“Thanks for this amazing level of support,” he says.
“You’re welcome. You deserve every word of it,” I say, forgetting that I was trying to play nice.
Ray lifts the cup to his lips and then, realizing it’s empty, tosses it into the yard. He rubs his hands over his face. Tattoos flow out from underneath his shirtsleeves.
“We’re going to have to buy Mom some new mugs,” I say. “I threw one at Jack earlier. Got your vodka all over him.”
Ray peeks at me through his hands. His mouth is covered, but I know he’s smiling.
I stretch back out on the chair and put my feet up again.
“I called her when I got out,” Ray says. “I wanted to see her and the kid too.”
“And?”
“She said it wasn’t mine,” Ray says. “I knew she was lying. Maybe it was a test; maybe it was an out. I don’t know.”
“What did you do?” I ask.
“Wished her luck and went on with my life,” Ray says.
“How do you feel about that?”
“Is this a therapy session?” Ray asks, but doesn’t look at me. “I felt like a jerk. I always feel like a jerk.”
“What’s his name?” I ask.
“Michael.” Ray makes a strange little noise like a sigh and snort combined. “I guess she didn’t hate me too much.”
Michael is Ray’s middle name, and Michael’s mother, Nicole, is the woman Ray left behind when he went to prison for a few years for repeated stupidity, some minor drug dealing, and grand theft auto. The woman he didn’t go back to once he was out. When you add jail to his self-inflicted exile, Ray’s been gone for the better part of six years.
“So where did you get the picture?” I ask.
“She gave it to me yesterday,” Ray says. “She found me over at the Thirsty Monk, said she heard Dad died. Wanted to see how I was doing.”
“I miss her. She was nice,” I say.
Ray smirks at me.
“Then she gave me the photo,” Ray says, pulling it out from his pocket again. “Said I could call her.”
“That’s a good thing, right?” I ask.
“No.” He shakes his head. “I think she needs money. Not that I won’t give it to her. My lawyer says we can have the test done to find out if he’s really my kid, but one look at him will tell you that.” Ray flips the photo around for me to see again.
He’s right.
“Do you want to be more than just the money?” I ask, suspicious of the weight this seems to be laying on him.
“I don’t think I deserve to be,” he says, and when I open my mouth to speak, he holds up a hand to stop me. “That’s what I was telling her back then—through the glass. Nothing’s changed about me.”
“No?”
“Well, if it has, it’s too little, too late,” Ray says.
I reach over and take Ray’s hand in mine. I fear he’ll jerk it away, but he doesn’t. Not at first. Our hands seem to grow hot around each other like a transfer of guilt and sadness, and when it seems Ray can bear it no more, he gently pulls his hand from mine.
He sighs and looks at the photo with such longing that my throat tightens. “Do you think I could just send the kid over here and let him tell Mom?” Ray asks. He looks hopeful and pitiful.
“I think that’s a great idea,” I say, feigning support, aware that we’re almost joking with each other. “We can lose both of our parents to a stroke.”
I know why he chose me though. Telling Lola would make him accountable. She would demand that he stay and would make him choose between his love for everyone else and his hatred for himself.
While he was in prison, Lola painted nothing but him. Ray as a child, Ray as a devil, Ray inside Ray. The art gallery that shows her work sold nearly every painting. I imagine all the living rooms and studies with little art lights illuminating some unknown young man whose sorrow won’t let them sleep. At dinner parties, people will wander into the study, bourbon in hand, and ponder aloud to each other, “What could life have done to him to turn his eyes so dark? Have you tried the pâté? It’s simply divine.”
“He does look just like you,” I say. “Poor kid.”
Ray laughs. The sound of it seems to scratch its way out of his throat, like it’s a sound as hard to make as it is to hear. He punches me in the arm and that old playfulness that we haven’t shared since before Lola was hurt catches in my throat. This is how it all could have been.
I think sometimes that the ability to see what might have been is a cruel prank and I don’t understand it.
5
Later, after the mourning party is over and Mom’s sleeping pills have kicked in, Lola and I sneak up to our childhood bedroom. It’s pink and frilly and rife with memory. We open our suitcases and pull on pajamas. We sit cross-legged, like old times, on my bed; she at the foot and me at the head, our knees touching. We both claim to be spending the night with Mom because we don’t want her to be alone. While that’s true, I think we’re both trying to turn back the clock—even just a bit.
“Are you ok with Cassie staying with Jack for a while?” Lola asks, arranging and rearranging herself to get comfortable as if the braces on her legs have surfaced again.
“No,” I say, looking at my phone where I’ve positioned it beside me on the bed. “But I’m going to have to be. It’s part of the deal now, I guess.”
Jack has already called to tell me that they stopped by the condo, got her things, and that if Cassie needs anything he will be sure to let me
