Dirty Seal

by Harper James

  “Are you alright?” I ask.

  “I’m fine— just having a little anxiety attack,” she says, voice faint.

  “Oh— wow. Come on, sit down,” I say, ushering her toward the couch. “Did closing the blinds cause it?”

  “No, I don’t want to sit,” she says, shaking her head almost frantically. She brushes my hand off her and gives me a firm look. “I’ll be alright. I think I ought to go to bed, actually.”

  I stop, tilt my head. “It’s barely seven o’clock.”

  “I know, but I think all the outdoor work today was just too much for me. I’ll call you tomorrow first thing, honey.”

  “You want me to go?” I ask. She never wants me to leave when she’s having an attack. If anything, she wants me to sit with her in the locked bathroom until the feelings fade or the imagined danger is gone.

  “I just think I need to get some sleep,” she says, and then she meets my eyes. It isn’t until her eyes are on mine that I realize just how hard she was trying to avoid looking directly at me. She quickly looks away, and I wonder— and then I know— that something is very wrong.

  This isn’t anxiety. This is fear.

  “Okay,” I say slowly. “You want me to leave.”

  “Yes,” she answers.

  My mom is giving me an intense stare, and I can tell she’s trying to communicate something about whatever it is that’s going on— but hell if I know what.

  “Okay— I’m heading out. See you tomorrow! Feel better,” I say, and hug my mom tightly. Then I walk to the front door.

  The second I get outside I plan to call 911 and make sure the police are on their way. But just as I reach to turn the doorknob, someone speaks.

  “Don’t fucking move another inch,” someone says flatly from the top of the stairs.

  The black barrel of a handgun appears, held in a shaking hand. A manicured hand. Red nails, ringed fingers, the long sleeve of a blouse. The intruder takes a step and comes into full view. I never expected it, but in retrospect, I probably should have. I probably underestimated her.

  I close my eyes to force a deep, long breath, then speak. “Hi, Aunt Lisa. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  Chapter 28

  My aunt has a wild and unhinged look in her eyes, and a rushing, vibrating energy is radiating off her, like she’s had too much of some dark caffeine alternative. My mother’s eyes are resigned, defeated, like she knew this moment was coming— even though I know she’s got to be every bit as shocked as I am that it’s Aunt Lisa behind it rather than some prison thug.

  “You should have left,” my mom says in a small voice.

  “Yes,” Lisa says, nodding. “You didn’t have to be involved in this, Karli. I know you were only saying what she made you say.” She glowers at my mother on the word “she”, like mom is a comic book villain rather than a tiny middle-aged woman. “Sit down,” Lisa orders the both of us.

  I grab for my mom’s hand and we walk to the couch, where we sit beside one another, hands clasped, staring at the gun and the woman on the other end of it. I think about her website, the Facebook page full of people who support my father. I’d always written her off before as a sort of sad, pathetic type of woman— one who would rather believe a lie about her brother than face the truth. Lisa is anything but pathetic right now though, gun in her hand, rage in her eyes. I can tell by the way her eyes dart around the room that she doesn’t have a clear plan, but that only makes her more frightening.

  “Lisa, why don’t you put the gun down and we can talk?” my mom says, and I’m shocked to hear how calm her voice is given that her literal worst nightmare is happening.

  “Oh, we’re going to talk,” Lisa spits at us, brandishing the gun. “We’re going to talk alright. We’re going to talk about how after all the work my brother has done, after everything Chad has been through, you two just had to have the last word. You went and told a mountain of lies and turned a good man into a monster. You locked him up for another seven years!”

  “We just told our story,” I try, and my voice is as wild as Lisa’s— though with fear rather than rage, of course.

  “You told lies!” Lisa shouts, and I flinch and draw back, pulling my mom closer to me, like I might be able to protect her from the bullet that at this point feels inevitable. “I waited years for that day, and it was just over. Like what you two have to say is just so much more important than what he has to say, what I had to say, what his nieces and nephews had to say. Why are you two so special? He should be out! He should be with his family— the family that loves him, not the family that stole his life from him!”

  I close my eyes. I want to defend myself and my mother— to tell Lisa about the abuse, about the cruelty, about the things I saw my mother fall for at my father’s hands. About how strong she had to be to walk away from him after he’d spent a decade convincing her that she was worthless. I know, though, that there is no convincing her. We’re the monsters in her book, just as she’s the monster in mine.

  So what are we supposed to do?

  “I’m so sorry, Lisa,” my mother says in a small voice. “I know you love your brother. I wish things were different, too.”

  I open my eyes and look at her, amazed at how she’s easing through this, at the fact that she feels strong next to me for the first time in…god, how long has it been? When was the last time that she comforted me rather than vice-versa?

  “You should be sorry,” Lisa says, her tone changing a little. She sounds smug now, pleased almost. The gun is still pointed straight at us, though, so the change is hardly comforting.

  My mom nods and goes on, tilting her head up a little. “Do you want to have a glass of wine and talk about this mess?”

  My eyes widen. Is she serious, right now? I mean hell, if ever there was a time for a glass of wine, this is definitely it, and yet it’s basically the most inappropriate suggestion I’ve ever heard. Mom doesn’t look at me, though— her eyes stay locked on Lisa.

  Lisa doesn’t look surprised, exactly, but almost…gracious? It’s like her mind is at war. Half wants to continue shouting, brandishing the gun, being furious, but the other half wants to sit down and have a fun little catch up with her sister-in-law and niece. Her eyes dart away from us, toward the kitchen, where she must guess the wine is stored.

  “I— no! I want you to explain why you hate my brother so much!” she says, but her voice is different, more confused than angry. The rage is fading, now, and she’s having trouble spinning it back up. The gun is still on us, though—

  I hear a small noise upstairs.

  So does my mother. It’s the sort of sound that you probably wouldn’t think anything of, if you didn’t know the house well— but I know it well enough to be certain that it’s not the normal evening settling of the building. Is it one of my cousins upstairs? A friend of Lisa’s? I have no idea, and a quick glance at my mother tells me that she doesn’t know either.

  My mom takes a breath, deep and slow. “I’ve got a really lovely red I’ve been wanting to share with someone. Let’s open it together, you and me.”

  Lisa stares at my mom, and I actually think for a moment that she might cry. She looked broken, beaten, and if she weren’t holding a gun I might even feel sorry for her. A brother in jail for a crime that, rightly or wrongly, she truly thinks he didn’t commit. Family she thinks hates him for no good reason. She clenches her teeth together.

  “You’ve made the whole world think Chad is a monster,” she says, shaking her head. “You did this to him. You did this to all of us.”

  “Lisa—“

  My aunt aims the gun.

  She fires.

  Chapter 29

  The gunshot is so loud that it fills the room as fully and powerfully as thick smoke, ringing my ears, rattling my bones, shattering my lungs. I scream, or perhaps it’s my Mom screaming— I can’t be sure. My vision is dark or red or blinding and my ears are full of a bright, awful sound that’s eating at my mind. My mother grasps me t
ightly and I slowly blink away the black or red or blinding white light to see her. I scan her body and realize she’s doing the same to me, but of us certain that the other has been hit, looking for a wound to cover—

  No, no, she’s fine. She’s fine, I’m fine, the bullet missed us. I look up at Lisa, who is now shaking even harder, and see that she’s trying to actually aim this time—

  And then there’s someone behind her.

  No— then there’s Heath behind her.

  He’s on the stairs, and he moves fast and fluid, like a wild predator— a cougar, perhaps, or a panther. It’s all so seamless that it almost looks easy. Lisa’s finger is on the trigger, but then his arm has wrapped around hers, snaking under and over her elbow, pulling her arm down, wresting the gun from her before she even realizes what’s happening. He spins her around almost like they’re dancing and then just like that, her arms are behind her and she’s being pushed down to the floor, screaming, angry—

  “Don’t,” Heath says sternly when Lisa tries to fight back. He opens then gun’s chamber and bullets fall to the floor, noise like wind chimes, then he drops it behind him and takes both of her wrists in his hands. I’m so in shock that I barely hear Heath when he says, “The police are on their way, Karli.”

  “Heath?” I say weakly, blinking, wondering for a moment if perhaps the bullet did hit me and I’m hallucinating from blood loss. I look at my mom and see she’s in just as much shock as I am, staring at Heath and breathing heavily— “Are you alright? Mom, are you alright?” I ask frantically.

  “Yes,” she says, and begins to shake. She looks back to me, then grabs my shoulders and pulls me tight to her. “Oh, Karli, oh my god, I was so scared.”

  “You were amazing, Mom. You did such a good job. I was so scared too,” I say, and I’m crying and so is she from relief and horror and more emotions than I knew my body was capable of experiencing at once. We stay like this as the police arrive, as they pull Lisa away, as Heath talks to them in low, hushed voices. They split us to take statements, the neighbors come by to see what the fuss is about, the sound of sirens and flash of lights becomes headache and awful—

  And then, Heath and I are alone.

  We don’t mean to be— it’s just that my mother is outside with the cops, and Heath and I have been left alone in the living room together. I turn to him, painfully aware of how red and tear-streaked my face is.

  “What just happened?” I ask quietly, shaking my head.

  “When I set up the security system I put my number in as one of the alerts,” Heath says slowly. “Just in case. I got an alert that the upstairs window was opened so I came over. I thought maybe your mom was just opening it, finally— my dad said she was doing better—“

  “Wait, what?” I ask, shaking my head. “Vic said that? How would Vic know?”

  Heath swallows and leans against the wall. It isn’t until he meets my eyes that I fully accept the fact that it’s him. He’s here, looking at me. He’s back from wherever the hell he was and he’s in my mother’s house. I feel crushed with relief, overwhelmed by his blue eyes, and I sit— or maybe fall— onto the coffee table, suddenly weak-kneed by the whole thing.

  Heath breaths out in a drawn, steadying way, then says, “I asked Vic to keep an eye on the house while I was gone. He said he saw you and your mother and that pothead kid out a lot more often. It sounds like she’s doing great, Karli.”

  “She is,” I say shakily.

  “I got the alert the window was opened and decided to come down to see things myself. I saw the woman— your aunt— with the gun through the back window, and so I came in the same way she did.”

  “You saved us,” I say.

  “Your mom was doing pretty damn well on her own,” Heath says, smiling lightly.

  We fall silent for a few beats.

  “Vic said he saw you today. That you asked about me,” he says quietly.

  “I didn’t know you were back,” I say. My voice is small and sounds almost broken, though perhaps that’s just in comparison to the continued shriek of sirens and gossip outside the house.

  “I didn’t think you’d want to see me,” Heath says lowly. “I figured it was best I stay away for a while.”

  “I was mad, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t want to see you,” I say, shaking my head. “I still…I worried about you so much. Your dad said you were hurt?”

  Heath nods, then rolls up the sleeve of his shirt. I gasp when I see his arm— it’s a map of scars, of stitches, of staples. It looks like he was torn to shreds and put back together again. One particular section is red and angry, bleeding more than a little, and I realize that this was the arm he used to disarm Lisa. It must have been incredibly painful, pulling at her like that, yet I never saw the pain on his face during the altercation.

  “That looks awful,” I say weakly.

  “It’s part of the job,” he says, though his voice is hard— hard enough that I know the injury is awful. “There’s nerve damage. Tendon damage. It got me good.”

  “Are you going to be okay, though? When it’s all healed?”

  Heath presses his lips together and rolls his sleeve back down before looking up at me, then says. “I thought about you when I came to in the hospital. I don’t remember anything about the IED that got me— I was just in the field, then was in a hospital. It felt like time travel. But when I realized what happened, you were the first thing I thought of. How if I’d been a few inches to the left, it would’ve gotten me in the chest, and I’d be gone. I’d be gone, and the last time we had together would’ve been spent fighting over me getting drunk to party with my dad’s friends.”

  “Oh,” I say, because what else am I supposed to say? My eyes are filling with tears, though I’m not certain their source— relief or sorrow or melancholy or happiness to know that I was on Heath’s mind at a time like that. I notice that he didn’t say, though, if he was going to be okay when the injury heals, so I ask again, “Is it permanent, though? The damage?”

  “It’s hard to know just yet,” Heath says. “But that’s not what’s important to me. You are.”

  I shake my head. “But you didn’t even tell me you were back. Why didn’t you call? Or text, or…something? Even if you thought I didn’t want to see you, you could have at least told me you were alive.”

  Heath looks down, an action that is so unusual for him that it almost startles me. “I was ashamed of the way I acted, Karli. I wanted to get things together first, to prove I deserved you. Get my father to stop drinking, get myself healed up, get my own place. I figured that if I waited until I was the best man I could be, then my chances of you taking me back were better.”

  I almost laugh, though through my tears the sound comes out broken and more sob-like than anything else. Heath takes a step forward, extending his uninjured arm toward me. I lift my hand to his, and he pulls me to standing, then entwines his fingers with mine.

  “So, was I worried for good reason? Will you take me back?” he asks quietly.

  “That’s a hell of a question to ask right after you saved my life,” I say, still laugh-crying, still so overwhelmed that it feels like my body might collapse with the weight of my emotions.

  “My timing is impeccable,” he says, smiling down at me.

  I bite my lip and look up at him, trying not to be entirely dazzled by his blue eyes— and failing. I still manage to say, “On one condition. You have to tell me the truth about something.”

  “Anything,” he answers.

  I inhale. “Was there or was there not a dog?”

  Heath laughs, loud and bold and core-shaking in the best way, then leans down and kisses me deeply. He pulls back a little, just enough to say, “There really was a dog.”

  “Promise?” I ask.

  “Promise.”

  Epilogue

  This one is better,” I say, sampling the dish carefully.

  “Really?”

  “I mean, they still all taste like…you know. Goulash,�
� I say.

  “Worst,” Heath says, making a face at me— but then he kisses me on the top of the head and sweeps back toward the kitchen. He’s been trying to learn how to cook, but given his lifetime of military rations and microwave Hungry Man meals, it’s been slow going. Everything tastes the same— like a cabinet of spices thrown on potatoes, no matter what the actual ingredients are.

  “I think it’s improving, though!” I call toward my kitchen. Well, no— our kitchen. Heath moved in several months ago, and it’s still bizarre seeing him here. He takes up so much space in the apartment, but rather than making the place feel overcrowded, it’s like he’s moved into open spots I didn’t realize felt so vacant before.

  “I know you’re lying,” he calls back, then reappears a moment later, chucking a kitchen towel to the side as he does so. “You know better than to lie to me, Karli,” he says, his voice turning smoky and threatening, though the smile on his face betrays his actual feelings.

  “I would never,” I protest in my most innocent voice.

  “Sure,” Heath says, and takes my hand. He pulls me from the kitchen chair and sweeps me into his arms. I squeal as he then spins me up and over his shoulder like a little kid. He spanks me lightly, playfully, until I kick my legs in protest. “Apologize,” he says.

  “I’m so sorry for lying. I’m a terrible person, and your cooking is phenomenal,” I say from behind his back. He spanks me again, and my laugh of protest becomes a sigh of pleasure. I love it when he does this.

  “Lying again,” he says, tsk-ing, and he spanks me again, and again, until I’m finally straight up moaning at the sensation. I never thought this was the sort of thing I’d be in to, but then, Heath isn’t the sort of guy I’d ever have expected to be in to. He finally plants his hand on my ass check and squeezes lightly.