“It’s nothing,” Vi answered.

“Vi got emotional when she heard about Sam, threw around some shit, glass broke, she cut her foot,” Cal answered.

“Cal!” Violet snapped and Cal looked down at her, brows raised.

“Stitches? Oh Vi, does it hurt? You need to sit down, baby,” Pam advised.

“I’m fine,” Vi lied.

“Take a load off then, got a tall drink a’ water beside you, girl, use it,” Barry put in, nodding his head to Cal.

“Really, like I said, I’m fine,” Vi repeated.

“Stubborn,” Pam shook her head at Cal.

Cal didn’t reply and didn’t take his arm from Violet.

“Hey guys,” Melissa joined their group, sliding arms around both Keira and Kate. “They want to start. Let’s get his stupid head trip of Madeline’s over with so we can go to Hoolihan’s.”

“Mel, honey, I told you yesterday. We can’t go to Hoolihan’s with you, the girls can’t come in,” Violet told her.

“Oh yeah, right,” Melissa whispered, looking startled for a second that this hadn’t sunk in then she kissed the side of Kate’s head then Keira’s.

“I want you to come down soon, be with us for a weekend or for awhile, get away from here, get away from –” Vi started but Melissa interrupted her.

“Soon’s I can, Vi-oh-my.”

At Melissa using Sam’s nickname for his sister, Violet finally gave him her weight, so much of it, her hand came around and she clutched his shirt at his stomach to remain standing. Part of this was good, her doing it, part of it was bad because she didn’t notice she was.

“Good,” Vi whispered but her voice sounded choked.

Cal watched Melissa swallow and both Vi’s girls pulled in their lips.

“This sucks, doesn’t it?” Melissa whispered back to Vi.

“I still can’t believe it,” Vi whispered to Melissa.

“Wake up and reach for him –” Melissa stopped, Kate dropped her head but Pam pulled her in her arms as Keira moved around and hugged Melissa front-to-front.

Barry cleared his throat.

“Callahan, let’s get our girls to their seats,” Barry suggested to Cal, Cal nodded and they herded the women to the front row, opposite the aisle from where Pete and Madeline were sitting, the whole row to themselves. Sam’s friends clearly weren’t big fans of Pete and Madeline.

Kate maneuvered the seating arrangement so it was Keira, Melissa, Violet, Cal, Kate, Pam and Barry.

“I still can’t believe they planned this ridiculous farce,” Melissa hissed when they were seated, her eyes cutting to Madeline then back to Violet. “Shoulda married him, Vi, woulda had my say how the funeral would be.”

“We’ll get through this then the burial then you can get to Hoolihan’s, honey,” Vi returned.

“They even get near me, I’ll rip their heads off,” Melissa threatened and Pam leaned forward and into Kate.

“No worry with that, Joe here warned them off,” Pam informed Melissa.

Violet’s body jerked and Keira, Melissa, Violet and Kate’s eyes all jerked to Cal.

“What?” Vi asked Cal but Pam answered.

“Told ‘em not to get into your space, ‘less you invited them. Sorry, Mel, but I swear, I nearly pee’d my pants laughing. Then when your Mom got all,” she whirled her hand in the air, “and said, all snooty, ‘I can’t believe…’ Joe said he didn’t know how she couldn’t believe since she turned her back on you, Tim and the girls. I’m writin’ that shit in my diary. Crap day, the worst, but always a little light shines through. That’s my light today, seeing Madeline Riley’s face when Joe was through with her.”

Pam stopped talking but Keira, Melissa, Violet and Kate didn’t stop staring at Cal.

“Did you really say that?” Melissa asked.

“Yep,” Cal answered.

Tears filled her eyes, she drew in breath through her nose, swallowed and, after this struggle, finally whispered, “Somewhere, Sam and Tim are both smiling.”

Kate, Cal noted, was smiling too. Keira, Cal saw, was now staring at her shoes. Vi was still staring at him.

Then she surprised him by saying, “Thank you. I don’t know what I’d have done if Mom –”

While she was talking, he lifted an arm and draped it along the back of her chair, dipped his chin, got close to her face and cut her off.

“Shut up, buddy.”

“Okay,” she whispered.

The girls were there, her friends, her parents and he didn’t give a fuck. He dipped in closer and kissed her lightly on the lips. When he pulled away, those lips had parted and her eyes had grown wide.

Because she looked cute as hell, as well as totally lost, his arm curled from her chair to her shoulder and he pulled her into his body. Then he did the same to Kate on the other side. Kate curled into him and wrapped an arm around his stomach, resting her head on his shoulder.

Something had broken for Kate the day she found out about her uncle, it was clear. She’d lost two men in her life that meant everything to her. She was holding on with all she had to anyone who was left. Even Cal.

Vi looked at her daughter then she looked across Cal to Pam.

“Like him, girl,” Pam whispered then winked at Vi, “keeper.”

Vi straightened and looked at the casket.

Cal grinned and felt Barry’s eyes on him so he turned his head.

Barry was looking at Kate then he looked at Cal then he sighed and gave Cal a nod.

Score another one for Cal and Kate, a big score, the dead husband’s partner and his wife, huge.

The minister took the podium and Cal turned to face front.

* * *

I stared out the window as Chicago slid by.

Cal had said we were going to dinner before hitting the road and I didn’t argue. Sam’s memorial (so not Sam and so very my mother) and his burial (ditto with it not being Sam, who wanted to be cremated but was buried because of my fucking mother) had taken it out of me. They were long, they were wordy and the pastor who spoke at both knew not one thing about Sam (nor did Mom arrange it so anyone else could say a freaking word). And I hadn’t had anything but a couple of pieces of toast for breakfast. I was angry, hungry and exhausted and I hoped, after I ate, that I’d sleep all the way home.

I didn’t know what Cal was up to and I didn’t care, not now. I’d care tomorrow or the next day but I was hoping his lunacy would be spent by then, he’d be on another trip, off on his job as Security to the Stars and I wouldn’t have to bother.

He slid into a parking spot in the street that had two clear signs that read NO PARKING then he cut the ignition.

I stared at the signs then looked beyond them and around me, seeing that we were deep in the city. I hadn’t been paying attention. Why Cal took us so far into the city, God only knew.

Then I looked back at the girls who were both leaned to peer out the side window.

Then I looked at Cal.

“Cal, you can’t park here,” I told him.

He ignored me and ordered, “Change your shoes, buddy.”

Here we go again.

“I can’t wear this outfit with flip-flops in public,” I informed him.

He again ignored me and repeated, “Buddy, change your shoes.”

I briefly considered how long it would take to explain to Joe Callahan why I could not wear flip-flops with a seven hundred and fifty dollar suit, knowing that even Tim would not get this concept, hell, even Mike wouldn’t get it and Mike seemed totally clued into these kinds of things considering how materialistic his ex had been. Therefore Cal definitely wouldn’t and I decided it would be an impossible task, we’d end it in a verbal tussle and I was tired and hungry.

So I declared, “I’m not fighting about this and I am not changing my shoes.”

His blue eyes locked with mine and I held his glare.

“Fuck,” he muttered, giving in which was more lunacy. Cal didn’t give in and now he’d done it twice.

“Language in front of the girls,” I snapped.

“Baby, they hear it all the time,” he returned and I felt my eyes get wide in motherly affront.

Cal looked at my face then over the seat to the girls and asked, “You gonna say fuck because I say fuck?”

“No,” Kate answered immediately.

“No, ‘cause Mom doesn’t like it,” Keira replied waspishly.

Cal looked back at me and raised his brows.

I gave in this time, throwing my door open, getting out and pulling the seat up so Keira and Kate could get out safely on the street side.

Cal slammed his door, rounded the hood and walked to us, waiting as the girls got out. As Kate alighted and closed the door, I looked around Cal and saw a dark haired man in a nice, semi-shiny, dark blue polo-necked shirt and dark gray pants stalking toward Cal.

Getting close, the man shouted, “Yo! Can’t park there.”

Cal turned, the man skidded to a halt and stared up at him in wonder, as if he was seeing a ghost.

“Shit, fuck me, Cal?” the man whispered.

“Hey, Manny,” Cal returned.

“Cal!” the man, apparently named Manny and apparently someone Cal knew, was now yelling.

I stared as he leaped forward and threw his arms around Cal, pounding him on the back in a way that sounded painful then he pulled back and looked at him.

“Holy fuck, man, Pop’s gonna be frickin’ beside himself, Ma too. They’re both here. Holy fuck!”

“Manny,” Cal said, moving toward me and pulling me to his side with an arm around my shoulders, “Vi gets pissy when you say fuck in front of her girls.”

But Manny wasn’t listening and I wasn’t moving out of Cal’s arm mainly because I was worried that Manny was having a heart attack and I’d have to jump in and attempt CPR (something I’d never done). His eyes had bugged out and he appeared to be fighting for breath as he looked at me, Kate and Keira.