by Jake Wolff
He was close enough that she could hear him breathing. He was so handsome she blinked.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” she answered.
Again, she introduced Keenan. She tried to read Sam’s face as he made small talk, as they agreed, yes, the island was wonderful, the people, too. He was terrified, that was plain as day, but she saw nothing of the terrified knowingness she’d seen in Sadiq, none of the awareness that everything was about to change. Just a few feet away, Theo was talking nonsense to a bug he’d found in the dirt, and Catherine thought the sound of his voice must be for Sadiq like a train approaching when you’re tied to the tracks.
Before anything real could be said among the four of them, Sam registered the sound of Theo’s singing. He tilted his head, puppylike, and Catherine watched his eyes track the grass until he found Theo, squatting on his heels, saying, “Hi, bug. Hello, Theo,” doing both voices, his and the bug’s.
Sam swallowed. “Yours?”
She smiled. “Yes. That’s Theo.”
Keenan touched the small of her back, which was not a supportive gesture but simply his way of saying he was ready to go.
Sam was looking at her again. “He’s gorgeous.” It took her a moment—a moment of pure disbelief—to realize he was saying this not just to her, but to her and her impatient boss. He thought Keenan was the father. Keenan! With the sport sandals! The anger she felt then was like a strong analgesic. It felt really, really good. You stupid shit, she almost said. He looks exactly like you!
Instead, she turned to Keenan. “Can you give us a second?”
“Just one?” This wasn’t funny, but he did as she asked and excused himself. He joined Theo on the ground, and she was grateful for the noise they made. No one else was on the road.
“I’ll let you catch up,” Sadiq said, and his eyes were saying, Don’t tell him.
But she had to tell him, and she smiled in a way that communicated, she hoped, that she was sorry. When it’s time, it’s time.
Sam turned his whole body to watch Sadiq leave, reminding her of Theo, who would do the same thing when she dropped him off at school. Sadiq stood near the bikes, studying his shoes. Sam faced her, eyebrows raised. He seemed startled to find himself alone with her.
“So listen,” she said, and began.
* * *
“So listen,” Sadiq saw her say, and then Sam shifted, blocking Sadiq’s view of her face. He couldn’t make out any more of their conversation. He could only stare at Sam’s back, wondering, wondering, while that man with the goatee spun Sam’s child in a wide, nauseating circle. The moment that boy emerged from the car, smiling and expectant, Sadiq had known. If he hadn’t wanted to cry, he would have laughed at Sam’s failure to recognize his son, who looked so much like him you would think Catherine played no role in his conception. But she had played a role, and she’d raised the boy into this laughing, goofy tadpole. The boy was like a joyful version of Sam, which was so odd, because Sadiq had convinced himself that no such thing was possible.
Sam was nodding, slowly. The information was sinking in. Sadiq’s only hope—and he was ashamed to be hoping for this, but self-preservation is not moral—was that Sam would screw this up, say the wrong thing, and Catherine and Theo would be out of Sam and Sadiq’s life forever. He and Sam could go on as they’d been going. And how had they been going? Happily, Sadiq thought, and terribly. In love, but not really taking care of each other.
Sam and Catherine were embracing, and he was whispering something into her ear. Sadiq’s breath caught in his throat. They pulled apart, and he could see Catherine smile. So that’s it, he thought. For once in his life, Sam hadn’t screwed things up. Sadiq wanted to kick over the bikes. But then Sam turned and came closer, and he was sick looking, white-faced like a ghost. Sadiq held out his hand, and Sam took it. Catherine was motioning to Keenan, heading for the car.
“Are you okay?” Sadiq asked.
Sam rubbed his forehead. He was so pale. “Oh, Sadie. I screwed that up. I really botched that.”
“He’s your son?”
Sam nodded. “I could tell she was waiting for me to say something. To say I wanted to be in his life. Jesus Christ. Did you see him?”
“I saw him.”
Sam took a long, shaky breath. “Why aren’t you freaking out? Am I wrong to be?”
At no point in his life, not even decades later, could Sadiq explain why he said what he said next. Exhaustion, maybe, or lingering resentment over the fallout with Radkin. Or maybe he was simply done standing on the cliff with Sam and decided to give them both a push. “I already knew. I mean, I didn’t know. I heard she had a kid, and I did the math. I suspected.”
“You suspected.” Sam’s eyes went cloudy. Behind him, Catherine had started the car. The engine coughed to life. They were surrounded by ocean, and Sadiq could hear it on all sides. Sadiq waited, and when Sam’s eyes finally refocused, they were filled with tears, and the love in them was gone.
* * *
In her rearview mirror, before she drove away, Catherine saw Sam bent at the waist, crying, while Sadiq steadied him and talked. It looked as if Sadiq was apologizing, but Sam was shaking his head, over and over, while he sobbed. Catherine’s eyes were dry—she’d told him, and that was all she needed. Whatever happened next would happen.
Still, a part of her wanted to throw the car in reverse and go to him. But no, those days were over. He wasn’t hers to take care of, not anymore. She put the car in drive.
No, she wouldn’t go to him.
But if he called…?
* * *
Sammy and Sadiq sat in the terminal, waiting for their plane back to Tahiti. Sammy remembered flying in to the island, what seemed like ages ago, and savoring that private, hopeful feeling he always had before landing. The wheels of the plane hit the runway, and his heart stirred—somewhere new! This could be the place you’ve been waiting for.
* * *
Four hours later, after two short delays, they boarded. Catherine, Sammy knew, was still on the island. When she told him they’d be spending the night there, he was relieved.
The plane took off, and Sadiq gripped the armrests, looking ill. Sammy knew a few comforting words would make all the difference, but he couldn’t bring himself to speak. He thought of Dr. Huang, his old psychiatrist. He pictured her: those severe, side-parted bangs, the thick, rectangular glasses. She would say, “Sam, here’s what’s scaring you: If you can’t find a way to love your son, and be loved by him, then you’ll know you were right all along—that you aren’t meant to love or be loved. You’ll know, once and for all, that you lack the capacity for happiness.”
The plane landed, and they hired a taxi.
“Please talk to me,” said Sadiq.
Sammy didn’t want to talk, which would mean saying the name of his son out loud. The taxi driver, perhaps sensing the awkwardness, put on the radio. The station played “I Want a New Drug” by Huey Lewis and the News, and then, absurdly, played it again.
They arrived at the tree house. Before Sadiq could beg, or plead, or say whatever he wanted to say, Sammy kissed him and pulled him onto the bed. There, they made love for the last time. Did Sammy know it was the last time? If he was being honest, yes.
* * *
He woke before Sadiq did. He put on his jeans, a black T-shirt, and sneakers without socks. He walked down the ramp to the beach. The air was already hot, the ocean flat and green like a dollar bill. Those boys with skimboards were back at it, and one of them, the shortest, had his arm in a sling. Damn right, Sammy thought, and what he meant was that no one should leave this place unharmed.
He entered Bogdi and Livia’s without knocking. He found them in the bedroom, still sleeping, their bodies intertwined. They were naked, but their embrace looked more consanguine than sexual, as if they were siblings who had fallen asleep holding each other against bad dreams. On the floor, Celebrity Client slept on his back.
“Wake up.”
A
nd they did—Livia first, Celebrity Client second, and finally Bogdi, who said, “Sam? The fuck?”
“Give me the stuff on Radkin. The rapamycin trials.”
“Ugh.” Livia kicked her pale legs out of the covers. “We told you we’d drop it.”
“We’re giving it to Bucky. I’m giving it to Bucky.”
“Huh?” Bogdi said.
Sammy nudged Celebrity Client with his foot. “Are you still flying home today?”
“Yeppers.” He rubbed his eyes. “Flight is at four.”
“Can I ride with you to the airport? I’m going to try to get on your flight.”
Celebrity Client grinned and offered his hand in a high five. “Travel buddies!”
“Am I, like, the only one who’s confused?” Bogdi started to say more, but Livia shushed him.
She looked hard at Sammy, as if trying to see through him. “You want us to go with you? To Bucky’s?”
Sammy shook his head. “I don’t need you. I’ll say Sadiq sent me.”
A smile touched her lips. “Which is not true?”
He met her eyes, and he felt, for the first time, that he truly understood her. Livia was an agent of destruction. She grabbed her phone from the side table and typed until his own phone vibrated.
He looked at what she’d sent him and nodded. “I’ll be back in an hour.”
She stood and embraced him, fully nude. “I take back every bad thing I ever said about you.”
* * *
After they landed in New York, Sammy and Celebrity Client parted ways at the taxi line. Sammy gave the cabbie his parents’ address and dozed on the way. Sadiq would still be in Tahiti, dealing with Radkin. He would almost certainly be fired.
Sammy rang the doorbell, and both of his parents answered the door together, the way only parents do. They hadn’t seen him in five years.
“Leena,” Sammy said, his voice breaking. “Don.”
Leena embraced him, and Don placed a warm hand on the back of his neck. They brought him inside. As the door closed, Sammy heard the artillery-like sound of a misfired piston, felt the hot blast of air from the sidewalk grate. He was home, and the house was too cold. He shivered, fighting the urge to laugh. I’m from New York, he thought, and there is no peace for me. The city followed him the way time followed Catherine—he, closing his eyes, searching his mind for quiet; she, watching her son grow up so fast she was sometimes scared to wake him, not knowing what new thing he would do, what change in him would announce itself.
CASE HISTORY
Anna Agrees to an Autopsy
San Ignacio, Belize, AD 2002
Anna opens her eyes. Her great-great-granddaughter is inches from her face. Always with the Eskimo kisses, this one!
“Please,” Anna scolds. “Not so close, Francie.”
The child is oblivious to rebuke. “Love you, Grauma!”
“Go away now,” Anna tells her, even though what she really wants is to say, Your love is small compared to my love for you, Francie. I love you more than my own daughter. But it would delight the child too much to hear these things. There would be painful hugs.
Not to mention Anna’s own, less loved daughter is in the room. Anna can see the shape of her, hazy and dark, like a shadow behind a curtain. She’s not so bad, fat Samantha, just old, too old for a daughter. What she hates in Samantha is only Anna’s own stubborn living. When a daughter is past ninety, the mother should be dead!
Also in the room is Francie’s mother, who is Edith or maybe Ellen. If she is Edith, there was also an Ellen, perhaps a cousin who died? Next to her, standing in the doorway, is a man Anna doesn’t know. He looks like Anna’s first husband, her little night bird, who flew away in the storm. The Hurricane of 1908. For three hours the sky turned black. She counted every second: one help-me-Jesus, two help-me-Jesus, three help-me-Jesus, four. The next morning she wept, hard and painful, her lungs and forehead burning. The doctor said she would kill herself, crying this way, so she began to cry inside herself only, her body growing fat with tears. Then she met Second Husband, who kissed away her heaviness and gave her all the babies she could handle, plus two more.
“You have a visitor, Grauma,” says Edith-or-Ellen.
Anna tries to see the man better, but Francie is dancing around the room to the music of the American singers on her tiny radio—every day for months the same ones, over and over so that even Anna’s memory can hold them. Her favorite is the rapper Eminem, who sings so fast Anna can pretend he is speaking Kriol and fall asleep to him. She prefers to dream in Kriol. Her English dreams are not so nice and are filled with jungle cats.
The man leaves the shelter of the doorway and comes to her side. Up close, he is too fat to be First Husband. Samantha, who rides a wheelchair, also comes closer. “Muma, this is Sadiq. He wants to talk to you about some doctors.”
Now they have Anna’s attention. “Someone to fix my hands?” Of all her pains, the hands are the worst. For thirty years, they have been locked into fists. There is physical pain, yes—like a scorpion sting between the knuckles, every second of every day—but even more cruel is the pain of the heart. How she misses being able to hold things: a hot cup of tea, a paperback book, a child’s hand.
Everyone looks guilty. “No, Grauma,” Edith-or-Ellen says. “Not for your hands.”
Sadiq smiles at her. “You are an important woman. There are doctors in America who would like to learn from you.”
Anna feels sleep coming in the distance. It makes a sound in her head like footsteps. “Okay, so bring them? I’m not going anywhere.”
Sadiq makes an uncomfortable face. He’s holding some papers.
“They won’t come now,” says Samantha. “They’ll come … later.”
If Anna had the energy to laugh, she would laugh at this. Don’t they know how old she is? If they wait too long, she’ll be dead before they get here.
The fat man looks pained. “I’m not explaining this well.”
Samantha has fallen asleep in her chair. Her mouth hangs open, gargling oxygen. Samantha is the daughter of First Husband. When she was young, she looked so much like her father that it became painful for Anna to see her. Now she looks like Anna—like an old woman.
“After you die,” Sadiq says, “the doctors want to study your body. To see how you lived so long.”
Oh, Anna thinks, an autopsy. Why didn’t they say so? Her family assumes you cannot be old without also being dumb. It makes her long for the days of Samantha’s childhood, when Anna was prized for her intelligence. “Muma speaks four languages,” Samantha used to brag. “English, Kriol, Spanish, French.” At the time, Anna turned red-faced at these compliments—women were not supposed to be smarter than their men. But she did not marry First Husband for his brains! He had big, stormy eyes and a stomach as smooth and hard as a granite countertop. She remembers the day the German motorcyclist drove his noisy bike into the river. While everyone else stood gaping, First Husband stripped off his shirt and pants and dove into the glassy water. He threw the German to shore and dragged his motorcycle out of the river with one hand. She can still see him high-stepping in the shallow water, his stomach glistening in the afternoon sun. Praise God! She took him home with no time wasted, climbed on top of him, and punched that stomach until they made Samantha.
Also, she could barely speak French. More like three and a half languages, she used to tell Samantha. But now that number feels too small. It feels as if she’s had to master many more languages. She’s learned thousands of new words, adapted to changes in meaning. She’s 123 years old, born in 1879, but go ahead and ask her what a cell phone is. She’ll tell you and get it right. She knows what it means to web surf. In one of Francie’s magazines, Anna has seen a photograph of a boy wearing a fauxhawk. Samantha was born in the spring of 1907, which was the same year Anna first heard the word moron. It was used to describe a child, but it was not such an insult then. It was just a way to categorize people. This child is a boy. This child is Guatemalan. This chil
d is a moron.
Sadiq clears his throat, and Anna realizes she has been speaking out loud. To distract from her embarrassment, she asks, “They’ll cut me open?”
“And stitch you right back up,” says Edith-or-Ellen.
Anna first learned to read from an American priest, who taught her the meaning of grabby in more ways than one. Good riddance! He died in the hurricane with First Husband, though he was old by then. They found his entrails wrapped like baby snakes around the frame of his wooden bicycle.
So she says, “No thank you.”
Edith-or-Ellen chews her lip. “It would be good for us if you agree to this.”
“It would be good for young Francie,” adds the fat man.
“Where is my Francie?” Right away Anna knows the answer: they’ve taken her from the room while they discuss the gruesome details of her great-great-grauma’s dissection.
“They will admit Francie to the QSI,” says Edith-or-Ellen. “Free tuition!”
Ah, Anna thinks, so a deal has been made “under the table,” as Second Husband would say. The QSI is the best private school in Belize. Very expensive. It would mean a world of possibilities for her Francie. Anna imagines the girl at her desk in the brightly lit school, learning maths from a woman in a colorful dress. A woman with an American university education. She imagines Francie herself with an American university education. She sees Francie, all grown-up, striding purposefully down the halls of some important building—a bank, a courthouse, the National Assembly! Men line the hallways, and they whisper to one another as she walks by. “Don’t mess with Francis,” they say. “She’s one badass chick.”
Imagining this, Anna feels as if her heart were about to explode. Can love kill you?