“Baby, go upstairs, take Breanna …” I’m trying to tell her, but she doesn’t budge.
I wish Dahlia were home, but she’s out on some interview and won’t be back for an hour. I have no idea what to do. I’m stock-still, frozen like I used to be with that deer in headlights mentality whenever he’d come after me.
“Of course, it’s my wife, the one who can’t just fall in line …” Shane is ranting to himself now more than anyone else, but he’s crossed the threshold into the house.
I see Noelle run and realize she’s going to grab my cell phone off the counter. Shane is too busy yelling to understand what she’s doing, but my stomach plummets past my feet. How many times has she watched us fight? Since when did she learn, or maybe was told, that if anything like this happened, she should call the police? I think Dahlia has been telling my oldest child more than I thought she was.
Noelle holds my phone to her ear and starts to talk. “This is Noelle Giraldi, my daddy is fighting my mommy—”
“Don’t you … give me that, you little brat!” Shane rips the phone from beside Noelle’s ear, and chucks it across the room.
As Shane was a professional baseball player, it whizzes past me, nearly clocking me in the skull. The phone must be going a decent speed, and I hear it clunk something and hit the floor behind me.
“Get out!” My voice rises now, authority and strength overpowering the fear inside me.
Shane looks like he’s seen a ghost, and Noelle is sniffling next to me from his outburst.
“Mommy?” A broken little voice comes from across the kitchen.
I’m about ready to unleash on Shane, no matter if the girls are in the room or not, but something instinctually has me turning.
That’s when I see her. Breanna, standing just feet away from me, blood pouring from a cut on her head.
Just like mine was the night Shane used his fists on me in the parking lot.
The sound goes out of the world, and my vision focuses in so acutely due to the rush of adrenaline in my veins.
I reach Breanna right before she passes out in my arms.
28
Walker
It’s close to eleven p.m. when my plane touches down in Florida, and the first thing I want to do is drive straight to the Callahan Florida residence and fall asleep.
I’ve never liked it here; the humidity, the distance from my hometown, and spring training is just a tease to me. I want to compete, to play, and the pre-season monotony is boring to me. I understand needing the warm up, but it always seems like one drawn-out press event to me, when we could have a week of this and then start the regular season.
Plus, coming down to Florida means I have to leave Hannah for an extended period of time, and I’m anxious about it. I’m out of town during the most hectic period of her life, and all I want to do is be by her side when the trial starts in a few weeks. As it is, I’ll have to fly back early or miss some regular games to testify.
I thank the flight crew and pilot, say good night to some of the guys who took the Pistons jet down here with me, and plan to call Hannah, even just to leave a voicemail, on the way over to the house.
Except I have three missed calls from my father when I turn my phone on, and I dial him as I duck into the black SUV waiting to take me to the home my father purchased a decade ago for us to stay in while we’re down here.
“Walker, you need to get back on that plane. It’s Sinclair.”
My heart drops at his tone because … holy hell, it sounds like my own father has been crying.
“What happened?” My voice is a croak.
“Get back to Packton. Now.”
My father must hang up with me and immediately call the jet manager, because no one asks any questions as my bags and myself are loaded back onto the plane and fueled up to depart on the same runway we just flew in on. I’m glad I don’t have to deal with that, because my guts seem to try to be working themselves out of my body via my throat.
The flight seems to drag for hours, but also go by in a span of seconds. I can’t sit still, a part of me always tapping or shaking. Bile rises in my mouth every other moment, and I have to choke it down to keep from hurling inside the cabin.
I haven’t seen or spoken to my brother in probably a month. After all of our little tiffs and Sinclair’s passive-aggressive comments, plus, my time being occupied with Hannah, our relationship has kind of fallen to the wayside. Because I’m not making an effort, we haven’t really been in touch. He’s crossed my mind, my worries, a number of times, but after my outburst at Dad, I’ve been put off by my immediate family.
And now, I missed something. If I had been there, if I’d just gotten over my stupid, selfish ego, I might have been able to prevent this. Not that I know what this is. Which only heightens my fear and anxiety.
We land, the car peels out of the tiny Packton airstrip, and we’re whizzing to the hospital.
My feet carry me as fast as they can, through the hospital and to the information desk. After a rushed conversation with the nurse, I’m given Sinclair’s room number, and I’m practically sprinting through the halls to get to him.
Palpitations wrack my chest with each inch I advance, because I have no idea what I’m going to see when I get to Sinclair’s room.
“Mom!” I call out, seeing my mother slumped in a dingy gray hospital chair in the hallway.
Mom’s head shoots up, and relief floods her face when she sees me. “Oh, Walker!”
She stands, and my mother’s typically polished veneer has slipped right off. She’s in sweats, a sight I’ve only seen very rarely, and her hair is tied up on top of her head. I’m pretty sure she has not a stitch of makeup on, and her eyes are red and swollen.
We hug, fiercely, and then I pull back. “What the hell happened?”
“He was drinking, decided to get behind the wheel. They found his car wrapped around a tree, and had to use the jaws of life to extract him. It’s not … This isn’t pretty, Walker. He’s in a medically induced coma, the doctors recommended it. He’s stable, but …”
Our mother trails off, and I’m pretty sure tears are leaking down her cheeks. I don’t think I’ve seen this woman cry a day in my life.
My mind whirls with all of the information she just dumped on me. “Can I go in?”
She nods. “Your father is in there now.”
Mom doesn’t say I can’t go in, so I take a deep pull of breath before pushing open the door. It feels like I’m about to go underwater, with no clue when I’ll come back up again.
The first thing I hear when I enter is the beep of machines. And then my eyes adjust to the darkness of the room, and there is my father. His head is bent so that his forehead is resting on Sinclair’s motionless hand, and I can hear him murmuring. It’s the most nurturing position I’ve ever seen my father in, and it blows me away.
Just a week ago, I was berating this man over the phone for not putting my happiness first. And here is my brother, his child, in the worst place you could ever imagine one of your family members being.
I got carried away, with my own selfishness and with Hannah. Instead of being there for my family, pushing Sinclair to stop his partying and get some help once and for all, I just ignored it. I wrote my father off, when all he wanted was to gift me the family dynasty. I can’t help but feel partly responsible for the predicament everyone is in.