Triptych

CHAPTER TWO

When he had returned from the Gulf War, Michael had been haunted by his dreams. As soon as he closed his eyes, he saw the bullets coming at him, the bombs blowing off arms and legs, children running down the road, screaming for their mamas. Michael knew where their mothers were. He had stood by helplessly as the women banged the closed windows of the schoolhouse, trying to break their way out as fire from an exploded grenade burned them alive.

Aleesha Monroe was haunting him now. The tongueless woman in the stairway had followed him home, worked some kind of magic in his dreams so that it was Michael chasing her up the stairs, Michael forcing her back onto the landing and splitting her in two. He could feel her long red nails sinking into his skin as she tried to fight him off, choking him. He couldn’t breathe. He started clawing at his neck, her hands, trying to get her to stop. He woke up screaming so loud that Gina sat up in bed beside him, clutching the sheet to her chest like she expected to see a maniac in their bedroom.

“Jesus, Michael,” she hissed, hand over her heart. “You scared the shit out of me.”

He reached for the glass of water by the bed, sloshing some on his chest as he took large gulps to quench the fire in his throat.

“Babe,” Gina said, touching the tips of her fingers to his neck. “What happened?”

Michael felt a sting on his neck and put his fingers where hers had been. There was a rent in the skin, and when he got up to look in the mirror over the dresser, he saw a thin trickle of blood dripping from the fresh cut.

She stood beside him. “Did you scratch yourself in your sleep?”

“I don’t know.” He knew, though. He still hadn’t caught his breath from the dream.

Gina wrinkled her nose as she pulled his hand to her mouth. For a second, he thought she was going to kiss it, but she asked instead, “Why do you smell like bleach?”

He’d had to scrub it off him-that smell, that stickiness, that came from being around the dead. Michael didn’t tell her this, didn’t want to open up that conversation, so instead he squinted at the clock, asking, “What time is it?”

“Shit,” she groaned, dropping his hand. “Might as well get dressed. My shift starts in two hours.”

Michael picked up the clock to see for himself. Six-thirty. After processing the crime scene, tossing the woman’s apartment and going through the paperwork, he had gotten maybe four hours of sleep.

The shower came on, pipes rumbling in the wall as the hot water heater kicked in. Michael went into the bathroom, watching Gina slip off the shirt she’d slept in.

“Tim’s already up,” she said, taking off her panties. “You need to make sure he’s not getting into anything.”

Michael leaned against the wall, admiring her flat stomach, the way the muscles in her arms stretched as she took the band out of her hair. “He’s fine.”

Gina gave him a look, noticing him noticing her. “Check on him.”

Michael felt a smile on his lips. Her breasts had kept their fullness after Tim, and his mouth was almost watering at the sight of them. “Call in sick,” he told her.

“Right.”

“We’ll watch a movie, make out on the couch.” He paused, then tried, “Remember how we used to just kiss for hours?” Christ, he hadn’t had more than a peck on the cheek in months. “Let’s kiss like that, Gina. Nothing else. Just kissing.”

“Michael,” Gina said, leaning in to check the water temperature. She stepped into the shower. “Stop leering at me like I’m a hooker and go check on your son.”

She closed the shower door, and he waited a full minute before leaving, watching her silhouette behind the glass, wondering when things had started to go wrong between them.

He had met Gina before his unit left for the Gulf. No one was expecting to get hurt over there, but Michael and his fellow grunts had played it up, getting all the action they could before being dropped in the desert. Ellen McCallum was a petite, bottle blonde, not too bright-just the kind of girl you wanted to remember when you were stuck in some filthy, sand-encrusted tent a million miles from home, telling the guys about the girl back home who could suck the leather off a couch.

Michael had spent the better part of a week trying to get into Ellen’s pants when up walked Gina, her cousin. She’d pretty much ripped Michael a new one for messing around with her favorite baby cousin, but when he’d shipped out a couple of days later, it was Gina he was thinking about. Her curly brown hair, her delicate features, the smooth curve of her ass. He started writing to her, and to his surprise, she wrote back- real mean at first, but then she calmed down a little, almost got sweet on him. He was in Kuwait, supposedly keeping the peace, when some dumb-ass teenager fooling around with a handgun accidentally shot him in the leg. The kid was a lousy shot, but the wound wouldn’t heal. When Michael was sent to the base in Germany for surgery, it was Gina he called first.

They got married a week after he was discharged and two weeks later he signed up with the Atlanta Police Department. Gina graduated from nursing school at Georgia Baptist and got a good job at Crawford Long Hospital. Two years later, she went over to Piedmont where they paid her more. Michael got his gold shield and was moved from his patrol beat at Grady to Vice, with a pay bump to match. Soon, their life was rolling along better than Michael had ever expected. They bought a house just north of Atlanta, started putting money away for a rainy day, thinking about having a kid or two and making it a real family. Then Tim came along.

He was a quiet baby, but Michael saw a sparkle in his big blue eyes. The first time he held Tim was like holding his own heart in his hands.

It was Barbara, Gina’s mom, who saw the problems first. He never cries. He doesn’t engage. He stares at the wall for hours. Michael fought it tooth and nail, but the doctor confirmed Barbara’s suspicions. Tim had been deprived of oxygen at some point during Gina’s pregnancy. His brain would never develop past the level of a six-year-old. They didn’t know how or why, but that was just the way it was.

Michael had never liked Barbara, but Tim’s diagnosis made him hate her. It was a cliche to despise your mother-in-law, but she had always thought her daughter traded down and now she saw Tim’s problem as Michael’s failure. She was also some kind of religious nut, quick to find fault in others, not so quick to see it in herself. She wasn’t just the glass-is-half-empty type; she thought the glass was half empty and they were all going to hell for it.

“Tim?” Michael called, putting on a T-shirt as he walked through the house. “Where are you, buddy?”

He heard giggling behind the couch, but kept walking toward the kitchen.

“Where’d Tim go?” he asked, noting his son had scattered a full box of Cheerios all over the kitchen table. Tim’s blue bowl was filled to the rim with milk, and for just a second Michael could see Aleesha Monroe’s red, red mouth, the way it had been filled with her own blood.

“Boo!” Tim screamed, grabbing Michael around the waist.

Michael startled, even though Tim did this practically every morning. His heart was thumping in his chest as he lifted his son up into his arms. The kid was eight now, much too big to be held, but Michael couldn’t help himself. He stroked back the cowlick on the top of Tim’s head. “You sleep okay, kiddo?”

Tim nodded, pulling away from Michael’s hand, pushing at his shoulder so he could get down.

“Let’s clean up this mess before Ba-Ba gets here,” he suggested, scooping some of the cereal into his hand and tossing it into the box. Barbara came during the week to watch Tim. She took him to school, picked him up, made sure he had his snack and did his homework. Most days, she spent more time with him than either Michael or Gina, but it wasn’t like either of them had a choice.

“Ba-Ba won’t like this mess,” Michael said.

“Nope,” Tim agreed. He was sitting at the table, legs pulled up underneath him. The fly to his Spider-Man pajamas sagged open.

“Tuck in your equipment, buddy,” Michael admonished, trying to fight the wave of sadness that came over him as Tim fumbled with the buttons.

Michael had been an only child, probably a little more than spoiled. When Tim came along, he didn’t know anything about caring for a baby. Changing Tim’s diaper had been embarrassing, something to get over with as quickly as possible and with minimal contact. Now, all Michael could think about was the fact that Tim would hit puberty in a few years. His body would start growing, changing him into a man, but his mind would never catch up. He would never know what it was like to make love to a woman, to use what God gave him to bring pleasure to another human being. He would never have children of his own. Tim would never know the joy and heartache of being a father.

“Who made this mess?” Gina asked. She was wrapped in the blue silk robe Michael had given her for Christmas a couple of years ago, her hair swirled up in a towel. “Did you make this mess?” she teased Tim, cupping his chin in her hand as she kissed his lips. “Ba-Ba won’t like this,” she said. Michael got a secret kick that the kid hadn’t been able to call Barbara grandma like she wanted.

Tim started to help clean up, making more of a mess in the process. “Uh-oh,” he said, dropping to his knees, picking up one Cheerio at a time, counting them out loud as he handed them to his mother.

Gina asked Michael, “You getting home at a decent hour tonight?”

“I told you I had a case.”

“In a bar?” she said, and he turned his back to her, taking a couple of mugs down from the cabinet. He’d been too wound up last night to come straight home. Leo had suggested they get a drink, talk about the case, and Michael had taken him up on the offer, using the excuse to toss back a couple of bourbons and take the edge off what he’d seen.

“Eleven…” Tim counted. “Twelve…”

Gina said, “You smell like an ashtray.”

“I didn’t smoke.”

“I didn’t say you did.” She dropped a handful of Cheerios into the box and held out her hand for more.

“Fourteen,” Tim continued.

“I just needed some time.” Michael poured coffee into the mugs. “Leo wanted to talk about the case.”

“Leo wanted an excuse to get shitfaced.”

“Uh-oh,” Tim sang.

“Sorry, baby,” Gina apologized to their son. She softened her tone. “You skipped a number. What happened to thirteen?”

Tim shrugged. For the moment, he could only count to twenty-eight, but Gina made sure he hit every number along the way.

Gina told Tim, “Go get dressed for Ba-Ba. She’ll be here soon.”

Tim stood and bounced out of the room, skipping from one foot to the other.

Gina dropped the Cheerios into the box and sat down with a groan. She had pulled a double shift this weekend to pick up some extra money. The day hadn’t even started and already she looked exhausted.

“Busy night?” he asked.

She took a sip of coffee, looking at him over the steam rising from the mug. “I need money for the new therapist.”

Michael sighed, leaning against the counter. Tim’s old speech therapist had taken him as far as she could. The kid needed a specialist, and the good specialists weren’t on the state health insurance plan.

“Five hundred dollars,” Gina said. “That’ll get him through the end of the month.”

“Christ.” Michael rubbed his fingers into his eyes, feeling a headache coming on. He thought about the BMW and the Lincoln he’d seen at Grady Homes last night. Tim could see fifty specialists for that kind of money.

“Take it out of savings,” he said.

She snorted a laugh. “What savings?”

Christmas. They had raided their savings for Christmas.

“I’m gonna ask for another shift at the hospital.” She held up her hand to stop his protest. “He’s got to have the best.”

“He’s got to have his mother.”

“How about your mother?” she shot back.

Michael’s jaw set. “I’m not going to ask her for another dime.”

She put down the mug on the table with a thump that spilled coffee onto the back of her hand. There was no way to win this argument- Michael should know, they’d had it practically every week over the last five years. He was already working overtime, trying to bring in extra cash so Tim could have the things he needed. Gina took weekend shifts twice a month, but Michael drew the line at her working holidays. He barely saw her as it was. Sometimes, he thought she planned it that way. They weren’t a married couple anymore; they were a partnership, a nonprofit corporation working for the betterment of Tim. Michael couldn’t even remember the last time they’d had sex.

“Cynthia called last night,” Gina told him. Their spoiled next-door neighbor. “She’s got a loose board or something.”

“Loose board?” he repeated. “Where’s Phil?”

She pressed her palms to the table and stood. “Botswana. Hell, I don’t know, Michael. She just asked if you could fix it and I said yes.”

“Did you want to consult with me about that first?”

“Do it or don’t,” she snapped, tossing the rest of her coffee into the sink. “I need to get dressed for work.”

He watched her back as she made her way down the hall. Every morning was like this: Tim making a mess, them cleaning it up, then some argument about something stupid breaking out. To top things off, Barbara would be here soon, and Michael was sure his mother-in-law would find something to complain about, whether it was her aching back, her paltry social security check, or the fact that he’d given her a retarded grandson. Lately, she had taken to leaving articles on Gulf War Syndrome taped to the refrigerator, the obvious inference being that Michael had done something horrible over in Iraq that had brought this scourge on her family.

Michael went into the bedroom and dressed quickly, skipping his shower so he wouldn’t have to go into the bathroom and deal with Gina again. He saw Barbara’s Toyota pulling into the driveway and grabbed his hammer out of his toolbox, sneaking out the back door as she came in the front.

Part of the chain-link fence around the backyard had been taken out by a tree during the last ice storm and there hadn’t been any money to fix it. He hopped over the broken section, careful not to catch the cuff of his pants on the twisted metal and fall flat on his face. Again.

He knocked at the back door, glancing through the window as he waited for Cynthia to come. She took her sweet time, padding up the hall in a short, babydoll robe that was opened to reveal the camisole and thong she wore underneath. Everything was white, practically see-through. Michael wondered where Phil was. If Gina ever answered the door for Phil dressed this way, Michael would have fucking killed her.

Cynthia slowly worked the locks, bending at the waist, flashing some breast. Her long blonde hair covered her face. The camisole was so low he could see the tips of her pink nipples.

Michael hefted the hammer in his hand, feeling an electric buzz in his head. He should just turn around right now and let her fix her own board. Shit, Phil had to come home sometime; let him do it.

Cynthia flashed him a smile as she opened the door. “Howdy, neighbor.”

“Where’s Phil?”

“Indianapolis,” she said, cupping her hands around her mouth to hide a yawn. “Selling support hose to the masses so he can keep me in the style to which I’ve become accustomed.”

“Right.” He glanced over her shoulder. The kitchen was a pigsty. Crusty plates were stacked in the sink, take-out pizza boxes everywhere, cigarettes flowing out of ashtrays. He saw mold growing on a glass of what looked like orange juice.

He said, “Gina told me you have a loose board.”

She smiled like a cat. “It needs tightening.”

Michael put down the hammer. “Why did you call her?”

“Neighbors help neighbors,” she said, like it was simple. “You told Phil you’d look after me when he was away.”

Phil hadn’t meant like this.

She pulled him inside the house by his shirt collar. “You look so tense.”

“I can’t keep doing this.”

“What are you doing?” she asked, pulling him closer.

He thought of Gina, the way she never looked at him anymore, how it felt when she pushed him away. “I just can’t.”

Her hand pressed hard against the front of his pants. “Feels like you can.

Michael held his breath, his eyes following the slope of her small breasts to her firm nipples. He felt his tongue slip out between his lips, could almost feel what it would be like to put his mouth on her.

She unzipped his pants and reached in. “You like this?” she asked, moving her thumb in a circular motion.

“Jesus,” he hissed between his teeth. “Yes.”