Surviving Goodbye

by Morgan Parker

  “Are you sure?”

  The world became crystal clear at that precise moment. Like the lights flicking on—which they didn’t—in the middle of the most perfect and beautiful dream ever. Except it wasn’t the lights that broke this magical, love-making spell of ours.

  It was Ava’s young voice.

  “Mommy?” she said. “I had a nightmare. Can you come sleep with me?”

  Veronica and I froze, our eyes locked, even in the darkness. I could feel her underneath me, her stomach contracting and her hand releasing my dick in favor of covering her mouth. She suppressed a giggle, like getting caught by her young daughter was hilarious (it actually was). Well, it was funny in a cute away.

  I stayed incredibly still, Veronica’s perfect body underneath me, the bed moving in little bursts as she laughed mutely at the embarrassment of this moment. When she pulled her hand away from her mouth, she said, “Be right there, go back to bed,” and quickly planted her palm over her mouth again.

  I glanced back in time to watch Ava turn and leave the room, unfazed by the half-naked shadow hovering over her mother at the edge of the glowing bed that looked like clouds. Once we heard the springs of Ava’s bed, I rolled away from Veronica, my dick not even close to being limp and my heart pounding.

  “I’m so sorry,” Veronica laughed next to me. Her hand found mine and squeezed. By now, I understood that her love language was touch, which suited me perfectly because I wanted to touch every inch of her. “That’s incredibly embarrassing.”

  I chuckled lightly. “I shouldn’t have overstepped—”

  Veronica rolled on top of me. “Look at me, Elliot,” she said. “We might be done tonight, but this—” She motioned between us in the dark. “—is a conversation we’re going to continue.”

  I nodded, swallowing the anxiety in my mouth. Yes, ma’am.

  Chapter 11

  Your nighttime imagination never gets too wild in Detroit. At least that was what I told myself as I drove home from Veronica’s apartment and noticed another Chrysler following me. I first noticed it on Crooks, but the driver really made his presence known on Big Beaver, at the first U-turn after the I-75. It was incredibly obvious. Because I had been too distracted by the aching dissatisfaction in my crotch, I had passed the first on-ramp, leaving me no other choice but to make that U-turn and merge with the I-75 from the other side of the road. Nobody else would’ve done that—even a drunk or half-awake driver would not have missed that first on-ramp. So finding the Chrysler from Crooks doing the same thing as me set off my alarms. I was definitely being followed.

  Once I reached the Interstate, I sped up, changed lanes, pretended to take the exit for Corporate Drive, and then changed my mind at the last minute. The other Chrysler imitated all of those funky moves. It was a newer model than mine, the one with the bi-Xenon headlights and LED tail lamps, and it also had after-market rims and big LA-style tires, which made it easily recognizable.

  The other car followed me all the way down Adams. The driver must’ve thought I wouldn’t notice because there were streetlight and other vehicles between us, but I did. Once I made my turn onto Maple from Woodward, the other driver abandoned his pursuit.

  Which meant the driver knew I was close to home.

  “Fuck,” I whispered. I didn’t know why I whispered that, but between forfeiting that intimate moment with Veronica and discovering that someone had been following me since leaving her apartment, the fuck seemed warranted. So I said it again, “Fuck.” Except this time I wondered how long the driver in that other, nicer Chrysler has been watching me.

  And, of course, why he cared to watch me in the first place.

  Shit. My eyes looked like hell. My testicles felt beaten, bruised. Standing there, in front of the big bathroom mirror and staring at my old, achy reflection, I realized that two things had kept me awake last night. One was last night’s goodbye kiss, the other was that car that had followed me.

  I brushed my teeth and jumped into the shower, rushing through the routine and realizing that maybe I could focus on the homework Veronica had given me if I just cleared the pipes. So I squirted a wad of shampoo into my hands, closed my eyes, and went to work. I didn’t care if my crotch smelled like Axe shampoo for the next week or so. Just as I started to see beyond the self-imposed humiliation that came with jerking off in the shower and using shampoo as lube, I heard—

  “Papa Bear, are you driving me to school today?”

  And just like that, my “alone” time evaporated. I hadn’t found the satisfaction I needed, either.

  “You bet!” I shouted back. “Give me a few minutes, I’ll be right out!” I fumbled to clean the suds off, stared down at my limp dick, and whispered a pathetic, “Sorry.”

  When we left the house—Lena with her bag slung over her shoulder, me with an awkward, dissatisfied strut—I glanced up and down the street before getting into the Chrysler. I didn’t see the car from last night.

  Now it was my turn to stay quiet during the drive to Lena’s school, and she picked up on the silence.

  “Thank you for tucking me in last night, Papa Bear,” she said.

  I glanced over at her and smiled. “You’re welcome.”

  “Did you have a nice night?” Her narrowed eyes like she expected me to fail her little quiz.

  I wondered what prompted her question, but I played dumb and gave another glance, another smile, and then nodded.

  A little more silence, but then she turned her body so she sat facing me in the passenger seat. “So where did you go?”

  I frowned, watching the speedometer climb to the point that exceeded an unspoken upper-limit where the police would actually bother to ticket me. We had another dozen or so blocks before reaching the school.

  At last, Lena laughed. “It’s a woman.”

  “A friend,” I blurted, except the memory of Veronica on her back, underneath me on her glowing, cloud-like bed flashed before my eyes. I asked myself about the last time I had slipped the tip of my dick across a friend’s wet clit. “Just a friend,” I repeated, clearing my throat.

  Lena sat straight again, crossing her arms. I caught how she shook her head in my peripheral vision, obviously not convinced that I had snuck out just before eleven p.m. to spend some time with a friend, just a friend. I wondered what else I could and should share, because anything I told Lena would complicate things. She’s helping me track down the man your mother slept with after we got married didn’t seem right because it made Karen out to be a cheating whore, which technically…And she’s helping me hunt down your biological father was definitely waaaaay out of the question.

  “What do ‘just friends’ do until one a.m.?” Lena asked, just as the traffic ahead stopped for a red light. It didn’t look like we would be moving through the intersection anytime soon. We were stuck. I was stuck. “I mean, I know what Joffrey and I used to do. Were we ‘just friends’ like the just friend you snuck out to see last night, Papa Bear?”

  I actually caught myself staring out my side window, and if my neck could swing another degree counter-clockwise, I would’ve pushed it there. This was my avoidance tactic; it was sad, so sad.

  “I’d like to meet her,” Lena offered. “This just friend of yours who’s replacing my mother.”

  I flipped my attention back to Lena, unsure whether that had been a genuine question or an attempt to lighten the mood. Genuine, damn. “She’s not. This isn’t about replacing your mother. Or anyone.”

  “Perfect,” she snapped back. “Then how about I cook dinner Friday night, and we can all have a little meet and greet?”

  I shifted in my seat, turned up the air conditioning. “I don’t know…”

  Lena’s eyes widened, insulted to the point of teenaged over-dramatization. “Why not? Are you embarrassed about your pregnant, teenager daughter?” Her voice cracked in that way that could make any father a little uncomfortable, awkward. “Am I your dirty little secret now? Are you going to lock me in the basement?”

>   I shifted again, the light turned green, and we edged through the intersection—thank God—but I felt a little guilty about possibly leaving Lena so close to tears while we rolled closer and closer to the drop-off zone outside her school.

  “Okay,” I said. “For the record, you’re not a dirty secret. I’m proud of you. I’ll always be proud of you. But the basement, yes, it’s all yours, and if I could lock you down there and keep boys out of your life to spare you from bullshit and whatever else, then I would.”

  The edge of her mouth curled up, but she was determined to maintain her over-dramatic posture, which had transformed into a semi-pout. “Then why can’t I meet her?”

  Because she’s barely a decade older than you are. Because she’s not someone you’d approve of with all of those sentences and words written across her body in permanent ink. Because she’s too much like you, and I want someone, something for myself, that’s all mine. For once, someone I don’t have to share.

  “Papa Bear!”

  I snapped back to reality and saw that I was speeding dangerously close toward the underside of a stopped school bus. Kicking the brakes to the floor, I realized I needed to get some sleep.

  “Okay,” I breathed as Lena reached for the door handle. “Fine. I’ll invite her over.” I hated the promise the moment I made it. But it didn’t take long for me to realize that, between Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, if I lied to Lena about Veronica not being able to make it on Friday night, it would not be the worst story I had ever made up for her. “I’ll invite her.”

  She leaned back toward me, across the center console and kissed me on my temple.

  The last time she had kissed me before school had been in kindergarten. And just like she had back then, back when I believed her to be my daughter and not some fuck-friend’s or junkie’s, the gesture turned me maple syrup sappy.

  “I love you, Papa Bear.”

  “Love you more—” I said just in time for the slamming passenger door to cut me off “—Baby Bear.”

  I parked the Chrysler in the lot behind the Wayne County Credit Union and walked straight into the branch, my Skechers squeaking on the polished marble floors. As if expecting me, Paul stepped out from his big corner office, that fake banker’s smile swallowing the entire lower-half of his face. He met me in the middle of the floor with Beth’s eyes glued to us, like she might be waiting for another barked order for cash.

  “Elliot Fitch,” he half-chanted. Then, in a lower voice, “How the fuck are you, my man?”

  I gave a timid shrug. “Do you have a minute, Paul?” I nodded toward his office. “Privately?”

  He gave a military-crisp nod and marched me to his office, closing the door and shutting out the muted chaos from the rest of the bank. He sat behind his big manager’s desk and clasped his hands together like a sinister villain out of a Saturday morning cartoon. “About the salary…” he started.

  I chuckled, shaking my head as I settled into one of the client chairs that faced his desk and the small window with the shitty parking lot view. “I’m here for business today, Paul. Not a job.”

  The smile drooped off his face, reminding me of melting wax. “Oh?”

  Placing my elbows on the desk, I stared at him, all while Veronica’s assignment resonated in my head. “Yes. I need my bank statements from 1997.”

  That seemed to offend him. “Ninety-seven? Elliot, we don’t keep records beyond… I don’t know, ten years or something?”

  I stared into his eyes and believed him. Well, I believed the part about him not knowing how long they retained customer records at the Wayne County Credit Union. I glanced back over my shoulder and spotted Beth behind the teller counter, working hard at whatever it was that tellers did in this day of online banking and ATMs. She glanced up, meeting my eyes at the last possible moment before I turned back to Paul.

  “Paul, you must have some kind of record, a hard disk or something where this stuff is stored.”

  His face crunched with tight concern as he considered my request. And then, as if he had just pieced together the mystery of Atlantis, he leaned a third of the way across his desk. I was thankful for the space between us, protecting me from this weirdo neighbor of mine.

  “Paul, you have some kind of archive. I know you do.”

  He allowed a tight nod. “You need bank statements from a period outside of our government-mandated retention date. And I need a banker to fill a seat and help me achieve my growth and profitability objectives.”

  I heaved a deep breath, then shook my head. “I’m on hiatus.”

  “How long?”

  “Months, Paul. Several months. At least that long.”

  He nodded, pushed his chair out. “Then we’ll talk about those statements in ‘months, several months.’”

  I called his bluff, stood, and gave a curt, appreciative nod. “Thank you for your help, Paul. I’ll see myself out.”

  He grinned. “Let’s chat in a few months, alright?” Like he was funny.

  I left his office without closing the door. Midway to the front doors, I heard a phone ring and then Paul’s perky voice answer it. Glancing over my shoulder toward the teller wickets, I locked my eyes on Beth. She knew. The man whose obnoxious and loud voice echoed through the branch was a purebred jackass. We shared this knowledge in our little exchange. I considered asking her about the statements I needed from 1997, but if I looked even farther back over my shoulder, I saw that Paul was watching me from his perch in that corner office. I couldn’t risk putting Beth in a compromised position with her manager, so I let it go.

  For now.

  Outside, I stopped on the sidewalk and took a deep breath, staring up and down the street like I didn’t know where I was headed next. But I did know. I took another deep breath like that might delay the inevitable, then walked around to the back of the building and settled into the car.

  The drive to the dump didn’t take long. Half an hour. An employee came out of the gatehouse and pointed me to the right bay.

  At the first open spot, I backed the car as close to the railing as I could, popping the trunk when I came to a stop. Deep breath before I got out of the car and walked to the back. I reached in for the clothes that I had packed—wedding dress, the fuck-me jeans, a few other items that had some sort of significance to either Karen or me. These were items I had kept in the guestroom for the past year. I breathed in the fabric, and the now faint, lingering scent of Karen squeezed my heart and made me miss her, the version of her I had loved hard and deep. And I missed her. A lot.

  So I tore the clothes from my face. I tossed them into the dumpster.

  Goodbye.

  Next, I reached into the trunk and pulled out one of the boxes, lifting the lid on this first one and taking a final peek inside—a wooden box with three little clocks on its front side, one for Seattle time, another for Chicago, another for New York; an old Bose docking system for an iPod; a framed picture of the three of us that had been taken on a family trip to Birch Run, just outside of Lansing; a few other stupid things that meant nothing to anyone else. But to Karen, these things had significance because they had come from her work office, things she had kept there. I had left them in the guestroom just in case I wanted to feel closer to her.

  Goodbye.

  I heaved the box into the dumpster, listened to the breaking glass and splintering wood. And then I reached for the other boxes, did the same thing with them, said my goodbyes, each one more difficult than the last. But I didn’t think too hard about it—like knowing the pool water was cold, I just jumped—otherwise I would never let these items go.

  With the trunk empty, I rubbed my hands together like I had just achieved a great physical feat, and then returned to the driver’s seat. My throat felt tight, but it was something that needed to be done. Goodbyes are a lot like death—they’re forever.

  And now I could move on.

  At the exit gate, I glanced left and right and noticed, a little farther down this quiet city stree
t, that the Chrysler from last night was watching. It sure looked like it, but then again, Chryslers in Detroit weren’t a rarity. I considered my options, then decided to drive home and get started on my bedroom project.

  Just as I had expected, the Chrysler pulled out and followed me, hanging several car lengths back but not exactly trying to be invisible either. Which was fine—we both knew he was there, trailing me. So I drove like it was no big deal, not like last night when I watched the headlights in the rearview mirrors. I drove past Veronica’s apartment complex, slowed down, and watched the other Chrysler nearly slow to a stop on Crooks Road before speeding off.

  I turned into the driveway for the apartment complex across the road from Veronica’s and parked in a spare spot. I waited there, noticing how my hands were shaking.

  Who is following me? Why? They were the obvious questions.

  And then I noticed that suspicious Chrysler drive past. It turned into Veronica’s driveway. That was interesting.

  Easing out of my car, I tiptoed along the driveway, trying to chance a peek at the Chrysler that had followed me and then turned into Veronica’s apartment complex across the street. But the trees and other vehicles obstructed my view. I needed to cross the street, but I realized that could mean getting seen by my stalker.

  “Shit.” The closest thing to a weapon in my possession was my key fob.

  I crossed the street and ran toward the mouth of Veronica’s laneway, the one that led to the covered spaces at the end where all the tenants parked their cars. I saw the Chrysler’s LED taillights, right outside the entrance to her building.

  Veronica knows my follower.

  I watched for a while, expecting someone to come running out of the building and get into the car before driving away. Instead, the red lights blinked out, and the Chrysler eased off.

  I knew that end of the lane veered left on the other side of the building and ended back at Crooks. The Chrysler would be long gone before I could get back into my own car and start following it.