Lorna walked into the kitchen with her daughter held tightly on her hip, her attention focused on Gabe. “What time is LJ supposed to be home?”
Gabe looked down at his beer a bit uneasily as he answered: “Neil and Kels are going to keep him a little lat---“
“Gabriel McNamara, if you value your so called life you won’t finish that sentence,” she interrupted as she glared at him and inhaled all the while rocking slightly so as to try to keep the tension in the room from being transmitted to her daughter. “I guess I don’t have to ask who you were on the phone with earlier than?”
“He was only. . .”
“Doing his job, Lorna,” she drew out sarcastically as she crossed the kitchen, a flick of her wrist indicating that her husband had better get out of her way and fast. With surprising agility he did just that. “How many times have I heard that one?”
“Apparently one too many,” Gabe shot back as he reached out and snagged his daughter from Lorna who shot him a dirty look. “I either take Franny or you direct me on how to finish making the sauce.”
“Nice try,” she replied as she threw a towel at him.
“Not nice enough,” he muttered under his breathe as he carried his daughter to her highchair and placed her in it, easing himself into the chair next to it.
“I heard that,” Lorna told him. “And if Franny wasn’t next to you, you’d be wearing the rest of this,” she added as she picked up the bottle of beer he had been drinking.
“So, Lorna, you named you daughter after your mother?” Lucas interrupted at what he perceived to be an opening.
Cringing slightly, Gabe looked away. All the work he had done to distract and calm down his wife was now undone with a simple sentence. “No. We didn’t,” Lorna said sharply, glaring at her father. “Her nickname’s Franny not Fanny. Not that its any of your business, we needed an ‘F’ name when we named her. We decided on Francesca,” Lorna told him briskly. “I’m calling Kels and asking her to keep LJ for the night,” she continued turning her attention to her husband as quickly as she did the topic of conversation: “I’m sure you won’t mind me taking Franny with me. Diner’s ruined anyway. You should’ve left the burners alone,” she added as she grabbed the pots and threw them forcefully into the sink, cringing at the splatter that hit her on the arm, but trying not to let on that she was hurt as she stormed out of the room.
Cursing, Gabe pushed to his feet and followed her out of the kitchen and down the hall, his steps slightly unsteady without the use of his cane. “Lorna, calm down,” he finally called after her when he realized she wasn’t going to stop or slow down for him, even though he knew full well that she was aware that he was following her.
“Don’t you dare tell me to----” she started spinning around, her arm held gingerly to her chest as tears started to fall down her cheeks. “I don’t want him alone with the baby,” she protested as Gabe crossed to her and started to wipe at her tears with his fingers. “I mean it,” she reiterated as she pulled back.
“I know,” he said softly, reading between the lines as he let his hands fall. Quietly, he took a step back. “Put something on that arm, ok?”
“Ah huh…”
“Lorna. . .” he sighed in exasperation.
“I will. . . I’ll even be a good girl and have Kels look at it,” she added with a roll of her eyes.
“I worry about you, you know.”
“Yeah. Sure,” she sighed as she crossed her arms over her chest defiantly. “Just. . . ummm. . . I don’t want Franny left alone, ok?”
“OK,” Gabe sighed as he reached out and squeezed her hand, taking some comfort in the fact that she didn’t pull away from his touch. “We’ll explain it all. I promise.”
“I thought you promised to not to make promises you couldn’t keep when we got married,” Lorna shot back with a slight smirk. “This sounds like one of those.”
“Then all we can.”
Nodding Lorna exhaled: “can you at least promise me that no more dead people are going to show up on my doorstep?”
“Well, not tonight at least,” Gabe admitted with a grimace.
Shaking her head, Lorna looked at the ceiling then back at him: “you know what, I don’t even want to know right now. I’m going to--- to take Franny and go to Kelsey and Neil’s and have some girl talk while he comes here and you can talk the case and figure out what I can and can’t know. Then, hopefully, when I get back, Daddy not so dearest will be gone and I can pretend that tonight didn’t happen.”
“You know that’s not how it’s going to play out, don’t you?”
“Do you have to be the voice of reason?” she asked on a sigh. “Yeah. I know. What? You thought I got the stubbornness from my mother? Hope LJ takes more after the J and less after the L ok?” she finished patting his chest. “I’m going to get that bag.”
“And take care of that arm,” he reminded as she turned. Shaking his head he watched her continue down the hall only to turn and see a morose looking Lucas standing a few feet behind him and off to the side. “Enjoy eavesdropping?” Gabe asked him as he made his way back down the hallway.
“Any chance she knew I was there and she said those things on purpose?” Lucas wondered.
“Doubtful,” Gabe answered truthfully as he moved back to the table. “Frankly she was in too much pain to care.”
“Lorna has a tendency to lash out when she’s in pain,” Lucas remarked, more to himself then to Gabe.
“True, but you’re not the one she was really looking to start a fight with,” Gabe responded as if he had been addressed as he sat back down and handed his daughter one of her teethers.
“Why an ‘f’ name? And why Francesca?” Lucas wondered as he came near the table and looked at the baby curiously, trying to find traces of the infant daughter he had spent only moments with in the baby bordering on toddler-hood in front of him.
“I’m Jewish,” Gabe replied evenly, “in my family it’s the custom to use the first letter of the name of the last person who died in the child’s name. It’s also the custom to name after the dead. Lorna had already named LJ before. . . anyway, the F was for Frankie. We both considered her family. It’s also the reason for the Francesca.”
“Then why not just call her Frankie?” Lucas wondered.
Gabe laughed: “ask your daughter. She came up with the nickname, not me.”
“And LJ. . .”
“Our son,” Gabe responded as he lifted the tray of the highchair and pulled Franny out and onto his lap. “It’s short for Lucas Joseph,” he explained, taking note of the smile forming on his father-in-law’s face he added: “if I were you, I wouldn’t bring that up anytime soon. The mood she’s in, she just might go and have the paperwork drawn up to have his name changed to Carl.”
“Now there’s an idea,” Lorna said from the doorway. “Although I was thinking more of Lazarus. He wouldn’t have to get used to a whole new name--- or nickname—at any rate. And it kinda fits don’t you think?” she continued as she crossed the room with a diaper bag over her shoulder.
“I thought you were grabbing a bag for him,” Gabe countered as he handed her the baby well aware of the act she was putting on and willing to go along with it for the time being.
“Kels said I left some things over there a visit or two ago. Or it got in the wash from when they were babysitting. By the way, I told her we’d watch Kayla and Harry one night next week.”
“Because Kayla’s going to be so receptive to us watching her,” Gabe said with a good natured roll of his eyes, well aware of the type of watching his pre-teen goddaughter would need.
“She’s good with the kids.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said dismissively.
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to. And she is your goddaughter.”
“Who takes too damned much after a certain cousin and not enough after her mother,” he remarked.
“Told you my theory on that,” Lorna responded evenly as she crossed the room towards the backdoor.
“Hell, wouldn’t surprise me.”
“Between the four of us we’ll have her reined in before she gets too much of a rap sheet,” she responded cheekily.
“God help us.”
“Just remember who her father’s niece is. From the stories she and her husband told, Kay’s a cakewalk.”
“Do I even want to know?”
“You should’ve paid more attention to Lasitter stories,” Lorna chided on a laugh.
“Like I ever paid attention to McKinnon when he wasn’t in interrogation?” Gabe shot back.
Shaking her head Lorna balanced her daughter and pulled open the door: “tell Neil to call before he’s ready to leave so I can pack this one up.
And Gabe,”
“Yeah?” he asked, mentally going on guard at the change of her tone and body language.
“Make sure you’re alone when I get home. Do I make myself clear?”
Shaking his head he rose to his feet and started moving items on the table, refusing to look at her, knowing she already knew the answer wasn’t going to change: “get that arm checked out.”
“Gabe. I mean it.”
Shifting slightly, Gabe looked at her over his shoulder: “Remember what I said about promises I couldn’t keep?”
“I hate it when your words come back to haunt me,” she muttered as she stalked out. |
