Whiskey & Ribbons Read online

  WHISKEY & RIBBONS

  Copyright © 2018

  Leesa Cross-Smith

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  First printing, March 2018.

  Cover design: Meg Reid

  Interior design: Kate McMullen

  Proofreader: Kalee Lineberger

  Cover photo: © Jen Huang

  Printed in Dexter, MI by Thomson-Shore

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Cross-Smith, Leesa, 1978—

  Whiskey & Ribbons / Leesa Cross-Smith.

  Other titles: Whiskey and ribbons

  Description: Spartanburg, SC : Hub City Press, [2018] Identifiers: LCCN 2017032053 | ISBN 9781938235382 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781938235399 (Ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Brothers and sisters—Fiction.

  Loss (Psychology)—Fiction. | Widows—Fiction.

  Domestic fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3603.R67945 W48 2018

  DDC 813/.6--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017032053

  This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

  186 W. Main Street

  Spartanburg, SC 29306

  864.327-8515

  www.hubcity.org

  For you and you and you.

  Fugue: Late 16th century: from French, or from Italian fuga, from Latin fuga ‘flight,’ related to fugere ‘flee’ and fugare ‘to chase.’

  Fugue: [music] a contrapuntal composition in which a short melody or phrase (the subject) is introduced by one part and successively taken up by others and developed by interweaving the parts.

  Fugue: [psychiatry] a state or period of loss of awareness of one’s identity.

  Requiem for

  EAMON MICHAEL ROYCE

  End of Watch

  July 11

  Finale

  Da capo

  NOAH MICHAEL ROYCE

  Born

  July 27

  Contents

  I.

  Evangeline Royce

  Eamon Royce

  Dalton Berkeley-Royce

  II.

  Evangeline

  Eamon

  Dalton

  III.

  Evangeline

  Eamon

  Dalton

  IV.

  Evangeline

  Eamon

  Dalton

  V.

  Evangeline

  Eamon

  Dalton

  VI.

  Evangeline

  Eamon

  Dalton

  VII.

  Evangeline

  Dalton

  Evangeline

  Dalton

  Evangeline

  Dalton

  Evangeline

  Acknowledgements

  About the Book

  I.

  Evangeline Royce

  MY HUSBAND EAMON WAS SHOT AND KILLED IN THE LINE of duty while I was sleeping. I was nine months pregnant with our son Noah. Me, a full-bellied cashew in our windows-open bedroom, our summer bed. Eamon heard the call over the police radio—domestic dispute. He was on his way home to me, but decided to swing by the disturbance since he was close. I think of him making the drive, the gentle peachy July morning light illuminating his last moments, his last heartbeat, his last breath. The God glow and invisible shadow of death, haloing him. The kid who shot him was only sixteen. He’d gotten in a fight with his stepdad. The kid jumped from his bedroom window and shot Eamon. Eamon’s cop buddy Brian had just parked his patrol car in the grass. He put the kid down.

  Brian and another cop came to the house, woke me up. I don’t remember walking to the kitchen where Dalton found me, shaking, peeing across the floor like an animal. He came as soon as I called. I don’t remember calling but he told me I did. Dalton had been long-adopted by Eamon’s parents—they were brothers. Brian and the cop left. Dalton wouldn’t leave me.

  We cut our hair together the Sunday after the funeral.

  Finale.

  Da capo. From the beginning.

  That was six months ago. Noah is six months old; he is a living, ticking timer for how long Eamon has been gone.

  Where did you come from? I ask Noah sometimes. Where is your daddy?

  But last night.

  Da capo.

  Dalton and I kissed. I kissed him.

  I kissed Dalton.

  He was playing piano and I sat on his lap, facing him. Wine as dark as a dragon’s heart was involved, gold-bright whiskey too. We were nearing drunk. We were waiting at the right stop and the drunk train was five minutes away.

  Dalton is an exquisite pianist. His mom was a concert pianist, a piano teacher. He can play anything. He played through several songs before deciding on the jangly part of “Piano Man” with hilarious gusto because he knows I like it and Dalton is a natural entertainer. He plays piano as if he’s busking for tips and not in our living room, the two of us, alone. I say our living room because he lives here now with Noah and me.

  Last night it was snowing and snowing and snowing and snowing but before that, it iced. I’d dropped Noah off at my parents’ as a twofer. They’d get to spend sweet time with their only grandbaby and I’d get to have some time off from being Mama. On the way home, I got a flat. Luckily, Dalton was driving past and saw me, changed the tire. But before he changed the tire, I rode with him to drop off a girl named Cassidy who comes into B’s, the bike shop he owns.

  Dalton changed the tire and we came home and made hot chocolate. My mom called, told me the storm was getting worse and I should stay home because it would be safer for Noah to spend the night with them. Deal.

  I properly grilled Dalton about Cassidy and whether or not he was into her. He said no. I asked him questions the way only a girl best friend and sister-in-law can and I listened well, even when I was convinced he was lying to me. He said no, but maybe he meant yes.

  Grief radiates. Since Eamon was killed, my bones ache with sadness. There is a gritty black tea stain on my heart, every organ.

  But sometimes.

  Sometimes when I’m with Dalton, sometimes when Noah gives me his biggest smile—Eamon’s smile—sometimes the tea stain pales. Even when it’s quick, even when it comes back darker. I still ache for the lifting. How can I not ache for the lifting?

  Cassidy or any other woman could potentially throw a wrench in that lifting. If Dalton leaves us, if Dalton loves her. If Dalton ever loves her more than me, more than us. So yes, I grilled him. And later, I kissed him. It was a kiss of ownership. It was a hot, dripping wax seal. The kiss was a lock and a key. The kiss was a creaky gate in the wind.

  At first Dalton wouldn’t kiss me back. He stopped playing and looked at me.

  “Evangeline,” he said.

  Sometimes I was Evangeline. Evi. Sometimes, Leeny or Evangeleeny. I was never only E. Eamon was E.

  Dalton said my name. I said nothing.

  I kissed him again.

  He was a sublime kisser once he kissed me back. His kiss was a song. The piano started playing itself with the small of my back, the apple curve of my ass as Dalton repositioned us. Adagio, discordant. I was well-trained in classical ballet, taught it to tiny girls and boys who smelled like baby powder and oatmeal, but no—there was no grace here.

  I was kissing Dalton Berkeley-Royce in the house I used to live in with my husband Eamon. I was kissing Dalton, my brother-in-law, my friend. Only. I’d known him as long as I’d known Eamon because Dalton and Eamon were a package deal a
nd everyone knew it. Dalton’s mom died when he was in middle school. After that, he was raised by the Royces, with Eamon. I knew their history as if it were my own. Eamon was mine, Dalton was his. Dalton and I were always close. He was my brother from the moment I married Eamon and now Eamon was gone. Disappeared. Dead. I was a widow—a word so ghostly and hollow, a word that should’ve been a palindrome but wasn’t, those w’s with their arms stretched wide, begging for mercy.

  I wanted to grow wings and fly into Dalton’s mouth, scratch and claw both of us, bleed inside him. Teardrop-spill all over him like honey. The snow was still falling. Falling still. The house, quiescent. Lilac mint whiskey kisses. Heartbeat-breaths. Thrumming piano strings, slowing. Slower. Nocturne.

  Dalton pulled away. I didn’t. He put his hands on my shoulders, hot-pink heat flashed my cheeks. The fireplace clicked.

  “Let’s talk about this first,” he said.

  I shook my head no and kissed him again, saw the glitter sizzle and spark when I closed my eyes.

  Caesura.

  The phone rang.

  My mom. Making sure we weren’t out driving in the snowstorm, making sure I was safe at home like I said I was. I was paranoid I’d mention something about the kissing. Accidentally say the word mouth out of place or mention Dalton’s tongue. Dalton’s lips. They weren’t Eamon’s. Eamon’s mouth was fuller. He had a bottom lip I could’ve chewed on for a week. I could still feel it between my teeth. Eamon was gone forever, but he was everywhere. How did that happen? I even heard his sea-god timbres in the blue of Noah’s cry.

  I had my mom put Noah’s ear to the phone so I could tell him goodnight. When the call was over, I covered my face and cried.

  “Heyheyheyhey,” Dalton said quietly, like he always did. As if he could stop me, catch me before the tears took off, pause it all before I rained.

  But it didn’t work.

  I rained and rained and rained because it’s what I do. I’ve gotten good at it. Rain Queen.

  I tried to catch my breath, but couldn’t. Dalton went into the kitchen to get me a glass of water and I slid down the living room wall and rained more.

  Dalton crouched to be closer to me, his long legs, his knees spread wide.

  “Evi, drink this. Glass of water. I put lemon in it. Drink a little for me, please?” he said calmly. Also something else he always did. Especially when I wandered during the space between.

  The space between: there were sixteen days between Eamon’s death and Noah’s birth, as if their spirits had spent those sixteen days together in the sky, an airy boys’ club somewhere I couldn’t reach. They rested for sixteen bars—sixteen bars of music transposed into sixteen thick, dark days that felt like sixteen hundred endless nights—au repos.

  Backyard-wandering, full-moon pregnant in my turquoise maternity dress and tobacco-colored cowboy boots, I’d lose my way. Dalton would find me. He was always finding me. He’d try to lure me inside with lemon water, with sticky, stinky cheeses or a small green bowl of almonds, the darkest chocolate chips. He would shake the bowl, like I was a kitten waiting to hear the rattle of food. Once inside, I’d get in bed and sleep for hours, usually waking up to Dalton making food or cleaning or working on a bike in the garage. Sometimes he’d put down towels and work on a bike in the living room, the TV or music turned down low so he wouldn’t wake me. He became my protector, our protector, Noah still womb-safe and warm.

  The wandering didn’t happen so much after Noah was born. Noah grounded me. Kept me still. A welcomed weight.

  “Drink a little more for me, please,” Dalton said again. He was sitting next to me on the floor with his back against the wall.

  I shook my head no.

  “Leeny. For me, please,” he said.

  So I did.

  “It’s supposed to keep snowing,” I said, my cry-throat thick.

  “Okay,” he said, rubbing my back as I leaned forward.

  “I miss him so fucking much,” I said, pushing my fists into my temples.

  “Me too,” he said.

  He cried too. It’s what we did together. So if someone were to ask me if I’d been intimate with Dalton, I’d say yes. Sobbing together was its own unique form of intimacy—a thread wrapped around us so tight it was cutting off our circulation from the rest of the world.

  Dalton stood up, held his hand out for me. We went into the kitchen. He bent over and drank water straight from the faucet. I got a satsuma from the counter, felt its cool weight in my hand, peeled it, and turned on Otis Redding on my phone. Playing Otis Redding or Sade or Phil Collins or Journey made me feel like Eamon was still here. Those were his favorites. Not guilty pleasures. Pleasures. Now they were mine.

  Before Dalton and I had made our way to the piano, we’d slow danced in the kitchen to “Chained and Bound.” I turned it back on and ate my satsuma. Dalton was leaning against the counter, watching me.

  “I’m tired and I know I’ll be tired for the rest of my life,” I admitted. “I don’t want you to feel like you’re trapped here with me, with Noah,” I said.

  “You don’t get it,” Dalton said.

  I shrugged.

  Dalton pushed himself off and sugar-kissed my candied mouth. These were different from the piano kisses. These kisses were hungry. Dalton was eating. We were breathing like we were fighting. The Otis Redding ended and “One More Night” by Phil Collins came on.

  Dalton stopped, pulled away. “Fuck,” he said turning from me, “I don’t know what to do.” He laced his fingers on top of his head.

  I went into the freezer for the whiskey.

  When Noah fusses in the middle of the night and I don’t hear him, Dalton stands in the refrigerator light and gets out a bottle of my breast milk. Many times, I’ve gotten up to pee and found Dalton in Noah’s room, both of them sleeping, their heads lolling to the side, the empty bottle on the floor at Dalton’s feet. I feel guilty when my bladder wakes me up, but my baby doesn’t. I feel guilty for being grateful Dalton lives with us now so I don’t have to do it all alone.

  Dalton loves Noah so much and has a thousand nicknames for him. Noah-bear, No-no, Noahlicious. Sometimes he’ll put Noah in his sling and take him out to the garage so they can do dude stuff together while I nap. Sometimes Dalton takes Noah over to Eamon’s parents’ to visit on the days when I can’t leave the house. The days I can’t leave the bed.

  Eamon never got to hold his baby and it feels like a thick, itchy eyelash stuck in my eye. Forever.

  The prelude from Bach’s “Cello Suite no. 1” was playing in the kitchen while I drank, checked the weather. We had five inches of snow and they were expecting ten more overnight. Dalton made his way to the piano, asked if I had any requests. While I was thinking, he started playing a Rachmaninoff piece I recognized. It was soft. It sounded like the snow.

  “You always want—” he said before launching into the opening piano of “Hold Me” by Fleetwood Mac.

  “I do always want Fleetwood Mac, yes,” I nodded and sat next to him on the bench.

  He started playing “Gypsy,” my favorite.

  But I put my hand on his to get him to stop. Eamon hated Fleetwood Mac until he married me. He had no choice. He knew I’d never marry a man who didn’t love Fleetwood Mac as much as I did. Hearing “Gypsy” was too much. Dalton stopped playing and put his hands in his lap.

  When Dalton’s mom Penelope died, Eamon’s mom Loretta made sure Dalton continued with his piano lessons. Penelope and Loretta met after both of their little inner city churches merged—one black, one white—in a town where black and white people didn’t worship together often. Louisville was an extremely segregated city, and for a black church and a white church to decide they wanted to do something completely different was a bold statement. Penelope and Loretta loved the early-eighties-rebel-hippie-radicalness of it all and fell in love with one another quickly in Sunday school class a year before they both got pregnant. Penelope used to teach Eamon piano lessons too, although they didn’t stick. Loretta to
ld Dalton it was important for him to keep playing piano, even though his mom was gone—piano could be a way for him to connect to her, always.

  I worried about Dalton’s hands. Like what if he got them caught or cut on a tool or they got stuck in the spokes when he was fixing something? How could he play piano? He didn’t play professionally but he could’ve. He could play the classics, he could play jazz, he could teach if he wanted. Once I saw an ad for a pianist to play Christmas songs at the mall and I showed it to him and he gave me a look. He’d done it before in college, and in the past he’d played in the lobbies of fancy hotels on weekends.

  “Okay, this,” he said. He played the outro of “Epic” by Faith No More.

  “I like that,” I said.

  He finished the song.

  “Hey. I’m sorry I kissed you again,” he said.

  “Don’t be. I started it,” I said.

  “Yeah, but I meant in the kitchen,” he said.

  “Are you? Sorry?”

  “Do you want me to be?”

  He took the glass of whiskey from my hands, downed the rest.

  “I have to accept the fact that the rest of my life won’t make sense,” I said.

  I wasn’t waiting for him to say anything. I was drunk, I was sleepy, I kept thinking I heard Noah crying but remembered he wasn’t with us. He was safe and warm at my parents’ twenty minutes away.

  Dalton started playing “Moondance.”

  “You play by ear. How do you have all of these memorized? How do you play when you’re drunk?” I asked. Sometimes he used sheet music, but most of the time he played without it.

  “I’ve seen the sheet music for most of these at one point or another. I’ve practiced all of them. I hear the music and it makes sense to my fingers. It’s just what I choose to do with my brain. I got a lot of room up here,” he said, tapping the side of his head.

  I listened, he played. I put my head on his shoulder.

  “By the way, our life makes sense to me,” Dalton said.