Freedom’s Child. Jax Miller
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jerks away from her. He tells her to fuck off, but no one hears him, or they don’t want to.
In one uniform motion, as if the dam breaks, they all go out to the porch to meet with Matthew. Matthew screams with a smile into his brothers’ arms as he steps out of an old Buick, a clear plastic “personal belongings” bag trailing him. Headlocks and punches in the arms and thighs are the traditional greeting of the Delaneys. And, of course, what kind of reunion would this be without the stares of the nosy neighbors, the same ones who call the police every time the Delaney household gets a little too loud in the middle of the night? Luke is the first to break out the beer.
“Let’s take it in the house,” Lynn shouts from the doorway.
Matthew holds the beer up against the light of an overcast sky. “Christ, eighteen years in the joint, this is certainly overdue.”
“What’s it like not getting laid for eighteen years?” Luke jokes on the way into the house. Lynn smacks him on the arm.
“Almost worth it, after tonight.” Matthew laughs. “Sorry, Ma.”
Inside, Metallica plays in the background as they spend the morning catching up. But the time’s come to talk about the very topic that has brought such a cloud over the family for so long: Nessa Delaney.
Find her.
Find her kids.
Bring them home.
Make the family complete once again.
* * *
The spines of the other Delaney brothers surge with currents of electricity when around Matthew and their mother. With the back doors open, leading to a small backyard, the kitchen smells of wet autumn leaves and marijuana. It’s impossible to tell where the October fog begins and the smoke ends.
“Eighteen years is a lot of time to think. To collect. To dream,” says Matthew, between sips of his Heineken. He tilts his head to the side. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want the cunt dead,” his voice always smooth and velvety, like a song at a funeral. As he says the words, he swears he can detect Nessa’s scent. How could he possibly explain his love for her to his family? Who would understand? And despite being caged like an animal for nearly half his life, his eyes always smile, like he’s dying to tell the world all the secrets of the universe. The rest of the guys fidget in their seats around the kitchen table. They nod and pretend to understand, out of fear.
“She murders Mark. Your brother. My son,” Lynn begins, stoned on her Xanax-and-cabernet cocktail. “She takes my grandchildren and hides them away so that we can never see them. The children of Mark.” She absently picks the red nail polish from her fingernails. She feels the blood in her body start to curdle. She feels her feet start to swell, start to retain water from not being back in bed, decides it’s because she needs sugar and proceeds to stuff an orange Hostess cupcake into her cheek. “And then she frames you, my innocent Matthew, and sends you to prison for eighteen mother-fucking years.” Lynn shakes her head with a smile, citrusy crumbs falling in the folds of her neck. She crosses her hands, those fat little sausages with red tips like she’s ripped through someone’s flesh. “Nessa Delaney.” She sticks her tongue out and cringes, resents the fact that they once shared the same last name. “The audacity of the cunt. She must pay.” Lynn begins to sweat with the efforts of chewing and swallowing. “And we must find her children. After all, isn’t that what family’s all about?” Her sons recognize that gleam, the flames behind her eyes starting to ignite with ingenious plotting, often seen right before she shoplifts or rips a guy off from Craigslist or sends her sons to get something she wants but can’t have. “I wish we did this twenty years ago.”
“Yes, Ma, but it’s my revenge too,” Matthew says as he puts his hands on hers. “As much mine as yours.”
“They should make a saint out of me for waiting so fucking long.”
“Yes, Ma. And you waiting for me to get out so this revenge could be mine means more to me than you’ll ever know.” Lynn bats her eyes at his appreciation.
Peter starts to object but stutters over his own words. Matthew shoots him a glare so ferocious and hateful that it paralyzes him in his own wheelchair. With a flat, soulless tone he says, “And we’re all in this together.”
Peter gets his first good look at Matthew. He notices the thin threads of white at the edges of his black hair only make him look more monstrous than before, like a mane beginning to ice over. His blue eyes are still too light to match the rest of his face, those eyes that nearly turn to white when he’s doing something evil. He looks more like Lynn than ever, except he’s lean and hard. Prison hard.
“But how the hell are we supposed to find her and the kids? We know she’s been a protected witness since she killed Mark,” says Luke as he rolls another joint.
“O ye of little faith. In prison, everything is accessible for a price. Information is no exception.” Matthew taps his finger on his temple. “Everything you need to know about Nessa Delaney is in here.” He looks over to Lynn and smiles.
Lynn Delaney has never been prouder of her sons in all her years. At the sight of Matthew, the long wait almost seems worth it. In this way, her Matthew can guide the rest, be Lynn’s eyes and ears on their journey to kill her ex-daughter-in-law. “I only ask that you do things to Nessa that no mother would want to hear about until she begs to die. And I don’t need to tell you to be sure none of it gets back to this family, do I?” She sighs. “And as for your niece and your nephew, just … break the news slowly to them. Show them love. Tell them Grandmother has waited patiently for twenty years and looks forward to hugging them.” She takes a cigarette from Luke and puffs away. Her teeth are burned.
“She goes by Freedom Oliver these days,” says Matthew.
“Freedom?” Lynn scoffs. “Fucking clever.”
“Let’s leave in the morning, then.” Luke smiles at the thought of bloodshed.
“Fuck that.” Lynn kicks the bottom of the refrigerator from the motor scooter. “I’m not waiting any longer.” The steam seems to rise from her, liable to ignite the Aqua Net if she gets too angry. She brushes black cat hair from her sleeves, composes herself with a wheezing from the throat, and puts her cigarette out on the kitchen counter, no ashtray or anything. “My boys, my boys …” From her sleeve, she pulls out two fifty-dollar bags of cocaine and cuts five lines with her driver’s license in front of them, a driver’s license long expired since she hasn’t left the house in more than three years. The boys’ spines become a little more erect. When she’s done, she licks the edge of the card before turning a twenty-dollar bill into a straw. Peter can’t help but wonder how a habitual coke addict could be such a morbid size. “You don’t want to keep your mother waiting, do you?” She inhales a line through her left nostril before handing the twenty-dollar bill to Matthew. Her jaw sways back and forth, her pinkies twitch with the mechanical taste.
Matthew stares straight ahead before he snorts the next line. “No, you never have to wait for us, Mother.” The others nod, agreeing with anything to get a turn at the coke. They watch as her nose starts to bleed, as it usually does, down her face and landing on the remaining orange cupcake, the white drizzle of frosting now spotted with crimson. But Lynn doesn’t mind her warm blood falling down on her dessert, and she stuffs it in her gob anyway. She stares each one of her sons in the eyes. “Let John drive.” Lynn throws a set of keys on the table. “The plates are fake and the E-ZPass is stolen, so tolls for the bridges and turnpikes are free. You guys better head off to avoid rush hour.”
With their hearts racing with drugs, anticipation, and obedience, they leave.
Lynn watches Matthew, Luke, and John take off from the window. This is payback for Mark, you stupid bitch, she says to her reflection. She is a queen, releasing her wolves into the wild, on the hunt. As the car leaves the driveway, she sees the next-door neighbor. An old man from Puerto Rico, he paces in circles in an old and ragged green dress with black polka dots. His daughter’s mentioned before that he was showing signs of dementia. Is anyone normal