This holiday visit with Shannon and Will contains spoilers from The Walsh Family books including Missing In Action. This moment takes place 17 years after the end of The Cornerstone/15 years after the end of Thresholds.
~~
I leaned in the doorway to the basement sparring ring, arms crossed over my chest.
Will pointed to the mat. “Again.”
“I don’t want to,” my oldest daughter whined.
“You know the rules,” he said.
“But it’s winter break.” She stomped a foot. “I’m allowed to have a day off from training.”
“You have plenty of days off.” He tossed a wicked looking dagger in the air, caught it by the tip. I still didn’t understand how he did that without slicing a finger off though I was content leaving that as one of the last great mysteries of our marriage. “More days that I ever got when I was your age.”
“Okay but you were training to go to Navy SEAL college,” she said.
Another flip of the dagger. “You are aware that’s not what it’s called.”
“I don’t care what it’s called,” she wailed with another stomp. “I’m not going to SEAL college. I’m going to be an attorney like Mom so I don’t need to waste my entire winter break practicing what to do if someone held a knife to my throat.”
“Sweetheart, you don’t need this to a SEAL. You need it to be a young woman in this world.”
“Dad, oh my god, what is actually wrong with you? No one is going to pull a knife on me!”
He pointed at her with the handle of the dagger. “This is the deal you made, Abigael. You want to go away for college, you have to prove to me you can handle yourself first. If you don’t want to put in the time with me, you can stay at home and commute to a school in the city. That’s what your mother did. Worked out pretty well for her, didn’t it?”
She shoved her hands through her long blonde hair and yelled, “You are ruining my life!”
“Maybe I am.” He shrugged. I knew he was aiming for indifference. The muscle pulsing in his jaw told me there was nothing further from the truth. “But at least you’ll be alive.”
They stared at each other for a long, tense moment. I knew they hadn’t noticed me because one of them—probably Abby—would’ve dragged me in the middle to mediate. As much as I loved having both my husband and first born pissed at me, it was better to let them sort these things out on their own.
With the exception of putting up with Will’s battle readiness requirements, Abby was a really good kid. She played varsity field hockey, worked extremely hard at school even though it didn’t always come easy to her, earned a tidy profit from her dog-walking and pet-sitting business, and rarely complained about driving her sisters around.
We knew we got lucky with Abby.
Annabelle—or Annahell, as Amalia liked to call her—reminded us of it every damn day.
But I had to intervene today. My mother-in-law Judy had a tradition of baking a fuckton of cookies every Christmas. Some of them went toward Lauren’s holiday cookie swap party, others were simply for the pleasure of a Christmas cookie. But she couldn’t do this without a small army of helpers. Usually, my girls jumped at the chance to help their grandmother.
Except Amalia and Adeline were out at holiday parties today—separately, of course, it was unfathomable for the almost fourteen-year-old and twelve-year-old to be caught dead together—and Annabelle was at The Nutcracker with Uncle Wes and Uncle Tom.
Adding to this crisis was my sweet, precious father-in-law. The original dagger-wielding dad. The Commodore had knee replacement surgery about a month ago which was precisely the amount of time necessary to have him climbing the walls with boredom and strong enough to actually attempt it. He wasn’t allowed to drive yet, he’d exhausted Judy’s patience for the day before breakfast, and he claimed he needed to go out to do some shopping.
Abby was the only one left to sacrifice to the grandparents.
“Hey, you two,” I called, strolling in as if I hadn’t caught the last half of this debate.
“Mom, can you please tell Dad that I don’t need to spend all day practicing how to take down special forces street fighters? Because he doesn’t seem to think I’m allowed to have a life or friends or even go to college if it’s not literally in the backyard.”
Will met my gaze, his brows pitched high. I could almost hear him saying There’s no way in hell I’m letting her leave unless I know she’ll be safe.
I held up a hand to him. Calm yourself, Commando. She can smell fear.
A year and a half stood between us and Abby’s high school graduation. She had her heart set on Berkeley, all the way out in California, and she just didn’t understand that her father didn’t know how to let her go.
So, he did the only thing he could which was train her to take out assassins.
I couldn’t say I was doing much better with the prospect of sending my sweet tiny baby to live on the other side of the country but my stress manifested itself as teaching her how to write the kind of strongly worded email that made sure people knew she wasn’t one to fuck around with.
We all had our skill sets here.
“Just imagine the stories you’ll be able to tell about the military training facility in your basement,” I said. “Not everyone grows up with that sort of thing.”
She gaped at me like I’d said she grew up eating paint chips.
“The reason I came down here,” I said, stepping between them, “is that I need some help with a few projects.”
“Me! Please!” Abby bounced in front of me, her hand raised. “I’ll do anything.”
“First, Grandma is baking—”
“Not until we’re finished here,” Will cut in.
I gave him you’ve got to be kidding me eyes. When he didn’t relent, I said, “Grandma needs some help. She’s making a bunch of different cookies this year and she’s all by herself until Dave and Madeleine get here at four.”
“You tell Judy she’ll just have to wait until we’re done,” Will said.
“You go right ahead and say that to your mother. I’d just like to be there to watch,” I said.
He scratched his temple with the butt of the dagger. “Shannon. Please.”
“Also, the Commodore is looking for a ride. He has some shopping to do.” I glanced between my husband, back to flipping the blade, and my daughter who was still hopping and shrieking to me released from this dungeon. “I have five contracts to review today and three others waiting to be sent off, so I can’t be the happy holiday helper. Everyone else is out of the house for the day. I need you two to divide and conquer.”
Will blew out a breath. “And none of this can wait another half hour?”
I crossed my arms and leveled my most impatient glare on this hard-headed man of mine. “Are you seriously telling me you can’t wrap this up in five minutes? To make my day easier? To help your parents? You know your mother has a hard time scooping all those cookies. And god help us all if your father comes across an icy patch and fucks up that knee all over again.”
He stared at me and I knew there would be a conversation in our bedroom tonight. Of course, it would start that way and end quite differently but that was how it went with us. We fought. We argued. We dug deep in our positions and stayed there until—well, until someone ripped the crotch out of my tights.
It couldn’t be helped.
With one last warning gaze from my husband, he beckoned to Abby. “Disarm me and you’re done for the day.” He brought the dagger to her throat as any good parent would. “If you can’t—”
In a series of rapid moves, Abby stomped his foot, elbowed his side, and jabbed at his forearm. Somehow, she managed to get the blade away from him and throw it across the room to land square in the chest of a sparring mannequin.
“I’m going to take Grandpa to do his shopping. I’ll help Grandma after that. Ask her to save the peanut butter kisses for me,” she said, walking away without a backward glance.
Will staggered back a few steps, blinking as his eyes watered. He ran a finger under his nose. It came away with a streak of blood. He sniffed, saying, “I hope you’re happy.”
“Generally, yeah, I am.” I crossed the mat-covered floor of the sparring ring to inspect the damage. It didn’t look broken but it would be a few hours before any bruising set in. “But especially when the sixteen-year-old kicks your ass.”
“I let her have that one.”
“Sure you did. You always end up bleeding when you let them win.” I ran a hand down his beard, mostly salt and pepper now. I liked it. I especially liked how my neighbors referred to him as the Silver Surfer these days. “You gotta let her breathe sometimes. Even when you don’t want to.”
He blotted his nose on the hem of his shirt and wrapped an arm around my waist. “I want her to be prepared. I want her to come home to us in one piece because the world is fucking horrible and she’s—she’s—”
“I know,” I said. “Believe me, I know. And I hate it. But locking her in the basement all day isn’t going to solve any of that.”
“I remember,” he started, his lips on my temple, “back when this was a storage closet and you wanted to organize it when you were nine months pregnant with Bells.”
I looped my arms around his waist. “I did nothing of the sort.”
“You were a fuckin’ terror. And then you went into labor on Christmas Day and didn’t bother to mention it to anyone.”
I dropped my forehead to his chest and let myself relax. “You found out eventually.”
After a long moment, he said, “She doesn’t even need me anymore.”
“Stop it. You’re being as dramatic as the teenagers now.”
“But she doesn’t,” he said. “You saw it. She disarmed me and killed that guy.” He jerked his chin toward the mannequin. “She used to hold my hand everywhere we went. She used to ask me to read the same goddamn storybook over and over until she fell asleep on my shoulder. I don’t remember giving her permission to grow up.”
“She still needs you. She’ll always need you. It just looks different than it used to. And it’s going to look different for Annabelle and then Amalia and Adeline.”
“You better be right about that, Peanut.”
“I am,” I said. “I’m always right.”
We stayed there for a few minutes, twined together and silent. “You weren’t right that Christmas you didn’t come to me in Mexico.”
“Will, it’s been almost twenty years. You gotta let it go.”
“Maybe next year.” He dropped both hands to my backside and boosted me up. “I fucking love you, you know.”
“I do know that.” I kissed the corner of his mouth. “And I fucking love you too.”
Read the book
