Cyril in the Flesh

by Ramsey Hootman

  He starts to cry. Again. He hides his face in his hands. God, this gigantic fucking baby.

  “Oh. Sweetie.” She wraps her arms around him, pressing her nose into the soft sandpaper stubble of his jaw. “Cyril. No.”

  He doesn’t stop her. He doesn’t push her away or get up and leave. She’s the one who’s dying, and this revolting tub of lard lets her waste her precious time and energy comforting him.

  When his body stops shuddering, she tugs the bottom of his shirt up and uses it to wipe his face. “I like it when you cry.”

  He chokes a laugh. “Christ, you’re brutal.”

  “I learned from the best.” She pauses. “That’s you, in case that wasn’t obvious.” She grins. “It's just nice to know the sweet, passionate soul who wrote me all those pretty words is still in there, somewhere.” She gives his belly a gentle poke.

  He yanks his shirt back down and stands. “I need to piss.”

  “Well, don’t let me stand in your way.” She pulls her legs up, hugging her knees to her chest to let him pass.

  He relieves himself, and then splashes his face with ice cold water from the sink. As he dries his face (and the counter) with a hand towel, he forces himself to meet his reflection’s eyes. He manages only a glance. “Get your shit together, asshole,” he rasps. Looking at the floor. Coward.

  He has no intention whatsoever of returning to Robin’s bed. But when he opens the bathroom door, she is standing in the hall. “What—”

  “I could go for a snack.”

  He looks at her for a long moment, first resisting the urge to shove her away, and then internally paging through all the crass replies that would send her back to her room, either in a huff or in tears.

  “Hello?” she says, waving a hand in front of his face. “Earth to Cyril.”

  “Fine,” he says, finally. “I was thinking BLTs.”

  She turns and leads the way into the kitchen. “Sounds good, assuming we have bacon.”

  “We have bacon.”

  It takes a few minutes to fry up. Robin sits on the counter next to the stove, prying apart a head of iceberg lettuce and dropping the leaves into a bowl.

  “Do you think your letters are the only thing I liked about you?” she asks, apropos of absolutely nothing.

  “I—” He stops. “Yes?” What else is there?

  She sets the bowl aside. “Well, after Tavis died, you made me laugh again.”

  “Me?” He shakes his head. Even pretending he had nothing to do with Tav’s death in the first place, he'd mostly just pissed her off. “Seth was the one who made you smile.”

  Her eyebrows furrow. “You—” Her head tilts to one side, and the look she gives him is almost a wince. “Cyril, his father had just died. I tried not to let my grief impact him, but I was totally checked out. I managed to drink enough beer to pass out. Twice. And that was before I found out I was pregnant with Nora. If Seth was happy—and he was—that was your doing.”

  The edges of the bacon are crisping, and he uses tongs to lay them out on a paper towel. “Yeah, well, he’s easy to please.”

  Robin picks up a strip. “Ow.” She sends a couple of puffs of air across one end and then bites, gingerly. “When I was doing my first round of chemo, I spent a lot of time trying to remember good things. And the place I kept going, in my head, was the time right after Nora was born, when you were staying with us. I don’t think I realized it at the time, but I was happy, then. Content. I needed space, and you took all the burden of the kids. All I had to do was enjoy them. I never got that when Seth was born. Even when Tavis was home, he never took nights.” She shifts, crossing her legs in the other direction. “And then, with you? I had so much wrapped up inside, and I knew I could say whatever came to mind without feeling judged. I didn’t have to worry about doing grief right.”

  He snorts. “Yeah, because I didn’t give a shit about profanity, and you didn’t give a fuck about my opinion.”

  “That’s what I thought, yeah.” She eats the entire piece of bacon, thoughtfully. “Later I realized it was because, deep down, I know there’s nothing I can say that will ever change how you feel about me. There’s a freedom in that.” She tips her head toward him. “That was you. Not letter-you. This you.”

  “Right. So... Swearing and babysitting. That’s a real winning—”

  “No.” She holds a hand up in front of her face, palm out. “Nuh-uh.”

  “What?”

  “There’s a thing I tell the kids, whenever they say ‘I’m stupid’ or something like that. I say, kiddo, I wouldn’t let anybody else say that about you, so why would I let you say it about yourself?”

  “Stating the facts is not—”

  “You care for my kids, Cyril, and I don’t mean making sure they do their schoolwork and eat their veggies. That’s not a small thing.” She hops down from the counter. “I’m done listening to you belittle yourself. You’re allowed to take up space.”

  “What, are you my fucking therapist now?”

  The look she gives him says no, but he seriously needs one. She’s not wrong. “Come here,” she says, grabbing his arm. He bends, and she plants a firm kiss on his cheek. “Thanks for the bacon. Enjoy your BLT. See you in the morning.”

  Seth is the first one out of bed the next day, unless Cyril passing out on the couch counts as never having gone to bed at all. He is half-awake when the boy’s footsteps pad softly into the bathroom and then the hall, so he does not jerk in alarm when Seth climbs onto the couch and settles into him.

  Cyril lets his arm slide down around the boy’s shoulders. “Hey, kid. What’s up?”

  “Nothin’.”

  The sun peeks in around the edges of the drapes. Every single bird on the block decides, in unison, that it’s time to let the world know they’re awake. Someone slams a car door.

  The boy says nothing, still, but his inarticulate need is palpable. What is he looking for?

  Seth had been in his room doing school when Robin had told Cyril she was going to die, and he had simply walked downstairs and out of the house—what had Robin offered by way of explanation? Had he heard about Cyril’s public breakdown out on the sidewalk? Or has he sensed something amiss with his mother? Perhaps it’s something more banal, like a tiff with a classmate in one of their Minecraft worlds. It had been so much easier when he was small and blurted out every thought that came to mind. The world would be a better place if everyone were even half as honest as a four-year-old. But Seth’s old enough now to understand that people expect him to filter his words, so as not to hurt or shock or offend. His peers have surely taught him that exposing the true depth of his feelings invites only mockery and scorn. So he hides.

  It’s better this way. Better that Seth not end up at odds with the world. Like him.

  “Mom’s working on the house again.”

  It clicks. The boy knows his mom is recovering from surgery. He does not want to express disappointment about this, but he is also keenly aware that Cyril had only promised to stay so long as his mother needed him around. Now that his mom is back on her feet, he’s worried Cyril is going to leave. Again.

  If only that were the worst-case scenario.

  Seth looks up at him with a question in his eyes, and Cyril realizes he’s squeezing the kid, tight. He forces himself to loosen his grip. “Hey... kid?”

  “Yeah?” Filter or no, Seth can’t stop his face from radiating hope. It’s his natural state.

  “I was thinking I might stick around, if that’s okay with you. Like, permanently.”

  Seth’s smile is the sun coming up all over again.

  Chapter 26

  Like time-lapse photography, individual moments crystallize into what seems, in retrospect, like a too-swift tumble of hours and days. Suns rise and set while Robin is curled up next to him on the couch, or, occasionally, in her bed. He lifts and carries and cuts and hauls, though not without complaint. There is a lot of grunting and swearing involved. A few pulled muscles. She brings in a
n electrician—“I don’t mess with current,” she says—but takes care of the rest herself. They get the windows in upstairs before the first torrential downpour, and after that the house seems far less permeable. He sweats. A lot.

  Autumn days give way to rainy winter nights. COVID numbers soar; Greta locks down her household again, and the kids celebrate birthdays and attend school in their pajamas on the couch. Thanksgiving and Christmas come and go, and with them the circumference of his waistline waxes and wanes like the phases of the moon. Bit by bit, the world contracts, until the perimeter of Robin’s property seems to be the end of it all.

  Spring brings rain (though not enough) and the promise of vaccines.

  Once, this asshole had counted the days until the end of each of Tav’s deployments, when his freedom to write what and when he wished to Robin would come to a temporary end, or at least be significantly curtailed. After Tav’s death, he’d numbered each hour until, inevitably, the Feds came to take him away. And then, when Robin had welcomed him into her home, he had marked the time until sentencing. And then, of course, there was prison.

  Now he counts the days until she dies.

  “I know what you’re doing,” she says, one Saturday morning (because she works fucking Saturdays, too). “I see you watching me.”

  Waiting for the first symptoms of decline. Fatigue. Loss of appetite. Headaches. Twice in the past ten days, she’s begged off work to stay in bed, citing “hormonal” issues. The calls she’s placed to her doctor—from the barn, when he’s occupied with the kids—prove that’s a lie. “Yeah? And what the hell else am I supposed to do?”

  A stack of sheetrock two feet tall sits in the center of the upstairs master bedroom. She is measuring and scoring the top sheet with a knife. He’s just standing there, waiting to help with the heavy lifting.

  She finishes popping out the rectangle she’s cut to accommodate an outlet, thumbing the knife back into its sheath before slipping it into her belt. As she straightens, she gestures for him to grab the far end. “I dunno, just—enjoy the moment?”

  He gets his fingers under the edge of the sheetrock and lifts, tilting it upright. Robin grabs the other end and nods to a wall. As he maneuvers around the remaining sheetrock, his toe catches on the corner of the pile. “Wow,” he grunts, recovering with an awkward lunge, “yeah, this moment is the best.”

  She grins. “You know, the upside to dying is that it allows you to just—let go. Stuff that annoyed the crap out of me before now just seems kind of... sweet. Like Nora screeching, or Seth’s endless Minecraft monologues, or—”

  “Me?”

  She laughs. “Yeah. You.” They ease the sheetrock into place, and she uses her hammer to bump the edge until it’s perfectly lined up with the electrical box. “I dunno, it’s weird. Everything sparkles a little more when you know it might be the last time.” Her hand dips into her tool belt and she drops to one knee, sowing a line of drywall nails down the edge of the sheetrock so swiftly it looks mechanical, two perfect hits to each head. “Although,” she says, shifting to the next stud as her hand reaches into the nail pouch again, “I guess you guys aren’t the temporary ones. It’s me.” She nails two more rows and then stands, slotting her hammer back into its loop. “In the long run, it doesn’t matter. There is no long run. It’s just now.”

  “Easy for you to say. You’re not the one left behind.”

  “Oh yeah. Dying. So easy.” She returns to the pile of sheetrock, crouching to get her fingers under the next piece. And then she stops. She straightens and turns to look at him. “You know what? You’re right. I’m here today. And I feel great.” Her hand unbuckles her belt, and it drops to the floor. “Let’s go do something fun.”

  “You’re admitting that hanging sheetrock isn’t a blast?”

  “It might not be the most fun I’ve ever had.” She looks out the window. “It’s a beautiful day.”

  “It’s a fucking sauna.” In Healdsburg, like most of inland California, spring isn’t a gradual increase in warm days so much as it is alternating rain and sun. Today is sun. Though, admittedly, it’s far worse in the unventilated second floor.

  “Let’s go to the park.”

  It’s eleven, so he packs a picnic lunch while she changes into shorts and sandals and wrangles the kids. It takes her the entire time he’s assembling sandwiches and slicing apples to pry them away from the television, get them dressed, and herd them to the truck. And then they spend the entire five-minute drive whining.

  “Holy cow, you guys,” Robin says. “Minecraft will be there when you get back. I promise.” She thumbs the driver's side window down and sticks an arm out, letting her hand sail on the breeze. “The sun is out right now.”

  “The sun’s up every day,” Seth points out. From any other kid, this would be snarky petulance; Seth is primarily concerned with the facts, ma’am.

  “Yeah, but you can’t always see it, can you? You’ve been stuck inside with nothing but Minecraft for months!”

  “I like inside!” Nora declares.

  “Yeah,” Seth agrees, emboldened by his sister’s moxie. “We want Minecraft!”

  They don’t know their mother has an expiration date, so it’s not fair to expect them to treasure every moment with her—but Cyril still wants to reach back and wring their scrawny little necks.

  Before he can snap at them, Robin puts a hand on his arm. Her fingers slide down into his palm. She squeezes, briefly, before returning her hand to the wheel. “You’d have to stop playing to eat lunch, anyway. Let’s eat at the park, and then if you guys are still bored, we can go home. Okay?” She shoots him a knowing look; once the kids are at the park, they’ll never want to leave.

  Robin skips the left-hand turn that would take them to the familiar Georgie Park. Instead, she turns right and drives down a series of winding, shady roads descending into a neighborhood on the south end of town, down by the base of the largest geological formation in the area. She nods to it and says, “Fitch Mountain.” It’s more of a large hill.

  “It looks like a hat!” Nora pipes up, the previous moments’ complaints apparently forgotten.

  Cyril ducks his head slightly to squint up at the ridgeline. “Looks more like a snake that swallowed an elephant, to me.”

  “It totally does!” Seth exclaims.

  Cyril manages to twist himself far enough to glimpse the kid over one shoulder. “You remember?” The Little Prince was one of many books he’d read to Seth, back when Seth was four.

  “It’s one of his favorite books,” Robin explains. “He’s only read it about fifty times.”

  “Mom won’t read it,” Seth informs him. “It makes her cry. A lot.”

  “Really appreciate you sharing that info, buddy.”

  “Mom,” he says, gently chiding. “It’s okay to cry.”

  At the park, Robin parks in front of a fenced-in dog run where an elderly man throws a tennis ball for a terrier that looks like Toto from The Wizard of Oz. She is barely out of the truck before the kids are squeezing past her, ignoring the dog entirely as they rush for the play structure. “Masks!” she shouts.

  Cyril eases his bulk out of the cab and goes around back, where Robin is hauling the cooler out of the truck bed. He takes it from her. “Shoulda bought a house down here.”

  “Yeah, it’s a lot cooler, isn’t it?” She points across the grassy field beyond the play structure, bordered by trees covered in ivy in a green so deep it looks black. “River’s right through there.” She pulls out a paper grocery bag with napkins and utensils and then shuts and locks the camper shell. “Great in the summer, but about every fifth spring the neighborhood floods.”

  “And you know that how?” She talks like she’s been here forever. Like she owns the place, or it owns her.

  Robin cocks an eyebrow. “You’d be surprised how much you can learn from sitting around listening to old farmers complain.”

  “The doughnut shop?” There are three picnic tables under the tree beside the pla
yground, and they all look about a hundred years old, splintered and honeycombed with beetle boreholes. He sets the cooler on the end of the nearest and tests the bench with a foot. It creaks.

  “Yup.” Robin bends, scoping out the underside of the table, then points to the righthand bench. “This one’s good.” She turns, shading her eyes with a hand. “Kids aren’t gonna want to eat, now.”

  He slides one leg under the table and straddles the bench, facing the yard. “More for us.”

  She climbs onto the table, planting her feet on the bench in front of him, and unwraps the sandwich he hands her. “This park’s smaller than Georgie, obviously, and older, but we used to come here a lot right after Nora learned to walk.” She nods to the low chain link fence that encircles the play area. “She’s a runner. Not so much anymore, thank God. Once, when she was three, Seth left the front door open after he got the mail and she just walked right out. Cops found her halfway to the plaza. Thank goodness I’d already made friends with the chief.” She cocks a half-smile. “At the doughnut shop.”

  They watch the kids play. They’re the only kids present, so when Seth asks if they have to wear masks Robin sighs and says she guesses not. She collects them from both children and tucks them into a pocket.

  Cyril’s sandwich is gone, so he starts on the apples, being careful to reserve exactly three quarters for his companions. Another car pulls into the lot, and when its driver opens the door a large poodle clambers out, barking as it bounds toward the field.

  “I thought about getting the kids a puppy,” Robin muses.

  “Seriously? You don’t have enough on your plate?”

  “I know. I was just thinking about, you know, getting one now. So that when I...” She lets her words trail off. “So they’d have something.”

  “Nothing’s gonna make it easier for them,” Cyril says. “You know that.”