Chapter Twenty: The Damage Done

There was something different after Faith was born. Not a huge change, but some kind of small shift in the atmosphere of the house – smiles were more easily found, and words were quiet and soft, as if everyone was constantly afraid of waking the baby from a nap.

Which, everyone really was. The baby was incredible, but never seemed to sleep. She would cry constantly throughout the night, and in the mornings, Daley would offer us an apologetic look and we would all reassure her that it didn't bother us at all.

Irene loved the baby girl, and whenever Daley wasn't holding her, Irene was. What was strange, though, was that I had assumed that Riza, also being a mother, would be the most enthusiastic about helping with Faith. But, whenever the baby girl was in the room, her looks were guarded and resigned. She looked wistful, but also… I don't know. Frightened?

I brought this up with Winnie one night, as we sat on my bed together, moonlight spilling through my small window, our arms entwined.

She nodded thoughtfully. "I can't believe you noticed. I thought she did a good job of hiding it."

"Hiding what?"

Winnie sighed. "Irene, Margaret and Shauna know. So does Becca."

"Know what?"

She closed her eyes. "When Tom was three years old, Riza gave birth to another child. A girl, this time. Her name was Isabella. Riza planned to call her Bella."

"Planned?"

Winnie squeezed my hand. "Bella died when she was six months old, of the influenza. Roy and Riza got into this huge argument afterward."

I asked, "What did they argue about?"

She brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. "Roy said he wanted another child, Riza said never again. She screamed at him. It was…frightening."

"So, what's wrong now? Is she scared for Faith?"

"I think so. Some mixture of fear and I think… well this is going to sound stupid, but I think she's unhappy with her choice. Riza really loves kids, she loves Tom to death, and she… she hates that she doesn't have the courage to try again. I don't know."

I nodded. "I had no idea."

"Everyone here is damaged, somehow, Ed. Everyone."

I began to stroke her hair softly, thoughtfully. My eyes rested without seeing on the photograph of Alfons on the dresser.

Then Winnie asked, "Hey, Ed, that isn't a photo of your brother, is it? He looks sort of different."

Oblivious for a moment, I glanced around, then I said, "Oh," and nodded. "No, that's Alfons," I said.

She looked at me.

"No, not my brother. But he was a good friend of mine."

She smiled. "And where is he now? You left him, back in Europe?"

I looked away. "He's dead."

Her smile flickered and disappeared. "Oh," she said. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," I said. "He was a good man."

She leaned against me, her head resting on my shoulder. "Tell me about him."

The photo of Al, Noa and I was on the dresser, right next to the picture she was asking about. Something told me she was asking about both.

"He built rockets," I said simply, ignoring the fact that I could barely breathe. "He and I were very close."
Quieter, now, "How did he die?"

I didn't say anything for a few moments. I didn't want to talk about him. I wanted to forget. But she had told me about Michael, hadn't she? She had told me everything, when I asked. What could it hurt, if I told her something small, like this?

"He was shot," I told her finally. "He was helping me, and he was killed for it."

At such a close proximity, I could feel it when Winnie's heart beat faster. "What was he helping you with?"

Should I tell her? Could I tell her?

"He was… helping me find my brother again."

"Find your brother? What do you mean?"

Too many questions. I shook my head. "No, he was just, just, I didn't know where he was, okay? I don't, it's not like I… Sorry, I just, I can't explain it."

She turned my face her way and looked me in the eye, searching my face. "You're such a mystery," she said. "I can't decide whether or not I like that about you."

"I don't want to talk about it," I said, looking away. "I just want to forget my past."

Her hands found mine, and she held me close to her. "Just because you forget it doesn't mean it didn't happen."

I almost laughed at that. No, I actually did laugh.

"What's funny?" she asked. "Did I say something?"

I wanted to say, You are a part of my past, but I'm still not sure that you'll be a part of my future.

But I didn't. Instead, I said, "No. Nothing was funny, I just… I don't know."

She patted my hand. "It's okay."

I thought, no, it's not.

I said, "Yeah. It is."

Then she kissed me, and it was just like every other time she had kissed me.

I shook my head and pulled away.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"I don't want this," I answered her.

She looked confused. "You don't want what?"

"Don't kiss me again," I told her.

She looked half offended, half puzzled. "But…"

"When I close my eyes," I said, and I realized my voice was shaking, "and kiss you, Winnie, it's not your face I see in my mind."

It took her a second to grasp what I was saying. Then she let go of me and sat limply on the bed. "Whose face do you see?" she asked, but her tone was listless, indifferent.

I looked at my hands in my lap. "Noa's."

She stood up. "Well. Goodnight."

"Wait, don't go-"

"Don't go?" she asked disbelievingly, turning around slowly. "You're saying don't go after you tell me that every time I kiss you, you're thinking of some other woman? What would you do if I told you that every time I kiss you, every time I hold your hand, I imagine it's some other man who's touching me, and not you? How would you respond to that?"

"Please don't be angry," I said lamely.

She just stared at me incredulously. "How long?" she whispered. "You've been thinking of her, this whole time? Every single second we've been together?"

"Winnie, please-"

The baby started to cry. The sound of someone getting up, bare feet on floorboards. A shh coming from the nursery. And Winnie and I were still staring at each other.

"I told you I loved you," she said. "Did that mean anything at all to you?"

I glanced away.

"I can't believe this. You can't even look at me."

I looked up at her again. She shook her head. "Goodbye."

And she walked out of my room, just like that. I heard her exchange a few words with whoever had gone to soothe Faith.

I hated myself for driving her away like that. But, somehow, a part of me insisted that it wasn't my fault. Who could control what they thought? It wasn't my fault if, for some reason, my mind kept conjuring up Noa's face. It wasn't my fault.

But I could've done without telling her. It would have done no harm just to keep my mouth shut…why did I even tell her in the first place?... I think that, maybe, it was because, all along, I wanted to drive her away. I wanted to… isolate myself?

I buried my head in my hands, thinking about what a fool I was. Winnie could have been part of my life – no, she could have been my whole life. I could have been devoted to her. We could have been together, lived together, loved each other forever.

But now that's not going to happen. All because I told her the truth.

What does the truth ever do, but cause harm? The second you tell someone what you're really feeling is the second they take advantage of you. Becca and Al were proof of that. And when I finally tell Winnie something I've been hiding since I met her, she's the one who gets angry! I closed my eyes tight, shaking my head. This isn't right, I thought. There is something here that is very, very wrong.

I awoke the next morning with no dreams I could remember, but there was a sense of hopelessness somewhere in my heart.

Winnie didn't ignore me, the next day. She was barely any different to me at all, except maybe a little more polite than usual. And she somehow made sure we were never alone in the same room.

In return, I smiled when she smiled at me, and I said, "You're welcome," when she said, "Thank you." I wasn't about to get into another argument with her. It wasn't that I didn't want her back; it was just that I felt I couldn't. I felt that if anyone ever yelled at me again, or looked at me with that fiery look in their eye, I would collapse from the pressure of it all.

From the way Shauna looked at me, I could tell that she knew something was different between Winnie and me, but she didn't say anything, and for that I was grateful. I just wanted to live; I wanted to have some time when I didn't have to do anything but exist.

Like she had after Becca left, Margaret warmed up to me again, began to talk to me. Lillian, less so, maybe because she also know there was something wrong, but Helena, who had been quiet since I spoke to her, began to talk a little more.

"I had an aunt named Faith," she said softly one day. "Her mother, my grandmother, I called her Nana, she was pure America, born and raised in the States. Avo, my grandpa, he was Italian, he was such a clever businessman, he ran our restaurant and made my babbo, my father, so proud."

She brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. "I was with my cousin Bianca when they were killed. She moved to California. I came here."

Shauna said something, then. I hadn't even noticed that she was sitting with Margaret, Helena and I until then.

She said, "I've always wanted to go to California. Did you ever get any letters from her?"

Helena shook her head. "I never told her I was leaving for New York."

"Why did you come here, anyway?" asked Margaret. "Even as it was, Chicago's a helluva lot better than New York."

"I had to get away," said Helena. "I couldn't have stayed there. I wasn't in any physical danger… at least, not from anyone but myself."

She didn't even look at me when she said this, but I saw Margaret and Shauna look at each other significantly.

I nodded, and even though I seemed attentive, and I wanted her to know I cared, I didn't. Not really. It was unimportant. The only important thing was that Winnie wasn't in the room, and neither was Al, or Noa, or Alfons, or Winry or even Rose for that matter. And, believe me, this list could continue.

It was the fact that they weren't in the room, and the truth that I could have been forced to never see any of them again. To…forget.

As it turned out, this fear of mine was irrational and turned out to be completely untrue…

For better, or for worse. It's probably not my place to decide that.

Each moment felt like a week to me, but inevitably time passed. I worked, and smiled, and ate and slept and did all the other things expected of human beings in general.

Sometimes I would enter a room, and someone would stop talking quickly and look around without quite looking at me and it would be clear that they had been talking about me. Or maybe I was just paranoid, and they had never been talking about me. Even Roy did it, but after a while, it stopped hurting, and just got annoying. Everything got annoying… the way people looked, the way they talked, I seemed to find every single nuance to be found about everyone, and find fault with it.

It was easiest when I worked on cars. I didn't have to think. I could just work. But Winnie still genuinely refused to work in the office while I was there, which was one of the only ways I could tell she was still mad at me.

Deep under the hood of a car, it wasn't until they were very close that I heard them arguing. There were four or five voices, as far as I could tell, getting closer. They were so garbled together that I couldn't recognize any of them, until they walked through the door.

Winnie came first, a fiery sort of passion in her eyes, holding firmly onto – what was this? Of all people… why was she dragging Al through the door to the garage? Winnie kept throwing odd insults over her shoulder, past Al, who was silent and pale, at Becca, who was keeping up a running commentary on how ridiculous Winnie was being. After Becca came Shauna and Irene, and then Anne, holding Fiona's hand and gently leading her into the garage. Shauna was nearly in tears, wailing about how unfair everyone was being. It was so strange – she hadn't acted so much like a child since I had met her.

Irene was heatedly contradicting anything anyone said, period. It was like she couldn't decide whose side she was on – first it was Winnie, then Becca, then she was impartial, then back with Winnie again…

Fiona was arguing in half-formed sentences, closing her eyes now and then and putting her hands to her ears.

Al stood there, staring at the ground, eyes half closed, his skin gray and unhealthy-looking. His clothes hung loosely on his thin frame, and his eyes were dark and unmoving. Winnie and Becca were now both holding one of his hands, and for a second I had a strange urge to laugh. What a funny scene – if only they had known that neither of them would win in the end.

Everyone silenced when Roy's strong voice asked, "What's going on here?"

There was a moment when Winnie and Becca glared at each other, than they both began to talk at the same time, and Shauna actually did break down into tears, and Irene held her, but at the same time began to try to explain.

Roy held up his hands simply, and everyone fell quiet.

"Becca, Alphonse, glad to see you again," said Roy calmly. "Although you're not looking too well." He looked Al up and down. "You feeling alright?"

Al opened his mouth, as if to say something, but Becca said sharply, "Of course he's alright. Dammit Roy, make Winnie let go of him."

Roy replied, "I'm not about to make anybody do anything. So why don't we all just calm down and talk this over?"

"There's no need to talk," said Irene, still not letting go of Shauna. "They've obviously talked enough. God, I missed the days when you could just send them to their separate rooms and they'd get over it."

"Shut up, Irene," said Becca.

"Al, are you alright?" I asked again, looking at my brother. He didn't look at me.

"He's anything but alright-" began Winnie, but Roy cut her off.

"Let the man speak, Winnie," he said mildly. "Alphonse?"

Al finally looked up. "I'm fine," he said quietly. "Please, excuse us."

With a gentle hand, he pried Winnie's fingers off of his, and stood closer to Becca. Winnie just glared at Becca.

"Let's go," said Becca curtly.

But Roy said, "Wait just a minute. Nobody's leaving yet, there is clearly something going on and I want to know what."

They all began talking at the same time again.

"Stop," said Roy. "Stop, stop, stop, stop." All were silent. "Winnie, come over here. Becca, you stay right there, don't you move a muscle. Irene, go home, and take the rest of them with you."

"I'm not leaving," said Shauna defiantly, and there was a sort of color in her cheeks that I had not yet seen before.

Before Roy could say anything, Irene said, "Let her stay. What harm can she do? Anne, stay with her, Fiona, come with me."

Irene led Fiona out of the garage, and Roy took Winnie by the arm and led her to the small office. I began to head towards Becca and Al, but Becca said, "Get out of here."

Al, who seemed to be looking at something slight above my shoulder, shook his head just the tiniest bit. I looked at him for a second, then sighed, and turned around.

In the office, I only just caught Winnie saying, "What do you mean what do you mean, you saw him, you can't tell me that-"

And then she went silent, and both Winnie and Roy were looking at me.

"Is… this about Al?" I asked dimly.

Winnie glanced at Roy. Roy nodded.

"What did Becca do to him?" I asked.

Winnie let out a little sound of derision. "What didn't Becca do to him, more like." She saw the look on my face, and immediately looked ashamed. "I'm sorry," she said. "That was uncalled for."

I ignored her. "Can't you do something? Can't you tell Becca to back off, or something?" I asked Roy.

He shook his head. "I can't. I don't have any right, and I wouldn't if I could. She has rights, and this is a free country and whatever she-"

"Be a man, Roy," said Winnie, massaging her temples. "You're the closest thing to a father she's got, go out and act like one."

Roy looked hesitant. I looked at Winnie, then at him, then back at Winnie again.

"He's my brother," I said finally. "And if no one else is going to stop that girl, then I guess it's my responsibility."

I turned to leave. I reached for the door.

Then there was a bone-chilling scream and a loud bang.

For half a second, I was frozen where I stood, my ears ringing, trying to decipher the noise that had just went off. Then, all at once, my hearing came back and I heard shouting and Roy rushed past me, saying, "Someone has a gun!" and Winnie followed him out, her face pale but determined.

Next to the door, Anne lay in a small pool of blood. Fiona was sitting over her, crying. I began to kneel down next to her.

"Don't anybody move."

I looked around slowly.

Al was on the floor, unconscious by the look of it. His lip was bleeding. Becca was on her hands and knees, facing the floor, sobs beginning to wrack her body. There was a man, a man with a large build and small eyes standing over her.

His mouth spread into a toothy grin as my eyes traveled down his arm, to where he had a gun pointed to the girl's head.

"Hello again," said Becca's stepfather.

"Norm, Don't be ridiculous… put the gun down," said Roy, taking a slow step forward.

The man grabbed Becca by the hair and wrenched her up so she was on her knees, facing up, tears now streaming freely down her face. He held the gun up at Roy.

Becca mouthed, Help me.

"Don't even think about it." He shook Becca. "Shut up," he told her. She didn't stop crying. The man threw her to the ground and kicked her, hard, in the stomach. She gasped for breath. "Just like your damn mother," he said, with a note of pure disgust in his voice. "Never did a thing she was told."

Putting a heavy foot on Becca's neck, he looked at us again. His voice was lower, quieter, but I heard every word as if he had been yelling.

"Do you even understand," he began, "what you sons of bitches could have done to my reputation? I could've lost everything. You humiliated me. And that's just not right."

"This is revenge?" I asked incredulously.

He pointed the gun at me. "This is justice."

Roy said, "What do you want? What can we give you, to make you go away and never, ever come back here?"

"I just told you," he said. "I want justice."

"And you think you'll get it by killing an innocent girl?"

"She's no innocent," sneered the man, and he pressed harder down on Becca's neck. She made a spluttering noise, then was silent. Her eyes bulged almost comically and her face was turning red.

"Do you think that matters? Let her go!"

Suddenly, Winnie ran to the office. The man shouted, "I said don't move!"

The gun went off again, with a loud bang. It hit the ground and ricocheted into a window, breaking the glass. Fiona started to cry louder. There was a tense silence for a moment.

Then, "Drop the gun."

I turned around to see Winnie, a gun in her hands, edging toward Roy and I. Roy hissed, "Winnie!" but she shook her head, saying, "I swear, put the gun down or I will blow your brains out, don't test me. I swear I will!" Her voice was unusually high with fear and there was an almost manic look in her eye.

The man just continued to grin. Becca made a final little noise and passed out. He lowered the gun to Becca's head again.

"Shoot me," he said slowly, "faster than I can pull this trigger."

There was absolute silence, and a stillness that was unbearable.

For a second, I thought she was going to do it. I thought Winnie would forget that she loved Becca, that she cared for her, and was going to throw caution into the wind and shoot this man. I thought that she might actually cause the death of two of the people in the garage that day.

"You bastard," Winnie whispered.

And she dropped the gun.

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Chapter title from a Robbie Williams song, "Love Somebody". That's also a good representation of the story, in my opinion.

I'm about to leave to get a on plane, but before I leave you guys, I just want to say this: I promise to finish this story. I've started like five other long-term stories, but I promise that I will finish this one, no matter how long it takes. Juuuust sayin'.

Thanks so much for reading.