Chapter 11

“I almost died.”

I nodded.

“I said, I almost died. It was a very near miss,” my mom repeated, and one of us was now supposed to chime in.

“I’m so glad you’re ok,” Juliet said dutifully. She was the closest to our mother out of all of the Curran siblings and she still seemed to believe these stories. At least, she seemed to put more credence in them than the rest of us did.

She certainly didn’t react the same way as my other sisters. For example, I watched Sophie retreat and stare hard her phone, refusing to participate in the discussion. She would do this until her feelings built up and then she would explode with anger, announcing to our mom that she was full of it. Pretty soon, Brenna would start to tell a story about herself in a similar situation, but she would say it louder and in a way that insulted someone else. Grace? She never seemed to listen but the look on her face told me that she had heard everything and thought it was all malarky.

I looked down the dinner table to see how Nicola was reacting, because she was the most prone to arguing with our mother about the veracity of this type of story, asking pointed questions and bringing up details that made it even more obvious that nothing was true. But my oldest sister was smiling slightly as her husband spoke quietly in her ear, and she didn’t seem to care at all.

Well.

“I fell off a ladder once, too,” Brenna said, her voice pitched at a slightly louder volume than normal. “I was at the gallery and it slipped because that idiot Dion had spilled salad dressing on the floor and then he hadn’t cleaned it up right. It was Italian dressing so it was oily…” She kept going for a while but since no one was paying much attention, she let the story conclude.

“Anyway, I’m ok now,” Mom continued. “But a fall from that height might have resulted in very serious injuries. I was at least fifteen feet off the ground and I could have flipped over as I went down so that I landed directly on the top of my head.”

I turned to Nicola again, waiting for her to dispute that my parents’ ladder was fifteen feet tall and to explain that there was no way a flip like that could have happened, but she was finishing the green beans on her plate and didn’t say anything.

Brenna, who was apparently smarting from our lack of interest in her own near-death ladder story, shot a glance at me. “Lucky that didn’t happen, Mom. Otherwise, there could have been another vulture thing going on.”

That remark did get the attention she’d been looking for. My mom got upset that one of her children was wishing for her death and said that Brenna was scaring her. Juliet and Sophie told her that her remark was uncalled for, rude, nasty, et cetera, and I also requested that she refrain from opening her mouth if she couldn’t say anything nice—which might have made it hard for Brenna to contribute much at all. Nicola was now paying attention, and she gave our little sister a look and waved her index finger. That made the Brat apologize to me and I accepted her apology.

“When I think about it, that whole situation with Briggs really did seem…what’s the best way to describe it?” my mom asked as we cleared the table a little later. “Mythological?”

“That’s what I said!” Juliet chimed in excitedly. “I looked up that Greek story I had remembered,” she told me. “It’s about Prometheus and actually, it was an eagle and not a vulture that ate his—you know, never mind. We don’t have to talk about it.”

“I’m sorry, Addie,” Mom said, and hugged me. “I know it must be hard to hear how none of us liked your boyfriend.”

“Wait a minute! You didn’t like him either?” I asked her, astonished. “You never said a word about him!”

“No, because you seemed happy and I didn’t want to ruin it for you. I knew you’d have broken up with him if I gave you my true opinion.”

“Well…”

“But why would I have liked him?” she continued. “He insulted how Nicola and I enjoy our steaks and then he called you a cretin for reminding him to be polite. You never said anything to me about your relationship that made me change my opinion that he was…” She glanced into the living room at where Nicola and Jude were talking to my dad. “An asshole,” she mouthed. Even she didn’t dare to curse in front of her oldest daughter. And so far today, she was the second person who’d shared a poor opinion of Briggs.

“I thought everyone would come around,” I said. “And I thought that at least you guys were happy that I was in a stable relationship.”

“Nope, we didn’t feel that way,” Sophie told me. “Nic said flat out that he was a jerk, she thought he was disrespectful and obnoxious, and you needed to leave him. I told you that I hated him. Even Grace said that the flowers he gave you reeked and you needed to dump him.”

I did remember them saying those things.

“I also told you to leave him when you met the bear, but you ignored me. Maybe you just weren’t ready to hear it,” JuJu suggested.

“I heard it,” I answered. And I had thought about breaking up with him for months before he’d been in that accident, but I had also kept the idea in the back of my mind that things might have gotten better. They might have changed, if I had been able to soothe him more or if I had stopped annoying him. I hadn’t wanted to give up on the idea that we were a steady, serious couple—I hadn’t wanted to give up on the idea that he loved me, that I was someone who could experience romance and have a future like I’d dreamed about. Now, that was gone, but I was still glad…no, I wasn’t glad that he was dead, but I was glad that it was over. I was on my own and that was much better than being with Briggs. It was better to be alone.

I was alone, I thought, but it seemed less than satisfying when I thought about it. I was alone and just today I’d been considering a plan to act exactly like Mina, to set myself on a path of regrets over a life that I’d never get a chance to have.

“Why do you look like that, Addie?” Sophie asked. She sounded concerned. “You just went bright red.”

She was exaggerating, of course, but I could feel a slight flush in my cheeks. “I need to talk to Nicola,” I mumbled, because she would be able to help me figure myself out. What did I really want? But when I went into the living room, there was Nic holding hands with her husband and absolutely glowing with happiness, and I wasn’t going to ruin that for her by bringing up Briggs and my stupid loneliness. I was a lucky person to have a good family and a good friend in Granger, a man who thought I was pretty. It was going to have to be enough.

“Addie, we were just talking about you,” Jude said. “Your dad explained that you work for Eben Campbell.”

“I do,” I agreed, wondering why my new brother-in-law would care.

“Nicola had told me you had a job with an old rich guy, and he sure is,” he went on.

“Do you know him or something?”

“We’ve never met but he’s my…what would it be, great-uncle? No, I guess great-great,” he said after he considered. “He’s my great-grandfather’s brother.”

“Sugar! I met your great-grandfather, then!” I said. “He was still coming around with your great-grandmother when I first got my job. She used to have a parrot on her shoulder all the time.”

“Like a pirate?” Grace asked, sitting up in the armchair where she had nestled rather than helping with the dishes after our meal. “How did she get involved in that?”

“If you’re thinking that you’ll be a pirate for your next career, I’ll tell you now: no, you won’t,” Nicola answered sharply, and our youngest sister told her to suck it.

“I have a new job which I’m starting next week,” she informed us all, which was generally true about Grace. She usually was starting a new job but then, a little while after she’d started, she would be telling us about quitting or getting fired.

“I never met my great-grandfather or the parrot woman either,” Jude said. “I hardly know anyone in that family. My parents kept hoping that they’d get some money from them, though.”

“A lot of the Campbell relatives are still hoping that,” I said. “There’s a group of five that cluster around and it’s so disgusting. It’s like…” I paused, thinking of a simile.

“Myiasis?” Nicola suggested. “They’re like maggots in an open, weeping wound?” Juliet, who’d just walked in, immediately walked out with her hand over her mouth.

“Let’s talk about something else,” my mom suggested. “Nicola, have you thought about having children? Clock’s ticking!”

“I know one of your relatives,” I told Mr. Campbell the next Monday. He was in an oddly upbeat mood, which gave me pause because sometimes he got happy when he was planning something particularly awful. There was the time last year, specifically on December twenty-third, when he’d wanted me to find five people on the staff to fire immediately. He’d been grinning when he shared that plan with me, like it would be so fun to make people lose their jobs at Christmas. There was another time he’d also smiled and politely asked me to get his old bird gun, claiming he wanted to show me something. Then he had tried to shoot an innocent squirrel in the yard that he’d thought was too loud.

I’d foiled both those attempts at bad behavior because I’d recognized that his genial face was a mask for evil intent. And he would never, ever find where I’d hidden his ammunition.

“Hm?” he asked now. “You said you know something? That I find difficult to believe.”

“I said that I know one of your relatives,” I repeated. “Jude Bowers. He’s your great-grandnephew.”

“I’m aware of who he is!” he spat at me, losing that scary grin.

“You are?”

“I keep track of all my relations.” He tapped his head with a bony finger to indicate where that knowledge was stored. “I always hated his father.”

“Jude is nice,” I said. “He’s a hard-working guy, which you always claim to appreciate.” Mr. Campbell did like to say things about the value of hard work, although he wasn’t familiar with that practice himself.

“Tell me more about this Bowers character,” he ordered.

I did tell him as I gathered up the supplies we needed to go to his attorney’s office for our monthly visit. I explained how Jude had married my sister, which my employer clearly didn’t like. It probably wasn’t pleasant to hear about one of his relatives sinking to the servant level, but he managed to keep his comments mostly non-offensive. Anyway, I’d learned more about Jude the night before so I also told Mr. Campbell about his great-grandnephew taking over the woodworking shop where he was currently employed and how he made beautiful furniture. I explained how they were fixing up their house and taking care of some of their neighbors. I said how happy they were together and that Jude had overcome problems and suffered a lot, but now he and Nicola had the chance at having a wonderful life with each other and with children.

“She’ll be such a great mom,” I concluded.

“Why?”

“Because she’ll love her kids and also provide the structure they need so they can feel safe. That’s what’s good for them.”

“And how would you know that?” he asked. “You’re a spinster.”

“And you also don’t have children of your own, so you can’t argue with me,” I answered. “Being twenty-six and unmarried doesn’t mean I’m a spinster, and no one says that anymore, anyway.”

“Well! You’re also a snippy chit,” he said angrily, and I held myself back from telling him that no one said “chit” anymore, either, and it had been a long time since I’d heard the word “snippy.” I was sorry that I’d provoked him, though, because he took out his bad temper on poor Walter, his driver, on our way to the law office. Coincidentally, Walter had been one of the employees whom Mr. Campbell had wanted to fire just before Christmas but I’d explained that there was only one car key and the driver always kept it. I said it was likely that Walter would toss it into Lake St Clair. Being cheap, Mr. Campbell hadn’t wanted to pay for a new set of keys and the chauffer’s job had been safe.

The meeting at the lawyer’s office took forever—much, much longer than usual. We’d been breaking with his normal pattern and coming here a lot more frequently, and the visits were stretching out even though (as I’d overheard) the attorney had raised her hourly fee. Several assistants and junior lawyers went in and out of the conference room which meant that they were billing, too.

Unlike at the analyst’s office, we were always here for more than fifty minutes, so I was allowed to sit in the back near Mr. Campbell in case I needed to provide him with the sugar-free orange pop or some of the throat lozenges that I carried in my bag. One result of my location was that I got to see and hear things that I probably wasn’t supposed to, like the assistants and younger lawyers whispering complaints to each other about my employer’s bad behavior as they exited the room. Apparently, today he’d thrown a pen at someone, which made me think that he was signing stuff. That explained his earlier glee because it meant that he was going to start torturing his relatives again about his final will and testament. I texted Mina to make sure that we had all the supplies for the sandwiches and to say that she should start brewing the coffee now so that it had time to cool to an unpleasant drinking temperature before we arrived home.

Late that night, I sat with Granger in his office. He’d replaced the chair facing his desk with one that was a lot more comfortable, and I occupied it with my legs pulled under me against the cold of the room. “ Como foi seu dia ?” he asked me, and by now I understood that the question was about how my day had gone.

“It was a little weird,” I answered. “Mr. Cambell’s a little off.” I talked about our extra-long visit to the attorney and what had happened after. “He asked me to get his laptop so I thought he was going to email his relatives to taunt them, but he didn’t have me turn on the Wi-Fi.”

“What do you mean?”

“He likes to leave it off as a cost-saving measure and I know he’s going to send nasty emails when he has me go mess with the router,” I explained. “It’s not really a cost-saving measure, but I don’t bother to argue. There are other hills to die on. Anyway, he spent forever typing, hours and hours. He only uses his index fingers so he usually gets frustrated and tells me that he’s going to dictate while I type, which is such a pain because he talks so fast and changes his mind a lot, and also, not all the keys on that old thing work very well.”

“He doesn’t have the money for a new computer?” Granger was frowning at his own laptop. “This can’t be right,” he told me. “Where in the hell did all the tonic water go?”

“Can I see?” I requested, and he turned it so that I could. We figured out the discrepancy and I continued talking about my employer. “Anyway, today was just weird, and every day with Mr. Campbell is a little different, but he usually does like to stick to his patterns. I mean, at a hundred and four years old, he’s set in his ways.”

“All that time on Earth and he’s never done one thing. He has literally zero employment history.” But at that point, we were interrupted by one of the line cooks knocking to ask a question and Granger had to go check on something. This time, however, he did come back as quickly as he’d promised to.

“Mina did your birth chart,” I mentioned when he sat down again. “I know that you don’t believe…oh, hold on. This is my neighbor calling.” I picked up my phone, briefly considering how odd it was that Mr. Mathieu was trying to reach me because he was elderly as well, and he usually wasn’t up this late. “Hello?”

I started walking toward the door as I heard the words through my phone and I was already in the parking lot when I hung up. “I have to go home!” I told Granger, who had apparently followed behind me. “My building is flooding again. My neighbor says that it’s worse this time, which would be very bad. Very, very bad. Oh no, oh no.” I kept saying things like that and he took my arm and then took my keys.

“I’ll drive so you can talk to your neighbor,” he suggested, and I nodded and tried to get Mr. Mathieu to pick up again and tell me how bad it actually was.

He didn’t answer my calls but I found out the answer to my question soon enough anyway. “You can’t come in here,” the firefighter told us when Granger rolled down the driver’s side window at the entrance to my parking lot.

“I live here!” I said, leaning over. “My apartment is on the third floor. Please, can I go up?”

He got an expression which I identified as pity. “Looks like the problem is a broken standpipe on the fourth floor. So everything below that…the Red Cross set up a shelter and I would suggest going there.”

“Can I at least try to get some stuff out?”

He shook his head. “The building’s not going to be accessible for a while. The electricity is off but we’re having trouble getting the gas shut down. Then the water has to be mitigated and I—hey! You can’t do that!” he shouted at another driver who was trying to pull around us. Another fire truck, siren on, was also attempting to access the lot and Granger told me we were going to leave for now.

“We’ll come back,” he said, and executed some kind of reverse move that had us heading down the street in about a second.

“The last time this happened and my apartment was unoccupied, I got robbed. They stole so much,” I said. “And then so much was ruined by the water and I’m just getting it all back together. I took some old clothes that my mom didn’t want and I bought things on sale but it’s too expensive to keep totally replenishing—and Brenna says everything I got was ugly, anyway—and I don’t know why they would have made off with all my dishes, but those were gone, and the furniture was warped and the only thing the landlord replaced was the mattress and I spent so much on that loveseat and before, everything got moldy so it probably will again!”

“Don’t cry,” he said sharply. “This will work out.”

“How?”

“Looks like you’re moving out of that building and that’s a positive,” he stated.

I stared. “What? No, it isn’t! That’s my home where I have a lease for the next three months, and I planned to renew it. I don’t have anywhere else to go.” I stopped and fanned my cheeks. “There’s no way I can live with Nicola now that she’s married, Sophie’s house is just…I’m sorry to say this, but it’s too dirty for me to be there for any length of time. Brenna has a studio and Juliet has roommates, and I don’t want to go back to my parents’ house again. I did that after the last burst pipe and it was really hard. Patrick’s room is still a shrine to him and now it’s also my mom’s yoga studio so I couldn’t sleep there. Grace took over the bedroom we all used to share and I was on an air mattress that kept deflating in the night.”

“I didn’t tell you that I got more furniture,” he noted, and made a left turn. “Two beds, one for myself and one for that guest room. You can stay there.”

“For tonight,” I added. “Thank you, Granger.” I tried to calm down. “The last time this happened, I did get a free mattress, so I won’t need to buy that. And maybe now the landlord will replace the appliances, because the burners never did work very well due to the water damage. And my bathroom door swelled so much that it never shut right again, and there was that smell…”

“You’re better off moving.” He glanced over at me. “I know you said that you don’t like change, but is there something more than that? Is there something tying you to that place?”

Only my stupid thing about sticking, and I thought of how to say it. “Have you ever been in a situation where you felt like, holy Mary, my heart is going to beat out of my chest, and it’s hard to breathe, and I can tell that I started to sweat but I’m also shaking like I’m cold?” Then I thought about it. “No, you haven’t, because you’re the guy who told the robber to suck it and then did some kind of karate on him.”

“I’ve been in plenty of situations that made me anxious. That’s what you’re describing, right? Anxiety?”

I nodded.

“I had to learn to harness it, or at least to ignore it,” he continued. “Otherwise, I couldn’t have done my job.”

“Which was what?”

“I did a lot of different things,” Granger answered. “I can understand why your apartment getting submerged would make you feel that way.”

“But I get that way other times, too,” I told him. “My stomach hurts and my heart pounds and I freeze. That was why Nicola knew that I wouldn’t make it as a nurse in the emergency room. It’s already such a high-tension situation and I don’t do well with things like that, with making quick decisions and having to adapt on the fly. Which is also why I couldn’t run a restaurant,” I added.

“But you stepped right in to talk to my delivery driver and straighten that out.”

I nodded. I’d talked to Tiago a few times since, too, and it had been good to hear that his grandmother was doing much better. He’d taught me some swear words in Portuguese, which I felt comfortable in saying because they just didn’t seem to have the same weight as the English ones. Also, Nicola didn’t speak Portuguese.

“And since then, you’ve dealt with more of my problems at Amunì. You’re always calm and don’t seem anxious at all.”

“I’m used to stuff like that,” I explained. “I spend most of my time with Mr. Campbell putting out little fires.”

“That’s what my job is,” he said. “That’s what I’m doing, all day, every day.”

“Ok, well, when it’s life or death, like in the ER, then I can’t deal. And when it’s something about me, personally, I make a big mess of things. Sometimes I ignore the problems, like how I didn’t look above my head to see the brown water stains on my studio’s ceiling. Or sometimes, I try really, really hard to make things work and stay the course. That was what I did with Briggs. I tried for so long to force our situation to be ok, even when it really wasn’t.” I took a breath. “But right now, I don’t want to move back into a place with new carpet over a squishy pad! I don’t want to.”

“I think we’re talking about a few different things. Do you want something sweet? Like, dessert?”

“That’s the second time you’ve suggested that to me,” I said. “A few months ago, I was crying and you said the same thing.” I waited. “Why?”

We were nearing his house. “I don’t know, it sounds like a good idea,” he said. “I’m going to run into the drug store on the corner and get a toothbrush for you. Need anything else?”

I went in with him and picked up a selection of products that I used to get ready, but I was unsure of quantity. Should I have gotten the value-sized bottle of shampoo because I would need to wash my hair somewhere else for a long time? Or would a small, cheaper but less economical bottle be best since I would try to get back into my own apartment as soon as possible? I wandered the aisles, imagining the damage to my little studio, and also hearing the voices of my family in my mind. After the first broken pipe, Nicola had told me to move out of there, but Sophie had said no because I got such a great deal on rent, and while Brenna thought I should have gone because my building was so ugly, Juliet had told me to stay, because at least I didn’t have to deal with roommates.

And my mom had talked about a flood, and Noah, and how she’d almost drowned when she’d gone snorkeling on her honeymoon even though it emerged (through fierce questioning by my biggest sister) that no water had actually entered her lungs and actually, she hadn’t struggled at all or even gone under. She’d called it a “dry drowning” and Nic had gotten even more furious because that wasn’t what a dry drowning was, not at all.

“Ready? I got a good toothbrush and a box of tissues. Just in case.”

I looked up at Granger. I was not ready.

“Are you buying two bottles of the same shampoo? The bigger one’s a better deal,” he said. “Addie? Shit, please don’t cry. Don’t cry.”

I shook my head, because I wasn’t trying to. It had been a long day and my apartment was under water, and those things were enough to make anyone upset.

“Ok,” he said, and his face got very stern. He lifted the larger bottle from my hands and said to come to the register and before I could tell him that I would use my own card, he paid for that, the hair ties, and all the other products I’d dropped into my basket. We tromped out to my car and he threw the bag in the back, kind of hard.

“I’m not doing this again.”

The words had come out of my mouth just as I thought them, without any worry about a filter.

He turned to look at me. “What? What aren’t you doing?”

“I’m not going to try to talk you out of a mood and make things ok.”

“Why in the hell would you have to do that? I’m a grown man, aren’t I? So I’m in charge of my damn moods.”

I nodded, because that made sense.

“I’m not angry at you, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he continued. “Maybe it sounds like I am, but I’m just pissed off in general. I’m angry that you lived in a shitty building and it flooded but that’s what happens when things are shitty, and now I don’t know what to do when you keep looking out of those big, beautiful eyes like your damn world is falling apart. I don’t think you’re going to let me fix it.”

“Fix it?” I asked him. “How would you fix it?”

He started my car and we backed up very fast, then left the parking lot at a rapid rate as well. We were moving quickly but he did have the car completely under control.

“First of all, I would get you situated with a real place to live. Then I’d give you enough money to buy a lot of new clothes and I’d tell your sister Brenna to keep her mouth shut about them. I’d upgrade your ride, because your brakes are spongy, your exhaust system sounds too loud, and it feels like you need new rear struts. Some of that I could do for you, but I’d prefer to get you a new car. And a new job, so that you’re not getting shit on by that old man and by his housekeeper who has a lot of opinions that I don’t really care about. I’d take you on vacation to Florida or wherever you wanted to go, flying there, because that’s a load of shit that your old boyfriend talked about a trip and then reneged. Fuck, I’m glad that guy is dead,” he breathed, like he was talking to himself.

The car slowed down a lot before Granger seemed to snap back to attention. “I’m sorry,” he told me. “I didn’t mean to say that about Skurwysyn.”

“A lot of people seem to feel that way,” I said. “At least, no one seems to be missing him. I don’t.”

“You don’t?” He sounded shocked.

“I wish the accident hadn’t happened, but I think I’m better without him,” I said. I looked closely at his expression to try to read his thoughts. “I know how that sounds.”

“To me, it just sounds reasonable,” he answered. “I’m glad it’s better for you now.”

“And I’m glad that you want to help me, but I don’t mind where I live, and I wouldn’t take your money for clothes,” I said. “I can make Brenna be quiet all by myself, and I have in the past. She just won’t stay that way, so I’ll have to keep doing it. I can also get my car worked on because I have money saved from the job that you don’t like, and yes, I know that I need to be thinking about a new one. I’m trying. And I actually like Mina a lot and I even like Mr. Campbell. He’s kind of a jerk…he’s mostly a jerk, but I know that in his odd, sad, small way, he likes me back.”

Granger nodded.“Ok.”

“I was talking about why I was upset, like saying that I didn’t want to stay at my house again and that I’d need to replace more stuff, because I wanted to discuss it. I wanted to get it out but not because I need you to solve my problems. I understand that it might have sounded that way.”

“Ok,” he repeated.

“Thank you for letting me stay with you tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll figure this out.” I pointed at his house, because by now, we’d pulled into his driveway and stopped. “I guess we should go inside.”

“Ok,” he said for the third time, and I tried to determine if he was angry because I’d rejected his solutions. Even if he was mad, though, I knew that I didn’t need to worry. Granger was the size of a bear but he wasn’t going to act wild and savage, not like other people might have. We walked to his front door and he opened it for me, and we went in together.

“Are you upset with me?” I asked him.

“No,” he responded. “No, but what you just said surprised me. I’m used to fixing shit, taking over and getting it done by myself. I know that you’re capable and you don’t need me to do that but I still want to. I’ll shut the hell up.”

“I’m so glad that you want to help me,” I said. “It’s so nice of you. You’re letting me stay here and you dropped everything at work when I had an emergency, leaving like you didn’t even have to think twice about it. I like that you want to help me, just like I’d want to help you if you ever had a problem.”

“Such as, if I were getting robbed, you’d try to pepper spray the assailant.”

“Just like that,” I said, nodding. “Don’t shut up. Just don’t feel like you’re in charge of all my fixes. But if you know how to replace…what did you say that I need to replace in my car?”

“At a minimum, the rear struts.”

“If you know how to do that, I would be very grateful,” I said. “I’m very grateful for everything you’re doing.”

“We could get under the car together and I could show you how. Then next time, you can replace them yourself.”

“Or I could do yours, maybe,” I suggested.

“I would appreciate that, too.” He looked over at me, leaning a little closer to get a better view. “Are you feeling better?”

“I guess so. I’m still so worried, but there’s nothing I can do tonight. And I think that tomorrow, when I’m calmer and the gas is off in my building, things will probably look up. I hope so.”

“If you wouldn’t mind my help in the morning, we can go over there and start figuring it out.” He held out his hand. “Deal?”

We shook on it, and I was glad that I had Granger on my side—not to fix everything, but as someone to depend on.