Every Little Thing (32 page)

“Me either.”

“But. We're kind of naked, in a parking lot.”

She rolled over into the passenger seat, slid her underwear back up, and that elastic snap shook him into action. He untwisted the jeans around his ankles and hauled them back up. She'd reclined her seat and was laying there with her eyes closed. Cohen scanned her face for regret, or guilt, and saw neither. If anything, she looked tired. She opened her eyes and looked over at him. “What?”

“Nothing.”

She sat up, kissed him. Wrestled her hair into an elastic.

“In a parking lot. Like a couple of teenagers. We've still got it in us.”

“We're not senior citizens,” she said. “And I said stop talking about it!”

“I—”

“Stop talking about it, I said! We need to go. I gotta get home. I have an early flight to Montreal in the morning.”

“Montreal? My favourite. I'll grab a ticket too? Lee can fend for himself at this point.”

“Used to be my favourite too. Keith hates it, so he sends me to attend all things Montreal.” She seemed like she wanted to say something more. And when she did, it was, “Ever since you mentioned you're looking into adoption, all I can think about is how I travel too much to be a...present, active mother.”

But Cohen wasn't listening to her, really. He was picturing them in Montreal. Almond chocolatines and bitter coffee on Mont-Royal when they got there.

He looked over, and Allie's face was a puzzle of guilt, giddiness, remorse, excitement, confusion, and calmness. Until she looked at her engagement ring. Her eyes like a car into a wall.

MEANING
WELL

TWO MORE WEEKS and he'd have to move back home. The thought never left him. Years had raced by, changing nothing about his life, but this one slow stretch of months had the past rear-ending the present.

He was making a pizza for him and Lee, eating as much prosciutto and green olive as he was throwing onto the crust. He cut up some tomatoes with the same chef 's knife he'd found on Lee's nightstand two nights back. He'd asked Lee why the knife was in his room, and Lee said, “Mind your own business. My house. My knife. Fuck off.” So he did.

He was putting the pizza in the oven when Clarence phoned. “Cohen?”

“Yeah?”

“How's it going?”

“Good, you?”

“I meant...with the sample processing. How's
that
going?” He laughed. “But I'm glad you're well.”

“Oh.”They laughed a little more. “Good. I have about seventy bags left. I'll be done by your August eighth deadline. Maybe even sooner.”

“You've obviously not started in on the 2011 bags yet. Have you?”

“Yeah, I have. This week. Why?”He popped another green olive into his mouth. Maybe his tenth.

“Well, I just found another dozen bags.
About
a dozen anyway. I don't know how they got separated from the rest.”

“I'm getting sick of this, Clarence. I'm seeing larvae when I close my eyes. I'm dreaming about getting swarmed by dragonflies, eaten alive by midges. Sunday night, I dreamt that two loons were pecking at my shins—”

“Going
looney
, are you?”

“Yes. Hah hah.”

“Well, if you're already losing it, another twelve bags won't kill you.”

“No, I guess not. I'll see you tomorrow. I'll be in tomorrow to get them.”

And when he went in to the Avian-Dome, he went in the afternoon, so that Zack would be there. He poked his head into the daycare room, and Jenny Lane recognized him, waved. She was knelt down and helping little Lacie Decker get her shoes on, and Lacie turned and waved to him.

Jenny nodded her head sympathetically towards Zack as she tied up Lacie's sneakers. Sympathetically, like
Poor Zack
. And when Cohen looked over, Zack looked like a kid at a Christmas tree who had no gifts to open while everyone else was tearing into theirs. There were kids running around, screaming and banging toys together—airplanes and plush birds—but Zack just sat there watching them. He was sat on the floor with his two hands rested on the carpet beside him. A shoelace untied. He looked like an old toy all the other kids had outgrown.

He saw Cohen and smiled, but not overly. It was weird, that lack of enthusiasm. The stony face. Zack got up and walked over to Cohen and let out a laborious “Hi.”His left hand was wrapped up in gauze.

“Why the mummy hand?”

Zack lifted his hand, looked at it. Slumpish and slow. “Oh. I was washing Dad's big knives. He fills up the sink for me, and I stand on a chair. Sometimes it's hard to see through the bubbles. A big knife got me. I put my hand in the water too fast I guess?” He shrugged his shoulders.

Cohen tried hiding his anger from Zack, and bottling it up only made him angrier. He couldn't say,
Your father's a fucking idiot, do you know that?
He asked him, “How about the fainting, buddy, how's that been?”

“Worse.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.

“How?What do you mean, worse?”

“My lungs are sick and I pass out more now. I'm not even supposed to run around.”

Cohen felt a hand on his shoulder. Clarence's. “Say goodbye to Mr. Davies, Zack.” And then Clarence's hand was hauling Cohen away.

Zack only waved, as if uttering the words was exhausting. He was the colour of wet tissue paper: a purplish underglow.

Walking down the hall, “You know goddamn well where the samples are, and they're not in that kid's possession, are they?”

“What happened to Zack's hand, Clarence?”

“
Don't
start in with the heroics. Do
not
.”

“His father had him washing
chefs' knives
!”

“Cohen, it's not your business.”

“There's got to be a fucking rule, about you reporting shit like that. But fine, I'm done. I mean no ill will. I just need to express my opinion. And
then
I can drop it.”

“I'm not sure you can.”They'd gotten to the storage closet, and Clarence fished his keys out of his pocket and unlocked the door. Jangles of keys amplifying Clarence's anger. He flicked a light on. Said, “Are you done yet?”

“You agree, don't you?”

“What I think, Cohen, is we've gotten too buddy-buddy for you to respect my authority when I tell you to drop something. And for that, I'm losing the high regard I've been holding you in. To be blunt.”He opened the closet door, looked at Cohen steely.

“What's wrong with his lungs?”

“His lungs?”

“Yeah, he said his lungs are…sick.”

Clarence put an empty box in Cohen's arms. “It's his heart, not his lungs. He's got what you got. ARVC. How appropriate.

Maybe you've all got some bond that makes you irrationally protective of each other?”

“He doesn't have ARVC. I have ARVC. I don't faint and go around looking like a pale mummy. The kid looks lethargic. Half dead.”

“He's got ARVC, Cohen. He's been diagnosed. Maybe he's just...got it really bad? Worse than you?” Clarence kept loading the box Cohen was holding with more pond samples.

“You're a biologist, Clarence. Listen to yourself.”

“I'm your
boss
,Cohen, so why don't
you
listen to
yourself
?”

“Jokes, I was joking. I'm just saying—”

“Since you're his fairy godfather, I guess I can fill you in. It's not good. He's on a transplant list. The heart's shot, apparently.”

“That's
not
ARVC! ARVC is a rhythm disorder. I should know.”

“I'm sorry for your denial, but the muscle of his heart, it's turning into fat. It's a sad state. A rare case, unheard of in the province for a kid his age, but the doctors aren't lying, Cohen. Zack was supposed to go live with his grandmother, in the States, but there's specialists here. And while my heart goes out to the little slugger, that's enough on him, okay? I don't like the look on your face.”

“It can't be
that
bad! People on transplant lists. They...live in in the hospital while they're waiting, don't they?”

Clarence laid the last of the twelve bags in the box in Cohen's arm. “Zack's gotta wait it out. It's interfering with his attendance at school, at this point. But no, he can't just sit around in hospital. There's only so many beds to go around.”

Clarence was locking up the closet door, but Cohen had already turned to walk back down the hall. Zack's father had come in to pick Zack up, and Cohen dashed off towards him, but Clarence came bustling up behind him. He slapped his two hands on Cohen's shoulders, like meat hooks, and Cohen's feet kicked forward. Cohen hadn't gotten close enough to Zack's father so he had to yell at Jamie while he waited for Jenny to lace up Zack's shoes. He screamed, “
Hey!
” and everyone turned around. “You've got him washing
knives
now?” And Zack's father, from the other end of the long foyer, peered, perplexed,with a hand over his eyes, in the direction of the shouting.

Clarence lassoed an arm around Cohen and hauled him into a nearby washroom. A woman's washroom. He pinned Cohen up against a ceramic tile wall by his shoulders and roared at him. A thud from his lungs as Clarence pushed him into the wall. “You're
seconds
away from losing your job. Do you hear me? Is the man worth that?”

“It's not about the man, is it? Are you asking me if a kid's safety is worth my job?”And Clarence thrust Cohen into the wall again, out of frustration. Cohen's shoulder blades, and then his skull, knocking off the wall. A sharp crack of pain that buzzed in his teeth.

“
What
is your deal with this kid? You're out there shouting at the man in front of visitors and staff! I can't have it—”

Cohen shoved Clarence off him. He tossed the samples on the floor, and one of the bags burst open: a shot of pale brown water squirt through the air like a sprinkler going off. He caught up to Zack and Zack's father, and Zack's father was reaching a hand up for the door; his back to Cohen.

“You've got him washing knives now?”

Turning around, knowing who it was without seeing him yet, “I've got him helping out around the house, yeah, and we had a little accident.”

“Helping around the house.” A sardonic laugh. “You couldn't just have him fold some laundry? Dust a coffee table?”

And it was Jenny Lane coming up behind Cohen now. She grabbed Cohen by a hand and yanked him back, like she thought Cohen might hit the man. “Cohen! Stop it! Back off! Mr. Janes, you go on! I'm sorry for this. I really am!”

He said, “Are you going to hit me, Cohen? Do you want to hit me?”

The look in Zack's eyes was a slap across Cohen's face. Fear.
Don't. Why
?

Clarence was jogging up towards them now, flinching from stabs of pain in his bummed ankle. “You go on, Mr. Janes. We'll deal with Cohen.”

Cohen looked back at Clarence and then back at Zack's father. “
Hit
you? Maybe I should stick a knife in your hand?”

Too much. He regretted it instantly. Zack looked panicked and afraid, and Cohen felt horrible. Everyone shaking their heads as Zack and his father walked out of the building. Cohen looked back at Clarence.

“Jesus Christ, Cohen. I mean.
Jesus Christ
.”

Jenny walked away, still shaking her head, and started herding the other kids back into the playroom. They'd all come spilling out to watch the show. Little snickering voices like,
Is that man going to cut Zack's dad's hands off?

“You're done. I'm sorry. But you're done here. That was it. I warned you. I warned you twice, really, didn't I? I gave you a second chance and you threw it back in my face! Finish up the samples you have out in Grayton, at that man's house, and consider it your last two weeks at the Avian-Dome. I'll pay you the full two weeks if you're done sooner than that.”He shook his head again, gobsmacked, and walked away.

“I don't know where that…came from. I've got a lot going on. I wasn't threatening him, it only came out that way.”

“Just go,Cohen. Just, go.”

Clarence's head was still shaking. His arms at his hips like two triangles hanging off his body as he walked away. Cohen went to leave and Clarence turned around, “I never said the kid's father doesn't need a talking to. All I said was stay out of it, and you didn't. So. You're done. I—” Clarence scratched the side of his nose with a forefinger. “You're a bright guy, you're a good guy, a good worker. I'll give you a reference, depending on the nature of the job. Don't worry about that.” And then he turned and walked away. Whispered,
Fuck.

TWO DAYS LATER. Not even long enough for things to sink in, and it was his brother's birthday. Ryan. He'd drowned more than ten years ago, and Cohen's memories of him were as cloudy and malleable as recollected dreams. There were pieces missing and details blurred. But there were some moments, not murky at all through the lens of memory, like the time they were kids and Ryan found a tiny yellow worm wriggling around in his bowl of blueberries. Moments as trivial as that. Ryan, blue-toothed and terrified, pushing the bowl away. It smashed off the ceramic floor in their kitchen; little blue balls scurrying under the heater, the oven, the fridge. Ryan never ate blueberries again after that day. Not even blueberry jam.

His family never visited the grave on the anniversary of Ryan's death. They'd do that instead on his birthday, in celebration of Ryan, after a nice big lunch. So his mother called him that morning. A reminder.

“We'll see you at lunch, yes? Our place. One-ish?”

He sounded inattentive, he could hear that in his voice. So he kept his responses brief. “Yeah.” It sounded like he was distracted, reading the newspaper.

“What's wrong? You sound, I don't know…is something wrong?”