Everything Burns Read online

  “Coming, Mommy. You don’t have to shout.”

  I catch a quick glimpse of my salt-and-pepper–stubbled face in the mirror as Anna emerges from her bedroom like a rock star taking the stage. She’s wearing high heels, orange tights, a pleather miniskirt, and a blue zipper sweatshirt that has the word “PINK” printed on it across the chest in hot pink lettering. Her hair defies gravity from one of those red plastic alligator clips, and it’s going a dozen different directions on purpose. Covering her eyes is a pair of bright yellow cat-eye sunglasses Lisa picked up for her in the dollar bin at the local Target. Strapped over her shoulder is a cloth bag that’s filled with the DVDs and CDs that will amuse her while she’s doing time at her grandparents’ house. I can’t see it, but I’m sure her fire-engine red mini PSP video game player is stuffed somewhere in there too.

  Lisa and I lock our collective eyes on our spawn.

  “She’s eight years old,” I say. “That outfit would be perfect on Forty-Second Street circa 1978.”

  Lisa shakes her head, says, “I don’t have time for her to change. Anyway, she’ll be locked in the house with my dad while my mother stays with me for the operation.”

  A car horn honks from out on the driveway.

  “Oh dear God,” I say, eyes wide with alarm. “It’s your mother. Quick, where do I hide?”

  “Funny,” Lisa says.

  Frankie, our two-year-old Italian greyhound and Chihuahua mix, comes storming into the living room, leaps onto the couch, and starts barking up a storm like she actually poses a threat to anyone who might think of intruding. But in all reality, the ten-pound, black-and-white spotted pooch is more pussycat than dog.

  “Easy, Frank,” I say. “It’s just Vickie. It’s me she hates.”

  “Cut it out, Reece,” Lisa snaps.

  The doorbell rings. Lisa unlocks the deadbolt, opens the main wood door and then the screen door to reveal a small woman in her early seventies but who might easily pass for fifty. Like her daughter, her hair is dark brown and thick, and they both share the same lips and perfect nose. She’s wearing a short, fall-weight wool skirt over matching tights and tall black Italian boots similar to the ones Lisa’s wearing. Parked in the driveway is her brand new Volvo station wagon, the engine still idling.

  “Ready to go?” She smiles at the females while shooting me an eyes-at-half-mast look that cuts through me like flame through tissue paper. Truth is, Lisa’s mother is not so crazy about seeing me. Never has been since Lisa and I divorced eight years back. But she’s even more unhappy to see me now that her daughter and I decided to give the relationship one more try two months ago.

  But then, thinking back on it, Vickie was never crazy about Lisa marrying a writer in the first place. Especially a broke writer unknowingly entering into what would become a seemingly incurable bout of writer’s block. Lisa’s parents had always hoped she’d hook up with an accountant or a doctor or even a big-time CEO of a major law firm, like her dad. But when Lisa sets her sights on something or someone, there’s no talking her out of it, no matter the consequences. Even though they’ve threatened to yank her monthly trust fund allowance over my return, it hasn’t happened yet.

  “And a good morning to you, Victoria,” I say in my best Eddie Haskell. “You look positively ravishing this morning.”

  “Can it, Reece,” she says, along with a pronounced roll of her dark eyes. “How’s your new novel going? It must be keeping you very busy to keep you from bringing Lisa for her eye surgery.”

  “Mom, we went over this,” Lisa interjects. “Reece has to work.”

  I nod emphatically. “Yes, I’m very busy, Vic. Fact is, a true artist’s work is never done, merely abandoned. Guess you can’t say that about the lawyering profession, can you?”

  “Well, I sure hope we’re making money this time around,” she says in a mock singsongy voice.

  “That’s enough, you two,” Lisa says, buttoning up her coat. “I’ll be right out, Mom.” Then, “Anna, go with Vickie, please.”

  “Hi, Vickie,” Anna sings, preferring to call her grandma by her given name. Something Grandma doesn’t seem to mind in the least. “Can I sit in the front seat?”

  “No you may not, Anna,” Victoria informs the child, bending down in a way that allows Anna the chance to kiss her politely on the cheek, not on the lips.

  The front screen door opens and our eight-year-old would-be pop star steps out onto the concrete landing.

  “That’s some outfit you have on, young lady,” Victoria comments, holding the door open for my daughter.

  Raising the fingers on my right hand to my lips, I shoot Anna a kiss.

  “Be good, Acid Queen,” I say.

  “Please don’t call her that,” Lisa jumps in.

  “Good-bye, Reecey Pieces,” Anna says.

  “When are you going to call me Dad?”

  “You ain’t my dad, silly.”

  “Very funny, Anna banana,” I say, seeing myself holding her in my arms only seconds after she was born. She bore a full head of dark hair, and I swear she was smiling. My dad was standing by my side, slightly taller than me, his thick black hair having thinned and turned white ages ago.

  “You sure you want to name the little angel after your mother?” he said. I remember nodding, feeling my eyes fill with tears.

  “Yes,” I said. “Lisa and I can’t imagine naming her anything else.” I remember the sad smile he assumed as he reached out with his fire-scarred hand and touched her cheek.

  “Give my best to Alexander, Victoria,” I call after them.

  “I’ll leave that up to you,” my former mother-in-law grouses, allowing the screen door to close on its own. For those not in the know, Alexander is Victoria’s rather serious and very strict husband of fifty or so years. Like his wife, Alexander was never crazy about my career choice and is even less crazy about it now that I’ve reentered the family fold, as it were. Taking hold of Anna’s hand, Victoria begins accompanying the little girl to the car. As the two disappear from view, I can’t help but hear Anna’s words resonating in my head.

  “You ain’t my dad, silly.”

  The words may be said all in fun, but they still sting me, burn me. Worse than the fire that took away my mother and brothers all those years ago, leaving my dad and me to fend for ourselves. In the back of my mind, I can’t help but ask the question What if it were true? What if it were to turn out that Anna is truly not my daughter? But these are the questions of a fiction writer with an overactive imagination, and therefore they are questions best left ignored.

  With Frankie having resumed her near-perpetual curled-up sleeping position on the floor in the playroom, which is just off the dining room at the back of the house, the joint grows ominously silent. But then the silence is broken by Lisa’s cell phone, which blares out a tune from Lady Gaga. Pulling the phone from her pocket, she looks at the digital ID readout. Her lips grow tight while she whispers, “I’ll call him back later.”

  Call him back. Call who back?

  Then, as she returns the phone to her pocket, “Do you and my mother always have to bicker?”

  “I wasn’t bickering. I thought I was being nice . . . And who is the him you need to call back?”

  “You know, Reece, if it weren’t for my parents, Anna and I would’ve had no way of getting by all these years while you were building your writing career. And forgive me for bringing it up, but when you got sick after we split up, it was me who took care of the hospital bill.”

  Just the mention of my writer’s block–induced nervous breakdown, which occurred only weeks after we broke up in September of 2006, and the resulting hospitalization and electroshock therapy, sends a chill throughout my body. Lisa is correct in that she did foot the bill for the stay. But it was worth every penny since the therapy finally resulted in breaking down my block, which, truth be told, had actu
ally begun to crumble ever so slowly almost from the minute I walked out of Lisa’s life, as if she had somehow been the cause of it all along. In any case, the therapy, when combined with my new single status, would eventually pave the way for the completion of my first novel, The Damned.

  “Okay, I surrender,” I say, a sly smile now painting my face. “You’re right. Your parents have been kind. They did buy you this house. And you did pay for my stay at Four Winds Psychiatric Facility, which is the same as saying Vickie and Alex paid for it. But believe me, electroshock therapy is no holiday.”

  Lisa pinches my stubble-covered cheek. “You got me there, Reecey Pieces,” she says. “I’m being a tad insensitive. But allow me to pose a question regarding my parents’ generous financial gifts: Would you rather I worked a full-time job while Anna was tossed into day care, day in and day out? You know how many of those kids wet their beds every night?”

  A wave of warm remorse washes over me.

  “I couldn’t really afford you guys until recently.” It sounds strange coming from my mouth. But it’s the truth, and sometimes the truth sounds far stranger than fiction.

  She lowers her hand.

  “You’ve done well for yourself, Reece,” she says. “I’m proud of you. I love you. I know you haven’t had it easy. But you still have a few things to learn in the parenting department. Important things.”

  “It’s true,” I have to admit. “Life’s easier when all you’re looking after is yourself.”

  “I’m glad you’re back,” she says, gently kissing me on the mouth.

  Whenever Lisa kisses me I feel like I’m levitating. It’s a feeling I was never able to forget when we were apart and something I will never get sick of for as long as I live. Maybe even longer.

  The car horn honks once more.

  “I really should go,” she says, once again reaching into her coat pockets, this time coming back out with her car keys. “Vickie is already wound tighter than a snare drum this morning.” She holds the key ring out for me.

  “You don’t want to take your keys? What if you need them to get into your folks’ house?”

  “I’ll be half-blind, and my mother will be with me, remember?”

  I stare down at the packed ring of keys. There’s a full set for the locks on her house she had changed at my insistence immediately after she and her ex-boyfriend, David, broke up. There are keys to her parents’ house, to her Volkswagen, and to the red Ford Escape I inherited from my dad after he died. Plus a plastic swipe card for the gym and yet another one for a VIP cost-saving membership at the supermarket up the road. I can’t help but notice something written in blue ballpoint on the supermarket card. A five-digit number.

  “What’s this?” I say, holding up the plastic swipe card while the many keys dangle off the metal ring.

  She gazes at the keys while pulling her coat collar up. “That’s Dad’s house alarm code.”

  “You keep it on your Price Chopper card? Jeez, what if it gets stolen?”

  “It’s just a random set of numbers, and it won’t get stolen.”

  “Here’s an idea: memorize it.”

  “Are you kidding? I can’t remember my PIN number for my debit card or my Facebook password. The digital age sucks sometimes.”

  “Yeah, but if not for Facebook you wouldn’t have hooked up with David.”

  “Leave him out of this, please. David, and everything that happened between us, is now the very distant past.”

  Like I said, David is the boyfriend and lover Lisa took on almost immediately after we split up eight years, one month, and five days ago. It was a love that lasted the entire time we were apart and that no doubt had been brewing while we were still together. The newly formed pit in my chest reminds me of the phone call she ignored moments ago.

  Another honk from an overanxious and over-annoyed Victoria.

  “Really, Reece, I’ve got to go.”

  Setting the ring of keys on the rail of the small bench that’s been built into the vestibule wall, I take my ex-wife into my arms, hug her tightly. At five feet ten inches she’s a full inch taller than me. When she wears thick-soled boots, she’s even taller. It forces me to gaze slightly upward into her sunglass-covered eyes before I kiss her mouth.

  “Good luck, baby. You know, your eyes are perfect just the way they are, even if they do tear up too much.”

  “I’m forty-two,” she says. “Trust me. I’m at the age when the body parts start wearing out and sinking. Next year I’m having a tummy tuck.”

  “So what you’re saying is I missed out on your prime time while David lucked out.”

  “Oh for God’s sakes, Reece, get over him already. Besides, you won’t even want me in a year.”

  “Bite your tongue. I didn’t get you back just to let you slip through my fingers again.”

  “I’ll let you bite my naked butt when I get home on Wednesday afternoon, big boy. How does that sound?”

  I feel a twinge in my stomach when she says it.

  She turns, opens the screen door, steps on out. I’m not sure why, but just looking at the black Volvo pulled up in the driveway reminds me of something else. Something not very pleasant. Something I’d rather forget. I see another vehicle that was parked in that very spot, night after night, year after year. A brown four-wheel-drive Honda CR-V hatchback that belonged to David Bourenhem, the man who stole Lisa’s heart at a time in my life when I’d become impossible to live with due to my writer’s block. Weird thing was, David was a writer like me. According to Lisa, I’d met him once before when he came to the house to show me his manuscript, back when the two former high school friends had gotten reacquainted on Facebook sometime back in the late spring or summer of 2005. This wasn’t all that long before Lisa got pregnant with Anna. Later on, when I left the house and Lisa started seeing him for real, she continued to insist that I had met him and even talked writing with him. But for the life of me, I could not place him. Even when I looked up his scruffy face on Facebook, I still could not remember him. But then, since my most recent bout of electroshock therapy, I tended to not remember certain things all that well. Or maybe the therapy simply made it easier for me to forget instances and people I’d rather not remember, which is more likely the case. Maybe I just didn’t want to remember the face of the man who was lying beside my wife every night in my place. We don’t talk a whole lot about it, but Lisa claims that my reentering her life has not sat well with David, for obvious reasons. To make matters worse, my gut has been telling me that he’s been e-mailing, texting, and calling Lisa again. But whenever I ask her about it, she denies it.

  I’ll call him back later . . .

  From the open front door, I watch my ex-wife and present lover descend the few steps down the landing to the short walk that leads to the driveway.

  I can’t help myself. I have to know.

  “Lisa,” I call out. “That was him, wasn’t it? David.”

  I feel the weight of the screen door resting against my shoulder.

  Lisa stops, turns, shakes her head. “It wasn’t him, Reece. It was my doctor, if you must know . . . if you insist on not trusting me.”

  “I trust you.”

  “Okay, maybe you trust me, but you don’t trust David. Don’t trust our breakup. You’re letting him get to you, Reece. Let it go. David’s as docile as a puppy. His feelings are hurt. That’s all. He’s not calling me.”

  “His feelings are hurt because I got you back, or because I’m a best-selling author and he’s the wannabe?”

  She laughs, but it’s not a happy laugh.

  “You really are a tool, you know that, Reece?” The horn honks yet again, startling Lisa. She shoots her mother a look to kill. Then, turning back to me, she smiles. “But a cute tool. Promise me you won’t get all paranoid while I’m not home for a couple of days. Keep yourself occupied. If it’s too much for y
ou to stay in the house alone, go to your writing studio or at the very least, text Blood, tell him to come over. Okay? Promise me?”

  “I’ll be okay, Lisa,” I say, knowing it could very well be a lie. “I’m better now. No more anxieties. No more writer’s block. No more benders. No more fires. Just good stuff to look forward to.”

  She kisses her hand and tosses the kiss to me. I return the favor. I watch her graceful body as it jogs to the car, the black miniskirt she’s wearing over black tights accentuating the muscles in her heart-shaped bottom.

  “I’m a lucky, healthy man,” I whisper as she gets into the car, closing the door behind her. As the car backs out, Frankie trots into the living room, jumps up onto the couch. I close the door behind me, lock the deadbolt. “I’m a lucky, healthy, happy, best-selling author. Isn’t that right, Frank?”

  Frankie just looks at me like I’m still nuts.

  “I’m a lucky, healthy, happy, best-selling author who is fine with the fact that the one woman in the world he’s ever obsessed over has been fucking another man for a whole bunch of years.”

  Feeling a surge of warm adrenaline fill my brain, I head into the kitchen and spot the cordless phone sitting out on the counter. Let’s not call it paranoia. Let’s call it writer’s intuition. But something tells me that Lisa is lying and that David has indeed been calling again.

  I pick up the phone.

  Chapter 2

  I see my dad. See him as clearly as if he’s really standing there, only a couple of feet away from me in the vestibule of Lisa’s house. He’s wearing his usual uniform of pressed khaki pants and a short-sleeve, button-down shirt that exposes a burn scar that runs almost the entire length of his arm.

  Don’t even start, Reece, he says. Ignore the voice inside your head that’s telling you to search the list of called numbers on that phone, to turn the whole joint upside down. Ignore the tightness in your stomach and the pit in your chest that tells you Lisa can’t be trusted. It’s not worth it, Son.