“I’m really sorry, darling.” Miles finishes removing his son’s jacket and goes to the kitchen for paper towels.
Antonio revives a little, muttering, and lies down, his eyes closed. Jackie accepts a handful of towels from Miles and mops the worst off herself. Miles swabs the furnishings. They both sink into chairs and stare at the passed-out boy.
Jackie wishes she could rewind the evening to the point where she decided to stay up to talk with Miles instead of going to bed. Antonio would still be drunk, but at least she wouldn’t be resenting him so much. It feels terrible to admit, but she is too tired to censure herself. She turns to Miles. “You’ve got no idea what happened?”
Miles sighs. “Harlan brought him his first beer while I was in the bathroom. By the time I got back, he’d drained it.”
“How do you know Harlan only gave him one?”
“I wasn’t gone very long.”
Jackie shakes her head. Everyone, including Harlan, knows it takes no time at all to drain a beer.
Reading her thoughts, Miles says, “I told Harlan it wasn’t right. He apologized. Then at halftime, Antonio disappeared. When he came back, he was out of his head.”
“Harlan knows better. What was he thinking?”
“That one wouldn’t matter. He didn’t know Antonio would go off and get more.”
Jackie shakes her head at Harlan’s naivete. One does matter because it leads to this. And when Antonio wakes up with a hangover tomorrow morning, he’ll be desperate for a quick fix for that. They’ve been through this before with him.
Jackie gets up, discards the paper towels in the kitchen trash, and retrieves the cleaning supplies from under the sink.
Miles calls to her. “I’ll do that. You look beat.”
She nods, places the cleaner on the counter, and heads for the stairs. “I’m going to shower and go to bed. Antonio can stay right there, can’t he?”
“Sure.” He hesitates before speaking again. “I have to leave at four.”
She pauses with her foot on the tread.
“If I really have to, Jackie, I can reschedule the meetings.”
A heaviness descends on her, a lead cloak. She does not want to deal with figuring out who is going to babysit Antonio tomorrow. She doesn’t blame the kid, but she can’t help but resent that because her schedule has more give, she is usually the one to deal with the fallout. If the world were just, Harlan would have to look after Antonio.
“I have to teach in the morning. Maybe he’ll still be sleeping? I can’t cancel my lectures. What about his roommate?”
“I can text him.” Miles appears doubtful.
“I don’t want Antonio to get hurt, either, Miles. It’s just hard.”
“It is. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. If he’s up when I leave, I’ll pour coffee into him and drag him with me.”
Miles grins. “I’ll leave him a note. Or text him. Or both.”
“Both would be best.”
Upstairs, she runs the shower and rinses out her yoga pants in the sink while she waits for the water to warm. Antonio is a good kid, through and through, and amiable like his father. His personality is difficult to reconcile with the damage he inflicts upon himself, as if he doesn’t believe, on some level, that he is worth preserving. Antonio struggles and suffers, Miles endures and copes, and all of them feel powerless. In some ways, the upswings are the worst. When Antonio stays steady, out of trouble for weeks, a month, they warm themselves on the flame of hope that the worst is behind them. They hold their breath, knowing the absence of a crisis is as normal as it gets.
I’ll take it, Jackie thinks, as she wrings out her pants and hangs them up. I’ll take false, temporary hope. Because if we don’t have hope for Antonio, for each other, then why are we here together?
The risk is, of course, that Antonio’s history will repeat itself and vanquish hope.
Jackie bundles her hair in a knot on top of her head and catches her reflection in the mirror. The light is dim, her image blurred by the accumulating steam. She sees past the familiarity of her own features to what constitutes them: flesh, blood, sinew. Vulnerable, physical reality.
Her eyes fill.
We are frail, propped up by hope, leaning against each other like reeds.
The next morning, Jackie returns home from the university, shakes out her umbrella on the front porch, and unlocks the front door. It’s tight, but if she stays no more than ten minutes, she should be on time to her next class. She slips off her boots but leaves her coat on.
Antonio is at the kitchen counter, hunched over a bagel and coffee. He swivels on his stool and gives her a wan smile. He favors his mother most ways, but his smile, hungover or not, is exactly Miles’s.
Jackie’s relieved to see that he’s showered and changed his clothes; he’s taking care of himself. “You found the coffee.”
“The coffee found me. It lured me out.” He gestures at the empty pot. “Want me to make more?”
She shakes her head. “I have to head back soon.”
He nods. “Checking in.”
“Checking in.”
He wriggles his torso and shakes out his legs, the right, then the left, like his skin doesn’t fit him correctly and he’s trying to get comfortable inside it. He does it more frequently when he’s stressed. Jackie wants to hold him, soothe him, but he’s not keen on physical affection. She places a hand on the back of his stool instead.
“I’m sorry,” he says, head down.
“I know.”
He looks at her. “Erik—you know, one of my roommates? He’s coming soon.”
Jackie met Erik briefly when she and Miles moved Antonio in. He’d offered a timid handshake and returned to his room to study. “Sounds good.” She lifts her phone from her pocket. “Call me anytime. It’s not an issue.” A notification pops up on her screen reminding her that HomeSafe is arriving at eleven to install a door camera. After three packages went missing in a single week, she and Miles decided it was prudent. She tells Antonio about the appointment. “If they come before you leave, you don’t need to do anything.”
“They know the system. Got it.” He bites his lip, blinks. “Thanks, Jackie.”
“As long as you’re safe, Antonio.” She lingers a moment, then goes to the door, starts putting on her boots. If she didn’t have a job, she could stay with him, talk it through, or just pass the time, put hours between a fall from grace and a possible disaster. She turns to him. “Call me, okay? Keep me posted?”
“You bet.” He waves to her and picks up his bagel.
She leaves, closing the door behind her, with equal measures of reluctance and relief.
CHAPTER 8
HARLAN
What a game. With seconds left, the Cowboys’ kicker sends the ball through the uprights, snatching victory from the grasp of my beloved Redskins. But the play is called back for a snap violation; the guy holding the ball moved when he should have been frozen, drawing the Redskins defense over the neutral territory. That’s what the referee saw, anyway, and a five-yard penalty brought the next field goal attempt to fifty-two yards. The ball bounced off the left upright. Victory was ours, snatched from the jaws of defeat—the best sort.