Nery Legacy (7): Setting Things Straight*

    It had been a busy week. The twins were home from college for the summer, and the school rivalry had come home with them. He’d broken up one fight when Court had shoved Brendan in the hallway upstairs. He’d wound up taking a fist to the chin, and the boys had lost their cars for the rest of the week. He didn’t care whether or not they were eighteen. They were his sons, and they were by God going to respect the rules of the house, even if their mother was too lazy to keep up with what was going on with their sons. Thank goodness for private schools. He wasn’t sure that he wanted Randy raised by a nanny, and he and Carrie were both usually busy with their careers, him in law and her in politics.

    But Malcolm had taken off the week from work, canceling all of his appointments and trying not to be pissed off when Carrie refused to help in the search for their niece. Mal was close to his brothers, and he thought of his nieces and nephew very much as he thought of his own children. If Charlie was missing, it was part of their responsibility to look for her.

    Today was a paperwork day. Malcolm had taken it with him to his brother’s house, where he made a few phone calls and then settled back to go over the documents that he would have to present to the court regarding custody of his niece Maia. Though Raph had been considering moving into the old family home, where Malcolm now sat at the kitchen table (and where their brother Ben lived with his wife and their two daughters, one of whom was currently missing), his older brother had decided that for right now, it was best he sleep on the couch and give his bed to his daughter, when Mal was able to get the final paperwork signed so that everything was tied up tight.

    Here with his brother Ben, everybody was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Charlie, Mal’s sixteen year-old niece, had gotten into a fight with her mother, and disappeared the next day. She’d left a note, saying that she was leaving and not to look for her, and that she’d left because of the fight with her mother. The concern that Mal had was that the fight had become physical. Ruby, Ben’s wife, had slapped her daughter when she found out that the sixteen year-old was pregnant, and when the police came to question the family about Charlie’s disappearance, the facts of the case had come out. So far, there had been no contact from child welfare, but Malcolm had learned that you never trusted the police, and you certainly never talked to him (which of course his brother and sister-in-law had done, breaking the cardinal rule of protecting yourself from a corrupt police system. Malcolm had taped a copy of the constitution to the fridge so that they could read it every day and remind themselves of their rights should the police get funny during the search for their daughter).

Nery Legacy (6): The Real Consequences*

    As he took the note from his wife, Ben kept his right arm wrapped protectively around his younger daughter. He wasn’t sure whether or not Ruby was going to snap and lash out at either of them, and after the last couple of days, he found it hard to trust her. They’d had a very enlightening conversation the previous night before bed, when he’d taken a snack up to her so that she wouldn’t go to bed hungry, and he thought he understood his wife a lot better. He didn’t like what he’d heard, and in some ways it made him more uncomfortable, but he also had a new sympathy for Ruby, and he appreciated that she’d finally told him that she was actually jealous of her own daughter, the things that she was able to do, the things she got away with, and her relationship with Ben. He knew that it was a big confession for Ruby, and it had left her broken, crying in his arms for over an hour until she fell asleep. She’d been acting embarrassed all morning, and though he didn’t feel guilty for the strapping that he’d given her the night before, he did feel for his wife.

    More than anything, he was glad that it seemed Ruby had learned something about his daughters, and how he expected them to be treated. He’d threatened her with throwing her out, and he’d meant it. If anything like yesterday ever happened again, he’d put her out without another thought. These were his children, and as a man he felt that he was honor bound to protect them, even from their mother if it was necessary for him to do so.

    Feeling the tension in Clarissa’s body, Ben tugged her close to him and gave her a kiss on the top of her head, smoothing her red hair back. It was still the strawberry blonde of youth, and he could see how it was going to go the way of Ruby’s, a darker red as she got older. He hugged her hard, then rubbed her back. It had been a relatively mild spanking, only about half a dozen quick, brisk pops with the wooden spoon, and nothing that she wouldn’t recover from quickly, but she’d carried on as though he’d taken his belt to her backside. Rissa had always been known for drama, of course, and that thought made Ben smile. Maybe now, after today, she’d be thinking twice about the drama that she caused the next time she had an opportunity. He was going to have to be especially watchful once Raph was in the house with them, considering that his younger brother had a tendency to be surrounded by drama and the last thing that he or his thirteen year-old daughter were going to need was Rissa’s gossip.

    “Clarissa, go on up to your room,” Ben said, giving her another hard hug. When the child let out a sob, he paused, then cupped her face in his hands and gently kissed his nose. “You ain’t bein’ punished, baby girl,” he told her, brushing the hair out of her face where she’d dropped her head and it had fallen in her eyes. “You can take your book or some toys with you. Punishment’s over. Now Daddy just needs to have a talk with Mama.”

    “You are gonna divorce her!” Rissa cried, clear panic in her face.

    “No, baby. Not today.” He didn’t want to promise her that it wouldn’t happen, because he’d been close to that point yesterday, but today... Today he could see the obvious fear in his wife’s face, and right now he was more concerned about Ruby than he was about either of his daughters. She looked like a little girl herself, and for the first time in a long time, he thought he saw a glimpse of the woman he had married when they were still too young to know what marriage meant. “Go on,” he said to Rissa, giving her a little pat on her bottom. “I’ll be up there to check on you when Mama an’ me are done talkin’. I promise.”