by Eli Constant
“Choice is what I got.” He points to the to-go cups one by one. “Dark roast black, no frills. Blonde roast black, no frills. One with all the frills. A.k.a. something they call a pumpkin spice latte, and last, but not least, basically a glorified milkshake with a shot of espresso. I’ve got sugar, honey, and cream on the side. I wasn’t sure if the way you took your coffee at home was your norm of if you’d want something a bit more indulgent since you’ve been subjected to hospital food hell. I’m a honey guy myself.”
“Kyle, that was really sweet of you.” I hesitate, worried I’ll hurt his feelings by going for what I want. “Would you be totally heartbroken if I want the first option?”
“I’m guessing no cream or sugar?”
“You guessed right.” I go to pull my right hand free of the covers, but then realize what I’m doing, and hold my left, unmarked hand out for the coffee.
“I’ll remember that for next time.”
I feel like I’m in the peaceful afterlife ether when the hot liquid burns its way down my throat and settles inside my stomach. It sloshes around like nectar of the gods.
“Looks like it’s good,” Kyle’s voice is almost as soothing as the coffee.
I focus on Kyle’s face. The smile I see is as warm as the coffee in my belly. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”
We sit in companionable silence until I’ve finished both the dark and blonde roasts. There’s something about Kyle that draws me to him. Like Liam, my belly flutters whenever he’s near, but with Kyle it’s something more. It’s not just desire I feel for him, though there is a heavy dose of that there too, it’s something more. Something much more. I watch him over the top of my to-go cup, Liam’s words floating about my brain, but the scent of Kyle invading me more.
Kyle’s only half way into the fancy frappe. “How is it?” I ask.
He holds the clear cup up to the fluorescent light, like he’s a food critic assessing the composition. “Well, I take back the glorified milkshake thing. This basically tastes like whipped cream with a hint of caramel.”
“Yum,” I grimace.
Kyle chucks the half-finished beverage in the trash. “Win some, lose some.” He leans back in the chair, patting his stomach. “Too much dairy for me anyways.”
“Doesn’t agree with you?”
“No. Just not a fan. Except for cheese. Cheese specifically atop the greasiest burger you can imagine.”
“No way.” I hold my hands up. “No way could I go through life disliking milk. Do you know how many gallons of ice cream I’ve consumed in my life? It’s a girl’s best friend.”
“I promise to never get in the way of you and your boyfriends, Ben and Jerry.” There’s laughter in his eyes.
“Well thank god for that. I’m not sure we could even be friends if you deprived me of ice cream.” I lower my hands quickly, realizing I’ve revealed the right one. The backs were facing me and I see as they come to rest on my lap above the blankets, that the mark is so pale that one would have to really concentrate to see it. I twine my fingers together, curiosity eating at my brain, but I redirect my focus on Kyle. I need more answers from Liam, but I won’t be getting any until he decides to appear once more. He was right. There already came a day where I’d want him to stay. Damn him.
“Kyle, how are you doing?” I ask, changing the subject so I could focus on the man in front of me and not the brooding man that says he’s a light fae… fairy… whatever.
“Fine.” His fingers are thrumming against his thighs though, nervous energy itching to be funneled into movement.
“You’re father just died, Kyle. You’re not fine.”
“We weren’t that close, not really.” Kyle sits further back in the chair, leaning his head against the wall. He closes his eyes, so tightly that the surrounding skin wrinkles into thick, hard lines. A single teardrop builds in the lashes of his left eye and then it becomes full enough to trickle down his face towards his ear.
Shit. What kind of person was I? I’d made him cry twice in one day. I was a terrible fucking person.
“I’m sorry, Kyle. I should have just let you say you were fine. I deal with grief every single day. Every day. I never judge how people choose to grieve. God. Sometimes they’re out of their mind crazy. Sometimes they’re having to be led around by someone else because they can’t even function. I’m sorry I keep pushing you. First about leaving Jim alone and now this. I’m sorry.” I feel terrible. I’m a necromancer, but I also do death for a living. I know better.
“No, it’s all right.” He shifts in his chair to sit upright. He doesn’t wipe the dampness from his face. That singular wet track makes me feel worse. “I loved Dad. Mom took it harder than me. Don’t really understand that, since she didn’t want anything to do with him.”
“Someone we know dying makes us face our own mortality. It’s natural.” I was going into funeral director mode. Next, I’d be offering to prep Jim’s body for burial.
“Yeah, I guess. Victoria, I was wondering if you’d help me make the arrangements for Dad? He didn’t leave any specifics in his will.”
Shit. Shit. I did not want to have to embalm Jim. I couldn’t handle it. “I don’t know if I can, Kyle. Jim meant a lot to me. I don’t know if I can have him on my table.”
“That’s why I want it to be you. You cared about him. Giving him a decent goodbye is the last thing either of us can do for him.”
“You’re not leaving me much choice.” I try and look away from Kyle, but I can’t seem to. He looks at me, with his puppy dog brown eyes so like Jim’s, but where Jim looked at me as a father would look upon a daughter, Kyle looks at me with much more intensity. I can’t help but nod. “Of course I will. We’ll get things sorted as soon as I’m out of here, but we’ll have to wait until the coroner releases his body. I’m sure they’ll…” I hesitate, “need to look him over first because of what happened.
“Right.” The word sounds so solemn and alone, but Kyle reaches out to me and I reach out to him. We hold hands for a moment. It’s comfortable and good, not electric, but I can still feel a calmer warmth building in my body. It’s different than what I feel when Liam is around. Kyle is the kind of guy a woman should love, the kind of man you build a home and family with. Liam calls to parts of me that are dark and forbidding. He’s a lover you take to satisfy primal urges.
It is like the two men who have so recently come into my life are two parts of the same whole. Darkness and Lightness.
I do not know which will win in the end. Or if I’ll even truly have a choice.
Because life isn’t like a carrier full of various drinks. You can’t always pick and choose what you get. Sometimes, you just have to digest the shit show of living and hope to god you come out unscathed.
Chapter Twenty-Five.
They are letting me go. They hadn’t done the test on me. Why would they? I’m an adult. The gene would have been found when I was a baby. So I’m fine. No executioner coming—only discharge papers and the hospital-labeled possessions bag of my things.
I am still sore as hell, but I am going to be sore as hell at home and that is a huge improvement over the hospital. My dad hated hospitals, said the longer you stayed in them, the sicker you got.
Terrance has one of his officers move my Bronco from the bar to my house, so getting home that way isn’t an option. He also tells me that he’ll send Darryl over for the first protective detail shift. I don’t like that idea one bit and tell myself mentally that I really have to be vigilant walking around the apartment in my underwear.
Kyle drives me home. Since I have no vehicle and no one else I can call.
That’s what happens when your nearest thing to friends is a dead bar owner and a police chief. Shit, at this point I’d take a couple of spirits haunting my house as friends. Delay their unfinished business a bit and get to know them.
Of course, forcibly tethering a spirit to the world isn’t much better than tethering it to its decaying body. It takes longer for a soul to forget what it is,
to become something dark and evil, but it still happens. That’s how you get actual hauntings. Hollywood has it partly right—they can be deceptive, vindictive, spiteful creatures. They can set their minds on a single person and dog at them until the end of time. They can even kill, if the person has enough fear to feed the actions.
The only really significant difference between a distorted soul and a zombie, aside from one being tangible and the other being ethereal, is that only one of them craves flesh after forgetting their human personalities. Little blessings.
Kyle doesn’t push for conversation, and I am grateful for that. He walks me to my door in silence too. I wonder if my pushing about losing his dad has affected him more than I’ve meant it to. He has to grieve though, in whatever way he needs.
We stand for a moment, awkwardly facing one another, feeling that slow-building-heat between us, that’s both comfortable and calling. I finally tell him ‘thanks’ and ‘see you soon’. He nods, smiles, leans in and kisses my cheek unexpectedly. That takes the low heat up a notch. He still says nothing, but he watches me as I disappear into the house.
I can feel his lips on my cheek as I shut the door and lean against it.
Once I’ve centered myself, I walk into the parlor area to check over things, make sure the business is in order. It gives me something to do, something to focus on, so that I am not thinking about Jim.
Because I’ve actually lost him now.
Mr. Grayson has dropped off the photos and personal effects he wants used during the service. Dean and Max have already accepted the body, which is staying cool in the basement- according to the message he left on my cellphone. It’s Thursday, so I can prep her tomorrow. I rifle through the small suitcase Mr. Grayson has also brought. It contains the outfit for Mrs. Grayson. Unlike many of my clients before, Mr. Grayson has remembered to include a bra.
More times than I can count, I’ve had to race to the store and buy one. Measuring a dead woman for a bra is… unsettling.
Strolling into my apartment is like a hug. You never realize how attached you are to your own things— your own sofa, your own bed, the way your towels smell- until you’ve been forced into a situation which means being without them. I was only in the hospital overnight and the return was like a ten-year homecoming.
I kick off my shoes, throw my possessions bag from the hospital onto the floor beneath the coat rack, and I sort of listlessly move over to the sofa and plop down against the soft cushions and plushy pillows. “Hello, home.” The movement only makes me wince a little, the bandages around my waist are so tight.
I pull the pillow embroidered with kittens against my chest and I lean forward, soaking in the fragrance of the cinnamon-scented deodorizer I use on the fabric surfaces in the apartment. It’s delicious and makes my stomach rumble. I didn’t eat breakfast at the hospital and I’d been released before lunch.
I don’t want to cook though. But I want to eat. Eat my grief.
The tears start as I get up and find the Chinese menu stuffed into the smallest kitchen drawer next to where I keep the hand towels and oven mitts. I use the cordless landline since my cell is nearly dead. I don’t need to check the number against the cream and red menu. I know it by heart. I might have made a habit of ordering a little too many dumplings before I’d decided to get in shape.
That thought makes me smile. I’ve come a long way. Then immediately, I feel guilty. I shouldn’t be smiling. Not now.
“Li Wei’s Lotus House. Delivery or Pick up?” The voice is accented, slightly high and girly, but easily understood. I instantly recognize the speaker.
“Meiying, it’s Victoria Cage. Can I have—”
“Tori!” She says my name with a ‘w’ in place of the ‘r’. It’s a very subtle incorrect pronunciation and I’ve always found it adorable. Otherwise, her English is practically perfect. We’ve known one another since high school, but she left for several years after graduating— going overseas to care for her ailing grandparents. She’s been back stateside a few months, but we’ve only seen each other a few times when I’d driven to the restaurant for my order. “How are you?”
I always thought Mei and I could be real friends, but, well, there was a complication in that department. Meiying Wei is one of the nicest, most unassuming people you’ve ever met, but her father is very protective and rarely lets her associate with anyone outside of the family. Otherwise, I’d have asked her on a girl-mance date ages ago. Even in high school, she didn’t do extracurriculars or anything. All her free time after homework was spent helping at the family businesses. The restaurant owned by her father and the coin laundromat owned by her Uncle.
“Hi, Mei.” I can’t help but smile, though the guilt rushes back into my stomach once again. “I’m okay. You?”
It’s as if she’d been hoping I’d reciprocate and ask how she was. Her words come spilling out in a fountain of childlike enthusiasm. “Good! Baba is letting me take classes at the community school in Kingstree.”
“Oh, Mei, that’s amazing!” I’m totally taken aback. I like dipping into someone else’s world for a moment. It’s better than mine, better than sadness. “What changed his mind?”
“Mama threatened to go back to Wuhan if he didn’t! She said we left China to make a new life, a better life. If he would not embrace America, then we should not stay.” Mei mimics her mother’s commanding voice, and then laughs her small, almost-too quiet chuckle that barely exits her cheeks. “Imagine, my Mama, finally growing a backbone!”
“Oh, Mei! That’s wonderful!” There was something totally magnetic about the Weis’ situation. They were here, after everything the world has been through, trying to live out the American dream, as antiquated as it might be. We needed more Weis, we needed them to show us that the world hasn’t changed entirely. There’s still hope for better lives. China was hit so hard during The Rising though. Anywhere might feel like a better life. America didn’t have the monopoly on happiness.
She’s quiet on the line for a moment and I can almost hear her smile radiating through the telephone in my hands. When she speaks again, I know a grin is still plastered across her pretty, alabaster face. “What do you want to eat, Tori. I’ll bring it over myself.”
“Your dad is letting you do deliveries too?” Times are a-changing, I think.
“No, but Mama will let me come.” She says it and I know from her tone that she wasn’t kidding about her mom growing a backbone.
“Great, I’d love to see you. Um… do you still have my normal order on file?” The last thing I want is company, but maybe it’s what I truly need.
“Yep.” Mei goes quiet and I hear the sound of buttons being pushed and the register dinging. “Twenty-eight, fifty. Are you paying with cash?”
“Yes,” I reply.
“Great, I’ll be over in about thirty minutes.”
“Sounds good. I haven’t checked, but there might be a cop out front now. Word to the wise— he’s an asshole.” I’m not sure she hears me over the sound of her father yelling in the background. I’ve picked up a few words over the years, but not much. I think he was reprimanding someone for the pork being overcooked? Or it could have been something more like ‘the pig looks nice in red’.
The phone line clicks and then buzzes. She’s hung up. That’s busy restaurant life for you.
Dropping the phone onto the couch, I get up and hobble to the window. Sure enough, a squad car is parked out front. The headlights are bright as day, the interior lights on also, and I can see Darryl talking on the phone and moving his hands animatedly. I wonder if he’d actually come running to my aid if he heard me scream. Nah. He’d probably wait a little while hoping someone would take care of Bonneau’s resident trouble maker.
I walk towards the bedroom then to change clothes and make myself slightly presentable. I’m instantly regretting ordering Chinese and basically inviting Mei over. I’m in no state to entertain.
When I enter my room, my eyes immediately go to where I’d seen Jim�
��s spirit. Then, it had just been a heart attack. I’d saved him. But I hadn’t saved him the second time. He was gone.
I look away from the spot quickly, the guilt in my stomach wanting to pour up my throat and spill over everything. Grabbing random clothes from the dresser, I go to the bathroom and shut the door. I have to sit on the edge of the tub for a moment, catching my breath and fighting back that overwhelming wave of sadness that comes and goes in the wake of tragedy.
When I can breathe normally again, I stand up and take off my shirt. The bruises on my body don’t look as bad as I think they should. Like I’m a week past injury instead of a day or so. I study my face in the mirror then, leaning forward until my bare stomach hits the cool porcelain sink. I look haggard. Turning on the tap, I splash myself with the coldest water I can stand. It brings a pinkness back to my cheeks. And that’s good enough. My grandmother only washed her face with water her entire life.
It’s funny, but I find more and more nowadays that I’m beginning to follow the rituals my grandmother used to practice.
The body wash I use, the lotions I use, the way I brush my hair. It’s like I’m slowly becoming her. She raised me, so I guess that’s normal. I wonder what I would be like if my mother had stayed.
Would I brush my hair like her instead?
Being raised by my grandmother doesn’t explain the way I’m physically changing though- the way my ears have thinned slightly, now coming to a dull point at the top; the way my skin has paled, even though I spend as much time out in the sun as I ever did. Even the freckles I’ve had since forever are fading, a pale cocoa brown when they once were a deep auburn. My eyebrows are large, untamed caterpillars, the same mahogany as my hair. I’ve never had a uni-brow, so I’ve never plucked. Glancing up, I lift a hand to smooth several playful, frizzy little strands that are reaching for the ceiling. As I’m finishing, something catches my eyes.
Leaning forward, closer to the mirror, I examine my hair. There is a line of color, or absence of color rather, peeking out from beneath the darker strands. I slide my fingers beneath the uppermost layer of my hair and I lift. My eyelids part further, my eyeballs feeling like they’ll be let loose to splat against the floor in a gelatinous heap.