CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
WREN
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about Carter. I’ve been finding bottles of liquor around the house—some full, most not. He’s doing his best to hide it, to show me nothing’s wrong, but I know how deep this has cut him, for all that hope to be stripped away so suddenly. He hasn’t been going to his doctor’s appointments, busy popping painkillers like they’re going out of fashion, and I’m powerless to stop him. We’re moving away from each other and I’m absolutely terrified about what that means.
My cell buzzes on the bedside table.
I dread any calls these days, don’t even know where Carter is tonight, though I could guess.
I swing myself out of bed and answer it without looking at the screen hoping it’s Carter, but another male voice comes down the line. “Wren, I’m glad I got you. I have good news.”
I swing myself out of bed, walking into the main room.
It’s the lawyer. “Oh?” I reply.
“Look,” he says, huffing. “Most of your mutual assets with David you won’t get back. They’ve been seized by the state. His undue dealings extended, well, quite far. However…”
And here it comes, the nail in the coffin.
“Although you were signatories on your accounts, I was able to show a pattern of saving on your behalf.”
Hope flowers, starts to expand inside me. “What does that mean?”
His voice lifts. “Long story short, I was able to get a sum in the region of fifty-thousand dollars unfrozen. You’ll have to open a new account, there’s some paperwork, and while I know it’s far from what you had, it’s a start.”
Finally, things are turning around. He’s right. It’s not much compared to what I’ve come from, but at this point in time I’ll take whatever I can get. “No, thank you, so much. That’s great news.”
“I’ll be in touch,” he says. “Take care.”
“You too.”
My cell buzzes again, ‘Carter’ on the screen.
“Carter,” I answer, “I have—”
“It’s Louie, ma’am,” comes the voice.
“From the bar?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
A sickening pull twists up my insides. “Where’s Carter?”
A pause. “He’s not in a good way. I’m bringing him home now, but I thought I’d give you a heads up.”
My voice is weak. “Thanks.”
Fifteen minutes later, I’m watching the window when I see lights slice through the trees.
Carter’s Jeep rolls up to the front. The passenger door opens. Carter half gets out, half falls out, but he hasn’t undone his seatbelt, hanging there mumbling and shouting, clearly wasted.
I run over, unclicking the seatbelt. He drops to the ground, muttering something about Tommy.
I try to lift him up, but it’s like trying to shift an elephant.
Louie comes around and takes an arm, the two of us able to lift him together.
Carter reeks of booze, his jacket stained and heavy with it.
Getting him up the stairs is an effort. I nod my head towards the bathroom. “Help me get him into the tub.”
Carter’s looking at me, eyes glazed. “You’re so fucking beautiful. I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve anything. I try and I try, but…”
“Why don’t you try being quiet,” I suggest, grunting with the effort of dragging him towards the tub.
With a grunt, Louie helps me get Carter into the tub, his legs and arms hanging over the edge, his head whipping from side to side.
I stand with my hands on my hips panting. I address Louie. “What the hell happened?”
Louie stands likewise, both of us watching the drunkard in front of us. “What does it look like?”
“I thought you weren’t serving him alcohol anymore?”
“I wasn’t. Bastard swiped my best bottle of Black Label when I wasn’t looking. I found him in the bathroom like this, cuddling that thing like it was damn baby.”
“Shit,” I mutter. “I’m sorry.”
Carter moans, a line of drool running from his mouth.
“He’ll be okay, but if you ask me, the guy’s got a lot of unresolved issues. I admire you for trying to help him out, maybe more, it’s between you two, but if you want to stick it out you’ve got to know it ain’t going to be easy.”
“I’m not giving up on him,” I protest. “His father did, his brother did, but not me. I’m the one person who believes in him at the moment.”
Louie nods. “Fair enough.” He turns to walk away.
I take his arm. “Thank you, for this.”
He smiles. “Any time.”
“What about the bar?”
He laughs. “Closing the bar for a half an hour’s not going to end the world. Those poor bastards I call regulars might actually have to go back to their wives for once.”
“How will you get back?”
He points outside to the car lights already coming down the driveway. “Like I said, I might actually have to spend some time with the wife for once.”
The car parks, a horn blast ringing out.
I see Louie off from the porch before returning back to the bathroom.
Wife.
Two weeks ago the concept would have seemed so abstract it wouldn’t even bear consideration. But I really thought we were moving towards something here, that I’d found the one component that was missing from my life, the part that finally made sense, made me whole. Now?
You can’t give up on him. Who else does he have?
I tug off his boots and socks, struggling to remove his jacket and shirt. I pull off his jeans and jocks. He snaps awake.
“Come here,” he gestures. “I want to fuck you.”
I nod down at his flaccid cock. “Wilson’s in no condition to be fucking anything right now.”
I turn the cold tap on in full.
That gets his attention.
He starts to flap about. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Sobering you up. What does it look like?”
I turn the hot tap on. “There.” I wait until the tub is full before placing a towel on the vanity. “Soak, sober up, and then we’ll talk.”
*
I wait in the kitchen, make sure the fire’s going. Half an hour later Carter emerges from the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist. He’s still stumbling a bit, but he looks generally more composed overall.
I hand him a steaming cup of coffee.
He takes it with two shaky hands.
“Careful,” I warn him, “there’s enough caffeine in there to keep the whole of British Columbia awake.”
He sits, sipping at the coffee and breathing out long and deep, his head hung. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
“What happened?” I ask.
He remains silent.
“If we are going to make this work, you’ve got to start talking to me, Carter—complete honesty.”
He nods, lifting his eyes to meet mine. “I’m fucking useless, Wren. I’ve got people after me, a bung fucking knee…”
“But surely you know getting wasted isn’t the answer.”
“I saw the bottle, couldn’t resist.”
I shift my chair close to his, moving so I’m in-between his knees. “Carter,” I start, “I want to be with you.”
“Really?” he laughs. “An ex-con with no money, no prospects, who works driving a fucking Zamboni? I can’t offer you the kind of life you had with David.”
“Don’t you get it? That stuff doesn’t matter to me. I’ve lived in the Upper End, had everything I wanted, and I was still unhappy. I don’t care if you’re a god-damn janitor. All I need is you.” I take his face in my hands. “Do you understand that, you big, stupid brute?”
His eyes flicker—fire and ice. “You deserve better, Wren. You always have.”
“But I want you. Tell me you don’t want the same.”
“I do.”
“So what’s the problem?”
He shrugs. “I just thought if I could get back into the league…”
“Forget the League,” I tell him. “Forget about this business with Tommy whoever the fuck he is and all that drama. We. Will. Figure. It. Out… Together. You’re not alone anymore.”
“You really mean that?”
I kiss him, the coffee still warm on his lips. “I’ve never meant anything more in my life, but you have to promise me you’re going to stop this self-wallowing bullshit, right here and now, because that I cannot accept.”
“Okay,” he says, placing the coffee mug down and lifting me up from my chair into his lap. “What now?”
“Now,” I say smiling. “We fuck.”
*
I wake up energized, which is kind of funny considering we barely slept at all.
I run my fingers over Carter’s velvety length, tickle his glans, the cherry hood of his cock. He jerks it forwards in response, smiling at me with his hands behind his head.
“Best hangover cure I’ve had.”
I take hold of his member, lightly pumping it with my hand. “Sure as hell beats raw eggs and an aspirin.”
He rolls over on top of me, pushing my thighs apart with his own. “You said you had something to tell me?”
I’d forgotten all about the call with the lawyer.
The tip of his cock taps against my clit.
“The lawyer rang.”
The tapping turns into rubbing, the blunt head of Carter’s cock starting to slip inside me every time he runs it downwards. “And?”
“He was able to get some of our, well, my savings unfrozen. Fifty-thousand dollars, in fact.”
At this moment in time I don’t think Carter would care if it’s a million. He slides his cock forward. I gasp, clutching at the sheets. “That’s great. What are you going to do with it?”
“The question is, what are we going to do with it?” I correct.
*
I’m doing the dishes, watching Carter cut up firewood outside, when my cell rings.
“Dad,” I answer. “It’s been two weeks.”
“Sorry, baby,” he says, what sounds like Cuban music playing in the background. “I’ve been so busy.”
“With?” I’m trying to keep the irritation out of my voice, to stop him turning what has been a blissfully good start to the day into something else.
“You know… life.”
“Do you know the government took the house, our things, Dad? Do you know I was homeless?”
“I know, baby. I heard, and I’m so sorry. I really, really am. I wish I could help, but I barely have two dimes to rub together myself. You know how it is.”
“You’re hardly living on the street, Dad.”
Someone calls his name in the background, a female. “Look, I know I’m not father of the year, Wren, and I know this has been hard on you, as it has me.”
Now I’m angry. “On you? What’s that supposed to mean?
“I’ve had reporters, cameramen coming up to me, asking about you, about David…”
“But you haven’t said anything to them, have you, Dad?”
“Of course not, baby, but they were offering a lot of money. I could do an interview, forward you the cash…”
I can’t believe I’m hearing this. “The one time I need your support, Dad, and where are you? Off floozing your next target, always on the con. What happened to you, Dad, seriously? I want to know.”
He exhales, seems tired of this conversation already. “You make choices, Wren, and you have to live with those choices.”
“Are you referring to David?”
“You chose to be with him, Wren.”
I’m getting awfully sick of this. I rub my eyes, will not cry over this. “Only because you pushed me to do it, because he was the ‘perfect son-in-law’—your words. Well, look how that turned out.”
“Where are you now?”
“I’m with Carter, Dad. I’m where I should have been from the start,” I tell him, and I hang up.