I ended the call.
I lowered my head and choked back the tears.
Uncle Cros! Uncle Cros! Check it out! Look at that frog over there! It’s huge! Can we catch it? Can we keep it? I’ll trap crickets and flies for it to eat. Can we? You can keep it at your house. Mom would never let me keep it. And Dad would throw it away. But you can keep it, Uncle Cros. It can be our pet. I’ll name him… Hamburger. Yeah! He’ll be Hamburger, the frog. Can we? Can we? Uncle Cros…
I stood up and took a deep breath.
As I looked around, I gritted my teeth.
A growl rumbled from deep in my chest.
“Fuck,” I whispered.
I looked down at the whiskey bottle. Then to my phone. Then to the pack of smokes.
Instead of any of that, I went for another run.
32
HER WORDS TO YOU…
THEN
Crosby
I stood in the front yard and smoked. But I didn’t enjoy it. I wasn’t even sure if I tasted it. Or what it actually did to me. It was merely habit. Nothing but a habit. And I had no desire to even think about letting that habit go. I had a bottle of beer in my hand, which was just to keep myself drunk.
Cindi didn’t know that I had been downing whiskey all morning before coming over. I walked, to be safe, and now I drank beer to keep myself in this world, so I could function.
“Got one of those for me?” a rough voice asked from behind me.
I turned, and Noah stood on the porch.
His face was filled with red craters, messy scruff around his jaw, his short hair greasy. His eyes looked black as night, his lip snarled.
It took a lot for Noah to look like shit. And this was shit.
I took out my smokes and handed him the pack. He took one, lit it, and tossed the pack back to me.
It was best if Noah and I didn’t talk.
There was a nine-out-of-ten-times chance we’d end up swinging at each other.
In reality, when he swung at me, I took the hit and never fought back.
I deserved to be punched. A million times over.
“Finally got some nice fucking weather here,” Noah said. “The rain has been brutal on my back.”
“That’s a real thing, huh?” I asked. “The weather messing with your back?”
“Fuck, yeah it is,” he said. “Be thankful you’re able to move.”
“Yeah. Thankful.”
“Hell. Be thankful you’re alive, Crosby.”
I looked up at Noah. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“You know what that means.”
Don’t do it, Cros. Let him have his moment and walk away. You came over to have dinner with Cindi. Just Cindi.
“You’re silent,” Noah said. He laughed. “Funny how you do that.”
“I have nothing to say,” I said.
“Of course you don’t. Look at you. You’re a fucking wreck. Let me tell you something, asshole. He wasn’t your kid. He was my fucking son.”
“I never said he wasn’t,” I yelled.
“Don’t fucking yell at me.”
“Fuck you, Noah.”
Noah flicked his cigarette at me.
I swatted it away.
Cindi appeared on the porch and my heart sank.
“You don’t get to kill yourself because you killed my son,” Noah bellowed.
“Noah!” Cindi cried out. “What the hell is happening?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“Fuck you,” Noah yelled. “Look at you. You piece of scum. You fucking gave up music now? You look like you have goddamn cancer with how fucking skinny you are. What the fuck gives you the right to suddenly want to run and swim and all this shit? Huh?”
Noah held the railing tight.
His eyes were bulging out of his head.
I was used to this with him, so I just stood there and stared. We had gone back and forth a million times over. Cindi always took his side, which was fine by me. He was her husband. And most of the things he said were true.
I had gotten leaner in places and bigger in other places. Anyone who saw me that didn’t know the reason why I looked the way I did, told me I looked jacked. That I was big, almost monstrous, and my desire to keep punishing myself wasn’t going to end anytime soon.
“I’d fucking kill you with my bare hands if it wouldn’t hurt your sister so much,” Noah said.
“That’s enough,” Cindi said. “Both of you, split up.”
“I came out front by myself,” I said.
“This is my house. And my yard.”
“Fine,” I said.
I walked toward the sidewalk.
Cindi rushed to the top step. “Cros. Wait.”
I stopped on the sidewalk. “There. How’s this, Noah?”
“You’re worthless, Crosby. You always were. You should have never been alone with him. Ever. You were more of a child than he was. How could you not be looking? How could you let him walk that far out on a dock by himself?”
Noah started to shake.
I stood on the sidewalk, just absorbing it.
Cindi covered her mouth as she started to cry.
Family dinner, huh?
This was a fucking disaster. Just like it always was. This time we didn’t even get to eat before shit hit the fan.
Noah came walking down the steps, taking them slowly because of his back and because he was drunk.
I walked forward, and Cindi yelled both of our names.
“Don’t do this!” she said. “Nicholas wouldn’t want this to be happening!”
Noah and I were just a few feet away from each other. His eyes welled up with tears.
“Why did you do it?” he asked me.
“I didn’t,” I said. “I’m so sorry, Noah. I want to talk to you about everything. What really happened…”
“I don’t need to know what really happened,” he said. “You killed my son.”
Noah leaned forward and put his forehead to my shoulder and started to cry.
I kept my hands at my sides.
The moment was more than awkward.
My head was spinning from being drunk. I was tired. I was hungry. I wanted to go for a run. I wanted to lift weights. I wanted to disappear.
“Fuck this,” Noah said.
He growled and pushed off me.
He stumbled back a little and threw a punch. He clipped the bottom of my jaw. Just enough to snap my head to the left. I went with the movement and sidestepped, grabbing for my face.
That’s when my mind finally snapped.
I’d had enough of Noah.
Not just him swinging at me now. But him thinking I was a punching bag every time he saw me. Or maybe because he became such a shit father to Nicholas. Or maybe because he was an asshole to my sister.
My left hand locked up tight. I was going to go for a knockout punch. That’s what Noah needed. I needed to knock him out and let him lay there on the ground and watch the clouds.
As I turned and started to swing, at the last possible second, I saw my sister.
Cindi had run down after Noah.
My fist was already sailing through the air.
“Fuck,” I growled as I stepped back.
The punch became mostly nothing, and I only hit air.
I missed Cindi by a foot, if that, but it was pretty obvious what I had been trying to do.
Cindi stared at me with wide eyes and her jaw dropped.
“You going to kill her next?” Noah asked.
“Go inside,” she said to Noah. “Right now.”
“I’m going to call the police on him,” he said. “He tried to hit you.”
“I was going to knock you out,” I said to Noah. “You’re a piece of scum. A piece of shit. You let him…”
My throat locked up.
I turned around and walked away again.
Cindi convinced Noah to go inside. And only then because that’s where the booze was.
When she stepped next to me, I
looked at her. She always had long, curly hair as a kid. This ratty kind of hair. And I was the one who brushed it for her. She would cry, and I would have to take my time. I wasted so much time brushing her hair. When all I wanted to do was to sit on the back deck, drink a beer and play guitar and wait for that pretty girl who painted pictures to go to her room.
Now Cindi had really short hair. So short that she couldn’t even put it behind her ears. She had it almost plastered to her head. It was greasy and thrown together so fast. The wonder of grief.
“Sis,” I said.
“He’s right,” she said, not even looking at me.
“What?”
“Noah. He’s right.”
“About?”
“Everything,” she said. “What the fuck are you doing to your body, Cros?”
“So, it’s a crime to exercise now?”
That’s when Cindi looked at me. “What are you trying to do?”
I swallowed hard. “Punish myself. Chase away every ounce of pain and guilt. Doing everything I can to make it all go away. But it never does.”
“No shit, Cros. It never has, and it never will. Today proves it.”
“Just today?” I asked. “How many times has he taken a swing at me?”
“And you swung back,” Cindi said. “You almost hit me.”
“I would never…”
“You almost did, Cros.”
I looked down. “Right. I’m sorry for that. I came over here because you invited me. I kept to myself. I kept it as normal as I could. I came out front for a smoke and he came out and asked for one. I thought maybe… just fucking maybe… things could settle. But he started…”
“Then you should leave,” she said.
“What?”
“Leave,” she said. “Go home. Just stay away, Cros. It’s too much for us.”
“Too much for you?”
“You heard what I said,” Cindi said. “I’ve tried, okay? I really have. I wake up every day and… I’m alone. I’m alone in bed. I have to swallow everything down and hope that Noah is having a good day. And then seeing you…”
“Seeing me, what?” I asked. “Just say it.”
“Seeing you just brings it all back. It’s like a reset button to my pain. When I see you, Cros, I see Nicholas. And I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there to save him. That’s my job as a mother. To protect him. To love him. To always save him. And I wasn’t there…”
“Christ, sis,” I said. “You were working…”
“Just leave,” she said. “I don’t want you to come here anymore.”
Cindi walked away.
I could have gone after her.
But I let her go.
She made her point clear. Noah made his point clear.
So, I walked away.
I left.
I went back to my place and started to pack it up… it was time to move.
33
A PLACE TO SAY GOODBYE…
NOW
Josie
I spent hours at the park, working on the mural. It wasn’t the most exciting project for me at first, but the more I did it, the more I really liked it. Cheryl was easy to work with once I gave her my design. She backed me up on everything I wanted to do, and in some strange, ironic twist, she had dinner with some people at the restaurant where I did the mural for Anthony and Joe.
Cheryl even asked me why I hadn’t opened my own gallery yet. I just shrugged it off and played the smiling face role and went back to work.
There had been a lot going through my head lately.
Everything that was happening with Crosby. Denny’s mother showing up with an engagement ring. My love for painting starting to grow again. Not just mural stuff, but actual painting. The word happy floated around my mind, but that seemed scary to go after.
I knew mostly everything about Crosby and he knew mostly everything about me.
It was almost calm. Which was rare for me. There was never calmness.
If I said anything about that to Kait, she’d say it was the Himalayan salt rock lamp she put in the guesthouse a couple of weeks ago. I wasn’t sure what the heck that thing did, but the orange glow of the light was nice.
As I stood on the top of a stepladder, I heard a whistle from behind me.
“There’s a view I can get used to.”
I turned my head and looked down to see Crosby standing there.
Seeing him in sweaty clothes, showing off his wicked cut body was one thing, but seeing him stand there in beat-up jeans and a black t-shirt that wrapped tight around his muscles, that was something else.
So much so that I needed a second or two to catch my breath.
“What do you have there?” I asked as I climbed down the stepladder.
I was a mess. I looked like a mess. Wearing stereotypical overalls that were smeared in all kinds of colors. My hair sticking in any direction it wanted to go. I probably had paint in my hair. And there was no way I smelled good at all either.
“Brought you a coffee,” Crosby said.
He had one in each hand.
I took the coffee from his right hand. “No cigarette today?”
He grinned. “Well, this is a park for kids, right?”
“Oh, you’re a good guy now? You never smoked in a park before?”
“You’re tempting me now, huh?”
“I’m just saying… you used to be super cool. Playing guitar. Drinking beer.”
Crosby laughed. He looked at the giant wall. “That looks good.”
“It’s getting there. Little by little.”
I took the lid off my coffee and blew into it.
“What’s wrong, love?”
“Nothing.”
“Come on,” Crosby said.
I slowly stepped back and sat down on the stepladder. I put the lid of the coffee back on. “I don’t know, Cros. There’s just so much going on in my head.”
“Like what?”
“It’s silly.”
“I could use silly in my life.”
“Oh yeah? Why?”
“Just a lot going on in my head too.”
“That’s not fair. Don’t use my thing.”
Crosby crouched.
God, he looked so sexy like that. His right kneecap exposed through the hole in his jeans. He was sexy. Cool. Hot.
Ah, he drove me wild.
“Life twists around when you least expect it,” he said.
“Are you twisted?”
“Beyond twisted, Josie.” He touched my face. “Because of you.”
I smiled. “I like doing this stuff. These murals. But I’ve been painting a lot more. Real paintings. Like I used to do. It just makes me… I don’t know. Maybe I can have my own place. You know? Where I can sell my paintings. Or sell other paintings too. There’s a lot I can do with it.”
“Then you should,” Crosby said. “I’ll be your first customer. I’ll buy something.”
“That’s sweet of you,” I said. “But it’s not exactly that easy.”
“Of course, it’s not. But you want it, so go get it.”
“Right now?” I asked.
“Right now,” Crosby said.
I stood up and closed in on him. I put a hand to his chest and moved to my toes and kissed him.
“You make me happy.”
“You make me happy,” he said.
“I know we haven’t talked about it since we… well, talked about it… but the Denny thing. And the ring…”
He shook his head. “It’s okay, love. It’s a lot to take on. A lot to absorb. I get it. You don’t have to bring it up.”
“Why are you perfect?”
“Oh, Josie, I’m far from perfect.” Crosby kissed my cheek. “I think we’re just such a disaster, we make each other perfect.”
“That’s sort of romantic.”
“Good,” he said. “Now get back to work.”
“You came here to bring me coffee and that’s it?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. �
�I missed you. I can’t imagine a day going by without seeing you. You got my head going crazy over here, Josie.”
Crosby winked as he backed away.
I watched him leave and I touched my chest.
My heart was racing so fast, I needed to take a few breaths.
I was madly in love with Crosby, so why couldn’t I get Denny off my mind?
I sat on the corner of Meadow’s bed and ran a brush through her hair one last time.
Her hair smelled so good.
The shampoo Kait bought was all natural and really expensive. But it was the best scent of a shampoo I ever smelled.
“Here you go,” I said as I handed the brush to Meadow.
“Thank you. You do it so much better than Mom.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. She likes to hum and it’s never any good.”
I laughed. “You can tell her not to.”
“No. She likes it. I don’t want to let her down. I’m growing up so fast. We’re going to hate each other soon.”
“What?” I asked.
Meadow turned to face me. “Yeah. I’m going to be a teenager someday. And I’m going to hate my mom. She’s going to get mad at me. Then we’re going to become best friends when I turn eighteen.”
I shook my head. “Where did you… I mean…”
She put a hand to my leg. “It’s okay, Aunt Josie. It’s just life.”
I laughed even harder. “Can you just be an eight-year-old?”
“That’s so last year,” Meadow said.
“You amaze me sometimes,” I said to her.
“I know,” she said. She inched her way back on the bed. “I’m going to get some reading done before lights out.”
“Good idea,” I said.
I helped Meadow get under the covers. I turned off the big light in her room and left the small lamp on the nightstand turned on.
“Aunt Josie?” Meadow asked.
“Yeah?”
“So, you like that guy a lot?”
“That guy? What guy?”
“The guy you smoke cigarettes with. Mr. Crosby.”
I smiled. “Just call him Crosby. Okay? And, yes, I like him.”
“How do you know you like him?”
“I just know. Why?”
“I don’t know,” she said. Her cheeks blushed.
Getting Over You Page 24