by Vivian Wood
“I should call Dad,” I say, but I make no attempt to move.
She sniffles, sucking in a breath. “I can’t believe we’re going to have to call him back to his dying wife’s bedside.”
Dr. Erslinger clears her throat. “Mrs. Moreland would like to see you, Aiden.”
I feel like I’m made of lead. “Me? Alone?”
Dr. Erslinger gives me a look that’s conciliatory. “Yes. Eve, I was wondering if you would come down to the nurse’s station with me just to go over some details? It’ll only take a minute.”
“No,” Eve says, shaking her head. “Whatever Mom has to say, she can tell both of us.”
I give her an odd look. “I think Mom can ask for whatever she wants today, Eve.”
Eve doesn’t respond right away. Then she actually hits me, curls up her fist and drives it into my arm. “Fuck you, Aiden. She always did like you better. I would think that you would try to show me some compassion right now.”
My jaw clenches. Does my sister not remember that my mom’s death affects me too? I breathe out slowly. “Go with the doctor, Evie.”
Eve and I stare each other down for a second, then she sniffs and unwinds herself from me. She stands up. “Sure.”
As Eve and the doctors drift off down the hall, I stare at my mom’s door. Getting up, I go over to the heavy wooden door, knocking on it gently. I open the door and see my mom there on the bed, propped up by a mountain of pillows. The sun is shining and the blinds are pulled back from the windows.
It’s almost distracting enough that I don’t notice that my mother has a dozen tubes and IV drips running down to her fragile arms. She’s looking severely jaundiced, worse than she was this morning even.
“Mom?”
She blinks, opening her eyes. She reaches up and touches her purple head wrap. “Aiden, yes. Come here, please. And shut the door behind you.”
Like a robot, I do as she says. I’m aware that I haven’t been alone with her in a couple of years, especially not while she’s been in the hospital. I feel like I’m totally out of my depth here.
I also feel like a shitty son for not visiting Mom more. It’s weird to focus on myself when my mom is dying though so I just cram it down inside and try to compartmentalize it. Coming over to her bedside, I pull up a heavy chair.
She looks almost translucent beneath the yellow of her skin, and more wan than I have ever seen her. Her hair and eyebrows have faded away, eyelashes too. When she smiles at me, I can see the pain in her eyes. She draws a long breath.
“Aiden.” She reaches her hand out to me and I hasten to fill it with my own. When I grip her hand, she smiles. “I have something to tell you. I’m afraid you’ll just have to let me get this out.”
My stomach sinks. A deathbed confession? That can’t be good.
Hopefully she has secretly been stealing money from Dad for the last thirty years. But if that’s what she has to tell me, why not let Eve into the room too?
I lick my lips nervously, not knowing how to respond.
My mom closes her eyes. “When you were little, I imagined that I would tell you when you were older. But time just flies by, doesn’t it?”
My heart pounds but I maintain my composure. “Yes.”
“When I was twenty years old, I married your father.” She hesitates, opening her eyes. “But I spent the summer before that on the west coast, near Seattle. I worked for a wealthy family there named the Morgans. I became infatuated for a time with the oldest son, Thomas.” She stops, drawing another breath. “I left the west coast suddenly, without ever saying goodbye. I met and married your father two months after that.”
I’m quiet, trying to do the math in my head of what she actually means. She squeezes my hand, drawing my gaze to her.
“I suspect that your biological father is Thomas Morgan, not Michael Moreland.”
Her words send me into a kind of shock. What the hell is she talking about?
“Mom…” I shake my head, then look over at the morphine drip attached to her arm. “That’s… you’re not thinking right. The meds the doctors have you on…”
She clutches at my hand. “I’m making sense, Aiden. It’s important that you listen to me. This could be the last time I have the chance to talk to you like this.”
“Mom…” I start, feeling anger rising inside me like a tidal wave. “You’re saying that my dad isn’t my dad?”
She nods, her chin wobbling. “Yes.”
A sense of betrayal slithers low in my belly. I’m not just angry, I feel… disgusted by her.
My lip curling, I rip my hand out from hers. “He beat me black and blue, Mom! Every fucking day! And you just let him.” I rise, pointing at her. “You watched him beat me and tell me I was stupid. He made my childhood hell! And now you’re telling me that he wasn’t even my real dad?” I start seeing red. “All that time, you could’ve told me! And yet, instead of letting me go to… whatever… you just sat and let me get my ass beat?”
“I’m sorry,” my mom says, feebly trying to reach for me. “You don't understand…”
“No. I definitely don't understand,” I say. My hands are shaking. I’m picturing my dad leaning over me, pressing the buckle of his belt against my tear stained face. Whispering that I deserve what he’s about to do to me… Then he raises the belt and brings it down full force across my back, causing me to cry out.
A sob rises from Mom’s chest. “I’m so sorry, Aiden…”
The crack of that belt hitting my flesh rings through my memory. I grit my teeth. A tear slips down my face.
“You know what, Mom? Fuck you. You’ve disappointed me for the last fucking time.”
Whirling, I storm out of her hospital room, so furious I can't even think or see straight. Eve is coming down the hall as I stride down it, a disbelieving look on her face.
“What happened?” she asks, grabbing at my arm.
“Our mom’s a whore,” I spit back, evading her grip.
Her look of perfect surprise is more than I can take. I shake her off and head for the stairs, pushing open the door and taking stairs down two and three at a time.
I make it down to the parking lot in no time at all. Soon I peel out, burning rubber in my haste just to leave the damn place. I can't even hear the noise of the tires against the pavement over the voices in my head.
Every single voice angry, every one shouting at full volume inside my head.
I drive into the night, knowing full well that I’m not going to return, even though she’s only got a day left. Let Eve have her.
I’m done.
2
Aiden
“Get the hell out of my apartment!” she shouts, steaming mad. She’s standing by the tall open windows of her Port Angeles apartment, still buck naked. She looks jiggly and yet somehow statuesque at the same time as she leans out with a bundle of my clothes.
That’s a moment to remember. But I know I won’t. There have been too many Emmas to count recently. I guess there is a reason she’s a model after all, because she is the very picture of grace even as she hurls my clothes out the window.
“Emma—” I say, holding my hand up to ward her off.
The other hand holds a silk bedsheet, covering my junk. Two minutes ago, we were naked and writhing around in her bed.
Then she asked about brunch tomorrow with her friends and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. All this, before we actually fucked. It’s too much for anybody, most of all me.
I made what was obviously in retrospect the huge mistake of being blunt and honest about my needs. After all, I only plan on being here for a few more hours at most.
I have plans. Stuff I need to do while I’m in town. After this, I’m headed back to base camp to lead a ten-day tour.
That wasn’t what she wanted to hear, I guess. Thus she’s now dumping my stuff out the window and demanding I leave.
“Oooohhhh. My name is Emily! Em-uh-lee!” she screams. Her mascara is starting to pool and give h
er raccoon eyes, but I don’t think that now is the time to say anything.
She seems more than a little unhinged. It’s common practice in my life for the women that I sleep with to be a little insane. After all, I like them to be tall, blonde, and gorgeous. Usually that comes with a whole side of daddy issues that makes them try very hard in the bedroom.
“That’s what I meant,” I say calmly. The whole situation is getting a little out of control now, so I start to back toward the apartment door. “I’m on my way out now, so…”
She picks up a pillow from the floor and flings it in my direction. “Good. Just leave!”
I get the picture. Grabbing my keys and phone from her kitchen counter as I slink out, I rush down the stairs of her apartment building. As I burst into the cool night air, I shiver. I’m glad it’s summer, I guess. In the winter in northern Washington, this close to the beach, it gets bitterly cold.
As opposed to now, when the temperature is merely cool. Almost balmy. It a new moon tonight, almost no illumination coming from the sky but the patient stars.
Gathering my clothes from where they lie strewn across the street, I hobble back to my lifted black Jeep and quickly dress. My wallet is still in my pants, which I’m glad for. Having to replace my wallet for the third time this year is not really on my to-do list. This is far from the first time I’ve been in this exact situation, and it’s probably not the last time either.
Still, ordering a new set of credit cards and a new ID is a pain in the ass.
The pleasant buzz I had going on is fading. I get in my Jeep and drive down highway 101, heading back to Whiskey Bend. That’s where the base camp for the National Park Service is, where I’m stationed as a park ranger.
I crack the windows a little bit and enjoy the cool night air on my drive back through the inky darkness.
I don’t think about what just happened.
I don't think about how it feels like my life is ever-so-slightly out of control.
And I definitely don’t think about the Morgan family as I pass by the turn off to get to their estate. In fact, I speed up, just to avoid having to think about them.
Okay, maybe I just wonder about them a little. About my mother, too. I imagine my mother — now deceased — when she was much younger, exploring their estate. That was before I was born. Right before she met my bastard of a father, who brutalized and bullied her until her dying breath.
I haven’t been able to bring myself to tell anyone but Grayson about her passing. Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
It’s too painful a subject. Especially when I start thinking about what she confessed to me as she was dying.
Was she just on so many drugs that her addled mind invented an affair?
Or was she just trying to right a wrong that took place thirty years ago?
The fact that I still don't know is just fucking with my head.
I look out the window and try to think of something else. Soon I pull my Jeep around the last bumpy turn, and Whiskey Bend spills out before me. Above me as I climb out of my vehicle, I can't see the sky. There is a dense canopy of tree leaves over the camp site. The familiar wood cabin style buildings in the forefront welcome me. In the distance, there is a huge ropes course built, intertwining with the trees.
A familiar figure stands on the porch of the largest cabin that doubles as a mess hall, waiting. As I get closer, I can make out my boss Nate. He wears his usual khaki shorts and a Whiskey Bend tee shirt, his feet clad in sandals. His arms are crossed as he leans against the outside of the mess hall. His bald head gleams in the feeble light.
I stride forward, taking the steps to the mess hall two at a time. It’s only when I’m close that I realize that Nate is extremely pissed off at me. I slow down as I catch the hostility in his stare.
Nate is usually pretty easygoing, so his mood is unexpected.
“Hey,” I say, climbing the last step. That brings us eye to eye, or at least it would if he wasn’t almost a foot shorter than me. At 6’3, I am taller and broader than most men.
“Hey.” His tone is curt. His expression says that he’s about to tell me something bad.
“How is Grayson?” I ask. My longtime best friend has been on rocky ground himself recently, trying to cope with heavy PTSD and his ex-girlfriend showing up here. Yeah, maybe it’s a good topic to shift focus off myself, but I do genuinely want to know.
“Grayson is… well, he’s still pretty unhappy that I just saddled him with his assignment… it’s only the beginning of the summer and he’s already bent out of shape. He seemed upset about how he and Rachel have quite a history, I gather.”
My lips tip upward. “Yeah, something tells me that he’s going to have a long summer as Rachel’s babysitter. Any word from either of them since they left base camp yesterday morning?”
“No. And I don't expect to hear anything either. I’ve made it clear to him what his choices are. He can complain about his assignment, or he can work here,” Nate replies evenly. “Grayson will be fine. But I’m afraid we have a bigger problem, Aiden.”
“Ah.” I rub the back of my neck. This can't be good. “What’s that?”
“One of the travel agencies called and lodged a complaint against you. Again. I guess you had sex with someone that works for them this time and she was apparently inconsolable afterward. Something about how she’d been saving herself for true love?”
I scrunch my face up. “That… could sound familiar.”
Nate gets angry. “God damn it, Aiden! We’ve talked about this!”
I roll my eyes a little bit. I can't help it. “No, you said that you don't want me charming women that work here—”
“Stop. Talking. Right. Now.” He pushes off the wall, narrowing his eyes and pointing a finger in my face. “You are out of control, man. And you’re obviously not even sorry about it. How can I trust you to take any tour groups out?”
Now I’m getting a little hot under the collar. “That woman knew exactly who I was and what I wanted before she chose to climb into bed with me. It’s not my fault she got high hopes for the future or whatever. I didn’t give her any reason to have them.”
Nate makes a frustrated sound. “You have a problem, Aiden. Seriously. I don’t know who or what you are lashing out against, but it’s not happening here anymore.”
I still. “What, are you firing me?”
He gives me a look. “No, but I am placing you on unpaid leave. You can come and go from base camp as you wish, but until you get your head screwed on right, I’m not giving you any more tour groups or any park-related jobs.”
“What the fuck, dude? Because I messed up a couple of times? I’ve seen you with Grayson, you’re like the most patient person on earth for fuckups.”
He crosses his arms again. “First off, you were warned repeatedly not to dip your pen in the company ink. And second of all, Grayson fucks up because he has bad PTSD from his time in the Navy. You know that as well as I do.”
I fold my arms across my chest, mirroring Nate. “I was in the Navy too, you know.”
“That is not the point!” Nate explodes. “I’m tired of babysitting you and Grayson. And now, because you pissed me off, you can say goodbye to being scheduled on any shifts for two months.”
“Are you fucking serious?” I ask, my teeth gritted.
Nate holds out his hand, effectively shooing me off the mess hall porch. “Serious as sin. Go find Jesus or a therapist or something. Do an ultramarathon for all I care. Just get yourself straight. I don't know why you’ve been so aggressive since you got back from your vacation, but… You’ve got to find some way of channeling whatever is going on with you into something productive.”
My fists clench. My vacation, as Nate called it, involved going back home to New Jersey and watching my mom die. Not only that, but she told me a big secret, something she had been keeping inside since the moment of my conception.
And yeah, maybe in the three months since then I’ve been a little
badly behaved. It would help if I had told anybody about my mom’s death, I guess. Or about her deathbed confession.
I can feel myself superheating, getting ready to punch Nate right in his stupid face while yelling things that will probably get me fired. So I turn and stomp down the stairs, trying to stifle all the rage I have building in my chest.
I can't help but hear echoes of what I’ve heard my whole life in what Nate said.
I’m bad.
I’m in trouble.
I have it coming for what I did.
My jaw is clenched so hard and my fists are squeezed so tight that my head is about to pop. I can't stop picturing my father looming over my eight-year-old self, slowly taking his belt off.
You know what’s going to happen now, he would say. Get ready, you sack of shit.
I shake my head stiffly, shaking the image until it’s gone too.
Fuck that. And fuck Nate too. As a matter of fact, fuck the whole entire National Park Service for ever hiring such a prick to be my supervisor in the first place.
Nate is just doing his job. A small part of me realizes that. And that part of me is the only thing that keeps me from wailing on him. Instead my fury just washes through my body, growing more and more concentrated each time I think about it.
As I head to my cabin, I’m half blinded by my anger. I need a drink. Actually, I need a fuck, a really fantastic piece of ass to wash away the bitter bile I’m tasting right now.
Stopping still, I reverse my course. I can come back for my stuff later. Right now, whatever I’m seeking isn’t going to be found in Whiskey Bend. I storm over to my Jeep and get in, peeling out into the night.
3
Olivia
“Ugh!” I groan.
I toss my phone on the seat of my beat up, borrowed sedan with a disgusted sigh and peer out the windshield. My map on my phone doesn’t work if I have no service, and apparently being a whole hour and a half outside Seattle is far enough for that.
