Last Kiss

by Luanne Rice

  “Surprised?”

  Jeff nodded. To his shock and shame, his eyes stung with tears remembering how his short time of being Randy’s only son had come to an end. Clint, in California, hadn’t really counted—he had long since written off Randy, said he didn’t even consider him his father. Jeff wanted to tell Sheridan how happy he’d been to have found a brother in Charlie, how lucky he felt, but he couldn’t lie, and he knew she saw.

  “You didn’t know Charlie existed?”

  “Nope,” he said, swallowing hard, getting past the sting in his eyes. He was okay now. She wasn’t going to see that part of him; he wouldn’t let her see him cry. Showing her his wounds might make her feel sorry for him, but it wasn’t going to get the story told.

  “How soon before that night had you met Randy?” she asked.

  “Not long,” Jeff said. “About three years.”

  “So you were new to the Quill family?”

  Jeff nodded. “Yes, ma’am. But I was proud.”

  “You took his name?”

  “Yep.”

  “What was your name before?”

  “Jeff Easton,” he said, blushing as he thought of his mother, how upset she’d been when he’d changed it back to Quill. He pushed that thought away, cleared his throat. “I was happy, knowing my father.”

  “All boys need their fathers,” she repeated, staring him in the eye. “Charlie wanted to know his father from the time he was old enough to realize…”

  “That his dad wasn’t around,” Jeff said quietly, nodding, knowing because he’d felt the same way. The big things and the small things. He remembered being in the county home, a constant dream that had gotten him through the fear and loneliness: of walking down country roads with his father, kicking a rock ahead of them, not even talking. Just being together. That would have made him so happy. Maybe Charlie had dreamed the same thing.

  Sheridan sat still, like a statue, just watching him till he could start up again. Jeff swallowed. “Anyway, Charlie came to the club. When we met—man, it was like looking in the mirror.”

  “I see that,” she said.

  “We laughed—and so did Randy, and even Lisa once the show ended and she’d finished up backstage. We were all standing around, deciding whether to go eat or get a drink, something to keep the night going. We were all of us charged up, almost giddylike, the craziness of realizing we were blood. Three of us anyway—Randy, Charlie, and me.”

  “Your girlfriend was there?”

  “She left,” he said. “Cumberland was on tour, heading to Providence for the next night. The bus was ready to go, so she just said goodbye.”

  “But the rest of you?”

  Jeff swallowed.

  “Well, Charlie was only seventeen, too young to drink, so a bar was out. And no one was hungry, so we decided to walk.”

  “Down to the river?” Sheridan asked.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Why there?”

  “Well, before she left, Lisa said something poetic, like she always does, about rivers keeping us all connected. How we were down in Nashville on the Cumberland, and Charlie was up in Black Hall, on the mighty Connecticut, and New York was surrounded by rivers—how it was such a fitting place to meet, on Manhattan Island between the Hudson and East rivers.”

  “That’s why you went, because of something your girlfriend said…” Sheridan trailed off.

  “Well, her talk of rivers started it…” Jeff said. “But it was because Randy wanted to show us where he’d played ball.”

  “Ball?”

  Jeff nodded. He thought back to that night, to the way his father’s eyes had sparkled that hot summer night, wanting to take them to the field, and how he’d choked up and hadn’t been able to speak.

  Sheridan couldn’t stand the silence. “Please,” she said. “Tell me…”

  “I will,” Jeff said. “Back when Randy was working as a roadie—on your band and others—they used to have a league. The sidemen would be on one team, and the roadies and sound guys would be on another, and sometimes the artists would join in, and they’d play, whatever city they were at.”

  “I remember that,” Sheridan said.

  “Well, in New York, they always played downtown—at the park where Houston Street runs into the East River. Randy talked about the ball fields along the river, how cool that had been. He wanted to show us both where he played. Seemed real important and symbolic to him.”

  Sheridan stared at him through the candles.

  “He felt guilty,” Jeff said. “Not ever playing ball with us. He had three sons, never once chucked a ball with any of us. That ate at him—once he got older, had that heart attack…he figured out all the crap he’d done wrong, found a better way to live. He started seeing how he’d let us all down.”

  “He did,” Sheridan said.

  “I didn’t hold it against him,” Jeff said, getting past a flash of anger. “I would have liked growing up with him, but it didn’t happen. I’m not blaming him.”

  “Maybe you should…”

  “All I’m saying,” Jeff said, holding up both hands, to let her know to stop, “is that’s why he wanted to show us the ball field. That August night, it was a real summer night, and Randy was thinking of pitches not pitched to us, hits not hit, balls not fielded. A lot of lost opportunities with his three sons. All of us grown now, no getting back the past.”

  Jeff bowed his head, the wave of missed opportunities nearly knocking him down. Sitting in Charlie’s living room, holding the little shell in his hand, facing his mother, made him think of every minute of life Charlie hadn’t lived and wouldn’t live since that night—and how her words tonight were echoing his.

  “So that’s why we went to the field,” he said, finally looking up.

  Sheridan nodded, obviously steeling herself for the rest. He watched her gather her strength. It was just past eight here in Hubbard’s Point, but in the story it was three in the morning, and Jeff and Randy and Charlie were all down there in the dark and deserted ball park.

  In his memory, the East River was rushing by, a black torrent. Silver ripples were splashed on the wild surface by city lights. The chain-link backstop glinted in the lights of cars passing by on the elevated FDR Drive. Jeff remembered the heavy air, the oppressive heat. He closed his eyes, thinking of how he’d felt to see Randy walking along with his arm around Charlie’s shoulders—as if Jeff had already been replaced by someone new.

  But that’s not even what did it, kick-started his violent streak. The emotions had risen up in him so fast. He’d hardly known what was coming. It was as if he’d swallowed an anvil—then been dropped off the top of a tall building. He couldn’t have stopped his fall, even if he’d wanted to—which he hadn’t. He had tilted, then started his plummet, and he’d wished it would be fatal.

  “I don’t know what happened,” he said now, looking straight into Sheridan’s eyes.

  “Yes you do,” she challenged.

  “I know what I did,” he said.

  “Then tell me, Jeff. What did you do?”

  “Charlie and Randy were walking along, up ahead of me. I…felt a little left out. I, well, I’d grown up on the outside of a family, and it felt like that. Like maybe Randy was going to start liking Charlie better. Something like that. I guess that’s what got it started, working on me…”

  “Okay,” Sheridan said, listening.

  Jeff nodded. “We were all just walking along. Me in back, Randy and Charlie up ahead. I was staring at the back of their heads…They were talking about Nell, Charlie saying how lucky he was to have someone like her. Then Randy said something about him having had that once, with you. And how Charlie came from you and him, and how he was the son of such a great talent—you. All those great musical genes. How maybe Charlie would want to join the business, maybe even convince you to sign with the label, put old feelings aside.”

  “Randy said that to Charlie?” Sheridan asked.

  Jeff nodded. “And I couldn’t s
ee his face, but if it was me, I’d have been eating it up. I started thinking maybe Randy was going to bring Charlie into the company, push me out. That’s how things go, that’s how my life’s been all along.”

  “Charlie had plans for his life,” Sheridan said. “He wasn’t going to work for Randy…”

  “I know,” Jeff said. “But I didn’t know then; I just said something stupid. Came out of nowhere, too—just spit the words out of my mouth, no thought behind them. I said, ‘Don’t think you’re gonna ride in, take my place.’ Something like that.”

  “But Charlie wouldn’t ‘ride in.’ He’d never think of taking your place.”

  Jeff shrugged, remembering the panic he’d felt that night. His chest felt constricted, as if a python was wrapped around him, squeezing the air out of his lungs, the blood out of his heart. Now he knew Sheridan was right; but that night, seeing Randy give all his attention to his newest son, the latest in line, had made Jeff know with every bone in his body that he was about to lose what he’d had for so short a time—the sense of mattering to his father.

  “Charlie turned around,” Jeff said. “I…I thought he glared at me. But maybe he was just thinking I was crazy. Because he didn’t even speak. Just stared. With his open face…and big eyes.”

  “Probably wanted to let you know he knew what you were thinking,” Sheridan said, her eyes glittering. “He’d know exactly what you felt. He’d been abandoned by his father his whole life.”

  Jeff heard her words, but he couldn’t let them in. If he did, they would kill him, make him feel even worse for what he’d misunderstood. “I took his silence as him wanting to throw down. He just stared. And I…” He choked down a burst of grief boiling up from his chest, “…started getting mad. Really mad.”

  “What did Charlie do?”

  “He just turned away. Randy didn’t see any of it. He was too busy feeling psyched that we were all at the ball field together. He got off the subject of Charlie working for the company, started talking about his regrets over missing our childhoods. He started saying that stuff I told you, about games not played…”

  “Pitches not pitched,” Sheridan said between clenched teeth.

  “And Charlie changed,” Jeff said. “He just stopped in his tracks, looking at Randy with this wild spark in his eyes.”

  Sheridan tensed; Jeff could see she understood, that she was drawing on everything she knew about her son to understand the moment Jeff was describing. It didn’t come as a surprise to her; no, it was more as if she’d been waiting for it, conflict between Charlie and his father.

  “Randy just stood there smiling, as if he’d never been happier,” Jeff said. “And I understood. Charlie looked at me, as if we were on the same side. I didn’t know where he was going with any of it.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He…just lost it,” Jeff said. “All of a sudden he attacked Randy—just started talking in this low, intense way. Saying it was more than a few missed ball games—that he’d abandoned you, left you to raise Charlie all on your own.”

  Sheridan’s eyes filled with tears, and she covered her mouth with her hand.

  “Randy was blindsided—he’d been feeling so good about bringing us together. But he started defending himself, saying it was half your fault for keeping Charlie away from him…”

  Sheridan shook her head hard, as if saying Randy was a liar.

  “Charlie lost it then—he shoved Randy away, told him he was full of shit. And Randy was in shock, hurt and mad, but trying to apologize, asking Charlie to try to see how hard it was for him.”

  “How hard for Randy?” Sheridan whispered, aghast.

  But Jeff barely heard. He was remembering the night, the moment. “Charlie was in a rage, starting to walk away. Then he turned—I don’t know if I thought he was going to jump on Randy, just start pounding him…or if it was that I…I couldn’t take hearing Charlie talk to him that way…our father. After all the love Randy had just been showing him. I was jealous of Charlie—there was Randy giving him all that attention, and Charlie was just throwing it back in his face…All I know is,” he said, his voice dropping, “I’m sorry, Sheridan.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I went after him. One punch.”

  “You hit Charlie,” Sheridan said.

  “I did,” Jeff said. “It—it wasn’t…it came from somewhere else. My arm shot out, it was over so fast. I…hit him in the temple. He went down.”

  Sheridan crouched, as if she couldn’t hold herself up anymore. Jeff heard himself speaking, knew that he was crying. He had the sensation of tears pouring down his face. He saw the scene in front of him—Charlie lying on the ground, not breathing.

  So sudden, and so total: Randy trying to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, then pushing on Charlie’s chest with the heels of both his hands, Jeff pacing, his tread so heavy, the words “Oh my God, oh my God” ringing in his own ears as his fist throbbed, as his stone-hand came back to life and started to hurt from that one punch to Charlie’s head.

  “He was lying in the dirt,” Jeff said. “That’s all I could see. So I took off my shirt. I lay it under his head…There was blood coming out of his nose, his ears. He bled into the ground. Randy held him.”

  Sheridan’s arms were wrapped around herself, and she’d slid out of her seat, and she knelt on the floor, rocking gently. Jeff kept speaking, but he saw that she wasn’t listening anymore. She was kneeling on the sandy red earth by home plate, holding the body of her son. She was with him right now, soothing him and cradling him. Randy and Jeff might have been there that night, but she was with him now.

  “Charlie didn’t wake up,” Jeff said quietly.

  “My boy, my beautiful boy.”

  “Randy breathed and breathed into his mouth,” Jeff said. “He wouldn’t stop. But Charlie…oh, he turned cold. And then he was stiff.” He stared at Sheridan, trying to gauge how much more he should tell. But Sheridan didn’t stop him. “He was dead,” Jeff said. “He must have died instantly. We tried, Sheridan, but we couldn’t bring him back.”

  “Oh God,” Sheridan whispered.

  “We sat there with him all night,” Jeff said. He thought of Steven Mayles, of how he’d related to that terrible story Nell had told. “I wanted the police to come. I kept saying I wanted them to take me away. At first Randy said I deserved that. That he’d testify, so I could rot in prison the rest of my life. With my record, that’s what would happen. We were going to call 911, we kept being about to dial, but we didn’t. There was something about us there with Charlie alone—we were his family. For all the sorrow that brought him, we were his blood. And we couldn’t let him go. At least, that’s how I felt…I think we both did.”

  Jeff listened to his own words. He’d killed Charlie, but that night he’d been unable to bear thinking of anyone else touching his body. Strangers—cops, EMTs, the coroner. He shivered now, thinking of the moment the sun rose.

  “Dawn came,” Jeff said. “And that’s when Randy had to decide.”

  “What to do,” Sheridan said.

  “I still wanted the cops to come. Wanted them to take me away, stick me in a cell,” Jeff said. “Where I belong.”

  “You wanted that.”

  “I still do,” Jeff said, looking Sheridan straight in the eye.

  She finally let go of her knees, stopped rocking. She raised her head, gazed straight at him. He saw that her face was wet and sticky with tears, and he knew that his was, too.

  “My father wouldn’t let me call them then,” Jeff said. “Said he’d already lost one son, he wasn’t going to lose another. What I did was terrible, and I’d be paying for it the rest of my life—said that guilt ate people up like cancer, that I would have to live with what I’d done, that the guilt would slash me ragged. Randy said he’d help me however he could—he loved me, he’d get me help. We were his boys.”

  “Two of you still are,” Sheridan said. “But Charlie…”

  “I know,” Jeff sa
id.

  “I’ll never see my son again. He’ll never see me, or Nell, or this place he loved so much. You took that from him.”

  Jeff couldn’t speak. He stared down at the bowl of shells, hearing Sheridan’s voice, feeling it rip him up.

  “I’m sorry,” Jeff said, his chest splitting open like a walnut. He held back sobs, because he saw the hatred in her eyes. There was force and velocity there, and it made him feel afraid of what she was about to do.

  “Yes,” she said, her voice cold. “I can see you are. Your father is right—guilt destroys people. It’s killing you, isn’t it?”

  “Call the cops,” he begged. “Get them here now.”

  “I will,” she said, reaching for the phone.

  But just then the screen door flew open, and Nell stepped in, green eyes blazing. Very methodically she slammed the door shut and locked it behind her—as if to make sure Jeff couldn’t escape. His blood stalled—like a tidal wave hitting the beach, washing back onto itself. He felt stunned by the ferocity in her eyes. For a minute he thought she was going to pull out a dagger, stab him through the heart. Instead she took a few steps toward him, tears pouring down her cheeks.

  “I heard you from outside,” she said. “I heard it all.”

  “Nell, I’m so sorry,” he said, his voice cracking.

  “You killed Charlie,” she screamed, throwing herself at him. Sheridan jumped up, to catch her, to keep her from—what? Jeff had no idea; was she guarding him, protecting Nell? Whichever, she lunged across the driftwood table, upsetting one of the candles. It teetered and tipped, but Sheridan didn’t see. She went straight for Nell, trying to push her back out the door, away from Jeff.

  Jeff stood stunned, staring at Nell. Papers, sheet music, a book, the beams and timber of the house itself, sparked and caught like tinder as flames started licking up the old wood walls.

  “Sheridan,” he said. “Tell her I didn’t mean…” he stammered.

  “Oh my God,” Nell said, looking over Sheridan’s shoulder, making her turn.

  “No!” Sheridan cried, running back to the table, trying to beat the fire down, smother it with pillows from the loveseat.