The Last Thing He Needs (30 page)

B
OBBY
DROVE
while Tommy tried to collect his thoughts. “Tell me again, slowly,” he said. “Because I’m pretty sure I heard you wrong the first time.”

They were headed for a hospital on the other side of town. Bobby laughed before answering. “He checked himself into rehab six weeks ago.”

“See,” Tommy started to explain. “It’s not the rehab that throws me, ’cause he’s been tossed in there more than once. It’s the part where he checked himself in. Are you sure about that?”

“That’s what they said.”

Tommy couldn’t fit that piece of information into his world, so he tried to set it aside. “And he wants to see me?”

Bobby nodded, but he kept his eyes on the road.

The whole situation felt surreal. “Does he know about Cheryl?”

Tommy could hear the catch of Bobby’s breath at the mention of her name. Bobby even mourned for people like Cheryl.

“I have no idea, Tom,” Bobby said quietly. He glanced at Tommy before looking back at the road. “You might have to tell him yourself.” After a long pause, he added in a whisper, “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t know if Bobby was offering condolences or if he was simply sorry because Tommy would have to break the news to Cal. Either way, Tommy didn’t know what to say.

The silence stretched between them for a long moment before Bobby asked, “You okay?”

“I have no idea.” It was the only honest answer he had.

When they pulled up in front of the hospital a few minutes later, Bobby found a parking spot. “You ready for this?”

Tommy let out a sour laugh. “
No
.” But he got out of the car.

I
T
TOOK
them a few minutes to find the right floor and get checked in as visitors. Bobby said he’d stay in the waiting room and let Tommy have some privacy with his father.

“You sure that’s a good idea?” Tommy’s tone was joking, but he seriously wondered if he should be alone with Cal.

Bobby put his arms over Tommy’s shoulders and kissed him. “I’m sure. There’s a security guard in there.”

Tommy pulled back and turned for the door when the nurse buzzed him through. “Just my luck.”

Cal looked better than Tommy had ever seen him. He was clean, his face was shaved, and he looked like he knew where he was. He had been sitting at a table, but he stood up when he saw Tommy. “Hi, Son.”

For a moment it looked like Cal was going to reach out to shake Tommy’s hand, but he stopped the motion with a jerk and sat back down when Tommy glared at him.

“You’re alive.” It was the only thing that came to mind, so Tommy said it.

Cal knocked his fingers on the table, like he’d found a new nervous habit. “That I am,” he said. “Those words have never been truer.”

Tommy had no response for that, so he asked, “Did you hear about Cheryl?”

Cal looked down at his hands and folded them neatly on the table over a small stack of envelopes. Tommy didn’t bother to ask what they were about as he waited for an answer. “I did, yeah.” After a pause, Cal added, “I need to make some kind of arrangements, but I’m not really in the right frame of mind for it.”

Tommy could identify, but probably for different reasons. He’d only spared a few minutes to think about Cheryl since it all happened. He knew he needed to do something for her, but he had no idea what. Two years ago, he might have simply walked away from it altogether, but now that it was real and she was gone, Tommy felt like the family should have a memorial for her, bury her, something. She had given them Max and Zoe, and even if that was the only good thing she did with her entire life, it was worth acknowledging.

“We’ll sort it out for her,” Tommy told his father. The words were prickly in his mouth. His father should be the one to do it, to make the effort, and to grieve her death, but just like everything else, Tommy would have to do that for Cal too.

Cal examined his fingertips for a long minute. “Thank you, Son.” He was silent for so long, Tommy thought that might be it. He was considering getting up when Cal spoke again. “I’m still not sure how I feel about… her death. I need to work on that in group a little, I think.”

Tommy resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He hadn’t asked how his father felt, and frankly, at that moment Tommy didn’t give a damn. “You’ve been in here six weeks?” he asked instead.

“Yeah.” Cal nodded and looked Tommy in the eye. “After Christmas, I…. That night, when you found us trying to….”

“Steal from your children?” Tommy provided acidly.

Cal nodded again. “Yes, that.” He could see his father swallow hard, like the memory was painful, but Tommy didn’t want to think about how difficult this was for him. “It was, well, they keep calling it a moment of clarity, and that’s the most accurate way I can describe it.”

“Cheryl said it’d only been a few days since she’d seen you.”

“Well, you know she could… lose track of time.”

“Yeah, meth can do that to a girl.” Maybe he was an asshole for saying that, but Tommy didn’t care.

Cal bit his lips together and looked away from Tommy. “It can,” he agreed before looking back at him. He finally asked, “How are the kids?”

Tommy could feel his temper rising. “Oh, you remember them?”

“I do,” Cal whispered. “Do they have a place to stay? Was anyone hurt?”

“It’s real good of ya to ask after them and all, but don’t give it another thought, all right, Pop?” Tommy spat the words at his father. “They’re doin’ just fine. We’ve always done fine on our own.” It wasn’t the six weeks Cal had been missing that was pissing Tommy off. It was over twenty years of his bullshit pushing Tommy over the edge. He was still trying to figure out if the rehab thing was for real or if his father had discovered a way to steal prescription pads or get loaded up with methadone or some other scam. Tommy’s money was on the scam, but he didn’t say it. “Why’d you wanna see me, Pop?”

It looked to Tommy like this was the part Cal had been dreading. He took a moment to respond.

“I wanted you to know I was here, and I wanted you to know that it was because I wanted to be. Or, well, because I need to be.”

Cal stopped there, maybe waiting for Tommy to say something. But what could Tommy say?
Great job, only twenty years too late. Go you
.

When Tommy only looked at him, Cal said, “One of my steps is to make amends.” He fidgeted with the envelopes in front of him.

Tommy couldn’t stop the laugh that slipped out. One day years later, maybe he would feel guilty about it, but not then.

“I know I can’t make up for what I’ve done or change anything now, but I wanted you to know I’m trying.”

“Trying to what?” Tommy asked, feeling bitterness and anger roil in his blood. “Trying to apologize? Trying to tell me you’re sorry and you wish you could take it all back?”

Cal sat there, looking like he was thinking long and hard about something. “I do wish that. But that’s not what this is about.”

“Then what?”

“Look, Son, I know I haven’t got any right to ask you this, but… I’ve written letters for you and the kids and I was hoping you might give them to them. Or at least read yours.”

Tommy had to inhale slowly to keep from throwing himself across the table at his father. “Look, Pop. Tell ya what. If you’re still clean and sober in a year, if you’ve got your shit together by then, got a real job, stayed outta jail and off the streets…. If you still wanna make
amends
… you look us up and bring the letters yourself.” He stood up and leaned over the table, his voice thick with rage as he whispered, “But I swear to God, if you try to fuck up what the kids have now, if you do something crazy like try to get custody back, I’ll sign my own confession in your blood over your dead body. You hear me, old man?”

Bobby hadn’t been kidding about the security guard in there. He seemed to take notice when Tommy moved. He stepped closer when things got more heated. But Tommy backed away. He looked at the guard and said, “I’m done here.”

He didn’t even glance at his father as he stalked toward the door and waited for the nurse on the other side to let him out.

B
OBBY
HAD
been waiting for him when he got to the lobby, but he didn’t say anything to Tommy. Probably because Tommy was muttering to himself and walking fast on his way to the exit.

When they got outside, Bobby finally asked, “Didn’t go well, I take it?”

Tommy was patting down his jacket pockets, praying there was one cigarette left. Clearly, finding out the kids were okay and that Bobby was probably going to keep him around a little longer was the last bit of luck Tommy was going to get for a while. His pockets were empty.

“You know, some stupid part of me had thought for one minute on the way over here that maybe—just
maybe
—he’d pulled himself together and he was actually going to stand up and take responsibility.” Tommy stood in front of the hospital, pointing at the doors. “But
that
? That’s the last fucking thing I need.”

He turned to walk toward the car and Bobby followed. Tommy was still growling. “All I need is for him to get it together just long enough to fuck up our world again and then ya know what’ll happen?” Tommy looked at Bobby but he kept talking over anything Bobby might have said. “He’ll derail again and drag us all into the ditch with him.”

Bobby unlocked the car and waited for Tommy to duck inside before he did the same. He started the car, and as if he had been waiting to make sure Tommy was done, he finally asked, “What did he want?”

“He wanted to make
amends
.” Tommy filled each word with as much contempt as they would hold. When Bobby didn’t say anything, he went on. “He wrote us letters, ya see. But did he have the balls to hand ’em out himself?
No
. He wanted me to do it for him. Just like every other goddamn thing in his life.”

Bobby pulled out of the parking lot. “I’m guessing you told him to go fuck himself?”

“You think I shouldn’t have?”

“I didn’t say that, Tom.”

“I told him that if he got his shit together and stayed clean for a year, he could look us up and give them to us himself.”

As Bobby pulled onto the freeway heading back to Judy’s house, he said, “That’s not an unreasonable request, Tom. Your father has a lot to face, both in himself and with his family. You telling him he needs to prove himself for more than a few weeks in a locked-down facility isn’t unfair.”

“I don’t give a shit if it’s fair or not.”

“Given what you’ve been through with him,” Bobby said with a small breath of a laugh. “I’d say that’s pretty fair too.”

Tommy didn’t tell Bobby what his parting message for Cal had been. He decided there were still some things Bobby simply didn’t need to know.

T
HEY
DIDN
’
T
say much the rest of the way home. Tommy was glad for the peace until he remembered Bobby’s words earlier.
We need to talk
. When they pulled in to the driveway, Tommy decided it was best to get it all over with in one day. He turned to Bobby. “You still need to talk?”

Bobby turned the car off and looked at him. “I do, but it can wait until later.”

“Nah,” Tommy said as he got out of the car. When Bobby stepped out, Tommy continued. “Let’s just get it all out in the open today, okay?”

If Bobby disagreed, he didn’t say so. Instead of going to Judy’s front door, he led Tommy to the door on the side of the garage and let them both in to his apartment. It seemed smaller and less friendly to Tommy than it had before. He was hoping that was just his imagination. He wondered if Bobby had changed his mind about Tommy moving in with him. He wondered if Bobby had changed his mind about him in general.

He watched as Bobby kicked off his shoes and set his keys down on the kitchenette counter. When Bobby walked around the couch to the makeshift bedroom, Tommy followed him.

Bobby stretched out on the bed with a pillow under his head, and he smiled at Tommy.

“Is ‘talking’ the new euphemism?” Tommy asked. “Because I don’t mind talking so much if it is.”

“It’s not,” Bobby told him with a laugh. “The last two days I’ve been worried out of my mind, then I was pissed off, and then I just plain missed you.”

Tommy bent down to untie his boots and then crawled over the bed to where Bobby was waiting for him.

They shifted and stirred and moved together until they were both in a comfortable position. Bobby was on his back, and Tommy’s head was on his chest. Bobby had snagged a throw blanket from somewhere and draped it over them. Tommy wished he could take a nap, but that wasn’t why they were here either. “This was your idea,” Tommy said. “Talk, copper.”

Bobby ran his fingers through Tommy’s hair and was quiet for a minute before he asked, “How do you feel about me, Tom?”

Tommy lifted his head and looked at Bobby. “We’re goin’ on a year here, and you still feel like you need to ask me that?”

“I do, yeah.”

For some reason, hearing Bobby say those words hurt deep inside in a place Tommy didn’t even know existed.

Bobby went on. “I know you love me, but…. I want a
partner
, and I need to know if you do too.”

He probably shouldn’t have taken so long to respond. He could sense Bobby getting nervous while he waited, but this was an answer Tommy had to get right. He knew what the word “partner” meant to Bobby. He was a cop. It meant more than just someone you share your life with. He depended on his partner to watch his back and keep him safe, to take a bullet for him if it came down to it. Tommy figured, to Bobby, a partner was the guy who was always there for you, who would listen to you and take your advice and get you out of a tough situation. A partner was the guy who let it go both ways. Give and take. Tommy sucked at give and take, and they both knew it.

He must have taken too long, because Bobby said, “I don’t want to just be the guy you fuck and ‘oh by the way’ love.”