Matt’s fingers flew across his phone’s keyboard while he asked, “So what’s your problem?”
“I’m turning into Angus,” I declared flatly.
“Unlikely. You’re just a bitch sometimes. Doesn’t mean anything.” He glanced up from his phone. “Lauren’s on board with her brothers keeping the girls apart, and wants to run point on that task force.”
“I’d pay good money to see that. Now stop worrying about jumper cables hooked to your dick.” I sighed before barreling ahead. “Would you tell me if I started turning into Angus?”
“Yes, and don’t be a moron. You’re not turning into Angus. Have you gone on any homophobic rants recently?” I shook my head. “Did you go on a pub crawl where you slammed every business partner that you have in town to anyone who will listen? Enslaved any children? No? You’re not Angus.”
Unconvinced, I stared out over the rows of roofs and toggled through memories of my father. Angus did unconscionable things, and most of those things defied forgiveness. But he didn’t start out that way. If anything, he was a good father and husband right up to the day my mother died, and he turned on us because he believed we didn’t do enough to save her. He broke, just like the rest of us, only those cracks deepened and spread over time whereas most of our cracks healed in strange, arthritic ways.
In a moment of perverse clarity, I understood Angus and his psychosis. I recognized the sound of his pain from the inside, and I knew its acrid taste. Andy was alive only three floors below my feet and merrily manipulating load-bearing walls. I couldn’t imagine the gnawing agony of losing her to a horrific death, drowning in memories of her, or coming face-to-face each day with the six babies she gave me.
What was it that Hunter S. Thompson said? Something about no sympathy for the devil?
Thompson was wrong.
I wasn’t forgiving, excusing, or justifying. I understood, and for the first time in my life, I sympathized with that particular devil.
“He chose to be a dickhead, Patrick. Don’t forget that. He just didn’t want to crawl out of the hole.”
Step one to avoiding miserable bastardhood: stop being a dickhead.
Step two: get out of the hole.
I wanted it to be that easy.
I walked to the far corner of the roof, and stood beside Matt. We gazed to the east, and a thin shimmer of the Atlantic in the distance. “How did you know, with Lauren?”
He typed another message then pocketed his phone. “Are you asking because you’re writing your toast for the reception and want a cute story? I don’t think any of our stories are fit for general audiences.”
Shit.Was that expected? Sam knew how to tell an eloquent story. Riley knew how to hit the bawdy humor. Shannon always delivered with the heart. Erin had the smart wit. Firm handshakes were my wheelhouse.
“There’s no cute story,” he continued. “It’s hard work. It looks easy, but a lot of work goes into getting two people to that spot. There’s never enough time, ever, and that’s the most important thing. Time. Time to argue about keeping the peanut butter in the fridge, or whether we’re raising our kids Catholic. And everything in between. We make each other crazy, but we’d also go crazy without each other.” Matt propped his fists on his hips and shrugged. “I can’t breathe without her, and I knew after one night. I picked out the ring less than a month later.”
That sounded familiar.
“But really, why would anyone put peanut butter in the fridge?”
“That’s absurd, and don’t get me started on the hair in the drain,” I muttered.
“Oh my God, so much hair,” he groaned. Matt turned to face me. “Back up. What?”
I squinted at the ocean in the distance. “Judging by the amount of hair in the drain, women should be bald.”
He glanced at his watch. “Let’s not delude ourselves into thinking we’re getting any work done today. It’s presently beer o’clock, and I want to know whose hair is in your drain. It’ll take my mind off waterboarding.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
ANDY
My first yearat Cornell, my roommate Myra’s boyfriend from back home sent her a bouquet of flowers for their anniversary in October, and they arrived in a thin glass vase. As far as dorm rooms went, ours was petite, and flat surface real estate was at a premium. Myra made space on her desk for the flowers, but if she attempted to use her desk for anything else, the vase was always two seconds away from disaster.
Myra kept the flowers as long as possible—she even hung them upside-down to dry like a freaking prom corsage—and she kept the vase, too. Standing empty, it didn’t serve a purpose, but it was a totem for their relationship—they survived college on opposite coasts after all, and if she couldn’t see him every day, at least she could see the vase.
One day that winter, she was in a hurry to get to class and rushed past her desk in her thick puffer coat. She clipped the top of the vase, and it tumbled to the ground, shattering into a million shards. We found stray chunks and slivers in every corner of the room, and they appeared out of the blue weeks and months later. We agreed the suspicious gray carpeting was to blame for intermittently sucking in and spitting out the shards, and wearing shoes everywhere but bed was essential.
When springtime descended upon Ithaca and flip-flops didn’t pose a frostbite risk, a chunk of glass roughly the size of a silver dollar carved up the head of my big toe as I walked across the room. I needed seventeen stitches—that’s a lot of stitches for a toe, and it hurt like a motherfucker. How that piece of glass appeared, months later and smack in the center of our room, I will never know.
