Resurrection

by Karina Bliss

  “You’re on.” Lily was filling two champagne flutes in the kitchen when Moss stepped inside, surprisingly alone.

  “How much alcohol have you had?”

  “Not much…why?”

  “I need to visit a friend in hospital.”

  Dimity overheard him as she returned to the kitchen. “Can’t it wait until tomorrow? Greg is on his way.” The album’s producer.

  “It won’t take longer than an hour.” He didn’t offer more information but there was tension in his shoulders, his jaw. He looked at Lily. This is important.

  “I’ll get my car keys.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Moss followed the signs to the oncology ward and was redirected to intensive care. At the reception desk, a nurse took his name and checked a visitor list.

  “I doubt I’m on—”

  “Along the corridor, first door to your left.”

  “Thanks.” He swallowed nervousness as he approached. How do you commiserate with a woman you barely knew?

  Jess lay in a bed, a scarf over her head, no eyelashes, no brows. Colorless. Without her name on the door he would never have connected her with the vibrant blonde he’d met in a bar last year. Hooked up to monitors and drips, with a nasal tube feeding her oxygen, her eyes were closed.

  As he hesitated, unsure whether to wake her, her lids fluttered open, as though even that effort was a struggle. She saw him and relief lit her features, followed by an anxiety he couldn’t quantify.

  “It came back,” he said.

  “Yeah.” Her voice was a croak. She gestured to the water glass on the trolley beside the bed. Realizing she wouldn’t have the strength to sit by herself, he gently lifted her upright. Against his palm, her vertebrae felt as fragile as a baby birds.

  A tiny sip and she removed her mouth from the straw. He eased her down. “I’m so sorry, Jess.” He didn’t know what else to say. A dirty weekend and some too-frank conversations over eleven months ago weren’t something to build small talk on at the best of times. Why had she phoned him now after ignoring his calls?

  Immediate prospects were good but his cash flow was shit. What he hadn’t spent from his time in Rage, he was using to pay bills and invest in T-Minus 6. He should be celebrating that success, not thinking of ways to find a few grand if she needed money for treatment.

  “I’m sorry, too.” Tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “I’ve upset you.” He was fucking useless at giving comfort. “I’ll go.”

  “No.” She used her elbows to push up from the bed, her brown eyes panicking and her breath rattling in her chest.

  “Okay, okay, I’ll stay.” Flustered, he pulled up a chair. “Please, Jess, lie down.”

  Collapsing against her pillows, she held out a thin hand.

  Full of pity, he took it. “You want me to call someone?”

  Shaking her head, she used her free hand to grope for the button on a pump attached to her IV. For a half minute, maybe more, they sat in silence waiting for whatever she’d dosed herself with—morphine?—to kick in. Her eyes never left his face. Moss suffered, wanting to leave, compelled by human decency to stay. Slowly her breathing eased.

  “I have to tell you something.” Her voice was stronger, quivering only on the last word. “We had a baby.”

  The words made no sense so he laughed.

  Her fingers tightened convulsively on his. “Two months old.”

  She was hallucinating, she had to be. Still smiling, he squeezed her hand. “Jess, you said you got your period,” he reminded her.

  “I…” She swallowed hard. “I lied. When you phoned I thought you might try to talk me into an abortion. And the second call… I was scared you’d try and take her because I was sick again.”

  Her. A girl. Automatically, he glanced around the room, half expecting a baby to jump out from behind a chair and yell, “Surprise!”

  This couldn’t be real.

  Jess was still talking, faster and faster. “Now I’m glad you phoned. It means you have a sense of responsibility and I’m trusting in that. Trusting you to look out for our daughter’s best interests.”

  He tried to drop her hand but her grip tightened painfully, surprisingly strong. “She has to have a good life and I’ve run out of time to make one for her. But you can. You’re her father and that counts for something, right?”

  * * *

  “Hey, McFadden.”

  A female voice stopped Moss as he was walking through the hospital foyer toward the main exit, oblivious to his surroundings. He turned. For a moment the brunette in glasses might have been a complete stranger.

  Lily replaced a magazine in the visitor’s rack. “You walked right past me.” Her teasing expression faded to sympathy as she looked at him. “Tough visit?”

  “Yeah.” He passed a hand over his face. You were supposed to get fixed in hospitals, not broken. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Sure.”

  She said nothing more as they walked to the parking lot. He got into the passenger seat and stared straight ahead. He’d seen Jess dose herself with morphine, seen her body relax with the hit. Just because she believed it, didn’t mean she wasn’t sky-high on make-believe.

  When Lily had buckled up, he handed her a piece of paper. “We need to go to this address.” He wouldn’t panic until he verified the existence of a child.

  She glanced at it. “It’s on the other side of town. Aren’t you due back at the party?”

  “It won’t take long.”

  “Are you visiting with her family?”

  He hesitated. “Yeah.” He didn’t want Lily or anyone knowing this. No soft hearts, no pressure to do the right thing, whatever the fuck that was. Stop making this real. There won’t be a baby.

  As they neared their destination, his skin got itchy, his nerves jumpier. Even if there was a baby, it might not be his. The timing fit, but Jess could have slept with other guys. Why would she lie? She has been lying. Maybe she was after money. Except she could have hit him up for child support any time this past year and she hadn’t. Unless the real father has no money. If a baby even exists. His brain bombarded him with rationalizations; his gut twisted with cold, silent dread.

  “We’re here,” Lily said.

  She’d pulled into the driveway of a shabby, shuttered bungalow in a neighborhood where people didn’t have the money to waste on keeping their lawns alive. Not a place you’d want to raise a child. Quit with the end of days. The baby is all in Jess’s imagination.

  He took off his seatbelt with hands that were suddenly clumsy.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  No, I’m terrified. “Wait here, I won’t be long.” He couldn’t be a father, he wasn’t the right kind of guy. Normal. Patient. Ready.

  The front door had a screen door covered with decorative faux wrought iron. The pear-shaped, gray-haired woman on the other side eyed Moss like she knew him. “Good, you came,” she said, as she unlocked the screen door. She wore a fluffy robe over her clothes and dug in the pocket for a tissue as soon as she twisted the handle. As she wiped her nose she looked at Lily waiting in the car.

  “Your girlfriend?”

  “My driver.”

  “A driver,” she exclaimed. “You sure have a shitload of money to throw around, don’t you? I don’t understand why Jess didn’t contact you earlier.” Her voice was thick with phlegm. “I’m Paula. Jess has been rooming with me since…” She stopped to sneeze, grabbing the door frame for support and covering her mouth with the tissue. “Every time it tears up my throat,” she complained, wiping her nose again. “Come in. You’ll want to see the baby.”

  It was the last thing Moss wanted, but he followed Paula down a narrow central corridor to a room at the rear of the house. “I put her down for a nap a half hour ago but I can wake—”

  “Don’t wake it,” he croaked. He realized he hadn’t spoken since he stepped inside.

  Paula looked relieved. “Good, she’s been up half the night
and I need the break.” She stopped at the door, pulled a packet of towelettes from her robe’s other pocket, and wiped her hands. “I’ve been sanitizing before I pick her up. But I’m getting sicker. And she’s on formula now so there’s no antibodies or anything.”

  He had no idea what she was talking about.

  Replacing the towelettes in her pocket, she turned the handle and gestured him to enter first. He did so reluctantly, taking in the double bed, a dressing table with makeup, clothes over the chair. The walls had been painted a cheerful yellow, but with the curtains pulled to darken the room, they appeared an ugly mustard.

  The room was colder than the rest of the house, despite an electric heater in the corner, and the faint scent of lavender from an air freshener on the dresser couldn’t cancel out the earthy smell of poor insulation. A tiny person lay asleep in a crib in one corner and he forced himself to approach, his last hope fading. She existed, then.

  “Baby doesn’t look like you, more’s the pity,” Paula commented. “It would make this easier.”

  He couldn’t begin to process his emotions so he concentrated on cataloging detail. Tufts of fine fair hair covered a tiny scalp. Tiny face, tiny eyelids. Skin pale as milk, and a furrowed brow. Whatever she was dreaming worried her.

  “She’s not a happy baby,” Paula confided in a hoarse whisper. “Maybe she knows her mommy’s dying and she’ll soon be all alone in the world, poor little thing.” She shook her head. “I still can’t get my head around how quickly Jess went downhill.”

  “What’s its…her name?”

  “Jess didn’t tell you?” Her nose twitched, and she clapped a tissue over her nose to try and suppress a sneeze and left the room. He could hear her ah-chooing all down the hall.

  He looked at the sleeping baby. “I don’t feel anything,” he said. “Wouldn’t I feel something if I was your father?” Other than terror.

  Leaving the room, he tracked Paula to the kitchen where she was breaking open a new box of tissues.

  “Grace,” she said. “Her name is Grace. Give me a minute and I’ll get her stuff ready.”

  He recoiled. “What?”

  “Isn’t that why you’re here, to take her?”

  “I only found out she existed an hour ago. I’m not even sure she’s mine.”

  “If you weren’t convinced you wouldn’t have come,” she said, astutely. “And Jess isn’t the type to lie.”

  “She lied to me about being pregnant,” he said bitterly. Though would anything have changed if he’d known from the start?

  “Yeah, that was dumb. I told her that. She was paranoid you might hire some big lawyers and go for custody, particularly when she got sick again.” Paula freed some tissues and blew her nose. “I think she wanted something for herself, what with her family situation and everything. That’s why she phoned you, because she sure as hell doesn’t want those whack jobs raising her kid like she was raised.”

  He gritted his teeth. “She told me about her family.” On the night they’d met they’d exchanged drunken horror stories of their childhoods and found a connection through black humor. “You think that’s bad, let me tell you ’bout the time…”

  He had to get out of here, the walls were closing in. “I’ll be in touch.” He was halfway to the door as he said it.

  “If you’re not taking her now,” Paula called after him, “you’ll need to contact Social Services and find out where she’s been placed.”

  His stride stalled. “Wait, what?”

  “I made Jess a promise not to call Social Services until you saw the baby, and had your chance to take her.” Paula went to the sink and poured herself a glass of water. “You’ve seen her.”

  “Can’t she stay with you? Fuck, I’ll pay you.” If Paula called CPS the baby would go into foster care. That couldn’t happen.

  “I’m sick. I’ve barely hung on this week.” A bottle of Advil sat on kitchen table. She popped the top and swallowed two, wincing and massaging her throat with every sip of water. “Jess is a nice girl but I’m only her landlady. And I’m not risking trouble with a government agency. Next thing they’ll be investigating my taxes.”

  This nightmare kept getting worse. And worse. “Isn’t there someone else who can take care of the baby until I sort something out?”

  “Do you think I’d be looking after Grace if Jess had options? She’s still estranged from her family. They don’t even know she’s dying. You need to get a lawyer and formalize paternity while Jess is still alive. Doctors say it could be any time.”

  Panic slipped its leash. “But I have no idea how to look after a baby.”

  “You should’ve thought of that eleven months ago,” she said stubbornly. “If you can afford a driver, you can afford childcare.”

  Lily. Lily knew kids.

  “Don’t phone anybody,” he cautioned. “I’ll be right back.”

  * * *

  The screen door hit with a thud behind him as he stepped out onto the porch. After the dimness inside the house, the sun blinded him. He felt disorientated, adrift, sick with fear.

  “Don’t wake the baby,” Paula called through the mesh.

  The baby. His brain kept trying to process, but stalled and stuttered over the words like someone trying to decipher a foreign language. He’d forgotten the taste of fear like this, forgotten how it sank its jagged little teeth into his lungs and suffocated him.

  “I was just coming to get you.” Lily walked up the path toward him, sidestepping the gaping cracks in the concrete. She added apologetically, “Dimity phoned. Your producer brought a whole lot of important contacts with him. We really need to leave.”

  For a split second, he considered it. Getting in the car and letting her drive him away. Picking up his life, the life of two hours ago. He could throw money at the problem, hire a lawyer, let someone else handle this. What’s the point of becoming a rock star if you can’t insulate yourself from real life?

  Lily stopped. “What’s wrong? You look as if you’re going to pass out.”

  “Jess has a baby.” It amazed him that his voice sounded so normal.

  “Oh, the poor woman. How tragic.”

  He laughed and it was a rusty, broken thing. “It’s my baby.”

  The next thing he knew, he was sitting on the steps with Lily pushing his head between his knees.

  He was still dizzy when he pushed himself to a seating position. You don’t have time for weakness. “Jess’s landlady is sick and expects me to take the baby. If I don’t, she’ll phone Child Protective Services and I can’t let that happen. They’ll put her in a foster home. And Paula’s coughing all over the baby.” He knew he wasn’t making sense but Lily looked into his eyes and listened and nodded and her hand on his shoulder gripped tight.

  “Moss,” she said firmly, and he refocused on her. “Breathe.”

  He breathed.

  “Keep breathing.” She stood and knocked on the door. He stared at the car, remembering when it rated as one of his day’s irritants. Anything, he thought, I can handle anything but this. Torture me with anything but this.

  “Can you give us a half hour so he can process this?” Lily was saying behind him. “You can see he’s in shock.”

  Is that what this was called? This dry-mouthed, blank horror?

  “You will come back?” Paula sounded skeptical.

  “Yes. We’re only taking a short walk. I’ll even leave you the car keys.”

  He raised his head. “You’re supposed to leave something of value.” As a joke, it needed a defibrillator. He needed a defibrillator.

  “And he’s back,” Lily approved. It didn’t stop her hooking her arm firmly through his as she steered him toward the footpath. “I noticed a park a couple of blocks north from here.”

  The motion of walking helped reset his brain. By the time they’d reached the park, a patch of grass only slightly less yellow than the yards around it, he’d regained a tenuous self-control.

  “Talk to me,” said Lily.
>
  “I met Jess in a Seattle bar.” Jimmy Hendrix’s birthplace. He’d read somewhere that in elementary school Hendrix had carried a broom around with him for a year, pretending it was a guitar, and the story had always tickled him. Rage was on a brief break from touring and he’d flown there on a whim, because he could.

  And because Rage was in hiatus while Zander dealt with a lip-syncing scandal and recovered from vocal surgery.

  “She was celebrating being in remission and I was celebrating having money. We went from the bar to a penthouse suite. When we realized the condom had failed we even laughed about it, because we felt so fucking invincible that night. It niggled at me when I sobered up, so I texted Jess a few weeks later to follow up. She told me there was nothing to worry about.” He’d been so relieved he could still remember her exact words. We got lucky.

  “Why would she keep her pregnancy secret?”

  He told her of Jess’s fear that he’d push for an abortion or try and claim the baby. He hadn’t wanted a child then, and he didn’t want one now. Did that make him a bad person? But they would have worked something out if she’d wanted to keep it…her. Grace. He certainly wouldn’t have fought her for custody.

  “And that was the last contact you’ve had until now?”

  Moss shook his head. “Next time I was in Seattle I texted to suggest we meet up.” He’d liked her, they’d had a great time, and they’d dodged a bullet together. Instead she’d been gestating a bomb.

  He pulled out his cell and scrolled through their texts until he found the one he was looking for. “I have someone special in my life now,” he read aloud. “Probably not a good idea.” He glanced at the date, did the math. “She would have been eight months pregnant.”

  For a moment they both digested that. At the corner of the park was a playground, if you could call two swings and a slide a playground. Last night’s rain had left a puddle of muddy water at the bottom of the slide. Maybe that was why it was empty.

  Thoughtfully, Lily took one swing, gestured for him to take the other. “Does she have family that could help?”

  He appreciated that she was exploring all avenues.