Twenty-seven
The azaleas in front of Andrew’s house were trimmed as usual into perfect ovals of red, white and pink, like mounds of psychedelic candy brightly pulsating along the path to the door. The path was newly wet and fragrant with cedar chips still moist in the shade of a mimosa tree, whose featherlike leaflets trailed languorously in light ocean airs. Everything would be in working order — the tight screen door, the chiming bell — and it would take several more seconds for him to unsnap all the locks and chains. In those seconds we could still turn back.
But then he was standing there, with nothing between us, vivid and three-dimensional in the immediate plane: greasy day-off hair, old sweats with cutoff sleeves, as if popped there whole. Behind him I could sense dark wood and cool rooms, and the poignant scent of gardenias was blowing across the interior through open patio doors.
“What’s up?”
I could have handled the cop face much better, the shut-down superior detachment, but instead he was giving off uneasy suspicion, as any home owner would, to find an unpleasant character from the past unexpectedly on his doorstep.
“Can I talk to you?”
There it was, the scan, the intuitive check for psychotic unpredictable vibes. No, he decided, it was just Ana, as surprisingly flesh-and-blood ordinary as he.
“Want to come in?”
“Are you in the middle of something?”
“Just working out.”
Stiff-legged, I crossed the threshold and hovered by the back of a couch, fingers scratching at the cracked leather.
“Want something to drink?”
“I’m fine.”
Twenty-pound barbells had been taken from the rack near the sliding glass doors and were resting on the dhurrie rug.
“Sorry to interrupt.”
“I wasn’t exactly on a roll. Hard getting back.”
“I know what you mean,” and let it fade.
He was still shockingly underweight. His cheeks were stubbled and gaunt, the biceps that showed out of the cutoffs were not Andrew’s iron signature, but belonged to a different man, a sick man, the flesh of the muscles deflated and pale.
“I’m sorry,” I said again, and willed myself not to flee.
“Sure I can’t get you something? Coffee? Juice?”
“Maybe just some water. My throat is kind of dry.”
“It’s dry,” he agreed. “Come on in.”
The kitchen was just the same — spotless Mexican tile and family-size jug of dishwashing liquid on the wiped-down aluminum sink. Plants in the window, a white embroidered valance above the plants. The reason the curtains went so well with the house was they had been his mother’s, still starched by the same cleaning lady.
He pulled a bottle from the pantry and tore off the cellophane.
“Oh. Did you want ice?”
I shook my head and drank the water.
“Look, I don’t know how to say this.”
“I can’t drop the charges,” he interrupted. “Even though you got Brennan. It’s in the prosecution’s hands.”
The sincerity and swiftness of it caught me off guard, as if he had been waiting for me to show up just to say this.
“I wouldn’t even suggest that.”
“Once it got rolling, there was nothing I could do.”
“Of course. I know.”
“I never gave you up.”
He had begun to breathe hard and through the nose with little snorting sounds and his finger pointed at my heart.
“I did not give you up. I wouldn’t do that.”
“It didn’t matter anyway, because—”
“Yes, it does. It does matter. Even at the hospital. When they came to me, ready to go out and kick ass, I
“I know, and I’ll never forget.” My voice broke, and I had to clamp my fingers over my lips. “Anyway, there was Margaret.”
“There was Margaret,” he affirmed with no attempt to hide the bitterness.
“She told them it was me.”
His voice was thick. “She thought she had something to protect.”
“You?”
“Whatever. Who knows what’s in her mind?”
“Also,” I went on perversely, “they recovered the gun, so you had to know, sooner or later, they’d come to me.”
“Just like old times,” said Andrew. “You’re listening but you’re not hearing.”
“What’s the matter?”
Abruptly the color had drained from his face. He reached for a bottle of pills. There were many bottles, collected on a tray.
“Are you all right?”
He took the water bottle and gulped some tablets, then squatted and put his head between his legs. I went down beside him and stroked his hair, his bristly cheek.
“Hey? Hey, partner. You okay?”
He allowed himself to slide all the way down until he was sitting on the linoleum. I hunkered beside him.
“Good thing you keep your floors clean.”
We rested there until his breathing calmed.
“What’s going on?”
“I’ve got a heart condition. Nobody knew about it until I almost bought the farm.”
“In the ER?”
“Yeah.”
“See? That’s why it was a
“You really fucked me, baby. It hurts to get shot,” he said, and slapped my thigh with an empty laugh.
Fear had begun its paralyzing creep. I had not been afraid like this even in the house with Brennan.
“What does the doctor say?”
“It’s called IHSS — idiopathic hypertrophic subaortic stenosis. See, the old fart can still learn new words.”
“Congratulations. What do they mean?”
“There’s a thickening in the walls of the heart that blocks the flow of blood. No symptoms, won’t show up on a physical exam, it’s only when you’re under stress and shock and your blood pressure falls to a dangerous point that it becomes significant.” “Well … we just won’t let that happen again.”
“I’m supposed to have no salt, no booze, no sex.”
