Bloodroot (24 page)

“When he told me,” I said, “his story made so much sense.”

My mother reached across the table and took my hand. “Of course it made sense,” she said. “That’s the whole point of self-deception, to make things that we can’t understand, things that we wish weren’t true, explainable.”

“I don’t know what to think,” I said. “I feel kind of sick. Why does he always do this to me?”

“Don’t be too hard on Danny,” my father said, surprising me, since he’d always been tougher on my brother than any of us. “By now, he probably believes every lie he’s told you.”

“So what is it, then,” I asked, “that he’s so afraid of?”

“I wish we knew,” my mother said. “It’s not like he could tell us. He was barely five years old when he came to us.”

“In the arms of the cop that found his mother’s corpse,” my father added. “Needle still in her arm.”

“So you adopted him from the hospital?” I asked. Something didn’t sound right to me. “Is that even legal?”

My parents traded glances.

“Your grandfather had a lot of influence,” my father said, “at the hospital and beyond.”

He sounded to me like Danny talking about Santoro.

“And things were different then,” Mom said. “The cop that brought Danny in knew your grandfather from around the neighborhood. Knew all the work he had done for children.” She smiled. “It was because of my father that I got into pediatrics in the first place.” She leaned across the table, gripping my forearm. “Who’d take better care of that poor baby than your father and me? The state? The city? The same people that turned a blind eye to Bloodroot?”

My father covered the hand my mother had locked on my arm, massaging her fingers until she released me.

“A lot of Danny’s troubles belong to your father and me,” Mom said. “I was naïve. I thought we could make everything he’d seen as a baby go away. We knew he’d been damaged but we didn’t think he’d come so close to being destroyed. I don’t know what more we could’ve done, but we should’ve done something.”

Dizzy, I stayed glued to my seat trying to piece together everything I’d heard. And I’d thought I was the one who’d come to the table with shocking news. All these explanations only made my family more confusing to me than ever. All those years it had seemed such a tragedy that my brother became a junkie. In reality, he had already outlived both his odds and his origin. He seemed a miracle to me.

“Eileen,” my father said. “We saved that boy’s life. Everything good he’s got is because of us.”

His voice was desolate, the voice of a man who knows what he’s saying will never be believed but who’s powerless to stop speaking. He watched her, a stricken look on his face. There was a need in him, a weakness that I’d never seen before. My mother said nothing to him, finally too exhausted, I thought, to offer even insincere consolation.

I couldn’t leave my dad out there alone, so I asked a stupid question. “So Danny’s birth mother was a junkie?”

His gaze was so fixed on my mother that it took him a full minute to answer.

“Yeah, far as we know.” He turned to me, looking surprised to see me sitting at his table. “Explains a lot, doesn’t it?”

My mother picked up her drink and walked away from the table, over to the living room window. She stared into the backyard, the light going out of it with the setting sun. I wondered what she saw out there.

I went to her, leaving my father at the table. We needed a change of subject. I’d heard more than I’d ever put together into the truth. And I’d heard nothing that would change my plans with Danny, for the family or for other things. It was what he believed that drove him, so it was what he believed that mattered. There was no reason to keep stumbling through the brambles and weeds of the past.

“Mom?” I asked. “What’re you looking at?”

“The garden,” she said. “At my bloodroot patch. Though it’s not much to look at this time of year.”

I slipped my arm across her shoulders. She stiffened, but she didn’t move away.

Even through her blouse, she was cold to the touch. I could smell traces of whiskey on her breath. Our breathing made one cloud on the window. She tapped the window with her fingernail, in a slow rhythm, as if counting.

Tick . . . tick . . . tick.

“I planted that garden as soon as we moved in,” Mom said. “In honor of Danny’s coming home. It’s like him. It always comes back.”

NOT LONG BEFORE MIDNIGHT, I WALKED BAREFOOT ACROSS THE
cool hardwood of Kelsey’s living room and stretched out on her overstuffed, dark espresso sofa. Her apartment, like her body, put mine to shame. After her mother died, Kelsey had told me, she’d sold the house she grew up in for a solid profit. Letting it go was tough but even then Kelsey knew she wasn’t planning to stay on Staten Island.

A fair chunk of the money went into furnishing and adorning the apartment. The sofa, two matching easy chairs, a modest flat-screen TV, a long low coffee table that seemed hand carved from a piece of the Amazon or darkest Africa. Soft light emanated from tall brass lamps standing at attention in the corners. A huge bed wide as it was long anchored the bedroom, leaving room for little else. We’d yet to make use of the arcing wooden headboard, but I was looking forward to it.

The apartment, not much larger than but in every other way different from mine, was fitted out for comfort and quiet, an island on an island. This place alone seemed reason enough to stay in town. My apartment was a place to live; Kelsey’s was a place to have a life. As long as our rendezvous continued, if I had my way, they would happen here.

She walked out of the kitchen carrying a jelly glass of ice water for each of us and wearing a red satin scrap of a robe that she hadn’t bothered to tie. She handed me my glass, sitting on the coffee table in front of me, sweat, mine and hers, shining on her collarbone.

“This place is amazing,” I said. “You wanna come over and do mine next?”

“I just did yours,” she said. “Rather well, if I do say so myself.”

“Oh,” I said, raising my eyebrows at her. “That you did.”

She sipped her water. “You let me loose with a few grand and leave me alone for a week and I’ll see what I can do.” She slid a ceramic coaster to her hip and set down her glass. “When do I get to see your place? I’m curious about the inner sanctum of Kevin Curran.”

“Inner sanctum,” I repeated, scoffing. Her choice of words made me think more of Danny’s place than of mine. “Ever been inside a shooting gallery? My place is a little cleaner. I have electricity, though I steal my cable from the downstairs neighbors. Otherwise, it’s about the same deal.” I shrugged. “I have a nice porch. Well, let me clarify. I have a shitty, crooked-ass porch with a great view of the city.”

“Why is that?” Kelsey asked.

“Well, my block points right at Manhattan.”

“No, retard, why live somewhere so depressing?” She gestured around her living room. “This place was nothing special when I got here. My landlord’s no prince and he was no help getting the place fixed up.”

“I’m not much of a fixer-upper,” I said.

“Neither was I,” she said. “But I learned, basic shit anyway.”

“That puts you ahead of me,” I said. “You should’ve seen me the last time I picked up a hammer.” I sat up, drank down half my water. “I don’t know why but ever since I got there I’ve felt like I’d be moving out any day. The place didn’t seem worth any kind of commitment. Like you said, I was going places.”

She cocked her head at me, dipping her chin. “How long have you lived in this place that you’re always getting ready to leave?” She pulled closed her robe with both hands.

“Five years,” I said. “Why?”

“No reason,” Kelsey said, standing. She tied her robe, walked to the kitchen window and peeked through the blinds. “There’s this big black car coming and going at odd hours, always parking across the street. It was out there when you got here. It’s still out there four hours later.” She turned to me. “Nobody on this block can afford a ride like that.”

My throat dried up and I reached for my water. “I didn’t notice it.”

She turned, gave me a rueful smile over her shoulder. “Of course not. You’re not a woman living alone.”

I walked over to her, slipping my arms over her hips and wrapping them across her belly, letting my chin drop onto her shoulder so I could look over it. Out in the street, just outside a circle of streetlight, sat the Charger.

“Anybody approached you?” I asked. “You getting weird phone calls? Knocks on the door?”

She shook her head. “No, nothing like that. Nothing but that car.”

“Have you told anyone else in the building about it?”

“I left a note for the girl upstairs. And I told the cop downstairs, this old guy named Waters. He helped a girl that used to live across the hall last year with her ex.”

“What’d he do?”

“I don’t know,” Kelsey said. “But whatever it was, it worked.” She turned in my arms, leaning back against the windowsill. “He can’t do anything for me officially, but he said he’d keep an eye out. Told me to get the plate if I could.”

“You had any luck with that?” I thought about heading out there myself, decided against it. What if Kelsey could tell from watching us that Al and I knew each other?

“I can’t read it from up here,” she said. “And I don’t want to go out there.” She shuddered. “I know it’s probably nothing, but something about it gives me the creeps.”

I held her closer to me so she couldn’t see my face. “Yeah, me too.”

 

 

 

I WAITED UNTIL KELSEY
fell asleep before I took her cordless phone into the bathroom to call Danny. I hung up on his voice mail twice, calling back each time. I realized he might not answer because he didn’t recognize the number. I didn’t know what I’d do if Kelsey found me in the can with her phone; I just hoped I didn’t get caught. The third time I left a message telling him who it was and that I’d keep calling until I got him. He answered the fourth call. “Yo.”

“I need to talk to Al,” I said.

“Don’t know the guy,” Danny said. “Who’s this?”

I squeezed my temples in my hand. Danny and his phone paranoia. “Allison, the Italian girl who overloads on perfume all the time.”

“Oh, her.”

“She and I
really
need to talk,” I said. “Just me and her.”

“Why don’t you leave a message with me? I’ll deliver it.”

“It’s personal.”

A long moment passed before Danny spoke again. “So it’s like that.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s like that.”

“That’s a tough request. I’ll see what I can do. Can I call you back at this number?”

“No,” I said. “No one can call me here, tonight or any other time. And I’m not accepting any visitors, either. I’ll call you back in the morning.”

I hung up and sat on the closed toilet for a few minutes, listening hard for any sound in the apartment or out on the street. I looked out the window. The car was still there.

Back in the bedroom, I saw Kelsey hadn’t stirred. I sat at the foot of the bed watching her breathe. Don’t, Kelsey, I thought, please don’t be too smart for your own good. Just keep your head down and your mouth shut until you reach Chicago. I’m not smart enough to keep myself out of trouble, never mind the both of us.

 

 

 

THE NEXT MORNING,
as Kelsey and I crossed campus on our way to the office, I spied Danny sitting on the bench where Kelsey and I had shared lunch a day earlier. He watched us walk by from behind mirrored shades. Kelsey and I passed close enough for me to see our tiny, distorted forms cross Danny’s lenses. I fell a step behind her and nodded at Danny as I walked by him.

After my first class, I went back outside. Danny was waiting. No surprise. I stopped to light a cigarette a few feet away.

“The student union,” I said. “Other side of campus. I don’t want her seeing you.” I walked away.

Danny showed up at the student union a few minutes after me. We got coffee and took a table outside.

“Let a guy in on the dark side,” Danny said, easing into his chair, “next thing you know he thinks he’s Jason Bourne.”

“Where’s Al?” I asked.

“I love you, bro,” Danny said. “But for a teacher you’re a hell of a slow fucking learner.” His face smiled at me beneath his shades, but there was a warning in his voice.

“The issue seemed more urgent at the time than it probably was,” I said. “But Al was outside Kelsey’s house for hours. She says he’s there even when I’m not.”

“I understand that’s unnerving,” Danny said. He folded his arms on the table and leaned across. “But you, me, other people at our level, we don’t make demands, especially out of panic. It’s not how things are done.”

“How about your better half getting made? By the mark, no less,” I said. “A mark who’s got a den mother cop for a neighbor. Is that how things are done?”