Equilibrium (9 page)

Chapter 10

T
roy was missing.

Beside her son’s empty bed, Laura bolted to sitting. Daylight seeped around Troy’s shades. She threw off the blanket she’d used as a makeshift bedroll and scanned the room. Her gaze touched every dark corner.

No Troy.

Her throat clutched. She belted her robe and went into the hallway, poked her head into the empty bathroom. She even peeked into Darcy’s room. She wasn’t expecting to find Troy tucked in with his sister beneath her green-and-blue patchwork quilt, but on this day of days, she couldn’t rule that out, either.

No Troy.

She rushed down the stairway. No Troy in the living room, but her son’s chipper voice echoed into the kitchen. She followed the sound of Troy’s chatter through the studio’s open door. Menthol steam opened her airways, loosening the knot in her throat. A tingle cooled the back of her neck.

Yes, Troy.

With his back to Laura, Troy stood inside the apartment’s tiny bathroom. Laura hugged him around the waist, intending to make him laugh. Instead, she caught sight of Aidan standing over the sink and burst into hysterics herself.

“Easy there, you’re going to damage my delicate ego.” Face covered with shaving foam, Aidan’s bright smile crept all the way to his eyes. His right hand held his razor, while his left hand kept the towel around his trim waist from dropping to the floor. The well-defined contours of his chest told Laura he must do more than cycling. Cycling alone didn’t carve an upper body like that.

“Are you done laughing?” Aidan asked. “Got to give the kid a shaving lesson before my face hardens.”

“Yeah, you’re going to make his face harden,” Troy said.

Laura wiped at the corners of her eyes. “Up all night, punch-drunk,” she said by way of an explanation.

“Likely story,” Aidan told Laura.

Aidan turned to Troy, and her son leaned toward his voice. “Now
as I was saying
,” he said, glancing at Laura. “After a shower is best, when your face is nice and soft . . .”

A facial-hair shaving lesson was a male-only rite of passage, but Laura couldn’t bring herself to miss the event. Truth be told, she wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

“You angle the razor like so,” Aidan said.

Troy tilted his head to follow Aidan’s razor as it cleared the foam from his upper lip. Aidan raised his chin to reach his beneath-the-chin stubble, and Troy mirrored his movements.

Laura’s sleep deficit had really and truly left her punchy, a ball of laughter caught in her throat. In contrast, Troy’s exhaustion had served to reset his mood back to its familiar from-the-day-he-was-born mellow.

“Any questions?” Aidan asked Troy.

“I don’t think so.”

“You’ve got your basic Barbasol cream,” Aidan said, shaking the barbershop pole-striped can. “Some guys prefer gel. Got a razor?”

“Nope.”

“Hang on a sec.” Aidan reached down into the vanity cabinet and handed Troy a can of Barbasol with an attached disposable shaver.

“How did you—?”

“Bought two, got one free.” Aidan rinsed his razor under steaming-hot water, tapped it against the counter, and laid it on the side of the sink.

Troy gave the can of shaving cream a couple of shakes. “Thanks for the stuff. I’m off to shower,” he said. “I mean, soften my face.” Troy blew past Laura, and she smiled after him, committing his boy-mustache to memory.

“You may need some Band-Aids,” Aidan said.

Laura stepped into the bathroom. Steam cushioned her like a whole-body hug. “My first-aid kit is full. The rest. The shaving supplies—the advice—words seem insufficient. Once again, how will I ever thank you?”

Aidan’s dimple grinned at her a beat before his eyes brightened. “You’ll think of something.” The intimate tone of his voice teased like a feather down her body, crossed the line of friendship, and, sure enough, had her thinking about a very specific something she could no longer deny.

He liked her.

The urge to connect with Aidan prickled Laura’s cheeks. He took a hand towel from the rack and patted his face. With his features covered, he could’ve been Jack standing in his studio bathroom, freshening up after a deadline-induced all-nighter.

Only Jack and Troy wouldn’t have been discussing shaving. A conversation required two parties, and somewhere along the line, Troy had decided his father wasn’t worth the effort.

A dab of shaving cream shone along the sharp edge of Aidan’s jawline. “You missed a spot,” she said.

Aidan swiped a hand above his lip, then swiped more when Laura shook her head. For some reason, men could feel neither food nor shaving cream on their faces.

“No—it’s—let me.” Laura touched her fingers to his newly smooth skin, noted the strong shape of his face. His gaze flicked from her eyes to her lips and back up to her eyes. Heat ached between her legs. Her mouth fell open, and Aidan’s lips parted, a whole conversation.

Laura’s pulse raced forward, but she took a step back, reminding herself who she was: Jack Klein’s widow on the morning of his graveside visit. And Aidan was exactly what she needed now, a trustworthy friend and a role model for her son. She didn’t need to add another layer of complication to her complication-riddled life.

“You were great with Troy,” she said, and to her horror, her voice betrayed a slight breathlessness.

Aidan pressed his lips together and nodded. “Troy’s a good kid.”

She took a covert cleansing breath. “He’s a bright one.” Troy’s IQ hovered in the genius range, but Laura was referring to her son’s emotional intelligence, evidenced by all of his Jack love-hate remembrances.

By the time Troy had turned ten, he’d realized Jack wasn’t like other fathers. Other fathers didn’t swing from days of pitch-black brooding on the couch to too hyper to tolerate. Other fathers didn’t use your parent-teacher meeting to pitch their novel in progress. And other fathers didn’t make your mother call off a Lego playdate with your best friend, Michael, the one you’d been looking forward to all week, because your dad wasn’t “feeling well,” and a visit would’ve taken your mother’s attention off him.

To this day, Laura wasn’t sure Troy had ever gotten over that disappointment.

Laura leaned forward and gave Aidan a pristine kiss on his menthol-scented cheek, for showing Troy how to shave, for taking care of her son in a way his father had not.

“What was that for?”

“My way of thanking you without words.” As Jack was fond of saying, it was better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission. Which pretty much summed up Jack’s entire philosophy.

“No need to thank me,” Aidan said. “Troy heard me up and knocked on the door, so I asked if he’d like to hang out while I shaved. I got a kick out of his enthusiasm. Figured a shaving lesson was the least he deserved.”

“That’s my low-maintenance boy for you.”

Troy had always required so little, and Jack had given him even less.

Chapter 11

T
he smell of fresh coffee seeped into Darcy’s dream, spiriting her to a roadside diner. Waitresses, wearing striped uniforms, swarmed through the dimly lit restaurant—hot pink bands against retro black-and-white checkered linoleum and shimmering candy-apple booths. Darcy waited for a gray plume of cigarette smoke to rise toward the vaulted ceiling. He was sitting sideways, so she only managed a glimpse of her father’s face, the suggestion of a smirk. Ceramic stoneware dishes clattered, and a waitress stepped in front of her. A pair of pushed-up-to-her-neck boobs blocked Darcy’s coveted view.

“What’ll it be, sugar?” The waitress slid her pencil out from behind her ear, and a few strands of bleached hair came along for the ride. Her pencil hovered above the order pad. “Just coffee again?”

“Coffee, Darcy.”
Wait a minute.
Her mother’s singsong voice sucked Darcy out of the dream diner and into her too-real bedroom.

She opened one eye and caught sight of her mother carrying the infamous floral bed tray with a cup of decaf coffee. Her overprotective mother would never let her drink
real
coffee, as if caffeine were a gateway drug, leading directly to heroin addiction. A sunny-side up egg shone atop Mom’s favorite multi-grain toast—light on flavor and heavy on revolting texture. Her mother’s smiling face held steady above her offering, like a cheerful highway billboard.

“Morning, angel.” Angel. Mom never called her that pet name anymore.

Mom sat down on her bed and placed the tidy breakfast tray atop Darcy’s outstretched legs. “Thought you might need a special wake-up call after last night.”

Ah, that explained the decaf, something Mom allowed her on only a few select occasions. Today, she supposed, gave her mother a double reason: the anniversary of her father’s rather messy suicide and the morning after little bro’s freak-out.

“Thank you for last night. You were a big help.” The admission caught in Mom’s throat. Her mother didn’t always accept help, but she had no trouble delegating half of the grunt work to Darcy last night. Mom had barked out orders like a drill sergeant, sending Darcy to fetch tissues and ice water for Troy, and then a plate of heated leftovers when he finally grew hungry from his nonstop crying and blabbering about Daddy. He’d kept switching back and forth between good and bad stories. Troy loved him; Troy loved him not.

“Troy?” Darcy said, and his name tightened her throat. Not even her twit of a brother deserved her father’s illness.

Mom turned her head and, as if in response, the radiator rattled, and water flooded through the pipes. “He’s showering. I’ve never seen anyone recover so quickly.” By
anyone
, her mom meant that her father had never come out of a manic episode and landed on his feet right away.

“He seems, like, normal?”

“Actually, he seems better than normal.”

Darcy sliced through her egg yolk and waited for the bright-yellow liquid to soak the toast before cutting the first bite. She couldn’t imagine what depression would look like on her brother. Even in his sleep, he held a steady smile. Well, except for last night. “Are you sure he’s not faking?”

Her mother shrugged. “I’m going to bring Troy to talk to Dad’s Dr. Harvey.” Light filtering through the curtains highlighted the shadows beneath her eyes. After Troy had fallen asleep, Mom had made up a bed for herself on Troy’s floor so she could sleep with a hand against the edge of his mattress. “I’m sure Troy’s exhausted. I’d say that’s as normal as it’s going to get for today.” A sigh quaked through her mother’s petite body.

The sound of water cascading behind the wall came to an abrupt halt as Darcy munched through the last bites of sticky toast. A few minutes later, Troy trotted to the doorway holding a towel around his waist and a blood-speckled tissue to his upper lip. What do you know? Little bro had learned to shave without Daddy.

“Thanks for everything,” he said, and then lowered his eyes and dashed to his room.

Mom stared after Troy with a weird grin on her face. “Found Troy in Aidan’s studio earlier, getting a shaving lesson,” she said. “You know, you really should take a peek . . .”

Again? Darcy must still be asleep because she was having a recurring nightmare. She gulped at the coffee, but the caffeine-free imposter didn’t jolt her awake. Only near-scalding water could wake her brain after four hours of sleep.

“Maybe another day.”

“I need to shower, Mom.”

Mom took a while to realize she should get up off Darcy’s bed and leave her room, as if Mom were working on a five-second delay. She rested at the threshold.

“You know one episode doesn’t necessarily mean anything. I mean, if it even was an episode.” Mom nodded, as though she were trying to convince herself, too. “In about ten percent of the cases, the illness never reaches beyond one distinct episode. Okay, Darce?”

Darcy squeezed her face into what she hoped passed as a grin. “Sure, Mom.” And in ninety percent of the cases, mania evolved into lifelong bipolar disorder. With odds like that, who needed enemies?

 

Darcy adjusted the shower to the hottest setting, tugged her T-shirt up over her head, and then let her drawstring pants and underwear drop to the tile. Steam billowed out from the shower curtain, but she shivered anyway. She climbed into the claw-foot tub and pulled the curtain tight to keep in all of the warmth. Hot water pinged off her back. She eased into the rhythm and turned slowly to cover each section of her body with the numbing heat. Breathing in the humidity relaxed her, and the spectral image of her father sitting in a diner booth, just out of her reach, returned.

She lathered her body with the slippery bar soap, and then worked shampoo into her scalp, attempting to scrub out the dream Daddy. Inhaling the almond suds didn’t prevent her from remembering the last time she saw him alive.

“Hey, wild thing. Did you pack a sweater in your duffel? It’s supposed to get cool tonight,” Daddy had said, calling out from the wing chair in her parents’ bedroom.

Darcy had scrambled to gather up what she’d need for the weekend at Heather’s, and Heather had been waiting for her out on the porch rocker. The sound of creaking boards had come loud and clear through open windows.
Hurry up.

“All set, Funny Dad,” Darcy had said, effortlessly falling into their routine banter. She hadn’t even bothered stepping into the bedroom. She’d just stood at the doorway, looking past her father, thinking of her plans for the evening and what cute boy she might kiss.

“Darcy? I love you so. You know that, right?”

“Sure, Super Writer Guy.”

“Darcy—”

Too late. Darcy was already hightailing it away from her dad and pounding down the stairway faster than his words could travel. She’d never know the last words he’d meant for her ears alone.

“I love you so,” Darcy spoke out loud, trying to chase down a lost connection. She held her hand below the showerhead. Near-scalding water pierced her palm.

For I love you so.
Inhaling the steam drove the connection home, like a nail to her heart.
Nay, if you read this line, remember not the hand that writ it; for
I love you so.

Their secret Shakespeare sonnet.

Her legs went soft beneath her, and she slid down into the tub.

That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot.
She spoke the words inside her head, using her father’s voice. She’d kept her pace safely ahead of Daddy’s borrowed verse, while the unsympathetic hallway had absorbed his very last plea for help. Daddy had never, ever recited the poem inside the house where her mother might overhear, so Darcy knew for sure.

Her apathy had killed her daddy.

Her high-pitched screams echoed off the walls. She clamped her hands over her ears, but she could still hear the pathetic wailing.

The sound of feet stampeding toward the bathroom confused her. Women’s voices called out to her. Mom burst through the door. “Darcy! Are you all right?”

Darcy was shaking, but she sucked it up fast. One family member completely losing it within any twenty-four-hour period filled the quota. She understood her mother’s unspoken rule, and she couldn’t even blame her for this one.

Darcy shut off the water and poked her head out from the shower curtain, holding it around her face like a hood. “Sorry to scare you, Mom. I slipped and twisted my ankle, but it’s fine. Guess I overreacted.” Darcy batted her lashes, pretending not to notice Elle and Maggie outlining the doorframe.
Leave me alone! You don’t even know what I did!

Mom stared, trying to siphon the truth through sheer determination. Maggie and Elle fell back, responding to a glance from her mother.

“I’m just
so
tired,” Darcy said.

“Oh, Darcy.” Mom started forward, heading straight for where Darcy sat in the tub bare-naked. Mom crouched to pass her a towel, and Darcy wrapped it around her quaking body snug enough to mask the subtle movement.

Darcy would’ve kicked her mother out of the bathroom, but she knew a chance when she saw it. “Please don’t make me go to the cemetery. I need to remember Daddy
my way
.” Mom was big on individual self-expression, as long as she oversaw the details.

“Angel, I don’t think you should be alone today.” Mom shook her head, but Darcy could tell by the way Mom’s pupils lost focus that she was already thinking up a compromise.

Maybe if she pleaded. “Please. I want to stay home, where I last saw him. . . .” Darcy didn’t mean to start crying again, but the snag in her voice seemed to trip up her mother the required amount.

“Would you mind if Maggie stayed here with you? She’d sit downstairs, in case you needed anything.”

Would she mind? No, she’d love to hang with the scary weirdo. They could string love beads and burn incense. Maggie could even teach her how to read tea leaves, decipher her undeniably rosy future from the graying dregs. And there were always the tarot cards. “That’d be great, Mom.”

Mom nodded, even though she hadn’t even asked her friend yet. She unfurled herself from her tub-side seat.

“One thing,” Darcy said, pausing her mother at a kneel. “Please tell Maggie I need privacy. Okay? To explore my
feelings
.” That should do it. Mom was so easy to play. All she had to do was push her dazzling array of buttons.

 

Darcy tried molding what she’d told her mother into something resembling the truth. After all, if she wanted to connect with the memory of her dad, what better place than their home? Their house remained exactly the same as a year ago, like those preserved in amber insects she’d learned about in earth science class.

Mom used to move furniture around with the seasons and repaint the walls to reflect the weather. Darcy would come home from school and discover the suede-mocha walls in the dining room had transformed into what Mom called a spring-savoring buttercream wash. An ottoman would morph into a coffee table, furnished with an antique cocoa carafe Mom found at a yard sale. Across the living room wall, silvery stenciling would offer words of encouragement.
Dream. Believe. Do.

Darcy tiptoed into her parents’ bedroom, careful not to disturb Maggie sitting watch at the foot of the stairs. She creaked open the walk-in closet and discovered Mom had hung Daddy’s robe on the hook beneath hers. On the rod, evidence of Daddy’s last hurrah before Mom took his credit cards greeted her. All twenty-seven of Daddy’s cashmere sweaters remained exactly as he’d left them lined up in obsessive-compulsive color wheel order: cobalt, blue violet, violet.

She went for his favorite sweater and slipped the cobalt V-neck over her head. She didn’t expect to smell her father; his citrus-musk scent had worn off several months ago, but she tried anyway.

She couldn’t even resurrect his scent through memory, couldn’t even remember what he looked like, not exactly. She flung the sweater back on its stupid cedar-lined hanger and clicked the closet door shut. The black-and-white picture of him in the gilded frame didn’t really look like him, either. She’d never understand why Mom would want his most recent dust jacket photo on her bed table. He wasn’t even smiling beneath the wreath of fingerprints.

Darcy touched the straight lips on Daddy’s photo and imagined them curling up at the corners, showing off his straight white teeth.

What did that mean? That she’d mourned for him while he was still living and that she should’ve stopped when he offed himself? Her mother always said it was his choice, and the phrase tumbled effortlessly from her lips, as if it didn’t even hurt.

Was Mom really that stoic? What was the point in Darcy even attempting to please her mother? The refined widow/domestic goddess/editor did everything so well. Darcy could never approach her mother’s level of nauseating perfection.

How could Daddy have left her with a mother who just didn’t get her? Even though she and Daddy looked nothing alike, he’d often remark how similar they were inside. Extreme Man and Extreme Girl understood each other. And she’d let him down, missing his coded cries for help.

She hugged Daddy’s photo to her chest and thought of how Daddy had taken her to get her library card the day she’d turned five. She’d worn a blue velvet dress and tights, and Daddy wore his best suit with a blue tie to match, like they were going on a date. He’d lifted her onto a stool so she could reach the counter. He’d let her use his for-signings-only pen.

Each and every year since middle school, he’d come into her homeroom to talk about the writer’s life and answer students’ questions. He’d tell the class she was his inspiration.

Now he was just gone.

With shaking hands, she put Daddy’s photo back on the bureau. She was so sick of missing him, so sick of living under the suffocating cloud of what her father had done. So sick of jamming the pillow into her mouth every night so Mom wouldn’t hear her sobbing. So sick of this house and everything in it.