In late May, Chelsea celebrated her twenty-eighth week of gestation with a small party thrown at Tommie and Rae’s, the first of many. Graduations were plentiful that summer, Emily already whooping it up in Walla Walla, Melissa next at Arkendale High School, then two right in a row, Kimberly in Eugene and Eric in Palo Alto. The only one Chelsea was planning to attend was Melissa’s, if she felt able to go.
She probably would, she told her cousin. Chelsea was starting to find some confidence as a pregnant woman. She had spoken with her mom about her ambivalence of being Alvin’s daughter. Now maybe she was her mother’s, a woman coming to parenthood in her thirties, and quite able to do so.
Tanner didn’t show up that night, which didn’t surprise anyone. It seemed only a matter of time, and if Jenny and Sam carried less in their hearts, they would have inquired as to his whereabouts. Between their increasingly expanding daughter and Eric’s homecoming, it was hard to shoehorn in any more. The only small problem was that with Eric and Kim’s graduations on the same weekend, families would be split. Tommie joked that the Smiths were going to best the Cassels when it came to degrees. Years before Sam’s kids had taken the lead, but now they were only looking to return home. Even David hinted that if something turned up within Oregon proper, he would again jump ship. Sam hadn’t been pleased with a peripatetic nature rearing in that most volatile of his children. Until Sam saw how Dana settled, David was better off where he was.
Now that Eric and Dana were close to returning, Sam was even more eager for their faces alongside those of his daughters. Rachel had her hands full with Louise, now a bouncy, chirpy girl, her colic a faded memory. Louise tested arms for two more, babies that Sylvia was keeping an eye on, Grant and Cliff too, Jenny often said. She never mentioned Alvin, but Sam assumed she considered him as well. Sam had a different feeling about Alvin’s gaze, Robert beside him. Mitch’s emails arrived more with the sense of relief than pleasure, and Eric would be home soon. If someone had told Sam a year ago he would be praying for his youngest son’s return, he would have thought them crazy. But then, he had to smile; if they had mentioned Chelsea’s condition, Sam wouldn’t have believed that either.
On the Monday, the fourth of June, a registered letter was sent to Jacob’s house, in time for Tanner’s birthday. He hadn’t called Alana by her first name since that one slip. She was Mom out of his mouth, but never within his mind.
That same week Eric studied for finals but was easily distracted by Dana’s attentions, and he pulled several all-nighters that had nothing to do with theories or essays. Since he was only going home, what difference did it make if he bombed his last exams? Instead the couple enjoyed their privacy, the last for a few months. Sam had sent links to available properties, but Eric wouldn’t think about it until they got there. He and Dana would have that entire top floor, Rachel having moved to Sam and Jenny’s old room. She hadn’t searched for her own place; soon she would be practically living at Chelsea and Andy’s.
She wasn’t needed at Will’s anymore, would be a live-in nanny for the twins, or until Chelsea kicked her out. Between those younger Cassels was a desire not to grow up too fast; their parents were happy for grandchildren from the older siblings, but no one pressured David on that matter.
Eric wanted kids, but not for a long time, as he assumed it would take Dana ages to purge her demons. Years of tandem abuse, what he had finally told his father in an email. It was easier that way, as Eric didn’t have to see Sam’s reaction. It had been bad enough telling Sam about Dana’s dad, but her older brother had been just as dreadful. James Browning was Dana’s only sibling. Having spirited her away when she was fifteen under the pretense of saving her life, instead he continued what their father had started, plying Dana with various intoxicants, supposedly to ease her pain.
It was so twisted that Eric had nearly left her, not because she was tainted, but that it was simply more than he could handle. Who in the world lived this way, besides reality show trash, and how much of that crap was genuine? Regular people didn’t live like this, Eric assumed, safe in his academic bubble. Tanner was one thing, Alana’s first husband an anomaly. The rest of them went to college, were starting to get married and have kids. Even Chelsea’s problems had seemed a glitch; look at her now.
Eric was excited to be an uncle again, and just so happy that Chelsea got this chance, why he assumed Dana would emerge from her drug-induced haze. If Chelsea could get pregnant, with twins no less, anything was possible.
“Oh Eric, please.” Dana’s aching voice cut like a knife. It seemed like they had spent all week in bed, but Eric had one last paper to finish. He would cram this weekend, already setting aside study time with friends, but this project needed to be turned in Friday morning. On Thursday night, he was nearly done.
“Baby, just an hour. Two, I promise. Honey, go to sleep and I’ll wake you, you know I will.”
Eric smiled, his erection uncomfortable, but school needed some of his focus. Once he turned in this paper, then took exams next week, all he would have to do is don that cap and gown, hustle his butt across the stage, grab that diploma, and smile for the camera. Not everyone would be there, but that was okay. His life as a college student had been fraught with two worries; Tanner had taken the initial years, Dana the last eighteen months. Now Eric just needed a few hours, and she backed off, maybe aware of his thoughts. He never could read hers, not for as hard as he tried, but Dana seemed to know what he was thinking.
“You mind if I have a smoke?” she asked, having moved to their bed.
He sighed. He did mind, pot fumes finding their way into his head. But if he said no, she would pop some pills and be out all night. He preferred a natural remedy; people had used weed’s remedial properties for ages, people like his mom. Hard drugs were for losers like Tanner, and Eric had to admit, like Dana too.
Why wouldn’t she see a shrink, even a counselor? Because she was addicted, and he turned her way. “Baby, just give me an hour. I need to be thinking straight.”
She twitched. “Just a few tokes, is that okay?”
He nodded, but not of his own volition. It came from years of watching Tanner take off the edge, not dealing with the problem. But how in the hell was Dana supposed to do that, Eric wondered, returning to his desk, hearing her roll the joint, then light it. Something was ingested, getting into her veins, easing her pain.
Then she walked away, closing the bathroom door. He blinked back a few tears. What she didn’t know was how deeply Eric felt her despair, running through him alongside Tanner’s, two sharp blades slicing his skin.
Later as they made love, Eric knew she was reliving something, in how she lay so still under him. For the very first time he wondered if it had been this way with her dad or her brother. He became flaccid with that notion, and pulled from her. “Eric, what?”
“Nothing, just thinking about that paper.”
A lie; could she read that as well? Maybe not; she had gotten pretty stoned in the bathroom, the fan still churning. His stomach was too; he had never made love to her with that in his mind.
“Baby, oh Eric, what?” She tried to resurrect what had been lost, but Eric felt sick, unsure if he could remain there next to her.
“I’m gonna go to sleep. In the morning, I promise.”
He turned to his right, facing the wall. Pulling the sheet over his bare shoulder, he nearly got up to put on his boxers. Instead he curled away from her, trying to drown out the immense silence.
She was so quiet, never speaking, never even moaning. That she didn’t whimper was probably good; who knew how she could even stand to have sex after what had been done to her. Then Eric wondered how was that? Besides the drugs, how could she even want to make love?
As he turned to her, not to ask that question, only to see her face, he found her tears. She even cried soundlessly, and his arms were around her as quickly as he could move. Then she began to shake, as if she could read his mind, but like Eric, Dana had no idea either.
&
nbsp; “Baby, oh Dana, my God, it’s okay. It’s gonna be okay!”
“Eric, how can you be with me?”
“I love you, honey. I love you.”
“Why?”
“I dunno.” His youth offered honesty. “’Cause you’re so beautiful, you made it. My God honey, you survived!”
That was another miracle that Eric chalked up alongside Chelsea’s twins and Tanner’s return. If Mitch managed to come home, Eric would consider that another trio, like the one of which he was a part. Then he stopped; Dana’s survival made it four.
Eric shuddered. All his life things came in threes; he was one of three brothers twice over. He, David, and Rachel were Sam’s biological children. Eric’s father, Uncle Tommie, and Uncle Jacob made up another triangle, situations needing three players, three conditions. But Chelsea, Tanner, Mitch, and Dana were four.
Perhaps this was an anomaly. Eric couldn’t fathom Chelsea’s babies in trouble, Mitch not returning, or Dana… Eric swallowed hard. His brother of a cousin that was also his nephew was slipping to the side.
Tanner had been making that distinction lately; was he trying to tell Eric something? Eric gripped his girlfriend, feeling a pressure build against her soft, warm body.
“Eric, I don’t know what I’d do without you, my God, please don’t leave me!”
She said that sometimes when she was very high or drunk. The last thing Eric could imagine was being away from her.
Then the pressure became part of him, his body responding in kind; it was all her voice. She mumbled soft words, calling him back, begging for him. Not even her words, but how she said them, as if asking for her life.
That was too painful, so he kissed her, his hands along her sides, to her breasts, not thinking of those from her past demanding these same pleasures. As silence returned, Eric set himself into her. This time slips of noise emerged, turning him on to the point where their usual passionate intimacy ruled.
In that forgotten moment of time, Eric erased her past, forging their future. He was sure this was the way.
In the morning he woke to a fuzzy feeling, but Dana was deeply asleep. The bathroom fan ran and he turned it off, used the toilet, then washed his hands. It still smelled like grass, or maybe it was only him.
Coming back to their bedroom, she didn’t stir, but Eric saw the reason. An open bottle of tranquilizers sat on the table alongside an empty glass, her phone, bracelets, and earrings. In the middle of the night she had taken something. He hadn’t been able to love her fears away.
He gathered clothes, then went for a shower. He was due to meet with friends, and would leave Dana a note, hoping she would remember he had this morning already planned. Eric could always text her, leaving another reminder.
He dressed in the bathroom, then put on his shoes in the living room where his books waited. He filled his backpack, left the note on the table, gathering his keys, phone, and wallet. Even before he left, he wrote her a text; that would be the first place she would look when she woke.
Eric had been studying for three hours before Dana stirred, and he had been correct, her phone was the first thing she checked. Even before peeing, which she had to do, but first she needed to confirm where he was. She did remember his schedule, which was fine. She wanted to clean the apartment and mornings were good for her. Sleep cleared the nightmares that she kept to herself, Dana as silent in those as she was during sex. But last night had been a little different; Eric’s impotence had been her fault. It was finally starting to eat at him.
This had happened before, one other man having eased her pain, but then, her honesty always did her in. Dana couldn’t help but tell them, unable to keep it a secret. Then she shivered; how much longer would they last? Leaving California would help, getting out of this miserable place full of perfect people, all with miniscule problems. Dana had no illusions; her life was the worst. She had done nothing to deserve it, but all the shit in the world had fallen her way. Tanner Cassel was a spoiled asshole, but she didn’t say anything because of how much he meant to Eric. She did love him, someone who wanted to love her, but so much stood between them.
His text spoke of how much he cared; he hadn’t wanted to wake her, would be home around three, and that he loved her. Dana wasn’t sure why that was, but as long as he could accept her, she would stay with him.
Another text waited, but only Eric had her number, not even his parents, the fewer with this connection the better. Still somewhat drugged, she opened the text, scanning the note.
Then she hurled the cell across the room. Jumping from bed, Dana ran to the bathroom, locking the door, only wishing she had been quick enough to grab her pills. Too terrified to pee, she closed the lid, then curled into a ball on the toilet.
She stayed in that position until her bladder forced her to move. Then she took a shower, as hot as she could stand. Only then did she leave that room, the towel tight around her. Stopping at her bedside table, she swallowed two pills without water, nearly choking on them. But what remained on her phone was worse, and she walked to where it lay. With great trepidation, she picked it up, surprised it still worked.
Her tears were as muted as her voice, which if able to carry, would have alarmed all in the complex. All she could read, hear, or think was what sat on that small cell phone screen: I’m coming for you.
Dana let that message and the sender’s identity into her heart, no way to shut it out. James had found her.
Chapter 16