The Man I Love

by Suanne Laqueur

  He went back to the hospital and sat at Daisy’s bedside, tenderly running his hand over her face and hair. She stirred under his touch and began to wake up. He smiled as her eyes grew lucid and settled against his.

  “Feel better?” he whispered.

  She hummed in her throat. The corners of her mouth flicked upward and she turned her forehead into his palm. The tattoo was inches from her chin. Erik waited. A moment’s silence passed with her head bowed against his hand, and then she seized his wrist. Her mouth slowly opened as she moved his forearm back from her face. She blinked hard. Her fingers slid to carefully touch the puffy swollen skin.

  “Erik…”

  He sat still. She looked a long time, her lips trembling as she ran fingertips over her representation sunk into his skin.

  I have set you in my presence forever, Erik thought, remembering Psalm 41. I uphold you. You’re in my skin. And I am not leaving.

  Still holding his wrist, she looked at him. “Does it hurt?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  Her face dissolved beneath a stream of tears. She took his hand and drew it along her neck, tucked it beneath her jawline, curled against it as much as she could.

  “Nobody loves me like you,” she whispered.

  Part Three: David

  Executive Decisions

  David drove Erik to the airport to pick up Christine. At the gate he accepted a hug and took her carry-on bag, retreating tactfully so she and Erik could have a moment alone.

  Christine, warm and loving on the phone yesterday, now stared unblinking at her eldest. She had been a competitive swimmer in high school and still retained a long, broad-shouldered physique. It gave her an uncompromising presence and made her appear taller than she was. Her golden-brown eyes matched Erik’s—right down to the red rims and circles beneath. Two deep lines angled from the sides of her nose, framing her full, proud mouth. Lines Erik had not seen before. The grey at her temples was new to him as well.

  “I need a minute to be angry,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “You scared the shit out of me.”

  He nodded. “I know.”

  She took Erik by the shoulders and shook him. Hard. Like he was seven and had run into the street without looking. “You could have been killed,” she said, her voice a razor-edge hiss through her teeth. “My God, Erik, what were you thinking?”

  He let her do it. He had surpassed her in height years ago, he could have easily disengaged. But she was angry and frightened and he let her.

  “Never again,” she said. “Don’t you ever…” She held him away, a finger held up by his face. “If I lose you, I will die. Do you understand?”

  He nodded, closing his palm around her pointed finger and pulling her hand toward his face.

  “Never again,” Christine whispered as he pressed his mouth into the heel of her hand. “You see someone with a gun, you hide or get the hell out of there. Don’t you ever…” She closed her eyes. The moment of fury passed through her. She shivered and drew a long breath in through her nose. Her eyes opened. Both her hands touched his face. “Oh my God,” she said, her voice worn down to a thread. “Honey.” Then her arms gathered Erik up and he crumpled into their grip. Together they sank on a pair of leather chairs and she held him tight. Her hand strong on his head. Her mouth on his hair.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “It’s all right,” she said, rocking him. “You’re all right.” Her voice was unwavering. “I’m here now.” She took his head in her strong hands. Her brown eyes swept his face. She seemed to be looking for something. Erik stared back, defenseless, without guile. Christine smiled, her eyes bright with tears. She kissed his face. “I’m proud of you,” she whispered and pulled him to her again.

  She took up a firm position behind Erik’s back, keeping a gentle hand on his shoulder through the hours and days. She took David under her wing as well, shocked nobody had come for him.

  The truth was, David didn’t have many to come. At the time of the shooting, his Aunt Helen was clear across the country, visiting friends in California. David spoke to her on the phone, but Erik didn’t know if an offer to come to New York was made and declined, or if the offer hadn’t been there. Either way, David did not seem to need her presence.

  “You don’t want her to come?” Erik asked. As he was practically sitting in Christine’s lap at any opportunity, he couldn’t understand it.

  “No.”

  “Why not? I mean, she’s all you have.”

  David shrugged, squinting through the smoke from the cigarette he never seemed without these days. “What could she do?”

  Erik was bewildered but he didn’t press it. All his own resources were reserved for getting through the days and being strong for Daisy. He had none to spare. David shadowed him nearly everywhere, somehow drawing whatever sustenance he needed by appointing himself Erik’s bodyguard. Erik was glad to have him. But he could not take care of him.

  Erik and Christine stayed in the suite at the Sheraton for two days and then moved back to Colby Street. Erik took Will’s bed and gave his mother his own. They stayed because funerals lay ahead.

  Four funerals in three days.

  Not including James, the death toll rested at six. Marie Del’Amici, shot in the chest and head, lingered three days in a coma and died Wednesday. Her husband had her body cremated and took the ashes back to Italy. Likewise, Allison Pierce’s body had been flown home to Indiana for burial.

  The remaining victims were Pennsylvanians and Erik and David went together to pay their respects. Neither of them owned a decent suit, so Christine took them shopping. Groomed down to the shoelaces, they went on Thursday to Trevor King’s wake in Allentown. The next day—on what should have been opening night of the dance concert—they went to South Philly and attended Manuel Sabena’s funeral in the morning, Aisha Johnson’s in the afternoon. Will, finally discharged from the hospital, came to Aisha’s as well, his arm in a sling, his hair brushed back into its ponytail by Lucky.

  Taylor Revell’s funeral, on Saturday in Narberth, was the hardest. Daisy desperately wanted to go but her incisions were still open and she was confined to the hospital. Erik said he would go for both of them. He didn’t want to. He was sick to his stomach over it, thinking of how Taylor had switched roles with Daisy. A simple act of goodwill and she signed her own death warrant. What did you say to acknowledge such cruel, karmic events?

  “Thank you”?

  “I’m sorry”?

  Words were useless.

  He sat in the pew of the church, bolstered by Christine on one side and Will on the other, needing their bodies pressed right up against his arms. David and the Biancos sat in front of him. Behind were Leo Graham and his wife, and Kees with his lover, Anton. Safe at the center of this battle formation, Erik got through the funeral service. They drove back to Colby Street but he could not get out of the car. Hunched over in the passenger seat, his body refused to move. He didn’t cry. He felt quite calm. But the reserves were depleted. He was an old, weary man. It took the combined effort of David and Leo to get him back inside where he fell on his bed, still in suit and tie, and slept.

  Christine made one of her rare executive decisions and declared she was taking him home. Erik was grateful to regress into a childish state, let her take charge and pull him out of school.

  It wasn’t as dire as it sounded. Only five weeks remained in the semester but the vice-chancellor of student affairs made a blanket ruling: anyone affected by the shooting could take an incomplete on their spring semester coursework and pick it up in the fall, with no loss of tuition dollars.

  Even though Will was taking the incomplete and going home, Lucky decided to stay and finish her finals. David chose to stay as well, although he was crushed by the loss of his senior project. With a heavy heart he watched his treasured sets for Who Cares? dismantled and put into the storage room. Leo declared the project complete and David could graduate. But David was unfinished an
d unsatisfied with a sympathy degree. He deferred graduation and planned to come back in the fall and do at least another semester. Leo pledged to support him.

  A community network came together to send Erik and Will home. The landlord guaranteed the apartment to them in the fall. U-Hauls were provided free of charge. A squadron of stagehands, led by Leo, showed up at Colby Street to help Erik, Christine and the Kaegers pack up the boys’ belongings. Briskly they sorted out what was necessary to take and what could be left behind in storage at Mallory Hall. The crew made the apartment spotless, then went across the backyard to help the Biancos extricate Daisy from Jay Street.

  The first of her fasciotomy incisions had been closed—“Beautifully,” Dr. Jinani said—and the second was scheduled for five days later. She had already started in-house physical therapy and, as soon as she was discharged, she would start a more intensive program at a rehabilitation hospital.

  When Erik came to the hospital to say goodbye to Daisy, he ran into Dr. Jinani, who was just leaving Daisy’s room. Learning Erik was going home, the doctor shook his hand and wished him well. “I am sorry to meet under such circumstances,” he said in his precise cadence, every syllable clipped and groomed into place. “But I am so glad to know you. And Daisy. You make a lovely couple. Truly I believe your support has been key to her recovery.”

  Erik had an inspiration, and asked the Indian surgeon how one would say daisy in his language.

  “Daisies are not native to India,” Jinani said, rubbing his chin. “The closest we have is the Chinese aster. And they are called Gulabahaar.” He wrote the word down, first in Latin and again in beautiful Hindi script. Erik put the scrap of paper carefully away in his wallet as he walked down the hall to Daisy’s room. He planned to take it to the tattoo parlor and have Omar add it to flower on his wrist.

  Daisy had kicked the hospital johnnies to the curb and devised creative loungewear out of her own t-shirts and sweatpants with the left leg cut off. Sitting up in bed reading, she looked pretty, but frail. She had lost weight. Her face was drawn and pinched. Marie’s death had devastated her. Taylor’s lay heavy on her heart and mind. Holding her, Erik was torn. He hated to leave her—was on the threshold of being afraid of the separation—but his bones cried out to go home. Christine wanted him to come home. And he hadn’t yet seen his brother, who wanted him too.

  “You go,” Daisy said, hugging him. “I want you to be with your family. I’m all right. I promise.”

  I can’t breathe without you, Erik thought. He kept it silent. He didn’t want to heap any more troubles on her already occupied mind.

  “I’ll come back,” he said. “It won’t be long. I’ll figure something out for the summer.”

  “We’ll figure it out,” she said, caressing the back of his head.

  He took her face and kissed her—between her eyebrows, each closed eye, her nose, her chin and then her mouth. On a sudden but sure impulse, he reached behind his head, unclasped his gold chain and put it around her neck.

  “No,” she said, but her eyes closed and her hand came up to hold the charms against her throat.

  “Please. I want to. Just until I see you again.”

  “All right.”

  He thumbed the tears from beneath her eyes. “I love us.”

  “I love us,” she said. “Call me when you get home.”

  * * *

  Christine and Erik sat in a booth at a diner, just over the New York border. Erik downed two Cokes but only picked at his cheeseburger. Christine put down her coffee cup and threaded her hand through plates and glasses to find his.

  “I don’t want you to think I’m taking you away from her,” she said.

  “You’re not dragging me home, Mom.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I want to see Pete,” Erik murmured.

  Her thumb ran across his knuckles, caressed the tiny, red scabs where broken glass had nicked him. “I’m going to be clingy a little while. I need to know where you are. I’ll be checking on you while you sleep.”

  Erik managed a small smile. “I know.”

  “Come be at home and rest. Collapse. Let me fuss over you and charge up your batteries. Because she’s going to need you.”

  He nodded.

  “Do you want to call her?”

  He checked his watch. “She’s probably at physical therapy now. I’ll call her when we get home.”

  “Try to eat, honey.” She let go his hand and picked up a knife. “Cut it in half. There. Eat half.”

  He took a bite, concentrated on chewing but it was tasteless cardboard. Having the goal to build up his strength for Daisy helped him force it down. And keep it down.

  He offered to drive the next leg but Christine waved him off. “Sleep,” she said. And he did. The entire rest of the trip. He woke when they were pulling into the driveway. His brother was waiting on the front step, in the company of his two dogs.

  Peter Fiskare was eighteen, soon to graduate from Rochester School for the Deaf, which he had attended since kindergarten. He was blond, like Erik, but with his father’s dark blue eyes and a much harder expression. He projected a steely reserve bordering on indifference. He seemed aloof but nothing could have been further from reality. Living in a world of silence, Pete’s eyes were honed to capture and process visual cues. His whole body was attuned to the deeper vibrations of human experience. He kept most of his thoughts and emotions veiled, yet he missed nothing. Erik was one of the few who knew the depth of Pete’s heart and the complex feelings living there.

  Coming down the walk, Pete’s face was wide open, stripped down to raw relief and residual fear. He ran the last few steps and jumped, flinging arms and legs around his brother and toppling them both onto the grass where they rolled, pummeled, punched and hugged.

  “You trying to be Rambo or something, you fuckwit?” Pete said. Speaking aloud was yet another indication of his emotional state. He had stopped voluntarily talking after his father left, preferring to communicate solely in sign language. Only the most dire of situations—positive or negative—made him use his voice.

  Erik flopped on his back in the grass, then looked up at the golden retriever sitting close by. She gazed down, a little disdainfully. The tip of her tail lifted in greeting as she accepted a pat on the head. Such was the demeanor of Drew, Pete’s guide dog. Or as Pete put it, his business associate.

  Drew was a hardnosed professional. She was trained to one job: alert Pete to noise. Everything and everyone else were mere distractions to be tolerated. She accepted praise and dignified affection but any attempt to get her to romp or play was coolly ignored. Being a companion and buddy was the exclusive domain of Lena, a lovable but dopey border collie who had twice washed out of service dog training.

  “Phenomenal instincts,” Pete always insisted. “Zero attention span.”

  But it was Lena now who put her muzzle against Erik’s knee and stared up at him. Her liquid brown eyes, usually rolling and hyper, were serene. Filled with a bald, penetrating compassion. Erik squinted at her, confused.

  “This is Lena, right?” he asked Pete, who nodded, looking just as perplexed.

  Erik got up on his knees to study the dog. Her gaze was proud, as if she had finally found her purpose.

  I am here, little one, it said. And I understand.

  Feeling terribly little, Erik stared back. Lena put her paws on his knees then, standing up to lick his face. He put his arms around the silken coat, burrowed his head into Lena’s warm flank and exhaled.

  “What’s going on here?” Christine said, coming up the walk.

  “I think I’ve been dumped,” Pete said.

  Lena shadowed Erik’s every move. Pete hadn’t been exaggerating about those instincts. The merest frisson of anxiety and her ears went up. Erik’s chest tightened and she was there. If a lump came to his throat, she came to his side.

  She did her best work at night. Erik’s body was gripped by a surreal fatigue. But disturbing dreams were keeping
sleep from being restorative. Horrific night terrors where he was back in the theater, crouched in the aisle trying to pull James back from the edge. Only this time James laughed in his face and shot him. Erik felt the impact of the bullet like a fist to the chest. No pain. Just a spectacular flow of blood through his hands and sickening sense of helplessness as James went back down the aisle and hopped up on the stage to finish what he had started.

  Erik’s own blood rose up around him. A river of red down the aisle. He could not stop James. He could only watch. One point-blank shot to kill Will. Then another to kill Daisy. Then more blood surging over the lip of the apron and water-falling into the orchestra seats. A shattering of glass and the thud of falling plaster chunks. And everywhere blood.

  Nothing predicted the onslaught of the dreams. They plagued him night after night, then mysteriously retreated. Lena could not stop the nightmares from manifesting, but she rescued him from their clutching grip, bringing him back to the waking world where she could guard him. She slept on the floor by his bed, at the precise spot where his hand could reach down and find her. As soon as he began to stir restlessly or thrash, her paws were on the mattress and her nose in his neck.

  Pete began bedding down on Erik’s floor, too. And with his brother and both dogs close by, Erik began to string together consecutive nights of good sleep. The shadows in his face smoothed out. His appetite returned and he put some weight back on. But his heart was with Daisy. He was exposed and fragile without her. It hurt to breathe. His arms ached to hold her, his eyes longed to connect with hers. He felt severed. He needed her. The sleep he craved was with Daisy pressed against his back and Lena on the floor by his head. Snugly bookended between the greatest love and understanding he had ever known.

  Svensk Fisk

  The fasciotomies were closed now. The vertical scars running down Daisy’s calf were livid and ugly, crosshatched with staple marks. But neither closing had required a skin graft, which was further indication her repaired artery was pumping plenty of blood and oxygen to the lower extremities. Dr. Jinani was pleased enough to tease her.