Fluke (18 page)

I found a heavy metal CD and slid it into the player, pushing the volume button up as high as it would go, hoping to drown out the thoughts I couldn’t stop thinking.

I pulled out of PJ’s parking lot and turned left, headed to our apartment.

****

Sara’s Golf was in its normal spot, the top down, as I slid the Civic into the empty slot next to it, turned off the engine and let out a deep breath.
 
The thoughts about the man in the picture and the potential ties between Sara and I had lessened slightly on the drive home. I had worked hard at searching for other rational explanations.

I thought of a few different possibilities in the car, the most ideal one for me being that maybe the man in the picture was just a friend of the family.
 
I also would accept a relative by marriage or a stepfather, though that was bordering on creepy for me.
 
I worked hard, though, to push words like
sister
and
incest
out of my head.

I looked at the apartment through the bug carcass-scattered windshield of the Civic and wondered if broaching the subject would result in another trance for Sara.
 
I had a sneaking suspicion that it would, indeed, send her off, like the first night, like the night at the Waffle House, and like the near-trance on the Ferris wheel.

I contemplated the trances with a whole new approach.
 
I realized that the trances came when anything about my looks or family came up.

You look so much like him,
she had said.

“I’m adopted, Sara,”
I told her on the Ferris wheel, and she tensed up like a piano wire.

“Fluke, you look like that actor…”
Sean had said in the Waffle House.

The thought that the trances were a subconscious defense mechanism, designed to prevent her from exploring the possibilities of my roots, loomed over me, like a bee about to sting my forehead.
 
The theory didn’t bode well for my hopes of the man in the picture’s identity.

Was it possible that Sara already had gone down this thought path? Had Sara thought about the picture man and me and wondered? I was fairly certain that she wouldn’t knowingly allow that to happen.
 
Hence, the trances.
 
Something inside of Sara’s mind shut her down.

I thought about this for a few moments longer before opening the car door.
 
The oysters and beer weren’t sitting well in my stomach
anymore, not that anything would with these thoughts running wildly in my head. So, I reached in the glove box and popped two
Pepto
tablets into my mouth, chewing them slowly and deliberately, hoping to obtain the maximum effect from them.
 
I stepped out of the car and walked to the door.

The door opened as I reached my hand for the knob, and like a cartoon, I closed my hand on air.
 
Sara held it open and wasn’t smiling, which was a rare occurrence.
 
I raised my eyebrows, my hand still out in front of me, holding an invisible doorknob.

“Adam, we’ve got to talk,” she said.
 
She seemed serious, grim almost, and I grew even more nervous.

“Yeah, we do, Sara,” I replied.
 
She leaned forward and gave me a small peck on the cheek as I walked inside and sat down heavily on the couch.
 
I could feel the cool, silent breeze from the air conditioner lapping at my skin, but I was burning up.
 
It felt like it was a hundred degrees inside the apartment.
 
She shut the door and sat down next to me on the couch, curling her legs up under her bottom.
 
I caught myself staring at her legs, grew self-conscious, and moved my eyes to hers.

“
Me
first,” she said.
 
She moved her fingers to my hair; I felt her nails on my scalp. Normally it was one of my favorite things to have her play with my hair, but all it did at the moment was make me stir in my seat.
 
The beer and oysters were fighting in my stomach, rattling around, ignoring the Pepto-Bismol.
 
My armpits were moistening by the second.

“What’s up?” I asked, trying like hell to sound chipper, realizing that my relationship with Sara was hanging in the balance.
 
A small belch escaped me, and I felt a warm, burning portion of bile behind it.
 
I wiped a few drops of sweat from my forehead.

“Are you okay? You look pale,” Sara said.

“I’m okay,” I said, even though I didn’t feel okay at all.
 
What I was feeling was that something might come out of me unexpectedly, and I didn’t know which end to prepare for.
 
“What did you want to talk about?”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” She asked again, concerned.
 
She put her hand on my belly and rubbed gently up and down, like a mother would do for a child.

Or a sister might do for her big brother
, I thought, horrified.
 
My stomach clenched at another sucker punch, momentarily overtaking the mollusk-versus-hops rumble.

“Yep, I’m good,” I lied.

“Adam, I haven’t said anything about this to you yet, but I noticed it about three weeks ago,” she started.
 
She looked at me worriedly, and I knew what she was going to say next.
 
My insides felt loose and increasingly unsettled; I had to stand up or else I was afraid I would crap in my pants.

“I know, Sara,” I said, walking to the thermostat on the wall by the front door.
 
It was set on 65, and I pushed it down to 60.

I know that you know that I look just like your father.
 
I know that you and I may well be blood relatives.
 
I know that you are now about to sever your ties with the biggest Fluke in your life.
 
I thought this with a kind of sadness that I had never experienced before; the kind of sadness that I figured could come only with loss.
 
It was loss like death; it was final.

“You know?” she asked, surprised.

“I’m pretty sure I do, Sara,” I said, holding my stomach, realizing that I was losing focus on her.
 
I felt lightheaded and started wondering how Sara would react if I fell over dead right there.
 
I leaned back against the wall, hoping it would provide some support.
 
My stomach was worsening by the second, and I felt a slight contraction.
 
I swallowed hard, hoping to hold back any vomit that might have been considering making an appearance.
 
The sweat in my armpits was nearly a steady flow now, drops rolling down my ribcage, soaking into my shirt.

Boy, I must look like shit
, I thought for no reason.

“How could you know I’m late?” she asked, still surprised.

I managed to lift my head from the wall and stare at her, confused.
 
I squinted my eyes at her and said, “Late?” I didn’t know what she was talking about.
 
"What?"

“I haven’t had a period in a long time, Mister Fluke,” she said, and I couldn’t hold back anymore.

The word late kept repeating itself in my head as I threw my hand over my mouth and made a mad, wobbly dash for the bathroom.

Late? Period?
I repeated her words in my head; they sounded like a foreign language to me at that moment.

I flipped up the toilet lid and dropped to my knees in one fluid motion, averting a giant mess by a millisecond.
 
The oysters and beer came out of me in a flood, my sides hitching, my breath halting, my eyes watering.

Did she say she was late?
I wondered.
 
Late for what?
I tried reasoning her declaration in my head as another helping of hot, sour-tasting vomit surged out of my mouth.

I held my head up after the third wave ended, feeling a sticky rope of vomit and saliva dangling from my chin and tears rolling down my cheeks as my lungs fought to suck in air.
 
The sickly sweet smell of beer, oysters, and
Pepto
was everywhere.
 
I reached for the toilet paper to wipe my mouth and chin off, and I heard her footsteps in the bathroom.
 
It sounded as if she were a hundred yards away, asking me if I was okay. A moment of clarity hit me, as though the evacuation of the stew in my stomach had once again allowed room for a thought.
 
I sat on my bottom next to the messy, stinking toilet and finally recognized the context in which Sara had spoken to me a few moments before.

Jesus Christ, she’s late?

Then Sara was next to me, helping me, making the immediate situation of my having regurgitated my lunch okay.
 
I followed weakly when she took my hand and led me to our bed, where she helped me take off my sandals and lay down.
 
I watched her back as she left and went to clean up my mess.
 
I sat up to object, intent on telling her that I would clean it up, but no sound came from my still-burning throat.
 
I thought briefly about how much I hated cleaning up my own puke, and I wondered if I’d have the stomach to clean up anyone else’s, even Sara’s.

I stared at the roof, and listened to the sounds of Sara as she went about business.
 
Toilet flushing, twice, bristles from the toilet bowl brush scraping porcelain, the hiss of air freshener.
 
Another flush.
 
I closed my eyes.

I opened them again when I felt a small kiss on my forehead.
 
Sara looked into my eyes and gave me a soft smile.
 
"Here you go, sweetheart" she told me, placing a damp rag on my forehead,
and using another, hotter, rag to wipe around the rest of my face.
 
I closed my eyes again and was asleep.

****

“
Ughhh
,” I woke myself up moaning. My tongue was glued to the roof of my mouth.
 
One of the few things worse than vomit was the stale aftertaste of old vomit.
 
"Man…" I said, as I opened my eyes and noticed Sara lying next to me.
 
She was watching me, and smiled when I looked her way.
 
My left arm was curled over my chest, and I felt something distinctly furry under it.
 
I glanced down and saw
Flukey
, the bear from the carnival, held close to my chest.
 
This brought a chuckle from me, and I put the bear against Sara’s body.
 
His shiny black eyes stared back at me, expressionless as always, and Sara wrapped an arm around him.

"How you feeling?" she said.
 
“
Flukey
and I were worried.”

"I’m okay," I told her.
 
"Don't come close.
 
I get the distinct impression that my breath won't be pleasant right now, to say the very least."
 
I watched her and the hint of all I had been thinking about that day came to the front of my mind.
 
It was very brief and I somehow managed to simply push it away.
 
"Don’t mean to be rude, Sara,” glancing at the bear, “and
Flukey
, but I need to brush my teeth.
 
Badly.
 
Now. "
 

She laughed a little as I rolled off the bed and onto my feet.
 
The world swam in front of me.
 
It was similar to the movie scenes where one of the characters thinks back to the past.
 

"You
gonna
make it?" she asked me.

"Yeah," I told her, turning around.
 
"I'll be back in a sec.”
 
I smiled at her and then proceeded to the bathroom, on a beeline to the sink.
 
I noticed that the toilet was spotless.
 
There was the faint odor of some cleaning solution lingering in the air.
 
It was pleasant, as if the atrocities that had occurred earlier had never happened.
 
I glanced at my watch and saw that it had been almost two hours.
 
I picked up my toothbrush, and began to scrub my teeth.
 
I made a quick job of it, and then brushed them again, thorough enough this time to brush each tooth individually.
 
I scrubbed my tongue as though I were trying to rub off the slimy white taste buds.
 
When I was satisfied, I went ahead and lathered up my face with the Apricot Scrub that I found along the mirror.
 
The rough granules it contained felt wonderful as I pushed them along my cheeks.
 
I felt a lot better
after my nap and actually wondered if I had been blowing everything out of proportion earlier.
 
The way I had been thinking was a little far-fetched after all, probably a combination of the sun and the beer.