by Jay Quinn
Comforted by the T-shirt’s soft fall to her mid-thighs, she slipped from the closet to brush her teeth quickly before going to the bed and getting in. As she burrowed beneath the covers, Matt lifted his head and leaned across the small space between them for a good night kiss. Maura kissed him not once, but three times in quick succession, emphasizing both her gladness that he was back in her bed and her gratitude for his being so easy on this difficult night.
“Tonight didn’t go so badly, did it?” Matt asked as she switched off the lamp by the bed.
Maura turned to face him after she lay down and said, “Kai asked me the same thing. I think tonight went very well. Everything’s going to be all right. Just wait, you’ll see.”
“I think you’re right,” Matt whispered in return. He reached across the bed and patted her hip gently. “Good night, sweetheart,” he said as he drew his hand back to his side of the bed and let it fall near his chin.
Maura looked at him lovingly in the meager light from the dark night outside the drawn blinds. Her eyes adapted to the darkness and she could make out the contours of his face as he lay next to her. “Good night,” she echoed and sighed in comfort before closing her eyes.
Chapter Eight
IN WHAT SEEMED no time at all, she heard something in the kitchen and smelled coffee stealing in from the room on the opposite side of the wall. Startled, she turned to glance at the clock and saw it was nearly three-thirty in the morning. Though she knew instantly what was going on and could have just as easily rolled over and gone back to sleep, she gently drew off the bed covers and got up quietly so as not to disturb Matt.
Matt snored on. Grateful for his deep sleep, Maura let herself silently out of the bedroom and turned into the kitchen. As she expected, Kai sat calmly where he had for dinner, staring out the middle of the bay window into the night. On the counter, the coffee machine groaned and hissed as it brewed fresh coffee. Kai hadn’t turned at the sound of her bedroom door opening, nor did he turn now. Instead, he just sat, smoking a cigarette as Maura crept to her seat at the table, pulled out her chair and sat down. “Can’t sleep?” she whispered.
“Not tonight,” Kai said in his lowest, calmest voice. “Too many demons. Too many bad dreams.”
“What did you dream?” Maura asked him gently. Over the years, she’d heard of the convoluted and dead-ended scenarios of his subconscious on many other nights like this, shrouded with a fog of cigarette smoke and scented with drifts of coffee, from the time he was a teenager. Before then, he was just a little boy sitting alone without any comforts, in the darkest part of the night.
“It doesn’t matter, Mom. I couldn’t explain it if I tried. It’s an amalgam of places, here but not here, the beach, but not the beach. It’s all the noise in my head, like twenty radios playing at once. I can’t concentrate, much less sleep. They won’t leave me alone,” he tried to explain.
The indescribable they. Maura knew them well. They, those unnamable things that came into Kai’s overactive brain and tormented him with thoughts and scenes he couldn’t relate, but robbed him of sleep and solace day and night. “Can you hang on until you see Dr. Roth again?” Maura asked him.
Kai nodded. “I did half a painkiller. I’ll be high in about twenty minutes and they’ll all go away. I’ll be able to concentrate then.” He reached in his pack of cigarettes and lit the new one off the butt of the old one. After a moment, he looked at his mother and said, “You should go back to bed. You can’t be used to this any more and you have to work tomorrow.”
Maura noticed he was trembling; it was more pronounced now than it had been earlier. She laid her hand over the one Kai rested on the table and squeezed it in the vain hope the trembling would stop. After a moment, he opened his hand and took hers in his own and returned the squeeze before letting it go. “I’ll be fine, Mom. Go back to bed. You know this is nothing new. I’ll be okay.”
Maura felt her fatigue gather in close to her bones. She was tired and sleepy, but her child was awake and filled with fears that had no name. There was no way to soothe him. She knew he was doing his best to soothe himself. There was the drug, the cigarettes, and the coffee dripping into the pot. He would wait alone until daylight crept across the eastern sky outside the bay window across from him.
Maura watched as he took a drag on his cigarette and stared out the dark window. Under the moon and the ambient light of the city that sprawled out in front of them toward the ocean, she could make out the canal and the house across the way. They were familiar comforting shapes in the night. Kai turned slowly to look at her and said, “This is stupid after all these years, to still be doing this.”
“It’s not stupid, and it’s not your fault,” Maura said as she’d said so many times before. “I wish I could fix it.”
“Nothing can,” Kai said hopelessly. “They can even break through the Risperdal. I was on Risperdal before I quit taking my meds.”
“What’s Risperdal?” Maura asked him with concern.
“It’s an antipsychotic, Mom,” Kai told her simply.
Maura wasn’t surprised. Kai had been on a variety of drugs over the years as the technology and research had developed. She remembered the years on Haldol. Kai could stumble on a pattern in a rug when he was on that. Still, there had been the sleeplessness, the racing thoughts. Nothing held or lasted.
“Don’t focus on that,” Maura reassured him. “No matter what a drug is for, if it helps, don’t worry about it.”
Kai nodded but said, “Still, if you’re on antipsychotics, you must be psychotic. Especially if they work.”
“Does the Risperdal work?” Maura asked him in turn, refusing to give him room to retreat.
“Ninety percent of the time,” Kai told her.
“What about the pain medication?” Maura pressed him.
“Oh, that…” Kai said and smiled around his cigarette. “It just makes me feel like it’s all going to be okay.”
“Then I understand why you got hooked,” Maura said soothingly.
Kai only shrugged in reply and calmly twisted the bright hot tip of his cigarette on the side of his ashtray. Finally he looked back out the window and said despairingly, “But I can’t keep doing it. I’ve got to stop. I need to quit so I can have some for emergencies, like tonight. It’s too good to waste dealing it out in dribbles and drabs like I’ve been doing. I need to just stop. Then I’ll have some for when things get really bad.”
Maura had nothing to say to this line of reasoning. She didn’t approve of him taking an opiate painkiller to begin with, but there was also the rationalization any port in a storm that gave him shelter was worth it. She reached for Kai once more, but he got up abruptly and made himself a cup of coffee. Maura watched his clean, deft movements and admired their economy. She knew he was concentrating on the details of his task so its mundane aspects would focus his attention and keep him from spinning out into a world where his thoughts danced out of control.
Kai returned to the table with his coffee, his cigarette held between his teeth contorting his face into a rictus of a smile. He sat down and put out his cigarette before taking a sip of his hot coffee. Then, setting the mug on the table, he dropped his head in his hands and rubbed his temples remorsefully. When he stopped, he looked at his mother again and said, “You really should get back in bed, Mom. I’ll be up the rest of the night. There’s no use in both of us going without sleep. Go back to bed.”
“Where’s Heidi?” Maura asked, to turn his attention away from her.
“Sacked out on my bed. She doesn’t have demons, but she does have those doggy dreams where she whimpers and growls and moves her paws,” Kai told her. He smiled in the darkness and said, “She’s a good girl, my Heidi.”
“Yes. She is,” Maura said evenly as Kai lit a cigarette once more. She thought his lungs must be black by now. He had started smoking when he was barely in his teens. It was something she’d let him get away with, knowing what other problems he faced; smoking seemed like a mino
r problem and it did seem to calm him. Now she could kick herself for not taking a firmer stand against the habit.
Kai sighed deeply and a shiver ran down his spine as she watched him. He dropped his head and then rolled his neck, stretching unseen muscles. “I’m starting to drop,” he murmured.
“The pill is kicking in?” Maura asked.
“Ummm, yeah,” Kai said contentedly. “Pretty soon, I’ll be all right. They won’t bother me anymore and I can just sit here and enjoy the quiet and dark.”
“Will you feel like talking?” Maura asked him gently.
“Probably. The pain meds make me chatty as hell,” Kai said and smiled. “Not that you haven’t noticed.”
Maura smiled back across the dimly lit table. “Well, I admit, you’ve talked more in the past three days than you did when you were home for a week at Christmas.”
Kai nodded and took a deep hit off his cigarette, “Christmas was tough.”
“You seemed okay,” Maura told him. “Why was Christmas tough?”
“Christmas was when I realized I was in love with Robin,” Kai told her directly. “That messed me up pretty bad.”
“Kai, being in love is not supposed to mess you up,” Maura whispered harshly. “Being in love is perfectly natural and good for you. I won’t say it doesn’t hurt sometimes, but you have to give it a chance.”
Kai flicked the ash from his cigarette contemptuously and said, “Not if you’re me. I don’t ever want to depend on any one that much for my happiness, what little of it I can find. Besides, I’m not gay. “
“Kai, why do you keep saying that?” Maura asked as she tried to keep her voice down. “No one cares whether you’re gay or not. The important thing is to be happy with someone. Does Robin make you happy?”
Kai rubbed his eyes this time before answering, “Why are you so interested in Robin all the time? Robin. Robin. Robin. You’d think it was somebody I was married to.”
“Robin is the first person you’ve ever said you loved,” Maura explained gently. “You’re twenty-seven years old and you’ve never loved anyone else. That alone is fact enough to make me curious about Robin.”
“Okay. Fair enough, Mom,” Kai said agreeably. “Ask me what you want to. I’ll tell you.”
Maura stood and walked to the coffeemaker. She reached overhead and got a mug from the cabinet and nearly filled the mug before she went to the refrigerator for the half-and-half. As she prepared her coffee and doctored it with the requisite packet of Splenda, she thought about what exactly to ask. There were a lot of obvious questions that came to mind, but she did know what Robin did for a living, how old he was, and roughly what he looked like. Rhett had told her he looked like her, so she pictured a shortish blond with green eyes. Other than that there was a great deal she wanted to know.
Finally Maura returned to the table and sat down before she asked Kai, “Why him? What is there about him that made you fall in love with him?”
Kai snorted, then said, “If I knew that, maybe I could stop loving him and get over him.” He stubbed out his cigarette and then immediately lit another one before taking a sip of his coffee. “I don’t know, Mom. He just has this sexy little way about him and he makes me laugh. That and he gets me. Nobody else quite gets me. He does. I know he does and that’s why he’s so hard to get free of. Like, like…” Kai stalled and smoked in silence for a moment.
Maura tried to understand what he’d told her so far. In many ways, it was exactly the same way she felt about Matt. She thought he was sexy, certainly. But it was in that larger sense she knew Kai was correct. Matt got her. He understood her little ways and moods and feelings. That feeling that she was understood and still accepted and cared for was what bound her to Matt. And at long last, here was her son finally saying he felt the same way about a human being and not a dog. In a way, it was funny. She had waited all through his childhood and adolescence for him to confess to being in love. Now, here he was finally suffering through what was really an adolescent emotion mixed with an adult’s needs.
“Like what?” she prompted.
“Like when I told him I was going to move back down here,” Kai said. “He told me it would hurt him to let me go, but because he really loved me, he’d let me leave and do what was best for me.”
“Then he really does love you,” Maura said and took a moment to sip her coffee. It was warm and comforting in the near darkness and it allowed her to think before she added, “And I mean a whole lot, not just a little. If he’s willing not to manipulate you into staying for his own benefit, he’s really in love with you. That kind of selflessness can’t be faked.”
“Yeah, I know. I’ve thought about it,” Kai admitted. “What I can’t deal with is realizing it makes me love him even more. But it’s still fucked up. I just don’t think I’m ready to be full on, full-time gay.”
Maura sipped her coffee and said, “I don’t understand. Is what you’re scared of never sleeping with women again or thinking you’re going to have your own float in the gay pride parade?”
“Maybe a little of both,” Kai said abruptly. “Though it’s not the sex thing so much as it’s all about the gay thing. I don’t see myself marching in any gay pride parades. No way.”
“Is Robin that kind of gay person?” Maura asked.
“You mean, all radical and shit? No. He’s not like that. He’s just like a regular guy except he sounds gay when he talks. I mean, all you have to do is be around him a little while and you know. It’s nothing obvious, it’s just… well, you know. He’s gay,” Kai struggled to explain.
“At work, did you get any grief about Robin?” Maura asked.
“Oh hell yeah,” Kai told her loudly.
Maura shushed him and listened to hear if they’d startled Matt awake. In the quiet house, she could detect the sound of his soft snoring still. Finally satisfied he was still asleep, she quietly asked Kai, “Did you really give a damn? I mean you still lived with the boy for a year.”
“Well, no. Not really. It wasn’t anything more than being teased a lot. But I gave back just as good as I got, and finally nobody made a big deal about it any more,” Kai told her in a near whisper. “Of course, I started seeing Linda and that shut a lot of them up.”
“Did Linda know about Robin?” Maura asked.
“I suppose she did. I would never talk about it with her. I told her Robin was none of her business, and she pretty much dropped it after that. But I could tell she was jealous,” Kai admitted.
“And Robin knew about Linda,” Maura stated obviously. “You’ve said he did.”
Kai put his face in his hands and rubbed until Maura wanted to stop him. Finally he looked up at her and said, “He was hurt and I knew it. I’m not proud about what I did, sleeping with Linda while I was sleeping with him, but to me it was about getting the pain pills. I think Robin understood that’s all it was. He knew he came first in other ways.”
Maura sipped her cooling coffee and tried to imagine the sad little triangle playing itself out along the familiar sights of the beach road and bypass between Nags Head and Kitty Hawk. She knew, she’d lived there too and had her own dramas there on that long spit of sand and sea oats. It was a place where the sun came right down and touched the ground. Nothing there came easy or soft. It was a place that actively aided and abetted personal drama. No wonder Kai had felt that it was all closing in on him.
“Mom?” Kai asked gently, bringing her back from her reverie.
“What Kai?” She responded in the same tone.
“Would you mind if Robin came down for Thanksgiving?” Kai asked her out of the blue.
Maura smiled. It seemed like a reasonable request. In fact, she rather liked the idea of Robin altogether. Getting to meet him and talk to him would give her some real insight into her son at the moment. She touched Kai’s hand and said, “I think that’s a good idea, if you do.”
Kai nodded and said, “In four weeks, I’m back on my real meds again. My head should be straightened
out, and maybe seeing him here will help me make up my mind about him.”
“Do you miss him?” Maura asked Kai bluntly.
Kai nervously smoked for a moment before he blew out a long stream of smoke and said, “I think I do. I just want to have some stuff accomplished before I see him again. But if I have that to look forward to, and he does too, I think it’ll make things easier.”
“Then by all means, ask him,” Maura said and yawned. Glancing at the clock she saw it was nearing half past four. Kai seemed to be less lost and desperate now than when she’d come into the kitchen. While she knew he’d undoubtedly be up the rest of the night, she also knew she’d managed to shift the rails his mind was running on to a different, more positive direction. Now at least, they wouldn’t bother him anymore tonight. She’d given him something to think about. “Are you feeling better now?” she asked him.
Kai nodded and said, “For sure.” He stubbed out his cigarette and stretched before he again slumped protectively over his coffee mug and ashtray and lit another cigarette.
“Kai, you know it’s a whole different big world down here. It’s a place where you and Robin can live any kind of life you might want to make. Think about that. I’m going back to bed,” she said as she stood and walked over to the sink. She poured what was left of her coffee down the sink and congratulated herself on not giving in to the urge to bum a cigarette. Now she felt like she could go back and get another couple of hours of sleep before she had to get up.
She turned from the sink and stood directly behind Kai’s chair. She put her arms around his shoulders and rested her cheek on top of his head. Kai reached up and patted her arm saying, “Thanks, Mom.”
“Any time,” she said and gave his shoulders a quick squeeze before turning to go back to her room and bed. She noiselessly let herself back into her room and quickly got back into bed. Matt sighed and turned to his other side in his sleep. Maura waited until she heard his breathing resume its slow, deep rhythm. Satisfied he was undisturbed, she closed her eyes and willed herself to go back to sleep. It was difficult, knowing Kai was awake and alone on the other side of the wall. She hoped whatever peace he’d get from the pill would come soon and fully. Other than accepting him for what he was, demons and all, there was nothing she could do.
