Stranger is the Sail Ch. 02

"Hi, Laura," I say, keeping my voice jovial, as if I didn't realize what I'd interrupted. "How was work?"

"Good," she mumbles, letting me draw her in for a hug.

"Do me a favor, will you?" I ask. "Head inside. I want to talk to your mom for just a minute before she goes."

Laura hesitates for only a second, breathing ragged, then squeezes me harder. "Okay," she says, and shuffles off.

Once she's in the house I turn to Amanda. "I appreciate what you're trying to do, but I don't need it," I tell her. "Really."

She blinks, studies me, and very slowly says, "Okay." It almost sounds like a question.

"I know that Laura got pretty far behind at work because of me, and I really am a lot more capable of taking care of myself than any of you realize right now. I don't need to be babied. I don't need someone to help me cook my dinner, or do do the dishes. I can do those things. And I don't need you to lecture her for working late hours. If being a few hours late getting home so she can get caught up at work will make her life easier...well, I can give her that, right?" I make sure to look her right in the eye to drive home my point. "I can't give my wife very many things, anymore, Amanda. But what I can give her is my lack of dependency. Let me at least give her that."

She looks like she's about to cry. "Okay, Adrian. If that's what you want. Okay." We hug, her squeezing me tightly, and I thank her.

"Why don't you go say goodbye to your daughter," I suggest, "and I'll pull the car into the garage."

She glances at it. "Is that a good idea?"

I almost laugh. "Pretty sure I can still coast a sedan twenty-five feet into an empty two car garage."

She smiles and pats my cheek. "You're a good man, Adrian." Then she goes off to tell Laura goodbye.

LAURA BURKE

The rest of the evening goes by quickly. I don't think Adrian even notices my frayed nerves. We're laying in the dark a few hours later, though, and I can't sleep. A storm is making noise in the distance, and I'm running a question over and over in my mind.

"When will you tell him?"

God. I don't know. If I wait a few more days maybe I won't have to. Maybe he'll realize it for himself. At least then I won't have to say the words.

I'm trying to fantasize a way to make everything all better...something I do every night...when suddenly Adrian sits up and starts talking, jolting me. I didn't even think he was still awake.

"When I asked you about the baby talk," he says, "you mentioned that you'd been working late hours. Right?"

My body goes cold. He's putting pieces together, still. I had hoped that he was done reclaiming memories. "Uh...yes. We were in the process of reorganizing because of the slow economy, and I was a part of that process."

He's quiet for a long moment. He doesn't lay down, or look at me. He just sits there in the dark, staring at the wall. Finally, he says, "I was angry." He says it with certainty, and sadness. "I was angry and scared."

I hold my breath. "Why?"

"I don't remember. I just remember that, after we talked, I was upset at you. And very, very scared."

I swallow my urge to sob and say, "I don't remember any of that."

He shakes his head. "You said we agreed about waiting to have a baby, but we didn't. You wanted to wait, and that hurt me." Finally he turns to look at me in the dark. "Why did you lie to me about it?"

"I was...scared," I say honestly. "And I was ashamed. I've been angry at myself for that talk ever since I found you in the hospital. The truth is that you were right about the time being right, and I knew that, but I was stressed about work and feeling a little pressured. If I could do it over again, I would go back and be exactly as excited as I should have been the first time. I'm ashamed of myself for doing otherwise."

"I guess I've noticed that, in a way. You feeling ashamed. But why was I so scared? What was I scared of?"

My mouth is dry. I imagine, dear husband, that it was that exact moment when you started to become suspicious of me. I imagine that you left that conversation halfway down the path to knowing that I was sleeping with somebody else. I say, "Maybe you were scared that I'd never be ready to have a baby." Suddenly it hits me...is now the moment? Do I tell him I'm pregnant? I could fib a little about how far along I am, and he doesn't remember yet that we weren't sleeping together...maybe it would-

"No," he says. "No, it was something else. Something about that conversation scared me."

I bite my lip. The moment is gone, as fast as that.

"I love you," I whisper, because I don't know what else to say.

"I love you, too," he says. Then, after a moment, "If you remember something that might indicate why I was scared, you'll tell me, right?"

"Of course I will."

"Thank you."

He lays down, and I can almost feel him drift off to sleep. I wait a little while, though, to be safe, before I let the tears come.

Monday, May 24
ADRIAN BURKE

I check the clock for the fifteenth time. Eleven forty-seven...a little over four hours to go.

I breathe deep, look back to the line of costumers, and try to focus.

Mistakes are not inevitable. I realize that. But it's important to me that the first day go well. I don't know why, really. Maybe it's because the kid training me looks like he's seventeen years old. If I'm going to fuck up, I'd rather do so on my own than under the disinterested gaze of some high schooler doing sixteen hours a week for his summer job. Or maybe it's just one more thing I'm trying to prove to myself.

So far, though, everything has been okay.

There was one issue, earlier this morning, but it had nothing to do with the job itself. It was just a reminder that I have new limits...ones I'm not used to.

Some fat cheeked, flush-faced guy in a station wagon popped in to ask for directions sometime after nine. Seems he came all the way up from Florida to visit family and got himself lost. Now, I've lived in this area my whole life, and I recognized the name of the street he was looking for. I even knew that it was nearby. But I couldn't for the life of me think of how to get there. Worse, as I tried to focus I suddenly realized that I couldn't remember the names of ANY streets, anywhere. So I just stood there like an idiot, mouth open, with nothing to offer. Thank god for that kid.

"Where did you say you were headed?" he jumped in.

"Crestmoor Drive," the fat man responded.

"Oh, hey, you're almost there!" the kid smiled an easy smile. The kind that you can only manage when you're young and nothing terrible has happened to you yet. "You just take a right on 50th and you'll see it. That's about...whaddya think Adrian? Maybe four blocks away?"

I forced a smile and managed a weak, "Oh, yeah," then made a mental note to start relearning all the street names in the surrounding area. One more thing I need to accomplish.

Can't believe that guy drove all the way up to Des Moines from Florida. How long would that even take? What on earth was he thin-

Florida. Something about...

LAURA! Laura went to Florida!

That's where she was when I left for Castlewood! She had gone to Florida for work, and I was furious! But why? Why would that make me so mad? Did it have something to do with the baby talk? Was it about that?

And why on earth has everyone been lying to me about it?

Oh. Oh, god.

Now I remember. Now I remember everything.

LAURA BURKE

I can't go through with this. I don't care what anybody says, I just can't do it. I have to get out of here, and I have to do it right now. If I wait any longer it'll be too late. Adrian is going to come walking into this house any second now, and-

"Calm down, honey. We're here for you."

Mom says this without emotion, without a smile or a reassuring pat on the back. No optimism betrays itself in her voice. Instead her vocal chords sound metal-heavy, as if they've been dipped in steel. Her face may as well be carved from rock.

Dad doesn't look any better. They're here for me, alright. They're here to make sure I go through with it. They're here to make sure I don't chicken out.

And who can blame them? Isn't that exactly what I want to do?

The door opens, and Adrian walks in. Mom and Dad greet him warmly, and I try to smile. His expression, curiously, is one of suspicioun.

"Why are you all here?" he asks. Mom and Dad look at me. I open my mouth, and nothing comes out. Closing my eyes, I try again. Nothing. Oh God somebody please do save me from myself.

"Well, first of all," Dad jumps in, "we were excited to know how your first day of work went."

Adrian doesn't answer. Something's wrong. He studies my father for a moment, then my mother, and then me. I don't know why, but something in his expression terrifies me. Finally, he says, "Why are you really here?"

I try to start over, to get this over with, but when I attempt to meet his gaze I can't do it. Please let this go well. Please let him be happy.

With a glance at my mother for strength, I come right out and tell him. "Honey, I've been trying to find a way to say this almost since we got back from the hospital. It's been difficult...after everything, I was so...I just thought that maybe it was better to wait while you had time to...to heal. But I'm pregnant. And I..." his face hardens, clouding over like a summer storm, and I almost lose my nerve. But faking my way through this, playing my part right, is now my only hope. "...I know it will be hard for us, but I think that it's a...a wonderful thing. A gift, really! We're going to be parents! And maybe this will be just what we need to give us a way forward."

"Just think!" My mom jumps in, eyes wide and voice shrill. "You're going to be a daddy!"

Adrian doesn't respond. He just looks at me with that same dark contenence. That foreign, unforgiving stare makes me want to throw up. For God's sake Adrian...say something!

But then he does, and I immediately wish I could take it back. Not just the silent wish that he'd speak, either. I wish I could go back in time ten minutes, grab my purse and keys, and head as far away from this place as possible. His two words take all of the air out of me and replace it with poison. My unthinking body, programmed for efficiency, carries the poison like oxygen throughout my blood stream, until it saturates and destroys everything that I am.

"I remember," is what he says.

My parents share a nervous look. "Ahh...remember what?" my dad asks, but we're all sweating now.

Adrian doesn't acknowledge him. He just stares daggers at me and shakes his head. "I loved you," he says quietly. "I loved you so much. And it didn't even matter. It didn't matter to you at all."

"A....Adrian?" My voice sounds hoarse to me, like I've been screaming for hours. "What are you talking about?"

He closes his eyes. "I was worried, because it seemed like you were growing more and more distant from me. There were the long hours at work, about which you would tell me almost nothing. There was the lack of intimacy, and your strangely quiet demeanor. I worried that our relationship was losing its spark. I worried that you were getting bored with me." He opens his eyes again and stares up, above my head, squinting with the effort to remember. "We had been planning on starting a family this summer. I mentioned that to you, in the hopes of getting some kind of positive response. What I was really doing was looking for some small sign that you still loved me." His face twists into a sneer, the scars making it look particularly horrifying. "Imagine how it must have felt, to have you brush the idea off, like it was completely unimportant. Like I was suggested going to a movie you had no interest in seeing." His hands are balled into fists. He takes a step forward, and I can't help but gasp. My father stands up, mouth open to speak, but there's nothing anybody can say. It's too late. "But I still loved you!" Adrian snaps. "I still wanted to be with you, for the rest of my life! So when you told me about your little work trip to Florida, and made it clear that you didn't want me coming with, I did a little snooping." His sneer is slowly melting into a tragedy mask, his anger becoming a manic whirlpool of sorrow. "And I found out about you and Victor. Oh," he shakes his head, "I learned it all. But not until four hours after you'd left to go on your little trip. I tried to reach you....to stop you. I called your cell phone over and over again. But we both know you weren't going to answer my calls. So I did the only thing I could think of...I went to your parents' house to get their help." He's shaking. The light in his eye is wet, glassy madness. "It really is a shame that I didn't die there. It would have made things easier for all of you. Laura could be with her true love at last, and you two," he waves at my parents, "could have been spared the indignity of having to lie to me for all these weeks. Everybody could have paused for a moment's grief, and then gone on to their happy ever afters. All I had to do is die."

"Adrian, wait a minute!" Dad's cry is loud. Louder than I think I've ever heard him. "We're as disgusted by Laura's mistake as anybody, but she DID come back and she DOES want to make your marriage work. Nobody here is anything but grateful that you pulled through this thing. I mean that."

"'Pulled through?'" Adrian laughs. "Does it look to you like I 'pulled through,' Bill? I'm a half-blind disaster. And if I'm really, really lucky, I'll get to spend the rest of my life working at a gas station earning minimum wage."

"You're getting stronger and smarter every day," Mom insists. "And you can still save your marriage-"

"By what? By agreeing to raise some other man's child? By deciding to live out a lifetime of wondering, every time she steps out the door, if my wife is leaving to fuck her boyfriend?" He throws his arm out, fist clenched, and as it swings back it collides with the wall, leaving a new hole. "Why would I want that?!"

Mother shakes her head, trying to ignore the display of violence. "Not somebody else's child, Adrian. Yours. You would be the father, not anyone else."

"That's a bad joke."

"Stop it!" she snaps. "A father isn't a...adonor. A father is someone who reads books, who changes diapers, who tells stories and enforces rules. Not someone who gets some tramp pregnant and then leaves."

I wince, but I don't argue.

"Is that so?" Adrian turns and stumbles a bit. He's behaving almost like a drunken man. "Genetics don't matter? So how about a compromise, then? When the baby is born, we give it up for adoption and then adopt someone else's unwanted child instead."

My dad makes a face. "Adrian, you're embar-"

"NO! I will gladly 'be the father,'" he sneers again, and its even uglier this time, "of a child that isn't of my blood so long as Laura will 'be the mother' of one that isn't of hers. Can you do that for me, Laura? Is that an acceptable scenario?"

I can't speak. I'm horrified. I just jerk my head no.

"But why not? If we give it up as soon as the baby is born, then you're not the mother yet, right? A mother is someone who reads books, changes diapers-"

"It's different for women," my mother snaps. I wonder if she sees the look Dad gives her.

"Horseshit," Adrian growls. "Bill, you told me once that your grandfather was a violent man who beat his wife and children, and demanded exact cleanliness in his household. Did your dad beat you?"

"My father was a quiet and gentle man," he says somberly.

"Was he obsessed with cleanliness?"

"He...cared for it a little more than most."

"Then, did you at least beat your daughter?"

His eyes flashed. "You know that I didn't."

"What about cleanliness, Bill?"

Dad blinks. "I...it's unimportant to me, I guess."

"So it's the genetics that have lived on, then, is what you're saying. Not the lessons." Adrian sways a little, eyeing us each in turn, smiling like Christmas morning. "A father's lessons might last a lifetime...his influence lasts for maybe two. What lives on...what gets carried on...is this," he slaps his chest. "THIS!" He slaps it again. "So tell me again why I should want to raise and care for that son of a bitch's child."

My parents look at me, but I'm still speechless. I know I'm bug-eyed and breathing hard, but I can't make myself act. Finally, my mom says, "It's Laura's child, too, Adrian. I know that must count for something."

"It used to," he admits.

She shakes her head and turns to me, as though to say, 'well, what can I say to that?'

"It doesn't have to be the only child," my dad says. "There can be others."

"Adrian!" I manage to say at last, but when he turns to me again all I can manage is a weak, desperate, "please."

He roars, quite suddenly, ripping the lamp away from the wall and smashing it against the front door. My father moves to subdue him, and my mother in turn grabs Dad's arm to try and keep him away from harm. Adrian turns wildly around, presumably to smash something else, but he stumbles over his own feet and ends up falling against the wall. Putting his hands to his face, he slides down to a crouch.

My parents look over at me for guidance, which seems almost funny. I touch my hand to my belly and shake my head.

"Leave him alone," I say. "There's no reason for us to go on causing him pain."

Adrian is crying, struggling to his feet, and I feel like throwing up.

"I'm leaving," he says quietly. "I'm leaving tonight." Stumbling, he runs to the bedroom and slams the door.

"I understand," I call after him. "And I'm so, so sorry."

ADRIAN BURKE

They're talking out there, whispering in clipped, urgent tones. I can hear them as I pack my bags.

Well, Fuck them. Fuck the three of them. Every one of...I mean...when they tried to talk to me into...FUCK!

I can't even think straight enough to...uh...

My wife...my WIFE...is out there with some son of a bitch's child in her belly.

God, her belly. It's gotten bigger! I had noticed some weight gain, but...it was right in front of my face the whole time. She just paraded it around in front of me, and I was too trusting to even notice. Too stupid to get a clue.

And there it is. The real problem. What a joke I have become. They think that's what I am, anyway. I know that. But I'll...

Wait. What was I doing?

Packing. That's right. I have to pack. I have to...

This isn't my suitcase. It's Laura's travel bag. Goddamn it, Adrian! Focus!

She just took my whole life away from me. How am I supposed to focus on anything except that? What am I...

His kid is in her belly.

What am I looking for again? Suitcase. My...

BILL DOLE

"Adrian? Are you okay in there?"

He doesn't answer me. Some shuffling noises pass through the closed door, and some heavy breathing, but that's all. I glance at Amanda and Laura, who both look frightened. I guess I am, too. The boy's been in there for forty minutes, now, without a word.

"I'm coming in," I tell him. "I'm gonna use a hanger to unlock the door, so don't panic, okay? I thought I could take you to a hotel or something, so you can get away and clear your head. Does that sound alright to you?"

Still no response. With one last glance at my wife and daughter, I start fishing the hanger into the knob. When I hear the click, I throw open the door and look inside.

Adrian is hovering over his suitcase, breathing heavy like a long distance runner. He glances over at me and looks surprised.

"Hey," I say. "Did you hear what I-"

"Oh," he says quietly. "Yes."

"Does that sound okay to you? Going to a hotel for the night?"

He blinks, and his mouth moves slowly. "Okay."

Something isn't right, here. "Do you, uh, mind if I check your suitcase for you? Just to make sure you didn't forget anything?" As screwy as his emotions are right now, the last thing I want is for him to forget his medication. I'd heard stories about how head injuries can effect temper, but I'd never seen anything like the display he just put on for us. It was almost like there was a different person in there with us.