by Bates, Aiden
It was the oldest trick in the book. I was disappointed that he expected me to fall for that one. I did stretch out a hand, but I braced against the side of the boat. When he tugged at my hand, as I had known he would, only my upper body moved forward. My feet remained firmly planted on the floor of the boat.
“Damn it!” he cursed.
I was smiling so much my cheeks were beginning to burn. This was what Kyler had turned me into. A giddy child. The voice in my head reminded me that this was just what happiness looked like. Don’t overthink, just let go.
And then, without warning, the solid footing I had established on the boat was snatched away. Kyler had decided to go for the nuclear option. With a few strong shoves, he managed to create some momentum on the boat and get it swinging this way and that. I was not ready for it, so by the time the boat swung back for the second time, I was already falling. I splashed in next to Kyler, and I could hear his laugh even underwater.
I reached for him and pushed him down, and then we were splashing about like kids, limbs flying as we laughed happily. I felt so light and carefree I was almost embarrassed.
We somehow made it back to the bank. We were drenched from head to toe, and the majority of our equipment was ruined. No losses there. I was just glad I had not been forced to sit there waiting for some hapless fish to bite. Overall, it was one of my better fishing experiences.
I had shared another fun day with Kyler, and it did not help clear up my confused feelings about him. Or the growing sense of guilt and shame.
I was going back to L.A. because of him. All this time stuck here, obstinately refusing to listen to Dad’s threats or Mother’s pleas, and it was this kid who had managed to shake me from the tree. And yet, when I thought about going back, I was not instantly filled with dread, as I would have been before. Everything I had hated about the place stood in sharp contrast to all I had come to love about the mountains. I did not need to think too hard about which emotion came easier.
I would do it because I owed it to him. He had been a perfect husband, and he deserved it. Not out of guilt.
As soon as I got home, I called my father. I don’t know why, but I needed to get the monkey off my back. If the contract my dad had created did not exist, then I wouldn’t need to lie to Kyler anymore.
“Saul? Is everything okay?”
Ah. Maybe one day I would call my dad and he wouldn’t immediately assume there was an emergency.
“Everything is fine, Dad. Look, I need your word that you’ll lift the clause concerning the money.”
“I’m not sure I understand what you mean…”
“The clause, Dad. The one that says you’ll cut me off if I don’t get married.”
“I got that bit. I’m referring to your suggestion that I lift it. That, I don’t understand. You are married, are you not? Why would you want it lifted if you’ve already fulfilled its stipulations?”
“Maybe because it was made in bad faith to begin with.” But that was a weak argument and we both knew it.
“I would never do that and you know it. Like I told you, all we want is to see you happy. Which you seemed to be, when your mother and I came to visit? Or did that change?”
“You know what, Dad, never mind.”
“It seems to me you’re on your way to securing the money. I’m not sure why you’re worried. You and Kyler will probably conceive within the year, and we can forget this unpleasant business of clauses and contracts. I know for a fact you two will produce a lovely heir to the McCormick name.”
Hopeless. There was no swaying him. It had been stupid to expect him to rid me of a burden I had placed on myself. He was not the one who made Kyler sign a contract to prevent him from falling in love with me. That was me.
“You’re right, Dad. I’m sorry. Please say hi to Mother for me.”
The phone call was not a complete waste, though. It had given me something to look forward to, to plan for. I glanced at the calendar. By my estimation, Kyler would go into heat in about a month or so.
13
Kyler
Homecoming did not feel like coming home at all.
I was seeing L.A. through the eyes of a visitor, or a foreigner who was so far unimpressed. I mean, it was all the same as it had always been, as it had been the last time I was here. The lights, the spectacular view of the city as we came in to land, the sweltering heat pressing in from all sides. It was home exactly as I remembered it, right down to the passive disinterest of everyone we encountered once we got off the jet. Everything was there, but it was like watching a black and white film detailing events you had been a part of.
I knew, though, that I was the problem. Los Angeles had not changed. I had, so irrevocably and in such a short time. For one, I had not been overawed when I got onto the jet that morning. Not nearly as much as the first time. I had no idea what to make of that. Part of it was because of the man who got onto the jet with me, of course. Saul had made the arrangements quickly and with apparent ease. He had seemed right at home making phone calls and scribbling half-formed thoughts onto scraps of paper. But when the day finally dawned, I noticed he was visibly nervous.
Of course, I thought. He has not been to L.A. in over two years. And my heart went out to the man, suddenly guilty that I had made him do this without really thinking about how difficult it would be for him. Still, his unease had the opposite effect on me. I was the one who nodded when the pilot greeted us to the plane with a genial “Good morning, Mr. and Mr. McCormick.” I picked out the champagne when we sat down. For the first time, I felt like I belonged, like this world was not so foreign.
So the sight of the L.A. skyline brought with it a sinking feeling. Somewhere in that maze was the ghost of my past life. It seemed such a silly little shell of an existence, now that I thought about it. My life was so much fuller now.
“Looks about the same,” Saul commented, his eyes scanning the airport.
“Smells about the same, too,” I agreed.
Saul smiled.
“Shall we go straight to see your father?” he asked. “Or is there some place you want to visit first? Some one?”
Where would I even go? I had decided not to tell Jess I was coming on some half-hearted plan to surprise her. I was not so attached to my favorite coffee shops, malls, beaches and joints to make a tour of it. Not now. I didn’t have much of a life outside my family and friends, now that I thought about it. Either way, this trip was about my dad.
“No,” I said. “In and out, like we discussed. I don’t want some groupie spotting you and splashing you on Instagram.”
“Ah, yes. We wouldn’t want that.”
We set off walking towards a small entourage of men in suits and black SUVs.
“I tried not to ask, but what exactly is Instagram?”
I stopped walking and turned to Saul, my mouth open.
“What?” I asked, my voice incredulous.
“Instagram. Is that like the new Facebook?”
“Wooow. How have we not discussed this before? I know it has been a while, but damn, hubby.”
“Hey, the whole point of moving to the mountains was so I wouldn’t have to keep up with all these annoying social trends.”
“Oh, I thought it was to get away from the glare of Hollywood.”
“That too. But you’ve been in the mountains with me for over a month. I bet you have no idea what is going on in the world.”
“Fair point. For all we know, they could have made another Star Wars prequel. Or the Dodgers could have won the World Series.”
“Are you not going to tell me what Instagram is about?” Saul pressed, a little impatiently. We had resumed walking, and were now approaching the SUV.
“I don’t know if I can, to be honest. It’s a platform where millennials post photos of their most mundane activities. And food. Especially food.”
“Just millennials?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“Why do they post these photos?”
> “For their fifteen minutes of fame, I guess?”
“So you’re worried someone will post pictures of me on their Instagram?”
I had assumed Saul was simply curious about the Instagram phenomenon, but I heard the barely concealed anxiety in his voice and realized what that could potentially mean for him. Discretion was crucial during this trip. Saul was worried about being recognized.
“I was joking, really,” I said, trying and failing to sound dismissive.
Saul was staring into space, deep in thought.
One of the men in suits greeted us warmly as we got to the car. He was lifting bags into the trunk when Saul called back to him.
“What car do you drive, Dave?”
Dave looked from Saul to me, clearly confused. I thought I had seen him before. He was one of the men who had first received me when I was going to airport. It seemed he was employed by the McCormicks.
“Sir?” he sputtered.
“Car, Dave. Which one?”
“I’m using my dad’s old Buick?” he said it in a small voice, and his arms went up as if to shield from the inevitable criticism. But Saul smiled.
“Excellent,” Saul said. “What do you think, Kyler? That sounds inconspicuous enough, right?”
I did not know enough about cars to agree with him, but anything would have been less conspicuous than that gleaming SUV with its tinted windows. I had a sudden vision of Saul and me crammed into Jess’s Beetle and smiled.
“Yeah, I think that will do.”
It was a nice, functional car. On inconspicuous points it certainly scored high. Saul got behind the wheel, and I gathered from his grin that it had been a while since he had driven himself. Or at all. It took him a while to get used to the stick shift, but he eventually pulled out of the airport parking without incident. We set off, and he reminded me to direct him as we got onto the highway.
As we drove, the feeling of alienation returned. All around I could see the bustle of life, people zooming this way and that in that manic way that all city dwellers did. Their lives were spent in third gear, never stopping to look at the beautiful day or even to notice the people around them. It made me nostalgic for the mountains and my real home. Right about now, Saul and I would be waking up. He would be reaching over to me, feeling for my morning boner and poking me in the thigh with his. If he was feeling frisky, he would simply spread my cheeks slightly apart and slide into me with a slow, sure stroke…
“Kyler?” Saul called, as if from miles away. I forced my mind to return to the car and the present. “You’re supposed to be directing me, remember?”
We pulled into Cranberry Woods half an hour later. The inhabitants were still stirring, the day just beginning for them. I felt a heavy sense of trepidation as we walked up the steps leading to the entrance, and I wasn’t sure why. Saul noticed it and reached over, taking my hand and giving it a squeeze. I felt a rush of affection towards him.
We waited briefly as one of the other nurses went in search of Rachael, my dad’s attending nurse. Saul commented that it was a lovely place, and I nodded, distracted. I had not thought about what state we would find my dad in. What if he did not recognize me this time? What if his condition had worsened? I cursed myself for not calling ahead, but then realized it would not have made much of a difference. I wanted to see my dad, no matter his condition.
The grim expression on Nurse Rachael’s face when she came rushing over was all the confirmation I needed. It was like icy cold water had been poured down my back.
“How bad is it?” I asked her.
She opened her mouth to speak, but then her eyes fell on Saul, and she did a double take. She stared at him blankly, openly, and I knew she was trying to figure out if she knew him from somewhere. I felt Saul’s body go rigid beside me.
“Nurse Rachael?” I prompted her. “My father? Is everything okay?”
Her eyes snapped back to me, and the worry returned to her face.
“No, I wouldn’t say that it is. Korbin is… Maybe it’s best if you see for yourself.”
It took a concerted effort to put one foot in front of the other and follow Nurse Rachael as she hurried down the hall. I noticed they had moved my dad from his old room; Rachael walked right past his old room, and we went further and further into the building, eventually turning into an empty section. There was a door at the very end of a quiet, seemingly lifeless corridor.
Rachael led the way, her steps making slapping sounds on the concrete as she walked. When she got to the door, she pulled out a key and opened the door.
“Why is the door locked?” I asked, confused.
As if in answer, the door slid open, and a chilling scream reached us from inside the room.
Saul pushed past me and stepped into the room first. I followed close behind him.
I saw my dad sitting up on a narrow bed. He looked so calm I was sure the scream had come from someone else. But there was no one else in the room. A quick scan confirmed that it was almost identical to his last room. There was a small table on one side of the room with a small stack of books, and the bed on the other. Unlike the previous room, though, this one was decidedly claustrophobic. The curtains on the window were drawn. There were no happy photos on the wall, no trinkets or trophies from his various victories.
But the thing that stood out the most was Korbin Nielson himself.
Dad looked lost. His eyes were wide and wild. He looked around once, scanning the faces of everyone who walked into the room, and then, without warning, he screamed again. I wondered if he was in pain, but there were no physical signs of hurt.
“Who are you?” he screamed. “Where am I? What have you done to me?”
I looked over to Nurse Rachael, unsure what to do or even say.
“He woke up worse than before,” she explained. “He seems to have no recollection of anything from the last few months. He does not recognize anyone, and he seems to think he has been abducted or something like that. He was starting to get violent with the other patients, so we had to isolate him.”
“Violent?” I asked in disbelief.
“I’m afraid so. He thought one of the other guys was trying to attack him and pushed him away. It wasn’t much of a push, but the guy has a bad hip and he could have been hurt.”
That sounded nothing like my dad. But then, the man who was on that bed looked nothing like the dad I knew.
Saul seemed the only one of us not to have been paralyzed into inactivity. As soon as he got a sense of the situation, he started moving towards my dad with his arms raised, palms reaching outwards in a gesture of appeasement. Dad eyed him warily.
“Mr. Nielson?” Saul called gently, taking a few more steps towards him.
“Are you the police?” my dad asked, his eyes still darting this way and that. “Have you come to get me?”
“Yes, I am. This is my partner Kyler. Please relax, Mr. Nielson. No one is going to hurt you.”
Dad looked over at me, and it broke my heart that there was no recognition there, only cold disbelief. Something in him seemed to finally break, like he had been holding on too long and finally decided to give up. His body sank into the bed, and his head fell back into the pillow.
“Good, good,” he said without raising his head.
Saul had gotten to his bed by then.
“Will you tell me what happened, sir?” he asked softly.
Dad raised his torso slightly so he could look at Saul directly. I don’t know why, but it looked like he had decided to trust him.
“I don’t know, officer...”
“McCormick.”
“Right. Well, the last thing I remember is going to sleep in my house last night, and waking up in this strange place this morning. No one will tell me where I am, or what’s going on. These people keep acting like they know who I am, but I don’t know any of them!”
“And where is your home?”
“Silver Lake.”
“Well, this is a hospital, Mr. Nielson. You had a m
edical emergency and you were brought in for treatment.”
“What medical emergency?”
Saul hesitated. I could almost hear his brain whirring.
“You were having trouble breathing,” I said quickly. It wasn’t that big of a stretch. He had had mild issues with sleep apnea before. “The doctors thought it would be best to keep you here, under observation for a few more hours.”
Dad stared at me like he was seeing me for the first time. I had no idea what he was thinking, and that frustrated me to no end. I never had to guess what was going on in his head before. I stared back at him, aware that in that moment I wasn’t his son Kyler in his eyes, but a stranger, and a cop for that matter. I thought I saw the suspicion begin to creep back in.
“Why are you not in uniform?” he asked suddenly.
Saul and I exchanged glances.
“Where are your badges? Aren’t you supposed to show me your badges?”
I opened my mouth, flailing for a workable excuse. Saul was mumbling something about being off the clock, but it didn’t matter. Dad moved faster than I would have thought possible. He leapt from the bed in a single bound and darted between the two of us, heading for the door. Neither of us reacted in time. He caught us completely by surprise, which I imagine was his plan.
I turned around just in time to see Nurse Rachael backing away as my dad bolted past her, swung the door open and disappeared down the corridor. Shortly after, his footfalls were interwoven with shouts of “Help!” And then, before I could move, there came another sound, far more sickening. It was a crunch, a dull thud that I knew meant my dad had fallen down.
My heart raced as I sprinted from the room. My legs were made of lead. My mind was blank with panic. I was barely aware of Nurse Rachael and Saul, though I knew they were running beside me.
Dad was lying completely still a few feet down the corridor. My knees gave way, and I collapsed onto the floor. With a trembling hand, I reached over and checked his pulse. It was faint but I could just feel it. His eyes were closed. He looked like he was simply sleeping.
