‘Right,’ Shep says. ‘Sorry.’ He walks to the window and leans out, blowing into the wind.
Annabel says to Mike, ‘I think I’m gonna grab some sleep while I can.’
Mike goes over to Shep, wanting him to say good night, to be polite, to be gracious. He rests a hand on Shep’s back, still ridged with muscle. When Shep flicks his cigarette and turns, Annabel is starting to pull out the couch bed, and he says quietly, ‘Don’t bother. I’ll just sleep on it like it is.’
‘It’s really no trouble.’
He pauses a moment, processing. ‘Couches are more comfortable,’ he says. ‘I sleep on a couch at home.’
‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Okay.’
They stare at each other, Shep pinching his St. Jerome pendant between his lips.
‘Well,’ she says. ‘Good night.’
Shep nods.
The bedroom door closes. Shep says, ‘Go get a drink?’ and Mike says, ‘I’m pretty beat. The baby has us up a couple times a night, and I got work at five.’
Shep asks, ‘Can I have a key?’
At three in the morning, the front door opens and closes loudly; Shep never hears doors well. Annabel wakes with a start, and Kat fusses through the monitor.
Mike stumbles out into the living room. Shep says, ‘Alcohol? Bandages?’
Drawing closer, Mike sees that his cheek has been badly raked by fingernails. He tilts Shep’s head, sees the white flesh glittering through the blood. He gets one of the matching hand towels from the bathroom and soaks it in warm water. When Shep pats on rubbing alcohol, he doesn’t so much as flinch. They have done this many a night – staying up, whispering, cleaning wounds. For a moment Mike is lost in the sweet familiarity of the ritual. But the footsteps and movement wake Kat fully. Annabel emerges from the bedroom, pauses on her way to the nursery. ‘What happened?’
Shep says, ‘Crowded bar. I was having trouble, you know…’ He gestures to an ear. Mike has never known him to speak directly about his hearing problem, and he isn’t about to start now. ‘Guy was playing with me. Sneaking up. He had a lot of friends. He sucker-punched me. The rest didn’t go down how they wanted. His girlfriend jumped on my back somewhere in there. Cops showed up, so I split. It wasn’t my fault.’
Someone bellows outside, ‘You fuckin’ asshole, get out here! We’re gonna kill you!’
Kat is crying now in the nursery.
Mike says, ‘Did you hear that?’
Shep says, ‘What?’ Mike points to the window. Shep crosses and sticks his head out. An instant later a bottle shatters against the wall near the window. The yelling, now a chorus, intensifies.
The phone rings, and Annabel snatches it up. ‘Yeah, sorry, Mrs. McDaniels.’ She points at the ceiling, in case Mike has forgotten where the McDanielses live. ‘Everything’s okay,’ she says into the phone. ‘Just some drunk out there. We’ll handle it.’ She hangs up, says to Mike, ‘I don’t want this going on here,’ and disappears into the nursery.
Shep withdraws his head from the window, wiping beer spray from his face. ‘Couple of his buddies must’ve followed me home,’ he says. ‘I’ll handle it.’
Calmly, he goes outside. Sitting on the couch, Mike lowers his face into his hands. There is a crash. And then another. Then silence.
A moment later Shep reappears. ‘My bad,’ he says.
‘Look,’ Mike says, ‘maybe you should split before more guys show up.’
‘What?’
‘I think maybe this isn’t the best time…’ He is grasping for words, stuck between a blood-sworn loyalty and what he owes that grandfather from the park who bought his soul for fifteen grand. He considers the Couch Mother, the superintendent, Annabel, Kat, himself. Obligation makes for tough sledding.
Shep says, ‘The guy came at me. I was defending myself.’
Shep is a lot of things, but he is not a liar.
Mike thinks about his mother’s faint cinnamon smell, his meandering graveyard walks, and Kat asleep in the next room. He will not – cannot – let anything put that child or her future at risk. And yet Shep is Shep, their friendship battle-tested like no other relationship Mike has ever known. Life is unfair; Mike knows this firsthand. But in this moment he hates that he is now on the high end of the seesaw, enjoying the better view.
He is sweating, unsure of himself, filled with self-loathing. He says, ‘I know that, but it’s not… safe. I mean, I got a baby now. The neighbors. I’m still trying to figure this whole thing out, you know?’
Shep snaps off a nod and stands, his face betraying nothing. Feeling like a heel, Mike walks him down. His broad frame cut from the slanting yellow of the streetlights, Shep heads toward the Wash, Mike a half step behind. A narrow footbridge extends across the river. Black water rustles against concrete banks below. Mike is hustling to keep up, calling after him – ‘Shep. Shep. Shep.’ – sure that Shep is, for the first time ever, mad at him.
But halfway across, when Shep finally hears and turns, his face shows no anger.
Bugs ping off the lights overhead. The eastern horizon has moved from black to charcoal. They are centered above a river moving invisibly beneath them.
Mike clears his throat. ‘You told me once… you said, “You can be whatever you want to be.”’ He wants to cry – he almost is – and he doesn’t understand himself. It is as though his face is having its own reaction to this while his heart stays resolute and hunkered down. ‘Well’ – he casts his arms wide – ‘this is who I want to be.’
Shep’s mouth moves a bit, forming something like a sad smile. Blood shines darkly in those claw marks beneath his eye. He says, ‘Then it’s who I want you to be, too.’
They both seem to sense the finality in those words, in this moment. The wind comes up, cutting through Mike’s jacket. Shep offers his hand, and they clasp, gripping around the thumbs.
‘You’re my only family,’ Shep says.
He walks off before Mike can reply.
Mike watches Shep’s shoulders fading into the early-morning dark. He bites his lip, turns back into the wet wind, and starts for home.
NOW
Chapter 15
Mike stood before the closet, finally stripping off that button-up shirt. One-thirty A.M., and he’d only just finished installing a second heavy-duty lock on Kat’s window. Despite his prompting, Kat didn’t want to sleep in their bedroom, and he could tell by the set of Annabel’s mouth that she found his request a bit over the top as well. He wasn’t so sure about an evidence-free home break-in anymore himself. But still, additional lock aside, he got a prickling beneath his skin when he contemplated the view of the dark backyard through Kat’s window. He could have pressed the point and made Kat move, but he didn’t want to give in to his fear that way. Or force them to give in to it.
He folded his dress pants, worked at the beer stain with a thumbnail, then gave up. Neatly folded clothes stared back from the crammed shelves. All those shirts. Such a long way from the communal dresser of his childhood. He regarded the closet with something like survivor’s guilt.
Annabel sat on the bed behind him, kicked off her high heels with a groan, and rubbed her feet. ‘I’m just saying,’ she remarked, picking up the thread of the discussion they’d interrupted a half hour ago, ‘They had an agenda, those detectives. When she was on the phone back there – Elzey – I didn’t like her expression. How animated she was. And the way they came back out swinging at you.’
Down to his boxers, he turned. ‘Something was off with those cops. No question. They’re not gonna help us. We need to figure out how to protect ourselves.’ He paused, wet his lips. ‘Maybe I should call him.’
‘Him? Him him?’ She leaned back on her elbows, shook her head vehemently. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Uh-uh. He scares me.’