The Perfect Plan

by Bryan Reardon

  “Come here, baby,” she said.

  I swallowed it down, all of it, and smiled. Moving quickly across the room, I sat on the edge of her bed. Taking her hand in mine, I looked into her eyes, through them at the mother she used to be. The one I spoke to every night in my dreams.

  “How was school?” she asked.

  “Good,” I said, gently rubbing the thin skin on the back of her hand. “Did I ever tell you I’m taking an art class?”

  “Yeah,” she said distantly. She blinked, and for a second that cloud that hovered on the surface of her eyes seemed to part. A ray of clarity shined back at me and my heart fluttered. “What, what did you just say?”

  My smile broadened into something real. “I’m taking an art class . . . at school.”

  She sat up straighter. “You are? Really?”

  I hadn’t seen her like that for so long. It was at once hopeful and terrorizing, like the calm at the center of a hurricane. But I needed it so badly that I clung to every second. Unwilling to let it go.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I like it, I think.”

  Her eyes changed again. That focus remained, but it seemed to turn back, peering deeply into the past.

  “Oh, I loved to draw,” she said.

  “You did?”

  “All the time.” Her lips rose into a smile that seemed to match my own. “I still dream about it. Oh, how I just loved Christmas Eve.”

  At first, I thought I’d lost her. But then Mom continued her story. I hung on every word, not because of their beauty, but because they offered a glimpse into my mother’s past.

  “I was the youngest of four. So it was like I was always reaching to try to keep things the way they were. As everyone grew up and got busy with school and jobs, they wouldn’t be around as much. But on Christmas Eve, everyone would come home. We’d be together, and it was so much fun.”

  She laughed and squeezed my hand.

  “The thing I remember the most,” she said, her voice clear, “was the waiting. Isn’t that funny. I loved the party, but it was the hours before, when I was home alone with Mom and Dad. The minutes passed so slowly. I used to get paper out, and my oil pastels. Dad used to call them adult crayons.” She laughed again. “He would sit in the living room with me sometimes. And I would spread out the paper right under the tree. The lights would shine down through the pine needles in a rainbow. And I would draw and draw. And Daddy would tell me how much he loved my pictures. He . . .”

  No, I remember thinking when her words slowly faded away. The look on her face changed, too. But I needed her to continue. I needed to hear more.

  “You were close to your family . . . then?” I asked, desperate.

  A tear formed in the corner of her eye. As it spread across her iris, it seemed to drag that cloud back, extinguishing her sun. One of her long, thinning fingers, painted such a fiery red, caught a wisp of free hair and tucked it behind her ear.

  “I was,” she said.

  “But I thought . . .”

  “He never got along too well with them,” she said so softly that I could barely hear it.

  I leaned down, my face not far from hers. “Who? Dad?”

  In that instant, she changed, becoming something amazing yet frightening. This woman who sat up looking me in the eye was a stranger. Yet, at the same time, I’d known her forever. I’d felt her under the suffocating weight of her condition. Trying to break free. Trying to survive, to live. Most of all, to love me.

  As she looked at me, her hand touched her stomach. “I remember when I was pregnant with you, Liam. I was so happy. I could feel it, even then. Even before I held you. Or looked into your beautiful eyes. I knew what you were going to be like. I knew it.” She smiled slyly. “I knew you’d be my favorite.”

  “Mom!”

  “Sometimes we get caught up. Sometimes, life seems to take a turn that we didn’t see coming. And maybe people judge that. They wonder how we end up like this. How can we be so weak? But they don’t understand. Love makes us weak, baby. Because we stop caring about ourselves. Because we care for someone else so much more. Then . . . we can never be free again.”

  I felt my entire body shaking. Her words didn’t make sense to me. Not completely. But I could feel them settling into the deepest part of me, slowly entering my soul, changing it forever in ways I wouldn’t understand for a long time.

  She nodded again. And I watched the moment blink out. Her focus faded to nothing. When she spoke next, she sounded worse than I had ever heard her. “I’m tired, baby.”

  I sat there, needing to know more. At the time, though, it was what she said about our family that grabbed hold and wouldn’t let go. I’d never met my uncle or aunts, and had only seen my grandparents a few times. I didn’t even know where they lived, actually. So my mother’s story came out of nowhere and rocked what little history I had.

  “Mom?”

  Her eyes fluttered. Then closed.

  “Tired,” she whispered.

  Gently, I placed her hand down on the mattress. Holding my breath, I got up off the side of the bed and left her alone in what seemed my mother’s endless effort to sleep it off.

  * * *

  —

  I WENT TO the kitchen for a snack next. I was starving, I remember. All I really wanted was an apple. But I knew we wouldn’t have any fruit. I checked the pantry first. We had cans of soup, Campbell’s Double Noodle. My mother bought it for us when we were sick. It had to be five years old. There were other cans—beans, stock, tuna. Nothing that sounded great. We were out of cereal. In fact, we had been for a while.

  I got pretty pissed off at that, actually. I slammed the pantry door and yanked open the refrigerator. There was no milk, anyway. We had some sticks of butter in the back. A pizza box left over from a few days ago. I opened that and it was freaking empty.

  “Goddamn it!”

  I slammed that door, too. And then I kicked the fridge hard enough that a pain ran through my foot and up my leg. I knew I wasn’t really upset about the food. The kitchen had been like that for years. In fact, I ate more at school than I ever did at home. Even in the moment, I knew that it had nothing to do with empty cupboards and everything to do with what my mother had said. I closed my eyes and remembered the clarity in hers. I needed it to come back. Just one more minute. That’s all.

  Spinning, I rushed back up the stairs. I pushed her door open. Right away, I could see she was asleep. But I moved to her bed, sat back on the edge. I touched her hand as I had before.

  “Mom?” I whispered.

  Then I noticed how cold her skin felt. I leaned over her, agonizingly closer and closer. My dry lips touched her forehead. She felt like a glass of ice water.

  “Mom?” I said, louder.

  Her hand shook first. It seemed to run up her arm, into her chest. Her torso thrust up off the mattress and fell back down, shaking more and more violently.

  “Mom!”

  Her eyes never opened. Her head turned slightly and she vomited onto the bed. The stain it immediately left was burning yellow like the sun. Then she went utterly limp.

  “Mom!” I screamed.

  But no one heard. I was all alone.

  5

  Lauren won’t look at me. She sits in my truck with her forehead touching the side window, staring out the glass at the cabin. The early sunlight cuts through the tree branches, reflecting off the shining silver of the padlock. I’m surprised when she speaks.

  “Why’d you lock the door?” she asks.

  “What?” I say, turning the truck around.

  “The padlock on the door. Why’d you lock it?”

  I look at her but she’s still turned away from me.

  “Why does it matter?” I ask in a tone that suggests I have no interest in the answer.

  “What’s under the tarp?” she asks.

>   My grip tightens on the wheel as my foot slips off the gas pedal. The truck drifts to a stop on the dirt drive that leads away from the cabin.

  “Nothing you need to worry about,” I say harshly.

  “Huh,” she says. Lauren finally turns to look at me. “I somehow doubt that.”

  I let go of the wheel. My right hand reaches behind my back before I even realize what I’m doing. Lauren sees me and puts a hand up.

  “No, I’m sorry. It doesn’t matter. Just drive. I’m cool.”

  I leave the gun tucked into my pants and hit the gas. The truck rolls around the lake and up the hill toward the exit.

  “Where are we going, anyway?” she asks.

  “None of your business.”

  Lauren shakes her head.

  “Don’t you get it?” she says. “I’m on your side. I’m not going anywhere. What do you think I’ll do, run to the cops? I would be in as much trouble as you.” She shakes her head and smiles. “And Drew would be so pissed. He’d kill us.”

  I turn, searching her face, looking for some clue. All I find is that same bravado. She probably can’t imagine why Drew would trust me. It just shows how little she knows.

  “Why are you scared?” she asks. “It seems . . . out of character, considering.”

  “Considering what?” But I wonder why she thinks I’m scared. What is she seeing?

  “All the stuff you’ve done for him.” She laughs, talking about me like I was a character from some movie she watched the night before. “We all know you’re his muscle. In fact, I kind of owe my career to you, at least partially. Remember that whole thing with the political signs during the last election, when that dude Steve went”—she makes air quotes—“rogue and then disappeared? I helped with the media the next day. That was my big break. I mean, I was killing it before that, but it got me noticed a little faster.

  “I heard you were the one who destroyed those signs, and you pinned it on Steve. I heard it was all Drew’s plan. That Steve had been talking outside the campaign, about money. And some other stuff. I heard you beat the living—”

  “You don’t know shit,” I say.

  “Ha! I’m the one who set up the shoot. I had every reporter from Baltimore to Philly there. Drew, with his shirtsleeves rolled up, fixing his opponent’s signs. Pounding them back into the ground. Brilliant, really. The whole thing.” She shakes her head, as if proud of her own work, before continuing. “I know you’re like a legend. And it’s not just the sign thing. Everything else you’ve done for your brother. And this. It’s like the Mona Lisa.”

  Mona Lisa? I have no idea what she’s talking about. For a second, I think she’s mocking me because I paint. Could she know that? Could she have seen my work? Been to my trailer?

  She just keeps going. “It’s perfect. Can you imagine his Q score after this?”

  “What are you going about?”

  “Q score. Q rating. It’s this scale of how popular someone is.”

  “Kidnapping someone will make my brother popular?”

  “His name recognition will go through the roof. The numbers will finally turn our way.”

  My head hurts as the conversation with Bob and my brother comes back. “That doesn’t even make sense. A kidnapping is going to make people like him?”

  “Like, hate, who cares?” She shrugs. “Q scores test both. Think about it. Two of the highest negative Q scores are Kim Kardashian and Justin Bieber.”

  “So?”

  “I can’t name two people who don’t know who they are.”

  “But Drew’s a politician,” I said. “People hate the Kardashians. No one would vote for them.”

  When she laughs at this, it is the sound of wonder. “Aren’t you paying attention?”

  I feel stupid, which makes me angry. But I can’t afford that right now. I need to find my focus again. But she just keeps talking and talking.

  “It’s perfect. I mean, nobody trusts the news anymore. Half the people think it’s fake already. They always get it wrong. They’re just looking for the story that will sell the most subscriptions, get the best ratings.

  “He’s going to spin it. It won’t have anything to do with him. Just some random act of violence against someone on his staff. Can you imagine the pictures? He’ll be there with the police when they find me. He and his wife will come to the hospital.”

  So that’s what he told her. That this is all some sort of television drama. That she was “kidnapped.” They’d just lay low. Then stage a miraculous rescue right in front of the news cameras. Perfectly executed by the dapper young politician. Maybe his shirtsleeves would be rolled up again.

  I close my eyes. “And what about me?”

  “You?”

  I nod slowly. She looks confused at first. “Oh, no problem. They’ll never catch the perp. No way. You were careful, right?”

  “Sure,” I lie again, thinking of her car.

  “It’ll all work out. But you know that. Stop playing dumb. I know this isn’t news to you.”

  I want to burst out laughing. Everyone has a plan. Everyone thinks they know exactly what’s going to happen. But at least one of us has to be wrong.

  * * *

  —

  I DRIVE DOWN the highway, surrounded by the last swell of rush-hour traffic. A school bus stops beside my truck at a light. I glance over and see three boys staring down at us. They laugh and point, at what I have no idea. Lauren glances over, too.

  “You think you should be driving so . . . conspicuously?” she asks.

  “Why not?” I say. “Why would they be looking for me?”

  “Maybe they’re not. But they’re definitely looking for me.”

  I picture the police surrounding her abandoned car. Nobody could miss that.

  “Well, then, I suggest you stay out of sight.”

  There is a minute of silence. Then Lauren speaks again, the tone of her voice familiar. One I have heard whenever she is working.

  “I heard he basically raised you,” she says.

  “What?”

  “Your brother. After your mother died and your dad ran off.”

  “Huh?”

  Could she be that crazy? I know my brother isn’t. He didn’t tell her anything. Not really. No matter what she might think.

  “It must have been hard,” Lauren says, in that tone. “On your own. The two of you. You must look up to him. Like a—”

  “I know about you two,” I interrupt, my words flat.

  That does it. The smile vanishes from her face like it’s been burned to ash. In a way, it feels good to see her suddenly off-balance. But I get no joy from it. Not really.

  It’s Lauren’s turn to look away. “What do you know?”

  “Pretty much everything. He likes to talk, my brother.”

  She turns her body, trying to get as far away from me as she can. For the first time, I notice that I haven’t taken the tape from her arms or legs.

  “I can take that off,” I say.

  She doesn’t answer. I weigh the options I have, and I realize that there is one benefit to what my brother has done in telling her the plan. It locks her in, like she said. She won’t even try to run. She’s too deep, and she has to see it all through now. So, at the next light, I reach over and pull at the tape. At first, she resists, but I get it going and eventually her hands are free.

  “You can get your feet,” I say as the light in front of us turns green.

  “Where are we going?” she asks.

  “To see Drew,” I say.

  She spins around, her eyes wide. “No, you’re not.”

  “I am,” I say. “It’s part of the plan.”

  6

  I sat in a chair, looking out a large plate-glass window. Cars rolled in and out of the hospital parking lot, their beams dancing through the night i
n a kind of perfect rhythm. They had my mother in a room by then, 353. I had stood in the doorway and looked at her but could not go in. Instead, I wandered the halls until I found an out-of-the-way family lounge. And that was where the police officer eventually found me.

  He stood over me as I sat leaned back with my feet spread out in front of me. When I looked up, the ceiling light shined from behind his wide Mountie hat.

  “Is your name Liam Brennan?” he asked.

  His voice was surprisingly high, like the music teacher’s at school. I blinked and saw the man wore glasses and had to be about the same age as the paramedic who’d brought me to the hospital. He wore the brown uniform of a county officer, but I didn’t know that then. All I knew, without a doubt, was that he was the police. I tensed.

  “Yes.”

  “Can I speak with you?”

  I didn’t respond. Instead, I looked around, as if searching for an exit.

  “Son, it’s okay. You’re not in trouble. I just want to talk about your mother.”

  I tried not to say anything. I knew, even in the moment, that I shouldn’t. But the officer sat down across from me. He looked me in the eyes as he spoke. He asked questions that, maybe, I had wished people would have asked for a long time. And I spoke to him, eventually.

  “How long has your mother been like this?”

  “Drinking?” I asked.

  He nodded. “An alcoholic.”

  I looked out the window and shrugged.

  “Do you live alone at home with her?”

  I shook my head. I wanted to say yes. Maybe I wished I did.

  “Does your father live with you?”

  I nodded.

  “What’s his name?”

  I paused, but told him.

  The police officer leaned forward. “Are things okay? Is anyone hurting you?”