LaRose(88)

I’m like you, Ottie. Probably check out if not for her. That don’t go both ways. He laughed, but it was a heart-worn laugh.

Emmaline would not check out if he did; she would survive for the kids. For herself. Also, the good stuff was in question. Emmaline had put a wall up, Landreaux thought. He even pictured it—brick but at least there were gaps, maybe windows. Sometimes she reached both hands through, unclenched, and Landreaux hurriedly clasped her from the lonely side. He understood the wall as blame for what happened. He did not understand when she said he was asleep. His eyes were open. He was driving. He was pulling up in Ottie’s driveway.

Landreaux got Ottie into the house and settled by the window, where Bap had put a bird feeder. Landreaux went out and refilled the empty feeder. He could hear winter in the sharper scolding of the chickadees. After he got into the car, he thought of the two oxycodones in his pocket. He’d skimmed them off one of the new prescriptions he’d filled for Ottie. Only two. He’d throw them out. But he didn’t. He drove home. Was this a night he had to drive anybody anyplace? No. He plucked out the one pill. Swallowed. Only one, hardly anything. This would barely mellow him, still.

You resist and resist and resist and wear yourself down. For all these years he had been substance free, but lately, well, this summer, the deterioration of his clients and the helplessness of waiting for Emmaline’s touch further diminished him. That was an excuse. He should be stronger. He’d made the Stations of the Cross last spring and wondered why Christ’s torture was called his passion. Jesus suffered drug free. He’d seen Emmaline go through drugless childbirth. She wanted drugs but only got lucky with Josette. Twice the trusted, competent anesthetist was not on duty at the IHS hospital. She didn’t want a bad spinal, an everlasting epidural or headache. Without one, the pain took up everything, she said. When she went to visit friends in the maternity ward, the smell of the place made her blood pressure shoot up, her hands shake. Light-headed, she had to sit. Some physical memory. But all worth it, she said, as women always did.

Maybe Jesus thought so too, Landreaux thought as he walked toward the house. Or maybe he looked at all the sorry-ass f*ckups he saved, like Landreaux, who couldn’t stand the pain, and said, Why?

Landreaux resolved to flush the other pill down the toilet. He heard shouts. When he walked in the door, Snow and Josette were slapping open-handed, blocking each other. At least they weren’t punching or pulling each other’s hair. He kicked his boots off and stepped between them.

He grabbed each girl by one wrist but they reached around him with their flapping hands. Finally they quit, sullenly ripped their arms free, and agreed to talk from opposite corners of the room. Josette stuck her lower lip out, slumped, arms crossed. Her foot jiggled. Snow sat knock-kneed looking at her orange-glow fingernails.

What’s the deal? said Landreaux.

Snow says I like Hollis.

Well he likes you, said Snow.

So?

He’s my brother. It’s gross.

Josette drew her arm back and made a fist. There was a face drawn on her fist. Lips where her thumb met her crooked forefinger. A nose and eyes, too. Snow lifted her arm and made a fist. A face was also on her fist. She kept her teeth clenched and barely moved her lips.

You have no DNA in common. You grew up together and he still likes you—bedhead, bad breath, gray old underwear in the laundry—it’s a miracle.

I have never let my underwear be seen, said Josette, with considerable dignity. And it is not gray.

Stop, begged Landreaux. His head was softly ringing.

Josette collected herself.

I suppose we can talk about this like mature adults? she said.

There’s only one in the room, said Landreaux.

In the first place, said Josette, I know Hollis has a crush on me. That’s immaterial.

I’m gonna go nuts, said Landreaux.

Because I don’t have a crush on him, Josette said. Who knows, I might be a lesbian.

Like you’d even know, said Snow.

Landreaux’s heart muttered. Lesbian?

You guys don’t KNOW me, said Josette.

Okay, said Snow. Nobody KNOWS you. You’re SO mysterious.

You know me, said Josette to her balled-up hand. I can tell you everything!

I love you for yourself, said her smeared fist.

Get outta here, said Landreaux. You’re making me loco. I want to make myself some coffee and read my paper.

Like you always do! Josette and Snow, a team again, jumped up and rushed him. You’re so predictable. Why can’t you bust loose? Drink tea? Read a comic! C’mon, Daddy, be creative!

They knew they could make him laugh, and when he did they attacked him, jumping on him, pretending to fling him on the floor. He fake fell, cowered in a dramatic I-give-up, hands in the air.

Mercy! He begs for mercy! Show him no mercy, growled Snow and began to fake punch him so he fake reeled back, holding his stomach, laughing until the girls left him on the floor.

Okay, Daddy, try to pull yourself together. Go do your wander. Or here’s a newspaper full of want ads. Or boring news. Just don’t TELL us about every boring thing that happens in the tristate area. We’ll go make you that weak coffee you like to guzzle. We’re gonna cook, too. We got some meatball meat. Noodles. Mushroom soup. You’ll flip.

Landreaux sat back in his chair. His back ached from lifting Ottie, rolling, bathing, seating Ottie. Then it didn’t ache. The pain left. His heart rate slowed. He didn’t mind anything now. This was the first time in a long time he’d goofed off, let the girls wrestle him down. He felt lighter, almost happy, and he didn’t need the other pill, but after Snow brought him a cup of coffee, he felt his fingers tease it from his pocket. Then it slipped from his fingers, onto the floor. Some better person tried to crush it with his heel. But the heel was in a sock and the pill was coated with a hardening agent, which resisted until Landreaux walked over to the entry, got his boot, and hammered the thing to powder. Even then, on the vinyl tiling, there was a perfect little patch of whiteness, which, if he went down in a yoga crouch, nose to the floor, he could inhale. But how would that look to his girls, ass in the air? He sat down again and swirled his foot around on the powder until it was absorbed into the floor so that the desperate man would have to put his nose to the ball of the foot of the sock and sniff the powder out with mighty whiffs and he was safe, yes safe, because Landreaux had taken this process down too far a level even for himself.