When We Break

by Piper Lennox

  “Hey, you gotta eat the cereal, too!” I tickle her until she obliges, questions forgotten. For now.

  “Uncle Walt said Daddy took you out to dinner.”

  “He did.”

  “Did you go to McDonald’s?”

  I laugh and pour her the last of the orange juice. “No. It was a grown-up place.”

  “Did he take my mommy to grown-up places?”

  “I don’t know, actually.” The air feels hazy, like when the twins have the spotlights going during their videos. “Maybe. But they weren’t grown-ups, when they met. They were teenagers.”

  London nods and ignores the juice glass I set down beside her at the coffee table. She’s gone back to eating only marshmallows and bopping the bobblehead in time to whatever tune she’s humming.

  “Were Mommy and you best friends, like me and Ava and Maisy?”

  My hand freezes on the carton, squashed and hovering over the recycling bin. London’s not even looking at me. I drop it and wipe my fingers on a dishtowel, trying to gather the words to explain. I mean, I knew kids had less-than-accurate ideas of timelines, but still.

  Of course, London asks a ton of questions. She’d drive the Riddler insane, some days. I realize this is probably one of her little quiz jags, akin to those marathons just before naptime when she flutters around the apartment asking what color the sky is, is it green, is it brown like poop, can we eat poop? She knows all the answers. She just wants to hear herself talk.

  “Ava and Maisy are imaginary, so no,” I remind her, forcing a smile. Orion hates the imaginary friend thing and wants me to discourage it, but I don’t have the heart.

  She stares at me. Waits for more.

  “And, uh…no, I never met your mom. She was in heaven already. I just met you and your dad last year, remember?”

  London pauses, her hands sifting through the entire cereal bowl at once. “Heaven’s where people go when they die?”

  “Yep. Hey, keep it in the bowl, kid.” I elbow her as I sit and start gathering the dropped pieces from the carpet. “What do you want to do till Daddy and Uncle Walt get back? I’ve got pink nail polish.”

  “My mommy died?” she asks.

  This little game of hers is getting dark. “Yes, sweetie. Let’s talk about something else, okay? No more questions. And keep the cereal in the bowl. I’m serious.”

  She sits back, abandoning the bowl. I sweep the scattered pieces off the table into my palm and dump them back in.

  Her stare fixes on the television. Probably gearing up for a good pout. London doesn’t take kindly to people shutting down her fun, and I hate being the one to do it. It’s so much easier to be Fun Colby. But I know how these things go: you give her an inch, she takes twenty miles. Answer one question, she’ll ask them for hours.

  “Here.” I pass her the remote, my peace offering. “You pick. I’m going to the bathroom real quick.”

  She pokes at the buttons softly and furrows her brow. Fine: not ready to forgive me. It stings, but I’ll deal.

  In the bathroom, I smile at the faintest pink mark Orion’s mouth left on my neck. I still wish he’d called me to go get him, but maybe he didn’t want me to freak out, either. I might have. Walt stays much calmer in emergencies—still frantic, but useful. I tend to stand by in a scared-shitless daze until someone tells me exactly what I should do.

  “Look who it is.” Georgia emerges from the twins’ room in her usual morning attire: a holey Panic! at the Disco shirt with bleach stains at the collar and a pair of men’s boxers I’ve never gotten the story on. Her pixie’s flat as a pancake, like she slept standing on her head. “The future Mrs. Walker.”

  I roll my eyes and shush her. “The kid’s here.”

  “For real, how was it?” She breathes into her hand and winces, ducking into the bathroom for some mouthwash. While she gargles, I give her the G-rated version: dinner on the beach, romantic walk on the beach, ice cream on the hood of his car. Even the kissing, I only allude to.

  “Sounds like a success,” Georgia says, as she spits the last of the mouthwash down the drain. Recklessly, she fluffs her hair in the mirror like petting a rowdy dog with both hands. “Noticed the toilet seat was up when we got home.” Her eyebrows bounce.

  My blush looks even redder in the mirror. “Shut up.”

  Her laugh booms out of the bathroom, all the way down the hall. I hear Clara rousing from sleep.

  “We’re going to brunch with our old Sephora crew. You in?”

  I hitch my thumb to the living room. “Sorry. On duty till further notice. Have fun, though.”

  She nods, already starting the shower and stripping off her shirt—her back to me, but still—before I’ve fully left the bathroom. I shut the door for her, whether she wants me to or not, and head back to the living room.

  London’s cereal bowl is perched where I left it. She is not.

  “London?” I check the kitchen, then my bedroom. Every closet. I even check the twins’ bedroom, interrupting Clara’s morning tai chi. Nothing.

  “Fuck,” I whisper. Until this moment, I never quite understood the whole “heart in the throat” analogy, but that’s exactly what this feels like.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t find London.” I wind my fingers into my hair and remind myself to breathe. She has to be close; I wasn’t gone long. “She’s not in here. I’ve checked literally every single place she could be, and her shoes are gone—”

  “We’ll find her,” Clara assures me, radiating calmness like a punk-pixie monk. She steps into her shoes and grabs her phone. “Go outside and start looking. I’ll tell Georgia to stay here in case she comes back, okay?”

  “Okay,” I stammer, my throat a vice around the word. Cue the scared-shitless daze. At least Clara gave me some instructions.

  Outside, the sun slaps the parking lot in a constant, clear heat. It crawls down my throat. Every time I shout her name, it gets a little less sturdy, a lot more panicked.

  First, I’m worried about what Orion will say. He’ll scream. He might hate me.

  Immediately following this thought is an even worse one: I might not find her at all.

  I forget about Orion altogether. As I stalk up and down every row of buildings in the complex and wind back to the brown grass of the field where kids play soccer during dusk, I only have one thing in my head, and that’s finding her.

  I have to.

  She has to be here.

  She has to be safe.

  Clara catches up to me on my second pass of the complex. My voice strengthens alongside hers, winding together to press London’s name out into the air, hoping with every cell she’ll hear.

  “Could she have gone back to her place?” Clara pants, after we walk the fenced perimeter of the complex again. Sweat pools in the center of our shirts; she’s already getting a sunburn on her ears.

  I’m as sure of the fact Walt locked it as I am that London wouldn’t have a key, but I start for Orion’s apartment, anyway. Clara keeps the lightest touch on my back, like she knows I need someone pushing me just to get my legs working again.

  The apartment’s locked. I flip up the mat; no spare.

  “No one’s here,” Clara says, peering through the kitchen window. She drops her hands, forehead still on the glass, and looks at my feet. “We have to call the police.”

  The terror alert in my head goes from orange to red at the thought of police getting involved, but I know she’s right. “Okay.” It’s my apparent default, the only word I can vomit out besides London’s name.

  Clara dials while I take another lap through the buildings. When I see the squad cars pull into the complex, I should feel a flood of relief: we have help. We’ll find her.

  Instead, I feel something I haven’t felt in weeks. That moment when reasonable panic pushes the needle into uncontrollable.

  Twenty

  Orion

  “Fender bender, my ass. You look like you plowed the car into a fucking tree.”

&n
bsp; Walt’s car shakes as I throw myself into the passenger seat. There’s already a line behind him in the loop of the ER. “Just a couple stitches.” I flip down the mirror to check out the damage; I didn’t get a chance to see it properly, cleaned up but not yet bandaged. As soon as I peel back the gauze, I regret it. The sight of the spidery black X’s, ringed in dried blood, makes me want to puke.

  This entire morning makes me want to puke, actually.

  Colby kicks in her sleep. I learned this at approximately five-thirty this morning, when her heel made contact with my shin bone hard enough to bruise. I woke up cursing, until I realized it was her and remembered where I was, everything we’d done. I sat up and tried to figure out what I was feeling.

  Hungover: that’s how I felt. One glass of wine, though? I was a bit of a lightweight these days, but I still had some respectability.

  I found an unopened water bottle on her bureau and killed it. Her blinds let out a cringe-worthy squeal as I twisted them open and squinted through the early light at my apartment. Not on fire. Not wide open for burglars. Good. Walt had probably let London stay up all night on a bender of Shirley Temples and Skittles, but I knew the risks of letting him babysit.

  While I dressed, I looked at Colby’s sleeping reflection in the mirror and tried like hell to get back the feelings I had last night.

  I still liked her. I still found her beautiful and sexy beyond restraint.

  It was the sureness: that’s what was missing. In the light of a new day when second-guessing came easily—another suspicious similarity to the hangover I didn’t have, but still felt—I cursed at myself under my breath for doing exactly what I swore I wouldn’t.

  You gave into your feelings. This hadn’t been my plan. I figured I’d take her out, maybe end the night with a kiss, and make things serious. Not official, but enough to see how she did with London in a slightly more permanent situation.

  Now? I’d fucked that up. We’d be official. London would get attached.

  And if things didn’t work—if Colby turned out like all the others, only interested in being a part-time mom at best—it’d be that much harder to end things.

  Outside, I started for my apartment and stopped. I was overthinking this. Yes, we’d had an incredible night. That didn’t mean she’d want to jump right into a relationship.

  And if she did, would it really be so bad?

  “Just because you like her doesn’t mean she wouldn’t be a good mom for London. ...you think you can’t possibly have both.”

  Walt had been right. It made me wince to even think it, knowing one day I’d have to admit it to him, but it was the truth.

  The car’s heat was suffocating. I could smell every French fry London had ever dropped in here re-cooking as I texted Colby.

  GETTING BREAKFAST. DEAL STILL STANDS.

  She might not see it before I got back, but I was still relieved to send it. No matter how much I second-guessed last night in the thirty minutes it took me to get food and drive back, I couldn’t give into the doubt now. She was expecting me.

  We had a deal.

  At the diner, I placed an order for two coffees and grabbed enough creamers and sugar packets so she’d be able to make hers the exact shade of brown she preferred. When it came to the food, though, I fumbled and guessed pancakes. It was ridiculous, but just underscored the doubt still burning at the back of my head: I knew a lot about Colby, but not everything. After last night, all I could do was hope things would turn out okay for us. For our sake and London’s.

  The highway was twice as crowded on the drive back. The world was waking up.

  I felt exhausted, though. This wasn’t a hangover. My breath thinned and the farther I drove, the fainter my vision got at the edges, like standing up too quickly.

  It was just a second. The heat of the car got to me, I’d tell myself; I’d been up late. Maybe I forgot a day on my pills, even though I knew I hadn’t.

  The car in front of me stopped. I didn’t.

  When I heard the sirens, it didn’t match what I was looking at: both our coffees, flung from the cup holders and splattered against the radio and dashboard. One of the Styrofoam containers was overturned. I felt a distinct but strange annoyance at the chocolate chips melting against my floor mats.

  “Sir?” I felt the breeze; my door was open. Why was my door open on the highway?

  “Sir, hold still—we have a spinal board….”

  The airbag in my face was smeared with blood. Someone lifted me from the seat, the asphalt spinning when I looked down. Then the sky was spinning, then the smooth metal interior of what I’d later realize had been an ambulance. Even when I shut my eyes, trying to make all the spinning stop before I got sick, it didn’t help. I just spun in the darkness.

  In the ER, things clarified. Instead of a foggy, all-over ache, I could pinpoint exactly where I’d gotten hurt: my forehead, where it slammed on the steering wheel before the airbag deployed…and my back, where an ache lingered that I remembered far too well.

  When they called Dr. Jefferson, I knew I was fucked.

  He wanted to talk privately, in his office. I refused. I’d seen the inside of enough doctors’ offices, his included, to know it didn’t matter where you got bad news. You could get a diagnosis in the middle of Disneyworld and it wouldn’t soften the blow.

  “Blood pressure spike.”

  “Lowered function.”

  “Chance of rejection.”

  He kept talking. Like the last time I’d seen him, I studied the rogue, coarse hairs of his eyebrows and the one tooth of his that didn’t sit quite right with the rest, crowded out like a runt at feeding time. It was an old habit. Find a feature and focus. Listen to the words, but don’t absorb them. Not yet.

  At least he wasn’t sugarcoating shit.

  “Do I go back on dialysis? Is this because I’ve had alcohol? Or didn’t...didn’t wash my hands enough, or—”

  “Orion, calm down.” His hand lifted like he was going to touch my shoulder, but landed on the bed railing, instead. “It just happens, sometimes. We’ve got your blood work and urinalysis, and if I see something worrisome I’ll schedule a biopsy for tomorrow—”

  “No. I’d rather go home today.” I looked at the IV line in my arm. “My daughter can’t see me back in the hospital.”

  He gave me a look of confusion and pity. “She’ll have to, at some point,” he said quietly. “Maybe not this time, but eventually. Donor kidneys don’t last forever.”

  “I know,” I said numbly, biting back the urge to add, but. But there has to be a reason. But there has to be something you can do.

  But I thought I’d get ten years, fifteen. Not one.

  Now, as Walt drives in a silence so forced I can practically hear all his questions bumping into each other between his ears, I press the bandage on my forehead into place and sit back.

  My fingers trace the edges of the appointment card in my pocket from Dr. Jefferson. My lab results showed everything was, miraculously, operating as usual. He chalked it up to inflammation, but I could tell he didn’t believe it.

  “I guess it could be a fluke,” he’d sighed, “but the vertigo concerns me. It wouldn’t happen out of nowhere. If you won’t stay for a biopsy today—but again, I highly recommend you do—let’s schedule an outpatient one. Just to make sure. We might have to adjust your medication.”

  After more coaxing on his part and even more refusal on mine, we came to an agreement: Tuesday. It was the one day this week Walt would be off; he could watch London the twelve or so hours I was being monitored on site, then while I rested at home. It wouldn’t be easy, but we’d made it through worse.

  “Don’t wait on this, Orion,” he warned me as I left, like he expected me to skip the appointment. Guess I couldn’t blame him. “I know it’s not something you want to face, but the more proactive you are, the better.”

  The one time I wanted someone to feed me some bullshit, and he couldn’t do it.

  Walt engages his c
ar’s bump shift to bob and weave through traffic. I listen to the engine hopping between gears, dragging when he downshifts. He only uses bump shift when he’s nervous. I remember all the afternoons in high school in his old Cavalier when we’d tear up the unfinished roads near his aunt’s house, dust billowing behind us in the rearview while he spun tires and tried to outdrive the school day—every shove and threat he’d endured between classes, usually from the guys we’d once called our best friends.

  I know the truth is due, but I can’t make myself say it. Lucky for me, Walt will figure it out regardless.

  “I’m fine.”

  He’s quiet.

  “Walt. Talk to me.”

  “You’ve got bandages in both your arms. They drew blood.” He takes our exit fast, but I don’t comment on it.

  “IV. They said I was a little dehydrated.” I pick at the medical tape and peel it off, first my right arm, then the left. “Took two tries.”

  His eyes don’t leave the road. “Liar.”

  Yep. I’m lying through my damn teeth. Walt doesn’t even have to look at me to know it. Hell, he doesn’t even have to hear me—all he has to know is the fact I’ve always lied about my kidneys to him, making it sound better than it really was. When it came to sugarcoating, I was the worst offender. The biggest hypocrite. I guess I still am.

  “I had some wine last night. A couple days of cucumber water or some shit and I’ll be good as new.”

  “Stop. If you aren’t going to tell me the truth, at least have the courtesy to shut the fuck up.”

  “What do you want me to say, man?” I kick my heel into the dash and curse. Even his germaphobic gene knows better than to stop me from propping my foot there. My head lolls to the window, the chill of the glass permeating the bandage.

  “I have to get a biopsy on Tuesday,” I whisper.

  Walt turns off the bump shift. The engine steadies.

  His hand lifts from the console. This time, I’m right to expect it to land on my shoulder.