Millie sat on the floor in the middle of the living room, her back to me, and her guitar cradled in the well of her folded legs. The game was clearly over, and Henry had obviously given up on me and gone to bed. I would have to make it up to him, though I didn’t mind missing the game. I’d never been much of a spectator anyway. I preferred to play.
I watched Millie pick her way through a couple songs, her head tilted toward the guitar like she liked the way the strings squeaked. She held the guitar upright, the neck almost vertical, and I listened, not commenting, letting her think I was still sleeping. She was always surprising me. I knew she could play, but she was pretty damn good.
“Why haven’t you ever played for me before?” I asked quietly, my voice drowsy and content.
“You’re awake,” she said, and I could hear the smile in her voice.
“I’m awake, you’re beautiful, and you need to come here.”
She ignored me, her fingers finding their way across the strings. “If you were a chord, David, what chord would you be?” she mused, playing one chord after another.
I listened as she experimented.
“Oh, here’s a good, sad one,” she said, strumming softly.
“You think I’m sad?” I asked.
“Nah. Definitely not. That’s not your chord. No minor chords for you.”
“Absolutely not. I’m a major chord all the way. A major chord and a major stud.” She laughed and I sighed. I didn’t know what time it was, but the golden glow of the nearby lamp and the warm strings made my eyes heavy and my heart light.
“This is Henry’s chord.” Millie played something dissonant and curious, and I laughed out loud because it made total sense. “But you would be something deeper,” she added.
“Because I’m a sexy man,” I drawled.
“Yep. Because you’re a sexy man. And we would want something with a little twang to it.”
“Because I’m a sexy Texan.”
“A sexy Utah Texan.” She tried a few more, laughing and scrunching up her nose as she tried to find just the right chord. “And we need something sweet.”
“Sweet and violent?” I asked.
“Sexy, twangy, sweet and violent. This might be more difficult than I thought,” she said, still giggling.
She strummed something full and throaty, picking over each string and then strumming them together. “There it is, hear that? That’s Tag.”
“I like it,” I said, pleased.
She stretched her hand, her pinky finger clinging to the bottom string and the chord changed subtly, another layer, a slightly different sound, like the chord wasn’t quite yet resolved. “And that’s David.”
I sat down behind her on the floor and grabbed her folded thighs, pulling her back into me so that I cradled her the way she cradled the guitar. She leaned back against my chest, tucked her head to one side of my chin, and continued fingering the chords she’d named after me.
“Let me hear your song, Millie.”
“You mean my chord?”
“Nah. Your song. You’re a woman. Women don’t have just one chord.”
She laughed softly and bopped me in the head with the neck of the guitar. “I’m glad you know that, but I’m kind of wishing you didn’t know quite so much about women. Makes me wonder how you gained all that knowledge. And I get a little jealous.”
“I grew up with three sisters and one very opinionated, feisty mother. I learned early.”
“Good answer, big guy.”
“It’s the truth, sweetheart. So play it. Play your song.”
“I haven’t written it yet.”
“Will you put my chord in your song?”
“Why does that sound so suggestive?” She was smiling, but there was something wistful in her voice.
“Because I’m a sexy man.”
“I’ll put your chord in my song. Both of them, Tag and David. And I’ll put Henry’s in it too.”
“What about your mom? Did she have a chord?”
Millie moved her hand immediately and played something warm and soft, something happy yet plaintive. “That’s my mom, that chord there. Do you recognize it?”
I thought for a minute. “Is it part of her song?”
“It’s part of an old country song. It’s the very first chord of ‘Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain.’”
I sang a couple bars of the song. I knew it well.
“That’s it. I love that song. My mom had blue eyes, just like me and Henry. And she didn’t spend a lot of time crying, thank goodness. She spent a lot of time loving. But there was longing in her too. She wanted to protect us. She wanted to save us from hurt. She wanted to give us back the things that had been taken from us or denied us. She longed for it. And she couldn’t do it. No matter how much she loved us, she couldn’t do it.”
“I guess none of us can.”
“No. None of us can. She told me something before she died, and I think about it sometimes when I’m having a hard time. She said that all her life she just wanted to save us from suffering. That was her job as a mom—save us from suffering, but we suffered anyway.” Millie paused as if she were remembering the conversation, and I wanted to kiss her mouth, kiss that lower lip that trembled just a bit with the emotional memory. I pressed my lips to the curve of her cheek instead, afraid that if I kissed her mouth I’d never hear the end of her story.
“And then she said, ‘I wanted to save you and Henry from suffering, but I’ve come to realize that your suffering has made you better people.’ She was dying, and she was watching us come to terms with the fact that we were going to lose her.”
“And what do you think? Does suffering make us better people?” I asked.
“It all depends on the person, I suppose,” she mused.
“Maybe it depends on the amount of suffering too,” I added, stroking a hand over her hair.
“And whether you have people holding your hand along the way, sharing the burdens, shouldering some of the pain.” She leaned into my hand.
“Did you have that, Millie?” I asked quietly.
“I did. My mom may not have been able to keep me from suffering, and I certainly couldn’t keep her from suffering, or Henry, for that matter. But we loved each other, and that made the suffering bearable.”
“I want to be that for you, Millie. I want to carry you. I want you to give it all to me,” I said, and then sang a little Rolling Stones in her ear, changing the lyrics just a bit.
“Let me be your beast of burden, my back is broad to ease your hurtin,’” I sang, kissing her earlobe. I would love her and keep her safe, and I swore to myself then that I would do the impossible. There would be no more suffering for Amelie Anderson. I would be the one shouldering all the shit.
She let me nuzzle her neck for a minute, humming happily.
“There are some other words in that song, David. He asks if he’s enough. If he’s enough for her. So I am asking you, Tag. Am I enough? Because I’m not too blind to see.”
The bridge of the song she quoted cartwheeled through my mind and I shook my head, amazed. I’d forgotten the line about being too blind.
“Am I tough enough? Am I hard enough?” I sang, more than a little turned on.
“So are you going to give it all to me too, big guy? The good, the bad, and the ugly? Because I want it all.” I smiled at her earnest delivery, her heartfelt declaration, and tried not to laugh at the sexual innuendo. She had no idea. So I wouldn’t crack up.
I pulled the guitar from her hands and laid it on the floor.
“You’re more than enough, Silly Millie.”
She turned in my arms and found my face with her hands before she let her lips touch mine. I kissed her as Mick Jagger crooned the line about drawing the curtains and making sweet love somewhere in the back of my mind.
(End of Cassette)
Moses
“HELLO, DOC? IT’S Moses Wright.”
“Moses! It’s so good to hear from you.” Dr. Andelin’s voice w
as deep and butter warm, the way it always was, and I marveled at his ability to make people feel instantly safer, better, heard. He’d been a squeaky new psychologist when I first met him at Montlake—maybe twenty-six or twenty-seven years old—but he had that way about him that made you feel like his soul had lived a million lives. He was wise and kind, and Tag and I were both pretty fond of him. But I pushed through the niceties that Tag was so much better at, interrupting Noah Andelin even though I knew it was rude and he would think I’d lost all the ground I’d gained since being a surly eighteen-year-old in his care at Montlake.
“Doctor Andelin, I know Tag’s seen you on a fairly regular basis since we came back to Utah. And I know you can’t tell me what you talked about. I get that. Doctor-patient confidentiality and all that stuff. I don’t need to know what Tag’s said to you or what you’ve said to him. But he’s gone, Doctor Andelin. He just split suddenly. He’s in love with a great girl who loves him back, but I keep seeing his sister. I keep seeing his sister, Doc, and I don’t have to tell you why that scares me to death.”
I wasn’t connecting my thoughts very well, but the swift intake of breath on the end of the line confirmed that Noah Andelin was keeping up with me.
“In your professional opinion, would he hurt himself? I mean. He’s not suicidal,” I stopped suddenly, because I realized I didn’t know if that was true. Listening to Tag, I had no idea if he was emotionally back in the corridors of Montlake, wanting to escape himself. I amended my statement. “I mean, he’s not suicidal like he was. In some ways, Tag is the healthiest guy I know. But he has a crazy streak, and he’s great at saving everyone else and not always very good at taking care of himself. He just took off so suddenly. Where do you think he’d go? Do you have any advice that could help me find him?”
Dr. Andelin didn’t answer immediately, and I could picture him with his hand against his face, his head tilted, just thinking.
“How do you know he isn’t just . . . taking a break?” Dr. Andelin finished inanely, as if trying to come up with a viable alternative.
“He’s left us some cassettes. The girl he’s been seeing is blind. So he’s recorded himself, talking to her, basically.”
“Amelie,” Dr. Andelin supplied, and I realized Tag had consulted with him on something.
“So you know about her.”
“Yes. I saw him a month ago. He was—” Dr. Andelin stopped, as if trying to carefully negotiate confidentiality. “He was happier than I have ever seen him. This is . . . unexpected.”
“Would it help you to hear the tapes?” I was desperate. I hoped Millie wouldn’t object.
“Has he given you any reason to believe there is anything you can do?” Dr. Andelin asked quietly.
“What?” I felt the anger surge through my veins, and I wanted to throw my phone against the wall.
“How long has it been since anyone has seen him?” Dr. Andelin’s voice was unbearably gentle.
“More than two weeks,” I whispered.
“TAG?” LISA LOOKED a little harried, her eyes wide, her hands shaking. “Uh, I think we’ve got a problem. Morgan . . . Morgan is in the lounge. He’s been drinking for the last few hours, and he’s starting to get abusive. I didn’t want to get him in trouble. Morg’s my friend. I don’t know what happened with his job, but, well—” I was around the bar, tossing instructions at Vince and moving down the hall and into the lounge with Lisa trotting after me, making all kinds of excuses for Morgan.
The music was thumping—something guttural and earthy, and Amelie was in the octagon, twirling and swaying around the tall pole, a determined smile pinned to her face. But unlike the first time I’d seen her dance, and every time I’d watched her dance since, her eyes were open, and her movements seemed stiff. She clearly wasn’t enjoying herself.
“I’m not liking what I see!” a voice bellowed out. “Are you liking what you see, princess?” Laughter. “Get Danielle back out here!”
The other patrons had stopped watching Amelie and were peering, hands over their eyes in the direction of the corner booth. The dim lighting made it hard to make him out, and the loud bass camouflaged his taunts, but Morgan was doing his best to be heard, and the charged atmosphere in the room had nothing to do with sexual tension or the scantily clad dancer performing a seductive routine under a spotlight.
He was so intent on heckling Amelie, he didn’t see me coming. So when I reached over the back of the booth and grabbed him around the ears and yanked upward, he came to his feet with a yelp of pain and surprise.
Lady Gaga was singing about having a poker face and Amelie was trying to take her advice, dancing like a wind-up doll, unable to see the cause of the drama unfolding in front of her. I was extremely grateful for that. Lisa squealed and Morgan roared as I dragged him across his table, sending empty bottles crashing and upending two chairs at another, thankfully unoccupied, table.
A few customers clapped and whistled as I locked my arm around Morgan’s head and headed for the emergency exit. I pushed through the door as the final bars of Amelie’s number played out. I didn’t hang around to see the spotlight on the cage dim to black or the lounge lights softly rise, which was customary as a new dancer took her place in the cage. I wanted Morgan out of sight and out of ear-shot before I beat the hell out of him. But as we barreled through the doors and out into the cold night, both breathing hard, both angry, Morgan, off balance and clinging to my forearm around his neck with one hand, swung at me with his other. It was a Hail Mary, a desperation shot, but there happened to be a beer bottle in his hand, and that beer bottle connected with my forehead with a resounding crack.
The blow stunned me, and I went down to one knee, pulling Morgan with me. Blood filled my eyes, and rage filled my head.
“You gonna tell me what that was about, Morg? You gonna tell me why you decided to come back?”
I swiped at the blood on my forehead with one arm and ground Morgan’s head into the ground with the other.
“I want my job . . . I want my job back,” he wailed, pushing on my hand. “I just thought I’d have a drink or two first, to get my courage up to ask for it back. I watched Danielle and Crysti dance. Then I had a few more. Then she came out. It just made me mad that she still had a job and I didn’t. Where’s your loyalty, Tag? I don’t get it, man.”
My vision was starting to swim and my head had started to pound like Morg had taken Thor’s hammer to it, instead of a bottle of Bud. Someone burst through the exit doors and I stood, releasing Morgan and swaying on my feet. I wasn’t going to go down. Losing consciousness meant a concussion in the fight world. Concussion meant mandatory down time and testing. I didn’t have time for that. Vince and Leo were suddenly at my sides, looking down at Morgan who still lay on the ground in front of me, as if he didn’t know what to do with himself. His eyes were wide as he took in the blood pouring from the wound he’d inflicted. I pulled off my black T-shirt, mopped the blood from my eyes, and pressed it to the gash in my head. It felt like the Grand Canyon beneath my fingers and my stomach roiled and shifted.
“Don’t come back, Morg. I’m all about second chances. But that? In there? That was it. That was your second chance, and you repeated all your mistakes. You’ve shown your colors, and I don’t like the way you look in them. I don’t want you around.”
A trip to the ER was just where I wanted to spend my evening. They had to dig glass fragments out of my forehead, and that hurt worse than the actual blow to my head. The shot of Novocain wasn’t a picnic either. But I kept my eyes open and my mouth moving as the emergency room doctor stitched me up.
“You’re going to look a little like Frankenstein,” the doctor said good-naturedly. “You’ve got thirty stitches holding your forehead together. It’s right at your hairline though, and I’m guessing the scar will be pretty well hidden. I’m more worried about concussion. Your head is extremely swollen, your pupils still haven’t returned to normal, and I know you think you’re fooling me, but your speech is wobbly
and so are your knees. I think we need to order an MRI just to be safe. In fact, I’m going to insist on it.”
“That’s my drawl, Doc. That’s just how I sound, and I’m tired. I’ve been up for eighteen hours and an MRI isn’t quick, right?” I’d had an MRI in high school when a bull I attempted to stay on for eight seconds, a bull named Ginger, sent me careening into a fence a few seconds after my butt hit his back. Less than eight seconds to warrant a test that had taken forever. I had learned I was claustrophobic and that I didn’t especially want to ride bulls anymore.
Plus, I was feeling fine, and I wanted to see Amelie. She would be wondering where I was. Leo had run me to the hospital and Vince had gone back inside, while the new guy, Chuck, made sure Morgan went home. Everyone had been firmly instructed to keep their mouths shut. Millie didn’t need to be worrying about me getting my head bashed in. For all she knew, she’d had a heckler, and he’d been removed. I told my employees as much. I would tell her an abbreviated version of events and leave Morgan’s name out altogether. But her shift had ended hours ago, and I hadn’t been there to walk her home for the first time since we’d met. I’d texted her and told her I’d come when I could—she had an app on her phone that announced her messages and read them aloud when she tapped the screen. I purposely made my texts ridiculous because it was so funny to hear the canned voice relay my messages. She’d responded with song lyrics about waking her up, and I responded with a demand that she go to sleep.
“I’ll let you go home as soon as you’re done. This will give us another hour of observation too. Humor me, Tag. In your line of work, sparring day in and day out, you can’t mess around with a head injury.”
I grumbled and resisted, but the doctor was adamant, and I finally decided it would be easier to give in than to keep arguing.
In the end, the ER doc got pulled out on an emergency, a tech wheeled me in, and I spent a grueling forty-five minutes trying to stay calm inside a tube while pictures were taken of my brain. It was three a.m. before I walked out of the hospital, the tech promising that a radiologist would read the results, talk to the doctor who’d ordered the test, and someone would be calling me. I waved it all off. Other than the dull ache in my forehead and a desperate need for a shower, I felt absolutely fine. The nurse who handled my discharge asked if I had someone who could stay with me and wake me up every so often, just to be safe.