I explain some of this to Cali now, how it happened slowly and then all at once. And while Luke had turned out to no longer even be up to the task of being a real friend, Blair’s true nature had shined through, making him feel, by the end, like my last real friend on earth. He called me from every stop on the World Cup that year, occasionally badgering his brother, who’d not yet mustered the courage to break things off, to talk to me as well. He flew into town for barely twenty-four hours between races so that he could be there when I testified. He’d been the one in the hospital with my parents when I came out of surgery after my accident. I’d repaid his loyalty by pulling away and now by fleeing the hemisphere without even telling him where I was going. I could only hope he’d forgive me. Knowing him, he would.
“Life is messy,” Cali says now. “People fuck up, get sick, die, do insane things. You don’t want anyone in your life who can’t handle the hard stuff. Your story is obviously dramatic, but life comes for everyone eventually. Your boy Luke won’t be charmed forever.”
“I miss how it felt before I saw this side of him. I miss who I thought he was,” I say.
“I get it,” Cali says. “I was pretty crushed by how some of my friends in the orchestra acted when everything went down—just as you said, like I was contagious, like they were hedging their bets and not on me. But my family and my friends from childhood? One hundred percent on my side. I was barely able to stop my brothers from heading straight to New York and tearing him to pieces.”
“As it should be,” I say.
“Yeah, honey,” she says, taking my hand. “As it should be. Look, people who are really driven, really competitive, some of them are good people—us obviously.” She smiles. “But a lot of them are also narcissistic assholes who really and truly don’t give a shit about any ends but their own. Sorry, but especially the men.”
I nod.
Cali considers what she’s said. “I take it back. Not sorry at all.”
For a moment, we both look out into the slate-gray waters of the bay. Beyond us is the roughest sea on earth with its howling winds and unpredictable sky. Between Ushuaia and Antarctica are a smattering of islands, now mostly uninhabited. I remember from our cruise the day before the story of a tribe that once lived there. Despite the freezing climate, they wore almost no clothes and swam and fished in ocean waters so cold they would kill most people after a few minutes. We’re built to survive, we humans.
“I’m assuming you’re not in touch with Penny now?”
I shake my head.
“You know most people think that acquittal was nuts. I was on your side even before I met you. Not that it’s much consolation.”
I knew there were many people who thought the verdict was wrong, but of course, the outside world just moved forward while we were left forever in the blast zone. We’d had the option to try a civil case; the burden of proof was lower, and our lawyers told us we had a good shot. But to what end? We didn’t want damages, not that Penny had any money. We didn’t even really want her punished, even after everything. It was hard to pinpoint what justice even looked like; nothing could undo what had happened. And the idea of going through yet another trial felt unbearable. I just wanted Penny to get help, and I wanted her kept somewhere, safe from herself, away from children, and unable to procreate until she grew too old to have any more. I wanted her to accept and acknowledge what she’d done, to mourn with us, and ask our forgiveness so that we could give it to her. God, how I want to forgive her. I want to stop feeling like someone had blown a hole through the middle of my chest. I want to go back in time somehow to intervene. I want to stop feeling like Cassandra screaming into a void. I want to stop wanting the impossible.
“It is a consolation that you feel that way. That you believe me. That you know.”
“Thank you for trusting me,” she says. “I’m really glad we met.”
“Yeah,” I say, letting my head fall onto her shoulder as she puts her arm around me. “Me too. So the funny part is . . .” I continue, because for Christ’s sake, if I’m going to tell her all of this, why would I not tell her everything? “This was not the bombshell I had in mind to share with you on this trip.”
Cali cocks her head at me. “There’s more?”
“Yes. I don’t know. Maybe.” I try to smile, but I suddenly start shaking. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I say. “This is all too much and you’ve been so good about everything. I just . . . never mind.”
“Liz, oh my god, you’re freaking me out. What?”
“I think I might be . . . that is, I haven’t had my period in a while.”
Cali’s eyes get wide. “Have you taken a pregnancy test?”
I shake my head. The idea of going into a pharmacy alone and trying to explain, in Spanish, that I need a pregnancy test is too overwhelming to bear. But once the words are out of my mouth, it all just seems too ridiculous to be true. Besides which, I realize I’m feeling a familiar cramping, a distinct edginess. I must be just about to get my period.
“Well, that seems like a good first step,” Cali says.
“I’m so nervous. I mean, I’m sure I’m not though, right?”
“You need to know for sure. I mean it’s early so . . . sorry, that’s insensitive, but you know what I mean.”
Right, of course. There was always that. Theoretically, I had choices.
“Is it even legal here?”
“I don’t think so,” Cali says. “So I guess you’d have to go home.”
“I’d go home anyway. Of all the things I’d like to experience abroad, that one’s not really on the list. Not that I even . . . I’m sure I’m not.”
The idea of being pregnant by Gianluca is horrific. I would end up another secret, cast away like his first little family and God knows how many others. But then, I also feel something completely unexpected; some unfathomable part of me does want to be pregnant, or is at least intrigued by the notion. Something is revived in the idea that my body isn’t obsolete, that it has performed something miraculous. Life in the old girl yet.
“Come on,” Cali says, “we’re going to the pharmacy right now. You can wait outside. My Spanish is better.”
Back in our creaky condo that smells of salt air, I take the test and sit with Cali for the longest three minutes of my life, waiting for the sign—plus or minus—to appear in the tiny window.
Pregnant.
Liz Has More to Lose
OUR FIRST night back in Buenos Aires, I go over to Edward’s for dinner and right away spot Gemma by the pool. She looks especially pretty tonight with her soft features in profile in the crepuscular glow. I grab a bottle of red from the counter to go see if Gemma will have a glass with me—no more than the one I’m allowed, and besides, it might not matter. I don’t realize until I’m out of the door that she’s on the phone, holding it to the side of her head that faces away from me. I stop in my tracks, not meaning to eavesdrop but overhearing her nonetheless.
“Mummy loves you, she misses you terribly.”
Mummy?
I step back to retreat inside but accidentally slam into the doorway and Gemma looks my way just as she’s hanging up the phone. For a moment, her big round eyes widen and then she smiles broadly.
“Liz, darling!”
“Sorry, I was just coming to see if you wanted to have a glass of wine with me, but then I saw you were on the phone . . .”
“Well I’m off now, and of course I want a glass of wine, you goose.” She motions me to join her where she’s sitting.
“I was just on the phone with my little sister. She hasn’t visited our mother in ages, and somehow this has become my problem to solve from thousands of miles away.”
“So your sister is speaking to you again then?” I ask.
“Oh, well, naturally! Once she needs my help with something.” Gemma flutters her fingers. “How was your trip to the ends of the earth?”
For now, I’ve asked Cali to keep the many revelations of Ushuaia to herself. I’v
e told her that Edward figured out who I was when I first arrived. She’s as impressed as I am that he’s kept it a secret. It’s a relief that Cali knows, but however cathartic it was to tell her, it was exhausting too.
“It was great! We went on a lake tour, saw the penguins.”
“Do they smell as horrid as I’ve heard?” Gemma asks, wrinkling her nose. We’d casually extended the invitation to her but were unsurprised when she demurred. Gemma has made it clear she’s a city girl, not into outdoorsy adventures, which are the only reason to go to Ushuaia.
“They do not smell great, but it was a good trip. How are things here?”
Gemma shakes her head. “A bit of trouble with Anders, I’m afraid. He’s not here tonight,” she adds as I glance around us. “He’s off pouting.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. What’s going on?”
“He just wants more from me than I expected him to. I mean, he’s twenty-five, for god’s sake, I didn’t think he’d get so attached.”
I smile. “You probably blow his mind.”
Gemma grumbles, “I’m not sure he’s accustomed to any resistance. I gather he was quite the golden boy back in Oslo, but I think this thing with his sister has just shattered him. I’m just not sure what he expects from a holiday romance.”
“What are you going to do?” I ask.
“He says he needs me to decide,” Gemma replies, taking the rest of her half-full wineglass down in one sip and gesturing to me to refill it.
“About what?”
“About him. I suppose you could say he’s given me an ultimatum.”
“Oh. Well, how do you feel about it? I mean, I know you care about him.”
“I do, but it’s more complicated than that. Besides, I’m probably just a midtwenties rebellion, something he needs to get out of his system. He’ll tell his grandchildren about the old lady he had a scandalous romance with before he met their grandmother.” She smiles.
“I don’t think that’s how he sees it.” I consider the way Anders looks at Gemma—full of admiration and awe—and I feel a sudden flash of envy. “If anything, it seems like he’s the one who’s fallen for you. Like he’s got more to lose.”
“Oh, Liz,” Gemma says, looking at me as though I’m a hundred years younger than she is, “women always have more to lose.”
In my desperation to gain control over something in my life, I decide I need to break up with G now, before I get any more confused. I cannot make a decision about the pregnancy while I’m still enmeshed with him. The conversation we had the night before I left for Ushuaia has filled me with dread, and breaking it off for good seems the only way to kill it. His responses to my text messages since then have been frosty. My body without his goes into a kind of withdrawal, and the thought of never being with him again makes me panic, which is why I know it needs to end. I’m not in love, I’m chasing the dragon. Leaving him feels healthy and sensible, and I didn’t know I had any self-protective instincts left. Though maybe it isn’t myself I’m protecting.
I ask him to meet me at a café near his studio, a low-lit, quiet place that feels like it belongs anywhere but downtown. I wait for him for forty minutes in a small booth. He texts me that he’s caught up in the studio but will be there soon. The more time passes, the more my resolve deepens. G is not any healthier than I am—between the secret family and the horrible history and god only knows what really happened in Saint-Tropez. What a pair we are!—and what we have is toxic. And I can feel him pulling away. Already it’s reminiscent of Luke’s breakup by attrition. Rather than leave me when he wanted to, he simply started calling less and less from the road, was suddenly never able to find a good enough Internet connection to Skype. When I called him on it, he claimed to be giving me some space to deal with everything. But space wasn’t what I needed, it was what he needed. My grief repelled him. I was a drowning woman and he was not offering me rescue, he was swimming in the other direction.
When I told Luke it wasn’t working, all I wanted was for him to fight for me, to tell me he loved me and needed me and would rise to the occasion of this disaster. But he said none of this, instead simply replying, “Yeah, I guess it’s not.” Was that all he had to say after all these years? After a lifetime of being a breath away from one another? “I’m sorry,” he offered. “I’m sorry I’m not who you need right now. I’ll move out. I’ll keep paying rent until you can find a roommate or whatever.” He said this like he was doing something gallant. There was a brotherly hug and a promise of friendship that I didn’t ask for and wasn’t given.
There’d be no need to find a roommate. Within three days, I’d have what became a career-ending crash. I might have recovered from the physical fallout, but losing my one outlet put my mental health over the edge. It wasn’t just the crash, but the death, the trial, the acquittal, Luke, everything. The crash was the straw, but it was only a straw. Without my normal endorphin dose, my panic attacks soon became so debilitating that I went home to live with my parents.
The stakes with G are so much lower, I remind myself now, nursing my glass of wine. I plan it in my head so I won’t forget once he’s here, so that smelling him and feeling his touch won’t shatter my resolve. I get clear on my own agenda: I will end this, but first, I will tell him what really happened to me. I just need him to know. He showed me his, I’m showing him mine. And then I will say, thanks for the memories. No more tango. Of any variety. I’m picturing sad smiles and a final kiss. A clean breakup for a relationship that never was, a proxy for the conversation I didn’t get to have with Luke.
He comes in, and though he’s not apologetic about being late, he looks unexpectedly happy to see me.
“Tiger,” he says, pulling me out of my seat and into his arms, “I missed you.” He kisses my neck just below my ear, which sends a spasm of desire through my stomach. He’s not usually so affectionate in public. “Scoot over,” he says and joins me on my side of the booth. He nods to the waiter for a glass of what I’m having.
It’s hard being so close. I’d imagined this conversation with him sitting across from me, the table between us.
“How are you? How was Ushuaia?”
“It was good. Listen, I need to say something to you.”
The waiter returns with lightning speed and sets down a glass of wine that G takes a sip of.
“Anything, sweetheart,” he says, taking my hands in his. I’m unmoored. I’d imagined him surly and defensive, as though somehow the mood of this mercurial man would have remained entirely unchanged since he’d walked out my door five days before.
“I’m sorry I was being so pushy about things. I’m sorry I pried. The last time we saw each other . . . I had no right.” Even though, I think, I didn’t ask you the half of what I’m wondering about: your children, for instance.
G sighs and smiles. He runs his fingers over my scalp and gives me a fresh jolt of want. “It’s my fault, Tiger. You didn’t know. I shouldn’t have gotten angry. I’m sensitive about it, well, obviously. But I know I can trust you, and I shouldn’t have been such a jerk. Can you forgive me?”
I nod. The script in my head is torched.
“I just wish that you felt the same, like you could tell me anything. I wish you didn’t shut me out. I wish I could know all of you.” Now he gives me a deep kiss and I feel something come loose. When he pulls back from me, my eyes are brimming with tears.
The waiter comes back toward the table, but walks swiftly on when he sees the tears. I wonder if he sees a lot of tears in this dark little bar. I wonder if any bar in this beautiful, sad city doesn’t.
“What is it?” G says, wiping away a fat tear that’s rolled down my cheek.
“My sister,” I begin.
“The one you don’t speak to?”
I nod. He asks what happened and I find I’m still teetering, unsure if I’ll tell him.
“She killed her daughter.”
His eyes get wide, and it’s oddly satisfying because now he sees. I’m damned by
my family’s sins just like him.
“Is she in prison?”
I shake my head.
“How?”
“It’s complicated. Life isn’t just.” I smile sadly. “But you already knew that.”
“God, my love, I’m so sorry.” There is no shred of incredulity in his voice, no asking, as some others have: But are you sure? Their disbelief driving deeper the stake of the betrayal I feel despite my certainty. He grew up as the son of murderers and I am the sister of one. He knows what it is to care about someone evil, to buckle under the strain of holding such an unbearable love.
He pulls me close to him, and I’m quietly weeping. I’m not going anywhere.
Liz Can Explain
THAT FRIDAY, G meets me in the Plaza Dorrego. He no longer seems concerned about people seeing us together, about appearing taken. I imagine our connection is deeper now, now that we both know what the other is. At the café in the square, he pulls his chair close to mine and kisses me in public like we’re teenagers, cutting me off in midsentence. I know the clock is ticking, and that everything has only become more complicated, but my talent for denial is well-developed. I reckon I’m too early in the pregnancy to feel anything, and so the fact of it remains abstract, surreal. Perhaps I’m not even really pregnant, or perhaps it will just resolve itself. Isn’t it common to lose a pregnancy this early on?
We’ll meet Cali at Red Door in a little while. Right now, a band is playing and people are dancing beneath some strung-up lights.
“Come on, Tiger, my star pupil. I want to show you off.”
Here with him on this crisp, pleasant evening in my upside-down life as the days grow shorter rather than longer, wrapped in his competent arms, bound together by our monstrous ties, and maybe by something beautiful and new, it feels more than ever like love. But what happens when winter comes? Am I really going to stay here, be pregnant here? Have a child with this man?
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