When I See You (37 page)

"What's she doing?" I ask Ashleigh. I jerk my head toward the closed door.

"She's waiting for Igor Dasher."

"Who the
fuck
is that?"

Ashleigh gets this wan, sad smile.

"He's the mortician who took care of Ethan. He's coming from D.C. He caught a red-eye flight. That's the only one she trusts with—" Ashleigh starts to cry. Tate holds her close. "Your mom wants Igor, too," she says. "He's helping with both of them."

All I can do is nod. I've given up on understanding anything from here on out.

I whip out my cell phone and text Kate, "My dad died. Jordan's son drowned. We're at the hospital."

She texts back: "I'm so sorry. What can I do?"

I don't even think it through. No. I make another mistake to go along with all the other ones I've already made.

I text back: "I can see. Sign me off. Get me back to Afghanistan."

Kate texts back: "Done."

I text: "Don't come. I'll see you in D.C."

She texts back: "OK."

After a long while, I give in to the utter exhaustion and lie down on a couch in the ER waiting room.

≈ ≈

Sunlight pierces the edges of my eyelids. I'm awakened by this sharp endless tapping on my left shoulder by someone's bony fingers.

"Lieutenant Wainwright? Igor Dasher here."

I open my eyes, confused and assailed at the unusual sight of this haunted-looking man in a green velvet suit and starched white shirt. He has dark eyes, a beak of a nose, and high sallow cheekbones all pasted against the pale white skin of a patrician face. The shock of black longish hair completes his ensemble. Igor is an apt name. He looks like a vampire unexpectedly caught in daylight.

"I'm looking for Jordan Holloway? For Mrs. Henry Wainwright, Janie?"

"Who are
you
?"

"Igor Dasher. Ms. Holloway called me. I'm so sorry to hear about little Max and your father." His tone is questionable of true sentiment.

I stare up at him for a full minute. What kind of insane connection does he have to Jordan? How is it even possible to be jealous of such a creepy little man?

I stand up. He's a good seven inches shorter than me.

I start to smile, momentarily relieved of the memory of the morbid circumstances in which we all find ourselves. He makes this clicking sound with his teeth and rolls his eyes at me.

"Jordan? You were going to take me to Jordan and your mother?"

Does he end all his sentences with a question?

I shrug, unwilling to pay any sort of homage to this guy. I incline my head toward the door.

"Mrs. Holloway and Mrs. Wainwright are in there. They're in there."

Waiting for the likes of you. This I don't say, but my sudden intense dislike of him must show on my face.

He gives me this superficial smile and turns on his heel toward the closed door—the makeshift tomb that contains my father and Max; and that, somehow, holds hostage both Jordan and my mother.

The memories of yesterday stir. I stand there, alone. There's nowhere to hide when grief catches up to me.

*≈*≈*

Chapter 22. You're the storm

Jordan

The first time my magical world fell apart, I was seventeen. Motherless, fatherless. I was the child left behind. Now, at almost twenty-eight, in the space of six months, I'm widowed and childless. It's all been taken from me.

Guilt arrives. It burdens me with unspoken questions.

Did I hold on too tight? Did I bring this on myself? Was I that bad of a mother that God would punish me this way?

Igor Dasher's long fingers press into my wrist, jarring me back.

"No service. Just cremation," I say in rote. "Take him with you, if you need to. I'll be in touch about the ashes. A silver urn. He liked elephants. Yes. He liked those. Winnie the Pooh. Cat In the Hat. Have some sort of engraving done. Put some saying on the front. Something Winnie The Pooh would say. That would be nice. Yes. Let's do that."

The words get harder to say. My hearing starts to go. It's as if Igor Dasher is speaking to me from under water. I look at him in some confusion, now, and attempt to smile, to move my lips, at least, but nothing happens. The effort is too great.

With trembling hands, I give Igor my credit card. He writes down the number and hands it back.

"Is there anything else I can do for you?" Igor asks in his quiet, breathy way.

I look over at Max. He looks like he's sleeping beneath that crisp white sheet. Not even a blanket for the dead. There's a little smudge of dirt one of the nurses missed in cleaning him up. I want to remove it, but I can't make myself move. Igor follows my gaze. Then, he gets up and, with the corner of the sheet, wipes at Max's face with delicate strokes.

"Thank you," I whisper. "You'd better help Janie, now. Her daughter, Diana, is here, too. Out in the hallway." I cast my eyes about the room, as if seeing it for the first time. "What time is it?"

"It's a little past noon."

"Have you seen Brock?"

"Mr. Wainwright is waiting for you down the hall." Igor sounds disapproving.

He gets this kind of greenish tint to his features.
How is that even possible?
It almost makes me laugh. I shake my head to clear my mind. The incongruence between Brock and this man is too much to assimilate. Too much.

"Thank you for coming."

The mortician squeezes my hand. Then, he brushes his lips against the inside of my wrist. And, I feel nothing. It doesn't faze me at all. My hand easily slips from his grasp, and I leave without looking back.

It's been fourteen hours.

The hospital has begun to lose its lustrous status for generosity. They need the beds. They need the room. They've made that clear to most of us.

I scan the hallway, move past the nurses' station and all the sorrowful looks bestowed upon me. I manage to avoid the gazes of all the fresh mourners that have arrived for the Wainwrights. I move past Janie and Diana, even Ashleigh and Tate. My eyes seek only Brock's.

"Let's go," I say as soon as I see him.

I grasp his hand and pull him to me. He's so close to me that his breath stirs my hair. I stare into his eyes and no longer care if the world watches and disapproves of the two of us being together. None of it matters anymore. Least of all, it seems, to the two of us.

≈ ≈

The Porsche rockets along the highway. Brock seems to implicitly understand my urgent desire for acceleration, speed, and even danger. He's put the top down, and my hair whips at my face. Ten minutes into the drive, I look down at my white silk blouse and notice the mud and muck for the first time that's dried into the delicate fabric.

Ruined. Like so many things.

Brock looks over at me. His own hair blows every which way with the wind.

"Where do you want to go?"

"Your place," I say.

He looks momentarily surprised, and then, slowly nods.

≈ ≈

Twenty minutes later, I stare at Klimt's painting and attempt to reconcile that it was, in fact, only yesterday when I stood here admiring it. So much has changed. Now, it feels as if a decade of time has passed.

"What do you want to do?" Brock asks from the doorway.

He looks out of sorts. He sounds unsure.

"Shower."

He pulls me along to the bathroom, turns on the water, and walks me under the spray. We stand there fully clothed, until our clothes are soaked through and the water begins to cascade off of us in sheets.

I lean back. The spray infiltrates my hair. I close my eyes and let the water envelop all of me.

I can't cry, even now, when he wouldn't know, I can't cry.

I hear the distant snap of a bottle cap and open my eyes. He's rubbing his hands together until there's foamy suds. He washes my hair by running his fingers down through the long strands of it in regular rhythm. It's sensual and soothing at the same time. I start to relax, to let go, to let him in. I close my eyes again.

After a long while, he stops. I open my eyes and discover him looking at me. Sorrow etches his features. Desire, too.

I trace his eyelids, his lashes and the straight ridge of his nose and jaw line. His pulse races beneath my fingertips. With decisiveness, I undo the buttons on his shirt and the belt of his jeans and remove them with blatant dexterity and certain purpose.

"We need this," I say.

He answers with only a sad smile. He doesn't argue. I sense he doesn't want to. We're both beholden to this thing between us.

With forged alliance, we're both stripped naked within ninety seconds. Emboldened, he fills his hands up with soap again and washes all of me with these transcendental strokes. I brush my hands across his and perform the same ritual. My attraction for him compels me. He catches his breath when I touch him there.

"It's good. This is good," I say.

His only answer is his usual studied silence. I embrace it and love him for it. I do. I love him. I want to tell him, but I don't. I balance myself within the realm of his silence and reach up and pull him to me.

Our kiss is sanguine. It restores us, commits us. When it gets deeper, more intense, our explorations of one another become bolder and more urgent.

There are wants and needs that must be fulfilled, must be met. Time doesn't matter. Circumstances don't matter. Nothing matters, but the two of us and this tangible connection between us. It's all we have left.

When the water runs cold, we make a production of toweling off as if we can somehow delay the inevitable that's already been ignited.

It doesn't last.

I'm impatient now and I want him inside of me. I need to
feel
something. Now.

Somewhere inside, I harbor this belief that I will be able to outrun the grief by doing this. Somehow, Brock will make me whole again. I've managed to hide the fractured pieces of myself from him and I'm convinced he can keep me from completely falling apart. For a while, at least.

Don't wait. Don't think. Just do it. Liz's words return to me.

The first time we come together is swift and powerful. It serves to ignite this covetous passion for him I've never experienced before.
How can this be?

I crave his touch. I crave him. But the deeper we go, the farther away he feels from me. Desperation to reach him and possess him takes over. We christen every room, virtually, every horizontal surface as we come together. We make love in his dining room, the kitchen, the walk-in freezer, on his patio, on the stairway, on his piano, on the rug. He's insatiable and so am I.

Our hunger for each other drives out all rational thought, all judgment, until we're too physically and mentally exhausted to do it anymore.

And I begin to wonder if I'm losing him or losing myself.

We move as one, to his sumptuous bed, and climb in.

I glance over at him. He has this intense look. His lips part.

"Don't. Don't say anything."

He looks unhappy for a long moment, then nods, leans back against the pillows, and closes his eyes. I trace and kiss his lips. He smiles, but keeps his eyes closed. I smile, realizing he's too exhausted to argue with me.

"Tomorrow. I'm going to say it tomorrow," Brock murmurs.

I burrow into the crook of his right arm while our bodies become magically intertwined. Maybe, if we can believe in just one miracle long enough, if we can hold on to each other for a while, we'll be able undo the travesty that has descended upon us and all but taken over our very lives.

It's a reprieve, however brief. And, we take it.

≈ ≈

We wake up at the same time. Shy, disconnected, undone. I think it takes us both a full minute to reconnect to time and place and the events of yesterday that have transpired. A wave of grief threatens and I push the agonizing thoughts of Max far away from me. Instead, I sink back down into Brock's warm arms and allow myself to only concentrate on him.

I will not cry. I will not cry in front of him.

"I should have told my dad I loved him," Brock says.

There's so much remorse in his voice. I glance up in time to catch a glimpse of his face so etched with pain. Moved by his vulnerability, I attempt to smooth his pain away.

"I should have told him."

"He knew," I say. "We talked about you. The first night I was here? He told me how proud he was of you for serving in Afghanistan. How brave you are. Foolhardy, too, he said, but brave." I reach up and trace Brock's temple. "He loved you. He was proud of you. He told me."

"You're making that up."

"No," I say. "He wanted to tell me about Ethan, but we ended up talking about you. He said that the two of you didn't always communicate well. Imagine my surprise."

"What do you mean?"