The Gift by Cecelia Ahern
When he reached the cold and dark basement parking lot underneath his office building—a walk that took twenty minutes longer than it should have—he realized he had forgotten where he’d parked. He circled the center of the lot, pressing the button on his key and hoping the sound of the alarm or the flashing lights would give it away. Finally seeing the car lights, he closed one eye and focused on making his way to his Porsche.
“Hello, baby,” he purred, rubbing up alongside of it—though less out of love but more because he’d lost his footing. He kissed the hood and climbed inside. Then, finding himself in the passenger’s seat, where there was no steering wheel, he got back out and made his way around to the driver’s side.
After a few moments of trying to get the key into the ignition, he cheered at the sound of the engine, then with his foot pushed the accelerator to the floor. Finally remembering to look up at where he was going, he screamed with fright. At the hood of the car stood a motionless Gabe.
“Jesus Christ!” Lou shouted, taking his foot off the accelerator and banging on the windshield with his hand. “Are you crazy? You’re going to get yourself killed!”
Gabe’s face was blurry through the windshield, but Lou would have bet his life that he was smiling. Then he heard a knock and he jumped, and when he looked over he saw Gabe peering in the driver’s window at him. Lou lowered the window a slit.
“Hi.”
“Hi, Gabe.”
“You want to turn the engine off, Lou?”
“No. No, I’m driving home.”
“Well, you won’t get very far if you don’t take it out of neutral.” His tone was patient. “I don’t think it’s such a good idea for you to drive home. Why don’t you get out and we’ll get you a taxi home?”
“No, can’t leave the Porsche here. Some crazy will steal it. Some looney tune. Some homeless vagabond.” Then he started laughing hysterically. “Oh, I know. Why don’t you drive me home?”
“No, no, I don’t think that’s a good idea, Lou. Come on out and we’ll get you a taxi,” Gabe said, opening the door.
“Nope. No taxi,” Lou slurred, moving the clutch from neutral to drive. He pushed his foot down on the accelerator, and the car jumped forward with the door wide open; then it stopped, lurched forward, and stopped again. Gabe rolled his eyes and hung on to the door as the car jumped forward like a cricket.
“Okay, fine,” Gabe said as Lou lurched the car forward again. “I’ll drive you home.”
Lou climbed over the gearshift into the passenger seat, and Gabe sat in the driver’s seat. He didn’t need to adjust the seat or mirrors as he and Lou, it seemed, were exactly the same height.
“You know how to drive?” Lou asked.
“Yes.”
“Have you driven one of these before?” Lou asked, and then began laughing hysterically again. “Maybe there’s one parked beneath your penthouse.”
“Buckle up, Lou.” Gabe ignored his comments and concentrated on getting Lou home alive. That task was very important at this point, very important indeed.
Gabe handled the car well. He brought them from the city to Howth smoothly, without once having to fidget for an indicator or search for the window wipers. He seemed at home in the sports car.
Lou noticed this and began to get irrationally jealous. “Actually, let me drive,” he said grumpily, squirming in his seat to get out. “I don’t like people thinking this is your car.”
“It’s dangerous to drink and drive, Lou. You could crash.”
“So,” he huffed childishly. “That’s my problem, isn’t it?”
“A friend of mine died not so long ago,” Gabe said, his eyes on the road. “And believe me, when you die, it’s anything but your problem. He left behind a right mess. So I’d buckle up if I were you, Lou.”
“Who died?” Lou closed his eyes, ignoring Gabe’s advice but giving up on his idea to drive. He leaned his head back on the rest. “How’d he die?”
“Car crash,” Gabe said, pushing his foot down on the accelerator. The car jerked forward quickly, the engine loud and powerful in the quiet night.
Lou’s eyes opened slightly, and he looked over at Gabe warily. “Yeah?”
“Yep. Sad, really. He was a young guy. Successful. Young family. Lovely wife.” He pressed his foot down harder on the accelerator.
Lou’s eyes were fully open now.
“It just shows you never know when your time is up.”
The speedometer neared one hundred kilometers in the fifty-kilometer zone, and Lou grabbed the door handle and held on tightly. He moved from his slouched position and was sitting up poker straight now, watching the speedometer and the blurred lights of the city across the bay whizzing by.
Lou began to reach for his seat belt then, but all of a sudden, as quickly as he had sped up, Gabe took his foot off the accelerator, checked his side mirror, turned on the signal, and moved the wheel steadily to the left. He looked at Lou’s face, which had turned an interesting shade of green, and smiled as he stopped the car.
“Home sweet home, Lou.”
It was only over the next few days, as the hangover haze had begun to lift, that Lou realized he didn’t recall giving Gabe any directions to his home that night.
“MUM, DAD, MARCIA, QUENTIN, ALEXANDRA!” Lou announced at full boom. As he entered the house, he found Ruth sitting at the dining table filled with dirty plates and glasses. She was alone.
“I’m ho-ome,” he sang. “Where is everybody?” He looked around. “Oh. I’m so sorry I missed dinner; it was such a busy evening at the office. Busy, busy, busy.”
Even Lou couldn’t keep a straight face with that excuse, and so he stood in the dining room, his shoulders moving up and down, his chest wheezing in a near-silent laugh.
Ruth froze, watching her husband with mixed feelings of anger, hurt, and embarrassment. Somewhere inside her there was jealousy, too. After returning from the school play, she’d put the kids to bed and run around the house all evening in order to get dinner ready and the house presentable. She was physically flushed and tired, but also mentally drained from trying to stimulate her children in all the ways a parent should—from being on her knees on the floor with Bud, to wiping tears off the face of a disappointed Lucy, who’d failed to find her father in the audience despite Ruth’s attempts to convince her otherwise.
Ruth looked at Lou swaying in the doorway, his eyes bloodshot, his cheeks rosy, and she wished that she could be the one who threw caution to the wind and acted the idiot. But Lou would never stand for it—and she would never do it—and that was the difference between them. But there he was, swaying and happy, and there she was, static and deeply dissatisfied, wondering why on Earth she had chosen to be the glue holding it all together.
Gabe joined Lou awkwardly by the dining room door in the long heavy silence that followed. Ruth smiled at the stranger.
“Lou,” Ruth said quietly, “perhaps you should have some water or coffee. I’ll make some coffee.”
Lou sighed loudly. “Am I an embarrassment, Ruth? Am I?” he snapped. “You told me to come home. I’m home!” He made his way to the living room across the hall, like a sailor aboard a rocky ship.
Gabe walked over to the table to Ruth. “Hello, Ruth, I’m very pleased to finally meet you.”
She barely looked him in the eye as she limply took his hand.
“Hello,” she said quietly. “Please excuse me while I take all this away.” She stood up from the table and began carrying the leftover cheese plates and coffee cups into the kitchen.
“I’ll help you,” Gabe offered.
“No, no, please, sit down.” She rushed into the kitchen with a load in her arms.
Gabe followed her anyway and found her leaning against the kitchen counter where she had placed the dirty plates, her back to him. Her head was down and her shoulders were hunched, all life and soul of the woman gone at that very moment. He placed the plates he had carried in beside the sink so that she knew he was there.
“Gabe.” She smiled tightly. “I told you not to bother.”
“I wanted to help,” he said softly then. “I’m sorry about Lou. I wasn’t out with him tonight.”
“No?” She folded her arms and looked embarrassed for not knowing.
“No. But I do work with him at the office. I was there late when he got back from the…well, from his coffee meeting.”
“When he got back to the office? Why would he…” She looked at him with confusion before a shadow fell across her face as realization dawned. “Oh, I see. He was trying to drive home.”
It wasn’t a question, more a thought aloud, and so Gabe didn’t respond, but she softened toward him.
“Right. Well, thank you for bringing him home safely, Gabe. I’m sorry I was rude to you, but I’m just, you know…” Emotion entered her voice and she stopped talking, and instead busied herself scraping food from the plates into the trash.
“I know. You don’t have to explain.”
From the living room they heard Lou let out a “Whoa,” and then there was the sound of glass smashing, followed by his laughter.
She stopped scraping the plates and closed her eyes, sighing.
“Lou’s a good man, you know,” Gabe said softly.
“Thank you, Gabe. Believe it or not, that is exactly what I need to hear right now, but I was rather hoping it wouldn’t come from one of his work buddies. I’d like for his mother to be able to say it.” She looked up at him, eyes glassy. “Or his father. Or it would be nice to hear it from his daughter. But no, at work, Lou is the man.” She scraped the plates angrily.
“I’m not a work buddy, believe me. Lou can’t stand me.”
She looked at him curiously.
“I used to sit outside his building every morning, and yesterday, totally out of the blue, he stopped and gave me a coffee and offered me a job.”
“He mentioned something about that last night.” Ruth searched her brain. “Lou really did that?”
“You sound surprised.”
“No, I’m not. Well, I am. I mean…what job did he give you?”
“A job in the mailroom.”
“How does that help him out?” She frowned.
Gabe laughed. “You think he did it for his own good?”
“Oh, that’s a terrible thing for me to say.” She bit her lip to hide her smile. “I didn’t mean it that way. I know Lou is a good man, but lately he’s just been very…busy. Or more distracted; there’s nothing wrong with being busy, as long as you’re not distracted.” She waved her hand dismissively. “But he’s not all here. It’s like he’s in two places at once. His body with us, his mind constantly elsewhere.” She composed herself. “You obviously brought out the good side in him, Gabe.”
“He’s a good man,” Gabe repeated.
Ruth didn’t answer, but it was almost as though Gabe read her mind when he said, “But you want him to become a better one, don’t you?”
She looked at him in surprise.
“Don’t worry.” He placed his hand over hers, and it was immediately comforting. “He will be.”
CHAPTER 14
The Wake-Up Call
LOU AWOKE THE MORNING AFTER to a woodpecker sitting on his head hammering away with great gregariousness at the top of his skull. The pain worked its way from his frontal lobe through both his temples and down to the base of his head. Somewhere outside, a car horn beeped, ridiculous for this hour, and an engine was running. He closed his eyes again and tried to disappear into the world of sleep, but responsibilities, the woodpecker, and what sounded like the front door slamming wouldn’t allow him safe haven in his sweet dreams.
His mouth was so dry, he found himself smacking his lips together and thrashing his tongue around in order to gather the smallest amount of moisture. And then the saliva came, and he found himself in that awful place—between his bed and the toilet bowl—where his body temperature went up, his mind dizzied, and the moisture came to his mouth in waves. He kicked off his bedclothes, ran for the toilet, and fell to his knees in a heavy, heaving worship of the toilet bowl. It was only when he no longer had any energy, or anything left inside his stomach, that he sat on the heated tiles in physical and mental exhaustion, and noticed that the sky outside was bright. Unlike the darkness of his usual morning rises at this time of the year, the sky was a bright blue. And then panic overcame him, far worse than the dash he’d just encountered.
Lou dragged himself up from the floor and returned to the bedroom with the desire to grab the alarm clock and strangle the nine a.m. that flashed boldly in red. He’d slept in. They’d all missed their wake-up call. Only they hadn’t, because Ruth wasn’t in bed. Then he noticed the smell of food drifting upstairs, almost mockingly doing the cancan under his nose. He heard the clattering and clinking of cups and saucers. A baby’s babbles. Morning sounds. Long, lazy sounds that he shouldn’t be hearing. He should be hearing the hum of the fax machine and photocopier; the noise of the elevator as it moved up and down the shaft, its ping, every now and then, as though the people inside had been cooked. He should be hearing Alison’s acrylic nails on the keyboard. He should be hearing the squeaking of the mail cart as Gabe made his way down the hallways…
Gabe.
He pulled on a robe and rushed downstairs, almost falling over the shoes and briefcase he’d left at the bottom step, before bursting through the door into the kitchen. There they were, the three usual suspects: Ruth, Lucy, and Bud. Gabe wasn’t anywhere to be seen, thankfully. Egg was dribbling down Lucy’s chin, Ruth was still in her nightgown. Bud was the only one to make a sound as he sang and babbled, his eyebrows moving up and down with such expression it was as though his sentences actually meant something. Lou took this scene in, but at the same time failed to appreciate a single pixel of it.
“What the hell, Ruth?” he said loudly, causing all heads to look up and turn to him.
“Dada?” Bud asked, his voice sweet as an angel’s.
“Excuse me?” Ruth looked at him with widened eyes.
“It’s nine a.m. Nine o-fucking-clock. Why the hell didn’t you wake me?” He came closer to her.
“Lou, why are you talking like this?” Ruth frowned, then turned to her son. “Come on, Bud, a few more spoons, honey.”
“Because you’re trying to get me fired, is what you’re doing. Isn’t it? Why the hell didn’t you wake me?”
“Lucy, why don’t you go and wash your hands,” Ruth spoke calmly, her eyes following her daughter out of the room and then turning to Lou. “I was going to wake you, but Gabe said not to. He said to let you rest until about ten o’clock, that a rest would do you good, and I agreed,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Gabe?” He looked at her as though she were the most ludicrous thing on the planet. “GABE?” he shouted now. “Gabe the mailboy? The fucking MAILBOY? You listened to him? He’s an imbecile!”
“Well, that imbecile”—Ruth fought to stay calm—“drove you home last night instead of leaving you to drive to your death.”
Remembering then that Gabe had driven him home, Lou rushed outside to the driveway. He made his way around the perimeter of his car, hopping from foot to foot on the pebbles outside, his concern for his vehicle so great that he could barely feel them pinching his bare skin. He examined his Porsche from all angles, running his fingers along the surface to make sure there weren’t any scratches or dents. Finding nothing wrong, he calmed a little, though he still couldn’t understand what had made Ruth value Gabe’s opinion so highly. What was going on in the world that had everybody eating out of Gabe’s palm?
He returned to the kitchen, where Ruth was still sitting at the table feeding Bud.
“Ruthy.” He cleared his throat and made an attempt at a Lou-style apology, the kind of apology that never involved the word sorry. “It’s just that Gabe is after my job, you see. You didn’t understand that, I know, but he is. So
“He left five minutes ago.” She cut him off right away, not turning around, not even looking at him. “He stayed in one of the spare rooms because I’m not too sure if he’s got anywhere else to go. He got up and made us all breakfast, and then I called him a taxi, which I paid for so that he could get to work. So I suggest you get out of this house and take your accusations with you.”
“Ruthy, I—”
“You’re right, Lou, and I’m wrong. It’s clear from this morning’s behavior that you’re totally in control of things and not in the least bit stressed,” she said sarcastically. “I was such a fool to think you needed an extra hour’s sleep. Now, Bud,” Ruth said as she lifted the baby from his chair and kissed his food-stained face, “let’s go give you a bath.”
Bud clapped his hands and turned to jelly under her raspberry kisses. Ruth walked toward Lou with Bud in her arms, and for a moment Lou softened at the big smile on his son’s face. He prepared to take Bud in his arms but didn’t get a chance. Ruth walked right on by, cuddling Bud tightly while he laughed uproariously at her kisses. Lou acknowledged the rejection. For about five seconds. And then he realized that he needed to get to work. And so he dashed.
In record timing, and thankfully due to Sergeant O’Reilly’s not being on duty as Lou fired his way to work, Lou arrived at the office at ten fifteen a.m.: the latest he had ever arrived at the office. He still had a few minutes before the weekly in-house meeting ended, and so, spitting on his hand and smoothing down his hair, which hadn’t been washed, and running his hands across his face, which hadn’t been shaved, he shook off the remaining waves of dizziness of his hangover, took a deep breath, and entered the boardroom.