Charmed, I shake my head. “No, I didn’t know that.”
“We did.” Her eyelids gently close, then squeeze tightly shut as she smiles and sways just a little. Coming back to us, she sighs, “I miss him so.”
Michael reaches over the table to touch his mother’s hand. She gives him a pat on a loving but sad smile. “He was a good man, Mom.”
“He was an imperfect man!” she corrects her son, tapping his hand before returning to her sandwich. “But yes he was good. He was so many things, and that’s what made him my Jerald. Nancy, honey, would you mind pouring me some of that wonderful ginger-ale of yours? Thank you!” May Cocker looks at me, and I can see the years washing away from her. “My Jerald was the light of my life. I was lucky to have known him, to have felt the strength that came from his character and from his heart. I knew when I met him that he was meant to be mine.” Leaning forward a little she asks, “But you know true love must be fought for, don’t you? Don’t you? It’s a miracle and must be treated as such.”
Quieted, I nod.
As lunch progresses, the Cockers tell me about their sons, and they spend extra time talking about Jeremy, Nicholas’s father. I learn that he’s the only one who followed in Jerald Cocker’s military footsteps. The pride they have when they speak of him is something to behold.
When Nicholas arrives with his brothers and Matthew, I feel like I know him a little better. He’s strolling down the steps with a bounce in his, and I gaze at him without even hiding my adoration.
“Grams!” he grins, so handsome he takes my breath away. “What d’ya think of my girlfriend?”
“She’s a delight, Nicholas, and this figure!”
“Fucking sexy, right?”
At the same time she shouts with his brothers, “Language!”
A little quieter, and with a smile in her eyes she repeats, “Language, Nicholas!”
Mr. Cocker shakes his head and Nancy Cocker covers her face with her hand, sighing. “I swear.”
“Actually, I swore,” Nicholas laughs, reaching for a sandwich and sitting down next to me.
His brothers keenly eye me as they help themselves, too. We only had a few minutes to talk before they all headed off.
Matthew snatches up a turkey sandwich and takes a seat by May. “Grams, when are you going to marry me?”
Patting his arm she reminds him, “I’m already married.”
“I missed my chance then. You excited about Sofia’s wedding next week?”
“I think of all of my great-grandchildren, her wedding is the one I look forward to the most. All that leather!”
“Grams!” Wyatt and Nathan laugh, while Michael Cocker rolls his eyes.
Nicholas leans over to kiss my cheek. “How’re you doing?”
“Great. We’ve had a nice lunch and I learned a little about your great-grandfather, Jerald.” Scanning his face I ask, “How’d it go?”
Grandma Nance asks, “Yes, Nicholas, what happened?”
Taking a bite with a grin on his face, he chews while we all wait. “Let’s just say the rumor mill is spinning around him now.”
CHAPTER 40
M ADISON
We’re in South Vacherie, Louisiana at the Ciphers’s plantation, a property they’ve kept in its dilapidated state out of respect to the days gone by when slavery still existed. They don’t want to wash away the horrors of our nation’s past. I’ve been told it’s their mission to remember it so that the atrocity never happens again.
Nicholas explained to me that the Ciphers travel the states fighting for the innocent and taking down evil wherever they find it. That could range anywhere from human trafficking to a lone rapist terrorizing a community—and everything in between. They do what the police cannot, and stop the cycle.
“So, they’re heroes,” Denise said to him.
“Pretty much,” Nicholas proudly replied.
Their gang lives here together in this old mansion with its ghostlike furniture and enormous paintings of people no longer living and of no relation to them.
The Ciphers exist as a modern family, sharing a communal living space, raising their children to fight so that they will join the battle and help those who cannot help themselves.
I’m in awe of that, because all of the grown-up children I’ve met so far here, are powerful people. Nothing like how I was raised.
I wish I knew how to fight.
I’d have taken Mr. Schweis out myself—and he never would have tried that shit with another woman again.
Nicholas’s cousin Sofia is the sole child of Jett Cocker, President of the Ciphers and son of Nancy and Michael. Jett was originally named after Jerald, Michael’s father and May’s deceased husband who I recently learned about.
But like society’s rules, a birth certificate could not confine this man.
The younger Jerald changed his name to a more fitting “Jett” when he joined this club. It was a point of major contention for decades between father and son. Michael helped pass laws in Washington and his rebellious offspring broke them.
And I bet he did it with the smirk he had on his handsome face today, when Nicholas introduced me to his biker uncle.
I only got a glimpse of the long war between the ex-Congressman and his son, Jett, from a few stories Nicholas shared with us on the ride here…but the described finale of their feud cracked my heart wide open.
The Ciphers are an amazing group of tamed animals. They talk loudly, joke at each other’s expense constantly, and laugh with all of themselves.
The Cockers, by comparison, are mild.
So as we sit here on foldout chairs amid rows of both families under twinkle lights and mystery, it’s fucking hilarious to see the collective and unexpected reaction to what Sofia just did.
She crassly swore, very loudly to Grams, and when she did, almost the entire Cocker Family shouted along with Grams, “Language!”
It was this cacophony of reproach said all in good fun.
The Ciphers, however, in their leather-accessorized suits, dresses and motorcycle boots, were and are still, appalled.
Shocked.
Speechless.
Dumbstruck.
Even embarrassed.
Which makes the Cockers laugh
