Fire & Water (44 page)

“Please, not yet,” she begged, but her weary eyes told me that the “happy girl” show had exhausted her.

“Mommy’s right,” Jake said. “It’s very late and I need to get going.” He looked back at me with unspeakable grief in his eyes.

Ryan’s face wilted. “You’re not staying?”

Jake never broke his gaze from Ryan’s. “I’m sorry, I can’t.” He moved so that Ryan’s face was only inches from his own. “I can’t stay with you and Mommy anymore, Ryan. I never want to scare you again—the way I did. I’m really sorry about that.”

Ryan’s voice was muffled and soft. “You’re not scary right now, and I know you didn’t mean it.”

“I would never hurt you on purpose. But I can’t always trust myself to—”

“But you’re okay now. You’re better now. I can see you’re better.”

“I am better right now. And nothing makes me happier than seeing you… and Mommy. But I can’t count on myself to stay this way. I have a sickness, Ryan. In my mind.” Jake looked up at me, his eyes cool green. “When I’m well it’s easy to forget that I can get sick again. It tricks me and everyone else. So I can’t live with you anymore, even though I want to more than anything. My sickness makes me dangerous sometimes. I never, ever want to hurt you or Mommy.”

Ryan’s chatter was quieted and she spoke between sniffs. “Are you going away forever?”

“I’m doing a project. Then I’ll be gone for a while.”

I expected Ryan to fly into a fit of rage, but the most surprising look came over her face. I didn’t recognize it at first, and it seemed foreign to her. It was the look of utter relief.

Ryan nodded. She wrapped her arms around Jake’s neck then kissed his cheek. Jake loosened, then tightened, his hold around her before finally releasing her from his embrace.

Alice appeared at our table and took Ryan’s hand. “How’s about you and I go have a cup of chamomile tea to call the old sandman?”

Ryan nodded. She labored to take each heavy step away from the table.

“Sleep well, my darling,” Jake said. “I love you.”

Just before she turned away, Ryan looked back at Jake. “I love you more, Daddy.”

Jake watched her until she disappeared up the stairs. Then his lips turned downward and creases of pain appeared across his brow. Squelched sobs escaped his throat. The sounds of a wounded animal.

Frank Sinatra’s voice floated from the jukebox. At last it seemed that Jake and I were alone—or as alone as we could be under the circumstances.

Jake sniffed and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes.

“I wish you’d called,” I whispered. “It would have been nice to prepare her.”

“I wasn’t sure I’d actually come in,” he said. “I walked around outside for an hour.” He swiped his nose with his sleeve. “She’s a stranger—” His voice caught and the rest of the sentence was pinched. “All of that babbling. She’s so nervous around me.”

My resolve to berate him melted away. He was already doing that to himself. “She’ll settle down.”

“I just want her to be okay, Kat.” He looked toward the steamy window, his ghostly image reflecting back. “Thanks for packing the boxes for me. I went to the storage unit this afternoon.”

My heart dropped to my belly.

Sinatra’s voice filled our silence.
Please have snow and mistletoe
.

“It means a lot to me that you would—” I looked into the darkness outside the window.

He reached across the table for my hands. It was the first time he’d touched me since we’d last made love months ago. But this time there was no electric charge of passion, only the throbbing ache of resignation.

“I’ll be fine.” Jake’s body was limp with defeat.

From the jukebox the melancholy song continued.
Christmas Eve will find me. Where the love light gleams.

Aching, I pulled my hands away and stirred my cold coffee, reminding myself of the distance I needed to maintain. “So you’re doing a project? Burt didn’t say anything about it.” Saying Burt’s name to Jake felt newly odd on my lips.

Jake removed his glasses, wiping them with his shirttail. “It’s something I’m doing independently. Nothing, really. It doesn’t matter.”

We sat with no words to rescue us from the residue of what we’d lived through together. Jake stood. “I should get going. You’ve got work tomorrow.”

“Actually,” I said, pulling myself from the booth and standing beside him. “I took tomorrow off to bring cider and cookies to Ryan’s class holiday party.”

A smile broke across Jake’s lips. “Dr. Room Mom, huh?”

“Just plain old Room Mom.”

“Nice.”

On his way out, Jake stepped toward my dad and extended his hand. “Thank you, Angus, for welcoming me tonight. And thanks for taking such good care of my girls. Would you extend my appreciation to Alice? And Dr. Schwartz and Tully, of course.”

“So you’re off, then?” Dad asked, shaking Jake’s hand.

“I think that’s best.”

Dad pulled Jake into a firm embrace and patted his back. “You take good care of yourself now, son.”

“I’m going to step outside with Jake for a minute, Dad. I’ll be right back.”

Dad gave me a look that told me he’d be waiting for me, right where he sat.

As we stepped out the door, Sinatra’s voice followed us:
I’ll be home for Christmas—if only in my dreams.

The storm had quieted. Silent rain fell. Jake and I stood in the shelter of the entryway, surrounded by holiday lights. He pulled me to his chest in a hungry embrace. After a while he allowed a small space to creep between us. Clouds of breath hung before his face. “I thought the love we have would be enough, Kat. Honest to God I did.”

I shivered from the chill and Jake pulled my sweater around me.

“You’re a great mom,” he whispered.

“I make mistakes every day.”

Cars passed on Lincoln Avenue, tossing rooster tails of water from their tires. Headlights sliced through the darkness, splashing light onto us as they passed. “What did my dad say to you?”

Jake’s laughter rang out into the night, full and hearty. I couldn’t help but laugh with him. He donned an exaggerated version of my father’s brogue. “I love you like a son, Jacob. But make so much as a move to harm the ones I love and the sole of my boot will be across your throat before your heart has a chance to pound its next beat.”

“And Tully,” he added. “I thought that scrawny little guy was going to clock me for sure. He can deliver some serious stink-eye.”

The sound of my own laugh surprised me. “Alice deployed a hydration strategy. Maybe she thought you couldn’t do any damage with an over-full bladder.”

The sparkle of our laughter faded. We stood with only crackling silence between us, broken by the sounds of traffic and rain. “Good-bye” was a poison I could not inflict. Jake leaned toward me, then stopped with his mouth just millimeters from mine. Only when I moved toward him did he kiss me. Our tears mingled, flavoring the sweetness of the kiss with their salt.

His fingers traced the line of my jaw. When he pulled away, it felt that a piece of my own flesh had been torn. He stood for a moment, just outside of the alcove where I could hear the raindrops plopping onto his shoulders. The streetlight lit him from behind, denying me the details of his face.

I watched until he was swallowed by the night.

Rain

The overnight rain cleared, leaving behind a biting chill and a cloudless sky. The towers of the Golden Gate Bridge stood like powerful shoulders against the moody wind that shook my car and snapped the scarves of tourists as they posed for pictures along the railing.

Jake’s surprise visit the night before had left me feeling raw. I wanted Dr. Gross to help Ryan to manage it all. I wished she could help me manage it, too. Even in Friday, holiday traffic, I was glad to be on the way to her office. “How you doing, Noodle?” I asked as we crossed the bridge. In my rearview mirror Ryan’s reflection shrugged and stared, expressionless, into the distance.

I gripped the wheel tighter against the wind that tugged at the car. “It was a nice party in your class. Your friends seemed to like Alice’s cider.”

Another shrug.

“How about we have supper at Pacific Café on the way home? You always like the crab there.”

“Sure. Whatever.” Ryan’s voice contained no petulance, only sorrow.

* * *

Wordlessly, Ryan designed a scene in the tray of sand. She scooped sand, moving it until it formed mountains separated by a canyon. She selected the small paper rabbit from the cigar box she’d brought that contained the gifts Jake had sent to her from the hospital. She placed the rabbit atop the highest of the hills. On the hill next to the rabbit she placed four figures: a jester, Glinda the Good Witch, a bear, and an armored knight. At the canyon’s edge, she erected a fortress of seashells and stones. Then she placed a second, larger rabbit next to the small one. She added the warrior princess to the scene, a sentry at the river’s bank.

The wizard remained on the shelf. I wondered if he would be forgotten today.

In a single, decisive movement, Ryan snatched the wizard. With a jerk she snapped the scepter held in his left hand and broke the crystal ball from his right. The muscles in my jaw tightened and I held my breath, startled by her silent violence. She replaced the wizard on the shelf next, but with his face turned to the wall. Then she dropped the scepter and sphere into a hole she’d dug and smoothed sand over the top. Lastly, she adorned the hill with a circle of colored stones. She stood to the side.

“So the wizard isn’t in your tray today,” Dr. Gross observed softly.

“No,” Ryan said. “He lost his magic powers.”

“And the rabbit has some company on her hill.”

Ryan nodded. “She likes it better when she’s not alone.”

Ryan’s face smoothed and her breathing deepened into a calm rise and fall. Her brows lifted. She looked up at me. “It’s done, Mommy. I’m hungry. Can we go to Pacific Café now?”

* * *

We drove along Bridgeway in Sausalito. It was only six-thirty, but winter had already dropped its dark curtain on the day. Tourists with their shoulders scrunched to their ears bustled on the sidewalks, ducking into art galleries and trinket shops trimmed in holiday lights. We snaked toward the bridge behind a slow trail of cars.

“How come it’s so slow?” Ryan asked from the back seat.

“Friday night, I guess. Holiday traffic. And this crazy wind makes everybody nervous driving.”

“How long till we get to Pacific Café? I’m starving.”

“I don’t know, baby.”

I wanted to talk to her about the sand tray, to let her know that I would always protect her. But I resisted interpreting the scene she’d created, as Dr. Gross had advised.

After only a block, the traffic came to a halt. I turned the radio to KGO for a traffic report. “… worst disaster in Golden Gate Bridge history…”

“What happened, Mommy?”

“Shh. I don’t know yet.” Just then my pager went off, buzzing at my hip. I squinted, reading Mary K’s telephone number. I turned off the radio and pulled my cell phone from my purse, fumbling to dial.

“Are you okay?” she asked. Her voice was shrill. “Is Ryan with you?”

“Fine. We’re just trying to leave Sausalito. Traffic’s miserable.”

“So you haven’t heard?”

I turned to look at Ryan, who sat in the backseat manipulating a strand of yarn into Jacob’s Ladder.

“Look,” Mary K said, her voice softer but still insistent. “The Bridge is closed. Pull off and get a room. Whatever you do, don’t turn on the TV. I’ll get on the ferry and be there within the hour.”

“What is it?” The note of alarm in Mary K’s voice raised smoky fear within me.

“Just do what I say, Murphy. I’ll be there as fast as I can. Call me when you’ve got a room. Keep Ryan away from the TV. I’ll let everyone at the pub know you’re okay.”

The traffic was my excuse to Ryan for renting a hotel room. As soon as we got a room, I called Mary K with our location. Ryan drew pictures of nesting birds in her sketchpad. I stared out the window toward the bay with San Francisco’s twinkling skyline in the distance. Every cell in me itched to turn on the TV, but if I’d learned nothing else, I’d learned to trust Mary K.

A firm rap came at the door.

“I’ll get it!” Ryan squealed and bounded for the door.

“Yay! You brought Welby to our sleepover.” Mary K entered the room. Her shoulder sagged under the weight of the same knapsack I’d seen her carry into our Stanford dorm room twenty years before. My throat clutched when I saw my ashen-faced friend. Welby pranced toward Ryan, his collar tags jingling.

“Can we have dogs in the hotel?”

“Welby’s no dog, kid. You know that.”

“I know. I know,” Ryan said with a roll of her eyes. “He’s a wise old soul in canine form.” She took the leash from Mary K and led the dog across the room.

Mary K ruffled Ryan’s hair. “Hey, keep an eye on the mutt, would you? There are training treats in my pack. I want to talk to your mom for a minute.”