by C. D. Reiss
The wine bottle and the laptop were in the kitchen. The stairs to the bedroom were through the living room.
When I pulled my glass away from my lips, I hummed a note. Swallowed. Hummed the next one. It was off by an octave or a chord or whatever, but it was the tune Drew had played when I had the flu. He hadn’t known what to do for me, so he’d written me a song.
I hummed it louder, correcting myself when I got it wrong. I’d been so sick. Freezer burned. Stuck in a thick soup of half-thoughts that was stirred so often, I couldn’t stay still. My joints had hurt. My head hurt. My teeth throbbed at the roots. My eyes had felt as if they were too big for the sockets. When Drew asked me if I wanted anything, his voice banged on my eardrums like a hammer.
He’d tipped a cup of lukewarm water to my lips even if I protested, and in the dark room, he’d played music because it was all he had to offer. It had been enough.
And you let him suffer.
I finished my chardonnay, remembering that night.
“Strat?” I’d said in a delirious haze. “Where’s Indy? Strat?”
“I’m right here.”
“I love you.”
Drew had assumed I was talking to him—not a hallucination of his best friend.
The fact was, I’d been talking to both of them.
Leaning, stepping, choosing without consciously deciding, I went into the kitchen, opened the computer, and poured more wine as the monitor came to life.
As promised, Gareth’s file was on the ftp site. Inside it was a file from two years before, when Will had gone to see him behind my back.
I hadn’t been waiting for Drew to return, but what had I been waiting for?
Had the holding pattern just been a pattern?
“Shit or get off the pot, Margaret.”
I clicked it.
The ink was barely dry on the PI report, but Gareth’s work was clear. Drew a.k.a. Trevor Stone’s apartment had been recently vacated. He hadn’t shown up for a session. His agent said he’d turn up at some point. He always did.
So he was gone again.
If I asked, they’d find him again.
We could do this dance another sixteen years.
I opened the file from Will’s visit as a music blogger. Without thinking, I clicked a photograph. Expectations were for gamblers and feelings were for children, so I didn’t know what I expected to see or feel.
But when I saw the picture, I felt so many things, my expectations were irrelevant.
The color picture had been taken with the long lens the Santons used whenever they were far from the subject. Even in digital, it yielded thick grains and blown-out color. A solid haze of impressionistic blobs that would be inadmissible in a court of law.
Short hair. White button-front shirt. Talking to a man in front of a nondescript brick wall. A pickup truck parked at the curb. Sleeves rolled up. Sunny day. Hard shadows hiding his eyes. Lips closed as if listening. Those lips.
It was him. Everything about it was him.
I gasped, putting my hand over my mouth to keep from uttering his name. It didn’t work. “Indy.”
His old name, the name that had left my teenage lips so many times and was only said later when I wanted him to listen to that girl because he wasn’t listening to the woman.
Enlarging the image made him into an offensive pile of blobs. Putting my face an inch from the surface didn’t help. He only looked like himself when seen in context. He was in his posture and shape. The tilt of his head and the curve of his arms. His expression was in the width of his mouth and under his shaded brow.
If I’d thought about opening that photo before I clicked, I would have thought better of it. It was unnecessary and might dredge up tiresome feelings. But because of the wine or the hour or the relief that Jonathan would be all right… I’d acted without thinking and slid down a greased chute of obsession.
The photos were in one subfolder. I selected the entire list and bulk opened them. They flashed as they opened, only to be covered by the next one.
Back. Side. Three quarter turn. Mouth open to speak. Turned in a smile. Brow furrowed, cast in shadow, lit in the oblique angle of the afternoon sun. Walking toward the camera. Walking away. Going through a black iron door. Disappearing.
That took three seconds and was more than I’d seen of him in sixteen years, and those photos couldn’t have been anyone else.
If he walked up to me on a dark street during a snowstorm, I’d recognize him by his face and expression. I’d recognize the hunger Will saw—not because he’d had it when he was with me, but because I saw in those grainy photos a mirror of my exhaustion.
His hunger was loneliness. It was a place I’d filled with family to the point of suffocation.
My glass was empty. I couldn’t face the size or emptiness of my house. I wanted something more but didn’t know what it was. Maybe I just had to leave.
* * *
“So what did you want?” Sheila asked from across the dinner table. We’d just given the waiter our orders.
“Company,” I said.
“Really?” She sipped her wine, observing me over the rim of the glass.
“Really. Tell me about the kids.”
She blinked, pausing as if she didn’t trust the question.
“I want to talk about something besides a problem.”
“Kids are problems.”
“Is Evan still in that special math program?”
Her face lit up, and she told me an anecdote about her ten-year-old son’s advanced classes. How she couldn’t keep up with his homework. Calculus. But he was such a genius, he ate it up. How Jenny, who we all called Jellybean, had sprained her ankle in gymnastics and made everyone crazy.
“I envy you,” I said.
She laughed. “Me? Most days I swear if I hear ‘Mommy’ one more time, I’m going to get in the car and keep driving.”
“But you have them.”
“I’d rather be you.”
“You still want my job? It sucks, Sheila.”
“But you’re free.”
I was about to explain how trapped I was. If I couldn’t extricate myself, at least I could give her peace of mind that she hadn’t gotten the raw end of the deal.
But before I could, she focused on a space over my shoulder and waved. “That’s the guy who works with you, right?”
I twisted around to see the host leading Will and a woman in her thirties to a table. She had blond hair cut just under her ears and inoffensive features a four-year-old might describe as “really pretty.”
“Hey,” Sheila said, standing.
Will and the woman stopped. He seemed pleased to see us, and she was perfectly relaxed until I stood and she looked right at me.
“Will, you know my sister, Sheila.”
He nodded. “Nice to see you. Angela, this is Sheila and Margie. Friends of mine from work.”
“Do you want to join us?” I said, hoping to both expand the night two more people away from loneliness, and get a chance to intuit something from the federal agent asking about an incident in 1999.
“I think our table’s ready,” Angela said.
“Next time then.”
“Next time.”
They went to their seats with polite goodbyes. Sheila and I ate dinner and talked about nothing but the kids. It was a perfectly pleasurable evening except for Angela, who made it a point not to look at me, except when she did.
It was as if she wasn’t happy Will knew me.
10
I’d slept like a baby. I didn’t have a worry in the world. Jonathan was going to be live and I’d managed to not blow the secret of his parentage.
It was six in the morning on a bright, shiny fucking day.
There’s nothing like Catholic guilt though. It creeps up on you when you’re least unhappy. The knowledge that Jon was mine and Strat’s ate at me. My silence chewed me from the inside out. He could have died, and it would have been my fault. Nothing could fix that.
That, I could fix.
“What are you doing?” Daddy asked when he saw me in his office, digging around the wall safe before his staff even had breakfast out.
“Taking five grand.”
“For what?”
I counted it out in twenties. “For none of your business.”
“If it’s none of my business, you can take your own money.”
“This is handy. And it’s not your business, but it’s your concern. So smile about it.”
“Is it for that waitress my son is keeping around?”
I pushed the five aside and tossed the rest of the cash into the safe then slapped it closed. His son. He always claimed Jonathan without any irony.
“He’s in love with her. Desperately.” I spun the combination dial. “If you could get out of the way of that, everyone would appreciate it.”
“Envelopes in the sideboard,” he said. “Bottom shelf.”
I opened the cabinet and grabbed an envelope.
“Did you hear about the shooting?” Dad asked. “Paulie Patalano was shot in the head a few hours ago.”
“Didn’t you hire him for something?”
“No.”
I slid the money in. “Was Franco there?”
Franco and my father had a mutually beneficial relationship.
“Theresa was.”
I stopped. Theresa, the good girl, had taken to a capo named Antonio from a rival family. It was a mess I was trying to clear up.
“I’ll take care of it.” I put the envelope in my breast pocket.
“I realized something,” he said when I was next to him. I stopped, and he looked at me. “I’m leaving the business in good hands.”
“You have heart problems too?”
“Hardly.”
“Good thing, because if anything had happened to Jonathan, I was ready to tell everyone he was mine.”
I didn’t mention this ultimate betrayal often because there was no point to it, but ever since Jonathan’s collapse, I’d thought of little else. Secrets had a life of their own. When called, they grew and swelled, pushing the limits of their shell.
“And break your mother’s heart?”
“I’d break yours if I thought you had one.”
“Always so clever and so cruel.”
“I don’t come from nowhere.”
“I do have a heart, Margaret. I gave it to your mother a long time ago.” He cleared his throat softly and averted his gaze for a moment. “And seeing him like this…” He meant Jonathan, but didn’t want to say the name in relation to his illness. “We, your mother and I—we’ve been in separate rooms too long. I don’t want to spend another moment away from her. Life is too short to live without love, don’t you think?”
“Yeah. I do.”
I tried to leave, but his voice stopped me.
“That man. The one you have doing your security?”
“Will?”
“You should let him love you.”
“Jesus, Daddy. Is there anything you don’t meddle in?”
“Not when it comes to my children, no.”
Our phones went off at the same time. I vibrated, and he chimed. There was only one reason we’d both be texted at the same time. Then my phone rang. I was the contact. I was the fixer. I was the hub point of the family, so I’d be the one to get the call.
Daddy and I looked at each other, frozen. Blood drained from my face. My fingers went so cold, I had to slide them across the glass three times to answer the call.
“Doctor Thorensen,” I said. “How is he?”
“We have some bad news. Can you come to the hospital for a meeting?”
* * *
Jonathan was hooked up to every beeping monitor ever invented. One of his heart valves had ripped open and he was bleeding into his chest. That was the short story. We were getting the unabridged version at the meeting.
They’d tell us there was a defect they’d missed. That it was genetic and I could have stopped it. That was the worst-case scenario and it was the only one I could come up with.
I had to see him first. I had to have his face and eyes clearly in my mind or I would say something in that meeting that hurt him.
“I’m not here to make you upset,” I said, leaning over his bed so he could see me. He looked less like Strat and more like a wax figure.
I’d told him the truth. I wasn’t there to make him upset. I’d come pre-armed with a piece of good news—I was taking care of business while he was laid up. He could relax.
“Oh, good. You’re here to tap dance.”
A smart-mouth through and through.
“I love that you have the energy to joke but not give a shit about your condition.”
“I give a shit. Guy came and told me I’m in a world of trouble. There’s just nothing I can do about it.”
“They called us into a meeting.” I wasn’t supposed to be talking about this. I wasn’t supposed to be stressing him out.
“Let them do their jobs. I can’t…” He drifted off.
I put my hand on his shoulder, away from the wires and tubes. “I took care of something while you were down. It’s going to create drama.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, you have no problem with it?”
“Okay, tell me what it is.”
“Monica’s broke. She hasn’t been going to work because she’s been hanging around Sequoia Hospital like she works here.”
“Fuck.”
Stress. I’d put the bad news before the good and caused stress. I was better than this. I said the right things at the right times. My brain was backward and my heart was inside out.
“I’m giving her money and saying it’s from you,” I said. “You’re going to back me up.”
“Yes.”
“Good.” I took my hand away. All I had to do was leave on an upbeat note.
“Margie?”
“What?”
“You’re my new favorite. Thank you.”
New favorite sister. One of seven chanted in a line from oldest to youngest with equal weight.
Not fair. None of it was fair. I was his mother and I’d been robbed.
He’d been robbed.
I couldn’t stay, but I couldn’t go.
I was the fixer, and I’d stayed the fixer for him.
This mess was special. I couldn’t fix it. I could only make it worse.
“I’m keeping tabs on every dime,” I said, “because you’re going to get better, you little fuck. I don’t know how, but this isn’t how it ends. Do you understand me? It’s not ending like this.”
* * *
You’d think my father would try to shut me out of the meeting for either my own sake or his. My threat must have fallen on fallow ground.
The windowless room had a long table and a big flat screen TV at the head. My parents sat across from each other. Mom was a grudge holder, but the fact that they were in the same room meant Jonathan’s trouble had softened her.
I sat next to her and took her hand. “It’s probably nothing.”
“Have you seen him? He looks—”
Dr. Emerson came in. He was a white guy with silver hair and a tag over a polo shirt and light gray pants with grass stains at the cuffs. Must have called him in from the golf course. Great.
Dr. Thorensen, the head of the department, followed in all his Nordic glory. A few nurses and a secretary sat down. They all looked as serious as a heart attack, which was a bad analogy but the only one I had.
Mom squeezed my hand.
“Mrs. Drazen, Mr. Drazen.” Thorensen nodded at both in turn. “Margaret.” He pointed at a woman to his left, tapping a laptop. “This is Grace Harcourt, our assist on admin—”
“Cut the introductions,” I said. “What’s happening?”
He cleared his throat and nodded to
Emerson, who slid the laptop closer and touched a button. White-on-black scan of the inside of a chest came up.
“During surgery, when we sutured Mr. Drazen’s aortic valve here”—he pointed—“we found a malformation. It’s an unusual genetic irregularity, but I’d seen it before so I knew how to work around it.”
I held my breath. Was that Strat’s irregularity? Had he gotten it from his father like he’d gotten his nose and his ear for music?
Mom tugged her hand away. I was crushing it.
“But,” Emerson said as he switched the scan, “this morning we were alerted to a leakage here.”
He pointed at a blob I couldn’t make head or tail of. It all looked like a mess of gray and black. The whole room was actually turning into an unintelligible abstract of lead and ash.
“We did a full scan.” Another slide. “And found damage to his aortic valve.” His voice slowed. The vowels elongated.
He said I was in a world of trouble.
“This isn’t something we can repair.”
“What do you mean?” my mother cut in. “You can’t sew it up?”
“The heart is a delicate organ. It’s not—”
“Is this your fault?” Mom asked. “Is it from the suture?”
Emerson and Thorensen exchanged a glance before Thorensen said, “If we’d known about the condition before we started—”
“How were we supposed to know?” Mom squeaked from somewhere beyond the ringing in my ears.
My hands squeezed together in my lap, and I wished more than anything in the world that it was Drew’s hand in mine. He knew.
…if we’d known…
He’d shared and kept the secret.
“What’s next?” Dad said, trying to get control. He was taking my role because I was in a state of complete panic.
…about the condition…
Drew would have made me tell.
“Right now, our best option is a heart transplant.”
…before we started…
“So there’s an option?” Mom. Ever hopeful.
“I’m going to review how the transplant list works,” Thorensen said, taking Emerson’s place in front of the screen. “There’s an emergency list specifically for cases like these…”