by Ginger Scott
“Hang on,” he says, pursing his lips at me, and squinting for a second more. “Dad! Some guy’s here. He’s not selling anything!”
I chuckle to myself, but stay still at the doorway while Cole walks away leaving the door wide open. A few seconds later, his father steps around the corner. He recognizes me instantly—his feet almost skidding to a stop. His hair has grayed, and thinned. He has glasses on, pulled to the edge of his nose, and his body is thinner than I remember.
“Mr. Burke,” I say. I work hard to keep my voice even, to keep my mouth in an almost smile, to keep my eyes non-threatening. He has to know why I’m here. And he has to think I’m pissed. I am pissed. But I also think the man in front of me has been through hell and back—he’s wearing his depression like a coat.
“Why are you here?” he asks, his question more of a grumble really as he fumbles his glasses from his face, pushing them in his pocket. He steps outside, closing the door behind him, then guides me to an open chair next to a bench on the end of their wooden porch.
He picks up a pillow and slides it across the wood, clearing it of dirt and debris, then motions for me to sit. I’d rather stand. I feel stronger, more in charge when I stand. Nick Meyers always made me sit when I was called to his office. I give in to Emma’s father, though, and he quickly sits across from me, his body heaving out a breath.
He’s afraid.
“I’m sorry to just show up. Really…I…hmmmm,” I pause, running my hand along my face with a small chuckle. “Look…Mr. Burke.”
“You can call me Carl, Andrew,” he says. His eyes are tired, maybe a little sad, too.
I acknowledge his attempt to be civil with a tight smile before I lean forward, my hands clasped in front of me as my elbows rest on my knees. I tried not to look like a punk today. Normal jeans, a gray shirt, plaid button-down and my black hat—I debated on the gauges, but I ultimately decided the big holes sagging in my ears would put him off more. He keeps glancing at them, though, so I’m not sure I was right.
“I came for some answers. Well…one answer, mainly,” I say, my hands wringing in front of me. I twist the silver ring around my thumb nervously, and eventually it falls off, rolling along the crooked planks of wood between us, coming to rest against his work boot. He reaches down to pick it up, clasping it in his fist as he closes his eyes.
“You want to know why we lied,” he says.
My lungs collapse, and I struggle to fill them again. I expected confrontation. I expected denial.
I didn’t expect this!
I don’t speak, but nod slowly, my eyes waiting for his to open. When they do, they seem even more lost than they were when he first spotted me at his doorway.
“Katherine, Emma’s mother, had pancreatic cancer,” he says. His eyes fall even more, but their color—the same gray in Emma’s—begins to grow darker.
“I’m very sorry, sir. I heard,” I say, bowing my head. It’s hard to see his pain—it feels too familiar.
“Thank you. It’s been a couple years, but losing Kate was hard,” he says.
“I understand,” I say back quickly. We both stare into each other’s eyes for a moment, and I can tell he respects the connection we both share—for loss.
“I’m sorry about what you’ve been through, Andrew. With your father…and with James,” he says. I can tell he means it.
“Thank you,” I say.
Carl leans back, the wood of the bench creaking with his weight. He folds his hands at his chest as he studies me. I remain frozen, my thumbs locked together, folded over my clasped hands. I’m willing him to give me answers—I’m hoping it gives me some sort of clue.
“Come with me,” he says, suddenly leaning forward and getting to his feet. I stand in response and follow him into his house, the screen door slamming closed behind us.
We wind through a formal living room and dining area that I doubt has been used since Emma’s mother died. I doubt it’s been cleaned since then, either, the rings of dust deep around coasters and lamps. I trail Carl to a small space in the back of the house that looks like a den, an old desk taking up the center, and boxes piled around the walls. The small dog comes into the room behind us, and when Carl sits in the chair, bending down to pull out a low drawer in the desk, the dog rushes over to him, jumping on his lap.
“Teddy, not now,” he says, scooping him and dropping him on the floor. He glances up at me. “Hazard of the job,” he smirks. I had forgotten—Emma’s father is a dogcatcher.
I bend down, and Teddy scurries up to me, putting his front paws on my knees. I scratch at his chin.
“I always wanted a dog,” I say, chuckling slightly.
“You want this one?” Carl says, I think only half kidding.
I rub my thumbs behind Teddy’s ears, watching his tail wag, until Carl leans back again in his chair, a file folder in his hands. He lays it on the desk, flipping it open, nodding for me to look.
I move to his side as he rolls his chair out a little to make room for me. When I begin to slide out the clippings and photos, my stomach lurches. The first thing I notice is a photo that appears to have been printed out at home—Emma in a hospital gown. Her hair is just as it was the last time I saw her before Lake Crest, her eyes look happy—hopeful even—though maybe a little sunken in, and her mom is sitting on the edge of the hospital bed with her.
“Did Emma…donate bone marrow or something?” I feel insensitive asking the question, but I don’t understand what I’m looking at, and the potential of what it might mean terrifies me to the point that I have to kneel next to the desk, no longer able to stand.
“No,” Carl chuckles softly, picking the photo up and pulling his glasses out to study it closer. “No…this was the day Emma got her heart.”
“Her…I’m sorry…” I stumble with my words.
“I didn’t think she told you. She was funny like that. I think it was her age, wanting to prove how normal she was, what she could do. I get it…she just wanted people to treat her normal,” he says.
“I’m sorry, Carl. I’m…I’m not following. Emma…she needed a heart? Was it the accident? Did something happen?” My mind is racing with dozens of questions. I understand getting cut and bleeding; I understand how burns and bruises heal. If this were mechanics, I would be able to get what Emma’s father was saying, but this is Emma’s world—medicine and biology and a broken body. I don’t understand, and I can’t help but feel like it’s my fault, and that’s why her parents never told her where I was.
My head is sweating, and I tug my hat off and run my hand through my hair, huffing for air. I fall back on my heels and land on my ass, bending my knees up and staring straight ahead.
“Andrew, it’s okay. She’s okay now, and no…this wasn’t from the accident,” he says. I barely register him, but nod in response.
“What…what was wrong with her?” I ask.
He sighs, sliding some photos around in the folder before pulling out a piece of paper and handing it to me. I read a few words along the top, something about New Hampshire Hospital, left ventricles, medications. It’s dated the year before I met Emma.
“Emma was born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome. Basically, half of her heart worked, and the other half was broken. She had three surgeries before we turned to the transplant. That’s when you met her—when she was waiting on the list. We moved here for a doctor. Dogcatchers and phone-bank workers—we’re not exactly rolling in the dough,” he says, his lip inching up on one side in a half smile. I reflect it with one of my own. I don’t say it out loud, but turns out young men with juvenile records don’t make a lot of dough either. I’m hopeful that will change, though.
“This doctor, Dr. Wheaton, she performed Emma’s surgery for free. But we still had to wait for her to come up on the list,” he says, his eyes wandering back to the folder. I slide the diagnosis sheet up, and he folds it in with the other papers. “Her heart finally came…about a month after that accident you two had.”
He doesn’t try to mask the disapproval in his voice, and I cower a little under it. I lower my gaze, but I don’t acknowledge it any more. That accident has taken up too much of my life.
“While I was at Lake Crest,” I say instead, wanting to talk about where I was, and why Emma couldn’t know.
“Yes,” he says, not even flinching.
His conviction causes me to look up, and our eyes lock again. We keep coming to the same civil standoff.
“I would have supported her…through that…her surgery? If I had known,” I say, swallowing hard. “I wrote her letters. I would have written her every day, tried to call…”
I stop when I see his face fall, his lips pursed, a hint of regret perhaps shadowing his expression.
“You know I wrote her letters. You…you never gave them to her,” I say, that sick feeling from when I stepped out of my car coming over me again in a wave. It’s quiet for almost a full minute, the only sound the papers shuffling back into the folder, the drawer being pulled open and Carl’s chair sliding back from the desk as he stands. I pull myself up to stand with him, following him back from the den toward the front of the house. He stops in the kitchen.
“Can I get you a water? I don’t have much, but…I have water,” he says.
I laugh once under my breath and look back to the room on one end of the hallway and the doorway to my car on the other. All of this—and I still don’t have the answers I needed, the closure I needed—I’m still the fuck-up from that family everybody talks about.
“Sure, I’ll take a water,” I sigh. He reaches in and pulls out a small bottle, wiping the condensation away with a towel on the counter before handing it to me. I hold it up, clutched in my hand, and smile tightly before whispering a sarcastic “Thanks.”
Carl pulls the top from his and guzzles about half down before setting the bottle on the counter behind him. I twist my cap off and move my bottle to my lips, my eyes meeting Carl’s in between drinks. I shuffle my feet, readying myself for Carl to show me out.
“I couldn’t lose them both,” he says. I startle a little, not expecting any more answers from him. I lower my brow, but wait for him to give me more. “I knew Kate was sick when we moved here. We were hoping for a better prognosis, and had been seeing new doctors in the city. But their answers were all the same.”
He relaxes into the counter behind him, his hands finding the edge and squeezing as he looks up to the ceiling. When his eyes fall back down to mine, they’re red and glassy. “I couldn’t lose them both, Andrew. And I was afraid if Emma stayed with you—”
“You were afraid I’d ruin her,” I finish for him. My eyes shut with the realization, with my delivery of the sentence and final act of what went wrong between me and Emma Burke.
“It’s not about your family, Andrew. I know what you’re thinking, and don’t. It isn’t about that—it never was,” he says.
My gut tells me he’s lying.
“When we got the call to pick her up that night at the police station, our world was rocked. She was this close…this close…to having a fresh start, to having a chance,” he says, his lips a hard line, the rest of what he wants to say only a breath away. I stare into his eyes and dare him. “You were drunk, and you were high, Andrew. Drunk…and high!”
I roll my shoulders and take his condemnation. I nod slowly, my lips forcing themselves into a defensive smile and eventually a chuckle. I look down to the side as I reach into my pocket for my keys.
“Says the Woodstock Town Police report,” I seethe.
“They convicted you, Andrew. A year in detention…”
“Ah…reform school,” I correct smugly, holding one finger up. I shake my head at him, my insides feeling as if I’ve just gone a round in the ring. I open my mouth, but I’m smart enough to know that whatever I say next, if I speak right now, it won’t be nice. So I close my lips instead and hold up my water to him. “I’m gonna take this with me, for the road, if that’s okay?”
I turn and move to the door, not expecting his steps behind me. He’s several paces back, and I know he’s relieved to know I’m leaving. My thoughts dart to so many possibilities—racing one minute to the lost opportunities I had with Emma then quickly to everything she was probably told. The questions boil fast, and before I reach for the latch on the screen, I stop.
“I just need to know…did you tell Emma that I was drunk and high? Or did you keep that to yourself, too?” His face is ghost white, a mix of shame and indignant self-righteousness. “You know what? Never mind…I’ll ask her myself.”
I see him lurch toward me just before I close the door behind me. I don’t know if he followed me. My pace was swift back to my car, and I never once glanced back at the broken house and broken man I was leaving.
* * *
I cashed in one more sick day for my trip to Emma’s dad’s this morning. But my face was already returning to normal. My only class today was mathematic theory, and I’ve already completed the practice work and reading, so I gave myself permission to skip that, too. I haven’t missed one yet this semester, so it shouldn’t raise any flags with coach. It’s our off day, but I’ve been itching for the ice. Trent has a full schedule today, though, and he won’t be home until well after five. My boiling blood won’t wait that long, so after an hour pacing our apartment and throwing a racquetball against the wall to the point that one of our senior neighbors came over to ask me to “stop the partying,” I head to Harley’s gym.
The place is hopping for the middle of the day, so I work in with one of the regulars. I spend an hour not talking, only rushing my taped fists into another guy’s gloves and chest. He pops me in the jaw a few times, but the familiar heat that usually accompanies it never comes. It seems I’ve been hit so much that I’m finally immune. Or maybe, I’m so angry that it’s going to take more than what this featherweight can serve up to help me.
“Harp, I’m out,” my partner says, slicing his glove in front of his face at his neck. He’s calling it. I frown at him. “Dude, we’ve been going an hour. I come here for the workout, man. But I also have to get my ass to class.”
I nod at him, my hard breathing catching up to me as I lean on the ropes. I pull the tape from one hand and reach my palm out to shake his, pulling the other hand free of tape as he grabs his bag and leaves the gym.
My heart rate feels faster than normal—spikes of adrenaline still pushing through it. I force myself to breathe long and deep, dropping my head into my hands so I can focus and really listen to my rhythm. What a simple thing—a heartbeat.
Emma’s heart…it didn’t do this. Or not…quite like this. I looked up her condition as soon as I got home. I read about the surgeries she probably had when she was young, and then I thought back to how her skin felt the only time I touched it. It was over her bra, and in a dark car—the stolen moments of two teens in lust. I never felt a scar.
My mind is lost in the past, and that’s why I don’t see him coming. But his words yank me right out of the puzzle I’m trying to solve, and they drop me into hostile territory.
“Nick Meyers said you were a fighter,” he says. My head jerks up at the mention of his name, my hands forming fists instantly, my breathing picking up its pace, like an engine revving. Graham, Emma’s just some guy, stands on the floor in front of me, two feet lower than the ring. He’s wearing cut-off sweatpants and a tank top that squeezes his large frame.
“Nice to see you again, Graham,” I practically choke on his name. “I didn’t know they were letting assholes in here now.”
He laughs at my response, but he doesn’t think I’m funny. He doesn’t think I’m funny at all. His eyes fall to his feet as he kicks at an old, dried piece of gum stuck to the floor.
“Harley, you’re really letting this place fall to shit. You need to get an intern or something, someone to come through here and clean every once and a while,” he shouts, then glances up at me, his eyes slits as they take me in. “Maybe this guy can be your intern.”
&nb
sp; Harley walks over slowly, and I study him, watching every nuance as I try to decide if he and Graham are friends. He never smiles, and when he stops in front of us both—equal distance between us—he folds his arms and frowns. I’m not sure what Graham is to Harley or how he knows him, but he isn’t a friend. More than that—what does Graham have to do with Nick Meyers?
“I said I’d talk to him, Graham. Let the kid cool off. I’ll catch up with you later, okay?” Harley grumbles.
Graham’s smile slides wider as he nods.
“A’right,” he says. I cough down a laugh when he speaks and Harley shoots me a look to keep my mouth shut. I can’t help it—this dude sounds like a poser trying to talk all tough and shit. I’ll give him this; he’s bigger than me, and he looks like he knows how to throw a punch. But he also wore pink pants the last time I saw him.
“Hey, I’ll say hi to Emma for you,” he winks before walking away. My entire body flexes. Harley notices, and he holds his hand up to stop me.
Once Graham rounds the door, I turn my focus to Harley, who’s staring back at me with equal intensity.
“You wanna tell me how you know Graham Wheaton?” he asks, chewing at the inside of his mouth. Harley looks like a Marine—what he lacks in height he makes up for in bulk. He’s always been into fitness and boxing, and when you combine his build with his smarts, he’s perfect for this business.
“I just met the guy. We don’t…gel,” I say.
“I can see that,” he says, lifting the ropes for me to slide through. I climb out and turn a chair around, straddling it and resting my arms on the back.
“How do you know Graham Wheaton?” I ask, not liking the fact that this asshole has now ruined two things that make me happy—my gym, and Emma.
“He’s my biggest investor. Well, his father is, at least. His dad’s into real estate. We have a deal. He comes here to work out. He’s got some skills,” Harley says, downplaying that last part. I can tell he’s not giving Graham the fighting credit he probably deserves, and I think it’s because on a personal level, Harley likes me better.