Fluke

by David Elliott

  I sipped my drink and then set it down on the counter. Unable to help myself, I walked to Sara and wrapped my arms around her waist from behind. Playfully, I said in her ear, “I don’t know what I’ll do with myself if you go to Chicago next week.”

  It didn’t have the effect I had planned. Rather than turn around and comfort me or invite me along, she tensed up in my arms. She didn’t lean back into me, and she didn’t say a word.

  I lay my head down on her shoulder and felt a horrible glimmer of failure in my belly; I was certain that things were bad, more certain than ever before.

  “You’ll be fine,” she finally said.

  I let go of her and walked back to my drink.

  I was taking a large sip when I heard her say, quietly, “Why not have your dad over while I’m gone?”

  Her comment caught me off guard enough to cause me to cough with the liquid in my throat, and I choked about half of it back out onto the counter. I reached over and pulled a paper towel off of the roll by the microwave and wiped my mouth.

  What the fuck?

  “What?” I asked.

  “I said, call your dad and invite him over,” she said, turning to face me, wooden spoon in her hand.

  The look on her face was new to me; I had never seen anger in her like this. She had been annoyed when she found out I went into her pictures, but not very. There was no question about it this time, though. Anger and resentment lined her normally beautiful, soft, and friendly features.

  “What are you talking about, Sara?” I was dumbfounded.

  “Yeah, have him over. You two can drink a beer and watch football games on the television. That’s what fathers and sons do, right? Hell, he can sleep in my bed. Why not? His hands have been inside of me, right?”

  I stared at her, mouth open, shocked.

  “When you’re done watching football, you can talk about nailing Sara. You two have that in common. It’ll be a great father-son bonding moment,” she spit the words out at me.

  “Sara…Jesus…” I started, but I had no idea what to say. I stood, staring at her, fumbling for words. None came, though. The harshness of her words had me cringing inwardly; I was revolted and completely at a loss.

  If you love her, just be there.

  Just as quickly as she had spewed anger at me, she started crying. Her features melted from anger to sadness, and she dropped the spoon in her hand onto the floor. Her hands went to her eyes, and I heard her choke, “Adam, oh God, Adam, I’m sorry.”

  In what felt like slow motion, I turned to the counter and pulled off more paper towels. As Sara leaned against the counter and cried into her hands, I knelt down and picked up the spoon, wiping the sauce from the linoleum. Killer came trotting into the kitchen and, interested in what I was doing, came to the spot and started sniffing.

  I stood and dropped the spoon into the sink and told Sara, “Go sit down. I’ll take care of dinner.”

  She walked out; I grabbed a clean spoon and stirred the sauce, which was nearly done. The noodles sat done in a pot of water, and I drained them into a silver colander and then fixed two plates up.

  How in the hell can I do anything about this? I wondered. I could be flawless and I wouldn’t be able to shake my father’s horrible legacy. I was guilty by association.

  I set our plates on the table, where Sara sat, smoking. Her eyes were red and swollen, but she was no longer crying. It was eerily similar to our first night together. Sara sat smoking at the table, and I was serving food. And, like on that first night, our worlds were changed.

  This night, though, wasn’t going to end with us in the mirror, smiling, drunk on new love.

  There wasn’t a chance of pushing anything from my mind this night. I sat down uncertainly, with my plate of unwanted pasta before me. I couldn’t concentrate for the life of me, and I was certainly doubtful of my ability to stomach the meal in front of us. I covertly glanced in Sara’s direction, our silence threatening to choke me, only to see her continuing to inhale with cigarette pressed to lips, and exhale jets of smoke, seemingly oblivious to my discomfort. I picked up my fork, and twirled the noodles lying on the plate, stomach in knots, thinking.

  Why had the situation become so crazy? The old Adam would have left a burning set of footprints on the carpet with his departure from this mind-numbingly uncomfortable setting. It would have been a hasty escape, probably with shouted words, and undoubtedly with actions that would ensure things were irrevocably finished. Accordingly, refuge would be sought at the bottom of the first bottle or two of hard liquor I could get my hands on.

  I glanced down at my hand, still idling back and forth with the fork, prongs pushing and turning noodles. Sara continued to smoke, her cigarette never seeming to diminish in size for all her puffing. Time had stopped. Our dinner was the old time reel-to-reel movie, forgotten by the cameraman, absently flipping along playing the blank, bright white frame; the only sound the thwap…thwap…thwap of the film end, slapping the machinery. A cold sweat broke along my brow, and I worried that if something didn’t happen, if words weren’t spoken soon, insanity would take me.

  The sound of Sara clearing her throat almost caused me to piss my pants, and simultaneously was reality, here and now, slapping the shit out of me.

  For the first time since I had met Sara, I began to wonder if our relationship was worth the effort of trying to salvage. There is only so much that a human being can live with, only so much that a human being can learn to forgive. And there are so many things that can never be altered, no matter the amount of effort. Things like who your biological father is.

  Or who your biological father sexually abused.

  Sara’s cigarette was finally done, and she pressed it down into the ashtray, rubbing it back and forth, ensuring every last ember was out. I watched quietly as she did this, thinking about how she hadn’t even looked my way since I sat down next to her.

  The urge to speak welled within me, and I denied it at first. Just imagining putting all my thoughts into words made my body tremble. I opened my mouth a couple of times, and it felt as if entire hours had elapsed during the span of time that I sat with it agape. I closed it each time, my world alternating between slow motion, and the speed of sound. As confusing a moment for me there never was, and by the same token, nothing ever seemed so clear.

  “Sara…” I began, the quaver in my voice very much audible to me and surely to Sara, too. “Sara…we really need to talk” I told her, gaining only the slightest control over the emotions, the fear that seemed to be spilling out of my very pores.

  Sara turned, now facing me, and nodded somberly, up and down, in the affirmative. The amber tint of her eyes hadn’t diminished in the slightest. This wasn’t any easier for her than it was for me, I supposed. Staring into those eyes, I focused on the cornea, the beautiful green of the ocean, the eyes which had hypnotized me from the first. Those “Sara eyes” caused me to falter for a brief moment that felt like eternity. I struggled. Gathering myself only with the assistance of shifting my gaze to the tabletop before starting, I spoke again.

  “It’s going to be really hard for me to stay focused on what I want to…have to tell you. So, please, just let me speak my piece for a moment.” I exhaled at this point, so that I might have the breath within me to go on. Strangely enough, my momentum picked up a little, like the proverbial snowball rolling downhill.

  “Sara, I love you. That is the first thing I need to tell you and make certain that you hear it, again. I haven’t come close to feeling this way about anyone else. Before you, everything else was child’s play. You strike chords within me…make me feel things…things that I never knew I could feel.

  “But I can never change who I am.” I moved further towards her, leaning forward in my chair. I let the fingers of my right hand come to rest on top of hers. She remained silent. I continued, delicately, lowering my voice to almost a whisper, “I can’t change the blood that’s running through me. I can’t just remove that part of myself.”
>
  She silently began to cry, and I felt the hand beneath mine, formerly rigid, soften. Fresh tears sprung from her eyes and slowly made their way down her cheeks. I stood up, used my free hand to bring my chair closer to her, and sat down again. My left hand went to her cheeks, gently brushing the tears away, but more fell to replace them.

  “I can’t ever take back who my real father is. I can swear to you that he will never be a part of our lives, and I can promise to you that I will cease to ever acknowledge his existence. I’ve told you before…I have parents, the Flukes. But what I’m afraid of, Sara, is that you will never be able to let it go, to forgive me for what he did to you.” Her crying continued, growing louder. It struck the tender places in my heart, and my brain screamed for everything to be okay, for our lives to be happy again. I felt my own eyes betraying me, making water of their own, joining the dismal party at hand.

  “But, I just can’t live like this, Sara. We can’t lead healthy lives or have something good if I’m nothing more than the ghost of him. I know that it isn’t your fault, and I am not trying to say it is. It’s his fault.” I paused, sniffing at my attacking sinuses, aware that for the first time in days I felt genuine warmth beneath my hand from Sara’s. The warmth of regret, the warmth of blood from a torn heart. My entire body felt slumped under the weight of it all. Sara watched me, sadly but kindly, as I struggled on.

  “I believe that this is something that two people just can’t get over, or past, or whatever. People just don’t work through this sort of thing. It isn’t right…”

  I swallowed hard and forced the next sentence out.

  “Sometimes not going on is the right thing.”

  There, I had said it. Goddamn it all, I said it, and I hated the words hanging there.

  “Adam…” she moaned, her voice hoarse, the flood coming in a rush now from her eyes. I knelt down beside her and hugged her, and she hugged me back, gripping me tighter than she ever had before. The tears quickly soaked my shoulder as I held her, letting my own tears come freely also. We stayed together, the regret pouring from our eyes, bound by the sadness for everything that was now destined just to be memories. For the second time that day I felt myself sinking beneath the water, drowning, losing consciousness. Heather had rescued me the first time. This time I let it all go, let the water cover me, convulsing and rocking from what I was losing.

  I was losing the love of my life.

  One Year Later

  I woke up a little late for classes this morning, cursing my cheap alarm clock for not mustering the ability to wake me with its high pitched, tinny alarm. I had been back in school for a little over three months, and my grades weren’t soaring, but they were getting better. I was becoming a good student for the first time in my life.

  I showered quickly and tossed on some jeans and a white t-shirt. After only a second of additional thought I threw on a button up over the t-shirt, leaving it un-tucked. It had been unseasonably cold the past couple of weeks. The need for long sleeves during the daytime in Florida this time of year was so strange that I had found myself parked in front of the television yesterday watching the Weather Channel for answers. I didn’t stay there long. Talk of pressure systems, arctic-like air, and all the other weather lingo didn’t seem to really tell me anything at all except that meteorologists probably spent a long time in school just learning all of those fancy terms. Later that night, writing in my journals, I concocted a short story in which, during a college weather course, the weather students go through a weather-word spelling bee to see who really is the smartest weather guy or gal. The story amused me though it was of little physical worth. Sometimes that’s what I like about many of the things I have written. They have little value except to amuse me. This past year, I had been filling ledger after ledger, writing all hours of the night. It felt like my only outlet for everything.

  I grabbed my backpack and headed downstairs to the kitchen. I could hear dishes and other kitchen items being moved about, and, more importantly, I could smell coffee. Mom was home. My dad was always gone early, and my mother usually was, but when she was here, she always made me coffee, knowing I would have to pop in to the kitchen before I left for school to get my caffeine fix.

  “Hey, honey,” she said to me, smiling as I entered the kitchen. The smile was genuine. All of my mother’s smiles were genuine, but this past year they had often been filled with what I imagine was pity or sorrow. She gave me that sad smile so often when I first moved back in. The first few months I couldn’t look at her. I averted my eyes knowing that the smile was there. She was a great mother, but I was afraid I was going to have a breakdown if any pity was visible on my behalf.

  “Morning, mom,” I answered, smiling broadly as she handed me a mug. My mom made incredible coffee, and she didn’t hound me about adding anything to it. She knew I liked it black.

  I set my bag down by the table and stepped outside. Back in the old days she would have given me one of those parental lectures about the detrimental effects of smoking on such a young man as myself. These days, things like that seemed a little trivial, and she just let it go. I sat down with a cigarette, and took the first drag, knowing that was when the first memory always came.

  It was always the same: I inhaled, and there I was again in Sara’s—our—bed. It was the last night, the night I told her I didn’t think we could be together any longer. We had just gotten into bed. We had been crying for so long, like babies, or like the victims of a horrible accident. In a way, I guess we were victims of a horrible accident: us.

  We sat in the darkness, two pairs of red, swollen eyes, and two heavy hearts. We were no longer crying; we were both just incredibly tired. I was pretty sure that my body had no water left for my eyes, and I’m sure she must have felt the same way. We each sat smoking, lost in our own thoughts, processing the finality of things. I supposed I’d move my things out while Sara was at work the next day. I figured Sean would let me sleep on his couch for a few days until I could find a new place to live. That’s what was playing through in my head when she spoke.

  “I just don’t know if I can go on without you, Adam,” she had said. It was a quiet, slow, deliberate statement.

  The exhaustion I felt at that exact moment in time may have interfered with my ability to think, to distinguish between her words being the generic end of relationship babble that I had been a part of before, the voicing of regret when people realize that this chapter in the story of their life has come to an end, and a serious plea for help. Sitting quietly in bed with Sara, who had been the rock solid entity in our relationship, I didn’t stop to think that it might be the latter.

  “Shhh…you’re going to be fine, Sara,” I had replied. The obligatory, soothing words I figured she wanted to hear, needed to hear. We didn’t speak again, not even to say good night to one another. I put out my cigarette and slid down in bed, falling asleep quickly. Sara had lit another cigarette as I pushed my head in to the soft, familiar pillow. I watched her for a moment before closing my eyes. The moon was full, and light from the window shone gently across her face. She was so very beautiful, even then.

  That was the last time that I saw Sara alive. She was gone when I woke up the next morning, and I packed my stuff in the Civic. I had a brief goodbye with Killer as I checked his food and water; he didn’t seem too concerned about my departure. Finally, I grabbed Flukey and sat him down on the table with my key between his legs.

  “Take care of your mother for me, Flukey,” I whispered to the stuffed bear.

  He just stared back at me with his shiny black eyes, as usual, as I slowly opened the door. I looked back in the living room, as sad as I’d ever been, but sure that leaving was the right thing to do, for Sara. After stalling for a few moments in the doorway, I shut the door behind me and left, bound for Sean’s.

  “Ouch! Shit!” I said, snapping out of the memory as my cigarette burned down to the point where my fingers were holding it. I dropped it and stared at the butt for a moment, smoke
coming from the other end, as it lay on the patio, before I put it in the ashtray that my mother had begun leaving outside for me. I remained sitting a minute longer, listening to the sounds of morning, birds singing, car engines turning over, the trash man somewhere down the block. Sighing heavily, I went back inside. My mother kissed me quickly on the cheek, and told me to have a good day as I grabbed my things and went to my car. I turned it on, and the Foo-Fighters remake of “Baker Street” came blaring through the speakers. Checking my mirrors, I pulled out of the driveway, and into the street. The saxophone solo from the original, replaced in this version by a guitar solo, began, and I sped off for school, feeling oddly in touch with the music as I drove.

  ****

  About eight months ago, in a blindingly drunken event, I drove to the beach with Flukey buckled in the passenger seat and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s between my legs. This was a few months after I had gotten the call from Mike, Sara’s boss at the museum, telling me that Sara was gone. I was very drunk, crying, and actually talking to Flukey. I was asking him why these things happen, who controls them, and could I have changed things. I asked him where Sara was, if she was watching us. I almost wrecked the car when I decided to give him a drink; as I poured whiskey on him, I realized was in the wrong lane. I adjusted and apologized to Flukey, but if he heard me, he didn’t say. He just stared straight ahead with his shiny black eyes, like always.

  I parked and stumbled over the dune, Jack in one hand, Flukey in the other. It was all very melodramatic to me, and in an attempt to do something symbolic, I waded waist deep into the cool water, kissed Flukey on the nose, and then threw him as far as I could toward the horizon.

  He didn’t fly very far, and a small part of my inebriated brain knew he’d just wash right back up on the beach, but I didn’t care. It seemed right.

  I’d never know, anyway, since I wouldn’t be coming back to that particular beach anymore.