puffy and his skin more sallow. “You know what the awful irony is? My grandparents died in this house of lead poisoning. I did everything I could when I took over the place to make it safe and habitable. Yet, here I am, two generations later, poisoning myself to death.”
“Poisoning yourself?” Allison helped Dr. Capello lie back on his pillows. She brought the covers over him to his chest.
“The kidneys clean poison out of your body. When the kidneys can’t do their job anymore, the poisons stay in the system.”
He patted the bed next to him and Allison sat at his side.
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
“It’s not comfortable, but it’s not quite pain, either. What hurts is the unfairness. To give your life in service to mankind and then...this.”
“No, it’s not fair at all,” she said, reaching out to take his hand. He held hers in his and squeezed it. She took heart in the strength she felt in his hands. There was life in him yet.
“You know what else isn’t fair?” Allison said. “You still have to take your meds.”
“Ah, dammit.”
“I know a man trying to change the subject when I see it.”
“How about you recite me another poem?” he asked. “A good long one. An epic, maybe? The Iliad?”
“‘Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another.’”
“Prometheus Bound,” he said.
“‘Such is the reward you reap for loving mortals.’”
“My mother would have adored you. How about The Odyssey?”
“How about you recite me a poem?” She stood up, crossed her arms over her chest and waited.
He chuckled a little, wagged his finger at her.
“Oh, that’s your trick not mine. But I know one. If I can recite one poem, will I still have to take my meds?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
“How about this?” he said. “I recite my poem and you keep that nagging monk out of my room so I can pretend for one night I’m a grown man.”
“All right,” she said. “Deal. Recite.”
He smiled a little and tapped his temple as if trying to jar the poem free. He recited the poem to her.
“So much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.”
Allison applauded. “William Carlos Williams. A classic. A very short classic.”
“You know what it means?”
“An ode to a wheelbarrow?”
A deal was a deal. She watched as Dr. Capello took his pills one by one.
“Dr. Williams was a pediatrician,” he said. “He wrote that while sitting at the bedside of a dying child.” Dr. Capello blinked and in an instant tears were in his eyes. And hers.
“I never knew,” she said. “Wonder why he thought of that.”
“I’d say he was looking out the window and trying to think about anything other than the little child he couldn’t save. All doctors keep a graveyard inside their hearts for those patients. That’s why I like my view so much.” He reached out and tapped the glass of his window, which looked out onto the ocean. “It comforts me.”
“Looking at the Graveyard of the Pacific comforts you?” she asked.
“Of course it does,” he said, gazing out his window at the dark shifting waters in the near distance. “Compared to that graveyard out there, mine’s tiny. A doctor with children in his graveyard takes any comfort he can get.”
Chapter 18
Allison left Dr. Capello in his bed and walked out into the hallway. Her talk with him tonight had been strange and revealing. She never would have guessed someone as sweet and funny and well-adjusted as Deacon seemingly came from such a violent background. Well, that explained the pepper spray. What explained Oliver? She wasn’t sure about Roland’s theory that Dr. Capello’s memory was failing. She’d challenged him to recite a poem from memory, and he’d done it without breaking a sweat. And yet reciting one little poem hardly proved anything, right? Seemed far more likely Roland remembered the timeline of events differently than Dr. Capello did. Did it matter? Allison felt safe staying at The Dragon. Dr. Capello devoted his life to helping children, not hurting them. And Deacon had given her pepper spray to protect herself. Thora had saved Allison that very day from a severe injury. And Roland had asked her to come back, which is the last thing someone with something to hide would do.
Nevertheless, she wondered...
She was about to go downstairs when she noticed that the attic door was ajar and someone had taped a note to the frame that read, Family meeting at 10:00 p.m. Attic! This means you, Al!
Family meeting? Why were they having a family meeting in the attic?
Allison carefully peeled the note off the door, closed the attic door behind her and headed up the stairs. When she reached the attic, she found everyone already present, including Brien the cat draped over Deacon’s shoulder, dozing like a furry baby. This was to be an informal meeting, Allison saw. Everyone was in their pajamas—Thora was in a short white nightgown with a chic oversize ivory cardigan wrapped around her, while Deacon and Roland were both in plaid lounge pants and T-shirts. They’d uncovered some chairs and the old metal camping cot. It seemed all was in place, but for her.
“Well?” Allison said to Deacon. “I’m here. What’s this about?”
“I call this meeting of the Capello brood to order,” Deacon said. Allison sat on a pillow on the floor and rested her back against Roland’s legs, the way she’d done as a kid on Friday night movie night in the sunroom.
“Someone tell me why we’re having a family meeting,” Roland said.
“Because I’m pretty sure we’ve all had a very hard week. And because it’s been twenty years since the four of us got to play together, and...as our Allison has been living in Kentucky for way too long, I thought we should give her a very special Oregon welcome. As opposed to an organ welcome, which is what my brother gave her last night.”
“God help me,” Roland said, his head falling back.
“An Oregon welcome?” Allison asked.
Deacon held out a wooden box and opened the lid. Allison leaned forward to look in, then narrowed her eyes at him.
“Deacon...is that what I think it is?” Allison asked.
Deacon waggled his eyebrows.
“You on the Left Coast now, baby girl.”
Allison stared at Deacon. Deacon stared at Allison.
“Please tell me one thing,” she said. “That’s not your dad’s medical marijuana you stole, is it?”
“That hurts, sis,” Deacon said. “Right here.” He tapped the right side of his chest where his heart wasn’t. “I’ll have you know this is my own stash.”
“So it’s illegal?”
“Nope. It’s legal here,” he said. “Ready to pack up and move yet?”
“You don’t have to do this,” Roland said. Deacon put Brien down and walked the attic, opening all the windows.
“Yes, she does,” Deacon said. “We’re bonding. Aren’t we, my twin?” Deacon chucked Thora under her chin.
“We’re voting?” Allison asked.
“Gotta be unanimous,” Deacon said. “Capello rules. What’s your vote, Thor?”
“We’re twins,” she said with a wink at Deacon. “I vote how you vote.”
“Well, we all know how I vote,” Deacon said. “Brien?” Deacon said, holding out the box. Brien lifted his head to sniff and Deacon shut the lid. “None for you, cat. You’re stoned enough as it is.”
“Why is Brien stoned?” Allison asked.
“Ragdoll cat.” Deacon put his box down and picked up Brien, then flipped him over, and the cat went limp as a noodle. “They have all the aggression bred out of them. They are, in other words, born stoned. Lucky bastards.” He flipped Brien back over and put him on the chair again. Much like someone sto
ned, he didn’t seem the least perturbed by what had just happened to him.
“I’m having what he’s having,” Thora said.
“Now you, brother...” Deacon said to Roland. “Yea or nay?” Roland started to protest and Deacon made a slashing gesture with his hand. “Shut it. Monks have been drunks since Jesus still walked the earth. Ever heard of anyone dying of a pot overdose? Ever heard of pot poisoning? Ever heard of a mean stoner? No, you have not. You’re not allowed to get holier than thou less than twenty-four hours after jumping Allison’s pretty little bones, so put that in your pipe and smoke it. Or skip the pipe because my rolling skills are second to none.”
“I’m in,” Roland said. “If it’ll shut you up.”
“No guarantees of that,” Deacon said.
“And,” Roland said, “we have to check on Dad every fifteen minutes.”
“Now you, little sister.” Deacon went onto his knees in front of her, his hands holding hers. “Would you do me the honors of riding with me and Mary Jane all the way to the top floor? Don’t be afraid. We’ll walk you through it. There’s a first time for—”
Allison took a joint from the box, picked up the lighter and lit up.
Deacon’s eyes widened. He blinked at her. He blinked at Roland.
“Marry her,” Deacon said.
Thus the family meeting commenced.
“I’m really not much of a smoker,” Allison said as she leaned back against Roland’s legs.
“You sure about that?” Deacon took the joint from her.
“Like a few times in college,” she said, feeling quite a bit less stressed out than she had in days. “I’m only doing it now because you’re making me.”
“Oh, yes,” Deacon said. “We forced it on you.”
“So rude,” Allison said.
“She gets a free pass,” Roland said. “She’s recovering from a breakup.”
“Ah, so this is medical marijuana for you, then,” Thora said, blowing out an elegant smoke ring.
“Does it cure a broken heart?” Allison asked.
“No,” Deacon said. “But that’s what he’s for.” He pointed at Roland.
“I’ll do my best,” Roland said.
“I’m so proud of you for getting laid.” Deacon wiped a fake tear from his eye. “It makes all my suffering worth it.”
“Your suffering?” Roland demanded. “How did you suffer?”
“You broke my heart when you joined that monastery,” Deacon said. “Speaking as one pretty man to another, you could have at least waited until you were old and ugly for that bullshit. A man is at peak pretty between twenty-four and twenty-nine. You wasted your pretty years. Now you’re vaguely ruggedly handsome. It’s a step down.”
“I’d still fuck him,” Allison said.
Deacon’s jaw dropped. “Listen to that mouth.” Deacon stared Allison down. “You kiss your brother with that mouth?”
“I do actually.”
Then Allison crawled up into Roland’s lap and kissed him. It wasn’t long before she realized she was truly relaxed and enjoying herself for the first time in days. She’d had fun with Roland last night but it certainly hadn’t been relaxing. The pot wasn’t very potent and it didn’t do much but make them all loose and giggly with the added benefit—no doubt Deacon’s intention—of making her feel like one of them again. And it was all going very well until Deacon opened his mouth again.
“So. Allison,” Deacon began, lifting his head off the floor, where he lay with Brien on his chest. Allison knew she was in trouble already. “A little bird told me that you had a special friend in Kentucky. Is that true?”
“What did you tell him?” Allison asked Roland.
“Nothing,” Roland said. “I swear.”
“He didn’t tell me anything,” Deacon said. “My wild Irish rose over there is the traitor.”
Allison glared at Thora. “Traitor.”
“I can’t help it,” Thora said, hiding her face in her cardigan. “He beat it out of me.”
“I said, ‘Thor, wonder if Allison had a boyfriend,’” Deacon said, “and then you spilled the beans.”
“You asked the question very pointedly,” Thora said.
“Beans everywhere,” Deacon said. “Girl can’t keep a secret to save her life.”
“Not true. Unfair. All lies,” Thora said.
Deacon hushed her with a snap of his fingers. “So, tell me,” Deacon said to Allison. “I want the whole story.”
“Fine,” Allison said. “I was the paid mistress of Cooper McQueen, heir to the McQueen family fortune. Maybe McQueen should have made me sign that NDA, after all, for how many times I’ve told the story since we broke up. Anyway, for sex years he paid me for six. I mean, for six years he paid me for sex. Then he broke up with me and now I’m here sleeping with Roland.”
“How was the sex?” Deacon asked.
“Top-notch,” Allison said.
“Who’s better? McQueen or my brother?”
“Your brother,” Allison said. “He didn’t have to pay me to sleep with him.”
“The mistress and the monk,” Deacon said, blowing smoke to the ceiling of the attic. “This is a buddy cop show waiting to happen.”
“I think he’s had enough,” Allison said. Roland apparently agreed and took the joint from his brother’s hand.
“Anybody else banging a billionaire around here?” Deacon asked.
“You should tell the story about when you made out with a guy,” Thora said.
“That’s a good story,” Deacon said.
“You made out with a guy?” Allison asked.
“I did,” Deacon said, grinning. “Went to this sake bar in Shanghai, met a super pretty guy from South Korea who looked weirdly exactly like Storm Shadow. He asked me about my work at the glass museum. I asked him what Snake Eyes looked like under the mask. Blah blah blah, fifteen minutes later we were making out in a back booth. Then we got kicked out, and I remembered I don’t have sex with strange men. Especially if they might be working for Cobra.”
“Okay, but when you say he looked exactly like Storm Shadow,” Roland said, “do you mean—”
“I mean he wore all white, had two crossed swords on his back and he was literally a ninja,” Deacon said. “I’m not sure if I’m bi or not but I’m definitely sure I’m a huge G.I. Joe fan.”
“Lots of overlap on that Venn diagram,” Thora said, making two circles with her fingers and bringing them together.
“Roland...” Deacon said, eyeing him meaningfully. “What about you?”
“Are you asking if I’m bi or if I’m a G.I. Joe fan?”
“I’m asking if, you know...during those long cold nights at the monastery, you found yourself someone to keep you warm in your lonely little cell.”
“You didn’t see the size of our beds at the monastery,” Roland said. “There was hardly room for one, much less two.”
“So what you’re saying is...you fucked the other monks on the floor?”
“Right,” Roland said, adorably deadpan.
“What about you?” Deacon said to Thora. “Any secret trysts