Jane Lark - I’m Keeping You

“It’ll be okay,” Jason said as the pilot switched up the engine and the plane started speeding along the asphalt highway to the sky. G-force pulled at my stomach, making it queasy.

“Don’t worry,” Jason reassured again. “It’s going to be alright.”

I looked at him and tried to smile. He smiled back, closed lipped, but considerate. It wasn’t the smile I longed for. Nothing was right. Not now.

I wanted it to be right.

“Sorry, I’m missing Saint.”

“I miss him too, so we’ll get to New York, sort everything out as fast as we can, and get back. Two weeks. That’s what I’m giving us. We have to have this fixed by Thanksgiving.”

I nodded.

The nose of the plane lifted, pressing us back into the seats, and then we were off the ground and rising, climbing through the air, up into the sky. I wanted to climb like that in spirit. I wanted my bipolar, spinning-top of a brain to whiz up. I hated the swamp of middle road. I wanted to feel high. I wanted to be buzzing with happiness.

Jason’s fingers squeezed mine.

I looked back out the window, down at the earth, at the city beneath us, as Portland became like a toy town. Saint was miles away from us already, but soon he’d be hundreds of miles away from us. There was a hook in my heart trying to pull me back. The pain of it became sharper the higher the plane climbed.

We breached the clouds and flew above an ocean of glistening vapor, caught in the brightest sunlight.

“Saint will never remember this, you know. I bet you don’t have any memories before you were one… So don’t worry about what he’s thinking, he’s fine with Mom and Dad. They’re going to feed him and cuddle him loads, and he’s going to be okay.”

I was learning to hate the word okay, but I nodded as tears slipped from my eyes while I watched the swirling clouds making patterns below us.

“Hey…” Jason’s fingertips touched my cheek and turned my head, then he kissed a tear away. “It’s going to be okay.” I think he thought if he used the word enough he’d make it happen.

I nodded, then looked back out the window. I didn’t feel that in my heart, and he didn’t know my ex like I did. Declan had been Jason’s boss for a year, but I’d lived with Declan and I knew the darkness that was in him. Jason had only glimpsed it.

I didn’t see how we could win; Declan had money and contacts and influence. We had us, love for Saint, a sense of right and wrong, and a small-time solicitor in Portland.

The tears tightened into a lump in my throat. If I hadn’t messed up we wouldn’t be on this flight, we’d be at home with Saint.

Jason lifted my hand and kissed my fingers.

I looked back at him. I was such hard work. I felt sorry for him.

“Hey, we’re nearly there. We’re over New York.”

My eyelids were heavy as I opened them and lifted my head to look at Jason. I’d slept on his shoulder. I was drowsy and there was a density in my body that made my limbs feel like stone. It could be the meds lingering or my mood falling. The meds had made me feel asleep even when I was awake.

Jason gave me a subdued smile. It said what he wouldn’t: I keep telling you it’ll all be okay because I know that’s what you want to hear, but I’m not convinced.

I smiled back. He was looking out for me. That’s what Jason did, he cared, with a heart that was as big as an ocean.

But our smiles hadn’t used to say it’ll be alright or I’m sorry—we used to smile because we were happy together.

The seatbelt light was on. I looked down. He’d buckled mine back up while I’d been out of it. I looked out the window. The plane was banking around, flying in over the Upper Bay of the Hudson. I leaned over to look down at the city that had been my home for a large part of my miserable life. I had so many bad memories, memories of me being crazy and stupid, but then I saw the Brooklyn Bridge, and behind it, Manhattan Bridge, as the river’s path split. I’d met Jason on Manhattan Bridge, on a night I’d cracked up entirely and decided I’d had enough. Jason had found me there and saved me from myself.

“Brooklyn, Manhattan Bridge, and DUMBO,” he said in a low husky voice.

I glanced back at him. He’d remembered the moment I’d met him too. He’d taken me to his apartment in DUMBO that night; we hadn’t left each other since. He pressed a quick kiss on my lips, then we both leaned over and looked down, watching the plane come around, following the Hudson, rather than the East river.

I took a breath, a part of me was terrified about coming back and facing Declan, and yet, with my distorted bipolar brain, another part of me experienced a sudden fizz of excitement. New York.

Jason

I walked out of JFK airport, pulling our suitcase on its wheels and gripping Rach’s hand like I was hanging on to her as luggage too. But I felt protective. This trip was scary. Saint’s life was hanging on a line, and the other end of it was wrapped around Mr. Rees’s finger, and he kept jerking it, messing us around.

I’d worked for him for a year, and thought him an asshole, but then I’d met the side of him Rach knew, when he’d tried to drag her into his car with three other guys, like it was okay to snatch a woman when she didn’t want to go. No way did I want him to take Saint. Saint was my son and he might have Mr. Rees’s DNA, but that was the only tie he should ever have to that asshole.

We were booked on the SuperShuttle to get out to the hotel. There was a van waiting. I handed over our tickets and stashed our luggage in the back while Rachel waited on the sidewalk. Then we got in. I made sure she was by the window so she didn’t have to cope with any strangers too close.

We sat in silence as the van filled up, and stayed silent as it drove through the city. New York. The Big Apple. Rachel looked at the streets as the van dropped people off at the Manhattan hotels. She had more history with New York than I did. I’d never really settled here, my roots and soul had always been back in Oregon. But Rachel had tamed this place and played it for the years she’d lived here. She’d taken a massive bite out of the apple. I’d left it to go rotten. It had never tasted good to me.

Our hotel was in Brooklyn, near the area where I used to live, DUMBO, Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. The hotel was a narrow, sky-scraping building. It stood out, tall amongst the lower-story buildings surrounding it. We unloaded our stuff and walked into the place.

I guess its whole theme was tall and narrow; the welcome desk area was the same.

I checked us in as Rach stood near me, her arms crossed defensively in front of her chest and her hands clasping either elbow.

The last time I’d checked us into a hotel it had been in Las Vegas, when we’d gotten married.

We were up on the fifteenth floor. Rach pressed the button for the elevator, then stood staring at the numbers above the elevator doors. The doors opened. I lifted a hand encouraging her to go in first. I followed, with the suitcase.

She leaned her shoulders against the wall, so I stood next to her, slid a hand around her and gave her ass a pat to make her smile. She did smile—slightly.

Everything was ruined. She never gave me bright smiles anymore, and it was all Mr. Rees’s fault. She’d been fine until he’d started messing us around over Saint. First off, before all of this, he wouldn’t do the DNA test and I’d needed him to do it so I could start the adoption process. That was about the time she’d walked into the river with Saint. So then I’d come to New York, alone, and forced him into doing the fucking DNA test. Only since then he’d stopped not wanting Saint and started sharpening fucking knives to chuck at us.