Stories Beneath Our Skin (18 page)

"
If you want to do this, if you really want to have this kind of heart-to-heart? Then that's where it comes from." She pressed the heel of her hand over her chest.

"
I had a twenty-two-year-old boyfriend when I was sixteen," he said, just loud enough to be heard. "He drugged me and hurt me, and I loved him. He left me. Those are the only words I have for that."

"
Oh." She looked up at him finally. For the first time he could remember, she wasn't wearing any makeup. Even without it, she retained an essential femininity. Something about the tilt of her mouth and the slope of her cheeks. "What was his name?"

"
Brandon." The name didn't burn his tongue or scar his throat. It was just a name. It could've been anyone.

"
Andrew." She took another cup in her hands, turning it over and over. "I was old enough to know better, but it was... yeah. It was good for a long time. I don't even remember when it got bad, it went so slow. Little things that became big things. I wasn't afraid of anything." Her nails, chipped red, pinged against the glass. "After you've gone through all this and come out the other end alive, you have to cut out all your fear. I made excuses and made things easy for him, and I never got scared like I should have."

"
I wasn't afraid either."

"
Funny how that is, isn't it?" She rolled her shoulders back, one of them cracking. "We were at my apartment one night, and I said something he didn't like. We were in the kitchen. I saw him reach for the knife and pull it out of the block. It took too long for me to realize what he meant to do. I couldn't believe it even as he headed toward me."

"
Jesus," he breathed out.

"
Yeah." She lifted up her stiff bangs. There was a scar just at the hairline, a few inches long. "I had good reflexes from roller derby. I ducked. He fell. I got the gun my Daddy bought me for my twenty-first birthday. I shot him in the kneecap and called the police."

"
Holy shit! And none of the others knew about it? How wasn't it in the papers?"

"
The other derby girls helped me out. I didn't know the boys well back then, and Deb hadn't come back from Afghanistan yet." She finally started drying the glass, taking extra care along the rim. "Andrew never pressed charges. I claimed the gun went off in self-defense, and he agreed."

"
Really? Why?"

"
Call it love." Frankie's smile was a bitter parody of her usual grin. "Or call it both my older brothers being local cops. I prefer to think it was love though."

"
I can't believe you shot him." And he couldn't believe the admiration in his own voice. "Damn. I don't think I would've been able to do it."

"
It was him or me." She held the glass up to the light; it refracted and sent rainbows over everywhere. "Right then, I wanted to live more than I wanted him."

"
Still. Took guts."

"
Maybe. But you asked who I'm afraid of?" She set the glass down in front of him and pulled out another dry one. Ice clattered into them both. "Me. Every damn time."

"
Why? You did what you had to do."

"
Because I enjoyed it. It was all my anger, all the shame I had stored up. I pointed it at him, and I shot." She poured gin over the ice. "I know I have that in me now. Same way Andrew had it in him."

"
It's different. You've got to know it's different."

"
Is it?" The soda gun topped both glasses off with Sprite. "What I know is that I can hurt people I love. What I know is that I'm so angry some days I see red. For no real reason at all."

"
I'm terrified every day." He watched her slice a lime, easy and precise. "I can't sleep from it."

"
Path to the Dark Side." She tucked a lime on the rim of both glasses. "There's a quote for you.
'Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering
.'"

"
Who said that?"

"
You know all these old, dead white men, and you don't know Yoda?" She shook her head. "That is just wrong. Here's how this is going to play out: You have a drink, call Ace and tell him that if he wants to set us up this way, he'll deal with not having you for the night. We're doing
Star Wars
."

"
What about the bar?" Liam didn't bother denying Ace's implicit guilt.

"
Carlos won't mind going alone. It's a weeknight, just the regulars coming in. Now pick up your drink and toast with me."

Liam did as she bid and toasted,

"To the death of fear and anger."

"
To the motherfucking Light Side."

The touch of their glasses rang out through the empty bar, nearly startl
ing baseball guy off his stool.

The next thing Liam clearly remembered was waking up on a couch that wasn
't nearly as comfortable as Ace's had been. It was a gritty purple velvet that left an angry red pattern on his face. He rubbed at it ineffectually after he stumbled into the only bathroom he could find. It looked like an expensive hotel bathroom, done in black and whites with classy splashes of red. The soap smelled of lavender and citrus. The hand towels were so precisely folded that he hesitated to use them. In the end, he wiped his hands off on his jeans.

The low hum of conversation drew him to the kitchen. Frankie, looking resplendently hungover in a blue silk bathrobe, sipped at a steaming mug. Across from her, a chubby, stubbled man with a pug nose and long lashes, chopped strawberries with a wicked long knife.

"Good morning, Professor," Frankie chimed, sounding far more cheerful than the dark bags under eyes would suggest. "This is my roommate, Bruce. Bruce, this is Liam."

"
Hey." Bruce licked a line of strawberry juice off his hand. "Coffee on the counter if you want any. There'll be crepes in a bit."

"
Crepes?" Liam pulled out a chair. "Thanks, that sounds awesome right now."

"
Bruce is in culinary school," Frankie said with the pride of a mother. "Second year. We do a big breakfast every morning, come hell or high liquor intake."

"
How long have you guys been living together?"

"
Three years? Four?" Bruce shrugged and peeled a banana.

"
Three and a half." Frankie yawned, showing off a filling in her back tooth. "We met online on one of those weepy support groups. I never had much patience for it, and neither did he."

"
And here we are." Bruce shrugged. "You like Nutella?"

"
Are there people who don't?" Frankie blinked in slow surprise. "I refuse to believe that."

"
I eat it." Liam smiled around his headache.

Watching them cook entertained Liam immensely. They moved in ballet tandem, talking in low murmurs over and above each other. Their body language read as siblings as they jostled and poked at each other with spatulas. Later they exchanged baffled looks over his head as he picked out the fruit, scraped up the Nutella th
en cut up the crepe, but neither offered a word of critique.

"
I suppose I should take you back to your busybody boyfriend." Frankie declared when the last of the fresh squeezed orange juice had been drunk.

"
He's not my boyfriend." Liam's cheeks went from cool to burning in seconds.

"
Uh-huh." Frankie laughed. "I'm surprised he hasn't inked 'Property of Ace' on your forehead yet."

"
I have more than a few objections to that." He licked the last dribble of strawberry juice off his fork. The joke didn't bother him, though he knew just last week it might have. Today, it was just that: a joke. "And he's not possessive."

"
Professor, he was warning people off you the night of Goose's birthday, and I know you weren't even banging back then."

"
No way." Liam looked up, startled at the thought.

"
Way," Bruce said blandly. "I was at a table by the bar. Cute little thing in a short red skirt headed your way, and he sent her a look that could curdle milk."

"
Oh." He frowned, trying to remember getting any kind of vibe like that before Ace's mixed up confession the day of the street fair. How distracted from reality had he been? "I... wow. Really?"

"
You book-smart boys." Frankie clucked her tongue. "Head in the clouds and libido all confused. Amazing you ever figure out how to get laid."

"
He's doing better than you right now, Francesca." Bruce curled the last syllable of her name.

"
Oh, shut up." She threw a sugar cube at him. "Anyway, better is relative. Ace is not my type. Way too butch."

"
Unlike Goose," Liam said mildly.

"
Oh, not you, too! Lord save me from matchmaking homosexuals."

"
As a hetero matchmaker, I'd point out that I agree." Bruce popped the sugar cube into his mouth. "You're not going to find another mocha-skinned, tall, skinny boy with tattoos and the sexual openness of a seahorse."

"
Seahorses are sexually open?" Liam knit his eyebrows together.

"
The boys carry the babies." Bruce grinned.

"
He's obsessed with seahorses. You wouldn't believe the documentaries I've sat through," Frankie said with no lack of fondness. "He's a regular Jack Cousteau."

"
Jacques," Bruce corrected. "And they're one of the few species that mate for life. The seahorses, not French documentary makers. You can't tell me that's not cool."

"
I think it's interesting." Liam filed it away, where he kept a lot of random facts.

"
Nerds." Frankie laughed. "Anyway, I'm not a seahorse last time I checked. Also, startlingly, I can run my own love life. So you two can kindly and politely fuck right off until I make up my mind."

"
Just seems like he's been waiting a while." Liam shrugged. "But you've gotta do what you've got to do."

"
Mmm. What I have to do is take a shower and get dressed. I'll drive you back to your car, okay?"

"
Yeah, okay." Liam watched her go. "Did I push too much?"

"
With her?" Bruce picked up the dishes and carried them to the sink. "She can take way more than what you're capable of throwing at her."

"
But she shouldn't have to." Liam got up to help, taking the dishtowel Bruce handed him.

"
None of us should, but life doesn't give a shit. Our girl Frankie is nail tough and powder puff soft, all at once. Gift she has."

As he washed the dishes, Bruce hummed a little under his breath. Liam wanted to ask Bruce a dozen more questions, but there was a sweet easiness to the way he went about the task that created a mellow silence. Liam dried the dishes and gave into the soft focus feeling of the morning. There was world enough and time to unravel life
's little mysteries.

Chapter Twelve

"
I'm just saying that we have three bottles of Diet Coke that no one is going to drink. We get some Mentos, and it's a party!" Goose threw up his hands in a mock explosion.

"
A party where everyone ends up sticky," Ace drawled. "Your favorite."

"
Hey, now. I'll have you know that I always bring Wet Naps with me just in case."

"
If we did it from up here, we could probably hit the trees behind the shop," Liam put in.

The three of them had gathered on the roof, smeared over three of the chairs and a six
-pack already dead between them. Deb had shut the shop for the night, informed them imperiously that she had a life to lead and left them behind with a mish mash of old take out.

"
Yeah and call every ant in a five-mile radius," Ace grumbled. "Do you know how expensive exterminators are?"

"
You're no fun anymore." Goose frowned, but considering he'd spread himself upside down on the lawn chair, it didn't have quite the same effect. Liam had been making bets with himself about just how long it would be before the chair collapsed and dumped Goose to the ground. "No fun at all."

"
I sign the paychecks that keep you in the lifestyle to which you've become accustomed. I keep you in fun."

"
Makes me a kept man, right?" Goose shifted, the chair creaking ominously beneath him.

"
Sure, I'll keep you chained to your table."

"
I'm reasonably sure there are laws--" Liam started to say, interrupted by the grating chime of his phone. He dug it out of his pocket. "Slavery is bad, is what I'm saying."

"
It's not slavery if I pay him," Ace pointed out calmly.

St. Francis
' number was up on the screen. Liam thumbed the answer button,

"
Hello?"

"
Mr. Lamplighter, this is Dr. Eloise." A thin voice wheezed. Liam remembered meeting the night shift doctor, a hunched white haired man that looked like he might be better off in one of the beds.

"
What's going on?" He straightened in his chair, both feet hitting the rooftop. Goose and Ace's banter died abruptly off.

"
Your uncle's status has changed." One rattling breath came over the phone and then another. Ice entered Liam's blood. "He slipped into a coma."

"
I saw him three hours ago. He was talking, and he was totally fine." Liam had even coaxed him through a few mouthfuls of rice pudding.

"
These things can happen quickly." The doctor's sigh soared downward. "It's remarkable that he lived as long as he did with renal failure."

"
How long does he have now?"

"
A few days at most. I doubt he'll regain consciousness. I'd suggest reaching out to anyone that might like to make their goodbyes."

"
Yes... I'll do that." Liam hung up and stared down at the phone. "I've got to go."

"
You okay?" Ace put a hand on Liam's knee.

"
Fine. I mean, I knew it was coming. He's in a coma now. So he's not in pain or anything. I'm going to go though. Be with him."

"
You want company?"

"
No." He got to his feet. "It's fine. You'll need to sleep, with Cole coming back tomorrow. I'll be fine."

"
I could come," Goose offered. He'd righted himself in the chair and taken off his cap to twist it in his hands. "If you want someone..."

"
No, really. Thanks." Liam started to the hatch. "I'm fine."

And i
n a detached way, he was. He drove to St. Francis without the radio on, listening to the wind whistle by the open window. He managed a smile for Gretchen, ignoring the compassionate way she waved him through without signing in. The other family and friends didn't look up as he went by. Too absorbed in their own impending loss this late at night perhaps, or maybe they knew. Maybe they thought that if they made eye contact then his grief would spread like wildfire through them.

He slipped into Gene
's room. It had taken on an acrid chemical smell, too many astringents, too many humming machines. Liam took his seat at the side of the bed and reached out for Gene's hand. There was no returning clench of fingers, no vibrant warmth. Only, when Liam groped to find it, a thready pulse.

There weren
't things left unsaid between them, nothing that Liam wanted to say anyway. He'd confessed whatever he was willing to confess back when he first came home. There were no grand pronouncements left, no last minute regrets. Yet, it felt wrong to sit in silence when Gene had brought so much sound in Liam's life: the patter of movies, the joy of long conversation and most importantly, the stories they shared.

"
When I was ten or eleven," Liam began, clinging to Gene's hand, "we tried to go camping. Do you remember? You bought a tent and a cooler and all these gadgets, piled me into the car. You said it was one of those things that a boy should experience. I told you that I wanted to stay home, but we went anyway.

"
It was miserable. Rainy and cold, and the tent leaked. We slept in the car instead, me on the passenger seat and you stretched out in the back. To make it up to me, you made s'mores for breakfast. You held a cigarette lighter under the marshmallows to melt them, took near forever, and I think you burned your fingers a dozen times.

"
The rain cleared up after we ate. We went for a walk and everything had been washed fresh. I asked a thousand questions, and if you didn't know the answer, you promised you'd look it up later. You did too. You always did.

"
We didn't go camping again, but we set up the tent in the backyard the whole rest of the summer. I think you were afraid I'd move in back there, even though I always came in to sleep.

"
I just want..." Liam stopped, gathered himself up, "I love you. Thank you. For everything."

He held Gene
's hand all the way through the night, nodding off when the grey dawn light crept in. Down the corridor someone was humming "Hey, Jude" and coffee brewed, the rich burnt scent wiping away the harsh antiseptic odor.

Liam breathed
out, Gene breathed out. Liam breathed in, and Gene didn't. The monitors started to chime, then wail, a wretched alarm clock that drowned out humming and coffee and the very dawn itself. A nurse charged in, shut it all down. A doctor with a clipboard followed, a time discussed and agreed upon.

"
Would you like a minute with the body?" someone asked, sweet and kind as could be though Liam couldn't have said if they were male or female, old or young.

"
No. Thank you." He got to his feet, let the cooling hand slide from his own.

"
We'll have him sent to the funeral home on record. They'll call you by this afternoon, I'm sure. It looks like the arrangements were all made, so you won't have to worry about anything. Is there someone that can take you home for now?"

"
No. Thank you."

He walked pas
t Gretchen arriving to work.

"
Goodbye." She reached for him and hugged him, her small hands grasping for his shoulders. "I'm so sorry."

"
Thank you." He kissed her on the cheek, untangled himself and homed in on his car. Gene's car. Liam's car was in California. Gene's car, but Liam's now. Like the house, all its spilling contents and the bank account carefully managed, though depleted from too many hospital bills.

He drove home slowly, carefully. The sun heaved itself up over the horizon to spill harsh orange light in every direction. The temperature ticked upward. He broke instantly out in sweat
while getting out of the car, and it poured off him as he stepped carefully on each stone square of the walkway.

There was chattering when he went through the front door, Ace and Cole engaged in some kind of debate about Cheerios. He ghosted past them, went into his own bedroom
, and lay down under Ginsberg's face. "The weight of the world is love" cast a shadow over him as he fell into an uneasy doze.

The phone woke him, some unknown time later. Overheated and disoriented, he struggled out from under a blanket he hadn
't drawn over himself. The phone stopped ringing, and there were footsteps coming down the hall. For a brief, swooping moment, Liam time traveled. He was small and scared. A nightmare had seized him out of sleep, and he knew he couldn't make a sound because his parents hated when he roused them in the middle of the night. He'd waited in bed for the fear to pass. Then the door had opened, and Gene had come through. Gene, and not the bulky shadow of Liam's father. Gene had given him a cold glass of water, talked to him about fly fishing, soothed him back to sleep.

"
It's the funeral parlor," Ace called him back to the present, handset wedged between shoulder and ear. "You want me to handle it? They just need a go ahead."

"
No. Thank you," Liam said, the only words coming easily to his lips. He reached out. Ace put the phone in his hand and an awkward kiss on his cheek.

Gene had planned out his afterlife with Liam in the early days of the hospice
, when he was still awake more often than asleep. They'd decided on a graveside service, an ecumenical minister who wouldn't care about Gene's tentative relationship with Christianity or Liam's bemused agnosticism. Simple. Easy. Gene hadn't wanted to be any trouble. Liam had resented it at the time, but now he was profoundly grateful. The idea of planning a shower right now made him want to crawl back into bed, let alone a funeral.

Even the eulogy had already been written because Gene had wanted to hear it.
"Not many people get a chance to be at their own funeral," he'd joked. Liam had brought in three drafts before they were both satisfied with it.

"
Tuesday at three," the professional crisp funeral parlor voice said over the phone. "I notice you've declined a viewing. Will there be a wake of any kind?"

"
Just the service." Liam closed his eyes against the afternoon brightness. "He didn't want a big fuss."

"
I understand."

No, he probably didn
't, but Liam wasn't going to argue the point. Instead, he sat down at Gene's scarred desk with an ancient address book and started making phone calls. The process was mechanical, too easy in some ways. Newspaper for the obituary, lawyer for notification, friends who could call other friends.

And then there were the last two on the list. He stared down at the all too familiar numbers.

"You okay?"

Had Ace been here the entire time? Liam couldn
't recall.

"
Yeah, I just... have to call my parents. Gene told me I had to tell them personally." Liam leaned back in the wooden chair, listened to the creak of it. "I don't mind my dad, but Mom..."

"
It can wait." Ace's hand was cool on the back of Liam's neck, steady and present.

"
I want to call her." Liam tilted his head forward, encouraging the tough. "That's the worst part. I want to call her and for her to be my mom and make it better. And she can't. Even if she was that kind of mother."

"
It can wait," Ace said again, pressed his thumb just to the side of Liam's spine, pushing away the growing tension. "Come have something to eat."

The day got lost somewhere. Liam ate a few bites of something, picked up the phone when it rang and answered the same questions over and over until Ace pried it away from him and turned off the ringer.

"It's important."

"
The messages will still be there in the morning. Come to bed."

It was as if the summer of insomnia had caught up with him all at once. Liam fell asleep the second his head hit the pillow and didn
't wake until nearly noon the next day. He showered, dressed, and drove over to the shop. Deb stared at him when he walked in, but said nothing as he went by her desk and into his studio, shutting the door behind him. No one sent him customers. He spent the afternoon drawing in thick markers: a forest, a lopsided tent, a brick house buried in roses, Ginsberg's wild words melting into tangles of color.

The morning of the funeral saw him standing in the backyard. He wasn
't thinking about anything in particular, wasn't even consciously avoiding the black suit bought months ago and finally laid out on his bed. There was a cup of tea in his hand, slowly going cool.

"
Okay," he rallied, watching a squirrel bunch itself small then take the leap from one branch to the next, leaping over the space where a young boy had pretended to camp out in the wild. "Okay."

There was a crowd at the grave when Liam arrived. Dapper elderly men shook his hand solemnly, women with caked
-on makeup gone blurry with tears grabbed him up for deceptively strong hugs. Stories rained down on him, most familiar, some new.