I can’t find the words to say anything at all.
We all part ways without Lukas being a pain about what he saw. Anja ignores me to the point of not even hugging me goodbye. I was planning on going back to Jules’s house with her for the night. Instead, we find the closest 24-hour pharmacy and head straight for the family planning aisle. She swallows the Morning-After Pill with a bottle of water as soon as we get back in the car. “Crisis averted,” Jules says, although her voice is still shaky.
I mutter something under my breath about the crisis actually being far from averted, but she doesn’t press me on it. I drive her back to her house and instead of finding a parking space, I idle in front of her house.
“What are you doing? I can walk back from where you park with you.”
“I’m just gonna go home, I think,” I say.
“What? Why? Because of that?”
“I don’t know if I should be around you when I’m not acting like myself.”
I’d been avoiding looking at her. I snap my eyes up when she bellows, “Fuck that. Fuck you going home alone. You’re sleeping here, all right? You’re not skulking off to pout on your own because we both got too impulsive to remember to put a condom on. You’re my boyfriend and I want you with me tonight. Get your head out of your ass, Mackenzie.” Her body vibrates in the sort of anger she’s only ever shown me those couple of times we’ve fought. My shoulders slump and I lean over the console between the two seats to take her in my arms.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her again and again.
“Stop apologizing like everything is your fault all the time,” she murmurs back.
I have to bite back an apology for apologizing so much. Then I find a parking space and, exhausted, we both head inside.
She’s changing into her pajamas—the very ones I met her in—when I glance over and see the marks. Four deep, purpling bruises mar her hips and at the curve of her neck and shoulder, I see what can only be a blossoming hickey.
“Holy fuck, Jules.”
She gasps when she looks in the mirror and sees them, too. “I didn’t realize….”
“Jules, I’m such an asshole. I’m so sorry.”
She scowls and crosses the room. I don’t want her touching me, but she forces her arms around my neck and kisses me soundly.
“You didn’t hurt me,” she says. “If you had, I’d have told you.”
“You’re bruised.”
“I bruise easily. It’s fine. If it had hurt, I’d have told you to stop, and you would have stopped.”
Would I? I want to think I would have. I desperately want to think I would have.
Anja’s voice sounds in my head again. I beg her to shut the hell up.
It’s several more kisses and tugs of her arms before I stop vibrating and lay down in bed with her. She snaps the light out and nestles into my arms. I comb my fingers through her hair, finding its glossy waves calming as I rake through them.
“I should go on the Pill, just in case that ever happens again,” she murmurs sleepily a minute later.
“I’ll be more careful, I promise. I don’t mind using condoms. I… I don’t know what came over me.” My voice cracks around the edges.
“It’s okay. I mean, we’ll still use them if you want, but I should have been on the Pill forever ago.” She arches her neck back so she can look at me. Her eyes are full of forgiveness I’m still not sure I deserve.
So I tell her, “I don’t know if I deserve you, Juliana.”
“Don’t ever say that again. I want you, Ezra. Get that through your head,” she whispers, her tone rough enough to drive her point home.
She falls asleep a little while later, but my mind is racing so fast I can barely pull air into my lungs. What the hell came over me? And how do I make it stop?
CHAPTER TWELVE
The window across from the chaise in Jules’s living room faces east. I’m watching the sun rise as I chew on the filter end of a cigarette. I want to light it, but it feels like too much effort right now to put shoes and a jacket on to go outside. It’s been several days since I slept more than a couple of hours at a time without long periods of restlessness in between. My eyes burn from it. Nothing I’ve tried—not sex, not jogging, not any sort of herbal remedy Jules keeps on hand for just such an occasion—has helped. Nothing probably will, not when it comes to Mac’s anniversary.
The sun’s warming the soles of my feet through the window when Jules steps out of the bedroom, looking tousled and gorgeous. She nudges my thigh until I scoot over enough for her to curl up on the chaise next to me. I think she’s fallen asleep on my chest until I hear her speak.
“You never talk about him. Will you tell me about him?”
I want to say no, but I imagine that the day someone died, you should talk about them, even when it’s painful.
“What do you want to know about him?”
“What’d he look like?”
I pull up a picture of Mac in my mind and it brings a stinging smile to my face. “Big, broad. Hair like mine, eyes like mine. He could have been a linebacker for how wide his shoulders were. He had to turn to the side to go through most doors.”
Once I start, it’s difficult to stop.
“He never drank coffee, only tea. He’d make it so bitter and stout, though, it smelled and looked like coffee. He had this sort of laugh that just echoed—like, seriously, it bounced off the walls, it was so strong.
“He couldn’t sing—which didn’t stop him from trying. And he had this hideous tie with turkeys on it, in these ridiculous little Pilgrim hats he wore on Thanksgiving. It didn’t matter if it was just me and him and Dylan for Thanksgiving, he insisted we all wear a collared shirt and tie and slacks, and I’m pretty sure it was just so that he could get away with wearing that ugly tie. He loved it because Dylan and I hated it.” I’m smiling, but really, it’s taking everything in my power not to sob.
“And you really called him ’Mac?’ Not ’Dad?’”
“Always Mac. Everyone called him Mac. He’d yell at our friends if they ever tried to call him ‘Mr. Mackenzie.’”
“He sounds like a wonderful guy.”
“He was. I… I really miss him, Jules.”
She holds me as I start to full-on blubber. I miss him so much it hurts. It sinks in all over again that I’ll never get him back. I’ll never get the goodbye we didn’t have. All I’ll have are twenty-five years of memories of him, and the ones that ought to be the sharpest are the most muddled because of my drinking.
It’s a long while before I’m put together again, although I still feel hollow. Juliana kisses my forehead, smooths my hair, and slips off the chaise to make us coffee and breakfast. She’s taken the day off work, although I didn’t ask her to. I’m appreciative, even if I do think that grieving is probably something I should be doing alone.
“Can I ask how he died, Ez?” She comes back over to me, two steaming mugs in her hands.
“Stroke. He was home alone. The cat made enough noise to irritate his neighbor, who came over and found him. But he was already gone.”
She swipes her fingertips across her lips, lost in whatever words she’s trying to come up with to comfort me. “It must be terrible to die alone,” she says, although I can see immediately that she regrets it.
I try not to think about how Mac died alone. It makes me hate Dylan for not stopping by that day and checking in on him, makes me really hate myself for spending the day, one of my days off, drunk out of my mind and ignoring the ringing of my phone until later. I was so drunk I missed the call telling me my father was dead. I’ll never forgive myself for that.
“Does he have a grave we can go visit? Or you can go, and I’ll wait in the car… We can get flowers, or candles….”
“Can we talk about something else? Can we try spending today like it isn’t… today?”
“We can do whatever you’d like, baby.”
We end up settling on her couch, Doctor Who streaming on Netflix. An actor with
a Scottish brogue is a guest star, and it hurts all over again. I wish I had one of them, Mac used to say. Be a real proper Scotsman if I did.
I’m thankful when her phone rings and she pauses the show to answer it. I try not to listen in on the conversation, but it’s next to impossible with how emphatic she becomes the longer it carries on.
“Ez…,” she says. “That was work.”
“Go on, honey,” I say.
“I figured they could handle one stupid day without me, but apparently I’m the only one who knows what the hell we’re doing on this project.”
“It’s fine. Seriously.”
I watch her get dressed through the open bedroom door, then follow her in.
“I won’t be long,” she says when she sees me grabbing my jeans and shoes. “I’ll steal your car so I’m there and back as fast as I can be.”
“No, I’ll walk with you. It seems like a nice day. I think I’ll take the light rail down to my place for a little bit—the cat will tear up all my shit if she doesn’t get fed today.”
Her eyes flash with concern. “Are you sure you’re up to being alone?”
“It’s just for a couple of hours,” I say, trying not to puff when I speak, despite how fast my heart is beating. “Text me when you’re wrapping up and I’ll catch the train back. Maybe we can go to Cafe Brazil for dinner.”
She thinks it’s charming how much of a liking I’ve taken to Brazilian food since we started dating.
We walk down the steep embankment of LoHi’s main drag and cross over the pedestrian bridge over I-25. She clutches my hand like she’s trying to root me to the ground, and I’m grateful because it feels for a second like maybe I’m not going to lose my mind today.
We walk as far as the central train station together, where she can catch one of the downtown shuttles to her office and I can catch a train. We stumble over one another, each insisting the other catch their transport first.
“You’ll be late. I still have fifteen minutes to wait,” I warn her.
“But….”
I kiss her hard on the mouth. “Thanks for being worried over me today,” I say. “But I’m fine.” I’m lying. But I don’t want her to know that.
“I’ll meet you back here in a few hours, all right?” she says, looking over her shoulder at me like she’s afraid to let me out of her sight.
“Sure thing.” I blow her a kiss and try my best to smile. I know without seeing it it’s a seriously fake-ass smile. Does she know just how fake it is? If she did, would she have let me out of her sight?
She disappears in the crowd a moment later, and I can’t help but feel that my sanity went with her.
***
When I get back to the apartment, the cat is pacing back and forth, growling and hissing. I check her food dish and litterbox—it’s been a couple of days since I’ve been home, so she’s probably a bit irritated by how empty one is over the other. She’s clawed the shit out of the corner of my TV stand and the half-wall that separates the kitchen from the living area. I’ll bet she’s pissed in my bed, too. I debate the merits of trying to take her back to Jules’s place so she isn’t so destructive here by herself, but there’s no way I can get her in a carrier and on the train.
Then I stop and wonder—maybe, just maybe, she remembers what happened last year. It seems ridiculous, though—cats can’t possibly have that sort of recollection, can they?
After a few minutes by myself, I realize that I’m at a total loss for what to do with my day. I can’t focus on TV or a book. Spending so little time here lately means there isn’t anything to clean save for a thin layer of dust, and I’ve been doing all my laundry at Jules’s instead of Mama A’s. I keep picking up my cell phone and putting it down again, locking and unlocking the screen to see if anyone—one person in particular—has sent me anything.
It’s something else that’s been weighing on my mind. On the day our father died, Dylan and I should be able to call a truce. He told me he never wanted to see me again, stormed away from me at the store all those weeks ago, but today is different. Or at least, it should be different.
I take the chance and text him. I tell him I know he might not want to speak to me, but if he does, I know what he’s feeling. I miss Mac, too. I don’t elaborate on how my heart is aching, how I can’t stop picturing him lying on his living room rug, all alone and dying. I have to force myself to stop, or I’ll drive myself crazy.
Dylan doesn’t text me back. Maybe I shouldn’t expect him to. And yet, I keep checking my phone every couple of minutes, hoping he’ll put aside his ego and be my brother again. Just for a second, I want us to be like those two guys who got a Scottish tattoo together, who had each other’s backs no matter what, even though we couldn’t be more different despite looking exactly the same.
It’s probably impossible, considering what I did. But I still want it.
I can’t keep sitting here doing nothing, though. I’m starting to get antsy, and antsy is a bad thing for me. I haul myself up and put on sweats and running shoes. I blast music in my ears and take off out my door, the winter wind stinging my cheeks and eyes as I try jogging off the anxiety that won’t stop growing in my gut, no matter how much I try to ignore it.
I don’t want to wait at stop lights, so I end up turning corners in a big circuit. The neighborhood is mostly residential, with a little office park set off the high street and a strip mall across the way. I’ve done well ignoring the strip mall in the last year, though that hasn’t stopped me from remembering that’s where my brew-pub was—is. Just because I don’t go anymore hasn’t made it disappear. When I break through the office park, the light is green, the little walk signal popping up as I get to the corner. I could turn back, take a different route through the neighborhood behind me, or press onward and jog along the same side of the street as Comrade. I know I should go backwards, but my feet sprint me forward. It doesn’t matter, though, right? Seeing the place doesn’t mean I have to go in.
I’m dead in my tracks when I spot the neon sign, already illuminated and glowing against the brick and the early afternoon drear. My brain is fighting two contrasting images: Mac’s eyes, his smile, the actual look on his face when his mustache-covered lip curled up in preparation for one of those booming laughs of his, flickering out and disappearing forever, and then there’s the look of a bitter, hoppy microbrew, perfectly poured in a well-chilled glass. One might make the other go away, but only one is available to me. No, Mackenzie, you can’t have either. Not anymore.
It’s a painfully long minute before my feet are pumping beneath me. I full-out run back to my apartment and throw myself on the futon, panting and shaking. A thin layer of sweat coats my skin, but it’s not the sort that should come from exercise. This sort of sweat only makes me shake harder as I pick up my phone again. My fingers skirt across the touchscreen of my phone, typing in another message to Dylan.
Me: I miss Mac. I know you hate me, but just don’t hate me today.
The cat is yowling. I try to pick her up to quiet her down, lest one of my neighbors overhear her and think I’m torturing her, but she skitters under my futon and hisses. I hiss back, run a shower, and stand under it until the water actually runs cold.
I text Jules, who tells me she’s got at least two more hours at work. Anja has conferences after school, and besides, I’m pretty sure she’s still pissed at me. I can wait out Jules’s two more hours at work. I can handle my shit for that much longer.
The cat’s crying is getting louder. More irritating. The longer she carries on, the more I think she must know what today is. She’s never this loud, never carries on like this. I think, though, about what it must have been like to see Mac that last day like she did. I’m not sure how capable of empathy, love, and attachment to their humans cats are, but what must it have been like? Maybe it was enough to imprint a memory. Cats are probably smarter than I give them credit for being.
My phone trills. I can barely hear it over her yowling, but it’s jus
t a text. My blood sluices like ice through my veins. It’s Dylan.
Dylan: You don’t get it, do you, Ezra? Leave me the fuck alone. I don’t know where the hell my brother went, but whoever you are is exactly like our mother, and I don’t want anything to do with her, either. *I* don’t have any family left.
I read the message over and over again. My knuckles turn white from how hard I’m gripping the device.
Another comes in.
Dylan: And for the record - Mac would hate what you turned out like, too.
There’s nothing preparing me for how much that hurts. Because I’ve been thinking it myself, but getting the confirmation… Holy shit, that fucking hurts.
I should probably cry. It’s a natural sort of thing to do when your brother tells you you’re basically dead to him. I should ball myself up and wallow and feel like the piece of shit I am.
I scroll through my contacts for my mother’s number. Anja isn’t available, and Jules won’t be for a while yet. It’s okay. They can’t be at my beck and call all the time. That isn’t their job. But Constance… She can help. She has to be able to help.
I keep pressing send, over and over, and each time, the call rings and rings and then goes to voicemail. Her outgoing message is chipper and optimistic, so unlike the woman I knew growing up who called her sons terrible names and told them they were good for little and worth even less. Why do I want her to help me? Why do I want her in my life? She’s awful. I don’t want my mother.
I want Mac.
I want my dad.
I lied to Juliana earlier—Mac wasn’t always Mac. When I was really young, Mac was Daddy. I grew out of the word when I was a teenager, but if he were here now and could see me, losing my mind and craving and shaking, a cigarette dangling out of my mouth as I listen to the fucking cat carry on like I’m sacrificing her to some pagan god, I’m pretty sure he’d be Daddy again. Mac, Daddy, whoever he was, could fix things if only I’d let him. I didn’t want him to fix me when he was alive, because there wasn’t anything wrong. Now everything is wrong. I realize that now, the way I couldn’t until the ENT on call at Mama A’s hospital told me how bad my nose break was. If Mac were here, I’d tell him how fucked up I am. I’d tell him I’m sorry for everything. I’ll never get that chance, and I’m furious. I’m furious with myself. I am such a piece of shit.
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