by Reiss, CD
She hugs me as I cry. I hold her as tightly as I can, putting my head on her bony shoulder. She understands me. She believes in me. There’s no replacing her in my life.
“All right,” she says when I pull away and wipe my eyes with my wrists. “Let me get to work here.”
“Keep them all,” I say. “Every one of them.”
She picks up a puzzle of the White House. “This is the one that nice man did with me.”
“He’s not so nice.” Correcting her is completely counterproductive. Why shouldn’t she think he’s a nice man? The fact that she’s completely wrong notwithstanding, it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference, except it feels as if she’s stealing from me what I find most attractive about him.
“I’m sure you’re right, not such a nice boy. I was a young woman once. I understand the appeal. But I’ll tell you the same thing I told your mother.”
I move all the puzzles to one place. “What did you tell her?”
“I told her not to get knocked up. Fat lot of good that did.”
I laugh. She loves me. I’m the product of my mother not listening to a word Nana ever said, and I know she’s glad of it. We both are.
Chapter 41
keaton
The trailer stinks of men. Three of us in an enclosed space, the processor tower set inside the shower stall. We’re in the deserts of the Salton Sea in January, home of survivalists, meth cookers, and fugitives. We got lucky when we found Keyser in this little trailer park, but the conditions are terrible. No wireless for miles. Below freezing at night. Fuckhot in the day. Cassie’s a thousand miles and a week away. I’m tired and dirty. We haven’t left this tin can in six days. With Keyser and a handful of cronies in the next trailer over, we don’t risk being seen in the daylight.
“I don’t think we’re close enough,” Hodgekins grumbles, crouched at the base of the four-foot-wide, five-foot-high antenna, twisting two wires together. He’s the antenna guy. Jackson’s managing the satellite connection. I’m the one who knows how tempest emissions work.
I’m not here for my comfort. I’m here for my life and Cassie’s. But my God, we just took the cabinets out to get the antenna closer to the trailer wall.
“We could just put it outside,” I say without looking away from the monitor. Tempest emission decoders pick up delicate signals from machines in range and feed the contents of a neighbor’s screen onto the hacker’s, no matter the encryption or security. They’re always wonky, and this setup is no different.
“Or knock on Keyser’s fucking door and ask him what’s on his screens.” Jackson’s monitoring the satellite connection, which is shite. His voice is muffled past the headphones I’m wearing to catch the aural peaks and valleys of the emissions.
“Fuck you both.” Hodgekins slides out from under the antenna.
“Fine. Tonight you’re my bitch,” Jackson replies.
“Again?” I say. Something’s coming in, so my retort isn’t as sharp as it should be.
The screen sparkles with smears of color. Hodgekins and Jackson look over my shoulder.
“Is he watching…what is that?” Hodgekins asks, referring to the pristine landscape and dancing humanoid monstrosities on the screen. We don’t have sound and the picture is incomplete, but there’s no mistaking the show.
“Teletubbies,” Jackson says. “The antenna’s pointing at the wrong trailer.”
“It’s not.”
“Fix it,” I command.
Hodgekins gets back under the antenna.
With the satellite connected, my phone dings.
It’s Taylor on our secure channel.
grandmother?>
The computer screen flickers, changes with the speed of my mood. Code and panic. C++ and trouble.
“That’s him.” Jackson seems in awe of what we’ve just done. Hack one of the best hackers in the world.
My awe is put to the side when Taylor texts back.
with a broken hip>
“He’s flipping to a forum,” Hodgekins reacts to the change in screen. “Fuck. We’re doing it. He’s laying out the whole plan.”
I’m breathing, but my lungs feel pinched and hollow.
Keyser is laying it out, right on the screen. He thinks I’m in California. He’s got my apartment wired.
Bugger the flowers. Bugger the plan. Bugger the broad daylight. Cassie’s alone. Maybe not exactly alone, but I’m not with her. I haven’t been needed many times in my years, so this feeling that someone I care about is calling me without saying a word is new. It’s fresh, and it’s a physical urge, like hunger or exhaustion calls for food and sleep, this yearning calls for me to go to Cassie.
But if I leave now, we lose Keyser, and he’s still a threat. We may not have an opportunity like this again.
The only choice is to stay and finish the job. My only option is to take the long view. Neutralizing Keyser will ensure Cassie’s safety and give us the possibility of a life together. Going back to Doverton to sit next to her won’t make her grandmother any better any quicker.
I simply can’t go.
She’ll understand.
“Gentlemen,” I say, taking off my headphones, “I’m sorry, but I have to leave.”
“What?” they cry in unison.
“We can’t maintain the connection without you,” Hodgekins complains.
I crack the door. The light hurts my eyes. We all hold our arms in front of our faces like vampires.
“I’m going for the car.” I put on sunglasses. “Give a shout if the bastard leaves his tin can. And if he threatens to come to Barrington, Doverton, or anywhere near there, give a shout.”
I leave them and run in broad daylight for the car. Quite possibly, I’ve traded my singular goal of the past few years for a few hours of comforting and supporting someone in her time of need.
For her, it may be a worthy trade.
Chapter 42
cassie
If something happens to my grandmother—and by “something,” I mean if she dies—who am I?
Who cares about me? Who do I care for? Who do I love?
I understand that these thoughts are selfish. I understand that it’s not about me, my feelings, my needs, or my life. But I need to wonder these things to block out the knowledge that I’m sitting in a hospital waiting room because I wanted to move to California.
If she’d been sitting around watching QVC like she’s supposed to, she wouldn’t be in a hospital bed. She’d be telling me to get married to break the cycle of single motherhood in my family. She’d be worrying about me, hoping for the best, pushing me toward my future while she held onto my past.
I have never felt so alone. The hospital waiting room is empty and decorated like a meal with no salt. It’s so bland, so completely inoffensive that it leaves me no choice but to use my thoughts as weapons against myself.
My friends are working, what little family I have is far away, and if I lose my grandmother, I won’t be uprooted so much as unmoored.
I finger my phone. Frieda is going to come by after work. Unless some new emergency pops up. Then she’ll have to stay to cover for my absence. I appreciate her. She’s a good friend. If I move, I lose her.
I hope Nana isn’t suffering. I hope they give her all the pain medication she wants. I hope I can see her soon. I’ve brought a bunch of puzzles and some junk food that they probably won’t let her eat.
I can’t pay attention to a book. The news is depressing. There are no granola bars left in the vending machine. If Nana dies, is it my fault?
I say things to myself that make me anxious, as if anxiety is a drug that I need extra doses of. Why do I do this to myself? I’m helpless to stop it. Helpless to stop the self-bludgeoning about my responsibility and my loneliness.
I don’t cry. Not until he shows up. When Keaton walks in from the hall w
ith his travel bags and unkempt scruff along his jaw, the water main funneling my emotions cracks. When his eyes land on me and he smiles with those damn dimples, the crack snaps the pipe and I flood.
I don’t know if he rushes toward me, or saunters, or jumps, or runs. All I know is that I’m blind with a sadness that I’m now allowed to express, and a joy I don’t feel any guilt for. I’m in his arms, held tighter by him than by my own skin. He squeezes sadness from me, drop by drop. With sweet words, he gives me back what was hurting me, and takes away the loneliness that kept me from feeling it fully.
He leads me to a chair, snapping tissues from the dispenser on the coffee table. He presses them to my cheeks and eyes. This hacker criminal who cares nothing for anyone is caring for me. I let him put a fresh tissue under my nose and wipe away the snot.
“I’m sorry I’m so gross,” I say with a sniffle, taking the tissue from him.
“What was she doing?”
“I came home from work, and I was two hours late. And I’m sorry I was two hours late, but I didn’t know. She was on the floor. She’s only seventy-three. She’s not at the ‘I’ve fallen and can’t get up’ phase. But there she was and she didn’t even know how long she’d been there. But she was lying on the floor, helpless. They say she fractured her hip. So I’m glad she can’t remember it, but I feel bad. This wouldn’t have happened if I came home on time.”
“Pretty good chance this would have happened even if you were on time.”
“She’s so young for this. Do you know that women who have a fall like this are five times more likely to die within the next year?”
“Do you know anything about how statistics work, Cassandra? If one woman usually dies under normal circumstances and five will break their hip and die, that’s five times more likely. Something can be five times more likely and still not be statistically significant.”
“My grandmother is not a statistic.”
“Agreed. She will not be a statistic because she has a wonderful, competent, caring granddaughter to watch over her.”
He really seems to believe that I’m instrumental in saving my grandmother’s life. He makes me want to believe it as much as he believes.
“I really wish I’d been there for her when she fell.”
“I know.” He brushes away the hair that sticks to my cheek, kneeling dutifully on one knee in front of me as if he’s at my beck and call. Maybe he is, but it doesn’t even matter. “Business first. Are you thirsty? Hungry? Horny?”
“Honestly, sex is the last thing on my mind. Though you do remind me of sex.”
He gets up and sits next to me, sliding down the seat a little and crossing his ankle over his knee. “Well, I’m at your disposal. We’re quite good at a quick shag in the closet.”
“Everyone has talents.” I take his hand and squeeze it, half turning toward him so that I can look him in the eye. “Thank you for coming. I can’t tell you what it means to me. No, I can. The reason I was comfortable picking up and moving across the country was that I have no one here. I have no one anywhere. I’ve only ever had my job and my grandmother, and the thought that I would have to choose between them made me feel like I was getting ripped in two. It still feels that way. And I may still have to make that choice. But you coming… I don’t know what you had to do to get here, I don’t know how you found out that I was here, and I don’t care. You being here makes me feel…” I choke back another sob. “It makes me feel less empty. I feel like I belong to something, and I know I shouldn’t say stuff like that this early in a relationship, but I don’t know how to not speak the truth right now. I might not feel whole ever again in my life, but sitting with you here instead of alone makes me feel, damn, I don’t know, half full? Five eighths? This is a crummy way of saying thank you.”
I slide down a little in my chair as well, and I squeeze his hand, looking away so I can gather my thoughts. They won’t come together. I’m just a mess of feeling where words should be. He’s not asking for my thoughts, he’s not asking for my feelings. He’s not asking for anything.
I settle in with the possibility that this is exactly what I need.
Chapter 43
keaton
I wish I knew how I could help her. I offered her food, water, affection, comfort. I didn’t have anything else after that. So I just sat with her until the doctor came out in her knee-length white jacket and reading glasses as she flipped through papers on a clipboard.
When the doctor first appears, Cassie stands with her hands fidgeting at her sides, then folded in front of her. I don’t want to impose, so I let her stand by herself, but she looks back at me expectantly as if I have a place in her family, collecting family news and sharing a family experience. Maybe she wants some water, or she wants me to bugger off. I’d get her water and bugger off at the same time, but she waves her hand a little by her hip and there’s no way to misinterpret what she wants.
She wants me to come stand by her, and it still feels funny to do that even after she takes my hand. Funny, but right.
The doctor smiles and pokes her reading glasses up her nose. “So, I have some good news and some bad news.”
Cassie squeezes my hand so hard, I’m sure she is cutting off the circulation.
“The good news is the surgery went fine.” The doctor pauses. “The bad news is she won’t be one hundred percent mobile for a while.”
Cassie squeezes my hand until her arm relaxes and her exhale is so deep, her shoulders drop an inch. “I can live with that. We can do that. Yes. That’s okay.”
She doesn’t sound as if she’s trying to convince herself of something; she sounds as if she’s working herself up to believing it. Digging herself out of her hole of despair. I can’t help but smile.
They discuss physical therapy, prescriptions, some other shit I don’t care about because the endgame is that her grandmother will be okay for a while.
“Would you like to go see her?”
“Yes.” Cassie sounds as if she’s been offered a chance to drive a Lamborghini.
The doctor heads toward the hallway, and Cassie follows. She tugs me along.
I resist out of surprise. “I’ll wait here.”
“Are you kidding? You’re gonna cheer her up.”
She yanks on my hand, hard, until I have to follow. On the way to her grandmother’s room, I wonder if this has been wise. She’s counting on me, and she won’t be able to do that for much longer. She’s also smart, well-connected, and curious. She’ll look for me. The closer I get to her and the more I offer her, the more likely this diligent and ambitious woman will seek me out, and not only will she find me… I will want to be found.
Chapter 44
cassie
Why’s he freaking out on me? He just stands there as if he doesn’t know whether to do what I’m asking him to do or not.
“I don’t know why you would come all the way here so that you could be with me and then stand in the hallway. Are you afraid of sick people or something?”
I thought of it as soon as I said it. Maybe he has some kind of sick person phobia. Maybe hospitals freak him out. In which case, he can stand in the hallway all he wants.
He shakes his head for a second as if getting cobwebs out. “No, no. Let’s do this then.”
“Keaton, really. You’ve done a lot by being here. If this is too much for you, you can wait in the hallway. Or in the waiting room.”
“Get in that room before I pick you up and carry you in there.”
I turn slowly and walk in to find my grandmother in a hospital bed with a My Little Pony twenty-piece puzzle that she should be able to do in thirty seconds splayed out on a tray in front of her. She isn’t even looking at it. She’s gotten half of one edge finished and seems to have lost interest.
“Nana,” I say. “How are you feeling?”
“She’s very tired,” the doctor said. “She might not be able to talk much.”
I point at the puzzle.
The doctor takes
my meaning right away. “I grabbed one from the children’s wing.”
I sit by my grandmother and take her hand. She looks at me as if she doesn’t recognize me. Or as if I actually exist somewhere in her mind but she can’t place me. This is scaring the shit out of me. Have I lost her forever? I’m overwhelmed by the horrible possibilities, all the stories I’ve heard about grandparents who had an accident and never came back from it. Then her eyes flick over my shoulder and suddenly become awake.
“Ah,” she groans hoarsely. “You’re back.”
I follow her gaze over my shoulder to find Keaton standing behind me with his hand on the back of my chair.
“You never finished the story about moving to Michigan,” Keaton says. “I still want to kill that guy you were with. What was his name?”
“Barry. The motherfucker.” Her eyes flutter as if cursing my mother’s father took a lot of effort. But she’s called him a motherfucker at least a thousand times in my short life.
The doctor laughs a little. I smile. Keaton puts his hand on my shoulder, and I put my hand over it. I feel as though I can get through anything with his hand resting on me.
“That’s kind of how the story ends,” I say. “My grandfather is a motherfucker, like the rest of them.”
“He gave me you,” she says, turning her head toward the window. “Even your mother, who was a huge pain in my ass. He gave me her.”
“Motherfuckers can be a necessary evil.” I hear Keaton smiling behind me, as if smiling had a sound. His does.
“So are you feeling all right?” I ask.
She nods ever so slightly but says nothing. I wait. We all wait. But there’s nothing else. She’s breathing. I see her chest rise and fall under the sheets. I look at the doctor, a little worried.
