by Jamie Canosa
“What the hell do you want?” Dammit, her words slurred.
“Mom? What’s going on? What are you doing?”
“What does it look like, stupid?” A blow to the chest would have been less effective at winding me than her words.
“I suggest you get the hell out.” Michael didn’t even bother lifting his lips from her throat to speak to me. “Unless you wanna stick around for the show.”
Oh. Oh, hell no. Backpedaling so fast I nearly tripped over my own feet, I pulled the door shut behind me and found myself standing shell-shocked in the hallway.
“Jade? Jade! Talk to me, dammit!” Oh . . . right . . . Caulder.
“Hello?” My voice sounded weird even to me.
“What happened? What’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
“Something. Talk to me. What’s going on?”
I was not about to tell him I’d just walked in on my parents having . . . bleh!
“Tell me or I’m coming over there to find out.”
Um, no. No, he was not.
“Nothing. I just . . . I can’t go home right now.”
“Why the hell not?”
“My mom and Michael—that’s my dad—they’re . . . busy.”
“He’s still there? I thought you said he left?”
“I thought he did.” Finally allowing some of the shock to wear off, I made my way back to the stairs and down enough flights that I could no longer hear the skin crawling noises from above before sitting.
“What do you mean they’re busy? What could they be doing that you can’t . . . Ohhhh. Ew.” The mild humor in his voice made my anger flare.
“Yes, ew. Quadruple ew, Cal!”
He unsuccessfully choked back a laugh and I frowned knowing he wouldn’t be laughing if I told him the rest. But I couldn’t. I’d laid my problems on the Parks before and they’d gotten me this far. I could take it from there. This was only a minor setback, and it wasn’t the first. We’d handled them in the past and we could handle it now. I just needed to give Mom the chance to realize what she’d done. She’d apologize, get her act together, and go to a meeting. And everything would be fine.
“Where are you?”
“What?” I’d almost forgotten Caulder was still on the line.
“Where are you right now?”
I glanced around at my oh-so-homey surroundings. “On the stairs.”
“In your building?”
Where else would I be? “Yeah.”
“Stay put, I’m on my way.”
“Cal, you don’t have to—” The dead air signaling he’d ended the call sufficiently silenced me.
The thin carpeting did little to cushion my seat and my butt began to ache after only a few minutes, so I dragged myself the rest of the way downstairs to meet Caulder when he arrived. He was coming up the walk when I stepped outside.
“You alright?” His gaze drifted over me as though he expected to find some kind of damage. The only damage done wasn’t the kind he could see, though. The kind that might require some serious therapy. And possibly a complete mind wipe.
“I’m fine. You didn’t need to—”
“Yeah, I did. Come on.” Taking my arm, he started to lead me back to where he’d parked.
“Where are we going?”
“Dinner.” He pulled open the passenger side door and helped me in. “You need to kill a couple hours and it’s getting late. I’m hungry. How do you like seafood?”
Food was food, and I pretty much ate what I could get. My stomach rumbled loudly at the thought of anything filling it, and Caulder shot me a look that dared me to argue. I wasn’t that dumb. “Sure.”
We’d been driving for ten minutes, listening to the sounds of Aerosmith and The Eagles coming through the speakers when Caulder leaned over to shut off the radio.
“When is he leaving?”
I’d been wondering the same thing myself. I doubted he’d like the conclusion I’d come to any better than I did. “I’m not sure that he is.”
“Angel . . .” Caulder rolled to a stop and glanced my way. “I’ve never met the man, but I’m getting the distinct impression this is a step in the wrong direction.”
“I know that. But what am I supposed to do about it?” As nice as the idea sending Michael packing sounded, it’s not like I could really kick him out. I was outnumbered. And, let’s face it; I’d never been able to stand up to my mother in my life. That much hadn’t changed.
The light turned green and Caulder scowled at it before hitting the gas. I knew what he wanted to say and was relieved when he opted to keep his mouth shut instead. He wanted me to let him fight this battle for me, the way I had in the past. But I was stronger now. Strong enough to know I couldn’t keep relying on others. Strong enough to know I needed to stand up for myself. And yet, not strong enough to actually go through with it. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place, doing my best not to get flattened.
***
The restaurant was nice. Just to the casual side of fancy with decorative fountains scattered throughout and bright, colorful artwork depicting all different types of sea life that managed to look elegant rather than something a toddler would do with a crayon. Whoever the artist was, they were obviously talented.
Dragging my attention away, I concentrated on the menu in front of me. For a seafood only restaurant, they sure had a lot of choices. Most people would look for something that sounded tasty. I scanned the options for what sounded like it might be the most filling, as well as cheap. Most of my puny salary went toward bills and groceries to make up for the cut to Mom’s unemployment when I turned eighteen. I didn’t have much in the way of spending money.
“You’ve had a rough day.” Caulder was watching me over the top of his menu. “Get whatever you want. It’s on me.”
“You don’t—”
“Don’t make me argue with you in front of all these people, Angel.” He huffed a sigh and went back to reading his own menu.
To be honest, when he’d insisted on taking me to dinner I’d kind of guessed he’d be paying. I hadn’t expected him to, just knowing him, I’d guessed. Now that he’d made it perfectly clear, however, I felt even more restricted by the prices, not less. The entrées all seemed absurdly expensive. Too much to ask for. I was considering ordering from the appetizer selection—there was a shrimp and artichoke dip that sounded good—when Caulder reached across the table and plucked the menu from my hands.
“You like shrimp and scallops?”
“Um . . .” I’d only had them once, but from what I remembered they were delicious. “Yeah.”
“Good.” He waved our waitress over and handed her the menus before I had a chance to make a decision. “I’d like the fried calamari, and she’ll have the shrimp and scallops in the angel hair pasta.”
“What kind of sauce would you like on that?” It took me a moment to realize she was talking to me.
“Oh. Um . . . butter sauce?”
“Sure thing. I’ll put that right in for you.” She backed away from the table and I blinked at Caulder.
“Why did you order for me?”
He shrugged, not looking the least bit apologetic. “Because you weren’t going to do it for yourself.”
“I would have—”
“Tell me you weren’t planning to order the cheapest thing on the menu.”
“Um . . .”
“That’s what I thought. If you don’t like what I ordered, I’ll call her back here and you can pick something else, but it has to be a full meal.” He gave me a moment to think that over. “Should I call her?”
“No. The pasta sounds good.” Amazing, in fact. I couldn’t wait for the food to arrive.
And when it did, I was not disappointed.
***
“You think he’s still up there?” Two hours later we were sitting in the parking lot, staring up at the darkened window to my apartment. Not that that meant anything. Mom usually preferred the lights off when she was drunk
. Said they hurt her eyes. I really wished I had x-ray vision to just peek through the wall and make sure it was all clear. The last thing I wanted was another reason to take a Brillo pad to my brain. “Angel?”
“Probably.”
“You could just tell him to leave, you know.”
“He’s a guest in my mother’s home. And from what I can tell, she wants him there.”
“It’s your home, too.”
“Yeah, but—”
“No buts. You work your ass off to cover half that rent. You have every bit as much say over who stays there as she does.”
I shot Caulder a look that I hoped reminded him who he was talking to—the world’s most non-confrontational human being. I was more likely to allow someone to set me on fire than to argue against it.
When he slumped back in the driver’s seat, I was pretty sure he’d remembered. “I just worry about you.”
“I know.” I did know. I’d always known. And it felt nice. “Thanks. And thank you for dinner.”
“Thank you for coming. It was good to have someone to talk to. It’s been a little . . . lonely around the house.”
The realization of what an awful friend I’d been hit me like a kick to the gut. He’d called me dozens of times over the past several months. How many times had I called to see how he was doing? A big fat zero, just like me.
“I’m so sorry, Cal. I should have asked sooner. How are you doing?” He started to answer, but I cut him off. “I mean really doing?”
Caulder shrugged, diverting his attention once again through the windshield. A long moment passed before he spoke. “Okay, I guess. One day at a time, ya know?”
Did I ever. “I know.”
“It’s just been . . . different. Quiet. Mom’s been working a lot. I think it helps her to keep busy. I have school, but . . .”
“How’s that going?”
His eyes flicked to me and the hurt swirling in their depths said everything his words hadn’t. He was in pain. A lot of it.
“Caulder . . .” Sometimes words couldn’t do emotions justice.
Angling myself between him and the steering column, I wrapped my arms around his body and held him tight. I wanted to say or do whatever it took to wipe that pain away, but there was nothing I could do. Nothing anyone could do to make the hurting stop—I knew that better than most—so I just held on.
He stiffened for a moment and then slowly his arms came around me. No more words were exchanged. We simply held each other. I knew what his embrace meant, that he was there for me, that I wasn’t alone. I only hoped he knew that mine meant the same.
Three
“Can I ask you for a favor?”
I balanced the phone on my shoulder, rooting through the cabinets for the box of granola bars I knew I’d put in there somewhere.
“What kind of favor?” I had to ask. The last favor I’d done for someone hadn’t been particularly well thought-out. Not that I expected Caulder’s favor to be anything like something DJ would ask of me.
“You have a car, right?”
That got my attention. “Yeah.”
“Could I bug you for a ride?”
He wanted a ride? From me? “What happened to your car?”
“Mom took hers in for an oil change and then she got called into work. She took mine to the hospital.”
“Oh.” I half-consciously noticed the box I was hunting for and slid it out of the cabinet, dropping it absently to the counter. “I’m afraid my vehicle won’t live up to your standards.”
“Does it have four wheels?”
“Yeeeees.”
“Functioning engine?”
Most of the time. “Yes.”
“Brakes?”
Popping the top, I poked through the variety pack for one of the chocolate chip kinds I liked best. “Of course, but—”
“Then it meets my standards. Can you pick me up around noon?”
Caulder Parks was asking me for a favor. “I’ll be there.”
What else could I say?
***
The car bumped and bounced without the aid of shocks down the gravel drive, and I squeezed the steering wheel tighter, hoping the wire rigamajig holding up the muffler could withstand all of the jostling. My ’97 Plymouth Crapmobile may not have been the greatest thing on four wheels, but she tried her best.
Even when she continually fell short. I could relate.
Getting out of the car and ringing the doorbell would have been the polite thing to do, but getting her to start again was a crapshoot, so I opted to stay behind the wheel and blow the horn instead.
Cal must have been waiting for me, because within a minute, he was sliding into my passenger seat. “Hey, Angel.”
“Hi.”
“Hanging in there?”
I shook my head and smiled at the steering wheel. “Hanging.”
“So, how did it go? Last night. After I left.” He really didn’t waste any time.
“It was . . .” Debating my options, I went with the simplest answer. “Quiet.” Leaving out the reason for that being that they were both passed out in the living room, care of two empty bottles of tequila.
At some point after I fell asleep, they must have relocated down the hall to my mother’s room because I heard snoring coming from behind her door when I woke. I stuck around as long as possible, but no one emerged by the time I needed to leave to pick up Caulder. Truthfully, I’d been almost too happy when he’d given me a reason to leave the apartment that I couldn’t refuse. I needed to talk to Mom. I knew that. But maybe first thing in the morning, when she was bound to have a hangover, was not the best time.
I could feel Caulder’s gaze on me, digging beneath the bullshit. He knew there was more, he just didn’t know what. I intended to keep it that way.
“So . . . where are we going?” Turning the car around slowly to avoid any unnecessary rattling, I eased it toward the end of the drive.
Abandoning his careful scrutiny of my face, Caulder shifted his gaze out the windshield and started chewing the inside of his cheek. Something I’d noticed he only did when he was nervous or upset.
“The cemetery.”
Shit. I would have gone to the ends of the Earth if he’d asked me to. But the cemetery? I hadn’t been back there since the day we put Kiernan in the ground. I couldn’t. To think of him down there. Trapped. Cold. Dark. Alone. A shudder ran through me that I couldn’t suppress.
Ahead of us, the light turned red and I cursed under my breath. Tapping the brakes, I hoped we’d make it without having to come to a full stop, but with the number of cars backed up in front of us, no luck.
Put . . . put . . . put . . . Nothing.
It wasn’t a surprise. The thing had died on me pretty much every time it had stopped moving for the past two weeks. My car was a lot like me. Neither of us were a fan of the cold.
Caulder’s startled gaze bounced from me, to the hood—like he could see through it to see what was wrong—and back to me again.
“I warned you about having standards.”
“Does it always do this?” He shifted anxiously in his seat to check out the rear window.
“Only when it’s really cold.” I fed her a couple pumps of gas and she started right back up.
“So, only every red light you come to for about the next five months, or so.”
I shot a quick look at Caulder to find him scowling back at me. “Unless it gets better.”
“It’s a car, Jade. It doesn’t have a cold. It’s not going to ‘get better’. You have to have someone fix it.”
“I will.” Someday.
“When?”
“When I can afford it, Cal.”
“If you need mon—”
“No.” I could feel the car starting to sputter and silently threatened to stab it in its gas guzzling heart if it dared to die on me again. “This is my car. It’s my responsibility. I’ll take care of it.”
“And what happens if the guy behind you at one of thes
e stoplights isn’t paying attention? What if all he sees is a green light and hits the gas?”
The car got its act together and started running smoothly, and I breathed a quiet sigh of relief. “I have insurance for that.”
Beside me, Caulder frowned. “It’s not the car I’m worried about, Angel.”
Rolling through the cemetery gates brought an abrupt end to the brewing argument. They were tall, barred with black metal. A formidable barrier. One I wished was shut. Unfortunately, they stood lazily along the sides of the narrow roadway, casting ominous shadows over the hood of my car. A fitting welcome to what I considered the most horrible place on Earth.
The lone granola bar sitting in the pit of my stomach solidified into a solid lump as I followed the curve of the path toward the hill in the back. I’d only been there once, but I had it memorized. Everything about that day was permanently ingrained in my memory.
I parked a few feet behind where the hearse had parked, unable to force myself any closer, and waited. I’d gotten him this far, but I genuinely hoped Caulder wouldn’t ask me to go any farther. There was serious doubt that I could do it. Even for him.
Sweat sprung up along my palms, but I couldn’t pry them away from the steering wheel long enough to wipe them. The car was off, but the key sat in the ignition untouched, my foot hovering over the gas pedal. Every part of me itched to turn and run as far and as fast as I could.
He was there. He was right up that hill, under the large oak, whose leaves were a vast array of beautiful colors. But it wasn’t him. Not really. That cold, dead shell of the boy I loved buried deep beneath the ground. That couldn’t be all that was left of Kiernan Parks.
It hurt. Just thinking about it.
God, it hurt.
I took a deep breathe to ease some of the pain in my chest and found no relief. Keep breathing. All you can do when slammed with an ache so excruciating you can’t think straight is to keep breathing. So I watched the leaves dance and sway in the breeze as I inhaled and exhaled and tried not to feel.
I don’t know how much time passed—minutes? hours? eternities?—before I realized I wasn’t the only one having a hard time. Caulder’s side of the car had fogged up from the desperate breaths he was forcing in and out of his lungs. One hand grasped tightly to the handle on the door, while the other rubbed tight circles over his chest. His gaze had turned distant and pain marred his face.
