Goodbye, Orchid

by Carol Van Den Hende

  “Like I’d tattooed him in his sleep?”

  “More like he’d seen a ghost.”

  “Embodied in you,” he said, chuckling darkly.

  “I’m so tired,” she said, leaning against him and closing her eyes. “Probably from the bike ride, the sun . . . ”

  “The guy who hates you,” Caleb said, adding to her list.

  Orchid must’ve drifted off to sleep. The hubbub of people returning from the beach woke her. She picked up her head from Caleb’s chest and opened her eyes to look into . . . Phoenix’s glare as he stood facing the two of them.

  “How cozy,” he said, hand balling into a fist.

  She jumped up to her feet to follow him as he headed towards the stairs. “Phoenix, can we talk? Please?”

  She was so close behind him when he whirled that she stepped back in surprise. His eyes burned her with disdain.

  “How. Dare. You?” he asked. “How dare you show your face here, with my family? Do you feel no shame? I thought you were lots of things. You fooled me into thinking you were kind and innocent. But now, the way you’re flaunting yourself, I don’t even recognize you.”

  Shame flamed her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to talk with you. To tell you I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. In the hospital, I wasn’t thinking—”

  Holding the railing to traverse the steps, he moved more quickly than she’d expect. He was already halfway down the stairs. “That homeless guy at least had the decency to leave me alone.”

  His accusation, flung at her up the reverberating stairwell, took a moment to sink in, then snatched her breath. I’m worse than the guy who took his limbs. I should have just left him alone. She looked down at the empty landing.

  He was gone.

  She turned, almost falling into the solid mass of Caleb behind her. Betsy stood between her boys, mouth agape.

  The front door flew open. A gentleman’s booming voice filled the room. “Hell of a flight delay. But now I’ve brought the lovely Veronica, and it’s cocktail hour!”

  He stopped, looking around at the frozen faces.

  Veronica didn’t heed the chill. She barreled over to hug her sister Betsy, bestow a peck on Harry and Stew’s cheeks and then stepped over to Caleb. She flung her arms around him. “Caleb, give your mother a hug!”

  He leaned down to return her embrace. “Hi, Mom.”

  She turned with open curiosity and an outstretched hand to Orchid. On automatic pilot, Orchid shook her hand. “Orchid Paige, nice to meet you.”

  “Veronica Walker, Phoenix and Caleb’s mother,” she said, looking as if she’d remembered something distasteful.

  Hearing their mother pronounce Phoenix’s name, picturing how much she must love her boys, made Orchid feel faint.

  “I remember you,” she said, tone sharp.

  Orchid looked up and startled as Veronica stepped towards her.

  “He said you didn’t want to see him when he was—”

  Orchid could hear from her ascending pitch where this was going. “He didn’t want to see me,” she interrupted, at the same time that Caleb spoke.

  “I thought the same thing, Mom, but Phoenix didn’t tell her,” he said. The memories slammed her. She winced.

  “So, what are you doing here now?” Veronica asked.

  Caleb put a meaty arm over his mother’s shoulders. “I invited her here to give her a chance to talk with Phoenix.”

  Harry chuckled. Then he covered his mouth and turned away. He and Stew took the stairs two at a time to join a singing Lucy whom the group could hear playing a video game upstairs.

  “Not going well?” Veronica asked archly.

  Orchid shook her head, looking down.

  The older woman leaned in with a voice so low it doubled in power. Her words punched Orchid in the stomach. “He has been hurt enough. If you hurt him, I will find you wherever you are and I . . . will . . . kill . . . you . . . with . . . my . . . own . . . hands.”

  Mouth agape, Orchid tried to recover enough to say she would never hurt Phoenix. On purpose, anyway.

  Caleb, the only other person with a chance to hear the threat, spoke first. He nodded darkly. “So now I know where I get it from,” he said, and steered his mom towards the minibar set up in the corner of the living room.

  George finished rimming glasses with lemon. He held up two tumblers as if offering sacrifices to gods. “Chivas,” he said, handing one drink to Veronica and the other to Caleb.

  Orchid, stumbling, took the stairs up to her room where she shut the door to the shame of being in a place where she was wanted by almost no one and misunderstood by nearly all.

  A shower, smoothing wet tresses and a fresh outfit soothed a fraction of Orchid’s chafed nerves. A knock sounded. Phoenix? She hurried to open the door. He’d been limping a little, and though she wanted to see him, to explain, she also hoped he hadn’t trekked up two flights to see her.

  A fair-skinned redhead stood, her teeth gently working her lower lip. “Hey, I’m Lucy, Harry’s girlfriend,” she said, with an easy swing of her ponytail.

  “Oh hi, I’m Orchid,” she said, moving aside so Lucy could enter.

  “Yeah, I know.” She entered the room and flopped onto the bed. “I am so glad you’re here.”

  “Really? No one else seems to be.”

  “Yeah, it takes the pressure off me, you know?”

  “How’s that?” Orchid asked, turning back to the mirror to apply eyeliner. She felt comfortable with this easygoing outsider, who, like her, was not related by blood or marriage.

  “I don’t want to be the only nonfamily member here,” she said, echoing the same dynamics Orchid observed. “That’s why I didn’t come at Thanksgiving. Harry’s parents are intimidating, you know?”

  “Oh?” Orchid asked, peering into the mirror to curl her lashes from the base to the tip.

  “Well, George is completely famous on Wall Street, and they’re like bajillionaires.”

  Orchid chuckled. “You’re messing up my makeup by making me laugh,” she said.

  “Although it turns out I could’ve come at Thanksgiving. I didn’t know Rina would be there.”

  “Who’s Rina?” Orchid asked.

  “Phoenix’s ex-girlfriend. He brought her to Thanksgiving for their first date after meeting at a Starbucks or something.”

  Orchid turned, forgetting about the mascara.

  The details slapped her. Ex-girlfriend? Thanksgiving? He’d dated after his accident, when she couldn’t get excited about any of the guys she’d met. Though he was acting like the one wronged, she wasn’t sure which of them deserved the title more.

  She faced the mirror to brush base powder all over and feather on lipstick in a shade of purple that matched her eggplant-hued dress.

  Harry popped his head in the door, no knock. “Hey, dolls,” he said. “Din-din.”

  “Are we feeding me to the wolves for dinner?” Orchid asked, dabbing a final touch of blush on each cheek.

  “That’s right. It’s like a shark’s cage three days late for mealtime down there. What’s wrong with everyone? Thinking you’re with Caleb?”

  “What?” Orchid whirled, forgetting the brush in hand, incredulous. “Who thinks that?”

  He counted off on his fingers cheerfully. “Let’s see. Phoenix. My mom. Who told my dad, who is totally confused about why you’re even here.”

  “Oh, no,” Orchid said, “I can’t go down there.”

  Lucy looped one arm through Orchid’s. “Oh, you have to. No one’s going to notice anything stupid I’ll say with you there!”

  Strengthened by the buoyant couple on either side, Orchid inserted her feet into silver heels and descended the steps.

  Most were already seated at the oval dining table, replete with fine porcelain, crystal and layered linens. The remaining g
uests straggled in to find empty seats.

  Orchid slipped in next to Caleb, who was engrossed in conversation with Stew and George. Veronica, seated between Betsy and Phoenix, ignored Orchid’s arrival.

  Lucy sat on her other side, and Harry took the last empty chair, next to his girlfriend.

  The conversation quieted as Betsy suggested prayers. She reached out on either side to hold hands with Veronica and George. Everyone else followed suit. As Orchid took Caleb and Lucy’s hands, she gauged Veronica holding Phoenix’s shortened forearm with absolutely no trace of self-consciousness. Could I be so nonchalant?

  Orchid bowed her head for George’s words.

  Then, a server arrived with a steaming bowl of soup for each person.

  “Watercress,” trilled Betsy.

  “Bon appetit,” boomed George, the French phrase reminding Orchid of her trip to Cannes with Phoenix. She looked up at him to catch him gazing at her. As she caught his eye, he looked away and returned to converse with his mother.

  She had no appetite, so she turned to Caleb.

  “Working on any cool new tattoos?”

  “We’re working on a kick-ass one for a hunter. It’s like the designs you’d find on high-end gun handles.”

  “Really?” Orchid asked.

  “You getting one?”

  “Haha, very funny,” she said. The server took her untouched bowl and placed a plate in front of her.

  “Veggie lasagna with béchamel sauce, and white asparagus,” Betsy said. “Even though there’s no rule about it, we avoid meat on Holy Saturday.”

  “I’ve never seen a gun handle,” Orchid said to Caleb. “What does the design look like?”

  Caleb pulled out his smart phone. “Just Google ‘Geoffroy Gournet’,” he said. He showed her pictures of heron in flight, foxes chasing birds through a forest, all densely packed into a few square inches.

  “Wow,” she said.

  She looked up to see Veronica break open a roll, butter it and place it on Phoenix’s plate. Phoenix turned to murmur his thanks.

  “Yeah, he’s a master engraver. Works out of a shed in his backyard. Sometimes one piece will take him months,” Caleb continued.

  Orchid nodded. She wasn’t listening. She was floored by what else Phoenix might need that she wouldn’t even know to offer.

  That night, Orchid scoured the Internet like she was about to defend her post-doctoral thesis. She looked up medical knowledge, therapies and daily living adaptations that she’d previously only skimmed, through metaphorical fingers, half-hiding from the information. She saw the hard work of amputees in rehab. She read about military research on prostheses to help wounded vets returning home. Some of the images were hard to look at. Finally, filled with a realistic set of knowledge, Orchid felt both saddened and hopeful for Phoenix.

  Then, on a whim, she typed Phoenix mythology into the search engine. She skimmed the top results mythical, sacred, dies and is reborn. “A phoenix obtains new life by arising from ashes.” Orchid blinked. How prescient. Phoenix truly was reborn by arising from symbolic ashes.

  It was nearly midnight. Orchid tiptoed downstairs in the quiet house for a cold drink. She passed the echoing stairway down to the basement level. She heard a sound like a groan.

  Padding on bare feet to the basement, she listened. To the left, soft snores emitted from one room. Then, the sound came again, from the room directly in front of her, the room Betsy had pointed out as Phoenix’s.

  The door ajar, Orchid tapped the solid surface. “Phoenix, you okay?”

  No answer in the darkness.

  CHAPTER 50

  BROKEN BOY SOLDIER

  Phoenix

  Aww, shit. This was going to be a bad one. It’s all in your head. Just get up and get the meds.

  As he forced himself to a seated position, groaning, he caught sight of a figure peering through the faintly lighted doorway.

  “Who’s there?” he asked, doubling over in pain.

  The figure flew to his side. “Phoenix, are you hurt? What do you need?” asked a familiar voice, strangely soothing even while its honey-sweetness brought the bitter taste of betrayal to the back of his mouth.

  He squeezed hard, trying to replace the feeling of a bulldozer grinding his missing toes into concrete with the more manageable pain of his hand kneading the hell out of his leg.

  “Phantom pain?” Orchid asked.

  Her knowing and saying the phrase with composure surprised him long enough that he was able to pause. “Meds. In my bag. In the closet,” he said, spitting the words out between the throbbing.

  She ran over and then back to his side within the space of two spasms. “How many?” she asked mid-stride, the bottle already open.

  “Two,” he said, though part of his brain screamed for the whole container.

  She wrapped his hand around two oblong pills then sprinted to the bathroom. He’d already swallowed them by the time she’d returned with a glass half full of tap water. He drank it anyway.

  “What else can I do? Can I massage you?”

  Rina would never baby me. She’d tell me to take my meds and suck it up.

  His pain steepened, exploding through his mind. He couldn’t speak. He fell back onto the mattress, banging his leg, praying for relief.

  Orchid’s hand, smooth and cool, found his leg and rubbed, tentatively at first, then firmly, rhythmically. He resisted, pulling away a little. I don’t need anyone. Then, though he hadn’t asked for it, touch by touch, her caress comforted.

  With time, his pain eased until he returned from pure feral animal instincts to human sized agony.

  Orchid was grateful that Phoenix could communicate what he needed. Fetching the pills was something she could do in the face of his pain. His expression twisted her gut as if pain were winding its way through her own body. She’d read about massage therapy, and so she pressed her fingers to his skin, trying different angles and pressure to ease the agony. The strong muscle reminded her of his performance at the triathlon, running out of the water, leaping onto his bike, sprinting along the final stretches of the race. The sweetness of those memories overshadowed the flashes from her parents’ car crash.

  Beneath her hand, his writhing slowly calmed. After long rhythmic minutes massaging his leg, she felt him relax under her touch. She didn’t know if the improvement was due to her efforts, or the medicine she’d run to get for him. So she traced her movement again. She smoothed her thumb and palm from below his knee, down the side of his calf and under the rounded bottom. When she ran a finger along the crooked path of his scars, she could feel the fine, thin skin where his wound had grown together.

  Phoenix lay heavy and asleep, eyes closed, breathing calm.

  He’d ignored her for six hellish months. Now he was before her, at least, without him yelling in her face or with another woman wrapped around him. Perhaps if he’d been awake, she’d give him a piece of her mind instead of sitting so close. Her hip rested against one leg while she caressed the other. Were these precious minutes stolen?

  She daren’t shift her weight, lest she wake him. Drawing warm air in through her nose, Orchid savored the faint scent uniquely Phoenix. A clean male and spice scent.

  Outside, the world stilled in the night air. Only the insistent thump of the ocean pounding against sand accompanied their middle of the night quietude.

  Ghostly rays from the moon whitewashed Phoenix’s face. She studied his strong brow, straight nose and full lips. Sitting so close, she saw new lines had formed in the past six months. The hollows beneath his eyes shadowed darker, with a hint of tightness. The fine crease between his brows had deepened. Asleep, he looked vulnerable.

  Her hand had stilled, so deep was her concentration on his features. He lay limp, one arm across his chest, the other above his head. She’d often wondered how he slept. Orchid reached forward, draw
n to the silky waves of hair. She let his smooth locks slip through her fingers.

  It was late.

  Her eyes wanted to shut with fatigue. Her chin nodded towards her chest. She was worn out, not only physically, but also with highs and lows of the day’s emotions. Yet, she didn’t want to go.

  She pictured the Phoenix she’d first met, confident and capable. He was still those things, yet he had changed, and not just physically. He seemed more mature, less boyish, with a tinge of resignation. Of course he’d changed. She had no idea the adaptations he made on a daily basis. She’d changed, too. The knowledge of what he’d been through made her stronger. She could do that for him, be that for him.

  Orchid eased up from the bed. Her gaze swung around the room. It landed on a leather club chair by the window. Orchid padded over and sank onto the cold, smooth surface. Phoenix, now half a room away, seemed too far. She sprang up. Determined, Orchid gripped one slippery arm, and pushed the furniture until she’d shoved it right next to his bed. She covered him with the sheet and thin blanket. Morning would give them an opportunity to talk, for her to correct misperceptions. Then, comforted by the sound of Phoenix’s deep, even breathing, Orchid dropped into the chair and into slumber.

  Phoenix had no sense for how long she stayed like that, ministering to him. Sometime later, with only pale moonlight to sepia-tone the room, Phoenix woke with the relief of feeling no pain. He must’ve dozed off. The meds numbed everything.

  Glancing over to see the time, he saw Orchid asleep in an armchair pushed beside his bed. Though his first inclination was to dredge up anger, he found her presence strangely comforting. A truth struck him. There was no way that she and Caleb would date and then flaunt it in front of him. Neither of them was cruel.

  Seeing her delicate features, luminescent skin and smooth hair, peaceful in repose, filled him with a different kind of pang from the one that had filled his consciousness earlier. A faint scent of her rose soap wafted from her skin. He found himself examining his feelings, turning them over like discovering a long-lost beloved object. The truth was, he’d missed her. Her face angled towards her chest, relaxed, sweet. An impulse bubbled up to take her in his arms. He knew her expressions, the way her brows knit when she was cross, the way her cheek dimpled just before she was about to be mischievous.