As she thought that, her eyes fell on Frank, and suddenly his resemblance to Joey struck her like a thunderbolt; how could this be? If Caitlin was his aunt, why did he look like her husband?
“Joey, I thought Caitlin was your aunt, I thought she was your mom’s sister!” she whispered, and Joey nodded. “She is…”
Luna’s eyes narrowed in puzzlement.
“Then why do you look like her husband? He looks just like Miss Sarah, is he her brother? If he is, does that mean… Oh my God, Caitlin’s his sister isn’t she? He’s with his sister too? And they have children? Oh my Christ, you’re all the same, all of you, what kind of people are you? I have to go, I… I can’t stay here, not like … first Robbie and Casey, now Frank and Caitlin, who else, Joey, what else is going on around here?”
Joey looked helplessly at Kat, who sighed and nodded.
“Tell her Joey, you have to, she has a right to know!”
Joey tried to take her hand, but Luna shrank away from him, her eyes wide and horrified.
“Tell me what, what do I need to know? Who are you, Joey, are you Frank’s son, is that what you didn’t want those girls to hear? But he’s already with his sister, and Miss Sarah’s his sister, and she’s your mother…” She trailed off, an expression of horrified disgust sweeping across her face, twisting her mouth with distaste.
“Oh my God, your mom and… her brother too? What… how… oh dear God, Joey, who else, tell me!”
Joey looked at Sarah, lost for words, but Sarah stared at him, her expression flinty, all her fears coming to fruition as their family secrets tumbled out of their carefully tended hiding places. Kat reached out and touched his arm, her eyes filled with love and compassion, but her features set firm.
“Tell her, baby, please, you have to…” she murmured.
Luna looked almost fearfully at Joey as he gazed back, for once in his life completely at a loss.
“Baby, I’m not Uncle Frank’s son, but I am Miss Sarah’s son. She was in school with my… my father, my real father, stuff happened, some bad stuff, and she got pregnant. Robbie and I are like brothers because we really are brothers; his daddy is my real daddy… and yours, and Casey’s too. I’m sorry baby, I didn’t know about you, how could I…?”
Luna’s eyes widened in shock and horror, words tumbling out of her as she struggled to find some balance.
“Your uncle and his sister, your brother and his sister, now I’m your sister, and you want to… to… oh dear God in Heaven, what have you done to me? This is all so wrong, everything about this is wrong, and no-one cares, you all think it’s fine, and now I’m part of this… this… with my own brother…”
Luna stared at Joey in thin-lipped shock; Joey was… he was Steve Dolan’s son too, he was… her brother, and the things they’d done, the promises they’d made, all ashes, all less than nothing, because he was her brother. He’d taken her heart, he’d made her love him, and that beautiful, wonderful boy, who should have been her son, and now he was gone, too, the dream as trampled and soiled as her heart. Now her heart was a crushed and blackened ruin, forever sullied because of what she’d done, and yet… and yet…
She trembled as conflicting emotions battled inside her; part of her wanted to believe this was all some weird hallucination, and it would somehow all suddenly melt away, while another part of her was revolted to its very core, memories of what she and Joey… her… brother, had done echoing and trampling around inside her; and yet another part of her wanted to say that it didn’t matter, that she still loved him, that she wanted him, and their son, and it all be perfect again and not the nightmare it had all become…
As she wavered, Roisian stepped forward, and gently took Joe from her, passing him to Kat, and reaching out to her, her expression compassionate.
“Luna, as soon as I saw you I knew, I have another granddaughter, and she’s a beautiful, smart girl. Please, honey, sit down, let me explain. I know this is a lot to take in, but we’re not monsters, just family, and you’re my family, you’re my granddaughter, and I wouldn’t do anything in the world to hurt you, I swear!”
She made to embrace her, but Luna leaned away from her, her expression anything but understanding.
“If you want to help me, get me away from this… all this.. whatever ‘this’ is!” she grated through clenched teeth, “All you people… perverts, oh my God…” she trailed off, holding her hands to her face to shut out the sight of all those deviants staring at her. Roisian looked helplessly at Sarah, who nodded, and so Roisian gently led the trembling girl to her car, and drove away.
*
CHAPTER 4: And you will know the truth; and the truth will set you free – John 8:32
Joey watched, paralyzed, as his grandmother drove away, his hands clenching and unclenching by his sides as his world collapsed. Now he felt the truth of Sarah’s words; even if he hadn’t known that Dolan was her father, he’d still kept the truth from Luna; he hadn’t been honest with her, and now she’d found out, in the worst possible way, and she was gone.
Casey and Robbie sat in silence; Casey’s head was whirling, but underneath it pulsed deep concern and fear for her big brother, the fear she’d thought she could finally put aside. Luna was Steve Dolan’s daughter, which meant she was… she was her little sister, and even worse, she was Joey’s little sister too; how the fuck did this all happen, and more to the point, how the fuck were they supposed to make it come right again?
Sarah took Joey’s arm and turned him to face her, alarm bubbling inside her as she saw that apathy and deadness slowly building again; he was sliding back already; Luna had been his hold on reality and normality, a promise of a return to a life of happiness, and now…
He looked into her eyes, pain and guilt welling-up in his own eyes.
“You were right, Ma, I should have told her back in Springfield. I should have let her know who we were… who I was, before I ever… now she’s gone. What do I do, Ma?”
“You go find her, meathead, that’s what you do!” rumbled Robbie’s voice in his ear. “Anyone can see she’s crazy about you, and she should be here; she’s one of us, too, so what are you waiting for?”
Joey glanced at Casey, who nodded in agreement.
“Go to her, baby,” said Casey, “Robbie’s right, go find her, and tell her everything; she has to know it all. It’s your only chance to make this right. Just trust her, baby, she needs you too, and you need to be there to remind her of that!”
Joey looked at Sarah, and she slowly nodded.
“Go find her, baby; go find her, talk to her, and bring her back to her family. You have to make this right with her; you have to make her see who you are. She did once; make her see you again.”
Just then the twins came in carrying pizzas, making their usual amount of noise and fuss, and stopped dead, sensing immediately that something was wrong, their eyes tracking from their mother, to Sarah, to Joey and back again.
“What, what’d we miss?” asked Morag, her sister a split second behind her.
“Not now, babies, later,” stated Robbie. “Joey’s got to leave, keys, please.”
The girls silently handed Joey his key fob, exchanging a long glance and a quick burst of muttered ‘twin’, the gibberish that only they understood, but saying nothing more as Joey hugged little Joe and strode from the room. A moment later, the throb of his car engine rumbled through the house, and then he, too, was gone.
*
When he arrived back at Daly City, after a frustrating, seemingly endless tussle with the Saturday traffic in downtown Sunnyvale, the house was silent; there was no sign of Luna, no sense of her presence, and, a sudden foreboding gripping him, he checked in the bedroom; her closet was empty, and her flight bags were gone; she really was gone. Joey tried ringing her cell, but it just rang-out, and ringing his grandmother’s cell was equally fruitless. He didn’t know what else to do; there seemed nothing he could do, and so he sat, while the afternoon light dimmed and evening shade closed in.
The light slowly faded, twilight shrouding him, and still he sat, immobile, endlessly replaying what he’d done, trying to work out a way to undo it all, to have it not happen, to give himself a chance to do it over, and do it right, and then came the thing he wanted hear most of all: keys in the lock, and the front door opening. He looked up in wild hope as footsteps sounded in the hall, and then the door swung open, but it was only his grandmother, and she was alone.
“Gramma, where…?” he began, but she shook her head.
“Baby, I’m sorry, I couldn’t get her to stay; she had to leave, so I took her to the airport. She’s gone home, baby, I tried to convince her to stay, I’m sorry…”
“What do I do, Gramma, if she’s gone..?” he choked.
The look Joey turned on her melted her heart; all she wanted to do was to hold him, comfort him, tell him it was all going to be okay again; instead she did the only thing she could think of to wipe that lost, hopeless look from his face and shake those tears from his eyes. In two steps she was at his side, her hand reaching out to grasp his ear and haul his face up to hers.
“What do you do, Joseph Anderson? You get off your ass and you go get her, that’s what you do! Do you think your granddaddy Martin would have sat around moping for one instant over something like this? No, he wouldn’t. He’d get off his ass and fix it! I hope he’s not watching you now; a fine spectacle you’re making of yourself! I loved your granddaddy; he was the best man I knew, and I had to smile and look happy when he married someone else, because he loved her more than he could ever love me. He was true to his heart; now you have to be true to yours. You’ve got to fix this, and fix it now; I just hope you have one hundredth of the backbone he did, because you’re all I have left of him. Don’t you dare let him down!”
Joey looked at her in shock; she’d never spoken to him like that before, and it jarred him deeply.