“What’s this?” He runs his shoe over the raw plywood and creates the shape of a rainbow in the dust.
“My fault. I couldn’t decide what I wanted, and now I have nothing.” Just like it’s my fault I let Mitch go. I should have pulled the wife card—the new mom card—and I would have, but I swore I’d never be one of those women.
His serious eyes flex at the sight, and I marvel at the unblemished sky he holds in them. When we were kids I could stare at them for hours. Even before my hormones kicked in I had a place in my heart for Max. But I can tell he’s judging Mitch for letting us move in like this, even if it was me who pushed for it.
“So what are you leaning toward? Are you thinking stone—hardwood?” He presses his hand into the small of my back as I lead him toward the office, and an electrical charge springs from his touch. It travels up my spine and proliferates its branches over my arms, down my legs, quickening between my thighs. Max is infiltrating, rooting himself in my existence even if he’s not aware of it.
There’s a sweetness to Max. If I let him, I’m sure he’d solve every problem on the planet for me, including my spousal deficiency. But he can’t bring back Mitch. He can’t be Mitch. Some problems are just too big.
“Wood, for sure.” I blink back tears. “We were going to put in stone, but then I thought wood last minute.” I thought it’d be better with the baby, but I leave that part out. Instead, I run my hand over the high crest of my stomach. The only piece of Mitch left in the world sits right here inside me. The whole universe had reduced itself to a thimble. It was so big and beautiful with Mitch in it. His love buoyed me, soft and light, like helium. I don’t think this baby could take his place, but I long to see Mitch’s face when I hold it. I crave to see his smile again in our child, hear his laugh through another set of vocal cords.
When I come to, Max is penetrating me with his gaze. He doesn’t ask for explanation when I go away like that, just simply waits for me to return.
“Sorry,” I say, leading him into the stifling office. “It’s an oven in here. No A.C.—Colt’s fault.” I’m quick to point out. “Colt was in charge of ductwork and screwed up—now it’s a furnace. For this reason alone Mitch didn’t spend anymore more time in here than needed.”
We both take a seat, right here, in Mitch’s office, and yet today it feels more like a chamber of his heart.
Max lets out a soft laugh at Colt’s oversight. “I’m shocked he didn’t install a stripper pole in the middle of the living room.” His eyes widen with a slight look of mortification. “I meant Colt, not Mitch.”
“Of course you meant Colt. And, it was me who ixnayed the stripper pole from the blueprints.” I give a little laugh. That small tremor stirred something inside me. I haven’t laughed since before Mitch left—forgot that I was capable. “Here’s the stuff.” I pulled all the papers I thought Max might have to look at and fanned them out like a tapestry of financial destruction.
I watch over his shoulder as he studies each one individually—Max with all his assurances. With Mitch there were always questions when it came to the business, and with Max there are only solutions.
“So what’s going on with our favorite strip club patron anyway?” He glances up, and the dimple on the left side of his cheek goes off with a wink.
“Why? Is he siphoning funds?” I lean in closer until my cheek rubs against his shoulder. I can feel the warmth radiating off his body, and a selfish part of me craves to touch him, wrap myself around him like a vine and forget about all this dizzying pain.
Max turns into me, resettling the paperwork in his hands. He inspects me in earnest before giving the hint of a devilish smile.
“Do I detect a hint of mistrust?” He looks alien in this world that Mitch built, gorgeous yet obtrusive.
“I don’t know.” I avert my eyes at the thought. “I’d trust Colt with my life. My finances—not so sure.”
He reverts back to the paperwork a moment. “I’ll do a little digging. How’s he handling things? You know…” He ticks his head toward a picture of Mitch, reducing him to a bodily gesture without meaning to. Max asks me that same question every day regarding my own sanity or lack thereof. He’s been so wonderful, holding me up emotionally like a suspension bridge that’s desperate for the plunge because he knows that drowning in grief is a real possibility. “I mean, usually he’s poking around Hudson’s, but since the funeral he’s been M.I.A.” He winces as though he regrets his word choice.
“No, it’s okay.” I have Mitch’s blackened wedding ring, his charred passport. All but two bodies were identified with dental records. Two of them didn’t have anything left to ID due to the fact they had their heads blown off. But they had enough bags stashed in the trunk to account for each person, and those were left untouched for the most part. “Colton is being Colton, drinking, losing himself in front of the television. Sleeping with everything that’s not nailed down. That should numb the pain for a while.”
“How’s Janice?”
“She’s lost.” It’s like a tidal wave came and washed everything we knew away from underneath us. And now we’re drifting, looking for something solid to hold onto. “I wish Colt would step up. I think he’s so immersed in guilt he can’t see straight. He was supposed to go but broke his leg.”
“Sounds like he’s self-medicating.” Max presses his gaze over me as if he were taking inventory of my features, memorizing them as individual attributes. He leans in as if he were about to confess he was self-medicating, too, still high on the memory I gave him at that fateful party long ago—medicating on our short jaunt into fornication. Although alcohol inspired, I still wanted it. It still makes me blush to think about.
I can feel his open wanting, and I don’t shy from it. I think Mitch should have known better than to leave me, and now look where it landed us? With him dead in a ditch and Max Shepherd trying to fill his void. Maybe it’s not fair of me to be so pissed off at my dearly departed husband, but the anger feels so much more powerful, far more productive than pain ever could.
“I’ll talk to Colt,” he offers.
“Better not,” I say. He chewed me out in a drunken tirade last week at the mention of Max’s name. “I think he just needs more time.”
“It’s been over two months, and I haven’t seen him at Townsend once. Does he honestly expect you to run everything on your own? Lee, he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about this business—you and I both know it.”
A deep sigh expels from my chest at those potent truths. Max’s words are like a bloodlet, like a weight rolling off my shoulders lightening the load so I can breathe again.
“I thought the same thing last night, but I don’t dare mention it,” it comes out low, catatonic. “I feel like I need to walk on eggshells around him. He blows up if we even get near the subject of Mitch—to Colt the vineyard is Mitch.”
Something solidifies in Max. His eyes harden for a moment as if he were ready to send Colt off to say hello to his brother in the great beyond.
“I’m going to help you, Lee,” he says it surefooted and finite. The deep baritone of his voice comforts me, repairs the suture of Mitch’s death just enough for me to catch my breath. “Believe me, it’s my pleasure. But I can’t wrap my head around Colton flipping out, going off the deep end like this. Sounds like he needs some serious help or a good old-fashioned ass kicking. I’ll make sure he gets both.” He blinks a smile, and his dimples go off. It sends an uninvited quiver through my stomach and makes me uneasy. I’m not ready to have those feelings again, ever perhaps, but my hormones have taken my body hostage, and I’m quivering for Max at the drop of his dimples.
“I don’t know what I’d do without you.” My voice breaks as I say it. “I would have lost everything he worked so hard to keep. I can’t lose the business.” I choke the words out. “I know for a fact he’d want our baby to have it. As for Colt, I’m not entirely opposed to the ass kicking.” I try to force a laugh, but I mean it. In truth, Colt should have had that be
ating years ago, administered personally by Mitch.
The baby starts in on its daily aerobics routine, and my shirt jumps like there’s a frog beneath it.
“Whoa, I saw that.” His whole face lights up as his eyes settle on the bulge beneath my chest.
“Here.” I take his hand and place it over the sharp protrusion. It gives another hard kick like it’s trying to bat him away, and I bite down a smile. This baby is Mitch, through and through.
Max pulls me in with those watery eyes, there’s sadness there, but they smile for me anyway.
Mitch’s picture snags my attention—Mitch and I on our honeymoon in St. Lucia. We smile for the camera as the clear blue Caribbean spreads wide and innocent behind us like a bird in flight.
And now here I am, holding Max Shepherd’s hand over our child, an act I’m sure Mitch would have found borderline sacrilegious. Perhaps he should have entertained this theory before boarding that plane. He should have weighed the consequences before he volunteered himself on a life-threatening mission like he was some infallible superhero. He should have thought about Max Shepherd taking his place in his business, sitting comfortable in his seven hundred dollar leather chair—Mitch who keeps his “word.” He promised he’d come back. Be right back, he said—nothing but an empty promise. Colton had it wrong at the funeral. Mitch doesn’t always keep his words.
I break down and cry, right there in the office, with Max’s hand still firm on my belly.
“Hey, come here.” Max envelops me with his strong embrace, his warm skin pressed against mine. I close my eyes and dig my nails into his arms as if impaling myself into him were the only way to keep from sinking under the weight of Mitch and his nonexistent casket. I can’t take this pain all by myself anymore. I want to give it all away—squeeze into Max until my fingers dig into muscle, and sinew, and bone.
“I’m so glad you’re here. I couldn’t do this without you,” I whisper.
I glance over at Mitch, encapsulated behind a curtain of glass, and give a sharp look.
I hope he heard every damn word.
Mitch
My feet are bound with threadbare rope, strong as steel, while my hands are pulled apart, secured with leather straps at an uncomfortable trajectory. A stout man with sunken jowls beats over my flesh at regular intervals with rusted, iron tongs. If he derives any pleasure from the experience, he sure as hell doesn’t emote it.
I’m not sure how long it’s been since the last time I slept, but I’m pretty sure that’s the point—keep me awake until I lose my fucking mind. Little did they know my sanity left right along with my hope of seeing Lee.
Hard, powerful blows ignite over the top of my head, my chest, my back.
Shouting—bright lights.
They want something from me because they think I’m a spy. It’s the joke of the century. I can’t give them what they want: names, places, dates. My head reverberates until I can’t make out their broken English anymore. Dogs barking—they all sound like rabid dogs.
Another sharp blow to my temple—the skull cracker. A trickle of blood runs down the side of my head, and I lap it up. Taste the salt. I’m so hungry, so thirsty. I’d drink my blood by the bucket if they let me.
The room warps, and with unrequited mercy, the world fades to grey.
A fresh slap on the face draws me out of a drug-like slumber. I give a series of rapid-fire blinks, reaffirming my worst nightmare. I’m still here in the same dungeon-like cell. My eyes struggle to open as the sharp blows persist. I try to break free from the new configuration they’ve set my limbs to with my hands fettered together, my feet still bound at the ankles.
A stocky woman, with a dark eyetooth, drums harsh jagged words from her lips, subtle as pounding a hammer. She taps my mouth with her fingers before producing a heaping spoon of rice.
My jaw widens lazily, and I let her feed me like a child.
The unmistakable harsh bite of salt explodes over my tongue, and I spit it out onto my chest. Someone got the recipe wrong—or not.
A rattle of angry words escape her before she produces another heaping spoonful. She shovels it in with a slight look of frustration—clamps one hand over my mouth, pinches my nose shut with the other. She force-feeds me ten more not-so-loving spoonfuls until the salt races through my veins, amps my blood, and spikes through my skull at unnatural levels.
If I didn’t get the message before, I’m getting it now—loud and clear—no fucking sleep. Not one long blink or they beat the shit out of you. I struggle to keep my eyes from closing on a permanent basis. Think of Lee. Beautiful Lee—our baby so close to arriving. Or maybe it’s already here? I’ve lost track of time. It might have been years, feels like decades, one long bad dream.
A man walks into the sparse concrete room. I’ve been under the watchful eye of two rail-thin men and the poisonous chef for as long as I can remember, and now he’s something new. He steadies a bucket in his hands, and they take turns spitting in it. He steps forward and dowses me full in the face—cold, sweet water. If I knew, I would have opened my mouth, drown in its beauty. My body craves another dowsing, and I beg for a reprisal.
Hours pass.
He comes in with his beautiful bucket and baptizes me with its offerings. This time I take in a mouthful, choking on what I manage to aspirate. It takes a while for me to catch onto the fact this is an ongoing process. Rinse, lather, repeat—rinse, rice, beat.
A vaguely familiar figure peers from the shadows. His tall, menacing stature lingers like a stain against the wall.
He steps into the light, and I take him in. His smile, those sad eyes, I recognize him from so long ago. My father.
“Am I going to die?”
“Not today, Mitch.” He steps from the murky fog and places a hand on my bare shoulder. I can feel him—feel him.
“Get me out of here. Untie me.” I’m panicked and thrilled at the sight of him. My adrenaline shoots through the roof at the prospect of returning to Lee—of becoming a ghost like my father.
“I can’t do that.” He pats me on the back like he used to when I was child. A forlorn expression is locked on his face and that always meant no.
“Why the fuck not?” I pulse in agitation. “Where’s God? Why isn’t there anybody here to help me?” I bellow it out in an aggressive roar, motivating the bucket man to pour his affection over me again.
“I’m here, Mitch.” My father bleats from behind.
“Help.”
“Your time here is a gift,” he says. “You’re one of the lucky ones.”
Another splash ices my body, sends a shiver through me, so strong, it nearly rocks me off the chair like a seizure. The woman with the poisoned rice leaves the room, as does the man with the iron fist. A changing of the guards takes place, and everyone is shiny and new. Two men enter, one with a rubber tube. He introduces himself by way of a swift strike just below my neck with what looks like a rubber pipe. A spray of sand escapes the instrument of destruction, and I’m quickly apprised of what gives it such great heft. A series of pressured blows rain down over me, one after another. The grand finale lands over the top of my skull and makes me bite down on my tongue without warning. It sends a blinding pain through me—numbing—so distracting with its horrific sting, I don’t feel anything else.
I’ve transcended fear with this new reality.
Another man steps up to the plate, fresh and ready for his chance at bat. He holds something up for me to see, but my vision blurs with a warm trickle. It takes a moment to recognize the strange crimson glow filling my eyes. Blood drips down my chest, my thigh, right onto the floor, pouring from me like oil.
A long, thin rope with jagged edges unfurls from his palm. He whips it across the room without moving. It pulsates in his hand like a demonic snake—a giant rat’s tail embellished with knives. It strikes against my hip, catches on my flesh before he commands it back with the flex of his wrist. It digs into my skin, taking bits of me with it.
I’m so unbelievably
tired, so unnaturally dazed from this long string of horror. I let out a deafening cry to reward him for his efforts. But there’s no satisfaction with my displeasure. He scrapes his barbed leash along my chest, creating railroad tracks of blood—all of the work I put into life, the vineyard, my marriage, my marrow—in the end it was for nothing.
He doesn’t deviate from his position across the room. He’s the requisite conductor unmoved by the melody—completely underwhelmed by my cries for mercy. He’s seen it all before, been here, done this. It is his sole reason for existing.
A static charge builds around me. It fills my ears with its incessant buzzing. Voices escape from the walls—the ceiling. An entire human choir hums in the vicinity, and I can distinctly hear Lee. Her trail of laughter, the coolness of her voice, she’s most definitely saying something, and I can’t make out a single word.
“Lee!” I cry out.
The voices escalate in agitation. I can hear God, my father, the entire universe speaking in tongues. It’s so damn beautiful, I collapse under its glory.
Then, in a moment of resplendence, I see her.
She snatches around the room like an apparition. So perfect, so frightened. She points at my wounds and laughs her wonderful laugh. She tells me to come to her.
“I can’t get up, Lee.”
She walks over, slow and seductive. Her robe opens up in the front. She’s naked underneath—the round of her belly so close I can touch it.
A wall of water christens me, and Lee disintegrates, quick as a vapor.
It’s so quiet again, nothing but a man with an empty bucket staring back at me.
Max
“Here.” I spread the concept designs across the table as Lee and Janice lean in to inspect them. Last week, I had the art department print up new labels for Townsend. I’m shocked Mitch kept the old crap as long as he did.