Housebroken (35 page)

“Yes,” he said. “I did. I killed her.”

The emotions stirring beneath the surface were so unfamiliar Adam wasn’t sure what he felt. Vindication? Betrayal? A concoction of contempt and disdain mixed with a strange empathy, just another lost soul.

No wonder I turned out how I did
, he thought.

“What’d I tell you?” Joje said. “The glint.”

“I signed the papers, to take her off the machines that were keeping her alive,” Blake said.

“So you could be with Jenna,” Adam said.

“No!” Blake looked horrified at the thought. “I didn’t do it for Jenna. It was for her. Your mom. She asked me—begged me—every single day! In the end, I . . . I could barely visit. It was all she said, all she thought. Adam, you have to understand she was in so much pain, even the drugs couldn’t touch it. There comes a point when you can’t watch the ones you love suffer anymore. It was . . . it was the only thing left I had to give her. So I gave in, signed the papers, put a stop to prolonging her death. If that makes me a murderer, so be it, but knowing what she had to go through, I would do it again. Because I loved her.”

“That’s the truth?” Adam asked.

“I swear. I never wanted her to die.”

Adam nodded. “Thank you. For being honest.”

“He hasn’t,” Joje said. “Two months after Rachel’s death, Dr. Jasper Rominko introduced a new palliative surgery using stent placements to bypass blocked ducts and lymph nodes. It would have saved her. She would still be here today if you had loved her enough to
not
let her have her way. Instead, six months later she was in the ground and you were on a honeymoon in the Philippines with wife number two.”

“How the hell do you know all this?” Blake asked. He was shaking, whether from anger or exhaustion, Adam couldn’t tell. “No one has access to that information.”

“I’ve had an interest in you, Bwake, my whole life—stay sitting!” Joje yelled. Lucy cowered back onto the couch.

Adam watched his father turn from Joje’s face to Adam’s, back to Joje, then back to Adam. Was he finally figuring it out?

Blake’s eyes widened. “Oh, God, you’re her son.”

Blake couldn’t keep his eyes from flitting between Adam and Joje, for the first time really seeing the resemblance. Remove the red hair and freckles, and you could see it in their faces—the slight nose, strong chin, the dimple that only appeared on the left when smiling.

Just like Rachel’s.

“So this is, what, some sick idea of revenge? You must know Rachel gave you up long before I was in the picture!”

“And you gave up on her, didn’t you?” Joje said. “But this isn’t about revenge. This is a reunion.”

Blake was instantly reminded of the first moment he met Joje on the porch, his face lighting up at seeing Adam, wriggling his fingers in a ridiculous wave.

“I told you from the beginning this wasn’t about your money, but that’s all you think about,” Joje said. “‘For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’ An old pirate saying.”

“I think it was Jesus who said that actually,” Blake said.

“Same difference.”.

Blake felt naked beneath their gazes—even Lucy looked at him with doubtful eyes. He held his hands out to his sides, spreading his arms. “You’ve got me. Do what you want. Blame me for your shitty life, who you’ve become, ’cause I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere! But Adam? I loved your mother. If you really believe that I intentionally did anything to hurt her?” A tear fell from one eye, dropping quickly down Blake’s cheek. “Then maybe you’re better off with him.”

“So cheating on her with Jenna while she was dying? That didn’t hurt Mom?” Adam asked, his face flushed. “Did she know?”

Another tear ran down the other side of Blake’s face.

“You act like you’re so innocent, but this may be the best thing to have happened to us! Force us to stop living these lies,” Adam said.

“So you would, what, go live with
him
? In some rundown ghetto, pulling scams to scrape by, constantly running from police—is that what you want? That’s what you consider honest living? Grow up, Adam! The biggest lie is this load of crap Joje is selling you.”

Adam looked as if he had been physically slapped.

Joje pulled Adam in protectively. “You still don’t get it, do you, Bwake? I’m worth more than you could ever be. I wouldn’t shit on what you call a life. The only scam here is you convincing yourself I’m something I’m not.”

Blake shook his head, so unused to admitting defeat. But from any angle he looked, this was a checkmate. The family he had tried so hard to protect had been torn out from under him, turned against him. He had nothing left to fight for.

“We’re going to give you a choice here, Bwakey, a final one, to help you keep our first rule. Remember that one? Nothing changes from your routine. And we’re back to a routine now, aren’t we? With the wifey in the hospital, the way I see it, you’ve got two options. Sleep with Wucy here, committing adultery as you’ve proven to do in the past, or choose the other thing you do so well—make the call to kill your wife. Drew’s with her right now, and he can make sure she doesn’t wake up. But as always the choice is yours.”

Blake shrunk toward the wall as Joje reached behind him to pull out his gun, but it wasn’t a gun he held out, it was a cellphone. The first ring sounded like a gunshot.

“What?” Drew’s voice said over the phone’s speaker.

“Dwew, what’s the status on our leading lady?”

“Just got out of surgery.”.

Surgery?
Blake thought.

“Is she awake?” Joje asked.

“Not yet. I’m in her room, waiting.”

“Good. Bwake’s deciding her fate right now.” Joje looked at Blake expectantly.

The pain behind his eyes went from an ache to a fierce stabbing sensation. It was like some ravenous creature had awoken in his head and was slowly gnawing its way out through the back of his eyes.

“Bwake? What’s it gonna be?”

The running water in the sink was a backdrop to the liquid thoughts cascading through his mind. Blake stood in his boxer briefs, shirtless, both hands resting against the counter in their master bath as he stared at the ghost of the man presented before him. He could only look into those eyes for a fleeting second before he had to turn away, focus on the scars, the bruises, cuts, or burns. At least there were plenty of options.

“You’re gonna be fine,” Joje had told him. “It’s old hat, this is who you are, what you do. Just be honest with yourself.”

Be honest with myself.
Had he ever been?

Had he been honest with Adam about Rachel? About those awful last months? Where days had blurred into a never-ending scroll, balancing the demands of a job that required three of him, a son who asked a thousand questions about Mommy—not a one Blake knew how to answer—and then his time with her, every day going in the morning, back in the evening, the long walk from the field that had been turned into a temporary parking lot because the real one was under construction. He had had to repolish his shoes twice a day to keep from looking like a field worker. The nurses knew him by name, though he could never remember theirs. The elevator up, only two floors, but that thing had moved so slow, and when the doors finally yawned open, Blake only wished there had been farther to go, because at the end of the wide hall, sixteen steps past the painting of a young girl in an orange dress picking flowers in a field, past the nurses’ station that was almost always empty (no time for solitaire in this ward), and then the door, a gray plastic sign mounted next to it, room forty-two, with a handle that had required almost no effort to push down,  and yet the door had felt so heavy, wanting to remain closed. He would count to ten and then always wait one second longer; if he ever made it past eleven, he knew he would turn around, never to walk those halls again. He would slap a smile onto his face like a sticker as he walked in only to be accosted by his wife begging him to let her die.

Yes, he had been truthful. He had loved her and she him. In some way her verbal abuse during those last months was her way of helping him move on. She chose to leave him hating her rather than missing her or dwelling on what might have been. It was her last act of love.

And so he had resolved to do the same. With a signature attached to a form he had vowed never to sign. But how could anyone understand what they had given each other? Sacrifices that from the outside appeared self-serving had required a love deeper than passion, than reason—a love of respect.

Truth was often uglier than lies, heavier on the heart and brimming with the remorse that only comes from making tough decisions. And just because the right choice was made sure as hell didn’t keep the anchors of guilt from pulling, constantly pulling.

It was how Blake had learned the truth—that sometimes it was better to just lie.

“Leave Jenna alone. If anyone has to pay for my mistakes . . . let it be me.”

His words still rubbed against the abrasion dividing truth from lie. Because Blake had also learned that choices could be endings in disguise.

Through the steam now rising in front of the mirror, Joje’s face came into view.

“Will you let me talk to her? When this is through?” Blake asked.

“Do all the talking you want,” Joje said. “When this is through.”

Blake was grateful for the steam. It hid the reflection of Joje’s smile. “I’m going to need a few things. I’m what you might call a traditionalist when it comes to this sort of thing.”

“So none of the kinky stuff?” Joje asked. “What do you need?”

“Two glasses, bottle of wine—there’s a vintage port from Italy, it’s the larger bottle with dark purple glass. Adam would know where to look. Cologne by the bed, to mask her smell. For after . . . unless you want to get caught. There’s a rubbing oil I use, if I can find it. A cigar, lighter, and a . . . condom.”

Joje turned from Blake’s reflection to look at him. Did he sense something was off or would he dismiss it for submission? “That’s a tall order.”

It took all of Blake’s reserves to be able to look him in the eye. No feigning of fear; it was as genuine as Blake’s hatred for him. “We don’t have to go through with it.”

“Aw, Bwake, but we do. You’ll see—just like Adam. When you stop holding yourself back from the real you, there’s a freedom that explodes outward. A release.”
A wahwease
. “No more lies. It’s a thing of beauty.”

How anyone could describe watching a coerced and enslaved man rape an unwilling hostage as a thing of beauty was beyond Blake.

“I’ll have Adam get the wine,” Joje said.

“Will you have him—I’m going to need something a little stronger. There’s a bottle of absinthe in there, and maybe a shot glass.”

Joje looked at him for a long moment. “Anything else?”

“No, that’s all.”

“And you can find the rest?”

“I can manage.”

As he opened the cupboard drawer beneath the sink, filtering through tubes of creams and lotions in all sizes, hair dryers, curlers and straighteners, plastic bags of Q-tips, cotton balls, and U-shaped dental floss, one thought floated to the top above all his others. The most dangerous man is the one who has nothing left to live for. But more dangerous than him is the one who’s found a cause to die for.

The hum and bleating of machines was the first sound to break through Jenna’s unconsciousness followed by the low drone of a male’s voice. She became aware of her breathing, of the uncomfortable couch or bed she was propped up in. Slowly her eyes fluttered open. She was in a hospital bed surrounded by medical equipment, lights and dots and staggering peaks and valleys registering her vitals with utter efficiency.

Sterile sheets were drawn up to her lap, a light-blue hospital gown completing her dressing. Past the IVs taped to her arm was a plastic wristband with her name on it. In case she forgot.

Jenna Crotchet.
Through good times and bad, through sickness or health, till death do us part.
Maybe she did need the reminder.

As she looked around the empty room, she suddenly realized it was over. She was in a hospital.
They had won!

A seed of hope began to take root, though her fear rose like a scorching sun, ready to destroy its germinating bed.

She closed her eyes, breathing in and letting her breath out. Whatever drugs they had her on, they were the good ones. She knew she would only be awake a short while before that enticing undertow sucked her back beneath.

She was so thirsty. With effort she opened her eyes again. A call button should be hanging from one of the armrests. A flush of a toilet came from a connecting bathroom.

“Blake?” she said, her voice so thin. “Is that you?”

The door opened outward, Drew’s massive form standing with the light shining behind him. “It’s really me,” he said.

The drugs, she realized with dismay, were not nearly strong enough.

Drew approached, pushing back a poorly upholstered chair. “How do you feel?”

“Thirsty.”.

“Here.” He wheeled closer a rolling plastic tray that extended over the bed. “You’ve got apple juice and water.”

Prison food
, she thought.

“I’m happy to see you’re awake so soon,” Drew said.

“Are my husband and son alive?” she asked.

“I’m your husband. You banged your head. It’ll take time to remember.”

“No one could bang my head that hard.”

Drew’s face tightened, darkening. “Don’t count on it,” he said through clenched teeth. “We’re going to leave. Quietly. Anyone you call out to for help I will put a bullet through their head. Their death will be on your hands, not mine.”

He held up a revolver with a wooden handle and six-chamber wheel, like a gun from the Old West.

“Can I have a drink before we leave?” she asked.

“Go ahead.”

“I can’t—can you bring it to my mouth?”

“I’m not that stupid.”

“Then I need you to call a nurse.”

“Why?”

Her body started to shake, her breaths coming in wheezes. She wasn’t sure if she was laughing or crying. “Because I can’t move my arms or legs.”