Ribbons/Hair/Never/There

by Heidi Patacki

Helga and Arnold meet at Eugene's wedding, ten years after the cruel circumstances that split them apart. Helga reveals a secret, and its not what you may think.

10. Some Genetic Guilt

10.

" And I'm not buying it, either, but I'll trying selling it anyway." –R.K.

I showed up at Curly's house early, with a bottle of cheap merlot in my hand. He was having a party, the occasion obscure. I had some idea that it was attempt to get Helga and I together, or at least to give me another chance to visit with Edward, which I wanted. But being around Helga still felt dangerous. I didn't trust myself in California; it was Monday, and I was supposed to be in New York, just leaving work, heading home to drink and sulk and wish none of this had ever happened. Yet here I was, having called in sick long distance, walking up to Curly's porch in the dusty, smoggy air of late afternoon in Los Angeles.

I had a problem with showing up chronically early to parties, and this was no exception. I just didn't understand the fact that, when people told you to come at five, you were really supposed to arrive at seven – if you were hip enough to pull it off. Maybe I wasn't hip, never would be, or maybe I just liked to get a few drinks in me before everyone else arrived.

I knocked on the frame of Curly's screen door, peering inside his ramshackle little house, at the stairs and foyer, which were both empty. I could see back into the kitchen, and could hear water running. I couldn't help finding Curly's house charming, though it was the polar opposite of my swank Manhattan apartment. It was a two-story house, probably built in the sixties, paint peeling and roof tiles missing. Inside there was clutter everywhere, tons of windows, a great view down into the valley, and dust all over everything. I felt oddly comfortable in this place where I had first met my son.

Finally I gave up on anyone answering the door and walked in, feeling a bit bold but entitled. When I walked back into the kitchen I found Curly at the sink, washing vegetables.

" Hey, Arnold!" he said, without turning around. "You're early."

" It's ten after five, you told me to come at five."

" I did?" he said, pausing for a minute and frowning. He shrugged. "Ah, well. You can help me cook." He turned. "You brought wine!"

" It's nothing fancy," I said, setting the bottle down on his kitchen table. I felt like a bit of an idiot, bringing merlot and wearing nice gray slacks and a button-up shirt. Curly was wearing a raggy, torn t-shirt that looked like it had once been white and said 'STOP THE WAR AGAINST WOMEN!' in black letters across the front, with baggy sweatpants and bare feet. And while I had pictured, naively, the party guests circulating with wine glasses by the time I got there, Curly had an open beer bottle on the counter and was sipping from it as he worked.

" You can toss the wine in the cooler," he said, nodding to the screened-in porch adjoining the kitchen, where a dirty red and white cooler sat against the far wall.

" It's red wine," I said.

" Yeah, I know," Curly said. " I know you're supposed to drink it warm, but have you ever tried it cold? It's freakin great."

" That's insane," I said, laughing a little.

" Yeah, that's what Rhonda always said," Curly told me with a little grin. "She would have a fit if I – did you get in touch with her?"

" I got her machine," I said. "But I left a message with directions."

" Oh, she knows the place," Curly said with a laugh. " Hey, help yourself to a beer, anyway, if I can't convince you to ice that wine."

" Sounds good," I said sincerely, pushing my way out onto the porch. The structure was quite flimsy, with some thin green carpeting covering the floor, several holes in the screening, and an assortment of mismatched old lawn furniture placed around inside. As I crossed to the cooler I noticed Edward lying on a beach chair in the back right corner, playing his Gameboy with intense focus, little pixilated images reflected in the lenses of his glasses.

" Hey," I said nervously, my heart rate skyrocketing. I wondered if I should drink a beer in front of him. I paused for a moment, considering it.

" Hey," Edward muttered with disinterest, not moving his eyes from the Gameboy screen. I stood with my hands in my pockets and cleared my throat, trying to come up with something to say. I felt like I was drowning. Giving up on being a good role model, I relented and went for a beer.

" Can you open it with your teeth?" Edward asked as I pulled one from the ice.

" Um," I said, looking down at the screw-off top. "No."

" Oh," he said, disappointed. I felt like apologizing. If I was going to be the estranged father, I should at least be more of a badass, shouldn't I?

" Cause I saw this girl do that on TV," he muttered. " It was pretty awesome."

" What sort of television shows has your mother been letting you watch?" I asked before I could stop myself.

" Dog the Bounty Hunter," he answered dryly. I twisted the cap off of my beer with the edge of my shirt, making a mental note to tear into Helga about appropriate entertainment.

We had spoken on the phone that morning – she'd called me at six AM, in fact, waking me from a very pleasant dream about being ten years old again and playing baseball in the vacant lot in our old neighborhood. She'd been in the dream, actually, scowling from the sidelines.

"What in the hell," I'd muttered when I answered the phone and heard her voice on the other line.

" I couldn't sleep," she said. I could just picture her – lying on her back in bed, staring at the ceiling, phone pressed to her ear. She'd have that damn look on her face – the Helga 'I'm worried, Arnold, and I'm going to irritate you until I feel better' look. I'd gotten to know it well in those months after we found out she was pregnant. Back then, of course, I'd found it cute. It was still rather cute, in my vision, which made it all the more irritating.

" What can I do to help?" I asked sarcastically, not meaning for that to sound like a come-on at all, but naturally we were both silent for a few awkward seconds after I said it.

" This party Curly's having tomorrow," she said, "He told me you're coming."

" I'd like to see Edward again," I told her. " If you don't mind too terribly," I added, in a sour tone.

" No, I want you to see him again," she said quickly. "I just don't know if I'm ready . . . to tell him."

I'd started to argue with her, but then I realized I wasn't ready, either. Now, standing and watching at him play Gameboy on Curly's porch, I wondered if I'd ever be ready.

" Where's your mom?" I asked him.

" Getting ready," he said. "In the shower, I think."

I stood there in the middle of the porch like an idiot for a few moments longer, until Curly asked for my help in the kitchen. I went inside and helped him push vegetables and cubes of beef onto skewers.

" How's it going with Edward?" he whispered.

" Okay," I said, and then, " Awful. I feel weird around him. I feel like he hates me already. If I tell him I'm his – well, that will only give him extra license to think I suck."

" He's a great kid, though," Curly said. "He'll forgive you. Eventually."

" Helga's freaking out about the whole thing, I guess," I muttered, stabbing a mushroom ferociously.

" Yeah, she is," Curly said. " She kept me up til three last night, trying to work the whole thing out, mostly talking to herself. I think she feels really guilty for screwing things up."

" Sure," I muttered. "You mean she's sorry she got caught. She probably wanted me to go through my whole life never knowing about my kid."

" No, Arnold," Curly said. " I know what she did was awful, but she really did come down here for the purpose of telling you everything. She couldn't do it straight off, and then after you two slept together –"

" She told you about that!" I asked, annoyed.

" She said you told Rhonda," Curly said with a smirk.

" Well, I was drunk . . .," I mumbled, embarrassed. It seemed like I'd been drunk quite a lot since I'd come to California. But who could blame me? The few hours I'd spent sober had been excruciating.

" But really," Curly said. "I told her you were coming to the wedding, and she said she would come, too, and bring Edward with her. And divulge everything."

" I still can't believe – I just didn't think she was capable of something like this," I said.

" She's always been a bit manipulative, in case you hadn't noticed," Curly said, grinning. "And anyway, she said you were fooling around with someone else, and she figured she was doing you a favor by not saddling you with a kid."

" I wasn't, and – doing me a favor?" I said with a scoff, taking a swig of beer. "Manipulative is an understatement."

" You really weren't cheating on her?" Curly asked, looking at me squarely.

" No," I said, getting angry. " Curly, you've known me since we were five years old. Have I ever lied? About anything?"

" Not to me," he said with a shrug. " And I always did find that hard to believe, that you would fool around on her. But why would she make it up?"

" She didn't, entirely," I said with a sigh. " There was a misunderstanding. I don't blame her for thinking that – what she saw – was – well. The point is, she didn't trust me when I told her it was nothing."

" Oh, are we going over this old story again?" Helga asked, appearing in the doorway behind us. Curly and I both whirled around, kebobs in our hands. Helga grinned a little bit, folding her arms across her chest. Her hair was wet and she had the clean, humid smell of someone who had just taken a shower. She was barefoot, in a long black skirt and a little white t-shirt. I thought she looked pretty, and seemed rather deceptively innocent with that flowery soap scent and no makeup on.

" Well, you're the one who built three people's lives around that old story," I said, annoyed. She rolled her eyes.

" Keep your voice down," she said in a whisper, walking over to Curly and I. She kissed Curly on the cheek and then took my beer from the counter, finishing it in an unladylike gulp.

"That's mine," I said, making a face.

" I'll get you another one," she said coolly, making her way toward the screen porch. I looked at Curly and he shrugged. Almost against my will, I followed her out onto the porch.

Helga reached down into the cooler and pulled out another beer, and I stood watching her, my hands in my pockets. God give me the strength to hate you, I thought, as she gave me her trademark smirk and pulled up the hem of her skirt to twist off the cap.

" Mom, can't you open them with your teeth?" Edward asked, still punching the buttons on his Gameboy furiously, staring at the screen.

" Edward, that's disgusting," Helga said evenly, twisting the cap off and handing me the bottle. I drank from it, staring at her.

" He learned that from Dog the Bounty Hunter," I told her, raising an eyebrow. " Quality programming," I said, snarkily.

" It's just TV," Helga said with a shrug. " I watched professional wrestling when I was a kid, obsessively. Hell, my Dad even took me to a match once! It's actually one of my better childhood memories."

" Grandpa took you to a wrestling match?" Edward asked in disbelief, actually looking up from his game.

" Yep," Helga said, grinning.

" Grandpa?" I muttered, feeling a little queasy. " You – him – Big Bob?" I was trying to articulate the fact that I wasn't exactly thrilled that Big Bob Pataki had become an influence in my kid's life, which was especially distressing since I couldn't be around to explain to him what a bumbling jackass the man was.

Helga gave me a look that told me to shut up or she'd kill me. Despite being the polite and retiring fellow that I generally am, in the time I'd known her I had come to know that look quite well.

" Arnold didn't really get along with my Dad when we were kids," she said over her shoulder, in a high-pitched voice. Edward didn't seem to be paying attention, though, having turned back to his game.

" Who did?" I muttered.

" Edward, quit it with that thing," Helga said, changing the subject.

" How come?" he whined.

" Because you've been playing all day!" she said, walking over and snatching the Gameboy out of his hands.

" Mom, I was about to fight the boss!" Edward shouted, glaring at her.

" I'm the boss, and I'm not in the mood for fighting," Helga said, breezing out of the room with the Gameboy in hand. Edward folded his arms over his chest crossly as the screen door slammed behind her.

" God!" he huffed. " I hate her!"

" Heh," I said, uncomfortable. " Yeah."

" What do you mean, 'Yeah'?" Edward asked, scowling at me. I blanched.

" Um, nothing," I stuttered. " I just know how it is – how Helga can make you mad. She's kind of bossy. Sometimes."

" Sometimes?" Edward said, frowning. "She like, rules my life."

" That's what parents do, I guess," I said, feeling uncomfortable. "Not that I would know, really."

" Why not?" he asked.

" My parents – I mean – I was – I'm an orphan. They're dead," I clarified gracelessly.

" Oh," Edward said, looking at his hands. "What happened to them?" he asked, without hesitation.

" They disappeared in South America," I said, a lump rising in my throat. They left me. They left me. She figured she was doing you a favor by not saddling you with a kid. The abandoned and the emancipated would believe whatever they needed to. " They were supposed to be saving this village . . . and . . . they were doctors, you see . . .,"

" That sounds made up," Edward said, standing up from the lounge chair.

" Yeah, I know," I muttered. But it was the lie I had finally bought, like a kid in a candy store, opening my hands and letting my grandfather fill them with sweets. I wasn't sure if I'd ever completely believe it, or if I'd ever have the courage to really doubt it, either.

" My Mom told me the same thing about my Dad," he added dryly.

I felt my heart seize up and turn to ice. Oh. Shit. I remembered that hazy afternoon when Helga had told me everything – including what she'd told Edward about his father. I had two Jack and Cokes with that lunch. I couldn't be expected to remember . . . I couldn't . . . I couldn't . . . it was her fault for, what did she call it? Borrowing my tragedy?

I looked down at Edward, my face burning. I felt like I was suddenly standing naked. He stared at me.

" Edward . . .," I began, not knowing what to say. He waited.

" Hey, Arnold!" Curly shouted suddenly, throwing open the screen door and making me jump. I whirled around.

" Yeah?" I said, my voice an awkward squeak.

" Can you come in here and help Troy with the swordfish?" he asked. I had no idea what he was talking about, who Troy was, or what helping him with a swordfish might entail exactly. But I happily trotted inside, leaving Edward standing, confused, out on the porch.

I couldn't tell him. Helga and I had agreed – it was too early. Everything was still too surreal and fragile. So, instead, I held a giant, smelly fish while Curly's roommate poured sea salt over it. Behind us Helga hummed obliviously about, putting a tablecloth over Curly's dining room table, lighting candles, and sipping from a glass of the wine I'd brought. When Troy had the fish in the oven I walked over, picked up the open bottle and drank from it.

" Oh, charming," Helga said, breezing past me with a stack of plates. I peeked out onto the screen porch, but Edward had disappeared. I opened my mouth to say something to Helga, but I didn't want to admit to screwing up. And maybe Edward hadn't put one and two together, anyway . . .

Thirty minutes later the sun was going down, warm orange light pouring in through the windows of Curly's little house. We all sat down at the dining room table, Curly serving and Troy freshening our drinks. I sat next to Helga, and listened to her laugh merrily as Troy made fun of some California senator. Across from me sat Edward, making a face down at his swordfish and pushing the mushrooms on his plate around with a fork. He glanced up and saw me staring at him, and I dropped my eyes to my lap.

" I just want to thank you all for being here," Curly said, standing at the head of the table and raising his beer. " 'Specially my old friends from the far reaches of the globe, who are both playing hooky from work today."

" And me," Edward said. "I'm skipping school."

" Ah, yes," Curly said, grinning. " To Edward!"

We all drank, and Edward tried not to smile.

" I missed a geography test," he said, a little embarrassed. I had the impulse to jump across the table and hug him. My eyes actually filled at the corners – I could hardly get my mind around the fact that I'd had a hand in creating this person who was sitting across from me, but in moments it would dawn on me, and I'd feel amazed with myself, and proud of us both, just for existing. I wanted to tell him right then, I wanted to shout it across the table and celebrate.

" Can I have a beer?" he added sweetly, and Curly cracked up.

" No," Helga said sternly, giving him a look.

" Aww," he muttered, scraping his fork across his plate.

" You wouldn't like it, anyway," Troy told him. " I hated beer when I was a kid. The smell made me sick."

" I thought alcohol was disgusting," Helga said in agreement. " I tried one of my mom's 'smoothies' one morning and I almost puked."

" God, when did we all start drinking then?" I asked, looking around the table at our beers and glasses of wine. " I mean, what for?"

" You tell me," Helga said out of the corner of her mouth. " I think your first binge had something to do with a chick named Lila."

" Chick?" I said, glaring at her. " Aren't you some kind of liberal humanist? Ms. Creative Writing teacher? Nice vocabulary."

" I'm not being political tonight," Helga said simply, popping a piece of fish into her mouth.

" Oh yeah, Lila!" Curly said, as if remembering her fondly. " That's right. She dumped you right before prom, right? Senior year? Around the same time Rhonda dumped me?"

" Christ, that's depressing," someone muttered from the doorway, and we all turned to see Rhonda Lloyd, who had slunk in unnoticed, standing in a faded orange sundress and regarding us with placid amusement.

" Rhonda!" Curly said, beaming, not bothering to hide his enthusiasm.

" Still obsessed with your rejection – what is this now – ten years later? Twenty? Oh, who the hell knows. How old are we anyway?" she mused, walking into the room like she was working a runway.

" It's ten years," I said, with a mouthful, glancing at Edward.

" Arnold, darling, you were always so good at missing the point," Rhonda muttered, sliding a friendly hand through my hair before she came to a stop at the head of the table, where Curly was sitting. He tipped his head and looked up at her, in quiet awe. Still embarrassingly in love with her - some things never change.

" Hey Rhon," he said casually, " I had a dream about you last night."

" Was I clothed?" she asked coolly, picking a bell pepper from his plate and popping it in her mouth.

" We had five daughters," Curly said brightly. " In the dream."

" Jesus," Rhonda said with a little laugh, sitting in his lap. Curly grinned hugely. She looked around the table and nodded at Troy.

" Hey Rhonda," he said, " I saw that commercial the other day. The one with you and the cat."

" Oh, God," she moaned. " That thing gave me hives . . . I don't understand why they can't just use robots, or some kind of 3D animation. Live animals are so gauche."

" Spoken like a true fur coat owner," Helga chirped sarcastically.

" Yeah, eat up," Rhonda said, glaring at her. " I'm sure that fish is like, so much less important in the cosmic scheme of things than a few chinchillas."

" Rhonda, you always know how to brighten up a dinner party," I joked, looking at Edward. He was staring at her openly.

" Whose kid?" she asked, noticing his attention herself.

" Mine," Helga said. My lips parted automatically, but I shut them before I could make an ass of myself. I wanted to claim him, though. He was mine, too. Rhonda looked from me to Edward, obviously noticing the resemblance, but saying nothing. Smarter than she looks, that Rhonda.

" You were in Soccer Dog III!" Edward exclaimed, thrilled.

" Told you you'd see some celebrities in L.A.," Helga said, enjoying the title of Rhonda's feature film way too much.

" Cats, dogs," Rhonda said, shrugging it off. " What can I say, I've done it all." Helga burst into laughter and leaned over onto her plate, giggling incessantly, and I chewed my lip to keep myself from losing it. But Rhonda just smiled. Curly grinned, too, kissing her bare shoulder.

" Presumptuous, sir," she said, turning to look at him. He winked at her.

" Can I have your autograph?" Edward asked earnestly.

" I need a drink," Rhonda muttered.

When Rhonda had been sated with a vodka tonic and a plate of her own food, we began our dinner in earnest. The sun sank and disappeared, the bottles of wine emptied and the plates sat on the table covered in greasy fish scales and bones. I felt sorry for Troy, who had to endure our old stories of the neighborhood kids and high school dramas. Edward seemed fairly interested, though, slyly going through three glasses of soda while we laughed about the old days.

" Remember Sid?" Helga asked us, giggling, her cheeks pink. " God, that kid was nuts! Member when he thought Stinky was a vampire?"

We all died laughing, including Edward, who looked pleasantly absorbed in our memories.

" God, Stinky!" Rhonda said. " What ever happened to him? Remember when he was in that commercial for – what was it?"

" Yahoo soda!" Helga and I shouted in unison.

" Right," Rhonda said, rolling her eyes. " I was so jealous, even though they made him look like an idiot."

" I'm not sure where he is these days," Curly said, shaking his head. " Sid, either. Or Harold."

" The high school reunion should be coming up soon," I said. " I wonder who will come."

" Ugh, I won't," Rhonda moaned. " I can't think of a more pointless way to spend an evening."

" Oh, come on, we should go together," Curly said, grinning at her. " Blow 'em all away."

" No one would be surprised," Helga mumbled. " Trust me."

" How about you and Arnold, then?" Rhonda asked, with a wicked smirk. I blanched, feeling Edward's eyes on me.

" No – we're not –" Helga stuttered.

" Really?" Rhonda said. " Are you married, Helga?"

" No," she said, her face going from drunken pink to mortified red.

" Divorced, then?" Rhonda asked. " Been there, done that," she added, drinking, the ice cubes crushing against her lips as she tipped her head back.

Helga said nothing. I felt frozen. Edward was looking at me, at her, back to me – I could feel it, but I didn't dare meet his eyes.

" You should have married me," Curly told Rhonda plainly. I breathed a sigh of relief at the change of subject, and waited for her retort.

" I know," she said simply, surprising all of us.

After dinner, when Curly and Helga were at the kitchen sink washing dishes and laughing, I found myself alone in the living room with Edward. Troy had gone off to work the night shift at a rental warehouse, and Rhonda was on the back porch having a heated cell phone conversation with her agent. I put my feet up on Curly's smudged glass coffee table and looked at Edward, who was curled up on the other side of the couch, staring at the television.

It was something about the way his blond hair flopped onto the pillow he was leaning against. Or the slant of his glasses, or the way he folded his hands over his elbows, protective and guarded, just like his mother had when she was a little girl. Something made me speak.

" Listen," I began. I could hear the slur in my voice. Okay, I was drunk. So what? When else was I ever going to be able to get these impossible words past my lips? Helga would never have the courage to admit how wrong she was, to tell her son about her careful lies, her selfish plotting. And I didn't want him to know that side of his mother, either. So it was up to me, and if I was going to do it, I knew I had to do it right then, before I could give it too much thought, before I could cave in fear and remain anonymous forever.

He looked at me. There was a kind of bored annoyance on his face, but something accusatory, too. Something about the way he studied my face made me pause for a moment; it was as if he was daring me to tell him what I knew. But I only took a breath and plunged into the icy truth.

" Your mother and I haven't been completely honest with you," I told him.

He blinked behind his glasses, waiting.

" I'm actually your father," I blurted out. I wanted to sound casual, bemused, comforting. As I spoke I realized it wouldn't hit me until later, what I had just said. In the moment it felt clear and calm: a simple fact. But like every drunk knows, even as he's tipping back another, the sick feeling will rise eventually. I felt it far off, though I managed to give Edward a relaxed half-smile.

" I know," he muttered, looking down at the pillow he was now hugging, picking at a frayed thread. His glasses slipped down his nose a bit. It took me a moment to understand what he had just told me.

" You know?" I asked, incredulous.

" Yeah," he said, barely audible now, still not looking at me. He seemed terribly ashamed; I couldn't blame him.

" Your mother told you?" I asked, reeling. But why would she not let me know? Why had she been acting so calmly all night, as if nothing had changed?

" No," he said in a sigh. " I could just tell."

" How?" I asked, though I knew exactly what he meant. The first time I saw him – though I wasn't willing to put the pieces together until I heard him call Helga his mother – I had known. You don't run into something so familiar without being namelessly perturbed, conscious of the connection or not.

" Cause you look like me," he said, looking up at me, as if to check and make sure this still held true. " And the way Mom's been acting. And the way you act," he added, with a hint of disapproval.

" Oh, right," I mumbled, putting my hands on my knees and staring blankly ahead, out the picture window above Curly's old TV set. A show about sharks was playing, the volume down low. Neither of us looked at the screen.

" You're smart," I declared, feeling my words fall flat. A slow, nauseous panic began creeping its way up through my middle, toward my throat. In the kitchen I heard a glass break, and Rhonda's giggly laugh. I thought of Helga in there, still oblivious. I realized I wanted her with me, to explain. How to explain, how to ever explain, without destroying her, or me, or all three of us?

" Where were you before?" Edward asked quietly. The worst question. The only one that mattered.

" I was in South America," I said without thinking, feeling something sad and inherited pass through me, some genetic guilt, or ironic joke. " I was lost. Like your mother told you."

A palpable understanding passed between my son and I, there on the couch. It was like nothing I'd ever experienced before – I'd never been so wordlessly, resentfully close to someone. I looked at him and saw myself, orphan boy, abandoned again, left in the dark.

" I don't believe you," he said in a wounded whisper.

" You're smart," I told him again. " Smarter than I was."

He got up and walked purposefully away. I didn't try to stop him. In all honesty I was glad to be alone. My stomach lurched, the room tilted. Oh, God. What have I done? What did they do to me? They were doctors. There were more important things at hand. We all believed what we wanted. We all turned out alright in the end, without each other.

Right?

Somehow I ended up in a bathroom, the tile cold on my knees even through my wool pants. But I was sweating. I coughed and spit into the bowl but couldn't seem to throw up. With my head on the rim of the toilet, I unbuttoned my shirt. Where am I, what's happening? No, I didn't want to think about that. I'd think about that tomorrow.

I found myself in a bed next, someone's bed. The sheets were soft, dirty jersey, and reminded me of my college dorm bed. My sad little dorm room, me and my Henry James novels, reading them half-asleep and thinking of Helga. My Henry James Daisy, my Fitzgerald Daisy – all the impossible, terrible girls who got away. They were Helga; I saw her in all of them. Jesus he was a handsome man. I didn't have anything to name for her, so I saw her walking through those pages. And our son, oh God. I hadn't even known enough to miss him.

I slept – or, it was something like sleep, but dreamless and stolid, like being wrapped in black felt. I felt the world tilt, the bed sway, felt myself rolling toward some newly introduced force. This was how I woke up, slowly, my eyes focusing on a figure sitting on the bed I was sleeping in, twisting my weight downward. As my eyes adjusted I only saw a shadow darker than the room itself looking down at me, pulling at me like a black hole. I blinked, my stomach groaned, I tried to remember where I was.

" Helga?" I asked the darkness, questing, wondering which forgettable bedmate would slap me for coming out of a stupor with the name of my child bride on my lips. But then I saw her giving me that look, that threatening glare, and I knew it had to be her, really her, old Helga Pataki. What was this? The prom? Rhonda's party? My life sat in the back of my skull like an oozing mass, temporarily liquefied, and I willed it to stay that way. I reached down to adjust my tie, my jacket, and found that I was shirtless.

" I had an awful dream," I said, blinking her into focus. " I think."

" You told him," she said, her voice a sharp chill. The angry Helga voice. It still scared the hell out of me. With her reminder of my earlier drunken actions I crashed back down to earth, my midsection gurgling loudly and my forehead breaking out into a sweat.

" I didn't mean to," I said quickly, coming back to life. My head surged, then pounded, and I began to hear something like a whine behind my eyes. " I don't feel good," I told her, still a bit disoriented. I reached for her and she grabbed my arms, shook me. My vision flashed red and then her eyes were close to mine, furious.

" Damn you, you sneaky son of a bitch!" she hissed. " I wasn't ready for that! He wasn't! And you – what did you say? He won't even speak to me. He's morose. Are you drunk?"

" Not anymore," I said, squinting. " Listen, let's fight tomorrow. I feel like I'm going to throw up."

She let go of my arms, sat back and regarded me with a scrutinizing eye.

" What did you say to him?" she asked, deflating. She was too tired to be truly angry with me. We were all too tired to develop fully formed reactions to any of this – we needed to crawl into a king sized bed and sleep for weeks, the three of us. Maybe when we woke we'd have dreamt our apologizes – hazy, absurd reconciliations were probably the best we could hope for.

" I told him the South America story," I said, leaning back against the pillows and pinching the bridge of my nose. " You know the one. Have you got an aspirin?"

" No," she said weakly, her shoulders drooping. She stared off into the distance, distracted, lost.

" Where are we?" I asked, looking around. It was a dingy room, with a blanket thrown over the dirty windows and falling down on one side, revealing pale moonlight, which lit a pile of laundry crumpled on the floor near the small twin bed I was lying on.

" Troy's room," Helga muttered. " He's at work."

We were both silent for a moment, unwilling to go further. There would be more shouting, more bitter accusations. Neither of us had the energy.

" Why did you leave me?" I asked weakly, without meaning to. My head was full of rolling pain, but I felt outside of my body, surreal.

Helga scoffed.

" Do we really have to go through this again?" she asked. " You know why."

I saw her shoulders sink. She was coming more sharply into focus, there in the dark. She was trying not to look at me, I could tell. I reached for her and she leaned away.

" I wanted you to be perfect," she finally said in a near-whisper. She looked at me.

" You weren't," she reminded me, attempting to be cold but curling at the edges.

" I was in love with you," I told her, feeling nineteen again. " You must have known."

Helga didn't say anything. She seemed to crumple inward, shrink further toward her own center, and I felt like I might lose her for the last time if I didn't reach for her. I scooted forward under the jersey sheets of Troy's bed and laid my aching head on her shoulder. I felt her sigh.

" You're sweaty," she said, without moving. I lifted up my head and looked at her. She turned to me, her nose touching mine. Her eyes were watery.

" You didn't tell him what a monster I am, did you?" she asked, her voice breaking. She dipped her head and put her hands over her face before I could answer.

" I didn't tell him you lied to me," I said, putting an arm around her. " No."

" Why not?" she asked from behind her hands, swallowing a sob.

" I don't know," I said thoughtfully, sincerely. " It's not quite forgiveness. Maybe more like resignation."

" But what are we resigning to?" she asked, looking up at me.

I wiped her cheeks dry. As I did it I thought about all the times she must have cried alone, without me, because of me, in spite of me. All I could do was be grateful for the chance to finally comfort her.

Though it was, perhaps, irrelevant, I found myself wanting to kiss her then, and I did. As our lips touched I blanched at the thought of my breath, but then figured she deserved it, or expected as much, or should have a cold, hard taste of the real Arnold for once. Not her ideal golden boy, or her invented betrayer, just flawed and ridiculous me, saint-like only in my willingness to offer one Helga G. Pataki endless reprieve.

" Stop," she breathed, pulling back after giving in for a moment. " You're drunk," she said, wrenching my arm off of her shoulder. I sat back, dejected.

" What do you want me to do?" I asked, at a loss. " Just tell me."

" Why are you willing to do what I ask after everything I've done to you?" she asked, glaring at me, as if appalled by my loyalty. Or, to be fair, my abject stupidity.

" I'm not, I'm just curious," I spat back, irritated and still in a good deal of pain, my temples throbbing.

" I don't know what I want," she said, standing and pulling her fingers through her messy hair. I hated the fact that the distance she was putting between us depressed me – I'd been dully hoping that she'd flop down onto the bed next to me and nurse me back to health until morning. I had a fond memory of climbing through her window one night just after we'd found out she was pregnant – oh God, that was the day I'd asked her to marry me. The day we'd gotten married, too – or was it? My memories slurred together – the whole thing, Helga and I – it couldn't just have been a couple of weeks, could it have? No, it was months – or only days?

" Do you ever think about our wedding day?" I blurted out, perhaps in a bumbling effort to bring her back down to me.

She stopped in the midst of her pacing about the room and looked at me as if I was mad, as if I'd invented the whole thing.

" I – I can't talk to you about that right now!" she exclaimed, shaking her head.

" Well what did you come in here to talk about, exactly?" I asked with a scoff, getting frustrated.

" Certainly not our wedding," she muttered to herself, not looking at me. " I think I came in here to scream at you, or possibly to physically attack you. Somehow I've lost my nerve. Or my inertia, at least."

" One of us had to tell him eventually," I snapped. " I'm sure you're secretly glad it was me and not you," I added coldly.

" Why would I --!"

" Because it was hard, and you were never willing to do what was right, what was inevitable, if it was hard," I said, too loudly, and getting angrier than I'd intended. " You'd rather take the easy way out. You'd rather just run away from your problems and let other people sort them out when it's least convenient for everyone but you."

" Oh, that's rich!" she hissed, glaring at me. " You lecturing me about running from my problems? What do you suggest I do, drink them all away like you do?"

" What the hell -"

" You're an alcoholic," she said, swallowing something that might have been a sob, or maybe a scream, I couldn't be sure. " And I did this to you," she said, shaking her head, her voice wavering in earnest now. " You were – maybe not perfect – but – not this bad off, before me."

" Don't flatter yourself," I snarled before I could break down. There was a caving feeling in my chest – it felt like my whole body was hell bent on betraying me, breaking down a little more with each attack she leveled.

" Whatever I am, none of it's because of you," I told her, a lie I thought she roundly deserved. " Fortunately for me you decided to cut yourself out of my life after a few months, and despite the shit you put me through you don't exactly get credit for ruining my life, as much as you might like it."

It was quite possibly the cruelest thing I'd ever said to anyone, and I expected her to turn on her heel and flee the room immediately afterward. But instead she stood and stared at me, discreetly brushing a tear from the corner of her eye.

" Then what the hell happened to you, Arnold?" she asked, with genuine sadness that nearly flattened me.

" To be cliché," I said, unflinching. " My parents."

" Then I guess Edward's doomed," she said, starting for the door.

" You made sure of that," I said, topping everything that had come before. I heard her choke on a renegade sob as she flew out of the room and down the hall. Then the slam of a door, and it was done.

My ears buzzed with the new silence in the room, and with the incredible energy that was left behind there, the remnants of two people trying to destroy each other. I tried to tell myself she was begging for it, that she'd always been that way – she loved to push me as far as she could before I finally snapped, and then she would wilt dramatically, suddenly a delicate flower, as if my long suffering wrath was completely unprovoked.

I need a drink, I thought instantly, shaking from the effort of being so hateful. I stood up and teetered on my unsteady legs, swallowing. She was wrong about me, of course. She didn't know anything about me. I wasn't – I didn't have a drinking problem. What the hell did she know? I was only drowning my sorrows because of her.

I scowled to myself as I stumbled toward the hall. I decided upon a course of action as I headed toward the kitchen – I would get blitzed so that I would be able to sleep, to forget this fight, the things we'd just said to each other. That was step one. Then I'd sleep it off, and at the crack of dawn I'd disappear. Back to New York, back to normalcy. I couldn't wait.

Except I would never get away clean, now that I knew about Edward. She'd found a way to permanently hang on to a good chunk of my heart, and it didn't even have anything to do with her. Or it did, because we'd made him together. The thought of it made me trip and fall against the doorframe of Curly's kitchen, and when I looked up I saw Rhonda, wearing only a tank top and a skimpy pair of underwear, sitting at the table and smoking a cigarette. She gave me a look as I walked into the kitchen, and leaned back in her chair, unembarrassed and bored.

" You're awake," she said, tapping her cigarette against an ashtray on the table in front of her. " Sort of," she added as I fell heavily into a chair beside her.

" What are you doing out here?" I asked, willing myself not to look too closely at her. Only Rhonda – only Rhonda Lloyd would be wandering though this house in her underwear in the middle of my nervous breakdown.

" Smoking," she said plainly. " Did you just piss Miss Helga off or something? I saw her stomping down the hall."

" That kid," I muttered, rubbing my eyes. " Her kid – he's mine."

" Duh," Rhonda said, laughing darkly. I looked up at her.

" So was I the last goddamn person to find out?" I asked, turning to scan the kitchen counters for any available booze. I spotted a half-empty bottle of red wine sitting open near the sink, and stood up to retrieve it.

" I have no clue," Rhonda said, taking a long drag. " It was obvious to me as soon as I saw the three of you together," she said, blowing smoke from the corner of her mouth.

" It was a mistake," I muttered to myself, drinking from the bottle.

" You mean he was a mistake," she said, and I looked up at her with a glare.

" I don't regret it," I insisted.

" Sure."

" What the hell are you doing here?" I asked her, the whole situation seeming suddenly very ridiculous.

" What are any of us doing here?" she muttered, smiling to herself. She looked up at me with a wicked glint in her eye.

" It was in my house, wasn't it?" she asked. " My mother found the two of you asleep in the bathtub after the party – what was it, some drunken thing?"

" Something like that," I said, my heart dropping through me like a stone. Maybe Helga was right about me. It was still her fault, though I'd never give her the pleasure of knowing. I drank again from the bottle.

" You're a mess," Rhonda said in a sigh, smashing her cigarette into the ashtray. " I thought you'd end up the president. At least a minister or something."

" I'm too young to be president," I mumbled, as if that was all that was stopping me. " And I'm not religious."

" You know what I mean," Rhonda said, pulling one knee up to her chest and regarding me critically. And I did know. Great expectations, and all that.

" I grew up," I said. " People change."

" No, I don't think so," Rhonda said wistfully, hugging her knee. " None of us have, really. Me and Curly, you and goddamn Helga. We're still chasing after each other."
" Helga and I aren't chasing each other," I said, looking down at the bottle. " We're running away from each other."

" Then what the hell are you doing here?" she asked with a scoff. Before I could answer I heard someone padding down the hall behind me, and turned to see Curly walking into the kitchen, yawning and wearing only sweatpants.

" We were just talking," I said hurriedly, feeling awkward about getting caught alone with Rhonda while she was writhing around in her underwear. Curly and Rhonda looked at each other and laughed.

" Don't flatter yourself, Arnold," Rhonda said, standing and sliding an arm through Curly's.

" Are you alright, man?" Curly asked, glancing at the bottle in my hand. " Maybe you should take it easy."

" Fuck off," I muttered, humiliated. I stalked out of the kitchen with the bottle still in my hand, pushing out onto the screen porch and then through another screen door, down the stairs that led from the porch to Curly's backyard.

I walked blindly through the streets behind Curly's house until I found the beach. I headed toward the ocean until my legs gave out, and landed in the sand, some wine sloshing out onto my hand as I fell. I drank and glared out at the indifferent waves. Fucking Curly, thinking he has the right to tell me what to do. Some goddamn nerve. How many times did I save his crazy ass when we were kids, or when we were teenagers and he was on the verge of getting sent off to a mental hospital?

Because that was what I did: I saved people. Back then. It got old, that's all. I never got any thanks, any reward, any feeling of satisfaction or completion. There was always someone else who needed saving, and every victory just left me feeling hollow again. Maybe it was genetic – my parents were never able to get enough of it. The only one they didn't bother to save was me.

I thought of Edward. It really was sickly poetic, the way I'd passed my own tragedy down without even meaning to. Goddamn South America, right? As if it mattered where they were, where I'd been, who knew what, who'd lied, who'd had the best intentions. All that mattered was that we were both abandoned, he and I. And I could see no recourse but to leave him all over again.

He's better off without me, I thought as I passed out, my ears filling with sand, the remainder of the wine spilling as it tumbled out of my hand. I stared up the sky before the blackout took me, saw no stars, only hazy darkness lit dimly by the lights of the city behind me. I thought of my parents, how disappointed they'd be if they decided to return to me and found out what I'd become.

Yeah, they were all better off without me. Arnold who was sacrificed for some far off villagers, for Helga's pride, for Edward's innocence. I'd just lie on the beach and let them all get on with their lives. My eyes closed and I waited for the world to move purposefully around me: the disenchanted former savior, left to fend for himself.

When I opened my eyes it was early morning, I was staring into a man's dirty face. He was unshaven and he smelled unbelievably bad, but his eyes were bright and alert, and he jumped back a little in surprise when I stirred, coughing.

" Jesus, I thought you were dead," he said, sitting back and looking me up and down.

" I think I am," I moaned, trying to sit up and wincing as my head pounded with a tremendous pain. My mouth was dry and every muscle in my body felt sore. And I was covered in sand. I rolled onto my side and coughed, tried to remember how the hell I'd got there.

" Listen, man, you got anything on you?" the man asked, and I looked up him and frowned, confused.

" What?"

" Give me your wallet," he said suddenly, wiping something out of his back pocket. Before I could move I realized it was a gun, and that he had it pointed at my face. He glanced around nervously, licked his lips, and looked back to me, waiting.

" I, uh," I stuttered, trying to stand.

" Stay down!" he shouted, agitated now. He glanced around again, then pushed the gun against my forehead. " Give it to me, man, I don't want to hurt you."

" Alright, alright," I mumbled, reaching my for back pocket. I fumbled with my wallet, pulling it open.

" Just give it to me!" he shouted, snatching it out my hands.

" Wait!" I shouted, as he started to go. " Can I at least have my license?" I begged, moaning and rubbing my temples.

" W-what?" the thief asked nervously, pointing the gun at me again.

" My license, it's a pain in the ass getting a new one," I moaned, not sure why the hell I was speaking, where I was or what was going on.

" What are you talking about?" the guy demanded, looking around and backing away now.

" Forget it," I said in a sigh, falling onto my back again and staring up at the gray morning sky. " Just take it all."

I looked to my left and saw that he was already gone, tearing off down the beach. I watched him go, and rubbed my head, feeling for the place where he'd pressed the gun.

Not prepared to form any coherent thoughts about what was so far the most bizarre morning that had ever dawned in my life, I simply stood up and stumbled through the sand toward the road. I wasn't sure whether or not I should feel relieved that I wasn't dead, either from exposure or a high tide or a bullet between the eyes. At the moment I might have preferred an early grave to the prospect of trying to find my way back to Curly's house.

I considered going straight to the airport and leaving. I had one suitcase that I'd left in Curly's living room, and there was nothing particularly important inside. But I wanted to at least say goodbye to Edward, even if it was for the last time. I doubted Helga would ever let me see much of him, and I didn't have the heart to get into a legal battle with her. She'd dictated the terms of my life thus far, and I might as well let her continue.

Feeling pathetic, sandy and sore, I eventually found Curly's little house, and made my way up the back stairs to the screened-in porch. I prayed that no one would be awake yet – it was early, probably not even six AM yet. I went in through the kitchen, and as I passed the living room on the way to Troy's empty room, where I was planning on having a shower before blowing out of there, I heard the television. I knew by the familiar, unchanging sound of morning cartoons who was in there watching it.

I stopped as I was passing the room and looked in at Edward. He was wearing a t-shirt and pajama pants, curled up on his side and staring blankly at the TV set. He looked up at me without surprise, as if he had been expecting me to walk in, covered in sand and wearing the same clothes I'd had on the night before. He sat up sleepily and blinked at me, adjusting his glasses and sniffling.

" What happened to you?" he asked, his voice intentionally flat. An old Helga trick, he was as practiced at feigning indifference as she'd been at his age.

" I got mugged," I said slowly, just beginning to understand it as the words left my mouth. " Some bum stole my wallet."

" Why didn't you beat him up?" he asked, staring at me.

" Cause," I started, squinting around the room, at a loss. " I guess cause I was tired." I looked at Edward. " I'm kind of a disappointing guy," I told him, echoing what he was clearly thinking.

I waited for him to come up with some smartass retort, to tell me that he'd figured that out on his own, but he only looked back to the television, folding his arms into his lap. I stood awkwardly in the doorway for a moment before moving to the couch and sitting down beside him. We both watched the cartoons in silence for a few minutes – a robot girl was sliding around in roller skates on the screen.

" Why didn't you ever try to find me?" Edward asked when the commercials came on, half-turning toward me. I looked at him – in the background, an announcer was shouting about two-for-one pizza.

" I'm a disappointing guy," I said again.

" But," he said, after a pause. " My mom told me you weren't."

I didn't know how to respond to that, and before I could launch into a tirade about Helga's many lies, I stood and walked out of the room. I felt like the biggest asshole in the universe, but I figured he might as well get used to it, watching me walk away. It wasn't like they were going to move to New York, and I wasn't going to follow them to Seattle. It wasn't like Helga and I had ever been willing to concede to anything for each other.

But it was all I could think about it as I stood under a hot shower in Troy's tiny bathroom. Why didn't I go and find him? Why didn't I chase Helga down? A few phone calls were all I ever managed – I could have tried harder. Maybe she really did give me want I wanted, what I wouldn't have been able to admit to myself that I needed. I got to go to college, I got to have a career, a life.

Some life. I was already dreading going back to New York, back to work, back to my apartment, my after dinner drinks, the pointless people I filled my days with. It seemed terribly empty now, but it was all I had.

When I finished showering I called a taxi, then dressed hurriedly, drying my hair with a soggy towel. I stopped in front of Troy's bathroom mirror and peered at myself: I still looked like hell, but slightly more human after the shower. I was still picking sand out of my ears, but I'd taken a small handful of aspirin, and my headache was fading. I told myself I was going to be okay. I'd get coffee at the airport, I'd sleep on the plane. I'd go back to work tomorrow and forget any of this ever happened. Possibly with the aid of a week's worth of two martini lunches, but I didn't care. Helga could be right about me, it didn't matter. I just wanted to forget.

I walked out into the living room to get my suitcase, keeping my eyes down, not wanting to have any closure with my estranged family, but knowing I needed it, one way or another. Helga was sitting on the stairs in Curly's foyer when I got out there, a cup of coffee cradled in her lap. She looked up at me.

" I'm going back to New York," I said, clearing my throat, trying to be businesslike.

" I know," she said quietly. " I don't want you to go," she added, surprising me. But I wouldn't let her throw me off track – this was her bait and switch routine. She'd pull me in with weepy interludes, then smash me back into place with delight. I had no reason to think this was ever going to change.

" Here's my number in New York," I said, reaching into the front pocket of my suitcase for a business card, not meeting her eyes as I handed it to her.

" I'm not going to call you, Arnold," she said, after staring at it for a moment. I felt the familiar drop-kick to the stomach: Helga's one-two punch, I'd seen it coming but it still hurt.

" Do you have a pen?" she asked, and I went again to my suitcase, handed her one. She turned my card over and scribbled on the back of it, handed it back to me.

" Making me do all the hard work, right?" I asked her coldly as I took it back from her, looking at the contact information she'd written there.

" I don't really expect you to do anything," she said, staring down into her coffee. " I just – maybe you could send him birthday cards? It's January second."

I couldn't take any more, so I turned to go. My taxi was just pulling into the driveway, and I thanked God for my first lucky break in awhile – at least I'd be able to make a quick getaway. I stormed out onto the porch, figuring I'd call and thank Curly after I got home, and maybe even apologize for telling him to fuck off, though he probably just had a good laugh about it. As I was heading down the stairs in a huff something caught my eye, and I stopped at the bottom and looked back up to see Edward sitting on the porch near the front door.

" You going back to South America?" he asked me dryly, shattering what was left of my heart.

" Yes," was all I could manage to get out without my voice cracking. I turned from him and climbed into the taxi. As we drove away I didn't look back.

I thought of him, though, sitting there on the porch, watching me go. My eyes filled like they did when I was three years old, watching my mother's auburn hair bouncing as she jogged to the car that took my parents away from me. I saw it in her step, even as a kid, a sort of eagerness to get closer to her freedom. I wondered if he was able to see it in my gait, too, and for the first time since I realized what really happened I could sympathize a little bit with my parents.

But more with him. Because even as I was riding away, the roles reversed now, I was still the orphan boy, too, abandoned all over again, this time by myself.

A/N: First of all, while I'd definitely cop to the fact that I planned on finishing this sooner, and while I'm really sorry to make everyone wait, this is just kind of the nature of this story, for some reason. I started it in 2001, when I was a sophomore in college. I'm in grad school now, my life and writing has changed in many ways, but I'm still attached to this story; it's still important to me to finish it. I still love it, and I don't regret taking a long, long time to finish it, because I think it's been beneficial.

The reason this segment took so long, outside of me just being busy with school, work and everything else, was that scene with Helga and Arnold in the bedroom just after he tells Edward he's his father. I knew they had to fight, but I got stuck just before they got upset with each other; I kept opening what I had and re-reading it, but nothing new would come. It was like the characters didn't want to go there yet, heh. But last night the vitriol spilled out at last, and I finished the chapter this morning.

I have another writing commitment that I have to start on October 1st, but I'm going to finish this story before then. There is only one chapter left, and I know exactly what is going to happen (I think – characters can always surprise you at the last minute), so all that's left is to put it down on paper. You guys have no reason to believe my promises at this point, but I really am going to do it, honest:)