His anger at whoever was on the phone—most likely his ex-wife, the woman with the red hair and freckles—convinced me it was the wrong time to approach him, and so I just continued to follow him, figuring I’d build up the courage to talk to him eventually. Would I mention the transfusion? Would he think I was crazy, or would he be open to listening—or even better, open to believing?
But once we were on the tube, the timing again wasn’t right. It was overcrowded, people were pushing and shoving, and eye contact, never mind first-time introductions or conversations about the possible intelligence of blood, was impossible. And so after pacing up and down his street, feeling like a schoolgirl with a crush and a stalker at the same time, I now find myself standing on his doorstep with a plan. I am drawn to this man that I have barely met, in ways I’ve never been drawn to anybody, not even my husband. But my plan is once again being compromised as Justin and his brother Al begin to talk about something I know I shouldn’t be hearing, about a family secret I am more than familiar with already.
I move my finger away from the doorbell, keep hidden from all the windows, and bide my time.
Chapter 29
JUSTIN LOOKS TO HIS BROTHER in panic and searches quickly for something to sit on. He drags over a giant paint tub and sits down, not noticing the wet white ring of paint around the top.
“Al, what was she talking about? About you being dead next month.”
“No, no, no.” Al laughs. “She said might be dead. That’s distinctly different. Hey, you got away lightly there, bro. Good for you. I think that Valium is really helping her. Cheers.” He holds up his bottle and downs the last of his beer.
“Hold on, hold on. Al, what are you talking about? Is there something you haven’t told me? What did the doctor say?”
“He told me exactly what I’ve been telling you for the last two weeks. If any members of a person’s immediate family developed coronary heart disease at a young age, i.e., a male under fifty-five years old, well then, we have an increased risk of coronary heart disease.”
“Do you have high blood pressure?”
“A little.”
“Do you have high cholesterol?”
“A lot.”
“So, all you do is make lifestyle changes, Al. It doesn’t mean you’re going to be struck down like…like…”
“Dad?”
“No.” Justin frowns and shakes his head.
“Coronary heart disease is the number-one killer of American males and females. Every thirty-three seconds an American will suffer some type of coronary event, and almost every minute someone will die from it.” He looks at their mother’s grandfather clock, half covered by a dust sheet. The minute hand moves. Al grabs his heart and starts groaning. His noises soon turn to laughter.
Justin rolls his eyes. “Who told you that nonsense?”
“The pamphlets at the doc’s office said so.”
“Al, you’re not going to have a heart attack.”
“It’s my fortieth birthday next week.”
“Yeah, I know.” Justin hits him playfully on the knee. “That’s the spirit, we’ll have a big party.”
“That’s the age Dad was when he died.” Al lowers his eyes and peels the label from his beer bottle.
“That’s what this is about?” Justin’s voice softens. “Dammit, Al, is that what this is all about? Why didn’t you say something earlier?”
“I just thought that I’d spend some time with you before, you know, just in case…” His eyes tear up, and he looks away.
Tell him the truth.
“Al, listen, there’s something you should know.” Justin’s voice trembles, and he clears his throat, trying to control it. You’ve never told anyone. “Dad was under a huge amount of pressure at work. He had a lot of difficulties, financial and otherwise, that he didn’t tell anyone. Not even Mom.”
“I know, Justin. I know.”
“You know?”
“Yeah, I get it. He didn’t just drop dead for no reason. He was stressed out of his mind. And I’m not, I know that. But ever since I was a kid, I’ve had this feeling hanging over me that it’s gonna happen to me, too. It’s been playing on my mind for as long as I can remember, and now that my birthday’s next week and I’m not in the greatest of shape…Things have been real busy at work, and I haven’t been looking after myself. Never could do it like you could, you know?”
“Hey, you don’t have to explain it to me.”
“Remember that day we spent with him on the front lawn? With the sprinklers? Just hours before Mom found him…Well, remember playing around, the whole family?”
“Those were good times.” Justin smiles, fighting back tears.
“You remember?” Al says.
“Like it was yesterday,” Justin says.
“Dad was holding the hose and spraying us both. He was in such a good mood.” Al frowns in confusion and thinks for a while, then the smile returns. “He’d brought Mom a huge bunch of flowers—remember she put that big one in her hair?”
“The sunflower.” Justin nods along.
“And it was real hot. Do you remember it being real hot?”
“Yeah.”
“And Dad had his pants rolled up to his knees and his shoes and socks off. And the grass was getting wet and his feet were all covered in grass and he just kept chasing us around and around…” He smiles into the distance. “That was the last time I saw him.”
It wasn’t for me.
Justin’s memory flashes to the image of his father closing the living-room door. Justin had run into the house from the front yard to go to the bathroom; all that playing around with water was almost making him burst. As far as he knew, everyone else was still outside playing. He could hear his mom chasing and taunting Al, and Al, who was only five years old, screeching with laughter. But as Justin came back downstairs, he spotted his dad coming out of the kitchen and walking down the hall. Justin, wanting to jump out and surprise him, crouched down and watched him from behind the banister.
That was then he saw what was in his father’s hand. The bottle of liquid that was always locked away in the kitchen cabinet and only taken out on special occasions when his dad’s family came over from Ireland to visit. When they all drank from that bottle, they would change; they would sing songs that Justin had never heard but that his dad knew every word of, and they would laugh and tell stories and sometimes cry. He wasn’t sure why that bottle was in his dad’s hands now. Did he want to sing and laugh and tell stories today? Did he want to cry?
Then Justin saw the bottle of pills. He knew they were pills, because they were in the same container as the medicine Mom and Dad took when they were sick. He hoped his dad wasn’t feeling sick now, and watched as he closed the door behind him with the pills and bottle in his hands. He should have known then what his dad was about to do, but he didn’t. Whenever he recalls this moment, years later, he always tries to call out and stop him. But the nine-year-old Justin never hears him. He stays crouched on the stair, waiting for his dad to come out so he can jump out and surprise him. As time went by, he began to feel that something wasn’t right, but he didn’t quite know why he felt that way and didn’t want to ruin the big surprise by checking on his dad.
After minutes that felt like hours, hearing nothing but silence from behind the door, Justin gulped and stood up. He could hear Al still screaming with laughter outside, even as he went inside and saw the green feet on the floor. He remembers the sight of those feet so vividly. He remembers following those feet and finding his dad on the floor, lying there like a big green giant, staring lifelessly at the ceiling.
He didn’t say anything then. Didn’t scream, didn’t touch him, didn’t kiss him, didn’t try to help him because though he didn’t understand much at that time, he knew that it was too late for help. He just slowly backed out of the room, closed the door behind him, and ran out to the front lawn to his mom and younger brother.
They had five minutes. Five more minutes of eve
rything being exactly the same. He was nine years old on a sunny day with a mom and a dad and a brother, and he was happy. All the food they ate for dinner was made by his mom, and when he was bad at school the teachers shouted at him, like they should. Five more minutes of everything being the same, until his mom went into the house and then everything changed. Five minutes later, he wasn’t nine years old with a mom, a dad, and a brother. He wasn’t happy, neither was Mom, and the neighbors smiled at him with such sadness he wished they wouldn’t bother smiling at all. Everything they ate came from containers carried over by women who lived on their street, and when he acted up at school, the teachers just looked at him with that same look of pity. Everyone now had the same face.
Mom told them that Dad had suffered a heart attack. It’s what she told the entire family, and anybody who came by with a home-cooked meal or pie.
Justin could never bring himself to tell anyone he knew the truth, partly because he wanted to believe the lie and partly because he thought his mother had started to believe it too. So he kept it to himself. He hadn’t even told Jennifer during their marriage, because saying it out loud made it true, and he did not want to validate his father’s dying that way. And now, with their mother gone, he was the only person who knew the truth about his dad. The story of their father’s death fabricated to help them had ended up hanging like a black cloud over Al and becoming a burden for Justin.
He wanted to tell Al the truth right now, he really did. But how could it help him? Surely knowing the real story would be far worse, and Justin would have to explain how and why he’d kept it from his brother all these years…. But then he would no longer have to shoulder all the burden. Perhaps he could finally find some release, helping Al’s fear of heart failure in the process.
“Al, there’s something I have to tell you,” Justin begins.
The doorbell rings suddenly, a sharp sting of a ring that startles them both from their thoughts, smashing the silence like a sledgehammer through glass.
“Is someone gonna get that?” Doris yells.
Justin walks to the door with a white ring of paint around his behind. The door is already ajar, and he pulls it open farther. Before him, on the railings, hangs his dry-cleaning, his suits, shirts, and sweaters all covered in plastic. But nobody is there. He steps outside and runs up the steps to see who has left them there, but apart from the huge trash bin that Doris has set up, the front lawn is empty.
“Who is it?” Doris calls.
“Nobody,” Justin responds, confused. He unhooks the hangers from the railing and carries them inside.
“You’re telling me that cheap suit just pressed the doorbell itself?” she comes out and asks, still angry at him from before.
“I don’t know. It’s peculiar. Bea was going to collect all these tomorrow. I hadn’t arranged a delivery with the dry cleaners.”
“Maybe it’s a special delivery for being such a good customer, because by the looks of it, they dry-cleaned your entire wardrobe.” She eyes his choice of clothes with distaste.
“Yeah, and I’ll bet the special delivery comes with a big bill,” he grumbles. “I had a little falling-out with Bea earlier; maybe she organized this as an apology.”
“Oh, you are a stubborn man.” Doris rolls her eyes. “Do you ever think for a second that it’s you who should be making the apologies?”
Justin narrows his eyes at her. “Why did you talk to Bea?”
“Hey, look, there’s an envelope here,” Al points out, interrupting the beginnings of another fight.
“There’s your bill.” Doris laughs.
Justin’s heart immediately leaps to his mouth as he catches sight of the familiar stationery. He throws the pile of clothes down on the floor and rips off the envelope.
“Be careful! These have just been pressed.” Doris takes them and hangs them from the door frame.
He opens the envelope and gulps hard, reading the note.
“What does it say?” Al asks.
“It must be a death threat, by the look on his face,” Doris says excitedly. “Or a ransom note. What’s wrong, and how much do they want?” She giggles.
Justin takes out the card he received earlier with the muffin basket, and he holds the two cards together so that they make a complete sentence. Reading the words causes a chill to run through his body.
Thank you…for saving my life.
Chapter 30
I LIE IN THE TRASH bin, breathless, my heart beating at the speed of a hummingbird’s wings. I’m like a child playing hide-and-seek, intense nervous excitement rolling around in my tummy. Please don’t find me, Justin, don’t find me like this, lying at the bottom of the trash bin in your garden, covered in plaster and dust. I finally hear his footsteps move away, then back down the steps to his basement apartment.
What on earth have I become? A coward. I chickened out and rang the doorbell to stop Justin from telling Al the story about their father, and then, afraid of playing God to two strangers, I ran, eventually leaping and landing in the bottom of the bin. How metaphorical. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to speak to him now. I don’t know how I’ll ever find the words to explain how I’m feeling. The world is not a patient place: Stories such as these are mostly for the pages of the Enquirer or for double-page spreads in certain women’s magazines. Beside my story would be a photograph of me in my dad’s kitchen, looking forlornly at the camera. With no makeup. No, Justin would never believe this story if I told him—so I’m counting on actions speaking louder than words.
Lying on my back, I stare up at the sky. The clouds stare right back down at me. They pass over the woman in the trash with curiosity, calling the stragglers behind them to come see. More clouds gather, eager to witness what the others are grumbling about. Then they too pass over, leaving me staring at empty blue and the occasional white wisp. I almost hear my mother up there laughing aloud, imagine her nudging her friends to come have a look at her silly daughter. I picture her peeping over a cloud, hanging over too far like Dad with the balcony at the Royal Opera House. I smile, enjoying this now.
Now, as I brush dust, paint, and wood chips from my clothes and clamber out of the bin, I try to remember what other things Bea mentioned her father wanted to have done by the person he saved.
“Justin, calm down, for creep’s sake. You’re making me nervous.” Doris sits on a stepladder and watches Justin pace up and down the room.
“I can’t calm down. Do you not understand what this means?” He hands her the two cards.
Her eyes widen. “You saved someone’s life?”
“Yeah.” He shrugs and stops pacing. “It’s really no big deal. Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do—”
“He donated blood,” Al interrupts his brother’s failed attempt at modesty.
“You donated blood?”
“It’s how he met Vampira, remember?” Al refreshes his wife’s memory. “In Ireland, when they say, ‘Fancy a pint?’ beware.”
“Her name is Sarah.”
“So you donated blood to get a date.” Doris folds her arms. “Is there anything you do for the greater good of humanity, or is it all just for yourself?”
“Hey, I have a heart.”
“Though a pint lighter than it was,” Al adds.
“I have donated plenty of my time to helping organizations—colleges, universities, galleries—in need of my expertise. Something I don’t have to do, but which I have agreed to do for them.”
“Yeah, and I bet you charge them per word. That’s why he says ‘oops-a-daisy’ instead of ‘shit’ when he stubs his toe,” Al says.
Al and Doris dissolve into laughter, thumping and hitting each other in their fit.
Justin takes a deep breath. “Let’s get back to the matter at hand. Who is sending me these notes and running these errands?” He begins pacing again and biting his nails. “Maybe this is Bea’s idea of a joke. She’s the only person I talked to about deserving thanks in return for saving a life.”
r /> Please, don’t be Bea.
“Man, you are selfish,” Al says.
“No.” Doris shakes her head. Her long earrings whip against her cheeks with each movement, but her back-brushed hair-sprayed hair remains still as ever. “Bea wants nothing to do with you until you apologize. No words can describe how much she hates you right now.”
“Well, thank God for that.” Justin continues pacing. “But she must have told somebody, or else this wouldn’t be happening. Doris, find out from Bea who she spoke to about this.”
“Huh.” Doris lifts her chin and looks away. “You said some pretty nasty things to me before. I don’t know if I can help you.”
Justin falls to his knees and shuffles over to her.
“Please, Doris, I’m begging you. I am so, so sorry for what I said. I had no idea how much time and effort you were putting into this place. I underestimated you. Without you, I’d still be drinking from a toothbrush holder and eating from a cat bowl.”
“Yeah, I meant to ask you about that,” Al interrupts his brother’s groveling. “You don’t even have a cat.”
“So I’m a good interior designer?” Doris lifts her chin.
“A great designer.”
“How great?”
“Greater than…” He stalls. “Andrea Palladio.”
Her eyes look to the left, then look to the right. “Is she better than Ty Pennington?”
“He was an Italian architect in the sixteenth century, widely considered the most influential person in the history of Western architecture.”
“Oh. Okay. Then you’re forgiven.” She holds out her hand. “Give me your phone, and I’ll call Bea right now.”
Moments later they are all seated around the new kitchen table, listening to Doris’s half of the phone conversation.
“Okay, Bea told Petey, and the costume supervisor for Swan Lake. And her father.”
“The costume supervisor? Do you guys still have the program from the performance?”