His Frozen Heart

by Nancy Straight

  Mark’s tone, which had been almost playful outside on the street, hardened. “I thought I asked you to keep that between you and me?”

  “You did. I’m sorry, especially after what you just did for me out there. But, you have to understand, Dave is really important to me. He’s been looking for you forever. Please, can you just talk to him for a few minutes?”

  The hardness in his voice did not soften, “I told you I had some loose ends to tie up. I’m not accustomed to anyone ignoring my instructions.”

  “Ignoring your instructions? Hey, I don’t know what you’re mixed up in, and, frankly, I don’t care. Neither does Dave. I know Dave’s been through hell, and he is the most amazing guy. When he told me how he was taken away from the foster family you stayed with, it tore him up. Fifteen years later he’s still torn up. He doesn’t care what’s going on in your life, he just wants you in his.”

  Mark pursed his lips together, “Compelling. But, not now.”

  The hurt on Dave’s face yesterday morning when he left his apartment haunted me. Looking in Mark’s eyes, they were the same color, but Mark’s held no emotion at all. I needed him to understand whether he wanted to listen or not. “He folds his shirts in six by six squares. His apartment doesn’t have a single speck of dust anywhere. His cabinets are full of items that are perfectly organized. There isn’t one dirty dish in his whole apartment.”

  Mark’s only answer was a confused look. Words were spilling out of me whether they made sense or not. “From the day he was taken away from you, he tried to do everything perfectly so he would be sent back. He loves you. I can’t tell him I saw you a third time and couldn’t convince you to see him. The rejection would crush him.”

  Something I said had finally struck a chord. I could see a flicker of emotion in his eyes. “Candy, as much as I would like to see him again, now is not the right time.”

  “Fifteen years ago would have been the right time. Hell, eleven years ago when he was almost adopted wouldn’t have been bad, either. Or ten years ago when the adoption fell through. Or five years ago when I met him and he didn’t have one single friend in the whole school. All of those times were the right time, but now, today, I’m telling you, you don’t have a choice. You’re going to say hi to your brother if I have to put a knife to your throat and drag you there.”

  I wondered if I had suddenly grown horns, because Mark looked at me as if I were a space alien. When he didn’t respond to my threat with any threat of his own, I pointed at the corner. “His apartment is on West Eighth Street, so take a right at the end of this block.” I buckled my seat belt and looked out the windshield, waiting to give him the next set of directions.

  He sat in place, both hands on the wheel, staring out at the street in front of us. “Look, I’m a man of my word. As soon as I finish a couple projects, I will find Dave. I’m glad he has a friend who cares about him as much as you do, but now is not the right time for a reunion.”

  Turning toward him, I dug my heels in further. “Five minutes. Give him five minutes. That’s a hello, a cell phone number and a hug.” I reached over and put my hand on Mark’s bicep, giving it a gentle squeeze, “He needs those five minutes more than he needs air.” When his expression didn’t change, I clarified, “I’m not kidding about holding a knife to your throat.”

  Mark’s reaction surprised me. He smiled: not a smirk, or a grin, but a full-blown toothy approving smile. He didn’t protest. He nodded, put the car in drive and took a right at the end of the block as I had instructed.

  We drove in the quiet for several minutes. As we approached Dave’s street, Mark inquired, “So, are you his girlfriend?”

  “I don’t think so. Maybe. I’m not sure.”

  “For someone who isn’t sure, you seem to know a great deal about him.”

  “I’ve learned a lot in the last week. Tuesday night, at the bar? I thought you were Dave.”

  Surprised, he asked, “We look that much alike?”

  “Yeah. Even Libby thought you were Dave.”

  “You said something about he folds his shirts in squares – I don’t do that.”

  “I don’t know the full story, but you’ll see what I mean when we get there. Dave is meticulous about everything. Mr. Kravitz, that’s a teacher from high school, said people come from all over the Midwest to have him restore their cars.”

  “Really? It’s good to hear he’s doing well for himself.” Mark eyed me suspiciously. “So, for curiosity’s sake, where were you planning to find a knife? I have to assume if you had one, you would have used it on Grey.”

  His question took me off guard. We were talking about Dave. I had threatened him: given Grey’s reaction to Mark, that was probably a bad thing. “The way Grey high-tailed it away from you, I’m guessing there’s one somewhere in your car,” I offered lightly.

  Smirking, “Sadly, no. I try not to keep weapons in my car. I admire your tenacity, but you need to be more careful about who you threaten and what you threaten them with. Grey isn’t the worst man in the city, and you can’t count on me to run interference for you.”

  “I would have been fine without your help,” I spat confidently. As if to convince him I added, “I had outrun him twice. He wouldn’t have attacked me in the pub.”

  “Your spunk is to be commended, but spunk is only worthwhile when backed up with brawn. Don’t pick fights you can’t win, and never threaten anything when you are unwilling or unable to follow through.”

  “Noted. But Dave needs you. There isn’t much I wouldn’t do for him. I gooned things up with him the other night, and I need to make them right.”

  Mark’s eyebrows furrowed together when he asked, “How does one ‘goon up’ something?”

  “I got back from Bank Shot and didn’t tell him I’d seen you. The next morning when I did, he was upset with me for lying.”

  Mark countered, “An omission isn’t a lie.”

  “Any form of deception is a lie. You didn’t see the hurt in his eyes. He had given me a glimpse of the emptiness in his heart when it comes to you. That’s a void I can’t fill – only you can.”

  Mark took his eyes off the road as if searching mine for something. He answered back quietly, “I’m damaged. What happens when he meets me and he finds out I can’t fill that void, either?”

  “I don’t pretend to know what you two went through. But you are the only one who can fill it. You just proved to me that you care. Geeze, you ran the guy who shot him out of town.”

  Mark smiled warmly, “Let’s keep that bit of information between us, shall we?”

  “I thought that would be my opening line, ‘Hey, Dave, Mark scared the snot out of my stalker. Can we keep him?’”

  “You’re funny. I can see why you’re his friend. Davey was always the funny one.”

  “So, what were you? The tough one?”

  “I was older. I took care of Davey. At least until the day that the state of Missouri took him away from me.”

  His hand sat on the arm rest. I put my hand over his and gave him a squeeze. “I can’t wait for him to see you.” Still confused by everything that had happened, I wondered if Mark could tell me why Grey came after us. “So, thanks, by the way, for running Grey and Teddy out of town. I still don’t understand how this escalated. It was only four hundred dollars.”

  Mark shook his head. “It isn’t the money. It could have been four dollars or four thousand dollars. It’s more about position. In their business, neither one of them can afford for others to think they are suckers.”

  “What business is that?”

  “Never mind. They will steer clear of you. Neither will cross me.” Mark drove exactly where I told him to. When we arrived in front of Dave’s garage, the place was once again dark. My heart sank. If he wasn’t inside, the hissy fit I had just thrown to get Mark here had been for nothing.

  I didn’t get out of the car for fear that Mark might change his mind and I’d never see him again. “Can I use your cell? Mine’s in th
e pocket of my coat at work.”

  Mark rolled his eyes. “It doesn’t look like he’s here. I’ve got somewhere I am supposed to be. How about I take you back to your car and I’ll promise to find him soon.”

  I shook my head. “Not good enough. He has to be here. Let me use your phone.”

  Mark reluctantly handed it over. I dialed Dave’s number; it went directly to voicemail. I called the number to the garage; it also went to a recording. I called Kravitz. “Do you know where Dave is? He’s not answering his phones.”

  “He’s not answering my calls, either. I haven’t talked to him since yesterday morning. Where are you?”

  “I’m outside his place. It’s dark.”

  “I don’t know where he would be. If you find him, tell him to call me and let me know he’s okay.”

  I could hear the defeat in my own voice, “Okay, thanks. If you hear from him, tell him I need to see him, okay?”

  I hung up with Kravitz. Dave had stopped by the restaurant looking for me today, so he wasn’t avoiding me anymore. What little time I had spent with Dave, I learned he was a creature of habit. If he were anywhere in the city, he was in his apartment. “I’m pretty sure he’s inside.”

  Mark sighed, “It doesn’t look like he’s here.”

  Not expecting a favorable response, I asked, “I don’t suppose you know how to pick a lock, do you?”

  Mark shook his head, “Not my specialty.”

  I opened the passenger door, turned to Mark and said, “Don’t leave.” I ran up to the front door. It was a heavy steel door, and I pounded and kicked it mercilessly. The sound of my plea to get in was muffled by the cinder block structure. If Dave were inside, I wasn’t convinced he would have heard me from the lobby, let alone from the second floor apartment.

  I grabbed a handful of snow and launched the snowball at one of the second floor windows. The snowball bounced off with a heavy thump. I sent a second one and then a third. Nothing. A pile of white rock was setting under a holly bush: I grabbed one and threw it hard against the window. If he were in the apartment, it would be impossible for him to ignore my onslaught.

  Mark grabbed my hand as I was about to send a second rock up to his window. “He’s not here. Stop before you break something.”

  “He’s here. I know it. He’s upstairs in the dark, all by himself. You didn’t see him yesterday. He was angry with me. But that wasn’t the worst of it: his heart froze when he learned that the one person he could love with his whole heart didn’t want to see him.”

  Mark’s eyes narrowed, “I never said I didn’t want to see him. I said the timing was bad.”

  “I told him, but that’s not what he heard.”

  Mark shook his head and scowled at me. He walked back toward the steel door examining the side. “If he isn’t inside, you’re ready to face a breaking and entering charge?”

  “He’s in there. I know it.”

  Rolling his eyes, Mark murmured, “This is ludicrous.” He stomped back toward his car. Part of me wanted to run in front of him and hold him in place because I thought he intended to drive away. Just as he approached his car, the trunk popped open. Mark dug through a compartment where his spare tire was kept, removed a tire iron and a can of lubricant.

  “We’re fortunate that a dimwit installed his front door backwards. The hinges are on the outside rather than where they’re supposed to be on the inside.” He shook his head at me as he walked back up to the garage’s front door. “This won’t be elegant, but it’s better than a broken window.” Mark sprayed the hinges for several seconds each. After each one was saturated, he placed the tire iron under the lip of the hinge and took each pin out with no more effort than inserting a key in a door.

  He placed the third pin on the ground and turned to me. “If we go in and he’s not there, I’m leaving you to explain to the alarm company why it was so imperative you get inside.”

  “Deal.” My smile stretched wide. A giddiness travelled through me as I had a sudden urge to hug him. Mark shook his head then planted his foot hard against the wall and pulled. His arms took the door completely off of its resting place as a gaping hole now stood before us. He gestured for me to go in first. No alarm sounded, and I wondered if that meant we had triggered a silent one, or if one wasn’t installed.

  I had just made it through the lobby and around the corner into the garage when Dave was flying off the stairs with a baseball bat in his hand. I held up my hands and shouted, “It’s me! Dave, it’s me!” I cowered as the bat was already over his shoulder before he realized who “me” was. He let the bat fall to the floor when he stopped at the bottom of the steps. From the light of the Coke machine, I saw relief showing in his eyes.

  “Candy? What are you doing here?” He looked at the doorway to the dark lobby, then asked, “How did you get in?”

  Ignoring his question, I was unable to contain my excitement, “He’s here. I found him. Well, he found me, but he’s just outside.”

  Mark’s voice called from the lobby, “I’m not paying for a new door. This was her idea.”

  Dave’s eyes grew wide. He walked slowly from around the pop machine. He looked from me to the lobby door, back to me, then his eyes rested on the lobby’s doorway. A single word escaped him, “Mark?”

  Mark was somewhere in the pitch black lobby. He answered jovially, “In the flesh. Why don’t you have an alarm system? Did you forget to pay your utility bill or something?” The light flickered on in the lobby when Mark located the switch, and a second later he stepped from the lobby into the garage. The two brothers stood motionless for a second staring at each other. Dave glanced back at me for a fraction of a second then launched himself at Mark, taking him in a bear hug.

  Neither spoke. They both clung to the other. Their embrace was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It was a full minute before they let go of each other. Mark was the first to speak. “Sorry about your door. She was pretty adamant that we were getting inside.”

  Dave laughed, brushing moisture from his cheeks with the back of his hand. “Her persistence is only rivaled by a pit bull’s.”

  Mark shared a warm smile with me, “You have no idea.”

  Dave motioned to his apartment upstairs, “You want to come in?”

  Mark said, “Just for a minute. I’m in town on business, and as I tried to explain to Candy, I need to meet with a client tonight.”

  Before the two brothers could go up the steps, I called their attention to the gaping hole in the front of the building. “Um, should one of you put the door back on first?”

  Mark smiled, “Right. Need to keep the riffraff out. So, do you always answer the door with a bat at night?”

  Still all smiles, Dave answered, “When I heard the snowballs on the window, I thought it was just neighborhood kids. I heard someone monkeying with the door and thought it might be vandals, so I was coming to investigate.”

  “With a bat?”

  “Better than a gun.”

  Mark raised a brow, “I’ll let Candy fill you in on her day. I bumped into her on Windham Street and offered to give her a ride to her car. Your pit bull analogy? Yes, she was pretty adamant that I bring her here instead of to her car.”

  Dave smiled sweetly to me, “Thanks.”

  My eyes darted between the two brothers. “Put the door back on already. It’s freezing out.” The two of them went to the door and had it back on its hinges in less than a minute. Dave turned on the lights in the garage and hit a switch to illuminate the apartment, too. I didn’t want to intrude on their reunion, so when they went upstairs, I took a seat in the lobby and grabbed a magazine from a rack on the wall.

  Motor Trend had never been a favorite; in fact, I’d put it in the same category as Better Homes and Gardens. I had always liked cars, but was far more interested in old school muscle instead of a showdown between the latest BMW, Viper and Mercedes.

  The five minutes I had begged Mark to give came and went, so did fifteen, and after I had been
in the lobby for a full hour, curiosity began to get the better of me. I tentatively walked toward the stairs. Hovering beside the steps listening to the humming of the Coke machine, I strained to hear the conversation upstairs.

  Dave asked Mark, “Are you hungry? I’ve got a roast and potatoes I can warm up.”

  Mark’s voice was a little lower than Dave’s when he commented, “Very domestic. I’m impressed. No, don’t go to any trouble.” The rustling of a chip bag sounded. “I haven’t had Wavy Lays in years. Remember how we used to make little ice cream forts in our bowls and use the chips for fences?”

  “You’re stuck with just the chips. I don’t have ice cream.”

  “No ice cream? You have a roast and potatoes but you don’t keep ice cream in the freezer? You aren’t as domestic as I had believed.”

  Dave’s answer was strained. “I don’t eat ice cream.”

  “You don’t eat ice cream? You used to love ice cream. I used to bribe you with it to get you to make your bed.”

  “Yeah, I remember.” Dave paused for a few seconds before he added, “I haven’t eaten ice cream since. . . well, you know.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since our case worker asked me if I wanted to get ice cream and I followed her out to her car.”

  Mark didn’t answer, but I heard his footsteps overhead. A muffled response echoed half a minute later, “It’s not your fault. You were just a kid. Let it go.”

  “So, were you looking for me, too?”

  “No.” A long pause hung in the air before Mark added solemnly, “I told you, I thought you were dead. I never considered my caseworker got it wrong.” Another long pause before Mark said, “I’m glad she was wrong. Hey, listen, I’ve got somewhere I need to be, but I promise I’ll be back soon.”

  I heard both men coming down the steps and quickly made my way back to the lobby. Both were all smiles. I marveled at their similarities: they were the same height, similar builds, nearly identical features on their faces – in a glance it would be next to impossible to tell them apart. Lucky the two did not dress alike. The only discernable difference was the cut above Dave’s brow that was still shiny from the glue he had used on it.