Going for Kona (12 page)

Monday morning with Sam didn’t go well.

I flicked on the light switch in his room at seven thirty. “We need to talk.”

The pillow over his head muffled his voice. “Yeah, I know. You texted me.”

“And you didn’t answer.”

“You weren’t home. What did it matter?”

“Where were you last night?”

“Hanging out with friends.”

“You didn’t make it home by curfew, and you didn’t let me know when you got home. Same as last Thursday night.”

He sat up. “Geez, Mother, I didn’t want to wake you up. I did so make it home by curfew, but you were zonked. You go to bed so freakin’ early.”

“Don’t talk to me that way, please.” I had to leave or I’d miss my orthopedist appointment. I didn’t have time to confront Sam about lying or the incident at the Chevron station. “Today we are having a mother-son meeting. Meet me here at four fifteen, got it?”

“Got it.”

I left him stomping around his room. He was spinning out of control, and it made me really angry that he would take advantage of me when I was so vulnerable. I slammed the side door on my way out to my car.

***

Four hours later, I left the orthopedist’s office in tears and started digging through my wallet for Blake’s card. I wiped my eyes so I could read the numbers and dialed his office. A receptionist with a warm voice put me on hold for a couple minutes, then Blake’s voice came on the line.

“Michele? Good to hear from you! Sorry for the wait. I was just finishing up with a patient. How did it go with your orthopedist?”

I tried not to wail. “You were right.”

“Come see us right now. We’ll work you in.”

“But I don’t even know if you take my insurance.”

“Don’t worry about it. First visit’s on me. We’ll figure it out from there.”

I hung up and pointed the car in the direction of his clinic in Bellaire. I called Brian at Juniper and gave him the rundown. My training condition, like it or not, affected my work, since to Brian, Kona was about book and magazine promotion, even if to me it was a tribute to Adrian and a chance to be with him for fourteen-plus hours on the course.

“Focus on your doctors’ visits. Take all the time you need.”

“I will. I’ll probably need rehab visits a few times a week. I’ll make sure to schedule around the stuff Scarlett has lined up for me.”

“Sounds good.” He stopped talking, but in a way that sounded like thinking, even over the phone. I waited. “I know you’ve got it in your head that this is all about me and Juniper and money, but it’s not. I care about you, Michele. So does Scarlett. She brought in the most fantastic pictures of you and Adrian this morning from your book launch, and she couldn’t stop talking about how much she respects you and wants the best for you.”

My eyes itched and my head hurt. Something Brian said was jostling my last remaining brain cell, but I didn’t have enough juice to follow it through. And although I still wasn’t sure whether to trust Scarlett, I didn’t doubt Brian’s sincerity. How could I explain that admitting people care about me weakens me, makes me too soft? I couldn’t. So I didn’t try, just channeled my doppelganger’s skills and acted my aching heart out. “I know. Thank you, Brian.”

His voice brightened, and I knew I had hit the mark. “Hey, while I have you on the phone, your ex wants you to call him back. Marsha said he sounded a little upset.”

We said our goodbyes and I ended the connection. Robert. Never a good sign to hear from him. I scrolled through my missed calls at a red light. Whoops. Several from Robert and one voice mail. No, two voice mails, and the missed calls dated back to Friday night. Worse than whoops. I pulled into a parking space at the clinic and decided to listen to the messages the next chance I got.

I rode the mirrored elevator up to Blake’s fourth-floor clinic. The waiting room had a spa Zen to it, with tan-cushioned bamboo furniture and Berber carpet. Signed photos of Rockets and Texans graced the who’s who gallery, along with a few professional triathletes, including one Adrian stayed friendly with after writing an article about him years ago. An athletic-looking woman checked me in and a toned man in scrubs escorted me to a treatment room.

“Dr. Cooper will be with you in about five minutes,” he said. “Can I get you anything while you wait? We have green tea and ice water.” Not only did everyone look fit, but they smiled.

“No, I’m fine. Thanks.”

The small exam room had the same vibe as the lobby. Neutral walls, a shade darker than almond. Bamboo. Natural fibers. A chocolate leather chaise lounge. A miniature rock fountain on a side table and piped-in flute instrumental, an earthy-sounding piece. A potpourri of smells. I caught lavender and sandalwood oil, but I couldn’t place the others. Chichi, but Adrian would love it. Except for the flirty doctor part. Not that Adrian was ever the jealous type. I think he secretly enjoyed it when other men admired his woman, but I never even noticed anyone else. Adrian filled my heart. Maybe his absence from my physical realm would make him more prone to jealousy now . . .

I rolled my eyes. It was ridiculous to think my dead husband could be jealous. Wasn’t it? Maybe my next doctor’s visit should be to a shrink. I pulled my voice mail display up on my phone. Time to get this over with. I played Robert’s first one from Saturday afternoon.

His voice had an edge. “I thought you promised to make sure Sam didn’t back out on me? Next time would someone have the courtesy to call me and let me know he’s not coming?” The second call came in that morning, to talk about next time and being able to count on us.

Sam hadn’t showed up at his father’s? He defied us both and went AWOL Saturday night, even knowing we would catch him? He wasn’t home when I returned on Sunday afternoon. He was taciturn at breakfast and didn’t mention his father, even though he surely had a phone full of messages, too. Oh, yeah, and he was a “person of interest” in the death of his stepfather, and had told the police and me some big fat lies. Ay chingada. I grabbed my purse from the exam table and jerked the door open to leave—and ran pell-mell into the smiling Dr. Blake Cooper.

“Whoa, Michele. What’s the matter?”

“I’m sorry, but I got an emergency call about my son. I have to go.”

“No problem, call us tomorrow and we’ll get you back in. I hope everything’s okay?”

“Nothing is okay. I’ve messed everything up—” I stood on the deep end, ready to jump, then stepped back. “No, no, it’s fine, I just—oh, I just have to go.”

And I fled.

I ignored the speed limits and raced home. The 4Runner wasn’t there, so I left my Jetta running in the driveway and ran into the house, yelling for Sam. My voice had a crazy ring to it. I gulped. Tension meter at 10. Oh, how I needed Adrian. After more than thirty-five years of competence, I fell in love with the perfect guy and ended up helpless without him. Wasn’t love supposed to make me stronger?

The house was silent.

Sam kept his work and practice schedules on the kitchen bulletin board beside my training calendar. I scanned it. He should be on shift at the pool right now. I ran back out to my car and threw it in gear, calling Robert on the way and blocking the irritation from my voice. I would be mad in his position, too.

When he picked up, I got right into it. “I’m sorry I missed your calls and messages. Yes, we have a problem, and it’s bigger than Sam and me changing the schedule. He promised me he would go to your place before I left Saturday morning, and he didn’t tell me that he hadn’t done it after I came back.” I turned on Rutherglenn and cut the corner so close I hit the curb. I held on and prayed I didn’t pop the tire.

“You’re kidding. Where was he?”

I suspected I knew the answer to that: Sam hadn’t expected to get away with it. He wanted to get in trouble. He was trying to get some attention from his negligent mother, but I didn’t need to share that with my ex. “I’m headed to the pool now to find out. And I’d like to schedule him with a therapist. Losing Belle and Adrian has really done a number on him. I would appreciate your support.”

“You know I don’t believe in all that hocus pocus.”

I didn’t really give a rat’s ass what Robert believed in. I let the silence stretch out. I’d sit on that phone without speaking as long as I had to, but I wouldn’t back down, any more than Papa had when it came to me. I remembered my mother hissing at Papa when she thought I couldn’t hear. “I don’t want you and Isabel filling her head with all that Aztec sacrilege.”

Finally, Robert spoke. “If you think it would help, I will back you. As a last resort.”

Last resort? That would be a fight for another time. I jerked my Jetta into the JCC parking lot. “Fine. I’ll let you know more when I know myself.” I ended the call before he could say anything else.

The lot was jammed with cars and SUVs, and I had to squeeze into an illegal space at the farthest edge. The blacktop shimmered with fingers of heat that reached up and wrapped around my throat, and I gasped. My tension meter redlined. By the time I reached the pool, sweat was pouring down my back and my shirt was stuck to my body.

Sam sat upon the lifeguard stand overlooking the shallow end. When he glanced my way, his jaw dropped and he cut his eyes toward the other lifeguards under a tent nearby. I needed him to hear me, and my emotions were dangerously close to out of control, so I slowed down and breathed in as deeply as I could, stretching my lungs with the heavy, humid air and imagining the oxygen making its way into all the farthest recesses of my mind and body, working magic on me, pushing my stress out through my skin.

Visualize, Michele. Be what you seek.

Tension meter: 9.75.

Imagine Adrian beside you, loving you, supporting you, making it all right.

Tension meter: 9.5.

Sam works here, and his boss and friends will be able to see and hear us.

I walked purposefully toward him but wiped the raw-meat-eater look off my face.

Tension meter: 9.

I made a canopy over my eyes with my hand and looked up at him. “Sam, I need to talk to you.”

He sneered through gritted teeth. “I’m
working
, Mother.”

My heart ached looking at him. Even when he was angry, his youth and beauty burned my eyes. His skin had turned mocha-colored over the summer. Sun streaks shot through his dark flop of hair. Had I noticed before now? I didn’t think so. “How soon until you can take a break? I’ll wait.”

He looked away. “Crikey, Mom. You’re embarrassing me.”

I put my hand on my hip. “Then find a way to take a break or see if they can let you go for the day, because I’m not leaving until we talk. I’d like for your sake that our chat occur somewhere else, but if not, then right here will do.”

He glared at me but hand-motioned for his boss to come over. The boss was a kid himself. Braces crisscrossed his teeth and acne splotched his cheeks. I moved three steps away. He and Sam whispered, then he walked over to the guard canopy and tapped a short brunette on the shoulder. She grabbed her neon-orange rescue float and whistle and strode briskly but carefully to Sam’s stand like she imagined people were eyeing her. She and Sam exchanged places and he walked over to me.

“Are you on break or done for the day?”

He stared into the distance. “Done,” he said, packing a lot of screw-you into the word.

“All right, then. Let’s take a drive—my car.”

As we walked in silence, I rehearsed what I needed to say and prayed I could find a better mother than the one I had been in the last few weeks. And I fumed. Fumed at Sam, myself, and fate. Fumed at Adrian. Why hadn’t he been looking where he was going? Couldn’t he, with all his athleticism, have hopped out of the car’s way? Why didn’t he wear his damn helmet? Didn’t he know I couldn’t live without him? If he knew, if he cared, he would never have been that careless. He would never have let this happen. Damn him.

Sam chuffed. “What?”

“Nothing.” I turned my key in the door, then jumped in and turned on the lights as the horn honked. Sam slammed the trunk and got in his side. I backed out of my no-parking spot and a minute later turned east on South Braeswood.

“Where are we going?”

I turned on my signal, checked the rearview mirror, and moved into the left lane. “We’re just going to drive, Sam.”

His right knee bounced up and down. “Are you going to give me a clue what this is about?”

“This is about a lot of things. One thing it’s about is that you didn’t spend the night at your dad’s this weekend. Another is that last week, someone saw a passenger from your car buy drugs behind the Chevron and get back in the 4Runner with you. Another is you lied to me and the police about where you were when Adrian died. And another is that you have been rude and disrespectful to me for quite some time now. Which one would you like to start with?”

I glanced over and saw him tighten his lips. Deep furrows appeared between his eyebrows. The knee sped up.

I turned left on South Rice without using my blinker. “Your dad and I can only assume you wanted us to know about Saturday, since you didn’t do anything to try to fool him. You just no-showed. So where were you?”

His knee was still bouncing. He tossed his head to flip his bangs off his face. “I stayed home.”

“By yourself?”

Long pause. “No, a couple of guys came over.”

I didn’t press, because his answer felt like progress. “You don’t have permission to have friends over when I’m not there, but we can talk about that later. You promised to be at your father’s house, and you didn’t tell him you weren’t coming. I’m glad you’re telling me now, but why didn’t you tell one of us this from the beginning?”

He kept his eyes straight ahead. His whole body jiggled from his bouncing knee. Mumble mumble mumble.

“What’s that?”

“I’ll ask next time.”

Yes, this definitely felt like progress, no matter how small. I inhaled long and exhaled longer. “Detective Young came to see me. The police know you lied to them.”

Sam shifted his eyes to me then back to the front so fast I almost didn’t see him do it. “I—” He stopped and looked down. The left knee started keeping pace with the right one.

I stopped at the red light at Beechnut, then turned on my signal and followed it to the right. Within seconds we were nearing Meyerland Plaza and passing Endicott, and my heart leaned so I turned right without thinking. “Do you realize how much trouble you could be in, lying to the police? Luckily, Billy and his father gave you an alibi. But then, I’ll bet Billy already told you that, didn’t he?”

“Yeah. I knew he would, though, because I didn’t do anything wrong.”

I laughed with no mirth. “You skipped practice and you lied. Lying to the police is a crime, Sam, and it made them put you at the top of their suspect list when they should have been looking for the real killer. What the hell has gotten into you?”

He snorted and looked at the passenger window. “You caught me. I lied. I skipped baseball practice. I’m a terrible person.”

I pulled to a stop at the four-way crossing at Endicott and Jackwood. “Watch it, Sam.” I accelerated through the intersection and rolled past the spot where Adrian died. Nothing marked it. Just an asphalt street and a concrete curb next to a mostly empty parking lot. My heart hollowed out, collapsed in on itself. Time slowed down while it refused to beat. I was fighting with my son on sacred ground. I couldn’t bear it. I cried out, and my heart started beating again.

Sam’s voice exploded. “What?”

“I don’t know. I just hurt, Sam.”

“You think I don’t? You’re driving me past where he died. What are you trying to say? Why are you doing this to me?” His cries were as loud as mine now. “I didn’t kill Adrian, Mom. I just lied, all right? I wouldn’t ever have hurt him—or anybody.” He ended on a sob and threw his hands up to cover his face.

I softened my voice. “No, I don’t think you would ever hurt anyone.” I put my hand on his shoulder. We rolled to a stop at another intersection. He said nothing, so I pressed the gas and drove on. “Tell me about the drugs.”

He threw his hands up in the air. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I swear.”

“Detective Young saw you at the Chevron station with two boys. He saw one of them buy drugs and bring them back to your car.”

“If anybody bought drugs, they didn’t tell me.”

I stopped at North Braeswood, turned on my belated blinker, and turned right. I cocked my head and looked at my son. Highly improbable, but possible. And I couldn’t prove it either way. It might be enough that he knew I was watching him now. I would let it go. “My first priority is your health and safety, Sam, and—”

He interrupted. “That’s funny.”

“Excuse me?” The light at South Rice was green, so I turned left on Chimney Rock.

“That’s funny, Mom, because I don’t think I’m anywhere in the top five on your priority list, and I’m sure not
the
top priority. Your priorities seem to be you, you, you, you, and you, one through five.” His voice got louder. “Your training, your book, your publicity, your sadness, your job, your everything. What about me? Don’t you think I’m sad, too?” He turned to me and screamed so loud his face turned beet red under his summer tan. “Do you even know that I’m still here? They’re gone but I’m still here.” And then he started crying. Horrible sounds, deep wrenching sobs that gouged at my heart.

I reached out to touch him, but he pushed my hand away.

He turned from me and his sobs slowed down just a little. “Don’t try just because I said this stuff. It’s fake. Leave me alone.” He stared out the window. “I want to go home. I want everything to be the same as it used to be. I don’t understand why all of you are gone, not just them, but you, too. It’s worse, because I think you should still be here, but you’re not. You’re not.”

I looked up and realized I had just run a red light, but God looks out for little children and for stupid women who don’t know how to do their lives anymore without hurting themselves and everyone left that they love. This pain hurt in a new way, as bad as losing Adrian, as bad as putting Annabelle on a plane. I
was
gone. I knew that. I was failing Sam. I had to find a way to make it better, but I didn’t know if I had it in me to be completely present, because I wanted to be gone. I wanted to leave this world and stay in the halfway part with Adrian. I sat there, paralyzed, as the Jetta rolled forward. I said the only things I could think of, the true things, as best I could.

“I’m sorry, Sam. I love you. It’s going to be okay someday, and I know it isn’t yet. I’m doing a bad job for you, but I’m not sure how to make it better. I think we could see a grief counselor, someone who’s done—”

“NO!” he exploded. “You want to push me off on someone else to do your job, so you can say ‘I’m a good mother because Sam talked to a counselor about his feelings,’ and then you show me that you don’t even care about being alive for me? No fucking way, Mom.”

He was right, and I wasn’t sure if I could fix it.