by Chloe Garner
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Not right now, darling,” he said.
“Don’t call me darling,” she told him and he laughed without looking at her.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Don’t call me ma’am.”
He crossed the street.
She saw one of the young women, tattoos up the outsides of her arms and distant eyes, as she came from between a pair of buildings, carrying a dingy shoulder bag and moving like a wounded cat, trying to keep from drawing attention to herself but standing out all the more for it.
“Sybil,” Trevor said, his hand making a quick motion that might have been indicating the girl. Or he might not have been talking to Lizzie at all.
“Like Shepherd?” Lizzie asked. Trevor laughed.
“We’re going to have to play word associations sometime,” he said, stepping behind a mailbox and stopping abruptly, like he was in cover. The mailbox came up to his waist. Lizzie raised an eyebrow at him.
“We wait here,” he said. She frowned and looked around. The skinny girl kept on, taking something out of her bag that was smaller than her fist.
“What’s going to happen?” Lizzie asked, feeling apprehensive for the first time.
“Just watch,” Trevor said.
Two men came around the corner ahead of them that Lizzie recognized, and then she spotted Robbie coming down the street from the other direction.
She straightened, preparing for the confrontation.
He crossed the street, now opposite them, and the girl threw a handful of something - sand? Flour? Something else? - at him and kept walking. He shook himself off, smashing his hand against the window and smearing what looked like red paint across it. Lizzie looked at Trevor for an explanation, but he wasn’t paying any attention to her. Someone came out to shout at Robbie, and Lizzie was ready to go intervene, but Trevor’s hand caught her elbow like a clamp.
“Don’t do it,” he muttered. “You stay right there, or things go really, really bad.”
“Bad?” she asked. “He’s going to get himself arrested for vandalism.”
Somewhere down the street was the sound of breaking glass, and more voices.
Dennis with his shaved head and his tattoos came running by with two cans of spray paint screaming with glee. The crowds split in front of him as he found an open wall and started making huge swirls of green and yellow on it.
“Hey,” someone yelled. Trevor’s grip tightened on Lizzie’s elbow. And then Robbie spotted her.
He stood on the sidewalk across from her, looking angry and betrayed, eyes going from Trevor to Lizzie and back.
He took a step off the sidewalk, ignoring traffic, and Lizzie tugged away.
“He’s going to get himself run over,” she said.
“He isn’t,” Trevor said.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Robbie said, his voice low. The shouting down the block as someone complained about someone stealing his bike was almost loud enough that Lizzie couldn’t hear him, but she lip-read rather well, and it was hardly a surprise that that was what he would say to her.
“I want to know,” she said, trying to get loose of Trevor again. He had strong hands. “Get out of the road, please. Please.”
A car dashed past him, and the other girl came out of nowhere and threw a rock, breaking a streetlight and raining glass down just feet away from Trevor and Lizzie. Trevor pulled Lizzie off balance, closer against his side, as a car swerved to avoid one that had drifted out of its lane. Robbie was in the middle of it.
“What are you doing?” Lizzie screamed. “Get out of the road.”
Instead, he stopped walking. There were tire screeches and the sound of a collision as two cars, meshed together, went spinning past him, and… up onto the curb where Lizzie had been standing. Bent metal from a fender that had come loose was literally inches from her fingers. She put her hand out to touch it, and then looked up.
Everyone was gone.
The regular people, sure, they were all still there, trying to make sure the people in the two cars were okay, trying to get the man out of the one car whose driver’s side door was crumpled shut, but the woman and her daughter in the other car were out, now, hands on foreheads, looking overwhelmed, afraid, but walking and talking and moving fine. The heavy man in the other car got out and staggered against the car.
“Call an ambulance,” someone called, and then Trevor was walking, still holding Lizzie’s elbow.
“What just happened?” she asked, turning back to look.
“Hooligans,” he said.
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“Keep walking,” he answered.
***
They got back to the house, and Robbie was in the front yard, steaming up and down, leaving a track in the grass.
“What in the hell, Trevor?” he yelled. “You had no right.”
“I had every right,” Trevor answered. “You weren’t going to do it.”
“She isn’t a part of this,” Robbie said. “Lizzie, go in the house.”
“No,” she told him, indignant. He tried to grab her wrist and she jerked it away. “I have no idea what you think just happened, but you almost died today.”
“You’re the one who almost died,” he said. “You shouldn’t have been there.”
“What were you doing?” she asked. “Messing around like that? Those cars could have hit you. And the store owner, if he can find you, he’s going to press charges for messing up his window like that.”
“What?” Robbie asked.
“Red paint,” Trevor said. “That’s what it was.”
“Oh,” Robbie said.
“What did you think it was?” Lizzie asked. “A bunny rabbit?”
He shut down.
She knew that very second she’d pushed too far, been too unkind, but she was still excited, anxious, upset, and she wasn’t controlling her tongue very well.
He turned and went back into the house, head at an odd angle, and she looked at Trevor. He shrugged.
“This is the part I can’t help with,” he said. “That’s what we do.”
“What?” she asked. “What was that?”
“I told you I didn’t expect you’d understand,” he said.
She was at a loss.
Angry, overwhelmed, and no better off than she’d been this morning. Maybe worse, because she’d seen her brother get this close to getting hit by a car. He was in danger of getting himself arrested or killed, and Trevor thought it was normal.
How had Lara thought this was okay? How had she let it go on?
Had she just not known? Had it been a secret? Or had it started because Lara was dead?
Was he thrill seeking out of despair?
That at least made sense, though he hadn’t looked very titillated, standing in the middle of the road where he’d been.
“What do I do?” Lizzie asked, not expecting an answer. When she looked, though, Trevor was gone, halfway down the street toward the intersection where the bus would have stopped. She watched him for a minute, then went into the house.
It was going to be a long night.
***
She sat on the couch by herself for a while, then went and got herself a bowl of ice cream, waiting. She turned on the TV and watched a couple of shows, then looked up to find the room dark. The sun had gone down while she wasn’t paying attention. She was startled to find Robbie standing against the wall.
“How long have you been there?” she asked, putting down her empty bowl.
“Why did you come today?” he asked.
“Trevor said that I could see what you do,” she said. “I told you I want to understand.”
“I don’t want you to understand,” he said, sliding down to sit on the floor.
“Bull,” she said. “You do.”
“No I don’t,” he complained. “It’s dangerous.”
“You think everything around you is in danger all the time,” she said. “Yo
u always have. I don’t know when it’s real and when it isn’t.”
“It’s always real,” he said. “It’s always everywhere.”
“But I’ve never died,” she said. “I mean, it’s self-evident, isn’t it? Sometimes the danger is just…”
“In my head?” he asked. She’d managed to stop in time to not say it, but she’d still said it. She tipped her head to the side in a slight apology.
“Lara would understand,” he said.
“I’m trying,” Lizzie said. “It just… It doesn’t make any sense.”
He looked up at her.
“She would understand why you came.”
She paused.
“Okay,” she said.
“You took all of my stuff,” he said.
“I did,” she said.
“You threw it out,” he said. She swallowed. To admit or not?
“I didn’t.”
He straightened slightly, looking at her over the arm of the couch.
“What?”
“I put it someplace you can’t get it,” she said. “But Trevor…”
Robbie frowned.
“Trevor what?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said.
“I don’t want you to be around him,” Robbie said. “Bad things happen around him.”
What was this collective delusion they were all participating in?
“You mean the car wreck?”
“Yes,” Robbie said. “And everything else.”
“If everything bad happens around him, why do you hang out with him?”
Robbie scratched the back of his head and shook it, looking at the floor.
“You wouldn’t understand,” he said.
“I’m trying,” she protested.
“I don’t want you to,” he said again. “Go home.”
“No.”
He chewed on his lip, then he crawled up over the arm of the couch and sat down next to her, bare feet up on the cushion and his chin on his knee.
“Will you get me a bowl of ice cream?” he asked.
“That I will do,” she said, standing.
He nodded at nothing, and she handed him the remote and went to get him ice cream.
Peace.
It wasn’t an agreement, but at least it was peace.
***
He was there in the morning, laying on the couch and looking up at the ceiling.
“Trevor said you have a job,” Lizzie said. He nodded.
“I carry things,” he said.
“And that you’re reliable,” Lizzie said. He turned his head to look at her.
“And you’re shocked,” he said. She smiled.
“I’m proud,” she said. “I know it isn’t easy.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“Sorry. I’m very disappointed that you didn’t take the bar.”
“Where?”
She wasn’t sure if it was a joke, so she didn’t answer that. She went to get herself a glass of orange juice. The jug of milk was swollen.
“Did you leave this out last night?” she asked.
“Leave what out?” he asked. She shook her head and opened it, dumping the milk into the sink and looking for the recycling bin.
“Do you not recycle?” she asked.
“What’s the point?” he countered.
She frowned, but didn’t press the point because she wasn’t sure she understood it.
“What do you want to do today?” she asked. “Have any more appointments to get hit by a car?”
He gave her a mild scathing look and she shrugged, then quieted, remembering the message on her phone.
“Lara’s ashes are ready to pick up,” she said.
“So?” he asked.
“I’m going to go get them,” she said. “And I need to know what you want me to do with them.”
“What do I care?” he asked.
“She was your wife,” Lizzie said. “What do you want to do to remember her?”
He put his hand over his eyes for a long time, and Lizzie thought he wasn’t going to answer her, that she was going to be stuck going to get Lara’s ashes on her own, and finding a way to dispose of them in a way that honored her memory without it being completely awkward.
“We should go to the ocean,” he said. “She loved the ocean.”
“Perfect,” Lizzie said. “That’s perfect. Do you want anyone to come with us?”
He gave her a look that said she was pushing her luck and she nodded.
“Okay,” she said. “Just us. That’s fine. Do you…” She paused. She was about to ask if he wanted to wear anything special, but that was just beyond the pale. “I’m going to go get changed,” she said instead. “And then we can go. Okay?”
He put his arm back over his eyes. He might have been detoxing, if she wasn’t mistaken.
“Okay,” he said. She gave a quick little nod and went back to the guest bedroom to find a dress. She’d packed one for the funeral, dark blue instead of black, a compromise in case Lara would have been the type who didn’t want an all-black funeral, and she didn’t think that Robbie would spot it as her funeral dress. She did her hair and her makeup and stood in front of the old mirror on the vanity, looking at her reflection.
Somehow, she’d missed cleaning the mirror. It needed a good scrub when she got back.
She went back out to the living room and found Robbie there in a suit. He shrugged.
“She bought it,” was the only explanation he offered, and she didn’t dare ask any more for fear he would run away and change back into the torn jeans and oily tee shirt he’d been wearing before.
They got in the car and she left him there when she got to the crematory, coming back out with an urn that had cost way too much, but that was weddings and funerals for you.
“I’ll pay you back,” he said, staring out the front window.
“What?” she asked. “You don’t have to.”
“We have money,” he said. “That’s what it’s for.”
She frowned, but she couldn’t argue that she was going to have a hard time making her rent, after this, without something else happening.
“Where on the coast?” she asked. He shook his head.
“I don’t know. She always drove. I didn’t pay attention.”
She nodded.
“Was there a special place that you would go, if you could find it?”
He shook his head.
“I don’t think so.”
“West, then,” she said, starting the engine. She handed Lara to Robbie after a very brief internal debate between that and putting her in the backseat, and he seemed to be okay with that. She wasn’t sure what that meant; wasn’t sure it meant anything.
Not long later, they were parked overlooking waves. The sun was still coming up behind them, and the water was gorgeous, just stirred up enough into cresting waves to be oceanic, mostly deserted at this hour on a work day.
Robbie waited a minute and then got out.
This was the first time Lizzie even wondered whether scattering ashes at a public beach was legal, but she didn’t think about it any further. Robbie was doing it, and that was what mattered. What people didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.
“What do I do?” Robbie asked when he hit the sand.
“Whatever you think is right,” Lizzie said. “It’s about her and it’s about you.”
“She’s gone,” Robbie said.
“I know,” Lizzie answered. He shook his head.
“It’s just a container with burnt things in it.”
“Do you want to leave it in the car?” Lizzie asked, not knowing where that came from. He nodded and went back to the car on his own, coming back empty-handed.
“Now what?” he asked.
“What did you do when you came here with her?” Lizzie prompted.
“We just walked,” Robbie said. “And talked.”
“Then we walk,” Lizzie said. “And if you want to, we’ll talk.”
; He put his head down and she stepped out quickly to keep up with him. Her heels were not suited for sand, but memorials weren’t about convenient clothes.
After a little while, she put her arm through his because it felt right. He didn’t move away, and that seemed good enough to her.
“It’s all going to change,” Robbie said after a while. Lizzie couldn’t see the car behind them anymore.
“It is,” she agreed.
“I don’t like it,” he said. She gave him a sad smile that he wouldn’t have seen.
“I know,” she said. He nodded.
“They killed her.”
This time she knew better than to ask, to argue. The evil, dangerous they. They actually had gotten her, this time.
“I’m sorry,” Lizzie said.
“Me, too,” he said, poignant and soft, and that was all.
They turned around a while later, as the sun got up higher overhead and the breeze picked up, beginning to fling saltwater spray at them on the firm sand. Birds talked to each other and mothers showed up with their children to play at their lunch hour.
It was beautiful and sunny and happy.
So much a contrast to the world Robbie seemed to robe himself with, and such a lovely fit to who Lizzie still thought Lara had been.
“Are you hungry?” she asked when they got back to the car.
“Not really,” Robbie answered, but she went to get drive-through anyway and he ate both of their orders. She wondered if he’d eaten at all the previous day, or if he’d forgotten again.
“You want me to get a movie?” asked. He nodded.
“That sounds good.”
She stopped at a kiosk to rent a movie and they went home. He sat on the couch while she made microwave popcorn, and then they sat together and watched a terrible movie.
This was how they’d spent last Christmas Eve, except that Lara had been here.
“I wish you weren’t here,” he said when Lizzie got up to get the movie out of the player and put it into her purse to return tomorrow.
“I don’t believe you,” she answered.
“It’s true,” he said. “But I’m enjoying this. Right now.”
“Good,” she said. “I’m going to make dinner. What do you want?”
“Can you make grilled cheese?” he asked and she laughed.
“I can do that.”