Day Three

by Patricia Spencer

  “And you think your father did that just to be a bastard? Because tonight, I heard a man describe a woman he truly loved.”

  “Get out of my room,” she snarled. “Stop prying. This is a family matter. You’re not in it.”

  Her words settled over him like volcanic ash, dark and deadly, silently burying him. He studied the wall of Aya’s old office, regarded her framed photograph. “No?” he asked quietly. “I’m not in it? I’m just the man who loves you?”

  He got up and walked out.

  At the bottom of the stairs, he leaned against the stone fireplace, removed his eyeglasses and rubbed his eyelids. James and Gary were watching him. They’d heard it all, the downside of an open-concept house. Christ he wanted his own room tonight, the privacy of a closed door.

  James set down the pan he was drying, and came over. “Go on up,” he said. “I’ll take the couch tonight.”

  Daniel nodded, clasped James on the shoulder and trudged upstairs. He walked through his walk-in closet to the master bathroom, shed his clothes, and got under a hot shower to relax his shoulder muscles. In bed, afterwards, he picked up the phone and dialed home.

  “Hey, Mom.”

  “I called, earlier.”

  “Thanks. I had company, couldn’t get it. Ma—is Dad still up?” His surgical schedule started at dawn, so he was an early-to-bed man.

  “I’ll get him.”

  His dad came on. “Hey, son. What are you doing, calling so late? Must be…what? Eight-thirty? Nine?”

  “I just wanted to tell you I love you.”

  “Well, good. I love you too. Is something the matter? Your voice sounds odd.”

  “There’s just…a conversation I need to have with you.”

  “All right.”

  “It’s about Brenna. Ma told you she’s staying with me?”

  “Yes.” An affirmative word, negatively stated.

  “I’m in love with her. She’s on the cusp of leaving me, I think—I just had a fight with her. So it’s probably academic to even mention it. I just…I don’t want unresolved issues between us, you know?”

  “I don’t, either. I’m glad you’ve called. Your mother’s been hedging, that way she does when she’s safeguarding confidences, and I was wondering.”

  “I put Mom in an awkward spot, Dad. It’s my fault.”

  “So you love this woman, but she doesn’t love you?”

  “Deep down, yeah I think she loves me. But it’s under a lot of crap. Some of it piled so deep, so long, I’m not sure she’s going to be able to throw it off to free herself. And I’m—”

  “You’re what?” his dad prompted.

  Hurting. His throat ached so much he couldn’t say it.

  His dad chose his words carefully. “This relationship, it sounds…turbulent. Perhaps… Perhaps she’s not the right match for you, Daniel?”

  He massaged his temple. Maybe his dad was right. “Even so, if she’s here when you come Friday, I want you to give her a chance—not just judge her by her past, okay? She has good qualities.”

  His dad chuckled. “You really are in love with her. She’s breaking your heart, and you’re busy shielding her.”

  He leaned back, pressing the link to his father against his ear, wishing he were sitting beside him on the porch back home.

  “You’ll find true love again, son. If not with this woman, with someone else. Have faith in that.”

  Brenna lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Her emotions were popping up and down like birds in one of those restless flocks that couldn’t decide whether to fly off or stay put. She heard footsteps in the foyer. James pushed the door open and came in.

  “Bear,” he said, and sat on the edge of her bed. He rested his elbows on his knees and silently matched up his fingertips.

  “Don’t say it.”

  “What?”

  “I screwed up with Daniel.”

  “Actually, I was thinking it’s me you should be angry with. Not him. I haven’t had the guts to do what he did tonight.”

  “What.”

  “Tell you that you need to give Dad a chance. Let go of your anger. It is eating you alive. It has, since you were twelve. It pushed you to the drinking, the sex, the billiard table. All to punish him. But you’ve been the victim, too. And some of that’s my fault.”

  “No it isn’t.”

  He rubbed a tiny patch of skin on the back of her hand with his index finger. “For so long, growing up, you and I were tied by our common sorrow about Mom, our anger at Dad. Seven kids in our family, Bear, and it was always you and me. Dad and the rest of the guys hated that I was gay. You were my one ally, the only sibling who accepted me as I am. I’ve been so scared of losing you, I haven’t dared push you to rethink Dad’s actions.

  “But, my last semester of med school, we had to write a term paper. Choose a patient. Go through his or her medical records, write an analysis. Trajectory of the disease. Treatments. Outcomes. That idea. I chose Mom. I got Dad to release her records to me. I wanted to understand, medically, what happened to her. I should have told you then, what I learned, but I feared you’d think I’d gone over to Dad’s side, and you’d push me away.”

  “I’ll never—”

  He held his hand up to silence her protestation, and continued. “Mom had ovarian cancer. You know that. What you don’t know is how long it took her to die. How tough the struggle was. How massive the doses of opiates she took to control her pain. There are patients who hang on by willpower, even when by every measure, their bodies should have failed long before. Mom did that. Held on, and tried to outlive something that had become unsurvivable.

  “She fought for you, Bear, because you were still so young, so entwined with her. The last kid, the only girl. It was your face at her bedside, your hand clinging to hers, your voice calling her name, that held her in this world.”

  Tears glistened in Brenna’s eyes.

  “Dad watched her decline, day after day. He saw her body failing, while her heart was so set on not leaving you. She had fistulas—openings—between her bowels and her vagina. That’s where the stool was coming out. It was awful. Just awful.”

  She grunted, feeling a pain as strong as any she’d felt physically.

  “Mom survived beyond an endurable point. She loved you that much. But she needed to die, Bear. To be freed from the pain, the struggle. Finally, Dad sent you away so she could.”

  Emotion wanted to engulf Brenna, to take her to the lost place from which there was no return.

  “But Dad also loved Mom that much, to do what had to be done to set her free. Free to leave him, too, by the way. Without his lifemate, his confidante, the person he trusted above all. How could a man explain such a thing to a little girl?

  “Dad did a terrible job with you. He didn’t know squat about girls. Didn’t really know that much about boys, either, but Mom had already got us through. On top of it, you hated his goddam guts. You raged against him. He treated you like an adversary, not a kid with a broken heart. He tried to break you, to bring you to his will like he does at a negotiating table, when all you needed was his affection.”

  A single, strangled sound lodged in Brenna’s throat.

  “So, yeah. Dad screwed up. Made a spectacular fuck-up out of parenting you.” James lifted her chin with his hand. “But—fuck-ups. That’s something you know about, isn’t it, Bear? How you can get yourself down a disastrous path? Make errors you can’t undo, or be absolved for?”

  She felt her chin quiver.

  “Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone needs to give and receive forgiveness. Without forgiveness, the circle of redemption is never closed. The giver and the receiver both get stuck. Dad got scared when you stepped on that land mine. He tries to reach out to you. You block it. Daniel asks to be let in to your life. You block it. You’re married to the rage, Brenna. All these years it’s been your fuel. You want it more than you want Dad, more than you want Daniel.”

  Her chest felt so tight it hurt. “No, I—�
�

  “Daniel’s generous. He has a lot of grace, and makes things look easy that aren’t. He’s holding out an undefended heart, standing steady while you circle round it, coming close—kissing him, leaning into him—then backing off like some dog catching a whiff of tainted meat. He went back to the hospital for you because I called him up and told him you were in trouble. He isn’t one to push himself on a woman who doesn’t want him. He swallowed his pride to go get you.

  “And he brought you here.”

  She blinked repeatedly, trying to hold her tears back.

  “Look around, Bear. This isn’t just some place where he keeps his stuff. He had a life here with his wife. There’s a little nursery upstairs with rocking horse wallpaper. His garden has slips from his grandparents’ gardens. This is a home. He’s opened it to you, accepted Gary and me, welcomed Dad at his table. Love resides here. Family. His heart beats at the center of it. He’s spread it all out before you—and you don’t step forward.”

  James shifted, ducking his head to see her downcast face. “It’s you who isn’t in this, Brenna. Not him.”

  She ran her finger along the quilt in her lap, following the stitches bordering a patch of red calico cloth, wondering which of his ancestors had cut the pieces, pulled the needle through them in careful, even measure, assembling the whole, inches at a time. “I am in this,” she finally said. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “You’re alive. For which I am profoundly grateful. I meant, in this for Daniel.”

  She jerked her hand off the quilt, as if she’d suddenly been pricked by some old needle left behind in the fabric.

  “Have you told him you love him?”

  Tell him? What was the point of that? She was living on borrowed time, waiting for the facts to be revealed about the deaths of the four children in her care. Every time she considered telling him what happened she felt like throwing up. She awaited banishment from his world. Why dig herself in even deeper?

  “Brenna?”

  She shrugged. “I saved his life. Don’t you think that’s enough?”

  James studied her. “This is the worst possible time to try to establish a loving relationship. You’re injured. Your body chemistry is nuts. You’re psychologically traumatized. Maybe… Maybe you should come back to New York with Gary and me. Thrash out your life someplace where Daniel isn’t collateral damage. Exit gracefully.”

  His suggestion shocked her. She felt the blood drain from her face. Leave Daniel. A sound like rain filled her ears, grew louder, harder, until she could feel nothing but its insistent hammering.

  “What do you say?” he prompted. “Someday, when you’ve sorted things out, you can buy yourself a kick-ass dress and come ring his doorbell.”

  Leave Daniel? She felt the water rising, swallowing her up. No. She couldn’t. Not any more. She had already gone under. Her arms were locked around his neck.

  Chapter 23

  Daniel was neither asleep, nor awake. He was suspended in a peculiar buzzed torpor with thoughts of Brenna plastered along the periphery of his consciousness. He tossed for the hundredth time. The sheets slid over his bare skin, the rustle loud enough to penetrate his consciousness. Beside him, the alarm clock ticked off infinitesimal increments toward sunrise. He looked at the time. 2:06 a.m. He dropped his head onto the feather pillow again.

  The ticking became tapping.

  He rose on his elbows. Stared through the deep shadows at his door. His ears were deceiving him.

  The tap, again.

  “Come in,” he said, but softly, uncertain he’d really heard anything.

  The knob, to his surprise, turned. The door swung open.

  Brenna appeared, clutching the door frame.

  “Jesus!” He sat up. Flicked on his lamp.

  She was swaying, a sheen of sweat on her forehead, a look of determination on her face.

  “What the— How the—?” He threw back the covers, raced toward her. She was going to hit the floor.

  “No.” She held up a hand. Nearly fell forward. Caught herself.

  He halted.

  “I’m good,” she assured him.

  Though she wasn’t. She was tilting dangerously.

  Her eyes flicked over him.

  He wasn’t wearing any pajamas.

  She brushed a sweaty lock of hair off her face. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry. Truly. Deeply. Sorry. Not—”

  He shifted his weight, readied himself to move fast. Her left leg, which was bearing all her weight, was shaking.

  “—Not just for what I said, but for what I’m about to do.”

  His throat closed. “About to—?”

  “Hold on,” she said. Pressing her torso against the door frame, she grasped the edge, hissed, and started sliding. Too fast.

  He leapt forward, caught her, and eased her onto the floor. She leaned against the doorframe, her head back, grimacing, her eyes shut tightly.

  He crouched by her, his eyes poring over her pain-distorted face, thinking about the effort it must have required for her to climb the stairs. Soundlessly, without waking James on the couch. Kavsak stealth. The warrior, albeit wounded, was afoot. On a mission. Horror gripped him. Suicide? Had she taken something—a jar full of pain killers? Was this some sort of hand-delivered goodbye note? Sorry. Not just for what I said, but for what I’m about to do.

  He grasped her arms. “What?” he asked. “What are you about to do that you’re sorry for?”

  She opened her eyes, gave him a puzzled look. “Stay.”

  “Stay?”

  “Here. With you. Until you don’t want me any more.”

  He lost his balance. Fell on his naked haunch.

  “Because it’s not like I’m doing you some favor.”

  He frowned. She could have apologized in the morning. “Why the huge effort to get upstairs at two-oh-six?”

  She shot him a sideways look. “Had to do it fast, before I changed my mind and did right by you.”

  He did a double-take. “What?”

  She rubbed her hand over her aching thigh. “James suggested I stop hurting you, and go back to New York with him and Gary.” She tweaked the air with her index fingers. “ ‘Exit gracefully’.”

  New York? He felt an instant of panic, as if he were swimming in murky waters and some grotesque eel had suddenly bumped into his face mask.

  She lifted her hand to his face. Made a small, regretful sound. “Am I too late?” The glibness went out of her voice. “Shall I? Go.” The irises of her eyes were huge, fully dilated.

  Tch. He brought her hand to his lips, and pressed a long, soft kiss in the hollow of her palm. That night in Kavsak, she had loved him. Here at home they faced the realities of physical and emotional injuries, old and new. Recovery had to occur on so many levels, he was neither sure that what he could offer was enough, nor even that it was what she wanted. He had the sinking feeling that all that lay before him with Brenna was heartache.

  He sighed and released her hand. “You know, I’m the one who should apologize. I overstepped myself, put my nose in your family business. I’m sorry. I had no right. Of course you’re welcome to stay. As long as you like.”

  He stood up, covering himself. “I’ll be right back,” he said. He went to his walk-in closet, pulled open a cedar drawer, stepped into pajama pants, and returned.

  “Now,” he said. “You planning to sleep in my doorway for the rest of the night, or should I get you into bed?”

  She was in too much pain, too exhausted, to get up, even with help. He picked her up and carried her to his bed. Padding downstairs, he brought back two pain pills, a glass of ginger ale, and her walker.

  James slept through everything. He sucked as a sentinel.

  The next morning, after sleeping downstairs in the captain’s bed, he tiptoed to his room and quietly dressed for early services.

  James woke as he was leaving. He sat up, groggy, rubbing his eyes, surprised to see him in a suit.

  “Church,” Daniel exp
lained. “I’m walking, so—hour and a half, two max. When I come back, I’ll make breakfast. After that, I need to go into my office.”

  He turned the knob on the French door. “By the way, Brenna’s upstairs, in my bed. Maybe you and Gary can figure out how to get her down here again.”

  “Hold on.” James glanced at Brenna’s bedroom door, then up the stairs. “She’s—?”

  “In my bed. A little two a.m. excursion to let me know she’s decided not to ‘exit gracefully’.”

  James frowned.

  Daniel pulled the door open. “I’m going to be late.”

  Of a Sunday afternoon, the hallways at EBS were quiet, computers hibernating, cubicle workstations empty. Walking down the wood-paneled gallery of network awards, Daniel did something he never did. He stopped. Looked over the countless plaques, his eyes roaming over Peabody awards, duPont-Columbia awards, Emmys. Best documentary. Outstanding non-fiction. Excellence in reporting. Daniel Ellsworth, Executive Producer.

  The National Capital Broadcasters Association Award for Best News Documentary was among them. He pressed his fingertips against it. This was the one Aya had collected for him the night her old boss, Hugh Driscoll, was being an especially public prick.

  He stepped back, looking over the past dates. “Yeah,” he muttered, recalling the punchline of an old joke. “But what have you done for me lately?”

  He went to his office.

  At his computer, he logged into the production software, found the Human Condition series folder, with its Kavsak sub-folder. He double-clicked the footage log that described each of the sequences on the camera originals, showed the time code in and out points, and approximate duration in minutes, seconds, and frames. Where the tape contained dialog, the log had links to verbatim transcripts, some of them translations for subtitles.

  He pulled out a yellow pad, and started jotting notes. History of Kavsak conflict. International response. UN resolutions. Describing the shifting alliances among the factions would be a nightmare because of the number of minority groups involved, and because, as the war evolved, alliances had shifted and the groups had renamed themselves.