Satisfied that the kids are maintaining a safe distance, Robin turns her attention back to Cyril, extending an open palm toward him. Motherhood has made her an expert at rapidly switching gears. “What I mean is, you just... jumped from one fantasy world to another.”
“What else was I going to do for five years?” Or, as he’d originally thought, ten? “And,” he adds, unable to resist the chance to push her buttons, “seven years was a pretty good run. Longer than most relationships last, anyway.”
“What we had was not a—” She puts a hand to her forehead, sighs, and then laughs. Refusing to take the bait. “You know what, I’m gonna get some coffee. You want a doughnut?”
It’s obvious, what she’s doing: sparing him the ordeal of going inside. Or perhaps sparing the other patrons the ordeal of dealing with him. “Fuck off.”
“You used to be so much more creative with your insults. Profanity shows a lack of imagination, my dad always said. Honestly, Cyril, I worry you’ve lost your edge.” She leans around him, beckoning the kids as the burly man on the motorcycle rumbles off. “Come pick your doughnuts, guys!”
Cyril stands there on the sidewalk as the kids barrel back to the window, stewing in his own bootless anger. He is supposed to be on the offensive. She is supposed to be the angry one. There has been a fundamental shift in their relationship, and he’s not so willfully blind that he can’t see what it is. It’s not just that he’s beholden to her for his freedom—that’s merely an external expression of a far deeper alteration. Once, Tav’s letters had been her road map; her compass; her northern star. She had read them nightly, until the printouts were worn past reading, but it didn’t matter because she knew every word by heart.
And now she knows those words were his. He can deny it all he wants, but she knows she owns him, body and soul.
“That one!” Nora presses her face to the glass in front of a chocolate doughnut with rainbow sprinkles and chomps noisily on the fabric of her mask.
“Quit that.” Robin gives her a thump on the side of the head. “Seth?”
He points to a bear claw, carefully not touching the glass.
She cocks an eyebrow at Cyril. He looks away. “George is in line, so I’m gonna be a minute. I need to talk to him about my trusses.” As if he has the slightest fucking clue what trusses are. She leans into the glass door, bell clinking as she steps inside.
“Can we go to the plaza? Please?” Seth hops into view, front and center. He points to the corner. “Please?”
“Yeah!” Nora grabs his hand and drops, hanging dead-weight from his arm.
“Why not.” With one quick jerk, he heaves Nora upward, letting go at the apogee just long enough to sweep his arm under her bum. She squeals—first in outrage, and then in terror as he shrugs and drops her, though only a few inches. Her arms cinch tight around his neck, and the shriek becomes a breathy giggle.
“Again!” she demands, kicking her heels against him. “Again!”
Kids are easy.
Kitty-corner to the end of the block sits a mist-shrouded park of towering redwoods, damp grass, and looping concrete paths. There’s a gazebo on the near side, a rectangular water fountain in the center, and a few pedestrians with coffee maintaining appropriate social distance while waiting for their dogs to crap.
He hesitates. Overwhelmed, suddenly, by the oppressive certainty that even crossing the street on his own initiative will be met with immediate discipline. He is out. Free. He wants nothing more than to box up the past five years and stick them on a shelf somewhere in the recesses of his mind. But apparently it’s going to take time to get prison out of his head.
Warm, not-quite-sticky fingers press themselves into his palm. Nine years seems plenty old enough to cross the street alone—but when Cyril looks down, Seth’s eyes telegraph the shy smile hidden by his mask. Cyril gives the hand a quick squeeze. Together, they step off the curb.
The instant they hit the plaza, Nora wiggles out of his grasp, pom-pom pigtails bouncing as she charges off toward the gazebo.
The boy remains.
“Will you teach me?” he asks. “To play Dragons?”
“You have the ears of a bat.” How much has the boy overheard? He sighs. “Look. First of all, you gotta have at least a couple people to make up a party. But—I mean, I dunno, kid. I don’t know how long I’m gonna—”
“You’re gonna leave us,” Seth says.
The way he says it—not a question, but a conclusion—slices, razor-like, through this asshole’s thick hide. “Jesus.” He grabs the kid’s head and pulls him close. The boy sinks into him, all bones and angles now. Cyril is used to thinking of Seth as the exuberantly reactive four-year-old he once was, blissfully unaware that adults possessed any greater emotional depth than simple doglike adoration. The boy is capable now not only of thinking ahead, but of detecting the raw tension between Cyril and his mother. How much has Robin told him?
“I’m not—” Cyril sighs. What the hell is he supposed to tell this kid, when he himself knows nothing? “Look, I can’t sleep on your couch forever.” He knows that much is true. “So yeah, I’m probably gonna find somewhere else to crash. But I’m not going away.” He hasn’t had a chance to think this far ahead, but as he says it, he knows it’s true. “Not like before. I’ll be around. For you. For as—well, as long as your mom wants me.” He snorts. “Maybe even if she doesn’t.”
Seth leans back a little, tilting his face upward. “But she wants you to stay. In our house.”
“She—” He opens his arms, letting the kid go. “She told you that?”
Seth shrugs. “Yeah. We talked about it.” As if it’s no big thing. “So will you?”
Suddenly, this asshole doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He needs something to hold, or grip, or—something. He’s slimmer than he used to be, but not slim, and he can only get one hand into a pocket at a time, leaning to the left or right. He tugs his mask off and rubs a palm over the stubble on his face. “Shit, kid, I—”
“You.” This word, sudden and vehement, comes from a white guy in a polo shirt and neatly pressed cargo shorts, a half-assed handkerchief covering his face, standing roughly ten yards to the left. Glaring. “I knew it. It is you.”
“Do I know you?” Cyril puts a hand flat on Seth’s chest, moving him back and out of the way.
“No. But I know who you are.”
Apparently, this is going to be a confrontation. He, Cyril, glances down at Seth and nods toward Nora, now playing by the fountain. Seth, fortunately, is smarter than his father ever was: he takes the hint and jogs off. “Congratulations on owning a television,” Cyril tells the stranger.
“My brother was on the ground in Afghanistan when you pulled your little publicity stunt. His company had to pack up and retreat, and they were the lucky ones. You should be ashamed of yourself, you—” The man glances around, and, seeing that most of the other pedestrians have made themselves scarce, tugs the handkerchief down to his chin. “You fucking traitor.”
“Is that all?” Cyril stifles a yawn as he slips his mask back on. “I usually prefer more specificity. Duplicitous, back-stabbing murderer, for instance. Or cowardly, gutless snitch.” He pats his stomach. “Although that one’s not strictly accurate. Let’s see... Turncoat, sympathizer, Judas, provocateur—that's a good one—squealer, Benedict Arnold, reprobate—”
“You—” The man stalks a couple of paces forward, holding an index finger erect as he attempts an interjection. “You fat son of a—”
“Yes, yes.” Cyril nods wearily. “We’ll get to the fat jokes, too. Just—hold on.” He lifts his own index finger. “I need a minute to catch my breath. Because I’m fat. Get it?”
At some point during this exchange, Robin has appeared. She hands Cyril a white paper bag, tugs her mask down to her chin, and then just stands at his elbow, sipping coffee and staring at the outraged interloper as he fumbles for his phone.
The guy’s hands are shaking as he swipes on the camera. “I
know the chief of police, you asshole, and he’ll—he’ll fucking—”
“What, arrest me because he saw a shaky-cam video of some jackass harassing a guy minding his own business on public property? I did my time, Einstein. But by all means, post it to Twitter. Let’s go viral!”
“Her,” Robin says.
Cyril and the amateur videographer both look at her.
“The chief of police.” She takes a sip of coffee. “Is a woman. Which apparently neither of you knew. Janet Molina is aware that Cyril is in town.”
The man’s eyes dart between them. His mouth opens, like he’s hoping something clever will pop out. Then he shoves the phone into his pocket and stalks off, yanking the handkerchief back up over his nose.
“Moron,” Cyril growls.
“Give the guy a little credit; he didn’t call me a bitch. Or, you know, other things.” Robin lifts her cup, gesturing to a nearby park bench. “So you’re famous now.”
“And just when I’d perfected my fat joke repertoire.” He follows her, yawning for real this time. It’s still too goddamn early. “Gonna have to revise my entire routine to placate the traitorous scum stans.”
She takes another sip of coffee. “Some people think you’re a hero, you know.”
He looks at her. She looks back over the top of the plastic coffee lid, cool as a cucumber, and for an instant he imagines knocking the cup aside and sweeping her into his arms. It’s what Tavis would have done. Instead, he backs up and plants his fat ass on the park bench. It’s damp. “Lot of good it did,” he says, shifting in a vain attempt to get comfortable on cast iron. “Spend a decade exposing corruption, the surveillance state, and abuse of military power, and what’s the public’s response? Hey, I know! Let’s elect an illiterate authoritarian plutocrat!” His real mistake wasn’t letting himself get caught. It was assuming anyone would care. “Turns out Americans like getting fucked in the ass.”
“Now there’s the eloquent a-hole I remember.”
He nods over her shoulder. “Incoming.”
Nora barrels into her mother’s legs. “Doughnut!”
Seth is right behind her. Both kids are sweaty and flushed. “Mom, I’m so hungry.”
“Well, good, because I got breakfast. Such as it is.” Robin brushes flecks of coffee from her arm before producing a tiny bottle of hand sanitizer.
“Where were you keeping that, your bra?”
“Hush.” The kids hand her their masks, which she loops over one wrist, and dutifully hold out their hands for a couple of squirts before turning to look expectantly at Cyril.
“Your mom first.” He pulls a cinnamon roll out of the paper bag and hands it over their heads. As he pulls out Seth’s bear claw, Nora jams her hand into the bag, insisting loudly that she needs no help, and then promptly bursts into tears when she fumbles her “sprinkly” and drops it on the wet grass, face down.
Robin sighs. “Sweetie, this is why you need to wait your—”
“Hold on,” Cyril says. “There’s one more.” He reaches into the bag and pulls out a fourth dougnut—another chocolate with sprinkles.
Seth gapes at his mother, aghast. “You got her two?”
“That one’s for Cyril,” she informs him.
Cyril hands Nora the doughnut. “Problem solved.”
She snatches it from his hand and darts away, like a feral cat.
“Nora,” Robin chides. “What do you say?”
“Fank you.” She says it begrudgingly, around a mouthful of cakey goodness. Sprinkles stick to her lips.
“So much for natural consequences,” Robin says.
Cyril cocks an eyebrow. “I think you mean ‘just desserts.’”
She snorts. “Yeah, that’s more like it.” She balances her roll on her coffee cup and pulls her phone out to check the time. “All right, we’d better head back and get you guys to Greta's before my—” She sighs as Seth rockets toward the corner. “Wait for us to cross! And put your mask on!”
Cyril would be lying if he said he isn’t hoping she’ll turn and hurry after the kids to he can pick up the other doughnut, the one currently being investigated by a small black-and-red beetle. Even face down on the ground, it’s more sanitary than most of the things he’s eaten in the past five years. But she waits, so he heaves himself to his feet. “What’s Greta, your babysitter?”
“Teacher. She coaches basketball at the high school, or at least she did until COVID. The kids go to her house for distance learning. I pay her back in remodel.”
“They could stay with me, you know. I mean,” he amends, quickly, when her eyebrows slide up. “As long as I’m sleeping on your couch.”
“So... you’re staying?”
“No. I mean—I don’t—God damn it.” She’s got him completely tied in knots. “I’m not agreeing to shit. But it’s not like I have anywhere else to go. Yet.”
She laughs. “Okay. Well, I may have other uses for you. Let’s see how things go.”
At the corner, Seth seizes one of Cyril’s hands and Nora claims the other. They cross, and once again the kids are off and gone.
“So what do you need to take care of today?” Robin hands him the remainder of her cinnamon roll. “I gotta swing by a client’s house for inspection, but after that I’m all yours.”
He scowls at the proffered pastry. “I don’t need your—”
“Oh my God, just take it.”
The lawyer needs Cyril to sign some paperwork to release what remains of his assets, which can be done easily enough via email. First, however, he’ll need access to his bank account, and that requires identification. His license is expired, so stop number one needs to be the DMV.
“Fun,” Robin says, rummaging in her purse to make sure she has whatever she needs to have when she leaves the house. “Nearest one’s in Santa Rosa. We can go after lunch.”
The other thing he needs is a computer.
She looks at him for a moment, lips pressed into a thin line of skepticism. Then she sighs and disappears into her bedroom, returning with a laptop tucked under one arm. “If I give you this, are you going to get into trouble?”
It’s not a question of if, but when. Just looking at the slim silver case makes his fingers itch. Five years without access. He has no idea of the lay of the land. Assuming the FBI’s keeping an eye on him—and they are—he'll need to start over with a fresh alias. He might be able to leak his identity to a key player or two, but reputation and trust will take time to rebuild. “Not for... a while.”
“I guess that’s as much as I can expect. Have fun digging up my dirt.” She tilts her head back. “Come on guys, let’s go!”
And then he’s alone.
In a rare exercise of self-restraint, he places the laptop on the couch and sits, listening to the silence. It’s been a long time since he was truly alone. He’s not sure whether solitude is a relief or a burden, but he uses the opportunity to jerk off.
If she thinks acknowledging the fact that he’s going to violate her privacy will prevent him from doing it, she’s wrong. But it’s not the computer he goes for, first; after washing his hands, he lumbers into her bedroom. There’s not even a lock on the door.
Her bed, a spacious California king, is rumpled and unmade. She’s far tidier than he is, but not a neat freak, and most unkempt in her private spaces. She used to keep printouts of his letters—when she thought they came from Tavis—in boxes under the bed. By this asshole’s conservative estimate, there were roughly two thousand, in the end. And that’s not even counting the hundreds he wrote and never sent. He finds only dust bunnies, now. When he hauls himself back up from his hands and knees, he sits on the edge of the mattress, pressing her comforter to his nose.
Her underwear drawer contains no secrets; only a vibrator, some batteries, and a couple of silicone bra inserts. He fingers them. In her last year of college, when Tavis—or, rather, Cyril—had encouraged her to pursue her passion for craftsmanship, she’d traded makeup and business heels for the comfort of
jeans and a clean face. Not long after, she’d stopped straightening her hair and gone in for “the big chop.” But, to his knowledge, she has never been self-conscious about her smaller-than-average bust.
The wave of rage is so sudden and overwhelming that he slams the drawer shut, rattling the empty water glass on her bedside table.
The inserts, the bed, her coyness about his presence here—she is seeing someone. That is this asshole’s conclusion, instant and incontrovertible. Who or when or how many he does not know, or care. He does not even care that she is toying with him. Whoever they are, they’ve made her feel the need to be something other than her perfect self, and he will destroy them.
He can pretend his feelings for his best friend’s wife are altruistic; that what he did to her was his unselfish—if misguided—attempt to give her the best in life, no matter the personal cost. But in moments like these, the pretense is stripped away.
She belongs to him. Not Tavis. He made her. He owns her, and he will have her at any cost.
I want you to stay.
She lied about his release. The inserts are a lie. Her words are lies. She is lying.
Why else would she let him suffer in silence for five years, let him believe she was gone for good—and then not only advocate for his release, but welcome him into her home? It’s all a ruse. Payback. She’s doing to him what he has done to her. He’s not stupid.
But to involve her kids—
Five years is a long time. She’s obviously changed. Maybe she’s not as protective of her children as she used to be, when they were small. Maybe bringing a felon into her home is a risk she’s willing to take for a little petty revenge.
There’s a desk in the corner, papers piled around an empty spot the size of her laptop. No longer trying to conceal his intrusion, he paws through lumber yard receipts and design sketches, pulls out the drawer, looks under the lid of her printer-scanner. Nothing.
Cyril in the Flesh Page 6
