I reach up and twist the cool air directly above Monica’s seat, the gentle squall of wind catching my shoulders, now cushioned by a red Tempur-Pedic neck pillow. Removing my tan loafers, I notice a small blister on my big toe. This the result of a long walk on the island yesterday, Boxing Day—my mind largely preoccupied with Monica’s admission that she wants to mother a child—both of us wandering, mostly silent, while fishermen hauled gigantic coral nets of barracuda and blackfin tuna. Part of me had longed for the sight of a sparkling Christmas tree, a turkey, cranberry sauce, and all the trimmings. Tradition needling me in the chest.
“Why don’t you want another child?” she asked.
“I didn’t say that,” I answered.
“But you don’t. I can tell.”
We walked a little farther, more silence.
“I’m old,” I eventually offered.
“You’re scared,” she snapped back.
“Maybe I am, maybe losing Clara and raising Susannah alone has been too much for me. Is that such a bad thing, that I’m scared? That I take seriously my role as a parent?”
“Susannah was already grown when Clara passed. This is about you feeling you weren’t a good enough dad. And it’s also about your dad.”
“That was harsh,” I say, irritation growing. “And what about my dad? What’s your point?”
“My point is that you’re constantly doing your best not to be him. Not to mess up as he did.”
“And?” An edge to my voice now.
“And you’re not him. You’re you.”
“But I’m flawed, just like him,” I said. “And I’m tired. And old.”
“And cynical,” she spat.
I took her hand then, which she quickly withdrew.
“You know, if you’re not open to having another baby,” she warned, “this could be a deal breaker.”
“I understand,” I said.
Of course she wants a baby. Why wouldn’t she?
I imagine most women do at some point in their lives. The empowerment of their bodies opening the door to possibly one of the most miraculous and uncharted moments in their life: the dazzling array of emotions on sight of a first child, no words entirely worthy, or strong enough, for that first mother-child gaze.
I smile softly to myself, remembering how simple it had felt to imagine children when I was a young man. How Clara had pinned me to a tree, hitched up her skirt, demanding I make her swell. There was optimism back then (and sexual zeal), as well as a hopeful willing that zips to the left side of your brain and has you believing love will afford anything. But my fifty-five years have slowed me down.
I close my eyes, trying to picture Monica, a new baby, and me flying as a trio. The baby crying, Monica pacing up and down the aisle; an hour later, exhausted and resentful, cutting me a look: time to swap duties. I strap on the baby sling—click, pull—and start walking. Secretly wishing I could stuff the baby in one of the overhead bins to drown out his or her screams so I could get back to reading The New Yorker or listening to the podcast I downloaded the night before.
It doesn’t feel right, Monica and me becoming parents together. Even the idea of marriage gives me the feeling of having a pillow pressed down slowly over my mouth, chest cramping from its need for air. Panic takes some people to religion, volunteer work, drink, or despair. I settle on avoidance, the idea of additional loss or conflict not welcomed because I survived so much of it with Clara and my father. Clara as she lay in a hospital room, and gone from me. And my father as he took another pull of whiskey.
I casually flick through New Psychotherapist, packed with book reviews and ads for professional development, landing on a feature about transgenerational trauma. How unbelievably fitting. A man in his late fifties with pale skin and a carved jawline is holding a baby, the headline: legacies of loss: why dealing with our past shapes the future. The baby is fat and pink. A marshmallow chin with one solitary tooth. In his hand a yellow silicone teether. His father looks straight at me, and I wonder while flying closer to the gods whether the universe is conspiring to send me a message—older dad, legacy of loss—then hear Monica’s words again: This could be a deal breaker.
Suddenly engulfed, I take a black marker from my jacket pocket and draw a mustache above the baby’s heart-shaped lip, adding a beard. His face eventually littered with hateful, envious marks and scratches of ink. On his peach-fuzzy forehead I draw an upside-down cross—the mark of Satan—feeling an urge to deface him while remembering Clara. How she’d broken down after the miscarriage of our baby boy, already into her third trimester. A boy we agreed to name Joel. There were complications. A raging temperature. I found her trembling in cold sweat on the bathroom floor, howling. I’d looked down at her empty body, curled like a jellybean, forlorn and terrified.
She was never the same after his death. The loss of him carried around inside her and causing all manner of somatized pain. I blamed Clara’s cancer on him, baby Joel, because he refused to fight for his life. I’d needed someone to charge. To blame. Someone to be angry with, so I made it him, baby Joel, because I am not a religious man and found it easier to direct my rage at someone who was dead.
Babies; I wish for no more.
Monica returns to her seat and I hide my scrawl, the chubby baby now disappeared. She adds a sweater to her shoulders. Next to her, the hot heavyset guy takes out a family pack of chili-flavored Doritos from a carrier bag stuffed under the seat in front of him. He opens the bag and daintily places a single orange triangle in his mouth, slowly crunching. He licks a finger, sticky with coral dust, and then offers Monica the scrunched foil packet.
“No, thank you.” She smiles. “Just eaten.” Then pats her tummy.
She looks at me, sad and longing. The desire of a giant. Her ache for a baby felt in my own belly as she swings her legs beside mine.
She attempts to kiss my mouth.
And I smile kindly, keeping my lips tightly sealed.
“Move over a little,” I say, turning away and reaching for my eye mask. “I need a little space.”
Monica stares at me. “Take all the space you need,” she says, a bite to her tone. Her stricken face now turned away, the look of a woman soured and unloving.
54
Alexa Wú
“So you’ll be okay?” Jack asks, his bags resting by the studio door.
“Sure thing,” I say, all breezy and excited that he trusts me again to take care of things for a week.
“There’re no major shoots, just housework,” he says. “I’ve left a folder on your desktop: invoices to pay, phone calls to make. Don’t let me down, Alexa.”
“Everything will be fine. Now go!”
Jack squeezes me hard, kisses my cheek, and smiles. Whoa, go easy, I think, but secretly I’m enjoying his affection, our intimacy.
“Call me if you need anything,” he says, collecting his phone off the desk.
I throw him an as if look. “GO!” I order.
Once he’s out the door, I click on the folder and check through the list of “Things to do while Jack’s away.” Fine, all good. No problem.
Pleased with myself, I feel almost tall in my chair. Proud and encouraged that I’m trusted enough to run the show after Jack’s threat earlier this month—One more strike, Alexa, and you’re out. Runner takes the Light and walks over to the sound system. She pumps out some Captain Beefheart, Oneiroi trying her best to muscle in with Mariah Carey’s greatest hits. Don’t even think about it, Runner grunts, turning up the volume. She pours herself a shot of the whiskey hidden away in Jack’s filing cabinet and suddenly we’re dancing. The Body cut loose and swaying, head dipped and whipping our hair. Feels good. Feels great. Another whiskey.
Go easy, I say, we’ve still got work to do.
Chill, Runner sings, her eyes closed, arms in the air. Laughing, I get on board, enjoying the freedom, Runner’s unwinding. Her air guitar now in full flow, the Body kneeling and sliding across the studio floor.
“Let’s
call Robin!” she shouts.
“NO,” I cry.
“You’re no fun, Alexa.” She smiles coyly and squeezes my cheeks.
Another whiskey.
Runner noses around Jack’s desk for something interesting: a black-and-white photograph of him and a pal kayaking, a stress ball, a couple CVs resting in his inbox. She flicks through them: the first one a recent graduate looking for unpaid work; the second Sam Driver, who’s been working for three years on a national newspaper picture desk and is clearly ambitious, experienced, and keen to “branch out.” “Mm,” Runner says, “he’s got drive, all right.” She tosses the CVs in the bin. “But don’t worry about it,” she says.
Seated at my desk, I switch back into the Body, sync up my camera with the computer, and download the last couple of months’ shots, noticing a file on the screen named Us.
What’s that? Runner asks.
I click on the file. A distant and vague memory of Shaun and me messing around one night after work. A catalogue of images appear on the screen. Runner points at one and I click again. It is a picture of me, naked, a ribbon around my throat, legs spread open. Another whiskey. Urrr, my tolerance for neat liquor clearly nowhere near as matured as Runner’s. I cover my mouth with my hand, but already Dolly has seen my shock. She turns away, Runner guiding her back to the Nest, Oneiroi slinking off in front. Don’t think we don’t know this was you, Runner shouts. Oneiroi’s pace quickens. Get back here, Runner orders. I know you did this for him. I watch Runner grab hold of Oneiroi’s shoulder, yank and pull her to face us. Runner grits her teeth, her breath fast and enraged. Oneiroi says nothing. Instead, she stares out at the image on-screen. Then she begins to cry.
I miss him, she confesses.
Miss him? He’s a complete douche bag, Runner slurs.
You wouldn’t understand.
Damn right.
Oneiroi takes the Body, swipes through dozens of shots. An intimate rectangle of our bodies damp with heat. A raised knee. An arched back. Fists clenching a pillow. Some of the pictures are unfamiliar, I note, but not all of them. These, I recognize, were of our early days spent together, when we were happy. It felt comforting to me, having someone close, someone other than Ella to take my hand; to hold and stroke and squeeze it. Sometimes I longed to be loved so badly I’d ache, but I saw it in him too. Both of us alive to our fears and hopes and past pains.
Oneiroi zooms in on a photograph of Shaun splayed across my bed laughing, a smoke in his hand.
I really miss him, she cries. My body felt alive when I was with him.
Runner stares, a look of defiance cast across her eyes. You know what, I’m afraid for you. She sneers. You don’t seem to grasp what’s right and what’s wrong. He will destroy you if you allow him. He will hurt you and leave you to rot.
Don’t patronize me.
Oh, please. And by the way, it’s OUR body, she corrects. OURS.
“There’s no such thing,” Oneiroi speaks aloud. “But then, I don’t expect you to understand that. Your words are not a warning, they’re a curse. And just so you know, you are the one to thrust them against us.”
55
Daniel Rosenstein
Eight thirty-eight.
Sweating and desperate for the session to end, I risk a glance over at the gold clock, fearful she may catch me, my backbone giving a little yelp.
Eight thirty-nine. Eleven minutes to go.
Quick, eyes back before she catches you.
“What’s the time, Mr. Wolf?” she asks.
“Mr. Wolf?”
“Never play that game at school?”
“No. Can’t say I did.”
“Then let me explain, Doc. Someone pretends they’re the wolf. The other children have to creep up behind the wolf and ask, ‘What’s the time, Mr. Wolf?’ The wolf chooses a time. Two o’clock, eight o’clock, et cetera, et cetera. When the wolf finally decides it’s dinnertime, he or she pounces! Chases you. Gobbles you up. Fun, right?”
“Actually, I’m not sure it is.”
She laughs.
Ten minutes. Christ, I struggle with this personality. She scares the shit out of me. Clinical theory encourages clinicians to find compassion and understanding for all personalities with a multiple, but this one tests me. I know she gets off on running rings around me like this, taking perverse pleasure in watching me sweat, squirm, and flounder.
I catch myself holding my breath. We sit in silence.
Seven minutes.
From inside her bomber jacket she takes out a neatly folded sheet of A4 paper. Reads it to herself and edges a half smile. But something stops her from speaking.
“Would you like to share that with me?” I ask, nodding at the page.
“All in good time, Mr. Wolf. All in good time.” This she speaks in a deep, toneless voice. Almost metallic.
Her body appears strong today. Her denim legs wide open as she loafs—like a man. Her heavy trainers kicking the rug between us and causing a curl. I’m aware of my desire to straighten it, the angle making me twitch, but I resist bending down. Her body language warning me: Bow down and I’ll kick you in the head.
When Dolly arrives, her legs and feet occasionally turn inward; with Oneiroi they are elegantly crossed while she works the exquisite arch of her instep with her thumb. As for the Fouls, I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting them yet, their personality still an enigma, and if I’m completely honest, I’m a little apprehensive of encountering them.
She digs out something from one of her teeth with her nail, then rests her chin on a clenched fist and leans forward. A standoff. Stalemate.
For a moment I picture her running around both our chairs, chest pulled back, trainers set alight like a flint. We suddenly burst into flames. The two of us caught in a swirl of inferno above the Nest, awaiting rain. Anger comes like a sudden flight of birds. Why must you set fire to our work? Why do you wish to destroy it?
A saboteur.
Five more minutes. Excruciating.
She wipes her nose with the back of her hand.
“Tell me, Doc, do you think it’s good practice to leave your patients when they’re so vulnerable?” she asks.
“You’re upset about the break.”
“Upset. Please.”
“And angry.”
“I’m angry when I see you checking the clock every five minutes, angry that you jet off thinking everyone will be fine. Don’t forget, Doc, I see everything.”
“So it seems.”
Four minutes.
“See all those lunatics out there pacing up and down, talking to themselves?” She points at the bay window. “They’re incapable of telling you how negligent you are. Fuck, some of them can hardly speak!”
“You believe I should never take a break, is that it?”
She shrugs.
“A little unreasonable, don’t you think?” I say, palms turning damp.
I adjust my collar. A phlegmy racket escaping my throat.
Maybe I’m coming down with something—a virus caught on the plane while traveling back home? Or possibly the lack of sleep after another argument with Monica.
“Hot, Mr. Wolf?” She snorts.
I gather myself, resentment brewing. “Why do you sabotage our work?” I ask.
A pause.
She takes the A4 sheet of paper and scrunches it into a tight ball.
“Catch!” she shouts.
The hurl has me off guard. The paper ball lands in my lap. I feel my temper rising.
“What is this?” I try not to shout, but do.
“A gift from the Fouls,” she says, leaning back, resting a calf on her knee. “It’s a list.”
“A list?! A list of what?” I hiss, imagining snakes alive on my skull.
“Of ten ways they want to hurt you.”
I open the scrunched ball of paper.
“They said to tell you number five is their preferred choice.”
She stands, already knowing we’re at time, and leaves.
/> I walk over to my desk, burying my face in my hands. For the first time I note my grave fear, not of Alexa, but of the trauma within her. The distinct madness. The pain.
I take out my notebook to record what’s just happened but put it down, instead pick up the phone.
“Hello, this is Dr. Patel speaking.”
“It’s me.”
“Hey, welcome back. How was your holiday?”
I close my eyes. “Okay. How’s the research going?” I answer, fatigued.
“Oh, that good, eh?”
“It could have been worse. I guess.”
Mohsin clears his throat. “Well, research has made me a mad person.” He laughs.
“Is there not pleasure in being a mad person, which none but madmen know?” I say.
“Ha! So today you’re a poet.”
“And mad, apparently. Selfish too.”
“Ouch. Problems with Monica?”
“Monica wants a baby,” I say, my mood turned low, “and I’ve just had a visit from Alexa’s gatekeeper.”
“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with you naming your partner and a patient in the same breath.”
“Well, there it is,” I say, surrendering, suddenly exposed.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Sure. You know how I get after a holiday.”
“Cynical?”
“Disenchanted.”
“What was she like, the gatekeeper?”
“Fierce.”
“Of course she is. She’s protecting Alexa from potential threat. She’ll be doing anything to ensure there’s no repeat of abuse.”
“She and her foul sidekicks want to hurt me.”
“So potentially violent?”
“You don’t say.”
“She’s frightened, Daniel. You have to earn her trust. It takes time.”
“And in the meantime she’s left to run amok and terrorize me?”
“You’re being dramatic. She’s just testing you, waiting for you to slip up.”
“She’s a man-hater.”
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