Carefully, carefully, his eyes on the mountain lion, he bent and felt for a rock. When he bent, the animal took a step forward. Considering. Gabe straightened.
Lots of noise, the sign said. Don’t retreat. Don’t turn your back.
Later, a couple of hikers pretty far away, on the Hemme trail, reported an unearthly noise. They thought it might be coyotes—mating, maybe, or fighting. God-awful, they said. One of them tried to capture the sound with her iPhone but by the time she got the video on (she had the new iPhone, and, annoyingly, the camera often froze) it was over and done with.
But it wasn’t a coyote. It was Gabe Hawthorne, father, husband, partner at San Francisco–based Elpis Consulting, opening his mouth and letting loose what he would think of later as a primal scream. The primal scream. It was a sound he never would have guessed he had inside of him, and it echoed over the mountains and bounced back again. Arms above his head, waving. The rock, thrown at the animal, who, when struck, had such an expression of bewilderment that had the circumstances been different Gabe might have felt sorry for it.
And the mountain lion fled.
—
The khakis were now a complete loss. The torn knee, the urine. A little extra digging in the trunk eventually revealed a pair of crumpled track pants, not clean, necessarily, but serviceable enough, and Gabe climbed into the passenger seat to make the switch, praying that no dog walkers or—worse—young mothers with strollers wandered by at this most inconvenient of times. The residential street was mostly quiet, though down the way from where he was parked Gabe could hear a leaf blower and the distant drone of saws or drills: instruments of the upper class’s inevitable, insatiable quest for more and better.
He stopped at a gas station in Alamo on the way to the freeway and bought a bottle of water. And if the man at the cash register noticed the incongruity of his dress shirt and his track pants; if he noticed Gabe’s hands shaking, and his knees too; if he looked deep into Gabe’s eyes and understood that here was a man who had fought death and won, well, he said nothing about it.
And there was no point in keeping the secret anymore. He’d go home, and he’d take a shower, and when Nora got home he’d tell her everything. Everything.
—
Something about the house didn’t look right. Gabe squinted at it. What was it? It was the driveway. It was Nora’s car, in the driveway, at three o’clock in the afternoon, on a weekday. Something must be wrong. Nora had said she had a packed day at the office. She had said she’d never get it all done.
Nora was sitting on the couch in the living room watching television. This was odd in and of itself: Nora never watched television. In fact she rarely sat down. Also: she was crying. Nora seldom cried. The last time he remembered seeing her cry was when Frankie died.
“Hey,” he said. He slipped off his shoes. “Hey, Nora. What is it? What’s wrong? Where are the kids?” His first thought, of course, was, Angela! Harvard! But it was the first week in December and she’d only just had her alumni interview. No, it was too early for that. He was ashamed, maybe, at the relief he felt when he realized Nora must be crying over something else.
Then he thought, She knows! He imagined Abby Freeman showing up at the door, inviting herself in, releasing Gabe’s lie into the atmosphere.
But it was neither of these things. “Nelson Mandela died,” she said. “Didn’t you hear?”
Gabe sat down next to her. She held a Kleenex box in her lap and on the floor was a giant pile of used tissues: a veritable mountain. She must have been at this for quite a while. He glanced at the television: cable news. He said, “Of course I heard. Lead story on NPR.” He had been only half listening. He had almost been mauled by a mountain lion! South Africa seemed very far away.
She took a deep and shuddering breath, and blew her nose loudly, and said, “What are you wearing?”
“Oh. I, ah, worked out at the gym before I came home.” Another lie. “I thought you’d be at work,” he said.
She waved a wet tissue toward him and said, “Came home early.” She paused and looked at him. Her eyes were rimmed with pink, like an albino rabbit’s, and there was a small bright circle of red, Rudolph-like, on the tip of her nose. He thought Nora was beautiful, but she did not have the skin tone that lent itself to handsome crying. She pointed the universal remote at the television like a weapon. On the screen, hundreds of South Africans were dancing, swaying, singing, crying. “Some of these people aren’t going to sleep for days, they said. To honor him. Can you imagine? For days.” Her crying began anew.
Gabe hadn’t known that Nora cared so deeply about Nelson Mandela. He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard her talk about apartheid, or South Africa. Or, really, any part of Africa. South America she’d expressed interest in. Chile, Brazil. But Pretoria? Soweto? He moved closer to her and rubbed her back.
“Even the children are crying, Gabe. Crying and dancing. Even these little kids, what are they, five, six? They get this. They grasp the significance of it. Look at that little boy swaying.”
Gabe looked at the little boy swaying.
“Maybe,” he said carefully, “maybe they’re crying because they see all the grown-ups around them crying. You know how kids are. Suggestible.” He hadn’t meant any harm by the statement but Nora fixed on him such a look of venom that he wished he could take his words back.
“Why aren’t we more like that?”
Gabe definitely couldn’t tell her now. Definitely not. On the screen he saw flashing images of the great man from various stages in his life, interspersed with footage of the mourners. “Well,” he said. “You’re Catholic. And a New Englander. And Irish! Those aren’t groups that are known for dancing in the streets, whatever the reason.”
She wiped savagely at her nose. “Not as a family. Besides, you’re not exactly Johnny Emotion. I mean as a country. Why aren’t we more like that as a country? Who do we mourn like that? Who has this country ever mourned like that?”
“I don’t know. Kennedy?”
She sighed. “It wasn’t the same.”
“We weren’t born then.”
“I know. But I’ve seen footage of the funeral procession. It wasn’t the same. Everybody just stood there somberly. No rejoicing. No swaying. This country doesn’t know how to mourn, Gabe. Let’s face it. We just don’t.”
“Nora…”
“Do you know he was in prison for more than a quarter of his life? Twenty-seven years, Gabe. In prison. And we complain when we can’t get a table at Poggio.”
Her eyes were fixed still on the television screen. Now they were showing the current South African president making the announcement. He was at peace now, the great man was at peace. Nora turned to Gabe and buried her face in the sleeve of his shirt. “I’m just sad, Gabe. I’m just really, really sad.”
No way could he tell her. Not now.
CHAPTER 46
ANGELA
Now whenever Edmond Lopez tap-tap-tapped his pencil on his desk Angela concentrated super-hard on not turning around. She didn’t want to see his smile, lazy or not. She was mortified. She had been mortified since October and now it was December but sometimes her mortification was more pronounced than it was at other times—sometimes she would forget all about it, and be plenty occupied with schoolwork and track and extracurricular activities, and other times it would come rushing back over her like a wave, toppling her until she had sand in her face and little bits of seashells in her mouth. She, Angela Hawthorne, valedictorian (for now, anyway), had put Edmond Lopez to sleep. Maria Ortiz was a seductress, a siren, a real and true beauty, and Angela was a human tranquilizer. God.
On the other hand. It was hard not to turn around because she was also trying to avoid eye contact with Ms. Simmons. Just two words, nothing complex, just See me, written on the top of the extended essay. But because Angela hadn’t seen Ms. Simmons yet—she’d seen her, of course, but she hadn’t seen her—she wasn’t really sure where to rest her eyes. She tried the ceiling, briefly,
but she knew that made her look bored and a little bit like a jerk. She tried her lap, her hands, the short story in front of her. Nothing felt right.
How much longer in the class? Twenty minutes.
“All right, then,” said Ms. Simmons. “Who has something cogent to say about George Orwell and the elephant?”
Tap, tap tap. Angela would never have sex.
“Henrietta?”
“Well,” said Henrietta breathlessly, as though she’d just sprinted to class, not been sitting there for twenty-three minutes. “He writes, ‘He was breathing very rhythmically with long rattling gasps, his great mound of a side painfully rising and falling.’ ”
Henrietta wasn’t even looking at the story. She had memorized it. Geez.
Angela would go off to college a virgin and return, four years later, a virgin still. She would be the only virgin to graduate from college, ever. Definitely the only Ivy League virgin. She might become famous for it. Edmond Lopez would see her on the Today show being interviewed by Savannah Guthrie and he’d say, Oh yeah, that girl! I’m not surprised. Did I ever tell you about the time…
“But how do you think Orwell’s views on imperialism changed after he shot the elephant?” said Ms. Simmons. “If indeed they did at all. Angela?”
Tap, tap tap.
See me.
Angela inhaled and searched her scrambled mind for something to say. Suddenly her eyes were full of unshed tears and she shook her head mutely.
Henrietta raised her hand again. “He writes, ‘One could have imagined him thousands of years old.’ I think he’s comparing the age the dying elephant seems to be to the length of time the British have been imperialist rulers.”
Ms. Simmons nodded and called on Olivia Bishop, who said something even more cogent, about the life of the elephant being worth more than the life of the Indian man who had been killed. The coolie. Of course you couldn’t say things like that these days, totally inappropriate. Olivia made little air quotes around her head when she said the word, just so she wouldn’t be accidentally mistaken for a racist.
Time marched on. Edmond’s pencil tap-tap-tapped. Angela’s virginity stood up and made like it was going to announce itself to the class. Gently, she asked it to sit back down. And finally the bell rang.
She was gathering her things when Ms. Simmons said, “Angela? Come see me briefly before you go.” Angela’s stomach dropped.
At the front of the room Ms. Simmons said, “Is everything okay with you, Angela?”
“Fine,” Angela said. “Absolutely fine.” This time she looked Ms. Simmons right in the eye, even though she had to look up to do it. Ms. Simmons had a bunch of inches on Angela. (Who didn’t?) Ms. Simmons raised an eyebrow, just one.
All the things Angela couldn’t say marched through her mind. My father is having an affair with the intern. I can’t look at Edmond Lopez. I’ve never liked the flute! I did read the story, I read it carefully. I just wasn’t paying attention when you called on me. Because I was thinking about being a virgin. What if Henrietta is smarter than I am? It breaks my heart that it took that elephant half an hour to die. And I am so tired. Just so, so, so, so tired.
“It’s nothing,” she said. “Everything is fine.”
And then it happened. Suddenly, without even the whisper of a warning, everything seemed unbearable to her: not just the elephant, but Mrs. Fletcher’s divorce, and her mom’s weird moods, and Maya’s struggles in school, and the fact that Frankie was dead. When her mom found out about the intern, what would happen? Would her parents get a divorce, would Cecily and Maya grow up in a broken home? Who would Angela stay with when she came home from college? She’d have to have two sets of clothes and an extra toothbrush; it would be exhausting.
So then, like a stupid baby, like an idiot, like someone who didn’t even deserve to be valedictorian because she couldn’t control herself, Angela started crying. Blubbering, really. Nose running, eyes streaming, the whole kit and caboodle, as her grandmother would have said.
“Oh, Angela,” said Ms. Simmons, and there was such kindness in her eyes that Angela could see what she must be like with her children, even when they did something wrong. “Angela, I didn’t mean to—” She pulled a bunch of tissues from the box on her desk and pushed them into Angela’s hand. Angela thought Ms. Simmons might hug her but thank God she didn’t, she just pressed her hand firmly to Angela’s shoulder and said, “Come here. I’ve got next period free. I’m going to take you into my office, and you can compose yourself there. There’s something I need to talk to you about anyway.”
CHAPTER 47
CECILY
“We’re baking?” said Maya. “Christmas cookies?” She looked like she was going to hemorrhage happiness.
“For real?” asked Cecily. She dropped her backpack, took off her shoes. “We are?” She still hadn’t gotten used to coming home with her mom instead of Maddie.
“Of course we’re baking,” said her mom, like this was something that happened regularly. “It’s Christmastime, right? Less than two weeks to go. I set this all up before I picked you up so we could get right to it.”
Cecily surveyed the kitchen island. Two mounds of dough, one for her and one for Maya. A rolling pin, wax paper. Cookie cutters in the shapes of reindeer and Santa hats and Christmas trees. Plastic containers of sprinkles and Red Hots. Little tins of frosting.
“Aunt Marianne and I used to do this all the time when we were kids, every year. Come here, I’ll show you how to roll out the dough. This is the trickiest part. Actually, everybody wash hands first. With soap.”
Cecily washed her hands and tried to read the room. Her mom looked slightly less rushed than usual. Not quite calm, but. Not her usual after-school crazed. Maya looked delighted. Angela and her father weren’t home.
Okay, this was good. Baking.
Maya was already into the Red Hots. Cecily’s mom took the container from her and closed it and said, “Listen, you girls need to get your Santa letters out the door. Have you written them yet?”
Cecily didn’t answer. She didn’t know about the Santa letter. There was talk at school and there had been last year too but mostly she didn’t listen…
Or want to listen. But she hadn’t written her letter.
“I need help with mine,” said Maya.
Cecily’s mom was frowning at the dough she was rolling out. She said, “This is sticking.”
“I’ll help you,” Cecily said to Maya.
“I’m going to put a puppy on my Santa list,” said Maya.
“You can’t do that,” said Cecily. “You won’t get it. Santa doesn’t bring puppies.” (She had thought about the same thing.)
“There,” said her mother. “Got it, nice and smooth. This is about how thick you want it. Any thinner and they’ll crack in the oven. Girls? Are you looking?”
“Santa can do anything. He’s Santa. He brought Olivia a puppy last year.”
“Well,” said Cecily. “Don’t count on it.” She didn’t know what had gotten into her. She was usually nicer to Maya. She took the rolling pin and started to roll out her ball.
“You just need a little more flour…,” said her mother. “Here, let me.”
Cecily pulled the rolling pin away. Meanly.
Her mother said, “Hey—”
“Got it,” said Cecily.
It wasn’t the dough. It was…a lot of other things. Cecily hadn’t gotten used to spending so much time at home instead of at the Seamus O’Malley School. When she was home instead of at dance she felt like someone had vacuumed out her insides and then emptied out the vacuum bag into the garbage so that there was nothing left.
Maybe she should have listened to Angela—maybe she should have kept dancing.
Every once in a while she went into her room and put some music on her iPod, a slip jig or a reel, and danced around a little bit to see how it felt. But it wasn’t the same; it wasn’t the same without her Irish friends, and without Seamus. Everything was turned upside
down. She wanted things to go back to the way they were before the fall.
She couldn’t really see the dough anymore, or the rolling pin; her eyes were all blurred up. A big wet tear fell out of her eye and landed in the middle of the dough.
“It’s ruined,” she said. Her voice sounded weird. “It’s all wet, it’s ruined.” She smashed up the dough and threw it across the kitchen. It stuck for just a few seconds to the wall, like it was trying to decide what to do, and then it fell to the ground.
That felt good. And bad.
“Cecily!”
Her mother was staring at her. Maya was staring at her too, with that sort of triumphant look that little kids get when they aren’t the person in the room misbehaving.
“I don’t care,” said Cecily. That was a lie. She did care that she’d thrown the dough. She cared a lot: she wished she could take it back. She still wanted to bake the cookies. “Anyway,” she said. “I miss Maddie. Why’d you fire her?”
Her mother looked startled. “I didn’t fire her. I told you, she had too much schoolwork. Finals. She needed extra time, and things were slow at work for me, so…”
“You fired her,” Cecily said in the tiniest whisper she could create. She waited to get in trouble, but when she looked at her mother her mother didn’t look mad: she looked sad, like she was going to cry herself. That made Cecily feel worse.
Maya said, “Is she—” And her mom held up her hand to stop Maya from talking.
“Oh, honey, come here.”
Into her mom’s sleeve, which smelled like perfume and lemons, she said, “It feels wrong, Mom.” She didn’t mean just the dough. She meant everything: not dancing, and Angela leaving them soon, and Frankie being gone, and not seeing Grandma and Aunt Marianne at Christmas. And Santa…
“What do you mean?”
She hesitated, not sure about the next question. But she really wanted to know. “Is it my fault?”
“Is what your fault?”
“That everyone is mad all the time.”
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