“I can do that. But you owe me big.” He brushes ash from his slacks.
“I will be forever indebted.” She holds the door open, but he waves another cigarette in the air, preparing to light it.
Inside, Vivian is at her desk, talking on her cell. She gestures for Moe to take a seat and wraps up the conversation. “Moe! I’m glad you’re here. You’re doing so well with Dale and Loni.”
“I may actually enjoy some things about it,” Moe admits.
Vivian smiles knowingly. “Walk with me,” she says, and she leaves her office. Moe falls into step.
“I just had a talk with Dale,” Vivian says. “He had good things to say about your advice. Their stories have been good. Though I did find a typo. Loni wrote food dessert, not desert. I’d prefer dessert, but I’m watching my figure.” She pulls open the freezer and takes out two microwave diet meals.
“I’ve been focused on content and process. My line edits may have suffered.”
“It happens.” She digs a fork from the drawer and pops a pattern of holes in the plastic film. The larger woman looks into Moe’s face. “I’m happy you’re on staff. The extra time it gives me is paying off.” She springs the microwave open, pitches in one meal, and slams the door. “Catch me up on your Calvert Greene story.” Vivian pushes numbers and starts the microwave.
Moe retrieves her own laptop from her desk and reads from her notes and a few paragraphs of the article she’s started writing.
Vivian nods a few times. The microwave beeps. She peels the film back, stirs the food, and returns it to the microwave. When she speaks, her tone is gentle, “The story of the professor’s accident is interesting, but it was nearly a year ago. Is it news?” The microwave beeps. She takes out the hot tray and pokes and heats a second meal.
“You think I should drop the story?” Moe asks, half angry.
“You’re a journalist so I get why you want to run down this story, but remember you don’t have to print everything you find. You’ve always insisted we don’t dabble in tabloid journalism.” Beep beep beep. Vivian carefully lifts the meal from the microwave and swings the door shut.
“I know,” Moe says, searching her own rationale. “It’s a critique of broadcast journalism. It’s supposed to show they forced circumstances to fit the story they wanted to sell of Greene as a hero of convenience. He’s not the guy they made him out to be.”
“Perhaps. But unless he’s the killer, he did play a part in saving that woman.”
“I suppose.”
“Doesn’t that make him a hero of sorts?”
“Yes. But—”
“Our emphasis should be to report the right way for the right reasons without constantly comparing ourselves to other outlets.”
Moe feels attacked. She’s worried what she might say. She seethes silently while Vivian dumps both of her low-fat, low-cal stir-fry meals into one big bowl. She remains quiet as Viv adds a dollop of thick peanut paste from a jar she keeps in the fridge. She doesn’t speak while her boss squeezes three plum sauce packets over her bowl and stirs the sloppy mixture.
“I want you to be honest,” Vivian says gently. “Do you think your ambition to scoop Sophia might be leading you down a path you usually know to avoid?”
“Yes. You’re right. Fuck.” She cusses for catharsis. “I hate that you’re right. If I tried to deny it, we’d both know I was lying.”
Vivian takes up the bowl and carries it to her office. Moe follows, still listening. “I’m probably at fault. I send mixed signals. I encourage you to wage an assault on the establishment, disrupt the system, channel your indignation into your writing. Journalism takes a good story, but it also needs craft, time, and consideration. The model of a story a day from every contributor is a mistake. It was a good way to generate loads of content. But I’m rethinking it.”
“You were only encouraging me. You always have.”
Vivian stirs her food and lets the fork rest in the bowl while she talks. “You ever been faced with a choice you only had one shot at?”
“I guess so,” Moe says, taking a seat.
“When I was a little girl, I went to court and the judge took me aside and asked me to choose which of my parents to live with.” Vivian says it and slurps drippy, limp noodles into her mouth.
“You never talk about your family,” Moe says.
“Well, I try not to look back.” She takes another bite. “Sometimes you’re in a situation with no good options, but you have to pick one. I’ve heard it put like this: free will exists when faced with a hard choice. One of my parents was not inherently better than the other. They were both kind and loving. They cared for me.” She opens her desk and pops a Kleenex to wipe a dribble of sauce from her chin.
“Choosing one would be a rejection of the other. I was a third-grader.” She forks some chicken and snow peas into her mouth. “But that variety of decision can be an opportunity to define who you are.” She takes another bite and chews. “I chose my father. Not because I liked him more, but because my mother could handle the hurt. My father needed me more. In that moment, I became the kind of person who makes decisions in a way that’s best for everyone involved. Not just me.”
“That’s heavy for a kid.”
“It was a lot. But kids grow up faster than you think.” She eats more chicken and slurps more noodles. “Once I made my choice, I couldn’t take it back. Are you with me?”
“Yes.”
She waves her wet fork, “Imagine you have a decision like that and you choose wrong. After the fact, you can’t accept it, right? It’s a colossal tragedy, but it’s too late to change. So you snap.” She drops her fork in the bowl.
“It’s not a stretch,” Moe admits.
“Maybe Calvert Greene made a decision he can’t find a way to live with, something about his accident. Sometimes the hardest thing is to sit quietly, alone with your thoughts, and live with the things you’ve done. Because what’s done is done. At times like that, most people distract themselves with work or sex or drugs or food or shopping or other people’s business.”
“Or they tell themselves they aren’t living at all.”
“Exactly the point I’m making. This Greene was a pretty smart man. Maybe his big brain found the perfect loophole.”
“It makes sense,” Moe says.
“It’s a working theory. There’s no proof. Even if you could prove it, it’s not a story that needs to be written.”
“How can I trust my instincts if I don’t find out? I need to at least follow through with Greene’s employer.”
“I get that,” Vivian says. “Do this: take forty-eight hours. Do what you can. Then let it go. Follow the case. Report the news we have. That is my directive as editor-in-chief. Can you handle it?”
Moe slouches, lost in her own emotional doldrums.
Vivian hoists the bowl and slurps the liquid. She thunks the bowl down. “That was not in the least bit satisfying,” she says.
“I know how you feel,” Moe replies.
One-Sided Relationship
After Consuela leaves, the hospital room feels abandoned. Calvert wasn’t aware of the energy she gave off, the outsized space her tiny frame managed to occupy. Once he was alone, he felt himself tumbling in the undercurrent of her absence. A dead man and an unconscious woman can’t match the psychic force of one vivacious grandmother.
He lifts the Bible she left for him. It’s heavy, oxblood leather, soft to the touch, gold-stamp lettering. He brushes his fingers along the words. Gill Sans pops into his head. It sounds foreign, a language he’s forgotten how to speak.
This Bible is larger than the one he had as a child. His had been wrapped in an idyllic scene of Christ seated among a menagerie of kids and animals. In Calvert’s memory a children’s choir sings a familiar song. “Jesus loves the little children/All the children of the world/ Red, brown, yellow/ Black and white/ They are precious in his sight.” When he was young, he found the lyrics confusing because the image on his zippere
d Bible showed only white faces. He leaves the book where he found it and stands.
Rosa’s whole face is in the slant light coming through the window. If she were awake, the glare would be unpleasant. He puts his body between the window and Rosa. She is no less radiant in his shadow. Calvert clears his throat. “Your mother seems nice. There’s a family resemblance.”
Rosa’s head is still thrust forward by the pile of pillows, crunching her chin toward her chest. He wants to fix it. He reaches, but hesitates, afraid to jostle her and tempted to touch her in equal proportions. Is he the kind of dead man that caresses an unconscious woman?
He slips one hand behind her head, her hair tangles around his fingers. With the other hand he withdraws a pillow. He looks into her face. Her eyes dance under closed lids. Her lips twitch as if thinking of something funny. Rosa is more alive unconscious than I am half conscious.
Rosa’s breathing is deep, with a catch at the end of each exhale, as if her body has forgotten to intake the next lungful of oxygen. He imagines she’s attempting to starve her red blood cells, her slumber so perfect she longs to postpone waking.
“Your mother, Consuela, wants me to read to you, but I wouldn’t know where to start. I’ll just talk.” Rosa’s hair is bunched to one side. He carefully arranges it. The act feels intimate, loving, like bathing a newborn in a kitchen sink.
He coughs into his fist. “People say I saved you, that I’m a hero. I’m the opposite. There’s a word for that, but my mind is mushy.” Unconscious Rosa listens patiently. He takes her hand. He counts the thin bones in the back of her hand. Frail like bird bones.
When Mere died, he hadn’t had the chance to apologize or say his goodbyes. He wouldn’t share this if Rosa was awake, but this is a chance to be completely honest. The chance he didn’t get with Mere.
He clears his throat. Rosa waits. “I was killed in a car accident. I’m waiting for my body to stop moving. I should be permanently dead any day. When I walked in to get coffee, someone was on top of you.” He thinks he sees her expression change. The corners of her mouth draw down, but it could be the sun going behind the parking garage across the street. “I couldn’t know you were in danger when I went in. Couldn’t know he had his hands around your throat.” He looks at the dark marks left by strong fingers. “Couldn’t have known he was wringing the life from you.” Her expression looks pained. He worries about continuing. He tries to lighten the mood, “You’re alive but won’t wake. I’m dead but won’t stop moving. What are you gonna do?” She doesn’t reply. Why would she? It was pointless.
He’s lost his train of thought. “Consuela asked if I was married and if I had kids. I was not completely forthcoming.” He gets back on track. “The truth is, I was married. Mere and I were happy for a time. We wanted to have children, but there were complications. We tried for a decade. We spent a fortune. It never worked. We agreed to stop trying. Mere became distant. She felt our life was lacking. The absence of a child was a fundamental failure of our union. I focused on work and tried to wait it out. Mere couldn’t shake it. I met a student, Kati. We had a relationship. I was a needy man. I was lonely.
“When I was home with Mere, I saw how defeated she was. Our life would never be the thing she dreamed of. I couldn’t make her happy. She didn’t have any interest in sex if it wouldn’t yield a baby. She needed time. I knew that. I gave her as much as I could. I gave her years. I gave her space. I needed to feel wanted. You understand?” He thinks Rosa’s face shows sympathy.
“There was an unspoken understanding that Meredith’s grief gave her permission to foster a deepening depression. In comparison, the loss of my chance at fatherhood didn’t merit conversation. My feelings about the distance between us was not worth the air it wasted to mention. I kept my feeling to myself. It was what was expected.” He checks to see that Rosa is still listening.
“I didn’t plan it. My feelings for Kati. It happened naturally, and I didn’t stop it. I was swept away. Kati was all I could think of. She thought I was smart. She made me feel I was worth being loved. Kati got pregnant. She wanted to keep the baby. You’re a mother, Rosa. You understand. Like Mere, Kati wanted to be a mother. How could a baby be bad? My heart was overfull. I hadn’t been so happy in ages. If that makes me a bad person, you can tell me.” Unconscious Rosa reserves judgment.
“Thank you for that,” he says. He pats the hand he still holds. “Kati didn’t have a car and she was far from her family. She had no close friends. I couldn’t abandon her. I was responsible. So I took her to doctor appointments. I went to the ultrasound. I heard the rapid wet pattering of our child’s heart. I was going to be a father. We gave the baby a placeholder name: Bump.”
He sees Kati watching the monitor while her doctor rolls the ultrasound probe over her swollen abdomen. The probe makes tracks in the blue gel, like a toboggan in fresh snow. The ghost of Calvert past tries a poor joke about finger painting. He’s excited. The black and white lava-lamp blobs form the shapes of tiny body parts. “So there is the head and the face. You see the nose, mouth. One ear. And”—the doctor rubs the probe around, presses it into Kati, making a deep dimple in her stomach—“a second ear.”
He goes on talking to Rosa. “In the second trimester, Kati started showing. We couldn’t hide it any longer. I drove to Kati’s apartment and found a spot along the curb. I walked around and touched the swell of her belly. She moved my hand to a hard knot: our child’s head or butt. She smiled at me. She kissed me. I helped her into the car. She struggled to fasten the seat belt. I watched, happily waiting to close her door. I heard an engine rev, the warning growl of a predator. Up the hill I saw Mere’s car. Saw her gripping the steering wheel. She revved the engine again. She put the car in drive. She was fifty yards away and gaining speed.” Calvert’s volume increases. “I slammed Kati’s door. I ran. I heard the tires of Mere’s car grinding loose pavement. Peripherally I saw Kati, desperate, turning her back to the passenger door, screaming, with both arms covering her belly, protecting Bump as best she could. Mere surging toward me, her engine growing louder. I got my car running. I took the gearshift in hand. Put it in drive. I stomped the gas as Mere’s car crushed me.” He’s out of breath. His eyes make water run down his face, and gather at the corners of his mouth before dripping off. It’s okay. I’m dead. Nothing can hurt me.
“From what I’ve been told,” he continues once he feels nice and dead inside, “Mere’s head went through her windscreen, and the steering column crushed all the ribs in her body. Her organs were shredded, and she died from internal trauma. Her family blames me. It’s hard to argue it isn’t my fault. Mere saw me with a pregnant woman, knew I’d fathered someone else’s child.
“I didn’t have my seat belt on. Didn’t have time. I flew into Kati, crushing her, striking her head with mine. Killing her with my body. Killing Bump. Kati’s neck snapped on impact.” He’s quiet now. Defeated by the raw truth of it.
Finally he says, “My last living memory was a smell: the odor of blood mixing with urine, feces, gasoline, and the sweet scent Kati had spritzed on her neck and cleavage, bright and floral. It was the last flash of sensation before I died. The smell was an ice pick through the olfactory receptors in my brain. I think that’s what killed me.”
Untethered Epiphany
Calvert is quiet a long time, caught in a serene pause between ending one thing and beginning the next. With no sensations to jumpstart his mind, he’s content to linger in the perfect stillness that washes over him the moment he shared his secret with Rosa.
A sound outside the room brings him back. The nurse with the cart of drugs rolls loudly past. Rosa lays next to him, inert. He watches her, can barely detect the rise of her chest. He listens closely. He’s wobbly on his dead feet, a swaying disorientation he relates to the strange art happening he’d been subjected to. Christian’s Blake Machine. He steadies himself by grasping the raised side of the bed. He takes stock of Rosa breathing again. Is her breathing truly that shallow? Has my story
killed her?
If Rosa’s soul is attached to her corporal body through force of habit, isn’t it possible his confession struck her badly and has given her less reason to remain tethered to life? The shock of his narrative has set her free, a kite at the apex of flight, cut loose with a pocketknife.
He turns his face to the ceiling, to the throbbing tube lights and sprinkler heads. He thinks of near-death stories, of people leaving their bodies and seeing their deathbeds far below. Could Rosa be somewhere high above, looking down on him now? He fixes the top of his hair.
Nurse Alicia comes in talking. “How’s my favorite patient? Good, I bet, with her handsome prince standing guard.” She projects optimism. “You been talking to her?”
Calvert is equally puzzled at being called handsome and concerned he’s been overheard.
The nurse seems determined to maintain maximum efficiency of movement. “It’s good for her, you know. Keep a light tone. Tell her friendly stories. Things that stimulate her. Don’t talk about chores or taxes. No politics. Not these days. It’s enough to make anyone want to hide under the covers.” She moves from one side of the bed to the other and leans around Calvert to touch Rosa’s forehead with the back of her hand. She goes back to the far side of the bed. She toggles a button to make the mattress flat. “Rosa’s due for a sponge bath, and she needs to be moved on her side. I’ll wait till you two are done talking.” She shoves the over-bed table farther out of the way. She opens the top drawer of a dresser and takes out a fist-sized ball of colorful cloth.
The thought of Rosa floating overhead is still with Calvert. He glances up and imagines he can feel her there, watching the proficient actions of her capable caregiver. Watching the stiff, awkward posture of her half-dead admirer, his flat face tipped up and searching.
At the end of the bed, Alicia pulls the blankets loose and folds them up, revealing Rosa’s stocking feet and legs. She has long white compression socks pulled up to her knees. Alicia peels one down, then the next. Rosa’s legs look healthier without the orthopedic casings. Her caramel skin is glossy. Tiny black dots of growing stubble are reassuring, an indication her body systems continue to run.
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