Saving Toby

by Suzanne McKenna Link

  Now, seeing a long, empty future staring me in the face, I was ready to make changes.

  I picked up a hammer that was lying on the worktop area. Gripping the handle and liking the feel of the weight in my hand, I scanned the pegboard wall with the light beam until I found its permanent marker outline and put it back where it belonged. I walked back to the house feeling unsettled. It was useless to try sleeping. It would be after midnight West Coast time, but I texted Claudia anyway. A minute later, my cell rang.

  “Hey. Is everything okay?” her voice was sleepy. I had woken her.

  “I found out some stuff about my dad,” I sighed.

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “Sorry, I know it’s late, but yeah, I do.”

  “It’s okay. I’m here.”

  I sunk down heavily into the couch, took a deep breath, and told her everything.

  One by one, Bob had been going through each of my family members and making me think about the relationships I had with them and how they affected me.

  When it came to Al Junior, I told Bob about the letters he had written me, but that I never read. I also told him how Julia tried to encourage me to visit him, but that I’d refused to go. I could not think of one good thing to say about my brother.

  “I’m sure somewhere along the way, Al must have been nice to you,” he said.

  “I’m pretty damn sure that’s not so,” I replied.

  Bob shuffled papers in his lap, and I sensed he was going to tell me something I wasn’t ready to hear. I braced myself.

  “You need to visit Al and give him a chance to make amends. And to reopen a relationship with you,” he said.

  “No way.” I wasn’t ready to see Al. I could picture him laughing at me and asking me why I’d bothered coming. “I won’t bend over and let him stick it to me.”

  As usual, Bob refused to accept my resistance. “Toby, you don’t need to be afraid of your brother. He isn’t a physical threat to you anymore.”

  “I know that.” I let out a nervous laugh. “I can’t say why, but the thought of seeing him still makes me uncomfortable.”

  Bob leaned forward, and the motion inexplicably made me tense. “He was your big brother, and he should have been looking out for you, not hurting you. But I think you’re reacting now, not so much to the physical pain, but to the way he made you feel, deep inside.”

  I hated when Bob hit me with crap like that. I didn’t want the session to end in another embarrassing cry fest, but that familiar, telltale lump formed in my throat. I tried to clear it.

  “When you see him, it’s possible he might try to hurt you with his words, but you’re in control. You choose whether to let him hurt you or not hurt you.”

  “Is this really necessary? I really don’t see the point.” I sighed, restless, barely holding myself together.

  “To grow we have to endure some discomfort.”

  Facing Al Junior would be one of my most difficult hurdles, but I was climbing out of the hole. I wouldn’t let Al block me from getting out.

  46. Toby

  I put it off for as long as I could. Christmas came and went. The Sunday before the New Year, I drove upstate to the Otisville Correctional Facility.

  The other visitors and I were given a number that corresponded to a labeled, laminate table inside the cafeteria-styled visiting room. The guards instructed us to wait at our assigned tables. The prisoners would come to us.

  Inside, there was no sign of the holidays. The room had industrial stick tile and drab, off-white walls with high, barred windows. With armed guards posted on each wall and an additional two cruising a metal catwalk above the room, it was a not-so subtle reminder that we were among dangerous individuals.

  I sat and watched for my brother while other visitors remained standing, eagerly awaiting the sight of a familiar face amongst the convicts as they shuffled through the door into the visiting area. That damn squirrel was back, once again shredding the lining of my stomach.

  I saw the smiles, tears and heard briefs shouts of joy. I wondered if Julia cried. I imagined she did. In spite of his meanness and all his faults, Julia loved Al—just as she’d loved me in spite of my own.

  And then, I saw him. Our eyes met, and, not knowing what else to do, I stood up. I was amazed at how happy he looked as he came towards me, but nothing prepared me for the shock of seeing him cry. Tears rolled shamelessly down his face, and when he got close enough, he pulled me into a rough embrace. His emotional display tore me up and had me bawling, too.

  I pushed away from him. “Cut it out, you big fucking baby.”

  We both laughed awkwardly as we wiped the wetness from our faces and sat down across the table from one another.

  People said I resembled him, but his face was fuller than mine and his body was thick with the bunchy muscles of an extreme weight lifter.

  “Shit, you grew up. You’re a man,” he said in his deep gravelly voice, and looked me over. He looked older, too.

  “You read my letters?”

  Without looking at him, I shook my head. “I destroyed them.”

  “What the hell? I spent all that time writing to you, fucking pouring my heart out, and you trashed them? What kind of gratitude is that, man?”

  “Gratitude? For what?” I gritted my teeth and arched forward. “Come off it, Al. You hate me. Why would I read your damn letters or come see you after the way you’ve always treated me? I didn’t really care if I ever saw you again.”

  Al stared at me with no expression. Disheartened, I realized this ‘brothers' reunion’ was already a train wreck. I didn’t know what the meeting was supposed to do for me. Though we’d grown up in the same house, we’d never been much for talking. Now as I sat there, rigid in my seat, it was clear to me Al and I had nothing to hold onto but our anger and resentment. This was no surprise. It was part of the reason I’d never come.

  “I shouldn’t be here.” Pushing away from the table, I stood up, ready to leave.

  Al grabbed my arm. “No.”

  A few feet away, a correctional officer motioned for us to break contact.

  Al let me go, but leaned forward. “Don’t go. Sit down and listen.”

  I stilled for a moment to look at him. Something in his face, a hint of anxiousness maybe, made me sit back down.

  I held my breath and waited for him to talk.

  “I had one screwed up relationship with our old man—and because of it, I blamed him as well as Mom, and even you, for everything that went wrong in my life.” He looked down at his thick sausage fingers, pressing them together as if he were trying to still his shaking hands.

  “But around here, I’ve got nothing but time to think. I’ve been reading and going to group therapy. I think a lot about everything that happened and all that I’ve done.”

  Al flicked his gaze back to me. “For months, day after day, I stare at the same damn four walls, and one day, like an epiphany, it came to me—blaming others for the way your life turned out isn’t good.”

  I could hardly believe he was serious. A tickle spun in my throat, and with a snort, I said, “You’re a fucking genius, Al.”

  He squinted at me, and, quite unexpectedly, he doubled over and let out a loud cackle. Actually relieved that he’d found my comment funny, I laughed along with him. For a few minutes, sitting there with him felt okay.

  But then, all of a sudden, he covered his eyes with a large hand. “God, Toby, I was so awful to you—such a shithead with an ax to grind. I tried to explain it, in the letters.” His mood changed so swiftly that I was startled when he choked back a sob and put his curled hand out on the table between us.

  The sight of my older brother falling apart wigged me out. Embarrassed, I glanced out the barred window. He was stuck in here, alone, constantly reminded of the mistakes he’d made. I was alone, too. Though I’d made my own mistakes, I could walk out. I could still make something of my life—put my past behind me and get a fresh start. Al would never have that opportunit
y.

  I looked at him, and became conscious that, even if it weren’t perfect, we’d had a conversation. Even shared a laugh. Maybe our first. We had to begin somewhere. I slid my fist across the table and nudged his. “It’s okay, Al.”

  “You’ll come see me again?” He looked up hopefully. “'Cause I got no one now that Mom’s gone.”

  That was exactly how I’d felt. “Yeah, sure,” I said. “Oh, here.” I pulled out an envelope with two photos that security had allowed me to bring. I laid them out in front of him. “Pictures of Dylan.”

  He moved the photos closer. One of them was Dylan alone, but in other, Julia was holding him. At the sight of it, I could see him getting choked up again. I looked down at my feet. I had more than exceeded my emotional quota.

  “I’ll try to bring more next time.” I stood up and glanced at him. “See you, Al.”

  * * *

  With the visit to Al finally checked off my list, the next thing I focused on was finding work. I tried to return to my old job at AB’s, but Abe Bernbaum just frowned at me.

  “You’re too smart for this job,” he said. “Time for you to move on and find something more suited to you.”

  While he meant to encourage me, I felt anything but. I didn’t have a good list of credentials. I’d quit most of my jobs within a few months, and I hadn’t been working at all in the last two. I filled out a lot of applications—wholesale, retail, stock, you name it—but I got nowhere. I found myself with a lot of time on my hands.

  Out of boredom, I decided to fix the charred kitchen. Armed with my father’s trade tools, I gutted the room. It felt good to have a project. With a fresh slate, I did a computer-aided sketch of the renovation: the same four walls, but with a different floor plan. The process of designing the layout and figuring out the details was interesting. When I started rebuilding it, I surprised even myself with how much I already knew about the construction aspect of it.

  I stopped in at AB’s to visit with Abe, and when I told him about the kitchen, he asked me to do some work around his house—odd jobs like putting up moldings and tiling his bathroom. Though it was piecemeal, he paid me pretty well, and I got turned onto the idea that I could make a living working as a handyman or a finish carpenter. Bob suggested I take drafting classes.

  Reconstructing my life was harder than the kitchen. It was a long, grueling project, seeming without end. Despite the occasional setback, like the job issue, I felt a forward shift in momentum. Better days became better weeks. The New Year marked a new start.

  * * *

  Even though I’d been in counseling for months, Bob still didn’t want me to date. He said I wasn’t ready. That was okay with me because, other than talking with a girl here and there, I didn’t want to hook up. Mostly, unknown to Bob, I still had my sights set on Claudia.

  I stayed out of the bars, preferring to spend my weekends playing my guitar or hanging out with Dario and often with April, too. I continued to have dinner with Joan once a week and planned to visit Al again. During the week, I worked on the kitchen. Sometimes Dario came over and helped me.

  I spent a lot of time browsing the online classifieds. I found everything, from brake pads for my Jeep to an affordable granite countertop dealer. As I scrolled through pages on various sites' music sections, I found a local rock group looking for a guitarist to join their band and play gigs with them.

  I met the lead singer, Dan, first. Not only were we close in age, but he also had a sense of humor like my own. We gelled right away. After he heard me play, he was pretty enthused. Later that week, I joined in on a band rehearsal in Dan’s garage. The other guys were several years older, and each of them worked a day job unrelated to the music industry. Two of them had families. After we swapped some bullshit for a bit, we got to playing. There was some cutting up while we jammed, but one thing was for sure, those guys were serious about their sound. For me, it was musical ecstasy.

  47. Claudia

  Because of the cost and mostly the timeframe, I wasn’t planning on going back to New York until the summer. There was plenty happening on campus to keep me busy. Toby and I still talked regularly. He seemed to be well, despite the heaviness of the therapy and digging into his scarred past. He shared milestones with me, like seeing his brother. He also confided in me at times when he was shaken, as he was when he’d found out his father had committed suicide.

  “Thank you,” he said after the last time we talked. “You have a way of twisting things around and helping me see something positive even when it’s all crashing down on me. Sometimes it’s that alone that helps me hold it together.”

  Toby wanted to come for a visit, but I kept putting him off. In February, he said he was coming out to stay with a friend in Palm Springs and would stop by for a day or two to hang out with me.

  He arrived on a Friday, late in the month. When he called to tell me he was outside my housing unit, I went tearing out of the building to greet him. We hugged, and I smiled until my face hurt. He seemed a little reserved and nervous. We went for a bite to eat, and as I spoke about school and visits with my mom, he seemed to relax. He told me more about his visit with his brother in prison.

  “We need to do LA tourist-style,” I said, whipping out my list of places to see. I planned to keep us busy with activities for his visit.

  I navigated; Toby drove. We visited Griffith Observatory and did a walking tour of downtown. It was going really great, so much to see and talk about, until a middle-aged businessman in a hurry slammed into me and sent me stumbling. He didn’t even acknowledge the slight. I could see a dark mask sliding over Toby’s features, that residual anger raising its ugly head. He growled and lurched forward, but I stepped in front of him and physically held him back with all my might.

  “It was an accident. Let it go.”

  Ignoring my objection, Toby yelled after the guy. “Learn some manners, asshole!” Thankfully, the man was oblivious and kept walking.

  I got the okay from my roommate for Toby to stay on the couch in the living room of our apartment for the night, but when we got back from our day out, she left a note saying she was going to stay at her friend’s place. I hadn’t anticipated a night alone with him, but I was glad she at least cleaned the place up.

  I stood Toby in the middle of the plain white living room and made him turn in one complete circle. My décor consisted of string lights crisscrossing the ceiling and a large poster of Van Gogh’s Starry Night.

  “That’s all of it,” I smiled proudly at the tiny space and even smaller, galley kitchen. “’Cept the bedroom. It’s in there.” I pointed to the doorway where two single, raised beds were against opposite walls, on either side of a panoramic window. Two unimpressive, light-stained wooden desks were at the foot of each of the beds, heavily adorned with memorabilia, task lists and piles of textbooks.

  Toby changed into sweatpants and a tee shirt, and, seated on the room’s small, blue couch, he began to surf the web for funny, viral videos to show me. Sitting next to him, in my bulkiest sleep clothes, I kept a pillow stationed in front of me, a physical barrier preventing any accidental contact.

  “Who are you visiting in Palm Springs?” I asked.

  “Believe it or not, it’s Abe Bernbaum.”

  “Why are you visiting your old boss?”

  “I did some carpentry work at his house back in Sayville. He has a vacation home out here, in the desert somewhere, and now he wants me to do some work there.” Toby shrugged. “He paid for my flight, and I’ll stay with him and his family for the week. He said before I leave, he wants to take me golfing.”

  “But you don’t play, do you?”

  Toby laughed. “I once scaled the fence of the West Sayville Country Club to get tanked with my friends.”

  I shook my head and smiled. “Sounds like Abe has a soft spot for you.”

  “Maybe.” He studied his hands for a moment and looked up at me. “He’s a tough ol’ fossil. Expects a lot. But after the court case and what he di
d for me, I appreciate the stand-up guy he is. And what’s more surprising is, I kind of like hanging out with him.”

  He folded down my laptop, slipping it onto the nearby table, and we continued to talk for a couple more hours. He listened patiently as I told him about my classes and the professors I had—which ones I liked, which ones I despised—until finally, somewhere around 2 a.m., I began having trouble stringing coherent words together.

  He rubbed my knuckles with his and said, “Good night, Claude.” I yawned a sleepy goodnight back, and, as I headed for the bedroom, he went into the bathroom. For a second, I thought about offering him my roommate’s bed, but then nixed the idea. He’d find a way to get comfortable on the couch. Exhausted, I dove into bed and fell right asleep.

  When I opened my eyes, it was morning and sunlight was filtering in through the blinds of the dorm window. I awoke to Toby's arm draped over me. His face was in my hair, and his steady breaths warmed the back of my neck.

  In my sleep-muddled state, I wasn’t sure how or why he was lying with me, but his nearness invoked vivid memories of us together and the way he used to touch me. I imagined his hand now, sliding slowly over my bare skin, teasing my hip and cupping my breast, his thumb stroking me to breathless agitation. Like a movie playing in my head, I saw myself turning over to see his face, the one I had once loved so much that I had given him all that I had. His pale eyes would flutter open in the morning light. My attention would be drawn to his mouth, the soft fullness of his bottom lip and the memory of kisses he once relished on my neck as he tasted my skin. I remembered, too, the weight of his body over me. A resounding hum pulsed through my core as I remembered his hips pressed into me and of the astonishing and strangely wonderful fullness I had felt while he was inside me. I could barely breathe for wanting him so much.

  Toby’s hand shifted, ever so slightly on my hip, and it startled me out of my reverie. This was a minefield. My heart had accelerated, and my skin had warmed almost to perspiration. I worried that if he woke now, he would sense my state of arousal. I had to change the channel in my head. For a moment I mourned the loss of what we’d had, felt the dry ache in the back of my eyes where tears usually formed, but I shut it down. Tight. I wouldn’t put myself in that soft, unbalanced place where I so easily lost footing. I wouldn’t be weak, and I would never look back. Slipping out from our cuddle, I made for the bathroom.