Unstrung

by Laura Spinella

  Today I continue toward another deathwatch. An hour later, I park in a garage near Mass General, knowing that I’ll have to produce more than music, aware that Rob is not coming to my rescue. It would be so much easier to call Sam, engage in a cheery, “Hi, how are you feeling . . . I’m sure you’ll rally . . .” conversation than it will be to face him. I didn’t think ahead—well, beyond telling the truth and letting Theo take it from there.

  What is the right recourse after your biological son says he won’t lift a finger—or expose a vein—to save the life of his biological father? I suppose that’s the rub of science; biology comes with no emotional bond. Sitting in the car, a wave of nausea hits me. I home in on my options. Here’s the thing: Is it kinder to allow Sam to die in peace? Am I only inflicting torture on top of a sad fate by telling him now? Or am I merely using this as an excuse to avoid furthering my own well-earned fate—for Sam’s anger to be my last memory of him. I reach for the Audi’s ignition button. By late this afternoon, I can be in Aruba or Cozumel—fate will play out no differently based on my location.

  “Damn it!” Instead of hitting start, I smack the steering wheel. Then I reach for the door handle. “I’m so not the right person to make decisions involving life and death.”

  Sam is sleeping when I arrive in his room. His color is as ghostly as the sheet wrapped around him. The only personal item is his cell phone, which sits on the bedside table. I didn’t answer the last two calls he made to me. There’s an uneaten lunch; the smell makes my stomach roll. I discard the tray outside the door as if I’m in the Mass General hospitality suite. Settling my weight onto the edge of the bed doesn’t disturb Sam; low, assuring breaths move steadily. Sam asleep in the middle of the day. It’s the first clue of a deteriorating man. If he could muster it, Sam would spend his last months or weeks in a Vegas casino, maybe a cruise ship—destination, the end of time.

  I study his placid face; time whirls backward. The features are all there, but it’s mischievousness I see, maybe the thing I loved most. Something his illness has not yet stolen. I brush my fingertips over his forehead. He doesn’t react. We all make choices and I play the what if game. What if I hadn’t lied all those years ago? What if I’d gotten up the courage to get on a plane to Iowa instead of New Zealand? Did my impulsive choices steal, not just Sam’s life, but our entire lives? The trickle-down effect might have reached as far as Rob, never putting him on this path. Maybe my husband missed out on the person who would have made him happy.

  Before long, I’m speaking—quietly. For many reasons, I don’t want to wake Sam. I talk about years ago, repeating history he knows. Saying it aloud, it sounds surreal—the explosiveness, youthful passion, a moment in time as opposed to the things that result in a lifetime. My gaze drifts from his sleeping, breathing body to the hospital room window. I get to the part that breaks from the story he believes to be true. “I have no idea what to do here, Sam. There’s no one left to point out right or wrong. Certainly not Rob—even if he was speaking to me.” I shrug. “Although, I have to admit, Rob knows a thing or two about when to pull a trigger.” I look back at Sam, sighing. “And forget Sasha. That’s even more ironic,” I say, drifting deeper into self-analysis. “You’d think after all this time I could predict what she’d tell me to do. But I guess it doesn’t work that way. You can’t borrow scruples.”

  Words fall to barely a whisper, and through the smudged hospital window I converse with marshmallow clouds and Canada geese on a flyby. “I lied, Sam. All those years ago, I lied to you about the car accident causing a miscarriage. I let you think the baby was gone.” Absently, I reach into my sweater pocket and pull out a crumpled Kleenex. “I was angry . . . hurt that you’d suggested we end the pregnancy. So I let you walk away. I couldn’t stand the thought of forcing you into something you so clearly didn’t want. I was too willful, stubborn. Too pissed off,” I admit. “I wasn’t going to let you or my parents decide what happened to my son.” I twist toward him. “You have a son.”

  My heart nearly stops. Sam’s eyes are full-moon round, not sleeping; his wide-awake face fills with astonishment.

  “What the hell did you just say?”

  While nothing . . . you were dreaming screams through my head, body language won’t cover for me. My back pulls erect and my eyes go wider than his. “A son,” I say with a gulp. “He’s twenty-six. He lives here in Boston. I only met him a few months ago. He went to Cornell on a lacrosse scholarship, but he became a music teacher. I don’t know if he’s a better athlete than you, but he’s a better fiddler than me. I’m not sure why he’s so smart.” I rush through the brief bio as if these tidbits are appropriate facts for Sam’s gaping blanks.

  He draws a huge breath and color flushes through his cheeks. “But you told me . . .”

  “I know. I told you the baby didn’t survive the car wreck—he shouldn’t have. That’s what the hospital ob-gyn told me. It’s what gave me the idea. You, my parents . . . everyone seemed to take it so well. Hell, my parents were openly elated. It took the pressure off me. I didn’t have them berating me for further ruining my life. I suddenly wasn’t the rock anchored to your dreams. So I left it that way and I let you go to Iowa while I went to New Zealand, to Phillip’s.”

  Sam fumbles for the control to the hospital bed. The mattress rises. As it does, I brace for the anger, maybe the slap I have coming. “This is a joke, right, Liv? I have—”

  “A son.” But instead of fury, Sam’s solitary reaction is a stark blink. Perhaps he’s too weak to offer much more. “I gave him up for adoption—a cleverly arranged adoption. It’s, um . . . that’s a longer part of the story. And before you say anything else, or think another thought, I have to tell you the part that matters most right now. I’m not sharing this now because the cavalry has arrived.” I keep going. “I’m telling you because it’s the right thing to do. I deceived him . . . and I lied to you. Because of that, when I told him who I was, who you are . . .” I purse my lips. My soul quakes at the idea of the man I’d once so thoroughly loved possibly dying because of what I set in motion.

  “Liv . . .” He reaches out and clasps my arm. “Jesus, calm down. Whatever you did, I—”

  “No, Sam, not ‘whatever I did.’ Don’t downplay this. For twenty-six years it was a secret. Never in a million years did I imagine I’d be telling you under these circumstances. Nothing can make it right.”

  “Wait. Just slow down . . . Back it up a little and start—”

  There’s a tap at the door of Sam’s room, though it opens simultaneously. I stiffen, prepared for this raw moment of emotion to be on display for medical staff, perhaps the janitor. A man strides through on a step of courage. There’s immediate facial recognition, almost identical frames. The man in the bed and the one at the door are both caught off guard. Sucking up snot in my near hysterical state, I jerk up off the bed. “Oh my God.” I clamp a hand over my mouth. Theo does not look at me but stares at Sam. It’s the eyes. While brown may be the world’s most common color, there’s something extraordinary in seeing your once-lover’s eyes on your own son, both of them in the same room.

  Theo finally looks in my direction. For a moment I think he’s going to say he has the wrong room; he’s only there to visit a friend. But his glare grows more defined. “Maybe I’m not so much like you after all.” He looks to Sam. “I assume she’s told you . . . about me?” Sam offers a vague nod. “I spoke with the bone marrow transplant people—not your doctors, but people who could give me information. I understand that finding this . . . half match requires no more than a blood test. I’ve done that part. If it matches . . . fine.” A pause fills the air. “If that’s the case, Olivia has my number.” He turns to leave.

  “Wait,” Sam says. The similar tone of their voices is enough to shock Theo into holding still. Then he pivots. “Can . . . Could I at least ask your name?”

  Theo shoots a searing look in my direction. “Why? I was offered up as nothing more than a possible cure, a human Petri dis
h, right?”

  “That’s not fair,” I say. “I was just explaining everything to Sam when you came in—”

  He holds up a hand and focuses on Sam. “Theo. My name is Theo McAdams. I’m named after my father—Theodore David McAdams. He was a great man, an exceptional human being. My mother’s name is Claire. If I’m here right now, you have them to thank.” He snickers, glancing between us. “Quite obviously not yourselves.”

  Sam shimmies up taller in the bed. “Hold on a second.” He glances at me. “I’m processing this as fast as I can—until five minutes ago I didn’t know you existed.”

  “Which I understand is the way you wanted it.”

  Sam looks to me and I try to pick up where I was before Theo arrived. “It’s, um . . . Through circumstance nobody could have predicted, I ended up telling Theo about the night of the car accident—what you suggested, the possible solution to me being pregnant.”

  Sam eases back into the cushion of the mattress and scrubs a hand over his face. He laughs, which surprises us both. “I get it.” He looks at Theo. “You’re pissed off because a scared, twenty-one-year-old kid—being me—was quick to suggest the easy way out.” He looks Theo up and down. “And here you are now, living color irony. I gotta tell you . . .” I’m sure Sam was about to say son. It would only be Southern vernacular, but Theo would take it as a northern insult. “I’d be pissed off too.”

  Theo nods, but there’s nothing bonding about it. He merely looks sorry that I ever turned up in his classroom. “Good. So we all agree on that much.”

  “But it doesn’t sound like Olivia told you the whole story. I came to Boston to find her, to apologize for the choices I made back then.” He and Theo trade a look. “Hell, kid, what did you just say? Your father was a great man, an exceptional human being.” Theo nods. “I doubt he and I had the same starting point in life. Livy tell you that part?” Theo doesn’t respond. “Where I came from . . . It was exceptional too. A different kind of exceptional: a leather belt with your name on it, your body used like an ashtray. That’s the kid who found out he was going to be a father.”

  A scar is visible on Sam’s arm; from the dip of his hospital gown, another peeks out, burned to his chest. I know Theo sees them.

  “From what you said, sounds like you ended up with two mothers. I never had one. You’ve known Livy, what? A few months? Also know you have more information about your birth mother than I’ll ever have about mine. And Liv’s past, it’s not physically violent . . . But torment is hardly limited to physical acts. Sorry your biological parents didn’t come perfectly wired. But it seems to me—given us—she tried to do right by you.”

  “Doesn’t excuse what she’s done recently,” Theo says dryly.

  “See the part about not being perfectly wired.” Sam goes on with his point. “All of my past put me at a disadvantage when it came to conversations about you.” He points to me. “I know what she wanted back then—she wanted me to swoop in and say it would all work out. In the end, Liv knew better. She made the best choice . . . for me . . . and for you. I won’t let you think otherwise.” He smiles at me. “She plays a mean fiddle. But there’s a hell of a lot more to be said for the number-one fan of the man from Tennessee.”

  “Why do you both keep saying that?”

  “One of the things I came to tell Livy was that—regardless of any baby we did or didn’t have—I made mistakes. Can’t do a damn thing about it now. Clearly, by coming here, you’ve made your decision. You’re a good man—no thanks to me. I appreciate that,” Sam says solemnly. “If that’s all it turns out to be, if you can’t get past the rest . . . I understand.”

  Theo nods. He turns to leave. At the door, he turns back. “Will one of you let me know—either way?”

  “I’ll let you know,” I say, having edged back to the side of the bed where Sam’s hand links with mine. Theo stares for a moment, focused on the tangled fingers and lives in the room.

  I spend a little more time with Sam, filling in the rest of the story. I do not avoid any blame on my part, and I give Theo all the credit for doing the right thing. Sam’s exhausted, but adamant about convincing me otherwise. “Livy, you need to know, you did the right thing all those years ago. Think it through—if you told me about Theo back then . . . I like to think I would have tried to live up to expectations. But had that happened, we wouldn’t have survived it, not in the long run. For whatever it’s worth, Sam Nash—pitching legend—that would have never happened either. You saw it; take the credit. And truth be told . . .” His words slur, Sam succumbing to the meds a nurse administered. “I’m glad I didn’t have to choose. Might have left me a little bitter, instead of the fun-loving guy I am.” A gurgle of laughter precedes sleep. “A son. I’ll be damned.”

  Once home, I am misguided by the dimly lit brownstone. I assume either Rob is not here or he’s sequestered in his basement fortress. Inside the foyer, my name ripples through; I hear my mother. It’s nearly ten o’clock. I find her seated in the living room, poised in a high-back chair, her foot swinging rhythmically as she sips a mixed drink that I know she did not prepare. Rob is standing at the wet bar. He cheers a drink in my direction.

  “Based on a long conversation with Rob,” she announces, “I’ve decided a few things about the future.”

  I look between her Elizabeth Arden–painted face and Rob’s, who smiles crookedly at her. “Like what?” I wonder if Rob has outed me; I brace for her to lay claim to her grown grandson and surely lace into me for—after the fact—having the audacity to give away a Klein. “Isn’t it rather late for you, Mom?”

  “Once Rob and I talked things through, I decided to stay until you came back from wherever it is you’ve been.” My mother looks me over like I’ve just rolled out of a hotel room bed, not a hospital room. “I’m going to winter early in the Boca condo. I’m leaving day after tomorrow. Of course, I don’t normally go until after the holidays. But considering the circumstances . . . Well, I agreed with Asa’s notion that an early change of scenery wouldn’t be the worst thing.”

  I glance fast between her and Rob, but make no correction. “And if the Wellesley house is gone come spring?”

  She sips her drink and her chin tips upward. “If it’s gone, that’s something I’ll have to come to terms with. Rob says he’ll make certain everything goes to storage. I won’t lie to you, Olivia. Just like your father, I had every intention of dying in my own time, on my own terms, in that house.” Rob stands a bit taller and clears his throat. “So that will be . . . different.” She places her drink on the coffee table and rises. “I’ll be busy packing. I won’t have time to see you again before I go. So I waited.” She looks toward Rob, as if looking for an assurance that she’s done her part. He is busy texting someone. More quietly, she says, “Whether it was a violin or your life, Olivia, it’s always been rather unstrung. I suspect your marriage will just be another casualty.” She says good-bye to Rob with a warm hug and a passing peck on the cheek to me. Even the cursory show of affection is odd. She pauses, speaking to both of us. “Just a last word on the Wellesley, as clearly it’s causing distress between the two of you . . .”

  “That and a few other things,” I murmur.

  “To lose the house means giving up a coveted possession.” She frowns and draws a blunt conclusion. “I’d burn it to the ground if it meant having your father back, even for a day. A house is far from the most important thing at stake here.”

  I follow to the foyer as she exits. When the door shuts, I press my forehead against the cold glass. “You didn’t tell her.”

  “About Theo?” I nod, still not moving my head from the glass. “No. It was your secret to keep. It’s yours to tell—or not, Liv.” There is something different in his tone, detached. I turn, never moving away from the door, my back now pinned to it. Tucked around the corner of the music room are two suitcases—the kind he wouldn’t take on a business trip. Rob has moved closer to the foyer, nearer the exit. His hands are stuffed in his front poc
kets, his face drawn. “Really. Regardless of Theo, how much longer could we do this? I told you years ago, I don’t do vicious circles.”

  “I . . . It’s been a little chaotic, Rob. I really haven’t had time to sort out—”

  “Our marriage? Yeah. Well, there’s a surprise. I guess hidden sons and ex-lovers will keep your calendar full.” He puts on his coat, which is hanging over the banister.

  “Wait.” My heart flutters in an erratic rhythm. “Where . . . where are you going?”

  He smiles—a Cheshire Rob grin if I ever saw one. “Does it matter?” He approaches the door, then answers. “I’ll be bunking in my office for now.” For a moment, I take a dramatic stance, Rob physically having to remove me to get past me. I’m rushed by the notion of how much I don’t want him to go. My teeth sink into my bottom lip, tears well. I’ve done nothing to make him want to stay. I slide away from the door. He opens it and gathers his luggage. He doesn’t look back, but he does seem to waver. “If it makes you feel any better, Liv, you didn’t fail at us alone.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Theo

  It’s not his house keys, nor his iPhone. It is Theo himself that feels misplaced. He’s taken the day off from Braemore. It doesn’t matter, class let out over an hour ago. He’s spent his day playing the violin and staring at the fire escape on the brick building adjacent to his. He wishes escape were so easy, the flames slightly less caustic. When he called Principal Giroux to report his absence, Braemore’s first in command told him he received a call from the Suffolk County DA’s office. Olivia Klein wouldn’t be back. She arranged to complete her remaining community service hours elsewhere.