The Man I Love (The Fish Tales, #1)(95)

“He was a set designer,” Daisy had said after Erik described the loft beds, the trees, swing and hammock.

“Maybe it’s why I was drawn to technical theater,” Erik said to Diane at his next session. “The smell and sound of the workshop reminded me of him.”

“Could be,” Diane said. “Or it could just be what you love. Not everything has to be a thing, you know.”

He glanced at her. “You learn that line in school?”

“No, from my mother,” she said, one of her rare, personalized engagements.

More feathers, piling up in his hands, drifting around his ankles. If he sat still, if he put aside the customary armor of anger and pride, they came to him. He made his breath hover above the snowy heaps, leaned into their silence.

“Where are you now,” she said.

“With him,” he whispered. A lap, and a gold necklace to play with. Strong arms lifting him up to sink a basketball. A broad back beneath his stomach, on top of a sled in winter. Gentle hands steadying the seat of his bicycle. Prosit when he sneezed. Sk?l for a toast.

He remembered when they were a family.

And he remembered when they weren’t anymore.

After their father was gone, he and Pete wouldn’t sleep among the trees of their bedroom. They didn’t want the swings and the hammock. They recoiled from the lingering smell of wet paint. Defiantly they dragged sleeping bags to Christine’s bedroom and slept on her floor until she sold their house and they moved away from the past. Tried to start again.

He sat still, the tears making steady tracks down his face. The pain pressed on him from all sides.

“You must have missed him horribly,” Diane said.

What an obvious thing to say.

But what a truthful thing to say.

I had a bad dream.

“I missed him.” He closed his eyes, took it out of the past and cradled it in his hands. “But I don’t know if he missed me.”

The forbidden thought, now spoken aloud, was a knife in his heart, slashing straight down to his guts. He thought he would die. This boyhood pain was insurmountable. He was unmanned.

“I wonder where he is,” he said, surrendering to the question coiled up in his bones. A daily inquiry actively thought or subconsciously pondered, but constantly with him, a gene on his Y chromosome: Where are you, Dad?

“I wonder if he even thinks about me.” He shook his head, opening his eyes. “I wonder if he saw the news stories about Lancaster. If he saw it on TV or read it in the paper. I wonder if he saw my name and thought that’s my son. If he did, and even a shooting couldn’t move him to find me, then either he has no heart or…”

“Or what?” Diane said.

“Or he’s dead.”

He looked down at his empty palms and saw white feathers. Exhaling wearily, he watched them blow away.





The Current


They dug.

Deeper.

Erik came in one afternoon in a bad mood. He chucked his jacket off, plopped down on the couch and put an ankle on the other knee. He exhaled loudly and Diane raised her eyebrows at him, but said nothing. She always waited for him to make the opening serve.

“I had a date last night,” he said. He was attempting to do this more often—get out there and open himself up to the possibility of connecting with someone.

She volleyed easily. “What was that like?”

“A disaster.”

“How so?”

“She was lovely, it wasn’t her. It was just my usual bullshit.”

“Which is?”

“It’s the second, no, third time we’ve gone out. We ended up back at her place and…” He trailed off awkwardly.

“Did you sleep together?” Diane said.

“Yeah. It was fine during it. Great, actually. But then afterward, I was a wreck.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. I was lying there having a panic attack. I had to get the hell out. I felt really bad but… This is like the story of my life. This always happens and I don’t know why.”

“You find this always happens when you go to bed with someone?”

“I’m fine before, fine during, and then afterward, I go into a death spiral. Is it cold in here?”

“I don’t think so. Are you cold?”

“A little. What were you asking me?”

“How long has this been happening?”

He took a deep breath, shuffling his cards. Pointless posturing, but naturally with any kind of sexual issue, the kneejerk reaction was to sugarcoat. But if he was here to dig into it, if he was paying to dig into it, then he may as well dig into it. “Since the shooting,” he said miserably. “Five years.”

Diane barely blinked. “That long.”

“Yes.”

“So even with Daisy this happened.”

“Both of us.”

She shifted to lean on the other arm of the chair. “Both of you would have anxiety after sex.”

“You’re going to do that annoying thing of parroting everything I say back to me, aren’t you?”

She smiled, her tongue pushing into her cheek for a moment. “Yes, I am.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, trying to organize his thoughts without thinking too much. “Daisy and I had some issues with sex after the shooting,” he said. “Two problems. Three. Two right away and the third later. First, immediately afterward it was just impossible, physically impossible. She could barely get out of a chair, much less into bed. Honestly, it was the furthest thing from either of our minds. Forget I said it was a problem. The issue was when we started again. It was weird, we both felt really disconnected. Ambivalent. Like we could take it or leave it. And I guess that’s pretty normal for post-traumatic stressed people.”