Page 25 of A Cure for Recovery

~*~

They pick up takeout salads with chicken and fruit, and eat with Lisa in Bill’s room at the hospital. Lisa keeps up a lively chatter that Tommy thinks is forced, and Bill’s asleep before they’re halfway through dinner.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” Lawson asks her, when visiting hours are over.

She nods. “I’m sure. You boys sleep tight.”

On the way home, Lawson reaches across the center console for his hand, and Tommy laces their fingers together.

The house is too quiet when they walk in. Just a few days ago, Tommy would have given a whole month’s paycheck to have the place all to themselves for the night. No need to be careful and quiet, no pausing and listening for creaking floorboards, or soft, questioning taps at the bedroom door. But now, the quiet is somber and oppressive, rather than liberating.

Without asking, Lawson gets down two tumblers, and reaches into the cabinet above the fridge where the few bottles of hard liquor live. He gets down the bourbon.

“Ice?”

“Yeah.” Tommy watches him get cubes out of the freezer and then pour them both generous doubles; takes his glass with a murmured thanks and leads the way into the living room.

They sit pressed together on the couch, and Lawson turns on the TV. It’s still on Food Network from this morning, and he flips hastily away, finally settling on an overwrought action movie with more explosions and car chases than dialogue.

They sip their drinks, ice cubes shifting with quiet clinks. When Tommy lays his head down on Lawson’s shoulder, Lawson tips his head so it rests on top of Tommy’s.

He takes a deep breath and says, “What we’re doing with Dad isn’t sustainable.”

Tommy hums a sympathetic noise. “What can we do?”

When he sayswe, Lawson shifts his drink to his other hand so he can put his arm around Tommy, and hold him even closer. “In a perfect world? We’d move to a single-story house with plenty of bedrooms. Hire Nancy fulltime, or another home healthcare worker, if she can’t do that. Ideally someone who could live in-house.” He exhales in an exhausted-sounding rush. “And in that perfect world, you and I could live next door, or just down the street. And…” He trails off.

As a general rule, they don’t play the Perfect World game. That would only lead to frustration, and impossible dreams. But he thinks they’ve each been playing it on their own, silently, secretly. Wishing for things they can’t have.

Which, given today, given the challenges they overcame seven months ago, seems petty and stupid.

But this thing with Bill is an issue.

“Okay,” he says, stroking Lawson’s thigh, firm presses over the denim. “So we can’t do perfect. But whatcanwe do?” Before Lawson can answer, he says, “Other than paying off my medical bills, I’m not spending much. I can–”

“I can’t ask you to–”

“Yes, you can.” Normally, Tommy would get heated, and argue, and insist, but he’s tired, and the idea of fighting pains him. So he’s insistent in a quiet, uncharacteristic way that has Lawson’s teeth clicking together as he closes his mouth.

Tommy leans forward to set his drink on a coaster and twists his upper body when he leans back, so they’re facing each other. Blue TV light flickers along Lawson’s temple and jaw, catches on the bristles of his five o’clock shadow, and glimmers in the whites of his eyes. He looks apprehensive. Fretful.

Tommy grips his knee with one hand, and reaches up to swipe the tip of his forefinger down the slope of Lawson’s nose, a fast little flick he hasn’t executed since they were teenagers necking in the backseat of the Le Sabre.

Lawson startles, blinks…and then his lips twitch sideways in a lopsided smile.

“Your nose is adorable,” Tommy says, mock-stern, and Lawson’s smile widens, flashing teeth.

“Your eyebrows look like angry caterpillars.”

Tommy sighs. “Yeah, I know.”

“Cute ones.”

“Uh-huh. Listen, I’m serious. It’s not just you anymore.” He lifts his hand and waggles his fingers to flash his ring. “We’reusnow. A team. And I think – I think we’ve been sniping at each other…or, well, I’ve been a bastard, because I want to be able to take care of you. And you want to take care of me – and your parents. And we’re just…”

Lawson’s smile slips, and Tommy presses the end of his nose like a button to get him to blink again.

“We have to be a team, babe. We have to share, and take care of each other, and your parents, and our friends, and just…talk.We need to sit down at the table, and go through our finances, and make plans, and all that boring adult shit we’ve been putting off. And wehave beenputting it off. I have. I keep thinking ‘oh, well, I’ll get better, and then…’ But this might just be it.” He lets his hand fall to his own leg with a slap, and frowns.

---