Just Once

by Lori Handeland

  Frankie took Lisa in her arms, holding on to the girl for so long and so tightly that Lisa finally squirmed and said, ‘Mommy, stop.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Frankie kissed her with a big, silly smack. ‘I’m just gonna miss you so much.’

  ‘We won’t be gone that long. And we’ll talk to you every night.’

  Charley had to smile at his daughter’s parroting back to her mother exactly what her mother had said to her the night before when Lisa had been over tired and a little weepy at bedtime.

  What was he going to do when she was tired and weepy? He hoped he wouldn’t make things worse.

  Frankie had seemed a little nervous as he and Lisa had pulled out of the drive. Her brow creased; she chewed on her lip. He nearly stopped and suggested she forget New York and come along with them. But he didn’t.

  Charley remembered when they’d bought the place a few years back. The three of them had walked through at least a dozen cabins on the bay. None had been right. Too big, too small, too expensive, too dumpy, too close to the water, not close enough. He thought he’d go mad. He hadn’t wanted to own one house and now they were going to have two?

  Then they’d found the small cottage with the brown paint, red trim, white windows.

  ‘It looks like a gingerbread house,’ Lisa had breathed, eyes wide.

  The nautical themed interior had made Frankie’s nose twitch. Red, white and blue in the living room – a lot of ship prints and a compass clock. The kitchen resembled a galley. The bathroom and one bedroom were covered in seashells. The master bedroom revealed a lot of fish – wallpaper, bedspread, even the sheets.

  But what really sealed the deal was the mermaid room. The bedspread evoked a crystal clear ocean – turquoise with sparkles. The walls had been painted sea-foam green. Mermaids swam along the wallpaper border.

  Lisa’s mouth formed an ‘o’. She’d turned to them and just pointed.

  They had to buy the place then.

  Fish Creek seemed much the same. Small enough to blink and miss it, but stuffed full of gift shops, taverns, restaurants, coffee shops and ice cream stands. What was he going to do with a seven-year-old for a week?

  Being an only child, Lisa was pretty adept at amusing herself, or so Frankie had assured him. She had a bag of books, her sketchpad and box of crayons, dolls and, of course, her favorite stuffed animal, Black Kitty. There were games at the cottage, as well as VHS tapes of all her favorite movies. Frankie and Lisa spent a lot of time there every summer.

  ‘There’s mini-golf, paddle boats and bikes to rent,’ Frankie had informed him. ‘Also the cottage is on the bay.’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘Just make sure she doesn’t go swimming unless you’re on the dock.’

  ‘You bet,’ he said.

  As their cottage lay on the north side of Fish Creek, he left the town behind, squinting for the sign to Watchery Road. He almost missed it, the post nearly obscured by long grass and the sign hanging half off. He should probably fix that. Sure he was lame with a hammer, but how hard could it be?

  ‘Lisa? We’re here.’

  She drew in a breath, tilted her head away from the window where it had been resting, and opened her eyes. For an instant he thought she might ask for her mother, but then she saw the cottage, which popped out of the trees like a magic house – not there and suddenly there. The bay spread behind it like a clear blue ocean, the sun sparkling on the water like silver sequins.

  ‘Oh, Daddy,’ she said.

  His chest got tight as love for her welled up so suddenly it staggered him. How had he gone from not wanting children to adoring the one he had more than anything in his life except Frankie?

  It was easy to deny what you’d never had. Impossible to remember why you had denied it once it was yours.

  Within minutes they’d unloaded the car. Frankie had packed a cooler and boxes of food so they wouldn’t have to hit the grocery store right away.

  The rest of the day yawned in front of them. Lisa stared at him expectantly. Charley got a little panicked. He glanced at the compass clock. Eleven thirty.

  ‘You … uh … want lunch?’

  ‘Yay!’ She jumped into the air as if he’d asked if she wanted ice cream.

  They should get ice cream!

  His panic began to recede. He could do this. Piece of cake.

  Maybe they should also get cake.

  By evening he was exhausted. They’d eaten, twice. Rented bikes and ridden around town. Had ice cream. Swum in the bay.

  Lisa was a very good swimmer. Frankie had said he could watch her from the dock, but today he had gone in too, just to be sure. He didn’t like the chill. He preferred swimming in the Mediterranean, but who didn’t?

  Charley loaded the VHS of Jungle Book and soon Lisa was singing ‘The Bare Necessities’ to Black Kitty.

  In the kitchen he poured himself a finger of Scotch – God bless his wife for packing the bottle in tight next to the orange juice – then called Hannah.

  ‘How’s he doing?’

  He knew from the hitch to Hannah’s sigh that the news wasn’t good.

  ‘He’s not responding to the treatment as well as they’d hoped. The radiation isn’t shrinking the lesions.’

  ‘What will they try next?’

  ‘Chemo.’

  Charley frowned, took a sip of Scotch. ‘Is he strong enough for that?’

  ‘They discovered lesions in his gastrointestinal tract. If they don’t shrink them he could get a blockage, which could kill him, if not outright, then with the surgery he’ll need to get rid of it.’

  ‘Sheesh.’ Charley drank more Scotch.

  Heath was a great guy, talented, fun and funny. Seeing him fade away was hard enough for Charley. For Hannah, it was devastating.

  She tried to be strong. Not a tear where Heath could see. Charley hadn’t seen one either. He’d been awed and amazed, not only by her strength but by her resilience, her energy and her patience.

  She made phone calls, wrote letters and emails, read everything she could find, then trekked through all parts of DC and New York gathering anything and anyone that might help her brother.

  She spoke with acupuncturists, massage therapists, herbalists, nutritionists. If Heath wasn’t well enough to see them, she badgered them into coming to the apartment to see him. She brewed teas from things he could not identify, pounded ginger into a powder and sprinkled it on anything Heath might eat or drink. She created a spreadsheet so she could compare the best and the worst natural products as they pertained to chemotherapy side effects.

  Charley wasn’t sure how she got up every morning, but she did.

  Someone had to deal with Heath’s doctors, schedule his appointments, organize his meds, pay his bills, deal with their parents – idiots the both of them as far as Charley was concerned – as well as keeping her job at National Geographic. Which reminded him …

  ‘I heard there’s an opening in—’

  ‘I quit.’

  Charley sloshed Scotch on to his hand. ‘Quit?’

  ‘National Geographic. Ray understood.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘My aunt needs my help.’

  ‘You’re going to work at You?’

  ‘You say that like I’m going to work at Nazis R Us.’

  Charley laughed. She amused him, more than just about anyone did these days. At his age, not much was funny any more. Especially this.

  ‘You can’t leave National Geographic. It’s your dream job.’

  ‘I’ll come back.’

  He wasn’t so sure.

  ‘Things have a way of getting away from us. We think we’ll do what we always meant to and then, poof, you’re nearly forty and it’s too late.’

  ‘What haven’t you done that you wanted to do, Charley?’

  ‘I wasn’t talking about myself.’

  He’d done everything he wanted to. He’d never left a job unless the job he was leaving it for was one he wanted more. Well, except for that il
l-fated time he’d spent at the Milwaukee Journal. He’d felt like a failure there. He had failed there; he’d hated it so damn much, he pretended it had never happened.

  He was happy and he wanted Hannah to be happy too. He wished he could protect her from the sadness that was coming, but he couldn’t.

  ‘Just make sure you don’t stay at You too long, OK?’

  ‘Promise,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll be in DC next week. I’ll take Heath to lunch.’

  ‘I’m sure he’d love to if he’s up to it.’

  A trickle of unease passed over Charley. ‘That bad?’

  Hannah didn’t answer.

  ‘If you need me before then, just call.’

  Charley talked to Hannah every week or so, Heath about the same. He liked them. They were interesting, smart, tragic. He was captivated by their story – and it was their story. Heath might be dying, but Hannah was watching him do it.

  Charley didn’t think she knew that he photographed her nearly as much as her brother. She wouldn’t like it when she saw the essay in the end. Then again, in the end, she wasn’t going to like much.

  However, the world needed to see not only the face of AIDS but the faces of those left behind because of it.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ Hannah said. ‘See you next week.’

  Charley noticed that she didn’t say we’ll be fine. Because they wouldn’t be. While Hannah and Charley put on a hopeful face for Heath, his treatments weren’t working and his options were nearly as exhausted as he was. Even the new AIDS drug they’d been promised would be available soon would be pointless for Heath. He’d needed it months ago.

  For how many would any advancements arrive too late?

  Charley saw an image of hundreds of pills pouring from the sky and on to a graveyard. He got a little chill. He could create that photograph, superimpose one shot over the other. Usually he disdained artsy stuff like that, but it might be the perfect way to get people first to look and then to see. A photograph of a beautiful, dying young man … not so much.

  Charley finished his Scotch while he sketched the idea on a notepad. As if he’d ever forget that image, but better safe than sorry.

  Suddenly his head lifted. When had Lisa stopped singing? Why was it so quiet in the other room?

  He glanced at the wall clock. When had it gotten to be ten o’clock?

  Had he locked the front door? Did Lisa know how to open it? Would she leave the cottage without telling him?

  Charley stood up so fast his chair tilted, then landed back on four legs with a thunk. He barely heard it over the thunder of his heart.

  The movie was done, the screen full of snow.

  Lisa lay asleep on the couch, her head resting on Black Kitty.

  The relief that filled Charley was staggering. He leaned against the wall and waited for his heart failure to pass. It took longer than he thought it would.

  For the next several days Charley didn’t let Lisa out of his line of sight, which wasn’t easy. Seven-year-olds moved damn quick. They lost interest in activities even quicker. They changed directions like a goldfish – flit this way, then that. They were slippery too, like a goldfish, hard to get a grip on when in motion.

  They spent a morning walking through Peninsula State Park. Lisa chattered all the way, telling him about school and friends and camp. Her take on life was enchanting, her fascination with everything equally so.

  ‘What’s this flower?’ She yanked handfuls of purple, yellow and white wildflowers from the ground.

  Probably not kosher, but too late now.

  ‘I’m not sure. Let’s call them Lisa’s.’

  She giggled and put a purple one behind each ear. Purple appeared to be her favorite color this week. She changed like the wind. That morning he’d thought they would never leave the house while she decided if she should wear her purple unicorn T-shirt with white shorts or black. Charley had nearly called Heath for his advice.

  Lisa motioned for Charley to kneel and she stuck a few flowers into his curls. Her hands smelled both spicy and sweet. She had pollen on her nose.

  She dropped the remainder of her stolen booty and ran to the nearest tree, setting her palm on the massive trunk. ‘What kind of tree?’

  ‘Pine?’

  There were a lot of trees, one of them had to be a pine. Even in the summer the place smelled like Christmas – dusty Christmas, but still.

  They had a picnic on a beach of white sand, then waded in the water.

  ‘Oh!’ Lisa pointed to a sky so blue Charley got a brain-pain staring into it.

  ‘That’s an eagle.’ He lifted his camera and fired a few shots.

  They saw that eagle, or maybe another one, several more times that day. The size of the bird, the size of some of the trees made Charley feel insignificant. Nature was like that.

  He’d thought he would get some work done – he was eons behind in his expense accounts – after she fell asleep each night. But when Lisa’s eyes closed, so did Charley’s. A day with his daughter, joyous as it was, meant he couldn’t stay awake. How did Frankie manage?

  He asked her when she called on their last night.

  ‘Because I’m marvelous.’

  Frankie sounded happy, relaxed and for a second Charley was jealous that time with anyone but him could make her so. Stupid: time with him was fleeting and he had no one to blame but himself.

  ‘I’m planning to leave here around ten tomorrow,’ he said. ‘We’ll drive right to the airport to pick you up.’

  ‘What if I’m delayed?’

  ‘We’ll have ice cream.’

  ‘How many times have you had ice cream this week?’

  ‘Once a day and twice on Sunday.’

  ‘Funny.’

  She thought he was kidding. Charley was glad he hadn’t mentioned the three times they’d had ice cream on Saturday.

  ‘She’s going to be a handful when I get her back.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. She should have time with her father.’

  Charley bristled at the old argument over broken promises. He’d made good on them this week. Hadn’t he?

  ‘See you tomorrow,’ Frankie said.

  However, in the morning getting his daughter into the car proved difficult.

  ‘I don’t wanna go. I wanna swim and then have ice cream. I wanna live here forever, with you.’

  Charley had enjoyed himself, though he’d hit cannot wait to get out of here two days ago. The idea of living at this cottage forever made his head ache. Probably because he was grinding his teeth.

  ‘We can get ice cream on the way out of town.’

  Was that bribery? Oh well.

  ‘Swimming first!’

  ‘We have to pick up Mommy at the airport. You don’t want her to be sitting there all alone, do you?’

  ‘Don’t care.’

  He should count himself lucky that they hadn’t had a battle of wills before now. According to Frankie, she and Lisa battled daily. Also, according to Frankie, he could not let Lisa win. Once lost, parental respect was very difficult to get back.

  ‘Make sure everything’s out of your room. Don’t wanna leave anything behind. Especially Black Kitty, right?’

  Confusion and a touch of fear at the thought of a lost Black Kitty flickered in eyes so like her mother’s they surprised Charley every time he saw them. She scooted off to her room without another word.

  Charley dusted off his hands. ‘And that, my friends, is that.’

  Distraction. Misdirection. Bribery. He had parenthood down.

  Charley loaded what was left in the refrigerator into the cooler and fewer shopping bags than they’d used coming in.

  Lisa was singing in her room, presumably to Black Kitty, so Charley dragged the bags, cooler and his suitcase to the car.

  When he turned he caught sight of a barge in the bay. A dark stain spread out behind the flat boat like blood. Was it leaking oil?

  He snatched his camera from the bag in the back
seat, attached a 500-millimeter telephoto lens to the body and moved to the side of the house, lifting the viewfinder to his eye.

  If that wasn’t oil, it was something equally un-ecological.

  Charley took pictures until the barge was out of sight, headed for Lake Michigan.

  He had a few shots left on the roll, so he snapped the steps leading from the cabin to the dock. The ivy had grown wild and wound through several cracks in the graying wood. More of a Frankie shot; she would like it.

  He scanned the area for anything else to photograph. What was that floating off the edge of the dock?

  Charley zoomed in on something purple and out of place.

  Why was Lisa’s swimming suit in the water?

  He zoomed in closer, then he dropped the camera and ran.

  Frankie

  ‘Is there anywhere you can think of that he might go?’ Officer Andalaro asked.

  He was the older of the two – graying as well as balding, his stomach larger than a police officer’s should probably be. The second – Randolph – appeared fresh out of high school. As buff as Andalaro was not, dark hair and lots of it, dark eyes that remained intent on Frankie as if he were assessing her every word. She felt guilty and she wasn’t sure why.

  Unless it was because she’d left Charley behind and now he was gone.

  ‘No,’ Frankie answered. ‘He … well …’ She glanced at Ursula. ‘Did you tell them about his condition?’

  ‘He thinks it’s the eighties.’ Randolph said it as if he didn’t believe it.

  Frankie could relate.

  ‘He had one close friend when he lived here,’ she continued. ‘That friend is dead.’

  ‘He knows this?’ Andalaro asked.

  ‘I told him, yes.’ But did he remember? ‘I’ll call Teddy’s wife.’

  She hoped the number was still the same.

  Three minutes later she ended the call. ‘Teddy’s widow still lives in the same house. No sign of Charley. If she sees him or hears from him, she’ll let me know.’

  ‘Anyone else you can think of?’ Andalaro scribbled something in a notebook.

  Frankie shook her head. Where would he go? Why would he go?

  ‘What happened?’ she asked Ursula.

  ‘We went to radiation. He seemed fine. He laid on the couch.’ She spread her hands. ‘Then he was not on the couch.’