Page 30 of A Cure for Recovery

He allows himself a minute, as Lawson points out a guy across the street wearing a truly monstrous hat, to reflect on it. To turn the feeling over in his mind.

He hasn’t missed New York the way he missed Eastman for twenty years. His heart was in Eastman, the future he wanted so badly it made his teeth ache from gritting them against the urge to abandon everything he’d built in the city and just leave. Run home.

He spent so much time wishing he was elsewhere, and never stopped to consider that New York – parts of it – had wormed its way into his heart and built up a tolerance that became affection. He likes the convenience of walking everywhere; bodegas, and bars, and coffeeshops, and secondhand bookshops where he thumbed through yellowed pages and tried to select books that Lawson would like to read for himself, feeling a kinship in that small, distant act. He hates the subway, but he likes being up on the street, the bustle of it, even, and the convenience of hailing a cab on a whim, rather than fiddling with an app and waiting for one of Eastman’s two Uber drivers to get to him. As Tom Cattaneo, he was spoiled for choice when it came to restaurants, and one-hour delivery.

But everything he finds exhilarating in this moment grated on him by the time he left. The hot stink of sunbaked garbage; people pissing on street corners; the rats and the roaches and the sharp pops of gunshots in the night.

He doesn’t want to be back here, living in a multi-million dollar penthouse, miserable, pining, lying every sentence. But he’s glad to be here now, cane folded and held loosely in his free hand, unnecessary as he lets Lawson’s strong arm tow him down the sidewalk.

It's muggy, overcast, the air thick with car exhaust and the noise of too many people; it’s really to warm to be arm-in-arm like this, their sweaty skin gluing them together in the crooks of their elbows, but Tommy wouldn’t let go for the world.

“…warned me not to get listeria from a street cart hot dog,” Lawson says, as he turns to look down at Tommy, and then smiles, crooked and curious. “What?”

“What?” Tommy parrots. He wasn’t listening, and now he’s been busted.

But Lawson doesn’t comment on that. Instead, he gestures with a finger and says, “Your face.”

He had a latte when they stopped for coffee on the way, and it was exceptionally foamy. Shit. He dashes at his upper lip with the back of the hand holding his cane. “What about it?”

Lawson’s smile softens. “I dunno. You just look happy.”

“Oh.” He searches Lawson’s face in turn, worried that Lawson thinks he’s happy to be in New York, that maybe he misses it too much, or wishes he lived here still. But Lawson only looks fond. “I am.” He tightens his arm, sticky skin catching, tugging at arm hair in an unpleasant way that neither of them pull away from. “I’m happy we’re here together.”

It’s the right thing to say. Lawson’s smile widens, eyes scrunching in delight. “God, that was so sappy.”

“I know, right? I’m gonna be sick,” Tommy says, smiling so wide his face hurts, and turns his attention back to the sidewalk just in time for them to avoid crashing into a trio of women looking at their phones instead of where they’re going.

Five days ago, they hired Maria, a young, perky home healthcare worker who they both worried was too petite to manage a patient Bill’s size, but who quickly proved that she had a few tricks up her sleeve, both with a deceptive upper body strength, and a knack for using leverage and angles to the best advantage. Bill is thin these days, his legs sticklike and skeletal, but he’s still six-two. Maria, though, handled him expertly and kindly, and quickly won Lisa over.

Things at home covered, Lawson cashed in his unused sick days at Coffee Town – Kyle was a douche about it, but Tommy hopes, if this weekend goes well, Kyle won’t be a worry anymore for long – they packed, and, this morning, left Eastman for New York. They checked into their hotel, a too-expensive splurge in a nod toward the honeymoon portion of the trip, freshened up, and are now on their way to meet Noah and Natalia for lunch at La Historia, Natalia’s treat, she said insistently.

“What sort of restaurant is this?” Lawson asks, as they spy its exterior: smoked windows, and a sleek black façade with gold embossed letters over the recessed doors.

“Knowing Nat, something pretentious with an illegible menu.”

Lawson snorts, and opens the door – rich dark wood with gold pulls – and shuffles them sideways so they can walk in together without letting go of each other. For the first time in a long time, Tommy’s not worried if it makes him look slow and weak; relaxed, not fretting over the image he presents, his legs are working well, and if anything, he thinks they look like two clingy fools in love, rather than an invalid and a caretaker.

The interior is dim – the kind of dim that forces them to a halt while white flowers burst across their field of vision, and it takes a good thirty seconds of blinking for their eyes to adjust. The first detail Tommy notes is the white-veined, black marble floor, and he sighs. Yes, it’s pretentious.

Lawson leans down to stage-whisper, “I don’t think we’re dressed for this place.”

“Decidedly not.”

But a hostess in a chic black dress steps out from behind her station to greet them and ask if they have a reservation. “Katz? Yes, right this way.”

She leads them through a dining room done all in blacks and slate grays, bright gold accents on the chandeliers and wall sconces. If not for waiters gliding through with trays, and the scent of heavily-spiced food, Tommy would think they were in a speakeasy or a ritzy hotel lobby. Every single diner they pass is dressed more formally than them.

And, to his pleasant surprise, he finds he doesn’t care. He spent so many years as Tom Cattaneo, dripping finery, and he was miserable as hell. So what if he’s wearing jeans and a plaid shirt now? He’s hanging off the arm of the only boy he’s ever loved.

Noah and Nat are at a booth near the back, beneath an Edison bulb chandelier that throws pale discs of light across the table and makes Nat – red dress, red lipstick – look like a movie star, or European royalty. She lifts a hand to wave at them when they’re within sight. Her left hand; Tommy notes she isn’t wearing a ring, and looks toward his brother, who’s already wearing a sheepish half-smile.

Coward, Tommy thinks, and then smiles when Nat gets up from the table to hug them both and smother them in Chanel No. 5.

Tommy slides into their side of the booth first, so he’s across from Noah, and lifts his brows. “Hey,” he says, and levers an accusation into it.

Noah rolls his eyes. “Hey.”

Lawson and Nat settle in across from each other and Nat says, “Oh, boys, you look wonderful!”

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