Wild Like the Wind (Chaos #5)(66)

Graham had miraculously been able to be all of that.

And because he was, I was free just to be like Jag.

Until I was not.

They loved and looked after their mother more than they should, especially at their ages. Even Jagger, who did it by making an excuse to come eat breakfast with me nearly every morning when he could hit a fast food joint and get some egg and sausage Croissan’wich.

I’d been, of late, encouraging them to live their lives and not spend so much time worrying about me.

It had been a lie to give me the time to be with Hound.

That lie was now done but I wasn’t going to go back.

They had to live their lives.

Burn bright.

Tear it up.

“Everything okay, Ma?” Jag asked carefully.

“Are you going to join your father’s Club?” I asked the same question in a different way.

His eyes flicked to the cut and longing hit his handsome features for a moment.

But even at just a moment, I felt that carve through my belly, rending pain like it was the first time, not one of innumerable, it sliced through me that my baby boy had never really known his father.

He looked back into my eyes.

“Yeah,” he told me.

“When you were born, both of you, he was at my side. When you came out and they cut the cord, he didn’t let them hand you to me. He didn’t even let them put a blanket around you. He tore off his shirt and held you, flesh against flesh, at his chest. That was the first vision I had of either of you. Held against your father’s flesh, gunked up and bawling, tight and safe in his arms.”

I watched my boy swallow.

I did the same.

Then I kept at him.

“One of you gets his cut,” I announced. “One of you gets his bike. You decide between you who gets which. You know this but I’ll tell you, they aren’t equal. The patch means everything. Whoever gets that can’t wear it until they’ve earned it. But I’ll tell you something you don’t know. That bike was an extension of him. It was a symbol of the man he was. It was a symbol of the life he lived. He might have had women before me but he never put one single female ass on the back of that bike until he met me. He told me that. His brothers confirmed it. And I believe it down to my soul. So that bike is also a symbol of him and me. He loved it. He was proud of it. So what I’m saying is, neither of you will get the raw end of the deal. Now call your brother and make your decisions. But before either of you get either part of your dad, you come to me and tell me who’s getting what. I want to say good-bye to both before I let them go.”

His face got sweet.

Sweet and tender.

My baby boy.

“You don’t have to let them go, Ma.”

“Yes, I do,” I replied quickly, before I decided something that was very wrong, that he was right. “Your father would want you to have them. So you’re going to have them.”

Jag nodded, not taking his gaze from me.

“Who would he give which?”

If he’d lived, he’d give Dutch his cut, Jag his bike.

If he’d known he would die when he did, he’d give Dutch his bike, because Dutch got more of him, and he’d give Jag is cut, because he did not.

But he wasn’t there.

So they were going to make that decision.

“I’m not saying. You boys are deciding. And that’s all I’m gonna say about it. Now sit down, I gotta get to work so I need to feed you.”

“’Kay, Ma,” he said gently, letting it go immediately because he knew I needed that, but still watching me.

I turned back to the stove.

What was Hound doing right then without Jean to take care of?

I felt the tears well in my eyes at the same time I felt like getting in my car and going to Hound’s and kicking the shit out of him, even if I had to do it verbally.

Two months, he kept her from me.

I got a weekend.

And now she was gone.

That was an entirely selfish thought.

But to get through breakfast with my son on the second day that had dawned without Jean Gruenberg existing on this earth and with the second man I’d loved in my life lost to me, I was clinging to it.

With everything I had.



I got the news from Bev.

She’d gotten it from Tyra, who had no idea it had happened and who Bev had told me had her work cut out getting Tack to rip it out of Hound.

But Tack got it.

So the next morning, I walked up to the gravesite wearing a simple black dress, my black wool overcoat, as modest as I could get black boots (mine had spike heels and were crazy-sexy, but I didn’t have time to shop), my hair pulled back in a ponytail at my nape, minimal makeup, no jewelry.

I’d looked up how Jean would want to be laid to rest on a website and dressed accordingly.

And that was how I approached the semi-sparse mourners surrounding an unfinished wood casket that might have alarmed me if I hadn’t read that website.

Hound had done her right.

Hound was giving her the Jewish burial she would have wanted.

I wondered if they talked about it but I doubted they did.

He wouldn’t be able to think of the end of her.

Until he had no choice.

I also wondered what would become of her mezuzah that she cherished so much.

And I hoped Hound asked her rabbi if it was okay to move it to Hound’s lintel.