Clearly Now, the Rain (18 page)

Twenty-Two

When I pick Serala up at Sea-Tac, it is an odd December day: sunny and not particularly cold. And there she is, all smiles and bubbling over with excitement. I have felt this coming; I've deduced that she, like me, is absolutely determined to make these holidays sing, to mute all grief and heartbreak. She with her bag full of gifts, with her little envelope of fancy recipes, like the spirit of fucking Christmas itself. Joyous almost.

We have two hours to kill before Luke flies in, so we go to a horrendous mall near the airport to get a jump on the shopping but we end up just sitting at the cheesy Rainforest Café with the recorded hollering of monkeys, birds, and tigers leaking out of hidden speakers. Serala orders two mai tais at once.

After we pick Luke up, I can see his face in the rearview mirror as she chatters on and on to him about all our plans. I can see him enjoying the surprise he feels at her state and he says,
Yes, cool, okay, that's great,
to everything: to buying a load of booze, to shopping downtown, to cooking racks of lamb, to getting dressed up and crashing fancy lounges, to watching old movies and smoking grass.

Somewhat like my memory of our night in Memphis, the sweetness of those days sticks in me still. But the blur is close to opaque because she handed out Valiums like hard candy, even as the beer and booze flowed, as if she wanted us loose—or wanted us able to later forget.

I remember, the first night: the dusk is rising,
Harvest Moon
is wailing on the stereo, and everyone already has a cocktail. In the sky the moon is a crescent apricot.

My favorite,
she says out on the porch beneath it.
A fingernail moon
. She reaches into her pocket for cigarettes, and comes out with the silver cigarette holder and silver pillbox. She snaps the pillbox open.

Oh, here,
she says, and pushes two blue tablets over to me on the railing. I look at them for a moment and half a dozen good reasons not to take them flash through my mind. But then I look at her profile, silhouetted by moonlight, leaking plumes of smoke against it. I want something so badly in that moment. Not exactly to possess her, and not to save her—just maybe to be right there next to her, as close as I can be. I suppose you could say I want to keep up (which is laughable by any measure), want to inhabit the same space as her, to make it clear and loud to her that she is not alone. I throw my head back and swallow the pills with my eyes on that fingernail moon.

The cosmopolitans, and the wine, and the pills created a massive, distorted, Neil Young–sung whorl in the center of our lives. It spun us in and out as it pleased. We gave ourselves over to the mania she'd brought so fully that we didn't even question what was at its root.

I remember lurching out of a German bar and singing in the streets, under the crescent moon, all of us—Luke, Serala, Louis, and me—clutching fancy beer steins we have none too stealthily stolen. We walk the blocks to my home with arms around each other and the mood strong and high: in defiance of all past pain and the holiday blues, we will have fun.

Weathered from broken-family pre-holidays and the pain of his brother's absence, Hugh appears on December 22. Weary, in rumpled clothes, as he comes through the door his face relights. He grins his child's grin and tumbles into Serala's arms.

We crisscross the city in my truck, all packed into the cab, wandering Northgate Mall amid the frenzy of last-minute shoppers, laughing, high on a cocktail or two, a pill, strong grass, but mainly the moment. We get confused and lost from each other and have long, funny negotiations by cell phone about where to meet. Serala finds gifts for my mom and stepfather, her with an eagle eye, closing in on the right present time and again while us boys space out and walk around aimlessly eating free chocolates offered by high school girls dressed like elves.

Then December twenty-third, twenty-fourth, and Christmas day, the three mixed up like a train wreck, and all I have left is this clutch of moments and images:

Serala drunk and smiling, tottering on high heels with raspberry truffles on a cookie tray, pleased with herself. The meal begins with a rack of lamb; the rib cage arches up out of the pan grotesquely, and we pretend to be disgusted, just to push her buttons.

God, c'mon you guys, what are you, fucking pussies? It's just a bone,
she says, snapping off a section to chew on.

She's making comments about needing to score, so we drive to Capitol Hill for dinner, just she and I, and I tell myself I'll decide my heroin policy over the meal. We sit in the back reaches of the Broadway Grill, sharing the table with shadows and the bleed of neon lights. Her eyes are a bit wild behind her green contacts, but she still smiles a lot.

Let me have a rare cheeseburger,
still moving if possible
, she tells the flamboyant waiter who looks at her like she's a freak. I eagerly take this as confirmation that she's okay—if she'd been feeling worse, it would have been only soda or booze. She mines the rawest of the meat out of the dish and eats most of it, then spends the rest of the meal chatting on and on about Hugh, Luke, and Louis, what glorious people they are. How Louis is
like the best kind of pot on the best of nights,
she says, how Hugh is
weary and steady, a tough old soul,
she says, how Luke is
just such a kick, the little shithead brother I never got to have,
she says.

I'm really fortunate, you know
, she says, eyes lowered in some kind of humility,
to have all you guys. You can't imagine what a New England holiday would have been like. Thank you.

I shrug this off, but her warmth has me loving, trusting, wanting to make it easier still, wanting to spoil her with comfort and love. Over the check—which she snatches and pays with her usual ferocity—I tell her I'll wait on her if she knows how to score around here, but I don't want her going far on her own. But now she shakes her head, as if at something unpleasant.

No, it's okay, the pills and you guys are enough
.

But back at home she vanishes for long minutes into the bathroom and comes out unsteady, eyes dumbed and drooping, the lie of “clean” echoing in my head because she's never needed to lie before. And I know she's deep back in the muck if she's worried about scoring before she's even run out.

In other moments she is like a kid, jumping around by the little plastic Christmas tree, doling out presents, trying to get us to open them a day early. I find her sound asleep at midday on the twenty-fourth, hair wet and towel wrapped tight, beautiful in her rest, tears coming to my eyes at the sight. On Christmas morning she grins, and laughs, and rips at wrapping paper, scraps of it flying and floating on the smoky air, Beatles' guitar banging. Late that night, in the glass and steel of Seattle's financial district, she takes one of my arms and one of Luke's, walking through empty streets under a drizzle, dressed to the teeth, haunting the only bars open—five-star hotel lounges. We throw back martinis and cosmopolitans with toasts to Jack, to Sky, to my father, laughing till my face hurts at I know not what.

And, Christmas Eve, with Luke and Hugh sleepy in the light of a kung-fu film in the living room, she and I give only a nominal attempt at lying together chastely. Quickly we give our bodies over to the same voltage that joined us so many years ago in this same bedroom, the sex still like she said—
like fucking and making love at the same time
. Only now it is more tender, now with permission to hold her close even after our muscles lock, and spines arch, and breath comes like water, in gulps—even in that most fragile moment after, when she'd always had to pull a little bit away.

And I know that through all of this she was finding time. Time to get high, time to check in with her mother and the shrink, and time to do one more favor for me: call Mona and try to make her understand that this separation was real, that it was over, and that she had to go through the agony of it alone. To make her stop calling, and writing, and trying to drag me back across the mountains and into a mold I did not fit.

At about midday on the twenty-sixth, Hugh comes back from his pop's place and Luke and I have more shopping to do. Serala is bent on scoring. She isn't asking me anymore, just making mention of her errand, nervous now, running low on whatever she's brought. She's grouchy, too, for the first time. She's bitching about having lost her belt and needles, asking who's hidden them. Neither losing her works nor mentioning it is like her. The elation of the days is draining out of her as the morning goes on. She paces a lot and packs and repacks her suitcase and sleeping bag mindlessly. She steps out for smokes and squints at the skyline and finally I just scribble bus directions to Capitol Hill and drop them in her lap. Having lived in Seattle herself, she probably doesn't need this, but it's a way for me to pretend at some kind of control.

I just don't want you going downtown at night, okay?
I say.

I can run my own fucking errand,
she says, and brushes the paper off her lap.

Luke and I split, then, me cursing a tempest about her all the way across town, laying all of the frustration and worry on his ears, him listening and nodding and finally telling me:

I found her works last night.
She has been desperate at moments, merely annoyed at others, sure that someone is fucking with her.
Yeah, they were all bloody and sitting right on the bathroom counter. The problem is I don't remember what I did with them,
he tells me, rubbing his head in hungover regret. He's conflicted, of course, because he's not any more sure than I am that it's more responsible to meddle with Serala's fix than to help her find one. At the time, I'm simply glad that he's given her a twist.

But over the hours, as always seems to be the case, my anger leaves me and I feel a tug just to get back: back to her, back to the wondrous mania, back to eulogy-in-motion, back to the music, and drink, and the love. We find a gift for her at a sporting goods store—battery heated socks for the mountains—and hurry home. Hugh is ponderous and worn-out on the sofa, as if he's been through something important but harrowing, thinning hair wild on his skull and a sheen of sweat on his brow, eyes on the unlikely sun pushing through the dead trees outside the windows. And then I get a guess as to the reason for his state, as Serala comes out of the shower, barely adequate towel wrapped around her torso. Her hair glistens and her eyes find mine and, like I am meeting her for the first time, my heart skips a beat at the heft of that glance. I follow her into the big closet and shut the door.

I'm sorry I bailed out,
I say.

She puts her skinny arms around me and pulls herself close.

It's alright,
she says in my ear, her face warm and pliant from the shower, against my neck.
You're allowed.

That's the night.

Louis is playing a blues show at an Irish bar on Capitol Hill with an old bandmate. The bar is crowded with strangers as well as blasts-from-the-past for me. I say I'm going to the bar.

Get me a triple Jack,
Serala says, holding up three fingers.

When Louis and his bandmate start up the thumping blues, we all migrate to the front of the crowd. The music is funky and sweet. It brings the place to life: no overdone, weepy ballads of heartbreak, just up-tempo funk and rhythm. I manage to get down a few beers in that short period, and by the time Louis is available for me to slap on the back, I find the world a bit off-kilter.

And then Serala comes to me and says,
Listen
,
I need to go to Second and Pike.

The dark heart of the neighborhood where I've asked her not to go to, especially at night. This decision is the most unwelcome of any scenario. I tell her I'm in no shape to drive and I don't want her to go. But I am yielding, I am not angry, I am not pleading. I am kind, and clear, and she tells me it's fine, that she'll go in a cab.

When the taxi pulls up, I walk out with her and give her a key to my house. I say to be careful, and she says she will, and that she will see me at home. I kiss her and, before she turns and climbs into that car, she looks into my face, green contacts catching the vapor lights, and, for a long moment, she just smiles.

Later that night, on the way to Louis's car, my phone buzzes.

Hey, love,
she says. In the background I can hear several voices, casual tones, spiked by a chuckle or two: ordinary indoor conversation.
I just wanted to tell you that everything's cool and not to worry. I love you and I'll see you at home.

I awake at 8 a.m. with Luke leaning over me.

Hey, bro, she's still not here.
I grunt at him.
When can I start calling hospitals and shit?

I tell him to wait; I feel anger turn its ugly face up inside of me.

At ten I wake with Luke leaning over me again, but this time he doesn't ask.

I'm going to start calling hospitals.

I eat my granola; I do my push-ups; I stretch and go jogging. The morning once again is golden and dappled, so odd for the season, and as I push myself hard up the muddy inclines of Ravenna Park, I pretend I'm yelling at Serala, that the pain of my lungs swelling is me giving her a piece of my mind. But I'm not worrying yet; I'm not allowing that option. She isn't going to get me all bent out of shape that easy.

Luke and Hugh leave in my truck to check in person at a few hospitals where getting info over the phone has hit a snag. When they return Luke is again sitting in our dead father's wheeled desk chair, two telephones and Serala's laptop in front of him, stepping into the role of rational leader. I watch him for a few minutes from behind as he swivels, scribbling on Post-its, opening files on Serala's computer and his own, scratching his head, blowing out sighs. The end of the sun is coming in shafts through the window above the desk. Every few seconds he falls to stillness only to jerk upright again, open another file, google something else, another idea born. My little brother—but in that moment I see him only as the man he's grown into and, simultaneously, the question of what I would do without him slams into me like a fist and with caught breath I walk over, put my hands on his shoulders.