Cherry Blossoms

by KT Morrison

  Nia stood and held her hands over Odie’s shoulders and she looked to Geoff, her eyebrows worried. She said, “That okay, baby?”

  He nodded. The two pretty girls could ride around in the convertible and dumb dad could take the station wagon home. They should all be here as a family, happy, driving with the top down to get an ice cream together. But Nia wanted big cock, hard.

  “Yeah,” he said, “Yeah. I guess I’ll meet you at home.”

  Odie opened the door to the little car and she climbed in the passenger seat and knelt on the seat trying to figure out all the knobs and gadgets.

  “Geoff, I’m so sorry,” Nia said.

  “Whatever, Nia,” he said.

  “Really, I wish I was here...”

  “I do too,” he said. He handed her the keys to the BMW and took the other keys from her.

  “Geoff, don’t, please...”

  “Don’t what, Nia? I’m fine. Let’s just go.”

  “It’s not what you think, okay?”

  “But you know what I think, right?”

  “Geoff, please...”

  “Meet me at home...Odie wants to go to Two Scoops.”

  “Oh no, Dad, my bags,” Odie said, face forlorn. Geoff turned to the bus and saw there was a young counsellor there waving a hand over her head. The sides of the old bus were open, a storage compartment underneath where all the kids sat, a few bags left by forgetful campers.

  “I’ll get them, Geoff,” Nia said.

  “No, Nia, I’ll go.”

  She trotted ahead, her high heels kicking and scraping on the asphalt as she hurried. He followed after her.

  “Nia, I’ll get them.”

  “It’s okay, Geoff, I got them, I got them.”

  He looked back and saw his daughter watching her parents behaving so strangely, her little brow furrowed under her long black hair.

  They got to the bags, got a pleasant greeting from the young girl who’d waved them over. She gushed about how sweet Odie was and Nia was all pleasant smiles as she slid O’s bags out of the compartment. He took the bag from her and let her carry the sleeping bag. Nia chatted with the young tanned girl and tried to engage Geoff, tried to catch his eye, but he wasn’t ready.

  GEOFF

  They went to Two Scoops and they had ice cream. Drove home first and Nia picked him up in front of the studio and he sat in the back seat while his two girls were up front. He couldn’t hear anything in the back. Parked the BMW under a lucky street side space right out front of the ice cream shop, under the wandering canopy of a honey locust. They ate at the wobbly green iron table out front of the restaurant.

  There was a hurt in him. A jealous knot that had tightened and made it hard for him to breathe. But looking at her troubled face across the table, seeing her worry and her fear that he was mad at her brought a familiar sense to him. He knew that look. He watched her, could see her nervousness as Odie babbled happily about her time away, talking so fast and energetic she was forgetting about her ice cream and it was melting over the edge of her waffle cone. Nia was listening but he knew she was distracted, could see it in her wavering eye. She was partitioned. One part aware of her daughter, another, more important part concentrated on Geoff and the fear her husband was still mad. He was robbing her of her happiness here.

  In that moment it hit him.

  That far away face of Nia’s was familiar because it was his father’s. He was being his fucking mother right now. Punishing Nia. Letting the badness linger and letting her suffer in the unknown. But the problem was he was mad. He was still really mad.

  Odie’s trip had been worth the money. She was at a level he’d never seen before. Excited and garrulous and doing it without her usual cynicism. She seemed taller and older but that was impossible. She seemed different in a way. Like she had grown one footstep farther from him. But she was still a little girl. Still mouthing song lyrics and posing into the camera of her tablet. He smiled wistfully as she talked and even though he didn’t want to he put his hand out and covered Nia’s.

  GEOFF

  Nia said, “It’s not what you think, okay?”

  “Right, Nia...just like what you told Ang about the stripper. Who’s going to vouch for you now? When you don’t have me?”

  “Hey,” she said, sitting herself higher up on the pillow, her face in that worried pinch again. “I have you. I’m telling you the truth.”

  They were in bed together, Odie tucked into her own bed by her dad, read to by LED camping lantern. She’d crashed hard after all the sugar and her loquacious deluge. He’d left her comatose under her princess veil. Now it was time to talk.

  He said, “What, Rocco forced himself on you?”

  “Fuck off, Geoff...stop it. Please. Stop it. It wasn’t Rocco.” She looked away and rubbed a hand across her forehead. “I thought you loved me...I thought you supported me, Geoff—you know how hard all this was for me...what a gift you are...don’t take it away, don’t turn your back on me, I couldn’t take it.”

  Nia could be manipulative. Not with him, with others. Maybe she meant her agonized plea but he couldn’t help seeing teen Nia wrapping her father around her finger with her emotions.

  He said, “Not Rocco—what do you mean?”

  She sighed, a pained look crossing her face. “It was Dino.”

  He almost jumped. “What the fuck?” His heart pounded suddenly, surging in his chest. An emotional slap went across his face and he was friend Geoff again, never thinking he was good enough for pretty Nia.

  A stinging wave of rage washed up him, right from the soles of his feet and up and over his scalp. He was never violent. Never raised his voice. But right now he wanted to scream and yell and rip his clothes off and punch a fucking hole in the drywall.

  He scrambled out of bed, his hands tearing at his T-shirt like he was on fire, turned and slammed a fist into the mattress. “Holy fuck, Nia! How many men are you going to fuck, how much cock—”

  “Geoff, shut up! This is you too,” she said, jabbing a finger at him, her eyes glistening in the lamp light. “I do this with you. I didn’t fuck Dino.”

  “Right,” he snorted, throwing his hands up. “You sucked his cock.”

  “No, I didn’t. He came on to me, he—”

  “Where?”

  “At his work.”

  “And why, Nia...why the fuck were you at his work?”

  She stared at him blankly. Her eyes darted back and forth between his, her mouth silently moved, her shoulders sloped. “I don’t know.”

  “Here we go. Nia, I want...look, I know this is complicated. You were supposed to be with me. We bought a new car, our daughter was coming home...she was gone for ten days. And you? You’re with your ex-boyfriend.”

  “I’m sorry, Geoff. I know I fucked up so bad. But we didn’t do anything.”

  “What was so important, Nia?”

  “Nothing,” she said, her voice turning to a breathy whine.

  There was something she wasn’t telling him.

  He said, “When you got to Sunnybrook you looked like shit. You looked like you’d been fucking. Odie smelled his fucking cologne on you.”

  “He did it. I didn’t do anything.”

  “Crying wolf...”

  “I’m not crying wolf. He...we got carried away.”

  “You can’t be honest, can you? You’re so fucking bad you can’t be honest with your husband who...fucking, Jesus...fucking lets you do these things...”

  “I know, I’m sorry. He...we made out. He kissed me, stopped me from leaving...I got carried away but, Geoff, I swear I didn’t want to, I wasn’t there for that...”

  “Where does he work?”

  “At a Fire Station,” she said, shrugging.

  “I know that. Where?”

  “Royal York.”

  “After work? In entirely the wrong direction from home. Why’d you go there?”

  “Geoff, please, get back into bed,” she said, and she pulled up the sheet to invite him. “Please
...lay with me...”

  “No. Tell me.” Her weakness drove his aggression now.

  She drew her knees up, and rested her forearms on them, hid her face in her hands. She spoke into them. “The stripper from the bachelorette?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I told Rocco he forced himself on me.”

  “Yeah?”

  She looked up at him now. “Someone beat him up, Geoff. Bad. It wasn’t Rocco. I wanted to know if it was Dino...”

  “Oh Jesus, Nia. Why? That guy didn’t do anything. Why...”

  “I feel guilty,” she cried. Her eyes filled with tears, threatening to spill down her cheeks. “I feel like it’s my fault...I wanted to know if it was my fault...”

  “Was it?”

  She nodded, covered her face again, cried softly.

  “Holy shit. Fucking great.”

  “I know, I know. Geoff, I...”

  “Then you made out with him?”

  “He grabbed me, he—”

  “Your fucking hero, right? Beat the shit out of your attacker so he gets to fuck you? That’s his reward?”

  “It wasn’t like that, Geoff. It was weird—I don’t know what happened. I’m still trying to process it...”

  “It took you so long to tell me that. It was like pulling fucking teeth. Why? Why? You feel something for him.”

  “No.”

  “You fucking do, don’t you?”

  “No, I really don’t. It was just weird, Geoff, and I don’t know what I thought of it. I’m pushing it away like it didn’t—“

  “You know what, Nia, just fuck who you want. Leave me out of it.” He waved her off, turned on a heel and went to the door.

  “Geoff, where are you going? Don’t do that, Geoff, don’t...”

  He left. Mad as he could ever remember. Hurt and suffering. He didn’t slam the door. Would never do that to her. He just wanted her to taste a little of what she was doing to his heart. He closed the door behind him quietly and could hear her crying. It made him cry. His eyes swelled up and he went to the stairs, made his way down in the dark, squinting through blurry kaleidoscopic haze. He blinked the tears away and he stumbled to the family room and threw himself on the couch.

  He was such a fucking asshole. He was so much like his petty fucking mother.

  “Fuck,” he hissed and he hit the sofa with his fist. Couldn’t believe he’d thumped the bed right in front of her like he did. He felt shame now. Shame at his behaviour. His weakness, his bitchiness. His pathetic pettifogging. He just reminded his wife he wasn’t a man. He was at fault here. It was him.

  There was a creak now near him, and he darted his eyes out from under his forearm and he saw his Nia coming down the stairs. She was crying too. She came to him and held her hand out. She whispered, “Geoff, please.” He took it and she walked him back to the bedroom.

  He held her in bed and told her how sorry he was. He pressed his chest to her back and put his arm around her. She was quiet but she listened. He told her how foolish he was, how he was like his fucking mother. He told her he couldn’t stand to think he’d hurt her. She stroked his arm

  He whispered, “My feelings were hurt. I love you, Nia. I trust you.”

  22

  S’mores

  Tuesday, August 8th

  NIA

  On Tuesday it was raining and Rocco sent most of the crews home. The forecast wasn’t good. Rain for the whole rest of the day. The maintenance guys still worked, cleaning pools and delivering chemicals. And she and Rocco were still out on the road and working. Two quotes in the morning near Black Creek, then heading north on the 400 again and going up to Newmarket to see about getting a new float trailer for the construction crews. He was going to invest in a new tractor for the next spring but they didn’t have the right size float for it so he wanted to make sure that the transportation for the thing wasn’t going to make it too expensive. She was sure it wasn’t.

  He had a line, he said, on a used one up north. They’d go look at it after lunch and then check in on two of the pools they were building up that way. The pools were finished but the landscaping was still going in. One of the customers, the guy with two Porsches who thought he could stare Rocco down and out manoeuvre him, had some concerns. Typical bullshit as Rocco would say. Just some way to chisel a couple bucks off the price they’d agreed on.

  Now they were in Newmarket and he wanted to eat before he went to see the Porsche guy. He’d wanted to be hungry when he looked at the float so he could negotiate and be clear-headed. Wanted to eat now so he didn’t rip Porsche guys head off if things got tense.

  Rocco had been quite a different man in the last week. The same in many ways around the business, still making heads roll and getting things done, but there was trouble always swimming below his choppy surface. It had been building. Building for a while. He’d become increasingly intense almost every day since she’d interviewed for the job. She always figured it was trouble at home. He didn’t talk much about his kids or Maria. She didn’t mention Odie or Geoff really that much either anymore. Not since Montréal.

  He’d grown distant from her even though physically they’d got close. Way too close. She wondered if that was part of it. She wondered if he had guilt for cheating. He was a class A asshole in many ways but he was also Catholic and his parents had been inseparable. Infidelity maybe had weighed on him. There could be, of course, a whole host of other things that brought this bother to him, that hunched his shoulders and lowered his brow, made him quiet and sullen. It had made some things easier for her. She’d worried once she had sex with him if he’d think that’s what every day was going to be like. That she’d be constantly fending him off. That’s what she was used to. Once she slept with a man they had always wanted more. Every day, multiple times a day, at least for the first few weeks. Til she made them sore. Rocco wasn’t like that. He seemed to be taking something out on her.

  Even the way today he’d looked at his Tupperware lunch and nudged it away. He didn’t want his wife’s food. He’d put it away in his thermos bag and threw it in the backseat, said, Let’s go sit down somewhere. She’d assumed he’d meant so they could talk but since they’d got to the restaurant he hadn’t said a thing.

  They were sitting now at a busy Montana’s Steak House in a suburban mall by the highway. They were at a booth by the window, on worn burgundy leather seats and a wagon wheel chandelier over their heads with low voltage incandescent bulbs. Rain streaked the window, the outside wavering in blue and grey and bobbing red taillights. There was thunder and twice the power had dimmed in the restaurant but came back on. The crowd awed, then cheered each time. Rocco was morose.

  They’d both ordered steak and she hoped it would remind him of their night in Montréal. The steakhouse they’d had dinner in before he’d thrown her around the hotel room and fucked her brains out. This was no steakhouse.

  She’d ordered a T-bone and a red wine. She watched him over her glass, swirled it as she considered him. She didn’t know what she wanted from him anymore. She wasn’t done with him. Not by a long shot but she knew she had to be careful. Right now though, actually this whole week, she just wanted to cheer him up. As a friend. She wanted him to not be so sullen. She’d like to put a smile on his face because she cared about him.

  She’d been rolling her ankles around under the table while they waited for their food, and she slipped her feet out of her heels now and reached them across, past the cold metal beam that held the table top. She smiled and let her feet come up between his legs and rest on the leather lip of his seat. She wriggled her toes against his bulge, felt his soft meat under the rain-damp denim.

  He raised his eyes to hers and he smiled, narrowed them. His smile was lifeless.

  She said, “Geoff has a business trip.” She cocked her head, gave him enough information and girlish charm that a man with two balls between his legs should want to know more.

  “He does?” he said.

  “He goes to New York. Remember I to
ld you?”

  “Yeah, yeah. You did.”

  “That’s this weekend. He’s leaving me all alone.”

  His hand came down and went over her feet. He held her still, didn’t move her away.

  “Something might be wrong with Peter.”

  “What?” She sat up, tried to bring her feet down but he held them to him.

  “It’s okay. He’s fine. His ears. He might not hear too good.”

  The waitress was at the table, holding two steaming plates at her hip. She smiled wide and happy, but her eyes caught their expressions and there was a wink of knowledge there that she’d just come at a bad time. She put their plates out for them and extended niceties and got herself out of there.

  Nia hissed, “Your baby, Peter?”

  He nodded.

  She said, “He can’t hear?”

  “Maybe not at all.”

  “Deaf?”

  He shrugged, turned his mouth down. Shrugged again.

  “Fuck, I only think of me, eh? Listen to me. I’m sorr—”

  “It’s good. He’s tough. Whatever life hands him he’ll deal with it. He’s my son.” He shook his head and looked around the boisterous room, a loud group of office workers coming in and making a big deal of how wet they were, taking their hoods off and shaking their hair, looking for attention. Rocco sighed, his big shoulders rising and falling. “It puts a strain on every fuckin thing else, you know?”

  She put her hand over his. “Rocco, hey...if there’s any—”

  “Don’t,” he grumbled, and he pulled away his big hand, held it up to stop her from talking. “You know...just forget I said anything, okay?”

  “I can’t—”

  “Please, Nia, okay? I’m sorry. Just eat.”

  GEOFF

  Geoff struggled to fit the pole through the tent’s nylon ripstop sleeve. His work-sore hands cramped, and his forearms quivered, straining to make the end of the long segmented pole reach the opening.

  “What are you doing?” Odie said from the other side of the tent.