Here to Stay

by Suanne Laqueur

  A slight unease glazed the visit. Their newfound love didn’t seem to fit into Erik’s turf. Perhaps because his apartment was so sparse and unwelcoming. Perhaps because, truth be told, he didn’t have much of a life outside work, whereas Daisy was so integrated and active in her community. Without it being discussed, the rest of the visits in January and February were in Saint John, where both of them felt at home.

  Erik spent the long March break there, even though New Brunswick Ballet Theater was coming to the end of its winter season and Daisy couldn’t take much time away. Neither could Will. Erik ended up hanging out a lot with Lucky and the kids, which wasn’t always fun.

  Jack still didn’t seem to care for Aunt Daisy’s new beau, and Sara’s constant chatter made Erik’s eyes glaze over. Driving with Lucky and the kids to a movie one morning, Erik calculated that Jack and Sara asked Lucky thirty-six questions in forty-five minutes. He would have gone batshit, but Lucky calmly fielded one inquiry after another, never losing patience. At least not to the outward eye.

  “You’re like Answer Girl,” he said during a rare lull in the interrogation. “What will you do when the third one comes along?”

  “I plan to become quite stupid then,” Lucky said.

  Erik got back to Barbegazi in a strange mood. Just as unease had glazed Daisy’s visit to Brockport, this week felt suffused with a slight boredom.

  Daisy’s car was in the driveway—with Sunday’s matinee performance over, the theater would be dark until Wednesday. Getting out of the car, Erik noticed the flag on the mailbox was still up so he went to collect yesterday’s post. He flipped through it, as if expecting something for him.

  His fingers stopped, backtracked and drew out a plain white envelope, hand-addressed to Daisy. The postmark was Virginia Beach. The return address read David Alto.

  A sinister warmth coiled in his stomach and his bored mood pounced on it. He looked up at the house, down at the envelope. Up at the house again. Drew a long, concentrated breath in through his mouth and blew it out.

  “Be a grownup,” he said as he walked up the steps of the porch and let himself in.

  “Hey,” Daisy called. She was curled in her chair by the fire, reading. “Have fun?”

  He kissed her head and set the bundle of mail in her lap. “You got a letter from Dave,” he said, rather loudly. Bastet stopped washing her ears and looked at him.

  Daisy set her book aside. Erik leaned his elbows on the back of her chair as she worked her thumb under the flap. A single piece of paper, folded in thirds, which she unfolded.

  Naturally it was in fucking French.

  “Dear Marge,” she said. And then twisted to look up at him. “Or would you rather I not…?”

  He gestured for her to go ahead. A pair of dark hands settled on his shoulders and he gave an involuntary squirm beneath them.

  March 12, 2006

  Dear Marge,

  Last round of scans and ultrasounds showed something weird on my liver. Could be an abscess, could be nothing. Could be a thing. I go in for a biopsy today so I’m up before sunrise listening to Beethoven and brooding. It’s what I do best.

  Virginia Beach Playhouse is putting on On Your Toes and I’m lost in the “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” ballet. Remember when you and Will danced this—spring concert, 1991, I think. It’s bringing back a ton of free-association memories and I’m sort of a nostalgic mess right now. All over the place.

  Lydia’s pregnant and I’m the one crying all the time. Maybe all the regret for being such a callous asshole all those years is catching up with me. It was all fear. You know that. You of all people have to know that. I was a scared kid trying to become a scared man. Acting like losing my parents hadn’t scared the shit out of me. Pretending the shooting didn’t touch me, that destroying you and Fish didn’t imprint, that cancer wasn’t terrifying.

  Impending parenthood has managed to break through the bullshit like nothing else. I’m scared out of my mind. Scared I don’t have a fucking clue how to do this and I’m going to die before I figure it out and leave my kid a scared mess to repeat the cycle.

  It’s the typical emotional slaughter at four in the morning. I hate it.

  I don’t know why I’m telling you this.

  HA! We both know why.

  I’m sorry.

  I hope you’re all right. Staying warm and smelling good. I hope… I still hope a lot of things. You know what they are.

  I’m sorry. I’ll stop now. I’ll let you know how things turn out.

  Hope for me, okay?

  Dave

  With a small, sympathetic noise, Daisy set the letter on the table. “God, I hope it was nothing.” She unfolded her legs and stood up.

  “Does he write you often?” Erik asked.

  The phone rang. “Every few months,” she said, reaching for the cordless. “It’s been a while, actually. Hello?”

  Then she was speaking French and picking up her empty tea mug, heading into the kitchen. Erik sat down in Archie, the leather chair he’d come to regard as his. He picked up the letter and skimmed the lines. A familiar irritation filled his chest. It had been a common tactic of Dave’s back in the day: sitting at a table where Erik and Daisy were and launching into French, deliberately excluding Erik. Daisy never stood for it. She would either respond in English or not respond at all.

  Now the sound of her French from the kitchen was rubbing against the nap of his peace. As if it were Dave on the phone and she was indulging him. Deliberately excluding her lover.

  What’s going on?

  Is this happening again?

  His eyes tried to pick words out of the letter. He saw Fish written out. Carnage emotionnel. Was that emotional slaughter? Had she read him everything David wrote or just the safe parts?

  Knock it off. For fuck’s sake, it’s a letter from a friend worried about dying from cancer before his kid is born. Don’t be an asshole.

  He folded the paper and jammed in carelessly back in the envelope. Got up and put his head into the kitchen.

  “I’m going for a run,” he mouthed. Over the phone Daisy smiled at him, nodded and gave a wave. All of which his mood translated as dismissal.

  He went upstairs, stomping past the picture gallery of Daisy dancing in the arms of other men. With each tread, the steps morphed into the stairs of David’s old apartment, and he’d get to the top and see them in bed.

  This is old pain, he told himself.

  But it felt fresh.

  Why is this showing up now?

  “Because you didn’t deal with it then,” he mumbled.

  As he shucked off his jeans and sweater, he felt like throwing something.

  I dealt with this. In therapy. I went through the day. I threw things. I likened it to a firing squad. I did this. I dealt with this.

  “You didn’t deal with it in front of Dais,” he said, pulling on sweats and a thermal T-shirt.

  He caught sight of himself in the mirror over the dresser. Held out his hands in an exaggerated shrug. “Dude. I got nothing. Go run it out.”

  He found earphones and his music. Thumped back down the stairs, shouldering past the pictures like he didn’t give a shit. He sat on the bench in the little front hall while his head filled with the images of David rolling over, Daisy appearing from under. David over. Daisy under.

  I did this. I’m done with this. Don’t do this.

  As he picked free the knot in his laces, he noticed his hands were shaking.

  “The fuck is wrong with you?” he said, stamping a foot down into a sneaker.

  “Glad I’m not the only one who talks to themselves,” Daisy said, appearing out of nowhere on her little silent feet. Bastet trailed behind with a smug expression, as if she had tattled.

  He gave a token chuckle as he tied his laces. “Private conversation.”

  She leaned her shoulder against the closet door. “It’s going to get dark soon so please don’t go too far.”

  “I won’t.”

  “A
re you in the mood for anything in particular for dinner?”

  “No.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No.”

  Silence as he threaded the cord of his earphones down a sleeve and zipped his fleece jacket. He opened the door. Shut it. Without turning around he said, “I think I’m mad at you.”

  The silence swelled like a water balloon behind him.

  “About David?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Please turn around.”

  Hand still on the doorknob, he turned. “It’s not the letter,” he said, addressing her ear because he couldn’t meet her eyes. “I think this is twelve-year-old anger showing up. I think. I don’t know. I’m not sure what to do with this. So I’m going to go for a run and take the edge off and put some distance between me and…the letter. Which is obviously bothering me.”

  He met her gaze then. Her arms were crossed over her middle, holding onto opposite sides of her cardigan. Her face was composed but her eyes blinked rapidly. Her chin rose and fell a few times. “We never had this fight,” she said. “We never dealt with it in the moment.”

  “And that’s on me,” he said. “I don’t want a fight now. This is residual shit and a weird moment. So I’m stepping out. I’m going to feel what I feel and organize my thoughts a little.”

  She nodded. “All right.”

  He nodded. Then stepped onto the porch and shut the door behind him. Immediately, he opened it again and put his face in, with the closest thing he could get to a smile. “My keys are on top of the piano.”

  Her mouth made the approximate shape of a smile in return. “I trust you.”

  HE LET TWELVE BARS of a single song play and then shut off the music. Listened to the slap of his feet on pavement and the sound of his breath falling into a cadence. Let his thoughts wander in and out, trying not to be surprised at any of this. Tried to look at all the layers within, let every thought have its turn to talk.

  Come take a run. We’ll have a conversation.

  He turned off the lake’s rec path and took the trail through the woods instead, wanting to get far away from civilization and into the forest primeval of feeling.

  Where he could talk out loud.

  “All right, what’s bothering you?”

  She fucked him.

  “Yes, she did. That hurt.”

  David. Of all fucking people.

  “I know. It was a betrayal on all kinds of levels.”

  He put his cock where only mine had been.

  “Yeah, you liked being her first. You got off on being the only one.”

  So what?

  “Just saying.”

  He fucked her. He took what was mine.

  “He did.”

  And she let him.

  “It sucked. It was traumatic.”

  What else did he do to her?

  “Is that what’s really bothering you, bro?”

  What did she do to him? Who started it? Where did it start? How did they get upstairs?

  “And was she even thinking about you?”

  God fucking dammit. What did she do to him up there?

  “Does it matter now? Never mind. It does. Go ahead.”

  Did she touch him? Did he lick her? Did she blow him? What? What did they do?

  “Dude, I don’t know about you, but I don’t need the play-by-play.”

  Well how much play are we talking about? What did I walk in on? The first time? The third? Fourth?

  “You could ask.”

  Fuck that.

  “You could. She’ll tell you. As long as it’s a conversation.”

  The fuck was she thinking?

  “Probably not much. She was high.”

  He stopped running in a grove of tall pines, pacing around, panting, pulling his hands back through his hair. He was pissed. Twenty-two years old again, shaking and murderous, his hands itching for violence.

  “Fuck you, Alto,” he said through clenched teeth. Then he released his jaw and bellowed it out loud to the trees. He broke a few sticks against the trunks. Hurled some rocks. Paced until finally his lungs unfolded, shook their fists at the sky and he fell on his knees with a last cry of frustration.

  A flurry of wings made the air suck back through his lungs. A murder of crows screeched over his head, fading further into the trees.

  Get a load of him, the crazy man in the woods, scaring the birds.

  Feel better?

  “A little.”

  She hurt you bad.

  “Yeah.”

  The letter reminded you.

  “Brought it back.”

  Yeah.

  “She saw him at Lancaster.”

  I know.

  “What did they talk about?”

  You have to ask her.

  “I know.”

  Sulking out here in the woods won’t get you your answers.

  “I fucking know, okay?”

  You’re doing great, feeling your way through this.

  “Fuck off.” He sat on the ground, his back against a pine tree. He was cold and it was getting dark. He promised her not to go too far.

  He promised she would always know where he was.

  He stared up at the tall trees, and before his eyes they morphed into the image of the cathedral he always imagined in his heart. The structure of his love, now covered in scaffolding, yet beneath it he could see arches and scrolls and stained glass. A restoration in progress. A lifetime project.

  What are you going to do? Tear it down? Or build it in? The night you came running back to her, you told her the past was going to be part of it all. You weren’t going to pretend it never happened.

  He exhaled, running his hands through his hair. “I know.”

  She made peace with the past. Including David. She finished that business. You’re just starting. So turn around. Go back. Explain the letter made you emotional. The old you ran off to have a fit in the woods. The new you is coming back to have a conversation. This is a huge improvement, dude.

  “Thank you.”

  She loves you.

  “She fucked up and she loves me.”

  You fucked up, too, and you can’t breathe without her.

  He took his phone out and texted her: I went a little further than I expected. I’m turning around now.

  K, she replied.

  He stared at the single, terse letter. Waited for more but she had none.

  I love you, he typed with cold, cautious fingers.

  Just come home.

  He shook his head. “Might be a loud conversation, dude,” he said. He stuffed the phone in his pocket and took off running through the woods.

  “I FULLY APPRECIATE HOW that letter could have thrown you off,” Daisy said. “I completely understand you needing to step out and collect your thoughts. And you may joke about leaving your keys on the piano, but those keys fucking matter to me. Those keys tell me you’re coming back.”

  “I know and—“

  “No. You don’t know. You don’t know what I went through when—“

  “I see the scars of what you went through every damn day,” he said. “I’ve counted them. I can find them in my sleep. Every time I look at your body I’m reminded of what I did. Maybe I don’t know everything about what you went through, but I don’t know nothing.”

  The stove hissed like an angry cat as the soup boiled up and bubbled over the edge of the pot. Daisy seized a dishtowel and dragged the pan off the burner, muttering, “And now my fucking soup is burning.”

  Reaching for a wooden spoon, she tipped the crock of utensils over. Erik righted it just in time. He crouched to pick up spatulas and spoons while his back molars ground together.

  “I’m getting chilled off,” he said. “Can I jump in the shower five minutes?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Jesus Christ, Dais.”

  “I don’t like when you disappear,” she said, banging the spoon on the rim of the pot. “It upsets me.”

  “I’
m not disappearing, I’m going upstairs,”

  “Hey,” she cried, pointing the spoon at him like she was going to skewer him with it. “You fucking know what I mean. And if you say you know what I went through then you know why I’m in the middle of an anxiety attack right now and I need to talk to you.” She swiped the back of her hand across her eyes and drew a breath. “I need you right now.”

  “Okay, calm down,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t tell me to calm down like I’m some overwrought bimbo looking for attention.”

  He took a breath of his own. “I’m sorry,” he said again, slower. “What can I do? What’s making you anxious?”

  Her shoulders shivered. “It’s a kneejerk reaction. I admit it’s not rational but it’s there. You deserted me. With good reason—I cheated on you, I disappointed you, I let you down. And you disappeared. Now, tonight, you pretended you weren’t upset by David’s letter when clearly you were. You slammed out of here in a moody sulk and it set me off.”

  “I told you as I was going what I was doing. What was in my head or not in my head. I went for a run and then turned around. Last time I left for twelve years. This time I left for an hour. Can I get a little credit here?”

  A smile made half her mouth curve up. “I give you a ton of credit, honey.”

  “Yeah, but do you trust me,” he said. “Do you trust I want you and I want us? Do you trust I’m here to stay this time?”

  “I do,” she said. “And while I was trusting you, my stomach was still in shreds. Ninety-five percent of me trusted you. The other five percent was cowering under the bed feeling like I fucked up again and you were gone. I can’t help that, Erik. I can’t help it and I can’t keep it from you. I’m going to tell you everything. I’m going to stamp on every damn eggshell. I’m not going to fall to pieces every time you walk out the door but if you walk out upset with me, it’s going to trigger my residual shit. Especially if it was something to do with David because he’s your trigger.”

  His eardrums flinched against her raised voice. Much as he tried to stay calm, some instinctive involuntary impulse in his gut was bristling, baring its teeth and looking around frantically for an escape.

  “I suck at this,” he said.

  “Suck at what?”

  “I don’t know how to have an argument with you,” he said. “I can’t remember ever fighting with you.”