Clara sipped her piña colada. She raised an eyebrow—it was surprisingly exactly what she needed. She took another swig of the drink before setting it on the table and pushing it an arm’s length away. She was here to set the example, after all.
“And did you think about Greg? Serving him with papers in recovery? Risking a setback for him because you and I can’t handle ourselves properly?”
Three kids ran by on the pool deck and together they shouted, “Slow down, it’s slippery,” each equally surprised by the other.
Clara responded, “Greg’s mess is Greg’s mess.” She reached for her drink inadvertently before trying to pass it off as a casual gesture. “They’re not dealing with their grief. Greg thought you could help them. We all wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt.” She leaned back in her chair. “For god’s sake, there’s another video of them on the internet. Laughing.”
Patrick crept his fingers into the sun and waited to feel a familiar sizzle. He bit his lip to keep from smiling. His posting the video had done exactly what he had hoped: gotten a rise out of his sister. “You’d rather see them cry?”
Clara didn’t have the words to explain how they should be, but she knew precisely how they shouldn’t.
“They’re playing a role, Clara. Inventing versions of themselves to mask who they truly are right now because everyone has told them to be strong. And that’s okay. That’s part of it. Part of grieving. Part of growing up.”
“And who is going to prevent them from getting lost in these roles? From losing a sense of themselves?”
“I am,” Patrick said matter-of-factly.
“You are.”
“What do you think gay people do? Have done for generations? We adopt a safe version of ourselves for the public, for protection, and then as adults we excavate our true selves from the parts we’ve invented to protect us. It’s the most important work of queer lives.”
“Patrick, you’re an actor. Enough with the psychobabble.”
Patrick let it go. He would never make her understand the bravery of the arts. The importance of exploring the human condition, particularly for gay people, who did so with gusto, and with the very tool that they were first rejected for: their large, beautiful hearts.
“Men are impossible. You know that? You, Greg, Darren, Grant one day, probably. The whole lot of you. I swear if I get through this divorce alive I’m going to shack up with a woman.” She watched as a father lifted his young daughter out of the shallow end and tossed her a few feet in the air; the girl squealed with delight. Later she might allow herself to think not all men were the devil, but she didn’t have time for such naiveté now.
“Is that a coming-out?” Patrick asked, needling her. “Should I call GLAAD? We could issue a press release?”
“Fuck off.”
A breeze swept through the cabana and Patrick raised his shirt a few times to feel it against his skin. “I handled it. With Greg, by the way.” He glanced down at the sweat forming on his piña colada’s plastic cup—no hotel served glass by the pool—and watched as one bead of moisture slalomed through the others. That was him, he thought, finding a way through.
Clara took a handful of pool snacks, these Japanese-looking crackers shellacked with a luminescent glaze. She ate two, then timidly placed the rest on her napkin. They were not at all to her liking.
“You’re not going to do this, Clara. You’re not dragging Greg out of rehab. You’re not dragging Maisie and Grant in front of a judge just because your life is in transition. It’s not who you are.”
She did not like hearing her motives belittled.
“Contact the court and withdraw your petition. Right now.”
“And if I don’t?”
Don’t be angry. “You want me to threaten you?”
Clara continued to glare.
“Fine. I will have an army of attorneys bury you so deep in a legal avalanche, those kids will be in college before you dig yourself out from under it. I have the resources. You do not.” Patrick held his sister’s eye until she looked away. When she did, his heart broke for her. “I don’t want things to be this way,” he said softly.
Clara twisted and squirmed, exhausted. She was done with the heat, done with her family, done with this hotel, done with the fight. Patrick was right about resources, and they both knew he had the resolve and the spite to employ them. It was five more weeks until Maisie and Grant would be home with their father. Back in Connecticut, where she could look in on them more carefully. Away from Patrick’s influence. Under hers. Was it worth winning a battle only to lose the war? “Fine.”
“Clara, you have such a tremendous heart.”
She winced. “But?”
Patrick took a sharp breath. “But nothing. I know you only wanted to help.”
Clara sat silently.
Patrick breathed a sigh of relief. He downed the rest of his drink, then ate the slice of pineapple off the rim. “I’m sorry I threatened you. This was bound to get heated, but still. Now come to the house. Let’s get your luggage and you’ll stay with us for a few more days and get in some good time with the kids.”
Clara turned her attention to the little girl in the pool. Her laughter was a trigger, it made Clara envy how simple things used to be.
“Clara?”
“I’ll see them in a few weeks.”
“You will,” Patrick agreed. “But you should also see them now.”
Clara’s eyes started to water. She could not say goodbye to them a second time. “It’s time for me to go home.”
A large gust of wind took Patrick’s cap; he caught it just before it was lost. He placed it back on his head and held it on tight with both hands. “Remember that story Dad used to tell? About the Siamese twins who were drafted?”
“In the Civil War?” Clara closed her eyes behind her sunglasses, grateful for the change of subject. “Only one was drafted.”
“Yeah.” Patrick chuckled, the thought of it absurd. “I used to wonder why he made up such ridiculous stories, and now I find myself doing it all the time.”
“He didn’t make it up.”
“It’s true?” Patrick raised an eyebrow, impressed. Really. Which one of his own oddball rules would stick with the kids into adulthood? He looked up at the mountains, framed by the cabana’s curtains, hoping he was doing some good. The peaks looked fake in the moment, the way they often did in summer, too crisp, too clear, a facade propped up by two-by-fours in a bit of Hollywood magic. “You’ll call your attorneys?” He nudged his sister’s bag, and with it presumably her cell phone, closer to her.
“In a minute,” she said. She tilted her head toward the sky and let her hair fall down her back. “First I’m going to finish my drink.”
Patrick wasn’t used to waiting on others, but so be it. Liquid courage, he thought. “You’ll forgive me if I sit here while you do.”
Patrick vowed not to say another word, but he moved over to Clara and sat next to her, placing his arm around her shoulders. She let him, too, without flinching or pulling away. They sat like that in silence, the only sound the occasional splash of pool water followed by a child laughing.
NINETEEN
Patrick ripped off his sleep mask and tossed the covers back in one fluid motion. The room was dark, quiet. Too quiet. His noise machine had stopped . . . noising. The air-conditioning was not humming. What time is it? He strained to hear the sprinklers on the back lawn; depending on the time of night he could sometimes use their gentle hissing to orient himself. He listened for the kids. Was one of them crying? Calling his name? He leaned forward to look for them, thinking perhaps he’d finally caught them in the act of sneaking in, but they were not there. Only Marlene, who had taken to sleeping on the end of his bed, was curled up in a tight ball. So why was he awake? Was it a dream? He struggled to wrap his mind around his last memory. Was it Joe? He’
d been returning recently in Patrick’s sleep; two nights ago he was a steward on an airline wearing a uniform with a slick tie clip. He found Patrick in a first-class aisle seat and, crouching down, said, “There you are. You’re supposed to be in 3-D.”
Then, BOOM.
The room lurched, bending Patrick at the waist, first forward, then back against his upholstered headboard like a rag doll with too little stuffing. He was confused, stupefied. Marlene leapt to her feet and let out a surprised howl as she clung with her claws to the duvet. Patrick looked at his bedroom door; it rumbled in the frame. Someone was trying to enter, to do harm, to kill him. The bed pitched forward again, and then up and down, rising an inch in the air before slamming down again on the floor. He grabbed a fistful of covers like they were the reins of a bucking mare. Not someone.
Something.
Artillery. A ghostly presence. Evil.
Earthquake, Patrick realized once he’d eliminated everything else. And then said it again out loud to confirm. “EARTHQUAKE!” For a split second a warmth washed over him, a certainty that he was going to die. And he was . . . okay. Not horrified. Death wasn’t welcome, but he was tired of needing to have all the answers, tired of people fighting him—it seemed an acceptable conclusion. Why did this need to go on? He’d lived, he’d loved, he’d done less than some but more than many; he’d be remembered.
Marlene growled, her legs wide, miraculously keeping her footing. It snapped Patrick to attention. He lunged for her, tucking her like a football close to his side as the flat-screen toppled from its stand. The TV landed with a crash.
The kids.
It hit him with a fresh jolt triggered not by the friction of moving tectonic plates but a seismic shift deep inside him. He was no longer responsible for just himself, and it was instantly more than the fresh realization each morning that he needed to get out of bed and make Maisie eggs or pour Grant’s cereal or entertain them to distract from their grief.
He was responsible for keeping them alive.
Patrick leapt out of bed. He whipped open his door and ran through the living room to the other side of the house. In the hallway he found Maisie leaning against a wall between the guest rooms, her face twisted with an unforeseen anguish, her features all slightly out of place like she had just sat for a cubist painter. Patrick reached out, grabbed her hand, and yanked her close into his side. The ground kept shaking and he heard crash after crash from the living room that sounded like the entire fireplace crumbling brick by goddamn brick.
“Doorway!” he barked, guiding Maisie into the door frame to her room. Marlene wriggled and squirmed as much as Maisie held him tight.
“Grant’s hurt!”
“WHAT?”
The ground belched one last violent lurch and then rattled like a fading echo until everything calmed to a fragile stillness. Patrick looked around, trying to remember everything you were supposed to do in a quake. The gas line? Was that supposed to be checked? Maybe he should shut it off at the source. Fill the tubs with water until the taps stopped running clear? In case they needed the water in the coming days? Get anything out of the fridge they might need imminently in case of an extended power outage? But then Maisie’s words came into sharp focus.
“Where’s Grant?”
Maisie was crying and clung to her uncle’s shorts.
“GRANT!”
He squeezed Maisie’s hand and yanked her across the hall to find his nephew in his bed. He wasn’t moving. Did he sleep through this? Was that . . . possible?
“Grant.” Grant didn’t move and Maisie burst into terrified tears. Patrick leaned forward to give him a good, well—shake. But he stopped just shy of touching his nephew when he saw blood on Grant’s face. He let go of Maisie and eased Marlene on the bed to place both hands on the boy’s shoulders. A quiet washed over him, the kind that came with adrenaline and a pounding heart. Maisie’s crying faded, blending into the dull roar inside his ears; it was like he was submerged in water, his pool perhaps, the rest of the world’s sounds drowning in a calming whoosh.
He placed his head to Grant’s chest and listened. He felt his heartbeat perhaps more than he heard it and the resulting wave of relief made his eyes sting. He ran his fingers across the boy’s forehead to source the bleeding; Patrick hadn’t fully realized how much bigger he was than Grant—he could practically palm his head like an NBA player does a basketball. He found the cut along Grant’s scalp and applied pressure to keep it from bleeding more. He braced himself with his other hand and allowed himself to breathe. Something on the bed wasn’t right. It was hard where the mattress should have been soft. He looked down. The metal sculpture—the one the kids complained about from night one, a midcentury mishmash of gold metal brackets—was now clearly in the bed with him. Sure enough, the wall was conspicuously bare.
He heard screaming again, coupled with barking and an orchestra of car alarms up and down the street, as if he’d emerged from the water with an athletic kick to the surface.
“He’s okay, Maisie.” Information. Information, he thought, would help calm her down. “It was an earthquake. We’re fine. Something fell off the wall and hit Grant. It looks scarier than it is.” She began to nod and he nodded along with her, helping the knowledge down like he was stroking the throat of a dog trying to get it to swallow a pill. Patrick picked up the phone on the bedside table, an extension he barely remembered he had; nothing. The line was dead. He needed his cell phone. “I need my phone so we can get help. Can you get it? It’s on the charger next to my bed.”
She stood frozen. She had her instructions but had yet to digest them.
“Maisie!”
She locked in on his eyes. You can do this. She backed out of the room without saying a word, as if her uncle’s telepathy had worked. Patrick grabbed a bed pillow with his free hand and shook it out of its case. He folded the pillowcase into a bandage as best he could, lifted his hand from Grant’s forehead, and slid it underneath before applying pressure again. Grant groaned, but did not open his eyes.
“It’s okay, kid. GUP’s here. I’ve got you.” What Patrick wanted, though, was someone who had him.
Maisie reappeared, thrusting her arm forward with the phone, the charger dangling like a wild, unorthodox tail; she had unplugged the whole thing from the wall. “Good job,” he said, relieved to have this lifeline in his hand. He fumbled his password twice before seeing the word emergency on his phone’s lock screen. For the first time in his life he pressed it to dial 911.
It rang. It rang again. It kept ringing.
No answer. Sonofabitch.
Each ring screeched in his ear, begging him to do something—anything—yet Patrick remained paralyzed by indecision. The lines were down or the operators were overwhelmed—either way, help was not coming. Staying put seemed wrong. Did he know what to do for a concussion? What if it was more than that? Leaving seemed equally unwise. The streets could very well be impassable. What if they encountered live power lines in the street, or coyotes, or sinkholes, or looters? The phone continued to ring. How could emergency services not be prepared for just that: emergencies? Patrick knew he had to act. But could Grant have a neck injury? Was it reckless to move him? He would be careful. That was the answer. Together they would find a way through.
“C’mon, Maisie. We’re taking the Tesla.” He hoped to god it would start. Was it fully charged? Yes, of course. He never took it anywhere. Did it lose charge from nonuse? They were about to find out. Patrick wanted to laugh—there was a certain “To the Batmobile!” quality to it all—but he was pretty certain that if he did laugh it would not really be because anything was funny; it would be a release, the kind that quickly dissolved into tears.
“GUP.” Maisie covered her mouth with both hands.
“What?”
She whispered. “Your Golden Globe.”
Patrick closed his eyes for no more than a second
; was she simply reminding him that he once said he would save his Golden Globe before them? Or had she seen something in her run through the living room, the award broken on the living room floor, the globe itself rolling deep under the couch never to be seen again. It didn’t matter. Things change. Priorities realign. And right now, everything was crystal clear. “Fuck my Golden Globe.”
Grant groaned again as if to voice his concern that perhaps it was his uncle who’d been hit in the head. Maisie gasped. She inched toward the edge of the bed to peer at her brother.
“It will be okay, Maisie.” Patrick peeled the pillowcase slowly from Grant’s forehead; there was blood, but it didn’t appear to be gushing. “Sit with your brother for a moment while I get my stuff.”
Maisie took Grant’s hand and Patrick melted. As he bolted for the hall, he heard Maisie reassure her brother. “GUP says it will be okay.”
* * *
The roads were surprisingly clear. Patrick gripped the wheel with both hands in preparation for an aftershock. The spring winds that whipped along 111 were strong enough some nights to push a car into an oncoming lane if the driver was unaware; he’d even heard more than once about a truck jackknifing and tipping over. What could an equally strong force do from below? When he noticed his hands turning white, he loosened his grip. He’d seen too many disaster movies where the roads were splitting and falling into massive sinkholes behind a hero who was trying desperately to escape, and that one where a volcano erupted on Wilshire Boulevard and spit flaming balls of lava in the path of geologist Anne Heche. It had been years since he’d driven, but still—there was no need for that kind of dramatics.
“How you doing back there?”
Patrick glanced in the rearview mirror. Maisie was sitting behind the passenger seat with Grant’s head in her lap. He was awake now, but groggy. She met her uncle’s eyes in the mirror. “Is the car even on?” Maisie asked, concerned.
The Guncle Page 21