The Summer We Fell Apart

by Robin Antalek

  He tried to concentrate as George cataloged Finn’s injuries for him in a tired, mechanical voice. Burns mostly, his hair and the top of his head received the worst, as well as his right hand, where, despite his drunkenness, the doctors think he must have swiped at the flames. He also had burns on his chest and his limbs, as well as his face, but they weren’t as bad as the burns to his scalp. Physically, he was already deteriorated before the fire. The doctors said there was severe liver damage and so they were pumping him with super antibiotics because of the risk of infection from the wounds. His body had little to none of the inner resources it would need to fend for itself. Right now, along with the antibiotics, they were just trying to control the pain with morphine. They couldn’t do anything about the alcohol withdrawal; he would just have to ride that out. It was a grim prognosis, George said, but he wouldn’t lie to him. He thought he needed to hear the truth.

  The only time George’s voice changed from the robotic was when he got to the ties on Finn’s wrists. He cracked when he said, “You were trying to hurt yourself, pull everything out. They couldn’t control you when you came in so they tied you down.” He paused and continued, “Until they know you won’t try again, they have to leave them on.”

  Finn opened his eyes again and looked at George. George put his hand out to touch Finn but then pulled back. He didn’t seem to know what was safe to touch, so his hand hovered there temporarily above Finn’s body like that of a faith healer at a revival. Then he closed his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose with two fingers. When he opened them, he said, “Mom didn’t want to tell you anything. But I thought you should know what you’d done.”

  Finn could tell George was tired of cleaning up after him. They all were. That’s why he wasn’t surprised by Kate’s absence. She’d told him she was done back in Los Angeles, hadn’t she? He tried to nod at George to let him know he understood, but he couldn’t. All he wanted was to be left alone. The damn doorman. Fuck him. That was the second time he’d saved Finn’s life, redirected his destiny. You couldn’t fuck with someone’s destiny twice like that, could you? Now he looked at his brother and with everything he had left in him he managed to plead in a hoarse whisper, “Just let me go.”

  When George realized what Finn had said, the corners of his lips twisted spasmodically and then his entire body jerked as his shoulders shuddered. Finn thought he was laughing until he saw the tears running down George’s cheeks. George wiped at his face with the back of his arm and stood up. He didn’t say anything else as he swiftly kicked back the chair, grabbed his coat, and moved toward the door. Finn half-expected him to glance back, but he didn’t. Through the window on the door, in the hallway, Finn could make out a man with dark brown hair, who pulled his brother into his arms as soon as he saw him.

  He remembered that summer after he’d come home from Europe. He remembered how he and George had climbed up the rocks at the swimming hole and had a diving contest. He remembered how silver Miriam’s skin had looked in the moonlight as she treaded water below them. He had wanted to impress her, for sure. Especially after the way he saw her looking at him. No one had ever looked at him that way, with an open mixture of curiosity and desire. When they started meeting each other in the kitchen long after everyone had gone to bed, he had tried to act like it was an accident. Until it became every night, and it was all that got him through the day: the thought of tea and cigarettes with Miriam in the kitchen. The way she held her fingers over her mouth when she was unsure of her English, the brush of her hand against his as she pushed a saucer into the middle of the table for ashes, the way her gaze lingered just a moment longer than was comfortable for either of them. A gaze that let him know everything and more was his for the taking but only if he wanted it bad enough.

  Wasn’t that where he’d gone wrong? He had allowed himself to want it too much when he had absolutely no right to do so?

  Finn could wiggle the fingers of his left hand just enough to feel the call button on the railing for the nurse. He pressed it once, twice, three times. When she finally came in, Finn didn’t have to say a word. She smiled down at him as she prepared the needle. Thankfully, she seemed to understand that he just wanted to disappear, and she was more than willing to oblige.

  epilogue

  Marilyn

  ten

  THE HAAS ARCHIPELAGOES

  Marilyn Haas watched from the grand old porch of her friend the director’s house on the lower Cape as her younger son unfolded from a rental car along with his lover and his lover’s teenage son.

  Despite her nerves, a wide smile broke out on her face at the sight of the boy. She surprised herself at how much she adored him, almost a man really at sixteen, whom after this weekend she could officially declare her first grandchild. Perhaps her only grandchild. Her remaining three children appeared too frightened to procreate, and in retrospect she supposed she couldn’t blame them.

  George looked up and saw her watching them from her spot on the swing and, squinting into the low September sun, raised his hand in greeting. Sam was getting the luggage out of the trunk and Asa was coming toward the stairs, grinning at the sight of Marilyn. Theirs was a mutual admiration society. What started out as his starstruck fascination with her as the innkeeper from the Dead, Again movies had progressed into a deeply satisfying relationship. One of only a few that Marilyn could count in her life so far.

  Asa’s own mother had abandoned him when he was three and he had never had much female influence in his life. George had mentioned one recent attempt on Asa’s mother’s behalf and then silence. So maybe that was why Asa gravitated to her, or she to him. It would be too simplistic to say that after four children, whose upbringing Marilyn and her ex-husband had bungled, Asa was her second chance. But in many ways he was. She saw the way her own children watched her with Asa, tense and distrustful, and indeed in the beginning she could see George waiting for the other shoe to drop every time they were together. Waiting for Marilyn to lose interest, to say the wrong thing, to simply not show up. But she didn’t. And slowly she gained Sam’s and George’s trust. As for the rest of her children? Marilyn sighed. They would all be here soon enough.

  Now she jumped from her seat and ran down the steps to greet Asa. Marilyn, at five foot nine, was tall, but Asa towered over her. She stayed on the bottom step to hug him and still he had to lean down into her arms. He gave her such a strong embrace that she lifted up off the step. She laughed and he put her down and Marilyn pushed the hair back out of his eyes and reached up and tweaked his cheeks as she teased, “You’re darling! I just want to hold you in the palm of my hand!”

  Asa laughed, too, clearly enjoying Marilyn’s attention before he turned and yelled to his father that he was going down to the beach. Sam rolled his eyes but was smiling as Asa, not waiting for his response, kissed Marilyn on the cheek and took off in a jog down the shell-covered drive toward the ocean.

  Marilyn met George and Sam halfway and tried to take some of the bags, but George brushed her off with a kiss. Sam did the same and Marilyn, empty-handed, was left to lead them into the house.

  Saul Tang, whose house this was, came toward them, barefoot and tan, from the back of the house. A trim man seventeen years Marilyn’s junior, nearer to her children in age than Marilyn, the same man who had offered Marilyn that tiny part years ago in the first horror movie that got her noticed, had opened his home for George’s and Sam’s wedding. He greeted Sam and George like old friends and then pointed them upstairs to their room.

  When he and Marilyn were alone, he pushed her back gently against the cool whitewashed walls and kissed her on the mouth. Marilyn liked keeping this part of her life secret and had asked Saul to go along with her. He had agreed at the time, but now here he was, kissing her while her son was right upstairs. She kissed him back but hesitantly, before she said, “What was that for?”

  Saul grinned. “You’re a hot mama,” he teased as he let his hand linger a moment on her breast through her thin cotton s
hirt.

  She playfully slapped him away but was secretly pleased with his attention, although she wasn’t quite sure what they were really doing yet. During different times in her career, comparisons had been made to the actress Anne Bancroft. She knew Saul was aware of them as well, because when he hired her the first time, he mentioned it during their meeting. It was farfetched, but she couldn’t help wondering if he was enjoying his own little Mrs. Robinson fetish. She even thought of doing the whole stocking-and-garter-belt scene with him as a test when they had first started sleeping together, but then she had chickened out. After all, this relationship was supposed to be a diversion during a low point in her life; just sex, was what she told herself every time they got together. And then, over time, Saul became a part of her life. They were together constantly whether it was work or play. And he made an effort with her children, taking an interest in their lives, most of the time handling them better than Marilyn. Although it had taken Marilyn a long time to get used to a man that wanted to have sex with her for something more satisfying than his own needs, it had taken her even longer to trust that Saul was what he said he was: a good man.

  “I’m about to become a grandmother,” she said softly, proudly. “Shouldn’t I act like one?”

  Saul fake-pouted at her rebuff but stepped back, allowing Marilyn space to move from underneath his arm and away from the wall. During and after her marriage to Richard, she had lovers, but she used sex as barter for jobs, for favors, to ward off loneliness, and so it was nothing more than physical. Then there had been menopause and what Marilyn had assumed was a natural lack of interest on her part until she met Saul, the surprise of her life. What the hell was she doing? She didn’t give herself permission to be happy with Saul until she saw Finn lying in that hospital bed. Everything had changed in that moment. She wanted her children. She wanted Saul. She wanted to be loved, and to be forgiven.

  She skirted around Saul quickly and walked back into the kitchen. “Would you like a drink?” she called over her shoulder. “I’m having seltzer with lime.”

  Marilyn had promised Finn a dry house, even though he didn’t ask for one, and George and Sam had agreed, even though it was their wedding. They didn’t need to have alcohol. George said it was more important to have Finn alive and sober. Even Saul, with his brand-new wine collection, had, without question, taken every bottle out of the cabinet, tossed them in a box, and driven them to a friend’s house across town. He knew what Finn had been through after the fire. Marilyn had been on set with him when she had taken the call from George that Finn had set her apartment on fire and was in a lockdown ward in the hospital because they couldn’t be so sure he wouldn’t try to kill himself again.

  She was most nervous about Finn. The logistics of getting him here had been difficult enough. He had been in a treatment center in Washington State once he got out of the hospital. Nearly four months in the hospital in New York to regain his health, and then the decision to go across the country to spend another six in rehab. Then, once he had been released, he had gone to Seattle. He said he loved the air and the mountains and quiet. Marilyn wasn’t so sure. Those things could also drive a person to drink—a person who wasn’t used to thinking so much without the aid of alcohol-induced anesthesia could think and think and think and go crazy. But then maybe she just needed to have more confidence in his rehab. Finn was different from the others. As a baby, he had demanded she be present. She attempted what she had thought to be good parenting so many times but had failed more than succeeded. And then he had tried to drink himself to death. After that, nothing bad could happen to him now, could it?

  She was nervous enough about seeing all of her children without the added pressure of hoping one of them had regained the will to live. She couldn’t remember the last time they had all been together, and this occasion was one she had actually stepped up and orchestrated. George and Sam could not be legally wed in New York. Marilyn had suggested the Cape, since Massachusetts had legalized same-sex marriages, and then Saul had offered his house to all of them. For a woman who had not spent a holiday with any of her children in years, the whole notion of this gathering was so far out there that she was shocked when George and Sam accepted. Now here they were, upstairs, unpacking, and she was awaiting the rest of her family.

  Saul entered the kitchen and leaned against the counter. “I’ll take mine with lots of ice,” he said as Marilyn sliced the limes on the maple counter. She could feel him watching her as she filled the glasses with ice and opened the seltzer. Again she wanted to ask him what they were doing, but she didn’t want to start anything right now. Better save that conversation for later—after everyone was gone.

  She opened the refrigerator and looked for a place for the seltzer bottle. The shelves were already overflowing with food because the caterers had provided them with a cold supper for tonight, since Marilyn was unsure when everyone would be arriving. There were fried chicken and potato and macaroni salads as well as grilled eggplant and tomatoes for the vegetarians and a low-salt alternative for Marilyn.

  Six months ago, Marilyn had started suffering bouts of dizziness and debilitating headaches. Of course, she immediately concluded she had the same brain tumor that had killed her ex-husband, or worse: after all, she had smoked a pack a day for more years than she cared to count. After a barrage of tests, the doctor diagnosed high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Despite her thin frame (for some reason, she had harbored the belief that only fat people had heart attacks and strokes), he scared her enough that she agreed to this health regimen. She was supposed to stop smoking and cut out salt and take medication and get more exercise. Now, to start her day there were pills, patches, and vitamins along with green tea and fresh-squeezed juices. No cigarettes. Just thinking about not smoking made her fingers twitch, and she nervously stroked the patch on her shoulder through her shirtsleeve. What she wouldn’t do for a cigarette right this moment; the physical craving was nearly unbearable.

  While she stood with the refrigerator open for what seemed like forever, Saul came up beside her and took the bottle from her hands and slipped it into a slot on the door. Then he closed the doors and handed her a drink. He picked the other one up and clinked it against hers before he raised it to his lips and drank. Marilyn followed his lead. All she had to remember to do was breathe and she would be fine. Just fine.

  Marilyn noticed that George and Sam, like any couple, seemed to swing between elation and nervousness in the hours leading up to the ceremony. George had been on the phone since he’d unpacked, making sure the minister from Boston, a close friend, knew the directions to the house, even though they had been faxed to him several weeks before; making sure the caterers knew the time, even though they had provided an annotated sheet of times and foods that currently was taped to the refrigerator. Then there were the other things to make him crazy: the flowers and the cake and the cake topper that Amy was making as her gift to them, along with the possibility that Sam, in a flurry of last-minute packing, had left the rings back in their apartment in New York, although George did eventually find the blue velvet box with the rings in his toiletries bag.

  Finally, Marilyn took Asa back down to the beach to give George and Sam some time alone. Sam, she noticed, rubbed George’s shoulders or whispered in his ear to calm him. If Marilyn recognized love, this was it, and she was relieved and pleased that someone would care for George like that and that he was capable of caring for someone back.

  She tried to remember what she’d felt like marrying Richard. She was a twenty-two-year-old in love with the idea of love and slightly queasy and unsteady on her feet—as if she were standing on the deck of a sailboat—from the beginnings of Kate stirring in her belly. Richard had woken up the town justice in Suffield to marry them, because they were to leave for New Hampshire early the next day where Richard had secured a place at a writers’ colony for the summer. The couple who ran it said that he could only bring her there with him if she was his wife, and so, on the sp
ur of the moment, he decided they should marry right then.

  It was a warm June, which she remembered because her long-sleeved blouse had been saturated with sweat where she’d tucked it into the waistband of her skirt. The justice’s wife had been their witness, and afterward she had handed Richard a pamphlet on keeping their marriage alive with antiquated tips on bringing your wife flowers and thanking her for the meals she cooked. They read it aloud to each other, lying naked in their bed, while on the floor a fan stirred tepid air. She remembered when they got to New Hampshire how Richard kept introducing her to everyone as his wife and how she’d wished he would stop.

  She didn’t tell Asa any of this as they walked nearly a mile down the beach and back, picking up rocks and shells and horseshoe crabs that lay tangled in the seaweed. Instead, he did most of the talking about their impending move to a building in Brooklyn that Owen, Amy’s boyfriend, had helped them find. It was a huge space in a former machine factory that would allow Sam to have a studio. They’d have to do a lot of renovation before they moved in, which his father and George seemed excited about. But there really wasn’t a neighborhood, and the closest store was about ten blocks away. He’d liked living in the city and didn’t seem thrilled with the notion of Brooklyn, but he did like Owen and Amy and was happy to be near them.

  Marilyn wondered if it would be strange for Asa at school, but he shrugged and said George wasn’t his teacher, since he was in eleventh grade. Besides, lots of kids had weirder home situations than his. Marilyn swung the bag with the shells in her left hand, tucked her other arm in his, and smiled up at him. Times like this she was scared that Asa would find out that she never knew how to be a mother. She wondered how much Asa knew about how George had been raised, what he shared with Sam that Asa may have overheard. Of course there was always the chance that she had exaggerated in her own mind the impact she had on each of her children’s lives. Maybe, like Asa had said, once they got out into the world they met other kids whose home lives were weirder than theirs. At least that was her hope anyway.