Chapter 25
He came out of surgery in pain but out of danger. They had brought him to Highland, and for the next several days Andrea and my parents pulled shifts by his bedside.
On Wednesday my dad called. Luke was awake, he was alert, and he was ready to talk.
I met Cesar Rigo in the hospital lobby. We rode the elevator to the fourth floor. I knocked on the door and my father emerged. He told us he’d take a walk for the duration of the interview.
To give us privacy, he said.
His eyes were wet. Whatever Luke had told him, he didn’t need to hear it twice.
“Great thing you did,” he said to me.
My brother lay sunken in the bedsheets. Light slanted across his chest. Rigo started his recorder. Luke beckoned me close and began to speak.
Most days he got up before Andrea, but the previous night he’d had trouble sleeping, and in the late morning he woke alone.
He brewed coffee and sat on the longhouse steps facing the forest. Her car was gone. The sun had come up muddy, and a bitter note complicated the familiar morning smells of dirt and dew and grass.
So far as he could tell, their fight — yet another — had begun as a normal conversation, him proposing that they escape for a few days. Just hop in the Camaro and go. They were both stressed. Had been for so long. A change of scenery might help.
She’d looked at him, astonished.
Didn’t he get it? For months, years, she had been working so hard to fine-tune their environment; to reduce variables and keep everything as stable and consistent as possible. A change of scenery was literally the opposite of what she needed.
He’d tried to redirect but she was in a groove, not shouting but using her patient voice that plowed forward like an earthmover in low gear. Easy for him to say things like quote-unquote just hop in the car. It showed, clearly, that he still wasn’t treating this as a shared responsibility. Did he actually think racing around for hours on end in the Camaro would help her relax? She got nauseous sitting up too fast. Her medications had to be kept cold; how was that supposed to work?
He knew she was suffering. He’d grown accustomed to a heightened level of drama. But for whatever stupid reason, he opened his mouth: There was this amazing invention called ice packs.
Well, then.
He blew on his coffee. If he was honest with himself, he’d known what he was doing, pushing back. She accused him of not stopping to consider what taking a trip might mean for her. Had she considered what not taking the trip might mean for him?
His needs had ceased to exist, chased out by the all-consuming goal of having a child.
But you couldn’t live forever in crisis mode. Eventually it stopped feeling like a crisis.
You had to listen to what the universe was telling you.
He wished he had someone to talk to. Apart from James, the people at work were kids. And he and James didn’t have that kind of relationship; they were men past the age when forming new strong bonds was possible. Whatever you’d acquired for yourself by forty — that was what you got, and you counted yourself lucky to have it. To ask for more felt inappropriate, almost childish.
Still.
A week ago, it had gotten to the point where he’d texted his brother.
R u around. Can we talk
No reply. No surprise. Clay had a lot going on in his own life. His busy, busy brother.
The forest stirred. A deer, a young male, high-stepped through a thicket.
Luke smiled. “How about you.”
The buck raised its head.
“You want to hear my problems?”
The buck galloped off.
Soon Andrea returned with a trunkful of farmers’ market produce in canvas bags. Luke got up to help her. He told her he was sorry and reached to take the bags.
She shied away. “Sorry for what.”
Before he could answer, she went into the longhouse.
One of those days. He watched the trees for a bit, hoping the buck would reappear.
Time to get some work done. He carried his mug to the car shelter.
There was a tiny pebble mark on the underside of the Camaro’s front bumper. It happened. Lots of guys would treat the car like a museum piece, only trotting it out on big occasions. Luke disagreed. Cars needed to move.
He got out the masking tape and the touch-up paint and the clear coat. While waiting for the first coat to dry his mind wandered to a conversation with Rory Vandervelde. They’d met at the Lodi swap meet a while back and hit it off. Luke had toured the collection once or twice. It was mind-blowing, and Vandervelde himself was so enthusiastic, like a little kid on his birthday, that you couldn’t even be jealous.
In the end, of course, how much did they have in common? Same as with James: easy come, easy go. Didn’t bother Luke, he accepted it. They’d been out of touch for probably a year when, over the spring, Vandervelde phoned out of the blue. They exchanged pleasantries and then Vandervelde mentioned that his maintenance guy had upped and quit. He never offered Luke the job, just talked around it, testing the waters. Know anyone good?
Luke promised he’d keep his ear to the ground.
Six months had passed without a second call. Obviously Vandervelde would’ve found someone by now, and it shamed Luke to feel a pang of regret. He had a job, a good one, reliable, respectable. Scott took care of him.
Still.
He worked on the Camaro for several hours. At lunchtime Andrea came outside and began puttering around the chicken coop. She was making noise, shutting the door harder than necessary and sighing and shooting glances at him, expecting him to take the first step.
He wiped his hands on a rag.
He did his best. Before long, though, they were at it again. He decided to get some space. Her high sharp voice pursued him across the clearing. Where did he think he was going? Did he think he could leave her like that? It felt mean — but good — to rev the motor and drown her out. He drove through the trees, over the culvert bridge, and onto the main road. A truck was parked up the roadside. But his mind was elsewhere.
He stopped at a vegan taqueria in Oakland for a late lunch, bringing in his laptop so he could work while he ate. He couldn’t concentrate and closed it when his food came.
The server warned him the power could go out at any minute. Luke thanked her.
He gnawed at the burrito, nursed his lemonade. Andrea wasn’t answering her phone, which didn’t mean anything in itself. She left it switched off and in her car. He kept trying her anyway, every twenty or thirty minutes. That way, when she did think to check the phone, she’d see the missed calls and know that she was important to him, at the forefront of his mind. He regretted the way he’d left, and he felt ready not to be alone. But he couldn’t bring himself to go home just yet. At the very least he wanted to hear her voice and get a feel for what he was walking into.
Rory Vandervelde popped into his head again.
Why not?
Vandervelde sounded pleased to hear from him. Without being asked, he invited Luke to drop by. They arranged for six p.m. They didn’t discuss if this was to be a social call or a job interview. Even if the job was open, Luke wasn’t sure he wanted it. After they hung up, he did some googling on cars he knew Vandervelde owned. Couldn’t hurt to be prepared.
At four thirtyish the restaurant lights went off. To kill time Luke drove to Mosswood and watched the pickup players. They looked to be running in slow motion. The afternoon had turned brutally hot and the air smelled like lighter fluid.