by Sara Hubbard
Just thinking about their young faces—Manny’s streaked with tears—does strange things to me. Makes me feel too much. Makes me shudder with fear as I recall the beatings I took once upon a time. Never again. Not for me and certainly not for anyone I care about.
“Have you talked to Ethan yet?” I ask.
He shrugs.
“Oh, hell no. Write down Ethan’s number.”
“It’s the same as it was when he left.”
“I’m calling him.”
“Annie...”
“I’m calling him,” I say, my voice a touch firmer.
He eyes me, looking up at me with the shrewd, careful eyes of a card shark, then folds his arms across his chest. With a smirk, he says, “Sure. Go ahead.”
Call my bluff? He thinks I won’t call him because...well, he knows me. He knows how I left things with his brother. He knows I want to call Ethan about as much as Ethan wants to hear from me. But Manny doesn’t know I care about them both enough to get over my feelings so Ethan can be here for his brother. If Manny is staying with his dad, then Ethan should be here. I can’t believe Ethan would let him move back in with their father. It lights a fire inside of me and makes me angrier than I've ever been with him. And trust me; Ethan could piss me off like no other.
At the nurse’s station, I try to call his father. He doesn’t deserve an update, but he should at least know why Manny hasn’t been home—if any part of him still cares for his sons—but I can’t get a hold of him. After a few attempts, I move on. I stare at the phone, repeating Ethan’s number over and over in my head. How many times have I picked up the phone to call and slammed it back down over the last three years?
Sighing, I pick it up and slowly and painfully dial each number. When it goes to voicemail, the tension in my body relaxes. I don’t leave a message. It would be easier for me to do that, but leaving a message about your brother being in hospital after a knife fight is kind of a dick move. I resolve to try again later, though I know my stomach will be in knots until I do.
I gather a dressing tray and some other supplies and head back to Manny’s room to clean up his wound. He chats easily with me, but I can tell something is bothering him as he keeps turning to look out the window.
“What’s going on in that head of yours?” I ask.
He chuckles. “Not much goes on in this big head of mine. You know, I might not have called Ethan, but I did call Richard.”
“Huh.” Richard is Ethan’s agent. I hate him. Strong word. But then, I have strong feelings about him.
“We both agreed not to tell Ethan about what happened.” Manny pauses. “So if you didn't tell him yet, maybe you should leave it be.”
“Well, I'm sure he knows now. It’s in the papers.”
“I just hope he doesn’t coming racing back here. You know how he gets.”
I stop and collect my thoughts before continuing to clean his wound. “Yeah, I do.” Ethan is one of those guys that acts first and asks questions later. He’s hotheaded and ruled by his emotions. If he found out about the stabbing, he’ll be freaking out now, especially because he can’t get a hold of Manny on his dead cell phone. I’ll have to get his charger after work tonight.
I finish cleaning him up and take a quick peek on all my other patients, spending a little bit longer with Mr. Bentley.
“Knock, knock,” I say as I tap on his open door.
“Oh,” he says, his face brightening. “Come on in.”
“How are you doing?”
“Great. One of the volunteer ladies gave me a crossword puzzle book today and I’ve finished three, so far.”
“That’s great.” I peek over his shoulder and read one of the clues before tossing him an answer. “Irate.”
He looks at me quizzically.
“Four down. Another word for furious,” I say.
“Hmm. Irate. Why, yes it is.” He presses his pencil onto the page and scratches in the word, his writing a little shaky.
“I’m leaving for the night. Want anything before I go?”
“How about a cigarette?”
I frown at him. “You know I can’t do that.”
“It was worth a shot.”
We say good night and I make my way back to the nurse’s station. My paperwork ends up taking longer than expected and I don’t leave on time. This seems to be the trend, lately. When I finally finish I say good night to the other nurses and head for the parking lot to find my car. Damn it, if I can ever remember where I parked. I press the lock button on my keychain and my car beeps and flashes nearby.
As I get in and pull out of my spot my phone rings on Bluetooth. Charlie Davidson shows up on the dashboard. “Hey,” I say softly.
“Hey to you, too. You driving?”
“I just got off work.” I signal left at the parking lot exit and turn onto the road.
“Can I convince you to come by?”
“I’m so sorry. I’m just running an errand for a friend.”
“Another no...I’m beginning to think you don’t like me anymore.”
“Don’t be silly. I promise we’ll find some time to hang out when I get my next few days off.”
“What’s the errand? Anything exciting?”
“No, not really,” I lie, not wanting to explain my relationship with Manny or talk about my ex. Of course, Charlie knows nothing about Ethan. I don’t share easy stuff, let alone the painful things. Telling him about my relationship to Manny, and that I have to go to my ex’s old house and potentially even run into him if he shows up here, is not something I want to talk about with Charlie right now—not ever, actually. It would only hurt him.
“That’s so like you,” Charlie says. “Always looking out for other people. Here you are finishing a twelve-hour shift and you’re still doing favors. I hope it’s nothing too tasking.”
I ignore his probe and change the topic. “Did you talk to Mr. Bentley’s son?”
“I did.”
“How did it go?”
“Not well.”
Why am I not surprised?
“He wants to get a court order to declare his father unfit and force him to get treatment,” Charlie adds.
“Unreal.”
“Yeah, I know. He won’t win. Mr. Bentley’s in his right mind and he understands what he’s doing.”
I lean back in my seat, wringing my hands around the wheel. “He doesn’t have a lot of time with his dad. He should be spending time with him, not fighting him.”
“Leave it at the door,” Charlie says.
“Why does this conversation feel so familiar?”
“Because we seem to have it at least once a week?”
“Oh, yeah. That must be it.” I turn onto the highway and pick up my speed to match the cars speeding past. “I got to go,” I tell Charlie, my finger hovering about the end phone call button on my steering wheel.
“Love you,” he says, his voice sweet and adoring.
The line goes silent as I marinate in guilt. “I’ll call you later” is all I can manage. Pretty soon, he’s going to stop saying it altogether if I don’t hurry up and commit to him. He says he understands how hard love is for me, that even if I felt it I would have a hard time expressing it, but it has to hurt him to say it and get back nothing but static. I shake my head, loathing myself as I drive out of town toward the hills with the sun touching the horizon.
I pass my house on the way to the Michaels’s. There’s a park about a half mile down the road. It’s almost dark now and not a single kid plays here. The swings are broken and someone has spray painted some curse words on the wooden slide cover. This was where I first met Ethan. From day one, he told me he’d be my friend forever: a childhood promise I never expected for him to fulfill but now wish it possible.
I keep driving, hitting a dirt road that passes through rows of overgrown trees that hang low overhead. Some of the branches scratch at my car, but I don’t bat an eyelash. It’s just something to get around in. Sure, I take care of it, but
I’m not one of those people who cry over a dent or a piece of chipped paint.
At the end of the pockmarked dirt road is an old wooden house with white paint and chipped gray shutters. The grass in the yard is overgrown and littered with weeds. There’s a piece of wood over Ethan’s old bedroom window. I bite my lip and shake my head. I crawled into that window more than once and fell asleep soundly in his arms.
What am I doing? I ask myself. Being here isn’t good. It will only bring up memories better left forgotten. Knowing I have no choice, because I’m here for Manny, I push open my door and zip up the thick sweater I wear over my scrubs before trudging forward to the screen door. The inside door is open and I can hear someone puttering around out of sight.
I knock on the metal part of the door and wait. After a long pause, I knock again, harder.
Feet scuff along the old hardwood and Corey Michaels comes into view at the end of the hallway. His shirt is mostly unbuttoned and his pants, at least two sizes too big, hang on his bony hips.
I resist the urge to scowl at him. He caused Ethan and Manny so much pain and grief after Claire died. Sometimes I wished he’d left them like my mother left me. It would have been better for them. Then my Nan could have taken care of all of us.
I hate him. Or, at least, I did. It’s pretty hard to truly despise him when he looks at me with those eyes. Both the Michaels boys have them and they get them from their dad. Corey’s are yellowed now. A gift he’s given to himself from pickling his liver with excessive drinking
“Hi, Mr. Michaels,” I say quietly.
“What do you want?” he asks, looking me up and down.
“It’s me,” I say. “Annie Fraser.”
“Annie Fraser?” he says, slurring his words. He stumbles a bit and holds onto the doorframe to maintain his balance. “I know that name.”
“I used to live with Ellis Clover, in the little gray craftsman house down the road.”
His face is blank.
“I spent a lot of time with Ethan growing up?”
“Ethan. Piece of shit. That boy makes millions and you think I see a dime of it? After all I’ve done for him.”
I bite my tongue. He certainly hasn’t changed at all.
“Mr. Michaels, Manny is in the hospital. Would you mind if I come in and pick up some things for him?”
“In the hospital? What the hell is wrong with him now?”
I want to smack him across the face for his obvious lack of concern for his nineteen-year-old son who hasn’t been home in at least three days.
“He’s fine now.” In case you care. “Do you mind if I grab some of his things?”
“Who did you say you were again?”
I repeat my name and hope I won’t have to again. Less time around this wretched man is preferable to more.
“I don’t give a shit. Take what you want.”
He turns and scuffs down the hallway to the kitchen.
Tentatively, I open the squeaking door and step inside, put off by the slight odor of mold and the stronger scent of rotten garbage. It amazes me how different this place looks from when the boys were here. Mr. Michaels never picked up after himself or washed a dish, but Ethan was a bit of a clean freak and this place shined, even if they had nothing but furniture from goodwill.
I walk up the creaking stairs to Manny’s room and pause when I get to Ethan’s room. The door is open and because of the board on his window, it’s hard to see through the dark. I flick the light on after making sure Mr. Michaels isn’t at the bottom the stairs spying on me. I don’t go in; it feels wrong. But I see the poster on his wall of his idol Wayne Gretzky and I find myself smiling. ‘I’ll score more goals than him one day,’ he used to say when we skated on the pond nearby—well, he skated, I just fell a lot. ‘I’ll be just as fast and just as big.’ Look at him now. He’s exactly what he wanted to be. He made it happen. The only thing I ever wanted when I was young was a family. For a short time, I got my wish, but then that all disintegrated when Ethan left and Nan died.
I run my hand down the smoke-tinged floral wallpaper and move on to Manny’s room. When I open the door, I gasp at the mess. He certainly didn’t get the clean gene Ethan inherited. There is garbage everywhere and fruit flies—at this time of year?—swarm around some open containers of noodles and a brown apple core. There is no way I will find anything in here. I’m not even sure I want to go in. I gloss over the nude posters on the wall and marijuana on his bedside table. Manny said his charger would be still plugged into his wall and it is, in the one by his bed. I yank it out and snatch one of his backpacks, emptying it out onto his bed. There are some old gym clothes and some dirty socks, the odor strong enough to make me gag. I grab some clothes off the floor, but none of them are clean and there aren’t any clean ones in the closet. I take them anyway, figuring I will clean them before I take them to him.
Jesus, Manny. I frown at the space: how can you live here, Manny? Like this? Was this your only option? Why haven’t you reached out to Ethan? These are all questions I intend on getting an answer to the moment I see Manny again.
4
ETHAN
An accident on the highway stops me in bumper-to-bumper traffic for over two hours. Horns honk in front and behind me and I try my best not to lose my mind. Though I try to peer around the cars, I can't see what's going on and when I reach the accident all I see is some glass on the side of the road and some burned rubber marks on the blacktop.
I've tried several times to reach my brother, but the bastard has his phone turned off—or it’s dead. Either way, I’m hugely irritated with him right now. It’s a good thing he’s hurt or I would hurt him myself. Or not—but I’d want to.
It’s been a good three weeks since I talked to him last. Seems all we manage to do lately is play phone tag. I call Richard to check in, hopeful that Manny's tried to call him. I don’t really want to talk to him, but if someone can't reach me, they reach out to him.
“Sorry. I haven’t heard anything,” Richard says, though he doesn't seem too apologetic.
I curl my fists around the wheel and squeeze tight.
“By the way, you owe me over a thousand dollars for damage to my car.”
“Yeah,” I say, “Bill me.”
“Don’t worry, I already have.”
“Got to go.”
“Not so fast,” he says quickly. “While I got you on the phone, I need to tell you that the owners are really sad to hear about your brother, but money is money and a contract is a contract. They’re okay with you missing the game tonight, but we got to have you at the next one in Toronto on Friday. That gives you four days to see your family and tidy up whatever you need to tidy.”
“Screw the owners. I’ll be back when I get back.”
“Ethan, don’t do this to me. I need you back here.”
I hang up on him and though he calls me back more than once, and no less than a dozen times, I refuse to pick up. Fuck him. I’ll be back when I’m good and ready.
After the accident finally clears, I depress the accelerator, passing the speed limit. The windows are open a crack and the cool air breezes inside, chilling me. The air is different here, cleaner. I can smell the salty ocean and the trees. The sun is out, shining in my face and I pull down the visor to add to the shade of my sunglasses. The drive is quiet, peaceful. I almost forgot how easy driving is here when compared to the city. And how pretty. Icicles hang from leafless trees, interspersed with some evergreens and fir trees. Add some soothing classic rock on the radio and I can actually think through my awful thoughts about how my brother will look when I see him. How the hospital will smell. That’s what I remember most about the hospital when my mother spent her last few months there: the smell of disinfectant and sick. There is a stench associated with sick that I just can’t describe. It will be there the moment I walk through the doors of Rawdon Memorial Hospital.
When I finally arrive at the hospital, I am shocked to find they have a small parkade now and I have
to pay to park. Things do change, I guess. I fish out my Platinum Visa and slide it though the machine. When the arm lifts, I head inside and find a spot not far from the doors.
Inside, I breathe in deeply. There’s that smell. It cuts right through me. Steeling myself, I forge ahead, pushing memories aside that only make me angry and upset. At the front desk, a young girl sits with a headset on, talking into an attached microphone. I wait with my hands on the counter, tapping my fingers while I wait for her to put the phone down and pay attention to me. I’m not used to people ignoring me. Usually, I’d appreciate it and find it kind of humbling, but right now I just need her to get off the fucking phone so I can go and see my brother.
Finally, she turns and smiles, giving the person on the other end of the phone a very quick, “Thank you and have a nice day.” When her eyes meet mine, I see the shift in her, when I become a celebrity and not a stranger. Her mouth drops open and she blinks a few million times.
“I’m looking for Emmanuel Michaels.”
“You’re Ethan Michaels.”
She talks so fast I almost miss it, but I'm pretty sure she's calling me by name. “I am.”
“Oh my God,” she says. “Um...oh...just a minute.” She turns away and ducks her head and I am annoyed to watch her text on her cell phone. For crying out loud. Really? You couldn't do that in a few minutes after I'm out of sight? I don’t need a fan club staking out the hospital to get autographs. And I don't need the press either. Press and paparazzi just piss me off.
“My brother?” I ask, prompting her to get off her phone.
She turns around. “Of course.” She taps away on the computer and looks up at me. “You’re much bigger in person.”
