Love Deluxe (25 page)

Chapter Eighteen

The movers would start packing up my house the next day; I wandered through the rooms and stuck post-it notes on furniture to take and furniture to store. The house was so beautiful, idyllic, my dream house, once. I picked up my purse and keys and drove to my shop, unlocked the door and went inside. It smelled of Christmas candles, fresh pine cones and furniture wax, a smell I knew and loved. Mother had done an excellent job working the antiques from Florida into the rooms.

I moved through the space admiring the lovely vignette’s my partners and I had created in our engaging little shop. I stopped short in front of the palm tree painting, I’d had it shipped from Florida and it had been uncrated and tagged “not for sale.” It would hang on the large wall in the living room of the carriage house and I knew immediately I would create an ethereal jewel box of a home with the painting at its center. I wanted to call McKay, hear his voice and wish him Merry Christmas. I took out my cell phone and sent a text instead, “Hope your holidays are merry, Cate S.”
Was that cold,
I wondered?

My cell phone rang, I glanced at the screen and answered quickly, “McKay? I didn’t mean to bother you.”

“Cate S, huh? Well, I am bothered by you and I wish you were here, you’ve messed up my mind.”

“I’m so sorry that I kissed you, I shouldn’t…”

“I’ve had too much to drink today and no, you shouldn’t have kissed me and left. I should’ve made love to you when you were calling my name, I shouldn’t have let you go.”

We were quiet for a long time, I thought he might have hung up, “McKay?”

“I’m here,” he said, his voice was calmer.

“I’m married,” I said, and it sounded like a plea.

“To a boy, Cate.”

“That’s cruel, it isn’t like you. You’re decent and good.”

“Good?” He laughed, “Well, Cate Stuart, I’m sick of being good. I should have walked through that door when you were moaning for me.”

“It was locked,” I said, and my voice was shaking.

He laughed quietly, “Ah Cate, don’t you think I have the key?”

***

John hadn’t called or answered my phone calls all day. I tried him again, it went to voicemail, “Hey, buddy, where are you? Did your mom make a carrot cake for you? Okay, well, don’t drink and drive, call me, I miss you.”

At home I opened a bottle of wine and poured a glass. I drank and walked through the dark house, remembering the sound of Henry’s steady steps on the marble floors. How I’d craved that sound for so many years. I’d kiss him the minute he got home from work and ask about his day but we were always anxious to talk about Brooks. What a wonder he was, we would say, how brilliant and funny and good. While we talked I looked into Henry’s eyes and saw the miracle that only he and I really knew, that somehow our love had made this boy. Had formed him from our union and he was perfect, the best of us and more. We delighted in him and adored him as the earth adores the sun; we wanted nothing more than to be eternally tethered to his spectacular glow.

After Brooks was gone, I came to dread the sound of Henry climbing the stairs at night. He’d have a gin and tonic in hand and was already drunk as he leaned against the bedroom door. 

“I know why it happened,” he would say and he had a new reason every night.

“I don’t want to know,” I would tell him. “It doesn’t matter
why
. All that matters is that he’s gone and he isn’t coming back, and I don’t need you to explain it away or think you can make it all better.”

In the early months, he would cry as he told me his imagined reasons for our son’s death, sometimes he couldn’t help but howl like an animal in pain. At some point I stopped listening and simply popped a couple of Xanax and an Ambien the minute I heard his foot on the stairs. I would turn my back to the doorway and pray for sleep. Eventually he stopped coming to our bedroom and we slept apart for the rest of his life.

Someone from the packing crew was leaning on the doorbell. I put on my robe and let them in, do your thing, I told them; ask if you’re not sure what’s what. They went about their business and I dressed in sweats and moccasins and walked outside. The sun was pale and far away and the streets were deserted and gloomy. It was cold but I warmed up as I walked, I kicked the fallen oak leaves and crunched acorns underfoot. I worried about John, afraid to let myself contemplate his father inflicting new pain on him.

I zig-zagged through the neighborhood and certain spots along the way lit up in memory as I passed— the swing where Brooks fell as a toddler and needed his first set of stitches, the house with the best Halloween candy, the kind couple who let him ring the doorbell again and again, repeating “trick or treat” as if each time was the first. The trees he loved to climb, the fearsome barking dog, gone now, that he would never give up on and finally befriended, feeding him hot dogs through the fence.

I am not going far, my angel, only a few miles.
Would he find me, would he ever care to see, remember that I was his mother? I didn’t dream of him, although I would’ve traded my soul for just one glance but he never came to me, never sent me peace. He had at first, when I was so lost I wouldn’t believe I could hear his voice but words would echo in my mind— “Mom, you’ll be here in a minute and you’ll see.”

Later, the grief counselor told me there is a belief; common to all religions, that after death the soul can linger near the earth for thirty days should it so choose. I always felt my son’s soul shot up to heaven so fast he didn’t have time for worldly cares. Later I remembered those words, but what may be moment only a minute for him is literally a lifetime for me.

***

The Range Rover was in the driveway when I got home. I took the stairs two at a time, eager to see my husband and shake my melancholy mood. His clothes were on the bedroom floor, scattered in a path to the bathroom; the shower was running and steam billowed out.

I shed my sweats and stepped in with him. “There’s my sweetie,” he said and reached for me. I wrapped my arms around him and hid my face in his neck, one of my favorite places in the world. I felt him harden against my thigh and I pressed my body tightly to his and he winced. I looked up at him through the thick mist, his face hidden. I turned off the water and as the air cleared I saw that he’d been badly beaten.

“Oh!” My hands went to his face, a cut under his eye dripped blood, his other eye and his jaw and mouth were bruised. As the air cleared, I could see the beginnings of purple bruises and cuts on his upper body. “Were you in a car wreck? My God, what’s happened?”

“Bar fight,” he said with a sad smile.

We stepped out of the shower and I examined his hands to assess the damage, they were smooth and unmarked. I looked up at him and he wouldn’t meet my eyes, the cut beneath his eye gaped open, he pressed his fingers to it to staunch the blood. I stood unmoving for a moment trying to understand, then I handed him a cloth to hold against the cut and said, “That’s going to need stitches.”

John protested all the way to the emergency room and gave three different scenarios to the doctor as his face was sewn up.

“I’m going to be disfigured,” he said when we left the hospital, he was jovial since he’d insisted on a pain shot and a prescription for Vicodin. At the drugstore he handed over the slip of paper and the pharmacist looked at the cut, (which was deep but not too wide, only four stitches) and she asked if he was prescribed antibiotics. He pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket, waved it in the air and said, “Yep, but don’t really need them.”

The pharmacist looked at me and I knew we were both thinking,
dumb ass
, but she said, “Yes, I think you do. If that cut becomes infected it could scar.”

He handed it over and put his arms around me, hands on my butt, “That would suck; my baby won’t want me if I’m not pretty.”

I moved his hands away; turned to the pharmacist and said, “He had a shot of Demerol at the hospital.”

She pursed her lips and returned to her pill counting.

John went straight to bed the minute we get home and I paced the floor wondering what really happened. Did he go somewhere and gamble, get in a dice game with a bunch of thugs, get thrown out on his ass while trying to get an upgrade? I checked on him from time to time but he was totally out of it and feeling no pain. Demerol and Vicodin, he’d probably be out for days. I took my bath, put on my lotions and potions and scooted into bed next to his impossibly warm body. He felt feverish so I uncovered him but he groaned and jerked the sheet and comforter up to his chin. I got up, checked the bottle of antibiotics and realized he hadn’t bothered to take one. I brought him water and a pill and tried to get him to take it, he clamped his mouth shut and squirmed away. I finally whisked the bedding back and told him he could swallow it or I’d insert it elsewhere, he raised up on his elbows, gave me a
fuck you
look with his two black eyes and took the pill.

“Poor baby,” I crooned as I threw the French doors open to the December cold, then plastered myself against his burning body and drifted off to sleep. 

In the morning John was still sleeping as if his life depended on it. I removed the bottle of Vicodin from the bedside table and tried to coax him to sit up and take an antibiotic. No sound or movement, I touched his face and it was cold, “Oh God!” I cried, panicking I ripped the sheet off. He made a small noise, his hand went to his erection and he barely opened his eyes.

“Damn it. You scared the shit out of me, I swear, you would roll over and grab your dick if you were in a coma.”

“What? What’s wrong with you?” I heard him call after me as I stormed out of the room.

“At least get up and go pee.” I yelled, “I’m leaving.”

“Wait,” he called from the top of the stairs as I was walking out the door. I turned and looked up; he was stark naked swaying over the rail.

“Sit down, hurry before you fall, dammit.”

He sat on the top step and said, “Did you make me take an antibiotic? Man, those things are lethal, they knocked me on my ass.”

“Right,” I said, climbing the stairs. “Here, hang on to me and I’ll help you to the bathroom.”

“I don’t need to pee.”

“Are you serious? You’ve been asleep for like, fifteen hours, what do you have, the biggest bladder on Earth?”

He gave me a crooked grin and I knew he was going to be fine.

***

“I look like a truck hit me.” John climbed in the car, I drove, and he examined his face in the mirror.

“Too bad, not a pretty boy anymore. Awe, don’t so look hurt,” I said, laughing at my little joke.

“Where are we going? I look fucking bad, where are my pain pills?”

“You took them all,” I lied. “We’re going to
Panchito’s
and if you don’t tell me what happened you can walk home.”

“I don’t want to talk about it. Where are my fucking pills? Who the fuck are you, my mom?”

I swerved into the nearest parking lot and slammed on the breaks so hard that his head snapped back against the headrest.

“What the fuck?” he yelled.

“Get out of the car. Now!” I screamed.

“Calm down and drive,” he said. “Fuck.”

I turned toward him, blood pounding in my ears and said, “No, I’m not your mom but I might as well be since you act like a fucking two year old. And if you say fuck one more time I am going to smash the front of your fucking car into that fucking pole, so shut the fuck up or get out! Got it fucker?”

He looked so shocked I wanted to laugh, but I didn’t because I was furious and I was trying to hate him, but I couldn’t.

“I’m sorry, buddy. You’re right, I better lay off the Vicodin, you can flush the whole bottle. I guess maybe I got a little addicted to them.”

“You’ve been taking pain pills? For how long?”

“Since, the vasectomy, I guess, off and on. Wait, I took yours too.”

“Where do you get them?” I asked, “Did you have a refill on your prescription?”

“No. Just from people around, everybody has them, you can get prescription meds from anyone.”

“Anyone where? On the streets?” I was dumbfounded.

“No, like Chris the carpenter and the desk guy at the Easter Egg Motel.”

“Are you insane? Those could be rat poison, John, or drain cleaner. I’m sure there are little molds they use to make them. Do you want to fry your brain or have a stroke or kill yourself?” I leaned my forehead against the steering wheel and whispered, “You have to stop.”

“I will, I am, I’m done, I promise. Don’t hate me, please, tell me you don’t hate me.”

“I don’t hate you.”

***

We ate in silence, finally John said, “A nun, a priest and a gorilla walk into a bar.”

I gave him a ‘go straight to hell’ look and he said, “Sorry, are we not talking?”

“We just had a fight, you’re a drug addict, you’ve been severely beaten and I have no idea why or by whom. So, no, I guess we’re not talking.”

“No,” he said, “I don’t want us to fight, ever. Those were just stupid words; say we didn’t fight, please.”

“No, I won’t say it,” I took a bite of food, struggled to swallow.