99 Percent Mine

by Sally Thorne

  “I don’t care about cats. Where did he go?”

  “Mom doesn’t know. She said he barely said anything while he was there, and said he had to get going. He didn’t stay the night. She tried to make him stay, but he was just back in his truck. He apologized, but she didn’t know what for.” Jamie hesitates on something.

  “Tell me.”

  “He left Patty with them.” He wraps his arm tighter until we’re hip to hip. Together, we shiver through all the scenarios.

  “I don’t care what he did.” I found my passport on my pillow. I would put that thing in the toaster to get Tom back. “He really thinks we’ll never forgive him. Over money and a passport!”

  “It’s not a hard leap to make,” Jamie admits. “We’re both psychopaths about—”

  “Money and freedom. I know. I know. I hate us.” I hang my head between my knees. “I can’t bear this. He’s just dropped completely off the grid.”

  “It sucks, doesn’t it,” Jamie says without any accusation in his tone. He’s gentle. “This is why we get hurt when you do it.”

  “I won’t anymore.” I swallow a big lump in my throat. “If you can deal with me . . .”

  “Yeah. You’re staying.” Jamie pats my hand and then takes Tom’s phone from me. “You know we have to try Megan.” He says this with an apology in his voice that I’ve never heard before. “We gotta, Darce. I’m right here.” He keeps his arm around me as he dials.

  “Darcy?” Megan says when she answers.

  “Darcy and Jamie,” Jamie says when I have no voice. “Is Tom there?”

  “Okay, so he told me what to say when you called. First thing: Don’t panic. No, wait, that was advice for me. Second thing: Tell Darcy that we’re not back together.” Megan exhales nervously. “Hear that, Darcy? We’re not.”

  “I heard it.” My voice is croaky. “Is he okay?”

  “He is. He said he needs time to think. He said he made two big mistakes, and he’s made you both angry.”

  “He hasn’t,” Jamie and I answer in twin unison.

  “That’s what I told him,” Megan responds. “Everyone knows how much you two love him. You know what he’s like. So hard on himself if he isn’t . . .”

  “Perfect.” The horrible word sounds like a curse out of my mouth. “Yeah, we know it.”

  “He’s been under a lot of pressure and it’s just gotten to be too much.”

  “Can I . . . Can I talk to him?” I am suddenly sick with nerves.

  “He’s not staying with me. He only came by to . . .” She pauses.

  “Pick up the ring,” Jamie supplies with no tact.

  “Yeah,” she replies, soft and sad. “He said he needed it for something important.”

  “Megan, I’m sorry I stared at you at Christmas.” I blurt it out. “I’m sorry. I never wanted you guys to break up, and I think your skin is phenomenal.”

  She laughs. I hear the sounds of children in the background. Like she’s outside. “You did stare at me, so much.” She’s not resentful. “But I stared at you, too.”

  It’s laughable. She’s a ten. I’m a solid six in the right light. “Me? Why would you?”

  Megan covers the phone receiver. Says something like, In a minute, sweetie. Then she says, “Because I always knew how much he loves you.”

  “We grew up together,” I say awkwardly. I look sideways at Jamie, but he’s neutral as he listens. “Of course he loves me. We’re like family. I’m like his sister.”

  “He came alive at Christmas,” she tells me. “It took me years to admit it to myself, but if you were there, he was lit up. And if you were traveling, he was flat. It’s okay,” she rushes to assure me as I begin to object. “I know that technically, I was second in line to you.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jamie interjects desperately. “I just thought if I introduced you guys, you’d help him get out of his depression. When you left he was pretty bad,” Jamie adds apologetically to me. “Megan is technically perfect for him.”

  “No, I’m not,” Megan says, and the happy squeal of a kid nearly deafens us. “I’m really not. But Darcy is. I’m sorry, guys, but I’ve got to go.”

  “How’d you get a kid so fast?” I’m glad she just laughs in response.

  “I’m dating a guy who has a three-year-old. I’m just at the park watching them play around. It’s been quite unexpected. Like falling in love, doubled.” Megan pauses. “Can you guys let me know when he gets back? Please go easy on him.”

  “I realized something. Tom has never asked us for anything. Did you know that?” Jamie says, and looks to me. I rack my brains. It’s true. “Nothing. Not a glass of water if it’s hot. Not money, not help, nothing. He just doesn’t know how to ask.”

  “That was something I had an issue with, too,” Megan says.

  “It’s easy,” I correct them both. “You just force it on him, and he sighs and says okay.”

  “I think that only works if you’re you,” Jamie points out. “And yes, Megan, we’ll go easy on him. There’s nothing he can do that will make us . . .” Jamie can’t finish. His voice has choked up.

  “Stop loving him,” I supply, strong and steady. “He’s made a few fuckups but they’re no big deal. We love him. We just want him back. We’ll make sure we earn him this time.”

  We hang up and stare at the street together. When the next car approaches, Jamie and I sit up straight together. Slump together. For the first time since we were kids, we lean together.

  “You’re right, Darce,” Jamie says after an endless stretch of time has passed and we have goose bumps and mosquito bites. “The twins need to work out how we can possibly deserve someone like Tom Valeska. When he comes back, we have to be able to prove it.”

  I link my arm into my brother’s. “How can we possibly do that? He’s so . . .” The word perfect isn’t allowed anymore. I look up at the sky, and a shooting star streaks overhead, trailing down.

  Loretta’s here. I feel her. I let the tears run down. “I miss him. I miss her.”

  Jamie knows exactly who I mean. “We haven’t lost either of them, not really. They’re both just . . . taking a holiday. It’s okay. We’ll make it right.”

  “But he left Patty.” I have to marvel at how my heart can keep beating this slow and steady, even as I put my face into Jamie’s shoulder and cry.

  * * *

  “I EMAILED HIM the appointment details,” Jamie says to me as we take a seat in my cardiologist’s waiting room. “I sent it to his old email address. I bet he still checks it. He’s going to make it. I know it. Today is the day.” Stronger, he assures me, “He promised you.”

  I don’t respond. I’m not using my voice a lot lately. I’m just a faded half person, kept alive by Truly hand-feeding me candy and Jamie pouring water down my throat. It’s bizarre seeing them in the same room. They bustle around together, arguing and pushing and cajoling. Jamie’s right. She thinks he’s a nightmare. A really handsome nightmare.

  Luckily he hasn’t noticed it yet.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Truly had burst out with the moment she walked in to sit on the side of my bed, but I just shook my head wearily. Who cares. I know what my brother is like. Who could resist replying to one of his cheeky, funny emails? No one. Not a single person on earth who had met him could ignore him. I shouldn’t keep holding my friends to a standard they can’t achieve.

  She hugged me until the sky went black, and Jamie ordered a pizza. If I wasn’t so heartbroken, I’d dig around in their relationship a little, but I can’t do anything except hold Tom’s phone, and correct myself every time I falter.

  He’s going to come back to you. He will.

  I watch as Jamie selects a magazine for me. “Golf Digest,” he says, trying to make me laugh, and unfolds it on my thighs to an article. “Come on, Darce. Gotta work on your backswing.”

  “Fine. But you need to improve yourself as well.” I choose a magazine for him. “Learn how to bake a glazed ham.” These days, we’re all ab
out self-improvement. We’re determined to make ourselves better versions. We both focus on our assigned reading until Tom’s phone buzzes. Like always, we jump and scrabble for it.

  “It’s a message from the real estate agent. Margie’s coming at three. Will we be back in time?”

  “Yes, and if not, Colin can take her through.” It’s been two months. It’s hard to believe that we have a fairly well-formed house to show an agent. She wants to prepare a game plan. The demand for properties in our area has gone red-hot.

  “Two months,” I say to Jamie, and he knows what I mean.

  We sit and stare blankly at the receptionist’s desk for a while. I turn my head with effort to look at my brother. My mirror. He looks as bad as I do.

  “Yeah, we look shitty,” he says as he rolls his face to mine. We’re just two blond cadavers. “It’s fucking ridiculous, isn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “How we can’t live without him.”

  “Yeah. That’s what I’m worried they’re going to tell me in this appointment. I’m a goner, Jamie.” I groan tiredly and slip into a half snooze.

  As the minutes tick along, I have to accept it. He’s gone. He’s not coming back for me and my stupid heart. I check the phone in my hand again. I want to squeeze a message out of it. Just one word that he’s okay, and I can get myself hooked up and they’ll find a heartbeat.

  The name is called that turns both our heads. “Barrett?”

  “We just need to wait a minute longer,” Jamie argues politely with the cardiologist’s assistant. “We’re waiting for our friend to come to the appointment, too.”

  “I’ll bring them in when they get here,” the receptionist tells us. “We need to keep to the schedule.” Defeated, the Barrett twins skulk down the long white hallway. I’m scared. My heart is a dead apricot kernel. They’ll have to sew me to Jamie to borrow his, and we’ll have to live as Siamese twins.

  Jamie’s hand closes on mine, and I’ve never been this scared for myself. “What am I going to do?” I whisper to him as we are seated. “What?”

  “I don’t know,” he replies to me, hushed. “But you’ll be okay. I’m here.”

  “Darcy Barrett,” Dr. Galdon says to me with a flourish. He’s known me for years. “I have not seen your face in a long, long time.” His smile fades off when the witty rejoinder he’s expecting doesn’t happen. From either twin. “What’s happening?”

  “Just a little brokenhearted,” I say listlessly. “It’s not feeling good in there.” I point at my chest.

  “Hmm,” Dr. Galdon says, and I try to not read too much into his expression as he checks my blood pressure. I know I look absolutely terrible. I’ve got blade cheekbones and my eyeballs are permanently pink. Tom thought my clothes were falling off before? I look like a mop slid into black fabric.

  “Let’s get you hooked up.” I change into a gown behind a screen at the end of the room. Dr. Galdon helps me sit up onto the edge of the examination bench and wheels over the heart monitor. He sticks little pads all over me, connecting the wires to his machines. This used to scare me so much as a kid. I thought I was going to be shocked to life. Maybe that would be a good move for me now.

  “She eats nothing, forgets her medication, it’s expired,” Jamie snitches on me in a dull automatic way. “Drinks too much. No exercise whatsoever. Cries all day. Sugar, good Lord, the sugar.”

  “Okay, okay,” Dr. Galdon says, sticking the last of the pads to my chest. I swivel and lie down. “Don’t get her all riled up.” He’s been in the vicinity of one of our snippy little jousts plenty of times. Again, he falls silent when I don’t reply.

  Little does he know, the Barrett twins have stopped fighting.

  It takes too much effort, and besides, we need to cling to each other to stay afloat. Without our perfect-for-us buffer to level us out. I hear the upward inflection of a beep and we all watch as my heart begins to squiggle and bump along on the screen with all the energy of a dying tadpole. I hear a buzzing and for a split second I think it’s the sound of me flatlining.

  “Let me just get this,” Dr. Galdon says. “I’ve got an emergency call. Just sit tight.” He leaves the room, and I remain lying down, looking at the lines on the screen.

  Bleep-bloop. Bleep-bloop.

  “The solicitor sent the paperwork through,” Jamie says to break the silence. “It came by courier. He’s gonna kill us.” He adds that last part on cheerfully, like he can’t wait for the moment that Tom shakes his head at what we’ve done.

  “Yeah.” I sigh heavily. “I can hear him now. I don’t need your help—”

  Jamie cuts in, mimicking Tom. “I don’t need a third of the sale price.”

  “I don’t deserve it,” I continue in Tom’s tone. “I’m not a Barrett. It’s your inheritance, not mine.” I rub my arms and try to not watch the monitor. “But he does. And he’s getting it. Thank you, Jamie. It’s the perfect way to show him that he’s important, and equal, and that we love him forever.”

  “He didn’t inherit a thing, and I didn’t think twice about it.” Jamie has been beating himself up over this. “All I thought about was my money. Not him. He was practically her third grandchild and he got nothing. This is just making things right.”

  “Can you get him to sign, though? He’s so proud.”

  “When I find him,” Jamie says with complete confidence, “I can get him to do anything. Even sign that document.”

  “When you find him.” I exhale, Jamie exhales, and the room falls silent. It’s impossible to find someone who’s hurt and hiding. I should know. I’ve been doing it for years. Who knows where on earth Tom could be.

  “Once I get the all-clear to travel, I’m going to go looking for him.”

  Jamie doesn’t forbid it or say it’s a stupid idea. All he says is, “Where will you look first?”

  “Not sure. I’ll take the Northern Hemisphere—”

  “And I’ll do the Southern Hemisphere.” Jamie smiles at me. “We’ll find him. We’re very determined individuals. Two blond artillery tanks, rolling out. Covering every square inch.” He’s trying to make me smile, but I’m distracted by a feeling.

  I’ve got a vibration in my bones. I’ve got a shiver on the soles of my feet and an upward trickle in my veins. On the screen, my heart rate is pipping upward. I’m starting to get warm.

  “God, are you about to blow up?” Jamie stands and looks at the screen, making a face. “What the fuck is happening? I’ll go get Dr.—”

  The door opens.

  “In here,” the receptionist says, and Darcy and Jamie Barrett have twin heart attacks.

  Tom Valeska always arrives, exactly when we need him most.

  He’s standing in the doorway, his brow creased and his T-shirt too loose on his body. One foot is slid back, like he’s ready to make his escape. “Thank you,” he says with his automatic politeness to the receptionist. His eyes dart between me and Jamie, fast and desperate. He’s flushed and sweating. He’s the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.

  “Hi,” I say, tethered in place by my heart. “You came.”

  Jamie jolts out of his surprise and does what I can’t. He walks to Tom and puts his arms around him and squeezes. “You came,” Jamie echoes, and won’t let the hug end. “You’re here. You’re okay.”

  “Of course I’m okay. Are you okay, Darce?” Tom’s eyes are on the machine beside me and the wires feeding out of my chest. He’s never seen this before, me lying here in a gown, hooked up to a machine. It’s confronting. I try to pull them off, but they’re stuck too well.

  “I’m okay,” I say with the last puff of air I have. I pull myself up to sit on the edge of the bench. The air is filled with beeping. “Come here. Please come here.” My eyes are full of tears.

  Jamie releases him and Tom steps between my knees. The entire world falls away. He puts his fingertips into my shaggy hair and tips my face up.

  “What’s happened here?” he says in a sympathetic husky voice. “You
look terrible, beautiful Darcy Barrett.”

  I press my face into his solar plexus and I feel his warm hands on my nape. He threads his free arm through the wires and cups my back. I’m carrying the sensation of this squeeze around for the rest of my life.

  “Tom, are you okay?”

  “I’m okay,” Tom says. “I’m sorry, guys,” he tries, but we both shush him desperately. Jamie is feeling left out and squeezes onto the examination table beside me. We’re just two little blond birds, looking up at Tom like we need him to survive. Oh wait. We do.

  “But I completely—” he tries again, and we shake our heads. “I just totally—”

  “We don’t care,” Jamie says, silencing him. “We don’t care. You’re back. That’s everything. Please make my sister stay alive. By any means necessary.”

  “What does she need to stay alive?”

  “You,” Jamie says simply. It’s one word, but it’s a powerful one; Tom looks at him sharply, like he can’t believe what he’s heard.

  “You,” I echo. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “I thought I’d fucked up beyond forgiveness. So I just drove. I guess I just left town. Maybe I am like my father.” Tom sighs and rubs his face. “Maybe that’s what I’ve been scared of my entire life. That I’m like him.”

  “You’re not,” I counter. I rub his forearm. “Is that why you’ve been trying harder than any living human being, your entire life?” He shrugs and I know I’m right.

  “You left Patty,” Jamie says with a little accusation. “We thought you’d gone and driven your gorgeous ass into a canyon.”

  Tom laughs, even as his hands smooth over me, calming the terror that has the heart monitor squeaking. “Patty needed a beach vacation. Old girl looked all worn out.”

  “Ditto,” I groan as his nails scratch in gentle circles on the side of my neck. “Tom, I nearly died without you. Dr. Galdon is about to confirm it.”

  “Yeah, where is he? I’ll go get him.” Jamie walks out with a frown on his brow, closing the door behind him. Holy crap. He just left a room so we could be alone. My heart is pipping so much that Tom looks sideways with concern.