Doubling Down – Chapter Six – Emersli1

Reading Time:
11 Minutes

“It’s your fault!”

The strident accusation cut the air like a knife.

Before Bobby could even gather himself to form a response, Chris continued speaking.

“Don’t you talk about my Papa like that!  He loves me!  And he never would have left, but you made it so he had to!”  Eddie moved the lap desk with its very throwable plate full of butter chicken out of Chris’s reach, but otherwise didn’t stop or correct the boy.

“Chris, I don’t know what Buck told you …”  Bobby started, filing the ‘my Papa’ part away to ask about later.

“You’re a liar, Captain Nash.  He told me you lied to him.  And about him to the uppity people.  Told them he couldn’t work, and told Buck they said he couldn’t.  When it was always just you!”  Chris wasn’t backing down one bit.

Bobby sighed and turned to Eddie, “Look …”

Eddie shook his head.  “Don’t bother.  Between you and Evan there is never going to be any question as to who I’ll believe.  For whatever faults Evan might have, he is painfully honest.  And when he got to my house after he found out … he was absolutely in shock.”

Christopher’s small face was flushed with fury as tears still trickled from his eyes.  “Papa had to go because his team needs him, and now he’s out there with fires and people are shooting at him, and he doesn’t have Daddy to have his back, and it’s all Your FAULT!”

Eddie turned back to Chris in dismay.  “Mijo, who told you about the shootings?”  OK, Hamilton had been a bit of a joke, but whichever family member had told his eight-year-old about the danger Buck was facing was going to get their ears boxed.

Chris sniffled again while glaring at the man sitting frozen in the armchair behind his Daddy.  “You did Daddy.  You and Papa.  You were talking in the hospital when you thought I was asleep.”

Alright, so once he had this disaster of an evening tamed down to something manageable he would definitely find a way to box his own ears.  “Buddy, …”

All Bobby could really process was “People are shooting at him.”  It was running in frantic circles inside his frozen brain.  “What?  Who’s shooting at Buck?  Where is Buck, that people are shooting at him?  What is going on?”

Between Chris melting down on the sofa and Bobby melting down in the armchair, Eddie was full up on drama.  Desperately running through his mental exercises for control, he turned to his guest.

“Buck is working in northern California with the Department of Fish and Wildlife to finish out his Associates degree and get his Bachelors.  A few weeks ago someone started shooting deer and leaving the bodies behind untouched.  Six days ago one of the guys working on the project was shot on a dead animal call.  Buck’s team rotated back on yesterday.”

Turning back to his son, he continued.  “And Chris, you know your papa is going to do everything he can to come home to us.  And Jake and Mateo and Marsh are watching his back, just like he’s watching theirs.”

Bobby tried desperately to make everything make sense, but the idea of Buck out alone in northern California fire danger was bad enough.  But with someone shooting at him?  “How could you let him go back to that?  You promised to have his back!”  He couldn’t believe Eddie would allow this.

That was it.  Eddie was done.

“I realize you’ve never quite figured this out, so I’m gonna talk slow so that you can keep up.  Evan Buckley is a full grown man of twenty-seven.  I love him, but that doesn’t mean I own him.  He has served in the military, worked his way around two continents, and generally supported himself, financially and in every other way, since he was seventeen years old.  He does not need protecting.  Not by me.  Not by you.  Not by anyone.”

He took a deep breath and forged ahead.  “Now, he does need the unconditional love and support of family … and he thought he’d found that with the 118.  But one member tried to kill him, another member continues to blame him, and you are so intent on keeping him safe that you nearly saw him homeless and could have seen him dead of depression.  So the Diazes have taken over.  Evan Buckley is ours to love, and support, and worry over,…but not to control.”

“And right now, he’s in danger.  He’s part of a team, and he understands exactly what that means.  His team will look out for each other.  And I believe they will do everything they can to have his back.”  Eddie looked at his son.  Chris was only eight, and Eddie wouldn’t have deliberately laid this information on him, but since it was already there …

“And if the worst happens, I will know that it was no fault of Evan’s, or of his team’s but of the maniac who decided to play God.  And I will always be proud of the man I loved, and be grateful for the time I got to share my path with him.  I will remember him with honor, and dignity … just as you would remember Athena.”

Eddie paused for a moment to wipe his own tears away.  “But I truly believe that Evan will come back to us.  He is not a child.  He is an adult, who despite everything still loves you.  And all he ever asked in return is your love and respect.  I’ve seen a lot of love in the past eight months, but almost zero respect.  And because of your lack of respect, when he left here, he left thinking that you don’t love him.  Because you refuse to know him.”

Bobby felt as though he couldn’t breathe.  The accusations swirled faster and faster in his mind, and he tried desperately to grab on to something … anything … anything that could make this all make sense.

He became aware of a hand, taking his and placing it somewhere … somewhere rising and falling … he tried, but he couldn’t get more than a tiny gasp of air at a time.  He felt his throat closing in his panic and thought vaguely that he hoped he passed out before his galloping heart killed him.

Then a voice in his ear.

“Bobby, baby, you need to calm down.  Try to breathe with Eddie.  With me.  Come on, Bobby.  In … 2 … 3 …4.  Hold.  Out … 2 … 3 … 4.  Feel Eddie holding your hand.  Hear my voice .  Smell your chicken.”  Athena’s voice, in his ear.   Trying to bring him back.

Not Marcy.  Marcy was dead.  He’d killed her.  He’d killed her, and Brooke, and Robbie, and now he’d killed Evan … all he did was kill …

“Robert Wade Nash, you will stop this nonsense right now!  You are scaring your grandson!”  Apparently Athena had decided to give tough love a try.

Wait.  Grandson?

Suddenly, instead of a blank nothingness, his eyes were filled with Christopher’s face.  Still red with anger and streaked with tears.  Now with eyes huge and one hand pressed to his mouth.  The other hand was reaching out …

To him.

Slowly, disbelievingly, he reached out and took that little hand gently in his own.  Chris’s fingers couldn’t quite fold around his.  They were stiff and awkward, but they were holding on as tight as they could.  

Somehow, feeling the small hand in his did what nothing else had.  It broke Bobby out of his panic.  “I’m OK Christopher.  I’m OK.  It’s just, sometimes the truth lands really hard.  And it hurts.  But I needed to hear it.  I’ll be OK.”

Actually, right now he desperately needed a drink.

Which meant he shouldn’t go home alone.  But he couldn’t stay here.

Bobby looked around a bit dazedly.  He wasn’t sure where he was going, but he knew he needed to go.  Sliding forward in his chair, getting ready to stand, suddenly a heavy hand landed on his shoulder.

“Oh Hell no.  You’re not going anywhere.  Not in this condition.  Buck would never forgive me if I let you out of the house like this.”  Eddie gave him a glare he could practically feel the weight of, pressing him back into his chair.

Once Bobby stopped moving, Eddie stood up and put his phone to his ear.  “Yeah Athena, I’ve got him.  Chris managed to get through to him.  Yeah, I’m gonna keep him here tonight.  No, I don’t think he needs to be driving.”

Eddie moved a little away from the duo in the living room.

“I’m afraid of what he might do.  He’s too dazed to drive and, … well … he looks a little bit like my Tio Hector does when he’s about to fall off the wagon again.  Yeah.  No, Chris slapped him in the face with some brutal truths, and then I followed it up.  Dammit.  I’ve been working on that.”  He sighed.  “Athena, don’t laugh.  I’ve even been doing THERAPY.”  At this point it was almost a wail.

Bobby surprised himself with a little snicker.  Even more surprising was Chris joining him.  After a minute, Chris leaned towards him a little.

“Daddy really has been working hard.  I shouldn’t laugh.  Sometimes it just feels good to say angry things.  Like it lets out some of the ick, you know?”  The little boy suddenly looked sheepish.  “And I’m sorry.  I shouldn’t have shouted at you.  You came over and made my favorite for dinner, and were trying to take care of us, and I was really rude.”

Bobby sighed a little, and then shook his head.  “I forgive you for being rude.  Can you forgive me for being a dumbass?  A lying dumbass?  And shouting at people isn’t usually a good way to get your point across … but I figure God gave us volume control for a reason, right?”

Chris nodded a little uncertainly.  “OK, we need to be able to call for help, and to warn people when they’re about to hurt themselves or someone else, right?”

Christopher’s nod this time was a little firmer.  “Right, well.  When you shouted, you let your dad know that you were hurting and needed help.  And you let me know that I was doing something that was hurting me more and more, and could have hurt me really, disastrously badly.  And worse, it was hurting Buck.  So shouting was the right choice in that situation.”

Bobby was determined to go on.  If he was going to confess his sins, well he wasn’t going to do a half-assed job of it like he’d been doing with Father Brian.  “And I don’t usually have to struggle much to control my temper, but once … once someone made me really mad, and I actually physically attacked him.  Not because he was a physical threat.  Just because he looked at something I didn’t want him to see.  I should have told him to stay out of my things.  Instead, I shoved him really hard into a wall and said some really ugly, angry things.”

Eddie was listening now too, apparently having convinced Athena not to leave work early to come get his sorry self out of this surprisingly comfortable armchair.  “So I know sometimes saying angry things feels good.  At first.  But then, it starts to feel really bad.  Saying angry, ugly things doesn’t just hurt the person you say them to … it hurts you too.  So it’s better to choose, right?  Sometimes hard things need to be said.  But it needs to be a choice.”

Bobby was still looking at Chris, but he felt like he was talking to Eddie.  “That’s what it’s all about, really.  Self-control.  If you have a lot of angry, icky things inside … or scary, icky things … it’s good to let them out.  But you choose when and how.  I keep a journal.  And when I feel full up with ick, I go write it all out in my journal.  That gets it out in a way that doesn’t hurt anybody.  And sometimes, when I read those things, I realize that they need to be said.  But I choose when and how.  And to whom.”

Chris was nodding along seriously.  “Daddy, can I have a journal to write my icky things in?  I don’t want to put them in my Big Thoughts journal.”

Eddie cleared his throat.  “Yeah buddy.  I’ll pick one up for you tomorrow when I take Grampa Bobby home.”

Bobby looked at him in surprise, causing Eddie to chuckle ruefully.  “We might as well get used to it.  So long as you really have pulled your head out, well, I figure Buck’s gonna insist.  And I think I’ll pick up an ‘ick’ journal for you too, since you obviously need a new one.”

“I forgive you for being a lying dumbass, but you have to apologize to Papa too.”  Chris grinned cheekily at Eddie.  “I could say that word this time, ‘cause Grampa Bobby said it in his ‘pology.”  A big yawn interrupted the boy.

“Alright.  Gramps can pay the swear jar for you this time.  Let’s get you on to bed.”  Lifting Chris into his arms, Eddie started back down the hallway.   “Come on Bobby.  Bedtime is now a three-person endeavor.  Wait until you see what we have to go through to get his teeth clean to his exacting specifications.”

Bobby took a deep breath and looked around at the room, almost surprised to see it still intact.  He felt as though a nuclear bomb had gone off.  But it was just a room.  A room with three discarded plates of food.  “I’ll be there as soon as I get the food put away.”

He gathered the dirty dishes quickly, putting away the leftovers and giving the kitchen a lick and a promise.

Then he hurried down the hallway behind his family.

And somewhere across town, a man working late in his office heard an alert ping on his computer.  Turning to look at the name displayed, he swore, “Dammit Evan.  What have you stumbled into now?”

Sighing, Assistant Director DiNozzo began looking through the ‘missing/endangered’ file put on the system by the CDFW.

What he found had him reaching for the phone on his desk.

“Linley.”

“What the Hell is going on out there?”