by Mia Kerick
There’s something in the way Morning talks about Seven’s exes. I get the chills. He’s eighteen years old. How many lovers could he have had exactly?
She continues speaking, seemingly oblivious to my shiver or not caring that I don’t want to hear about this. “Seven uses… used… sex for power, and he’s been with both men and women, and all of them older.”
I touch her shoulder, and when she raises her haunted eyes to me, I can see in the dim orange light that she’s crying. Fuck. Why is she crying? We had such a good night: a road trip, Dom Pérignon, and a movie. No need for tears.
I run a light circle over her back with my palm, but it doesn’t seem to register with her.
What’s wrong, Morning?
“I never cared what Seven did in his bedroom as long as I didn’t have to hear it,” she explained with a shrug. “If he wanted to have sex with a woman in Tokyo one week and a man in Milan the next week, what did it matter to me?”
I watch the long expanse of her neck as she tilts her chin and swallows.
I’m usually so aware of myself—especially my facial expressions, given they do the bulk of my communicating. But I can’t tell what expression I’m making. I can’t feel any part of my body. There’s only Morning and this horrible story. Yet, I can’t bring myself to ask her to stop talking.
“His name was Tomas, and we met him in Prague. He took to Seven immediately, bought him things. But there’s a reason it’s not right for a man in his thirties to bed a seventeen-year-old, Renzy. A reason it’s fucked-up.” Although Morning runs her fingers gently along the hearth, she’s miles away from our cottage suite. “They had their brief encounter, and Seven moved on. He always moves on. He’s never shown an extended interest in anyone.” She shook her head. “Well, until you.”
Any other time and I might have taken the fact that I mattered and treasured the hell out of it. But Morning’s voice lacks color. It sounds brittle and dry, like any moment it—and she along with it—is going to break.
“Tomas didn’t like the rebuff and called all the time. Seven changed his number, started up with someone new. But then Tomas started showing up at our holiday home in Paris. It was one of the few times Rhonda and Edgar ever seemed to notice. Amazing. Right? A man nearing forty keeps turning up on the doorstep, demanding to talk to your teenaged children and after only the sixth or seventh time then you get involved.”
She swallows again.
I’ve been rubbing her back this whole time without realizing it and slowly let my hand fall away.
“Oh, you know good old R and E, though, they never stay still for long. They were gone the next weekend. So was Seven. A party somewhere with his new-new lover. I don’t know where he was going. I never asked. Tomas showed up looking for him. He pushed his way into the house, and I….” Her chin trembles. “I never had a fucking chance.”
At this point she rises, like a willow tree growing on time-lapse film.
She swallows and her tongue darts out, wetting her lips. “Seven thought he was so sophisticated, taking those people into his bed. He never once considered the consequences for me.”
She begins to walk out of the room, and I’m up off the floor in a second. I understand what she’s saying, but I don’t want to believe it. I catch up with her. I have to know.
I motion frantically: first to her, then to her lips, and back toward the bedroom. I hold up seven fingers and then draw my question mark.
Tears are flowing down her face again, and I reach out and catch them with my fingertips.
“No. I never told him.” She leans in and kisses my cheek and whispers in my ear, “Thank you for listening, Renzy.”
I don’t know where she goes, back to bed or somewhere else entirely to be free of us both. I know I should let her be, let her come back to me in her own time, and it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, not chasing after her. I pull the throw blanket off the back of the couch and lie down on the cushions. I tuck a decorative pillow under my head and stare up at the ceiling.
If I say I’m shocked into silence, does that make a good joke?
Not really.
I don’t usually have a lot of trouble going to sleep, but my head is a mess with all that’s happened tonight and there’s not a single person in my life to discuss it with. Does Morning hate Seven for what his former creepo lover did to her? She’s never mentioned any of this in group. But I’ve watched Seven with his sister. He adores her and protects her as fiercely as the most loving and loyal dog protects its master. He would never knowingly let any harm come to her—I believe that. God, does she understand that about him, or does it all hurt too much?
I turn on my side to face the embers of the fire.
Say I didn’t know what I now know about Morning’s rape—what about Seven’s older lovers? How many have there been? A slew? A plethora? I’m older—but only by a year—and I’m not experienced at all. If he likes experienced lovers, he’s not going to find that in me.
He always moves on.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
New plan. Find Mr. Alexander, confront him about the letters to the satisfaction of my friends, and then go home. I can’t think straight here.
Chapter Eighteen: Seven
MY FORMER lover, Tomas, requested that I “go commando” when he took me dancing or drinking in Paris. To please him—for the brief span of our acquaintanceship—I acquiesced. His reaction to my body adorned only in snug jeans and a tight T-shirt was, after all, quite entertaining. I enjoyed possessing power over this man mainly because he was the kind of guy who liked to think he was in control. And for a few very intense weeks before my eighteenth birthday, I allowed Tomas to believe he had complete control over his surly and rebellious young lover. But my compliance was all contrived. I soon grew bored with his obsession. It would be an understatement to say that Tomas was shocked when my game with him was over—fini!
Au revoir, Tomas!
It’s strange to admit it now, but acquaintanceships such as mine with Tomas always left me feeling taken advantage of—cheap and used—despite the fact that I’d been the one doing the exploiting.
In any case I’d forgotten how uncomfortable it is to go commando, and I wonder whether I perhaps should have worn my damp boxer briefs that are still drying on the towel rack beside the bathroom sink.
“Are you sitting on your iPhone, or something, Seven? Why do you keep shifting around like that?” Morning is in the passenger seat again today, operating the GPS. She stares at me as I squirm and fidget in my snug jeans.
“Don’t ask questions to which you don’t really want the answer, frangine.” A question I would like an answer to, however, is: why were Renzy’s boxers drying beside mine on the towel rack? I glance at him in the back seat, and we smile at each other in empathy, both aware there are two commandos in this car.
“Listen, take the next left, and it should be down the street about ten or so houses on the right.”
“You mean ten slums….” There might be a lot of grass in this neighborhood, but the homes are what I’d call—if I were feeling generous—“downtrodden.” I’m obviously not in a magnanimous mood. “All right, this is Cherry Street. And we’re in Lingerlost, so….”
As always Renzy is silent. I glance at him in my rearview mirror as I drive slowly down Cherry Street. He wears a new expression. The best way I can describe it is the desperate look of “denial meets impending doom” that a child wears just before he loses his lunch on the cafeteria floor. Since I respect the fact that the scent of vomit is incredibly difficult to erase, even from leather seats, I pull over to the side of the road, jump out of the Bimmer, and run around to the back of the car. I realize, as I’m trying to pull the door open, that Renzy is pulling it closed with equal fervor.
“Renzy, if you’re gonna get sick, the sidewalk is a better location than my car’s interior!” I shout through the window, and he suddenly releases the door handle. The door swings open so quickly and fully that I stum
ble back onto the street. “What the—?”
I glance at Morning and see she’s turned around and is kneeling in the passenger seat, trying to get a handle on the hell that has suddenly broken loose behind her.
Renzy loses it. Completely. He falls flat on his stomach and starts flailing around—like he’s wrestling with a ghost—while shaking his head furiously. The color of his cheeks grows angrily red and a low guttural sound emits from deep in his throat. It sounds like “Ohhhhhh,” but I don’t think it’s really a word.
“Seven, I think he’s saying no! Renzy’s scared of something!”
I bite back, “No shit, Sherlock,” and rush around to the driver’s seat, pull out onto the road, and drive like a bat out of hell.
Before I’ve even turned onto the next side street, Morning has climbed into the back of the car and is holding Renzy in her arms. His histrionics have slowed to a simple rocking motion. I recognize it as the way Morning comforted herself for a month after she was raped.
“Give me his notebook!” she demands sharply, and I grab it from the dash and toss it behind me. Then I pull over on the street beside a neighborhood playground and wait.
“Take a deep breath in through your nose, Renzy, like they taught us in Take Back Our Power group. And out through your mouth.” I don’t turn around to watch them. I figure this is Morning’s ball game. “Now another one…. That’s good.”
Soon I hear the sound of a pen furiously scribbling on paper.
“He wrote: a woman’s voice, angry and scary. Threatening.”
I turn around because I so badly want to assure myself that Renzy is all right. His complexion is no longer fifty shades of red and is now paler than I’ve ever seen it. I much prefer the alarming magenta. “Okay, what else?”
Morning glances over Renzy’s shoulder. “It says, Stop crying or I’ll have to get the knife! Chop, chop, chop your pretty little tongue.”
This makes no sense. None at all. “What are you talking about?”
I expect Renzy to shrug, but he doesn’t. He points in the direction of Cherry Street where he’d freaked out.
“Did something happen to you there?”
He nods cautiously, as if he’s not quite certain.
“Who said that to you?”
This time Renzy shrugs. There’s panic in his eyes, which reflects the panic I’ve seen in Morning’s eyes. It draws forth the sense of horror I’ve lived with since Morning was hurt.
We don’t need to do this. We should go back home to Redcliff Hills—Renzy and I could fall in love, which would be beautiful and gentle, and sweet, like a dream I could live in forever. And Morning could stay safely in a little pocket between us, because we want nothing more than to protect her.
But just as quickly as I slip into this fantasy, I bring myself back to earth. Ignoring Renzy’s pain will do nothing to fix him. My experience with Morning doubtlessly proves this. I see lingering pain in her eyes every time she looks at me. I’ve failed to put Morning back together. I’m unwilling to fail Renzy too.
“We need to go back there,” I decide suddenly. “We need to figure out what caused Renzy’s intense reaction. Obviously we’re on the right track.”
Morning and Renzy gawk at me like I’m a visibly pregnant nun. “I’m not letting you take him back there,” she growls.
I make a bold move. I hop out of the car and then get in the back seat with them. We sit close together, three ducks in a row, and I throw my arm along the back of the seat, effectively enveloping both of them.
“Look—I’ll go to the door. Renzy can stay in the car with you, Morning.” There’s no reason to put him out on a shaky limb when I can do it so easily. “And he can watch and see if he recognizes whoever comes to the door.”
“What good will that d—?” Morning starts, but Renzy grabs her shoulder, stopping her.
He looks straight at me, and nods.
“You want to go back?”
Renzy scribbles the word want on his notepad and we watch as he very obviously crosses it out. Then he writes need, and circles it.
“So we’re on the same page?” A lame joke. But again Renzy nods.
I formulate an idea in my mind as I get into the driver’s seat and we head back to 1415 Cherry Street in Lingerlost, Missouri.
THE HOUSE has seen better days, and plenty of them. In fact, it’s an excellent candidate for an episode of A&E’s sappy Flip This House. I park on the street, one house down from number 1415, but in visual proximity from my car to the front door. Well, one of the front doors. The tiny white house, strangely, has two front doors, both sporting rickety overhangs, concrete steps, and green all-weather rugs on separate landings. It’s an eyesore, but it’s the eyesore we’re interested in.
Renzy picks up the notebook again and scribbles. When he’s finished, Morning, still beside him in the back seat, takes the pad from him and turns it so I can read what he has written.
Your Mommy and Daddy aren’t HERE, Ren-Ren. I am here.
My gaze meets my sister’s. For many years when we looked at each other directly, I felt a zing of connection that indicated we were seeing, very literally, eye to eye. And although this hasn’t happened in a long time, it happens now. I’m strangely gratified.
“How much do you remember of who said that, and of this house, Renzy?” I ask.
He lifts his hand and indicates the space of an inch with his finger and thumb.
“Not much, I guess. But do you remember more now that you’re actually here?”
He nods.
“What are you going to say at the door, assuming someone opens it?” Morning is not at ease with this.
“Simple.” I lean forward and pull my jeans out of the crack of my ass for the fiftieth time today and then open the car door. “I’m going to go with the direct approach.”
Without explaining the details, I get out of the car and head down the sidewalk toward the old house. The narrow, dirt walkway across the yard splits in two before it reaches the dilapidated house. Apparently, no one ever cared enough about the house, or the family living in it, to lay down some welcoming cobblestones.
I pull a couple of the letters out of my back pocket, as if they’re a weapon I can use to protect Renzy and me. After only a quick breath for courage, I knock on the door.
The face that I see when the door opens shocks me in a way I haven’t ever been shocked before. I see Renzy.
He’s older—more tired and worn out by life than my Renzy—and the look in his light green eyes indicates he’s deeply jaded. But he’s similarly built and darkly handsome, and undeniably attractive. This older version of Renzy, however, is not sweet and open and innocent. I can somehow tell that he has witnessed, as well as indulged in, many things forbidden. In fact this man’s resting bitch face is much like that of my former lover, Tomas. He is someone who does exactly what pleases him, right or wrong. He is as sly as he is deceitful. And he champions the easy way out—the dirt walkway leading to his home is sufficient evidence of that.
“Hello.” I wonder if Renzy’s speaking voice would sound like the raspy tenor of this man. “What can I do for you? If you’re trying to sell something—God included—you’re wasting yer time.” He offers a smirk that would rival my own.
I clear my throat. “I’m here because I hope you can help me.” I flash the letters in his face and say, “I’m looking for a friend of Mrs. Callen’s. The name is Mr. Alexander. Do you know if he lives here?”
I have clearly caught him off guard. “Y-you’re a f-friend of Cassandra’s?” Older Renzy takes a step backward, but quickly collects himself. “How exactly did you get those?” He nods at the letters in my hand before trying to snatch them away. I’m quicker and I yank back my hand.
“There are more where these came from, sir.” I feel smug and I don’t even know why. “Plenty more.”
“Well, who exactly wants to know about Mr. Alexander?” He spits out the words. If eyes could pick up a switchblade and start stabbing, I�
�d be nothing but a bloody mass sprawled on the revolting all-weather carpeting.
“I’m Seven Moreau-Maddox. A friend of the Callen family.” I decide to be bold. “And who exactly are you?”
There is another similarity between Older Renzy and my Renzy. The man’s face turns as red as a frigging cherry tomato, ready to be picked. This isn’t embarrassment, though. It’s anger. I wait, but he doesn’t answer.
“Well, is there anybody else home who could possibly help me locate Mr. Alexander?”
He takes a few steps toward me and closes the door behind him. “My name is Laurence,” he tells me quietly.
“Laurence?” It rings a bell, but I remember him signing his letters differently.
He nods. “Laurence Alexander. And I believe those letters belong to me.”
Chapter Nineteen: Renzy
I.
Think.
I’m.
Having.
A.
Stroke.
Isn’t that what this experience is? Where the earth’s crust has melted away and I’m free-falling backward, except it feels like I’m moving through water? I’m going to drown, and it’s okay, as long as this sickening fall stops.
It’s this fucking street. The first time we turned on it, I… I don’t know. But I could hear her singsong chiding in my head. She’s a ghost and she haunts this street. I don’t know how I know. I can’t point to any of the houses and say, “There. I remember riding my bike in that driveway.” Because I don’t.
The only driveway I’ve ever known was my own.
Right?
But Seven asked me if I knew that house up ahead and I… do? Maybe?
Morning has been talking to me nonstop since Seven closed the driver’s side door. I can’t understand her—another sign I’m stroking out—but I get the sense that she thinks she can make me stop falling to the center of the earth with the power of her words.
It’s not working, Morning.
I reach out to try and touch her face and accidentally get my fingers tangled up in her hair. I remember the first time I saw this hair at the meeting. It was so… I don’t have words. Stroke, stroke, stroke.
