by Tom Corbett
“I am a doctor. I know the chemistry of emotions, how estrogen and dopamine works. But I’m a total idiot about what’s inside me now. I believe I am falling in love at this very moment.”
“I know I am,” Usha whispered as she leaned in for another kiss. “Maybe I know what’s happening. You’re so much like Josh, don’t argue, and I did love that guy in that incomplete way. But with you, it can be total. I feel like a kid again.”
The ring of Rachel’s phone shocked them apart. They both could hear Josh’s voice. “Sorry to bother you, but it is getting late. People want to get going so we’re headed to the parking lot.”
“Yeah, okay…see you there.”
“Rach,…everything okay?” Josh’s voice came through the phone.
“Yes, everything is okay, better than okay,” Rachel answered, smiling at the woman opposite her.
CHAPTER 14
DAY 7 EARLY MORNING
Josh awoke to a low growl. He looked at his watch. Midnight. His faithless watchdog, Morris, was back with him and staring at the bedroom door.
“Hah, you traitor, couldn’t get a better offer tonight.”
The door opened, and he could see Connie’s familiar shape. “Damn, I was hoping you were the gal from the agency.”
“Laugh now,” Connie responded, “but wait until you get my invoice.” She stripped off her clothes and slid into bed next to him. “Maybe I should have asked first. You aren’t going to kick me out of your bed, are you?”
“Hey, how dumb do I look?” he quipped.
“And I repeat my question…”
“Funny girl.” He pulled her to him before continuing. “It is good to have you here, really. And I’m thinking that you just might get lucky tonight.”
“Oh, that’s what all the guys say, but then I realize they are only talking about sex.”
Josh chuckled; in trading insults Connie was as good as Leni had been but, then again, how are such comparisons of quality made? “But seriously, let me ask you something that has been on my mind. Has it been uncomfortable to be around Usha at all this week?”
“You mean because we both saw you naked? Not to worry, it is not that big a thrill, fella.”
Josh began to think his question stupid and wanted to take it back. But it was out there. “Well, even before this week. Did the two of you ever, like, talk about me?”
“Why Josh, all of us girls talk about you boys.”
“Okay, I deserved that.” He felt rather foolish. “Why do I feel like a teenager?”
Connie regretted being so flip. “Okay, I’ll be serious. Yes, Usha and I did discuss who would get which Connelly. Then I drew the short straw and got you. Usha got the brass ring—so she gets your sister, lucky duck.”
“Does everyone know about Usha and Rachel?” Josh asked.
“Oh, there are a few lost souls in the Northern Territories who won’t know until tomorrow. It has been rather obvious given how they have been looking at each other. They are acting like a couple of schoolgirls experiencing their first crush. And perhaps they are. By the way, when I passed the guest room, the door was open and your sister was not there. The bed was still made.”
“Really?” Josh was a bit surprised. “When I packed it in, she and Usha were chatting in the kitchen.”
“Not to shock you, my dear, but my best guess is that they wandered off to Usha’s hotel room for some privacy. I can easily understand that she would not want her brother and daughter to hear her having wild sex.”
Josh was massaging the side of Connie’s head as it lay on his chest. He looked at the ceiling, hoping desperately that his sister was finding some measure of happiness. “I so hope she finds what she is looking for. She has been so lonely for so long.”
“I have great confidence in Rachel. The greater concern is her hapless brother?” Connie countered. “You talk and act as if you have got your shit together. Let me set you straight on something, kiddo. Do you know why I drifted away from you? No, don’t answer. You will just make me mad.” Josh thought she sounded rather angry already. “You were like half a man. Listen, I’m not a kid anymore. I have few romantic illusions. But you were not even meeting my low standards. At least Harold tried.”
“Who is Harold?” And Josh immediately realized his error.
“The goddamn man I moved in with after you, the physicist. You are just being obdurate here.”
“Come on, Connie, be serious. Even at half speed, I am more of a man than that guy.” His words came out overly harsh.
She jumped out of bed. “You goddamn Irish prick!” she yelled. Josh was stunned; he had never seen her this angry. “You can be such an arrogant asshole. Just because you’re glib and charming does not make you a man. Sure, Harold is rather conventional and plodding, but he did his best to be there for me. He tried. Do you hear me, at least he tried!”
“Connie, listen…” Josh got up, but she backed away.
“No, you listen to me. Did you ever tell me that you loved me? The answer is no by the way. Not once.”
“I didn’t think that meant all that much to you.” But the words came out weakly. He suddenly felt very alone.
Connie’s anger remained crimson and right in front of him. “Really, did you ever ask? Did you ever say, ‘Connie, what would you like from this relationship?’ Did you ever ask me if I wanted more than a companion for the symphony and an occasional fuck? Again, the answer is no, you never did. Not once! Don’t even try to charm your way out of this one, asshole.”
“But—”
“But nothing. My god, couldn’t you even figure out that I had fallen in love with you?”
“I had no idea,” he protested.
“No idea! No idea! Of course not, you probably think I select the men I want to screw from off the rack at Target. God, you’re such an incomprehensible ass.” She started picking up her clothes. “I’m sleeping in Rachel’s room. I doubt she will be back tonight. She, at least, is with someone who cares about her. Damn, I wonder what that would be like.” Then she disappeared out the door.
Josh swung his legs over to sit up by the side the bed and put his head in his hands. “You are a total fucking idiot, Connelly,” he said aloud to himself.
“You won’t get any argument from me.”
Josh jumped. Connie had reappeared in the door. “Just so you understand. I’m not some weepy girl. I am a scientist trained to think analytically and with great rigor. I make decisions based on evidence most of the time. But no matter how well trained you are, no matter the methodologies used, even the best of us make mistakes. I thought we had gotten along so well that love would happen. A lot of couples start off slow but grow into each other. We laughed, we shared, the sex was great. I even thought you were damn bright, for a social scientist.”
“Thanks,” he whispered, struggling to keep his wittier quips deep inside.
“Not one goddamn word from you, time for you to just listen! I knew you were damaged goods. I could sense something was missing. Usha cautioned me that you were perfect for her because you would be imperfect for any straight woman who was moronic enough to prefer men. But like too many women, I had convinced myself that you were salvageable. Anyone who was so kind to others must have a spark of decency and humanity somewhere inside him, perhaps a bit buried, but it had to be there. I mean, those working on robotics have made great strides recently but could they really have produced a Josh Connelly. I still was betting that you were, in fact, human and not concocted in some lab despite all the overwhelming evidence that you were nothing but wires and a mother board. But no, turns out someone can simulate a human being. Perhaps someone can look, walk, and talk like a human but still not have a single damn clue about what it takes to be a real man. You’re nothing but a goddamn machine. If I ripped open your chest, I bet all I would find are computer chips and wires.”
“Connie, I—”
“Not a damn word. Do you know why I came back this week? Your sister called me after that first
night at the restaurant. I liked her. She apparently has all the decency in the family. She called to tell me what a great couple we made. That, I thought I knew but then she said something else. She said you needed me. She asked me to give you another chance. She felt bad about Harold, and yes, she remembered his name. Still, she wanted to press the case for an us, you and me. I told her that Harold would hardly realize I was missing which was a lie. I broke his heart, and for what. Rachel was convincing, I must give her that. ‘You guys are a real couple, you guys are like peas in a pod,’ she said. Then she closed the deal by saying how damaged you were, but there was something good inside you, something worth saving. It just needed a little help from someone to get it out in the open. And I believed her. After all, she is your sister. But I didn’t realize how little she knew about you. Now I understand you had shut her out, your own sister, you shut her out for decades. How cold is that?”
“Rachel is pretty damaged herself,” he said quickly when she paused a second.
“Don’t even go there. Don’t you dare go there. Maybe she is, but that woman is trying. She is trying this very night. At least she is giving it a damn try.” Her anger was dissipating a bit. “Listen, I know Cate and your other friends are leaving tomorrow. If you don’t mind, I want to be around. I want to be around to say goodbye, I like all of them.” She paused and Josh thought for a moment she might join him in bed again. “Okay, I’ll leave you alone so you can power down and reboot in the morning.” And she was gone.
Then Josh noticed Morris, his pug, stir and jump down from the bed. Out the door he pattered, apparently following Connie. Et tu, Brutus, he thought. He tried sleeping but could do so only fitfully. She was right on so many levels. They did get along better than any other married couple he knew. They complemented each other perfectly. There were times when positive feelings bubbled up, catching him unawares. Feelings always surprised him. He recalled her snuggling in bed one night. They had returned from a concert and had capped off the evening with some great sex. He could sense her heart beating against his body, still elevated from the orgasm she had just experienced. The moment felt perfect, too perfect. He gazed on her as his feelings took over. It took everything in him to push the feelings back down, but he was good at it by then.
Josh got up and quietly made his way to the guest bedroom. One small table lamp was illuminated so he could see enough to find the file of cyber communications between him and Eleni. When Rachel had finished with them, she had left them in plain sight. Connie was on top of the bed lying on her stomach. She sensed his presence and looked toward the door. “Go away,” she barked.
“Just one moment, please.” He retrieved the file and sat on the edge of the bed. “Connie, I have printed versions of hundreds of e-mails between Leni and me. You saw a couple on my computer one day. We never talked that out, but you started drifting away after that. The end was a drip, drip, drip where the connection simply disappeared. I never saw anger, disappointment, residual hate. Until now, I’ve never seen such things in you. Believe me when I say that you are a kind, smart, and gentle woman. I, I,…well. Anyways, I shared this stuff with Rachel. Now I want you to look if you wish. I don’t know why for sure. Perhaps it is the clearest path to my insides. Maybe, just maybe, it suggests that I am capable of…caring, maybe even more.” He walked to the door. “I would like to find out, I really would.”
“Find out what?” She managed to get out through her emotions.
“If I’m more than a machine.”
She said nothing. He could see her body tremor in silent sobs. His heart broke a bit at that moment. He was such a shit. Back in his room, he looked in the mirror, thinking perhaps he would see the Tin Man from Oz in the glass. But it was just him, looking immensely sad. Was he so irrevocably damaged? Perhaps, like Connie, he should look at the evidence. He never went to his father’s funeral. What was with that? Sure, he feared being detained for questioning if he went back to the States. But he had checked with Peter, who assured him he was on a list, but Peter would be the one notified and he would not give him up. Peter advised him to sneak in and out so that Charles Olson did not find out. Still he did not go. Perhaps if Big Jim had died slowly, perhaps then he could push himself to go to his side, apologize. Maybe there could be a deathbed reconciliation, the mea culpas exchanged, the tears flowing in copious exculpation. But that was not to be.
His dad was in his bar one day, joking and arguing with the same guys from his tribe he had known forever. He told a joke that had several laughing as he went to pour someone a beer from the tap. Then he disappeared. It took a few moments for anyone to sense that something was amiss. When a customer checked behind the bar, Big Jim was already gone. He had been struck down by a massive heart attack. At first, Josh was furious with him. Why had he been so stubborn and unforgiving? They could never reconcile now; their last days as a father and son would be rages at each other from positions forged in brittle righteousness. After a few weeks, he suddenly cried uncontrollably. What might have been would never be. There would never be redemption, forgiveness, closure.
Ora survived Big Jim for a few years. She grew thinner and even more ethereal if that were possible. She kept the bar, bringing in Big Jim’s much younger brother to run the place. One day, Rachel called to say that the end was near. He could come or not, as was his want. She would take care of everything. His paranoia had lessened but not disappeared. Still, he got on a plane and flew to Boston. As he walked through immigration control, he fully expected to be detained or arrested. The official looked at his passport and checked his computer screen for what seemed an eternity. He was certain the next words would be for him to stand aside and be escorted to a private room. But nothing happened; the official wished him a good visit. No one cared about him.
As he sat next to his mother, she would look uncomprehendingly at him. Occasionally, she would grimace. Was that pain or recognition? He recalled Rachel telling him that she never forgave him for becoming one of them. She could not forgive those Communists who had ravaged her family as a child. She had never explained to others what had happened back then, in the birth of Bolshevism. It was all locked in a mystical past where fact and fiction and fantasy merge. It must have been horrendous, unforgettable. It is the emotional residue that counts, time cannot possibly heal all wounds. He patted her hand as she labored to breathe. He said “sorry” several times as Rachel sat on the other side of the bed. Suddenly, she looked at him, pulled her hand away, and died. He cried one more time.
After they buried Ora, Rachel drove him to the airport. Rachel kissed him on the cheek and he left. That had been their relationship over the decades. They would exchange information and on rare occasions physically see each other for some bigger event like Cate’s college graduation. It struck Josh at that moment, as he lay in bed reviewing the debris of a life half lived, that he really had worked hard to keep Rachel away. They were cordial, never argued or had disputes, but shared little. Why was that? He could tell that she wanted more. So many times, he saw her looking at him, considering some action that was never taken. It was as if they hated the script they were given but had no other choice. Well, he had no other choice. He was never certain about her.
He knew the problem; he had always known. He was racked with guilt, a deep and overwhelming guilt, the same dark pool that overwhelmed him whenever he thought of his old life. It had sat on him, suffocating him, for decades. It was the kind of existential despair that brings most Catholics to the highest ecstasy of religious meaning and, at the same time, to the depths of personal self-loathing. Ecstasy and agony, two sides of the same coin. He had been a coward. He had abandoned her, all of them, and he never said he was sorry, never tried to explain why. He thought about a sharp knife for a moment, but who was he kidding? He knew from experience that he would not go there. For all those decades, he had been embarrassed beyond words just to be in her presence. Distance and silence were his solutions.
It was the same with the old gang
, particularly Morris, Carla, and Bob. And there was Jimmie. He had known Jimmie the longest, a boy from his tribe and neighborhood. They had played ball on the streets, flirted with the Catholic girls with whom they had no shot, studied together, ate at each other’s houses, and shared secrets and dreams. As Josh became the local sports hero, he eclipsed Jimmie in attention and popularity. But he never abandoned his early friend, keeping him close. Jimmie, in turn, would have followed him to hell. And he did. Jimmie was just your average Irish kid, but he loved Josh, the iconic image of Josh, and followed him into the labyrinth of the leftist world of the 1960s. Even then, Josh knew it was less about conviction and more about hero worship, wanting to impress his personal icon. For Jimmie, this was about doing more than the others, then Josh would have to be impressed.
It was Bob who had come to him about getting blasting materials. Bob Wilson, the slightly older member of the group who had spent two years studying for the priesthood before arriving on campus. His revolutionary spirit came from a deep moral compass. Christ, for him, would have been a Socialist. And so, he set Bob up with his Irish friend who could help for a price. Josh now twisted in physical agony on his bed. He should have known what they were doing. He should have known. He did not want to know. But he guessed. How could he not. It was where they were headed. It had to be. Perhaps that was the proverbial final straw. He ran away. Then, Jimmie blew himself into small pieces and Bob eventually went back to God, praying to expiate Josh’s sins, and his own, in a monastery. He could never tell them how sorry he was.
He could have contacted Morris and Carla. Peter had asked him to do this on several occasions. But he put him off; there was always an excuse. Was he merely afraid? They would spit at him, deride him, remind him that when the moment came, he ran. He abandoned them; he left them to their own fate. He could not stand the possibility that they might look upon him with disgust, throwing his weakness back in his face. That is what his own father had done, called him weak and useless. That was a pain that could not be ignored. That shame would overwhelm him, only because it was true.
