Things We Didn't Say

Chapter 46

Casey



The car quickly becomes too warm, so I reach over and flick off the heat. Michael takes the hint and shuts off the engine.

He pulled in at the Sixth Street Park, facing a bright metal modernist sculpture as tall as a house, and beyond it, the Grand River in its smooth shiny blackness.

I tip my head back on the seat, the aftershock of my hangover and the fresh beer making me want to sleep.

Michael told me right away about Mallory’s freak-out, and Dylan’s defense of me. That bit about Dylan would have made me smile if anything could right now. Michael had been driving, and watching the road, so I guess that’s why he wasn’t looking at me, but now that we’ve stopped, he still hasn’t.

“You picked me up,” I finally say. “So, what?”

“An apology doesn’t really cover it.”

“Cover what, exactly?” I stare out ahead at the dark so that I almost see shapes and faces. Maybe it’s fog, or mist. Maybe my mind is playing tricks. Or I’m going crazy. Is it contagious?

“I didn’t thank you for . . . saving Jewel. Not that I ever could, adequately. I mean . . . God.” He smacks his steering wheel. “I’m pathetic.”

“I know,” I tell him, still staring out over the river but not seeing it. I can picture my brother leaning on a couch, the last time I saw him before the big fight to defend my honor.

“You know I’m pathetic? Thanks.”

“I know you’re grateful, and you have no words. I further know that Mallory did something to you, made you weird and distrustful of everyone. That if you don’t supervise every thing every minute, it will all fly apart. And you think you’re right, because you walked around the block and look what almost happened.”

“But didn’t.”

“Right. Didn’t.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?” I reply automatically.

“Anything. The drinking. Your real name even.”

“I hate my real name.”

“Edna’s not so bad.”

This causes me to jerk around in my seat. “What?”

“I peeked at your driver’s license.”

I slouch in the seat and cross my arms. “Should have known a reporter couldn’t stay out of my wallet.”

“Well, you’re gonna love the next part then. I ran a background check on you.”

“F*ck.”

“You were going to move in with me. I couldn’t have someone around my kids I didn’t know anything about. And you didn’t tell me.”

“You didn’t ask, either.”

“Would you have told me, then?”

“Touché.”

“Okay. But you still haven’t answered me. Why wouldn’t you tell me yourself?”

The car still feels too warm, too close. I jump up and shove open the door, slamming it behind me. Michael jumps out of the car, too. Maybe he thinks I’m going to walk away again, maybe he wants to tackle me, and it’s true, part of me wants to run run run as fast as I can. Can’t catch me . . .

But I’m so tired. I trudge only to the metal railing next to the river, brushing off the day’s blizzard snow into the dark water, which hasn’t had time to freeze. In the reflected city light I can see an oily sheen over the river. He joins me at the railing, hands in his pockets, also looking at the water.

I turn to face him. The tall lampposts in the park behind us give everything a soft glow, like candlelight. Brighter than I would like. “You wouldn’t have loved a girl like me.”

“You didn’t give me a chance.”

“Come on! You remember that big speech about how you’ll never again date someone who drinks? And you were so relieved I didn’t? Every chance you got after that you told me how great it was that I was so unlike your ex, and all the time I wasn’t. And the bitch of it is, it didn’t work, anyway. You want to know why I left you that letter, why I almost walked out Thursday morning? Because you stopped talking to me about a baby, about a wedding, about anything at all that didn’t have to do with field trips and new school shoes and homework. And you let Angel talk to me any way she wanted, and you never stood up for me.”

“Angel’s been through a lot . . . ,” he says, trailing off.

“So have I! I can’t absorb every blow like a sandbag and feel nothing. Yet that’s what you expect. I get that you’re tired of caretaking. And I thought I could handle it, that knowing you loved me would be enough, that I wouldn’t need you to show it because I’m not needy! I’m anti-Mallory!” I jab my finger in the air, mocking victory. “But I am needy. And so I’m saving you the trouble of leaving me. You’re welcome.”

His voice, when it comes, is gravelly, wet-sounding. “You should have told me. Given me a chance.”

“Yeah.” My own voice breaks now. “Yeah, probably.”

A wind kicks up and blows my hair into my face. I turn away from him, leaning my hip on the railing. I pull out my cigarettes and cup the flame of my lighter as I let the wind blow my hair back. My eyes water from the sting of it.

“Who’s Tony?” he asks.

“What difference does it make?” I call over my shoulder, still facing away.

“Is he really a boyfriend?”

“Do you think he is?”

There’s a long pause. “No.”

“So—” I interrupt myself with a deep drag. “Drop me off at the Holiday Inn, okay?”

He appears in front of me. His face looks wet. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t go.”

I can’t think of anything to say.

“I need you, Casey. Edna. Whoever you are, whatever you once did.”

“I’m just another problem.”

“No, you’re a person.” He stomps once in the snow, looking down for a moment. His hands had been jammed into his pants pockets. He takes them out, turns them palm up, toward me. His white breath curls around his face, which looks lined and shadowed. “Mallory’s gonna try to take the kids. Please, Casey. Don’t leave me now.”

He looks broken. That’s what this look is. I saw it in my dad, after Billy died. That essential part inside a person that keeps him upright and strong against the world, crumbled into dust, and Dad curled up on his recliner chair and that’s where he’s been all these years, getting heavier, his breathing more labored, his heart straining to keep him going, against his will.

I grind my cigarette on the rail and walk into his arms. I place my head on his chest, where it fits right over his beating heart.

“I can’t move back in,” I tell him.

“Okay,” he whispers. His face is turned sideways, he’s resting his cheek on the top of my head. He rocks me a little, back and forth, and I let him.

In a minute I’ll ask him again to drop me off at the Holiday Inn, where I’ll crawl into scratchy, sterile hotel sheets that belong to no one and decide how much I can stand.