Bodhi Page 16

  “Why did you come here tonight … without your fucking collar?”

  “Dude, I don’t want to—”

  “Don’t disrespect a man who’s literally holding you by the balls. Shut the fuck up.” He turned his attention again to Audrey. “Do you want to go to the room with him?” Gavin asked, smearing the man’s precum over Audrey’s lips. “Don’t you dare stick out your fucking tongue. I control this.”

  Audrey retracted it, moaned, and thought, Not without you, as tears began to seep from her lids as she locked onto Gavin’s eyes. A lifetime of hurt passed between them. I’m sorrys and I love yous.

  “Find another hole to stick your dick in tonight.” Gavin’s gaze brooked no room for argument, and the man shoved it in his pants and took a spot at the far end of the window.

  “I’ll ask you again.” Gavin pulled Audrey to stand by the roots of her hair and shoved her face against the glass. “Why did you come here tonight wearing a white ribbon, without my collar, and without anything on under this fucking dress? Do you understand how this works? We check people out, but there are still assholes here waiting to exploit you.”

  “I know. I’m standing right next to one.”

  Gavin dropped his chin and feigned a laugh — one Audrey was certain was solely for her benefit. His hand made a trail of sin and fire from her nape to the small of her back.

  “How does she look?” He nodded toward the woman behind the glass, but the she, like the him had been, was in third person. Dual meanings. Nothing simple with Gavin.

  “Alive.”

  “How does she smell?”

  “Like the Fourth of July.”

  “How does she taste?”

  “Like one hundred years of women holding signs and begging for rights.”

  “I should fuck you right here in front of this window.” Gavin paused, seeming to wait for her breathing to stabilize. “Did you miss him, Audrey? The man who makes you do unspeakable things. Or did you only miss it? Not him.” Gavin’s shell began to crack, his voice giving him away. Tenderness slipped through the fissures. “Do you know what it means to love someone?”

  Audrey turned around, hoisted an arm in the air, and made to slap his fucking obstinate face, but Gavin grabbed her wrist. Like clockwork, he snapped the fingers of his other hand, and a man approached.

  “Escort her out please,” Gavin said to the burly security guy. “She's not welcome here anymore. Make a note. Inform the staff.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Gavin had already walked away.

  However, Audrey knew, despite his posture — upright and forward, tight and disciplined — he was an outstanding piece of clay waiting to be reshaped or made new.

  And wasn’t that what she was too?

  Why had she come to Bodhi tonight?

  Driven by unspeakable desires? Yes. But the love in her heart — she knew what it was to love someone — tore a hole in her chest. Loving Gavin meant living without him … but it didn’t mean she’d have to live without Bodhi — because she’d stumbled upon enlightenment, and it wasn’t confined to walls or thrones or crosses.

  She just didn’t know what to do with her newfound knowledge.

  Right now, she couldn’t choose him or the dungeon — she had to focus on what she’d begun to unearth:

  Herself.

  But even so, Gavin would always own Audrey — every fucking last bit of her heart and soul and mind and body. Her Master had ruined her for any other.

  Audrey decided she believed in purgatory.

  28

  Audrey had found out from Kate.

  Even though they hadn't spoken all summer — it had been a few months since Gavin banned her from Bodhi. And she’d been ignoring Kate's text messages … or trying to. The last set, the ones she reread in the dark of night, had come in a group of six. Back to back, but separate, and all shot off in a matter of minutes...

  Kate: It’s on your terms. I won’t push you.

  I miss your friendship. Your smile.

  I’m not supposed to tell you, but he’s miserable.

  Darcy is begging him to sell again, but he doesn’t know how to cut the cord.

  Come back to us, Audrey.

  I love you.

  The newest message was from this morning, though, and it couldn't be ignored.

  Kate: Michael is in ICU. Bayfront. Room 413. Gavin is on his way now. Just found out.

  Audrey left work early. After stepping out of the elevator onto the fourth floor of the hospital, she picked up the beige phone attached to the wall, told the nurse who she was visiting, and then she hung up and gained access to the intensive care unit.

  Paintings of Christ lined the walls. Quoted scripture mixed with hospital lingo. Some patient doors were open, some closed. Staff moved about.

  And then she saw him.

  Standing in front of the room housing his injured son — his nose pressed to the glass, his shoulders slumped, his ramrod spine slouching — was the man she hadn’t stopped loving or wanting or needing.

  Audrey stepped behind the nurses’ station and watched, not ready to interrupt his meditation.

  “His wife just stepped out a moment, sir,” Audrey heard a nurse say to Gavin. “You’re here to see Michael?”

  “Wife?” Gavin tripped over the word. It had sputtered from his lips in the form of a question. He hadn't taken his hand from his pocket. He seemed to be playing with something — keys or change. “I'm, uh…” He looked from the nurse to Michael.

  “Please, sir, why don't you step out into the waiting area, and I'll let Mrs. Sellers know that you’re here.”

  Mrs. Sellers, Audrey thought as she scrambled to make her way to the double doors before he did. Playing and picking at her lips, she began to pace in the hallway. Gavin hadn’t known his son had a wife. That revelation and Kate's latest text message played on a loop in her mind…

  Kate: Gavin saw it on the news, Audrey. The fucking news.

  And then the automatic doors opened.

  Audrey stopped fidgeting, composed herself, and stood stock still as the man on the other side of the threshold observed her waiting for him. Ready for him. Anything for him.

  Gavin took four large steps and embraced her, almost knocking her off her feet, burying his head so far into her neck as he began to shake with the sobs he'd held back moments before. She stroked the back of his neck, pinched his skin there, rubbed his earlobe. He wet her shirt and skin with his tears.

  The double doors opened, startling them, and they separated. A petite woman passed, entering the ICU, wearing up-to-the-knee leather cowboy boots. Audrey only caught the brown boots and the swish of her skirt before the doors closed again.

  “The waiting room,” Audrey tipped her head toward it, and Gavin followed.

  It was empty. Only chairs and tables and a single television. A needless distraction of talking heads from the imminent uncertainty of the hospital rooms. Gavin shoved a hand into his pocket again. He was definitely fondling something. She could see an outline of what he touched.

  “Peyton?” he asked.

  “Kate.”

  He nodded.

  “I'm so—” she began and started to step forward, but he put up a hand and stopped her movement and speech.

  “Thank you for coming.”

  “Do you know anything?” Audrey asked even though she knew he didn't.

  Moments ago, near the nurses’ station, seemed to have been the only time Gavin had been unaware of her presence in a room.

  “No.” One hand remained in his pocket, and the other scratched at the back of his neck.

  They were silent a moment.

  “Go home, Audrey,” he said in the voice she knew well. Her Master. The commander. The purveyor of her land. The broken man still managed to compose himself.

  “This is real fucking life,” he said, his shaky voice putting a chink in his armor. “This is what you want?”

  They exchanged a look only two people who knew each other's
ins and outs could share: his poignant and devastated and hers open and open and open.

  “Every moment with you”—she swallowed—“has been real, Gavin.”

  “Go home, baby girl.” He tugged at her loose braid hanging over her right shoulder.

  “No.”

  “I don't want you here.”

  “Bullshit.” She held her head high, met his eyes with an assurance. “I'm not wearing your co—necklace. I'm not taking orders.”

  “Exactly,” he said, his eyes snapping back to hers and then landing on her bare neck. “I said not until you were ready with both feet.”

  “I'm not leaving until you speak with Michael's wife.” Audrey folded her arms across her chest.

  Gavin's eyes bulged with vulnerability — splintered red and glossy, a sea of blue grief. “You ask without knowing the question. You seek without knowing what you search for.”

  “Ask and it shall be given. Seek and you shall find.”

  He cracked a smile at her choice of reply.

  Audrey imagined reaching out and touching his cheek, caressing his skin, kissing his lips and telling him, Be brave, Gavin, I love you.

  But that moment had come and gone.

  “‘Don’t be afraid,’ the prophet answered. ‘Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.’ And Elisha prayed, ‘Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.’”

  After speaking the verses, Gavin dropped his head, pinching a finger and thumb into the corners of his eyes. Audrey placed a hand on the small of his back, and he continued.

  “‘Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.’”

  Gavin stopped reciting the scripture as though it were a prayer — the one Audrey had never heard. He seemed to be waiting for a miracle to occur.

  The woman in the room with Michael turned from the window she’d been staring out of, giving them a frontal view of a belly full of child.

  Gavin met the woman's gaze, his eyes still swollen and red, also tired and restitute. The pregnant woman’s eyes were aware, as if she'd known this moment was coming, had anticipated it, and now accepted it.

  The wife with child, looking all of about twenty-two or -three, walked toward the door, past the noise of the machines, past her unconscious husband — the son of a man she'd never met — her brown hair swaying in the ponytail, her cowboy boots tapping the tile. “Gavin,” she whispered hoarsely the moment she stepped into the hall.

  He nodded and said, “I'm sorry,” then cleared his throat. “I don't know—”

  “I'm Sarah.” She extended her hand, and he shook it. Then he resumed stroking the thing in his pocket. “The doctors say it's uncertain at this point. He's in an induced coma.”

  Gavin covered his mouth. His hand trembled in front of his face. His eyes watered. “Can I? May I go in?”

  Sarah peered into the room. “The staff doesn't want him under stress. He may be aware of everything that’s said or happens.”

  Gavin inhaled. “I understand. I'm, uh ... this is Audrey.”

  “Hello.” Audrey smiled with a Princess Diana delicacy and nodded. “Can I get you anything to eat? Or anything?”

  “I've been forcing myself to eat…” Sarah thumbed her belly while Audrey swallowed guilt and sorrow. “My mother’s coming soon.” She glanced at the clock on the screen of her phone. “Michael's mother is on her way too.”

  “Can you give my son this?” Gavin retrieved what looked like a homemade angel from his pocket and handed it to his daughter-in-law. He cried without shame, making no sounds as tears slid down his face. “And can you message me, please?”

  Sarah took a deep breath. “Of course, Mr. Sellers.” She kindly took the origami angel from him, then she opened the screen on her phone.

  “It's Gavin. Please.”

  After typing in his name — Audrey peeked — as Grandpa Gavin, she handed him the phone. His hands were still possessed with the trembling as he punched in the digits.

  “He made that,” Gavin said as he returned the device, his eyes on the silver angel. “We made it together. I think he was nine or ten.” He inhaled, palming his scruff. “It shouldn't stress him.”

  “No…” Her voice held a note of wistfulness. “It will make him happy. I'll make sure, Mr. … Gavin”—Sarah smiled and wiped away tears—“it’s in the palm of his hand. I'll tell him what it is.”

  Gavin nodded and said thank you with such reverence and fortitude; his polite words seemed to contain all his hope and belief that his prayers would indeed be answered.

  And for the first time in a long time — or maybe ever — Audrey wished to put faith in the unknown.

  29

  “Why did you pick me up early?”

  “I wanted to see you, Rick.”

  Audrey's eyes were red-rimmed behind her sunglasses as she pulled out of the Catholic school parking lot. God would understand. God would forgive her.

  I forgive you. She heard Gavin's words from not that many months ago and felt his lips against her skin in the shower — the day she’d begged him to remove the collar, the day he’d told her not to come back without both feet — and she shivered. Bit her tongue so she wouldn’t cry.

  “Stephanie said they’re going to the fair this weekend. I wanna go. Bryson won't hang out with me there. Can we go with Stephanie?”

  Audrey snuck a hand beneath the shades and wiped a film of tears away.

  “Mommy, why are you crying?”

  Nothing slipped past Ricki. Well, nothing slipped by either of her perceptive boys, but Rick wasn't afraid to ask. Bryson had stopped making inquiry by age ten. Dell had given up as well … and at some point in their marriage, ignorance had become bliss. Maybe that was when the curtain really fell.

  Empathy wasn't something Audrey wanted to manufacture. And the organic “How are you today, babe? Why are you upset? What can I do to make it better?” had disappeared. Dell had wanted his own validation too. And who could’ve blamed him? The kids had sucked every ounce of ready-made empathy Audrey had left to dole out.

  “My friend,” she began, swallowing the gunk collecting in her nasal cavity, “his son is in the hospital.”

  Rick was silent. Audrey chanced a glance at him in the rearview.

  “Is he okay?” he finally asked.

  Audrey squeezed the wheel like it was one of those balls people squished at their office desks. The ones meant to relieve stress. The wheel had no give, though … like her mind.

  “Umm…” Her voice trembled. “We don't know, buddy. I picked you up early because”—I love you and needed to see you and I need a comfort right now I have no right to ask you for because you’re a little boy but you’re so sweet and precious and I need to hear your voice and know YOU ARE alive with my own two eyes—“I want to make something with you.”

  After buying some supplies at the craft store, Audrey and Rick sat at the dining table looking at images on his tablet. Pictures of angels and fire. Heavens full of armies.

  “Do you know this story, buddy?”

  “Yeah.” He was cutting up pieces of construction paper into strange shapes.

  Audrey hadn’t at first remembered it. Hearing Gavin recite the verses today had put her in a state of limbo. These were the times she needed God. Wanted His protection. Did that make her a bad human creation? Did she only want Him when things were tough?

  “What do you think it means?” Audrey asked Rick as though he were a pastor or an oracle who had all the answers. And she did have a vague idea, but she wanted to gauge his reaction.

  He shrugged and continued cutting. “We haven't been to the fair in a long time, Mom. Stephanie wants—”

  “Rick, please.” She squeezed his wrist. “We’ll go to the fair—”

  “Yes!”

  “Please focus on this.”

  “Mom, I do school stuff all day.”

  “I know, but I picked you up early. I need your help.”
>
  “Why?”

  “Because you know things. What does the story about Elisha mean to you?” They’d already read the verses out loud before they found pictures online.

  He sighed and repeated what he must’ve learned by rote. “We have a whole lot more help when we’re being hurt than we realize.”

  Audrey's eyes widened, turning into sunbeams.

  “Those angels prove it.” Rick had been relaying his wisdom while he concentrated on whatever artistic expression he was inventing with the paper, markers, and glue. But his tone and words belied his preoccupation.

  “Do you believe in them? Angels?”

  “Sure. Just cause ya can't see them doesn't mean they ain't there.” He stopped coloring. “Mom?”

  Audrey tried to hood her eyes, wishing she’d worn her sunglasses inside the house. She tried to never let the kids see her cry. Only the mattress saw that … and the pillow.

  “Mommy. It will be okay.” Rick stood and gave her a hug.

  “It will,” she said, full of certainty, tear ducts now dry — remembering the faith on Gavin's weary face earlier in the ICU gave her strength. “I have an idea. You take this shiny paper and cut out circles, like this.”

  30

  The gumption it took for Audrey to drive to Tampa a few days later was an asset she subconsciously knew she possessed.

  The whys and hows.

  Audrey just did things.

  Moved forward.

  Went along.

  She distracted herself with enough of the ordinary but necessary in life, that it took quite a bit to knock her off the log or boat or wagon. Pick a metaphor.

  Audrey had survived her mother's cancer.

  Audrey had survived her Splendor in the Grass depression.

  Audrey had survived divorce.

  Life was a series of paddles. What do you call those boats on the Mississippi? The one at the Magic Kingdom that takes you around Tom Sawyer’s Island?