Page 27 of Liquids

“Cleaned out the house?”

“My mom and dad’s house. My dad died when I was twenty-five. Car accident. Pointless and stupid. He’d been drinking.” I hold up my hand. “Yeah, yeah, you don’t need to point out the parallels. My mom was never the most stable or courageous person in the world, and Dad’s death tipped her over the edge. She’s still alive, but she was committed and she’s in a state hospital and doesn’t remember who I am. My older brother disappeared a long time ago. He never got on with my old man and took off when he was seventeen. I think he went into the military. I never hear from him. Marni’s the closest person I’ve got to family. Her and some of the little old ladies I look after.”

“How come your uncle doesn’t keep in touch?”

“He’s my mom’s brother, and we were never close to her family.” I shake my head. “I have no idea where he is. There was some dispute between them that I never understood; it happened long before I was born. He only got involved with clearing the house because he was looking for valuables.”

“Wouldn’t it all belong to you and your brother?”

“My parents didn’t have a damn thing, Rig. All they left was a big pile of debt.” I sigh. “I think my uncle thought he might find something, but I could have told him there was nothing.”

I shift in the bed and prop myself up on a pillow. “Mark, Charlie’s dad—although believe me I don’t want to call him that because he was never any kind of dad to him—he doesn’t even know Charlie died. He disappeared. I texted him from the hospital, and he blocked me.”

“The asshole blocked you?” Rig’s fists clench, and he’s clearly still holding on to his rage by a thread. He gets up and paces away from the bed. “Fuck. Thought I’d calmed myself down.”

He blows out a long breath and stands with his hand propped on one wall, looking down at the floor. Then he walks out of the bedroom, and the front door clicks and the metallic sound of boots against the top of the iron staircase reaches me. The bellow he lets out makes the walls shake.

“Swear to God,” he says when he comes back, “it’s just as well this guy doesn’t live here, or I’d find him and tear him limb from limb.”

I nod, and he looks at me. I can’t tell him the rest of the story now; that’s for a later date. “I don’t know what to do with the anger,” I say.

“Did you report it to the cops?”

“Yeah, they know. But Mark disappeared, and I was drinking a lot to help me through it all, and I got the feeling they weren’t that interested in what they called ‘a domestic dispute.’ They kept asking me what I’d done to provoke him.”

“Swear to God …” He lets out a long breath again. “Don’t understand how you aren’t punching walls.”

I laugh. “Maybe I am inside. No way you ever recover from something like that.”

“Yeah.” He sits down on the bed again and runs a calloused hand up my arm. “Babe, you need some help. Professional help.” He grabs me by the neck, pulling me into him. “I’m gonna find you some help.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I made money on this fight. I can do that. Let me do it. Fucking drugs. A lot of people on the circuit take them. I’ve fought people on speed. I understand how to deal with them now, but it’s scary as fuck. They go wild. Pretty sure that guy the Bear was taking them the night I fought him. You gotta let me do this.”

I can’t tell him that I’ve had counseling before, that I don’t want to get over losing Charlie. I’m the only person he’s got, so if I don’t remember him, if I don’t care, who does?

But something is warm inside me nonetheless. How much effort and care Rig’s putting into me is slowly making something unfurl inside me. So I nod my head.

9

DRAWING

When I head up the stairs again the next day, I’m desperately hoping Rig has exhausted all the skeletons in my closet, and we can go back to a good meal, maybe some cleaning, and no difficult questions. But when I push through the door, a pile of three different sizes of sketchpad, colored pencils, a box of what appears to be watercolor paints, and brushes and pots are sitting on the table. Seeing it all piled up makes my chest ache. I packed all my stuff away in a box years ago and I don’t know what happened to it. One move too many. Left in somebody’s closet, someone’s basement. My heart thrums for the little blue brush pot and white palette I mixed watercolors in when I was fourteen years old, painting in my bedroom. I kept them for more than a decade.

I pick up a couple of brushes and draw the soft sable across my hand. It’s an action so familiar to me that it tightens my throat. “What’s this?”

Rig appears in the doorway from the living room. “I thought if I got you some shit you might like to mess around with it.” He pauses. “Called the lady in that arts and crafts store in town and she recommended some stuff, so I said I’d pay her in cash if she brought it over.”

I want to bundle it all up in a bag and stash it in the back of the closet like a gremlin, but I can’t because Rig bought it for me, and he’s clearly a mind reader because he says:

“I thought we could do some of that tonight.”

“Tonight?” My voice is two octaves higher than normal. “Do you paint or draw?”

He gives me that sexy lip quirk that is getting to be somewhat familiar as he walks over to me and slides a hand in my hair, his gaze roaming my face.

“Maybe you could teach me how to do it?” he says, then he grins. “Start with something simple like a cup.”