by Piper Lennox
Then the smile dims, and he picks up his coffee again. “It’s weird: I’m not even mad at the guy. It’s like he’s not even real, to me. It’s Lindsay I’m mad at. And myself, more than anybody.”
“Why?”
“Are you serious? Look at the last few years, man. I worked nonstop, I cancelled God only knows how many date nights and vacations, I forgot her birthday twice—”
“Okay, so you weren’t exactly the best husband.” I hop off the gate, scoop up some gravel from the road, and pile it into one of the pleats of the bed before jumping back up. “That doesn’t give her the right to cheat on you.”
“I know.” He shakes some rocks in his palm before picking one out. I watch him rear back his arm, take a breath, and zing it down the road. I grab a handful and do the same. We can’t see their paths, but we hear them landing in the dirt through the darkness, when we listen closely enough.
“I just can’t stop thinking about it,” he whispers. “If I’d tried harder.”
I think about the fight with Juliet again. She blamed herself for her mom’s death, and it sounded as ludicrous to me then as Levi’s reasoning does now. But the longer we sit here, silently flinging gravel at nothing, the less crazy it sounds.
I still don’t agree with them, of course: bottom line, Juliet’s mom was just sick. Bottom line, Lindsay chose to cheat on Levi.
Now I can understand, though, why he and Juliet get wrapped up in self-doubt and blame, all that stuff piled on top of the bottom line. It’s easier to blame yourself. If you caused the problem, then you must have been in control. For people like them, it’s terrifying to realize some things in life can’t be planned or managed or prevented.
For people like me, it’s a weird relief. Maybe I am lucky.
“What’s gonna happen?” I ask him.
Levi’s eyes focus on the black void at the end of the road. It feels like this is where the entire world drops off, even though I know there have to be houses and fields right on the other side.
“I don’t know.” He swallows, doubles over, and hides his face against his knees, hands clasped behind his head.
I shove the rocks off the tailgate and slide closer. When my hand touches his shoulder, he flinches; he hates when people see him cry. But he doesn’t shrug it off, which is something.
An hour later, we’re crawling the streets of his neighborhood in the truck. The radio is on, but low. We haven’t spoken for at least twenty minutes.
“Why didn’t you tell me Juliet was pregnant, when you first found out?”
Levi’s question fills up the cab, getting bigger with every second I take to answer.
“I don’t know. Because I knew you’d give me shit for it, I guess.”
“No, I wouldn’t have.”
“Yeah, right. You yell at me basically every day, and over way less important stuff. Remember in March, when I forgot to send out one invoice? You reamed me out all afternoon.”
“It wasn’t all afternoon.” He rolls down his window, looking up at his street sign as we turn. “But point taken. I’m sorry you felt like you couldn’t trust me with news like that.”
“A half-assed apology, but I accept.”
I pull up in front of the house, against the curb. The lights are off, even the floodlight, but her car is in the driveway. She’s here.
“Can I ask you something?” He looks at me, but I keep my focus on the steering wheel. “How much do you actually remember about Dad?”
“Not much. Most of my memories are the stuff Mom told us, so I don’t really know what I remember and what I just heard a million times. And there are lots of gaps.” He hangs his hand out the window, turning it in the breeze that sweeps down the street from nowhere. “One time he came over to take me out for ice cream, while Mom took you to the doctor or something. That’s when he bought me that Superman costume.”
I nod. I don’t remember the story, but I do remember the cape. We fought over it often, taking turns leaping from tree branches with the fabric billowing around us. One time he nearly choked me by accident—he’d tied it too tightly around my neck, then grabbed the end when it was my turn to jump.
“It’s funny,” he continues, laughing, “because I spent years thinking, you know—that was so cool of him. Buying me that costume for no reason. Turns out he only got it so I’d wear it around the Farm. At least, that’s what Mom says.”
“I believe it,” I laugh with him. I remember even less about our father than Levi does, but I know he hated the nudist community with a passion. Maybe it wasn’t the place so much as Mom’s insistence on moving us there, with or without him...and the fact she chose “without” so easily.
I rest my fingers in the curve of the wheel. “Do you remember when he died?”
“Yeah. Alvin and Beatrix babysat us. She made us kettlecorn and Al let us color in his tattoos with marker.”
“Then we stayed up watching Nickelodeon till dawn and fell asleep in Al’s recliner,” I add, and he nods. At the time, it seemed like the greatest night of our lives. We didn’t even question why it was happening.
Years later, we learned the facts of our father’s death: heroin overdose, right in the middle of a pool on a float. His friends thought he fell asleep. They had no idea they were swimming with a corpse for two hours straight.
He and Mom had ended things years before that, right after I was born. We saw him a few times a year, whenever he rolled through town like a fog: completely undetected, until he was right there at your door. She cursed his name frequently. But when she came home that weekend and picked us up from Al and Trixie’s, something in her face scared me. I was only four, but could tell she’d been crying.
“Your dad’s gone, boys,” she whispered that night. We were tucked into her bed, one on each side of her. I shut my eyes when she kissed my cheek, then Levi’s. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you sad?” Levi asked, studying her. “I thought you didn’t like Dad.”
“Oh, I loved your father,” she said softly, before the tears swelled in her voice. “That was why I didn’t like him.”
Now, as I drum my fingers on the wheel, the what-ifs take over: what if he’d gotten clean, what if they’d stayed together, what if he’d cared about us just a little bit more. What if he’d tried.
I guess he was sick too, in his own way.
The wind skates past again. I put my window down so I can feel it for myself.
“Juliet thinks I’m too immature.” I ignore Levi’s laugh and add, “And she’s freaking out about turning into her mom. She had depression, I guess postpartum or something, and...wasn’t exactly a good mother all the time, because of it.” The wind stops. My volume goes with it. “So she broke up with me. Thinks I’m some slacker who won’t do shit to help her, especially if she does...get like that. I basically told her that was bullshit.”
He whistles. “Damn, dude.”
“What, you agree with her?”
“No. I just can’t believe you were stupid enough to tell her that. Do you know anything about women? Or just human beings? Nobody likes being told their feelings are wrong.”
When I look at him, he’s staring at the house.
“You can debunk the information behind the feelings,” he adds, voice quieting, “but they’re still there. Until you accept something different.”
And sometimes, I think, not even then.
Still, he’s got a point. I may not agree with the way he and Juliet see the world, but I could respect it more. Maybe both extremes are just as bad. Sometimes things do work out on their own. But other times, you have to fix things yourself. Or at least try.
“You gonna talk to her?” I ask.
He opens the door and breathes deep. “Not tonight. Not about...all that. I just need to get my shit and get out. Stay away from her for a while.” His sigh sounds like a record scratching. “Fuck, I do not want to see her right now.”
“I’ll go.” I pull the keys from the ignition and hand them to him;
he unclips the house key and drops it into my palm.
“Thanks, man. Just my tablet, phone charger, and some clothes. Mostly work uniforms.”
“Anything else?”
“No. Well...my toothbrush, maybe? No, no, I’ll buy one.” He rubs his head. “This sucks. This is my house.”
“Want me to kick her out? Because I will.” For once, I have no clue if I’m joking or not.
“It’s just hard to pare it down, on the spot like this. I keep thinking about my computer, or my winter clothes. Stuff that I’d only take if...if this was long-term.” He looks at the house again. “Like, why am I thinking that way? It isn’t long-term. It’s nothing, right now. Just one night, until I can figure out what to do next, and I’m here thinking, ‘Shit, what about the cat?’”
I shuffle my feet on the asphalt. “Yeah, well,” I say, after a beat, “I’m not having a cat in my apartment. They literally shit in a box. Unsanitary.”
He offers a faint smile. “The charger, tablet, and clothes will be sufficient. Thanks.”
In the house, I turn on lights as I go, slam cabinets and drawers, and stub my shoes on almost every kickable surface. No need for stealth; I’m going to have to access the master closet, at some point.
When I get to the living room, the ceiling creaks.
“Levi?” Lindsay sounds breathless. Stupidly hopeful. She thunders downstairs, stopping halfway when she sees me. “Cohen. What are you doing here?”
I spy the tablet under a magazine and grab it. “Just getting some stuff. Is his phone charger upstairs?”
She backs against the wall while I pass. “Is he here? Can I talk to him?”
The charger’s plugged in beside the bed. She watches me wrap it around my hand and shove it into my pocket. “No,” I tell her. “Just me.”
“Well...w-was he okay? When you found him, was he still drunk? Was he hurt?”
I’m in their closet now, piling work polos and khakis in my arms. “You got a bag or something?”
Lindsay hesitates, then pulls a suitcase from the top shelf. She unzips it for me. “I can fold those,” she offers, when I start throwing shit in like a casserole. “They’re going to get wrinkled.”
“Going for speed, not perfection. And no. He wasn’t hurt.” I add some sandals for good measure, which he’s probably never worn in his life, and zip it shut.
“Can you....” She follows me, once again stopping in the middle of the stairs. “Can you just tell him, I’m sorry? And that I want to talk to him whenever he feels ready, and...and that I love him?”
I stop on the bottom stair and shut my eyes. This is harder than I thought. Levi wouldn’t have stood a chance.
“He’s not in the stage where he wants to hear that stuff.”
“It’s not all my fault, you know.” She gets louder. “He’s been so busy, it’s like we’re not even married.”
“But you are.” Everything falls out of my arms as I turn to face her, my voice echoing in the hall. “Don’t invent some license to cheat on him.”
“Come on, Cohen. You know him better than anyone—you said yourself he’s changed. He used to be fun. Now I’m lucky if I get one sip of coffee with him before he’s off doing something for that fucking company.”
On the console table beside me, I see their cruise tickets for tomorrow. Expensive, useless—too little, too late. But still something.
“I know he made mistakes. He knows he made mistakes. But you,” I say, pointing at her, “made a way, way bigger one. You’d better count yourself lucky if he decides to forgive you. Because honestly? I wouldn’t.”
Lindsay laughs angrily, mopping her eyes with her bathrobe sleeve. “All right, I get it. Bros before hos.”
“Right before wrong,” I correct, gathering up Levi’s stuff again. “Family before a girl who gave up that title, the second she fucked somebody else.”
Lindsay’s silent as I leave. We can see her shadow in the bedroom window from the street, blinds shifting.
“Don’t get out,” I tell Levi. “If she sees you, she’ll come out and rope you into some bullshit. Here.” I shove his stuff into his lap. “Be right back.”
“What are you doing? Let’s go.”
I hold up my finger as I back away, then turn and break into a sprint for the house.
Lindsay reappears at the top of the stairs while I’m groping underneath the sofa, spread-eagled on the carpet. She stops on the center stair, just like before. Like there’s a line there she’s afraid to cross.
“Unless you’re going to help me contact Levi, get out of my house.”
“Don’t be petty,” I groan, extending my arm as far as it’ll go. Nothing. I get up and scan the room. “And if I remember correctly, my brother’s name is on the mortgage, too.”
At last, I spot it, tucked into a low corner of the bookshelf.
“What the hell are you doing?” she snaps.
I hold up the cat like a trophy. It claws at my arms, chews on my thumb, and mews its terrified protests, but even our mutual hatred can’t make me let go.
“I’m taking the fucking cat.”
All the way to the front door, I give Lindsay the finger. Immature? Maybe. But only an avalanche of balloons could make the moment any sweeter.
28
The Acre is still glowing, like some golden beacon in the heart of the city, when I pull up beside the courtyard.
I spent hours driving around after visiting Dad, the baby book sliding back and forth on the passenger seat, the lingonberry wine rolling on the floor mat. Both made sounds like a swishing, splashing clock, counting down to a deadline I didn’t yet know.
He had that anniversary party here tonight, but it looks like it’s long over. I find myself hoping it went well. It meant so much to him.
Looking at the bottle of wine makes me feel sick, and not because I haven’t been able to stand the smell of alcohol for weeks. Not even because, in the shadows of the car, it looks an awful lot like blood.
It’s knowing it’s for Cohen, and having to imagine walking up to him, putting it into his hands, and explaining why I’m standing there. I have no idea what I’ll say. Just that I have to say something. I have to try.
My hands skirt the edge of my stomach, then spread across it. I feel internal flutters now and then, but no kicks yet. It’s bizarre to know a tiny foot or fist will jab me one of these days, attempting contact. I can’t even imagine it.
Cohen never seemed scared or unsure, whenever we’d talk about the baby. My brain became a card catalog of illnesses and accidents and all the small ways parents can screw up a kid forever. His was trained unflinchingly on the fun parts, Christmas mornings and first steps, teaching our child how to climb a tree.
“Don’t you remember that feeling? Being a kid and just climbing a tree for the hell of it, how different everything looked when you got up there?”
I wonder, not for the first time, if love is doomed to fail with one person living feet up, above it all, while the other remains on terra firma at all times.
He’s probably home by now. I could knock on his door. Hand him the wine from Dad before he can send me away. He might smile.
We’ll make up first, and the words I haven’t yet rehearsed but can feel somewhere inside will spill out easily, when we’re tangled together in the softness of his bed. I’ll shut my eyes and ignore the mildew smell he doesn’t believe exists. Focus on the positive, until all I notice is the scent of him.
My phone rings when I’m a block from his apartment. I hit the Answer button in my steering wheel. Before I’ve even said hello, Viola’s voice rattles through my car.
“Oh, my God! I’m so glad you’re awake—Abby’s having the babies!”
“Wh— Now? She’s only thirty-two weeks!”
I can hear Marco in the background, his words muffled. “Okay,” Viola tells him, then, to me: “They think she has preeclampsia. I took her to the doctor because her feet were swollen and she felt dizzy, and he sent us to the h
ospital, like, immediately.”
“Where’s Stella?”
“Dad just picked her up. He’s taking her to Marco’s mom’s house, then coming back here.”
Much as I hate admitting it to myself, I’m weirdly hurt Abby didn’t call me for help. This is what I wanted, right? For my sisters to stop asking me for everything?
But there was a reason I always said yes. Deep down, I liked being their go-to. I’d never have that mystical, silent connection the two of them share—but I could always be their first number on speed-dial.
“Hang on a second,” Viola says. A whoosh echoes through the speakers, nearly deafening me, before she comes back on the line. “Can you get here? She’s asking for you.”
I stare at the radio. “Me?”
“Yes, you,” she laughs. “She wants you in the room with her. We called Lionel at that conference thing he had this week, but he’s stuck in traffic near D.C. There’s no way he’ll be back in time, at the rate she’s going.”
My car nearly swipes a minivan parked too far from the curb. “In with her? Like...during the birth?”
“Look, I’ve already volunteered as Tribute, but she’s not having it. She wants you.”
Right when she says this, I come up on Cohen’s building. It’s impossible to tell if his lights are on; his window is covered with a black flannel sheet, the only gap blocked by his fickle air conditioner.
She wants you.
Yes, my sisters agreed to stop asking so much of me. And I agreed to speak up whenever a favor seemed too big to handle. Like now.
I look at the window again. As much as I hate the thought of spending my night in a delivery room instead of that impossibly small apartment...I know, and can almost feel for myself, how scared Abby must be. Sometimes agreements have to be broken.
The wine rolls underneath the passenger seat when I speed away, putting the building in my rearview. “Tell her I’m on my way.”
“I am freaking. The fuck. Out.”
I push Abby’s hair back from her face and mop up the sweat with a paper towel. “You’ve done this before,” I remind her. “What helped you, back when Stella was born? Did you listen to music, or—or do some special breathing?”
