24
Right on cue, it turned out, meant the nurses had been trying to contact me to tell me they were bringing Si out of the medically induced coma. And because I was a jackass, I’d left my phone at the house.
I stayed with her most of the day. She was still disoriented, and at times she got confused and agitated.
She didn’t like that they’d shaved the side of her head.
She slept a lot, but the fact that she could talk, that she knew who I was—that was all I cared about.
The doctor told me that there was still a long way to go, but she thought Si was out of the woods.
When I left, it was dark, and the parking lot was a white patch of security lights. An inch of snow had settled on the truck—I guess the clouds had finally made up their mind.
She was awake.
She was out of the woods.
I was humming “Holly Jolly Christmas” as I cleared the windshield.
The house wasn’t dark when I got home. The Christmas tree.
The undercabinet lights. I kicked snow from my boots in the mudroom.
The punch bowl—clean now—was still on the counter.
The punch bowl, the chaise, the paintings, the ornaments.
That fucking piano. Stuff I’d have to find a way to get back to Noah.
I moved into the living room. I sat in front of the tree. He had boxes for all the ornaments; I’d seen them when he was decorating. They were in the basement now. I needed to bring them up. I could start tonight. I’d get a beer—
That was such a strange thought that I shook my head.
When was the last time I’d had a beer?
I wasn’t sure. Years. Since I’d gotten into recovery. And maybe it was the fact that I’d spent the whole day in that hospital room, hadn’t eaten lunch, hadn’t had anything to drink except water out of the drinking fountain—but a beer sounded good.
There was an older guy, Pete, in the first NA meeting I went to. Before I switched. And he’d always called it greasing the wheels. You took a drink to grease the wheels. Hell, maybe you only took one drink. But either way, the wheels were greased, and it was a whole lot easier to slip after that.
I took out my phone.
I stared at it for a while.
If there wasn’t beer in the refrigerator, there’d be some down the street. Just drive to the FastLane. Hell, I could walk. It was only a few blocks.
I stared at the phone some more.
There was this part of me that didn’t wake up all that often.
But every once in a while, there he was: angry, stubborn, ornery as fuck.
Tired of feeling like shit. Tired of feeling helpless.
I was a grown-ass man; why the fuck was I supposed to call somebody just because I wanted a beer at the end of a long day?
And then it was over, and I just felt tired, and I called Ed.
“Hey,” he said. In the background, it sounded like his wife was watching Jeopardy! Too late for the broadcast. She must have recorded it.
“Si’s awake.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Glad to hear it. She having visitors?”
“They said to give her a day or two.”
“All right.”
The silence stretched out until it was so tight I could have pulled on it.
“I got in a fight with Noah.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Bad one.”
“Mm.”
My face felt hot. My eyes stung. “So.”
“You thinking about using?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
And then there the silence was again, like a piece of wire.
“I was thinking I might have a beer.”
“Well, I don’t recommend it.”
“Yeah.” I laughed and wiped my face. “I know.”
“You want me to look up a meeting for you?”
“No, I just needed to say it out loud.”
“How about you go to a meeting?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Okay.”
“You want me to pick you up?”
I shook my head. Then I said, “They’ve got one at the Baptist church at midnight.”
Ed waited. In the background, somebody got the Daily Double.
“That’s a good idea,” I said. “Thanks.”
“You want to talk about it?”
A rap came at the door, and I said, “No. I’m good.”
“You sure?”
The rap came again. “Somebody’s at the door. I’m sure. Thanks, Ed.”
I felt a lot less sure when I opened the door and Auggie was standing there.
Short, with brown skin and his hair in a crew cut, he was dressed in a sweater with a reindeer on it and corduroy trousers that showed off his bubble butt.
He had on soft leather shoes without socks, and he’d parked his sleek little Audi at the curb.
For some reason, he was carrying what looked like a lunchbox.
I leaned on the jamb. “What’s up, tater top?”
It was the kind of thing that would have pushed all of Theo’s buttons, but since Auggie’s husband wasn’t there, Auggie just grinned. “Hey, Cart.”
If there was one sign of how far back I went with the little squirt, it was that name. Back from when I’d been a cop. Before anybody but my mom called me Howie. Before I’d come out—if you could call it that.
I looked at the lunchbox. “Big first day at school?”
Laughing, Auggie stepped forward, and I moved to let him in. I shut the door behind him as Auggie took a few steps into the house. He whistled as he looked around. “The place looks great, Cart.”
“Took me long enough.”
“God, it’s not even the same house. But it is. How’d you do that?”
“Magic cock.”
Auggie didn’t even bother responding to that one; he was stroking the chaise like it was a pet dog. “This is gorgeous. Where’d you get it?”
“Not to be rude,” I said, “but what the fuck do you want?”
And that definitely would have sent Theo into the red.
As usual, though, Skippy just smiled like I’d made a joke.
It was like the kid was Teflon. He held out the lunchbox, which turned out not to be a lunchbox but one of those decorative tins people handed out at the holidays.
“Theo and I made cookies this year, and I wanted to bring you some.”
“Bullshit.”
Auggie actually burst out laughing. “You know, that works with most people.”
“What do you want, Sparky?”
He’d been so young when I’d met him. Young, and determined to get into Theo’s pants, even if he wouldn’t admit it at the time.
And annoying, if I was being honest, although some of that might have had something to do with the fact that I wanted to get into Theo’s pants too.
And right then, as the smile smoothed into well-worn confidence, I couldn’t help the startled realization that he was older, that he’d grown, that I was talking to an adult.
“We—I—saw Noah’s post.” He waited like I might step into that fucking minefield. Then he said, “Cart, I thought you got divorced.”
“Yeah, well, so did I.”
His eyebrows arched at that. “Uh, so the post seemed…positive. Is this a happy thing?”
“Turns out it’s not.” A bitter note I couldn’t quite swallow filled the rest of the words: “You’re about a day too late.”
“Oh Cart. I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, well. Sorry in one hand. Your dick in the other.”
“I thought the saying was ‘wish in one hand.’”
“You can say it about more than one thing, Cap’n Crunch.”
“What happened?”
And God help me if I know why, but I told him. All of it, from that lawyer’s phone call up to the awful argument that morning.
Auggie didn’t say much. He listened. He nodded. Somehow, we ended up in the kitchen, the tin of cookies open between us, and I hadn’t eaten anything all day so I talked while jamming sugar cookies in my mouth.
“Do you know the worst fucking part?” I said.
“The part that makes me lose my fucking mind? All he cared about was getting a fucking attaboy from his dad. That’s it.
He can look me in the eye and say he’s worried about his trust fund, but that’s horseshit.
It’s all about his dad finally saying, ‘Hey, Noah, great job.’ That’s what the whole fucking thing was about, the house, the tour, that big fucking post on Instagram—all of it.
He couldn’t wait for Daddy to tell him he’d done a good job.
And do you think Jonathan gives two fucks?
Fuck no. Noah could win the fucking Nobel Peace Prize, and his dad would tell him the Nobel in Economics is better. ”
“That sounds like it would be really hard,” Auggie said.
“Fuck yeah, it’s hard. His dad is a piece of shit. The whole family. They’ve got this kind of mindfuck whammy on him, even though Noah should just cut all contact.”
“Well, and the money.”
“Yeah, and the fucking money.”
Auggie reached for one of the cookies, and I smacked his hand.
“Cart!”
“They’re mine, champ. Tell Theo to make you some more.”
“Hey, I made some too!” But then a surprisingly pretty blush rose in Auggie’s cheeks, and he grinned. “Well, Theo let me frost them.”
“Good fucking Lord. Did he just kind of pull the apron to the side when he fucked you, too?”
The blush in Auggie’s face flared.
“Oh my fucking God,” I muttered.
“No!’
“I don’t want to know.”
“That’s not— We didn’t—”
“And I’m sitting here eating your fucking bang cookies like a fucking moron.”
“Okay, well, the cookies were already in the oven, so…”
I stared at him for a while. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“You make me super nervous, but there’s also this weird way you remind me of my older brother—”
“Stop talking.”
He shut his mouth. But he did smile at me. Like, a lot.
It was nice to know I wasn’t losing my touch.
“I kind of know what that’s like,” Auggie said. “A little. Having a dad who—who doesn’t want you. Or wants you, but not because of who you are. And how it can make you want, I don’t know, attention, I guess.”
“You flashed your nips in three different videos last week,” I said. “Attention doesn’t even get into it.”
“Oh my God, Cart!”
“You’re lucky Theo still thinks with his dick.”
A strangled laugh escaped Auggie. And he did fold his arms across his chest—I guess because of the whole nips thing.
But the little tyke also apparently wasn’t ready to give up because he said, “I’m just saying, I know it frustrated you that he did that.
But you also know why he did it. And even if you wish that part of him were different—”