-12-
It’s Time
As my feet track across the spongy grass, sinking in with every step, I feel the sun shining down on my back, leaking through my shirt and onto my skin. It’s the first warm day we’ve had in over a week, but for what I’m doing right now, it feels…wrong. As if the weather should match my mood, full of rain and thunder.
I haven’t walked this path since the day we took my mother across it. I can still remember the metal of the casket biting into my fingers, for which I was grateful. The physical pain had distracted me from the emotional, which was so much worse.
It had been annoyingly sunny that day, too.
Though it’s been three years, I know the exact steps it takes to get to row four, five over, where Lucinda Ashlin Wells’ headstone rests. It’s unextraordinary, just like she would have wanted. A square, pale gray stone with a scalloped top, small engraved roses flanking her name, birth date, death date, and one of her favorite sayings.
All things pass, and we start again.
I stare at those words, let them burn my eyes until I have to blink. She always used to say this when things were going wrong, when one of us or all of us were at our lowest. Even in the worst of times she was positive, hopeful. She never gave up. In a way, she was like a phoenix. When she was burned down, her ashes turned her into a stronger, more beautiful person. It’s what I wish I had inherited from her most.
When I still went to my shrink, he said that it would be healthy for me to visit my mom every once in a while. He said that seeing the reality of what had happened was a good start to accepting it, yadda, yadda, yadda. I never did it, knowing it would be too painful. And I was right. This absolutely sucks. And instead of closure, all I feel is a bigger wound opening up in my chest.
“I just think you could do so much better, Jagger,” she said, looking at the speedometer with a worried pinch in her brow.
The rain came down harder.
“I love her, Mom. Why can’t you accept that?” I’d responded angrily, my foot pressing down a little harder on the accelerator. I knew I shouldn’t have been driving, especially not in this kind of weather, but it didn’t stop me.
It should have. Because after that, I’d never get the chance to argue with her again.
A tear slips out. I push it away.
“Hello, there,” a small, female voice says to my left, almost making me jump. I hadn’t heard anyone approach. Looking at her, I see a very small, very hunched over woman in her mid-eighties at least, wearing a blue and white scarf around her head, a cane in her hand. Her aged eyes look up at me and then the stone I’m standing in front of. She smiles sadly. “Don’t believe I’ve seen you here before. Is it just recent?” She nods at the stone, but it’s obvious it’s been here a while. The edges are turning green with plant life, the mound of dirt normally associated with a fresh grave long since flattened with time and foot prints.
I shake my head.
She returns to staring at her own stone, placing a bouquet of fresh flowers at the base of the black granite. Only a name and date is engraved on hers, no saying, poem, or favorite Bible verse. It simply says Harold Frances Baxter, aged thirty years, died November 13, 1962.
“I’ve been coming here every day for fifty-five years,” she says matter of fact, still looking at the name of what I suspect is her husband. He died so young. “We were married for a year when he found out he had cancer. He was gone two months later.” She turns to look at me, and then my mother’s stone, and back again. She says, not unkindly, “I’m afraid to tell you that it never gets easier. Everyone says that you’ll move on, grow used to the idea of not having them around anymore, but it’s a lie.”
I nod, biting the inside of my cheek to keep my eyes from filling. “You’re right. It is.” I could even argue that it gets worse.
We stay silent for the remainder of our visits. She primps the flowers a little, pulls up the weeds around his stone, dusts off any stray grass from the last mowing, all while I wonder why I thought this would be a good idea. I guess after what happened with Renee and the panic attack, I figured I needed to do something to rectify it, convince myself that everything is fine. But it’s not, and that’s what I’ve realized standing here, watching a woman fuss over her dead husband’s grave that she could never get over.
My phone rings.
The old woman and I both jump.
I quickly apologize as I take it out of my pocket and decide to head home, my feet taking me back the way I came. I silently apologize to my mother for not staying longer.
Answering it after clearing my throat enough times to sound normal, I don’t even check the caller ID when I say, “Yeah?”
“Hey, it’s me,” Cyvil answers, her voice much lighter than the last time we talked. “Are you busy?”
“No,” I answer a little too quickly, my voice sounding off. I try to fix it before asking, “Why?”
“Well,” she pauses, her voice going up another octave, “Till had her baby last night. I wondered if you’d want to come to the hospital with me? Normally I wouldn’t ask, because I know it isn’t really a guys’ thing, but my mom assumed I’d invited you and so I thought I’d ask. If you want me to make up an excuse –”
With how she’s making it sound, it’s almost as if, “You don’t want me to come?”
“NO! I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that…ah jeez. I really need to get better at phone conversations with you.” She huffs a breath, and I chuckle, not knowing how much I needed it until this moment.
“I’d love to come,” I tell her, finding my car, slipping in, and starting the engine. “Want me to pick you up?”
“Actually, I’m just about to head out. Meet you in the lobby at St. Joseph’s?”
“Yeah, see you there.”
***
I don’t think I’ve ever met a single person that likes hospitals. The noise, the sadness, families crying, the nauseating smell of disinfectant. It’s almost as bad as the animal shelter. But walking by the window showing the newborn babies, I realize it can be a place of beginnings, too.
Cyvil smiles at them through the glass, her entire aura alight with happiness. She’s been like this since we got here. I met her in the lobby and she was full of smiles, dragging her terribly wrapped baby present with her in a basket she had to carry with two hands. I took it into my own with a grin. “Not excited about this at all, are you?”
She smiled wider. “Nope. Not in the slightest.”
And when we passed the baby window, we were pretty much helpless but to stop.
“They’re so little,” I comment, staring at the wiggling bodies in their blankets.
“What were you expecting, linebackers?” she laughs, dancing her fingers at them.
“Yep, I was thinking they’d be NFL ready the moment they came out.” I roll my eyes, wrapping my hand around hers, pulling her away from the window. “Don’t worry, we’re about to see another one,” I say when she pouts, looking over her shoulder at the retreating figures of the newborns.
A few minutes later we arrive at Atillia’s room, Cyvil knocking lightly on the door before peeking her head inside. “Till, you awake?”
“Yes, and please tell me you brought caffeine,” the familiar voice whines, and her sister chuckles, entering the room while beckoning me forward.
Instead of a small, shared room, it’s a large, private suite with a wall of windows overlooking the NYC skyline as night slowly falls. And in the middle of the room is Atillia in a hospital bed, along with a tall man with oversized glasses that is unfamiliar to me, but whom I’m assuming is her husband. Cyvil wastes no time in running over to the small bundle held in her sister’s arms, cooing over it instantly. “Oh, he’s beautiful, sis. He definitely takes after his father.” She smiles at the baby, running a thumb over its pink little fingers.
“Gee, thanks. That’s what I get for making you his godmother.” Till shakes her head, finally spotting me in the corner. Her eyes light up. “Hi, Jagger. It’s nice to see you again. Quincy?” She looks at him but motions to me, explaining, “This is Jagger Wells, Cyvil’s fiancé.” She gives me a wink, and I shake his hand.
“Quincy Devoux. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.”
“Can I hold him?” Cyvil asks her sister a minute later, and she nods. Carefully, her hands go around the baby, picking him up slowly and cradling him in her arms. I come closer to get a better look at him. With red cheeks, puffy lips, and tiny fingers, he really is adorable.
“Hi, little guy,” she says in a cutesy voice, bouncing him lightly in her arms. “I’m your fun Aunt Cyvil. The one who will give you candy when you stay over and then send you back to your parents on a sugar high.” As though he understood, the baby’s mouth opens and closes, its hands reaching for her face, gurgling in a shadow of a laugh.
“Not funny.” Her sister glares. “And to think he’s already more like you than he is me,” she says with a falsely disgruntled look on her face. Cyvil turns to look at her.
“What do you mean?”
Quincy and Atillia both smile, Quincy telling her, “Pull back the blanket from his head.”
Slowly, Cyvil does what he says, pushing the pink and blue striped baby’s blanket back from his forehead, revealing bright orange hair underneath. She makes a noise somewhere between a giggle and a gasp, looking up at her sister and brother in-law, declaring, “Oh my gosh, he’s a Weasley!”
“A what?” Atillia’s face scrunches up in confusion while Quincy bends over at the waist, laughing. “What is so damn funny?”
“Long story, baby. Another time,” he says, kissing her on the forehead. She doesn’t look satisfied with the answer, but lets it go.
“What’s this little guy’s actual name?” I ask, looking over Cyvil’s shoulder at him. His hands reach upwards, past his aunt, and I let him play with my finger, which seems to delight him.
“Yes, I’m curious about that myself.” Cyvil gives her sister a devious look, to which Atillia narrows her eyes. “So, is it Cyvil Junior, or is he blessed with a strong, unisex middle name?”
Atillia just smiles, saying victoriously, “Neither.”
“Boo,” Cyvil grumbles, looking at her nephew again. “I guess your next sibling will have to be blessed as my namesake then.”
“If you would shut up about trying to get one of my kids named after you, then you’d already know his real name by now.”
“Okay, drama queen, what is my beautiful nephew’s name?” Cyvil makes funny faces at him, and he wiggles even more in her arms.
“Meet Kal-el James Devoux,” Atillia says proudly, looking over at her son with a smile. “Isn’t it unique? When Quincy came up with it I thought it was perfect.”
At hearing this, Cyvil pauses, her head snapping up to look at her sister and then Quincy. When he winces under her insinuating stare, she says, “You didn’t tell her, did you?” Now she’s trying to retain giggles, making the baby bounce in her arms. Suspecting she might not be the most stable person to be holding him, she hands him back to Atillia.
“Tell me what?” she asks, looking between the two of them. When neither says anything, her face quickly turns red. “Just because I have a baby in my arms doesn’t mean I can’t put him down and make you tell me.”
Cyvil smiles, taking way too much pleasure in seeing Quincy sweat, and telling her sister, “Kal-el is Superman’s real name.”
Atillia rolls her eyes at her, waving her away. “No it’s not. It’s Clark Kent. Everyone knows that.”
“Yep,” Cyvil nods, “they do. And real fans know that his actual name given by his real father on the planet Krypton was Kal-el.”
Atillia gives her a long look, seeing whether she cracks with the joke or if she’s actually being serious. When Cyvil stares right back, unflinching, she turns the heated look on her husband. “Are you freaking kidding me? You named our son after a comic book character?”
“And it isn’t even from Marvel,” Cyvil adds, smiling like a fool now. “The shame.”
“Shut up!” Till yells at her, quickly looking back to Quincy, declaring, “We are not keeping it.”
He pales. “But we already signed the papers.”
This doesn’t deter her. “Then I’m calling him James until we can have it changed again.”
Quincy is about to argue when I say, forgetting myself and the possible danger of it, “He really isn’t the worst person to be named after, if you think about it.”
For the first time since I met her, Atillia looks at me with something other than interest. Cyvil pulls on my sleeve, saying under her breath, “Abort, abort.”
“And how is that?” Till asks tersely, having put Kal-el in his clear basinet next to the bed.
I guess I might as well finish what I started.
“Well, he’s a strong person, and not just because of his powers. He fights for people that live on a planet that’s not really his. Believes in doing what’s right instead of what’s easy. And he helps people that can’t help themselves. I’m just saying that at least when people hear your son’s name, they’ll think of a great man. Could be worse.” I shrug, feeling their eyes on me, Cyvil’s especially. I turn to look at her and find a beautiful smile stretching across her face.
“I – well, I guess it’s not – it’s not terrible,” Atillia concedes, eyes looking into the basinet where her son sleeps soundly. She sighs. “Fine.” Turning to look at me, she says with a small smile, “Thanks for that.”
I give a short nod.
“But I will not forget this, Quincy Devoux.” She points a menacing finger at her husband, who simply bobs his head, all while trying not to smile.
A knock sounds at the door before it slowly opens, and Mr. and Mrs. Montae walk in, greeting everyone with smiles; Lance giving Cyvil and me an especially pleased look. As the room fills with two more bodies, I feel like it’s getting a little crowded, and knowing the grandparents would probably like some one on one time with their grandson, I convince Cyvil that we should take a walk, promising them that we’ll be back later.
Walking out into the hall, Cyvil sighs, her focus on the door we just walked through. “That was really nice of you,” she says, finally turning to face me.
“It was just the truth.”
“I know. But I think hearing that little speech from you is what saved my nephew from being renamed. She never would have listened to Quincy or I. It had to come from an impartial party.”
Pushing my hands in my pockets, I rock back on my heels. “Glad I could help then.”
She smiles, almost sarcastically when she murmurs, “Who knew you had a little nerd in you. As if you needed another attractive quality.”
My eyes widen before I can stop them, slightly taken aback that she admitted she finds me attractive. I mean, I kind of figured she did after she stared at me shirtless with her mouth half open, but to actually hear her admit it…
Without another word on the subject, we start walking, not really having a destination.
For a while it’s just the sound of our shoes squeaking against tile, the distant thud of heart monitors beeping when we walk past open doors to patient rooms. And then she says, looking forward at some distant point, “When I met you here earlier, you seemed…different. Off. Is everything okay?”
Apparently, I didn’t do a very good job of clearing myself before I saw her. I attempt to play it off, though my fingers spasm in my pockets when I say, “It’s nothing. Just have a lot of stuff on my mind.” Semi truth.
She bobs her head, still not looking at me.
The silence returns.
Eventually we arrive at the cafeteria on the main floor, and I buy us two pints of Ben and Jerry’s. We pick a table near some windows, though there isn’t much of a view since it is officially dark out. But it doesn’t seem to bother Cyvil. She stares outside like she can see past the night.
“Jagger?” she says eventually, halfway through her ice cream, the cafeteria nearly empty except for us. My name on her lips sounds louder than it really is in the cavernous space.
“Yes,” I say, voice tight. I try to soothe it with another spoonful of Rocky Road.
“What do you do?”
My spoon pauses halfway to my mouth. I put it back down as she looks at me, eyes shadowed with her question.
“Mind being a little more specific?”
She puts the pint to the side, leaning forward in her chair. “I mean, what is your job?”
I don’t get it. “Why do you want to know?”
“Like you said before, if anyone ever asks me and I don’t know the answer, it’s not going to look very good. But also…,” she hesitates, second-guessing what she wanted to say until finally she breaks. “I feel like I don’t know anything important about you. Like your job, or where your mother is, or where you live. You might as well be a ghost to me.”
“Well it’s not like I know everything about you, either,” I fire back, feeling defensive, especially after the day I’ve had. “I don’t know why you want to be a doctor, or how you got all of those scars,” I point at them, and she minutely flinches. “But the thing is, I don’t have to. This isn’t real, remember? We’re just pretending until we both get what we want. Nothing more.” As I say all this, I find that I’m not really doing it for her benefit, but for mine. I need to remember that this is all an act. Her family isn’t my family, my friends aren’t her friends. I’m doing this to help my dad and repay a small amount of the debt I have stacked up against him over the last three years. I have to remember that when she looks at me with those stunning eyes, and graces me with that rare smile that it is all for someone else.
“I get it,” she says eventually, her shoulders stiffening, eyes looking out into the pitch black again. “We shouldn’t make it personal.”
“No. We shouldn’t,” I agree, feeling a painful spasm shoot across my chest when I say it.
With a stiff nod, she stands, grabbing her bag and half empty ice cream, telling me, “I’m going to go back up and say goodbye to my sister. My parents already saw you, so you’re off the hook.” Turning on her heel, she dumps the remains of her ice cream in the trash and leaves me and the cafeteria behind, not looking back. And somehow, seeing her go, hearing the loss of familiarity in her voice, feels worse than seeing my ex for the first time after she inadvertently killed my mother.
Cyvil
I never knew a person could be so cagey. Not to the extent of Jagger Wells, that is. I knew from the moment I saw him today that something was wrong. He didn’t have the same gleam to his eyes, the easy smile I’ve grown familiar with. He looked tense, the skin under his eyes dark and tired, his overall aura irritated and…numb. It immediately had me worried, but I didn’t know if I should bring it up or not, if I had the right to. And just like the last time I asked him something kind of personal, he shut down, but this time, he also got defensive, which makes me think there is a lot more to Jagger than I originally thought.
Walking back into my sister’s room, I find it empty except for her and Kal-el. When my mouth is half open to ask where everyone went, she says, “Mom and Dad left and Quincy went out to get something to eat.”
I nod, sitting down in the tan leather chair next to her bed, Kal-el on the opposite side. He’s sleeping peacefully, his lips opening and closing as though he’s dreaming. “He really is precious, Till,” I say quietly, something deep inside of me aching as I watch him. I’m not sure if it’s the buried fear that I may never have a Kal-el of my own someday, or the broken look I saw behind Jagger’s eyes in the cafeteria; the one that I know so well from looking in the mirror every day.
“I know,” she says airily, smiling when I roll my eyes at her. “Hey, is something wrong?” she asks after a minute, once I’ve been silent for too long.
“Of course there is,” I say with a humorless laugh, still watching my nephew snooze. “I have a fake fiancé who just reminded me that I have no right to be worried about him. Everything is twisted, like usual.” I close my eyes with my fingertips, trying to take a deep breath only to have it get lodged in my throat.
“Okay, spill it,” she says, turning on her side, head held in her palm. “What did Hot Stuff say this time?”
As requested, I tell her about what happened in the cafeteria, the way he seemed to close himself off the moment I wanted to know more about him, and how he already seemed off when I first saw him in the lobby. I don’t mention how he acted at the engagement party, having a panic attack at the mere sight of his ex. That seemed like something I should keep to myself. But everything else I explain to her in full detail. By the end of it, she’s nodding her head, coming to some sort of conclusion.
“It’s all linked somehow, it has to be.”
“What is?”
“All of the things you wanted to know about him. His mother, his job, where he’s at when you’re not around. There’s got to be a correlation in there.”
“Do you think he’s right? That I don’t have any reason to know this stuff about him because we’re just…pretending?”
“Hell no,” she says passionately. “Normal people don’t usually hide their profession unless they’re a hooker, and him never mentioning his mother is just weird. Even if she abandoned him as a child, or his parents got divorced, I think he would still tell you the truth when asked. Something bigger is going on here.” She taps her chin in a terrible impression of Sherlock Holmes, then adds a second later, her smile wicked, “You know, we could just do this the quick way and dig his secrets up on the internet.”
“Absolutely not,” I say, slapping her hand away as it inches towards the phone on the side table. “If he doesn’t want me to know, then I’m not going to find out behind his back.”
“Oh, please. Do you think he would pay you the same curtesy? You said yourself that he tried to find you online and failed, but only because Dad paid half a dozen IT guys to make you disappear. This is simply tit for tat.”
I pull my knees up into my chest, letting my chin rest on them as I look at my sister. Her eyes are practically begging me to give her the go-ahead, but she’s going to be waiting a long time, because I’m never going to give it to her. “If he had asked me first what happened to make me like this,” I motion to myself, “then I would have told him the truth.”
“Really?” she says, looking unconvinced. “You would have told him all the details, let him know things no one outside this family knows?”
I swallow, eyes looking down at my hands, the scars that go past my sleeves and up my arms, over my chest and abdomen, crawling all the way down my legs to my feet. There isn’t a spot on me that isn’t damaged, disfigured. But still, “Yes, I would have told him. If he would have done the same with me.”
“But he won’t, and he didn’t,” she says, matter of fact.
“And so he’ll get the same thing from me.”
***
Over the next week I don’t hear a thing from Jagger, and he doesn’t hear a thing from me. I think we silently agreed that the only times we are going to interact is when there’s an audience. Otherwise, we’ll go on with our lives as usual.
Though I have come to accept this fact, it still feels like something is missing.
Friday evening there’s a knock on my door. Since I’m sitting on the couch with a book in my hand, not having expected visitors, it nearly flies across the room in my surprise. Holding a hand to my chest as Grim baahhhss her annoyance, I walk to the door, taking a look through the peep hole.
I open it a second later.
“Hello, Montae,” Moon says, greeting me with a kiss on the cheek, smile bright and wide as usual.
“Uh, hi,” I say, stunned to see him in front of me. I didn’t know he knew where I lived. Must be Jagger told him. “Come in.” I step aside, letting him walk into the small foyer.
His eyes look around the place, nodding to himself when he sees the colorful touches I’ve added. “I like it, it fits you,” he says, bopping me on the nose with his finger, and I laugh.
“Thanks,” I say, just as Grim comes up to greet him.
Moon makes a strangled noise as he stares down at my goat with shocked eyes. Grim sniffs him, bahhing some more when she has accepted Moon into the herd.
“You….you have a goat. In your house,” he stutters, still staring down at Grim, who looks up and watches him with a titled head, curious about the newcomer.
“You sound like Jagger,” I say, my smile disappearing with the mention of him.
“Girl, you are straight up gangster. Just my type.” He smiles devilishly at me, and I knock him on the shoulder. He is such a flirt.
“Shut up. Why are you here anyway? Are you done with my Cassandra Clare collection already?” I hold up his copy of The Shining I was reading a minute ago. “Sad to say I haven’t made nearly as big a dent.”
He’s bent down to be closer to Grim now, surprising me when my goat lets him pet her. Grim isn’t a fan of strangers, Jagger being case in point. “Nope. I’m here on other business.” He stands up again, giving me that hundred-watt smile. “Actually, I’m here to kidnap you.”
My heart goes from a pleasant patter to a full out hammer when I hear that word, the hair on the back of my neck standing on end; a hot flush burning throughout my cheeks. I take deep breaths to soothe the panic, just like the doctor said to do when I experience triggers. Even though it’s a small one, my body still rages against the six-letter word.
“Hey, you alright? I was just joking,” Moon reassures when he sees the physical manifestation of my past on my face. I’m sure I’ve gone white as a ghost. I can even feel the cold sweat breaking out on my forehead.
I lean against the counter behind me, schooling my expression to the best of my ability. I shake my head, failing at an easy smile. “N-no, I know. I just – why?”
“Well, I know that things between you and my boy aren’t exactly kosher at the moment, and I wanted to cheer you up.” He nods behind him at the door. “I might have brought along a few people to help me out.”
“Who?” I ask, getting my breathing under control, slow but steady.
“I guess you’ll just have to come along to find out.” He waggles his eyebrows, giving a final, “Bye goat!” before walking out the door and closing it behind him.
I stare down at Grim when she starts crying, seeming to say, “What are you going to do?”
That’s a good question.
I’ve only been out of the house twice this week. And both times were to visit my sister, Quincy, and Kal-el. Otherwise I’ve been holed up in my room or on the couch, slowly going through Moon’s King collection while eating myself into an ice cream coma. You would think I was getting over a break up.
Even I have to admit that it’s been rather pathetic.
Maybe getting out and doing something with my friends would be a good start to stepping out of this funk I’ve been in.
Grim cries again, going up on her back two legs excitedly.
I’m going to take that as her agreement.
Making the decision, I quickly go to my room and change into a pair of jeans and an old hoodie, slipping on some sneakers and grabbing my house keys before saying a quick goodbye to Grim and running out the door. When I see Moon standing there, leaning against a black Mercedes I don’t recognize, I almost regret my decision. His smile is way too proud of himself for enticing me out here. “That worked better than I thought. I figured I’d have to do more coercing.”
“Do you want me to come or not?” I draw out as I walk up to the car, Moon getting the passenger side door for me. When I see who’s inside once I’ve got my belt on, I smile bigger than I have all week.
“’Sup, girl,” Rosy says, giving me a fist bump from the backseat.
“Yay! He got you to come,” Hanna squeals happily next to him, smiling at me as Moon joins us in the driver’s seat. “I thought you’d be a harder sell.”
“Apparently you’re not the only one.” I give Moon a dark look that is only half-hearted. “What are you guys doing here?”
“Like I said, we wanted to cheer you up.” Moon starts the engine and rolls down the driveway while I wonder where the heck we’re going.
“And how do you plan to accomplish that?” I ask, some of my unease returning.
“With a little bit of illegal gambling and exhaust fumes.” Rosy grins, waggling his eyebrows, and I don’t like it. I dislike what he said even more so.
“What?” My voice goes unnaturally high, making Moon laugh.
Hanna waves away my concern, saying, “You’ll know it when you see it. And don’t worry, it’s going to be awesome.”
Somehow I doubt that.