Part 9

Kansas, Winter 2010

Liz listened to John talk about himself. He read from a journal that he'd been writing in. He got feelings and he wrote them down and explored them later. He was close to the truth and that amazed her. He waited on her hand and foot for the first few days. He hovered the following few. He kept her company every night. It was sweet. They didn't talk about it and that suited her just fine. After two weeks, she just wanted to forget it.

"I don't remember their mother. It's such an odd thing." John mused as he looked over his notes. "You think I would. I remember there's two of them. I know they have the same mother but… nothing about her."

"Do you remember their names?" Liz asked softly as she drank coffee by the window. It was raining and cold outside. It was one of those moody broody afternoons. She should probably tell him that he'd said his wife's name in his sleep before… more than once. So, he dreamed about her at least.

"No. Not really. I just remember yelling at them for calling each other names." He shrugged as he pulled the sheets off the bed for the laundry. When he stopped talking, she turned her head. He was staring at a dark spot on her side of the bed. It looked as if it had been bleached but refused to budge. He took a deep breath and tossed the sheets aside so he could put the clean sheets on. Liz cleared her throat and John made quick work of the bed. "Jerk, asshat, bitch, douche-nozzle. You know. Teenage shit."

"You look proud." She grinned into her cup.

"How's that?"

"Just now, you were… distracted for a minute but when you talked about the names they called each other. There was this… posture. Proud father posture."

John picked up the sheets and tossed them in the laundry basket. "I think one of them was really smart. I don't think the other one was a moron or anything but… the younger one. He was… really smart."

"I feel a tone."

"I think he was a real big pain the ass." He smiled at her. "Like maybe, we butted heads and enjoyed it."

"What about the other one?" Liz was really curious about him. She didn't want to think about him but she was so damn curious. His face was just a blur of tanned skin and blondish hair.

John had to think about it. He tossed a load of laundry in the beat up old washer he'd fixed up. When he had brought it in, Liz had asked if it had a crank. The face eluded him, the mannerisms were slow and practiced but the wit was quick and funny. "He's a clown."

"Like a real one?"

"Like he's always laughing. Smiling. He's smooth, though. Like honey."

Liz had to look out the window. That was a good way to describe him. Though it was her insides that felt like honey when she thought about how he'd dealt her in the backseat of that car. That part was easy to remember. "Sounds charming."

"He's… a good big brother. Careful. Sure." John frowned to himself as he kicked the washer to get it started.

"You raised him right, then." Liz tossed him a smile.

"I think I put a lot on him. I really don't remember his mother and when I think of the boys, she just isn't there." He snapped his head to her. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm widowed."

Liz finished off her coffee and rose to rinse out her cup. She shut out the lights and turned on a lamp in the far corner before lying out on the bed. John stood with his hands in his pockets at the foot of the bed. She stretched and tapped his knee with her foot. He shrugged a little. Looked like a lost little boy in his full beard. "John?"

"You're staying the night?"

"Looks like." She pointed to the rainy windows. He nodded to himself and turned to sit on the edge of the bed. She rubbed his hip with her foot but he stayed there. Finally, she sat up and slung a leg over his, slipped an arm across his chest and pressed a series of kisses to his throat. She dragged his shirt up but he didn't seem to respond. She ducked her head to kiss his chest. His arm moved slightly, giving her access but he didn't touch her back. "Am I alone in here?"

Her lips touched his. After a moment, he kissed her back. He was gentle. Soft. Gentle. Maddening. She was pleading him to fuck her after a while. He wouldn't. Slow, easy, smooth movements of his hand between her legs, never penetrating but never stopping. She came in a whirl of slowly building ebbs and flows around his hand. Then he was gone. His body off hers and into the bathroom. He returned after a few loud grunts and a flush. He shut off the lamp in the far corner and then sat on the edge of the bed. "You have a filthy mouth."

"You never minded before."

"You scared the shit out of me." John finally admitted. "I woke up and there was blood everywhere."

"I'm fine. Doctor said I was fine." Liz sat up and swung her legs over the other side of the bed. She got up to pee and get her clothes back into place. He sat on the bed, fly still open, and watched her. She stopped at the door. It was still raining. End of the world type of raining. "I'm fine."

"Did you want it?" His voice was low.

"I don't know." She sank into a chair by the kitchen table. "I didn't know."

He reached forward to pull on his shorts from the floor. "You didn't ask the doctor any questions."

"What was there to ask?"

"You didn't ask if anything caused it."

"It was a miscarriage, John. Women have them all the time." She laid a hand over her face. "Most women don't even know it." She stared at him for a long moment. "I run, John. It's what I do. I've done it since I was 16. I run."

"What are you running from?"

"Everything."

John got up and poured some whiskey for them both before pulling on a pair of sweats and a thermal shirt. He found a pair of socks for each of them. Liz let him take off her boots and put on the warm socks. It took a couple of swigs of the bitter alcohol. "I was 16 when I met him. 19 when I married him. It was always one or the other of us running away from the intensity of it. It was just so… consuming. Then we ran away together. We never really held our ground on anything. We just ran, keeping a step ahead of it."

John refilled her glass and sipped his. "I was so young and I didn't realize what it was that we were doing and he really didn't either. When he figured out what was most important to him, he still wasn't thinking about the consequences. He was just running, half a step ahead of it all. When he left, he didn't look back. I was left to pick up the pieces of a life that was so shattered…" She took a deep swallow. "I didn't know how to run without him. I still don't. He was a part of me. Then when I look at Maria and Kyle."

"Who are they?"

"She was my best friend since the playground and he was my first… real boyfriend. We're still friends I guess." She sighed. "When Max left, it was just the three of us. We were all each other had but Maria, she's not Maria anymore."

"What happened to her?"

"She fell, hard. She was lucky to live but the damage." Liz gestured to her head with her glass before she drained it. "Maria used to joke all the time about not being the sharpest fork in the hamper."

"Isn't that knife in the drawer?" he asked.

"It was her sense of humor." Liz smiled bitterly. "Maria used to run with me. Pull me back when I needed it. When I left… left you… um… I went to see them for a while. She's doing better. She's still not herself. She… will never be herself again." He refilled her glass. She sipped slower. A buzz starting to fill her brain. "She was my best friend and I led her into a life where she falls from the sky and becomes… brain damaged. She lives in foster care. Did you know they had foster care for adults? I didn't. She's… okay. I mean. She walks, she feeds herself, goes to the bathroom. She doesn't talk. Ever. She knows me. She knows Kyle. Hopefully, she knows her mom. She knows her foster mom. That is her world. That and the radio. Doesn't talk at all but sings all day long."

John handed her a napkin when the tears didn't seem to have an end. "Was she a talker?"

"God, yes. Sometimes you just wanted to duct tape her mouth shut for just a minute of silence." Liz wiped at her face. "She has a beautiful voice. She looks at the music and she can't read it anymore. She… she's not Maria. Kyle just… He sees her every morning. Brings her dinner when pulled pork is on the menu. He takes care of her and I ran away."

"How long has it been?"

"A while. Couple of years. I can't stand to see her like that. So helpless. I was gone a while, John. I saw her a handful of times. I just couldn't take it. So, I drank myself into a stupor, I fucked a handsome dude in a muscle car, then had a seizure so he had to call an ambulance." She shrugged. "He stayed to make sure I was okay."

"This 'handsome dude'… was he the…?"

"Yeah, he was. So, I mean. I didn't know and even if I had... I don't know. I couldn't handle my… dependent friend. Forget a child and a father whose name I barely knew and whose face has already faded… in part due to the seizure and the meds." Liz took a breath. "The seizure was a big one. The one I had in the car with… the dude. They shoved all kind of hardcore seizure meds down my throat. I took them for a week or so. That's probably what caused it."

"oh."

The word was so small, his eyes fixed on the glass of whiskey in his hand. Liz sniffed and reached over to touch his hand. "What were you thinking, John?" He didn't look at her, directly. His eyes kind of slid over before he took a long drink. "What did you think happened?"

"I was rough with you." He murmured against the rim of his glass. "Too rough."

"Oh." Liz blinked at him, then gripped his hand. "You think you fucked the baby out of me?" He set his jaw and set his glass down. "John, it was a microscopic tadpole and as great big a man as you are. I can assure you, that you were not the cause of the miscarriage."

"How do you know?"

"I'm something of a science nerd. Biology and all that." She held onto his hand. "You're so weird, John. I was thinking something else all night and that's what's been in your head."

"I'm weird."

"Yes, categorically, yes." She leaned over to kiss his mouth.

"What… what does it feel like for you?" He lifted his eyes to hers.

She shrugged. "I didn't have any symptoms. I think I had cramps a few days before, they got bad that night. I just thought I was PMSing. There was no… emotional attachment but there's this… hole. I'm definitely not mother material, the state I'm in these days. There's a sting though. Like… Maybe God took a long look at me and knew that I wasn't ready and just… didn't ask my permission. Took it."

"You believe in God?"

"I see angels, remember." She winked at him.

She hadn't mentioned it in a long time. He'd all but forgotten that she'd said she'd been sent by angels for him. "Do you believe in heaven?"

"I'm not sure. I was raised Jewish but in a strange way. We did Christmas because it's a commercial holiday. My parents owned a restaurant. So, we did a lot of the Christian holidays… but only did the big Jewish ones in the apartment… in a very small way. We weren't hiding, just…"

"Playing it safe?"

"Maybe." She took a breath. "Heaven wasn't ever in the cards. It's not an option for us. No one has opened the gates yet." She informed him when he seemed to get lost in her ramblings. "My grandmother was raised Orthodox but became Secular Reform… or something to that effect. The actual effect on me is one of utter confusion most of the time."

"So you don't believe in heaven?"

"The thing my dad always impressed upon me, Grandma too, was that every action has a reaction. Karma, for example. If you do wrong, wrong will happen to you. Live your life as if this were it. The after is too late a consequence. So, Hell is just as abstract as Heaven. I do know that when you die, your soul has to go someplace. I just… don't know where. Maybe it's purgatory. I don't know that I believe in the Messiah. I don't know that's he's come and all the Christians are right. I don't know that he hasn't. I don't know if he's come and will come again. I just... you can't KNOW something like that. I believe in God. I do. When we die, we get to be with our loved ones. If we're bad, and do things to intentionally hurt others, we don't get that."

"So, you do believe in heaven."

"The construct that I have in my head is… it's complicated. Just because you're with your loved ones again doesn't mean you're in eternal paradise. I mean, you should have seen my childhood Thanksgiving. If the afterlife is like an eternal Thanksgiving. Oh my God."

John laughed and finished his whiskey. Liz liked the smile on his face. Indulgent and easy and entertained. "Do you believe in a greater reward?"

"Yes. I think it's different for everyone." She shucked her jacket and dragged him back to the bed. It was dark as pitch and she felt safe for the moment. "I think there are righteous people put on this earth for a reason. I don't think that I'm one of them but I think, I feel, that there are people out there whose purpose is to protect other people. I think that life isn't easy. I think it feels like a great weight and like… there's no light but I feel that when the time comes for that greater reward, that it will be… not to sound cliché, the goodness and light for eternity."

John wished he could see her face. Even as long as they'd been in the dark, he couldn't see her. "That sounds an awful lot like heaven."

"Maybe it is. I just don't know. Just like I don't know what we're doing, John. I don't. I know we probably shouldn't. I know that it's not hurting anyone. I know that it's not forever."

"How do you know that?"

She could feel his breath on her face. He was so close and his hands where trying their best to hold onto her. Like maybe if he let go, she would disappear. "I feel like you're one of them."

"One of who?"

"One of those people put on Earth to beat back the darkness."

"What makes you think that?"

"You're a good person. A kind person... I can still feel the darkness around you. There is this… love inside you. You guard it. When you talk about your memories, it shows. It's warm and when you smile, it's bright… but it's rare. Whatever's happened to you, John… it's for a reason and I think that the reward is bigger than I could hope to dream about."

When John was dealing with raising his boys on his own, he took a blow. A bad one. He couldn't get home to them at Christmas. He had to get himself to an ER and he spent a week in the hospital, then a couple of weeks in bed with the cute blonde nurse who'd fallen for him hard in that little bit of time. They didn't speak again for 12 years. John had another son. This one was untouched by the darkness and he was bound to keep it that way.

Liz shut her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose under her readers. "John, you idiot." Taking a breath, she returned her fingers to the keyboard. This was… big.

His little boy had taken himself off on a series of hunts to clear his head from a big breakup and John scooted over to Minnesota to meet the kid he'd helped bring into the world. For once in his dark-shrouded life, there was a little light. This small boy with hope for the world. Baseball games and college funds, learning to drive at age 15 instead of age 10, poker and pool… just for fun and not to hustle grocery money. Birthdays and small things in between. It wasn't the bond that John had with his other boys but it was safer.