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  Instead of trying to explain himself, Jamie simply said, “I won’t. I promise.”

  “That’s good.”

  Steve soon returned to the car holding two envelopes which Jamie assumed held the key cards to their rooms. While the motel looked like it hadn’t been updated since the eighties, they had at least done away with the primitive metal keys and updated to the more modern electronic door locks.

  Steve swung the car out of the parking spot and drove around the rear of the building. The lot was full and he took one of the few available spots left, four rows back from the building. He popped the trunk and the three of them stepped out of the car and into the humid Florida afternoon. Steve and Jamie walked around to the back of the car while Jamie’s mother stared blankly at the motel, a forlorn look creasing her beautiful features.

  “We have two rooms,” Steve said. He turned to Jamie. “You’re on the third floor, room 319. Your mom and I are on the first floor, room 103.” He looked at his watch. “It’s three-fifteen. The food’s being delivered to your grandfather at five-thirty. Meet us at our room at five.”

  “Got it,” Jamie said. “You need help to your room with your luggage?”

  Steve shook his head. “I’ve got it.” He began pulling the bags from the trunk.

  Jamie watched his stepfather as he removed the minimal luggage they had brought with them and a sadness filled his heart, not for his grandmother or mother this time, but for the surrogate father who stood before him. Steven Gorman was a wonderful man, kind and good natured, loving and supportive. He was the best thing to ever come into his mother’s life. And his own. He had saved his mother from the brink of oblivion all those years ago. He had rebuilt of cohesive family unit from two shattered lives and a house of horrible memories. And he had done so at great personal cost. Although older than his mother by ten years, he had not been previously married, had never sired any children of his own. And he never would with Leslie Whitman because she was sterile, her uterus removed during the same surgery that had freed Jamie from it. Uterine cysts and the like. As long as Steven Gorman remained married (and faithful) to Leslie Whitman, he would never know biological fatherhood. His only hope of ever being called dad with any true affection would be from Jamie’s own lips. And Jamie couldn’t bring himself to do that, to establish that link which only held nightmares for him, memories of pain. Dad was a four letter word, an epithet to be spit out like a sour grape.

  It was all his stepfather ever wanted from him. Unfortunately, it was something Jamie didn’t think he would ever be able to give.

  What’s in a name? What’s in a word?

  Nothing.

  And everything.

  Still, Steve showed no resentment towards Jamie. Just as he didn’t resent Jamie’s mother, his own wife, for not taking his last name when they married (Leslie had explained that doing so would have broken Anna’s heart, and he respected her decision). He referred to Jamie as his son, not stepson, despite the lack of reciprocity, and he loved Jamie as if he were his own flesh and blood. The only thing in the world Steve loved more than him was his mother, and Jamie couldn’t have built a more perfect husband for her. Steve had helped her through the dark times after Brian Whitman had disappeared with understanding and strength and compassion, lifted her up when she fell, helped her to heal, held her hand as she learned to trust again. Their love was something out of a fairy tale, and Jamie knew that his mother would never want for anything for as long as they both lived. But that didn’t mean that every step was easy, that there was no conflict, that there wasn’t the occasional hump in the road that strained and tested that love.

  Anna Whitman’s death had the potential to be a hump. A big hump.

  Jamie had seen his mother sad and upset over the years. Life wasn’t life if it was all sunshine and smiles and laughter. There were good times and there were bad times, but thankfully the good times had far outweighed the bad ones over the past decade. So while he had seen his mother deal with the normal stresses of life over the years, she hadn’t yet experienced an emotional event of this magnitude since his father beat her that final time.

  Jamie knew his mother would come out of this okay, and probably stronger for the adversity, but still, he worried about her. Worried about the strain it could place on her relationship with Steve if she closed herself off too much for too long.

  As Steve pulled the last of the luggage from the Chevy, and before he could slam the trunk closed, Jamie sidled over to him. He looked up at his stepfather and said, “This isn’t going to be easy for her, you know.” It seemed silly, telling this to a therapist who knew the woman in question on a very intimate level, but he felt the need to voice his concerns anyway.

  “I know.” He exhaled deeply. “She had a bad night last night.” He paused, as if debating whether or not to expound on the issue, but added no further details. “But she’ll get through it. It’s going to take some time, but your mom’s a strong woman. She’ll be okay in the end.”

  Jamie nodded sagely. His own thoughts exactly. “Take care of her, please.”

  “You know I will,” Steve returned, his voice somber. “She’s like a wife to me.” He offered a wan smile.

  Jamie returned the smile, took his key card from Steve, and grabbed his bookbag and his single piece of checked luggage and started towards the stairs which would lead him to his room.

  Chapter 6

  The motel room was standard motel fare: bland beige wallpaper adorned with a pair of cheap still-life prints, a twin bed with a patterned comforter that appeared to be stolen from the seventies, a nightstand with a single drawer, a ten dollar alarm clock, a phone, and a scarred, wooden two-drawer dresser with a nineteen inch television perched atop it. A combination heater/air conditioner unit stretched beneath the room’s single large window, which was currently shrouded by a thick, rough looking curtain. A small closet with an ironing board tucked in the back and a bathroom adorned with pink tiles completed the room.

  Jamie placed his suitcase on the bed and removed the rolled-up suit, which he unrolled and hung in the closet. There were a handful of creases in both the pants and the jacket; he considered ironing them out but decided that, having not used an iron in many years, he was more likely to damage the fabric than remove any wrinkles. Besides, he knew the humidity tomorrow would quickly and more efficiently erase the creases in a matter of minutes. No reason to waste his time and risk disaster. The suit out, he unpacked nothing else at the moment, tossing the still-laden piece of luggage on the floor.

  He found the remote control to the television on the end table and turned on the TV. After consulting the channel listing next to the phone, he flipped to ESPN. The Sports Center pundits were currently breaking down the following day’s NFL matchups. Jamie wanted to watch, wanted to pour his full attention into the world of football and forget everything that happened in the past twenty four hours. He wanted to, but there was work to be done.

  From his bookbag, Jamie pulled out a notebook and a pen. He settled himself onto the stiff mattress and leaned his back against the headboard. It was uncomfortable, but that was okay. He flipped the notebook open, shuffled through until he found a blank page, then clicked the pen’s head out. He looked at the blank page, twirled the pen in his right hand, but did not bring the two together. He knew that he had to write something, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He had spent the ride from McDonald’s to the motel thinking about what he wanted to say, about what sentiments he wanted to express. He had composed his tribute in his mind, but now that he actually had to put his thoughts to paper, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He wanted to be doing anything but this.

  It was as if he were in dental school again. There were many days he would spend the fifteen minute car ride from his apartment to the school and the subsequent three minute walk from the parking lot to the main entrance thinking about the denture teeth he had to set or the crown he had to wax up, going over the procedure in his mind step-by-step so when
the moment came to actually do it and not just think about, he would be ready and eager to get the work done. But more often than not, he would sit down at his lab bench, his supplies spread out before him, ready to work, but the enormity of the task combined with his disinterest in the work itself would overwhelm him. He would eventually put everything away, having accomplished nothing, choosing instead to do it the night before it was due when the pressure was on. That’s how he felt at that moment: Overwhelmed by the responsibility set before him. Overwhelmed by the prospect of spending half an hour putting his thoughts to paper knowing that the end result would not resemble whet he had initially imaged. Would not do his grandmother’s memory justice.

  So he gave up before he really started, knowing that he could do it later that night. Or the following morning. He gave up knowing that pressure to perform more often than not resulted in a more powerful, more honest, result.

  Instead, still holding pen and paper, he allowed his mind to wander, and not surprisingly, it focused on the other source of emotional anguish in his life at the moment, one that he had pushed to the backburner so he could concentrate on the more immediate and profound event that was his grandmother’s death.

  The matter of Samantha Hendricks, the girl he thought he would marry someday.

  Truth be told, he wasn’t terribly surprised by how the relationship had transformed since his graduation in June when he had moved back to northern Jersey, forcing a long distance relationship for at least a year. He wasn’t surprised that she was wandering, looking for comfort and companionship closer to her bed. When he pushed all emotion aside and looked at the situation with a cold logic based on past behavior, he wasn’t surprised to find another man peeling Samantha away from him.

  After all, he had done the same thing three years ago, slowly seducing Samantha and finally stealing her away from her college boyfriend of three years.

  Jamie and Samantha had met the week before Jamie’s second year of dental school began. She was a freshman, returning to the Philadelphia area where she grew up after spending four years at the University of Maryland. The week before classes began was orientation week for the incoming class, and Jamie was one of eight sophomores asked by the administration to be a group leader. The job was simple: take his ten charges on a tour of the school, give them the lowdown on the life of a first year dental student, and hang around during the orientation seminars to answer any questions afterwards. He took the job for the same reason that the five other males did: to get a look at the fresh meat before the rest of the class did the following week. And he thought he hit the jackpot when Samantha was assigned to his group. He fell for her immediately, initially attracted by her perfect body, her platinum blond hair and her smoldering features that, according to a classmate, could “straighten out the most crooked queer”.

  Jamie spent the first two days probing her personal life and was disappointed when he learned that she was still involved with her beau of three years from college. That she still saw him every weekend. He was finishing up the fifth year of his architecture program in Baltimore, but as soon as he graduated the following May, he would join her in Philadelphia. She said she loved him, said that they had plans for the future, but Jamie knew better, knew that most college romances were physical affairs that were easily shredded once the reality of the separation set in. He made it a priority from day one to speed up that process, to make her forget Mister Architect-Still-in-Maryland because he wanted her and he knew that if he didn’t stake a claim, one of his classmates would.

  He began his seduction innocently enough. The freshman and sophomore lecture halls were next door to one another, and he would chat with her between classes as well as in the student lounge in the morning. Sometimes he would join her and her friends for lunch in the cafeteria. They became casual friends. After several weeks of this, he began to offer to tutor her or help her with her lab work if she was interested. His actions were innocent flirtations, his way of letting her know he wanted to spend more time with her without being overly aggressive. If she wouldn’t join him for a study session, she definitely would not join him for dinner. Or a night of sex. She politely rebuffed his offers each time with a laugh and a smile, insisting that she was doing just fine.

  He pushed the rejections aside with good humor, keeping his eye on the big picture, on the ultimate prize. Staying on good terms with Samantha, continuing to foster their friendship, was the only important thing. Sooner or later her college romance would shatter, as most did when distance was involved, and he wanted to be the one she came to when that happened. Wanted to be the one to catch her when she fell.

  As the leaves on the trees began to turn color and a chill crept into the Philly air, as first trimester gave way to the second, the demands and rigors of the dental school curriculum became a weight so heavy that Samantha no longer spent her weekends in Maryland. Jamie would often see her at the school library on Fridays and Saturdays, her nose buried deep in a physiology or dental anatomy book, or in the pre-lab setting denture teeth or waxing up crowns.

  Jamie remembered the day that Samantha had first approached him as if it were just yesterday. It was the Saturday before the Thanksgiving weekend. The following week was a prime time for teachers to give tests and have assignments due. He had been sitting at a table in the library studying for his dental radiology midterm, every inch of his workspace littered with open books, notebooks, note cards, work sheets and copies of tests from previous years. Food and drink were technically not allowed in the library, but he had a large bottle of water and a bag of sourdough pretzels near at hand and no one had asked him to dispose of them.

  He was sifting through his half-inch thick stack of old tests, looking for last year’s midterm, when he heard her voice behind him.

  Jamie, Samantha said. He turned slowly, finding a coquettish smile on her face. I have a huge physiology test on Monday and I could really use your help.

  And that was the beginning of the end of Samantha Hendricks and Mister Architect-Still-in-Maryland.

  During the month of December they met two or three times a week, the day and time dictated by what class Samantha needed help in. They kept their study sessions to the library and pre-lab and cafeteria at first, public places where he had to behave himself; nothing too intimate. One evening in the pre-lab, where Jamie was showing Samantha his secrets to setting denture teeth, she admitted that she was still seeing Kyle McCoy (Mister Architect-Still-in-Maryland) but that it wouldn’t last much longer. They both had demanding schedules and a mountain of work, and while Kyle was resolute on keeping the relationship going, she didn’t think she could. The distance and time was just too much. Jamie had nodded sagely and offered a sympathetic hug, which she eagerly accepted.

  Over the next month, once Samantha admitted that her college romance was ultimately doomed, things moved swiftly. Studying moved from the school to a local Barnes and Nobles and finally to their apartments. She visited Kyle twice that month, and on more than one occasion when they were studying, he would call on her cell. Jamie never asked what they did during those visits or what they spoke about over the phone. It wasn’t his business and he didn’t want to come off as possessive. After all, they weren’t dating yet, and she and Kyle were technically still a couple, although one about to splinter apart.

  On February thirteenth, Samantha called Jamie to announce that she was officially single again.

  On February fourteenth, Valentine’s Day, they went on their first official date. They ate dinner at TGI Fridays then saw Avatar at the local Lowe’s Theater, sharing a large butter popcorn, a box of snowcaps and a large coke while they watched. He put his arm around her shoulder during the movie and kissed her on the cheek at the end of the night, but that was it.

  They went bowling the following Friday night, eating dinner and sharing a couple of drinks afterwards at the attached pub. Samantha beat him all three games they played, scoring in the high hundreds while he consistently hovered around one-fifty.
She smiled at him sweetly after each spare and each strike and each win, but she didn’t rub his nose in her superior bowling ability. He wondered if she had belonged to the bowling team in high school.

  The next evening found them at his one bedroom apartment. He cooked dinner, a simple meal of spaghetti and meatballs, garlic bread and steamed broccoli, with Rocky Road sundaes for dessert. It wasn’t much in the way of fancy, but it stretched his meager culinary abilities to their limits, and he considered himself lucky that everything was edible. After dinner they curled up on the couch and watched when Harry Met Sally. They made out for most of the movie, and Jamie was tempted to press farther. He saw in Samantha’s eyes and felt it in her body that she wanted him to go farther, but it was only the third date and he didn’t want to ruin a good thing. When the movie was over, she gave him a hard kiss on the lips and left. He promptly went to the bathroom to masturbate.

  The following Friday he asked Samantha what she wanted to do that evening. She told him that she had a tough gross anatomy test on Monday and that she and her lab group would be spending most of Friday and Saturday reviewing the half a dozen cadavers in the lab. But they could have lunch Sunday.

  Tired from his own grueling week of classes, he decided to stay home that night and unwind. He brought in Burger King for dinner and shoveled the greasy fast food into his mouth as he flipped through channels, never stopping on any one station for more than three minutes. At eight o’clock, Samantha called to check in on him, to see where he was and what he was up to and to ask if he missed her. Very much, he had said to the last question. Fifteen minutes later, there was a knock at his front door. When he opened the door, he found Samantha standing there wearing a black trench coat which fell to mid-thigh. He smiled and invited her in. He closed and locked the door behind her, and when he turned around, the coat was in a pile on the floor and she was clothed in only a pair of black panties and a shear black teddy. His first thought was Oh my fucking god. His second was I hope she wore pants when driving over because its ten degrees out. She didn’t give him time for a third thought. She began to kiss him while tearing his clothes off and the next thing he knew they were in his bed, going at it like animals.