Love Me Broken

by Lily Jenkins

  This cat will like me. It is not an option.

  Then I remember my dad, and I almost smack my forehead for being so stupid. I get out my phone and send him a text:

  I found a cat. Please park outside, and don’t go in the garage. He’s locked inside.

  I look down at the phone and notice that the last text I sent him is dated March 12th. It simply says, “Happy Birthday.” There was no response.

  I use the self-checkout and carry the two grocery bags outside, avoiding the parking lot and taking the back lane to walk along the waterfront again. I go as far as I am able, and then am forced to work my way uphill, past the crowded main street and onto the quiet residential neighborhoods above it. It’s still bright—the light doesn’t go away until past 9 p.m. in the summers—but the air has a calm, end-of-the-day feel to it. There are the sounds of children in the distance, and I try to remind myself that there is more to the world than cars and accidents.

  But I find I don’t care. I just want to get away from this place and never return.

  The porch is empty when I get back. I go in through the front door and set my bags down in the kitchen. I spread the baking supplies out on the counter, then grab a tin of premium cat food, along with a toy mouse and a pocketful of treats. Then I head to the garage.

  At first I see nothing. “Prickly Pete?” I call out. “Dinner time!”

  But Pete doesn’t come out. I let out a sigh and set down the tin of food in the center of the garage. Then I take a step back, crouch, and wait.

  After what feels like ten minutes, I see movement to my right. I almost gasp. There’s a pair of green eyes studying me, watching me from the shadows under an old table.

  “Hey there, kitty,” I say softly. “I brought you some food.” I take out one of the jerky treats from my pocket and throw it toward him.

  He just looks at me. He doesn’t even look down at the food. I wait, and a minute goes by. Then he pulls his head back into the darkness.

  “Fine,” I say. “Have it your way.” I stand up and make my way to the door. “But I’ve got a whole bag of cat treats that you’re only getting if you’re nice to me.”

  I close the door. My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I pull it out. My dad has responded.

  Okay.

  This is probably our longest conversation in almost a year.

  I start to head back to the kitchen when I hear a creak on the floorboards upstairs. I look up and realize I still haven’t seen my mom. And that creak—it came from right above the living room.

  That’s where Conner’s room is.

  Curious, I make my way up the stairs, balancing my footsteps carefully to remain silent.

  The lights are all off upstairs, but there’s enough of the red glow of sunset coming through the windows to see things plainly enough. I walk past my door and stop at the room next to mine. Conner’s room. The door is slightly ajar.

  The sight of it sends a shiver down my spine. As far as I know, no one has been in Conner’s room since his burial. One time, last Christmas, I was tempted to visit, but found the door locked. I hadn’t tried again since then, and it had started to feel like that room wasn’t there anymore.

  But now the door is open and I hear a muffled whimpering from inside. I fill my lungs with air and push against the cold wood of the door. It opens silently, and at once I can see my brother’s room, exactly as I had remembered it, exactly as he left it.

  By the door is his desk. A few papers are still sprawled there, and a pen sits on top of them. Books and old sports trophies from when he was a kid crowd the low shelves. Then there is a window, the blinds pulled shut. It’s still bright enough outside to send in the red glow of twilight, and for a moment it reminds me of a photographer’s developing room.

  On the other side of the room is his twin bed. Sitting on the edge of it, facing away from me, is my mother. She has her hand on his pillow, touching it lightly, as if she might be stroking Conner’s hair while he slept.

  Suddenly I don’t want to be here. I feel like I’ve just walked in on something private, and my reflex to retreat is as strong as if I walked in on a stranger on the toilet. This is not something I’m supposed to see. I take a step back—and the floor gives a loud creak.

  I freeze, caught. My mother jumps and turns sharply to me.

  “Erica!” she says, and her gasp is a mix of emotions. She’s angry—that’s the main one—but there’s also humiliation in it. Her hand leaves the pillow, and she uses it to straighten her hair. I think it’s the most attention she’s given to her hair in the past twelve months.

  “I heard a noise,” I say feebly, and I don’t move.

  My mom looks away, her eyes scanning the room distrustfully. She looks lost, as if trying to remember how she got here. She looks so small and helpless that I have the urge to comfort her, to tell her it’s all right. But I can’t get rid of the feeling that I’ve caught her in some forbidden place.

  I shake my head. But it’s not forbidden. This is Conner’s room, that’s all. Why should it feel so wrong to be in here?

  Because he’s not here, my mind answers.

  My mom is still on the bed, and I am taken away from my own thoughts by the sound of a long, exhausted sigh. I look at her, and she is staring away, toward the closed blinds. Then her shoulders start to shake, and her face pinches with embarrassment—but she can’t stop herself. There are tears melting down her face, and my own eyes mist, seeing her struggle.

  I take a step toward her. “It’s okay, Mom,” I say.

  We’ve never been as touchy-feely as some other families. I often watched with wonder when Nicole would hug and kiss her mother on the way out the door, for no reason at all. Which was strange, because Nicole’s mother was otherwise unreliable. Nicole herself had to stay with us for extended periods of time when we were growing up. My parents were always there for us. But still, we didn’t hug.

  When I make my way across the room, my mom notices and starts to shake her head. “I’m fine,” she says, but her voice cracks.

  “I know,” I say, and surprise us both by sitting down next to her on the bed. I’m on the end of the bed, the far side from the pillow. But even from here, when I sit down, I can smell Conner.

  I never thought about it before. I had pictured his face, remembered his laugh. But I had never thought about his smell, the way only he smelled. And I am overwhelmed with a new layer of grief, a new way to miss him.

  He shouldn’t have died so young. I should have paid better attention on the road, stopped the car, done something.

  But I don’t cry. My eyes mist and I find I can’t cry. The sorrow is too deep.

  And somehow, it seems too personal to cry in front of my mom. Knowing she’s here lets me lock away the memory of Conner’s scent, with the understanding that I will deal with it later. I will deal with it twice over, just as long as I don’t have to deal with it now.

  My mom’s breathing is labored. It’s like if she breathes, she’ll start sobbing. I don’t think she wants to cry in front of me either.

  I sit facing away from her and start to stroke the comforter absentmindedly. I know I should cry. A large part of me feels like crying. But instead it seems suddenly important to feel the grain of the fabric against my fingers, to feel something solid and real.

  “What are you doing?” my mom asks, turning toward me. I look down and realize I’ve pulled up the corner of the bed. It’s no longer perfectly made. “Look what you’ve done!”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, and I stand. She starts smoothing out the covers where I sat. She combs over it with her hands again and again, and I honestly can’t see any difference. “I think it’s fine, Mom,” I say, and her head snaps up at me. She’s looking at me with such anger that I worry she might hit me.

  “Fine? Fine?” she asks, her voice getting louder. “This is all I have left! This is all that I have left of my son. Can’t you give me just that? Or do you have to take everything from me?”

 
I am backing up, making my way to the door. I am hurt, her words bold and unfair. But I’m also angry, and it’s the anger that makes me speak up. At the door, my hand on the knob, I say, “He was my brother, too. I loved him. It’s not just you.”

  She shakes her head and answers immediately, “Then why did you let him die?”

  My mouth opens, but there’s no air in the room. She stares at me a moment, her face cross and then confused again. She blinks and her eyes fill with tears. She looks back down at the comforter and feebly runs her hand along it again. “Get out,” she whispers. “Get out.”

  I close the door and rush down the stairs. I can’t think. I can’t feel. All I can do is repeat her last words in my head over and over again.

  Then why did you let him die?

  I reach the first floor and turn away from the kitchen. I open the door to the garage and catch Prickly Pete eating from the tin. The moment he sees me at the doorway, he rushes to the boxes and hides.

  I come into the garage and shut the door behind me. “Pete?” I call, my voice wavering. “Come on, boy. Just let me pet you.”

  I collapse into a sitting position in the middle of the garage, all of my strength gone. I sit with my legs crossed, facing the boxes, the tin of cat food in front of me. I don’t want to be here. I want to be far, far away. I want to be nowhere.

  “Please,” I say. “I just need someone to be nice to me.”

  For a moment I think I might cry. Really break down and cry.

  But instead I just sit there, alone in the empty garage, waiting for a cat that never comes.

  “Nah, man,” Levi says, washing the grease from his hands in the sink. “Girls just don’t get me, you know?”

  We’re midway through our second day at the shop, and I’m starting to catch on to the flow of things. I’m still supervised constantly by Levi—not in a controlling way, more in a brotherly, watching out for me kind of way.

  “I don’t know,” I say. I hand him a towel and then soap up my own hands, even though I haven’t gotten nearly as dirty as Levi. He’s been doing most of the work, narrating as he goes.

  “Maybe it’s my hair,” he says, looking at himself in the mirror. He stares a moment at his long, messy black hair. Then he shakes his head. “Nah. It’s more than that. It’s because I’m a bum.”

  “You’ve got a job,” I offer. We’re walking back to the register now. Next up in my training is logging into the ancient computer system and checking customers in and out. “You’ve got a stable place to live. That doesn’t sound like a bum to me.”

  He considers this. “It’s the way I live. Girls want a guy who has his shit together. All I’ve got is a place to sleep with a mattress on the floor.”

  I didn’t know this about his bed. I haven’t been in Levi’s room yet. Last night we hung out and played video games in the living room, and then we went to our separate bedrooms. I didn’t really talk a whole lot last night, but Levi didn’t seem to mind. He seemed genuinely relieved to have someone there. If I’ve got to be honest, I think the guy was pretty lonely living by himself. I mean, what kind of person takes in a random stranger from the Internet to begin with? He’s got to be desperate for friends. And to be honest, I don’t really know why. He seems perfectly likable to me.

  “You could buy a bedframe,” I tell him.

  He shrugs. “I’d rather have a shop.”

  Again with the shop. For someone who plays video games and smokes as much as he does, Levi is pretty single-minded about wanting to own this shop. I think that’s why I like Levi. He’s got goals. I can’t be friends with someone I can’t respect.

  He starts showing me the register, making a login name and password for me. I almost tell him not to bother. I won’t be here long enough to need my own, but I guess there are security issues involved. I even felt bad about wasting time when he made me a nametag.

  “It’s a pretty simple system,” he says. “Although it’s slow as hell. I think it’ll be the first thing I replace.”

  I don’t comment, and he continues the training. It’s not complicated, but it’s a lot of information all at once, and I’m relieved when I hear the roar of a motorcycle on the street. It’s a customer, and we can take a break.

  When the motorcycle turns in, I see that it is an antique bike with a sidecar, one of those old ones from World War II. This might be distinctive enough in itself, but as the bike comes to a halt, I see the driver and passenger in the sidecar—and I know I won’t get this customer confused with anyone else.

  The driver is a thin old woman in tight brown leather. She’s wearing goggles under an old-fashioned bucket helmet. She climbs off the bike with surprising grace and strides over to the register. She pulls off her helmet to reveal bushy gray hair, red lipstick, and wild, energetic eyes. She’s laughing, and slaps her hand on the counter.

  “Levi!” she shouts. “Just the man I want to see.”

  Levi goes over for a hug, and I use the opportunity to stare openly at the woman’s passenger.

  It’s a dog—a great big bloodhound. He’s sitting lazily in the passenger car, staring at me from behind his own set of goggles.

  The lady and Levi break their hug, and Levi introduces me.

  “Adam, this is one of our very best customers, Eliza Burnside.”

  I reach out a hand and she shakes it vigorously. Bright, small earrings dangle from her ears, and I can’t tell but I think they might be diamonds.

  “Nice to meet you, boy,” she says. Then she leans in a little closer and says, “If I were eighty years younger, I’d be all over you.”

  My eyes go wide, and I’m not sure how to react. This seems to have been her intention, as she lets out a loud, boisterous laugh and pats me on the arm. Then she turns to Levi, handing him a set of keys.

  “Just the oil today,” she tells him. “And keep a watchful eye on the General.”

  “Sure thing. Did you want to say hello to Watson?”

  She looks up at the ceiling, as if seeing through the floor. “I’ve got an appointment to catch first. I’ll see him when I pick up.”

  Levi smiles. “No problem. See you in an hour?”

  “If I don’t fall over dead on the way,” she says. Then she turns to me again and gives me a wink. “See you later, new boy.”

  She waltzes out the garage door and turns to the street. When she gets to the sidewalk, she flips her scarf around her shoulder, then marches on with her body erect.

  I’m still trying to recover as Levi has me check her bike into the computer. “Who was she?” I ask.

  “Eliza Burnside, an Astoria institution. She’s pretty cool, for an old lady.”

  I take this in, and then look over the register to her bike and sidecar. “She’s left her dog.”

  Levi nods. “Uh-huh. I watch the General for her while she does her errands.”

  “She named her dog the General?” I ask, laughing.

  “General Burnside,” Levi corrects. “They’re inseparable, except the General doesn’t really get along with other people. He’ll bark and jump on them, and she just laughs. People complained, threatened to put him down, so now when she goes on errands she leaves him here.”

  I look again at the dog. He looks back at me, and I imagine the huge creature jumping on strangers in the street, stopping traffic and barking at frightened schoolchildren. “Is he dangerous?” I ask.

  Levi shakes his head. “Not unless he thinks you’re a threat to Eliza.”

  We finish with the register and start working on her bike. The first step is for Levi to lure the General out of his sidecar with a few pieces of beef jerky, which I learn are kept under the counter for that exact purpose. He ties up the dog in the corner of the room and sets out a bowl of water before we go back to the bike.

  “It’s a beast,” I say, looking at the bike. “How long has she had it?”

  “Her husband’s,” Levi says. “He died years ago. Apparently, she learned to ride as a way to commemorate him, and then
just sort of fell in love with it.”

  Levi looks briefly at the bike, and I notice the old-fashioned speedometer and the siding buffed with decades of use. Then Levi starts to inspect the inside.

  He’s in the middle of showing me the differences between her bike and a modern one when he stops. He doesn’t just stop—he freezes with the strangest look on his face. His eyes are wide, and he looks like he’s seen a ghost. I am about to ask what’s wrong when I hear a small cough from the open garage door behind me.

  I turn, and there is this girl, a redhead. She’s wearing a tight green shirt and even tighter jeans that show off her figure. She’s standing with a shy smile, and she holds a basket of muffins. She looks like a pin-up model, and I wonder if I’m dreaming.

  Then I realize: it’s Erica.

  I’m stunned. She looks quite different when she’s not in her pajamas. She looks…

  I want her right there.

  From the looks on their faces, you’d think I just walked into the boys’ locker room. Adam is there, wearing light blue workpants and a tight-fitting gray shirt with short sleeves. His bicep tenses as he pushes himself up, trying to recover from my surprise appearance. Next to him is a scraggly-looking guy with bad hair and more tattoos than I can count. He looks like he might have just gotten out of prison. I plaster a smile on my face, balancing my basket and the canvas bag I have looped around one arm.

  I walk up until I’m facing Adam. His eyes—I forgot how startlingly crisp they are. His dark eyebrows only intensify his gaze, and my smile falters for just a moment. Then I refocus and smile pleasantly up at him. “I brought you a thank-you gift,” I say, trying to be casual. “For helping me with my cat the other day.”

  He looks at me with such intensity, as if he wants to shout at me or embrace me, I can’t tell which.

  His friend is a different story. “Whoa, dude,” he says. “You didn’t tell me about that.”

  I look at Adam and my stomach drops a little in disappointment. I’m not worth mentioning? But before I can process this, his friend is reaching for the basket.

  “Muffins!” he chuckles, and reaches in a dirty hand. He picks one on top and stuffs it into his mouth, taking a big bite. Adam turns to him with a look.