Cyril in the Flesh

by Ramsey Hootman

  “Yeah. Okay.” It was so much easier to say no, from behind the safety of a keyboard. He didn’t have to look her in the eye. “I’ll do it.”

  She swallows and nods. They can hear the kids pounding back into the living room. When she speaks again, her voice is low. “But don’t use the c-word, okay? Just tell them I’m gonna have surgery.”

  “Chica, I swear to God—”

  “I’m not even staged yet, okay? They won’t know how bad it is until they cut my uterus out and look. It could be basically nothing.”

  “I know shit about cancer,” he hisses. “And even I know having it show up somewhere else in your body is bad fucking news.”

  And then she’s crying. Again. Her hands hang limply at her sides, not even bothering to attempt staunching her tears. They just fall.

  “No—Jesus.” He gathers her into his arms. She used to be tougher than this. Or angrier. “I’ll do it. Okay? However you want.” Whatever she wants. As long as she stops crying. God.

  “Cyril, I just—” She hiccoughs. “I’m just so tired of having to be strong.”

  “I know. I know.” He sighs. “Look, don’t worry about the kids. Okay? You take care of you. I’ll take care of them. Let’s just—” He takes her shoulders and stands her upright. “Get this goddamn piano into the house.”

  She manages a broken smile. “Will you play me a song?”

  He puts his shoulder to the back of the piano and waits for her to take the front. “I will play you a fucking concerto.”

  She checks the wheels and the angle to the door. “Okay. We’re good. One, two—”

  Even on the dolly, the damn thing weighs a ton. “Jesus Christ,” he grunts.

  “See? Now you’re glad I built the ramp.”

  Chapter 11

  Cyril regrets his impulsive promise the instant he tries—and fails—to broach the subject of surgery with Seth. All he wanted was to stop Robin’s tears, but the prospect of facing the children’s is even less desirable. He gets why she doesn’t want to be the bearer of bad news yet again, but the thing is, that’s her problem, not his. He tells her as much on his fifth trip up the hill, hauling the plywood they’d cut the day before.

  “You made a promise, asshole.” She grips the top edge of the plywood and hoists it up to her perch on the scaffolding. Then she digs a hand into her toolbelt and chucks her keys in his direction. They land at his feet. “Pick them up. The kids, I mean. Don’t come home until it’s done.”

  “You really want me to fuck up your kids? Because I’m gonna fuck this up.”

  “No, you’re not.” Her grin is knowing, because she knows her kids are the one gaping vulnerability in his system.

  He never fell for exploits like this sitting behind a screen. Or if he did, Tavis was the one who had to follow through. “This is bullshit.” Nevertheless, he grips the scaffolding and bends to retrieve the keys before stalking off.

  He’s ridden shotgun in Robin’s truck half a dozen times since he got out, but this is the first he’s been behind the wheel. The drive through neighborhood streets to Greta’s house, glancing down at the map on his phone, feels awkward and slow. His foot comes down heavy on the brake, and the truck jerks to a halt by the curb.

  He’s feeling for the button to release the seatbelt when the kids burst out the door and down the front steps. Greta appears only long enough to offer a nod and shut the door, which suits him just fine. She doesn’t want to talk to him any more than he wants to talk to her.

  It’s been unseasonably warm since dawn, but when the kids open the passenger door a breath of hot wind gusts in like a furnace. Fire weather. “Holy crap.” He reaches over the console and grabs the loop on the back of Nora’s backpack, using it to help yank her up and into the cab. “Get in, guys, come on.”

  Seth follows, turning to wrestle the door shut with both hands. “Where’s mom?”

  “At home. She’s fine, just busy working.” Except she isn’t fine, is she? And Seth’s question is not simple curiosity, but the insecurity of a child who knows all too well that nothing in life—not his dad, not his grandmother, not even his mom—is guaranteed. “We’re going—well, I was gonna take you guys to the park, but—”

  “Yeah!” they chorus, as one.

  “Guys, you’ll have to wear your masks, and it’s like a furnace out—”

  “So?” Nora challenges.

  “Okay. Fine.”

  He imagines he’ll sit and supervise from the truck, AC blowing in his face, and once they’ve exhausted themselves, he’ll go through the McDonald’s drive-through and get them soft serve and they’ll park somewhere shady and... talk it out. Or something.

  What he ends up doing is spinning Nora on the giant tree-shaped merry-go-round before begging off to retreat to a picnic table under the trees, partially protected from both sun and wind. After half a day hauling plywood (“OSB,” Robin had corrected) up the hill, the muscles in his back are staging a collective revolt, and now he’s covered in sweat and a layer of fine dust kicked up by the wind. But Nora is persistent and, like her mother, impossible to refuse. At least the park is deserted, thanks to the weather, so they don’t have to suffocate under masks, too.

  Seth requests the keys to the truck—“What, you gonna take it for a spin?”—and returns with a plastic water bottle. He holds it out. “Here.”

  Nothing makes Cyril feel more like the piece of shit he is than the simple kindness of this child. In the time after Tav’s death, Cyril enjoyed playing the hero the boy imagined him to be. Now, knowing what he’s about to do to the kid, it’s torture. Which is to say, exactly what he deserves. Is that why Robin has delegated this thankless task to him? “Thanks,” he grunts. He cranks off the cap and chugs.

  Seth stands there, watching. Then he takes a seat on the bench, facing outward with knees spread, mirroring Cyril.

  “Oh, come on. You’re nine.” He gestures to Nora, now dashing up to the top of a slide. “Don’t tell me you’re already too cool for the park.”

  The boy wipes sandy grit out of the corners of his eyes. “You don’t have to tell me.”

  “What?” Shit, had he overheard? That’ll make his job a lot easier.

  “I’m not stupid.” His eyes grow dark. “You’re leaving.”

  “Kid, I—” Cyril grabs Seth’s arm the instant he bolts. Every muscle in his wiry little body is coiled tight.

  “I knew you would,” Seth says, hurling the words like shards of broken pottery.

  “No,” Cyril says, more sharply than he intends. “Hold on, kid. Just—siddown for a minute, will you?” He yanks Seth back, forcing him to plant his butt on the picnic table bench, and holds him there until his shoulders slump. “I’m not going anywhere. It’s—” Jesus. If only it were as simple as that. “It’s your mom.”

  Seth rubs his arm, not looking at him, taking a minute to absorb this information. He seems to fold in upon himself, growing suddenly smaller and more fragile. When he looks up at Cyril, tears fall in silent rivulets down his cheeks. “Is she gonna die?” he whispers.

  Robin’s mortality is not a thing Cyril has allowed himself to contemplate. But Seth has loosed the word into the world, and now he must answer. “Look,” he starts, but the words desert him. He rubs the stubble on his face. “Shit.” He glances at Seth. The pale outlines of his fingers still linger on the kid’s biceps. “Sorry for—” He gestures. “Sorry if I hurt your arm.”

  Seth chews his lip. “It’s okay.”

  Cyril sighs. “Your mom’s not gonna—I mean, shit, kid, nobody lives forever. And I can’t see the future. But as far as I know, she’s not gonna—” Jesus. He can’t even say it. “She’s not going anywhere soon, okay?”

  Seth nods, but his face doesn’t look like he believes it.

  “She needs surgery to take out her, uh, uterus. Do you know what—”

  He nods again.

  Well, at least Cyril doesn’t have to explain all this and the birds and the bees. “Yeah. So. They don’t
know exactly what’s up, but I guess they’re gonna take it out and have a look inside. Okay?”

  Seth swallows hard. Then he nods. “When?”

  “Wednesday. And, uh.” He shifts. “I guess the silver lining is, I’m gonna keep crashing on your couch for now. Okay? For as long as your mom needs me.”

  Seth looks at the ground between his feet, rubbing his arm as he turns this information over in his mind. Finally, he lifts his head. “So... as long as she’s sick, you’ll stay?”

  Even the nicest kids are egomaniacs. “How about we worry about what’s in front of us right now? I want your mom to get better. I know you do, too. So let’s help her do that and let the future worry about itself.” He nudges the kid’s shoulder. “Hm?”

  Seth looks uncertain, but he nods.

  “Good.” One kid down, one to go. God, this is exhausting. He glances up to locate Nora and realizes, with a jolt of belated alarm, that he hasn’t had visual contact with her since he started talking to Seth. Two kids are four times as complicated as one. “Shit. Where’s your—oh.” Nora dashes out of a tunnel made from old tires, a burrow that leads under the play structure, and heads for the climbing wall on the far side. “Kid!” Cyril raises a hand and motions for her to come. She gives him a pouting scowl, but hops her way to the edge of the wood chips and skips over to the bench.

  “What are you gonna give me?” she demands.

  “Excuse me?”

  She puts her hands on her hips. “What’s my snack?”

  “I dunno,” he says, “what did you bring?”

  She looks outraged. “Nothing! That’s your job!”

  He snorts. “That’s news to me.” He pats the pockets of this sweatpants on the off chance he’s forgotten a piece of candy or granola bar. “Sorry, kid. I got nothing. We can go grab a slurpee or something if you want.”

  She brightens immediately. “Yeah! That’s what I was aspecting!”

  “Super. How much money you got?”

  Seth rolls his eyes. Nora totters somewhere between fury and tears. “I don’t have any money!” she says, her voice whining upward in both pitch and volume. “I’m a kid!”

  “Okay, okay. Chill.” Cyril had only meant to tease her, not to get her all worked up before he’d even broken the news about her mom. He gives her a brief side-squeeze. “I’m just giving you a hard time. We’ll get a snack in a minute, but we need to have a little talk, first.”

  “Mom’s sick,” Seth announces.

  “I know,” Nora shoots back.

  “No you don’t!” Seth retorts, anger flaring like a match. “I just told you!”

  Cyril brings an arm down between them. “Cool it, guys. Seth, just—let me do the talking for a minute.” He sucks in a breath. “Nora, what we mean is that your mom is going to have to go back to the hospital for a little while. On Wednesday.” He holds up two fingers. “Two days from now.”

  She blinks at him. And then, suddenly, it seems to register. “Do we get to stay at Ms. Greta’s?”

  “I—no, you’ll be at home with me. I think your mom might have to go alone, because of COVID. Or maybe Greta’s going with her. I don’t know. We can ask.”

  “Oh.” She thinks this over a moment. “Ms. Greta has ice cream,” she says.

  He laughs. “We can have ice cream, too.”

  “Right now?”

  “No, not—I mean—” Jesus Christ. “If you wanna get ice cream right now, we can do that. My treat. Or slurpees. But you gotta choose one.”

  She eyes him for a long moment, and he has the feeling she’s contemplating whether crying might advance her agenda. Finally, she nods, pivots, and starts towards the truck. Seth dashes after her, not to be outrun by his little sister.

  Cyril digs the key out of his pocket and hits the unlock button on the truck so they don’t have to stand and wait in the wind while he heaves himself to his feet. They’re climbing into the extended cab via the passenger side when he catches up.

  “But I wanna go to Ms. Greta’s,” he hears Nora say, from inside.

  “Trust me,” Seth returns. “This is way better.”

  Cyril feels flattered for the half-second before Seth adds, “We’ll get to play so much Minecraft!”

  When Cyril lets the kids in the front door, Robin is sitting at the piano bench, a spray can of furniture polish in one hand. She opens her mouth, presumably to greet them, but all that comes out is a stuttering laugh.

  “We got ice cream!” Seth informs her, helpfully. His shirt is streaked cotton candy blue.

  “We got some for you!” Nora chimes in, offering her mother a very chocolate grin.

  Cyril holds out a pint of mint chocolate chip. Her favorite.

  “Uh—thanks.” She rises, setting the polish and an old sock on the end table next to the couch. “Put it in the freezer, will you? I’ll get these creatures into the shower. Wait.” She presses two fingers to her forehead. “I feel like I’m forgetting something. Is it a martial arts night?”

  “Yep.” Cyril is not bad at this—the ordinary things. He can cook and clean and keep the kids’ schedules straight in his head without effort. Systems and information are easy. People... well, they’re easy too, so long as he doesn’t care whether they hate him or not. He pulls his phone out. “Forty-five minutes.”

  She exhales. “Plenty of time. Into the shower, guys.” She herds them into the hall, leveling a a finger at Seth as he begins to whine. “Both of you.”

  Cyril puts the ice cream away and then returns to the piano, which now gleams with a low luster. He touches a key—still out of tune—and then lifts the lid, finding a tuning hammer and a couple mutes clipped against the right inside panel. Robin might not care about the piano’s practical function, but someone else certainly had. A careful application of force and a couple of bumps gets the front board free, and Cyril settles himself on the bench and begins to adjust the strings by ear. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than nothing.

  He’s about five notes into the midrange when he hears the kids bounding from the bathroom to the bedroom and then into the closet, on the other side of the wall at his back. A moment later, Robin joins him, sighing as she leans an elbow on the edge of the open piano top.

  “I don’t suppose they’re hungry for dinner now,” she says.

  “That wasn’t part of the deal.”

  “It’s fine. I have to be a hard ass all the time, and Greta’s more of a strict auntie. They need someone fun in their lives.” She peers over the edge of the lid, watching as he hits F, bumps the hammer, hits F, bumps the hammer. “Where did you learn to do this?”

  He contemplates a lie, then shrugs and offers the truth. “My mother was a piano tuner.”

  “Oh,” she says, with a tinge of surprise. “I never knew that.”

  “No reason you should.” No reason he’d ever voluntarily revisit all the summers he’d had to tag along with her, first because she couldn’t afford childcare after his father took off and then because he never knew when she was going to have a breakdown and it was easier just to do her goddamn job for her than deal with the inevitable gossip. Not that it didn’t happen anyway, but it was slightly easier to live down if it didn’t happen in the middle of some client’s living room.

  “That sounds like a fun job,” Robin muses. “Getting to see the inside of everyone else’s houses.”

  Of course she would see it that way. All he remembers is the awkward stares from classmates asking “Mommy, what is he doing in our house?” The relief he felt when the list of the day’s appointments contained only elderly widows. “So, I talked to the kids.”

  Robin gives him a quizzical look, then accepts the subject change with the arch of an eyebrow. “And?”

  He pops the hammer off the pin and moves it to G, adjusting the mutes to damp two of the three strings. “Well, Nora’s mainly concerned with what she’s gonna get out of it.”

  “My little psychopath.” Robin shakes her head. “This is all just her normal, unfortunate
ly. Seth?”

  “Yeah, he’s pretty sure you’re gonna die.”

  “You didn’t—”

  “Jesus, of course not.”

  “I told him you don’t know how bad it is yet. Which—” He glances up. “Is the truth. Right?”

  She blows her cheeks out with a breath. “I mean, they caught it early. My chances are good. For a metastasis. I guess.” She runs a hand over her head. “Fuck.”

  “What are you guys doing?”

  Robin straightens and turns. Nora stops between them, dressed in her little white gi, blinking curiously at the piano’s guts.

  “I’m tuning the piano,” Cyril says, playing the G and bumping the hammer to demonstrate.

  “Oh,” she says, roundly, watching over her mother’s shoulder as Robin kneels to knot the ties on her uniform pants and jacket. “So the music doesn’t hurt.”

  He raises an eyebrow. Seth would not have noticed. But hurt? “Yeah. Exactly. Here. See this section?” He marks out the middle third. “Each note on the keyboard has three strings. And each of those strings has to be tightened until it’s just right.”

  “Why?”

  Robin presses her palm to his shoulder, briefly. “I’m gonna check on Seth.” He nods and she disappears into the back of the house.

  “Why? Hm. Okay, let’s see.” He looks around the room for something string-like. His eyes land on the tie of her gi pants, which won’t be useful, but the shoestring tie on his own sweatpants isn’t exactly getting any use. He fumbles under his stomach until he finds one loose end and pulls. It slides out. He stretches a three-foot section until it’s taut. “Pluck that. Like you’re playing a guitar.”

  Nora hooks an index finger over the string and pulls back, releasing it with a low, muffled twang.

  “There,” he says. “See how it goes back and forth?” He lets the string hang vertically and wiggles it back and forth, sending waves rippling down. “Like this, but faster. See the vibrations?” He swings the string in a slower arc, increasing the length of the waves. “This is how the piano—how sound—works. Shorter waves are higher notes, like your voice.” He lets his voice dip down into his lowest range. “Longer waves, lower notes.” He points to the open piano. “That’s all this is. All you gotta do is get all the waves at the right lengths.”