Chapter Thirty-Eight: Right and Wrong
Jackie was tired. It seemed like she was always tired lately and rest was nowhere in sight. She stood on the cliff, smoking a cigarette as the kids slept in the backseat of the car. She leaned against it nervously, feeling the weight of the gun stuffed into her waistband, along with the weight of her decision on her shoulders. Both were dragging her down. Her body tensed as she saw headlights approaching. She glanced back at the kids before stepping away from the car and turning towards the approaching one, drawing in a deep breath.
The wind began to pick up and her hair began to fly wildly, the stars blinking in the distance. She couldn't remember the last time she saw stars, or the last time the sky was so clear. She released the breath she was holding, when she realized it was Letty's car. She had been looking over her shoulder the entire drive south. She kept imagining that Kai would appear at every gas station she stopped at, at the motel she pulled into so the kids could shower and change, at the drive through window she bought food for them. Even now, she was still half expecting her to appear out of nowhere and snatch Evan out of her grasp.
Jackie's heart skipped a beat when the car door opened and Vince climbed out of the car, and he began to walk over to her. They stood in silence, facing each other, as the sun started to come up over the horizon. Neither one knew what to say or do. She could feel his eyes on her body, and for the first time in a very long time, she was actually feeling shy. It had been years since they had laid eyes on each other, and she had to pull her eyes off of him, her mind memorizing every inch of him. The muscles. The gray hairs in his beard. The laugh lines around his mouth. The wrinkles around his eyes.
She had driven all night and day, after spending the afternoon getting her stuff in order and packing. it wasn't easy, packing for 4 without knowing how long they would be gone. Jackie had stood in the entryway of her house, feeling as if this was final, but she knew it wasn't. She needed to come back home eventually, there was no way around it. Vince spent the entire night tossing and turning, not knowing what to expect from their arrival, from her arrival. How would things be different? Would they be different? Could he pick up where they left off? Could she?
Vince stepped towards the backseat window and placed his hands on the glass, staring at his kids sleeping in their car seats. They looked so peaceful in the darkness, while the storm raged outside. They were so innocent, while all he did was bring drama to them. He took a step back and turned towards Jackie, a small smirk on his face. "Let's go," he said, his voice deep. He need to get them home, where he could protect them. Without another word, she let him lead, and she followed through the small towns of Mexico.
As daylight broke and people began to emerge from their homes, she began to realize how nice the passing towns were. She watched as the sun came up, and windows were opened. Laundry was hanged to dry, and mothers began to walk their children to school. The streets were alive with activity, most of it family related. Jackie couldn't help but smile at it all, wondering what it would be like to stay. What would it be like to call this place home?
She almost slapped herself. She was selling herself to the idea of staying down here. She was being naive and stupid. She was just focusing on a dream that she had once, one that had turned into a nightmare. As she began to remind herself exactly how it was that she got to this point her life, Vince pulled into a small, blue two story house. She pulled in behind him, glancing around her. The area was quiet and pretty well maintained, a soft wind blowing down the street.
Jackie climbed out of the car, the sun shining high in the sky. She slid her sunglasses down onto her face and opened the back door, just as Letty ran out of the house. She ran over to her, embracing her tightly. They had become close since they moved in together, and considered themselves sisters. Their parting was ever so sad. Letty smiled up at her, caressing her cheek, feeling slightly down for leaving her alone and for dragging her into their mess.
The trio parted ways in silence, each grabbing a sleeping kid and carrying them into the house. The house was still, silence welcoming everyone into it. Everyone else was still sleeping, preparing for the work day ahead. They climbed the stairs and walked into Vince's room, tucking the kids into the bed, surrounding them with pillows to avoid any unwanted falls. Before she knew it, Jackie stood alone in the room with Letty, Vince disappearing back into the dark house.
She glanced around the room and scowled. It was a complete mess. It was Vince's mess. Clothes were strewn everywhere, a full ashtray on the nightstand, empty whiskey bottles on the windowsill. "Sorry for the mess. He's been… not his usual self lately. He's sinking and doesn't even know it," Letty said. Jackie sighed, reaching for the trash can in the corner of the room. She began to grab empty bottles and place them in the can, when Letty approached her, placing her hand on her arm. "Come on, get some rest. There's a pull out couch downstairs in the basement," she said.
Jackie sighed, nodding. She placed the trash can back on the floor and sighed again. She was exhausted, and could only imagine how dark the bags under her eyes were. She followed Letty down the hallway, where she stopped and turned to face her. "I'm here now, J. We got this," she said, hugging her briefly. Jackie released a breath she didn't even know she was holding. She watched as Letty disappeared into a room, before she turned on her heel and headed downstairs.
It took her a while to find the basement entrance, but when she did, she felt instantly better in the cool darkness. She melted into the old leather couch, kicking her shoes off and tucking her legs underneath her. She leaned back on the couch and closed her eyes, thinking about her next move. She didn't realize she was so tired, her body instantly relaxing and eventually she fell asleep. When she woke up a few hours later, she was on an actual bed, tucked in and dressed in an old v-neck and basketball shorts. Jackie pulled the shirt up to her nose and took in a deep breath. Vince.
It all felt so right.
Jackie emerged from the shower, feeling old. She wiped the fog from the mirror and stared into her worn face. It had been months since she had gotten a hair cut or worn any makeup. She couldn't remember the last time she even worked out. Her skin pale, her nails plain and short. She had let go of herself. Her only priority had become the kids and the shop. She felt like a shell of a woman as she stared at herself in the mirror. She felt like a plain Jane as she sighed, and opened the bathroom cabinets. She was trying to find some resemblance of her old self.
She was going to right this wrong.
Vince ran up and down the shore, following the kids as they chased away the sea gulls, only stopping momentarily to throw wet sand at each other. He smiled at them. Some part of him felt complete, he was finally with all of them. He was a part of all their lives. At least for now. This was what he wanted to give them all - the perfect childhood. This is what he didn't have, and what he had possibly taken from them already.
They ran back to the blanket they had set up, settling in for a snack break. He didn't know what they liked, so he had to ask Letty for help. He hated that, having to ask someone to help him with his kids. He watched them in silence, as they each shared their different flavored juice boxes with each other, as if they had grown up together. A mere few weeks with Jackie had made them more of a family than he ever did.
A few hours later, Vince tucked them into his bed for a nap. He watched as they slept, hovering over them. He had spent the entire afternoon watching them in awe, as if this was his first time actually seeing them. And in actuality, it was. This was his first time seeing them after everything went wrong. This was the first time he really realized what he had to lose. Them. Everything.
He needed to make things right. He had his kids back for now and he wanted to enjoy that time fully, because he had made a decision. When Jackie returned to L.A., he would go back with her and his family. He would turn himself in. Serve his time and go back home to his family. He needed to do this for himself, but most of all-for them.
He was going to right his wrongs.
Vince sat on the couch, watching an old rerun with the kids of SpongeBob. Letty flopped down next to them, grabbing Lia off of the floor and placing her on her lap. "I haven't seen her all day," he said quietly. Letty grunted, assuming he was referring to Jackie. She had left that morning and hadn't come back, his mind running crazy with different scenarios. "I dropped her off in town when she woke up. She said she had some stuff to take care of," Letty replied.
"How is she getting back?" He asked, panic rising slightly in his voice. Letty shrugged, rolling her eyes. "I don't know, Vince. She's a big girl." Mia emerged from the kitchen, a sneer on her face. "Maybe she ran off with Brian also. Stuck us with the kids," she said. Vince glared at her, not being able to deny that the thought had crossed his mind. He had spent all day mulling it over. Maybe she had changed her mind. Kai did, why shouldn't she?
They continued watching television, until the kids fell asleep. He sat once again and watched them, his eyes drifting over to the clock. 3am. Jackie had been gone for over 12 hours. He had been cleaning his room in her wake, his eyes watching the kids sleeping. He grabbed the bag of garbage off of the floor, and closed the door behind him as he exited the room, heading downstairs to the garbage cans in the backyard.
And that's where he found her, sitting on the back porch floor, smoking a cigarette and nursing a bottle of whiskey. He dumped the trash and walked over to her slowly, realizing just how quiet the neighborhood was at this time of night. It wasn't like Echo Park, where no matter the time, there was always a party somewhere or someone arguing about something. "How long have you been here?" He asked, leaning against the porch railing across from her. "A while. Couldn't bring myself to go inside," she whispered back.
"Where you been?" Jackie shrugged, taking a pull from her cigarette. "Around." He watched her in silence, noticing her new look. Her hair was short, a vast contrast from the long hair she was sporting yesterday. Her eyes were lined heavily and her nails bright red. Gone was the woman on the cliff, with no makeup. He sighed, lowering himself next to her, as she offered him the whiskey bottle. He accepted, tasting her sweet lip gloss on the rim of the bottle. "We gonna talk about all this?" He asked, not even sure where to begin. She shrugged in response.
"I'm sorry. For all of this," he said. She shrugged again, showing no real emotion. "I knew what I was getting myself into. I knew from the beginning the type of person you were," Jackie replied. She took the bottle from his hand and took a drink, breathing in deeply. "And what type of person was I?" He asked, afraid to hear to the answer. "I knew you all from high school. I was naive to think you had all changed. I was stupid to ignore the stories, the warnings people gave me about you. I just wanted to believe that I could change you, that I could be the one that saved you. It was a silly dream," she replied.
Jackie turned to him, a sad smile on her face. "I'm not here to fight with you, Vince. I've spent the last two years of my life wishing you dead. I've spent the last two years of my life exhausted with all of this anger. I can only say this, I'm glad you're okay, and that you all made it through this together," she said. He couldn't help but reach out and caress her face, her smooth skin feeling cool against his warm, rough hands. They were complete opposites, in every way possible. And yet, he still wanted her.
They continued to pass the bottle back and forth long enough for Vince to get the courage to speak his truth. "He thought you were a cop, so he told me to follow you. To get to know you," he said, his eyes never leaving hers. This was the closest he had been to her in forever, and he was memorizing this moment so that he could relive it forever. Everything would be different now. Everything. Jackie froze, turning her head towards him.
"What?" She asked. "I didn't mean to fall in love with you. It just happened and by then it was too late. He called it a Spilner. Make you fall for me in order to get into your world. Get your guard down, see what you were really about. Find out if you were a cop or not," he said. For the first time in a long time, Vince was genuinely scared. Scared to find out her reaction. His fate. Jackie laughed and stood up slowly, wiping her hands on her jeans. He stared straight ahead, afraid to face her.
She walked to the railing, gripping her hands on it and leaning forward. She drew in a deep breath, feeling like her head was spinning. She didn't know if it was the whiskey or the blow she had just been delivered. "Everything we ever had was a lie?" She asked quietly, her voice choked with tears. Vince jumped up, rushing over to her. He grabbed her arm, pulling her body towards him.
He stared into her tear stricken face, holding her body against his. "It was never a lie. I love you, Jackie, and I'm so sorry for the lies but my feelings will always be true," he said, reaching up and wiping her face. She turned her face away from him, shutting her eyes tightly. "Don't tell me you don't love me. That you regret it all," he whispered, grabbing her chin and forcing her to look at him. She opened her eyes and stared at his own tear stricken face.
"What we had is done, Vince," she whispered, pulling away from him. He let her go, the cold air filling the void she left. She stepped away from him, her arms crossed in front of her chest. Jackie's chin quivered as she tried to reel in her emotions. "I can't be this person anymore. Hanging on to every little thing you do. It almost killed me when you chose her! When you married her! I'm not the same person anymore. I'm not strong. I can barely keep it together long enough to get out of bed. Do you know what you've done to me? You have taken from me more than you know!" She said.
Vince leaned against the railing, nodding his head. "I love Evan, but I regret it all. If things were different, if I were a different man- stronger," he said. He cleared his throat, holding his head up and facing her. "I would've chosen you, a hundred times over. I made one mistake. I slept around, she ended knocked up. What could I do? I couldn't turn my back on her. I had to be a man, I had to take care of her. My marriage was hell, Jackie," he said. Jackie shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. "You told me you had an abortion. You didn't want anything to do with me. Things could've been so different for us."
She scoffed, and pointed at him accusingly. "You cheated on me, over and over again. Why the hell would I want to be with you? Why should I have ever trusted you?" She shouted at him. Vince took a step towards her, for which she took a step back. "You chose her from the beginning. You chose them the moment you climbed onto that truck. Not once along the way did you stop and choose me, your daughters! You never chose me!" He stopped walking towards her and froze, his gaze dropping.
"I'm going with you, back to Cali," he said, "to make things right." Jackie scoffed, shaking her head. "There you go, once again. Choosing them. Not stopping and thinking about us!" She argued with him. V drew in a deep breath and slapped his hands down on his sides. "I am thinking about you all. How are else are they going to see me? Are you going to drive them down here to see me? I'll go back, cut a deal, confess and get them to put me in a prison near you." Jackie laughed. "You would allow them to see you like that? In handcuffs, like an animal?" V began to cry as he processed it all. She was right. This was the easiest thing for him, not them. "Where do we go from here, V? What happens next? Have you seriously thought about this all? How this affects everyone?" She asked, stepping towards him.
Jackie hesitated, as she brought a hand up to his arm. She could feel her heart speeding up as she got closer and closer to him. She could see the despair Vince was in, as he cried quietly, his chest rising and falling fast as his anxiety levels soared through the roof. "I don't know, J. I don't know how to come back from this," he whispered. He brought his body closer to hers, as he wrapped his arms around her and his face found her neck.
They stood there for a while, hugging each other, the silence of the night bringing them closer. "I just don't want to be alone," he whispered, hugging her tighter. Jackie hesitated again, her mind fighting her heart. She urged to touch him, every bone in her body wanting to comfort him. She didn't know if it was the whiskey in her system, or the fact that she might never actually see him again, but she let her hand disappear into his messy, dark brown hair. She let her body relax into his.
Before she knew it, Vince pulled away from her, his eyes finding hers. Within seconds, his mouth was on hers. His hands roaming her body, as they kissed passionately. She was breathless, not wanting to part from him. Vince pinned her against the railing, roughly kissing her. She tugged at his shirt, eagerly wanting to feel his warm skin on hers. A cough from the doorway broke their trance.
Jackie pulled away from Vince, her mouth swollen and hot, her shirt strap falling down her arm. She glanced towards the doorway, and found Letty standing there, her face straight. "Vince, Evan is calling for you," she said, quietly, crossing her arms across her chest. His eyes never left Jackie, as he wiped his mouth and drew in a deep breath. He turned on his heel begrudgingly, heading towards the door. Letty stared him down, as he walked around her, she refusing to move from her stance.
She waited until he was deep inside the house, before turning to Jackie and glaring at her. "What are you doing?" She asked, taking a step towards her. Jackie looked down at herself, picking her shirt straps up and pulling down her shirt bottom. She felt ashamed, as tears began to stream down her face. She wiped them away roughly, not wanting Letty to see her like this. "I don't know. I'm just.." She stammered out.
Letty sighed, walking up to her close friend. "You do know this can only end one of two ways, Jackie. There is no way to fix this, there is no undo button we can all magically press," she said, scolding her like a child. Jackie closed her eyes shut and shook her head. "You guys spend the rest of your lives running, or he breaks your heart again by turning himself in. Either the cops find him, or you forsake your entire life for him. You either love him and walk with him until the end of the road, until he dies in a prison, or until you get tired of living down here in Mexico," she said, picking up the forgotten bottle on the floor. Jackie shook her head furiously, not wanting to hear the truth. "There has to be another option. A way out," she said.
"I don't want you to regret anything, Jackie. I lived the last couple of years of my life regretting everything. It was only now that I realized I should have fought harder for what I wanted. A family, Dom, freedom. I don't want you to wake up tomorrow morning and realize that this isn't the life you wanted," Letty said. She stared at the bottle longingly, before taking several gulps from it. "So you think I should stay? Fight for Vince? For our family?" Jackie asked, hesitantly. She reached over and took the bottle from her, taking a swig herself. Letty shook her head and shrugged.
"No, what I'm saying is that you need to figure out what you want. Do you want to have a family with V? Then you stay in Mexico and be here, by his side, no matter what. Do you want to go back to your normal life? Go back home, raise your kids in Cali. Never look back. What do you want? What do you need?" Jackie shook her head. She didn't know what she wanted."I want it all. I want to go back to how things were before. I want to go back to Cali. Have a family, have Vince home with us," she said, almost begging.
Letty shook her head. "That's not going to happen, Jackie. You know that. Something has to give. What do you need? What do your kids need? I'm just being realistic here, J. It's not easy, leaving it all behind. I've been down this road already, and it almost killed me once," she said. "We're different. I'm different," Jackie argued back. Letty laughed and shook her head. "I used to say the same thing, I believed the same thing. Now Dom's in a hospital bed, dying, and I'm here alone."
Jackie walked over to her, and placed a hand on her shoulder. "You're not alone, Let. I'm here, we all are," she said. Letty pushed her hand off and shook her head. "I love you, Jack, and that's why I can't let you stay here. I can't let you throw away your life because of him. Don't make the same mistake I did," she said, turning away from her and standing in the doorway. "I don't want you to wake up one morning and realize that you entire life has passed you by. I don't want to push my demons onto you, but I need you to be realistic. I love you, Jackie. You are my sister, I don't want you to suffer my own fate," she said quietly. Letty realized she had been forced to make decisions for herself, decisions she would not place on anyone else. She had seen many hard times, and lonely nights while trying to find herself amongst the team.
Jackie stared after her, long after she had disappeared inside the house, the silence making her deaf. She stood still for a few moments, letting her mind wrap around everything. Their current situation. The prison sentence that was already written. Her mind kept returning back to those sleeping children upstairs, how she needed to protect them, since no one else was. She glanced down at her hands, small but strong, years of fixing things herself. She began to cry, her hands balling into tight fists. She still loved him. The spark was still there. It had never been fully extinguished, but she could not ignore what her kids needed.
She needed to do the right thing, even if it felt so wrong.