“Me, too,” he whispered, flipping open his wallet again to pull out a faded picture. Passing it to her, he nodded down at the often handled photograph. “That was Vanessa. She was gorgeous, wasn’t she?”
Handling the snapshot with care, Harmony stared down at the smiling teenager in the picture. “Yes, she was. She has your eyes,” she noted, carefully passing the photo back to him.
“She had my temper, too. The girl could cuss like a soldier on leave when she got riled. I once saw her tree a guy she was dating just with a look,” he chuckled, gazing at the picture for a few seconds before slipping it back into his wallet and reaching for Harmony’s hand again. This time, she didn’t resist and allowed him to lace his fingers through hers.
“She sounds like quite a girl,” Harmony returned quietly.
“She was,” Jacob affirmed with a slow nod. “Quite a girl. Until…” He trailed off, his own eyes staring off into the distance as memories of Nessa played through his mind like a movie on fast forward.
“What happened to her, Jake?” Harmony prodded gently, squeezing his hand to bring him back to her.
Licking his lips, he shook his head. “Life happened. After I left, Nessa went wild. Drinking, partying, men, drugs, you name it. I think she tried it all. See, I’d run from the memories of our family, but she was stuck there with hers. So, she found a different way to escape.”
Listening as Jake’s voice took on a jagged edge, Harmony waited.
“Nessa graduated college by the skin of her teeth, but after that, Mom lost what little control she had of her. I was gone, and mom was dealing with losing Dad. Nessa was more’n she could handle. She got so deep into booze and drugs that Mom had to ask her to leave. Strange men were showing up at the house at all hours of the day and night, and these fellas were not the kind that a mother just asked into the house. They were rough and scary. They were not what mom wanted for Ness, but she was a stubborn little shit. After one of ‘em broke in on Mom while she was alone and terrified the crap out of her, she made Nessa choose. Her lifestyle or her family. My sister chose wrong.”
“She was young, Jake. Girls do stupid things when they’re that age- especially when they’re grieving,” Harmony pointed out carefully. “You can’t hold yourself responsible for that,” she added, knowing the whole time she spoke that he did and he probably always would.
“Wouldn’t have happened if I’d been there. None of it would.”
“You don’t know that,” Harmony denied, shivering slightly as a burst of wind rustled the dry leaves on the ground.
“I do, and I’ve got to live with that. At any rate, Nessa’s taste in men only got worse after she moved out of mom’s house. She hooked up with a mid-level thug in Atlanta by the name of Diego Fuentes.”
That name struck Harmony, but she didn’t have time to think about it because Jake was continuing with his story.
“Fuentes was a just a pusher then, but his father ran a cartel out of Mexico. That kind of power was like an aphrodisiac to a young woman from a small town outside Atlanta. Diego wrapped my sister up in the best designer labels and jewelry, put the best booze in her hand, and shoved the very best coke he could provide up her nose. What he didn’t do was monitor her consumption of it. She OD’d on his bathroom floor in his penthouse. All alone.”
Harmony gasped. “Jacob…”
“She died all alone. Fuentes didn’t even find her until the next day,” Jacob whispered, his face hardening as he continued to speak. “I’ll never forget getting the news. I’d just walked out of the mess tent and saw my First Sergeant walking toward me. I spotted the Red Cross message in his hand and remember going solid. I knew what it was – what it meant. I’d seen enough of the other guys get ‘em while I was over there. I just assumed it was my mother,” he whispered. “I never expected it to be Vanessa. I told the guy he had to be wrong. I’m pretty sure I took a swing at him. Luckily, he was a decent guy and let it go. Some of my friends got to me… locked me down until the shock wore off. Before that day, I’d killed men, Harmony, but I’d never wanted to kill one. After that, I knew what it was like to actually want somebody dead because I wanted to watch Diego Fuentes burn. I still do.”
Pausing for a minute, Jake inhaled the frigid air, letting the burn soothe his nerves. After a while, he continued, “Nessa’s funeral was the first time I went home after signing up with the Army. We buried her on a Saturday afternoon...just Mom and me. Do you know who wasn’t there to say goodbye to her? Fucking Fuentes.”