The Cruellest Month

April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

—T.S. Eliot "The Waste Land"

Summary: Several days in April. From all perspectives. "Transitions" are happening, "second sight" is needed, and "bogey man" is everyone's inner turmoil.

Disclaimer: If they were mine, I wouldn't do this to them! I am only borrowing the guys for a while to be returned unharmed, dry-cleaned, and, hopefully, happier!

Author's Note: First and foremost, thank you to all amazing people who reviewd. I can't tell you how much it means to me. 

Second, I apologize for the utter lack of action. No plot what so ever, but the inner life is jumping! I hope. 

Anmodo, the Tort reference is for you. You started it! 

xxxxxxx

Martin sat in his chair. Slouched in it, more likely. He loved those office chairs, with their comfortably-adjustable backs and tiny wheels that skidded all the way across the office, making him feel like a kid again.

It was still early: not that many people around to see him skid from desk to desk, from computer to computer. His own PC crashed irrevocably late last night. Too late for his SOS to go down the tech support pipeline and reach the right people. The reply was "we get to it as soon as possible," which basically meant anything from "this afternoon" to "early next Friday."

Minus computer aggravation, Martin liked being here early. It was peaceful, restful, and benign, unlike his outside life that lately has gotten to resemble dancing in a mine field. A mine field to which he didn't have a map.

It wasn't just that he and Sam were fighting. It was that they were fighting about things he no longer understood. It used to be about this white elephant in the room that Sam refused to name or acknowledge. Elephant called Jack. It used to be that, and, as painful as it had been, at least it was comprehensible. Now, however, it felt as if the elephant has left the room a while ago, but the fights didn't stop, becoming more about the space that remained where the elephant used to be. The space between them that kept filling up with trifles, annoyances, and petty little disagreements - things so small and insignificant as to lose all meaning.

Mornings - if they spent the nights together at all now - have become these rituals of avoidance: silent and deliberate preparing of coffee, carefully dressing in separate rooms, falsely cheerful "see you laters." No more running together down to the park and back, no more joking about his breakfast choices, no more mock fighting about who gets the Sports Section first. . . . A slow and unmistakable disintegration of a once viable relationship.

So, he stayed home last night instead of going yet another round with Sam. She was tired anyway: from worrying about Viv and from the current case - a missing 25-year-old psychic - that was wigging her out more than usual for some reason. He tried to cheer her up a little, but, as so many things were between them these days, it had been the wrong thing. A joke about a psychic not seeing her own disappearance coming caused Sam to blow up at him with sudden and unexpected force. The joke was benign, not born out of callousness or disregard for the missing girl, but a simple attempt to lighten up the mood. Goodness knows, normally Sam was apt to kid about ongoing cases as much as the rest of them. It kept things in perspective and alleviated apprehensive tension. Last night, however, she chose to see it as yet another unforgivable sin to add to the already impressive dossier she was compiling against Martin. . . . Or, at least, that's how it was beginning to feel to him.

Martin sighed and wheeled himself to Vivian's computer. He chose hers, because she was at home, recuperating, and therefore he could use it without being disturbed once the others would arrive. . . . Vivian. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine her at home, in her bathrobe, just lounging about. He couldn't. She was such a quiet but formidable force: self-contained, alert, energetic, purposeful. It was impossible to picture her resting. It was impossible to picture her ill. Oh, he had seen her in her hospital bed, irritated more than pained, but it was such an incongruous site that it didn't register. He would call her later, when it was decent time and he would be sure to not wake her.

He sighed again and switched on the computer. It was getting to be almost 8:30. People were filtering in. Time to get some work done. Martin glanced at the white board with the picture of the current MP. Agnes Deschamps. 25. Psychic. Whatever that meant. No bank records, no credit card records, no Social Security. Forget psychic, this girl had some serious disappearing abilities. He shook his head and started typing furiously.

xxxxxx

Audrey rolled in bed and extended her arm in a habitual gesture, looking for Danny. He was gone. She sat up and sighed: this was the third time in a week she woke up and found him somewhere other than the bed. She knew he had trouble sleeping lately, she knew he worried about his friend and colleague, and that, in a typical Danny fashion, he somehow found a way to blame himself for what happened.

She also knew any arguments to the contrary would be futile. Danny was aware of the unreasonableness of his guilt. He just couldn't conquer it.

He wouldn't admit it, but Audrey felt that somehow, their being happy these past months was at the root of his current doubts. As if he didn't believe, in his heart of hearts, that he deserved to be happy.

She glanced at the clock - 5:15 a.m. - and slid out of bed, wrapping the comforter around herself. Danny was in the kitchen, poring over books, a cup of lethal concoction he so charitably called "coffee" steaming next to him. Law books: his ongoing obsession, the ever accelerating prep for the upcoming New York State Bar exam.

"How are the wild and wacky adventures in Torts?"

Danny lifted his tired eyes and smiled. "Wild and wacky as ever. I am thinking of writing a sequel: 'All a-Tort! A Wild and Wacky Adventure in the Rough Seas of Limiting Liability.' Snappy, no?"

"Rousing." Audrey laughed and poured herself a cup of what was now her legal addictive substance of choice: Danny's coffee. She pulled her own hefty volume and settled next to him at the table. Might as well study some. She wasn't going back to sleep anyway. Persistent squeaky sounds of a crying baby filtered in from next door. Mrs. Kaufman across the hall gave birth to a little girl a month ago, and the entire floor was now treated to the hourly updates on the baby's progress.

Audrey didn't ask Danny why he wasn't sleeping, and he didn't ask her why she got up. They were beyond trivial explanations. They set companionably, drinking dark beverage, each reading their own books, and she secretly marvelled at how fast they have gotten to this stage.

In the past few months, they've settled into a routine of sorts: dinner either at home or at some nearby, cozy place, if Danny wasn't back from work too late. Or they would simply order a quick takeout, if work kept him away for hours. The nights were spent mostly at Danny's. He had a larger bed, and Audrey grew very attached to his hunter-green comforter. It was the color that she would never have normally chosen herself, but grew very fond of now. This happened with a lot of things she associated with Danny. His CD collection, for one: an eclectic mix of Afro-Cuban Jazz, Classic Rock, and a bunch of unexpected, stylistically-diverse choices, like the "Moonlight Lounge" compilation of old hits by Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, and Bobby Daring; or the "Essential Leonard Cohen," that, for some reason, surprised Audrey. It wasn't that she didn't think Danny would like Leonard Cohen, but rather that he'd be aware of who it was.

She snuck it out, and now listened to it - with headphones on - while working off her assistantship at the Columbia University Archives. She also pilfered Danny's entire "Buena Vista" and Ibrahim Ferrer collection. This music was definitely him: electric, sultry, soulful, with deep undercurrents and unexpected rhythms. It was a comfort listening, a way of keeping Danny with her, even when they parted during the day.

Audrey wondered at the things she was discovering about him daily, little things that amounted to a person. He didn't like to shave, for instance. Not on principle, but rather he didn't enjoy the process, and rushed through it often leaving traces of tiny, dark facial hairs. She called it his "7 o'clock shadow," as in 7 a.m. Or the fact that he turned out to be an excellent cook. It was a surprise, since he didn't much care what and when he ate, or seemed to own very few kitchen utensils. When she questioned him about it, he admitted that he didn't enjoy cooking just for himself, but was relishing doing so for the two of them now and again. When time allowed, of course.

Time. Time seemed to be the third person in their relationship. A very present person, and not at all obtrusive. His time away from work proved to be erratic. It annoyed Audrey for a while, because she missed him so much when he was working late hours. And then there was difficulty looking forward to his coming home, since it was often hard to determine when it would happen. She's gotten over it: gotten over the annoyance, not the missing. And not the part where the nature of his work hit home with her, and she began to tremble every instance he was five minutes later than his estimated hour of arrival. Not that she mentioned it to Danny, of course. She didn't want to alarm him, or put him on the defensive. But, with his amazing sixth sense, he knew anyway. So he has taken to calling her every evening, as the working day drew to an end, updating her on the amount of stuff he had left to do, or the likelihood of him making it home and how soon.

Time was the witness and the remedy of their initial awkwardness with each other. Those little, everyday things that usually come up when two people, unused to sharing, start to share some kind of a life. They had such a short grace period to ease into this. They jumped with both feet and landed hard, finding bruises and sprains later on. It didn't matter: time was theirs, after all, to heal the discomfort and smooth the creases. Time, for a change, was a friend, even if an awkward and slow one.

Audrey was revealing things slowly, as well, finding out stuff about herself that she never consciously computed before. Like the fact that she didn't mind sharing a bed with someone. She used to dislike it. Not the sex itself, but what came afterward, when two people with their different sleeping habits and quirks attempted to spend a night in the same bed. In all her previous relationships, she tried to either not stay over or have the guy leave. She was honest about her need to have her bed to herself. It had nothing to do with intimacy or fear. It has been a question of sprawling herself comfortably over the entire surface and kicking her blanket with her feet into any whipped state she liked. She was, by nature, a late and fidgety sleeper. Danny was a light one. But he didn't seem to mind her restlessness, and that very first time they slept together, she simply didn't have the strength to get up and go one door down the hallway to her own apartment and her own bed. It turned out all right: she fell asleep almost immediately, and woke up in the middle of the night finding herself pressed to his warm back in a very comfortable way.

Audrey raised her head and caught Danny looking away from the book, his eyes troubled, his mind miles away. She stroked his hand and he smiled, pulling himself back into this reality with visible effort.

"It's April, you know," she said.

"April?"

"Yes. It's always an unsettling month. Not yet Spring, not quite Winter anymore. It's restless, it wants, it strives for something. It wreaks havoc. People go crazy. All sorts of things happen. . . . But something good usually comes out of it. Something Springy, and warm, and much calmer."

Danny took a sip of coffee and looked at her with some barely contained emotion. "Thank you."

They both knew he wasn't just thanking her for the little pep talk.

xxxxxxxx

Vivian hung up the phone and perched herself on a high stool in her kitchen. Martin really was a sweetie. She smiled a sad remnant of a smile, replaying his hesitant offer to hook her up with his extremely connected father's cardiology expert. Martin's voice, full of concern tempered with embarrassment, was quiet and apologetic. He sounded a little guilty, as if he held himself somehow responsible for what had happened to her. In fact, they all sounded like that.

Danny, inconsolable by her hospital bed, holding her hand and asking a million times if he could do anything, bring her anything, summon somebody. Sam, looking sheepish and grim, hovering by the door, not quite making it into the room. And later, her sad, whispery voice on the phone, trying to sound unconcerned, brave, and cheerful. Vivian guessed that Sam thought this is what she needed. Jack, looking bewildered, as if what happened was some kind of a strike against him, strike he didn't expect. She searched his face for signs of accusation - after all, it was a pretty big thing to keep from your boss, once she got diagnosed. But she couldn't see any. If he felt betrayed, he didn't show it. What was apparent was his exhaustion, emotional as well as physical, and the visible lack of that controlled veneer he usually put on. Of all of them, Jack worried Vivian the most in this situation.

She hated it all. Hated being fussed over, worried about, hated the nervous hush that people assumed now that she was around. And most of all, she hated being ill. It was a strange thing to admit to oneself. After all, who likes being sick? But she truly hated this: how serious and sobering it all was, how it made her reevaluate every step, every decision she ever made or was about to make. The very need for decisions that only several months ago seemed a thing of some distant future.

Like what to do about Reggie. He didn't react well to her illness, and not in a way that she or Marcus expected. He was being belligerent, rude even. She knew it came out of fear and helplessness, but it was one more worry Vivian didn't need right now. And once they would be able to rein him in, there was the issue of a will. As in, what to do in the event of the very real possibility of her dying. The operation she needed was a somewhat risky one. There was no safe, polite, or otherwise deluded way around it. So, what would become of Marcus and Reggie? Would they be able to cope?

And now Marcus was insisting on considering Reggie's future without both of them. If anything, these events brought them close to realization that life was fragile. Funny how trite that sounded and how no one actually grasped this - truly and fully grasped - until faced with the reality of death. One can work in a job that deals with the possibility of dying, like Vivian has been for many ears, but until and unless it hits you directly, there's no processing the basic imminence of it. She put Marcus off, refusing to deal, but she knew he was right. They needed to make provisions for all eventualities, and they needed to be realistic about them. But I refuse to be happy about it, Vivian thought petulantly. Petulance was the one luxury she allowed herself a little. Sick people were forgiven for small infringements. After all, she was already denied coffee and chocolate. She had to indulge in something.

She smiled. Not a happy smile, but not the defeated one of several minutes ago. She felt perversely better. Large terry bathrobe; nice, almost stately kitchen with high, white cabinets and sparkling windows; a steaming cup of green tea - not a favorite drink, but it would do; a boisterous, healthy, and basically good son, who was so upset she was ill, he was acting out; a loving and intelligent husband, who never wavered in his care and support; a bunch of friends and colleagues who cared deeply and pestered her with visits and phone calls; and a looming operation with not at all depressing success rate. No, Vivian thought, her prospects weren't so bad, not by a long shot. She felt the irritation and hate dissipate with each sip of the greenish liquid.

xxxxxx

Samantha looked at the woman with marked disfavor. She couldn't have explained clearly where the feeling came from, apart from some natural mistrust in and disinclination toward woman's chosen profession. Claiming psychic powers was one thing, profiting from people's often desperate search for answers in less than reputable quarters was another. But besides that, this whole "voodoo shop" - as Sam dubbed it in her head - was wigging her out. Dark, made unnecessarily mysterious by the musty smell and the deep shelves full of strange merchandise, the new-agey store seemed menacing to her. "Lucebella." Even the name was weird and uninviting. Samantha couldn't imagine coming here for comfort, or hope, or whatever it was people came here seeking.

And then this Rebecca woman was looking at her strangely. As if she could see right through her. As if she knew her deepest secrets and her innermost desires. Yeah, right. Sam herself didn't know, so how could this stranger possibly guess? Never mind what she claimed to sense or forebode.

It was a dead end, anyway. Whatever her powers, Rebecca didn't seem to know anything, or be able to help them in any way in their search for her missing business partner and friend Agnes Deschamps. She didn't even know the girl was ill.

Ill. There's a lot of it going around, Sam thought disconsolately. Viv was ill, too, though hopefully not as seriously or as finally as Agnes. Sam wondered what was the use of this supposed gift of second sight if it didn't warn you of impending doom, or help you in any way with such tangible things as money troubles or genetic diseases.

"She may have exaggerated her gift," Rebecca said, as if reading Sam's mind. Sam jumped and looked up sharply. Rebecca continued, choosing to ignore Sam's apparent hostility, "but she was helping people, you know. Helping them grieve, or move on. She made them feel connected to their dead."

Connected to the dead. Now there was a concept. Especially considering that most people had problems connecting to the living. Connecting to the dead was easy: all you had to do was think about them, remember them, surround yourself with things associated with them. All you had to do was want that connection. The living were trickier. Sometimes no amount of desire or effort could forge an understanding or bridge the gap. And not even psychologists - that other breed of "second sight" professionals - could tell you how to achieve that connection. Especially if you weren't certain of your desires or intentions.

Rebecca kept talking, telling Sam about Agness having a premonition of sorts. Something about a wagon wheel, her grandmother - who, incidentally, also died of the same degenerative disease - and a white bird.

"What does a white bird mean?"

"It means sorrow," said Rebecca. "I guess she had a lot to be sorrowful about."

No kidding. That, right there, was it - the source of Sam's annoyance. Those semi-profound statements delivered with meaningful hush. Platitudes dressed to look like prophesies. Samantha took a deep breath. She couldn't stand it in here a moment longer. She needed air, she needed space, even if it was only the pungent New York air and the cramped New York space. She had an impulse to call Martin and talk to him: he usually had a soothing effect on her. But she remembered that they had a fight of sorts last night, and she hasn't spoken to him since. Or, maybe it wasn't a fight at all, but one of their increasingly frequent non-spats, where nothing exactly happens and yet they end up feeling like they just had a blow up.

Sam said good-bye to Rebecca, ignoring her inquiring eyes, and went out on the street without a backward glance.