by Davis Bunn
His stoic strength only lasted until he reached the stop sign at the end of her road.
The old familiar friends rose from their four-year slumber. The bitter acrid taste filled his throat. The desperate burning, the yearning as strong as fury.
He stared at the two alien hands clenching the wheel. All he had to do was head back to one of the places he’d entered that very same day. One of them surely had his favorite single malt. He could taste the first smoky swallow. Travis wasn’t there to argue away the fraught moment. There was no reason not to give in. What was the point of holding back? What reason could possibly be good enough to keep him sober?
* * *
When Daniel entered his home, he had no recollection of driving back. Nor could he say precisely why he was still straight.
Nicole was seated at the counter, her laptop open to one side, making room for a plate with the remnants of a sandwich, along with a coffee mug. She must have seen something in his expression, because she instantly turned fearful. “I thought it’d be okay if I got something to eat.”
“It’s fine. Where’s Marvin?”
“He left almost an hour ago. He said to tell you he’d be in touch.” She hesitated, then asked, “What’s the matter?”
So much, was the answer. Though it made no sense at all. One part of him said it was ridiculous to get so bent out of shape by a woman’s rejection. But he was aware enough to know it wasn’t just that. It was how his entire world was being redesigned. “Where is Chloe?”
Her head rose above the sofa’s back. “Right here.”
Daniel had not known what was going to happen next until that very moment. “I want you to come with me.”
Her face turned pinched, angry. “I’m not going home. Don’t you dare try and make me.”
“We’re just going for a drive. There’s something you need to see.” Daniel waved the hand holding the keys at the door. “Let’s go.”
Nicole slid off her stool. “Can I come too?”
* * *
Daniel skirted Miramar’s downtown, though it meant taking the longer route. Chloe reverted to the sullen teen. But even scrunched against the passenger door, arms crossed and knees drawn up, her face a mask and her eyes blank, she remained a truly beautiful young woman. Daniel did his best to ignore her. But what he thought was, Ricki and Travis were probably right to worry. Given half a chance, LA would not even leave the bones.
He took it slow, watching the clock, wanting to time it just right. Every now and then he was hit by tremors as strong as the aftershocks that followed a major quake. The hunger had left him now, leaving behind a hollow ache, an empty space at the core of his being.
The territory south of Miramar Bay was dominated by a headland that had been turned into a city park. There was a little open-fronted chapel he liked to use as a turnaround point on long runs. Benches rimming the park’s seafront filled up on the weekends, when families liked to picnic and lovers shared a bottle of wine and children were constantly called back from the fence lining the overhang. But on a chilly weekday like this, the place was empty save for a few people walking the paths. Daniel parked in the lower-level lot and announced, “From here we go on foot.”
He could have driven a good deal closer, but he was hoping the climb would still his jerky muscles and bring Chloe to a point where she might actually hear what he had to say. By the time they crested the rise, all three of them were breathing heavily.
Daniel pointed them onto a bench, placing Chloe between himself and Nicole. He had no idea whether it was a good thing to have Nicole along for this. But she had asked, and he was not ready to tell her no. Their bench was positioned directly over the mid-level parking area, divided into three sections by stands of Aleppo pines, bent and twisted by the constant winds blowing off the Pacific. He pointed to the far segment. “There’s a silver Dodge SUV parked beneath the trees, see it?”
Chloe said, “Not too well.”
“His position is intentional.” He shifted slightly to face Chloe. “I need to know if you’re ready for what is about to happen.”
She crossed her arms. “I already told you that.”
Daniel nodded slowly, taking his time. “Take a good look at that Dodge.”
“I already told you I can’t see it very well.”
His own recent near-trauma left him completely immune to her tense anger. “There’s a man seated inside. His name is Clark. His wife has lupus. Do you know what that is?”
Chloe replied with a tight head shake.
“It’s a terrible disease. There’s no cure. She is dying. But very slowly. It could take years.” Daniel gave that a beat to sink in, then went on, “They have a daughter with Down syndrome. Financially, Clark is hanging on by his fingernails. He’s within a few inches of losing his house. Which means his daughter would go into foster care and his wife would spend the rest of her days in a state-run nursing home. If she’s lucky.”
Nicole said softly, “That’s so sad.”
“Clark joined AA the same week as me. We were friends. Sort of. But the pressure of an awful life just got too much. So now he comes here. Every night after he gets off his terrible job. Which he hates. But he has to keep going so he can pay all their bills.” Daniel pointed down the ridge. “He comes here. And he drinks until the pain goes away. Then he goes home. To his wife and his daughter.”
He stopped, giving Chloe a chance to object. But he had her now. He could see the spark of something in her eyes. Curiosity. Sorrow. Something that was drawing her out of her tight little shell.
He said, “There’s a term we use in AA for people like Clark. We say, he’s not ready to get sober. It means exactly what it says. So I’m asking you again, Chloe, are you ready?”
“Why are you talking to me like this?” Chloe cried out loud enough to attract the attention of nearby cliff walkers. “I already told you. I’m not my parents! What else do you want me to say?”
“Your anger will only take you so far. If I’m able, I’m going to help bring your dreams a little closer. If you walk forward with nothing but rage, people will take advantage of that. Being successful at your game—”
“It’s not a game!”
“Being successful only makes the chances of falling off the rails come more easily. Do you think your father wanted to stay wasted? Do you think that’s why he spent years fighting and struggling to become a pro football player?”
She swiped her face. “He got hurt.”
“And you’ll get hurt too. I’m sorry. It’s a hard thing to face when you want something this badly. But it’s true. You will get hurt.” Daniel pointed down the rise. “I’m not saying it will be what your father faced. Or me. Or Clark. But the risks are real. The threat is there.”
“What do you want me to say?” she repeated. Only this time it was in her mother’s voice. Low. Deep.
“That you can listen beyond your rage. I’m not saying, don’t be angry. If that’s what fuels your rise, so be it. I don’t agree with it, but I can’t tell you what to feel or how to climb your own mountain. What I am saying is this. It’s not enough.”
The wind rushed through the trees sheltering the silver SUV, pulling the branches apart just as the man behind the wheel lifted a paper bag. And drank. Chloe shivered. “Okay.”
It wasn’t much, as responses went. But as far as Daniel was concerned, it was enough. “Let’s get out of this wind.”
* * *
As they were walking back to his pickup, Nicole took a soft hold of his hand and pulled Daniel back. When Chloe walked on ahead, Nicole asked, “You help him, don’t you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Clark. Only that’s not his name, is it. You promise to be anonymous, isn’t that right?” There was no questioning in her voice. Just a quiet certainty. “You help him. And I bet he doesn’t know it’s you.”
They took the main road that snaked just inland from the shoreline. Chloe remained scrunched up against the opposit
e door, but Daniel did not sense the same tension she had carried on the way out. Nicole stared out her window, wrapped in her own little isolation bubble. But every now and then, Daniel thought he heard her hum a couple of notes. Like she was carrying on a musical dialogue with some song inside her head.
When they arrived home, Daniel unlocked the door and asked Chloe, “Do you want to stay here tonight?”
“Can I?”
“Will you call your parents?”
“It won’t do any good.” She glanced at him and shrugged. “Okay.”
As Nicole started to pass him, he asked, “Is there anything I need to know about what you and Marvin talked about?”
“Probably. But can it wait?”
“Of course.”
“So . . . I can stay?”
“As long as you like.” He felt awkward speaking the words, but just the same, he wanted it out. “I like having you here with me, Nicole.”
“Give it time,” she said. “The charm rubs off quick.”
“I doubt that very much.”
She bobbed back and forth, heel to toe, as though readying herself for a leap off a high dive. Then she lifted up on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. “This day just keeps getting better.”
CHAPTER 25
Under other circumstances, Stella would probably have considered the conversation that followed Daniel’s departure mildly hilarious. As it was, however, she found herself completely on the defensive.
Dealing with her daughter, who lobbed one verbal bomb after another, in the form of all of Stella’s own arguments. In other words, eleven-year-old Amber was dressing her mother down. “I cannot believe you would behave so badly.”
“That’s enough, young lady.”
“No, it’s not enough!” Amber stabbed her arm at the kitchen phone. “Now you will call Daniel and you will apologize.”
“I will do no such thing!”
“Don’t you talk back to me!” Amber stomped her foot. “If you weren’t being so childish, you’d already be on the phone!”
Stella felt herself stabbed by a great deal more than her daughter’s ire. “Amber, honey, I did that for you.”
“Oh, please. I like him. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“Of course it does . . . Sweetheart, the last thing we need is a man wrecking the life we’ve built for ourselves.”
“That is the most ridiculous nonsense I have ever heard come out of your mouth!” Another little item Stella had often said to her growing child. Right down to the inflection points. Lobbed right back at her. “Daniel won’t wreck anything.”
What kept Stella from shouting back was how her daughter was so very close to tears. Only her fury kept Amber from sobbing. Which was another astonishment. Her daughter never became angry. Upset, of course. But she could not recall the last time her daughter had lost her temper. “All right. Then it’s all about me.”
“Of course it is!”
“I can’t let another needy man work his way into our lives. I just can’t.” There. She had said it. Revealing her innermost fears. To a child. Because she had to.
Amber was having none of it. “Don’t you get it? You need him.”
“Sweetheart, that is absolutely the farthest thing—”
“No! I’m not saying another word until you call him!” She stomped her way across the foyer and started up the stairs.
“Amber, come back here.”
“You know I’m right, Mommy!”
“Amber!”
“No!” She did her best to drum each foot through the step. “I am sick and tired of picking up after you!”
Which made no sense at all. And should have been good for a smile, had it not been for the door that slammed at the top of the stairs or the hollow ache the exchange left in the place where Stella’s heart normally resided. Her trembling, vulnerable, frightened heart.
She crossed the kitchen on leaden limbs. Picked up the phone. And dialed the number from memory.
* * *
When Ricki answered, Stella said, “I need help.”
Her best friend responded with a lengthy sigh. “Girl, that makes two of us.”
“I’ve just had the worst argument of my life with my daughter.”
Ricki went silent. Then, “Is that a joke?”
“Do I sound like I’m joking?”
“I have no idea what a joke sounds like these days.”
“Maybe I should call back when you’re actually on the phone with me.”
“Okay, now that sounded like a joke. Am I right?”
“Half. No, less. A quarter right.”
A big sigh, strong as a soft cough. “Go ahead. Give me something else to worry about.”
“Ricki, what has happened?”
“No, no, you called me. Lay it on me, girl. Then we’ll see if you’re up for my version of the happy home.”
But when Stella started talking about Amber, she had to accept the fact that none of it would make sense unless she first relayed the other issue. And relating what she had said to Daniel felt like talons raking across her heart.
When she went quiet, Ricki said, “Okay, so we’re actually talking about two things. There’s Daniel, and then there’s you.”
“You’re forgetting the reason I called.”
“I’m not forgetting a thing here.”
“So you’re saying that Amber is right.”
“I wish you could hear yourself. That young lady is a jewel. And she loves you. And you two will work it out. There. Are we done talking about your daughter?”
“I don’t get you at all.”
“What you need to understand is, my husband is sober because of that man. And my daughter has a roof over her head tonight because Daniel has given her a home. And most likely a lot more besides.”
Stella heard how much those last words cost her. “What is going on over there?”
“You just listen to what I’m saying. Daniel is a good man.”
“That’s not the point—”
“Hear me out. What you haven’t said, and what I know has got you scared silly, is what he told you this afternoon.”
Stella went silent.
“You’re terrified that the man is going to stop helping you. After he confirmed that you and I are right to be worried about somebody stealing the town’s money. Not to mention possibly setting you up to be the fall guy. Or lady. Whatever.”
Stella opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
“And I’m telling you that nothing’s changed.”
She managed, “You spoke with him?”
“Of course not. Don’t talk silly. I just heard about it from you, remember? What I’m saying is this. Daniel will help you out because that’s who he is.” Ricki gave her a chance to respond, then went on, “Daniel has no earthly idea just how good a man he’s become. These years he’s spent holed up in Miramar, it’s like, what do you call that thing when the butterfly comes out of its cocoon?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Girl, you can just go sell that down the street. You know exactly what I’m saying. All Daniel sees is who he was. And the damage he caused. He can’t see who he’s become.” Ricki paused, then added, “I was hoping you’d be the one to show him. But never mind that. Whether or not you decide to let him into your heart has nothing to do with him helping you through this crisis. That’s just who the man is.”
“Ricki . . .”
There was a click on the line, then Ricki said, “Honey, I’ve got to go. My daughter’s calling. We’ll talk.”
Stella stood holding the silent phone. She said to the night gathering outside her window, “The word is metamorphosis.”
CHAPTER 26
Daniel woke an hour or so before dawn, drenched in sweat. The dream had been one of those repetitive flashes he had often experienced during the bad old days. He had been standing at his favorite bar, the polished surface gleaming in the candles and chandeliers. He was su
rrounded by all the beautiful people, and they watched him, and they laughed. And there before him on the bar was not a drink. Instead, he faced a little cage, like a cat-carrier, with a hinged door on the front. Daniel was laughing with all the others, having a grand old time, as he reached out and unlatched the door. Then the laughter and the beautiful people vanished, and he faced a rattler. As long as a train of death, as long as all the lines of coke he’d done. It slithered across the bar, its mouth open and fangs dripping golden venom in the candlelight. Daniel wanted to run, scream, anything but stand there and watch death’s approach. But he was held in place by all the bad moves. Helpless to do more than watch as the snake lunged.
He rose from the bed and stripped off his sodden clothes and dressed in running gear. As he left his bedroom, he was halted in the darkened hallway, trapped as securely as if he was still held by the dream.
To his right, Nicole slept secure behind the closed door of his guest room, the first person in four years to use the space. To his left was another door, this one leading to what had been his office before he had glassed in the rear patio. Now it was mostly used as an in-house gym. Daniel had shifted all that equipment to the side wall and fashioned a pallet. Chloe slept there now. She shared Nicole’s bathroom. But neither girl had complained.
Daniel stood in the hallway and listened to the predawn hush. He was surrounded by just how close he had come to demolishing the trust he had built with those two wonderful young ladies. The prospect of all the damage he might have wreaked left him sick to his stomach.
He padded across the living room and let himself out the front door. He forced himself to stretch, warming up gradually, even though his entire body jerked with the electric need to let go, to run as hard as he possibly could, to flee the hungry ghosts.
* * *
Daniel came home just as the sun crested the eastern hills. He showered and dressed, then woke the two girls. By the time they emerged, he had prepared a breakfast of coffee and hot milk and poached eggs and toast made from a whole grain loaf. Neither girl spoke a word as they ate.
