Roxy Harte (32 page)

Ambulances line the curb, attendants coming and going at a brisk pace. I close my eyes against harsh red lights flashing in my face as an ambulance speeds by me with a new drop off. Bare maple trees line the curb. I shiver in my T-shirt, actually Charlie’s T-shirt, because I never took time to change or to even pack an overnight bag to insure that at some point I could get decent.

Unwilling to go back inside the hospital, I stand alone. A light mist of rain falls, making the air smell clean. It's the kind of rain that is so fine you can hardly see it, but it clings the minute it hits, seeping in and filling the pores of fabric, leaving my shirt clinging, my hair dripping into my eyes in what seems like only minutes.

Dawn came and went without a sunrise, at least not a visible one. It is determined to remain a wet, dreary day. I’d forgotten how this part of the world feels in winter. Cold and grey and gloomy. I should have never got on that plane. I shouldn’t have taken Lion’s call. Tears spring to my eyes and I shiver harder, sinking into a squat, sobbing into my hands. The sky seems to respond to my grief and releases a torrential rain.

Lion comes up behind me, waving a concerned attendant away, helping the hysterical woman into the warm car that I didn’t even hear pull up to the curb. Hospitals don’t normally come with valet, but then Lion doesn’t accept normal as his standard. As Lionell McCain, evangelist extraordinaire, he expects immediacy in all things and people always respond to his expectations.

He climbs in beside me, closing his door, buckling his belt. I hide my face in my arm as I slump against the door, using the window as a hard pillow, and am as uncomfortable as hell. I shouldn’t notice such things, my father is dead. He never knew I’d returned. As close as I can figure, my father died while I was overSt. Louis .

“Are you okay?” Lion looks my direction as he pulls from the curb. His glance suggests concern, even though the last time I saw him, I threw ice water in his face. I suppose if we compared sins against each other, we would be tied.

I nod, even though a steady stream of tears flows over my cheeks. He looks back toward the road,
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driving. I didn’t ask where we’re going. It hardly matters for now. Through the window, rows of asphalt and block after block of brick buildings, cars, and pedestrians finally give way to the interstate. Lion doesn’t look my direction again. He looks tired. I imagine he’s been awake all night. He became the son my father always wanted in the absence of the daughter he had no use for. Lion needed a father, I’m glad mine was there for him. Sometime, not now, when my skin no longer crawls in his presence and the pain in my chest is less intense, I should tell him that.

As we drive, the vaguely familiar becomes upsettingly familiar.Cincinnati , becomingNewport , becoming back roads that should have parted cornfields but now divide whole subdivisions. I stopped crying midway across theOhio River bridge. I still sniffle, not knowing why I cried at all. I think about my wild flight fromSan Francisco . I didn’t call anyone. I should call someone. I don’t know who I’d call. I consider Garrett and then Lord Fyre. I close my eyes, not having the energy to face either. I toy with the idea of calling George, but know that I wouldn’t survive George. Jackie?

I look at my watch. Seven-thirty in the morning. Jackie would fly here just to kill me if I called her this early. So kill me. I dial but my fingers work of their own volition. They, knowing better than I, dial Garrett. Chickening out, I hang up, realizing Lion was talking and I wasn’t paying attention. “What? I’m sorry?”

“I have the keys to his house. Will you be okay there tonight?”

I nod, wanting to vomit. I can’t do this, I really, really can’t do this. I will not sleep in that house.

“You could stay at my house if that would be better. I have an extra room.”

I grip my cell phone so tightly it hurts my hand. I look at it stupidly, realizing it is vibrating. I flip it open and lift it to my ear. “Hello?”

Garrett is on the other side of the connection, sounding panicked, wanting to know why in the hell I flew toCincinnati .

“How did you know?”

“Credit card. We tracked the purchase.” He sighs heavily, taking a calming breath that is audible over the phone. I hear Thomas’s voice in the background and it makes me smile that they are still together.

Tears fall over my cheeks, the wet flow beginning anew. “Why, Kitten? Why did you go?”

My throat closes in, unable to answer the simple question and I am barely able to get out, “Can I talk to Thomas?”

“Of course.” He sighs, not disguising the hurt in his voice I cry harder when I hear Thomas’ voice. “Can you come here?” I ask. “Can you both come here?”

“Yes, Sophia. We weren’t going to say anything before, but then you called…and hung up. We’re actually already in the air. We land in an hour. Where are you exactly?”

I frown, not understanding how they could already be en route, how they could be so close behind me.

“I don’t know. I’m with Lion. He’s taking me to the old house.”

I push my wet bangs out of my hair, realizing for the first time since getting into Lion’s car that I am
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dripping water everywhere. Making nervous chatter, I give Thomas the exact address of my childhood home, even though I don’t believe for a second that he needed me to do so. My mind goes back to the playground the day he came to claim me.
I know everything there is to know about you, Sophia.

It’s how Garrett knew my birthday. I’d been missing Lord Fyre, but he’d been keeping track of me all along. I don’t know how I know, but I know.

“We aren’t too far from the house, now. At least the scenery seems familiar.” I look at the phone to make sure I still have a signal. “Are you there?”

“I’m here with you, Sophia.”

“I need you.”

“I know.”

I stop crying, holding myself and rocking. “I’m glad Garrett is with you. I need both of you.”

“We’re both here for you, sweetheart. Do you want to talk to him?”

“Not yet. Just tell him, I’m glad he’s on the plane too.”

“I’m here, Kitten. I heard, we’ve had it on speaker the whole time.”

“I’m glad,” I whisper, watching Lion’s face darken, realizing that he knows mySan Francisco lover is on the phone with me. He’d be appalled rather than angry if he knew both men on the phone were my lovers.

The view through the window becomes the old neighborhood as I sit holding the phone to my ear, watching trees and houses whiz by. I don’t want to be here. I really, really don’t want to be home. I whisper into the phone, “Don’t hang up.”

Thomas offers me the reassurance, “We’re not going to hang up. We’re here with you.”

“Thank you,” I answer and although for the most part the phone line stays quiet, every few minutes one of us will ask, “Still there?” and wait for the affirmative response. Other than that, there is little else to say.

I’m glad they cared enough to find me, to follow me.

Lion pulls into the driveway of the old house just as Thomas announces that they have to disconnect long enough to land, promising they’ll call back. Nervously, I disconnect and clutch the phone, waiting for the vibration. My hands shake so hard, I fear I won’t feel the vibration. I open the phone to watch the screen face as Lion opens my car door. At least his manners have improved over the years. I’d never have expected him to open the car door for me.

He starts to hand me the keys to the front door of the house, but I wave them away, looking across the road to the church. Without thinking, without looking both ways to cross the street, I cross the road, pulled by memories stronger than the emotion that kept me away so many years. I feel rather than see Lion following me. I climb the few steps to the front doors, pulling them open, knowing the doors won’t be locked. It is a poor church in a poor town, there is nothing to steal, and aside from prayer or shelter, there is little reason to go inside. My father wouldn’t deny either for the sake of security.

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Tall, glass-paned windows line both sides of the main sanctuary, the view outside grey, dark clouds and bare-limbed trees; there is no beautiful stained glass in this church. White walls, high ceiling, no artwork, just rows and rows of antique pews as old as the building built in the early eighteen-hundreds. I walk between the high-backed wood seats, so simplistic, minimalist, not cushioned for comfort, and remember the hours I spent here, growing up, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Tuesday bible study, Wednesday’s midweek service, and the Friday evening choir practice. The others who attended this church were my family until I left—leaving because I was too ashamed to face any of them ever again.

I feel their judgment here, even though I am alone. I can see their faces in my mind, fingers pointing accusingly, mouths turned down in contempt.
Sinner, fornicator, murderer.

I do not see God in my mind, I do not feel his outrage. He was there, with me, through all of it. God knows the truth. I didn’t run from him, just the people who sit in these pews Sunday after Sunday.

I run my fingertips across the gleaming wood, following the main aisle to the pulpit. I pass it, veering right, going into a small alcove to pull open a sheltered door. The wood sticks, swollen with time and neglect, but a hard pull releases it. The stairway is dark and spider webs hang from the ceiling, but neither my fear of darkness or insects deters me.

Lion won’t follow me here.

No one has been up this staircase in decades, except me, and since I’ve been gone, none but the ghost I know remains.

I hear wood creak as Lion sits down in one of the pews. At the top step, I stop, wrapping my arms around myself. Freezing air flows in through the open arches, my wet T-shirt sucks around my body, clinging, adding to the chill. I take the final step, placing my hands on the cold metal of the bell. It is covered with a thin film of ice, proving it’s not my imagination that it is colder here, it really is, the temperature dropping fast.

Sitting down, I cross my legs and hold my cell phone in my lap, willing it to vibrate. Knowing it has only been about five minutes since I hung up, questioning how long it can take for a fucking plane to land. I don’t want to be alone here. What was I ever thinking? Coming here? Dear God, why did I come back to face all of this?

My father is dead. Can I admit that I don’t care? Can I admit that? Father forgive me, but I miss the man who once loved me.
Loved me when I was sinless
. That was a long time ago. Cold, I curl into the wall, wrapping myself in arms and legs, hearing my mother’s voice in the shrill sound of the breeze whistling through the arch of the windows.
Sophia.

“The serious thing for each person to recognize vividly and poignantly, each for himself, is that every falling-away from species virtue, every crime against one's own nature, every evil act, every one without exception records itself in our unconscious, and makes us despise ourselves.”

-Abraham H. Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being

Garrett

Mist turns to ice hitting the windshield of our rental car. Welcome to winter inOhio . God, I loveSan
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Francisco . Thomas keeps Kitten company on the phone, using the ear piece as he drives. I try to remain calm, inhaling nicotine, exhaling. Wondering wearily why I am making my lungs suffer for my sins. I cannot believe I am inOhio . I could have put this trip off an entire lifetime. Inhale, exhale smoke rings.

Puff, puff, puff.
Thomas hits the interstate; I exhale smoke just like Daddy did when I was a child.

Three perfect rings. Only then it was a game, not a bad habit. “Catch the rings on your finger, son, and make a wish. Make it a good wish, Larry.”

I can almost see myself then, sitting on his lap, in blue shorts with suspenders over a short-sleeved oxford shirt, white knee socks, and the very best Buster Brown leather oxfords, not forgetting the horrible Dutch boy haircut. Is it any wonder I am what I am?

“Are you okay?” His hand leaves the gear shift to pat my knee, our eyes meet, and I realize he’s talking to me not her.

“Ask me again on the flight home.” I offer a weak smile.

“It doesn’t have to be this hard.” He rubs my leg. I cover his hand with mine, still holding the cigarette between my fingers.

“What doesn’t have to be this hard?”

“You, facing your ghosts. Embracing the past so that it doesn’t hurt our future.”

Our future.
It seems like non-reality that we agreed to a ménage à trois for real, an absolute working threesome. I’ve never been in a poly relationship, although I guess, in a way, what I had with Tony was poly. I was monogamous, except for the scenes I did at work, sexual but never crossing the line to sex; Tony, with his steady stream of boy-toys, was always discreet, or so I thought, thinking we kept up the appearance of happy, committed couple.

I accepted Tony for who he was, so why is accepting this arrangement with Kitten and Fyre causing me to feel odd?

“Do we need to talk about this before we see her?”

“Is she still on the phone?” I ask.

“Lost the signal five minutes ago.” He looks at me hard; I inhale, hand shaking.

I hold the tobacco in my lungs, wishing it was more than tobacco, hissing around a burning exhale of smoke. “It isn’t necessary for us to say anything else…not until we get Kitten back toSan Francisco . It isn’t like we can make this happen. She may not want this.”

“Kitten wants this.”

“No, Kitten wants you and her. She may even think she wants me and her, but the reality is, until we put it into practice, it’s all theory anyway; and I know for a fact she’s never said anything about you and I, or the three of us together.