Alex Haley
-1-
Newark, New Jersey
“Mommy’s home.”
Genesis Russo, my sweet 11-year-old patient for the week, isn’t quite asleep when her mother charges into her bedroom to pepper her with goodnight kisses. Genesis had a developmental disability from a genetic mutation and couldn’t speak but she makes her adorable happy squeal of approval that I had not earned in my week with her.
“How was she?,” Mrs. Russo asks.
“Healthwise excellent,” I report. Her regular nurse had told me the Russos might be anxious because Genesis had quite a few close calls this year. “A little cranky about bath time and medicine, but I think she was waiting for you to get back before going to sleep.”
Mrs. Russo gives her daughter one more cuddle before turning to me with a tired smile. She picks up the takeout box she’d brought into her daughter’s bedroom with her. “Thank you for staying late, it just got crazy getting ready for two weddings tomorrow. I brought some macarons for you and your husband—I know you said you had plans—”
“It’s no big deal,” I assure her. “He can wait an hour.”
Not that I wasn’t taking the macarons. The Russo's pastry shop won a Food Network contest a few years ago.
I diligently sign off Genesis’ charts for the morning nurse, submit my overtime, say goodbyes and eat five strawberry cheesecake macarons on the 40 minute drive back to Staten Island. I stop at a gas station just outside our temporary neighborhood to fill up Twyla’s car. Pretty much all the money I earned as a travel nurse went directly into the tank.
Our first two months in New York…weren’t going exactly as planned.
I’d gotten a New York LPN license within the first week--which has felt like a victory at the time.
But finding full time employment proved to be
the actual challenge. I’d signed with a travel temp agency just so I could get
some new references.
I had this lofty idea I would take public transit around Staten Island but when they agency said travel they meant travel. I’d been assigned all over New York and New Jersey and, because I’d sold my ancient Volkswagen for parts, had to borrow Twyla’s old car.
I was getting so much fucking karma for every home nurse Luce and I had run off. I was sympathetic to my patients, most who were impoverished bedridden adults, but a majority of their caregivers had let their homes become nightmares. I’m now expert level at chasing roaches, getting animal shit out of anything and quickly finding that thing rotting in the fridge. Most of it didn’t tip the scale to neglect but I always left a code for a social worker follow up on my charts just in case.
Filling in for the Russos regular evening nurse, who'd been out with the flu for a week, was like a vacation. I loved pediatric patients. Plus, there house always smelled like cookies.
I send up a prayer before backing into a tiny parallel space a block from Twyla and Colette’s duplex. I could practically hear Luce in my ear yelling at me to turn the wheel more. I savor one more macaron (salted caramel!) because I have a teenager and once food came in the house I never saw it again
Twyla’s side of the duplex smells amazing like it always does on Thursday nights when they prepped for the big family style meal Colette hosted every Friday for her motorcycle club family.
Luce is sitting alone on the living room couch looking all dressed up with nowhere to go in tapered gray pants, a half unbuttoned white shirt and his belt undone. He looks like he needs some attention and maybe a blow job but instead I scream “GIVE ME 5 MINUTES!” and sprint up the stairs.
I shower, brush my teeth and do my skincare routine at the same time--a skill I’ve mastered since our side of the duplex only had one bathroom.
I pull on the dark denim jeans, a backless t-shirt and 2 inch heeled black brunch boots I’d left hanging up in the bathroom this morning. I take the rose gold pendant necklace with Luce’s name engraved on it from my jewelry bag and place it so the pendant sat at the base of my throat.
Maverick, of all people, had brought the necklace for me. He was always thinking of cute, non-obvious ways to dominant me.
I manage to get dressed in uninterrupted silence—which was not normal.
“WHERE IS NOVA?” I pocket some cosmetics and start down the stairs while putting in a pair of silver studs and quite possibly almost punch a new hole in my ear.
“Outside,” Luce calls.
Of course.
My city kid was obsessed with the outdoors and acted like I’d never let him see grass before. The duplex had a small backyard with a cute little fence and everything.
I push through the backdoor and find Nova sprawled on a lawn chair drinking a Diet Coke and scrolling through Snapchat.
He didn’t normally get to have caffeine or be on his phone past 8 PM but he’d had therapy today so he got to do whatever selfcare he wanted the rest of the day. We originally sent him to a psychiatrist so we could get a local prescribing doctor for his ADHD meds but then he’d started talking. The psychiatrist asked if he would like to come once a week and he said yes.
I didn’t know specifics of what they talked about but it left him emotionally exhausted.
“Hey, sweetheart!” I greet Nova with a kiss on the cheek. I was a little envious of the way Ms. Russo loved on her daughter. I could maybe manage one kiss from Nova before I was pushed away. I turn my back to him so he can see the thin silver chains that kept back of my shirt together. “Can you do this up for me ?”
He groans because I guess it was such an inconvenience asking for two seconds of his time. As annoying as his non stop chatter was, I always knew something was wrong when it stopped. “Nova. Are you okay ?”
“Yeah.”
“How was your session today ?”
“Okay.”
“Your hair looks nice, doesn’t it look better ?” Nova and I had the same fine, blonde hair that was prone to splitting if not taken care of—which he never did. It didn’t help he was always coloring it. He and Luce went to get haircuts after his therapy session and now it looked so much better.
Nova finishes hooking the last chain, sprawls back on the lawn chair and picks up his phone. He used to be obsessed with helping me get ready to go out. I miss that.
“I found some local kids on Snapchat,” Nova says. I sit on the edge of the lawn chair he’s lying in. “The school here is just like the movies. Like they do homecoming dances, sports and pep rallies. Holland said that stuff was stupid but it looks like fun. I think I might do it.”
I cradle his cheek.
There weren’t a lot of kids in this neighborhood and all the summer jobs had been taken so he’d been having a hard time making local friends. I knew he was bored but he’d appreciate the free time when he went back to regular school 6 hours a day. “You’ll get to do all that stuff next year. Did you eat—”
“Yeah.”
“Real food ?”
He rolls his eyes. “Yeah. We got Chinese and—” Nova’s eyes light up like when he is remembering something and I know I’m about to hear about one of he and Luce’s stupid fights. “Luce never lets me do anything! Ms. Sara wasn't using her car and he wouldn’t let me practice driving—”
“You know our deal about driving.” I remind him. He had to go six months without drinking and smoking before he could get a learner's permit.
“But he yelled at me and I didn’t do—”
“Nova, I’m not
doing this right now, okay ?”
I kiss him goodbye and order an Uber as I walk back through the house to Luce. “Our ride will be here in 2 minutes, Mr. Grace.” I button up Luce’s shirt and belt quickly so he doesn’t get any ideas. He was getting better at dressing himself but he still didn't have the dexterity for buttons, buckles and zippers.
The Uber is an SUV and after getting Luce transferred into the backseat I help the driver puts his wheelchair in the trunk.
The driver is young and after he confirms the address with me he lets out a nervous laugh because our destination was Effigy, a strip club. Colette has said it was one of the better strip clubs on the island but wouldn’t compare to what we were used to in Vegas.
-2-
“Where is your lip shit?,” Luce asks when I get in the backseat with him and the driver takes off.
“Patience,” I tsk. I take the aptly named Pat McGrath Lip Fetish and cosmetic mirror out of my pocket. “And you know what it’s called.”
His lipstick fetish was new. He’d never given a damn the few times I wore lipstick until Fallwater had gotten a new client, this gorgeous woman with an amazing rack who made money putting lipstick on or writing things on men’s faces.
Luce had a habit of picking the most vanilla fetishes but it worked because it required very little effort from me. Which was key since our bedroom was actually just a mattress in the dining room. The duplex was only two bedrooms and Sara stayed on our side so Twyla didn’t have to give up her home office for us.
Luce watches me transfixed as I tap the doe foot on my lips, coloring them a dark pink. I kiss the back of my hand to make sure it wasn’t coming off.
He practically lunges across the car to kiss me. I pull back because we are never going to make out in the back of an Uber. I didn’t have a car and keeping my 5 star rating was important to me.
“What did you do to Nova ?,” I have to ask. I never should, but I always do. “You know you have to be sensitive on the days he has therapy.”
Luce groans in an annoyed dad way. “Did he tell you he took the keys without asking and tried to drive around the neighborhood after I said no ? You know her new car is manual.”
Of course Nova hadn’t told me the whole story. “Well, in that case his six month of no trouble before he can get a permit countdown restarts now.”
“I don’t think he should be driving in 6 months.”
“He won’t be. He’ll find some way to fuck up again,” I remind Luce. I twirl the pendant necklace suggestively around my finger. “Okay, that’s enough being Dad. Be my daddy now.”
Luce laughs at me and his eyes get all crinkly and sexy at the corners. He smiled so rarely and I always melted when he did.
Okay, fine I was getting one bad Uber rating.
Apparently, being
unemployed and moving across the country with your husband puts you right
back in the honeymoon phase. We were fortunate to have help that allowed us to move across the country and for me to basically take a 3 month vacation.
I lace my arm around his neck, bring him close and kiss him.
But this time he pulls ways.
“Phone.” One word. So, so bossy.
This wasn’t a fetish club so we weren’t going full kink but I was embarrassingly in love and lust with this ridiculous man who hated when I was on my phone. I give him a hard time 90 percent of the time to keep his ego in check.
“Hold on, I have to check e-mail.”
I’d been going since 8AM and hadn’t had time to check it. Since I deleted Facebook my personal inbox was mostly spam and e-mails from Luce’s specialists or Nova’s teachers. I almost delete them all but a single word catches my eye. “Oh.”
“What?”
“I got a job offer.” It comes out like an astonished laugh.
I read and re-read.
“That’s good?” Luce sounds so unsure. Probably because my face was falling with each re-read.
“It’s in Connecticut.”
I’d gotten desperate after the first few rejections and started applying wherever. New York licenses were valid in 14 other states.
“Is the commute bad ?”
“Two hours…” I re-read again. “This was the place with the professional development track for an RN…remember I told you that’ll almost double my salary and I could get a specialty. I need to think—”
“You need to take it.”
I wanted to. Losing my job made me realize how much the job suited me. But the nursing field had been evolving and I felt left behind without an RN. I didn’t qualify for the RN fast track programs without a bachelor’s and going back to school had always seemed like too much of a commitment when I was focusing on raising Nova and being Luce’s caregiver.
But this hospital system was willing to pay for my bachelor's degree.
“Maybe I can move to Connecticut on my own,” I think out loud. “And if I get through the first semester of school and work you and Nova can move down.”
“No. We go together.”
That terrified me. That was commitment. I was old as hell and never taken a college level course. I could fail out and would have dragged Nova to another state only to have to move back.
“We can figure this out later.” I give him my phone and finger the edge of the pendant necklace, imaging him pulling on it before denying me an orgasm. I needed to slip a little.
Effigy is quiet because it’s Thursday night. We get a table to ourselves and I settle in with a mixed drink while Luce drinks water. The women were pretty but don’t flirt like the strippers in the big Vegas clubs did.
But that was fine. I just wanted to be out, having a drink and listening to music.
Our dancer comes down from her pole and tells Luce he’s getting a lap dance, even though he hadn’t paid for one. Luce had always gotten unheard of attention from strippers. The attention only increased when he was in a wheelchair.
Within seconds she was topless and even though Luce always kept his hands to himself, she whispers that he could cop a feel if he wanted when he slips the folded bills into her g-string.
With him completely distracted I discreetly slip my phone out of his pocket.
As much as I tried, I couldn’t stop thinking about Connecticut. According to the e-mail if I said yes, I’d have to be down there in two weeks so I could have enough hours worked to qualify for the tuition reimbursement for spring semester.
We’d need to
find wheelchair accessible housing, a
neurologist, physical therapist, psychiatrist and primary care physician in
Connecticut. If Sara didn't come with us Luce would need some help. There needed to be good
public transportation for Nova if he had to go somewhere by himself.
I do a cursory Airbnb search, just to see what was in the area. There isn’t much when I put in wheelchair accessible. Nearly all the options disappear but a cheap two bedroom catches my eye. It looked clean, just simply decorated in a kind of kitschy and home-y way. The Airbnb host, Juliana Clark looked friendly—and that name sounded familiar.
I click save on it when Luce taps the phone. “This is mine.”
I turn my attention to him and make a point of pressing my lips together. Later. I will think about this possible move later. I give him an innocent look. “Are you talking about the phone or me ?”
“Both.”
---
A/N
So, this was the original epilogue ending of Years. I couldn't quite get them Conneticut in the serial and up next is the next part of the extended epilogue >>>