The Epidemic (22 page)

The guy quickly runs his gaze over me and then turns back to Deacon. Behind him I smell stale cigarettes and musty air coming from inside. He crosses his arms over his chest as if waiting for Deacon to ask permission to come in.

“I need to talk to you, Brandon,” he says.

His brother laughs, shaking his head. “Are you kidding?”

“It’s important,” Deacon says. He stops, and swallows hard. “Is Mom home?”

“Oh, let me go fetch her for you,” Brandon answers in mock graciousness. He steps out onto the porch instead, and closes the door behind him. He walks up to Deacon, slightly shorter, and for a moment I’m scared I’ll have to break up their fight. Deacon holds his ground, though, staring down into his brother’s eyes.

“I gave you a file a while back,” Deacon says. “Do you still have it?”

“Probably.”

“Look, this is important,” Deacon says. “Do you have it or not?”

Brandon exhales heavily, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, it’s still here,” he says.

Deacon nods stoically, hiding how appreciative he really is. Reading the situation, I’m guessing Deacon is afraid his brother would use the whereabouts of the file against him—exploit any weakness. It makes me toughen my stance.

Deacon glances at the night sky and then steadies his eyes on his brother again. “I want to see her,” he says as if expecting an argument.

“It’s not a great time,” Brandon says.

“Is it ever?” he asks.

For the first time I see a small bit of sympathy in Brandon’s expression. There’s another moment of silence before Brandon turns and pulls open the screen door.

“We need a place to stay tonight,” Deacon adds, surprising me. Brandon looks back at him and scoffs.

“This isn’t a hotel,” he says.

“I know,” Deacon responds. “I paid off the mortgage, remember?”

Brandon stops, crowding the doorway. “So now we owe you something?” he asks, tilting up his chin defiantly.

“Yes,” Deacon replies simply. “And you know she owed me long before I paid off her house. She’s owed me my whole life, but I’m not here to collect, Brandon. I just need that file and a room for the night. Also, this is my girlfriend,” he says, hiking his thumb in my direction. “Be nice to her.”

Brandon huffs a small laugh, clearly unable to hate Deacon as much as he wants to. He tells us to come inside but lets the screen door slam before Deacon can catch it.

Deacon looks at me, apologetic, but I can’t even manage a smile. I’m too shocked—my mind is spinning as I try to understand this situation.

“Sorry,” he whispers, holding the door as I walk past him.

“For which part?” I murmur back.

The inside of the house is dimly lit, the smell of cigarettes thicker inside. The fabric on the arms of the plaid couch has worn off, but the living room is tidy enough. I close the door and follow Deacon as he and Brandon walk toward the kitchen.

Once there, the light improves slightly, and I find a small gray-haired woman sitting at the kitchen table. She’s smoking a cigarette, and there’s a beer can resting next to her ashtray. She’s older than I expected, well into her fifties, and she looks as worn as her couch.

She lifts her watery eyes to me first, and then she turns to Deacon. She takes a long drag of her cigarette so that the ashes fall to the table, burning a new tiny hole in the plastic tablecloth. She swipes at the area and blows the smoke out of her nose before she smiles. One of her front teeth is missing.

“It’s my boy,” she says in a smoker’s voice. “Look, Brandon.” She turns to him. “It’s your brother. Little bastard’s come home.” She says it with humor, and Brandon nods, looking incredibly uncomfortable in the small room.

“Hi, Mom,” Deacon says. He studies her, his expression betraying how her condition hurts him. Hell, it hurts me.

I see little resemblance between Deacon and his mom. Her skin is jaundiced, and she has swollen black circles under her
eyes. A quick look around the room shows at least a dozen empty cans and a liter bottle of Jack sitting on top of the trash.

Deacon pulls out a chair to sit next to her, and his mother drops her cigarette into the ashtray and immediately puts her small hand over his, gazing at him.

“You look real nice,” she says, nodding. “Real nice.”

Deacon bites down on his jaw and looks at her hand, her skin spotted and weathered. “Thanks,” he says. “Although Quinlan may not think I’m so nice right now.” He glances over his shoulder, giving me a sad smile. His mother examines me, but I’m not sure how well she can see; I think she may be drunk.

“Oh, is this your girlfriend?” she asks, waving me over. I go and sit on the other side of her, and up close I see the deep ridges of wrinkles above her lips, the yellow tint to the whites of her eyes. She seems unwell. “You’re so pretty,” she tells me, reaching to touch my chin. Her fingers are dry and rough against my skin. “I hope Deacon’s good to you. Better than he was to me. Little fucker.” She cackles.

I hear Brandon exhale behind us, like he’s embarrassed by her words. Deacon doesn’t even flinch, but my stomach is knotting up. I’m boiling over with anger and, at the same time, sympathy.

Their mother sniffles and picks up her cigarette from the ashtray, alternating puffs and sips from her Miller Lite. After a moment she looks at Deacon and smiles, as if she’s already forgotten her harsh words.

“Run out and get me some more beer, will you, doll?” she asks. “I don’t have any money, so you’ll have to—”

Deacon lowers his eyes. “Yeah, I know,” he says. “I’ll take care of it, Ma.” He pushes back from the table and motions for me to follow him.

I do, wondering if I should say good-bye to his mother. But when I look at her, she’s gazing out the window like we were never here. I pause at the door, wishing she would call for Deacon and say something kind—he seems to need it. But she doesn’t.

Deacon takes us back through the living room, and although he tries to hide it, I see him wipe at his eyes. We walk to the staircase with the missing bannister, but Brandon jogs after us.

“Deacon,” he calls. I’m afraid he’s going to start an argument with Deacon, but instead he leans against the wall, fighting back the emotion in his voice.

“You know she doesn’t mean it,” he tells Deacon. “It’s just . . . her health has gotten worse.”

“I noticed,” Deacon says, his teeth clenched.

“New hospital bills just came. They told her to quit drinking, but—”

“I’ll take care of them,” Deacon says, keeping his head down. Brandon shifts uneasily, and his guilt is evident.

“Yeah,” he says. “Model son, right?”

Deacon lifts his eyes, silencing Brandon with the look. “You could have left too,” he tells him. Brandon sneers.

“I was never as good a liar as you,” he says.

“You sure about that? Because you’re still making excuses for her.”

Brandon holds Deacon’s glare, and after a moment he nods up the stairs. “The file’s in the closet in your room,” he says, like he knew exactly where it was all along.

“Thanks,” Deacon says. He takes my hand, and we’re halfway up the stairs when Brandon says his name again.

“You in trouble?” his brother asks.

“Yeah,” Deacon says, not looking back. “I guess we are.”

Brandon considers this, and then turns away. “Well, then don’t stay too long,” he mumbles, and heads into the kitchen.

*  *  *

I let go of Deacon’s hand when we get upstairs, and he stops at a closed door at the end of the hall. The carpet runner is worn so thin it’s to the wood, and there’s only one dusty frame on the wall. It breaks my heart when I realize that the child in the picture with the messy hair and ill-fitting clothes is Deacon. His expression is solemn, and his limbs are frightfully skinny. He notices me staring and follows my line of sight to the picture, flinching when he sees it. He turns away and opens the door, peering in first as if scared there will be someone there. He pushes it open all the way and goes to sit on the bare mattress.

The room is sad and dreary. There is a small metal frame with a full-size mattress, a tall dresser with one of the drawers missing, and peeling paint along the window frame. There are several fist-size holes near the closet door.

Deacon leans forward, his elbows on his knees, as he watches me study his room. He understands what I’m doing. As closers, we’ve been in dozens of bedrooms, and we know how the little details add up—the things we take for granted. All the damaged pieces in this room reflect his broken life. His neglect.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, thinking back to all the times he and Aaron would say that kids without parents made the best closers. Although I never asked, I assumed Deacon didn’t know his family. He certainly never mentioned them.

“Because these are my demons,” he says.

I can see them on his face, a dark cloud of pain that haunts him. I have a moment where I can decide just how much I want to know. Is it my right to ask? Do any of us have the right to other people’s secrets just because we’re in a relationship?

I walk over to the bed and sit down next to him, both of us quiet. I wonder if part of the reason we’re here is because Deacon wanted to see his family. Or maybe he needed the reminder of where he came from.

“You said you chose to leave,” I start, not wanting to press too hard. Deacon turns his soft brown gaze at me.

“Did he ever tell you how he found me?” he asks. I know he’s talking about my dad.

“No,” I say. “Only an offhand mention of foster care.” It would have been rude to ask for details beyond that.

“I was never in foster care,” he says in a low voice. “I was a runaway. My mother’s an alcoholic. It can make her mean,
but mostly just negligent. I’d like to say she’s better when she’s sober, but I could count those moments on one hand.”

“What about your dad?” I ask.

Deacon shakes his head, lowering his eyes. “My father left before I formed any lasting memories of him. I try to imagine he’s dead, because otherwise he’s worse than her. Leaving us here, no money, no food. What kind of person does that?”

I swallow hard, wanting to reach for him. To tell him I’m sorry for what happened. But he already knows that, so I let him continue. He wants to get out this poison.

“When I was a baby, we had a neighbor who’d come by and make sure I got fed. She was no saint, but when she moved away, things got worse. My brother did what he could. Brandon’s five years older, and he got a job working off the books. But my mother would drink up the money. And when that was gone, she’d have us steal the alcohol—said no one would suspect a kid.

“But Brandon got caught. He did some time, and when he was released, he moved out. I was eleven, and he left me here alone with her. There was never enough food. No shoes that fit.” He looks up, and shrugs. “It’s how I got this way. I had to learn to watch people, see what they liked, see
who
they liked. Because then I would become
that kid
—the one they would help without a second thought. The one they could trust. I didn’t have to beg for anything.

“When I was fourteen,” he continues, “Brandon came back, nursing a healthy drinking habit of his own. He was right
earlier tonight when he said he wasn’t as good of a liar as me. He couldn’t get a job with his record, which had gotten longer during his absence. Soon the little bit of food I brought home wasn’t enough. I realized how much easier it would be for our mom with one less mouth to feed. How I should be that mouth.”

I think back to the day my father first brought Deacon home and fed him. I recognize the boy he’s talking about. He was hungry, distant. Watchful.

“I’d read a short article about closers on the Internet at school,” he says. “It was taken down the next day, but I remembered your father’s name: Thomas McKee. I hopped a bus to Corvallis with nothing but the fare and an address scrawled on a piece of paper. I tracked your dad to his office and marched right in and told him I was a ward of the state and I wanted to work for him. He laughed, looked around like it was a joke. But then he took a minute to stare me down and figure me out. He asked me a few questions, and every time I lied, he could tell. He was the first person who had been able to do that.” Deacon looks over at me, a hint of respect in his eyes.

“He’s the best liar out of all of us,” I say with a small bit of hurt in my voice.

Deacon nods his agreement. “I was fourteen, and Tom said I could learn,” he continues. “I told him the truth about where I was from, about my mom. I told him I hadn’t eaten in three days. Tom pulled the strings necessary to bring me into the grief department. He gave me a chance at a new life. He also
never let me forget it.” Deacon glances over. “Your dad can be a real dick.”

“Yeah, I know,” I say. “But he knows how to spot a good closer. You were probably a gift.”

Deacon sniffs a laugh, and then reaches to take my hand. He slides his fingers between mine, studying the way we fit together. Sadness rolls off him.

“And the mortgage?” I ask.

He nods. “I thought . . . I thought if I paid the bills, it would take away the stress. I thought she’d get better. But she doesn’t. I’ve finally figured out that she’ll never get better. She’d rather die this way.”

“Then why do you come back?” I ask honestly. “Why do you keep helping her?”

Deacon looks up at me, surprised by the question. “Because she’s my mother,” he says simply.

His words unexpectedly hurt me, reminding me that I don’t have a family. I don’t have someone to love just because they’re related to me.

“Is that why we’re staying the night?” I ask. “You’re worried about her?”

He shakes his head. “No, we’re staying because I needed to remember how to be stronger. I couldn’t protect my mother or my brother, but eventually I saved myself from this life. I love you, Quinn. I love you as much as I love myself, maybe more. Having survived this proves to me that I can keep us safe.”

“We protect each other,” I tell him. “We have each other’s back—that’s how closers work. We’re in this together.”

Deacon smiles, adoration clear in his expression. “You sound like a motivational poster. Should I type that up and put it over a picture of a baby sloth, or maybe—”