Drowning in You (30 page)

There, I think. I sit on the
edge of my bed, one foot propped on the frame and tune my guitar.
Then I sing:

Your hand is my warm when I’ve
spent the night in the cold / My hands fit your curves when you
lean into my body / My lips are the puzzle fittin’ the crook of
your neck / Still somehow we ain’t nothing but a wreck.

A shiver pinches the back of my
neck when I finish. It’s such crap. I clear my throat and start on
the other verse I penned minutes ago:

No photo of us inside my wallet
/ Cold lips before bed without you to kiss / Material memories
we’ll have someday / Now you’re my torch leading my way.

“
Fuck!” I
growl, clamping the strings to halt the chord ringing
out.

“
Well, I
thought that was amazing,” Mom says from the doorway, her hand on
the doorknob.

Starting, I jump back, the
guitar falling down my side to rest on the comforter.

“
Hey. Thanks.
Come in,” I say, patting a rare free space on my desk
chair.

“
I just
might,” Mom says, smiling at the floor and the bed, but not my
eyes. “You did well cleaning up here. I can—” Mom tips her head
back “—breathe.”

“
That’s not
what Tahny thought,” I say, flatly.

“
That girl has
been more moody than a mood ring since—” she says, pausing. I know
exactly who she means.

“
Frank?”

“
No,
Jeremy.”

“
I think his
name was Rodrigues.”

Mom raises her eyebrows. “Since
whatever-his-name dumped her. I’d pay her no mind.”

“
I thought
you’d have run out of here by now,” I say.

“
And why’s
that?”

“
To grab your
camera.”

Mom winks at me, patting my
knee as she jogs out of my room. When she’s out, I pick up the
guitar and put it back in its case under the bed. She comes back
in, carrying something in her hands.

“
I haven’t
seen a clean room in our house since here,” Mom says, pointing to a
page inside one of her photo albums.

I walk to her side and look
over the pictures. Her finger is on one of Jack’s bedroom. I know
this time. It was weeks before Jack was going to turn eighteen, so
like any teenager sucking up to his parents, he’d not so much as
dropped his day clothes on the floor between putting on his night
shorts. He’d been getting B’s in all his assignments, two grades
higher than his average. And he told Tahny and me not to worry
about washing the dishes after dinner because he “had it”.

So when Mom and Dad splashed
out and bought him his own fifteen-year-old pick-up truck for his
birthday, I was more pissed than surprised.

Not even a month later and he
was dead, along with my girlfriend Lily.

“
Little
brown-nosing shit,” I mutter, turning away.

“
Who has a
brown nose,
Dexter
?” Mom says, the veins in her forehead looking as though
they’re about to pop when she stresses my name.

“
Dear, dear
Jacky boy,” I say, trying out how the words sound. He can’t be here
to give me a good punch between my kidneys for saying that about
him. I’ve never wanted to be whacked by my little brother so much,
just so he could be with me.

“
Sit, I want
to tell you something.”

“
Ma,” I start.
I rub my temple with one hand, not in the mood to argue, “I don’t
want you to volunteer to clean up the rest of my room ‘cause I’m
knackered and this is as good as it gets.”

“
Well, you’ve
got some brown-nosing to do yourself before the day that
happens.”

“
Touché,” I
say, giving my witty mom a little clap.

“
Tahny is
shitty, that’s what she is,” Mom begins.

I’ve said a lot worse than
“shitty” in my time, but hearing this from my mom silences anything
I might have said back.

“
She’s shitty
because Jack got a car for his eighteenth. She’s shitty because
she’s had three boyfriends since my grandson was born—none being
Adam’s dad. She’s shitty because of a lot of things, but do you
know why she’s shitty the most?”

“
Why’s that,
Mother dear?”

“
Oh, quit it
for once. I’m trying to tell you a really important story,” Mom
says.

“
Okay, okay.
Why?”

Mom pats down her skirt and
takes a while to speak. Her fingers skim the spot on my forearm
where the thorned heart lies among the forest of ink and the other
spot, a little longer, where the death reaper’s scythe with the
letter “J” on the handle, is inked further down.

“
Because
Jack’s gone and he didn’t get to see his nephew, because the only
time Jack had money spent on him was when we had to bury him, and
that’s just the start.”

Mom’s eyes are shiny, but if
she feels like crying, she hasn’t yet. She usually doesn’t around
me. But I feel it too. That pull from inside that reminds me of a
thing he said, or the way we’d all be laughing at him for
straightening his hair. The pull latches on to the memories that
have nothing to do with the car crash and they’re so happy that
they burn me from the inside out, acting as fuel to the anger and
grief pulsing through the rest of my body.

I gulp. “What’s the rest?” I
ask, curious for the first time if there’s more to my family than
I’ve known.

Mom rubs roughly at her face
and slaps both her thighs, getting up at the same time. “Look at
me, your silly Mother dear. I might just go make a sticky-date
pudding. Haven’t had that in a while.”

“
What about
your important story? Please?” I say, even using my manners. If I
keep the mood light, be sincere, she might divulge.

But her look is so solemn that
I feel guilty for attempting to be stupid with her.

“
Ask your
father. Oh, and make sure that girl hears those lyrics you wrote
for her.”

Mom leaves me with all these
thoughts, but the one that makes sense, that I finally remember
after a week of desperately trying to contact Charz, happens to be
so simple I overlooked it.

Yet it jogs my memory from the
moment before I passed out in her pool.

FJH stands for “For Jack
Hollingworth”.

* * *

“
Now that’s a
first,” Dad tells me. He falls onto a sofa cushion beside
me.

“
Huh,” I
mumble into the cushion.

I’m laying facedown, thinking
about Mom earlier today and what the hell she meant, about Dad,
about Tahny.

“
Home at
eleven
pm
.
Shit!”

“
Yeah,” I say,
before I even see him. “I’m an old man.” I turn over and rest my
head back. “Don’t know how you do it.”

“
I’ve heard
that one before, son.”

“
And you’re
still an old man,” I say. “Hey… Nah, better not. Your old man
feelings won’t hack it.”

“
Try
me.”

I’m about to shock myself,
because this isn’t what I’d expected to say, so it must be worlds
from the comeback Dad is expecting. “What happened with Jack?”

Maybe Tahny was right. Maybe I
just do my own thing and don’t care what goes on around me. Since
Jack died, I’ve been doing a lot of gym or guitar or getting inked.
When I’m obsessed by something, I’m happy and it’s ridiculously
easier to block out pain. Maybe there is more to this Jack thing
than I’ve paid attention to.

“
What are you
getting at?” he says as if he’s testing me.

“
Actually, at
first I thought you were playing dirty with the gang back in
Chicago and were trying to rob a dying man of his fortune, but I’m
pretty sure that was never the plan. Which means I’m more confused
than ever.”

Dad blinks, frowns. “Jack died,
son. We both know that whoever ran Jack and Lily off is probably
having a beer with his buds tonight and that’s that.”

There’s a tone to Dad’s voice.
If you weren’t part of this family you wouldn’t get it. It’s too
serious. Although Dad walks around like he’s built of nails and
doesn’t appear to have the tear ducts to weep over anything,
there’s a catch in his voice when he’s trying to be so serious. It
tugs at something in my chest, which bangs hard.

“
Come on, I
mean it. Mom was saying something about why Tahny is all pissy
these days and I think she was serious. Did something happen with
Jack I don’t know about?”

“
She means our
past. We’ve been through a lot, packing up and shipping all over
the world, my charges, Tahny having that baby with no Dad, your
brother dying. I’d say that’s enough to make any woman pissy, mmm?”
I nod as Dad stands up and claps my shoulder as way of saying
goodnight. “And that’s without even having PMS.”

I scoff back a disgusted sound.
“Right. Later.” That stupid PMS crap got me, and now it’s too late
to go running after him for more answers.

Dad walks down the hall and
into his and Mom’s bedroom. With the house otherwise empty and
quiet tonight, whispers of their soft conversation are the only
sounds I can hear. I’m much more used to Tahny moving around and
Adam’s crying.

But alone, with no toddler
crying, and quiet, save for little whispers, I can’t fall asleep.
My body is killing me, and I want nothing more than complete
oblivion, so I get up and take a sleeping pill, hoping this shit
actually works, then plop back on the sofa, which is softer than
the springs poking out of my mattress.

With everything silent like
this, I can’t help but think. Like think of that moment from the
bar weeks ago when the bouncer’s fist pummeled into me as if he had
something to take out on me. He did, I guess. Or a problem he felt
he had to handle on behalf of the community.

When will I ever stop being the
person people look at and think, “Isn’t that the guy who murdered
that poor girl’s parents?”

Charz. Back to her. Images of
her long blonde hair hiding her face when I found her in her room
during those days I stayed over after Walter died. They play over
and over, even in my sleep. Now they appear along with my
nightmares of people dropping from the lift wires, their bodies
snapping, and my friends saying I can get stuffed and find other
murderous-type friends to hang with.

I think of her because it seems
that everyone from the media to strangers and even my old friends
hates me for something they reckon I did.

And the daughter of people who
actually died from that accident at Mason’s doesn’t hate me.
Actually, I think she feels the same way about me as I do her. But
that’s impossible because I love her more than I respect
myself.

My guilt doesn’t seem to be so
untouchable since I almost fell into a coma in the pool. Given that
in that moment I thought I could die with so much undone and
unsaid, I now know no one can hurt me more than myself, and no one
can fix my fuckups other than me. In the end, if I had to die right
now, I’d want Charz to know how much she means to me, and everyone
and everything else can keep their opinions, regardless.

I’m Dexter the diabetic. I’m
not fat. I can pump more weights than almost anyone I know and I’m
not less of a person because of my damaged body.

Just because I was caught at
the wrong place, at the wrong time, doesn’t mean I have to take the
blame. I do feel responsible, but that part of me becomes smaller
each day and I know that one day in the future, I’ll be able to
live happily without that blame crushing me.

I’m also awesomely versed in
understanding death by the ripe old age of twenty-one. In fact, I
have a feeling I know why Charz ran off once the paramedics came.
She couldn’t let me drown, or leave me unconscious by the pool, but
the moment she knew her care wasn’t needed she got out of
there.

Because I see it.

I’m the reminder of her broken,
non-existent family.

In that moment, I was a symbol
of death to her. But I’ll show her that nothing will keep us apart.
I won’t let death stand in the way of our life together.

28. Beachball Blues

Charlee

“
What did
you
wear
?” is the
first thing I ask Darcy as he lugs in his lone backpack. He’s been
living with Nana and Pa the last few weeks and he moves back in to
our parents’—
our
,
I have to start saying that—home with that little thing?

“
I only wear
sneakers,” he replies, dropping the backpack and jogging to the
kitchen.

“
Figures,” I
mutter.

I pick up his bag and tack on a
note: “Unpack this or else I’ll feed it to the kangaroos in the
bush behind our place.” For good measure, I start writing another
note, perhaps for a trail to his bedroom where he could not
possibly miss my clues.

“…
sweet! Okay,
but I’m ready, like, now, Marty. Fine, ten minutes.”

Darcy huffs and slams the
cordless phone back into another cradle in the hallway. His
explanation is by way of a massive grin.

I drop my forehead into my
palm. I mumble, “Please tell me you haven’t invited your friend
Marty over two seconds after you’ve come home.”

Darcy considers this then
shakes his head. “Nope, haven’t invited my friend over.”

His answer doesn’t sound right,
but if he was talking about meeting his friend for an online
PlayStation game, I’m thrilled. So thrilled I will be pushing him
into his room. I’m not ready for more than one rowdy boy in this
house. Baby steps.