WATCHING BRAD
Part 175
Even in the dim and silvery light of the moon filtering through the window, I could see the pain and disappointment in Brad's face. I knew I had hurt him badly but I had thought it was from saying that his attempts to distract me with sex was ‘nonsense'. The real reason came as quite a surprise to me.
"Oh, God, Brad," I said desperately as I reached out to place my hand on his arm. "I'm sorry."
Brad just knelt there beside me, his face full of sadness, and then he began to shake his head slowly back and forth. "No, you're not, Ted, he said calmly. "Oh, sure, you might be sorry you said it out loud," he was quick to add, "loud enough that I heard it, but you're not sorry for the words you said. You still believe this family is all your responsibility, don't you?"
"No," I objected rather vehemently. "I. . . I mean. . ." But I couldn't think of anything to add to that.
"Listen to me, Ted," Brad said softly. "I know you've got a lot on your mind, but I need you to listen to me." He paused and the room was suddenly with as much silence as there was darkness. "Are you listening to me?"
I yanked my hand from Brad's arm. He sounded as though he were about to scold a little boy for spilling his grape juice on the livingroom carpet and I didn't like it. I didn't like it at all. I didn't even try to disguise the annoyance and sarcasm in my voice. "Yes, Brad. I'm listening."
Brad seemed not to have noticed. He just sat back on his heels and started talking again. "Look, Ted. We're married now. You're my husband and I'm yours, but I'm not your wife and I never will be. I won't allow you to treat me like one. If that's all you expect out of me, then I'm afraid I've made a horrible mistake in marrying you. We're equal partners in this marriage, whether you like it or not, and that means we're
both responsible for what happens now. It's not just
your decision anymore, Ted. It's
both of ours. You still think you have to do all of this by yourself, but you don't. I'm in this family now and I'm ready to do my share, and I'll be damned if I sit back and watch you try to do it all yourself and have another breakdown over this."
Brad leaned forward, lifting his hand from the arm of the chair and letting it come to rest on my thigh again, but closer to my knee this time.
"I love you, Ted, but you can be a stubborn asshole sometimes. I know you feel responsible for what happened, but what could you have done to stop it? Even if we had been here, there isn't a thing either of us could have done to prevent it. It happened, and now we have figure out what we're going to do about it. Worst case scenario, we just pull ourselves together and start all over again from scratch."
"That's just it, Brad," I said. "I don't want to start over again. For the first time in their lives, I gave those boys a home, and now it's gone. Everything they had is gone. I want to give it all back to them and make it like it never happened."
Brad squeezed my leg, his fingernails digging into my skin and causing me to pull away, but he refused to let go. Still, when he spoke again, he spoke with surprising calmness and serenity in his voice, but I could also hear the exasperation and urgency in it. "You're not listening to us, Ted. We're all talking to you and telling you how we all feel and you're not hearing a word we're saying. The twins don't care about the house or their toys or all the other things they've lost. Even Lindsay hasn't been complaining. They still have what's really important to them, and that's their family. Justin and Jeremy may have lost their first real home and everything we'd given to them, and that might bug the shit out of you, but they still have us and we still have them, and that's what really matters to them. It might have been better if the house had burnt to the ground. Maybe then you wouldn't be spending so much time worrying about trying to fix it. If it
had burnt down, you might just be spending a bit more time thinking about the people that were
in it. Gee-sus, Murphy, Ted. Everyone survived and you're worried about trying to put everything back the way it was before. We don't seem to realize that we can replace the house and everything that was in it, but we can never replace the kids or your parents."
Brad fell silent for a few moments, allowing time for his words to sink into my brain. I sat there, staring at his shadowed face and trying to imagine my life without even one of my children. I couldn't. I could imagine the house being gone. I could see the empty lot. But just thinking about my family without the kids sent shivers of dread and horror up and down my spine. Everything else seemed suddenly insignificant.
"Oh, God," I gasped.
After a moment or two, Brad continued quietly and gently. "Some things are out of your hands, Ted, and this is one of them. You can't turn back the clock. All you can do is move forward and start over again if you have to, but I want to go with you. You just have to let me."
My voice crackled with emotion as I said, "I'd do
anything for those kids, Brad."
"Would you die for them?" he asked me, his voice eerily soft and whispery.
"You're damned right I would," I told him firmly.
Brad patted my leg and said, "So would I, Ted. Without a second thought." Brad removed his hand from my leg and sat back. "Think about that, Ted."
His words scared the hell out of me, but I think that's what he was hoping to do. In any event, he simply rose to his feet beside me, bent over at the waist, and kissed me on the cheek before returning to the bed. I watched his ghostly frame climb beneath the cotton sheet and disappear into the darkness of the bed, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
I don't know how long I sat there, but when I felt there was no more thinking to be done, I rose from the chair, walked over to the bed, and climbed beneath the sheet. "Brad?" I whispered softly.
"I'm still awake," he whispered back. He was lying on his side, facing away from me.
I sucked in a deep breath and exhaled it into my next question. "Can our house be fixed?"
Brad rolled over toward me but avoided touching me. "No, Ted," he replied. "It can't."
For the first time since that phone call in London early Tuesday morning, I truly believed that it couldn't be fixed. I reached out for Brad and pulled him into my arms. He came easily and willingly.
"I'm sorry, Brad," I told him sincerely. "I've always felt I. . ."
Brad brought an abrupt end to my words with a kiss. "It's late and we've got to get up in a few hours to look after the kids," he whispered. "We can talk about it later, okay?"
He kissed me again and we fell silent, and then we fell asleep.
* * * * *
I had hoped to be at the house when the inspector returned, but we slept in later than I had anticipated. Still, the inspector himself phoned me before we left to give me the news. The pony wall and supports were approved and we were given the ‘go-ahead' to begin salvage, but he had spray-painted a red line on the main floor and we were strongly warned against stepping beyond it. Our safety simply could not be assured if we did.
The house was, in Joe's own words, "a goner" and slated for demolition, but I was prepared for it this time. I had finally accepted it as fact and wasn't surprised by the statement. It still hurt to hear it, but I forced myself to see beyond it and look to the future.
Brad and I dropped the kids off at their camp. Mom came with us again to keep company with Bernice and to help look after the twins when I brought them home at noon. And so, with a pocketful of extra batteries and memory cards for the cameras, we dressed ourselves once more in the protective overalls and headed into the basement. John came with us, carrying flashlights and extension cords. The trouble lights still hung from the basement ceiling and John plugged them into the cords and turned them on, flooding the dark, dank basement with light.
It looked just as horribly depressing as it had the day before.
The first thing we did was to take photos and video of everything before even thought of doing any salvaging. At first glance, it appeared that there was frighteningly little to salvage. Nothing of consequence remained beneath what used to be our diningroom and the twins' bedroom and what hadn't been burnt to a crisp lay smashed in pieces on the concrete floor.
David arrived as we were photographing the remains of the laundry room, shouting down to us and asking for a suit of coveralls and a pair of rubber boots to wear. John sent him next door to his house and ask Bernice for what he needed.
We continued taking photos of my office, the den/play room, the guestroom, and finished our chore with the furnace and utility room. David had joined us by that time, helping John with the flashlights and lamps.
"Doesn't look good, does it?" I said to no-one in particular when we'd stepped back into the den.
"I hate to say it, Ted," John replied, "but I think the basement is pretty-much a write-off."
I kicked at an unidentifiable mass of black, turning it over with my shoe. I still had no idea what it was. "I was hoping I'd at least be able to rescue something for the boys," I said sadly. "A truck or something, or maybe one of Jeremy's Batman figures or something. I don't know. Most of Lindsay's stuff is in her bedroom, but I wanted to find something just so the boys don't feel like they've lost
everything."
"I'll look," David offered. "I don't mind."
"It's not worth it, David," I told him.
"If I can find at least one thing to make the kids smile, it's worth it," he insisted. "I just need a bucket of water and some rubber gloves."
"You can get the bucket and gloves from my wife," John told him. "The garden hose is at the back of the house and it's long enough to reach the front. You can use it to fill the bucket."
Before I could say anything else, David was off and scrambling up the ladder only to return a few minutes later with his bucket of water and rubber gloves. With one of our flashlights in one hand and the blue bucket in the other, he disappeared into what was left of the den so he could begin his search.
We turned our backs to the den and made our way into what remained of my office. Brad had thought to take the computer tower in hopes of possibly retrieving some of the information on the hard drive but, since it was kept on the floor and had been virtually fried and then submerged in water for almost two days, I told him to simply forget it. Most of the information on the drive was available from work and what wasn't available from work could be easily replaced from other sources. I wasn't concerned. Besides, I kept back-up CDs of the most vital information in the safety box.
We set about trying to get the fireproof box out of the bottom drawer of the desk. The drawer was still locked, but the metal had warped from the heat and wouldn't budge. Brad tried to break the lock by kicking it, but, in the end, had to retrieve a pry bar from his father's toolshed and force it open.
Fortunately, the small safe held up to its claims. After carrying it outside and giving it a severe washing down, I inserted the small key and turned it. There was an audible ‘click' and the lock opened. I lifted the lid and found everything that my family needed to move forward was tucked safe and dry inside. Along with the computer backup CDs, there were the adoption and custody papers, various insurance policies, and a few other important papers and items which could make things extremely inconvenient if they were lost.
I closed the lid once more, locked it back up, and carried it to the van. At least that part of our future was assured.
* * * * *
I was late picking up the boys at camp. I was cleaned up and changed in time to get there, but I got caught up in a bit of a traffic snarl and they were sitting on the grass beside Lindsay and Daniel and sharing bites from half of one of Lindsay's sandwiches. One of the camp assistants, a delightful and cheerful seventeen-year-old young lady named Margo, who always seemed to have a smile on her face, was sitting nearby eating her own lunch and keeping an eye on them. When Margo saw me step out of the van, she smiled her wide smile at me, nodded, then grabbed her lunch and stood up to say her farewells to the boys and walked over to a bench where she joined her cohorts to finish her meal.
"Hi, Daddy," the twins chimed in unison as I approached, but they didn't move from where they sat.
"Hi, Dad," Lindsay said. I thought that was curious as I remembered a conversation not too long before where she hoped she never got to old that she couldn't call me ‘Daddy' anymore. Apparently she hadn't included boys in that equation and now, perhaps, she felt it was too childish to call me ‘Daddy' in front of her friends. She swiftly flicked her eyes toward Daniel and a worried ‘keep your mouth shut' warning crossed her face.
I smiled at her as I sat on the grass beside Jeremy and said, "Hello, Sweetheart. . . Daniel." Then, to my sons, I said, "Hi, guys."
They grinned up at me, chewing their bites of sandwich. Justin, who was holding the sandwich, held it out to me so I could take a small bite.
"Dad," Lindsay said, "Daniel's Mom said he could come on Sunday. Can we go pick him up?"
"Oh, I think we can do that."
"Thank you, Mr. de Villiers," Daniel added quickly. "Mom said I should ask if I should bring anything."
"Just yourself and a swimsuit. And a towel."
"I don't have a swimsuit," Daniel said suddenly concerned. "Can I wear shorts?"
"Sure," I assured him, "but no cut-off jeans. And you might want to bring a dry pair of shorts in case you want to change out of the wet ones."
"Okay."
He and Lindsay turned to each other and began their quiet whispering together as I hurried the boys along with their sandwich. The rest of the family was still awaiting our return. We bid our farewells to Lindsay and Daniel with a promise that I would be back to pick her up in a few hours.
* * * * *
I would like to say that David had managed to find a few precious toys for the kids but, as he explained, anything plastic or rubber had melted in the heat and virtually everything metal had warped. Some had morphed beyond recognition. He'd tried to find something. He'd tried very hard, but without success.
"There's nothing left down there, Ted," he mumbled sadly and quietly to us so the boys wouldn't hear.
Brad and I simply nodded and that was the end of that.
Our search of the upstairs area was almost equally disappointing and depressing. It still bothers me to think about it and I find it extremely difficult to write about. Much of that afternoon is a blank in my mind. If it wasn't for the pictures and the videos we still had as reminders, I could almost say that it hadn't even happened.
Our short glimpse through Lindsay's window earlier that week didn't reveal the full extent of what lay beyond the shattered glass. That didn't become apparent until we climbed the step ladder and crawled through the smashed window. Brad had carefully smashed out the remaining shards of glass and placed a thick, folded blanket over the sill so we wouldn't cut ourselves or get splinters of glass in us.
John had stayed with Mom and Bernice to help keep the twins occupied and David had joined me and Brad inside. Our original intention was to photograph everything and to mark the items destined for the trash with a piece of coloured tape but we soon changed our minds when we realized that there would be very little that we would be rescuing.
Everything which wasn't totally sealed inside something else was covered with a fine layer of black soot, but, as had been told, the stench was everywhere. In effect, if it could absorb water, it could also absorb the smell of the smoke, and it was most difficult to find things which wouldn't absorb water.
After we finished with all the photography for insurance purposes, it became our objective to start going through the rooms to see what we could save. As I said a moment ago, our initial plan was to tag what would go to the trash. Instead, we quickly decided it would be much simpler and much less work to tag everything we were going to keep.
Our search was, for all intents and purposes, reduced to three rooms: what remained of the livingroom, our bedroom, and Lindsay's bedroom. There was really nothing in the bathroom to bother with and the kitchen was pretty-much a write-off. It hadn't collapsed into the basement, but it had been virtually burnt throughout and the inspector had painted a red line across the doorway leading into it from the livingroom. The other archway at the opposite end of the kitchen near the front hallway opened to the massive hole in the floor. Exploding cans and bottles of food and drink had blown two of the cupboard doors open and various foodstuffs hung like icicles from the bottom edge of the doors and was mounded into miniature, soot-encrusted stalagmites on the floor. Plastic items lay in melted masses on the counter tops and the only thing left of the mini blind over the window was the metal screws which had once held the plastic clips in place on either side of the frame.
I'd seen enough. The view was turning my stomach and I was just about to turn away when David said, "What in hell is that?"
I looked at him, then tried to follow his gaze toward the boarded up window and the sink beneath it. "What's ‘what'?"
He pointed. "Beside the sink. In that big jar."
I shined a flashlight at the jar and, out of the corner of my eye, I could see Brad put his hand on David's shoulder and lean forward into the room for a better look. He reiterated David's question. "What in hell
is that?"
I knew what it was. Even through the dusting of blackened soot, I could see the sprinkles of green and white and red and yellow within and I knew it could be only one thing.
"I know what it is," I said. "I've got to get it." Just as I was twisting sideways so I could step beyond David, who was standing in the doorway in front of Brad and I, Brad's hand shot out and grabbed me by the arm, pulling me back.
"You're not going in there, Ted," he said.
"I
have to, Brad. It's Lindsay's bouquet from the wedding. The one she caught. Terry was going to preserve it for her. I have to get it back!"
"You stay here," he said. "I'll get it."
David had other ideas, though. He spun around on his heels and planted his palms against Brad's chest. "Hold it right there, Big Boy," he said forcefully but with a smile on his face. "Your dick alone weighs twice as much as I do. I'll go."
"David. . ." I said, but our friend stopped me as well.
"Look, Ted," he explained, "I know what I'm doing. I've been in construction since I was fourteen years old. I've worked in houses that were going up and I've worked in houses that were coming down. I know what danger feels like. You both know I'm the best candidate to go in there."
"David. . ." I repeated more quietly, almost in appreciation of his concern.
"I'll be okay, Ted," he assured me with a hand on my forearm. "Trust me, okay? I'll be fine."
"You're sure?"
With a wave of his hand, he sloughed it off. "Yeah, I'm sure."
Brad made a little joke then. "Maybe I should get a rope from the shed and tie it around his waist so we can pull him back if he falls through."
"Very funny," David responded with a wide grin. Then, without another word, he turned to the open doorway and stepped over the painted red line.
I would have walked directly across the floor toward the sink, but David turned to the right and stayed as close to the walls and cupboards as he could. His steps were tentative and wary, each one testing the solidity of the floor beneath it before planting his foot in place. He turned left when he reached the upcupboards and walked carefully past the refrigerator, then turned left again to follow the cupboards toward the sink. He looked up and off to his left and stopped in his tracks.
"Holy, shit," he whispered.
"What?" I asked urgently.
"Is that a pantry?" he asked as he pointed with his left hand.
"Yeah," Brad replied. "Why?"
"Something blew up in there and blasted a great big hole right through the door." He looked at it a moment longer, said "shit", then continued his slow trek toward the sink as he looked around and, occasionally, opened doors and drawers and reached out to touch some black mass on the counter. "It's a real mess in here, Ted. All the plastic's melted. Even if the floor was safe, I doubt if we'd be able to save anything."
"That's what I figured," I told him.
With a distressed shake of his head, he took the last few steps toward the sink, but I could see that he was being a lot more careful than before, moving his foot around and testing the floor in various places before deciding upon a spot to set it in place. He looked much more intent and caution in his actions and his eyes scanned the floor with the rapt intensity of a cat stalking a mouse. His right hand clung to the counter top and he moved much more slowly. I didn't like the sounds coming from the floor beneath him.
"David?"
"I'm cool, Ted," he said as he held up his hand, his face still intent. "I'm cool." But his attention remained rivetted to the floor directly in front of him and he spent more time examining the floor with his foot.
Finally, he was within reach of the jar and slowly turned his body slightly toward the counter, leaning his right hip against it. As if we were watching him moving in slow motion, David reached out his left arm toward the jar, his fingers splayed, and then he froze. He'd obviously felt or heard something that I hadn't been able to hear or feel. I held my breath as I watched him and Brad grabbed my hand and squeezed it tightly.
Then I heard a creak and a small crack and with, a sudden lunge, David's upper body shot forward and his hand smashed the glass jar into the tiled wall behind it, shattering the glass into a thousand jagged pieces and releasing the treasured bouquet inside.
That's when the ear-splitting snap and crunch of breaking and splintering wood split the silence and the floor felt as though it was dropping from beneath my feet.
To Be Continued
you have it all going with your writing..it really should be like a movie or a tv series.
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