The Man I Love (The Fish Tales, #1)(122)

“Feel so what?” he said. “What did she make me feel? Go on. Tell me what she made me feel.”

Across the living room, Melanie stared at him.

“Useless,” Erik said. His voice sounded raspy and full of sludge, like a broken old man’s. “She made me feel useless. Just like you’re doing right now. It’s no different. I don’t have what you need so you’ll go get it from someone else.”

“Baby…” she whispered.

“It must be the type I attract,” he said. “All the women I love make me feel useless. Nothing I do is enough for them. Not staring down the barrel of a gun, not taking a needle in the sack. Nothing.”

Her hand soft on his shoulder then and he flinched from her touch. “Just leave me be,” he said, with the last vestiges of civility he could muster.

Weeping, Melanie went upstairs. Erik stood with his forehead and fists pressed against the windowpane.

“Useless,” he whispered.





A Map, A Pick Axe And A Vengeance


“Can I ask you a personal question?” Erik was running with Miles along the canal.

“Already? We just met.”

Erik didn’t feel like joking. “Are you and Janey childless by choice? Or did you have fertility troubles?”

“Ah. I wondered when you would ask.”

“In my typically obtuse and self-centered way, it only just occurred to me.”

“Unfortunately, we are childless by choice.”

“Unfortunately how?”

“Consanguinity.”

“Speak English.”

“Janey,” Miles said, “is my first cousin.”

Erik slowed to a jog and then stopped, leaning over with hands on knees. “She is?”

“Technically speaking she is my double cousin. Our mothers are sisters and our fathers are brothers.” Miles ran easily in place. “Shocking?”

“Surprising to learn but not shocking. I mean, it’s not appalling.”

“Then I’ll throw in we’re not married, either.”

“Then why does she call herself Janey Kelly?”

“Because her name is Janey Kelly,” Miles said.

Erik grimaced and looked at his watch. “My next asinine question will be in thirty seconds.”

“I cannot wait.” Miles began to run again and Erik fell into step beside him.

“If it’s not too asinine, when did you fall in love with her?”

“The question is when was I not in love with her? I was born to love her. We were five when we realized we belonged to each other. We fought it. We denied it. We tore ourselves apart and went to live on opposite sides of the planet. I married a lovely woman everyone approved of and I made her life miserable. She had the good sense to leave me because she knew I was born for Janey and no one else.”

A quarter mile passed in silence. Their sneakers slapped in rhythm. Left. Right. Left. Right.

“Born for her,” Erik said. “Tell me what you mean.”

“I look at Janey and my heart leaps,” Miles said. “And when I am with her, I want for nothing. We wasted eight years of our youth living apart and being miserable just to make everyone else happy. We finally said to hell with everyone and decided to be together. It had its price. Three decades later and still some people refuse to acknowledge we are a couple. But we found our truth and made our choices. We chose to be together. We chose not to have children because it’s too risky. And we chose not to adopt because we only want each other. Maybe it’s selfish, but…”

“Or maybe it’s courageous.”

“I don’t know, Fish. At some point, you just gotta start living the truth of who you are and what you feel.”

Erik stopped running. Hands on his head he turned in a circle, looking up at the skies, breathing against the fingers of steel darting around his throat.

“All right?” Miles said from up ahead.

“Yeah.” He set out again, his body a heavy, sodden weight. “I’m all right.”



*



Everything at home was all wrong. He and Melanie were dug deep in their separate trenches and fighting a quiet war of attrition. The house grew chill with words and accusations unspoken. Frosty weeks went by. Eggshells crunched underfoot. Gradually the air thawed and small overtures were attempted. The subject of adoption was raised. But by then they were emotionally exhausted and physically indifferent.

Occasionally they reached for each other in the night, but even their sex was tired. Melanie’s body was present but her head was elsewhere. They rarely laughed in bed anymore. They barely talked. Their connection was full of misunderstood static. Most nights they lay back to back, Melanie hard done by and misunderstood, Erik a useless testicular failure.

Night after night, they tossed and turned their covers to mush until Melanie caved, took a pill and slept. Only when she was breathing slow and deep did Erik put the pill that was Daisy on his tongue and swallow.

The best of you is stuck in Lancaster with that bitch.

True. And now the bitch had taken up quiet residence in the folds of his brain. He let her stay, a one-woman Greek chorus observing as he went about his day at work, willingly talking back to him whenever he silently talked to her. Asking questions. Helping work out a problem. At night, he imagined her voice softer, asking different kinds of questions. Listening and nodding thoughtfully as he talked out other problems. Her hands cupped for whatever he wanted to put in them.