all back, damn her.

Furious, he scooped up the flowers and thrust them at her. “Just go. You’ve done enough damage.”

“I’m sorry for the pain I caused,” she said, a few flowers slipping from her trembling hands. “And I’m sorry for your loss.” She gave him a look so anguished he felt an unwelcome stab of regret, then she stumbled across the grass, trailing snapdragons as she went. The waiting cab carried her away.

Gabe dropped beside his mother. “She’s gone now.”

She lifted her tear-streaked face. “Why did she come here? What is she doing in Phoenix?”

“It’s the anniversary, Mom.” He wasn’t about to mention that she had a job at Discovery, that he was working with her. “But forget about her. We’re here to honor Robert.”

Giorgio put the vase of flowers on one side of the headstone. “Perfect.” he said. “Look, Mary, at how perfect.”

“I’ll put the picture in.” Shanna took Robert’s photo from their mother’s hands and put it in the frame, while Trina placed the teddy bear.

“Take a look, Mom,” Gabe said, but she was too lost in grief to do more than glance at the mementos. Rain flicked Gabe’s cheek and the breeze picked up. “The rain’s coming. We should go.”

“I never wanted to see her again,” his mother said.

“You won’t have to,” Giorgio said, helping her to her feet.

Gabe, on the other hand, would see her the next day. What the hell would he say to her?

GABE©FOUND FELICITY’S©NOTE when he got to the gym the next afternoon:

Words cannot express how sorry I am that I upset you and your family. I doubt anything I say will ease your anger toward me, but I hope we can maintain a civil, professional relationship here at school.

Sincerely,

Felicity Spencer

He was glad he didn’t have to talk to her. He couldn’t stop seeing his mother sobbing on her knees, like all those terrible weeks when Gabe had been helpless to soothe her bottomless grief.

It was nine at night now and he was driving cab in the pouring rain. No picnic, considering how Arizona drivers behaved. Used to dry roads and sunny skies, they acted as if the apocalypse was upon them—tailgating, speeding, weaving lanes or testing their brakes with quick slams.

Fridays were usually big cab nights, but not when it rained, so Gabe was about to call it quits when dispatch called in a pickup at IKEA. He was nearby, so he took it, wipers clacking in time to the Latin hip-hop he had on his iPod.

He shared the lease on the late-model Rav4 with his friend Mickey Donaldson, but he was the one who kept it polished, peaceful and sweet-smelling. He liked things squared away.

He liked the rain, too, despite the annoyance, because of how clean and crisp the world looked afterward and how great the desert smelled.

The rain made the blue-and-yellow IKEA colors glow brilliantly against the cloud-darkened sky. He pulled to the curb. The entrance was so crowded with carts and people loading goods into vehicles that he didn’t immediately notice the woman who approached his passenger window.

He lowered it and saw Felicity.

“Gabe? Oh.” She jerked away, as if the door was electrified. She had several plastic Target sacks in both hands and a loaded IKEA cart behind her. “I had no idea. I’ll get another cab.”

“Not in this weather, you won’t,” he said, climbing out. He couldn’t leave her stranded. Together they loaded her stuff into the cargo area—boxes of unassembled furniture, bags of pillows and kitchen goods. The Target bags were mostly groceries.

In the cab, Felicity pushed her wet hair from her face. “Thanks. I bought too much to carry home on the bus. I got my security-deposit check from my old apartment, so I went crazy. My place looks too much like a Motel 6 room.” She shot him a glance, then stared straight out. “I thought you had a job doing landscaping.”