52. James
JAMES
This was Will’s father, not mine. I withdrew my hand from Robert’s grasp.
“Well, Travis took some artistic liberties. I mean, Dad didn’t even actually die that night.
It took another few days. He’d been in the nursing home for about five months at that point, and I guess his body forgot how to swallow.
He got food in his lungs, which led to .
. . I can’t remember the name of it, but some kind of pneumonia. ”
“Aspiration pneumonia,” Robert said. “It’s very common in Alzheimer’s patients.”
“Yeah, that.” I wiped sweat from my forehead. It was hot as balls under the stage lights. “That’s when they brought him to the hospital. None of what you guys did actually happened, at least not like that. Travis just combined different days and conversations into one scene for convenience.”
Actually, I’d done that. It was one of the editor’s suggestions.
“That afternoon, when he almost choked, he was wide awake, going on and on about airplanes crashing into little Mexican kids and destroying Christmas. My dad never stopped talking. A lot of Alzheimer’s patients go non-verbal by the end, but not him.
He just stopped making sense, and when he did, it was nothing but hate.
This is probably a shitty thing to say, but for my dad, the disease destroyed the best parts first.”
Robert squinted up into the lights. “Thank you, James. If you remember anything else, please let us know.”
I didn’t want to remember. I wanted to smoke a bowl. “If it’s any help, we found out a week after he died that his whole rant about airplanes and Mexican kids was based on a Desperate Housewives episode he thought was real.”
Robert’s eyes lit up. “Really? Which episode?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Can’t imagine there are many plane crash episodes, though.”
“That’s okay. Donna is good friends with Teri. She’ll know.” He closed his eyes and leaned back, obviously in pain, and I stepped aside to let the nurse through.
“I have to take a phone call,” Michelle said. “We’ll go again in thirty.”
Will used the distraction to slip off the stage, but as much as I was dreading this conversation, I jogged after him. “Wait,” I said, my fingers closing around his sleeve just as he reached the door. “Can we talk? You disappeared the other night before I could—”
“Fine, I’m sorry.” He yanked his arm free. “I didn’t mean to be so dramatic. Let’s just stay casual acquaintances. How was the drive? Did you bring Theo?”
“I don’t wanna be your casual acquaintance.”
Will slumped, his gaze fixed on the floor.
“I just wanna talk. Let’s go for a walk down by the pond. I’ll tell you what really happened the day my dad died.”
Will’s head snapped up. “Don’t tell me. Tell my dad. Or better yet, tell Annabeth. She’s the screenwriter.”
“Please.” I held his gaze. “This isn’t something a lot of people know.”
He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. “Okay, fine.”
It had rained the previous night, and the path down to the pond was muddy and dotted with puddles.
Neither of us spoke as we instinctively headed for the only major landmark, the massive weeping willow, but we managed to startle several frogs, which plopped into the water and resurfaced a few feet out.
When we reached the tree, I parted the long, spindly leaves so Will could duck inside. It was the perfect fishing spot, with a little bench and a bare strip of hard-packed earth.
“I changed the ending of my brother’s book to make myself look better,” I said without preamble, my voice rough.
“The editor had basically wanted him to rewrite the whole thing, but . . .” I slumped onto the bench, hating that I was already making excuses for my behavior.
“He didn’t want help, especially from me.
I barely fucking graduated from high school.
But . . .” I trailed off as Will sat down on the other end of the bench.
“At first, I checked in constantly,” I went on, speaking to the gentle sway of the willow leaves.
“Like, every time I deleted a word or shifted a comma. But eventually, I started rewriting whole chapters before reading them back. Mostly, I just did what the editor suggested, but when I got to the end, I changed it.”
I felt Will’s eyes on me.
“What do you mean you changed it?”
He was still in costume, so it was almost like confessing to Travis, not that Travis hadn’t known what I’d done. He had, but it was easier for him to believe the changes came from the editor rather than me.
“I didn’t want anyone to know what I said to him, especially not Theo. But I’m done pretending I’m this loyal brother. I want you to put it back the way it was, the way Travis had it.”
“How did Travis have it?” he asked, adopting the neutral tone of a therapist.
I kicked at a rock lodged in the hard-packed dirt, trying to work it free.
“I basically dared him to do it. Told him to make it look like an accident and everything.” I closed my eyes against the memory, not that it did any good.
“I didn’t mean it, though. I was just so fucking mad.
” I gave the rock a hard kick, and it budged, the earth around it cracking slightly.
“He just kept going on and on about how he wasn’t gonna put Theo through this shit, how he’d kill himself first and .
. .” I yanked my hat off and wiped my brow.
I was sweating, and it wasn’t even hot out.
“I’m not good with words, but I tried, saying shit like, ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,’ and, ‘Who knows, maybe they’ll find a cure.
’ But he wouldn’t let it go. He just kept fucking saying it over and over, like he’d be doing us this huge favor and .
. . Fuck, I don’t know why I said it. I guess I just snapped.
Told him if he was so hell-bent on killing himself, he should just do it, but that he should make it look like an accident so we could still collect the insurance money. ”
I managed to dislodge the rock with another hard kick, leaving a perfect mold of its shape in the dirt. I waited for Will to say something. To gasp, or walk away again. But he just sat there, staring at me with that fucking I’ve-heard-it-all-before teacher gaze of his.
I toed the rock back toward me. “That’s exactly what he did, too. No goodbye. No note. I should’ve known. He was in the shower for almost an hour that morning, and he never took long showers.”
Will remained silent. Then, “I’m sorry, James. That’s awful. But it’s not your fault. Travis probably—”
I kicked the rock into the pond. “Just because you’re playing him in some stupid movie doesn’t mean you know shit about my brother.”
“I’m sorry. You’re right. I didn’t mean—”
“No, I’m sorry. I know you’re just trying to help, and you can, by fixing the fucking ending.”
He sucked in one of his annoying yoga breaths. “I’m not going to do that. What if the insurance company finds out and wants their money back? And what about Theo?”
“The suicide clause expired after two years.” I swallowed the lump in my throat, refusing to cry in front of Will. “And if you really care about Theo, you’ll finish the movie the right way.” I stood before the first tear could fall and walked to the water’s edge.
“We can make the current ending work. I’ll just—”
I shook my head, letting my anger burn away my tears. “I don’t want the current ending. I want the truth.” I turned back to face him. “You get that, right? I know you do. We’re a lot more alike than you realize. The only difference is, I actually succeeded in killing someone.”
When I returned to the motel, Theo was on the phone, clearly talking to Es. “No, he just walked in, and he’s definitely not drunk or decapitated.”
I’d forgotten to turn my phone back on after watching them film all afternoon. “Tell her I’ll call her back in, like, thirty.”
“Fifteen,” Es shouted through the phone.
“Fine, fifteen.”
Theo hung up and immediately reached for his guitar. “I wrote a new song today. Wanna hear it?” Most teens stuck in a motel all day with only network TV for company would be bored out of their minds, but not Theo.
“I do wanna hear it, but can we talk first? There’s something I need to tell you.” My palms were already damp.
“Okay . . .” His expression sobered, and he set his guitar down. We weren’t the kind of family that had talks.
“You probably don’t remember this, but when your dad started getting sick, I sorta took over revising the book for him.
He’d finished it, of course, but the editor wanted all these changes .
. . so I made them.” I tossed my hat on the bed.
“But that wasn’t all. I also changed the ending.
” My throat started to close, and I knew if I didn't force the words out now, they might never come. “I’m sorry, Theo. Your dad and I argued, and I said a bunch of things I didn’t mean. It’s my fault he—”
“Stop. I already know what you’re gonna say.”
I stared past him at the painting on the wall, a sugar shack in the woods surrounded by piles of melting snow and patches of bare earth. “No, I don’t think you do.”
“You know I can read, right? I read Dad’s book, like, four times. I know you changed the ending, but you made it better.”
I stared at my nephew in disbelief. “You knew?”
Theo rolled his eyes. “Of course I knew, and he didn’t do it because you told him to. He did it because he didn’t want me to watch him lose his mind.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is true, and you know it. That whole nursing-home plan was bullshit. He was never gonna let that happen.”
“I’m sorry, Theo. I shouldn’t have put the idea in his head.”
“You didn’t. You don’t find out you’re gonna lose your mind and forget everyone and everything without wondering if maybe you shouldn’t just quit while you’re ahead.”
“Theo, please don’t ever—”
“I’m not gonna, relax.” His gaze landed on his guitar, the one Travis gave him for his fifteenth birthday. “I already promised Dad.”
I picked at a loose thread on the thin floral bedspread and decided now was as good a time as any to share the one piece of good news. “I wasn’t gonna say anything just yet, but you should probably know. Robert gave you something.”
“He told you?”
“Wait, you already know about the money?” Robert had promised he’d let me tell Theo in my own time, the fucking asshole.
Theo’s face scrunched in confusion. “What money? What are you talking about?”
“What are you talking about?” Jesus Christ, what the fuck now?
His head drew back, and a sour expression overtook his face. “I have no idea what’s going on right now. What money are you talking about? The insurance money?”
I held Theo’s gaze, hoping he’d crack. Then, like a fucking pushover, I gave in.
“Robert set you up with a trust fund, a fucking huge one. Enough that you’ll never have to work if you don’t wanna.
You can travel the world or open your own recording studio.
Point is, you can have the life your father always dreamed of for you. ”
Theo’s leg slid off the bed and landed in the center of his empty guitar case, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Are you serious?”
I nodded.
“But . . . why me?”
“I don’t know. But the man gets so into character, he probably thinks you’re his real grandson. What did you think I was talking about?”
He shifted on the bed, pulling his foot out of his guitar case. “Oh . . . nothing. Just all the cologne.”
I narrowed my eyes. That made no sense. I already knew about Robert’s cologne collection. I was suffocated by the shit every time I walked into Theo’s room.
“I wanna watch them film tomorrow,” he said, picking up his guitar again. “I know you think I can’t handle it, but I can. I’m gonna watch the movie anyway, so what’s the difference?”
The air conditioner clicked on with a mechanical whir, even though it was already fucking freezing in the room. “The difference is, they’re gonna film that same friggin’ scene over and over. And these are professionals, Theo. It’s not gonna be like watching Blood Brothers.”
“I know that. But I have a right to be there.”
“Travis didn’t want you to see—”
“Yeah, well, he’s dead, so excuse me if I don’t put his wants above my own.”
“Don’t be an asshole.”
“You’re calling me an asshole? You didn’t say anything. You just let Will think the worst, and now we’re stuck in this crappy motel while everyone else is back at the house having fun.”
I knew this wasn’t about Will or this shitty motel. “I tried to apologize. I—”
“Yeah, I’m sure you did.” Theo dropped his voice. “‘Hey, Will, just wanted to say I’m sorry. Do you wanna, I don’t know, maybe get back together? No? Oh, okay. Well, I’ll see you around, then.’”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Yeah, it is. But you’re just like Dad. You talk a big game. You act like you’re all tough and fearless, but when it comes down to it, you just roll over and give up. You don’t fight for anything.”
If I didn’t fight for anything, then why were we in Vermont? This whole summer, everything I’d done, whether I should’ve or not, was for Travis’s movie. If that wasn’t fighting for something, then I didn’t know what was.
My phone rang.
Fuck! Apparently, my fifteen minutes were up. “I have to take this. We can discuss the plan for tomorrow when I’m done.”
Theo stood and grabbed his hoodie off the bed. “I’m going for a walk.”
“Did Will ever mess around with Tony when he was younger?” Es asked.
I opened the mini-fridge and pulled out my half-drunk soda from the drive up. “Of course not. Will hates Tony. And the feeling is mutual.”
“Yeah, but maybe it’s mutual for a reason. I was doing some more digging on Tony’s phone and—”
“What do you mean? You don’t—”
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch. Did you honestly think I wasn’t gonna put my own spyware on Tony’s phone before I handed it over to you?”
“Fuck, Es. I knew I never should’ve trusted—”
“I found pictures—a lot of pictures. Most are of Derek, but there’s a whole folder of Derek and Will together, and a few of just Will.”
“What?”
“Check your email and call me back. I’ll be home for another hour.”
Then she hung up.