In a reel titled “How to Squat When You’re TALL,” a stoic Dame Roby followed her instructions to the letter. The moral of the story being that anyone, including you at home, could get as yoked as this dude.
Amy walked in.
“How was your ladies’ day?”
“Ladies’ day,” she said, shutting the laptop, “is over.”
She kissed me. Her breath smelled of wine. “Now it’s ladies’ night.”
Chapter 31
The next morning, I was in the kitchen, making pancakes.
Jasmine Worth texted.
@ hospital he left
I called her. “Left where.”
“I don’t know.” Quivery voice. “They said he checked himself out.”
“When?”
“Last night, after I went home. Can you come here?”
“They let him go?”
“They said they couldn’t stop him.”
“Why didn’t they call you first?”
“I don’t know, okay? Can you please come?”
I glanced into the living room. Both kids were glued to the couch, watching Bluey. “Hang tight. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Behind our bedroom door, the white noise was going full blast. I hated to wake Amy after the week and night we’d had. Her folks were in Tahoe and mine visiting friends in Danville for the day.
I called my brother.
“Yooo,” Luke said. “Happy Sunday.”
“Hey, man, can you do me a solid and keep an eye on the kids for a little? Amy’s asleep and I have to run out. Shouldn’t be too long, just till she’s up.”
“You want to bring them over?”
“Easier if you come here,” I said.
“Hang on, lemme ask Andrea.”
He shouted the question to his wife, who shouted back that it was fine and would he pick up more cheesecloth while he was out.
“No problemo,” he said to me. “Let me just grab my shit.”
“Great. Thanks, Luke.”
“Daddy,” Charlotte called. “Something’s burning.”
“Fuck.” I ran to the kitchen, dumped a smoking slab of charcoal that had once aspired to be a pancake into the sink, and doused it.
Luke said, “Dude, you good?”
“Yeah. Just...” I opened a window, ran the exhaust fan. “Work.”
“You sound kinda stressed. We got some cool new mints in. Blackberry Blast.”
“I’m okay. Thanks.”
“All good. See you soon.”
I tiptoed into the bedroom for clothes.
Amy stirred. “Hmm...?”
“Everything’s fine. Go back to bed.”
No convincing necessary. She rolled over and clamped the pillow over her head.
I got dressed in the kitchen. The air was still smoky; I opened the driveway door and flapped a dish towel.
“Daddy,” Charlotte called. “The episode is over.”
“Watch another.”
“Yay.”
Three episodes later, the smell was mostly gone, and Luke roared up in his latest baby, a gold-tone 1971 Dodge Charger. Charlotte and Myles ran to the front window, yelping excitedly as he gunned the motor one last time and killed it.
Addiction, manslaughter, prison. Everything you could wish for in a babysitter.
But the man who knelt in the entry hall to embrace my kids had been softened by time, like overworked paper. He’d earned my trust, and I owed him. To Myles and Charlotte, he was Fun embodied.
He extricated himself to hug me.
“Thanks again,” I said. “You’re saving my butt.”
“All good, bro.”
“They haven’t eaten yet. There’s pancake batter on the counter.”
“Can I make mine?” Charlotte said.
“You can help Uncle Luke flip. Just be careful.” I reached for my keys. “I’ll text when I have some sense of what’s happening.”
“No rush,” Luke said. “Me and my crew, we gon’ make paaancakes.”
“Pancakes,” Charlotte yelled. She began running in a circle. “Pancakes, pancakes, pancakes.”
Myles ran after her, chanting, Pah-tates!
Amy shuffled out in wrinkled pajamas. “Guys, can you please keep it d... oh. Hey, Luke.”
“Wassup, Doc. Sorry.”
“Sorry, honey,” I said.
“Guys, guys, guys,” Luke said, putting a finger to his lips. “Shhh... Let’s be pancake ninjas.”
“I have to deal with something,” I said to Amy. “I’ll be back soon.”
She nodded blearily and shuffled off as Luke and the kids tiptoed to the kitchen, whisper-chanting pan-cake nin-jas, pan-cake nin-jas.
At approximately six p.m. Saturday, Trevor Vogel had checked himself out of the ICU against medical advice. The hospital staff couldn’t or wouldn’t say where he’d gone. Nor would they disclose information about his condition: We weren’t his designated next-of-kin. Jasmine had forfeited that right — insisted on forfeiting it — a decision she now regretted.
“You let him walk out,” she said.
“Ma’am, if he’s mentally competent, we don’t have the authority to detain him.”
“Competent my ass. He’s sick.”
I persuaded Jasmine to let it go, and we left in my car, crisscrossing West Oakland, stopping at the flops and drug dens and camps she knew Trevor to frequent.
All the info she’d withheld from me when I needed it.
Each failure deflated her a little; brought her lower in her seat. For me it carried a whiff of déjà vu: My mom and I had made similar tours in search of Luke.
Pancakes...
“You think I’m stupid,” Jasmine said. “Running around after him.”
We were on Brush Street, bushwhacking through a weedy plot littered with tents and tarps and waste. Cookfires smoldered. The earth sparkled with busted syringes, like some toxic vein of ore.
“Not true,” I said. “Things change. Your heart’s in the right place.”
She stepped around an overturned shopping cart. “Yeah, huh.”
“How’d you guys meet, anyway?”
“He came into the store.”
“Home Depot?”
“He needed chain oil. We keep it locked up with the saws. I got it for him and he goes...” A smile, despite herself. “ ‘Yo girl, what’s up with you and me?’ ”
“That was his line.”
“Yeah. I told him: ‘Ain’t nothing up.’ Next day he comes back again, asking for more oil. Four days in a row.”
“He wore you down.”
“Always.” She shook her head. “I was like, ‘Nobody need this much oil.’ ”
“What did he want it for in the first place?”
“He used to work for this guy, trimming trees. Then he got hurt and had to stop.”
“What happened?”
“He fell. Broke his leg in three places. That’s how he started with the oxy.”
“Using, then dealing.”
“Yeah.”
“Did he deal anything else? Adam was on ketamine when he died. Other stuff, too.”
“Uh-uh. Trevor never gave Adam shit, he didn’t want him to end up like him.”
He’d sold him weed. But I let it pass. “How did he seem yesterday?”
“He was talking.”
“About?”
“Me. The kids.” Grimacing. “He loves us.”
She waved away the possibility, like shooing a fly.
“Did he mention anything about the boat?” I asked. “The guy who owns it?”