The Perfect Plan

by Bryan Reardon

  Drew did get up, yet his movements were sluggish and unthreatening. He stared at me. He took a step toward me. And his hand did come up. I even flinched, but he didn’t strike me. Instead, he reached out, and—I can never forget this—he touched my face. His palm felt like fire against my cheek. But that smile was gone. His eyes looked full of a pain I never expected.

  “You’re not alone, Liam,” he said, and in my hunger, I accepted his emotions as real. I lived this moment like it wasn’t just another move in our timeless game. “I promise that you’re not alone. We’ll stand up to him. Together.”

  11

  Just do it.

  I’m ready. And it’s okay. Maybe it’s better this way. But then I hear her voice.

  “Lauren.”

  It seems to lift up from deep inside my dreams. My eyes open and I see that Lauren has heard it, too. It’s real. She’s here.

  It’s not over. Maybe I knew it couldn’t be. Not here. Not now. I stepped up to that line between life and death. I felt my will slipping away. But the truth is that I already crossed it, a long time ago. And everything since then has been a dream. Like someone else pulling the strings that move me through this game with my brother. That drag me ever forward, no matter how painful each step has been.

  I look at Lauren. I see her eyes wide with shock. I think about what I’ve done to her. How I’ve treated her. I hurt her, physically. I can still feel her hair between my fingers. I can still see her skin touching those rotting bones. I can still feel the thrill of it. And it sickens me.

  That is not who I am. I know that. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I never have. I’ve just wanted to be normal. To feel smart. Strong. For so long, I looked up to my brother and just wanted to be him. But that was before I understood that I didn’t have to be. I could be myself. I could be kind without being weak. I could be quiet without being soft.

  As I look at her, I can feel the years behind me. They tickle the back of my neck, teasing. They shed away and I see Drew. My father. My mother. Like they are standing right in front of me. And I wonder: Did I understand? Is it real? Or have I made it all up?

  “Put the gun down,” she says.

  And Lauren does. As it lowers, I reach out, gently wrapping my fingers around the barrel. Her grip loosens and she lets me take the pistol from her. I look at it for a second, the way it fits my hand, and I wonder if I could have done it. Could I have pulled the trigger? I just don’t know.

  Letting the air out of my lungs, I slip the gun behind my back. Lauren is staring at me. Willing me to tell her this isn’t happening. That my brother’s wife, Patsy, isn’t standing behind her.

  12

  Patsy Brennan.

  I look at her now, standing between the silver Mazda she rented and her black Audi A4, the sun shining behind her pale blond hair, and the moments come back to me in a series of emotional spikes. Maybe I love her. I shouldn’t, but maybe I do. Or maybe I need her more. It could be as simple and as complex as that.

  When I look at her, though, I can’t help but think about him. Together, they appeared to be the American dream. Patsy light and pure; Drew broad and strong. The leader of men. The strong, independent woman. Like us all, though, the outside hid the core. The surface masked the poison beneath.

  He’s been in control for so long. For as long as I can remember. But things change. Someone else is calling the shots. There is another plan in place.

  Then I turn. I see the look on Lauren’s face. The blood seems to have drained utterly away as she looks from Patsy to me and then back to Patsy. I could have warned her. This moment may have been less dramatic if I had, though the spectacle is not what kept my mouth closed on the subject.

  No, my silence had been complete and nonnegotiable from the start. For my entire life, Drew has seen everything. He’s known things before I have even done them. He’s been five steps ahead of me at all times. If he had even a hint that I had spoken in confidence to his wife, none of this would have happened. Ironically, in that case, Lauren would have been safe. Instead, Patsy and I would have been the targets.

  My silence, and hers, has kept us alive long enough to reach this moment. And I had no intention of testing that any sooner than I absolutely had to.

  * * *

  —

  ALL THE FIGHT seems to drain out of Lauren’s body, sapped into the perfect grass under our feet, leaving her weak in the legs. I step toward her and she manages to move away. I turn back to Patsy. She stands as straight as she did the first night I met her. The light I see coming from her, pulsing out like the sun’s rays, must be a trick of the moment. It cannot be real. But as I look at her, I, too, feel weak.

  “Liam,” she says.

  Lauren twitches at the sound of my name from her lips. Her mouth opens, yet there can’t really be any words for all of this. Patsy raises a hand, beckoning me. I leave my brother’s paramour by our mother’s gravestone and go to stand in front of his wife.

  “What was that?” Patsy asks, looking both concerned and suspicious.

  “Nothing,” I say. “We’re good.”

  “Why did she have a gun?”

  “It . . . was mine.”

  “Yours?”

  I nod. “Did you think I would do this without one?”

  “Maybe without her pointing it at you, yes.” Her head shakes. “You shouldn’t have needed it. Right? If things had gone as we planned.”

  I nod but leave so much unsaid. Patsy watches me. Reads me. When she speaks, I can tell she knows. Not everything, but enough.

  “You shouldn’t have needed the car, either. That was supposed to be a worst-case scenario. That’s what you told me. And now we’re here. Pretty far from your trailer, I’d say.”

  “I couldn’t risk him getting his hands on her,” I say, nodding up toward Lauren. “You know what he would have done.”

  She nods, but I see it in her eyes. Patsy is wondering if I had any intention of going to the trailer. Following her plan.

  “Fine. I booked two rooms in the Hilton near Longwood. We can go there and regroup. Is she going to freak out?”

  I shrug. “She can’t come.”

  Somehow, Patsy’s eyes open even wider. “What?”

  “I’m going to let her go.”

  “No, you’re not,” Patsy says.

  “I’m sorry. But I have to.”

  She stands before me. “We talked about this. We agreed. Right? Or did we? Did we ever really have a plan?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, and they are the hardest words I’ve ever had to utter.

  13

  She has a plan. We had a plan. In some ways, it started the day I met Patsy for the first time. I went to O’Friel’s for one of my brother’s events. It was early in his reelection bid for his seat on County Council and he held a fund-raiser targeting the labor unions. I never joined the union or anything, though I was still painting houses, but my brother knew that those guys felt more comfortable with me than they did with him. And he knew how to press an advantage.

  Honestly, I had a great time that night. I joined a table with a couple of guys from sheet metal, regulars at these kinds of things. We got talking about Allen Iverson. Eventually, the conversation turned to the Eagles and became some kind of drinking game. By the fourth shot, I forgot the rules exactly, but it was a blast. Bob joined us at the tail end. He already worked with my brother at Public Safety and the county. So he couldn’t join in the drinking game or anything. But he brought his deadpan old-man humor to the conversation. We all laughed when he started talking about ancient football players like Tommy McDonald.

  “Who?” one of the sheet-metal workers said.

  “Ask your granddad,” Bob said with a smile.

  Another guy, maybe half Bob’s age, slapped him on the back and couldn’t stop laughing. Bob had that kind of effect on a group. The vulgarity slowed d
own a good bit, and so did the drinking, but the laughter grew. He was like a perfect father, all the wisdom without the bullshit.

  Just after midnight, I walked the sheet-metal guys out to their trucks. When I got back into O’Friel’s, I found Bob sitting on a stool at the upstairs bar and joined him. He sipped a Jameson on the rocks. The bartender, a buddy of ours with a giant leprechaun tattooed on his shin, poured me one, too. I should have stopped drinking hours before but I could not turn down a free one.

  “Have fun tonight, son?” Bob asked, still looking at his drink.

  I smiled. “I did. Those guys are a trip.”

  “So were their fathers,” he said.

  “Really?”

  “Yup. I went to high school with two of them. We played football.”

  “Mount Pleasant?” I asked.

  He nodded. “They attended my wedding.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  It was my turn to look down at a drink. Bob’s wife had passed away about a year before that party, from ALS. He stood by her to the end, and everyone knew it. Some wondered if after watching a loved one suffer from a disease like that, maybe it was easier after they died. It wasn’t like that for Bob. He carried her with him still, every day. I reached out and patted his shoulder.

  “To Carol,” I said.

  “To Carol.”

  We drank. After a moment, Bob looked up again. His smile was back but his eyes still looked troubled.

  “You okay, Liam?”

  “Me? Yeah.”

  “I worry about you. Where are you living these days?”

  “Out on Orange. My girlfriend has a place next to that big church.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  I totally expected it to be about my brother. I even took a deep breath, trying to sober up a little. It didn’t help, but neither did Bob go in the predicted direction.

  “How old were you when your mom got . . . really sick?”

  “You mean, when did she become a nonfunctioning alcoholic?”

  “I guess I do,” he said.

  His honesty touched me. I thought about it for a second before answering his original question.

  “I don’t know, really. I can’t remember her ever not drinking. But by the time I was ten or eleven, she got really bad. We stopped seeing her much. It’s weird; I have no idea how she got her alcohol. I mean, she almost never left her room, but she was always drunk. It was like she was magic . . . in a way.”

  Bob nodded and then looked away. For some reason, I kept talking.

  “Now, I think she was killing herself. Committing suicide. She gave up on life but she was too scared to do anything about it. You have no idea how slowly she died, really.”

  Bob looked me in the eyes. “I actually do, son.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I guess you do.”

  “Tell me,” Bob said. “Wasn’t there family you could go to?”

  I shook my head. “Not really. My parents were pretty private. I think my mother’s parents might have been alive still, but we lost touch.”

  “God, I wish I knew. We could have taken you in. Carol would have loved that. You know, we couldn’t have kids. She always wanted them. Maybe it was her illness. I don’t know. We tried for a while but it never happened.” He shook his head slowly. “It was okay for me, though. It was enough that I just had her. Tell me, Liam. Have you ever loved anyone like that?”

  I laughed. It came out so quickly that I felt immediately guilty. But Bob didn’t react.

  “I don’t think so. I don’t know if I ever will.”

  “You will,” he said.

  And that’s when she sat down with us. Bob looked up first. I followed him and saw Patsy on the seat beside me. I had no idea who she was at first, but Bob got up and gave her a hug. I stared while she wasn’t looking, mesmerized by her hair, the structure of her face, but most of all the way she carried herself. Sometimes, you come across someone who just doesn’t fit into this world, like the grit and haze of reality suddenly part just enough for this person to stand before you. In that moment, I swear she glowed. I could feel the heat her presence radiated outward, and I had an intense desire to touch her, gently, on the arm, and draw in just an ounce of her strength. Instead, though, my head snapped down and I stared at my nearly empty whiskey.

  “Liam?” I heard her ask.

  I startled, slowly turning, and felt the blood throbbing in my cheeks. “Yeah.”

  “I’m Patsy,” she said.

  “Uh, hi, Patsy.”

  Her eyebrows raised. So did Bob’s. I looked at them, confused.

  “I’m your brother’s girlfriend,” she said with a soft laugh.

  “Oh, shit,” I blurted out.

  They broke down laughing. It took me about five minutes for the embarrassment to lessen enough for me to speak again.

  “Patsy is Frank Jackson’s daughter. She used to work at Legislative Hall. That was when you were still in law school, right?”

  Patsy nodded, smirking at me before turning back to him. “How are you, Bob?”

  “Good,” he said. “And thanks for the steaks, by the way. They were delicious.”

  “You need to come out with Drew and me. We’ll go to Petit Poisson. They have the best mussels in town.”

  “I do love me some mussels,” he said. “Unfortunately, I have to leave you two. It’s past my bedtime.”

  Patsy gave him a warm hug and Bob slapped me on the back, leaving me alone at the bar with her. The bartender came up and gave Patsy a pint of Guinness without her having to order.

  “Sorry,” I muttered.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “For being such an idiot.”

  “No worries. So, you had no idea, huh?”

  I shook my head. “How long have you two been . . . ?”

  “Eight months.”

  “Wow,” I said.

  “You know we met once?” she said.

  “We did?”

  “Yeah, I was twenty, I think. At one of those crab-and-clam bakes in Lewes.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I said, remembering the events, but not her.

  “So I guess you and your brother don’t speak often.”

  I tilted my head. “No, we do. But I’ve been working a lot. And I was down in Dewey for a couple of weekends.”

  In the years to come, I would start to understand that Patsy spoke with purpose. Her words were neither frivolous nor free. She had something to say that night and struck with brutal simplicity.

  “He told me about your mother,” she said.

  “He did?”

  She nodded. “I can’t imagine, Liam. My heart breaks thinking about it.”

  “It was a long time ago,” I said, my head spinning. “Did he talk about our father, too?”

  “A little. Not much, though. He . . . he told me you took all of it really hard. I guess I just want to tell you that you’ll always have a home with us, Liam. I want you to know that.”

  Us? I shook my head. “I handle myself okay.”

  “I mean it. You don’t have to be alone.”

  “I’m not alone.” I looked over my shoulder toward the stairway. “I have Bob.”

  She laughed. It was a real, unscripted burst of humor. The kind that I immediately wanted to hear again.

  “Your brother loves you, Liam. He talks about you a lot.”

  “I’m sure he does,” I said.

  “Seriously. Whatever it is between you, it’ll work out. I really believe that.” Patsy’s eyes closed for a second and her voice flattened. “I have to believe that.”

  I watched her, sensing this conversation had stumbled onto thin ice. That moment was like no other in my life. I sat next to her. We spoke softly, alone at the bar after
closing. Celtic music played from the speakers above and we both probably nursed a couple of okay buzzes. Yet, in no way did that moment play out as I would expect. Suddenly, I felt none of that energy, no electricity.

  I swear she was searching for something. She was waiting for me to let the words out, set them free. Yet, as she stared at me, I looked over my shoulder. In the corner, standing in front of a giant flag of Ireland, I saw my brother. He was talking softly with the owner of the pub, Kevin, but his eyes were locked onto mine, that thin half smile cutting through his face.

  So I heard the question behind her words. Eight months was long enough for her to wonder who Drew really was. What stories lay hidden behind his silence. She was asking me if Drew was okay. Yet, as she waited for me to answer, she pushed her hair behind her ear. She did it with one long and perfect finger. The nail was painted a deep red. As I stared, I swear I felt the ground shifting under my stool.

  “I got to go,” I said.

  I am a weak man. Even now. I wish I wasn’t. And maybe if I had been stronger, none of this would have happened. We would have never gotten to this point. Maybe I would have answered her question. Maybe it would have been enough of a confirmation, something to reinforce that tiny itch I think she already felt. But when she touched her hair. When I saw the polish on her nails . . . I saw my mother. And I couldn’t survive it. Not again.

  So, less than a month later, Patsy and my brother were engaged. In fact, Patsy was standing by my brother’s side when he asked me to be his best man.

  14

  A year later, I found myself sitting at a raised table looking at a little champagne flute. My callused and stained fingers seemed to violate the perfect glass. I spun it slowly, watching the drink roll up along the sides. The entire night, the night of my brother’s wedding, felt at once foreign and surreal, like I’d fallen asleep and had someone else’s dream.