A/N~~~~This chapter goes into how Mac and Lucy meet and explains why their bond is so strong that he mourns her the rest of his life. Also, Grammarly is being a bitch today so if there's any typos or mistakes I apologize in advance.
/
"When I had you to myself, I didn't want you around
Those pretty faces always make you stand out in a crowd."
I Want You Back by The Jackson Five
"Why is he in pink?" He asked and his mother giggled at the innocence of his question, Mac was always so inquisitive and constantly wanting to know everything about the world around him, even at such a young age. He walked early and he talked early and Sylvia was convinced he was a genius and maybe he was. But there were things his child's mind just could not grasp, like why a boy would be dressed in pink, when the answer was so simple to adults.
Two year old Mac approached the new baby in his Aunt Sheila's arms with trepidation, she was there for a regular summer visit with Mac's mother, as usual, but this time she had a baby. He had heard something about a baby in her belly and assumed it would be a boy like him, they had all said it was going to be a boy. It was so small to him in his aunt's arms and he was curious, he hadn't seen many babies, and he stared with wide eyes, but why was a boy dressed in pink?
"Because she's a girl Mac, this is Lucy," His aunt had said and turned the baby so he could see her. The baby had a tuft of dark hair put up like Pebbles in the Flintstones show he liked to watch, with a very pink bow, and Mac knew this was not good.
"It's a girl?" He sulked with all the disappointment of a two-year-old boy who thought he was getting a boy cousin to play with, "Why couldn't you have a boy?"
"That's not how it works Mac," His mother said from the kitchen, "Aunt Sheila had a girl, even though the doctor's thought it was a boy."
"Can't you take this girl back and get a boy instead?" He asked innocently and his mother smiled, Aunt Sheila did too.
Then his mother was behind him with her hand on his shoulder and he looked up at her smiling face.
"I think you and Lucy will be great friends, and you have to protect her, look out for her because you're older." His mother had said, "Can you do that Mac?"
The little boy nodded, he loved his mother and would do anything she asked, even look out for this new girl that was here even though he didn't want her. He wanted a boy cousin to play with, not this girl. "Yes, I will."
"She's going to be your friend, you'll see." His mother replied, "And she's your blood, maybe the only blood you'll have one day."
/
Mac's mother, Sylvia followed after him as he gripped one-year-old Lucy around the waist and pulled her to her feet for what seemed like the twentieth time that day. The boy was trying to teach the little girl how to walk, and Sylvia was afraid he was being too rough. It was funny to watch though, he'd pick her up to stand and they would both end up back on the floor. Then Sylvia would pick them both up and it would start all over again.
They had even gotten some of it on film, it would be fun to show them when they were older. Mac had taken to Lucy right from the jump, after his initial disappointment that she was a girl, and she to him; this was just another typical day for them, and he was determined that Lucy was going to walk. The little girl giggled as her older cousin stood her up time after time and she clapped with glee every time they both landed on their asses.
Sylvia got nervous when they did that though, afraid he would land on Lucy and hurt her, but her Mac always made sure the baby fell on top of him, he gave her a safe place to land every time.
"Relax, Syl, he's not gonna hurt her," Sheila assured as she took a drag on her cigarette and was unconcerned, in fact she laughed as Mac tried to get her daughter to stand on her own and take a few steps., "Better she learns now how to roughhouse, she isn't made of glass." Sheila knew her sister's son was tenacious, and he got that from his father, everyone knew it, and already he was taking after Walter in so many ways; not all of them good either.
Like Walter, Mac wanted what he wanted and was not easily distracted from a goal, and the boy had set his goal for that summer, never letting up until it was obtained.
Before that summer visit was over, Lucy was indeed walking and chasing after her older cousin. Sheila wondered sometimes if he was sorry that he had been so hell-bent on teaching Lucy to walk now that she wouldn't leave him alone.
For the rest of their stay that year Mac would be running down the hallway or outside, his blonde hair bouncing around his head followed by dark-haired Lucy all day long; wherever Mac went Lucy followed close behind. That was the way it would always be after that, for as long as Lucy was alive.
/
Mac's mother screamed out the door as he and Lucy ran across the yard chasing a jackrabbit, they were six and four now, and this summer they had become holy terrors on two legs. Every time she or her sister's back was turned he was leading little Lucy out the door and into trouble. If it wasn't chasing jackrabbits it was making mud pies, which always resulted in them getting filthy before ten am every morning. They were two busy kids, always into something and neither one ever said no to the other. If Mac wanted to do something so did Lucy, if she wanted to do something Mac was all in for it too.
Sheila came for the entire summer now with Lucy and the two children ran her and her sister ragged from dawn until dusk. Lucy's father stayed back in California to work and there was no rush to get back, the summers were filled with endless fun, and they had been so happy.
On the days they went into town Mac always insisted on holding Lucy's hand as they crossed the street.
He was supposed to protect her, he remembered every time, and as the two sisters watched their children together they smiled; he was taking that job seriously even at such a young age.
The two of them scrapped with each other like any other kids would and they didn't always get along wonderfully, they were kids after all. They lived in close proximity to each other three months a year, in a very small house so there were definitely fights. But not very often and usually not for very long.
Just because Lucy was a girl did not mean she couldn't hold her own though, she could. Mac had thought she'd be no fun, and wouldn't play T-ball or like dirt, but she did. She would throw her long dark hair up into a ponytail and joined right in with the boys. He had been wrong about girls or this girl at least; she was full of surprises at every turn for him and would be the rest of her life, although he didn't know that at six years old.
Mac did the requisite little boy hair pulling and Lucy pinched; car trips were a hassle for their mothers sometimes. The two of them would sit in the back seat and punch each other, give Indian burns and cut up then eventually fall asleep with their heads on each other's shoulders, "Like angels" Sheila would say and Sylvia would reply, "Little devils."
That summer they had to put a fence up around the yard and Walter was pissed, but it had been the only way to keep the two of them in the yard.
/
The summer when she was seven years old, Lucy had confessed to Mac that she was afraid of spiders and he insisted she had to face her fears head on. He didn't want her to be a sissy, and so far, every summer when they came to visit, she had not been. In fact, she was a bit of a what Walter called a tomboy, she was fun to be with and liked everything he liked. Lucy still chased after him and wanted to do everything he wanted to do, he was her only cousin, and if he wanted her to go out in the caves looking for spiders, she was going to go, fear or no fear.
He always made her feel braver than she thought she was; Mac made her believe she could do anything she set her mind to, and he made sure she did exactly that.
Lucy looked forward to spending summers with him, in many ways he was her best friend, the kids where she lived weren't like him. The girls were snotty and the boys were mean, she counted the days all year long until summertime came, and the time with him always went by so fast.
Mac drew her a few pictures of spiders that year to take home with her to remember not to be afraid anymore and she wasn't. He had helped her overcome her fear and she hung the pictures up on her bedroom walls; they stayed there for years until she eventually moved and then she took them with her.
Those pictures eventually would end up on the walls of Mac's house one day, along with the ones he drew later after she was gone.
/
Sometimes they hung out with the kids that were around the area, but they were always together if they were riding bikes, Mac rode with Lucy on the handlebars. If they were going fishing with the neighborhood kids, he baited her hooks and helped her reel any catch in, as they got older it was understood Lucy and Mac were a package deal from June 23rd until August 17th. That was the time that Lucy and her mother came to visit every year and it was precious time for them and sacrosanct.
If any of the kids so much as looked at her the wrong way, he would remind them nicely, and sometimes not so nicely that Lucy was who he cared about and they had best remember that or else feel his wrath.
More than one kid got punched out for disrespecting her, that was the way it was done in the dismal canyon where they all lived, you fought for your own and everyone knew it. That was the summer that his parents got divorced too, it had been a long time coming; Walter could never keep his hands to himself. Both Mac and Sylvia knew that all too well, Mac took after him that way, solving a lot of his problems with his fists, even at a young age.
Walter took Mac every other weekend because that was his son and no one was keeping his son from him. He owned a bar in town and had an apartment above it; from the time he was ten, and all his life Mac would be at that bar. At first in the back rooms when he was a kid and later as a teenager, he was out front and made aware of the goings on there and in town, and in the canyons.
/
The two sisters watched the backyard one summer day a year or so later as Mac and Lucy screamed at each other over some nonsense they were fighting about. They were twelve and ten and whatever they were screaming about carried into the house for their mothers to hear. It could be anything, that summer they scrapped a lot, with neither of them ever backing down on the other.
It seemed like every other day they were fighting and the sisters sometimes just tuned them out. When Mac would go to Walter every other weekend, they missed each other, called each other every day, yet all they did that summer was fight. Sometimes it was just verbal and sometimes it was physically because neither one would back down once it started. And that summer it started easily, over the smallest things it seemed.
Lucy did have a habit of not keeping her mouth shut if she had something to say and sometimes Mac just had enough. The sister's understood they were growing up and going through phases, it was just the way it was. They were almost teenagers after all.
That particular day they started out yelling and it soon escalated to pushing and shoving each other and Lucy was waving her finger in his face. Both women heard him threaten to break her finger if she didn't get it out of his face, but they remained out of it, preferring to let them work it out themselves.
"They're scrapping again," Sheila said looking out the window, "Oh! She called him a spic."
The two women watched as the fight moved to the ground and all they could see is the back of their converse sneakers as they tussled on the ground, Mac could be heard telling Lucy, "Don't ever call me that you fuckin pendejo wap." Asshole Italian.
"Part of me wants to kick both their asses and part of me wonders if we should go break it up," Sylvia said, she was always the first to cave because Mac was a boy and she was still afraid he'd hurt Lucy by mistake.
"When we see blood, or broken bones, yes, otherwise I'd say let them work it out."
"But the name calling..." Sylvia said.
"What? She is a wap, the kid ain't lyin," She laughed and soon Sylvia was laughing too.
They always worked it out, there might be some name calling, hair pulling, and bruises, but they always worked it out. The particular fight was over Lucy going with him that day with his friends. He had told her no, and he never did that before, it was no girls allowed today, and Lucy couldn't understand what they were doing that she couldn't be a part of.
He told her to go play with the girls that day, Bonnie and Carolina lived two houses away, and he had never told her that before. Lucy didn't want to play with them, all they wanted to do was play baby dolls or barbies. But she looked away and nodded, he wouldn't change his mind, she knew that.
There was a line drawn in the sand it seemed now, boundaries had been set. He wanted time away from her, and finally, she accepted it, but she got one more punch in first and that time he didn't punch her back.
Mac just firmly told her once again that the answer was no and then he was gone for the rest of the day. Lucy waited up as long as she could for him, but he didn't come home till late at night. The first thing he did was take a shower, she vaguely remembered hearing him turn the water on. She rolled over and looked out the window, what was so damn important to do that she couldn't go, and why did he take a shower the minute he got home?