Chapter 2

Lee

“You’re such a kind young man.” Mr. Vincent’s words would’ve been more welcome if they hadn’t come with an attempt to grab my butt. Also if he wasn’t white-haired and forty-plus years older than me, making “young man” a relative term.

I dodged the eighty-three-year-old’s groping fingers and arranged the pillows behind his head. “How does that feel?”

“Divine.” He smiled, his dentures white and perfect in his lined face.

I worried about Mr. Vincent— Jerry, but he preferred to be called by his last name. Maybe because that felt like respect? He was nominally straight, a widower after forty years of marriage to his wife, Shirley. Their oldest daughter, his sole visitor, prayed over him ostentatiously every time she came to the nursing home. But the more confused he got, the more fey his words and tone became and the more his hands wandered. And not toward the female nurses. I could imagine a family crisis coming. I hoped he’d be lucky and his daughter would never notice.

“Do you need more water? Some juice? A few crackers? A cookie?” I lifted his bedside water cup and assessed the contents. Half full and still cool to the touch. We didn’t normally encourage the residents who were able to get up to snack in bed, but more calories would be good for Mr. Vincent. He’d grown frailer as the months passed.

“Juice, maybe. Thank you.”

“I’ll send an aide with a cup. Orange or apple?”

He pouted. “Can’t you bring it yourself? I don’t see much of you these days.”

That was no accident.

My duties as nursing supervisor didn’t leave me much time for patient care, but I used to stop by once a day. As the biggest and strongest person in the building, I sometimes left my office to help speed up patient transfers from beds to chairs, and once I was out on the floor, I’d peek in on the residents. Or if the charge nurse on the schedule was out sick, like today, I’d get a little more hands-on time on the floors. But recently, I’d backed off with Mr. Vincent and started assigning him only female nurses and aides. No need to encourage his passes and endanger his family stability.

And yet, at the same time, I felt bad. I was the only out gay man in Mr. Vincent’s world these days. How would it feel to be alone, lost, the habits of a lifetime fading, and the only person who might understand refusing to appear?

“All right,” I told him. “But you’ll have to wait a while. I have other work to do first. An aide would bring it sooner.”

“I’m not that thirsty.” He winked. “Bring OJ, when you get the chance.”

Yeah, that’s what I thought. But if he drank the juice to keep me around, that was still calories and fresh vitamins the old guy needed. “Give me thirty minutes or so.”

My other duties took more like forty, but eventually I made my way to the ground floor, heading for the kitchen. From the common room, I could hear music, louder than normal and clearer than the TV speakers usually managed to produce. The song snagged at my heart. One of Griffin’s old standards. I remembered when he wrote the tune, sitting naked on the edge of his bed at two a.m., guitar in hand, while I lounged on the pillows beside him, fucked out and drifting.

“How the hell do you still have that much energy?” I’d mumbled.

He’d grinned at me, his blue eyes flashing, lips parted. He’d been clean-shaven then, showing off his gorgeous features. “You inspire me.”

And when I laughed, he’d set aside the guitar, tumbled toward me, and let me inspire him some more…

Water long under the bridge. At one point years back, the memory would’ve made me grit my teeth. Now, it made me smile. No one in my life had ever been like Griffin, before or after.

I was busy as hell since we were perennially short-staffed, but when I had Mr. Vincent’s cup of juice, I detoured by the common room for a moment. The concert was still playing, and I wondered which version of Griffin I’d see on the screen. My sexy, wild-haired man at thirty-six making love to the microphone on his climb to fame? The solid performer of the years after we split, his hair shorter, the first lines creasing beside his eyes, his fingers a blur on the strings? Or the recent Griffin, gray starting to touch his cropped beard and temples, still way too fucking good-looking for a guy who’d passed fifty?

Walking through the archway into the common room, I stopped short. The TV screen was blank. Seated the piano bench at the front of the room, Griffin coaxed a swift fall of notes from his guitar strings.

Griffin? Here? What the hell? His mother had passed four years ago, at the height of COVID. I’d caught her name in the obituaries, but if he’d come home then, I’d been deep in the bowels of that misery and he hadn’t contacted me. Why’s he here now?

A small piece of me that still ached from the way he’d left me raised a tendril of foolish hope. Is he here for me? Not that I’d take him back, but it would soothe my battered ego a tiny bit.

But when Griffin raised his head to scan the audience in their lounge chairs and wheelchairs and spotted me, the way his eyes widened and his mouth dropped open dashed that idea. He’d clearly had no idea I was around.

Before either of us could say or do something stupid, I ducked back out of sight. Behind me, I heard Griffin play the intro again before the first mellow words of “Iowa Sunset” followed me up the stairs. His tone and vocal control were always most stunning like this— acoustic guitar, simple mic, no backing band. Just Griffin and his art. People still paid damned good money to hear him. Now, here he was, giving a concert to folks half of whom had either never heard of him or had forgotten his name. Most of whom had no idea the privilege they were receiving. I hoped they enjoyed the hell out of it, though.

Our patients’ days tended to be mundane and filled with routine, despite the social director’s best efforts. Scoring Griffin Marsh was a triumph for Kashira. I’d have to congratulate her. After Griffin was gone, of course.

I slipped into Mr. Vincent’s room. The old guy leaned back on his pillows, eyes closed, snoring. Well, he was one of the folks whose nighttime sleep was restless, filled with confusion. He needed the nap as much as he needed the juice. I set the sealed cup at his bedside and scribbled, “I hope you had a good sleep. Here’s your juice. —Lee,” on the napkin so he’d realize I hadn’t blown him off, when he woke.

Just as well I was free to step out, as Anita called from down the hall, “Hey, Lee? Carol’s been sick again, made a mess of her wheelchair and the bed. Can you give me a hand?”

Ah, the glamorous life of nursing. But if I’d been squeamish, I’d never have made it through nursing school, let alone twenty years on the job. Other than in the ER, nursing was a lot less about dramatically saving lives, and a lot more about the tiny, grateful smile of an old lady once she was clean, comfortable, dressed in a fresh gown, and getting some ondansetron and fluids.

As the NP on duty, prescribing the meds and starting IVs were my job, basic patient care wasn’t. But once again— six-foot-two, two-hundred-sixty pounds, and I lifted weights on my days off. I could safely scoop up a frail old lady and move things along fast, or two aides could spend ten minutes maneuvering the lift into the room and working around it. After they managed to line up two free aides from our overworked staff, that is. I never let my title get in the way of patient comfort.

“There.” I tucked the thin blanket around Carol’s shoulders. “All set.”

“You’re a good boy, Joey.” She clung to my arm with a thin hand.

I had no idea who Joey was or had been, but I’d long ago stopped correcting her. I pressed her fingers, returning her hand to the bedclothes. “Thank you. Try to get some sleep now. You’ll feel better.”

In my closet of an office, I turned to the paperwork and charting that filled way too much of my day. I chose this. When I left the ER for this job years ago, quiet paperwork had felt like a reprieve from the stress. Now, I was needed at Wellhaven, and even though the office time had turned into a chore, I didn’t think I’d ever shake loose from this place. Oh, well. There were far worse things than being needed, somewhere I could make a real difference. I opened the daily charts on the screen.

My mind kept drifting to Griffin, though. I was pretty sure he’d seen me. Pretty sure he would’ve recognized me despite my beard, an added seventy pounds, and the beginnings of eye wrinkles. I wondered how long he was in town for and what random impulse had driven him to give an impromptu concert to folks who’d never again buy a ticket to one of his shows. Maybe one of the residents was someone he knew?

I wasn’t sure if I hoped to see Griffin again, to finally say all the things I’d held back when he left. In private, of course, because I wouldn’t air his dirty laundry where we might be overheard. Or perhaps it was best if that moment, our eyes meeting across a shabby nursing home lobby, was the last time I saw him…

Mind on the job. I gave myself a light slap on the cheek for redirection and bent back over my keyboard.

I was trying to decipher the sixty-four-page history of a new resident when Kashira, our entertainment director, stuck her head around my door. “Lee, dude, did I score or did I score!”

“Huh?” I pretended not to know what she meant. “D’you find a better coffee shop nearby?”

“Quit lying. I saw your ugly face down in the common room. Griffin fuckin’ Marsh giving us a free concert.” She grinned. “A pity we can’t charge at the door. We could buy a shit-ton of good stuff. But maybe we’ll get more family residents visiting, once word gets out.”

“Once word gets out?” I frowned at her. “You mean, he’s coming back?”

“Three hours every frickin’ day. Mostly just reading to residents and such, but he offered to sing occasionally, maybe play the piano some. We have him for months. Conditions of his parole.”

“Parole? What the fuck? Griffin?” I mean, yeah, the Griffin I knew smoked some weed, tried ’shrooms a couple of times, and was fond of the fast lane on the freeway. Nothing that should’ve earned him more than a slap on the wrist, though. Months of parole? What did you do, Griff?

“Didn’t you hear? It was all over the local news months back.” Kashira dropped into the chair across from me. “He crashed his car, slammed some woman over an embankment and she died.”

Oh, Griffin!

He’d hit a bird once while we were driving, some small fast-flying thing that’d burst out of the weeds at the side of the road too close to be avoided. He’d insisted on pulling over, going back, and finding it in case it was suffering. When he was sure the bird was dead, he moved the little body off the pavement, laid it under a nearby tree, and spent several minutes just staring down at the creature he’d killed before we could drive on. How must he feel if a human being died?

“He pleaded guilty,” Kashira went on with apparent relish. “Probably was drunk or high, but he got a slap on the wrist. Famous folks always get off light. Anyhow, he has a ton of community service to do and we get a piece of him.”

I wanted to say I bet Griffin hadn’t been drunk. I’d never seen him drive impaired. But then, I hadn’t seen him except on a screen in twenty years. The music biz was notorious. For all I knew, she was right.

I told myself this news was a necessary reminder that Griffin wasn’t the same man who broke my heart twenty years ago. We were strangers, really, despite a tiny sliver of time when our lives intersected. This wasn’t my lost man with the wonderful hands and golden voice showing up back in my life. A felon on parole, or whatever he was, working off his sentence, was a whole different thing.

Although, if he was going to be around daily for weeks, we did need to talk. I wasn’t going to hide in my office for fear of running into him in the hallways. “What are his hours?”

“Nine to twelve every weekday. He said he’d keep concert days random, not announce in advance, so we don’t get crowds or whatever. The residents got a kick out of this morning. ’Course he’s close to their age, so they like his music.”

“He’s fifty-six,” I protested.

“Yeah, like I said.” Kashira tossed her braids over her shoulders with the disdain of a twenty-three-year-old. “Still not bad looking but, like, old. Which will go over good around here.”

I gave protest up as a lost cause. At forty, I was closer to Griffin in age than to her, but I wasn’t about to remind her of that. “What will you have him do tomorrow?”

“Reading and board games, I figure. Maybe he can keep Nancy from wandering the halls during the laundry run, keep her busy. I can always use more help.”

Isn’t that the truth? The nursing home was always short-staffed, one reason I still worked here, years after my sister had passed. I couldn’t abandon my coworkers or the residents. I’ll probably be too busy to see much of Griff anyhow. But my mouth went ahead and asked, “Do you have his contact info?”

“The director has his file. I just have his phone number in case we need to get hold of him.”

“Right. Sure. Um.”

“Do you need it?”

“Huh? No, not really.”

“Are you a fan?” A teasing smile curved her lips. “Is he the hot silver fox of your dreams?”

I kicked her foot under the desk. “His music’s okay. I have no real interest.” Memories of a day spent lounging on a blanket reading, blue skies overhead, while Griffin played his guitar like a woodland god mocked me… hours of joy when the melodies wound in and out of my head, until he set the guitar aside and reached for me. He was always special.

But then, he’d made plenty of money out of those songs later, without a backward glance.

She pushed to her feet. “As long as we don’t get paparazzi types making trouble, it’s a win. No rest for the weary. I need to go collect the audiobooks before lunch.”

I waved to her as she left my office and turned to my screen, but the words danced in front of my eyes. Was that hyperthyroid or hypothyroid, and what medical office still had handwritten notes? With a muttered curse, I saved and closed the screen, clicked into my timesheet to take my lunch break, and opened a browser.

What are you doing, you fool? He’s none of your business anymore. You have half an hour to eat and get a little walk in the fresh air.

Ignoring the sensible part of my brain, I searched for Griffin’s name and “car accident.” Plenty of articles came up. The first ones were full of salacious guesses. Was he drunk? Was he high? Had he been livestreaming on social media, pandering for likes and followers as he killed someone? There were photos, too, of Griffin outside his arraignment and bail hearing looking shocked, his eyes blank in a shadowed face. I swiped past those.

Interest died down pretty quickly when Griffin was only charged with distracted driving and the drugs and drink angle went away. A bit of faux-outrage over a coverup replaced the drunk driving rants, but between a plea bargain and lowered charges, the media stopped caring. A couple of recent stories mentioned his sentencing. Since I was already being an icky stalker about this, I clicked on those too.

Griffin looked older in the most recent video, and he just said, “No comment,” to every question. Hearing his voice, even on video, started an uncomfortable echo in my chest and I clicked the sound off. The woman walking next to him seemed to be a lawyer. There’d been no mention of his family or a partner in any of the stories. The last thing posted was video of him trudging into an apartment building, a reporter shouting questions at his averted face. Nothing from Wellhaven today. If any of the staff had filmed his singing, the videos hadn’t gone viral.

Yet.

Well.

I closed the search window. Not my circus. Not my monkey.

I’d made it without thinking about Griffin more than occasionally in the last nineteen years. I was nothing like the young twink he’d dated once upon a time. I felt sorry for the woman who died, sorry for Griffin whose crime fell under there, but for the grace of God, go I . But in however many months it would take for him to work off his sentence, he’d leave Wellhaven and go back to the concert circuit. He’d be fine. I wished him well.

Lunch. I’d brought a sandwich. I could eat at my desk and work, make some progress. Walking was overrated anyway.

Sandwich in hand, I pulled up the medical record I’d abandoned and decided that everything pointed to hyperthyroid, based on her clinical signs. I put the appropriate note in the patient’s problem list with an asterisk just in case. In that case, I should run across Iodine 131 treatment at some point in confirmation. I swiped on to page thirty-one. I was a professional with a job to do and no time to get maudlin about the past.