Monday, May 16

Your Several Loves

We shall not spend a large expense of time
Before we reckon with your several loves,
And make us even with you.
—Macbeth V. vii

“What’s your superpower?”

“I can tie a knot in a cherry stem with my tongue.” A fat lot of good that power was going to do me. I needed to be superman.

“What’s your superpower?”

“I can hold my breath for two minutes.” Hold on, Andi. Hold on.

It couldn’t have taken me more than 30 seconds to dump Cali outside the building and run back in. I grabbed the railing as I rounded the last landing, burning my hand on the hot metal. I would hold out the axe to her and pull her out.

But neither Andi nor the landing she clung to was there.

***

I was still in the hospital when I saw the news about CCS. The picture showed Darlene Alexander being led from the building by FBI agents. The sound was off, but the tickertape running across the bottom of the screen said “Embezzler takes credit company for millions. Arrested on inside tip.” Unlike the usual executive being cuffed, Darlene didn’t try to hide her face from the cameras. In fact, at one point she raised her head and looked straight into the lens and smiled sadly. Without the sound, I had the feeling she was communicating with me.

I had mixed emotions. She had saved my ass on two occasions and even provided the information that let me reach Cali in time. But Darlene had been the coordinator of every huge technical and security project the company had done since it was founded. A simple administrative position. She’d stepped aside to let Arnie take the credit for his “team.” She’d hitched her wagon to his star, as she put it to me. It kept her in a suspicion-free position where she had access to everything in the company. It turned out that she’d been the technical brains behind most of Arnie’s accomplishments. Even the reports she was supposedly receiving from Arnie to feed to me for my fake meetings were her own work and not his. And I’d only discovered the tip of the iceberg when I found the activation fee scam. The virus I’d let loose in the company network packaged up every file she’d ever touched. She’d routinely pulled single cards from batches in the manufacturing facility for years, selling them on the black market. She’d pulled account and personal information from the records at random to sell to thieves. Since the information had no set pattern, no one had ever managed to find the source of the leaked information. But compromising credit information is a Federal offense.

I’d set the trap that fateful afternoon, planting a virus in place that would collect information about the user when one of several key words or phrases was used. “IGotUrBak” was one of them.  As soon as she joined the game, the program started collecting and packaging her information, then delivered it to the desks of Arnie and Jen. I knew from Jen it would go straight to the CEO and Arnie would have to act immediately. He called the Feds and turned over the information, citing an internal investigation. He wasn’t happy about losing such a valuable aide. The thing is, if she hadn’t been so focused on helping me find Cali, she could have easily spiked my virus and stayed free.

Somehow, the whole team blamed me for Darlene’s disgrace. Typical.

All except Jen.

She visited me in the hospital during my short stay. I wasn’t much company. She genuinely sympathized and asked me to let her know if there was anything she could do to help me. Although I could still see a wistful desire in her eyes, it wasn’t an inappropriate offer and there was no suggestion in it. She knew there was no way I’d be fit for a relationship in the foreseeable future and she’s not the type to try to put a broken man back together. Not like Andi had. 

I went home when I was released and turned out the lights in my black room. I huddled in my bed with my bandaged hands held to my chest. I could still smell Andi’s and my love-making in the sheets. I wept.

***

There was a memorial service at the college the next week. I went in my gray suit, white shirt, and the tie she’d picked out for me. I saw Cali across the room. She was surrounded by friends from school and the theater. I wanted to rush up to her and hold her, but the one time our eyes met, she dropped her head and turned away from me. Child Protective Services had arranged temporary housing and care for her. When she was 18, she would be allowed to return home alone, but until that time—still a few months away—she was a ward of the State. There was no question that she was sole heir to her mother’s estate, but I didn’t know how they took care of property and mortgages and such in the interim. I was worried about her.

I didn’t go to Melissa’s memorial. I saw Olivia and James at Andi’s service. I’m sure they were in shock over their daughter’s murder. James came up to me and started to speak, but couldn’t. As he started back to his wife he turned back to me and croaked out, “They told us she’d run away. We’d never have…” He left the rest unsaid and escorted his wife out of the auditorium. They’d always assumed the worst about their daughter. I wasn’t about to confirm any of it. Pain was all any of us knew anymore.

I went home.

The doctor had given me some pretty kickass drugs to combat the pain of my burned hands and various other injuries  I didn’t know I’d received. A hospital counselor added a brochure on the seven stages of grief. Shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, testing, acceptance. I couldn’t find anything in the damn brochure about bitterness and regret. If I had known it would all end so soon… I wouldn’t have changed falling in love. Oh but I’d have started so much earlier.

I didn’t remember anything about getting out of the burning warehouse. I was carried out, I discovered. I woke up in a hospital the next day and begged to go back to sleep. Jordan came by. He told me that when the firemen got to me I was smashing my tablet with the axe and screaming “Escape! Escape! Escape!” Maybe the screams had saved my life. I was choking on the smoke and keeling over when they dragged my sorry ass out of there.

My throat was sore. The doctor said it was an effect of the smoke inhalation and the screaming I’d done.

I knew it was from the constant weeping.

***

I sat in my office Monday morning, the day after Mother’s Day. I’d been lousy company for my mother when I took her to brunch. I hadn’t had much appetite and she never ate that much. We both sat next to the window looking out at the fishing boats. She dreamed, I suppose, of my father getting off one of them and coming to meet her. I dreamed of getting on one and sailing away into oblivion. We held each other’s hands as we looked out onto the blue sky and tears fell from our eyes. Oh God! How long does this go on?

I had to start pulling myself together, even though I knew I had nothing to do in the office. I showered, shaved, and dressed in my suit and tie. Somehow, the suit made me feel close to Andi. She and Cali had done my makeover. I wanted them to be proud. I stopped at the Analog for a coffee to go and then walked over to Olive before I headed uphill so I wouldn’t have to pass Andi’s empty house. It was bad enough that Lonnie’s mournful look and silence had nearly crippled me. The sun was shining and I broke a bit of a sweat by the time I got up to 15th. The folks in the other offices must have heard me come in as Janna soon poked her head around my doorframe.

“Just wanted to make sure it was you,” she said when I nodded at her. “How are you doing?” I started to say something, but I knew she wouldn’t accept “fine” as an answer. I just shook my head. She didn’t know the entire story, but she was aware that the guy they arrested was the same one who was stalking her client David. “Look, if you need to talk, I’ve got a pretty open calendar today. Just stop upstairs.”

“Thank you, Janna. I don’t know what to say yet. I can’t say it.” I’d wept, I’d shouted, I’d even gone to a bar, but the first swallow of the straight vodka I ordered came spewing out my nose as I choked on it. I hadn’t been able to simply say “She’s dead.”

“Well, I’m putting a fresh pot of coffee on. Help yourself.” She turned toward the kitchen but turned back before she’d taken a step away. “And Dag. Don’t blame yourself. God only knows how many children you saved.”

I wanted to scream at her. I couldn’t save the most important person!

But maybe I had. I’d saved Cali. That was Andi’s last desperate plea to me.

***

I can’t say I’d accomplished anything. I’d been in the office for several hours, but couldn’t name one productive thing I’d done. Stupid computer maintenance—defragging the drive. Throwing out most of the mail that had piled up in the past two weeks. Officially resigning my job at CCS. They were paying me two weeks sick leave and company insurance was covering all my hospital bills. I didn’t know how that worked. I only vaguely remembered signing the necessary forms, but apparently the coverage was effective on the first of the month. Just in time. I knew that whatever they sent me as salary and severance would pale next to what Lars would bill for my services.

That left just one thing. The brown envelope on my desk. I was still contemplating what I would do with it when I heard the outer door open and steps approach my office. I looked up in time to see Cali round the corner and step through my door.

I don’t think she expected to see me there. She caught her breath and stood staring at me.

“Cali?” The sound of my voice seemed to startle her even more and I was afraid she was simply going to bolt from the room. She wore blue jeans and a sleeveless shirt and carried her school bag and jacket. She exhaled slowly, trying to calm herself, but each time she inhaled it was like a gasp for air. She cautiously moved around my desk to take the seat facing me. She had an envelope in her hand but she made no move to give it to me. I was afraid that if I said anything she would fly away like the frightened bird she appeared to be. So we sat in silence, staring at each other.

“You’re fired!” she suddenly blurted out. “I want my money back.” She threw the envelope across the desk. “I wrote cancelled on the contract.” I reached for the envelope with my bandaged hand and heard a mewling sound as she curled herself up in the chair. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Cali. Your mom did all the work. It’s here.”

“I don’t want to know! I want to remember her like she always was. I don’t want to know what she did or who she was. Take it away!” I pulled both envelopes back and slipped them into my desk drawer.

“Cali,” I said softly.

“I hate you!” There was a fierce storm building in her eyes and her ragged breathing now was coming in deep sobs. “I thought you were a superhero. I thought you’d make everything better. But you couldn’t save Mel. You couldn’t even save Mommy and you loved her. I know you did! You loved her and I thought someday you’d be my daddy. And now I hate you and I hate myself.”

Oh God! Please don’t do this Cali! I hated myself. And for just an instant I regretted not leaving her to the flames and saving her mother. I’m not a superhero. I’m not even a good person!

I had only a moment for the tears to flood my eyes when Cali moved and launched herself at me. She was hanging from my neck with her face buried in my chest wailing and all I could do was hold her and cry out all the pain and horror that we both experienced.

She kept sobbing, intermittently gasping, “My Mommy. My Daddy.” I knew in that instant that she was my baby girl as much as if Andi and I had married. I could never have left her in that building, even if it had been my life that was forfeited. I wondered if there was a way I could adopt her.

I saw a movement a caught a glimpse of Janna at the door to see if everything was okay. She disappeared and I heard the sound of cups rattling in the kitchen. Gradually, Cali’s sobs let up and for a few minutes I thought she was asleep while I petted her silky hair. During that time, I saw Janna again. This time she slid a tray with two cups of tea onto my desk quietly, nodded reassuringly to me and left. Cali stirred and pushed away from me. She looked at the cups of tea suspiciously, but took one as she sat back in the chair on the other side of the desk.

“It’s like that all the time,” she said, finally. “One minute I’m fine and the next I’m a wreck. I hope I didn’t ruin your suit.” I looked at the tear stained front of my jacket and just shrugged.

“It wouldn’t make a difference if you did, Cali. I would hold you forever.”

“I know you did your best, Dag. I know you tried to save her, both of them. I don’t blame you. But I get so angry. And they aren’t even putting the bastard in jail!”

That wasn’t quite true. He’d been jailed without bail, but then moved to a secure hospital. Jordan told me it looked like he wasn’t mentally competent to stand trial. He still kept muttering over and over, “It’s just a game.” John Patterson had tipped over the edge of not being able to tell the difference between cyberspace and reality. It was a condition I was dangerously close to myself, I realized.

“There is so much evidence against him that he will never be free again. He’ll either be in a hospital for the rest of his life or in prison for the rest of his life.”

“But he won’t hang!” The venom in Cali’s voice was frightening, even if understood. I’ve always been opposed to capital punishment, but I confess that if I could get my hands on him I’d kill him myself.

“Where are you living?” I asked, trying to shift the conversation away from our anger.

“Can you believe they put me clear out in Bellevue! Thank God there are only a few more weeks of school left. The bus ride is like an hour long. And so much for theater. This is going to kill my career. They say I can transfer my Running Start to Bellevue College, but it’s like being sentenced to Siberia.”

“Cali, do you want me to…” I wasn’t sure how to broach the subject of adoption with her. It probably was too soon, but if she wanted me to advocate for her I’d step in.

“I already asked them. CPS said there is no way they’d allow me to live with a middle-aged man, no matter what your relationship to my mother was.”

“Middle-aged?” She looked at me and finally we both laughed. It wasn’t much, but it was the first time either of us had laughed since that night.

“You need a new dye-job. Your roots are showing.” Well, it had been two weeks since Andi and Cali touched them up in their kitchen. There was a halo of blond surrounding my head and mustache.

“I’m going to let it grow out,” I said. “I can’t maintain coloring them. I’m going to keep it all trimmed and short, though.”

“I see you dressed in a suit to come to the office, too.”

“I’ll need to buy a couple more or this one will be worn out.” We were chit-chatting about nothing, trying desperately to live in a moment when everything was normal. We both knew it wouldn’t last.

“Dag, what did Mom say?” I reached back into my drawer for the brown envelope. “No! I don’t want to know. I just want to know… It wasn’t something terrible that she did, was it?”

“Oh Cali. Andi wasn’t capable of doing something terrible. She loved you. She loved you so much she gave her life for you. Twice.” Her lip quivered and for a moment I thought we would both return to tears.

“Can I ask you to keep that for me? Someday, I’ll come back and get it. When I’m ready. Right now, I just want to remember Mom the way I always knew her. I just want to love her like she loved me.”

“It will be here.” Cali rose from her chair and put the tea mug on the tray. This time I stood and walked with her to the door. She stopped and looked up at me before she left.

“We’ll be okay, won’t we? Someday?” she asked.

“We’ll be okay. I know I have a business to run and a client I made a promise to. I have to be okay. And you have school to finish and a big career on stage and screen waiting for you. You can’t disappoint your public.”

“I’ll invite you to all my openings,” she said. She hugged me again and I kissed the top of her head. She smiled up at me and then headed off to catch her bus back to Bellevue.

Somehow, we would survive.

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