“I do miss the fights,” she teased gently.
“It was just that when I woke up and saw you there, it reminded me of other times, like when we were kids on Christmas morning and you would sit in that chair in my room and wait for me to wake up.”
“You are on pain medication,” she observed.
“So?”
“Perhaps they’ve got you feeling sentimental?”
“I actually feel pretty good except for the headache.”
“I miss you, too, Ruddy. You should come over and see what I’m doing to the house. I ripped out the wall between the kitchen and the living room, and I’m putting in engineered flooring.”
“I’d like to see it.”
“As long as you don’t try to help.” She smiled.
From somewhere in our family DNA, Becky got the ability to remodel houses, build garages, and stuff like that. I got the ability to watch her do it.
“Maybe marriage agrees with me.” She gave me a level look. “Marriage to Kermit, I mean.”
“I do remember who you married.”
“Just suggesting that you maybe give him a break every once in a while. He really looks up to you.”
I almost said, He’s so short, he has to look up to me, but decided to let it pass. “Has Katie been in?”
The most momentary of shadows passed across Becky’s eyes, and I felt my pulse rate kick up a notch. Something was going on, and Becky was picking up on it over the all-female telepathy network. “She said she would get off work early,” Becky finally replied.
“You know she’s looking at moving out. Just for the winter, I mean,” I added hurriedly. “Because of the drive and everything.”
“I know.”
“Is there something you’re not telling me? About Katie, I mean.”
“No, Ruddy.” Her eyes were open and honest.
But there was something I wasn’t telling her, wasn’t there?
“What is it?” she asked after a moment, reacting to something in my expression.
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
There’s a reason why hospitals are so boring—if they were fun, people would always want to go there. Becky was a good sister, but I could tell she was antsy, so after a few minutes of desultory conversation, I suggested she leave, grinning at the relief on her face.
After she left, I lay in the bed and looked at the ceiling for a long moment, debating what to do—though there really wasn’t any choice.
“I know you’re there, Alan. I can feel it.”
“When the truck rolled, I thought we were going to die,” he replied.
“Okay, but you’re already dead.”
“Nice. Thank you for that.”
“Why are you here, Alan? Why did you come back?”
“Back? What do you mean? I’ve been gone?”
“Yeah. You’ve been away for about eighteen months now.”
“A year and a half? How is that possible?”
“Well, how is any of it possible?”
We were quiet for a moment while we both considered what a good point I’d just made. “I missed you, Alan,” I admitted. Becky was right: The drugs were making me emotional. “Having you gone has felt really weird, like being in the middle of a phone call and then realizing you lost the signal and for some time you’ve been talking to dead air.”
“Do you think they would let you take a shower?”
I raised my arm and sniffed. “I’m fine.”
“You did not just do that.”
“So that’s it? I tell you I’ve missed you for eighteen months, and your response is to want to bathe?”
“You’re right. Sorry, I just wasn’t prepared for an onslaught of repo odor. Please continue.”
“Please continue,” I muttered back sourly. I filled him in on everything that had happened since he’d gone radio silent.
“Wait, you and my daughter are engaged?” he interrupted, sputtering.
“Yes, Alan. Engaged to be married.”
“That’s not … That is not a good—”
“Deal with it,” I said curtly. Then I told him what had happened with the girl named Amy Jo. “She’s no medium, I promise you, but she was emphatic that Lisa Marie Walker wasn’t in the car when it sank. So Sheriff Strickland, make that ex-Sheriff Strickland, is tracking her down for me so I can talk to her.”
“How are you going to support my daughter as a repo man?” he demanded when I had finished.
“Are you even paying attention? If Lisa Marie wasn’t in the car, it changes everything. My whole life would be different.”
Alan sighed. “I don’t see how it’s possible. Didn’t her body float up onshore in Boyne City a few days after the accident? How do you explain that?”
“I don’t know,” I said testily. “I don’t have all the answers yet.” I brooded in silence for a moment. “And we’ve got another problem. Or at least, I do.” I explained to him about Dr. Schaumburg’s insistence that I take medications to silence the “voice.”
“That’s absurd. What difference would it make to take pills? I’m a real person!” he declared indignantly.
I was quiet.
“What is it?”
“There’s something not right. It didn’t seem to bother you at all when I told you about the eighteen months. You’ve been gone, vanished, for all that time, and you just accepted it. As if you already knew. And all the questions you’re asking me, they’re the same questions I’ve been asking myself. There’s nothing uniquely … Alan … about you. It’s as if—well, Dr. Schaumburg said he was concerned I might want you back so much that I would sort of invent you in my mind.”
“The man sounds like a quack,” he sniffed.
“I did just have a head injury,” I mused. “Maybe that’s what did it.”
“What was I supposed to say when you told me I’ve been gone eighteen months? What could I say? There’s nothing I can do about it. To me it feels like I was taking a nap—I have no sense of time passing at all. And I’m asking logical questions.”
“You’re getting a little shrill in there, Alan.” I was grinning, though—getting this cranked up was exactly like Alan Lottner.
Except, of course, I knew that this was how Alan would react. If he were a mental figment, he would have the personality I remembered.
He asked about the rest of the people in my life. He shared my opinion that Strickland was too good a lawman to have resigned, but agreed it was just like the man to have held himself to such high standards. For some reason, Alan was very approving of Becky and Kermit getting married. I told him about the Wolfingers believing they were headed to Hawaii and that Jimmy had “sort of” started sleeping with Alice Blanchard again. That one shocked him.
“She hates him though,” Alan protested in disbelief.
“I know. But that’s just … Jimmy.”
Alan was thoughtful for a moment. “So, how much do you get for a repo?” he finally asked.
“Alan, for God’s sake.”
“Five hundred?”
“Yes. Well, for skips. I get two fifty for a regular repo. And lately we’ve been getting these people who forget that they have to turn in their cars at the end of the lease. I get fifty bucks for that. Same deal as always, Milt splits the fee with me fifty-fifty. Oh. Yeah. Milt.” I told Alan about Milt sitting in his garage, his motor running. “I wanted to believe it was an accident, but Kermit said Milt had cancer and that it had gotten into his liver, poor bastard. They’re investigating it as a suicide. It looks like he drank a quart of vodka, engine going, until the fumes got to him.”
Telling Alan about Milt punched a hole through the wall of denial protecting me from the reality of his death, and I went quiet while Alan processed his shock. Eventually Alan said all the right things about being sorry for my loss, but soon got right where I knew he would go. “So with Milt gone, do you even have a job now?”
Exactly the question I’d been asking myself. Again, nothing to suggest Alan
was anything but my imaginary friend. “Trisha gets the business, I guess. I can’t see her running it, though. I don’t know what is going to happen. Maybe she’ll put me in charge, who knows.” I shuddered. “Just saying that gives me chills. Sit at a desk all day? I’ll take my chances with Repo Madness.”
“What are you going to do if the business closes?” Alan wanted to know.
I didn’t have any sort of answer to that one.
* * *
Katie poked her head in around four o’clock. “Hey, Ruddy. How are you feeling?” She came over and kissed me, a quick one that hit mostly cheek. I felt a rising anxiety, even as Alan was making happy noises inside me.
“I like her hair like that,” he remarked.
I patted the bed next to me, and Katie went over and sat in a chair under the wall-mounted television. “Everyone says you’re okay,” she advised.
“Just hit my head. Nothing vital.”
For her job, Katie wore what she called “grown-up clothes.” She had come straight from work and was still dressed in a wool skirt and cashmere sweater that clung to her in a way I very much appreciated. She stuck a finger in her hair and started twirling it like a forkful of spaghetti.
“She does that when she’s upset about something,” Alan advised me. I gritted my teeth. I knew what it meant.
“You look beautiful,” I said, meaning it. I smiled at her and she glanced away and it felt like rolling over in the repo truck, my insides churning. I took a breath to steady myself. “Why don’t you tell me what you came here to say,” I suggested.
“I signed the lease. On the rental house in East Jordan. It’s really cute.”
Alan made a startled noise.
“Cute,” I repeated, my voice tight.
Sadness crept into her eyes. “I told you we need time to think, Ruddy. It’s not … I feel like we’re not putting any thought into things.”
“What sort of things?” I meant my tone to be as soft as hers, but a harshness found its way into my voice, unasked and unwanted.
“When I get my real estate license and start selling properties, it will mean more money, probably, but it would be a lot less regular. I mean, you can go awhile without selling a house or anything. So I’d need, you know.”
“A man with a better job,” Alan suggested.
My anger flared. “Need what?” I nearly spat.
“To reduce expenses. And especially spend less time commuting in the winter.”
“Oh.”
“See what I mean, though? Why are we so scratchy with each other? You were getting mad, I can tell.”
I didn’t bother to deny it. “When are you moving?” I asked faintly.
She sighed unhappily. “Well … please don’t be angry. I already spent the night there.”
“What?”
“I was going to tell you. I left you a voice mail. I got trapped by the ice storm and decided it was safer just to stay there. I didn’t know you were in an accident until I got Becky’s message.”
I was fixated on the idea that she had gone from suggesting she get a place closer to work to actually sleeping there. “Wait. You don’t just move out without warning. Without talking about it. That’s not right.”
Her look turned forlorn. “Oh, Ruddy. I have been talking about it. You just haven’t been listening. I told you I needed more space, that it seemed like when I moved in with you, I adopted all of your life and you didn’t adapt to any of mine. I told you I didn’t like going to the Bear every single night of the week. I told you I needed time to think. That I don’t know who I am as an independent person, but only as extensions of other people. What did you think that meant?”
I opened my mouth, but nothing good wanted to come out of it. Sure, we’d talked, but I felt she had never explained how significant those conversations were. “Don’t you love me?” I hated how that one came out plaintive, even begging.
“Yes, but I don’t love my life, you know? I feel like we’re stuck in a rut.” She gazed at me, her blue eyes level because she was finally getting it out, what the real problem was. And I understood: Ruddy McCann, repo man, lived in a rut, and he had pulled her in with him.
“What about Jake?” I asked.
“Don’t try to make her feel guilty about a dog,” Alan chastised.
“Oh. He stayed with Kermit and Becky last night, and he’s with Kermit right now. This isn’t … We’re not ending the relationship. It’s just a break; we’re taking a break. The place in East Jordan is literally half a block from my job. It’s nice. I walked to work this morning.”
“Is there somebody…?”
“No, Ruddy. I haven’t met anybody else,” she assured me firmly.
“Then don’t do this,” I grated.
Katie stood up. “I’m really sorry, but I need to go. I’m going to be late.”
“You can’t go. We need to talk about this!” I insisted.
“Let her leave, Ruddy. She’s feeling trapped, and this isn’t helping,” Alan advised.
Katie was shrugging on her coat. “We will talk more about it, Ruddy. Just not right now. I need time, I told you. That’s all this is about. Honest. Please.”
I sat up in the hospital bed, feeling ridiculous in the lightweight gown I was wearing. “I’ll go with you.”
“What? No, Ruddy, you can’t.” She checked her watch. “I’m meeting my new landlord. I’m sorry. But we will talk, I promise.”
“Dammit, Katie!”
“Oh, that’s great. Yell at her,” Alan jeered.
With a look that held far more sadness and regret than I thought was appropriate for a “break” where we were “not breaking up,” Katie grabbed her purse and rushed out the door, checking her watch again in the hallway.
“Don’t say anything right now, Alan,” I warned him.
And, to his credit, he didn’t.
* * *
They kept me another night just to prove that they could, but Jimmy was there in the morning to pick me up. I was stiff, aching everywhere, and groaned aloud as I settled into his car.
Alan was asleep.
When he was gone those eighteen months, I felt his absence as a lack, as a hollow sensation. In a lot of ways it was what I went through when I lost my dad—this odd, phantom-limb feeling that something was both there and not. Alan’s return was like an increase in air pressure, a weight inside my mind—and of course you couldn’t get the guy to shut up. But this was something different than when he’d vanished, this sleep—the feeling that he was there, but in a way that didn’t register with the senses except as a dormant object. He’d slept before, the first time he’d come to visit, so this, too, was something my subconscious might easily be inventing for its own amusement. I wanted my friend back, so he was back. Then I wanted him to take a break, like Katie wanted us to take a break, so he went to sleep.
I texted Katie to say I’d been released.
Good, she responded. We’ll talk soon.
About what, our living apart? I didn’t want to talk about that.
Jimmy was pensive as he drove us back to Kalkaska. I watched him wrestling with something, giving him time. That’s what you did with Jimmy—there was no sense in trying to pull his thoughts out of the oven before they were fully baked. “I never have done this before, you know,” he finally remarked.
“Driven a car?”
He blinked at me. “No. Ruddy, you taught me to drive.”
“I was kidding, Jimmy. Done what?”
“Slept with a married woman. I mean, yeah, I’ve slept with them, but never as more than just, you know.”
“I actually don’t know.”
“I mean, just as a one-time thing. One night. Not…”
“You’ve never had an extended extramarital affair,” I translated.
“Extended extramarital,” Jimmy repeated dubiously.
“Why is it extended? I thought she said her husband would literally kill her if he found out. That’s hardly encouraging for long-term prospe
cts.”
“Yeah, about that.”
“What about that?”
“Alice says he knows. Her husband, I mean. He knows about us.”
7
The Deal with Uncle Milt
Jimmy’s face looked apologetic as he laid it all out for me. Alice’s husband was a guy named William Blanchard. According to Jimmy, he was possessive and jealous and had suddenly become very suspicious, at one point grabbing Alice’s cell phone out of her hand and scrolling through it, looking for proof she was calling and texting another man.
“Did he find any? Proof, I mean,” I asked.
Jimmy shook his head. “She erases everything.”
“Well, hell, Jimmy. He’s not really going to commit murder. He’s a banker. Bankers cheat people; they don’t kill people.”
“Alice says he’s got a dark side to him.”
“Well, can I just say that maybe you shouldn’t be fooling around with a married woman? Especially when her husband’s got a dark side? Aren’t there enough single women in the world for you?”
Jimmy looked reflective, and I wondered if he was seriously considering that maybe there weren’t. He surprised me, though, with his next statement.
“We’re kind of in love, Ruddy.”
“Jesus, Jimmy.”
“It didn’t happen on purpose.”
I thought about it. I had to agree: Falling in love didn’t ever happen deliberately. That he had made the journey from lover to hated ex to father to lover again was no stranger than anything else that had ever happened. “So how do you feel about Vicki?” I asked.
“My daughter? She means everything to me,” Jimmy replied, sounding surprised I would even ask the question.
“Could that be it, then?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, all of a sudden you have this adorable little girl in your life, your own daughter you never knew you had, and you love her and want to do right by her, and so maybe it seems like you should love the mother, too. That you and Alice and Vicki are a family unit—and her husband’s a jerk, even a little abusive. You probably feel this is the best way to protect your daughter. It’s pretty rational.” I nodded at my impeccable logic. Part of me wished Alan were awake to witness my deft analysis.