Fort Lupton (16 page)

“
You can only have one at
a time,” the nurse said. “Until he’s settled.”

“
I’ll go,” Jill said. She
leaned over and kissed Charlie’s cheek. “He can’t see you. You have
to lean over him.”

Staring at the ceiling, he heard the door
close. A moment later, Tink’s face appeared.

“
Tink!” Charlie
said.

She just smiled.

~~~~~~~~

Thursday afternoon — 1:15 p.m.

Blane had been asleep.

At least, he thought he’d been asleep,
because the feeling was so weird and so real.

He opened his eyes. He was looking at the
ceiling of his hospital room. Before the room had been closed to
non-medical people, Heather had taped a digital photo frame to the
ceiling above his face. He clicked the remote and watched a bunch
of pictures of Mack and a few of Heather. There were pictures of
their home and even a sonogram of their son-on-the-way.

Blane closed his eyes.

The feeling was still there.

It was like the tiniest of tiny lights.

“
Flea-sized firefly,”
Blane said out loud to no one.

He didn’t open his eyes.

The feeling was like the tiniest firefly in
the world had been turned on inside of him. In his dream, he
watched the light grow into a flame. And he
felt . . .

 
. . .hopeful . . .

 
. . .energetic . . .

 
. . .positive . . .

 
. . .like
he could do anything. He opened his eyes.

He felt like one of those stupid
inspirational posters he refused to post at Lipson
Construction.

“
It only takes the tiniest
spark to create the hottest flame,” one of the posters had said.
The photo was of a campfire. Blane had argued that the tiniest
sparks were also responsible for forest fires, which destroy
habitats and lives. Jacob had laughed.

Now, here he was — lying in his hospital bed
hoping the tiny spark, this little firefly would grow into a full
blown fire.

He couldn’t remember a time when the
oppressive exhaustion of HIV wasn’t with him.

He couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t
had to fight against a wall of sickness.

He couldn’t remember a time when tomorrow
and the day after that and the day after that seemed possible.

He closed his eyes again.

The spark was definitely there.

He opened his eyes and watched the photos of
his incredible life.

“
Only you can prevent
forest fire,” he said out loud.

As if on cue, his nurse entered into the
pre-chamber of his room. She dressed in sterile scrubs and came
into his room.

“
Are you ready for lunch?”
she asked. “I checked at noon and you were still
asleep.”

“
I’m hungry,” Blane
said.

“
What?” She was so
surprised that she laughed. “I’m sorry, I thought I heard you
say . . .”

“
I’m hungry,” Blane
repeated.

Even though he could only see her eyes, he
could tell that she was smiling.

“
What would you like to
eat?” she asked.

“
Hamburger — no —
cheeseburger, french fries, and a shake — no, chocolate shake,”
Blane said, and laughed. “I’d probably throw them up.”

“
You would,” she said.
“But it’s really good that you want them.”

Blane nodded.

“
How ’bout if we start
with some broth and crackers?” the nurse asked.

“
Work our way to
cheeseburgers?” Blane asked.

“
Good plan,” the nurse
said.

She changed his IV and helped him to the
bathroom. He waited in an armchair by the window while she changed
his bed. The whole process took about a half hour.

“
So what do you think?”
the nurse asked. “Are you still hungry?”

“
Starved,” Blane
said.

The nurse smiled.

“
We’ll start with broth,”
she said.

“
And crackers,” Blane
said.

“
And crackers.” She
smiled. “If you’re still hungry, we’ll get you more.”

Blane nodded. She helped him shuffle back to
his bed. Exhaustion overcame him. He fell against the bed. She
squeezed his arm and left the room.

He closed his eyes.

The spark had grown. The firefly was now the
size of a tiny fly.

Blane smiled in
anticipation of his broth
and
crackers.

Just a little
crazy

Thursday night — 9:15 p.m.

Tanesha stood in the front doorway to their
little yellow house. Every light was turned off and the house was
still. She scowled and softly closed the front door.

It was Jeraine’s turn to make dinner. She
walked into the dark kitchen and flipped on the light switch.

Nothing.

She’d talked to her mother before she got on
the bus home so she knew that Jeraine wasn’t with Jabari. He wasn’t
at his parent’s house because Dionne was with her mother, and
Schmidty had gone back to California after court that evening.

Where did that man go?

She closed her eyes as her heart beat a
familiar rhythm.

“
He’s out catting around.”
Tanesha’s rage ignited. “Again.”

“
That man cannot keep his
dick in his pants.” The pulse of her rage rose.

He’s gone,
her mind whimpered.

She stuffed down her sorrow and went back to
rage. She picked up her phone and called his cell phone. It rang
somewhere in the house. He’d left his phone at home.

“
Agggghhh!!” she
growled.

She started to throw her cell phone against
the wall and then decided against it.

“
You have to trust me, he
said,” Tanesha said out loud. “You have to believe in us, he said.
And then he . . .
he . . .”

What? He didn’t make dinner?

He went somewhere and didn’t tell her?

She poured herself a glass of water and
thought through the last day or so. Sure, it had been crazy, but
he’d been on track, sober, and dedicated to his new life. Wondering
if he’d fallen asleep, she went upstairs. He wasn’t in their
bedroom or bathroom. He wasn’t in the guest room they were setting
up for Jabari. She set her empty glass in the kitchen and went
downstairs.

She almost never went down here. This is
where Jeraine entertained his celebrity clients and friends.

Not
entertained
, the Jeraine in her head
said.
Work. This is work. My
work.

She sighed and went down the stairs. Jeraine
had been writing songs for one of those barely clothed female pop
singers. She had an album due. They’d even recorded a few songs
down here, which Jeraine had worked late nights mixing.

It was good money. It was work he could do
while going to brain therapy. She just wished he didn’t do it with
his ex-lovers.

She turned on a light and walked through the
small recording area. He wasn’t in the sound booth either. There
was a light on in his tiny office on the opposite side of the
basement. She went toward the light. Through the glass panes in the
door, she could see that he was sitting in a chair, his forearms on
this thighs, staring at something on the floor.

She tapped on the door, and he looked up. He
got up to open the door.

“
What’s going on?” Tanesha
asked. Still angry from the wave of emotions she’d been through,
she said, “I thought you were making dinner.”

“
Dinner?” Jeraine nodded.
“Sorry, I forgot.”

“
You forgot?” Tanesha
asked. She put a hand on her hip. “You forgot what?”

Her logical mind told her she was being
stupid, but she couldn’t let go of the feeling that he’d betrayed
her tonight. Instead, she piled all that hurt and all that anger
onto the fact that he’d betrayed her by not making dinner.

He looked from the hand he had on her hip to
the sneer on her lips.

“
You thought I was out,”
he said.

“
I . . .”

Sucking his teeth, he nodded and sat back
down.

“
What?” she
asked.

“
I deserve that,” he
said.

“
Yes you do,” Tanesha
said. “You . . .”

She clamped her mouth closed against the
horrible words that lingered on her tongue. For a few minutes, she
stood there seething over nothing while he stared at the envelope
on the floor. Eventually, she got tired of her own insanity. She
took a few deep breaths to calm down.

“
What
are
you doing?” Tanesha
asked.

Her voice had less than half of the anger
she’d felt upstairs. His head jerked up with surprise.

“
You calmed down?” he
asked.

“
Not really,” she said.
“But when am I ever calm?”

He chuckled.

“
What are you doing?” she
asked again.

“
Staring at an envelope on
the floor,” Jeraine said.

Tanesha walked over to the envelope.

“
May I?” she
asked.

“
Go ’head,” he
said.

“
Where are all your naked
girlfriends?” The words came out when Tanesha was bending
over.

“
I don’t have any
girlfriends,” Jeraine said. “And I haven’t seen a naked woman in
days.”

“
Whose fault is that?” she
said as she stood up. He looked her up and down.

“
I’m just saying that it’s
been days,” he said.

She couldn’t help but laugh. He nodded
toward the envelope and she looked down.

“
Is
this . . .?” she asked.

“
Jabari’s DNA results,”
Jeraine said.

“
What . . .?”

She turned the envelope over and saw that it
was unopened.

“
You didn’t even look at
it,” she said.

He nodded.

“
What
are
you doing?” she asked
again.

“
I don’t know,” Jeraine
said. “Really. I don’t. I was at court all day, dropped Schimidty
at the airport . . . I got home about five. The
envelope was in the slot with the rest of the junk.”

“
I’m not really sure what
happened next. I got some water and came down here to read my email
and catch up with the chatter. Valerie Lipson’s in the tabs
again.”

“
I’ll tell her,” Tanesha
said.

“
Something about one movie
and another new movie. I couldn’t figure it out.” Jeraine nodded.
“Anyway, I didn’t look at the mail until it was time to get dinner
started. Then . . .”

“
How’d it get on the
floor?” Tanesha asked.

“
I pushed my chair back
and it fell off the desk,” he said. “Like it’s following
me.”

“
Okay, that’s weird,
psycho,” Tanesha said.

He gave her a goofy grin. She gave him a
“dare me?” look and he nodded. She opened the back of the
envelope.

“
I was sitting here
wondering how I got into this situation,” Jeraine said. “What am I
going to tell Jabari? ‘Go fuck as many as you can?’ I think of
Jabari in those situations — the women, booze, drugs, crazy shit,
and I . . .”

Tanesha waited for him to continue. When he
didn’t, she tugged on the sheet inside the envelope.

“
How did it get like
that?” Jeraine asked.

She looked up from the envelope at him.

“
Are you asking me?” she
asked.

“
I am asking you,” he
said.

“
Why do I think you got
that way?” she asked.

“
Right,” Jeraine
said.

“
You’re an addict,” she
said.

“
Besides that,” he said.
“I get that I would have been an addict no matter what. But I could
have easily just been a stay-at-home boozer like my
uncle.”

“
Why do I think you got
that way?” she asked again, because she didn’t believe he wanted to
hear what she had to say.

“
Lay it on me,” he
said.

She sighed, and he waited.

“
Okay, fine,” she said. “I
think you got that way because you don’t value or appreciate the
gift of your own talent. You didn’t believe you were talented
enough to make it big, and when you were finally there? You did
everything in your power to degrade yourself to prove that you
weren’t so talented after all.

“
That’s not to discount
the role the record company played and all the rest of that. That
was real.”

She nodded. He didn’t say anything for a
while.

“
Why do you think I felt
that way about myself?” Jeraine asked.

“
We’ve talked about this,”
Tanesha said.

“
Humor me,” Jeraine
said.

“
I think you grew up with
incredibly talented people,” Tanesha said. “I’ve seen Seth
intimidate world-famous piano players. He’s . . .
scary good. Your dad, too. And your mom? Her voice is still
pitch-perfect. Amazing.”

“
She still sings for
commercials and stuff.” Jeraine nodded.

“
I know,” Tanesha said.
“That’s a lot to deal with.”