Days Like This

by Laurie Breton

  Since it didn’t happen often, she’d given him a free pass. But she did have a couple of ironclad house rules, and Danny had made sure that anybody he brought home understood that those rules were inviolable. Rule Number One: no drugs on the premises. What people chose to do elsewhere was their business, but anybody who walked through the door of her apartment carrying anything stronger than Tylenol would be asked to leave, and would never be invited back. Rule Number Two: guests were welcome to drink whatever they brought with them, but if they got sick, they had to clean up their own messes, and if they were driving, they had to hand over their keys when they arrived, and wouldn’t get them back until they’d sobered up.

  Because of Rule Number Two, they’d had a lot of overnight guests. She would get up in the morning and be climbing over them on her way to the kitchen. They ate her out of house and home, and she and Danny probably would have starved if not for Rob, who was still living with his parents, so had money to burn. He was the one who kept her pantry stocked with luxuries like bread and milk and toilet paper. Danny had been blissfully unaware of this, and neither of them had bothered to enlighten him. It was just one of the many secrets they’d kept from Danny over the years.

  Drawn by the music, she left her purse in the car and moved toward the barn. Inside, the walls and the floor were shaking to the driving rhythm of Eric Clapton’s Cocaine. Casey stood just inside the door, taking stock, her hands in the pockets of her jeans and her body moving to that seductive, bluesy rhythm. She didn’t recognize the piano player, but she was pretty sure she’d seen the guy on bass working in the produce section at the IGA. To her delight, the drummer—whose receding hairline and wire-rimmed glasses made him more closely resemble an accountant than a musician—was Buddy Theriault, who used to save her a seat on the school bus every day when they were in fifth grade.

  Rob was in the middle of a guitar solo, his playing so familiar, his style so distinctive, she would have recognized it anywhere. Rock guitarists—the good ones, anyway—all had their own sound. Eric Clapton’s blues-influenced playing sounded like nobody else on the planet. Eddie Van Halen, with his high-energy power chords, was immediately recognizable. And Rob MacKenzie, who had studied jazz for two years at Berklee, infused his songs with jazzy undertones like nobody else could do. His eyes were closed as he played, and the expression on his face said it all: This was what he’d been put on this planet to do.

  Luke was on rhythm guitar. Rose’s son was showing signs of great promise as a guitarist. It had been an adjustment for him, being moved from Boston to this godforsaken place when his mother had married Jesse Lindstrom last year. But Luke’s naturally sunny disposition, accompanied by the obvious hero worship he felt for his Uncle Rob, had smoothed the transition. It hadn’t hurt that Rob had taken his nephew under his wing and had nurtured Luke’s love of music with private guitar lessons and jam sessions like this one. They sounded good together, and there was a connection between them, a connection so visible that, watching them play together, she felt an instant of acute physical pain because it reminded her so much of the connection Rob had shared onstage with Danny.

  Rob finished the solo, opened his eyes, and saw her standing there. She went hot all over as those green eyes studied her face. He gave her a brief, quirky grin before focusing his attention back on his playing. Paige jumped into the vocals with that earthy voice of hers, and Casey glanced off to one side of the room where, perched on a table shoved up against the wall, Mikey leaned his back against the sheetrock. Long legs stretched out in front of him, he was watching Paige with such blatant adoration that Casey was momentarily taken aback.

  Yikes. When had this happened? This couldn’t possibly be good news, and her head swiveled around to study the girl, wondering if this crush was mutual or unrequited. But Paige was too wrapped up in her singing to give away any hint of her inner emotions. So while the music thundered around her, Casey made her way across the room and joined her favorite nephew.

  “Hey there, kiddo,” she said, shouting to be heard over the music.

  “Hi, Aunt Casey.”

  She perched on the table beside him, and together they watched and listened, comfortable without speaking, she and this nephew she adored. Rob sent a glance her way. Their eyes locked, and they held a silent conversation. Satisfied that all was right with the world, he gave her a wink and focused back on his playing.

  She was ravenous again. And exhausted. How was it possible she could be exhausted after sleeping past noon? She would call the doctor and make an appointment on Monday. Rose had given her the name of her OB/GYN, Deb Levasseur, and had praised her to the high heavens.

  Morning sickness. That was what she’d woke up with this morning. That explained the random bouts of nausea she’d experienced for the past six weeks. She hadn’t recognized it because she’d never had morning sickness with Katie. But Rose, who’d given birth to three children, had assured her that every pregnancy was different, and that her symptoms were normal.

  She wasn’t ready to tell Rob. Not just yet. Not until the doctor confirmed it. Not until she was certain that everything was progressing as it should. Her first pregnancy had ended in a miscarriage. Yes, that had been more than a dozen years ago, and there’d been extenuating circumstances. Still, she couldn’t completely squelch the anxiety. She’d been through so much, had suffered so many losses, that the fear was never far from the surface. There’d be plenty of time for celebrating later, after she’d seen the doctor.

  Eventually, driven by starvation, she gave Mikey a hug, slithered down off the table, and went in the house. She opened a can of crabmeat, mixed it with a glop of mayonnaise, debated what kind of bread to use, finally ended up wolfing it down right from the bowl. When it was empty, she let out a tiny belch, then stared at the empty bowl, shocked that she’d eaten the entire can in about five seconds. It was either pregnancy or a tapeworm, and if it was the former, at the rate she was going, she’d be big as a house within a month.

  The music was still playing. From this distance, the song wasn’t recognizable, but she could hear the steady boom-boom that told her they were still in full swing. Wiped out, she lay on the couch in front of the television with the sound turned down, covered herself with a light blanket, and catnapped.

  When she awoke, Rob was crouched in front of her, one hand on her shoulder, those green eyes studying her with mild concern. “Hey,” she said groggily.

  “Hey, yourself. You okay?”

  “Mmn. I’m fine. I was just napping while I waited for you.”

  “You were really zonked out.”

  She reached out a hand and touched his face. His skin was warm against her palm, and she could feel the fine rasp of whiskers. “What time is it?”

  “A little after nine.”

  “Quitting so early?”

  “We’re not kids any more. Well, except for the kids, of course. The rest of us are geezers.”

  “You’ll never be a geezer. You’re thirty-seven going on twelve.”

  “You hungry? I have leftover pizza if you want a slice. Pepperoni and green olive. I gave Mikey some money a couple hours ago and sent him on a pizza run.”

  “I think I’ll pass. I ate something earlier.”

  “How about a dish of ice cream? There’s fudge ripple in the freezer.”

  “Little bit. Let’s do one bowl and two spoons.”

  The kitchen on this mild autumn evening felt intimate and cozy and wonderfully peaceful. She took a spoonful of ice cream and closed her eyes while it melted on her tongue. Swallowed and said, “Where’s Paige?”

  “She left with Mikey.”

  “I’m a little concerned about those two.”

  “So you noticed.”

  “It would be hard to miss. He was looking at her like a lion watching a gazelle that was about to become its dinner.” She took another spoonful of heaven, couched in the familiar flavors of chocolate and vanilla. “Should we be monitoring this situation a little more closely? Sh
e’s only fifteen.”

  “It’s awkward. I can’t very well forbid them to see each other.”

  “Sure, you can. You just say, ‘I forbid you to see each other.’”

  “If only it were that easy. I’m trying to keep watch. Without looking like a Nazi.”

  “I think that’s your job as a father. To look like a Nazi.” She rested her chin on her palm and said wistfully, “The teenage years are so hard.”

  “Life is hard. The teenage years are just one small portion thereof.”

  “The world according to MacKenzie. My philosopher. So where were they headed?”

  “I think the movies in Farmington. I told her to be home by eleven-thirty.”

  She paused, her spoon halfway to her mouth. And said, with no small amount of delight, “You gave her a curfew?”

  He ate a spoonful of fudge ripple. “It seemed like the right thing to do.”

  With a gleeful grin, she said, “It seems like a dad thing to do.”

  “Don’t remind me. Most people start with babies and work their way up. How’d we end up starting with a teenager?”

  “Give me a break, MacKenzie. You love teenagers.”

  “I love hanging out with teenagers. Playing with ‘em. Getting down to their level for a few hours, then sending the little monsters home to their parents. They’re the ones who spawned ‘em. I always figured they could deal with the results of their spawning. Of course, that was before I knew I’d spawned one myself.”

  “You do realize that you painted yourself into a corner? Now you have to wait up to make sure she doesn’t break curfew.”

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph. If I’m this tired at thirty-seven, how will I survive our babies when they get to be teenagers? Especially since we haven’t even started any of them yet. Poor kids will be so embarrassed when they realize that Mom and Dad are the same age as their friends’ grandparents.”

  “Oh, stop. We’re not that old.”

  “Speak for yourself. Some days, I feel like Methuselah.”

  She stuck her spoon into the bowl of ice cream and moved it around a little. “Remember when we used to do this?”

  “Sit around and talk about how old we feel?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Eat fudge ripple ice cream together. In the middle of the night, when the rest of the world was sleeping.”

  “While ABBA sang Dancing Queen on that old kitchen radio you had. We’d sit up until dawn, talking about Life with a capital L. As if either of us even knew what life was about back then. We were still wet behind the ears.”

  “And now, of course, we’re ancient.”

  “Sometimes I feel like it. Danny thought we were nuts.”

  “We weren’t nuts. Running the kitchen light late at night was the only way, short of a whip and a chair, that I could keep the roaches at bay. And you could never resist the siren call of fudge ripple.”

  “I still can’t. I’ll never forget you screaming bloody murder the first time you turned on the kitchen light and those damn roaches ran for cover.”

  “I’d never seen anything like them before. They were arrogant little monsters. Fearless. While I, on the other hand, was quaking in my shoes.”

  “But after a while, you learned to peacefully coexist. You’d just swat ‘em out of the way and keep on with whatever you were doing. So I’d say you were equally fearless. Those were the glory days, weren’t they?”

  “Bite your tongue, MacKenzie. Those were the nightmare days.”

  “I guess conditions were a little, ah…primitive…for a while there.”

  “That’s a very generous depiction.”

  They both focused on the ice cream for a while. Eventually, she said, “For such a long time, you were the only good thing in my life.”

  He reached across the table and took her hand in his. They threaded fingers together and, ignoring the ice cream, studied each other while two decades of history hovered in the air between them. Eventually, he said, “That was a whole other lifetime. We’re not the same people we were then.”

  “But it’s still there. And so are those two ridiculously young people. In here.” She touched her head. Then her chest, just above her heart. “And here.” Studying his face, she said, “Don’t you believe that everything you go through, the good and the bad, shapes the person you become?”

  “Of course. But I’m not a fatalist. Our history doesn’t have to become our destiny.”

  “Neither am I. I believe in free will. But it’s all still there. Everything we’ve done and been and felt. The loves, the losses, the regrets. The victories, the achievements, the moments that we knew were significant just by the way they felt. The people we built connections with. It’s all still inside somewhere.”

  “Are we feeling particularly maudlin tonight?”

  “Not maudlin. Maybe just a little nostalgic, hearing you talking about old age and infirmity.”

  “Hey, watch it there, missy. I didn’t say a thing about infirmity.”

  “Can I say something you’ll probably think is silly and totally unnecessary?”

  “What?”

  “Thank you.”

  He lifted their joined hands to his mouth and kissed her knuckles, tangled with his. “For what?”

  “For being my friend. For keeping me upright and breathing during the times when things got so awful. If I live to be a thousand years old, there’s no way I’ll ever be able to repay you for everything you did for me.”

  His eyebrows drew together in a thunderous expression. “Do I look like I’m expecting payment? That road runs both ways. What’s this about?”

  “I don’t really know. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I am feeling maudlin tonight. It’s just that every so often, it hits me. Everything we went through. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that was really me, living that life, when I look around me and see the amazingly normal life we live now. And I realize how much I took you for granted. You were just there, a part of my life, someone I loved so much, and I never stopped to think about it. I simply forged ahead, on fast-forward, without taking time to examine our relationship. But I realize now that if you hadn’t been there, I never would have survived. You were my lifeline, for so many years that I’ve lost count. I want to thank you for that. And say how sorry I am that it took me so many years to realize how important you were to me.”

  “Would you do it all over again,” he said, “knowing what you know now?”

  “In a heartbeat. What does that say about me?”

  “The same thing it says about me, because I’d do it over again, too, just as long as you were there. You may not realize it, but you kept me going, too. When I was nineteen, I hitched my wagon to a star. His name was Danny Fiore, and I stuck with him until he burned out. I’m not sure I would’ve hung around so long if you hadn’t been there. You made it all worthwhile.”

  “We really built something big, didn’t we? The three of us?”

  “We did. Sometimes when I’m up on stage, playing, I automatically look to my left, expecting to see him standing in the spotlight. My front man, strutting and singing and making all the women cry. And then I realize he’s not there, and he’ll never be there again, and I’m the guy up front now. It’s humbling, and terrifying, and sometimes it breaks my heart.”

  She touched his cheek tenderly. “This has nothing to do with how I feel about you. But sometimes now, my life feels a little like a table with only three legs. Lopsided and wobbly. There were three of us, for years and years and years, and now there are just two of us, and it feels so strange. He was larger than life, and it’s impossible to fill the gaping hole he left behind.”

  He toyed with her fingers, kissed them, and said with grave solemnity, “We are two seriously fucked-up individuals.”

  And she laughed. “If I’d met you only yesterday, I’d love you anyway, just because you make me laugh, and it feels so good to laugh. For a long time, I didn’t have much to laugh about.”

  “I live to make you laugh. I
thought you knew that.”

  “I do know that. Thank you. From the bottom of my heart.”

  “You’re welcome. From the bottom of mine.” He squeezed her hand, then glanced down at the ceramic bowl that sat on the table between them. “Looks like the fudge ripple is a lost cause.”

  She studied the shapeless, soupy mess and said, “I could always find a couple of straws and we could drink it.”

  “Forget the straws. Let’s find a couple of pillows instead, pop in a movie, and we can cuddle on the couch and watch it while we wait for our kid to get home.”

  Paige

  “Your singing,” Mikey said. “It’s just amazing. You do realize you have to do something with it?”

  Flattered, she said, “I guess.”

  “No,” he said. “I’m serious. Singing is what you’re meant to do. You have to promise me that you’ll do something with it.”

  Something about his words made her uneasy. “Okay.”

  They drove for a while in silence. Until she realized they were going the wrong way. “This isn’t the road to Farmington,” she said.

  “No.”

  She studied his profile, that beautiful profile, that face that could make her palms sweat and her stomach clench into a hard ball. “What’s wrong?” she said.

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he clicked on his blinker and took a left onto a dirt road. It ended in a small gravel parking lot beside a pristine lake that shimmered in the moonlight. Mikey crammed the shifter into Park. Turned off the engine. And said, “We have to talk.”

  Her insides crumpled like a piece of discarded aluminum foil. “Oh, shit,” she said. “You’re getting ready to break my heart, aren’t you?”