Cyril in the Flesh

by Ramsey Hootman

  Cyril nods at the kids. “They gonna be warm enough out there?”

  “Even if we’d brought their jackets in, they’d be off in ten minutes. Tav's kids run hot.” She shifts, wincing, and puts a hand to her stomach. “I need to sit down before I pop a stitch.”

  He nods to the café adjacent to the lobby. Its windows look out over one end of the rink, and in the back there’s a massive open fireplace with a few small flames licking at a single log. “There?”

  She gives him an appraising look, as if suspicious of an offer so obviously intended only for her benefit. “Maybe later.” She loops a hand through his arm and nods to the auditorium seating on the other side of the rink. “How about there?”

  “Yeah. Sure.” He could argue about the distance, but the longer they stand here the less time she spends sitting down. He walks her around the edge of the rink, past the windowed-off café. Robin takes it slow, but she seems otherwise all right.

  Three steps up separate the rink from the bleachers. “You’re not going to fit,” she realizes, looking at the antiquated theatre seats, each with fixed armrests.

  “No, but you will.” Which is the point.

  A little further down the side of the rink, there’s a wooden bench situated at ground level next to a square marked out for wheelchairs. “Over there,” she says.

  “Or we could go back to the café.”

  “So overprotective!” She sits on one end of the bench—carefully—and pats the empty space beside her. “I’ll admit I was not expecting that.”

  He sits. “Yeah, well, if you didn’t want me to be overprotective maybe don’t get your guts cut open.”

  “I’ll try to remember that next time I get cancer.”

  “Don’t—” He cuts himself off.

  “Don’t what? Say cancer?” She laughs and lifts her chin to shout: “Cancer, cancer, cancer!” The call echoes back and forth across the ice, rendered almost instantly incomprehensible. She shrugs. “It’s like Tav’s name. I used to have a hard time saying it, after he was gone, but I couldn’t avoid it, and after a while—well, you hear it often enough, and it kind of loses its power.” Seth staggers past, skates clacking loudly as he pushes his sister across the ice, and Robin lifts a hand to wave. Seth yells, but his words, too, fold back upon themselves. Robin gives him two thumbs up and nods. “At some point, you realize none of the words matter. We’re all just living on borrowed time.”

  A loud click sounds overhead, and then a disembodied voice: “Would my skaters like some music?”

  They look up, instinctively, and spot the little woman in an office window overlooking the rink from the second floor. She waves before reaching toward a desk filled with electronic equipment. The opening chords of the Peanuts Theme, rendered slightly scratchy by the sound system, blare out over the rink.

  Robin waves back, calling “Thank you!” though she must know she can’t be heard. A shudder rattles down her spine as she lowers her arm.

  “Café,” he says. “Now.”

  Before he can get to his feet, she grabs his hand, scoots in close, and pulls his arm around her shoulders like a heavy shawl. “There.”

  He sighs. “Chica, I don’t—”

  “Yeah. I know. Hush.”

  They watch the kids go around and around, apparently unaware that their solo skating status means they can crisscross the ice however they like. When the Peanuts Theme is finished playing, the loudspeakers continue to pipe in music from what he assumes, based on the lyrics and chipper voices, are winter-themed kids’ movies. After several rounds, Seth manages to pull Nora’s chair to a stop on the other side of the plexiglass divider and yells something they figure out, after several repetitions and some hand gestures, is “Take a picture!”

  Robin fishes her phone from her purse, taps on it, and hands it to Cyril.

  Seth and Nora strike goofy poses and demonstrate some fancy “moves” that can in no way be captured by a static image. Finally, he hands the phone back to Robin and waves them on.

  Robin flicks through the photos. He does not hear but feels her chuckle at a couple of the goofy poses. He has gone back to watching the kids, idly, when he realizes Robin is holding the phone out at arm’s length. “Smile!”

  “Wh—” The flash blinds him. “Jesus Christ.”

  She inspects the photo. “Wow, I look like shit.”

  “That’s your takeaway? You might have some kind of body dysmorphia.”

  “Yeah, and you would know.” Her laugh ends in a sigh. “A month from now I’ll only wish I felt this good.” She opens her cloud-based photo storage, using the dates on the sidebar to scroll back a couple of years. “Here.” She taps an image to enlarge it, then hands him the phone. “I think that’s the only photo I have of me from—uh, last time.”

  Even as short as her hair is now, Robin’s baldness is a shock. “Jesus,” he mutters. The smile she is forcing, in the photo, is made terrible by the pain in her eyes. “You’re a skeleton.” She’s in bed; not a hospital bed, but not one he recognizes, so probably a room in Greta’s house. The grandmotherly quilt on the bed supports this hypothesis. The kids, three years younger, sit on either side of their mother, clutching her as if she might slip away at any—“Fuck,” he whispers, pushing the phone back into her hand. “I can’t even fucking look at that.”

  “Well, I hate to tell you this, but in a couple weeks—”

  “That’s—different.” Mainly because it hasn’t happened yet, so he can still pretend it won’t.

  “It’s gonna be pretty bad, Cyril. But you know, the worst part? Was being alone.”

  “You had Greta, didn’t you?”

  “She’s not—” Robin sighs. “It was so soon after mom died, and, yeah, Greta’s wonderful. But she’s not—well, she’s just not my mom. You know? Mostly she was there for the kids. She has a huge heart for kids. And that was what I needed. To know they were safe and loved. But there was so much time where I was just... alone. There’s only so many books you can read.”

  He’s silent. He thinks of the million-and-one letters he composed and then discarded in his head, these past five years. The countless ways he’s tried and failed to say he’s sorry, to explain, to—no. He never put pen to paper because the words to make it right did not exist. But she—if only she’d said something. It didn’t have to be a letter. She could have called. He’d had all the goddamn time in the world. If only he’d known.

  “I know what you’re thinking.” She tucks the phone back into her purse. When she pulls her hand out again, she’s holding a piece of paper folded into four quarters. It’s worn, softened by the friction of the fabric inside the inner pocket of her purse. A flick of her wrist and it falls limply open.

  He knows which photo this is even before she holds it up. Seth, eating ice cream. Sitting next to him. The two of them grinning like idiots.

  “Really?” he says. “A million photos of Seth, and you choose that one?”

  She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t have to.

  A million photos of Seth. Only one of him.

  “When you get chemo,” she says, quietly, “each chair has a clipboard next to it, for your chart and notes or whatever. Every time I sat down to have that poison pumped into my veins, I clipped this picture to the board.”

  “Not gonna lie, Chica—that's kind of weird.”

  “At first, I just—” She lifts a clenched fist. “I would look at you and just hate you. For everything you took from me. From us. The lies you told. All the things you didn’t say. And every time I started to feel like life was unbearable, I’d think, at least you had it worse. At least you were locked away, rotting in a cell.” She twists her neck to look up at him, quirking a wry smile. “I imagined that spark of hope you must feel, no matter how you tried not to, every time they called your name for mail. I’d think about all the things I could write, if I wanted to. The things you must be hoping to hear from me. And then the disappointment—the rage—you would feel when it turned out to be
just some paperwork from your lawyer. Or whatever. It felt good to think that, even doing absolutely nothing, I had that power over you.” She lifts her eyebrows. “Did it work?”

  He wants to hurt her. Call her terrible names. But there is nothing she has done which he has not deserved. He flexes a hand, carefully. “Yes.”

  “Good.” She settles back into him. “There were a couple of weeks when I honestly wasn’t sure I’d make it. I couldn’t even fathom leaving the kids—couldn't even go there in my mind. But I fantasized about how it would be when you got out and realized I was gone. That I’d suffered and died alone, and that it was all your fault. I consoled myself with the knowledge that you’d never forgive yourself.”

  “That... is some fucked up kind of revenge.”

  “Isn’t it?” Her fingers fold the photo and open it again with practiced familiarity. “Thing is, though, Seth—he's in this picture, too. God, look at him. I thought he was so big, then, and he was so small.” The warmth in her voice is heavy and full. “I’d think about, like, folding it so I couldn’t see him. So I could focus on how much I hated you. But I couldn’t crop out my son. I mean, look at that happy little smile.” In her hands, the photo folds and is unfolded again. “After a while, it got to be where it almost felt like the two of you were keeping me company. The nurses made a joke of it—they'd say, hi Robin, how are your boys today? And we’d laugh. And after a while, I stopped burning with rage every time someone said your name. It just... lost its power.”

  Like Tavis. And cancer. Live with a demon long enough, no matter how monstrous, and it becomes familiar as an old friend.

  “And then—I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t help it—then I’d remember something you wrote. Something I thought Tavis wrote. And sometimes that thing was—” She makes a quick swipe at her eyes. Clears her throat. “Literally all that kept me going that day.”

  “You... do what you need to survive.”

  “That’s what Greta’s husband always says.” She tucks the photo away. “At some point, I started to wonder if maybe part of what made me hate you so much was because I actually—”

  And just like that, he can no longer bear her touch. He pulls away.

  “Cyril, I—oh, shoot.” Her attention flicks back to the ice. “Nora’s trying to get off. Can you—”

  “I got it,” he growls, and stalks off around the rink. He wants to go bash his head against a brick wall until the memory of the words she nearly said is gone. Undone. He needs to leave. Now. But where is he going to go? He can’t leave them here. Fuck this. Fuck cancer, fuck everything.

  Nora shrieks.

  So he goes to help the little girl.

  “She had to pee?” Robin’s hands are cupped around a mug of hot cocoa.

  “Yeah.” He pulls out a chair and joins her at the little café table overlooking the rink. It’s as far from the fireplace as it’s possible to be, and it’s still eighty-plus degrees. “She was fine going into the restroom by herself, just needed... reassurance, I guess?”

  “Jean—I think she said that’s her name—came down to chat for a minute.” Robin lifts a napkin off a paper plate sitting in front of her and pushes two giant pretzels across the table. “She said these were all they had that didn’t need cooking. Thought I was hungry but I’m not.” She lifts the mug, pausing before taking a sip. “Okay, actually, I grabbed them both for you.”

  “Uh... thanks.”

  Out on the rink, the overhead lights dim, and then begin flashing in time with the music—red, blue, red, blue. An obviously pre-recorded voice comes on over the voice to announce that “It’s tiiiiiime for the hooookey pokey!” Seth and Nora look up, confused.

  “We had Seth’s birthday here last year.” Robin nods to the back of the café. “There’s a party room back there.”

  He follows the tilt of her head, taking in the stained-glass windows depicting Snoopy characters, and grunts an acknowledgment. Suddenly, the pretzels are gone.

  She gives him a searching look. “Had enough?”

  She has no idea. There is not enough food in the world. “Why—why do you—” Fuck. He crumples the paper plate in one hand. He is sweating.

  This asshole can’t even ask the question. He can’t even let himself think the question. Why, if she loves him—if she thinks she loves him, which she doesn’t, because fuck, no, she cannot, then why—why would she just sit here and let him stuff his—

  She touches his hand.

  He jerks away. “Look, just—stop. Fucking—stop. Okay? I don’t know what you think is going to happen here, but I am not going to—”

  “Change. I got it. You keep telling me that.”

  “And you keep saying you believe me, but here we fucking are.”

  She licks her lips, and then presses them together. “I’d like to say a lot more.”

  “What’s stopping you?”

  She doesn’t answer immediately, and for a moment he thinks the conversation is over. Then she draws in a breath. “The fact that any time I even come close to telling you how I feel, you punish yourself.”

  “You mean I stuff my fat fucking face until—”

  “Yeah.”

  “So. You do care about—” He lifts his arms. “This.”

  “Of course I care.” She uncrosses her legs and then crosses them again in the opposite direction. Takes a sip of cocoa. Looks out at the kids on the ice. “It’s a nice little catch 22 you’ve set up," she says, almost to herself. “If I don’t care about your size, it’s proof I don’t care about your health, ergo I’m just pretending to care about you. If I do care about your size, obviously I’m a superficial bitch who doesn’t really care about you.” Her eyes flicker toward him. She sets down the mug. “It’s not the bingeing that bothers me, Cyril. I mean, you’re not ever going to be skinny. Or, you know, less morbidly obese. I can live with that. What I’m having a hard time dealing with is knowing that showing even the slightest bit of human kindness causes you pain. That’s—not something I know how to fix.”

  He is silent. Motionless. Stone. “You can’t.”

  “I know.” She offers him a slightly pained smile. “Shit-talking is fun, Cyril. But I’d like to say I love you now and then.”

  Chapter 20

  He doesn’t know why the fuck she’s still wasting her time on him. Can she not see that this asshole is irredeemable? Yet here she is, continuing to make space for him in her life and in her mind. She can’t change him. She knows that. All she’s doing is giving this parasite the time and opportunity to infect her. What is she hoping for, here? A happy ending?

  Fool.

  He goes back to sleeping on the couch. She doesn’t try to wheedle him back into her bed. Doesn’t say a thing, actually, and now he knows it’s because she knows her words will only make it worse, and she cares enough not to do him that much harm. Which only makes it worse.

  Because apparently stuffing food in his face isn’t masochistic enough, he Googles the Castro Valley shooting on his phone and forces himself to watch a press conference featuring the dead toddler’s grief-stricken mother. Just so he’s clear on what a piece of shit he is.

  “Cyril,” she says, once, when the kids are asleep.

  “Don’t,” he snarls. It is not the same night he returned to the couch, though it might as well have been. He is still standing in front of the open fridge. “Just—don’t.”

  He realizes it is not Robin only when the boy repeats his name. The way Seth says it, small and drawn out, sounds like the mispronounced approximation the boy had used as a toddler: “Cereal?”

  Cyril closes his eyes, briefly, and then carefully places the butter dish back into the fridge, as if Seth has caught him in the process of putting it away. As if the loaf of bread he’d baked that day weren’t sitting on the cutting board next to two thick, freshly cut slices. Not to mention the chimichanga wrappers in the trash. “What’s up, kid?”

  Seth yawns and mashes a fist into one eye. “I’m hungry.”

&
nbsp; The surge of panic that wells up inside this asshole manifests only as a dull stare. Naturally the kid is hungry; he’d only eaten about three bites of chicken cacciatore for dinner, even after his mother had warned there would be nothing more until morning. He’s not here because he’s caught on to what Cyril does at night, or because Cyril’s presence has somehow infected the kid with his vices. You don’t catch fucked-up like the flu.

  Cyril turns, sighing, and pulls the butter back out of the fridge. He spreads it generously on both slices and hands one down to Seth. “Don’t tell your mom.”

  Seth grins. “I love bread.” The words are muffled by a mouthful of crumbs.

  “Shocking.” Cyril gets the kid a glass of milk, too, but he doesn’t trust him to hold it in one hand without spilling, so he takes it to the table. If anything, the kid is too skinny, but he can’t help issuing a word of warning. “Don’t make this a habit, okay, kid? You don’t wanna be like me.”

  “In jail?”

  “No, like—” Seth is probably the only person in the universe who has never once judged him by his size. The kid’s heart is pure, and even this asshole isn't asshole enough to shit on that. “Forget it.”

  The boy crashes into his chair, showering the seat with crumbs, and reorients himself long enough to take a sip of milk and swallow. “Mom says you eat your feelings.”

  Well, fuck. “That’s one way to put it.” Robin, apparently, had not been so delusional as to think a nine-year-old wouldn’t notice they never actually ate the leftovers they packed into the fridge each night. This asshole pours himself a glass of milk and saws off another slice of bread before returning to the table and seating himself across from Seth. He’d hoped the boy would be finished eating by now, but he’s taking slow, mouse-sized bites. Any excuse not to go back to bed.

  “It’s okay to have feelings,” Seth says.