Here to Stay

by Suanne Laqueur

  “What,” they said, leaning in.

  She angled the screen further in their direction. “This would be a boy.”

  And indeed it was.

  “Impressive,” Daisy said.

  “Well, come on,” Erik said, a smile widening his face and a burning pleasure filling his chest. It crackled in his veins on the ride home. Glowed like a fire died down to red coals as he pinned the sonogram pictures to the refrigerator.

  It’s a boy.

  He went outside, stood in the sun on the concrete slab, golden and warm as he mixed up his face with Daisy’s face to come up with a new face.

  What will you look like?

  Who will you be?

  His eyes swept the yard, imagining his son at play. He squinted at the trees, assessing them, coming back repeatedly to the oak and its sturdy branches. It was begging for a treehouse. A really spectacular one. He’d do it right, get a couple of the stagehands to help him. Jack, too. Together they’d build something amazing for his son.

  It’s a boy.

  “What are you thinking about,” Daisy said, sliding her arms around him from behind.

  “Everything,” Erik said, loving the curve of her belly in the small of his back and the news it brought.

  “Have you thought of any names yet?”

  He smiled as he turned to hug her. “Kennet,” he said. “After my grandfather.”

  “Kennet Fiskare,” she said thoughtfully.

  “Kennet Joseph? For your father too?”

  She gazed out at the lake, her mouth shaping the names with no sound.

  “Just a thought,” Erik said, his hands spreading wide across her stomach.

  “No, I like it. Would we call him Kenny?”

  “Well, I thought maybe…” He hesitated, feeling shy. “Kees. For short.”

  Daisy’s eyes flew back to him. Her hand reached up and caressed his face. “I love it,” she whispered. She curled into him, her arms going around his waist. “It’s perfect.”

  “Should we tell Mr. Justi now or later?”

  Daisy laughed. “He is going to be a wreck.”

  That night she was on top of Erik in the dark, drawing him up into the depths of all that round, lush magic. Soft skin stretching to accommodate new curves. Her body bursting with an indescribable energy. Tight, hot and overflowing. He put his hands on her stomach, felt that warm, thrumming arc under his palms.

  It’s a boy.

  Kees.

  His hands seemed to melt into her. “It’s so much,” he said, pulled apart with feeling. Mixed-up faces morphed through his head. Blond hair and brilliant blue eyes. Dark hair and deep brown eyes.

  Who will you be?

  “I’m so happy,” she said.

  His palms slid up to hold her breasts.

  She’s having a baby.

  It’s a boy.

  He leaned in. Gave his weight to the joy, let it cradle him in arms. Daisy drew up along the slick length of him, her head falling back and her hair tumbling over his wrists. She was so full of life it made him feel like dying. His heart circled around like an eel. Every cell in his body writhed and stretched out long, yearning, wanting, pushing up into his wife’s vital heat.

  “It’s more than I ever wished for,” he said.

  “It’s everything I wished for,” she said. She put her hands on top of his, quieted the vertical pull and push of her hips and settled down on him.

  “I have all the men I love inside me,” she whispered.

  “DUDE,” WILL SAID. “Did I tell you about the time Lucky and I ate the pot brownies?”

  “No.”

  “Chick in the corps made them and gave us one. We quartered it. All right? A quarter of a brownie each.”

  “What happened?”

  “Monumental, mind-blowing, transcendental sex. Followed by Lucky having a panic attack the likes I’ve never seen before. I had to scrape her off the ceiling. It was ridiculous.”

  Erik laughed.

  “I mean that real unattractive paranoia. Like she thought I was going to call CPS and have her declared an unfit mother. Meanwhile, the hemispheres of my brain have switched places and I barely remember my kids’ names. Parenthood ceased being a concept. It was like being an amoeba.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “That was a night and a half.”

  “Better than banging the manny?”

  Will laughed. “You just love asking me that, don’t you?”

  They were in the parking lot of the Imperial Theater. The curtain was down, the house lights off, doors locked. The last techie had gone home. They ought to have been home for dinner. And they’d meant to. But somehow a fifteen minute conversation tripped and fell down into an hour.

  Erik hesitated then pushed a little. “Did you bang him?”

  Will gave a last chuckle. “No,” he said. “But I had fun thinking about it.”

  They were quiet. A breeze blew by, clearing the slate.

  “When was the last time you were with a guy?” Erik asked.

  Will’s eyebrows went up. “When I was in Germany. Why?”

  Erik shrugged. “You still want to?”

  “You mean am I still attracted to men? Sure. But I’m married now. I don’t fuck around with either gender.”

  “I just wondered if the itch was there. I wasn’t implying you scratched it.”

  “Well then, yes,” Will said. “I do still think about it. I’m still attracted to it and, on occasion, I outright want it. Wanting isn’t having.”

  “I can’t help but be curious why,” Erik said.

  “Why what?”

  “Why you like men. Although I know asking you makes about as much sense as you asking me why I like women. I don’t have an explanation for it. It just is.”

  “It’s hard to articulate,” Will said. “Women are… They’re soft.”

  “They’re pretty.”

  “Pretty’s relative, though. Look at the company roster, you’ll see eighteen boys anyone would describe as pretty. Pretty is just what you’re hardwired to see as attractive.”

  “But we are talking attraction. I can comfortably say a guy is good looking. It doesn’t suck to look at you. And take that new superstar of yours, Andre. He is one handsome dude.”

  “That he is.”

  “So why does it end there for me and not for you? He’s not pretty. And he’s not soft, either.”

  “I think that’s exactly why it doesn’t end for me. Something in me is attracted to familiarity as well as to opposition.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “When I love a woman, I love what’s opposite of me. With a man…it’s what’s the same. Kind of like, I love in him what I love in me.” He shook his head abruptly. “I don’t mean love like love. I mean… It’s hard to explain.”

  “No, I get it.”

  Will chuckled. “Do you? Or are you just sweet-talking me?”

  “I’m sweet-talking you. I have no idea what the fuck you mean.”

  Will ran his hands through his hair. “I wish I had a cigarette. What the hell is up with that? Will a day ever come when I don’t think about smoking? It’s been three years. I’m not going to start again. But every damn day, I swear to God. I think about it.”

  Erik yawned, rubbing his tired eyes. He should go home. But he didn’t feel like it. Silence had passed between their cars, between their identically-posed bodies: arms crossed, the sole of one foot against a tire. Between his thumb and forefinger, Will was worrying his bottom lip. His expression far off.

  Erik looked at him.

  He’d never grown his hair back. It stayed short, threaded with silver over his ears now. They and the faint lines around his eyes and mouth were the only things that betrayed his age. He was still fit and built with ramrod straight posture. Dark-eyed, proud and handsome. Larger than life with his physical affection and irreverent humor. Brutally honest yet tender-hearted and protective of the ones he loved.

  “You keep staring at me like that and we’ll have to tak
e it inside,” Will said.

  Erik’s face was warm around his smile. “What happened in Germany?”

  Will blew his breath out, looking up at the skies. “Long version or short version?”

  “Short.”

  “Short version. I lost my shit and went into therapy. And in therapy I finally admitted I’d been in love with you in college. James was simply a means to…divert it elsewhere.”

  Erik said nothing. Did nothing. Didn’t blink, didn’t swallow. His pulse neither quickened nor slowed. He went so still, he felt part of the machinery of his car. Cast in steel and polished to a gloss. He went on breathing, knowing it would take more than he was in love with me to crumple and bend him.

  “What’s the long version,” he finally said.

  Will was staring off again at nothing, but a corner of his mouth went up. “I missed you,” he said. “And this time I diverted it with a guy who looked like you. A guy who seriously fucked with my head and left me a crying mess on the floor. Left me wandering around Frankfurt at two in the morning, looking up at his windows like I was James. It had all come full circle. The past was catching up with me, my debts were coming due and I was getting what I deserved because…”

  “Because?”

  “Because the shooting was my fault. I brought it all down. Just like you said.”

  “Dude, I feel terrible ab—“

  Will put his maimed palm up. “My breakdown, my rules.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Besides, it wasn’t anything I hadn’t already accused myself of. A thousand times. Ten thousand times. Every day. To this day. James is like a cigarette. He floats in and out of my thoughts. Sometimes he passes through. Sometimes he sticks around for lunch. I find if I just let him come in and touch things, he leaves a whole lot quicker.”

  “I can’t fathom you feeling nothing for him at the time,” Erik said. “I know you: you don’t do anything unless it feels good. He was more than just a diversion.”

  “No, you’re right. An attraction was there. On a lot of levels. I know it came across as me having the upper hand in the situation and to a degree, I did. But when it was the two of us alone, behind closed doors, in the dark? There he had one hell of a secret weapon.”

  “Which was?”

  Eyebrows wrinkled, Will looked over at him. “You,” he said, as if it were obvious. “He knew how I felt about you. Knew I had to keep it a secret so it was fun for him to bust my balls and come close to outing me. Drove me nuts. On the other hand, I hate secrets. It was a relief somebody knew.”

  “But—”

  Will’s hand went up again. His smile was brave, but weak. “Dude, I’ve told as much as I can tonight. Rain check on the rest?”

  Erik nodded and let it go. They went quiet and he tried to arrange all the pieces. Fit them together so a picture began to emerge. Will loved someone. Circumstances arose where he could feel that love with a little more freedom. He found a proxy to pretend with. The proxy caught onto him and used love as a weapon to get more of what he needed. Will got sucked into a vortex of pain and pleasure.

  And then it all went down in gunfire.

  “I’m sorry,” Erik said.

  “You didn’t do anything.”

  “But I’m sorry. Sorry it happened to you. The burden of it must’ve been fucking horrid.”

  Will shrugged. “I had a good shrink. He helped me put it down.”

  “Still,” Erik said. “I feel terrible for how I abandoned you. I feel like shit for diverting all my pain onto you and letting you be a convenient villain. I hate what I did. I hate the time I threw away. I wasn’t your phone call when you were tanking in Germany. I didn’t hold a candle at the memorial in Lancaster. I wasn’t here when you got married. I never got to see you and Dais dance together in your prime. I missed her career. I missed all those ballets. All that creative collaboration. I missed it. Those are my cigarettes.”

  “Put it down,” Will said. “You’re here now. The past will just give you cancer.”

  Erik smiled. Closed his eyes and tried to let the jumble of thoughts and feelings in his head fall into their natural resting places. He felt at peace. Yet oddly wistful. With a nagging reluctance to leave. Something felt unfinished. Unsaid.

  “I still trust you,” he said.

  Will rolled his lips in, nodding. “I tell you anything. It’s so easy. In my weird head, out my big mouth. And rarely do I worry you’ll misunderstand me. I could always be myself with you. It’s not a thing to be dismissed.” He glanced up. “You know?”

  “I know,” Erik said. And they looked at each other.

  As an acceptable amount of eye contact came and went, Erik felt the air shimmer and tighten. Just as it did when he stared at Daisy.

  The night pulled away.

  He felt his chest turn out.

  Everything in creation seemed to look back over its shoulder at them.

  “What?” Will’s mouth formed the word with barely a sound.

  Erik shook his head a little. “Nothing,” he said, equally noiseless.

  Creation took a step in. Interested.

  “I haven’t been in the game a while,” Will said slowly. “But I think we may be having a moment.” The words were joking, but his voice was laced with a vulnerable heaviness. And his eyes didn’t move from Erik’s.

  They stared. The weighted history of their years sat on its heels, motionless.

  Erik’s phone chimed from his pocket. Blinking hard, he took it out, knowing it was Dais.

  Can you come home? I’m not feeling good.

  What’s wrong? he typed. “I need to go,” he said to Will.

  I just feel like I want you to come home. Indulge the mommy-to-be.

  “Everything all right?” Will said.

  He put the phone away. “She wants me.”

  “Don’t we all?” Will pushed off the side of the car and raised a hand. “Always a pleasure, Fish.”

  “Hey,” Erik said. “Look, I… I mean…”

  Will laughed. “I love you more than can be discussed in a civilized manner,” he said, opening the driver’s side door. “Now get out of here. And no texting me later asking me if I’m all right. None of that shit. We had a moment, that’s all.”

  He drove out of the parking lot, a single toot of the horn in his wake. Erik put his forehead on the steering wheel and took a few shaking breaths before he started the engine and drove home.

  “WHAT HAPPENED?” DAISY SAID, before he’d even put his keys down.

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re shaking.”

  “He told me about Germany. I’m a little…upset. That’s all. Are you all right?”

  “I’m so tired,” she said. “I haven’t felt like myself all day. Either I’m anxious or I’m coming down with something.”

  He ran his hand over the hard curve of her belly. “I feel a little unsteady myself. Maybe you’re picking up on my shit.”

  She smiled and went into his arms. “Don’t know where I stop and you begin.”

  He took her face in his hands and kissed her. “I’ll make dinner. Go lie down a bit.”

  He threw together some pasta, keeping a portion plain for her. Now in her eighth month, it seemed anything rich or spicy gave her heartburn. Wiping his hands on a dishtowel, he went out to the living room where she was asleep on the couch. She looked so thoroughly out, he decided to let her sleep. She could eat later. But as he went to cover her with a blanket, he felt the heat radiating off her.

  “Dais?” he said, reaching a hand to her face. It was flushed and she was hot. “Dais.” He crouched down, gently shaking her shoulder.

  “Wha…”

  “Honey, you’re so hot. Are you running a fever?”

  She picked up her head, put a hand to her cheek. “Am I? Oh. I am hot.”

  “You feel all right?”

  “I just feel so tired.”

  “Go upstairs,” he said. “Get in bed and I’ll call the doctor.”

 
“It’s probably nothing.”

  “Indulge the daddy-to-be,” he said, kissing her flushed face.

  The on-call nurse didn’t seem over-concerned. He asked if Daisy was experiencing any bleeding or contractions. She wasn’t, just the 102 temperature and the extreme fatigue.

  “Is the baby moving?” the nurse asked.

  Erik relayed the question.

  “He’s not moving now,” Daisy said, her hand going to her belly. “But he was kicking me all day. Even when I was driving home, a couple hours ago.”

  “Then take two Tylenol and go to bed,” the nurse said. “Rest. Plenty of fluids. Likely it’s just a cold or virus, but if the fever persists into tomorrow, come in. Any bleeding, any cramps or contractions, go directly to urgent care.”

  Erik ate alone at the kitchen counter. He cleaned up then went upstairs. His mood was still anxious and he bit half a Klonopin into a sloppy quarter and swallowed it. Just to take the edge off. Or give him a placebo effect.

  No sooner had the bitter taste left the back of his throat when his phone pinged. It was Will.

  You OK?

  Erik gave an eye-rolling grin. I thought we agreed not to do this?

  You agreed, not me. And you’re answering, aren’t you?

  Fuck you.

  Didn’t see THAT coming, didya?

  Erik chuckled in his chest. Get out of here.

  Don’t fucking call me.

  Erik set the phone back on the bedside table. “My life is so weird sometimes,” he said.

  Daisy made a noise in her throat.

  He stacked the pillows against the headboard and opened his book. Daisy rolled and curled against his legs.

  “You all right?” he said, stroking her hair.

  She made a small sigh but said nothing. He laid his hand on her cheek. It was warm, but not as viciously hot as before.

  He read. Time dripped by, measured in pages. The knot in his chest and stomach loosened. His eyes began to feel a little heavy.

  “I don’t feel right,” Daisy said, startling him. She sat up, pressing the backs of her hands into her eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” Erik said.

  “I have to pee.” She got up, tired and clumsy. She stretched, pressed her hands into her back. She walked three steps and then let out a gasp, then a cry, and lurched into the dresser, clutching its edge.