Dust to Dust

by Karina Halle

  But as far as I knew, my father was not going to appear as Michael Keaton in a black and white suit. Though, knowing my family, I wouldn’t hold anything past us.

  “Oh,” she said with a raised brow, looking us over. Well, she was wearing Crocs so she couldn’t talk. “Who might you be? We aren’t expecting anyone but Charles. He’s our new nurse. Or caretaker, as Curtis insists we call him.”

  Nurse? I wondered what was wrong with him.

  While I pondered that, Perry spoke for me. “We’re…interested in his boat.”

  Okay, that wasn’t exactly what I would have said but I went with it. It’s not like we came up with coherent plan on the way here.

  She nodded, her eyes lighting up. “Oh, goody. That’s wonderful. Stay there and I’ll go get him.”

  She disappeared into the house and as soon as she was out of earshot I turned to Perry.

  “Interested in his boat?”

  Her lip snarled defensively. “Well we couldn’t quite say that you were his long lost son.” She looked around her. “They are in a nice neighborhood, they have money. People always think the worst before they think the best.”

  She had a point and soon after, a man appeared at the door in a wheelchair, shadowed by the doorframe. The woman appeared beside him. “You can come up here. The ramp is at the side of the house but if this won’t take long…”

  I raised a palm. “That’s fine,” I said, smiling even though some small part of me, maybe my toe, felt bad for the fucker already. I grabbed Perry’s hand and we walked up toward the front door.

  And there, in a wheelchair, staring at me with begrudged curiosity, was my father. He didn’t look as happy as the woman had seemed and I assumed that whatever business there was to be done about the boat, well it pleased her more than it did him.

  “I’m Curtis,” the man said and his Irish accent still lingered. It brought back a lot of memories. Most of them uncomfortable but some of them, a few of them, good.

  Suddenly, I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t say anything at all. I was standing in front of my father, the man who had abandoned me all those years ago, left me with my mother and a nanny but with no wages to pay a nanny. He fucked off and he ruined everything – or at least he didn’t help. Over the years I had come to realize that everyone was at fault, not just him. Still, even facing him in his wheelchair, all these years later, I couldn’t help but think of him as a coward.

  I vowed right there and then to never do that to my child, no matter if he saw ghosts, was as normal as apple pie, or happened to be the anti-Christ. There was love and there was pride and the former should always trump the latter.

  “My name is Dex,” I said, and I swear I saw his brow raise for a minute. He reminded me a lot of Gregory Peck, all overgrown black eyebrows and silver-coated hair. “This is Perry, my fiancé,” I said, motioning to her. She smiled sweetly and I knew it warmed him over just a bit. Despite what she thought, she had that effect on people. She counteracted me in the best way.

  “Very nice to meet you,” he said with a sharp nod, though his eyes were focused on me. He looked like he was trying to jog his memory, perhaps trying to place my name or my face and was coming up empty. “So you’re interested in buying Green Glass, is that it?”

  That must have been the boat’s name. I figured we only had a finite amount of time before we had to come clean.

  “Could you answer a few questions about her?” I asked, without saying yes or no.

  He nodded and his palms kneaded the armrest of his chair. “Why not?”

  “I read in the paper that you won a regatta. Has the boat won anything else besides that?”

  He grinned, just for a moment. He had nice teeth. I guess the rich could afford that. Then again, I had nice teeth because of the settlement he left me through my mother, so I shut that thought up.

  “That was a good ol’ fluke,” he said. “My buddies and I, we’re always racing off of Nantucket, Martha’s, all the haunts. I decided to go for it, you know, have a laugh or two. I took my buddy on as my skipper since I can’t do much with this damn arthritis and all. Somehow we won. But, if you paid attention to the ad, I never passed the ship off as a racing boat. We were just lucky.”

  “Arthritis?” I asked and his face immediately went sharp.

  “Yes,” he said defensively. “Plus I had an accident a few years ago. I don’t let that stop me from doing things though.”

  “That lady,” Perry said, “is she your wife?”

  He nodded. “Aye. Margaret. Been married about…”

  While he trailed off I said, “at least fifteen years.”

  He frowned but said, “That seems about right.”

  “Were you married before her?” Perry asked and now I knew we were getting down to brass taxes.

  “How is this relevant to the boat?” he asked, brow raised in such a way that it made Perry flinch. Not because he looked scary, but because he looked a lot like me. We were down to the wire now. Time to come clean before they called the cops.

  “So Green Glass is for sale,” I mused, combing my hand through my hair, trying not to appear anxious but failing. Half of me wanted to just turn around and pretend this never happened but I knew I couldn’t do that. I needed this, closure in some shape or form. I never got it while my mother was alive, I needed it with my father, especially after I knew what had happened to Michael.

  “Yes it is,” he said, eyes narrowed. “But my marriages have nothing to do with it.”

  I nodded. “I understand. The truth is, we actually don’t want to buy your boat, Mr. O’Shea. I mean, I love sailboats and everything but I just don’t think I’d buy one here, on the east coast. We live on the west coast.”

  “So you’re wasting my time,” he said gruffly, his hands going to wheel himself away.

  “Maybe,” I said, “maybe not. It’s not a waste of my time. You see, if I had a boat, I’d probably call it Fat Rabbit. Or, maybe not. Maybe I’d call it Michael.” He stiffened slightly. “Or Regine.” Now his jaw was clenched. “Or Declan. But it’s pretty lame naming a boat after yourself. I’m not Donald Trump.”

  I kept my eyes on him the whole time and I recognized that acquiescence in them. The way his chin dropped a bit, his shoulder slumped slightly. His eyes took on this weight, as if I had just demanded the world from him. But that wasn’t the case at all.

  “You’re Curtis O’Shea,” I said. “You’re my father. And I don’t want anything from you. Even though you fucked right off when I needed you most, you still made sure I was taken care of. And I was. I did good for myself, at least I think so. So don’t worry. I’m not here to cause trouble or law suits or whatever you East Coasters do with your time. I just wanted to see you, that’s all. And I wanted to know you were alive. I wanted you to know I was alive. Simple.”

  He stared at me in disbelief for the longest time. I thought he might have had a stroke. But eventually he pulled himself out of his tailspin and blinked at me. “Declan,” he said and he sounded just as I remembered, only less mad.

  “That’s me.” And suddenly I felt my heart crumbling into tiny little pieces. Shit. That was unexpected. I looked away, trying to keep the water behind my eyes.

  There was a swath of silence between us and in it, my emotions were building. “It is you,” he said after a moment. “My god.”

  “Well, I’m not god,” I quipped. “But Perry calls me that sometimes.”

  She stared at me like she was going to murder me but I didn’t care. I smiled at him. “Sorry, she’s used to it by now. And what can I say, I guess I’m just being a nervous pervous here. Honestly, I don’t mean anything by this, I don’t want anything from you. I just wanted to say hello. We’ll be on our way.”

  I took Perry by the elbow and turned her around but my father cleared his throat and said, “Wait.”

  We turned to look at him and he managed a weak smile. “Wait,” he repeated. “Don’t go. There’s a lot to…explain. Talk about. Margaret doesn�
�t know, you see.” The minute he said that, his face recoiled in panic, as if he instantly regretted it.

  But I shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. We aren’t here to tell her anything. If you want to keep on like you’ve been keeping on, I can do the same. I’m an old pro.” I know it wasn’t exactly polite, but I was throwing passive digs in there whenever I could.

  He nodded quickly. “Thank you,” he said. “I made some mistakes in my past.” He smiled unsurely at me. “Not you, Declan. Not those kind of mistakes. Other kinds. There’s a lot I would rather forget. But, not you. There hasn’t been a day that I haven’t thought about you.” He paused and then added like an afterthought. “Or Michael.”

  For the first time, I was able to see my parents talk about Michael and his reality. My father said his name like he was scared. All this time I thought I was the one they didn’t want. All this time I had beating myself up.

  “When I heard about Regine,” he said quietly, looking at the flowers along the stoop, “I wanted to reach out, to say something. But I was afraid. I didn’t know how I’d handle you boys. I didn’t know if I would ruin things.”

  I knew what he meant to say – he didn’t know if he would get in shit for abandoning his family.

  I swallowed my grudge, for now, and gave him a sharp nod. “I understand,” I said. “Well, I turned out okay.”

  “And Michael?”

  “That’s probably a conversation for another time,” I told him. I looked at Perry. “We should go.”

  She nodded and gave my father – my father – a cautious smile. “It was nice meeting you.”

  As she walked down the steps, he called after her. “Wait, Perry you said your name was?” She nodded and he looked at me. “When are you getting married? You said she was your fiancé?”

  “I don’t know,” I told him. “Sooner rather than later, I think.”

  He appeared to think that through. The more I stared at him, the more I was pulled back in time, to the life I once I had, the life I never wanted back. I couldn’t quite forgive my father for what he had done – I could, would, never think or act like him. But at the same time, he wasn’t to blame for everything. My mother and Michael, they would have ended up the same, I was sure of it. I would still have seen ghosts. It was just life and the shitty hand she throws you sometime.

  But was I ready to have him back in my life, in some form? That remained to be seen. The fact that I could take it or leave it was a fucking good thing.

  “I’ll send you an invite,” I told him. “It’s up to you if you want to come. It will be West Coast though, Seattle area.” Perry and I had discussed at least that much.

  He seemed to be happy with that, his face relaxing. I gave him a nod, not about to call him dad or be intimate with him in any sort of way, and jogged down the steps to Perry.

  “It was nice meeting you,” my father called after us, like an afterthought.

  In unison Perry and I raised our hands. I waited until we were out of sight from the house before I let the tears fall from my eyes. I didn’t regret a thing we had done, but all these years of believing you don’t have a father do a number on you. I cried for the loss I had suffered and the falsity that he was still alive and enjoying life, for the anger that propelled me and compelled me day to day. And, truth be told, I’d always wanted my dad to look at me like he was proud of me, and despite seeing him today, that still hadn’t happened.

  But I didn’t cry for long. I’m macho like that. A couple of manly tears fell and then Perry snapped me out of it with a wet kiss.

  “Donald Trump has a boat named after him?” she asked, trying to lighten the mood.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know, he must. The Trump.”

  “Maybe it’s You’re Fired.”

  “Bad Combover III.”

  And we went on our way back to Manhattan, thinking of names for Donald Trump’s non-existent boat.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Perry

  “Do you want to take a carriage ride?” Dex asked as we crossed through Central Park. “I could feed the horse a can of beans like in Seinfeld.”

  “And why would that be a good idea?”

  He shrugged. “It would be funny. Funny is a good idea.”

  It seemed that the more Dex could laugh about things, the better he was dealing with Maximus’s death. Of course, it probably helped that the meeting with his father went better than expected. Well, I thought it went better than expected. Curtis O’Shea seemed to be an old man with many regrets and in the end would only benefit from knowing his son. I didn’t expect them to start calling each other or anything like that, but it was a good step and a good start, even if it never went anywhere.

  I sighed, suddenly feeling a tightness in my chest.

  Dex grabbed my hand, super concerned about everything now. “What’s wrong? What is it?”

  I shook my head, not sure why it was so hard to breathe. “I just need to sit down.” I walked over to the nearest tree and slumped down onto the ground, my back against the trunk.

  Dex crouched beside me, holding onto my hand still. “Perry. Do I need to get help?”

  I shook my head. It felt like a panic attack more than anything but I didn’t really have much to panic about. Perhaps it was grief catching up to me.

  “I’m okay,” I said, still gasping. “It’s just a –”

  I was about to say panic attack when I screamed. I just screamed. There was a man in a suit standing just a few yards away in the meadow, his back to me. The suit was crisp, dark and his hair darker. His hands were cloven hooves.

  My world twisted into tunnel vision and at the end of the tunnel the man turned around. I saw his face, the indescribable face of evil and suddenly sharp black fingers were reaching inside my brain. I felt them behind my eyes, in my lungs, pulling at my veins and arteries. It was in my gut, black, penetrating me with depravity and the cries of the meek and tortured.

  I wasn’t alone in my head. I was in a battle for my soul. I would not let it in, I would not let it win.

  With what I could, I closed my eyes and concentrated, putting those walls up, imagining barbed wire and shards of broken glass around me, keeping the thing out. I created a Fort Knox inside of me, hard and sharp and unbreakable.

  Something softer, the demented, raspy voice said in my head, a voice that burned at me like battery acid.

  And then it was gone. I felt it leave my body, as if I had been giving it too much resistance and it finally gave up. Wanting something softer.

  “Perry, fucking talk to me!” Dex was in my face, slapping my cheek lightly. I blinked, staring up at him, concentrating on a bead of sweat that was threatening to fall from the tip of his nose. “Talk to me!”

  “I’m okay,” I managed to say, trying to sit up. He helped me, his grip tight, one hand behind my head, holding me gently. There were people passing by, staring at me in concern. I shot them a quick smile, just in case they called an ambulance.

  “Perry,” he murmured, resting his forehead against mine. “I thought I lost you.”

  I swallowed, that feeling coming back. The evil. Such evil.

  “No,” I said. I pulled back and stared at him. “Did you see him? The beast in the suit?”

  “No…” he looked around.

  “He came inside my head. Just for a moment. He left, I pushed him out. He’s going after something softer.”

  He frowned and placed his palm on his head. “I would know if he got in. Look at me, he hasn’t.”

  I was looking at him and I knew he was right. He’d already had Dex and now Dex was tougher than ever before.

  But others weren’t as strong as us. Others were softer.

  “Ada!” I suddenly yelled, springing to my feet. “My mother!”

  Dex nodded, wearing horror on his face. “Call them!” He threw his hands up in the air. “Fuck, we need a phone.”

  He spotted a couple walking arm and arm a few yards away and ran over to them. When it looked like
they were agreeing, I booked it over to them, shooting them a grateful look.

  “Thank you,” I said to them, “it’s a bit of an emergency.” I took the phone and dialed my mom’s phone, knowing she was most likely to answer.

  My dad answered instead. “Daniel Palomino,” he said.

  “Dad!” I yelled.

  “Perry? Whose number is this?”

  “Dad where is mom and Ada?”

  “They’re with me, why? Do you want to talk to your mother?” His voice began to break up and I heard a loud grinding noise in the background

  “Where are you?” I asked, feeling like time was falling through my fingers.

  “We’re just about to get on the subway,” he said, the crackles getting louder.

  “Where are you going?” There was nothing, then he said something I could barely make out. “Dad!” I yelled. “Where are you going? What station?!”

  The static grew stronger but I finally heard him say, “Fifty-Third and fifth.”

  “Okay, get off at that station and do not going anywhere. Do you hear me?”

  More crackles. I thought my heart was going to explode. “Here, talk to your mom,” he said. And then the phone went dead.

  “Mom!” I yelled. “Dad!”

  There was nothing. Reception was dropped. Oh god, how I prayed it was just the reception.

  I handed the phone back to the bewildered couple without glancing at them. I had to get to my family. I started running across the park, going as fast as my legs would carry me. I heard Dex yell my name, then apologize to the couple and take off after me.

  He was fast as anything and when he caught up, he didn’t ask questions. He knew. If the demon was still around, he was weak. That’s what Pippa had said. But he was still a threat. He could take over someone else and never come out again. Someone softer with less defenses. Someone who believed. Someone like us – Ada or my mother.

  Dex and I ran through the park. Since we had been at the bottom end, it was faster to run through the streets instead of taking the subway. I don’t think I could have stay still on the subway long enough. I need to move, feel like I getting somewhere, doing something.