The Play

by Karina Halle

  I swallow uneasily. “Thank you,” I say gruffly, but I don’t add anything else.

  “She treats you well?”

  I give her a quick smile. “Yes. She does.”

  She pats my back, satisfied, and we go inside to the sitting room where Donald is pouring Kayla a cup of tea. I sit in my usual seat, a vintage upholstered chair that Jessica always wanted to throw away because it was threadbare in places, but I’d convinced her to hold onto it. They’ve always been very wealthy and love to show that off in subtle ways. Jessica’s aesthetic for the house is cozy but not enough for ragged furniture. The chair was the only thing I could really relate to though, as daft as that sounds. When you’re an orphan, you look for comfort anywhere you can find it.

  While Jessica putters about, getting shortbread and scones for us and placing them on the table with her finest white and pink china, Donald asks Kayla if she’s from San Francisco, which then gets them talking about the city. Donald worked in finance from an early age and a lot of his career had him traveling around the globe. Born to a poor family, he is a completely self-made man and it’s one reason why I admire him so much, other than the fact that he took me in when he did and ruled with an iron fist when he had to.

  “And your job?” Donald asks, biting into his shortbread which leads to a shower of crumbs on the carpet. Jessica makes a good-hearted tsking noise and sits down, sliding the plate toward him so it won’t happen again.

  This is where I see Kayla stutter. She rubs her lips together, and I know she’s trying to think of the right response. Finally she says, “I work for a weekly newspaper. The Bay Area Weekly. I’m in advertising.”

  “Ah,” Donald says, adjusting his glasses. “That must be very interesting.”

  Kayla glances at me and then says, “No. It’s not really.” She lets out a dry laugh, shrugging. “I’ve always wanted to be a journalist, to actually write the articles, but it seems no matter how much I try, I can’t get there.”

  I clear my throat. “Well actually, Kayla wrote a brilliant article about me and Bram about the work he’s doing over there for lower-income housing.”

  “I did,” Kayla said with a slow nod. “Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll ever get that chance again. I didn’t even get credited with the article. Someone else did.”

  “That’s bollocks,” Donald says, slapping his knee lightly and trying to talk without spitting crumbs everywhere. Jessica has all the elegance in this relationship. “What did you do?”

  “Nothing. I mean, I complained, but the editor doesn’t listen to me. Or anyone.”

  “Have you ever thought about writing on the side then, maybe for free for a while?” he says, peering at her over his glasses. “Build up a portfolio and a reputation, hone your craft. Then start looking for a job that will actually pay you to write?”

  I often wish I were Donald’s actual son, least not that he could have passed those brains down to me. Being born of crackhead blood is never to your advantage.

  “Yes, Donald,” Jessica says. “That’s a great idea. Why not start with travel writing? You’re here, maybe Lachlan could show you some of the hidden spots of our country, the places no one writes about.” She gestures at me with her cup of tea. “Or another article on the organization. Even the gala next week. You could help each other out.”

  Kayla and I exchange a glance. I hadn’t thought of that, and clearly neither had she.

  “I wouldn’t know who to write for,” she says.

  Jessica dismisses that idea with a wave. “Oh, don’t you worry about that. I know a lot of people. So does Donald. It wouldn’t be for pay, but like Donald said, just to get your foot in the door and build up your brand. At the same time, Lachlan and the dogs would benefit. What do you say? If I could make this happen, would you be interested?”

  Kayla blinks for a moment, then straightens up. “Yes. Yes, of course! That would be great. When is the gala again?”

  “On Friday,” Jessica says, and gives me a hard, discerning look. “If I know Lachlan, he’s completely dropped the ball on this one. Wouldn’t be the first time. One year he showed up in his rugby uniform because he came straight after practice.”

  I clear my throat. The fucking gala is a fundraiser for the shelter. Jessica hosts it every year, and I just kind of show up, sign autographs, meet people, and put out some good PR for the organization. I usually bring Lionel to the event with me, and he wins people over far better than I can.

  “It slipped my mind,” I tell them. “I’ve been…busy.”

  Kayla smiles knowingly at that. “It’s okay. Amara told me already. I just wasn’t sure when it was.”

  “Always at the start of the season. People are excited for rugby again, and usually I can get a few of my teammates to come show some support.” I pause, very aware of the way Donald and Jessica are staring at me. “I would love it if you would be my date, so long as you don’t mind sharing me with Lionel.”

  “You know I don’t.”

  “He’s a good one, isn’t he?” Jessica says warmly.

  “Who, Lachlan or the dog?”

  I let out a small laugh. “Oh, love, please don’t choose.”

  My words bring out a look between Donald and Jessica which I do my best to ignore.

  The doorbell rings and Jessica gets up. “That must be Brigs.”

  Brigs is my brother, and I immediately feel bad that I haven’t gotten in touch with him upon getting back. We’ve had a pretty good relationship, though I put him—and Jessica and Donald—through hell when I was younger. It’s only recently that he’s pulled away more than I have. His wife and child died three years ago in a horrible car crash, and he hasn’t been the same ever since. I understand him, though I can’t say I understand his exact grief—nor would I want to. But I get why he’s distancing himself from everyone around him. It’s not just the pain of loss. He blames himself for the accident since they had a fight beforehand. I never learned what the fight was about, but according to Brigs, it was enough to make him think it was all his fault. Sometimes I want to reach out to him, to tell him I know what guilt is, but I don’t have the courage to even bring up that shit with myself.

  “Hey, Mum,” Brigs says, kissing Jessica on both cheeks. Though I call them my parents, I’ve never been able to call them Mum and Dad. I’m not sure if that’s a defense mechanism or what.

  Brigs walks in the house and eyes the rest of us in surprise. You can see my cousins in Brigs, and vice versa. He’s tall and athletic, though looking quite thin as of late, with vivid blue eyes that I can’t describe as anything other than haunted. His cheekbones are thanks to Jessica, sharp and angular. When he’s feeling particularly angry, you definitely want to clear the room. I can silence someone with my fists, but he can silence a room with one look.

  “Lachlan,” he says, and there’s a gaiety to his voice that wasn’t there before.

  I get out of my chair and give him a hug, the old slap on the back.

  “Good to see you, brother,” he says, looking me dead in the eye.

  “Same to you.”

  He looks over my shoulder and raises a brow when he sees Kayla. “And who is this, then?”

  I can’t help but beam proudly at her. I probably look quite the fool, but I don’t care.

  “This is Kayla. She’s from San Francisco.”

  “Is that so?” he asks, and gives her a nod. “First time in Scotland, yeah?”

  “It sure is,” Kayla says.

  “And you have this ape as your tour guide? I should show you around, yeah? Show you the real Scotland not seen through the eyes of a hothead rugby player,” he says with a big grin. It takes him from sinister to jokester in a flash, and I can see Kayla’s shoulders relax.

  “Brigs,” Jessica warns. “Be nice.”

  “Nice is a four letter word,” Brigs says, and luckily everyone laughs. It’s nice to see him happy, and for a moment I realize it’s probably nice for everyone to see me happy too.

  Soon
we gather around the dining room table while Jessica goes about preparing the dinner, a succulent roast duck that Donald says he shot in the Highlands last weekend on a hunting expedition. The wine comes out. It takes a lot out of me, but I decline and have a glass of mineral water instead.

  The conversation then moves on to normal topics. Donald discusses his work with the Lions Club, Kayla talks about housing in San Francisco, and I say a few things about rugby practice. Brigs is ever quiet, more so than me, until Jessica starts dishing out the sides and brings up the fact that he’s got a new job.

  I don’t make too big of a deal about it because that’s just the way that Brigs is. He lost his job as a teacher after the accident, and has been looking for work ever since. I was never worried—he’s a shrewd guy and a hard worker, he was just going through a lot. But Jessica is bursting with pride. I can tell it makes him uncomfortable.

  “Congratulations,” I tell him. “It’s about time. Here’s to that.”

  And maybe I’ve said the wrong thing because his eyes narrow sharply and he raises his glass. “Here’s to me? No, no. Here’s to you, Lachlan.”

  I frown and he continues, completely sincere. “I’m serious. Really, I’m serious. I don’t think we’ve ever really toasted to Lachlan and the person he’s become.”

  There’s a worm of unease in my chest.

  Brigs looks at his parents. “Really, I don’t think we have. I think we just opened our arms up to Lachlan and brought him back in, but I don’t think we’ve ever really told him how proud we were that he was able to beat his addiction.”

  The globe stops spinning on its axis, just long enough to make me feel sick.

  “Brigs,” Jessica warns, in barely above a whisper.

  But Brigs isn’t picking up on how still I’ve gotten, on how my hands have curled into tight fists, on how Donald and Jessica are sending him warning looks, and Kayla is staring at me with open confusion. He doesn’t pick up on any of that because he’s looking into his glass of beer like it’s telling him what to say.

  “We really thought you were gone, Brother. Meth, heroin. Not many can pull themselves off the streets, pull themselves off the drugs, and actually do something with their lives, but you. You. You’ve done everything you set out to do.” Finally he raises his head to look at me, completely earnest, not noticing my wide, wild eyes. “Here’s to you, Brother. I’m glad you’re back. I’m glad you’re here. And I’m glad she’s here too.”

  The most awkward silence imaginable blankets the room. Everyone eyes each other then slowly reaches for their glass. I can’t even bother reaching for mine. I’m utterly paralyzed. Not just from humiliation, because when you’ve lived for years on the street, you learn to have no shame. None at all. But it’s the fear that grips me, like a vise around my heart, because Kayla didn’t know any of that, and I wasn’t sure I could ever bring it up with her.

  But there it is, out in the open, for her to reflect on, to judge, to fear.

  I can’t even look at her. I quickly excuse myself from the table and walk through the kitchen to the bathroom, passing by the fridge where I swiftly grab a bottle of beer and head right on in, locking the door behind me. I lean against the sink, breathing in and out, willing the pain to stop, for the regret to subside, but it doesn’t. So I slam the top of the beer against the sink, the cap snapping off, and down it in five seconds.

  I burp. I wait. Wanting it all to go away, for my pulse to stop fighting my veins.

  The longer I stay in the bathroom though, the worse it will get. I put the beer in the rubbish bin then head back out to the dining room. I swear, this moment is scarier than any moment I’ve ever had on a rugby pitch.

  Thankfully, luckily, they’re all talking about Obama, of all people, so my return to the table isn’t overly noticed.

  Except by Kayla, of course, because she notices everything. And there is absolutely no way that I’ll be able to let this sleeping dog lie.

  I decide to wrap the evening up early, just after dessert, telling everyone that I have to return home to the dogs, especially Emily who isn’t used to being left alone yet. We say goodbye to everyone, though I know we’ll see Donald and Jessica at the gala. When Brigs hugs me goodbye, he pulls me tight and whispers in my ear.

  “If she still loves you, she’s a keeper.”

  I want to smash his fucking face in for that and can only mutter an angry syllable in return.

  The car ride back to Edinburgh is as choked with silence as one can imagine. I try to concentrate on the road, on the white lines slipping underneath the car, at the black highway rolling toward the headlights. There’s something so dreamy about the moment, that after-dinner, late night drive, but the gravity of the situation brings me back.

  Finally, I can’t stand it anymore. I clear my throat, keeping my eyes ahead, my grip stiff on the wheel. “Do you want to talk about it?” I ask, voice low and dripping with unease.

  It takes her a moment. “About what exactly?”

  I really don’t want to spell it out for her, but I will if I must. “About what Brigs said. His toast to me. About the person I used to be.”

  She sighs noisily. “Right. The person you used to be. Tell me about him, then.”

  “Do you really want to know?” I glance at her to see her nodding, her eyes focused out the window and into the darkness.

  “Yes,” she says. “I want to know everything about you. Especially the events that made you who you are.”

  “And who am I?” I ask softly, heart pleading. “Who am I to you?”

  She turns her face to me, skin lit up by the pale dashboard lights. “You’re Lachlan McGregor. And you’re mine.”

  Another gut punch, but sweeter this time, dipped in honey.

  “Please don’t hold anything back from me,” she says. “You don’t owe me anything, but I…I want to understand. I want to be there for you, I want to know every inch, not just your body, but your mind and your heart and your soul. You can trust me, you know. I’m not going anywhere.”

  But that’s a lie. In a few weeks you won’t be here at all. Then you’ll have my heart and all my secrets, too.

  I swallow that down and nod.

  “I’ll keep it short and not so sweet because…” I exhale, my hands sweaty on the wheel. “You need to understand that this isn’t easy for me to talk about. I haven’t talked about this with anyone, and I rarely even think about this myself. There are a lot of things that just need to stay in the past, and the person I was is one of those things. But I need you to know that it’s all over and done with. Everything that happened is over. You have to trust me on that. Do you trust me?”

  “I trust you,” she whispers.

  “Okay,” I say with a slow nod. “Okay. Well, uh…when I was first brought into Jessica and Donald’s home, well it all felt too good to be true. You’ve met them now, you’ve seen how they are. They are nice people. Good people. They took me in, a scrawny, damaged young boy with no potential for anything, and they worked around the clock to prove to me that the world wasn’t out to get me, and that not all people were bad. But…when it was all I had ever known, time and time again, it wasn’t an easy thing to believe.”

  I blink hard, trying to compose my words. “They gave me everything I could ever want, including honest, real love. But I never felt worthy. I went through high school, I got my degree, and I tried to live a normal life. The problem was…people knew them, knew I wasn’t their son, and even though that was rarely an issue, unless some wanker made it one, it was something large and heavy in my own mind. I guess I never really trusted them or their intentions. I never even unpacked my bag—I kept it by the door, always, just in case, because too many times I’d either be thrown out of foster care or I’d have to escape. And those horrors, the horrible, sick things that lurk out there in the minds of some people, waiting to prey on you, they’re always out there. I wanted to trust Donald and Jessica, even Brigs, but I couldn’t. My last year of high school I started to b
ackslide. It’s the same old story. I hung out with the wrong people. I stole cars and drank moonshine and shot guns into the sky. Then the drugs came into play, and I was spending weekends in Glasgow, scoring chicks, scoring drugs, being the person I knew how to be. Unworthy, you know? I didn’t deserve shit.”

  I glance at her to see if she’s listening, and she’s staring at me with so much interest, so much concern that I feel like she’s actually there with me, in the past, holding my hand.

  I go on, my throat getting drier. “It was the unsexiest drug that did me in. You’d think it would be coke, but I’m not that classy. Never was. It was crystal meth. Alcohol, too. Coke on occasion, maybe some painkillers if someone could get their hands on them. That was at first anyway. At first you’re always picky. Then you get to the point where you’ll steal nutmeg from your adopted mother’s kitchen because you think it will get you high. Maybe you’ll pawn her jewelry and her fur coats. Maybe you’ll steal every single bit of their life, their life that they gave to you, to rescue you—maybe you’ll just throw that all out the window. Because you’re a selfish fucking coward. With no balls. Because all you care about is making this whole damn world and every cell of your existence disappear. That’s all there is. Your life becomes all about erasing life, like a memory card wiped clean. I did drugs and I stole and I lied and I hurt and hurt and hurt until that card was blank, and there was nothing new to hurt me anymore.”

  I was nearly breathless from all that. The only sound in the car was from my own lungs, sucking in air, trying to come to terms with what I had just purged. I’d just told Kayla the worst possible thing that anyone could admit. I just told her, the only woman I’ve ever cared for, that I’ve ever fallen deeply, madly for, that I used to be a drug addict. There was no way her opinion of me wouldn’t be forever altered. The truth didn’t make me feel good at all because it’s the type of truth that should never come to light.

  Moments pass. Heavy, weighted. The blood wooshes loudly in my head and I have to adjust my grip on the steering wheel. I keep my eyes on the road, too afraid to look at her but also too afraid of the silence.