Unhinged

by Barbra Leslie

  “You go to bed,” he said. I returned from the kitchen and handed him another cold beer, after taking a sip, and opened a bottle of water. Darren looked at me. “Oh, wait. You’ve just been in bed. I forgot.”

  “I’m a grown-ass woman. I’m a sober grown-ass woman. Who I choose to…” I couldn’t think of the word I wanted to use. I liked to reserve “fuck” for simple but effective swearing, and besides, it seemed weird to use it in a sexual way around my little brother. Even if we didn’t have anything like a normal sibling relationship.

  “Enjoy conjugal relations with?” he said. He peered over his reading glasses, and I caught our dad’s face for a second. I smiled.

  “Isn’t that just in reference to married, uh, relations?” I said.

  “Huh,” he said. He closed his “graphic novel”. “Good point, sir. But I presume you did do some conjugating this evening.”

  “Jesus,” I said. “I am not going to dignify that remark, young man.” I downed my water while Darren watched me. He seemed to be waiting for me to say more. “When and with whom I… conjugate, is none of your concern,” I said. I looked at Darren, who was still flat on his back with his legs on the couch. He looked very comfortable. “Besides, it’s hard to take you seriously when you’re reading comics upside down.” He opened his mouth, and I put my hand up. “Graphic novels. Pardon me.”

  “Thank you.” He swung his legs down and pivoted, sitting up. “Marta and I were changing the boys’ bedding. This was between Luke’s mattress and box spring.” He waved the comic. “He was hiding it like it was a girlie magazine. I felt it behooved me, as his uncle, to take a gander and make sure it was suitable. Or that it wasn’t some kind of postmodern Riverdale porn.”

  I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. “And?” I said.

  “Nada. Innocent as your evening was not,” he said. I threw my empty water bottle at him.

  “Bizarre. Why would he hide it?” I said. I was lowering my voice, though the boys wouldn’t be able to hear me from their rooms downstairs. “Did you ask him?”

  “I did,” Darren said. He did a spot-on impression of both boys, which drove them both absolutely crazy. “‘If you tell Matt I had that, Darren, he will torture me until my life won’t be worth living.’” I laughed. If every moment of my life was like this, I could be a different person.

  “Were we ever that innocent?” I said. “Seriously.”

  “You weren’t,” Darren said. “You were born with that supersized flight-or-fight gene.”

  “You’ve been watching Dr. Phil again,” I said. I sat on the floor and stretched my lower back. Seemed I wasn’t getting any younger, and my nighttime escapades – not to mention the long runs after – were taking their toll.

  “Besides, I wouldn’t call those two kids innocent,” Darren said. “Not after… everything.”

  “No.” No. Not after their mother was murdered. Not after their nanny impersonated me and kidnapped them. Not after they – well, Matty – watched their Uncle Jack choke on his own blood. Not after their nanny held guns and knives to them, and drugged them. They would never be innocent again. And while I wished, with everything I had, that the last year hadn’t happened, now that it had, I was constantly torn between wanting to preserve whatever innocence and joy they could have left and making sure they were always ready. We couldn’t be sure they were safe twenty-four seven unless we wrapped them in bubble wrap and continued to homeschool them. They were caught up with the curriculum here before starting school in Toronto. I was tempted to continue that way – I had money now; we could hire the best private tutors in the city to teach them more algebra and world history than they’d ever learn at school. But their father and uncles seemed to think that socialization was important, living a “normal life”.

  I was seriously thinking about getting a helipad on the roof, and the boys had weapons and fighting lessons four times a week. As far as I was concerned, we’d pulled out of Normal Station a long time ago. But the boys wanted to go to school, and I was the lone hold-out who thought the risk was too great. But even I could see that my nephews deserved to have a life outside of what we’d never stopped referring to as “the bakery”. Or sometimes, “the compound”.

  Matthew and Luke were the twin sons of my dead twin sister. At least partly because of me, they had lost their mother. I was going to make sure they were safe and protected and, as much as possible at their age, capable of protecting themselves should the need arise. I had made sure that they were surrounded by people who loved them. There was some consistency with Marta and Rosen around, and they worshipped their uncle Darren. I played video games with them, taught them how to properly pop popcorn – none of that microwave stuff – and made sure they saw good movies, ones that had come out before they were born.

  My instinct may have been to wrap myself around them, to blanket them with my body to shield them from harm, but I couldn’t. There was a part of me that felt that my touch was a curse, that I was a curse. That the best I could do was make sure they knew there was a community, of sorts, in our home, and that they would never be alone unless they wanted to be.

  I was in a state of hyper-vigilance and found myself, more often than not, falling asleep during the early hours of the morning on the floor outside the boys’ room. Particularly on nights when I’d gone out on my own and picked up the sort of man I’d never want to see in the daylight.

  The best mornings were when I woke up on the floor outside their room and one of them would have put a blanket over me while I slept. And sometimes a can of Diet Pepsi next to me. A couple of times I woke to find them both sitting cross-legged on the floor, quietly playing on their phones while I slept. On those mornings, I felt Ginger there with us, and I think the boys did too. They understood better than anyone the twin bond, and were getting to an age when they could see past their own pain to realize how devastating it must have been for me to lose her.

  So they weren’t having a normal life, but we were all doing our best to make it a good one. And it was working. Sometimes, when I was busy with the gym, or playing World of Warcraft with the boys, I actually felt like I could breathe freely.

  “Fred home?” I asked Darren. Now that my breathing had returned to normal after my long run, I was starting to notice that I was a little whiffy. Sex with a stranger in a humid room, followed by a five-mile run in combat boots, will do that to a girl. A cool shower and perhaps sleep in my own bed were in order.

  Darren was about to answer when we heard someone on the stairs. “Knock, knock,” Fred said quietly when he reached the top.

  “Just talking about you,” Darren said. He stood up and headed to the kitchen. “Beer, Frederick? Water?”

  Then Fred appeared in the living-room doorway, and I think I must have actually gasped. Darren turned around.

  He had blood around one side of his mouth – his very swollen mouth; for a minute I worried his jaw had been broken – and it was apparent that he was going to have a very impressive black eye tomorrow. As I got closer to him, I saw red around his neck. Fingerprints, by the look of them.

  “I don’t want the boys to see me like this,” he said. He lowered himself gingerly onto the couch. It wasn’t only his face that had taken a beating, then. “I thought maybe you guys could patch me up a bit before I go down to bed.” He tried to smile, and winced. “And help me come up with a story for them.”

  “Darren, get an ice pack. Make that two.” Darren gave me a look over Fred’s head, a what now kind of look, before he went to the kitchen.

  “I’m going to have a look at you, but you need to tell us what happened.”

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s time, I think.” His voice was slow and careful. Not too nasal, though. I didn’t think his nose was broken.

  “Past time,” Darren said. He had two gel packs from the freezer, wrapped in clean tea towels, and something amber-colored in a small glass. He handed me the gel packs and gave the glass to Fred. “Brandy,” he said. “For shock. D
rink it.” Fred wasn’t much of a drinker, but he threw the brandy back like a longshoreman. He spoiled the effect by coughing and going even redder in the face, but still.

  “Get me one too, would you,” I said to Darren. “And the first-aid stuff. It’s…”

  “Under the sink, I know,” he said. “Honestly, I’m nothing but a skivvy.” I blew him a kiss and he gave me the finger. I love my family.

  I sat looking at Fred, waiting to touch him until Darren came back with the kit and the nitrile gloves. “Did you get kicked? Kidney, ass… what?” He looked at me. “You couldn’t sit properly,” I said. “That’s not from this.” I gestured to his damaged face and neck. Fred’s face turned even more red.

  “Oh. Yeah. They gave me a couple of good punts in my lower back.”

  “Do you mean your butt? Because if it’s that, you’re probably fine. If you got kicked hard enough in your kidneys, in your lower back, we might want to take you to Emerg.”

  “Danny, we are not going to the hospital,” Fred said. I just stared at him with a stern look on my face, and he sighed. “Fine. A couple of kicks landed on my ass, and maybe one or two on my lower back.”

  “You’re probably fine unless you start peeing blood,” Darren said from behind him. He moved a small table next to where I had moved a chair in front of Fred, and put the first-aid kit down. He moved a lamp closer to shine on Fred’s face. Darren and I looked at Fred together, then at each other.

  “I’ll just get that brandy,” my brother said.

  “Now I know why you like wearing those Docs,” Fred said. He shifted a bit, and winced.

  “Yup,” I said. “Any kind of combat boots can be a weapon.” I looked down at Fred’s Vans and shook my head. “We need to take you shopping, bud.”

  My heartbeat was strong and steady, and I was keeping my breathing deep and even. After years of being an amateur fighter, this kind of first aid was right up my alley. Not to mention my late husband Jack had insisted I get my first-aid certification.

  But my adrenaline was also pumping, and I was trying to use the mindfulness techniques Dr. Singh had taught me to curtail it. No one was in immediate danger. Fred was home now, and safe. The boys were asleep in their beds. But someone had gone after my family. Someone had given my brother-in-law a pretty decent beating. Fred and I still had a way to go before we could stop blaming each other, deep down, for Ginger’s death. But we’d been in each other’s lives since I was sixteen. He was the father of the two people who mattered the most in the world to me. Like it or not, he was family.

  Darren came back carrying a bottle of brandy and two glasses. He splashed a bit more in Fred’s, and a heftier measure for both himself and me. I took a cautious sip, then shot the rest. I managed not to cough, but just barely. It would have killed my street cred.

  “So, Fred,” I said, pulling on a pair of nitrile gloves, “want to tell us where you’ve been disappearing to from the boys’ bedtimes until, what, four in the morning for the last – how long has it been, Darren?”

  “June,” Darren said. “Around the time school let out for the summer.” Darren had put on a pair of gloves himself, presumably to be my assistant, and he moved the lamp even closer to Fred’s face. Not only did it make my job easier, but Fred probably felt like he was being interrogated by boozy amateur first-aiders. Which, of course, he was.

  “Water, D?” I looked at Darren. “And a bowl. The big stainless steel one.”

  Darren sighed heavily and went to the kitchen. Fred tried to smile at me. It looked horrendous.

  “I guess I married into the right family,” he said. “You know, who better to go to than the Clearys if you’ve been beaten up? Your dad probably had you putting raw steak on his shiners when you were toddlers.” He shut his eyes, which looked painful. I was glad. Shamefully. It was moments like this, when Fred made little cracks about our family, that I remembered how he had an affair with the twins’ nanny. A woman who wound up being instrumental in destroying nearly everything I held dear.

  “Don’t be an asshole, Fred,” I said. I tried to sound light. I doubt I succeeded. “I may have to give you stitches if you’re so against going to the hospital.”

  Fred sighed, and looked at me. He touched my hand. “I’m sorry, Danny. I am so sorry.” I knew he wasn’t just talking about the Cleary thing. Once in a while, Fred’s contrition got the better of him. It had taken him a long time to come to terms with Ginger’s death, months before he spoke much. Darren had picked up the slack, being both uncle and father to the boys.

  “I know, Fred. Let’s leave it.” I put one of the ice packs in his hand and brought it up to his eye. “I’m going to take a look at your mouth first.” I took two Tylenol from the first-aid kit and handed them to him. He chased them with the last of his brandy and then nodded and opened his mouth. Darren handed me the flashlight from our kit.

  “Thank you, nurse,” I said. Darren snorted. “You haven’t lost any teeth. Does it feel like any are loose?” I squirted some distilled water into his mouth and had him swish it around, then spit into the bowl Darren had brought. Fred shook his head no. “The bleeding is from the inside of your cheek being cut on your teeth.” I opened a moist sterile wipe and had Fred hold it in place. “You might not want anything acidic or salty for a few days, but you’ll be fine.” I felt calm. I felt good. Being useful was good. Patching someone up instead of beating them up was good. I motioned for Darren to pour me some more brandy.

  “And more for him,” I said, nodding at Fred’s glass.

  “I thought alcohol was supposed to thin the blood,” Darren said. “Is this wise, doctor?”

  “Bitch, please. He’s not suffering from hypothermia. He’s got a few little cuts and bruises. This is good hooch. It’ll help clean the wound.”

  “I see you’ve brushed up on your Civil War field medicine,” Darren said. “What a relief, eh, Fred?” Fred tried something like a smile, with his fingers in his mouth. It was not a good look.

  “I probably should have had you put gloves on,” I said to Fred. I pulled his hand out of his mouth, and the wipe. “My bad.” I handed him more brandy. “Swish this around in your mouth, especially on the sore side,” I said. “Don’t just shoot it.” He took the glass from me and cautiously moved it around, wincing. He spit it into the bowl. I put on fresh gloves and stuck a wad of sterile gauze into his cheek. “There. Done. We’ll change that in a bit.”

  Darren pulled up an ottoman and grabbed his glass of brandy. “Now, Fred, while Dr. Strangelove here sees to the rest of your face, why don’t you tell us how you got yourself into this sorry state.”

  Fred nodded, and put the ice pack back to his face.

  “It’s humiliating,” Fred said.

  I was torn between sympathy and the urge to tell him to grow a pair. Darren cleared his throat, and I could tell just by the sound of it that he was feeling something similar. “It’s after four in the morning, Fred,” Darren said. “Just spit it out.”

  So I began cleaning the small cuts and abrasions on Fred’s face, and he told us about Zuzi.

  FOUR

  “I haven’t been unfaithful,” Fred said, the gauze in his cheek making him sound faintly ridiculous.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake. You’re a widower,” Darren said. He stood up and looked down on Fred on the couch. “When Ginger was alive was the time to worry about being unfaithful.”

  I vaguely wanted to cheer, but I also wanted Fred to be able to get the story out. “Enough, Darren. Fred, continue.”

  “Yes. Well, you know I started walking a lot in the evenings. I find it hard, sometimes, being here. So many people.” He was twirling his glass in his hands. As a natural loner, I could, to a small degree, sympathize. But as the whole place had been designed to provide a safe, secure, and fun home for his children, it was hard to hear this coming from Fred. I had no doubt he loved his sons, but a hands-on dad he was not. “Anyway, once in a while I would stop at Starbucks, or a diner, and sit and read the paper. W
atch people.”

  “So, this girl is a barista?” Darren said.

  “Zuzi is her name,” Fred said. “And no.” He cleared his throat and looked around. I passed him the brandy. “I went into Helen of Troy one night. You’ve heard of it?”

  “The strip club?” My voice was at least an octave higher than usual. “You?” It was an east end institution, Helen of Troy, a huge down-market strip club not far from our place; i.e. in a distinctly non-gentrified area of town.

  Fred nodded. “I know. I just… I was walking. It was open. They had a sign outside about their burgers.” Darren snorted. “No, really. I mean, I knew it was a strip club type place, but I figured what the hell, never done this before. I’ll get a burger, watch the people, walk home.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “Zuzi is a stripper.”

  “With a heart of gold,” Darren said.

  “That’s hookers,” I said to my brother.

  “I stand corrected.” I looked at Darren, who had stopped pacing and plopped himself back down on the ottoman. I could tell he didn’t know whether to laugh or be angry.

  “I saw her dance, but I didn’t really pay attention. I mean, I didn’t pay attention to the stage much at all. I was actually mortified.” I believed him. Fred, whose hair was the kind of red you imagined Anne of Green Gables had, was blushing just thinking about those strippers.

  “But just as I was finishing my burger and playing with my phone, pretending to be engrossed in something or other, there she was at my table.” I nodded. I’d known strippers, back when I was working as a personal trainer. They were – at least the ones I’d known – in amazing shape. Calf muscles to kill for. Though I was told that there were girls in some of the lower-end clubs who could barely make it across the stage, they were so skinny and strung-out. But working the club selling lap dances was their bread and butter. “She was trying to talk to me, but I just wanted to pay and get the hell out of there.”