by C. D. Reiss
I squeezed her hand back for the life of her fucking stolen miracle baby. We wanted the same thing, after all.
“Is it too early for a drink?” I said.
Mom laughed. “You said it was afternoon.”
13
After a drink and the little food we could hold down, Mom, Sheila, and I entered the waiting room. Monica was already there with her eyes wide open, seeing nothing, tapping her finger on her knee as if writing a silent song.
“That girl,” Mom whispered.
“What?” I replied.
“Mom thinks Jon’s going to marry her without a prenup,” Sheila said.
“Her showing up now is convenient, that’s all.” My mother tossed off the accusation like a true child of privilege.
Monica loved Jonathan, and fuck anyone who said otherwise. I wished I could do something for her, but when she looked at me across the room as if I was the one lawyer willing to fight for clemency when the death penalty seemed like a lock, I knew I was doing exactly what she needed.
“Jesus, Mom,” I said. “Stuck in the hospital for days. Dealing with our bullshit. I couldn’t imagine a worse circumstance.”
Monica stood when I approached, and she hugged me. Mom, still unconvinced that the girl was there to do anything more than cause trouble, went right into Jon’s room.
“You need to take a nap,” I said. “You’re purple under the eyes. Isn’t she?”
“Sure is,” Sheila said, craning her neck to look at Mom, who was sitting at Jonathan’s bed.
Deirdre was asleep in a waiting room chair. Fiona was walking around with her arms folded. Theresa was on her way. Leanne was on a plane. Carrie was excommunicated. The Drazens were accounted for, planets circling the son.
“I’m fine,” Monica said.
“We have a hotel room across the street. Go take a nap. If anything happens, you know I have your number.”
“I can’t… I… he keeps making the machines beep and they keep running in to defib-defib-de—” She put her hand over her mouth, descending into sobs. I held her as if she was a seventh little sister until she pulled away. “I’m fine. Tell him I’m fine.”
“I’ll tell him you were dancing a jig.”
“Good, good,” she said absently as if a jig would do just fine.
“Here.” I took the cash-filled envelope from my pocket and laid it in her lap.
She looked in and closed it quickly. “I can’t take this.”
“You can and you will. As long as you’re sitting here all day for him. Once this is over, pay him back. And if you need a lift, you use his driver. You’re one of us.”
She nodded. “Thank you. You should go see him.”
Mom and I went in. No amount of scotch could prepare me for Jonathan’s deterioration. My dinner wanted nothing to do with me, threatening to leave the way it came.
Bags of blood hung over him. His skin was gray and flaccid on the chiseled bone structure of his face. His eyes were deep in purple hollows, staring at the ceiling, moving slowly as if changing direction hurt. He didn’t look like an old man living as much as he looked like a young man dying.
When he swallowed, I saw the organs of his throat move.
Mom was at his side with her hand over his, mid-conversation.
“I’ll try,” she said.
“For me,” he said with a voice like an engine that didn’t want to start. “Forgive him. It’s been too long.”
“Dad?” I said. “You’re fighting for Dad? You can’t stand Dad.”
“Don’t stress him, Margaret. Be nice.”
“I’d be worried if she was nice,” he said, turning his head a fraction of an inch toward me. “How’s Monica?”
“Hanging in there. She’s pretty tough.”
He smiled wider than I thought possible under the circumstances, then—as if they were on a timer—the machines howled and whined. His eyes closed.
Mom and I backed away as the doctors rushed in.
14
Hearing the doctors shout and the machines cry while they sent electrical shocks through Jonathan’s chest made me shake so hard I could barely hold my mother’s hand. They gave her another sedative, and Deirdre took Mom back to the hotel. I went to the hallway to breathe, and leaning against the wall with my eyes closed, I wished Paulie Patalano dead.
It was late by then. After visiting hours. Rubber shoes squeaked at the other end of the hall. I didn’t open my eyes as they got closer. Not until I heard “Taste of Cinnamon” from passing earbuds did I open my eyes.
The orderly nodded to me. He wasn’t listening to thirty-year-old rock. Not at all. Drew was just in my mind, changing the way my brain processed what it heard.
I went downstairs.
The cafeteria was mostly empty. The counter was unmanned. Muzak played for no one and everyone. The buffed steel chafing dishes were wiped clean. The vending machines flashed smugly as if they knew they had a monopoly. A table of people in scrubs laughed over coffee. An old man in an out-of-season scarf stared at a granola bar.
In the corner, my father sat across from Drew.
“Shit,” I muttered.
Drew leaned on his forearms on the edge of the table like a man at full attention.
You can be free.
When we were together, Drew had had a casual insolence toward my father I hadn’t wanted to correct. You didn’t get casual with my father. You never let him think you didn’t care. Not until you had the upper hand. But I hadn’t wanted to pit them as adversaries. I’d thought there was no reason to. I was wrong.
Declan looked at me as I approached, and Drew followed his gaze. I kept my face implacable so my father wouldn’t see my alarm and Drew wouldn’t see my questions.
“How does my son look?” Dad asked as I sat at the head of the table.
Did he just emphasize “my son” as if he knew I couldn’t refute it? Was he testing me? Or Drew? We were the only three people who knew.
“Like he needs a new heart.”
“Paulie Patalano doesn’t need his heart,” Dad said, creasing the edge of a napkin. “Never has, if the past is any indication.”
“This is a fascinatingly ghoulish conversation,” I said. “And more relevant than I’m comfortable with.”
“You’ve met this gentleman?” Dad held his hand in his guest’s direction.
“A few times.” I turned to Drew. He smirked, and I tried to extinguish a desperate anxiety that wouldn’t be quelled. “Been a while.”
“I heard about Jonathan, so I came.”
“We were just reliving old times,” Dad said. “When he and his friend came past the gate looking for you. What was his name again?”
“Stratford. Gilliam.” Drew’s tone was an accusation.
“Ah, right.” My father acted as though he was having polite conversation before he swung with the blade. “The animal who couldn’t stop himself from fucking underage girls.”
His gaze went to Drew as if he knew the man across from him was guilty of the same crime. For once, the man I’d loved didn’t flinch or look remorseful when my father attacked. He didn’t look as if he wanted to run away. He looked as though he wanted to fight.
And he looked like a man who knew something he wasn’t going to talk about until he was good and ready.
Was that what Drew had been unearthing for a year? My father’s sick proclivities were known to all of us, but he’d only been caught with Theresa’s friend.
“God rest his soul,” I said, hoping a subtle reprimand about speaking ill of the dead would shut him up.
“God rest the addict’s soul,” Dad replied, standing. “I’m sure you two have a lot of catching up to do. I’ll leave you to it.” He buttoned his jacket and headed for the exit.
“What the—” I hissed to Drew.
“I told you I wasn’t fucking around.”
“Fuck.” I shot up and caught my father by the door. “Dad.”
“Margaret.”
“Leave him
alone.”
He glanced over the room. The table of scrubs was empty but for a few napkins. The guy with the scarf sat over the empty granola bar wrapper.
“He doesn’t want to be left alone. Maybe you should let him face the consequences of his own life.”
My guts went cold. In all the years Drew was gone, I knew he was all right as long as he stayed gone. And here we were, back at square one. Same choices.
“I’m warning you,” I said but didn’t complete the threat.
“I made the mistake of trying to save you from the consequences of your choices and look where that’s gotten us. Delusional ranting in front of your mother.”
He was sticking to his story and scolding me for nearly speaking the truth at the same time. I wouldn’t be scolded or controlled. I wasn’t fifteen anymore.
“I know everything and I’ll burn it all down.”
He smirked, nodding a little. “When you talk like that, Margaret Drazen, I couldn’t be more proud of you. You’re formidable. It’s awe-inspiring. But you’re also the most misguided woman I’ve ever met. You sold your life to this family because you didn’t know what to do with it. I gave you a purpose. But that’s not good enough. Your brother’s in trouble and you’re looking for meaning. You forget… you have meaning. This family. If it wasn’t for us, you’d be six feet under with your precious Stratford.” He stepped toward the door. “You’re welcome.”
“You’re the delusional one.”
Even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t true. My father was a lot of things. Delusional wasn’t one of them.
“Your mother’s going to be back where she should be. With me in her bed and her life. Do not use your lack of purpose to interfere.”
He left before I could argue that I’d always had a purpose, even if it was changing.
“He looks happy,” Drew said, handing me the bag I’d left on the back of the chair.
“Don’t let him fool you. He feels absolutely nothing.”
“I can walk you upstairs.”
The idea of that waiting room made me claustrophobic. I had to get out of the hospital, but across the street, a hotel room full of Drazens waited with their brokenness and their poisoned history.
“Not a word in all these years,” I said. “And twice in a day You’re like a litigious client with a list of grievances.”
“Once I decided, it was easy.” He put his hand on my lower back as we turned a corner. He was stronger and steadier than I remembered. Unflappable in the most driving winds.
“I’m going to stop upstairs to make sure everything’s okay,” I said, hitting the up button. “Then I’m going home.
“Meet me in P2.” He hit the down button. “I’ll take you.”
Refusing was an option. Probably the best option. But the lines in his face emphasized his concern, and the gray hair at his temples gave that concern a gravity that I didn’t realize I needed.
“It’s just a ride,” I said, drawing my boundaries.
“It will be.”
15
Monica was with Jonathan, staring at him as if he was the last man on earth. To her, he was. Everything wasn’t fine, but there wasn’t anything I could do but intrude. I left her alone with him and went to P2.
He was waiting for me with a black motorcycle helmet under his arm and a white one in his hand.
“You’re joking,” I said, not taking it.
“You crack your head open and you’re going to be the heart donor you’re wishing for.”
I took the helmet.
He guided me to a BMW motorcycle with shiny chrome touches and a bright blue gas tank. Drew had been a cocksure lawyer and a chaotic boyfriend. Indy had been a purposeful artist. The man who handed me a white helmet was more Indiana than Andrew, and I kept thinking of him as Indy.
“Can’t we take a car?” I said. “I’m too old for this.”
He swung his leg over the bike and flipped the kickstand with a clack.
“Live a little, Margaret.”
“It’s been a long day. I’ve been hysterical, deluded, tranquilized, lied to, and hit broadside by a guy I haven’t seen in years.”
“And tomorrow will come whether you like it or not.” He pushed the helmet into my chest.
“Not if I die on that thing.”
“Fear will keep you awake, then.”
I took the clip out of my hair and let it fall over my shoulders. “Call me Cin.”
He revved the engine. I got on behind him and put my arms around his waist. I didn’t want to hold him like that. The warmth and firmness of his body was too tangible, too distracting. It reminded me of years of blissful, ignorant happiness.
Before I was the fixer. Before I was the problem solver. Before I managed my relationships like chess pieces, I’d been rebellious, happy, and free.
Once past the gate, he went north and west, turning onto PCH. I knocked on his helmet.
“You all right back there?” I heard the sound of his voice in my ear.
The helmets had radios.
“This isn’t the way to my house.”
“I know.”
“Indy, I’m tired.”
“It won’t be long.” He stopped at a light and held the bike still and straight with his legs. “If you want to go home right away, I’ll take you. I thought you could decompress a little. Up to you.”
I wanted to go home to that big, empty house with the big, empty bed and listen to the vents whoosh and the clocks tick. Collapse into bed so I could fall asleep and wake up in the same house with the same empty sounds.
“Okay,” I said. “Decompress me.”
“Atta girl.”
The light changed and we lurched forward. He sped up on a turn, pressing our bodies together. I didn’t slide away. I held him tighter. With the bike rumbling under me and this man in my arms, on the way to nowhere, I couldn’t think about Jonathan, or Theresa, or my parents. The contract came unknotted, clauses disengaged from sentences and promises not to breach. I had to lean into his turns, forward into his acceleration, and brace myself against slowdowns.
We turned off the road and onto a service road that ran alongside the beach. I held him tight to keep from falling backward, the bottoms of my feet numb from vibration and a gray wall of sound stuffed in my ears. My senses were so stimulated and my concentration so honed on where I was leaning that my mind had nowhere to look but inward. Nothing to think about but all the things I’d spent years avoiding.
Who was I? What did I want?
The service road turned into a narrow parking lot. It was crowded with twenty-somethings. The smell of beer swirled with the salty sea. The music that came through the gurgle of the ocean sounded like a live band.
Was I happy?
I was burdened and busy. But was I unhappy?
Drew parked the bike in an empty corner and let me dismount. We took off our helmets. He brushed back his hair. A woman squealed with laughter. A man in the opposite direction shouted. The music changed to a different song. The scene was like the night we met on the beach. A blank sheet of possibilities. At least for an hour or two, before exhaustion and the thought of Jonathan’s destroyed heart took over.
“Are you going to invite me upstairs for a game of strip poker?” I asked.
“We don’t have all night.” He put his arm around my shoulder, looking at me. “I have one thing to do. Then I’ll take you home if you want.”
My arm slid around his waist.
I’d been single so long. So very long. Yet it was so easy to navigate the crowd with him. He guided me along a row of sawhorses to a makeshift staging area with busy staff running between equipment trucks.
“Where are we going?” I asked as we approached an entrance.
A burly black man with a long beard and a radio waited there, next to a similarly-outfitted white woman with close-cropped pink hair.
“Going to hear some music,” Drew said as he pulled a tag and lanyard out of his pocket. He looped it over his
head with his free hand.
“Evening,” Burly said.
“Evening.” Drew held up his nametag. “I’m on the list.”
Burly ran a laser reader over the tag’s QR code. It beeped.
The woman checked it on an iPad. “Indiana McCaffrey. The Indy McCaffrey?”
People who worked with artists didn’t get star struck. But in the light of the iPad, the pink-haired woman’s eyebrows went up a good half an inch.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s been a long time.”
Drew smiled. “Reports of my death have been exaggerated.”
The guy was less impressed. “You have a guest? What’s your name, miss?”
My name could raise as many eyebrows as Drew’s, but that wasn’t why I answered the way I did. “Cinnamon, and ma’am is fine.”
Drew squeezed my shoulder. Pink Hair tapped the screen.
“You’re here,” she said, putting the iPad away before opening the rope. “Get a tag from the table to your left. And welcome back, Indy.”
We went to the table. Drew checked his watch as I got my tag and earplugs.
“You have a hot date?” I asked.
“Yeah.” His arm tightened around my shoulder. “Kinda.”
“What’s her name?”
“Life.”
He took me closer to the stage. I could see the net of lights above. We were jostled by roadies and blocked by two men in sports jackets and conservative haircuts. When we went around them, Drew faced the other direction.
“Do you not want them to see you?” I asked.
“Not yet.”
We walked through the makeshift backstage area in the beach parking lot. The concert was a band I’d never heard of, but thousands had gathered on the sand to see them. The stage faced the ocean and a beach dotted with campfires.