A Lady Under Siege

49

Of all his vices Derek found nicotine the hardest to wean himself from, but after two weeks he could think about a cigarette without his teeth clenching with the craving of it. He hired a cleaning service and two meticulous women came to scrub his house from top to bottom for three days straight, and he arranged for one of them to come back every Thursday afternoon to keep it ship-shape. He stocked his kitchen properly, and started to cook, not just for himself, but for Meghan and Betsy. Sometimes they came over to his house to eat, but usually he carried the meal over to their place. Very quickly this became a routine, and after a month, with Meghan’s approval, he built a gate in the fence between their back yards to speed the passage from kitchen to kitchen. One night at dinner he joked that they should just knock a hole in the shared wall between their townhouses and have one big place together. Betsy was very excited by that idea, and thought it would be the coolest thing in the world to show off to her friends that the two homes, so normal from the street, shared an amazing secret. “Let’s do it!” she cried.

“I hate to be the party pooper,” Meghan told her. “But it’s a bit too rash and permanent at this stage.”

“Maybe someday though,” Derek said. “Then we could tear down the fence and have one big back yard, too.”

“Yes! Awesome!” Betsy yelped. “We could even play proper badminton.”

Meghan smiled. “Why do I always feel outnumbered by you two?”

“We operate on the same wavelength,” Derek said.

ON THE SIXTH-WEEK ANNIVERSARY of his smoke-free sobriety he showed up on Meghan’s back deck on a Friday afternoon and came in the kitchen without knocking. He had a handful of documents. “I need to you fill these out and sign them,” he said.

For a moment she felt wariness, and, almost, dread. “What are they?”

“Character references. I have to get a criminal record check, too. I went out and got a job. Not a paying job, but a volunteer gig.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I went down to the Boys and Girls Club on Spruce Street to see what I could do to help out. I’m actually thinking of going back to school and getting my CYC.”

“CYC?”

“Child and Youth Care. It’s a certificate you need.”

“I’m shocked,” she said. “In a good way.”

“Yeah, well. Being around Betsy so much has reminded me I like kids, and I’m good with kids. Working with them wouldn’t pay real well but it’s good for the soul. I’m lucky I’m set up financially, more or less, so I can do it for love.”

The way he said the word love sent a tingle through Meghan. “Let me hug you,” she said, and stood on tiptoes while he held her that way, so that she was nearly floating on air above the kitchen floor.

“I used to think hiding from the rat race and puttering around the property was the perfect way to live, but now I see that sitting on my ass for days and years was bad for me,” he told her. “It allowed me to slip. Sobering up isn’t just about quitting drinking, it’s having a cascade effect.”

“I’m so glad for you,” she murmured. She pulled back to look into his face. “Funny, isn’t it? You cleaned up, and now I wish I could.”

“Sleeping pills still messing you up?”

“More and more.”

“They’re meant to be temporary. Time’s up. Time to stop.”

“I want to. They’re horrible. I feel like a zombie—I never wake up refreshed or revived, or energized. Just, drugged. Sleep without dreams is like, half a life.”

“I’m staying over, right? Don’t take one tonight, and let’s see what happens.”

“Actually there’s been a change in plan. Betsy’s not going to her Dad’s after all—she didn’t want to, and I can’t force her. So she’s home.”

“Oh.” He shrugged good-naturedly. “You want to wait till I’m around to go off your meds?”

“I think so.”

Suddenly they heard Betsy shout from the living room. “It’s all right, you can stay, Derek!”

“Have you been eavesdropping?” Meghan called to her.

“Not on purpose.” She came into the kitchen. “I know he stays here when I’m not here, so what’s the difference?” she said.

“Nothing, I guess, if you can handle it.”

“I can handle it.”

AFTER DINNER AND DISHES they watched Shrek Forever After on DVD. In the early going Betsy had to explain a lot of back story to Derek, because he had never seen the first three installments of the series, and later Derek had to explain to Betsy what a metaphysical paradox was. Then it was her bedtime, occasioning a collision of wills between firm mother and feisty daughter that Derek stayed out of. When Meghan finally came downstairs from Betsy’s bedroom she wore that look of triumphant exhaustion that every parent knows. She slid next to him on the couch and said, “So, a night of firsts. First night you get to stay over while the kid is home, and first night I go without the sleeping potion.”

“How are you feeling about that?”

“A bit scared. But hopeful. I’d just love to have a regular old dream.”

“What if you see our friend?”

“I don’t know. I’ll tell him he’s been replaced.”

“Maybe you should have a plan—try to talk to him, tell him you don’t want to be there anymore. Supposedly we can control our dreams, if we consciously will ourselves to.”

“I thought about that. I’ve looked into it online. There’s a lot of BS out there. I’ll just see what happens, try to stay with it, assert myself if I can. Not that I expect I’ll really be able to. You dream what you dream.”

“Yeah. But tell yourself you’re in charge. Try to be comfortable with yourself.”

“I’m comfortable with you. Especially since you told me about your new plans. All the boxes are getting checked off—you’re smart, you’re funny, you’re good with Betsy, handy around the house.” She smiled, and snuggled closer. “You’re also handy in the bedroom. And now it seems like you’re shedding that aimlessness that I considered to be your last major liability.”

“Hurray for me.”

“Exactly, Hurray for you.”

IN THE MORNING SHE woke up and nudged him awake. Her smile reminded him of what needed to be asked.

“Well?”

“I saw them. Faintly, and from a new place, not inside Sylvanne’s mind, but outside, more like an-out-of-body experience. Sylvanne is going to have a baby. She’s thrilled, Thomas is thrilled, and I was happy for them too. Daphne looks great. I saw it all in a glance, and that’s all I needed. It was like I was waving goodbye, being carried somewhere else. And I had another dream—you and Betsy in bright sunshine, you were trying to ride unicycles on a sandy beach and got all bogged down. But you were laughing about it, and then there was something about an orange juice maker, the old fashioned kind where you pull a big lever to squish the orange.”

“I have one of those, somewhere.”

“It was mounted on your handlebars. You were making glasses and glasses of it and passing them around.”

“Unicycles don’t have handlebars.”

“Yours did. Hey, I dreamt about you!”

“And then you woke up, and here I was.”

“Kiss me.”

And he did.