Free The Practical Navigator by Stephen Metcalfe

life?”
    That night they went out and got happily incoherent on curb shooters, Baileys floated in a shot glass of Bacardi 151. Michael introducing him to Anita who arrived around the second round, the two of them obviously crazy about each other.
    â€œWhat’d you do,” Leo said the next day, “to get a honey like that?”
    â€œLucky, I guess.”
    But as time passes, Leo wonders. Anita, moody to say the least. When around, usually attentive, smart-funny, and smiling, but then growing quiet and distant, then suddenly gone for days at a time, Michael miserable, knowing he shouldn’t go to that place but beside himself with worry.
    â€œIt’s a piece of crap.”
    Leo, shaking his head when Michael somehow got the mortgage on the bungalow.
    â€œYeah, but it’s my piece of crap.”
    Leo had shrugged. “So we’ll make it better.”
    Michael and Anita, now world travelers, Hawaii, Australia, South Africa, Fiji. Michael making modest bank, living the dream, but smart enough to be aware that it wouldn’t last forever, that the time would come when he’d want a place to return to, not knowing that it’d be sooner than later, that like a ship running aground on a hidden reef, he would never see the rocks that shattered his knee and cracked his skull and put him in a coma for three days. Never dreaming that within two years it would all be over. A surfer who had lost his balance. A swimmer who, having been pulled from the ocean unconscious and half drowned, was now afraid of the water. Call it post-traumatic near death syndrome.
    Leo was working on a site the day the pickup truck pulled up and Michael got out. He approached, limping.
    â€œYou do drugs?” Leo said.
    â€œAny I can get.”
    â€œYou drink?”
    â€œLike a fish.”
    â€œYou got a sense of humor?”
    â€œA guy gets hit by a rock.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œThat’s it.”
    â€œUnload those bricks,” said Leo. “We’ll see if you last a day.”
    Two and a half years later, Michael knowing more about contracting than Leo ever had. The following year, breaking away to start his own company, taking Leo with him, slow at first but then the projects getting bigger and better. And then in 2012 the local housing market nose-diving again, all of them scrambling ever since, sometimes up, sometimes down, never at rest.
    *   *   *
    â€œHow is he?” says Leo. “Okay, I think.”
    This is a lie. Truth be known, Leo worries about Michael. A good guy who’s been thrown too much with no breaks in between.
    Including you.
    â€œWork is good?”
    â€œWe’re getting by,” says Leo.
    â€œAnd Jamie?” Anita not looking at him.
    â€œYou want the facts or you want my opinion?”
    â€œSince when have I ever cared about facts, Leo?”
    Never, thinks Leo.
    That’s the problem.
    â€œI wouldn’t trade Jamie for whatever a normal kid is if you asked me to,” says Leo. He feels annoyed at the questions now. Time to ask his own questions. “What are you doin’, Anita, huh? Not a word for I don’t know how long and now you’re back outta nowhere? I mean, you know I love you, and I appreciate the drink, but Jesus Christ.”
    It takes a moment for Anita to answer. “I want to matter again, Leo. Simple as that.”
    â€œHe’s not going to take you back, you know.”
    â€œYou’re sure?”
    No, Leo is not sure. He is not sure what Michael will or will not do, and whatever it turns out to be, is not sure if it would be a good thing or a bad thing. When you get right down to it, Leo is not sure of much. Only that he cares about these people.
    â€œHe’s seeing somebody.”
    If this is news to Anita, she doesn’t let on. “What’s she like?”
    Leo shrugs. “I didn’t say I’d met her, I just know he’s seeing someone.”
    â€œHow