by Tyler King
“Okay,” I say, stunned by his sudden ferocity. The veins in his arms strain against the skin, his eyes electric. “I believe you. I’m sorry.”
“I love you, Avery. I’m with you because I want to be, not because I couldn’t be with someone else.”
Now I feel like an asshole. Ethan didn’t do anything wrong, and it’s out of line for me to accuse him before the fact of something he might do in one of my paranoid delusions. I guess the idea of losing him, of having him snatched away, makes me a little crazy.
Sliding my hands up his chest, combing through his hair, I try to find comfort in touching him, knowing, tangibly, he’s here.
“I’m sorry. I won’t bring it up again.”
His eyes soften, head lowering to press against mine. Ethan’s hands move up my hips to stroke up my ribs with thumbs grazing my breasts.
“I want you to bring it up. Whatever bothers you, say it. I’d rather you tell me than keep it bottled up. There’s nothing I can do about it if I don’t know what you’re thinking.”
Licking my lips, I drag my hands down his chest, his stomach, feeling his abs clench under my touch.
“Can you guess what I’m thinking now?”
He brings his lips to mine and pulls me from the counter. “You’re insatiable.”
22
The Enemy
Over the next several weeks, Ethan and I wade through miles of sewage pipe. The truth is, most of the time, investigative journalism is nothing like the sexy, death-defying heroism you see in the movies. It’s gathering and sifting through mountains of paper, scouring hundreds, thousands, of innocuous pages for that one relevant item. It’s spending days with a phone glued to your ear, and getting hung up on. Reading transcripts and data charts until your eyes bleed. Getting jerked around by people who must take pleasure in being difficult. Hitting dead ends at every turn until you can’t remember anymore where you are or how you got here. And it’s coffee—obscene amounts of coffee to stimulate just enough of your brain to form words and sometimes cogent thought.
Six weeks, and we do it all with Vivian watching over our shoulders.
Mostly, I’ve learned to tolerate her. Now that the initial irritation with her existence has worn off, she isn’t such a distraction in the office. I’ve even come to see why she had a job here to begin with. She does know what she’s doing, and it’s incredible the amount of information she was able to collect and piece together while under the constant threat of being discovered as a spy.
If there is one positive to Vivian’s sudden reappearance, it’s that working on this story seems to have kept Ethan’s mind off his mother’s illness. They talk on the phone a few times a week, which always leaves him in a dark temper, but once his mind refocuses on work, the tension leaves his shoulders and the darkness recedes. Until today.
His mother has invited us over for dinner at their house, meaning Ethan’s been in a shit mood since he woke up this morning. I understand the contradiction clashing inside him; Ethan loves his mother, but he’s angry that once again he’s faced with losing her after he thought they’d escaped. Seeing her only reminds him that he has one less day than he did yesterday, and seeing his father means staring into the face of the man Ethan blames for killing her. Because he knows, no matter how much he grasps for optimism, that his mother isn’t getting any better.
We pull up to a townhouse on East Sixty-Second Street just before seven. Actually, his parents’ house is two adjoining townhomes between Fifth and Madison Avenues, five stories high with a terrace on the roof. Bigger than my entire apartment building. Staring out the window of Ethan’s truck, raking my eyes up the elegant stone façade and two-dozen shiny windows, it’s a bit intimidating. I’m almost afraid to ask how many properties his family owns.
“Is this where you grew up?”
“Somewhat.” Ethan’s voice is rueful. A distant, detached melancholy has settled over him. “Evan and I went to private school in the city until I reached ninth grade. They sent me to boarding school at Exeter after that. To separate us.”
He doesn’t talk about his brother often, but when he does, I understand better why he carries so much resentment. Though Evan was the troublemaker, the instigator, it was Ethan who was banished from his home and family most of the year. The seclusion he must have felt, that’s something I can identify with. And I suppose it explains the wide berth Ethan enforces around himself. In the months we’ve known each other, Carter is the only real friend of his I’ve met outside the office. I don’t think Ethan has many at all. Yet another reason we seem to understand each other.
“Thank you for doing this,” Ethan says, wrapping his hand over mine as I turn to face him. “I promise, we’ll make it quick. Dinner, skip coffee, and we’re out.”
He’s dressed for the occasion: charcoal sports coat over a crisp bone button-down, black pants, and shoes to match. Despite his apparent reluctance to be here, Ethan puts forth an effort. He takes dinner with the parents seriously. I, however, feel rather inadequate in the silk blouse and pencil skirt I bought when I was interviewing for internships during my senior year of college. Like I’m a kid wearing her mom’s clothes. Dressing up just doesn’t suit me.
“Try not to fight with your dad, okay?”
Ethan’s jaw tightens in response.
“I know,” I say, “but for your mother’s sake, behave.”
Relaxing his expression, Ethan skims his fingertips across my temple to tuck my hair behind my ear. He cups the side of my face to run the pad of his thumb under the ridge of my bottom lip. Every time he does that, those modest little gestures, I feel his affection. The deep, pure endearment of the gentle act. And I love him even more.
“No wandering off this time,” he says with a teasing grin.
We get out of the truck and go to the door to ring the bell. A moment later his father answers. Paul’s gray-blue eyes cut straight to us as a tight frown creases the corners of his mouth. Stepping back, he invites us inside. We make it only a few steps into the foyer.
“Avery, it is a pleasure to see you again. I wasn’t aware you would be joining us.”
Paul tucks his hands into the pockets of his navy pants. The impassive, solitary posture is one I recognize. A hereditary trait passed on to his son.
“I invited her.” Holding my hand, Ethan squeezes. Almost painfully tight.
“And of course you’re always welcome,” Paul says to me with a sort of polite enmity. His focus then rises to Ethan. “Though tonight isn’t the best time. Your mother asked you here because there are family matters to discuss.”
Ethan tucks my arm under his, possessive and protective. “She is my family.”
“Avery, sweetheart.” Linda appears at the opposite end of the foyer. She’s a petite woman dressed simply in a cotton blouse and loose ankle pants that were probably tighter on her a few months ago. The scarf is absent today, revealing her pale, bald scalp. Still, she’s a beautiful woman. “What a lovely surprise. I’m so happy you’re here.”
She comes to offer me a hug, her embrace genuine and welcoming. Despite her bright energy, I sense the weakness in her muscles as she pulls away. Her eyes have dimmed since we first met.
“Don’t you look nice,” she says, holding my hands out to appraise me. “Ethan, you two didn’t have to get dressed up. It’s just a casual dinner at home.”
“Hi, Mom.” He smiles indulgently and kisses her cheek. “How are you feeling?”
“Oh, fine, fine.” Linda cuts a subtle glare at her husband. I suspect it refers to a similar warning that Paul not allow this evening to descend into another argument. “Come in, get settled. Dinner’s almost ready.”
As she escorts us, I’m overwhelmed at the size and rich elegance of their home. Everything decorated in warm cream and other neutrals. Marble floors and high ceilings. This must have required a massive renovation to convert the original structures, knocking out walls to create an open floorplan.
“Mom,” Ethan says as we p
ass the kitchen toward the living room, “you’re not cooking, are you? That’s too much work by yourself.”
“Nonsense.” She drifts away, gesturing for us to make ourselves comfortable. “I’m plenty capable of operating an oven.”
Paul wanders off somewhere, and Ethan and I stand awkwardly in the center of the room. Edgy and radiating tension, he behaves almost as if he’d never been here before. The way you feel trapped in place when entering a stranger’s home, afraid to touch anything or drift too far from the spot where they left you. Already he’s thinking of making a quick exit.
“Maybe I should go,” I say, concerned that I’ve overstepped a boundary of privacy. Being the party crasher is becoming a tired recurrence. “I don’t want to intrude.”
“No.” He trails his fingers down my arms, eliciting a slight shiver that travels to my toes. “I want you here. I meant what I said, Avery. You’re my family; he needs to get used to the idea.”
Something desperate in the quiet force of his voice pleads with me, the emphatic honesty behind his eyes. He didn’t bring me here to soften the edges or rub his rebellion in his father’s face—I’m a crutch. Ethan perhaps wouldn’t have made it past the door if I hadn’t been there to prop him up. For as strong a performance as he’s put on over the past weeks, inside he’s coming apart.
By the time we’re all seated in the formal dining room, Ethan’s retreated behind two glasses of scotch and half a glass of red wine. Beside me, he exudes a quiet hostility growing more pervasive as the meal wears on. That Paul does most of the talking doesn’t help matters.
“Seems you’ve created quite a stir,” he says, cutting into his chicken breast. “My office has been fielding calls for the last month. People anxious to move assets.”
“Get ready for the subpoenas.” Ethan swallows another urgent mouthful of wine.
“I think you’re overestimating the fallout.” Paul composes himself in that mannered way moneyed people do. A delicate grip on his utensils, back straight and chin high. He’s a man who comes from wealth and has never known anything else. “There’s considerable gray territory between strategic self-interest and fraud.”
“You would know,” is Ethan’s curt response.
I keep my head down, attempting to blend into my chair as I diligently cut sautéed vegetables into manageable bites. There’s no part of this conversation that requires my input. Not when Ethan and his father are pissing at each other from either side of a fence. This must be a pastime of theirs. An example of everything that separates them. Ethan on a mission to topple the pillars of power constructed by men like his father; Paul concerned with building them taller.
“Let’s not talk business at the table,” Linda gently chides them.
I can’t imagine what life was like when she had three of them to wrangle.
“Avery.” Topping off my glass of water, Paul fixes his attention on me. Much like his son, he has a way of pinning a person with his eyes. “I understand you had something of a scare recently. Must be quite troubling for a young woman who—”
Ethan drops his silverware on his plate, a stinging noise piercing the room. “Don’t do that. Don’t condescend to her.”
“Ethan.” I slide my hand to his leg. “It’s fine. He didn’t mean—”
“No, he did mean.” Glaring at his father, his shoulders tense. “This is what he does.”
“Son, your father wasn’t implying anything,” Linda says with soft reassurance. “We were both simply concerned to hear Avery had experienced some unwanted attention.”
No arrest was ever made in regard to the note on my door, but after a couple of weeks the outrage wore off and the messages stopped flooding my work email and the magazine’s comment sections. I suppose it’s a badge of honor now. A rite of passage.
“Death threats,” Ethan bites out through clenched teeth. “People threatening to kill her.”
“Really”—plastering on something like a smile, I squeeze Ethan’s leg to insist he shut the hell up—“it wasn’t anything serious. People with too much time on their hands.”
“There, see?” Paul picks up his glass of wine and gestures toward me. “Avery can manage some perspective. Comes with the territory, right?”
A snide remark or perhaps a full-scale tirade is on the tip of Ethan’s tongue, but his mother speaks before he can make the decision to utter it. She steers the conversation to more polite territory, asking how I’m enjoying living in the city and what sights I’ve yet to explore. We talk about museums and architecture while Ethan and his father engage in wordless combat beside us. But as the evening winds down and we finish our meals, I watch a resigned shadow cast itself over Linda’s face. She’s less engaged, only half-listening, and her attention seems to drift elsewhere.
“What’s the latest from the doctors?” Ethan asks when his father mentions that he and Linda are considering a vacation next month. “How’s the chemo going?”
Silence, as Paul stares at his wife.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“Perhaps this conversation is best left to another time,” Paul says, clearing his throat. He wipes a cloth napkin over his mouth.
That is a not-so-subtle reference to my unexpected presence.
Ethan stiffens beside me. “Someone fucking tell me what’s going on.”
“Well…” Linda pushes her plate away. It’s evident in the downward curve of her mouth, the slope of her eyes, that exhaustion is setting in. “I’m no longer receiving chemo treatments.”
“Meaning what?”
Oh, no. I hear the tires screeching in the distance. Swerving headlights cutting quickly and erratically through the darkness. The moment you tense right before the horror of impact. My hand goes to Ethan’s resting on the table. He doesn’t look at me, but tightens his fingers around mine more out of reflex.
“Just that,” Linda says from behind a sturdy wall of armor. “I’ve decided to stop seeking treatment. The cancer has spread to a point where remission is no longer a probable outcome. At this stage, the responsible course of action is pain management rather than aggressive treatment.”
“You can’t be serious.” He’s trembling in my hand. Ethan’s entire body is nearly vibrating beside me. “You’re giving up?”
“I’m afraid it isn’t much of a choice. The prognosis—”
“Fuck the prognosis!” he shouts. “Fight it. There are alternatives. You can’t—”
“Ethan, stop it.” Paul raises his voice. Contained fury lashes out across the table. “This isn’t a matter open for debate. Your mother has made a decision in consultation with her doctors, and we will support her choice. That’s it.”
“Jesus Christ, Dad. Did you even try? Or are you in such a hurry to absolve yourself of the guilt.”
“Ethan—”
“That’s enough—”
“No, forget it.” Ethan pushes back from the table and stands, grabbing my hand to pull me to my feet. “I clearly didn’t need to be here for this. We’re leaving.”
“Hey, hey.” I implore Ethan to stop as he drags me toward the foyer. At the door, I finally get him to pause long enough to focus his attention on me. “You can’t storm out of here like this. She’s your mother and she needs you to understand.”
“What’s to understand? She’s giving up, and he apparently can’t wait to get rid of her.”
“You don’t mean that. He’s just trying to respect his wife’s wishes and support her decision. That’s what you do when you love someone.”
“Goddammit, Avery.” He recoils from me, pure rage sparking behind his eyes. “Would it kill you to take my side? Why are you always fighting me?”
“I’m not,” I say, reaching for his hand. He yanks it away. Like he’s disgusted. “I’m trying to keep you from running out on your family. They need you. Just go back in there and—”
“I can’t deal with this shit. Any of you.”
“Ethan—”
But he’s gone. Out the door.
Slamming it in my face. Leaving me behind as he drives away. I stand there, stunned for a moment, until Paul walks up beside me.
“Shall I call you a car?” he asks, completely unaffected by the explosive encounter.
Staring out the narrow window beside the door, I take a deep breath. My hand slides to where my pocket should be and where the shell casing isn’t.
“No, I can find my own way home.”
“I did try to warn you,” he says. “Ethan has always had volatile tendencies.”
I didn’t doubt Paul’s assertion the first time, but I was certain whatever might come, Ethan would let me bear it with him. That he’d trust me that much. Seems I made a gross miscalculation.
* * *
Ethan isn’t home when I get back to the loft. I call and text him but get no response. It’s after midnight when I shower and get in bed. I turn up the volume on my phone’s ringer and leave it on Ethan’s pillow beside me. Sometime later, a noise jerks me awake.
“Ethan?”
Rubbing my eyes, a bit disoriented, I see him standing in front of the open refrigerator. Bright white light casts him in a black silhouette.
“What time is it?”
He doesn’t answer. The fridge door shuts and the space is black again. Cabinet doors clap shut. Glass clinks. I throw back the blankets and climb out of bed to tentatively make my way to the kitchen. The clock on the microwave reads 3:47 a.m.
“Ethan,” I say, when my eyes adjust and I see him standing at the island. “Where have you been?”
“Out.”
I hear a plastic cap unscrew then the solid thunk of a heavy glass bottle hitting the granite counter. When I find the stove, I flick on the range light. Ethan stands with a glass of dark liquor at his lips. His eyes are bloodshot, hair a dizzy mess. A thin sheen of sweat covers his face. He’s discarded the jacket he was wearing earlier this evening, shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows.
“Out where?”
“Christ, could you wait like five seconds before you pounce on me?”
