by J. Bengtsson
“Ooh… you said damn,” I teased, scooping him up and blowing raspberries onto his neck. “I’m telling Mom.”
“Nooo,” he squealed happily.
“Knock, knock. Emma! Knock, knock.” Grace tugged at my leg. She was not about to be left out of this game.
“Who’s there?” I answered, breathlessly.
“Me.”
“Me who?”
“Me!”
Not quite, but almost. So went the humor of a five-year-old. Quinn and I laughed hysterically at her missed opportunity, but Grace didn’t catch on, instead basking in the limelight and no doubt considering herself a comedic master.
We were chattering excitedly when suddenly Quinn’s mouth dropped open in surprise. Jake was standing in the doorway; which was indeed an unusual sight. Although I’d tried after that one tap session to reconnect, I’d never managed to coax another ‘conversation’ out of him.
“Hey,” I said. It felt strange to talk to him. He lived in the house, even occasionally roamed its halls, but he wasn’t really here. Jake just sort of existed. “Have you got a knock-knock joke for us? I mean, I don’t think you can beat Grace’s brilliance, but you could always try.”
Jake leveled me with an unreadable stare. It was possibly the first time he’d looked at me since his return home. Once so vibrant and sparkling, those beautiful eyes were now dull and lifeless. He was so lost. If only I had a magic pill that would zap away his pain! I swallowed back the emotion that was sure to ruin the moment. He’d been drawn by the laughter, and that was what I intended to give him.
“Come in,” I said, smiling. I felt Grace tense as she grasped my leg. She still didn’t trust him one bit.
Taking his lead from me, Quinn said, “Yeah, come and play.”
Jake seemed conflicted, as if he wanted to join in but some invisible force was holding him back. He stayed put in the doorway. In an attempt to welcome him, I took a step forward. He took a step back. I froze like a squirrel caught in oncoming traffic, trying to decide if it was safer going forward or back. Instinctively, I chose to go back.
Pretending the awkward moment hadn’t happened, I turned and grabbed Quinn, tickling him. The three of us continued our play as Jake watched from the sideline. He’d set his boundaries, and I hadn’t pushed them; and that, I was certain, was what kept him in the doorway.
Once Grace and Quinn had worn me out, I collapsed onto the couch and closed my eyes, ready for a nap.
“No, don’t sleep,” Grace said, prying my eyelid open. “Cookies, Emma. You promised.”
Cookies? I wasn’t a machine. Good lord, these kids took a lot of energy. “Tomorrow maybe.”
Quinn got in on the action, jumping behind me on the couch and trying to push my body off. Neither one of them would let me out of my promise.
“Fine. But I need help.”
My little siblings cheered. I wondered if I had ever been this easy to please. I looked up and was surprised to see Jake leaning against the wall now… inside the room. He’d actually made his way in with us, which was a huge accomplishment. I smiled as we walked toward the door.
“You wanna make some cookies with us?”
His lifted his head, and our eyes met again. A flash of familiarity took my breath away. In that moment I could see my Jake in this shell of a boy, and I had an overwhelming feeling that there was something he wanted to say.
“You want to go somewhere and talk?” I asked, reaching my hand out to him. Jake promptly shoved his own into his pockets and looked away. Okay. Maybe not. “Well, we’ll be in the kitchen if you want to come.”
Grace, Quinn, and I left him standing in the doorway. I didn’t look back, for fear of spooking him. This was the most I’d gotten out of him in three months, and I didn’t want to spoil the moment.
“Kyle,” I said, banging on Keith’s door as I passed. “Cookies. Come help.”
Mom was sitting quietly at the table when we burst in, interrupting her calm with excited little voices eager for a sugary treat. Kyle followed a few steps behind and helped me pull out all the ingredients. The four of us chatted comfortably as I guided them through the cookie-making process. Jake had chosen not to join us, but I swear I saw a shadow behind the wall between the kitchen and the living room.
I glanced at my mother and was surprised to see her smiling at me. Suddenly self-conscious, I tucked my hair behind my ear and looked away.
“You’re so good with them, Emma.”
I shrugged. My relationship with my mom remained strained, and it felt weird to hear praise from her. To hide my reaction, I kept my focus on the cookies.
“I know things have been hard,” Mom said, choking back tears. “But I hope you know how proud I am of you. What an incredible young woman you’ve become.”
I looked up at her in surprise. Her face was a tapestry of love and pain and regret. I blamed her for so much, but in reality, I couldn’t say I would have reacted any differently had I been in her shoes.
“You’re going to make a wonderful mother someday.”
I scoffed.
“What?” she asked, confused by my stark reaction.
“I’m never having kids.”
Mom’s eyes widened. “Why?”
“You really have to ask why?”
She appeared truly shocked by my words. I steadfastly held my ground. Mom’s bottom lip quivered as she struggled to find the right words. “Emma, what happened to us…”
“Save the lecture, Mom. No way will I bring children into this world if I can’t protect them.”
Mom’s reaction was swift and unpredicted. She burst into tears and ran from the kitchen. Shocked by her outburst, I immediately regretted my words even though I believed them to be true.
Kyle glared at me. “What’d you say that for?”
I shrugged, feeling like a shithead. I’d basically blamed her for Jake’s kidnapping. Yeah, she hadn’t been the most attentive mother as of late, but before disaster stuck, she’d been a pretty incredible one. Her biggest fault was maybe loving us too much.
“Can we put the cookies in now?” Gracie asked, having completely missed the exchange between Mom and me.
“Um… can you just give me a minute?” I asked. The need to apologize overwhelmed me, but before I could go in search of my mother, the unexpected happened. Jake walked in… actually making it all the way into the kitchen. He stopped in front of Kyle and me, and we both watched him in surprise.
“Hey. You finally came to help,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady.
“No,” he answered.
“Just to watch then? Okay.”
“No,” he repeated, eyes focused on the mixing bowl.
Suddenly it dawned on me. He wanted cookie dough. I laughed. “Let me guess – you want a spoonful?”
Jake nodded, and then did the unthinkable: he smiled. It was the briefest moment of levity, one which easily could have been missed had one not been paying attention. Thankfully, I had been. My god. Somewhere, buried deep within, my brother still lived.
20
Finn: Moving On
“Wake up.” The demand was followed by a punch in my back.
“Go away,” I said, mumbling into the pillow.
“Nope. It’s ten o’clock. Let’s go to the beach and find you a hottie. Sun’s out, guns out, brother.”
“Do you really think I could get a hottie in my current condition? Look at me.”
“Well, I wasn’t going to say anything, but since you brought it up, I have a list of complaints. Hold on.”
“It was a rhetorical question,” I said, mumbling, then turned to my side, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. Richie was pulling up the notes section on his iPhone.
“You have an actual list?”
“Well, you’ve been a Neanderthal for a month now. I have a lot of gripes. Okay, so… Number one: No more ‘No-Shave-Never.’ You have stuff growing in your beard. It’s gross, and the other day something fell out of it and landed in my pa
sta. Number two: Pick up your beer cans. I’ve provided you with these swanky digs, and I expect you to treat them with respect.”
As promised, Richie’s heiress divorcée had plopped the first and last month’s rent down on a swanky duplex close to her home in Marina Del Rey. The place was worthy of Richie’s splendor. It all happened a few day after ‘the dump,’ so I blindly followed along, packing my stuff and moving out without even a goodbye to our druggie neighbors.
“I’m paying rent too, asshole.”
“Finn, please, not everything is about you. Number three: You stink. And I don’t mean that like ‘you suck’; I mean like you genuinely stink. After you left for work yesterday, I had the place fumigated. Number four: Well, this really is an extension of three. Deodorant is your friend.”
“Okay! I get it. Enough.”
“I’m just getting started.”
“Text me the list and I’ll get right on it.”
“Come on. I’m tired of whiny, glass-half-empty Finn. I want fun Finn back. Get up and tackle the first twelve items on the list and I’ll reward you with a trip to the beach. Vanessa’s daughter is home from college. She pulled your picture up online and thinks you’re hot – or should I say, she thinks pre-breakup Finn is hot. So get your act together and bang my girlfriend’s daughter.”
“Just how old exactly is this daughter?”
“She’s twenty-one… totally legal.”
“Twenty-one is seriously pushing the legal limit for me, but fine, I’ll go to the beach with your MILF and her totally legal daughter. But no setting us up. Give me an hour and I’ll be ready.”
“I’ll give you two hours, so you can tackle number twenty-three on the list while you’re shaving.”
“Do I even want to know?”
“The 70’s bush, dude. We don’t want it spilling out of your shorts, now, do we?”
I wasn’t sure what I found more disturbing – the fact that Richie had been actively chronicling my decline or that he knew I had bushy crotch hairs. Regardless, he wasn’t wrong about anything on his pages-long complaint list. I knew I’d been a miserable jerk after losing Emma, and obsessing over her had become my way of life. What was worse was I understood her reasoning even though it ripped my heart out. The two things I wanted most in this world couldn’t exist together, and as much as I didn’t want to admit it, at some point down the road, I probably would have resented her for not being receptive to having a child.
I knew full well that she’d broken it off for my sake, not hers; but the fact that she was giving me the chance to live the life I wanted while she subjected herself to a life alone hurt me even more. Was I being selfish? Was she? Somewhere, locked deep inside her, was the reason for her decision to never have children, and I feared no amount of charm or patience would ever pull it from her.
The worst part of it all was that I was in love with Emma and knew without any doubt that she was the one for me. Would it even be possible for me to love another woman like I loved her? Was it worth faking it with someone else just to have kids? Was it better to bring children into a loveless marriage or just not have them at all?
These were the thoughts that consumed me day and night and made functioning in my daily life so incredibly difficult. I was going to work distracted, and the injuries just kept coming. Something had to change. I couldn’t go on like this forever. Maybe I needed to meet this coed today and see if I could form some sort of connection. It might help me decide what to do about Emma.
Not that I had much say in the matter anyway. The day after she dumped me, I’d gone back to her, professing my love and promising I could live without being a father. With tears rolling down her face, Emma had pushed me back out the door, and we hadn’t spoken since.
Rachel was beautiful and sweet and friendly. I enjoyed her company and laughed at her jokes. We swam in the ocean together and talked for hours on the beach, mostly about my recent breakup, a detail Richie had generously provided to her before we met. Regardless of the tough conversation, Rachel made it clear she was interested. This was a straightforward, uncomplicated, and easy-to-read girl. If I dated her, there would be no guessing what she was thinking, no worrying I’d lose her attention the minute I left the room. She was what I needed to get over Emma. If only I could figure out a way to give a damn.
After the beach, I met up with some friends for dinner and a little bar hopping. I hadn’t seen anyone but Richie in over a month, and people were starting to worry. I figured, why waste a shave and a bushwhacking, right? Wrong. I got drunk. Real drunk, and with the inebriation came poor decision-making… so poor that I inexplicably ended up on Emma’s doorstep at one in the morning.
From the time I rang her doorbell to the time she opened the door for me, I’d already fallen asleep slumped up against her planter.
“Finn?”
I felt hands shake me awake.
“Finn, wake up. Come on.”
Somehow I made it into her living room, and sheets magically appeared on the sofa. I remember her hands on me, removing my soiled shirt. I remember my hands on her, attempting to remove her shirt as well. And then I remember her shoving me back against the cushion with enough force that vomit spewed from my mouth. I remember her yelling and the water in the shower and then more yelling.
And just on the off chance that I might mercifully forget about my early morning escapades, Emma made certain, before going off to work, to leave me an angry note describing every embarrassing detail. Included in her tirade was a list of demands, the vast majority of them cleaning related.
After reading and re-reading her note multiple times, I set it down and sank back into the sofa, hands covering my eyes in regret. So much for giving the impression I was doing swell without her. Putting my feet up on her coffee table, I settled in. I knew Emma’s schedule well enough to know she wouldn’t be home for hours, and the pounding in my head needed time to recede before I made my way home to my place. Besides, it felt good to be back, surrounded by her things. If I closed my eyes I could almost fool myself into thinking all was right in the world.
Cynthia jumped up on my lap, and together we watched game shows. I stroked his silky fur and apologized to him over and over for the ridiculous name he’d been saddled with, even promising him that from now on, I’d be referring to him as Theo. Not that I’d have much opportunity to follow through on my promise, since after last night, I’d never be welcomed here again.
Finally, after several hours of procrastination, I got up to tackle Emma’s rather extensive catalog of demands. Why was it that people were leaving me detailed lists lately? Was I really that much of a lazy douche? Was I not entitled to a bad day from time to time? Thinking back, I realized my bad day or two had stretched into a month or two. Richie was right. I had to get my act together. Emma and I were finished, and I couldn’t keep pining over her. I had a life to live, and obviously it no longer included her… or Theo.
The thought occurred to me to leave my mess for Emma to enjoy as a little ‘Welcome home from a long day at work’ and ‘Fuck you’ gift all wrapped into one; but of course, I was too nice for shit like that. My puke, my problem! Unfortunately for the headache splitting my brain in two, Emma had a ridiculously regimented cleaning requirement and had gone so far as to label each cleaning supply to complement each task.
Sighing, I got to work and had to cringe at the extent of the mess I’d made. In all honesty, it surprised me that Emma had left it for me to clean up in the first place. The woman I knew would never go to bed with puke splattered on her linoleum floor. After cleaning to her very specific code, I sank my exhausted body back onto her couch and drifted to sleep again. When I opened my eyes several hours later, additional memories of the prior night flooded back into my conscious mind.
“I love you, Emma,” I remembered saying, slurring my words. “But I really hate you right now.”
“I know,” she’d whispered, her tears dripping onto my face as she smoothed my hair back.
“I love you and I miss you,” I’d continued pathetically.
“I miss you too.”
Her words were choked out through sobs. Maybe she hadn’t gotten over me as easily as she’d made it seem.
“Why did you leave me?” I asked.
Despite the vomit that had recently passed through my lips, Emma bent down and kissed them gently. The last thing I remember before drifting off was, “Because I love you.”
I was gone before she returned. There was no sense rehashing what had already been said. I needed to move on, for both our sakes. I knew Emma, and she was not about to budge. She believed what she was doing was the right thing for me, and maybe it was, but her chosen path to martyrdom was clearly making her miserable, and my showing up at her doorstep hadn’t helped matters.
It seemed as though any door I stepped through lately was rife with drama. Entering my place, I was met by an irate Richie.
“Where the hell were you last night?”
“What? Are you my mother? Wait, scratch that. Shelby wouldn’t give a shit.”
“Why didn’t you answer your phone?”
“It’s dead. What’s the big deal?”
“The big deal is Martin Houser called my phone looking for you. Apparently he’s been trying your cell for days, and you haven’t answered.”
“Wait, who is Martin Houser?”
“Really, Finn? You call yourself an actor?” Richie shook his head, getting more agitated with me for every minute my brain fart lingered. “He’s only the biggest agent in Hollywood, idiot, and he called my phone, looking for you!”
“Oh, shit! Martin Houser? What the hell is he calling me for?”
“He said he had an opportunity for you. Are you no longer with Kelly?”
“She didn’t do shit, so I dropped her a few months ago. Did he say what opportunity?”
“Some music video.”
My mouth dropped open when realization dawned on me. “Jake.”
Within days of contacting Martin, things began moving like wildfire on a drought-stricken California mountain range. Suddenly I was a working actor again, with auditions lined up for weeks and a Jake McKallister music video on the books. There was no mystery as to who was behind my sudden windfall… Emma and her deep-pocketed connections.