Janice Johnson - Lost Cause

“Any time.”

He’d gone in his front door before Suzanne shook herself and went up the walk to her own door. When she let herself in, the house felt like always: empty.

Gary hadn’t returned.

She peeked in the guest room to see if he’d come and gone, perhaps leaving a bag here. But it looked just as she’d left it.

What if he didn’t return? Had she somehow scared him away? She didn’t know how, except maybe for the tears she’d shed on his chest. His stiffness had told her he wasn’t used to comforting women in the midst of emotional storms.

But he hadn’t left then. So why the panic later?

She wandered restlessly, unable to settle down to knitting or even television. She’d been so eager to see Gary again, she hadn’t even taken the day’s receipts by the bank—she’d just thrown the money in a bag and brought it home.

It was getting easier to think of him as Gary instead of Lucien. Lucien still was and probably always would be the little boy of her memory, skinny, quick, full of energy and intense highs and lows.

Her mother would try to put him down for a nap and, by the time he was a year old, invariably fail. “Just a short nap,” she’d beg, and he’d giggle or scream, depending on his mood. Suzanne had thought it was funny, only now as an adult understanding her mother’s exhaustion and frustration. How brave she’d been to have another baby so soon! Or perhaps she just hadn’t used birth control because of her faith. Suzanne didn’t think of her parents as devout, but they had considered themselves Catholic and gone to church now and again.

If they’d lived, would they have kept having babies? Maybe she’d have been the oldest of eight, or ten. If so, she would have spent her youth diapering and babysitting instead of mourning and rebelling.

She would have to ask Aunt Marie sometime. She might know if her sister took birth control pills or considered them a sin. If nothing else, she’d undoubtedly cleaned out the medicine cabinet along with the rest of the house when it was to be sold.

Suzanne checked her voice mail, but there was no message.

The phone in her hand, she hesitated. Gary hadn’t wanted her to call Carrie right then, but there was no reason not to now, was there?

Her mind made up, she dialed.

A boy answered. “Hello, Kincaid residence,” he said by rote.

“Hey, Michael. It’s Aunt Suzanne.” As always, she marveled at being an aunt. Okay, not by blood, but what difference did that make? Michael was one of the world’s great kids. She asked about his day and they talked for a minute before she asked, “Is your mom home?”

“Yeah! Mommy!” he yelled.

Suzanne winced.

A moment later, her sister came on. “Hello?”

“Hey,” Suzanne said.

“How did it go?” Carrie asked eagerly.

There was that “it” again. No surprise that Carrie thought she was going to get a report on the dreaded, but eagerly awaited, home visit. “It was postponed,” Suzanne said.

“Oh, no! What an awful thing to do to you! Now you’ll have to keep worrying, and clean again, and—”

“It wasn’t them, Carrie,” Suzanne interrupted. “She came.”

“Then…then what happened?” her sister asked in puzzlement.

“When I answered the door, I noticed this guy sitting on his motorcycle out front. I commented, and Rebecca—the adoption counselor—said, ‘That guy says he’s your brother.’”

A quick rush of breath told her Carrie guessed.

“Lucien?” she whispered.

“It was him.” Her voice caught. “I started to cry and flung myself into his arms. Rebecca said she’d call me to reschedule.”

“He really came? Just like that? No warning? No…” Amazement was morphing into indignation.

“Who needs warning? He came, Carrie.” Wonder spread in Suzanne’s chest, a warm glow. “I hugged him. We talked.”

On a note of alarm, Carrie asked, “Why are you saying that in the past tense? He’s still there, isn’t he?”

“He said he was going to stay for a few days. I gave him a key to the house. But I had to go back to work, of course, and he isn’t here. I hope…” She swallowed. “I think I overwhelmed him.”

“What’s he like? Is he nicer than he sounded on the phone that time I called him?”

“I don’t know yet. He’s cautious. He rides a big, black motorcycle, and he told me he had a bad accident a few months back when he lost control on a mountain curve. He just got out of a cast last week. His hair is longish, and he’s sinfully handsome even if he is our brother…”

“You mean, since he’s our brother.”

Suzanne laughed. “Right. He has to be, doesn’t he?”

In her mercurial way, Carrie shifted gears. “Why didn’t you call me then?”

“I assumed you’d be in class. Also…he wanted to take it slow. I think the idea of two of us scared him.”

“I can see that. Wow. He sounded so…indifferent. To the point of cruelty. I thought if he ever made contact it would be years from now.”

“I know!” Suzanne heard an engine and hurried to the front of the house, only to be disappointed by a glimpse of the back of a souped-up pickup she recognized as belonging to a teenager in the next block. “He seems genuinely curious, Carrie. But also… I don’t know. I got the feeling he wishes he wasn’t.”

Her sister was silent for a moment. “Boy, do I understand that.”

They’d become so close, Suzanne sometimes almost forgot that Carrie had been less than thrilled to find out she was adopted, and had taken weeks before she was willing to talk to Suzanne. So it made sense that she, more than Suzanne, truly understood that their brother, too, felt conflicted.

“Why hasn’t he come back?” her sister asked in frustration. Carrie was more impulsive, less patient than Suzanne.

“I don’t know. I told him if he needed space not to worry, so I can’t exactly call the cops and ask them to put out an APB.”

“Suzanne…you’re sure this guy is Lucien?”

“You mean, versus some con man trying to take me for everything I’m worth?” It felt good to laugh. “I’m sure. He looks so much like Daddy, it…shook me.”

“Do you want Mark and me to come up this evening?”

Suzanne hesitated. “You, maybe,” she finally said, slowly. “Can you come?”

“The minute Mark gets home to be with Michael. He’s due any minute. Do you want me to call when I’m going out the door?”

“No, I’ll just expect you when I see you.” She paused. “Thank you, Carrie.”

“Are you kidding? I can hardly wait to meet him!”

After they’d said goodbye, Suzanne took the phone back to the kitchen, then peeked out the front window again before deciding she didn’t want Gary to catch her waiting there like some parent annoyed because he’d violated curfew. She would just…get on with her evening, she resolved. Pretend her long-lost brother hadn’t popped into her life before fleeing out of it again. Pretend she wasn’t waiting for the sound of a key in the lock with as much anxiety as that terrified parent.

Or the big sister she’d always been.

GARY EASED HIS BIKE down the street and to the curb in front of Suzanne Chauvin’s house. Dusk had come and gone, and now he was a little embarrassed that he hadn’t come back sooner. He hadn’t wanted to assume she’d feed him, so he’d grabbed a bite out, but he found himself worrying that Suzanne had plunged into an orgy of cooking, like women did, and was in there gazing sadly at too much food gone cold.

A strange car was in the driveway, a bright blue Miata, which meant his sister had company. Gary was pretty sure he knew who it was.

His anxiety had heightened the closer he got to Suzanne’s house, but he’d made up his mind to see this thing through, so he grabbed his bag and walked up to the door. There he hesitated, then rang the bell.