The ease at which Billy mothers has always amazed Charlie. Even as kids Charlie knew that Billy would be far better at parenting than she could ever hope to be. Billy loved kids, loved to babysit, and loved to have everything around her just so. Keeping her brothers and sisters in line was something that Billy thrived at. It never mattered to her if her siblings wanted her to; she just did it because she knew it needed to be done. Even as an adult Charlie envied that ability. It made her nearly green with a raging jealousy that Billy could see far beyond her to what those around her needed and give it to them without complaint.
As a mother Charlie was amazing. She showered her kids with love, affection, everything they could ever need to know that they were loved by her. As a parent providing structure and discipline, Charlie was still trying to figure that part out. And some days she felt down right lost. Her insecurities always got the best of her, wondering if she was too hard or too soft on her kids. They were well behaved when they were in public, but at home they had the run of the house. She wondered how much that would affect them as teenagers, as productive members of society. All she knew how to provide was love. She watched Billy wondering how her sister could keep them entertained, disciplined and still have all of their love. How was it Billy could provide the kids with everything she was lacking and make it look so effortless? Charlie smiled and shook her head. It was always so ironic to her that the sister that was simply made to mother was the one that was adamant about putting off settling down.
"You are an excellent mother," Charlie said as she sat on the couch next to Billy.
"Oh please, all I did was put them to bed."
"In the week that you've been here you have given them everything I am horrible at giving. They have a routine, they have structure. Me, I am have them running around everywhere, always late to something, and bedtime is whenever they feel like dropping on the floor. I'm great at loving and being a mother, but in so many ways I can never compare to how you are as a parent, at how effortless it is for you to raise kids."
"Char, you forget I get to give them back when they start to frustrate me. I have an advantage, I know that I'm not their mother and that automatically makes them behave more for me."
"Ok, you say whatever you wanna say Billy, but you were born to raise a family. Now, I need you to do me a favor in helping me raise mine."
Billy looked at Charlie with her brows furrowed wondering what was going on. Charlie hadn't asked much of her since Matt had taken Charlie half way across the country. Then again, even when Charlie was just two blocks away from her she was not allowed to ask for help.
"You need to let me be the big sister." Charlie said plainly.
"Umm, are you joking around with me here? You are the older sister, you were born that way," Billy said laughingly. She had no idea what Charlie was trying to tell her. Especially since Charlie was always the first one to start spewing about how she had certain rights since she was the eldest.
"I was born the oldest but you and me both know that you take over as the older sister. Even here, now. I tell you what happens with Matt and you come out here to rescue me."
"Char he tried to beat on you! What did you think I was going to do?"
"I know, that's the point, you always look after me while I'm sitting around thinking about how I just need to feel a little more love. I wasn't always like that, or maybe I was. It doesn't really matter. But you always saw how broken Matt made me and you always did everything you could to make sure that you fixed it. All this time, I've been getting older but I haven't grown up Billy. I haven't taken care of my family, of mom when she got sick, or Ben and Andy when they were younger. I bailed because it got hard, because I couldn't deal. But you were always there, always keeping it together."
"No one blames you Charlie."
"They should," Charlie said calmly. "I ran because it was easier. I don't discipline my kids because I'm afraid they won't love me anymore. I'm lucky that they are as amazing as they are because I didn't really help that along. But you can't keep saving me anymore. I have to do this on my own."
"No you don't. Is this something that Matt put into your head? I mean come on Char we're family! I'm here because you needed your sister. Whether that's ok with you or not I knew that if I didn't come you were falling apart. Contrary to what that disgusting excuse for a man may say I'm not the devil in disguise."
"This is about me Billy. This is about me finally standing up and saying that I need something in my life to change. Please, let me lead on this one. Let me figure out how to grow up like my baby sister."
Billy stared dumbfounded as Charlie walked up the stairs to check on her kids and get in a shower. Never had Charlie ever admitted that Billy had pulled her slack as the oldest of the family as they grew up. She had always held firm that she kept the family together. Admitting that she needed to be more like Billy was, well basically miraculous.
"Hey Spitfire, what's got you looking like you seen a ghost?" Mark's big framed flopped onto the couch next to Billy breaking her momentary trance.
"Huh? Oh, nothing, just a talk with Charlie. She told me I'm a great mother."
"Well she's right. One of the best one's I've ever seen. I was kinda wondering why you didn't have kids of your own."
Billy shrugged and picked at small pieces of lint on her flannel pajama pants. It had taken her all of two days to get used to the fact that Mark popped in and out at all different times. He would stay for a bit, leave to do some business and come back hours later. It didn't bother her as long as it made Charlie happy.
"I almost did, last year. I was dating this guy, we were pretty serious. One day I'm peeing on a stick seeing a positive sign, and then a month later I'm cramping and bleeding and suffering a miscarriage. Me and the guy didn't make it after that."
"Oh, wow. What did Charlie think of all of it?"
"Charlie didn't know, still doesn't. No one knows. It was over and done with before I could blink. I just couldn't admit to anyone that I had failed at something that is supposed to be a God given ability of women."
"Billy, tons of girls have this happen to them you know that right?"
"Yeah of course, but tons of girls aren't me."
"I didn't mean to bring up this—I mean you—" Mark fumbled over words as he looked into the saddened face of Billy.
"I am alive, and healthy, and currently enjoying myself with the best niece and nephew in the state of Texas. As long I can keep smiling and laughing, I keep living. Anyway, that's why I don't have kids. I haven't found anyone yet who wants to stick around. But Charlie, she—"
Mark stares hard as Billy looks down at her arm covered with the large tattoo. He knows that when people don't speak it's more important to listen than when they can't seem to shut up. He's become well versed in listening to the things that hang in the pauses, in the silences. It is there that the secrets that eat people alive linger. It's in those places that relationships are either forged or completely broken.
"She's been through a lot. More than she's told you, more than she ever should have. She's made to love, anyone and everyone. She gave up Broadway and singing because it made her boyfriend at the time uncomfortable. She gave up ever going back to accomplish her dream when Matt refused to take care of Jake and work at the same time. He still refused after he stopped working. I had to have Jake stay with me for a week because Matt wanted nothing to do with raising him. But even still she always went back."
"She—she lets stuff like that happen to her a lot?" Mark watches as Billy shakes her head. He can't quite see what point she's trying to make.
"She never wants things like that to happen. She gets angry, she fights for a while and then she gives in. She always freaking gives in. Has no idea how to stand her ground with these idiots. She makes herself be what they want, and need. She loses who she is to please them."
"Billy, why are you telling me any of this at all?"
"Because I want you to know, I want you to understand that when Charlie fails at being on her own, and she will, you need to tell her that it's ok. She needs to know that it isn't the end of the world when she feels lonely or Jake gets angry over not playing a video game. Above all, she can't go back to Matt."
"Oh c'mon Spitfire the man tried to hit her, you really think that she's going back to him?"
"You think this is the first time that he's tried to be abusive? I know you know that he's not the nicest of guys but nearly ten years of verbal abuse, she's tied to him in a way we'll never understand."
"Has he—she—this—has it happened before?" Mark manages to spit out. His confusion, his anger are beginning to get the best of him. He didn't need another reason to hate Matt. He didn't need to give himself another reason to sit as guard dog over this small family. But Billy had done something Mark didn't even know was possible. She planted him in the middle of the family and told him to hold it all together.
"About every six months or so it does. She pretends things are fine for a bit, then they start to fight, he starts telling her how horrible of a person she is, she starts believing it. Before long she's a shell of who she used to be just sitting back and taking all he has to offer, even a shove here or there."
Mark sits quiet as he thinks back to when he had first started visiting Charlie. How there was a bruise that covered half of her arm. How she dismissed it as easy bruising. He knew he wasn't in a place at the time to do anything about it. Knowing now though all that he did, the regret of not simply killing Matt sits on his chest like a massive boulder.
"She said she would never let a man abuse her though," Mark's voice is dry and raspy.
"There's the rub, because Matt has been abusing her mentally for as long as I've known him."
"God Billy why didn't anyone do anything? Why weren't you there for her? Why didn't you or your family get her outta there?" Mark paces the floor in front of Billy feeling anger at no one in particular, just knowing that it's there inside of him.
Billy shrugs looking every bit hurt and saddened by her sister's situation as Charlie just may be herself. "She didn't want to get out. She didn't want to listen to us. Why do you think he took her all the way here to Texas? It wasn't for kicks ya' know. She was getting ready to walk out, getting ready to stay with me. It was his last ditch effort to keep her around. We didn't even know she was moving until the week of."
Mark can feel his head spinning and his heart sinking. So much of Charlie makes sense now. All that had confused him and made her a mystery seemed to be coming to light. The only problem was, could Mark afford to be caught in the maelstrom of this whole thing?
"I didn't tell you any of this to scare you off big man. Charlie truly believes that her relationship with Matt was never abusive until a week ago. Her greatest weapon is her ability to deny that unpleasant emotions exist."
"Then what are you telling me little girl cause right now I am mighty confused."
"I am telling you that you can't fail her Mark. I'm telling you that when she fails, you have to stand strong. But first, you have to let her fail."
"None of that makes sense ya' know."
Billy smirks as she looks at the sheer level of frustration etched into Mark's dark features. "Listen up big man, this is the first time that Charlie has ever really tried to go at it alone. The first time that she isn't talking herself into leaving. She wants to do better, be better than all of this craziness. What I know best about my sister is that she's going to fail miserably at it. She's going to say she's not smart enough, not good enough, just not—enough in general to do it on her own."
"Oh c'mon that little one is as strong as an ox, stubborn as one too. Single minded stubbornness of a bull."
"Yeah, it's a family trait. Stubborn is easy for her. But she has no idea that she can do this on her own. And it hasn't even crossed her mind that she's been doing it on her own for years. But you big man—"
"I need to show her that she can," Mark finishes Billy's sentence suddenly feeling every bit of his forty plus years.
How do you tell a desperate person, a desperate sister, that you won't help? How do you look someone so ready to lay down their life for their loved one that you may not be able to pull them out of the fire? Whether Mark wants to help or not, he knows that the problem is his own life. Ignoring his problems with Sarah for a week doesn't mean they've gone away. He knows that Sarah is expecting a miracle reconciliation while he's gearing up for a divorce. He knows that things are about to go from bad to worse with his situation, and in Charlie's case. What he needs is to take a step back. To figure out whatever it may be that Charlie means to him. Instead all he can think of to say is-
"Don't worry Spitfire, I got this handled."
The answering smile on Billy's face is enough to let Mark know that no matter how scared he might feel inside he is doing the right thing.
"Don't tell her I said anything to you. She hates it when I talk about her like she needs all this help or something."
"But she does need all this help."
"I can see now why she likes you big man. You are totally clueless when it comes to women aren't you? Charlie will never in her life agree that she needs the kind of help that she does. She doesn't even admit to how much one man has totally wrecked our entire family. I love her because she's my sister, but sometimes the woman can make me want to strangle her."
Mark laughs and shakes his head. "I thought maybe that was just me and my short temper."
"Nah, she's been that way for as long I have known her. She's a great woman to be with, when she's being herself."
"Billy, thank you."
"For what?" Mark stared into Billy's questioning eyes for a moment before he answered. There were so many things that he had been grateful for ever since she had stepped foot inside the house. Charlie seemed happier, lighter. The kids were happy, well taken care of and always ready to help with Billy's never ending list of projects. She had traveled across the country in a day because her sister had needed her. She hadn't judged Mark because of his profession, or his tattoos. It seemed that nothing much mattered to Billy besides making sure that her sister was happy and well taken care of.
"For—well, everything. Thanks for talking to me, and not ya' know, just thinking all this is a horrible idea, ya' know between me and her."
"Oh," Billy laughed and stood up. "It's a horrible idea alright. I mean the worst of the worst. The kind that comes back to bite you in the butt when you have your pants dropped and your back turned. But I've had my fair share of doozies in my lifetime, and I have never once seen my sister as happy as she is just talking with you. I want her to know happiness big man. I just hope that you can be the one to actually show her what it is." She clapped Mark on the shoulder and walked upstairs without another word. Billy never had a problem voicing her opinion when it was asked of her, but she knew when to stop talking and how to get people to think about what they were really doing.
It was only when Mark heard Charlie cleaning up in the kitchen that he brought himself out of his head long enough to go talk to the one woman that constantly seemed to be on his mind lately.
"I was wondering when you were going to come in here and talk to me. I've been down here for like fifteen minutes."
"Sorry little one I was just going over my to-do list for tomorrow."
"Billy didn't do anything to you right? She's got a big mouth and I don't want you to get some wrong impression of me or something."
"Why would you say that?"
"I don't know. It usually goes one of two ways; someone meets Billy and get thrown off by her attitude and way of being brutally honest about things, or they think she's incredibly attractive and want her instead."
"Which one happens more?" Mark asked half teasing, half curious. He didn't disagree that Billy was a very attractive woman. She had amazing dark features that many men would find very appealing. For him though the only thing that mattered was making sure Charlie knew that he wasn't going anywhere and felt nothing but a kind of sibling bond with Billy.
"Honestly, the latter. I was a late bloomer, Billy was just born with curves, and these eyes, and this magnetic personality that just—ugh she doesn't even know it! That's what makes it even worse. She's so modest about herself and how great she is so people just gravitate. Growing up, it was easy to see that they would start to gravitate to her more than me. I was jealous. Has it happened to you too?"
Mark threw back his head and let out a loud laugh. "You are too much for me sometimes little girl. There ain't nothing going on between me and Billy besides having a few laughs. I'm about as attracted to her as I would be to another man. She makes for an awesome little sister, and yea I ain't gonna lie and say she ain't pretty cuz she is and you know it. But God's honest truth honey, I have everything I want in my arms right now," he said as he stepped forward and gathered her in his arms.
It never seemed to matter how much he held her, or for how long. The way that she always tucked herself into him caught his breath. She needed him, so much. She needed his strength and his grumpy ways. She had never cared that he wouldn't talk about something until he was ready and had thought it all out. She was there for him, always waiting, always ready to give him a kind of love and support that he had been missing for so long.
"Since we're talking about things that make me uncomfortable," Charlie said stepping away from Mark. "How are things going with Sarah?"
"Were we talking about things that make you uncomfortable or things that make me want to light myself on fire and try and put it out with bricks?"
"Mark, come on. All I've been thinking about lately is the whole thing between Matt and me. I just want to know how things are with you and Sarah."
"Weird, strained, tense, every awkward adjective in the book," he answered sitting at the table and running his hand over his hair. "She keeps looking at me like—like—like I don't even know. Maybe it's like when we first got together, or when she thought that our marriage was better and gonna make it through. All of a sudden I'm there again to her, and I matter. I don't know what to do with it."
"Has anything umm, happened, ya' know, between the two of you? Bedroom wise?"
"What? No, of course not! Charlie I don't know the kind of man you think I am but I would never do that to her, or to you."
"Me? I don't know what you mean. I don't—I have no part of your marriage, or divorce, or whatever. This is all you and her, not me."
"Ok, let's get this clear right now little girl," Mark said getting up and standing behind her. "You in no way got in the middle of my marriage, and you're not in the way of me getting divorced. But you are certainly a big part of why I haven't even considered taking Sarah back. Now hear me out before you start your freaking out," he said feeling her tense. He pressed his long frame against her trapping her between him and the counter. He loved feeling her small body against his. He loved knowing that in a few moments he could have her practically panting after him.
"I told you I'm a jealous guy, and I don't share my women. I don't share myself either. How could I possibly go back to Sarah when I know that I feel the way I do for you? You can fight it, deny it, make it something that it just isn't, but we both know what's real. We both know that when I spend the night the only thing you wanna do is undress me and have your way with me. And I know you can feel what you do to me every single time that I'm near ya'. So let's stop sidestepping this thing here and get it out in the open. For now, and the foreseeable future I am yours, and absolutely no one else's." He put his hands on her hips and pulled her closer. "The moment you decide you are done with Matt you let me know," he whispered in her ear. "I'm taking you in so many different ways, you can't even imagine. I'm waiting on you darlin' nothing else."
He placed soft, slow kisses up and down her neck until he could feel, and hear the whimpering that was coming from her.
"Mark," Charlie was more than surprised by the breathless tone that she had. Never in all the years with Matt had she felt a quarter of the intensity that she did when she was around Mark. He was all consuming. Nothing else ever seemed to bother her when he would speak in that soft, slow baritone of his.
"I know darlin' I know. Don't you worry, I'm waiting as long as I need, and I'm here until you send me away."
Charlie smiled and turned, tucking herself into his long side. He always seemed to know what she wanted to say and what she needed to hear. Tomorrow she would probably overthink, and freak out over everything that had just been said to her. Tonight though, nothing would touch her as long as she stayed right there by Mark's side.
