Fire & Water (36 page)

“I know.” She shrugged. “Kids talk. No state secret that things haven’t exactly been hunky-dory in the Murphy-Bloom household.” Mary K nudged me with her shoulder, her attempt at affection. “Look, my only long-term romance ended like a wet fart. Who am I to judge, huh?”

Changing the subject seemed easier than trying to explain everything that had transpired in the months since Jake was hospitalized, released, and moved out. “Can I ask you something?” I said, wrapping my icy hands in Ryan’s discarded sweatshirt.

“Free country.”

“Why did you and Andra break up, anyway?”

Mary K untied the windbreaker from around her waist and put it on. She drew deep on her cigarette. “Straight question, deserves a straight answer. You probably think it was because I cheated or was an asshole or something, right?”

I shrugged.

“Thanks for the roaring endorsement,” she said, exhaling a stream of silver smoke. “Littleton wanted babies. Biological clock started ticking so loud we were nearly going deaf from it.”

“So,” I said. “Lots of lesbian couples—”

“Don’t be a retard, Murphy. I know about turkey basters and sperm banks. I know it’s possible. I just didn’t think it was such a good idea in our case.”

“But you’re great with kids.”

The vapor of Mary K’s breaths hovered in front of her face. “I’m not exactly a great long-term gamble. Littleton is the whole package. Beautiful, brilliant, kind, sexy.
Healthy
. She should have kids. Funny thing, but we almost did the whole baby thing. It sort of unraveled when it came to the sperm donor.”

“Is that right?”

“Her first idea was to ask one of my brothers.” She let out her one-syllable laugh. “That way the kid would at least be biologically related to me.”

“And?”

“Picture my four brothers standing in front of their kids’ first communion pictures and their statues of the Virgin Mary at their houses in Queens when my Texas beauty-queen girlfriend and I ask them to give us just a little of their jizz so we can make a baby.”

“I guess that wouldn’t go over so well,” I sighed.

“Like a turd in holy water. But you want to know the kicker, Murphy? And you of all people will appreciate this. Littleton had an idea for the perfect donor.”

I pulled Ryan’s sweatshirt tighter around my hands and waited for Mary K’s punch line.

“Bloom,” she said with a chuckle. “Thought that since I was so into Ryan it would be cool if our kid was a half-sib to her. Then you’d be like an aunt or something. Said since Bloom is a brilliant artist and everything, we might even get an artistic kid. How’s that for a kick in the head?”

I looked toward Ryan, who still sat dangling limply from the swing.

“Kid’s giving you a tough time, huh?”

“Jake’s the saint and I’m the villain.”

“They always hate the one that plays the grown-up.”

“I’m sorry about you and Andra.”

“Thanks for that.” She snuffed her cigarette with her toe. “Back to work for me. I’m up to my B-cups in stiffs.”

“On Saturday?”

“Holiday weekend. Extra big batch of drug overdoses.”

“Why?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Seems like the dealers bring in extra pure stuff for the holidays. Regular junkies know their dosage. Purity causes a bunch of ODs. So, like my dad always says, I’m like the butcher who backed into the meat grinder.” Mary K looked at me with a half grin. “Got a little behind in my work.” Mary K chuckled at her own joke.

On impulse, I leaned over and wrapped my arms around Mary K despite her stiff response. She pulled away. “A little discretion, huh?” She began to walk away then turned back to me. “We wouldn’t want people to think we’re queer or something.” Her eyebrows twitched, then she turned and walked toward where Ryan sat on the swing. She waved good-bye to me over her shoulder. Welby trotted at her heel.

Mary K sat in the swing next to Ryan’s. The two dangled there for a while. Welby plopped his head in Ryan’s lap. After a couple of minutes Mary K stood, nudged Ryan with her shoulder, and walked toward the road, her dog bounding beside her. I watched as she boarded the MUNI bus, her arms waving wildly as she negotiated passage for Welby. The door closed and the bus joined the river of vehicles.

Ryan sauntered toward me, her head hanging. “Can we go to Just Desserts for carrot cake?” she asked, her voice still pinched but her facial expression softened.

I turned to see the back end of the bus as it disappeared over the hill. “Carrot cake sounds pretty good to me.”

Purgatory

“Whoa!” I said as I opened the front door to the house. Jake stood in the foyer looking as surprised as I felt. He’d been home from Serenity Glen for nearly a month. I’d seen him only during visitation with Ryan and to sign papers with the realtor for the final sale of the house. “I thought you’d left for New York already,” I said.

“I leave in a few hours.”

“Yeah, well, I just got off work and thought I’d get the mail and—”

“I put it all in the bowl on the sideboard.”

“I’ll put in a change of address.”

We spoke like awkward unfamiliars. The discomfort of it made my scalp itch.

He looked past me. “Where’s Ryan?”

“Sleepover at a new friend’s house.”

“Good,” Jake said, studying the floor at his feet. “She seems to be making friends.”

“She should be with kids her age instead of just hanging out at the pub all the time.”

“Murphy’s is a pretty nice place for a kid.” It registered as he said it that Jake was losing not only Ryan and me, but the family that had adopted him as well. Another loss. “So the house sale is finalized? When does it close?”

“A long close. Forty-five more days. I’ll start packing this week. Just tell me what you want.”

“I can’t have what I want.”

We stood there in the silence. It had been nearly six months since we’d been completely alone together. Even our walks in Napa had been to public places. A feeling of being overexposed ran through me.

“Cup of tea?” he asked.

I attempted a nonchalant tone. “Sure. Why not?”

We sat at the kitchen table where Ryan’s highchair had once crowded the space and we’d pried stuck-down Cheerios from the terra cotta floor; where we’d worked crossword puzzles on Sunday mornings. Now Jake and I balanced the awkwardness of strangers with the gravity of the history we’d shared.

At first we exchanged niceties—my work, Ryan’s smooth entry into the first grade, updates on the gang at Murphy’s. As each topic waned, it was replaced with a palpable silence that throbbed behind my eyes.

“This is weird,” Jake said. “How are you, Kat? Really?”

I looked back out the window, searching for anything familiar that might anchor me but finding nothing but a horizon veiled by fog. “So you’re doing a commissioned installation, Burt tells me.”

“Burt set it all up. Hired an assistant to work with him since he’s doing more of his own work right now. But you know Burt. Delegating isn’t his strong suit. Did you know he’s painting?”

I wrapped my fingers around my teacup and felt myself smile. “His gallery show, remember? It was great. Especially the portraits.”

Jake nodded and looked off into the foggy distance, his face lined with remorse. “I always knew he was talented, but—”

“So tell me about this New York installation.”

“Burt sold it big, I guess. A temporary sculpture in Central Park. More than an acre, actually. Big sponsors, so I can help pay off—” The words seemed to catch in his throat.

“What will the piece be?”

“It’s not fully planned. Burt’s going crazy, of course, wanting to know the details. It’s all still forming. I’ve been thinking a lot about cracks, though.”

I found myself smiling. “Cracks?”

Jake laughed his deep giggle that was both manly and childlike and always delighted me. He explained how cracks in stone, ice, wood, glass, and earth can at first appear random, but how they actually follow along a predictable path of least resistance, like a river cutting its course. A crack in a rock or a log or even in the earth searches for weakness and creates itself there. “Kind of Darwin in reverse, with weakness overcoming strength.”

“Maybe not in reverse,” I said. “The strong is still surviving, right? From the perspective of the crack.”

“Exactly,” Jake said, smiling. “Exactly.”

We talked for a while longer about the installation, his first in two years. Jake dropped his gaze down to his lap.

“It’s getting late.” I said. “You’ve got your plane, and Alice is expecting me for supper.”

Jake looked into my eyes. “Stay with me for just a little longer. I’ll make you dinner. Ryan’s garden is full of vegetables and fresh herbs.” He donned his pitch-perfect imitation of my dad’s brogue. “It’d be a sin to let ’em go to waste now, wouldn’t it, Kitten?” His eyes flashed.

Ignoring the small voice of hesitation, I nodded.

Fragrances of fresh ginger, cilantro, and garlic rose through the kitchen from the sizzling wok on the stove. I found myself watching Jake’s fluid movement as he chopped vegetables. He moved like a dancer, his body flowing with purpose and intention. “You look better. What meds are you taking right now?”

He spooned vegetables from the wok onto my plate. “They were throwing the whole pharmacy at me for a while. Antipsychotics, mood stabilizers. Most of it just twisted me up, messed up my sleep and my memory, gave me stomach cramps, night sweats, dry mouth, tics. The plagues of Job. I started looking over my shoulder for locusts and floods.”

Science had always seemed to me like the solution for every malady. For Jake, it was a cruel temptress, mocking and deceitful.

The first bite of the stir-fried vegetables filled my senses all at once. He’d just thrown it together, but it was as sublime as any meal I’d ever eaten. “And now?” I asked. “What’s your medication regime?”

With the back of his fork, Jake moved food on his plate. His face dropped, and without looking up he spoke in a level voice. “Can we not, Kat? Can we just enjoy this little sliver of time right now without the medical exam?”

“I’m sorry. I guess I’m like the crack, huh? Always pushing through, looking for the weak spots I guess.”

We talked about my reunion with my family, Jake’s treatment with Dr. Gupta. JJ’s surgery. Mary K’s new house. But mostly we talked about Ryan.

Jake sighed. “I’ve missed so many things.” His regret was a dead thing—a carcass rotting in the room. “I’ll do the installation in New York, then come back and help pack up the house. You can sell anything you don’t want. The money can go to pay off some of the debt.” Jake pushed his barely-touched plate aside. “I’ve arranged to sell some of the art. Do a few commissioned pieces. That should get us out of the hole. The new assistant is managing the sales. Checks will all come to you.”

“Thanks. I know this is hard.”

Jake’s shoulders rose with a deep inhale. “Seeing me just wrecks Ryan, doesn’t it.”

“She loves you, Jake.”

“I know, but I confuse her. I scare her. My mood cycles are more frequent than ever, more… volatile. I can’t tell from minute to minute what I’m going to be like. They call it a
maturing
of my disorder. Ironic name, huh? Sedatives help me sleep, but then I wake up and the pain of losing you and Ryan is right there with its fist in my face ready to give me another punch.”

“I don’t want to keep you from Ryan, it’s just—”

Jake put up his hand to halt my words. “You have to.”

I looked at the sleeves that covered Jake’s arms. “Jake, the heroin. Are you still using?”

He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Sometimes, when nothing else works,” he sighed.

We’d had hours of discussion with Dr. Gupta and Dr. Malmstrom about how Jake, like so many with manic-depressive illness, used street drugs to moderate his moods. And though sometimes there was a dual diagnosis of addiction in cases like his, Jake was not a classic addict. This had been his first foray into needle use. I’d never been a prude about casual drug use and had imbibed my share of pot before Ryan was born, but the idea of heroin made my stomach turn.

“I can’t have Ryan alone around you with even the possibility of drug use.” Fear and anger clung to my words. The vision of Ryan holding a syringe was a scar in my mind.

He put his glasses back on and looked at me again. “You can’t let me be alone with Ryan at all, Kat, even without the drugs. Ever. We know that, right? If I was just a junkie I could recover, but—”

“The needles. I got tested and I’m fine, but maybe you just got lucky. You’re playing with another kind of fire.”

He opened the drawer in the old sideboard next to the table and moved the stack of table linens aside. He removed a mahogany box where the good silverware was usually housed. The flatware had been replaced with a Ziploc bag filled with syringes, each still in its sterile packaging, and the rest of the paraphernalia I’d seen before. He picked up a carton of sterile syringes. “I guess I still had a modicum of sense; I used clean needles. AIDS is probably the one thing you don’t have to worry about.”