Unbreak Me

by Michelle Hazen

  She wanted him to have everything he loved. Horses and music and his family and friends. The boisterous, aged streets of New Orleans and the open range. She wanted to be one of those essential pieces of his life. But that was a fantasy, wasn’t it? A world made out of contrasting puzzle pieces that didn’t fit together.

  He loved her; she knew that. But he was LJ. He loved so many things, and he couldn’t have them all. In the end, what would prove to be the most essential?

  She hugged herself tightly, her thoughts pressing in until she felt all but invisible in the crowded street.

  LJ nudged her, waiting until she looked up. He grinned at her, so comfortable in his own skin. Everything she wasn’t. “This next song goes out to my lady.”

  That tugged a smile to her lips, and their eyes met for a long moment, as if he were hungry for the reassurance of her approval and he didn’t want to waste an instant of it. And then he dipped his head and began to play.

  It started easily enough. Smooth, like everything he did. As the notes grew, it wasn’t the kind of sadness that felt like weight. It was the kind that wound between your cells and made you want to beg for more. And when the song crested, tears came to her eyes as she began to grasp that the beauty of the sound held loss inside of it. It was love, ending. As all things did. All things would.

  The feeling expanded, threatening to burst all the boundaries of her. She had to look away from LJ’s face, from his sculpted cheekbones and downswept lashes, but her gaze only collided with that of a gallery owner across the street. The woman leaned against the doorway of her shop, tears sparkling in her eyes just like Andra’s. She couldn’t help but wonder who the woman had lost. Who she was worried about losing.

  The song finished, the last note starting robust and boisterous and teasing out into a wisp of sound her ears couldn’t quite hold on to. She sniffed quickly, her throat bound up dry and tight.

  LJ spread his arms, letting his saxophone dangle from its harness. “All right, now, who needs a hug?” His face cracked into its huge grin. Scorpion-Tattoo Girl laughed, swiping at her eyes as she pretended to scratch her nose.

  Andra pushed off the ground and wrapped her arms around him, holding on a little harder than she probably should. His arm was warm against her back after the wall she’d been resting against, and his saxophone bumped against her shoulder. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard that song before, anywhere. What’s it called?”

  “‘Montana,’” he said.

  There were so many things that could mean, and she wasn’t sure she could face any of them. Especially not with the music tugging her emotions so close to the surface, like a single layer of skin was all that caged them inside. He squeezed her a little tighter into his chest and bent to her ear. “Don’t be sad, Andie-girl. Not tonight. There’s hours yet before we got to go back, and I’m in the mood to take my girl dancing.”

  “It’s been years.” She bit the inside of her lip. “I’m not sure I even remember how.”

  “I’ll remember for both of us,” he said, his face lighting up so she forgot the entire street of tourists around them. “Trust me.”

  And she did.

  Twenty-seven

  Andra scooped a load of freshly washed sheets into the dryer, then braced her hands against the machine and stretched with a satisfied wince, her legs still sore from dancing. It had been an unforgettable night, hours disappearing in a whirl of colored lights and LJ’s smile, the sound of his voice into a microphone when the band at the club had invited him up on stage to sing one with them. But he’d still slept in the kitchen, and when she’d woken this morning, he was already off on a job. Moving furniture, according to the note tucked under the pot of freshly brewed coffee.

  She searched the unfamiliar knobs on his dryer for the correct setting. He was so different here. She couldn’t deny she was developing a whole new crush on this New Orleans version of LJ, who was as gentle with his elderly neighbors as he’d been with her young horses. Who was every bit as comfortable on a stage as he was in her kitchen, and who could pour his whole complicated soul out through the notes of a song.

  In the next room, the front door creaked as it opened, and Andra’s heart leaped into her throat. That door had been locked.

  LJ had warned her about crime in the neighborhood, but he’d made it sound like everyone knew him and would leave his house alone. She couldn’t cower in here, not with his mother lying in the other room, utterly helpless against an intruder.

  She dropped the sheets and glanced around the bathroom for a weapon. The plunger. A bottle of shampoo. Nothing in here was going to do her a bit of good.

  Slow footsteps crossed the kitchen, and a cupboard opened. Okay, no kind of burglar robbed the kitchen cabinets, and they hadn’t forced the door, so they must have had a key. She peeked out into the other room, releasing a breath when she recognized Reggie’s mother, Mona.

  Mona took a plastic Saints cup out of the cupboard—one of the ones LJ was always nudging to the back. She glanced over at Andra, then continued on to the refrigerator. Her yellow sundress all but glowed against her luminous brown skin.

  “Oh, hi. Rose is asleep. We didn’t know you were coming over,” Andra offered.

  “You want some sweet tea?”

  Andra shifted her weight, uncomfortable at being treated like a visitor in the house she’d been cooking, cleaning, and living in for days now. “Sure. That would be nice.” She needed to do her best to be polite. Rose’s best friend was so distant toward her that even offering tea was an improvement, even if it felt a little passive-aggressive.

  Mona dropped ice into the Saints cup and topped it off with the tea pitcher LJ refilled every evening. She placed it on the farthest side of the table from Andra, who glanced at it, wondering where she was expected to sit. The floor creaked under Mona’s feet as she went back for a pale-blue tumbler, then returned to the fridge to fill it.

  “Rose usually wakes up a little more in the afternoons,” Andra said.

  “That’s okay. I didn’t come for her.” Mona sat and adjusted the fan before she put Andra’s sweet tea on the opposite side of the table. “Come here and sit on down.” She nodded to the other chair and waited for Andra to settle in. She smiled. “Rose has a lot of nice things to say about you.”

  Andra’s fingers twitched on her chilled cup. Maybe she hadn’t been doing such a terrible job of fitting in after all. “Rose is great,” she rushed to say. “I’ve been enjoying spending time with her.” Saying it out loud made it sound false somehow. Her toes squirmed under the table, and she ducked her head.

  “Are you having a nice visit?”

  The fan blew strands of hair ticklingly across her nose, and she pushed them back. “Yes, of course. Well, I mean, it could be under better circumstances.” She forced a tiny smile, trying to ignore the part of her that was waiting for Mona to turn cold again. “But however it happened, I know LJ was a little homesick, so it’s nice for him to have a few days back here.”

  “Louisiana sure is a long way to drive for a man you haven’t been dating more than a few months.”

  She set her drink back on the table and lifted her eyes to Mona’s. Andra had been training horses long enough to know when someone was testing her. “It’s not so far to drive for someone you care about. I wanted to meet his mom anyway. And see his home.”

  A smile played around Mona’s mouth, deepening creases around her lips that showed she’d had many years of smiles before this one. “I didn’t expect you to notice that. Rose said you were quick, though, and as sentimental as she can be, she’s rarely wrong.”

  Andra’s back stiffened. She didn’t want to sit here and be insulted, but she also didn’t want to make an enemy of Rose’s friend. “To notice what?”

  “That this will always be his home.”

  Her belly flinched at the words, but she only sat up taller.


  Mona looked down and straightened the place mat, brushed away a few crumbs. “Rose and I have been friends for thirty-some years, did she tell you that? We were schoolgirls together, in the days when bussing was an idea everybody thought would pass.”

  Bussing? She almost asked before she realized Mona meant the desegregation of schools.

  “The day she found out she was carrying LJ, she was in my bathroom over on Deslonde.” Mona tipped her head to indicate the direction.

  Andra smiled stiffly, though she wasn’t sure it was the proper response.

  “Things were all mixed up for Rose back then, but we couldn’t have known what a blessing he would turn out to be. He’s helped my son out of a tight spot or two, I don’t mind telling you. LJ’s driven nails in half the roofs on this street, and after Katrina, he kept the weeds and critters out of the vacant lots around our houses. It took alligators and wild dogs moving in before the city sent people out to do the same for everybody else.”

  Andra’s stomach was too knotted to handle the overly sweet tea, but she tried to keep a pleasant look on her face anyway. Somehow stories about LJ sounded accusing coming from this woman. “He’s just the same on the ranch in Montana. Always the first to fix a broken fence or make sure we’ve ordered new feed before the old sacks run out, even though it’s not his job. He even bought a heating pad for our foreman’s stiff back and left it in his apartment so he wouldn’t have to say thank you and get all embarrassed.”

  Mona didn’t smile back. “I imagine that ranch of yours is pretty big, hmm? Lots of employees?”

  Maybe she should talk it up so his neighbors could be proud of the job he’d gotten. Or downplay the success of the ranch so they didn’t think she was some kind of spoiled rich girl who’d never done a day’s work. “We have a few.”

  “Well, the Lower Ninth only has one LJ Delisle.” Mona looked up, and if her eyes had been cruel, Andra could have argued with her. But instead they were a little tired, and Andra couldn’t find a word to say. Mona reached across the table and touched her hand. “I know you like him. Everybody likes LJ. I know he’s got a whole lot of cowboy notions clouding up his head, but you said it yourself. This is his home.”

  “You want me to tell him to stay here when I go back—is that it?” She pulled her hand back. “You may have known him since he was a child, but he’s a grown man now. That’s his decision.”

  “It is.” Mona sipped her iced tea. “But you have a choice to make, too. Rose is over the moon that you’re here, because she’s afraid to die and leave her son alone in this world. She thinks you’re a smart girl. Kind.”

  Andra gritted her teeth. “And you obviously think she’s wrong.”

  “No,” Mona said. “Rose is most generally right. But a girlfriend won’t be enough once he loses his mama. He needs his home, his friends. And the Lower Ninth isn’t just a bunch of houses, not the way some towns are. He’s part of this place, of what it was before Katrina and whatever it’s going to be from now on.” Her brown eyes deepened, sympathy with a touch of sadness. “And I think you and I both know he won’t have any trouble attracting a woman here.”

  The knot in her stomach slammed up into her throat. Mona might as well have ripped open Andra’s clothes to expose her laundry-day bra. And yet she couldn’t argue, because every word Mona had said cut with the too-sharp edge of perfect truth.

  It hadn’t been that long ago that she’d spent every night alone in her house. Alone because she was too broken to expect anyone to live in the darkness of her life with her. She wasn’t that person now, and as her laughter had returned, so had her strength. She deserved more than an empty house, and these days she was strong enough to fight for it.

  She leaned across the table, nailing Mona with a steady gaze. “I don’t just ‘like’ LJ, and I’m not down here playing games. I’m in love with him.”

  Mona nodded, but she didn’t look surprised, or any less resigned. “Take it from a mother. The hardest thing about loving somebody is doing what’s best for them.”

  Twenty-eight

  The streetlights were starting to come on by the time LJ blasted into his mama’s house. His shoulders twitched with the effort it took to close the door quietly behind him.

  Andra sat at the piano, her head down though she wasn’t playing. He passed her and threw a wad of cash on the table. Fourteen damned hours, and that wasn’t near enough money for the shit he’d had to put up with. Permanent jobs paid better than this by-the-day crap, but he had a job back in Montana. He didn’t need one here. Unfortunately, the little money he’d saved for a bed frame in Montana had gone into his gas tank, and his last paycheck had gone toward getting Mama’s bills caught up. The food in the fridge was going even faster with Andra here, and the power bill was coming due next week. Even if he caved and applied for something permanent, they couldn’t last the two weeks for his first paycheck to come through without having to lean on the neighbors. He’d go hungry before he’d go to his friends with his hand held out.

  His stomach grumbled, but he didn’t want to stay inside long enough to fix a plate. Instead, he yanked a big plastic cup out of the dish drainer and filled it with water until the tap overflowed onto his fingers.

  “Mama okay?” he asked. Please let her be asleep. If she saw him in this mood, they’d get into it, and she didn’t have the energy right now. He chugged the water, taking swallows so big they hurt going down. Andra was his guest. She shouldn’t have to be stuck here waiting on his mother. But without her, he couldn’t leave Mama alone long enough to pay the bills for both of them.

  “She’s been sleeping, mostly. I had to wake her up to take her pills and get her to the bathroom, but she didn’t throw up today. I think she might be getting over that flu.” There was a hesitation. “Are you okay?”

  “Yup. Going outside to work out. See you in a few.” He filled the cup again and strode across the room. His gaze seared the floor, the walls, the fucking front door that always stuck because he’d hung it crooked. Anything but Andra.

  The air outside smothered him after the brief respite inside with the air-conditioning. He shot past his truck parked in the grass at the side of the house, then Andra’s big Dodge Ram. Anywhere else in the country, they’d have a driveway, maybe even a garage. But here, he couldn’t even afford a load of gravel to park on. He slugged back half the cup’s worth of water, and it did nothing to soothe the burn in his gut.

  The streetlights cast only the barest glow into the backyard, and he spun the combination lock on the metal shed so hard he had to do it twice before he hit the numbers right. Heat slapped him in the face when the door rattled open. He reached down blind and swapped his cup of water for the roll of extension cord inside the front door.

  How had he ended up back here? This was everything he’d been running from when he’d left for college, and again when he’d swapped his uncle’s ranch for a fresh chance in Montana. He didn’t want to be one more guy trading a strong back for barely enough money to keep the lights on. Pissed off at a world that didn’t think he had any more in him than that. And angrier every day because he couldn’t get far enough ahead to prove them wrong.

  He could have, once. He had a business degree, and he could have gotten a cubicle with that and worked up to an office. It’d pay better than drywall, but it would itch just as much on his skin when what he wanted was open air and the smell of hay. But even in Montana, Bill had believed the worst and hadn’t been interested in giving him a chance to prove differently.

  If nothing was ever going to change, why did he keep trying so hard? He should just become the criminal they all seemed to think he was. At least then he’d have some fucking money in his pocket.

  “LJ?”

  He stopped, squeezing the extension cord in his hands. If he stretched it out to the plug at the back of the house, Andra would see the utility light that was all the electricity he could affo
rd for this shed. She’d see the foam spilling out of the weight bench he’d taken from underneath a “Free” sign on a Marigny sidewalk. Most of all, she’d see the rage roiling under every muscle in his body, and if she looked at him with fear in her eyes right now, he’d fall apart.

  “Did I do something wrong?” She sounded curious, confused, but not nervous. It was the only thing that allowed him to keep the lid on his temper.

  “No. Long day.”

  “Did something happen? Do you want to talk about it?”

  He glared down at the grass at his feet. Even in the dark, he could tell he needed to mow it again. One more goddamn thing he didn’t have time for. “Just need to blow off some steam. Give me half an hour, okay?”

  “LJ, why don’t you ever let me use the Saints cup?”

  “What?” He glanced back at the plastic cup he’d left by the shed. She wanted to argue about dishes? Screw it—she’d have to put up with the light and his crappy shed. If he didn’t throw his energy against some iron, it was going to explode out somehow, probably in words he’d regret later. He threw down a loop of cord, stomping toward the house as he fed it out. “Use whatever cup you want. I don’t care.”

  “Don’t you? Because you always push it to the back of the cupboard when you’re getting a glass out for me.” She hesitated. “When we were in Montana, even when you were mad, you could talk to me about it. What changed?” Her voice wavered on the last word.

  He threw a look her way, but the yard was too dark to make out more than her shape. Fumbling, he plugged in the light.

  She blinked against the sudden glare, putting a hand up to shield her eyes.

  He should figure out why she was suddenly worried about cups, but he couldn’t deal with that right now. “I just need to work out—that’s all. Thank you for everything you did for Mama today.” He moved a cardboard box closer to the rest of the stack at the left of the shed and started piling weight plates onto his bench press bar.