Here to Stay (11 page)

Now here he was, framed in silver and set proudly on an end table. Relaxed, confident and smiling under the drape of Joe’s arm. As if he had always belonged there.

“And look at this,” Francine said, picking up a picture of Joe with a little blonde girl on his lap, reading a story. “Joe gets a son and an instant granddaughter. Isn’t she adorable?”

“Did you eat her?”

“Shamelessly,” Francine said, patting him again. “Not a scrap left.”

“What’s it like having a brother all of a sudden?” Erik asked Daisy as they unpacked in the old carriage house. The upstairs had been converted into an apartment and it was always where Erik and Daisy slept during the college years.

“Weird,” she said. “And wonderful. I’m still getting to know him but from the little time I’ve spent with him, I think he’s a lovely man. And it’s made Pop so happy.”

“Talk about happy,” Erik said, pulling her tight against him. “I can’t believe I’m back in this room.”

She wound her arms around his waist and set her cheek against his chest. “Neither can I,” she said. “I haven’t been up here since you left. Never slept in this room again after we broke up. John and I came to Pennsylvania for Christmas one year. I made my mother put us in the guest room.”

“Really?”

“To me, this was our room,” she said.

“It’s still ours.” He tilted her chin up and kissed her. “I’ll prove it…”

THEY DIDN’T MAKE ANY long-term plans. Didn’t discuss any scenarios of one of them moving to the other. They phoned every night, texted throughout every day. Arranged and rearranged however they could to get to each other.

Daisy came to New York for a long weekend. Erik picked her up at Rochester airport and drove them over to his mother’s house for dinner.

“Remember when I teased you down at my parents’ place? For being nervous?” Daisy asked as they got out of the car.

“Yeah?”

“I apologize.”

He laughed and put his arm around her. “It’ll be fine.”

And it was. Fred greeted them in the little front hall. Fred was always so smooth and unflappable. An effortless host who could make a corpse feel at home. He took their coats to hang away and they went into the kitchen.

Christine, her hands in the soapy dishwater, looked over at the two of them standing in the doorway. Then looked up at the ceiling, blinking rapidly.

“Jesus Christ, I’m bawling already.”

“Great, Ma,” Erik said.

“Look at you,” Christine said, drying off her hands and not looking at Erik. She walked over, her arms reaching. “Look who’s here…”

She and Daisy hugged, rocking side to side a little. When it was clear neither was letting go, Erik retreated behind the refrigerator door, pretending to look for something.

“So good to see you,” Christine said over and over.

Daisy said something Erik couldn’t quite hear, but he was sure it was
I’m sorry.

“It was long ago,” Christine said. “Another life. You’re here now and he’s so happy. And that’s all I care about. All right?”

Erik shut the door and straightened up. Fred strode into the kitchen and clapped his hands together. “Who wants a gin and tonic?”

“Forget the tonic,” Daisy said, wiping her face with the dishtowel Christine handed her.

The emotional scene concluded within one drink. Ten minutes later, Daisy was in an apron and showing Christine how to spatchcock a chicken.

“Come again?”
Fred said.

“You cut the backbone out,” Daisy said. “Press it flat and roast it that way.”

“She did this the first weekend Erik brought her home,” Christine said. “I had a chicken dinner all planned, then my hours got screwed up and I was going to be late getting home. I told them to order pizza. Instead, I get home and Daisy’s made the whole meal. But she did
this
with the chicken.”

“I was showing off,” Daisy said, grimacing as she cut through a joint with the kitchen shears. “I’d watched my mother do it all the time but I never tried. So I called her up and she talked me through it. Erik was holding the phone to my ear with one hand and signing to Pete with the other, trying to explain what I was doing.”

“You had him at spatchcock,” Erik said. “He had to make up a new sign for it. It was like his favorite word for a year.”

“I think it’s mine now,” Fred said. “What’s the benefit of doing it this way, rather than roasting it whole?”

“The skin,” Erik and Christine said at the same time.

“The skin,” Daisy said, smiling.

“Every inch of it is crispy, salty and perfect,” Christine said. “We stood over the stove and tore it off with our fingers, remember? So disgustingly good.”

“You want to make stock with this?” Daisy asked, indicating the excised backbone.

“No,” Christine said. “I’ll never use it before we leave for Florida.”

Daisy regarded the scrap regretfully before tossing it in the garbage. She looked over at Erik, blinked her eyes once then returned to her work.

IN BROCKPORT, IT WAS Daisy’s turn to be shown around Erik’s world and introduced to friends and co-workers. They had lunch with Miles and Janey Kelly, the couple who had all but adopted Erik as their own. Afterward, Daisy asked to see where Erik lived when he was married to Melanie. He thought it a strange request, but he took her past the old Victorian in the historic district. She looked at it from the passenger side window, saying nothing for a long time.

“Where did you get married?” she finally asked.

“In Rochester. At the courthouse.”

She nodded, still looking out the window.

He took her hand and squeezed it. “What are you thinking?”

She looked over at him. “I’m glad I didn’t know until now. Every time I thought about reaching out to you one more time, I just… I didn’t want to find you were with someone. It was easier not to know.” She looked out at the house again, drew her breath in and let it out. “I don’t want to pretend it never happened though. So I wanted to see where.”

A slight unease glazed the visit. Their newfound love didn’t seem to fit into Erik’s turf. Perhaps because his apartment was so sparse and unwelcoming. Perhaps because, truth be told, he didn’t have much of a life outside work, whereas Daisy was so integrated and active in her community. Without it being discussed, the rest of the visits in January and February were in Saint John, where both of them felt at home.

Erik spent the long March break there, even though New Brunswick Ballet Theater was coming to the end of its winter season and Daisy couldn’t take much time away. Neither could Will. Erik ended up hanging out a lot with Lucky and the kids, which wasn’t always fun.

Jack still didn’t seem to care for Aunt Daisy’s new beau, and Sara’s constant chatter made Erik’s eyes glaze over. Driving with Lucky and the kids to a movie one morning, Erik calculated that Jack and Sara asked Lucky thirty-six questions in forty-five minutes. He would have gone batshit, but Lucky calmly fielded one inquiry after another, never losing patience. At least not to the outward eye.

“You’re like Answer Girl,” he said during a rare lull in the interrogation. “What will you do when the third one comes along?”

“I plan to become quite stupid then,” Lucky said.

Erik got back to Barbegazi in a strange mood. Just as unease had glazed Daisy’s visit to Brockport, this week felt suffused with a slight boredom.

Daisy’s car was in the driveway—with Sunday’s matinee performance over, the theater would be dark until Wednesday. Getting out of the car, Erik noticed the flag on the mailbox was still up so he went to collect yesterday’s post. He flipped through it, as if expecting something for him.

His fingers stopped, backtracked and drew out a plain white envelope, hand-addressed to Daisy. The postmark was Virginia Beach. The return address read
David Alto.

A sinister warmth coiled in his stomach and his bored mood pounced on it. He looked up at the house, down at the envelope. Up at the house again. Drew a long, concentrated breath in through his mouth and blew it out.

“Be a grownup,” he said as he walked up the steps of the porch and let himself in.

“Hey,” Daisy called. She was curled in her chair by the fire, reading. “Have fun?”

He kissed her head and set the bundle of mail in her lap. “You got a letter from Dave,” he said, rather loudly. Bastet stopped washing her ears and looked at him.

Daisy set her book aside. Erik leaned his elbows on the back of her chair as she worked her thumb under the flap. A single piece of paper, folded in thirds, which she unfolded.

Naturally it was in fucking French.

“Dear Marge,” she said. And then twisted to look up at him. “Or would you rather I not…?”

He gestured for her to go ahead. A pair of dark hands settled on his shoulders and he gave an involuntary squirm beneath them.

March 12, 2006

Dear Marge,

Last round of scans and ultrasounds showed something weird on my liver. Could be an abscess, could be nothing. Could be a thing. I go in for a biopsy today so I’m up before sunrise listening to Beethoven and brooding. It’s what I do best.

Virginia Beach Playhouse is putting on
On Your Toes
and I’m lost in the “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” ballet. Remember when you and Will danced this—spring concert, 1991, I think. It’s bringing back a ton of free-association memories and I’m sort of a nostalgic mess right now. All over the place.

Lydia’s pregnant and I’m the one crying all the time. Maybe all the regret for being such a callous asshole all those years is catching up with me. It was all fear. You know that. You of all people have to know that. I was a scared kid trying to become a scared man. Acting like losing my parents hadn’t scared the shit out of me. Pretending the shooting didn’t touch me, that destroying you and Fish didn’t imprint, that cancer wasn’t terrifying.

Impending parenthood has managed to break through the bullshit like nothing else. I’m scared out of my mind. Scared I don’t have a fucking clue how to do this and I’m going to die before I figure it out and leave my kid a scared mess to repeat the cycle.

It’s the typical emotional slaughter at four in the morning. I hate it.

I don’t know why I’m telling you this.

HA! We both know why.

I’m sorry.

I hope you’re all right. Staying warm and smelling good. I hope… I still hope a lot of things. You know what they are.

I’m sorry. I’ll stop now. I’ll let you know how things turn out.

Hope for me, okay?

Dave

With a small, sympathetic noise, Daisy set the letter on the table. “God, I hope it was nothing.” She unfolded her legs and stood up.

“Does he write you often?” Erik asked.

The phone rang. “Every few months,” she said, reaching for the cordless. “It’s been a while, actually. Hello?”

Then she was speaking French and picking up her empty tea mug, heading into the kitchen. Erik sat down in Archie, the leather chair he’d come to regard as his. He picked up the letter and skimmed the lines. A familiar irritation filled his chest. It had been a common tactic of Dave’s back in the day: sitting at a table where Erik and Daisy were and launching into French, deliberately excluding Erik. Daisy never stood for it. She would either respond in English or not respond at all.

Now the sound of her French from the kitchen was rubbing against the nap of his peace. As if it were Dave on the phone and she was indulging him. Deliberately excluding her lover.

What’s going on?

Is this happening again?

His eyes tried to pick words out of the letter. He saw Fish written out.
Carnage emotionnel.
Was that emotional slaughter? Had she read him everything David wrote or just the safe parts?

Knock it off. For fuck’s sake, it’s a letter from a friend worried about dying from cancer before his kid is born. Don’t be an asshole.