The Fix

by Kristin Rouse

  I promise her I won’t give them up. I think she knows as well as I do that I’d lose it if I lost all of them and her, too. When she turns and leaves, I know that so much of my own happiness is going with her, but that this is the best, the only way.

  I walk out the door a few minutes later. The drive to Constance’s is slow-motion and surreal. At some point I get a message sent to Anja that says, “I need to talk to you.” She meets me in Constance’s driveway, and before I can get the words out, she’s hugging me and telling me how sorry she is.

  She comes inside and holds my hand while I tell Constance what I’ve done and ask if I can stay with her for a while. My mother says yes, but then both she and Anja go silent, like neither of them know exactly what to say next.

  As it happens, I don’t want them to say anything.

  ***

  Mattias: Dude, are you okay? I know Anja is with you right now but call me if you need anything.

  Lukas: Just heard. I’m sorry, bro.

  Voicemail: Mama A — “Ezra, sweetie… please call me. Juliana just told me and… oh, sweetheart, I’m devastated for you both. Please call me, I just want to know you’re doing all right.”

  Mattias: You’re our friend. Please don’t forget that.

  Lukas: She’s my sister, I know I said that, but we aren’t choosing sides. She doesn’t want us to. Call me when you feel up to it.

  Mattias: Call me when you can.

  Voicemail: Mama A — “You’re still our family. You’re one of my boys, always. Call me soon.”

  I can’t face them knowing what I did to Jules, knowing how much she’s hurting because of me. Anja comes by often now that she’s out of school for the summer, and there isn’t anything I can do to stop her. It’s good to have her around, but as for the rest of them, I tell them to give me a month. A month feels like it ought to be enough time to get myself a little more composed, and hopefully not feel like I’m suffocating every time I think about Jules and how badly I miss her. I’m not sure I’ll ever feel like I’m taking full breaths again.

  Anja tells me Jules is all right, from what she can tell—not great, but getting by, like me. I tell her I’m not ready to hear anything more than that. She respects my wishes, and we find other things to talk about. My impending ‘graduation’ from my recovery group. Gemma, and how she’s sort of my breath of fresh air, the little bit of salvation in this mess that at least I have a sibling again, and one who adores me to boot. The couple of private clients I have lined up, mostly thanks to Mom and some of the people at AA. The couple of false starts she and Mattias have had trying to start a family of their own.

  Life goes on. It hurts. But I get through the days, and leave the most intense moments of my longing to when I’m alone at night. I wonder how I’ll ever sleep in a bed Jules isn’t in, because I haven’t slept more than barely dozing in all the nights since.

  A little under my requested month later, Anja’s over hanging out with me, and hands me her vapor pen to take a drag off of. The nicotine juice inside is flavored like raspberry, and it makes me think of Juliana’s favorite lip balm. I decline subsequent drags in favor of a proper cigarette and try not to blow the smoke in her direction.

  “You’re really coming to dinner this Wednesday, right?” she asks.

  “I really am. I promised Mama A.”

  “Good. Having you there will diffuse things a little, I think. Mattias made the mistake of telling her about—” she looks significantly down at her stomach “—you know, and now all I hear about are these herbs she wants Jules to get from—”

  I don’t mean to wince, but Anja has been really, really good at not saying her name while we’re hanging out. I already know Jules isn’t going to be at this week’s dinner, but it’s been hard enough steeling myself for seeing her pictures on the walls, knowing I’m someplace that she shares, too, and is avoiding because of me.

  “Sorry, Ez.”

  “It’s all right. What about herbs?”

  “I guess there’s some herbs that only grow in Brazil that Mama used to take when she was growing up, and she swears they make you, like, super-fertile.”

  I study my cigarette as my defense against any sort of tell that this next sentence will hurt to say. “What would Ju—Juliana have to do with that?”

  Anja sighs and blows a vapor cloud between her teeth. “She’s… Well. She’s down there. Right now, actually.”

  I look at her blankly, expectantly.

  “She had some frequent-flyer miles saved up and needed to use them before they expired, and Mat and Luk hadn’t been down there since before their dad died.” (I know about the frequent-flier miles already—she and I were thinking about taking a trip as long as I was out of work and needed a distraction. We hadn’t settled on where) “They thought Jules could use some company. Anyway, this was just this past week, and they were all meant to be back tomorrow afternoon… Are you sure you want to hear this?”

  “Just tell me, Anja.”

  “She didn’t tell the guys as much, but while they were there, she went to her old boss and asked to be relocated back down there. Mama and I… Well, we’ve been up at your old place getting her stuff packed up for her for the last several days. We sent off her last box yesterday.”

  My heart thuds hollowly. “Oh God… I chased her off.”

  “No! Ez, don’t think like that,” she says, but I can tell she doesn’t believe I’m supposed to think any other way. “Mat said that she said that… Well, without you to come back to, it didn’t feel like she had as much to lose back here.”

  “She has her entire family.”

  “She also has a house where everything reminds her of you, Ez. That’s been really hard for her. She’s been wanting to move, at least out of that house, since you took your last box.”

  It’s not only hard to breathe, it actually hurts to breathe. When did Juliana become my only source of oxygen?

  “How is that not chasing her off?” I ask.

  “She needed a clean break as much as you did. I can’t say I blame her. I think it’s probably the best thing for her, though.”

  I nod my head and use the end of my cigarette to light another. Anja loops her arm around my waist and rests her head on my shoulder.

  “Remind me again?” I squeak.

  “This was hard,” she tells me. “This was maybe the hardest decision you’ve made since you decided to get sober. But, Ezra, it was the right one. For both of you.”

  It’s a rehearsed line, one she’s been feeding me as steadily as nicotine the last few weeks.

  “Then why do I still feel so empty? Why do I still feel like I want to curl up and die?”

  “Because you love her. You wouldn’t be you if you just stopped loving her at the drop of a hat.”

  She’ll tell me this again and again if I ask her to, and I probably will. I know it will take what will feel like a lifetime to start believing her.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I’m in the kitchen when Marta comes out from my treatment room, which up until a few weeks ago, was simply Constance’s den. I’m not sure how her HOA might feel about me running a massage business out of her house, but Mom doesn’t seem to care much, now that I’m working and making my own money again after so many months.

  I hand Marta a bottle of water and survey how her shoulders have dropped. “How’re you feeling?” I ask.

  She beams at me, rolling her neck from side to side. Clearly it’s not as stiff as it was when we started today. She stretches long for a moment, then begins to thumb through her purse. “Excellent. You’re magic.”

  “I don’t know about that, but I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

  She pulls out her checkbook to pay me, but she doesn’t have a pen. As I fish around the junk drawer to find one for her, she scans through her phone, probably checking the messages that vibrated through during her session.

  “Severe snow alert tonight, can you believe it? Winter came so early this year….” she sa
ys as I hand her the only ballpoint I can find that isn’t turquoise or neon green.

  I think back to last year, to the early October storm that threatened to ruin Anja’s wedding day, and think that this isn’t so bad.

  “Crazy,” I say, only because Marta is clearly expecting an answer. “When did you want to come back?”

  “Are you open this time next month?”

  I scan through my calendar on my phone. “Sure am. Put you in?”

  “Yes please. Oh… And would you be willing to work on my daughter when she’s home for Christmas? She’s been in a few car accidents and her neck is an even bigger mess than mine.”

  “Of course. Do you want to book it with me now?”

  “Oh… I thought I’d give her your number and have her call. She hasn’t decided whether or not she wants to drive or fly in yet. She’s about your age; I’m sure you know all about that sort of indecision.”

  I grit my teeth and try to smile pleasantly. An extra session is still an extra session, even if it’s obviously a thinly veiled meet-up scheme.

  “Absolutely,” I say, like I don’t suspect a thing. “You can tell her to text me, too.”

  She practically claps with enthusiasm, maybe thinking I’ve been taken in by her blindingly transparent plan. To be fair, Marta is an attractive-enough woman, so if her daughter takes after her at all, it wouldn’t be the worst setup in the world—once you set aside all the ethical issues of dating a client.

  Not to mention that it’s been months, actual seasons, since I ended things with Juliana, and I’m still not over her.

  I walk her to the front door and watch her get into her car. The snow has begun to fall, but not hard. I turn back in the house and pull the linens off my table and stuff them into the washer. I have plenty of time to sit and relax before I have to pick up Gemma from ballet practice. I crack a window, light a cigarette, and prepare to make a cup of something warm when my own phone vibrates on the kitchen counter. I smile when I see who it is.

  “Are you calling to yell at me too, Anja? Mama A did a pretty good job the other day of it….”

  “You’re damn right I am,” she says, her voice all squeaky with obvious mock-irritation with me. “You have missed too many dinners, sir, and it ends this week. You’re coming tomorrow, no matter how bad the snow gets.”

  “I’m sorry! I didn’t think that I’d be this busy this month. I miss dinners with you guys, too.” Working freelance like I am means I have to take any and every appointment I can get. And for some reason, all my clients seem to love coming to me on Wednesday afternoons. Anja’s right when she says its been too long since I’ve seen her. We were meeting up at least three times a week, all of us, up until recently. I even missed her and Mattias’ anniversary, which I swear I had no intention of doing. Maybe if I’d been with them celebrating, it would have meant fewer hours sitting alone, thinking about the first days Juliana was in my life for that brief, precious time before I ruined everything.

  “So come tomorrow. You can crash there if the snow is bad. Hell, we’ll put tire chains on your car for the drive back to the west side if we have to. I’m beginning to think you’re avoiding all of us except Luk.”

  “Don’t be dramatic. We have mutually antisocial schedules.”

  “I’ll send him over to pick you up, then, since you’re all of a sudden besties. We’re thinking of moving dinners to mine and Mattias’s place—does that work for you? It’s at least a little closer to the highway.”

  “Yeah, of course. And I’ll drive myself, thanks. Just make sure you and Mattias remember I’m coming over this time so I don’t walk in on you guys trying to make a baby on the kitchen counter. Again.”

  “Ass. You didn’t knock.”

  “I called you not ten minutes before I opened the door to tell you where I was.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t hear the ringer.”

  “I know. Because you and your husband were trying to make a baby on the kitchen counter. I at least had some idea of how you look naked from knowing you so long. I think Lukas is still traumatized.”

  “Oh my God, stop it!”

  “Lucky me, I got to talk it over with my shrink… who did Lukas have to talk to about that trauma?” Technically, Linds isn’t a shrink. She’s a counselor. A grief counselor, if you want to get specific.

  “Oh my freaking God, I’m about to un-invite you. Do you want to come over or not?”

  “Yes, of course I do. But I wouldn’t be me unless I was giving you a hard time, now would I?”

  “No, I suppose you wouldn’t—oh, I’ve got another call. I’m counting on you for tomorrow, all right?”

  “Absolutely. See you then.”

  I make a large pot of hot chocolate and pour some into a thermos to take to Gemma. There’s a tiny part of me that wants to call Anja back and cancel, but I don’t dare. It’s just the weather, I tell myself. I fell in love with Juliana in the snow, and I’ll miss her every time it snows from now until I finally get over her. Maybe there’s some sort of psychological term Linds knows that I don’t.

  I wish I could say I got better as soon as I started focusing on me instead of on my relationship with Juliana—but that’d be a bald-faced lie. I was a moody, insufferable bastard for a long time after I moved in with Constance and Gemma. For all the understanding Mom tried to have for me, after a few too many utter-shit meltdowns in front of Gemma, Mom gave me an ultimatum: find another way to deal with the crap going on in my head or find another place to live. Through a friend in AA, she got me Linds’ phone number. I resisted it at first, because the last thing I wanted to be, in addition to being a twenty-something drunk living with my mother, was being crazy. Technically, I’m not—crazy, that is—but I do have a lovely little thing called a dual-diagnosis. Alcoholism and grief-related anxiety, to be exact. It all boils down to missing Mac, missing what our relationship lacked the last couple of years because of how I had to hide my drinking from him. When I tried to get sober without dealing with that grief, I failed. Now that I am talking about it, this second crack at sobriety is easier, or that’s what I tell myself. Getting sober is still shitty. But at least I don’t think and breathe missing my father as well as wanting a drink. As an added bonus, I barely go to AA anymore. I usually get what I need out of therapy twice a week and meeting with Ryan at the gym to lift weights and play basketball. I go with Mom to AA here and there, but I don’t find I miss it or feel like I need it. I still hold my sobriety chips as sacred talismans, and I still murmur the Serenity Prayer in place of the Lord’s Prayer at the church Mom and I started going to. I don’t exactly think I believe in God, but I like the punk-rock, tattooed, recovering alcoholic pastor more than I like stuffy church basements and bad coffee and donuts.

  So as reluctant as I am to be reminded of Juliana, I can’t not go to dinner tomorrow. Not going would drive a wedge I don’t want between the Almeidas and me. I miss them every time I don’t see them for a while, and it’s always good to go back, like being welcomed home—but it’s different. It’s strange without Juliana there. It hurts seeing her pictures, hearing her name mentioned, and knowing I have no reason beyond my own morbid curiosity to see how she’s doing, meaning I have to keep my mouth shut. Maybe being at Anja and Mattias’s will be easier, if I can manage to avert my eyes from the large group shot of the five of us from the wedding they have stuck over their mantel.

  I finish my cocoa, put my mug in the dishwasher, and grab my coat. My car is plastered with snow when I step out onto the street. I lean in to get the engine running and grab my snow scraper. I dust off headlights, windshield, side windows, and move towards the back window. It’s there I freeze in my tracks, because written in the snow are the words:

  Can’t you see I never stopped loving you?

  ***

  The number I have dialed is out of service. My call cannot be completed. Check the number and try your call again.

  I know the number is out of service. When your ex moves back to Brazil, he
r number gets disconnected or reassigned. You find that out when you longingly press the ‘send’ icon on your phone when you’re thinking about her late at night and that’s the outgoing message you hear. You don’t have to be drunk to be desperate enough to make the call. I should know. I’ve been sober again for months.

  There are alternative ways I can take this mysterious message, depending on how much I want to suspend my own personal disbelief. For example, I can just assume that the message wasn’t intended for me. I do not have the only dark blue sedan on my street. There are plenty of others parked there on any given day. It could have been a mistake, pure and simple. Some other lover leaving a message in the gathered snow for someone who is not me. Maybe it was some secret admirer, hoping to leave a message less creepy and more romantic. It’s a strange coincidence of wording and circumstance, but stranger things have happened.

  Added to that, I’m still not sure Juliana even saw that note I left on the car-share vehicle all those months ago. She’d likely have mentioned it while we were together. Like when she said she loved me in the hospital after my relapse. The first time she told me she loved me, she used the phrase I wrote in the snow on that car-share’s back window. But I was also hopped up on Dilaudid and Antabuse and too many emotions from too terrible a day at the end of a three-day bender, so I don’t really know what I heard.

  As I’m trying to figure out the cryptic message left on my snowy car, I get a message from a strange number that I realize is Marta’s daughter. I’m impressed by how quickly my client got to work trying to set me up, but I still ignore it. I should never have discussed personal matters with Marta. Then she’d have had no idea I’m single, but not so recently single as to be opposed to the idea of being set up with someone else. Then maybe she wouldn’t have tried to hint that she’d like to set me up with her daughter, who I’m sure is lovely but, at the end of the day, isn’t Juliana. And it doesn’t matter that I haven’t seen or heard from her since last June when we called things off—I’ve come to the very sobering realization since our breakup that I am never not going to love Juliana Almeida.