Every Little Thing (36 page)

“He's okay then? His back, the wound?”

“
He's
all right. A clean cut. But
we're
not. And lower your voice!”

He didn't know who she meant by that
we.
Whispering now, to calm her at least that much, “What did Keith tell you about tonight? Did he mention what he said to me?”

She wasn't listening. She ran to the base of a second set of stairs to make sure Keith was still puttering around upstairs. “Get in your car and go!” She pushed him, one hand in his chest.

“Did he tell you—”

“
There's no point in us talking right now!
”

“Keith told me about the kid,Allie, the baby you gave away.”

A look like fingernails across a chalkboard. She went chalk-white. “He
what
?” She stumbled towards the couch without looking where she was going. The backs of her knees hit the edge and she fell into the cushions. “He what?”

He stood over her, looking down. “Was it a boy or a girl, Allie. I need to know—”

She brought her shushing gesture to her lips again, “What did he say to you, exactly?”

“That you were pregnant when you moved into Lee's. That it might've been mine.”

She needed a second. Didn't have it. “This isn't a conversation to have in a rush. I'll call you. I will. But...Go!
Now
.” She pointed to the door.

“I'm not in a rush. And Keith's welcome to join us since he started the conversation.”

She went to the bottom of the staircase again, more panicked this time, flapping her hands like,
Go, go, now.

“Was it a boy or a girl, Allie? Then I'll go. Not before. Simple question.”

“I don't know anything! I'm not even legally allowed to know the name until the kid is eighteen!”

“You must know if it was a boy or a girl—”

“
What difference does that make! You need to go!
”

He looked at the front door. “The boy, Allie, at the Avian-Dome. The one I told you all about. The one that got me thinking adoption. The one with the shitty dad sending him off to Florida?”He waited for her to nod, but she only looked at him, wild-eyed and jittery, her head twitching around to scan the whole 360 of the room. “He'd be the age our child is. And he has ARVC, Allie.” He touched his heart. “I just need my head clear of this wild notion.”He walked to the top of the stairs leading down to the porch. Allie was still across the room at the base of the other stairs. He turned to face her. “Was it a boy or a girl,Allie, and then I'll go.”

She came across the room to avoid yelling. “It'd be a slim chance,Cohen.”

“Not really. Are you saying it was a boy?”

She looked at her hands, vibrating in panic. “No, Cohen, it was a girl. And she was gorgeous. What I'm
saying
is you need to leave. What I'm saying is there's too much to this story to tell you right now.”And she pointed to the door.

Cohen's bones rang with disappointment when she'd said,
It was a girl
. And he pictured Zack, laying in a hospital bed, alone.

Keith's voice was loud but distant. “This is
perfect
,” he said.

“This is perfect.”He walked to the living-room window, peered out like he was waiting for someone. He pulled his phone fromhis pocket and looked at it.

“Put the phone down, Keith. I had one question, about the kid, and now I'm going.”

“Oh, I'm not calling anyone. I already did. I'm just checking how long ago it was, when I called our new friend, Constable MacDonald.”He peered at the screen on his phone. “He should be here any minute now to pick you up again.” Keith had his cellphone pinched between his thumb and middle finger, twirling it around in circles. A smug look on his face.

“I came over to ask about the kid, as anyone would, considering.” He sized Keith up. “So you're alright then?The wound, your back?”

Keith simply stood there, looked Cohen up and down, laughed. “Pretending to give a shit, are you?” He grabbed the curtains and pulled them all the way open. The curtain rings rang like thunder. “Constable MacDonald calls
letting yourself in
trespassing, by the way.”

Allie retreated too, to the centre of the room. “Just let him go, Keith. He came over to yell about the kid. You told him about the adoption. He had questions. That was all. Honestly.”

“What, let him go, so you two can squirrel off again, behind my back?”He turned to her, his face a mouthful of lemon. “I can't even look at you.
Still
.”And he spat at her feet. He spat at her and she fell into the couch, crying so hard it didn't even make a sound. He picked up a pillow and threw it at her, hard, in a way that said she disgusted him. That he'd punch her if he could.

Cohen took the pillow off Allie's chest. “You should head upstairs and give her some space. I'll let myself out.”

“Don't you fucking talk either! You hear me?” And he took two lunges at Cohen and swung, and Cohen swayed out of the way.

Cohen walked behind the coffee table, to put a barrier between him and Keith, and said, “You
can't
! Your back, your stitches!”

Keith grabbed a TV remote off the top of the television and threw it at Cohen. Cohen ducked and it put a small dent in the wall behind him. It hit Allie's shins as it fell onto the couch. She shot up, yelped more in fright than pain, but rubbed out the throbbing with her hand. Cohen took his eyes off Keith, and Keith laid the butt of his foot into the coffee table and drove the table into Cohen's shins, hard. Cohen jerked forward in pain, and Keith swung a fist into the bruise he'd left on Cohen's cheek earlier that night. A thick needle into his face. The after-sting was worse than the blow, and his whole face buzzed.

Allie was curled into a ball on the couch. “Keith
don't
! Just let him go. What are you
doing
?” She had a pillow clutched into her belly with both arms, and Keith put his foot on the pillow. He laid his foot there gently at first, and then he pushed down hard, like a man slamming on the brakes. She let out a horrific, pained exhale.

So Cohen swung at him, hard as he could, instinctively. He caught Keith in the side of the head and busted his earlobe. Perfect little drops of blood trickling onto his shoulder. Allie was shouting out
No!
endlessly and aimlessly, and Cohen and Keith were grappling like wrestlers, arms locked over each other's shoulders. They fell and broke apart like a shattered vase. But Keith jumped back up in time to kick Cohen in the ribs. He went for a second kick, but Cohen grabbed his leg and swept his other foot out from under him; a gut-deep howl of pain as Keith landed on his stitched-up knife wound. Keith laid there, on his side, his elbows stuck to his ribs; body struck like a gong.

A yellow glow of headlights swirled through the living room like one turn of a lighthouse. Slamming car doors. Two. An officer and the officer passenger side. Cohen got up, went to the window, and felt panicked when he saw they'd left their red and blue lights on. One of them jotting down Cohen's license plate, photographing the car with a landmark in the background. Keith grabbed Cohen from behind, hooking an arm around his throat, squeezing hard enough for Cohen's face to tingle and burn. So he put a foot against the wall and thrust hard, hoping to spring Keith into something and break the grip. But they stumbled back and back, gaining momentum as their feet entangled, and struggled to right themselves, and then there was nothing underfoot as Cohen saw the staircase railing. They tumbled together, but Cohen managed to grab the railing and Keith didn't. He'd gone down over the steps loud and hard and awkwardly. Cracked his head off a telephone stand at the base of the stairs. Shrieked about it. But it was his wrist he was clutching and howling about as the police walked in. Constable MacDonald. A satisfied look on his face like,
I was right about you, boy.

Keith was still on the ground, like a picked-on school kid, clutching his wrist, then the back of his head, in alternating motions. But he was doing it like a bad actor, so everyone would know he was hurting head to toe. “He burst right into our house!

Allie told him to leave! Isn't that trespassing? The...next thing I know he's punching me. He's thrown me over the stairs, and you've walked in to see it for yourselves! He's physically assaulted me in my own home, and he's verbally harassing his ex,” he pointed up to Allie. “He called her, four times, back to back, before coming over and barrelling in! It's in her call history, his number.” He looked down at his wrist. It was a balloon that needed air. “I think he's broken my wrist!” Keith stood up, turning his back to them all, to haul his shirt up. “I think he's torn my stitches open?”There was a single drop of blood trickling out from the tip of the wound. “I've been reasonable, ‘til now. But I think I'd like to press charges. Assault, trespassing,whatever. And I'd like to revisit his role in my stabbing. Mostly, I'd like him out of my house, immediately.”Keith pointed to Cohen like he owned the police and they'd do whatever he said.

Constable MacDonald walked up the stairs, glaring at Cohen, but he walked right passed him to Allie. “Are you all right, ma'am, physically anyway?” And she nodded. “Can you confirm what your fiancé has said?”

Keith shouted as he climbed the stairs, “As a witness, you mean?”

Allie looked at Cohen and said nothing to the officer. She looked over to Keith and Keith was glaring at her.

“Yes or no, Ms. Crosbie. That's all I need to hear, nothing else. Did Cohen Davies enter your home without your consent and knowledge of his entry?”

She looked at Cohen again, her head held sideways, curious.

“Don't look at him,ma'am. Look at me. Did he?”

She nodded and a new pattern of whimpering came out of her. She nodded yes and looked at Cohen immediately, crying as apology.

“I need you to say it, ma'am. A nod won't do. Yes or no?”

Keith was nodding his head up and down. Ravenous. Thrilled the police were taking sides.

“Ye—yes.”

“And did you, at any point in your conversation, ask Cohen Davies to leave your premises?”

“Yes, but only—Only to prevent all of this!”

“Again, simply a yes or no, at this point.”

Keith was glaring at her. She said, “Yes.”

“And is this the man who caused bodily harm to your fiancé, Keith Stone?”

The officer stuck his fat hand in Cohen's direction. Close enough that Cohen could see the dirt under than man's nails and the scratch on his wedding band. Allie nodded.

“Ma'am, we need you to say it, not nod it.”

“Yes. But—This didn't happen like. You—”Keith knifed her answer with the shake of his head.
Choose sides
. He had the posture of an angry father let down by his daughter. And then he stepped in front of the officers, “He started punching me, before he pushed me over the stairs. He did this to my ear!” Keith tilted his head and pointed to his bloody ear. “Look!”He pointed to the blood dried into his shirt.

Cohen didn't defend himself. He looked at Allie, gutted, and he said, “You're going to marry this man.” It wasn't a question. He was proving a point as two hands clenched around the tops of his arms, to guide him down over the stairs. A hot whisper in his ear. “We've got charges this time, hotshot.”

The officers held him stiff and straight; he couldn't turn to look at Allie. But he could hear her crying, bawling, as the police handled him like a criminal in front of her. Constable MacDonald didn't let go of Cohen's arm when Cohen bent to put his shoes on. They stepped out into the cold night. His lungs filling with it. The moon full, low, in a way he'd never seen before.

They tugged Cohen down over the cement staircase towards the car, and he almost lost his footing, tripped. There were no sirens going off, but the car's lights were on, and they were harsh on the eyes. Especially the white glare between the red and blue. There were nosey neighbours.

He looked over his shoulder, saw Allie and Keith getting in their car to head to the hospital. Keith clutching that limp wrist like it might win him an Oscar. Allie wouldn't look at Cohen— it'd be a sign of support or remorse, and Keith would hold it against her—but there was a kink in her neck, or an awkward posture, as she fought not to look.

He saw it then, for the first time, that she had a life built before he stumbled back into her world that second time. Joint mortgages, co-owned cars, a career tangled up in it all. He'd forgotten love was all those things too.

He watched her in the rear-view mirror of the police car, the lights off her face: white, blue, red, white, blue, red. He thought of a time, a decade ago, when he sat in the passenger seat of their car, and she scrapped ice from the window. Little green mitts on. She hauled the windshield wipers up, to do a thorough job. He watched thick snowflakes fall on her face, and the way they glistened and lingered, before melting into her, was a crushing sort of beauty. A weight that only she could pin him under.

FOCUS

LEE'S TRIAL HAD come much sooner than Cohen's. He'd been deemed mentally unfit—by two psychiatrists—to be tried and serve time in prison for attempted murder. He was court-ordered to live in a special wing at River Crest Hospital. It was the same place he'd been staying since the night he stabbed Keith.

River Crest was bleaker than a prison. Lee's wing was silent or it was filled with creepy, desperate moans. It stank of piss or something like it. Javex; sterile and depressing. It violated Cohen's nose the three times he'd gone to visit Lee.

They had him doped up beyond reason. Cohen could lift Lee's arm and drop it, like Lee was a doll. He could stick him with a pin and not expect Lee to react. By the second visit,Lee never recognized him anymore. One nurse had said,
He's adjusting to medication
, and on the third visit, the same nurse told him,
He's having more bad days now than good ones
. And she asked him who Allie was.