by Rachel Kane
Micah wouldn’t look my way, for obvious reasons, but I continued to watch him closely. To him it was very strange to sit in the breakfast room and be served by Consuela. He was used to being on an equal footing with the staff, not a guest of the house here to be served.
Or maybe his jitters were a result of last night.
I really needed to talk to him. If nothing else, getting everything out in the open would mean a lot less stress this weekend. I would explain to him that although the kiss had been nice, our lives were too different, and nothing could happen between us. It would be a very grown-up, sensible explanation.
Except now our uncomfortable peace had been interrupted.
“Boys, I’d like to introduce you to Nicholas,” said Mother, turning him so that we could get a better look at him, as though that were necessary; I think we’d all already made up our minds about him.
He reached over the table toward Val. “I’d recognize you anywhere, young man. Mastermind of the business. Damn fine job you’ve done at Harrison Holdings. Damn fine.”
You could see the little gears working in Val’s head within the split second it took him to shoot out his own hand and give Nicholas a brief shake.
“And you must be the infamous Theo,” he said, reaching towards Micah, who shook his head.
“Actually I’m just the infamous friend of the family,” said Micah. “That’s Theo there.”
Nicholas looked at me, puzzled. “You’re Theo!”
“I…am? Yes, I am.”
Did I not look like myself? I glanced down.
Unlike Val, who was in his casual weekend wear, and Micah, who had apparently borrowed one of Val’s sweaters this morning, I was still in my pajamas. The mirror on the other side of the wall told the story in an instant. My hair was tousled and unruly, and there was a smear of graphite on my cheek.
I’d woken this morning to find that I’d picked up Micah’s picture some time in the night, and lay it on the pillow beside me.
My sleeping self was apparently insane.
Nicholas gave my hand a tight grip. “I’ve heard all about you from your mother,” he said, his puzzled look replaced by a knowing grin.
“Isn’t it nice that they’ve all come to visit?” asked my mother, practically purring. “Have some coffee, dear.”
“I think it’s damn fine that you came to support your mom right now,” he told us. “Damn fine.”
He looked as if he might say more, but my mother chose that moment to grip his hand.
Was there something going on here under the surface that I wasn’t seeing?
“Nicholas fully supports me selling the property,” she told us. “He thinks it would lift the burden.”
Val was already bristling. I could tell he wanted to offer all the arguments for why we should keep the house. I could also tell that he wanted to use words like taxes and depreciation in his explanation. That wasn’t going to help anything, if he launched into a business presentation.
Micah, on the other hand, looked downtrodden. The more support Mother had for her decision, the greater the chances Micah would go back home with his own mom in tow, having to guide her through an uncertain future.
I found myself understanding his point of view. Weren’t we both trying to figure out what was best for our moms? Mine couldn’t stay here, couldn’t be trapped in a house full of old memories. She wanted to escape. If we’d held on to the house, though, she would always feel herself being pulled back here, tied down by the memories of herself as wife and mother, rather than as an independent woman looking out for her own future.
Still…look at Micah. He was truly worried what was going to happen here.
Suddenly I felt like a heel. I’d been planning how to tell him that his kiss had meant nothing, that it could never happen again, but how do you tell someone that, when they look like their life is over?
Not that his life would really be over, by any means. He’d find his mom a new home, a new job. He was smart and resourceful.
…and it was my family putting him into this position. So it was our fault he was going through it.
I’m not really good at complicated emotions. That’s what makes me such a good front-man for the company. I keep it simple. Drinks and parties and listening to people talk, softening everyone up for Val and the money guys to swoop down.
“A new start is good for everyone!” said Nicholas. “Nothing like wiping the slate clean and starting fresh! It’s a great opportunity for all of you!”
“A damn fine opportunity,” I muttered.
“What’s that, Theo?” My mother shot me a warning glance.
“If you’ll excuse me,” said Micah. He left his unfinished breakfast on the table, and walked out of the room.
“Oh,” said Val, as though he’d just understood what was going through Micah’s head. “Should I…?”
“No,” I said. “I’ll do it.”
“Darling, what is it?” Nicholas said to my mother. “Did I say something wrong?”
She whispered something to him then, but all I heard was the phrase: The help.
12
Micah
“I think you ought to go ahead and pack,” I said.
My mother looked down at the laundry basket. “But the tablecloths—”
“If Mrs. Harrison wants the tablecloths washed, she can do it herself. She’s going to have to learn to do all these things herself, like a normal person.”
I hoped the bitterness I felt wasn’t coming out in my words.
Last night had embarrassed me so much. I don’t know what I was thinking, kissing Theo like that. It was the dumbest thing I’d ever done. Who lets a thing like moonlight affect their opinion of someone?
I’d kissed him, and literally nothing had changed, the Harrisons still couldn’t care less about the people their choices affected, I was still going to have to help my mom start a new life, and all that had happened was that I’d added a layer of guilt and humiliation to my life. Theo was probably back there at the table right now, smugly thinking about his effect on me.
Sometimes I forget my mother isn’t helpless. I forget that she’s a woman who raised me all by herself, while working full-time, making sure I got an education, and structure, and love. I forget that the strength that let her do all that, hasn’t faded away with time.
I could see it in her eyes, as she set the basket of laundry on the old washer. A certain hardness, as the inevitability of leaving sunk in. She was beginning to recalculate the contours of her life, a life outside this big house.
“You spoke to her?” she asked. “There’s no hope?”
I shook my head. “Now they’ve got this Nicholas on their side, for even more support. I’m sorry, I thought I could work something out. But go ahead and pack. If there’s more than will fit in the car—”
Someone behind me cleared his throat.
It was Theo.
“Micah…could I speak to you? For just one second?”
“It was the blitheness that got to me,” Theo said.
Morning sun over the lake, waves dappled by light, reflecting up at us. I would not look at the light on his face. I would not study him. The kiss had been meaningless, a descent into the worst kind of pointless nostalgia.
This was the man who was kicking my mother out. He was, in fact, the enemy. My courtroom-mind began marshaling arguments against his case. I had to be clear, concise, and direct, so he understood that whatever had happened last night, I had no illusions about it.
I began, “Look, about what happened—”
“I get a weird vibe off of him—”
“—it really should never have happened, I don’t know what I was thinking—”
“—and I thought, who is this guy to be influencing my mother one way or the other, like nobody else has anything at stake—”
“—but you don’t have to worry, I don’t have any interest in it happening again.”
“—and I think there has to be a bet
ter way to handle this than by kicking out your mom and Consuela. Wait, what were you saying?”
“I’m sorry, I missed what you said?”
We stared at one another a second. He gave me the side-eye and a hesitant smile. “Whyyyyy…don’t you go first, Micah?”
Suddenly I was way too embarrassed to speak. “No, you.”
“Were you saying something about last night?”
“I mean, I wasn’t not saying something about last night, but forget about that, what were you saying about your mother?”
Still regarding me with amused suspicion, he said, “This guy. Nicholas. What the hell? Why should he have an opinion on what Mother does with the house? I’ve been feeling sorry for her, thinking of her trapped in here, not being allowed to move on after Dad died, but this guy didn’t grow up here. He doesn’t know how your mom and Consuela were practically part of the family.”
“My mom actually is part of my family.”
“You know what I mean. You can’t just fire them because you’ve decided it’s time for a new chapter in your life. Who told Nicholas he got a vote on this? It rubs me the wrong way, Micah. It makes me think he’s got some kind of undue influence over her.”
I glanced back at the house. “You think it’s his idea, pulling up stakes and moving on?”
“I think it’s weird. There’s no reason not to keep the house. We’re not exactly short on cash.”
Something about his energy made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. I could feel it coming off of him like electricity. This was the old Theo, thinking hard, planning, but also carefully observing everything around him. He would always look at things so closely, and you knew that he was storing it all away for future paintings, but it also gave him insights the rest of us might miss.
I used to love that about him. The excitement of watching his mind work. For all that I’d loved his body (oh god I’d loved his body), his mind was strange and beautiful. You wanted to get lost in it.
Which is why I felt like I was delivering bad news just now, felt like I was pointing out the flaw in his logic.
“The thing is, my mom can’t put her life on hold while your mom sorts things out,” I said. “I just think it would be smarter to go ahead and cut the cord.”
“That’s easy for you to say, because you’re only thinking about your mom. What about Consuela? Who is going to help her? She doesn’t have a lawyer son to come rescue her.”
That was the other thing it was easy to forget about Theo.
He cared about people.
And he was absolutely right. While I had lumped in Consuela as a generic concern, I hadn’t actually thought about helping her, the way I had my mom.
Who was going to look after her? Who was going to help her find a new job?
Me?
“Okay,” I said, “I see your point. But…I got the feeling earlier that you were on your mother’s side, about getting rid of the house.”
He shrugged. “I’m on everybody’s side, I guess. We’re rich. Surely we can figure out a solution that makes everybody happy. Except Nicholas. I specifically don’t want him to be happy.”
“Oh, c’mon, you just met him, I’m sure he’s fine.”
“Damn fine, in fact. Why don’t you let him date your mom, if he’s so wonderful?”
“Noooo,” I said, laughing. “I’m too old for a new dad.”
“It’ll be great!” Theo said. “He can take you to ball-games, go fishing…maybe you two can finally have that talk about the birds and bees you missed out on when you were young!”
He suddenly went silent and looked away. The joke had gone just a little too far, into uncomfortable territory.
Growing up without a dad was just a fact of life for me. I’d never known mine, and so never really felt a loss from it. Other boys had dads, and I didn’t, but it was just one more difference in a whole world of differences. Other boys didn’t have moms who worked for millionaires. Other boys weren’t attracted to their school chums.
Nobody had ever given me a hard time about it, and it wasn’t tragic or anything.
But having it brought up right now, along with that joke about the birds and bees, after what happened last night?
I was right back to being embarrassed all over again.
“I’m really stepping in it today,” said Theo. “Actually, this whole weekend has been one long exercise in me putting my foot in my mouth.”
“It’s okay.”
“Great, so now we’re back full circle, to saying everything is fine.”
“No, I just meant—”
“I know. I know what you meant.” A troubled look passed over his face. “But nothing feels fine right now, Micah. You get that, don’t you? I know you do. There’s something wrong with the world, everything’s out of balance. How can I have no power over whether my childhood home goes up for sale? How can all those memories, all that time, end up meaning nothing to anyone? I’ve sacrificed everything for my family, and in return, my past is going to be erased, as surely as my future was. All so Nicholas can utter banalities like clean slate.”
I swallowed nervously. “You’re the one person on earth who seems to feel the same way I do about it.”
“Of course I do. You had to sacrifice everything too, didn’t you? And we’re still being asked to do it. And we’re such good sons that we keep saying that everything’s fine, when it’s not.”
If there were any sense to the world, I could’ve just taken this to mean he was on my side as far as the house and my mom. He wasn’t an opponent on the other side of the aisle, he was here at my table, ready to help me argue my case before the judge, in a manner of speaking.
A smart person would’ve left it there and been glad to have an ally.
Of course, nobody has ever accused me of being smart, when it comes to my emotions.
Because I felt so drawn to him right now. Not out of nostalgia, not just because of last night, but because he’d revealed himself to me. That compassion and empathy he was always at such pains to hide from people. I think he would’ve been happy if the whole world thought he was a spoiled brat, complaining and wallowing.
It was all a show he put on. Deep down, he cared. He couldn’t help caring.
Is it any wonder my heart kept fluttering when he talked? Is it any wonder that I didn’t want to apologize for the kiss anymore, but that I wanted to do it again?
I couldn’t make a sudden move like that though, not after last night. I actually had to talk to him…or ignore these feelings entirely. Figure out a way to say that I was feeling something growing inside me, some kind of attraction I couldn’t help, or figure out a way to set all of that aside, to recognize I was just here for the weekend, and after this, it was back home to normal life.
Normal, tedious, nerve-wrecking life, working myself to death to hide from how empty I felt.
I had a decision to make, didn’t I?
Clearly, Theo felt close to me. I didn’t know how close, or what he thought about last night, or anything like that.
I sensed that he would follow my lead on it, and ignore the topic if I did.
He didn’t want to make me uncomfortable about it.
It was up to me.
Bring up the kiss, or let it slip into the past, where it could be erased along with everything else we had given up.
I opened my mouth to answer him, when my phone began to ring.
I don’t think I’ve ever been so grateful for an interruption in my life.
“What do you mean, raided?”
Bernard sounded breathless on the other side. “I mean raided. They served Braddock Moore a warrant, and ever since then, they’ve been carting piles of boxes out of his office. He’s begging for you, man. He’s saying you’re the only one who can help him.”
I don’t have time for this. I have more important things going on than helping a crook disentangle himself from the law. I came down here to resolve a problem, and all I’ve done is end up creating
more problems.
“Can’t you talk to him?” I asked Bernard.
“I’ve been talking to him. He doesn’t want me. He says you’re, and I quote, a goddamn shark. Apparently I don’t have enough pointy teeth to represent him.”
“Fuck,” I muttered. “Okay. Whose warrant is it? Please tell me it’s not the IRS or the feds.”
“No, thank god. It’s local. Did he tell you he was being investigated by the state?”
“He didn’t tell me anything,” I said, looking back at Theo, wishing I was talking to him instead of Bernard. “He just said he had an interesting thing to talk about on Monday. He didn’t say he was in trouble. Damn it, Bernard, I can’t get away right now. What should I do?”
“Well, according to the rules of professional conduct, what you should do is zealously defend and protect your client.”
“That doesn’t help.”
Bernard laughed. “I know. But look, whatever crisis with your mom you’ve got going on down there, Braddock’s big problem is going to be huge for us. The state is involved, can you imagine the billable hours this thing is going to bring in? It’s going to put us on the map, Micah…but only if you get up here and talk to him.”
Theo was politely ignoring my conversation from some distance away, but I could tell from his fidgeting that he was eager to get back to our conversation.
Was I?
Or was I grateful to Bernard for giving me an excuse to escape?
No need to puzzle that out now. Right now, I just had to make a decision.
13
Theo
“That was sudden,” said Val. “He left his mother here, though.”
Val looked completely unruffled by life. He was so comfortable in that arm chair next to the window, the morning sun slanting in, making him glow around the edges, his newspaper held carefully in his fingers so the ink wouldn’t smear.
He reminded me a lot of Dad right now. Dad’s easy confidence that led to a sort of natural generosity. Of course Theo should go to Paris, at the end of a long discussion about my education. What have I worked so hard for, what have my own pop and grandfather worked so hard for, if not to let my sons do what they want to in life?
