A Place for Cliff (20 page)

Pyotr took off across town toward the Cambridge Hospital only to be told they had taken off on foot. Driving down street after street he called again but still no answer. Pyotr sat at the red light staring down the street, trying to keep his own emotions inline. Where had they gone? He scrubbed over his face fretting over his lover and the turmoil he must be going through. A car horn behind him rudely brought him back to the present and to the green light staring back at him. Ignoring both, opening his phone and did what he promised never to do. He intervened and called Kimmi.

The phone rang several times until a bright cheery voice answered with automation.
‘Hi this is Kimmi Patterson. Sorry I missed the chance to chat so leave a message so I can hit cha back.’

“Kimmi, please tell me where I can find you.” and he hung up. A cacophony of blasting blaring horns rioted up behind him so he stomped the gas and took off. Turning the car towards home he made his way along the streets of Manhattan, eyes scanning for Cliff and Kimmi.

He was about to take the ramp back over to long island when his phone beeped with a text message. It was Kimmi.

‘Near the Boat house.’

He quickly cut the wheel and kept heading down FDR drive
and felt the weight lift from his chest when he spotted them heading across Malcomb Bridge. Kimmi tucked snuggling under her brother’s arm. He passed them and parked in the parking lot of the park. The very same place he caught up with Cliff after the two had come out to see him rowing. It was the night they made love for the first time.  

There was some reason Cliff needed to come full circle, but even with all his knowledge he wasn’t sure what had led his lover to come to this spot. It wasn’t along the way home.

He stood at the edge of the park waiting as Cliff and Kimmi approached, Cliff’s face growing tense with every step that brought him closer. The strings he knew would have to come undone at some point were about to snap.

Cliff reached the edge and stopped abruptly just staring at him. His jaw clenched, tightening his brow furrowed with pain barely contained.

“Cliff?”

“No!” he suddenly shouted, “I don’t want to be consoled. I don’t want to be told we’ll get through this! Don’t do what they do.”

“What is it they do Cliff?”

“Tell me it’s going to be okay. That’s what they do.” He shook his head hard, “Don’t tell me that, because it’s not going to be.”

“I won’t. I just want you to know I’m here for you. I’m here for you both.”

Cliff sucked in a breath as if he intended to say something but the act nearly cost him his control and his mouth clamp shut. His eyes went to the sky. A winter sky as grey and forlorn as his eyes. They’d always been that way til recently. What worried Pyotr most was Kimmi’s for the first time matched her brother’s. Neither of the two was expecting this round to end well.

Tears pooled in his lover’s eyes but he wiped them away with the back of his coat sleeve before they could fall. “I can’t do this Pyotr.” He nearly pleaded for the escape.

“Then we do it together.” Pyotr took a step back and to the side, a gesture to open the path for his lover to follow and he did. He knew Cliff needed to expel some energy, walking him through the park would help with it, but they didn’t make it far when Cliff stopped at one of the pavilions and decided to take his rage out on a picnic table, while Kimmi wandered off toward the water.

Kimmi sat on the sea wall watching her brother rage back and forth pacing while Pyotr tried to console him. She couldn’t stop the tears which made the cold winter air much worse and her sniffling nose didn’t help either. She was on that cusp of self pity but what was worse was that she had ruined her brother’s life. Not on purpose, but that didn’t change the fact Cliff had given up nearly everything to take care of her. It was only of some comfort that he enjoyed being a paramedic now. And then they found Pyotr. Pyotr was wonderful, but she couldn’t help, but worry that her latest diagnosis might hinder that too.

She glanced down at the water as it raced by.  There was a loud clatter of noise and she snapped around to see one of the park trash cans go flying across the lawn. Cliff was bolting after it to give it another good kick. He liked kicking and throwing when he needed to get the anger out. Pyotr watching over him like a guardian angel.

She jumped off the wall and walked along for a moment taking an occasional glance over her shoulder. Pyotr had her brother tightly wrapped in his arms now, bringing the physical rage to a halt for the moment. She turned and went down the steps to the boat launch for the kayakers. She held steady to the rail careful not to slip on the icy ramp. She paused glancing back over her shoulder. They were sitting down. Pyotr finally had Cliff talking rather than screaming. She turned back to the water that swirled around ready to whisk her away, just like a kayak or a canoe.

Still holding the rail she stared into the clear water to the silt bottom and slowly without thought kicked off her boots and stepped in. The icy cold water caught her breath and she gasped several times feeling the frigid bite in her feet. She took another step until both feet were side by side in the river’s edge. She stared down at them, pale flushed tone feet and neon orange toe nail polish glared up at her in contrast to the murky bottom. And despite that first rush she felt completely numb now. The whole world silently withdrawing from her. Just the sound of her breath in her ears and the slosh of water waiting on her. Nothing else. No cars. No people. No cancer. No illness. No pain. Just numbness. Just her and the expressionless reflection looking up at her. She need only take a few more steps and the river would do the rest. It was so cold, she’d go numb instantly. She wouldn’t feel a thing. Her foot came up—

“KIMMI!”

Her step yawed like someone calling her out of a dream to wake up.

“Kimmi!” Cliff cried out again just as he came up behind her. He quickly stepped in, and snatched her up in his arms, slinging her away from the water’s edge and carried her back up the stairs. The absence of the numbing cold replaced with an instant attack of a thousand needles pricking her feet. Pyotr was right there at the top of the steps, his coat off and he quickly wrapped it around her bare pink feet and rubbed at them as they carried her toward the car. She didn’t move or make a sound, just silent tears streaming down her face. Through blurry blues she could see the tension in her brother’s jaw. Cliff wanted to say so many thing right then but he kept them all inside. “Don’t.” was all he would allow himself to say at the moment as he squeezed her in his arms and kissed the side of her head.

Pyotr opened the door to the back seat and Cliff scooted in setting his sister across the seat and sat next to her taking her feet into his lap. At that instant he became her EMT. Her own personal nurse as he had always been, but his attentiveness didn’t stop there.

“What were you thinking?”

Kimmi’s thoughts buckled inside her as she spotted Pyotr’s eyes flicker back at her through the rearview mirror as he drove them home. She could see the lines around his face that etched out a deep concern for her and for Cliff.  The man truly loved her brother and she knew her brother was head over heels for him. She didn’t want to be between them. Not like this. Despite her mental struggle to lock herself up inside, her lips began to quiver with the sobbing that threatened to come.

Cliff was occupied with rubbing the blood circulation back into her legs and feet. His scolding hadn’t stopped yet. “Just two hours ago the doctor told you to stay warm. You can’t risk getting sick if we’re to get through this again.” He grabbed up her wrist and stilled, checking her pulse. Not satisfied he moved his fingers to her neck. It wasn’t her pulse that was evading him; it was his own racing one that interfered. “I want to know what you were thinking.” His voice tightened into a demand.

“I don’t want to put you through this again.” She whimpered, “It’s not fair. Would it not be better for you if I ended this?”

Cliff’s face melted into one of sheer horror then melded into rage. “End this!? You think I go through all of this just so you can end this?” his hands went back to her feet and started rubbing again. Harder, it hurt and she winced. “I don’t want you gone! I want you to stay with me. It’s you and me remember? We didn’t get this far just so I could be rid of you!”

“I’m sorry.” Her sobbed kicked out with a hiccup.

Cliff fell silent. He was ready for plenty more yelling, but Kimmi’s face was streaked with tears now and he couldn’t bear to make more of them. He kept quiet the remainder of the drive, purposely avoiding Pyotr’s gaze that occasionally glanced back at him.

When they reached the house Pyotr took Kimmi, carrying her upstairs to her room, “Grab some towels from the linen and toss them in the dryer for a few minutes. There’s an electric blanket in the linen as well.” He gave the gentle suggestion to his lover before disappearing into Kimmi’s room with his precious load.

When Cliff came back up from the laundry room Pyotr was waiting for him.

Cliff diverted his eyes, but he knew his lover had something to say if he allowed him to say it. It was the one thing Pyotr never crossed into without open invitation. “You think I’m handling this wrong, don’t you?”

Pyotr stepped up taking his arm just below the shoulders. His grip meant to comfort rather than control, “Yes.” He looked at him, all that knowing and experienced etched on his face that moment. “You’re angry because she’s sick. You’re angry at your parents for leaving. You tell her she’s not to blame for this yet you yell at her for it. The action only reinforces her feelings that she is to blame for your despair.”

Cliff’s face went white and he swallowed hard, but kept quiet. What was there for him to say?

“Losing one’s parents in a singular instant is devastating to the mind and body. It is not easily forgotten, or healed. So for you to feel anger even now is natural. Especially with news of a reoccurrence of her illness. Yelling at her isn’t what either of you need. Don’t guilt her to live either.” Pyotr leaned in and kissed his lover on the forehead, lingering there a moment as if to transfer some of his love into the storm that brewed behind grey eyes.

At the sound of the buzzer from the dryer going off, Pyotr let him go to tend to his sister.

It was late when Cliff came down stairs from Kimmi’s room. “I didn’t expect you tonight.” Pyotr murmured to him holding his book out of the way as Cliff slipped over him on the sofa and buried his face into his chest without saying a word. Pyotr closed his book wrapping around his exhausted lover and exchanged glances with his brother Pavle who’d been talking with him about what they might be able to do to help Kimmi’s treatments and what would be needed there at the house. Pyotr had watched many of his patients slip away from illnesses. Cancer. Gulf Syndrome. Aids. But this was different. This was closer. And it tore at him painfully.

It was going to be the third time Kimmi would undergo chemo treatment in her life. And as Pavle had explained after looking up her medical records, they were able to see what Cliff had not yet disclosed. Her doctors were calling for an intense attack of chemo and radiation, full on dosages, as much as her body can take. It was all or nothing now. The plan was to shoot her with everything they had, then undergo another bone marrow transplant. Once it took, she would undergo the chemo again. It would be a brutal undergoing, but they hoped that the hard hit would set her back into remission, perhaps for good this time. Any less and the chances of recovery were slim this time around.

Pyotr felt the timer working its way down, his little family was running out of time and he didn’t want to miss any of it. He filed for a sabbatical at his practice, with the exception of a few special cases and notified all his brothers and baby sisters Thanksgiving was at the family home and everyone was required to come, with or without their families. He would not be denied this moment.

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CHAPTER NINE

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Pyotr made it easy for everyone to join him. He didn’t care what day Thanksgiving came on, what was important was having everyone together and to prevent competition with in-laws, he set the gathering for the entire weekend just in case a few couldn’t make it for Thursday.

The first to arrive was Pavle’s ex wife, Maggie with the kids, having come in the night before offering to help out with the food preparations. Maggie and Pavle though divorced were still close friends. They’d had a good life together but after the boys had grown up they came to realized they weren’t right for each other anymore and called it quits before the grudge could affect them. And of course there was the part that Pavle had been gay from the beginning. But family was family and the holidays were spent together.

Thursday morning Artyom, his wife Mira and their six kids arrived bringing with them the first rays of sunshine and as the day warmed up under the late fall sun that Thursday morning, the rest of the family began to arrive one by one.

Next in was Sasha and his twin lovers, Isaac and Isaiah. Shortly after was Trofim flying solo followed by the twin sisters, Varvara and Andjela.

Darko came in, he too was single, but he brought a date for the weekend with hopes of striking a deeper relationship with the man he’d rescued on the side of the road a few weeks back. Theirs was an interesting tale to tell. Maxum had gotten a flat. His new car for all of four hours and he didn’t have a clue as to where his spare tire was. Darko had pulled over on his chopper and fixed him up, but once his gaydar went off he claimed a rather bold reward and pulled Maxum in for a deep kiss right there on the side of the highway. His grease covered hands ruined the man’s suit. The penance was he could come over for a dinner date, bring the ruined suit and he’d pay to have it dry cleaned or stand him up and he was on his own for the cleaning charges. Maxum showed up sans the suit.

Shortly after noon Jovan made it in with his two kids minus an ex wife who hated him along with the rest of the world. And then Rury and his flaming beau Liam.