Iain

Two days later and she still hadn’t called me.

In the meantime, the days got colder. The news started calling for snow, for a terrible blizzard that would rock the city to sleep. I paid it no mind. Half the time what they said didn’t happen, anyway.

Why hadn’t she called me?

I replayed Thursday in my head, over and over. Chasing her down on the street, telling her everything. Taking her back to my apartment. Telling her about Emily. And then what happened after. My pants tightened every time I thought about being in bed with Michele. The whole thing had happened so quickly - and damn, it had been a long time since I’d been with anyone. And she had been so perfect, her face overcome with lust, breathy moans and creamy thighs begging for my touch.

And when she asked me to fuck her? Holy shit.

But something happened afterward, something she wouldn’t share with me. I saw it in her face before she left that night. She’d retreated, and I hadn’t heard from her since.

I debated calling her, but figured she needed some space. And I had Brandon to take care of; I’d put it off as long as I thought I could get away with.

It was Saturday afternoon, and out of a mixture of curiosity and boredom I Googled private investigators in New York City, just to see who else was out there. There was a healthy smattering of red dots over the city, and only a few in Brooklyn. I saw my own name, with my work number with my PO Box underneath it. I swallowed and closed the browser out.

Why me? Why did he call me, out of all the options? Was it simply our connection or something more?

My phone rang, startling me. It was my dad, and I swiped the screen to answer it, holding the phone up to my ear.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Hi, son. How are things?”

“Same. You?”

“Also the same. You ready for that big storm that’s comin’?”

 “As ready as I’ll ever be. Are you?” I replied, standing up and beginning to pace. My dad never called me for just no reason. I was waiting for him to cut to the chase.

“I’d say so.” There was a hesitation, followed by the sound of him coughing, muffled against the phone. “The reason I called you was to tell you that your mom is in the hospital.”

I bit back an angry retort, the mere mention of my mother bringing anger fresh to the surface like a scab ripped open.

“What’s the matter with her?” I asked as levelly as I could.

“They aren’t sure yet, son. The doctors say her liver isn’t functioning properly, and they have to run some tests to figure it out.”

Unbidden, a rush of fear swept through me at his words.

“That sounds… kinda serious,” I said. I was scared, but I couldn’t help but think that an issue with her liver was of her own making.

“Well, it could be something, it could be nothing,” Dad said. “But I thought I’d let you know, just in case. She’s at Maimonides, room 282.”

“Thanks. Keep me posted.”

“You’re going to see her, right?” he asked, with something like reproach in his voice. I sighed.

“I’m just… not ready.”

“Son, you know I support you in most things, but this dumbass fight with your mom ain’t one of ’em. Especially now.”

I grit my teeth, fresh anger pounding through me.

“My own mother,” I spat, venom is each word, “told me that it was my fault Emily miscarried.” As if I had needed reminding of that.

“And she’s been sober ever since.”

“That’s not good enough!”

“And what would be good enough for you, Iain?”

I didn’t have an answer for that. Instead, I rounded on him.

“Why the hell do you care, anyway? You divorced her five years ago.”

“Hey! Watch your tone. You might be grown, but I’m still your father. Get off your damn high horse and go see your sick mother.”

The line went dead. I threw the phone onto my bed and held my face in my hands.

 

xxx

 

All of my earliest memories had to do with my mother’s drinking.

When I was four or five, I had an obsession with GI Joe. I had several different kinds, and they all served their purpose in my mind. I would plan the day like someone would plan a shopping list: First, he went there; then, he went there; and then boom. Explosions.

I was laying on the floor in my room, hiding out and moving the figures around the floor, lost in my own world where GI Joe always saves the day, just like the heroes on TV. I heard the floorboards creak, the sound making my ears perk. It was my mother walking around, and even then, I knew to be on alert when I heard her coming. My dad had day shift, so it was just me and her when I wasn’t in school.

I remembered stiffening, the same way you would if you saw lightning, waiting for the loud thunderclap that would surely follow and rattle the windows. My bedroom door opened and she was there, wrapped in a blue bathrobe in the middle of the afternoon, her eyes bloodshot and angry. Searching for something.

“Still playing with those?” she had asked me, and she had knelt down to see what I was doing. I had everything laid out so perfectly: three guys in their positions, overlooking a landscape of toppled over trucks and cars. Like a movie of my own making.

“Yes, Mommy,” I said, showing her my doctor. “He’s healing everybody.”

She sniffed, loudly, and grabbed him out of my hands. “What happens if he’s the sick one, instead?”

“Uh,” I said, thinking. I had never thought of it that way before. Did doctors get sick, too?

I watched, as if in slow motion, my mom rip the arm off my doctor and drop the severed arm to the ground. It smacked against a Hot Wheel and bounced away.

“He’s sick. How’s he gonna heal your soldiers?”

Tears welled up in my eyes, drowning out my mother holding my doctor. I looked down at my hands.

“Why’d you do that, mommy?”

She didn’t answer. She placed the broken GI Joe next to me and left the room.

When I was ten, I got a part in the school Thanksgiving play. I was the turkey, and I had one line. (”Gobble gobble”). The night of the play, only my dad had shown up. Afterward, I had asked him where my mom was.

“She’s sick tonight. She’s sorry she couldn’t make it.” Even as a ten-year-old kid, I knew he was lying. By then, I had come to understand that alcohol was more important to my mother than her own child, but I wouldn’t have been able to say that in words. It was something I just knew; it was something that could be sensed, like tension in a room or a storm coming your way.

At home that night, my mom wasn’t there. She returned the next day, stinking and waxy, her eyes glazed over. She stumbled on the way to the bathroom.

When I was eighteen, I signed my life away to the Army. I had done it in part because I wanted to make something of myself, but also to escape my mother. She didn’t come to see me swear in, and I didn’t see her for two years after that, until I took leave for Thanksgiving. She hugged me when I came home, but she looked at me like she didn’t even recognize me.

“You’re taller,” she’d said, and she’d gone to uncork some wine. And then, of course, Emily. My mom had been so thrilled that I was going to be a father. It had seemingly, somehow, rejuvenated her. She said she was so excited to be a grandma.

But after Emily miscarried and I’d broken the news, my mother had told me that it was all my fault.

I haven’t talked to her since.

Were there good memories? Sure. My mother’s cooking when she felt like doing it, or her taking me to the park on rare occasions, or showing me how to darn a sock. Those things stuck out in the mass of all that blackness, but it wasn’t enough.

xxx

Two days later, on Monday, Michele still hadn’t called me. I considered a hundred times picking up the phone and reaching out to her first, but something about that didn’t feel right. Some conversations were better done in person.

It was clear to me now that, whatever happened between us, it was only a one-time thing. Michele wasn’t ready to be with someone, and frankly, neither was I. If I’d learned anything about love and relationships, it was that no matter what you did, no matter how much you suffered and no matter what you felt, it was never enough.

She’d be safer without me, anyway. Brandon was a complication that neither of us needed. I’d still be there for her if she needed it, but a nagging suspicion told me that she wouldn’t show up at my apartment if she felt unsafe.

She’d probably just pack up and run.

I grabbed my phone and dialed Brandon’s number, just to get it over with. He’d called me the night before, but I’d let it go to voicemail.

“Well look who it is. I thought I’d never hear from you again.”

The sound of Brandon’s voice raised the hair on the back of my neck. I wondered how I’d never heard it before, that sinister quality to it. Or was I just imagining things?

“Hey, man. I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch.” I paused, mustering up the courage to flat-out lie to him. Despite everything I now knew about him since I’d met Michele, I was still talking to the man who saved my life.

“The reason I’m calling is because I have to drop the case. My mom is real sick in the hospital, and I have to take some time off to be with her.”

Only half a lie. I exhaled. The hard part was over.

“What? I’m sorry to hear that, Iain.” He didn’t sound sorry. In fact, he sounded irate. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Something with her liver. They’re running tests to find out exactly what.”

“Wow. It’s all so fleeting, isn’t it?”

I swallowed, not answering his question. It felt, oddly, like he was baiting me.

“Anyway, I wanted to tell you that before my mom got admitted, I wasn’t able to find any trace of Michele. I’ve been doing this for four years and never had anyone give me this much trouble.”

“You don’t say?”

“Yeah. I’m thinking she’s probably not in Brooklyn at all. Maybe she went to Florida?”

“Florida?”

“Yeah. Didn’t you say that’s where her mom lived?”

There was silence on the other line. My heart inexplicably began to race, apprehension stilling me as I waited for his response.

“Hmmm. I suppose that’s a possibility.”

“Well, I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help, Brandon. Good luck finding her.”

“Thanks,” he said, but he didn’t sound thankful at all.

After we’d hung up the phone, I released a giant sigh of relief.

Now it was time to talk to Michele.