Henry sat down at the end of my bed abruptly, and when he looked at me again, his eyes were glassy, and his lips trembled.
“Brian Piccolo was a running back for the Chicago Bears.”
I stared at him, puzzled. I had to think about that one for a minute. Then I understood.
“Yeah. He was.” He was. And Brian Piccolo died of cancer at age twenty-six. Same age as me. I had made Moses watch Brian’s Song with me, cried during the whole damn thing, even though I’d seen it a dozen times before, and then called him Billy Dee for a month afterwards. It was more fun than calling him Gale, after Gale Sayers, Piccolo’s best friend. Moses didn’t appreciate the nickname, but the dynamic between James Caan and Billy Dee Williams in the movie was pretty spot-on to Moses and me. I guess it was my own, Henry-esque way of communicating to Moses that I loved him without telling him. Apparently, I reminded Henry of Brian Piccolo too. I was honored. And I was terrified.
“Did you shave your head for me, Henry?”
Henry nodded and rubbed his head nervously once more. “Moses took me to a barber.”
“Did he really?” My heart ached at the thought of my friend. “Feels pretty good, doesn’t it?”
Henry nodded again. “Shaquille O’Neal, Michael Jordan, Brian Urlacher, Matt Hasselbeck, Mark Messier, Andre Agassi . . .”
“We’re twins,” I commented, interrupting his nervous recitation of bald athletes.
“I know,” Henry answered. “I want to look like you.”
The ache in my heart spread. Henry was irresistible sometimes.
“Can I rub your head?” I just wanted to get him to come closer. I needed to hold onto him for a minute.
Henry stood and moved until he was standing beside me. I tugged his hand and he sat next to me, his head bowed, eyes on the floor.
I placed my left hand on his head and rubbed in gentle circles, wanting to comfort him, hating that I was helpless to do so.
With a sudden sob, he fell against my chest, and I wrapped my arms around him, stroking his shorn head. He cried for a minute, soaking my hospital gown, clinging to me like he was afraid to lose his grip. Then he started to speak.
“David ‘Tag’ Taggert, light heavyweight contender with a professional record of twenty wins, two losses, twelve knock outs.” Henry sounded like a fight announcer who had been on the sauce, all hiccups and slurred words, his voice muffled against me, and I noticed he had added my recent wins to the bio.
“Not a bad record, huh?”
“You’re a fighter,” he cried.
“Yeah. I am,” I said.
“You love to fight,” he insisted.
“I do.”
“You’re a fighter!” Henry’s voice rose, and I realized what he was saying.
“This is a different kind of fight, Henry.” I kept stroking his head.
“Same.”
“Nah. Not the same at all.”
“You’re a fighter!”
“Henry—”
“Millie fights!” Henry insisted, interrupting me.
“She sure as hell does. Every damn day.”
“Mikey fights,” he lifted his head from my chest.
I could only nod.
“Moses fights,” he said.
My throat closed.
“Henry fights?” This time it was more a question than a statement.
“You do,” I whispered.
“My dad didn’t fight.” His eyes met mine, the pleading in them so heartfelt, so determined, so beloved, that I couldn’t answer. Son of a bitch. He was killing me.
“Tag Taggert is the best fighter in the universe,” he implored. “The best fighter in the universe.”
I don’t know how I ever thought Henry wasn’t a good communicator.
“I NEED YOU to pull over, Mo,” I insisted, my hand on the door handle. I was sitting in the back with Millie, and Henry was in the passenger seat beside Moses. We were on our way home from Las Vegas, and the trip couldn’t have been more miserable if they’d tied me to the roof like Aunt Edna in National Lampoon’s Vacation. I was trapped. I couldn’t disappear again. I was on anti-seizure medication, and I was informed that it was illegal to “operate a motor vehicle for three months in the state of Utah after suffering a seizure.” Some states, like Colorado, never allowed you to drive again. Legalize pot but don’t let someone like me ever drive again. Made no sense to me.
Mo’s eyes found mine in the rearview mirror. He had only spoken to me in grunts and single syllables since our heated conversation at the hospital, and I could feel his anger and frustration battling my own.
“Pull over,” I barked. He could pull over or he could clean up my puke in his back seat.
He ground to a halt, gravel and debris kicking up as his tires dug into the asphalt on the side of the road.
I pushed the door open, climbed out, took several steps, and threw up all over Mo’s rear right tire. He was going to be so pleased. I should have known better. Pain pills always made me sick. Now I was shuddering, braced against the truck, dizzy and weak, and it all just pissed me off. I was a badass. I had worked hard to become one. I was tough, I was powerful, and all I could do was sway and cling, begging the world to hold still so I wouldn’t fall down.
We were north of Cedar City, south of a town called Beaver, which left nothing but open space and endless room for contemplation. The fields dotted with purple flowers on either side of the highway rolled serenely as the mountains looked on like indulgent parents. It was all so tranquil and benign it made me furious. It was such a lie. All of it.
“Do you need to pee, Tag?” Henry called from the interior of the truck. “Does he need to pee, Amelie? Can I pee too?”
Millie climbed out and gingerly felt along the side of the truck, her hands out-stretched until her fingers brushed my back. I heard Henry ask Moses if he could get out too, and Moses asked him to wait for just a minute. I appreciated that. I loved Henry, but I didn’t want an audience. The fact that Millie couldn’t see me was comforting. She was comforting.
She handed me a bottle of water without comment, and I took it gratefully, swishing my mouth and spitting a few times. I felt better and took a few careful breaths, filling my lungs to see if the nausea was gone.
“Better?” she asked softly.
“Yeah.”
“You can lean on me, you know. Rest your head in my lap. It will make the rest of the ride easier if you sleep.”
I had held myself stiffly the first few hours of the trip, keeping distance between us. She hadn’t touched me, and I hadn’t reached for her. There was so much to say, and so far, no chance to say it. Guilt and confusion and sorrow had been warring in me, especially in the last few days. I had had a plan—a shitty, terrible one—but still a plan. But it had been shot to hell, and now I couldn’t see my way forward.
I realized I’d said the last words out loud and turned to look at Millie, whose up-turned face was suddenly close enough to kiss. We hadn’t been this close since the night before my craniotomy, the night when we’d made love. I was such an asshole. I’d made love to Millie and then I’d run. Guilt sliced through me. Guilt and remorse and desire, and the nausea returned.
“I can’t see my way forward,” I repeated, giving her my back, willing the churning in my gut and the swaying in my head to ease.
“I can’t either,” Millie said softly. “But it hasn’t stopped me yet.”
I couldn’t reply. I couldn’t do anything but breathe and brace myself until my stomach settled. Eventually, Millie and I climbed back in the backseat, Henry took his turn outside the truck, and we resumed our journey.
Millie reached for my hand, and when she found it, she tugged, urging me toward her. I was a big man, and it was a bit of a press, but she cradled my head in her lap and pulled my coat up over my shoulders. I pressed my fists against my eyes like a child, holding back the helpless tears that wanted to fall. I kept them there until I fell asleep to Millie’s hands stroking and soothing, forgiving
me, even though I didn’t deserve it.
(End of Cassette)
Moses
I DIDN’T KNOW what to do with my passengers. I didn’t dare take them back to Salt Lake. Tag’s apartment and the apartment above it were under contract—he had a buyer all lined up before he left for Vegas. Plus, he shouldn’t be alone. He wasn’t well, and I didn’t trust him not to do something ridiculous. Again. I could take Millie and Henry home to Salt Lake and insist Tag come home to Levan with me, but I knew Millie wouldn’t want that. I didn’t think she and Tag had had a chance to air things out. And they needed to. Tag needed to make it right, if that was even possible. I’d watched them in the rearview mirror, Tag finally giving in and letting Millie hold onto him for the last stretch of the trip. She would forgive him, if she hadn’t already, but I didn’t know if he would let her. The whole thing was seriously messed up. All of it, and I felt the anguish boil up in me again. I had no idea what to do.
Tag had an appointment with his oncologist in Salt Lake in one week. I’d made him call Dr. Shumway in my presence, and he put the doctor on speaker. Dr. Shumway had been briefed by the Vegas medical team on Tag’s fight, on the hemorrhage and swelling that had caused the seizure, and on Tag’s present condition, which was surprisingly good, considering. Apparently, after a craniotomy, it’s typical to wait at least a month to let the patient heal before embarking on a course of treatment, in other words, radiation and chemotherapy. It had been three weeks, so Tag’s treatment hadn’t been delayed by his decision to bolt, but Dr. Shumway informed Tag that it was unlikely, with the injury he’d “suffered”—Dr. Shumway was remarkably diplomatic—that treatment for the cancer would begin next week.
Tag would need more time to heal now, and the knowledge made me angry all over again. I wanted the cancer on blast. I didn’t want Tag waiting any longer. He didn’t seem upset by the delay whatsoever. Just subdued. Troubled. Unsure of himself. He watched Millie with such hunger and regret that it was hard to stay angry with him. But I managed.
“You’re all coming home with me. At least for the next few days,” I insisted, arriving at the only solution I could come up with. We were nearing the Levan/Mills exit, an exit that boasted a few abandoned vehicles, several stray cows, and a man-made reservoir that wasn’t much to look at. The freeway bypassed Levan completely, and the one exit, several miles from the town, was the only way to access it without backtracking from Nephi. Funny, Levan was just a blip on the map, a speck, but Georgia and Kathleen were there, and suddenly I was incredibly homesick for the town I once hated.
I caught Tag’s gaze in my rear-view mirror, and he stared back at me steadily. He’d lifted his head from Millie’s lap and straightened to a sitting position.
“You’re all coming home with me,” I repeated firmly.
He broke eye contact and turned to Millie, but she was already nodding.
“Okay,” she said easily, and I released the breath I didn’t know I was holding.
Henry was the only one smiling. “Did you know the average jockey weighs between 108 and 118 pounds?” he asked. Apparently, he was looking forward to riding again. “But a jockey has to be strong,” he added. “Because the average racehorse weighs twelve hundred pounds and can run forty miles per hour.”
I pressed the pedal down, flying toward home, leaving the average racehorse in the dust.
I SPENT THE first three days at Moses and Georgia’s house holed up in my room. Georgia brought me food that I didn’t want to eat, and I slept as much as I could. But on the fourth day, I was restless, irritatingly restored, and I couldn’t hide in the room over Mo’s studio forever. Even though I wanted to. They’d put Henry in the single bed in the baby’s room—Kathleen still slept in a cradle in her parents’ room—and Millie took the guest room on the main floor. It was a big house, a nice house, and I loved the people in it, but I had purposely avoided them.
Moses had stomped in that morning with the painting he’d done of David and Goliath and set it down on an easel facing my bed. Then he plunked down a huge bible, just tossed it in front of me, and opened it to a section that he had highlighted in red pencil.
“David kills giants. Giants don’t kill David,” he barked, slapping the book. “Read it.” He stomped back out again.
I picked up the book, liking the heft in my hand, the silkiness of the pages. It had gold lettering engraved on the cover—Kathleen Wright—Moses’s great-grandmother, the grandmother his daughter was named for. From the looks of it, her bible had been a trusted friend. It surprised me that Moses read it, but he obviously had, at least long enough to find the passage of scripture he wanted me to read. I turned back to the opened page and read the highlighted sections.
And it came to pass, when Goliath arose, and came, and drew nigh to meet David that David hastened, and ran toward the army to meet Goliath. And David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone, and slang it, and smote Goliath in his forehead that the stone sunk into his forehead; and he fell upon his face to the earth. So David prevailed over Goliath with a sling and with a stone, and smote Goliath, and slew him; but there was no sword in the hand of David. Therefore David ran, and stood upon Goliath, and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath thereof, and cut off his head therewith.
Moses had underlined the part where David ran to meet Goliath. Eager little beaver, that David. The biblical David apparently enjoyed fighting too. I sighed and shut the book. I wasn’t terribly inspired. I knew what Moses wanted, but deep down, I wasn’t convinced, and I wished he would hear me out. Moses was all about seeing, but he could stand to listen every once in a while.
I could hear Georgia and Henry outside my bedroom window. The room overlooked the round corral, and Georgia was walking Sackett in slow circles, Henry perched happily on his back, chatting away like talking was his favorite thing and not something he struggled with at all. Georgia was damn good at what she did, and I marveled at the little miracle that Henry was here, enjoying the benefits of my friendship with Georgia and Moses. If nothing else, that was something I could hold onto. I hadn’t messed everything up. It wasn’t all bad.
It was just mostly bad. Including the way I smelled. I desperately needed a shower. In addition to the bed, Moses had a huge sink and a toilet tucked away above his work space, but no shower. I would have to brave the rest of the house for that, and it couldn’t be put off any longer.
When I slipped into the house through the garage entrance, I stopped to listen. I could hear someone upstairs—Moses, by the sound of the footfalls—but nobody seemed to be downstairs. The big guest bathroom on the main floor was connected to the room Millie had slept in, but the bed was neatly made and Millie was nowhere to be seen. I released my breath and ducked into the bathroom, locking the door and making use of the shower.
But Millie was waiting for me when I came out. She sat primly on the bed, her hands folded in her lap, just waiting.
“You smell good, David,” she said with a smile, and I felt a pang at the memory those words invoked. She stuck out her hand toward me, like she’d done the night we met, as if waiting for me to shake it.
“Hi. I’m Amelie. And I’m blind.”
I couldn’t deny her. I stepped forward and took her hand in mine and said my line.
“Hi. I’m David. And I’m not.” I didn’t release her, and she didn’t pull it away. I ran my thumb over the silkiness of her skin, my eyes riveted to our joined hands. God, I loved her so much! I wanted to shut the door, lock it, and push her back onto the bed and just let it all go. Just for a while. I wanted that so badly.
“Now that we’ve introduced ourselves again, maybe you’ll talk to me,” she suggested gently.
“I don’t want to talk, Millie,” I whispered.
She tilted her head sideways, catching the heat in my voice. The ode. The freaking ode that was still thrumming between us, the song on constant repeat.
She stood up slowly, and she was so close that her body brushed mine. I felt her breat
h at my throat, a little flutter of the melody that I couldn’t get out of my head, out of my heart. I brought one hand to her face and tipped her chin up, until her lips were directly beneath mine. And then I kissed her. So lightly. So gently. Trying desperately not to turn the song into a symphony, the ode into a cymbal-crashing orchestral arrangement.
She responded, but she didn’t increase the tempo. Our lips met, merged, and retreated only to meet again and repeat the motion. When I urged her lips apart and tasted the wet sweetness of her mouth, it was all I could do not to moan in defeat. And then we were tumbling back onto the bed, her hips in my hands, my shirt clutched in her fists, and the kiss roared to an inevitable, if sudden, crescendo.
And that’s when she pushed me away.
“David. Stop,” she whispered, her mouth seeking me even as she asked me to quit. I pressed my forehead to hers to rein myself in and bit back a curse when my still-tender flesh protested the contact. She took my cheeks in her hands, and ran her fingers over my face, as if trying to read my expression.
“We don’t have to talk. But you can’t kiss me and then leave again. You can’t do that to me, David.” There was steel in her voice, though it was wrapped in velvet, and I knew she meant it.
“I may not be able to control whether I leave or not,” I said, rolling away from her and staring up at the ceiling.
“That’s not what I mean, big guy. And you know it.” She sat up and folded her legs beneath her. She kept a hand on my arm the way she always did when we were close, the contact important to her. Yeah. I knew what she meant. I’d taken myself away. Removed myself. And she was asking me if I was going to do it again.
“People don’t survive what I’ve got. They just don’t,” I whispered.
She immediately shook her head. Resisting. Her resistance made me harsh.