Blood Brothers (4 page)

He emerged from the bedroom feeling a little
better. On his way to the kitchen he met the enticing aroma of
freshly brewed coffee, an addiction both he and Stephanie shared.
Chatter was coming from the direction of the kitchen and when he
entered through a side entrance, he saw Christal sitting at the
table in the breakfast alcove. Mike’s foul mood sluiced away when
he saw her, as it always did.

The small girl beamed when she saw him.

“Good morning, Daddy. Somebody was being a
sleepyhead, weren’t they?”

He laughed. Suddenly the lack of sleep and
the nightmares weren’t so overwhelming. “Yeah Chris, I guess I
was.”

Christal was eating Fruit Loops and drinking
orange juice. By this time of the morning, Mrs. Wylder, the
housekeeper, usually had a full course breakfast set.

“Where’s Mrs. Wylder, she running late?” he
asked Stephanie.

“She called a bit ago. She’s got an
appointment with Dr. Marshall. She’ll be in after ten. You want me
to pop something in the microwave for you?”

Pouring a cup of coffee without looking at
his wife, he said no. Then moving to the table, he leaned over and
kissed both of Christal’s cheeks.

“Daddy!” she shrieked in mock irritation.

“You looked beautiful last night, sweetheart.
I wish I knew where you got all that musical talent from. Lord
knows, it’s not from me.”

Stephanie moved over to him, tugging at his
shirtsleeve. “I need to talk to you,” she mouthed.

Here we go again.

“Did you really like it, Daddy?”

“Of course I did. Mozart has nothing on you.”
Her smile was simply gigantic. “I’ll see you later, okay.”

“Okay, Daddy. You have a good day, okay?”

“I will, darling. I will.”

Sipping from his cup, he stepped out of the
kitchen. Stephanie was down the hall, standing in front of the
large window, the early morning sun making her glow.

“We need to talk.”

“So you said. Talk about what?”

“Damn it, Michael. Why do you always have to
be so smug?”

“Smug? I just don’t have to time for this
Stephanie. You could’ve woken me, y’know. I’m already running late.
You know this is a big weekend for me.”

“Wake you? We don’t even sleep in the same
bedroom ninety-five percent of the time, Mike. Why in the hell
would I wake you?”

“Okay, okay,” Michael said, putting his hands
up. “You don’t have to get all crazy on me.”

Stephanie looked as if she were about to say
something, but then he saw her eyes cloud over just a tad.
Apparently the morning dose was kicking in.

“I’ve got to go,” Michael said, sidestepping
her. She was a sad sight. Her eyes were reddened, her hair a rat’s
nest, and she looked as if she hadn’t slept in a week. Still there
was some trace of her former self left to be seen. But not much.
Not very much at all.

“Michael,” she said. Something in her voice
made him stop, something almost pleading.

“Yeah,” he said, again sipping from his
cup.

Stephanie walked up to him, slowly. She did
not list, she did not stumble. He could smell her. The scent was
not at all unpleasant, and not completely unknown. Not tangerines,
but a clean, soapy smell. In short, she smelled like home. Despite
himself, he felt a lingering affection. He could almost see the
girl he had married inside the woman she had become.

“Yeah,” he said again. This time there was
some softness in his voice. He just couldn’t help it. His grip
tightened on the mug’s handle.

“There was a time when you used to act like
you weren’t fucking everything with two legs and a heartbeat.” She
went wild then. He shuffled back. Instinctively his free hand went
high, protecting his face from her hands and fingernails. She kept
coming.

“Damn it, Stephanie. What are you doing?”

“You son of a bitch! Where do you get off
treating me like this?” Her voice was pure venom. Madness reigned
in her eyes.

Still nimble at thirty-nine, Michael pivoted
on his left foot, swinging backwards and then around. Letting his
guard down for a spilt second, he nudged her away from him. “Stop
this. Do you hear me? My daughter is in there. My daughter.” Though
forceful, he did not shout. He didn’t dare take the chance of
Christal overhearing, because if there was anyone he treasured, it
was her.

“You smug son of a—”

The slap echoed through the hallway. By the
way it stung his hand, it had to really smart on her cheek. He was
not the nicest guy, and he knew it, but he did not often resort to
physical violence. Leaving marks was not the thing to do to your
wife when she was the most respected socialite in the community.
Bad for business. Very bad, indeed.

Stephanie did not react in a hostile manner.
In fact, all she did was sniff and cringe away from him.

Michael considered saying something, but at
the moment he had no words. Instead of speaking, he started to walk
away towards the bedroom where his bags were already packed.
Miraculously, he still held the coffee cup in his hand. Only a tiny
amount had spilled. What remained, however, was only a swallow, and
he could see the grounds floating in the lukewarm liquid. He turned
it up, finishing it off. After all, as his grandfather had once
told him after finishing his own last bitter sip of coffee, he’d
paid for that as well.

***

She’d left Christal alone in the kitchen.
There had been no other choice. If she’d remained there in the
hallway much longer, one of two things was going to happen. One—she
would have lost it and simply broken down, crumbling onto the floor
in a sad mournful heap. Or two—and the one that was all too
realistic—she would, in cold-blooded simplicity, have ended the
life of Michael J. Cole, and derived no small satisfaction from
doing it. Of course as tempting as homicide was at that particular
moment, the eventual consequences were not nearly as alluring.
She’d be sent off to prison, fighting off the admirations of much
larger and much more masculine females, while Christal was left,
albeit with plenty of money to secure her future, without either
parent. Those were the only two things keeping her from jumping
Michael as he strode away like he owned the world.

It had taken her only a minute to make her
way to the opposite end of the house. Once there, she dodged into
her office. She had not had a real job in many, many years.
Business was not Stephanie’s forte, but she still maintained a home
workspace. As the executive organizer for every single important
social event on the town of Benedict’s social calendar, as well as
a chair on some local charities and a few other interests,
Stephanie, while not bringing home a paycheck, kept both ends of
the candle burning, as it were. And why shouldn’t she? With
Christal at school and involved with more and more extracurricular
activities, she needed something to fill the void that was her free
time.

Mike’s office resembled his professional
attitude. Dark wood-paneled walls, mahogany desk, velvet wingback
chairs and sofa, and walnut table comprised the sitting area.
Custom built book shelves, framed photographs of Michael with his
clients and associates, and clippings of Michael’s business and
philanthropic undertakings adorned the walls. A generally stoic and
conservative look.

Stephanie’s office, on the other hand was, as
one might think, much more feminine. Decorated in soft colors, the
furnishings were more for comfort than style, without sacrificing
beauty unnecessarily. All the wood was pine, near white in color
and highly polished. Low lighting and masterfully concealed
speakers perfectly plumed the classics like Beethoven and Vivaldi.
Her office didn’t have the pretentious frames and signed artwork,
she had chosen a simple cork board to pin up invitations to
upcoming events and articles about those she’d organized. On the
walls inspirational posters had been hung in hopes of boosting her
moods and keeping her productive. It had been a good plan and even
worked for awhile, but lately she just didn’t have the
motivation.

Once inside the office she closed the door
behind her, taking care to lock it in the process. Moving to her
desk, she looked out the window. She had a nice view of the front
lawn—its wide expanse flat for a hundred yards then rolling hills
leading to the property line. She did nothing for a moment. She
simply stood, her feet rooted to the ground.

For a heartbeat she held her breath. Then,
when she just couldn’t take it anymore, she broke down. Not like
earlier this morning when everyone but her was sleeping. No, that
had been nothing but a preamble. This was something much more than
that, more than merely sobbing. This was a total surrender to the
defeat and anguish that had been building within her ever since she
caught the scent of another woman on the man she married. It wasn’t
the first time, but in a situation like this repetition of the act
did not make it hurt any less. Perhaps it hurt more knowing that it
was far from the first and most assuredly would not be the
last.

She twisted back from the window and set
herself down behind her desk. In the reflection of her pink iMac
monitor she saw her own image. Her face was a haunted face, and she
could feel the ghosts floating like acrid smoke in the pit of her
soul. The sight was startling, something she’d rather not see.

She leaned back in the chair and pulled open
the top desk drawer on her right. It was filled almost to the brim,
with the top six inches of the drawer stuffed with letters,
receipts, greeting cards, and other miscellaneous bits of paper.
Using her hand as a scoop, she withdrew all of that. Underneath,
standing like silent sentinels, were a dozen brown prescription
bottles of various sizes.

Stephanie’s love affair with pills was a long
and sordid one. It began the year after college and continued,
snowballing, until the present. Alcohol was a different story
entirely. She was not much of a drinker, perhaps a glass of wine or
champagne on occasion, but not much beyond that.

The depression had started very, very slowly.
It was just a day, an ordinary day, a day like any other. It was a
year or so before she’d gotten pregnant with Christal and she was
at home, in the old house, staining a set of kitchen chairs out
back. It was summer and she’d worked up quite a sweat stripping and
cleaning the chairs, preparing them for the shellac. Deciding to
take a breather, she went inside the house. She was home alone;
Michael was still working, he worked long hours even then. After
grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge, she stepped into the
laundry room. With the air conditioner making the house much more
comfortable than outdoors, she decided to pick up the clothes while
she cooled off a bit. Oh how industrious she had once been. She
started with her sleep clothes which lay in the heap nearest the
dryer. After tossing them into the washer, she moved on to Mike’s
pile. He forwent pajamas in lieu of lounge pants and tee shirt. The
problem was, Michael never actually caught on to the theory of
clothing separation. His dress slacks often ended up with his sweat
suits and his ties often could be found crumpled up inside his
boxers. The only exception was his suit coats, those he hung neatly
on a rack above the washer and dryer.

“Once a kid, always a kid,” Stephanie
remembered remarking as she stopped and began to divide the large
heap. In one pile she placed underclothes. In another, work shirts.
As she was going through the slacks, something fell from a pocket.
If she hadn’t been looking down she might have missed it. It was a
piece of purple plastic, and a funny smell exuded from it. She
knew, instantly, what it was.

Trojan. Lubricated. A condom.

If Mike Tyson had punched Stephanie in the
gut at that exact moment, she wouldn’t have been more jarred.

That evening she waited up for him. He was
late, as usual. She sat on the couch long past midnight. The
bastard didn’t even have the courtesy to call to say he’d be late.
No one answered at the office. Cell phones which were really a new
thing then, were a status symbol, and that being the case, Mr.
Michael had one. She’d been asleep when he’d finally come home. He
didn’t wake her. When she awoke the next morning, he’d cooked
breakfast. Her favorite, omelets. She hadn’t mentioned the condom
package. She went to the doctor that afternoon and walked out with
a prescription for Prozac. And the rest, as they say, is
history.

She pulled two of the bottles from the desk,
popped the top and shook a few pills into her hand. Dry swallowing
them, she took five minutes to compose herself. Then she stood.
After all, she had to drive Christal to school. No child of hers
would be riding the bus.

He could’ve worn a tie, but in the end
decided against it. This wasn’t New York or Chicago. It was
Benedict, Mississippi. A podunk town in a podunk state. Sure, years
ago this seemed like the center of the universe to him. But things
do change, don’t they. They certainly did for him.

His name was Jerry Garrett, Jerry being short
for Jerusalem. A unique name and doubly odd since his parents had
not been at all religious. As far back as he could remember his
father had been the only one to call him Jerusalem. Now that he was
grown nobody called him that.

The rental was comfortable and since the
afternoon had warmed, Jerry turned the air conditioner on low. An
oldies station played softly as he navigated his way through the
streets. Once, he’d known them like the back of his hand, but time
had caused a bit of fog to form on his memories. Still, more came
back than one might expect and he enjoyed the drive from the
motel.

Driving was a singular joy. The ability to
attain such speeds was a wonderful sensation of freedom that few
things could ever equal. From the normal walking speed of four
miles per hour, an automobile could take you twenty-five to fifty
times that. All in easy comfort and absolute control. Freedom with
a safety harness.