by Eden Butler
“He’s…my father.”
That had Iris stilling, hands frozen on the keyboard as she blinked, but again she didn’t look at me when she spoke. “I realize that, but Jimmy has been…closer to Wills for longer.”
My father grunted in his sleep, and I looked at him, something in the small noises he made making my stomach feel heavy. He looked so thin, so pale and small lying in this big bed. At my side, I swore I felt Iris’s scrutinizing gaze, how she watched me, likely judged me when I touched Wills’ forehead and shot a look at the monitor.
“You’re…getting along with him.” It wasn’t a question, and it made me think Iris’s rage at me wasn’t as sharp as I thought. She hadn’t forgiven me, but at least she was curious. Of course that was likely wishful thinking. She loved Wills, I knew that from the things he’d mentioned to me. They’d gotten close, especially after the Indy concert when I humiliated Iris. Wills had gone to her. He’d protected her. He’d been better to her than any father she’d known. Than any father I’d known.
“Yeah, well, the shock has worn off, and he refuses to leave. Didn’t give me much choice.”
Her exhale was long and slow, and I cursed myself for being the cause of how irritated it made her sound. But Iris didn’t bother asking me anything about my father and what we’d been up to, or why I seemed to be accepting him so quickly.
“You can go. I’ll stay with him.”
But I was a little lost just then. Jimmy was back at my place, sick and snoring on my sofa, and Iris was in this room watching over my father. Neither needed me with them, and for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. I could write, work on the song that was teasing my muse, but Wills not being there to give me his small brand of instruction would only distract me.
I glanced from Wills to the door, frown tensing my face when I thought of the other thing I could do, though I could list about a million other activities I’d jump at doing first.
“What is it?” When she spoke, Iris’s voice was soft, a little curious and it reminded me of how it used to be between us. It made me think for just half a second she was lowering her guard.
“Wills has been after me to see Juanita.”
“Here?” Iris asked, voice sharp and surprised. I nodded, glancing at her, eyebrows lifting when I caught her expression. She didn’t glare. She didn’t frown. Iris looked, in fact, a little worried. “She sick?”
“I…think she might be, but she’s on the rehab floor.” I threw a nod at Wills. “He’s been on me to visit, and I almost made it once, but then…” I didn’t have to explain anything to Iris about my relationship with my mother. She’d seen the worst of it, and despite what had gone down between us, all the damage I’d done, she was still able to read me, to catch my meaning and know what got under my skin with just a glance at my face.
She did that just then, watching, features shifting from confusion to understanding, then quickly back to something that looked like indifference.
“You should go,” she said, brushing the hair off her shoulder before she sat back, pulling her laptop close. “Like I said, I’ll be here for a while, and I’m sure Wills would want you visiting her.”
I nodded once, though she didn’t see me, sparing a final look at my father, then to Iris before I inhaled and moved out of the room.
No one ever speaks in the hallways of a hospital. There are different expressions on different faces, but there always seems to be the same emotions: worry, regret, fear. Those don’t change, and for some reason, for different reasons, it’s the emotions that keep people silent as you pass them in the hall.
Maybe it’s that we’re all in some sad fraternity—the loved ones and relatives of people who are doing the living and dying and parts in between that makes the world move forward. People die. People are born, and in the middle of all that is the struggle through the fight life can be.
It was those expressions, that silence, that greeted me when I got off the elevator on the second floor. I passed the open doors on my way to room 214, noticing that the kids who’d been in one of the rooms just a few weeks before were gone. I hoped the girl had gotten better, and they’d moved out of this place. I tried squashing the doubt that came on me when reality reared its ugly head.
“214” the door read, in large, taunting numbers and the knob felt cold as I held it, telling myself I wouldn’t stay, reminding myself to not let her manipulate me.
“Don’t buy the mierda.” Because if I knew one truth about my mother, it was that mierda followed her. Always.
The first thing I saw when I opened the door was her profile. She was still a pretty woman—older, worn around the edges, with lines forming along her eyes and mouth, but still very pretty. She wore her hair longer than I’d ever seen it, pulled away from her face with a sweeping of bangs just touching below her eyebrows.
When the door clicked shut and I stood there watching her, my mother jerked her gaze toward me, the small surprise on her face transforming to quick pleasure.
“Mijo.” The endearment came out in an amazed whisper, and she held out her hand, reaching for me, calling me over, then slowly dropped it when I stood at the foot of her bed. “Jamie. I hoped you’d come, mi niño dulce.” She moved her feet up, tugging the blanket with it to make space for me on her bed, not letting the small look of disappointment linger on her face when I sat in the chair next to her.
I fingered the IV tube hanging next to the stand. “Liver damage?”
“Si,” she said, waving off the answer like her illness didn’t matter.
“What are they doing for you?”
The pleased smile fell from her face, and she lowered her shoulders, as though she didn’t want to talk about what had landed her in the hospital. “Beta blockers, antivirals, all the things that should make me better.”
“You don’t need a transplant?”
“Ay Dios, no, mijo. I’m not that bad off.”
She didn’t slur when she spoke, and I glanced down at her hands, amazed that there was no constant shake in her fingers. My mother was sober, something I hadn’t seen in twenty years.
“Why are you still here then?” I asked, telling myself not to be hopeful. She’d tried before to get sober and always failed at it.
“Detox…”
“For weeks?”
My mama looped her arms around her knees as she watched me. “I promised Wills. He got me into this place one last time, but I had to promise I wanted to really get healthy. I’m not leaving until I’m sure I can stay sober. That…that time hasn’t come yet.”
I watched her close, wondering which version of my mother I’d get. Wondering if she was pretending, if all this was for some desperate attempt to grab my attention or my cash. She’d tried so often in the past eight years to get in touch with me, but I’d washed my hands, so tired of how dirty she made them. Now, it seemed like Wills was the target.
“He’s sick.” I bounced my foot, nervous for some reason to lay the bait. I wondered how quickly it would be before she took it. “Not nice to burden a dying man with your problems, Juanita.”
“He found me, mijo.” She lifted her chin, watching me in a way that no one else could. She always did that, even when she was loaded—that long, cool look that seemed to read through whatever walls I put around myself. Even the face hiding shades.
“It was just after that…video…”
“Ah.” I didn’t need to hear a lecture from her, and I felt it rising like a virus in my gut. Juanita didn’t say anything when I leaned back in my chair. “He found you after the Indy show.” She nodded, but didn’t speak. “And what reason did he give for looking you up?”
She shrugged, moving a corner of her blanket between her fingers. “Maybe he felt guilty. Maybe being sick made him think about the things he did, mijo, I can’t tell you why he came to me, but he did. I was out in Iverville. I…had means…” She shook her head, sitting up straighter when I frowned. “Not like that. I didn’t have a
man, and I was too sick to do more than drink. No H, nothing hard at all.”
“Then how? If you were on your own…”
“Jose,” she said, looking shy. “Jose and Isaiah. They both sent me a little money— oh, but Jamie, don’t tell them I told you. They wouldn’t want you knowing.”
It took a few seconds to organize my thoughts and figure out what I wanted to say and what was a more pressing need. Finally, when my mother looked like she couldn’t take my scrutiny, I waved a hand, dismissing the worry that had cornered in her eyes. “It’s their money.”
“Si. It is, and they’ve been good to me.” Mama dropped the blanket and reached to the bedside table to grab a small candy. It was chocolate and mint with a green metallic wrapper, and in one smooth flick of her thumb, the candy was in her mouth. “I want you to know…the last time…” She inhaled, eyes tight as though the memory weighed her down. “I know why you cut me out of your life. I…I was the worst mama, mijo. I used you. I used everyone, and I’m so sorry.”
“Mama,” I started, hating the way her voice cracked, how she couldn’t meet my eyes when she spoke. My guard was still up, but this was something I’d never seen from her. Guilt felt heavy in that room, and I wasn’t convinced it came only from my mother.
“Jamie, I love you. I may have never shown you that, but I always loved you, as much as I knew how, and I know that you think I’m sick and need money or something else.” She looked up when I sat next to her. My mother reached toward me, but didn’t touch me. Instead she fiddled with the ends of my hair, and then dusted something I couldn’t see, something that was likely nothing at all, from my shoulder. “I know I can’t ever make up for the things I’ve done…”
“No,” I said, looking at my hands to keep them in my lap. “I suppose you can’t.” For the first time in my life, I understood my mother. I knew what this was—the apologies, the guilt. It filled me from the inside every day for the past seven months. It’s what I’d surrounded myself in, the second Isaiah told me the truth about him and Iris and the affair that never happened.
“Mijo,” she said, slipping her fingers over my wrist. “Do you think, maybe, you will let me try? Will you let me try to prove I’m sorry?”
She had been the worst person I remembered from my childhood. It was Mama’s life— her choices and the people she let near us— that had destroyed any illusions I had about having a happy life. Iris was the one that had brought that back for me. There I sat, next to the one person in the world I thought I could never understand, completely familiar to the guilt she felt. My mother had passed along the bad choice gene, and now she wanted to be rid of it. If anyone knew about mistakes, it was me, so I did what I could. I did what I hoped would be done for me one day.
I needed to put the past to bed.
“Yeah, mama. I’ll do that for you.”
Chapter Nine
The reunion didn’t last. Not much good ever did where my mama was concerned, but this time it was my own insecurities and a persistent nurse’s aide that broke up the good that had been our conversation.
“Oh, Mr. Vega, I’m such a big fan,” the girl had started, tugging on her stethoscope like it was a distraction. She didn’t even have a chart on hand and still she interrupted. “Would you mind if I got a picture? Your mother has told us so much about you.”
“Did she?” I asked, pushing my shades further up my nose as I stood from my mother’s side.
“Si, mijo, but I’m so proud. You’ve done so well.” For once, when I stared at her, my mother’s smile was genuine, real, and it might have been the first time in my life that she was in a good mood not caused by a man or something that fucked with her brain or body.
I stood for the aide, leaned close to her as she held up her cell, but didn’t smile, not when she lowered her hand onto my ass or when she insisted on a second picture.
“Without your glasses? Would you mind?”
“Yeah,” I’d told her. “I would, actually.” I glanced at my mother, shooting her a wink. “I gotta jet. Check on Wills. I’ll be back…later.”
But one peek inside my father’s room, where he sat laughing with Iris, playing dominoes, looking completely fine without my presence, and I just wanted out of that hospital.
The snow had stopped, and the frigid wind had warmed to a balmy thirty-five. I took advantage of the temperature and the distraction Wills had caused and made for that small Macon Street cottage. I had no plan to go there, no real purpose, other than keeping myself busy and eradicating the hook in my head, making lyrics fit into the tune that had me stuck.
If Iris’s mother was home, she didn’t acknowledge me as I went to the back shed and dug out her tool set. The hand tools were all green and purple and old; there was silver paint among the purple, a looping scroll of Iris’s name she must have added to the hammer when she was a kid.
I found an old mason jar filled with nails of different shapes and lengths and took that glittered hammer to the front of the yard, pinching the nails between my teeth as I lined up the loosened pickets on the gate. There were at least a dozen or more that were broken or loose, and I went to work fixing each one with that tune running through my head on repeat.
“The lights are always on / This is the place I come to,” I said to myself, not sure if the lines meant anything at all or if they’d work together. There wasn’t too much thought to give to the mindless task of straightening, cutting and nailing, and when the pickets were mended and looked uniform again, I moved my attention to the front porch, seeing several loose boards toward the middle.
My cell vibrated against my back pocket when the text alert rang, and I nudged the hammer through one of my belt loops to grab it.
Going back to the hospital to relieve Iris. Mr. Lager to be released in the morning, Jimmy
Something ticked inside my head, a realization that made me feel small and insignificant. Iris had called Jimmy to relieve her, likely at Wills’ insistence. The idea that he had, that my father had depended on someone other than me, bothered me more than it should have. I didn’t need Wills’ praise. I didn’t want anything from him at all. Coño, I hadn’t even been all that nice to him and still it bothered me.
Worse yet, Iris hadn’t needed me either.
I sat on the porch, cell in my hand, staring at Jimmy’s message, wondering when the hell I’d started caring about anything other than myself. Once, that had been the norm for me. Once, putting others first, caring what they thought, had simply been who I was. But I wasn’t that guy anymore. Maybe I couldn’t ever be again. I was venom and fire. I was smoke and mirrors. I was Dash Justice.
So why was I sitting on my ex-girlfriend’s mom’s porch, eyes burning as I stared down at a text, wondering why my father hadn’t asked for my help.
“Fuck me.”
“Ahem.”
I turned, staring behind me at Mrs. Daine, who was hurrying back into her house, the warmth of the fire inside coming at me like a wave. She didn’t thank me for mending her fence or fixing her porch. Instead, the woman left a Thermos on the steps above where I sat. It was likely all I’d get from her, but for now, I’d take it.
The coffee was rich, heavy with cream, and I liked the dark roast bite. Half a cup down, I put my cell away and picked up the board on the ground, figuring there was no point worrying about who needed me and who didn’t.
“We fall to ashes / We float away,” I sang, stopping when the note and lyric came together, and I spent the rest of the afternoon and late into the night fixing that porch and writing the second verse, sipping gratitude from the lid of a Thermos.
Chapter Ten
Jimmy, it turns out, couldn’t be bought. Not when there was vomit and IVs and general illness things related to his duties. He quit the day after Wills got released from the hospital, and all that punk-ass internal whining I did when Wills had Jimmy stay with him got shot out the window. I was now his chauffer, his cook, his valet and his groomer. Much as I didn’t ask to be any of those
things, I got paid in opinions. And coño, did Wills have opinions about everything—my life, my set lists, my wardrobe, my lyrics, politics, my hair, my apartment, politics again, and, most of all, Iris, and how I didn’t deserve her.
“I’m trying,” I’d told him when a particularly rough round of dialysis put my father in a foul mood.
“Are you now? Spoken to her, have you?”
He knew I hadn’t. Despite being at her mother’s place nearly once a week, despite her mother’s frigid attitude toward me cooling to something that resembled lukewarm, Iris still had yet to say more than ten words to me, and those words were directly related to my father’s life, health or business.
Now, though, there was a more pressing need to get her to talk to me. Fuck, I didn’t want to ask.
“Dash!” I heard on the line when I answered my cell, cringing the second I recognized Winston Daily’s voice. He was the A&R guy at Riptide, my label. “Dude, it’s been months. I hope you’ve been busy.”
Truth was, I had been, but I wasn’t sure why that mattered to Winston, especially if the rumors my father had heard were true.
“I got some stuff,” I said, leaning on the island in my kitchen as I tried to keep my voice calm. My guitar lay on the sofa in the next room, and my bedroom door was open in case Wills woke from his nap. “Nothing I’m really ready for anyone to have a listen to yet.”
Fact was, I owed them one more album, and then my contract was up for renewal. This album could go two ways: be an utter failure and go unreleased, my future as a signed artist over, or it could kill, and I could write my own ticket with any label I wanted. Even one I created for myself.
I just didn’t know one way or another how things would end up. Until I did, I had to play nice. “But,” I said, interrupting the quiet grumble I heard from on the line. “I got something sweet I think you’re gonna like.”
