The Last Shot

by Sara Hubbard

  “Maybe I can come with you?” he asks.

  “No. It's nothing. You'd be bored.”

  “Really? I don't think that's possible where you're concerned.”

  I take a drink of my iced coffee and try to think of something else to talk about.

  “Is something wrong?” he asks.

  “No.”

  He leans on the counter, studying me. “You've seemed a little off the last few days. Is it because I told you I love you?” He smiles. “Because if it is, I can keep it to myself. I just wanted to be honest with you.”

  The first time he told me he loved me was just over a week ago. We were in bed together, and he was drawing letters on my back, asking me to guess what he was writing. It was kind of sweet actually. One of my best moments since my Nan passed. When he spelled out the words, I love you, he said them to me, all the words, together, in one sentence. He took my breath away. Not because I couldn't wait to hear those words, but because they scared me to death.

  I didn't want him to fall for me. My heart is damaged. It’s a miracle I allowed myself to love Ethan—but I did. Part of me wonders if he'll always own my heart. Love does crazy things to you; love makes you irrational, distracted, and it fucking hurts when things go wrong. It overwhelms. And I like control. It’s the only way I feel safe in this crazy world. I don't love Charlie. I felt safe dating him, but once he said he loved me, things changed a little. I'm just not sure what to do about it.

  “No, I love that you're honest with me. I mean, yes, it freaks me out that you love me, but I wouldn't want you to keep your feelings from me. They're important.”

  “Good.” He approaches me, wrapping his arms around my waist. “Don't turn away from me. We can go as slow as you want.”

  “Okay,” I say, not sure if I mean it. Not sure what I want at all, really. I just know I can't be with Ethan, not the way that things are right now. And I do care about Charlie.

  “I have an idea. Why don't we take off for a few days?”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, just take off to my parents’ cottage in the valley. Just you and me. I've spoken to one of the other GPs and they said they could cover my patients. This’ll give us a chance to be alone, without all the noise. We can—”

  “Charlie, stop. I can't take off. I have work. I have to give notice.”

  “Of course. But you’ll be off in a couple of days so...”

  “No,” I say, shaking my head. “Charlie, you say we can take this slow, and then you want to take off and go on a mini vacation together?”

  “Okay, then tell me what you want. Will I see you the next few days? Because I feel like you've been avoiding me. And what are these errands you're running?”

  Feeling frustrated, my tone takes on a quality of annoyance that I can’t seem to help. I hate having to explain myself to anyone. “One of my patients happens to be an old friend and I went to pick up some of his stuff at home for him.”

  “Him?”

  I frown at Charlie. “He’s a friend. That’s all. And just so you know, I'm going to drop by his dad's place again today.”

  “Why? Don't you think that's overstepping? He's your patient.”

  “He was a friend first. I've known him since we were kids.”

  Charlie throws his hands up. “Okay, I'm not going to press you. I just feel like there's something you're not telling me. Don’t lie to me, Annie. There’s nothing I hate more than a liar.” He voice goes deep and I don’t like his accusatory tone. He’s never responded to me like this before, and I don’t like it. Trust is important to me too, and I don’t appreciate him insinuating that I’m lying to him. I might not be telling him the whole truth, but I haven’t done anything wrong. Nothing has happened between Ethan and me, and if something were to happen, I would break up with Charlie first.

  He closes his eyes and takes a breath. “This really isn't going the way I planned. C'mon. Let's have breakfast.” He smiles and takes a step forward to capture my face in his cupped hands. “I thought I would come here this morning and surprise you with some food and some coffee and maybe we could have a morning quickie.”

  I scoff at him, still annoyed. “No quickie for you. I already showered and I still have to work tonight.”

  “A guy can hope,” he says, flashing me a sly wink.

  We eat breakfast, chatting about his plans for a vacation. I don't commit, but try to make him happy by saying maybe we could go in a few weeks. I’m sure he knows I don’t really mean it—I’m too much of a homebody—but he gives me a wide smile to show he appreciates the gesture, making me feel worse. Man, he really is a good guy. A guy who says he loves me. But he's only known me a few months. It took me years to realize what I felt for Ethan. Sometimes I wonder if anyone could really love me. I hurt Ethan and I fear Charlie will be next. I can't love him back. Not now. Maybe not ever. At some point, he has to know this. I just don't know if I have the heart to tell him.

  After breakfast, I follow Charlie out to his car, where he pulls me in close and kisses me like it's our last. I lean back, feeling dizzy, every ounce of his passion relayed through his eager tongue.

  After a quick peck, I leave him, intent on making my way over to Mr. Michaels's house. When I get there, I lightly knock on the door and hesitate before going in, calling out Mr. Michaels’s name before entering. “Mr. Michaels? Are you home?”

  I step into the hall, the floorboards creaking under my sneakers. I call out his name again, just before seeing him passed out cold on the floor by the sofa. The house smells of stale air and vomit lies beside him in a pool of his own making.

  Fantastic.

  I shake my head at him, feeling terrible for him that he couldn't recover from his wife's death, but also feeling incredibly angry that he couldn't. All the shit his boys endured when he got so drunk and became violent. Violent enough to force them to run to my Nan's.

  I should leave him here. Let him rot for what he put Ethan and Manny through. But that's not what I do. I just can't walk away from him. Regardless of what he's done, he's in pain and he's sick. And...he's Ethan's father. I can't ever frigging let go of anything, especially when it comes to Ethan.

  I stand above him, careful not to stand in the dried vomit and lean down to shake his shoulder. He doesn't budge. I can see he's breathing, but just to be sure, I check for a pulse. Weak but regular.

  “Mr. Michaels? Mr. Michaels!” Groaning, I push on his shoulder a little harder and he moans. “Corey!”

  His eyelids flutter open. “Leave me alone,” he says, his fire breath almost making me gag. I lean back, out of the stream. When it's clear he has no intention of moving, I slap him hard across the face. I get paid for dealing with this shit at work, so I don't know why I'm here right now doing it for free. Well, I do...

  “We need to get you off the floor,” I tell him, and he's too far gone to argue. I all but drag his skinny ass to the sofa where he's snoring the second his head hits the pillow. I stare down at him with my hands on my hips. “Unbelievable.”

  While he sleeps, I clean up the mess on the floor, after I locate some heavy-duty oven mitts to cover my hands. All I meant to do was to come here and have a chat with him, but now I've started cleaning I can't seem to stop. Within an hour and a half, I have most of the garbage picked up and the dishes done. Another two hours and the kitchen is spotless. It's early afternoon and I need to go home to sleep, but now I'm on a roll and I keep finding more and more things that both repulse and sadden me, I can't seem to force myself to leave. I pull my cell phone out of my pocket and dial work.

  “Hey, Cathy. I'm going to take a family day, okay?”

  “Family day? You don’t have any family.”

  I frown at the phone. Thanks for reminding me, Cathy. No, I don’t technically have anyone that I would consider family left in my life, but I'm not about to explain my situation to her. “I’m entitled to family days and I'd like to take one. Can you manage?”

  “We’re overstaffed, so we'll be
fine. You okay?”

  I soften to her, knowing she didn’t really mean anything about the no-family comment. I want to say no, I’m really not okay. That people I once cared for a great deal are broken and in pain, whether they want to admit to it or not. And I want to help them, like they helped me when I first moved to Rawdon. “I’m fine,” I lie. “I’ll be back tomorrow night.”

  I hang up the phone and keep going. By suppertime, I have most of the first floor cleaned. I put another garbage bag in the sunroom out back and that makes five since I started. Man, how can people live like this?

  As I go to start Manny's room, I hear a car coming up the drive. I peek out the window and see Ethan's rental car. I'm a little weirded out being caught here cleaning his dad's place and I'm not sure how he'll respond to it, so I quietly sit on the bed and decide to stay out of the way until he's gone. Something tells me he won't be long and I don't want to see him again. The more I see him the more confused he makes me.

  8

  ETHAN

  The house looks like it did the day I moved out, only a little more worse for the wear. With my car window cracked, I smell the lilac bushes immediately, even if all the flowers are missing. My mother planted those not long before she died and it pisses me off that Dad didn't maintain them. The paint on the house is chipped and some of the shutters are falling off. One of the windows is broken and boarded up. The yard...wow. The grass might be as high as my shins right now.

  Just looking at the place depresses me. Annie was right about one thing: Manny shouldn't be here. Now all I have to do is convince Manny of that. In the driveway, I pull up behind a car I don't recognize. It's a green sedan with a breast cancer ribbon sticker on the bumper. Somehow, it doesn’t strike me as something my dad would drive and I thought he lost his license years ago, but then again, that doesn't mean he stopped driving. Does he have a guest? Since when does that old bastard have friends?

  I turn off the engine and get out of the car, tossing my keys in the air a few times. Why am I here? I'm not sure. I guess I need to see for myself that my dad hasn't changed. I need to look him in the eye and tell him I don't intend on seeing him ever again. If he's as sick as Annie says, he probably won't last long before he drinks himself to death, so I suppose I'm also here to say good-bye and to tell him to stay away from Manny. Maybe if Dad kicked him out I wouldn't have to try so hard to convince Manny to stay away from him.

  After heaving a breath, I gather the strength to go to the house. It's not like I'm afraid of Dad or anything, but I sure as shit was growing up. And now? He's old and weak, mentally and physically. The only thing I worry about is feeling affected by what he’s become. He is my dad after all, and there ain't much I can do about that.

  I don't bother knocking on the door, though I probably should. This isn't my home anymore and hasn't been since my mother died. After that, it was just a place to sleep and eat.

  “Dad?” I call out before spying him asleep on the sofa. He doesn't move at first and for a moment, I wonder if he's breathing. Man, the last four years haven't been kind to him. Annie is right, he's isn't doing well. I want to feel nothing, but I can't help myself. After Mom died, he turned mean, practically blamed her death on us. I don't know if I can ever forgive him for that. Or for the constant drinking and abuse that followed.

  Yeah, I feel something for him now. Loud and clear. Disgust and maybe pity. And somewhere deep inside of me, I feel guilt, and I hate myself for it. For letting him get this way. I could have done something—should have done something, but when he drank he turned mean and I didn't have much love for him once he started making us feel like useless pieces of shit.

  “Dad?” I say again.

  He stirs and his eyes flutter open. A small smile covers his lips. “The hero returns.”

  I shake my head at him. “You need a bath, old man.”

  “Not pretty enough for you anymore?”

  “You were never pretty enough.”

  “Fuck you,” my dad says. “Fuck you and your Stanley Cup and all the money you never thought to share.”

  I walk over to him and try to help him up, but he bats my hands away. When I take a step back, he forces himself to a sitting position and holds his hand out for a minute. “I need a drink. Some rum, boy, with ice.”

  “Get your own fucking drink. Like you need one. I could get drunk off the smell of your rancid sweat.”

  “You were always my least favorite,” he says.

  “Likewise.”

  I look around the room, pleased to see the place is clean. I don't know what Annie was talking about. This place isn't that bad. It's a dump outside, but at least he's kept the inside clean. And as I look around the corner, I see all the dishes are put away, too. It's not like Annie to exaggerate, but then she was probably just trying to push my buttons so I would come over here.

  Dad leans back and stares at me. “Look at you. You must have gained twenty pounds.”

  “I have a strict routine. Keeping fit is my job.”

  “Well, not all of us can get paid to play games or to go to the gym with a personal trainer.”

  I’m about to lose my cool. He’s goading me, like usual, waiting for me to lose my temper so he can justify losing his.

  “You need to get your shit together. Manny had a fucking kidney removed a few days ago. You probably didn't even know that, did you?”

  “Kidney? No, I didn't know that.”

  “Stabbed at a bar. What the hell?”

  “He’s grown. He can look after himself.”

  “Just like you? ’Cause you’re setting such a fantastic example.”

  “Fuck you, Ethan. I’m a grown man, and I can do whatever the hell I want.”

  “You don't even give a shit. I don't know why I'm surprised.”

  He pushes himself up off the couch and wobbles on his feet before scuffing to the kitchen. I hear cupboard doors slamming and glasses clinking.

  “You gonna drink yourself to death?” I ask. “That’s the plan?”

  “Fuck you,” he says.

  No, fuck you. I spring to my feet and when I get to the kitchen, I snatch the bottle of rum from his hands and toss it out the open kitchen window. I hear it shatter on the ground outside.

  “What did you do that for?” he screams.

  “This is the last time I see you. You understand that?”

  He says nothing. His face is blank and devoid of emotion. Why can't he be a human being? Why does he have to be such a mean son of a bitch?

  “Nothing? You have nothing to say to that?”

  He shakes his head, brushes me off with the wave of one of his skinny hands.

  Someone stomps down the stairs, catching me by surprise. What the hell? Then I see her. Here. Of all places. And upstairs?

  “What are you doing here?” I say, a little harsher than I intend.

  “I heard a crash,” she says, looking back and forth between my dad and me.

  “Were you upstairs listening to our conversation?”

  “No, I came here to help. I was cleaning up the place in case Manny comes back.”

  I think about that for a moment and let out a humorless laugh. I wave my hands around the room. “You did this? Cleaned up after him?”

  “Someone had to do it.”

  “And it had to be you.” I shake my head at her. “I don't have time for this. Stay away from my father, Annie. And stay away from this house.”

  “That's not up to you, Ethan. He needs help.”

  Dad scoffs at that and starts searching through the cupboards again.

  “I mean it, Annie. Get out of here!”

  “No,” she says, looking at me with her chin up high and proud.

  “So help me God, Annie, I will throw you over my shoulder and carry you out.”

  “You don't get to tell me what to do, Ethan.”

  Dad puts his hands over his ears. “All this noise. Take it outside so I can drink in peace.”

  Annie turns on her heel and sto
rms out of the house, letting the screen door slam behind her. I go after her, feeling bad for being so harsh with her. Dad can push my buttons like no one else. But I can't have her here, not with my father. If he ever laid a hand on her, God himself couldn't stop me from beating the life out of him, for putting the final nail in the coffin he's spent years polishing.

  “Annie,” I call out.

  She raises her hand over her shoulder and flips me the bird. I can't say why this causes my heart to contract. Strong, kind, beautiful. Everything she does—even her pissing me off—just makes me miss her more.

  “Annie! Wait!”

  She gets in her car and slams the door shut. By now, I'm beside her car, trying to talk with her, but she's flicked the lock. “Annie, stop. Just get out of the car and talk to me.”

  “Leave. Stay. Which is it?”

  “Can't you understand why I don't want you here?”

  “No. I'm trying to help Manny,” she says, her voice coming out strangled and I can see how deeply I've upset her. I hate when she sees me angry. I know it reminds her of things in her other life—and by other, I mean after her parents but before her Nan. To this day, she hasn’t told me everything that happened in her foster homes, but I know it wasn't good. I know that my temper makes her flinch, to the point where I once found her in a corner, her arms wrapped around her legs, rocking, after I got in a fist fight at school. It took me ages to find her. She was out back of her Nan's house, behind the shed. I promised her I'd try to be better. I broke that promise a long time ago. I might have forgotten all about it since she left me, but it's front and center in my mind now.

  “Where are you going? Your Nan's house?”

  She stares up at me, her eyes glassy. “Let me go, Ethan. Just let me go.”

  I choke down my feelings and take a step back, bowing my head like a boy who's disappointed the only girl he's ever loved. She peels away and I can't watch her drive out of my life again. Is this the last time I’ll see her before I leave? What if she makes sure I don’t? The thought strangles me like a noose around my neck being yanked tighter and tighter.