by Sarah Bruni
“It’s okay,” Jake said. He pushed him back to the pillow. “You passed out.”
Peter nodded. “For how long?”
“A few hours,” he said.
“I haven’t been sleeping,” Peter said. He felt the impulse to defend himself. “I’ve been having these dreams.”
“It’s okay,” Jake said again.
Peter began remembering then. “I punched you,” he said.
Jake nodded. His mouth tightened.
“I came here to rescue someone else,” Peter admitted. “I dreamed someone who was trying to kill himself the same way you did.”
“You rescue a lot of people?” Jake said quietly.
Peter shook his head. “No one,” he said. “I have never done it right yet.”
“You rescued Gwen,” Jake said. “She said so.”
Peter blinked. “From what?” he asked. But before his brother could answer, he said, “I got her in trouble is all I’ve done. I’ve done her more harm than anyone.” But then he remembered: she was supposed to be here. “She was here in the apartment?” he asked. “You saw her here?”
Jake nodded.
Peter felt his stomach fold in his chest. “Where is she?”
“She’s coming,” Jake said. “She’ll be here soon.”
Peter stared into the ceiling. She was coming. She would be here. He exhaled hours of worry. He said, “How did she find you?”
Jake looked away for a minute into the other room. He said, “She kidnapped me.”
Peter felt the tiny hairs on the back of his neck rise.
“What?” he said. “I don’t understand.”
“She was angry with me, I guess. There was this stray dog I was looking after, and Gwen thought it was a wild animal I was trying to unlawfully domesticate, and she pulled a gun on me, tied me up and everything.”
“She tied you up?”
“Yeah, the dog and me both,” Jake said. “She must have taken the dog with her ’cause she’s not around, but you’ll have to see her when she comes back. Beautiful dog,” Jake continued. “I started calling her Patch, you know, after our old dog. Remember, you know how Patch was, real smart and the way his ears—”
Peter cut him off. “Patch is dead.”
“Well, I figured,” Jake said quietly. “It’s been twenty years. The best ones don’t make it past fourteen.”
“No, not like you think,” Peter said. “It was right after you left. I watched him run from our property into the field behind the house.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean he didn’t stick around either,” Peter said roughly, frustrated by the need to translate for his brother. Wolves lived in the woods behind the house. Foxes were sighted. Jake knew this as well as he did.
It was quiet for a minute. They were taking turns, asking questions, trying to fill in the gaping holes of all that had happened with facts they could trade.
Jake spoke then, a whisper. He said, “Why did you kidnap her?”
Peter raised his voice. “Did she say that?” The thought of Gwen betraying him in this way made his stomach churn. He had offered this to her, this story as a possible alibi, but he didn’t think she’d use it.
“Relax,” Jake said. “She didn’t have to say it. She’s all over the news.”
“We were only pretending,” Peter said. “Gwen asked me to point the gun at her.”
“Gwen’s her real name?”
Peter considered this. He could feel his brother testing him. “It’s the name I gave her,” he said. But that sounded wrong, conceited, as if he thought he could walk around handing out new names to everyone, so he said, “It’s more like a nickname.”
Jake nodded. Then he said, “She called you Peter.”
Peter swallowed.
“You found my comic books,” Jake said.
“Yeah, I found them,” Peter said. “I snuck them out of your room when Mom started throwing all your stuff away. I pretended that you had left them there for me to find.”
“You read them all?” Jake said. “I had quite a collection.”
Peter stared off into the kitchen. “I was lonely,” he said, as if in defense. “I had just learned to read.”
He wanted to explain about the dreams, this apartment, about Gwen and their journey, all of it, but Jake was talking over him then, saying, “Shhh, later Seth. Tell me later.” Jake was folding the towel over his forehead again, he was telling him to go back to sleep. Peter allowed himself to close his eyes again; it was quiet for a long time. Then he started to hear Jake’s voice speaking to him, speaking quietly while he slept, like his brother wanted to be the first to explain. He could feel Jake by his bedside the whole time, and sometimes he heard bits of things he said, like a car radio passing in and out of range. He heard Jake speaking, but couldn’t pull all the words together. He felt the pressure of his brother’s hands fold the towel again and again over his forehead. He heard him speak the names of familiar things. The name of their dog, the name of the park near the house, people they had known in Iowa. He heard him speak the name of their mother.
The lake. The way he dreamed it was the same as always: there are tiny tremors of waves touching the rocks close to shore, retreating. Always the water there is black and full of living things: things with gills and spores; things with lungs must keep treading water.
A crowd is gathered around. A crowd is waiting for word. There is the camera. There is the microphone.
Algae, garbage, pieces of silt.
Sheila, her hair drenched and floating. Her eyes open wide as a swimmer’s.
It was late when Peter woke up alone in the living room with a glass of water in his hand. He stood from the couch quickly and started making his way from room to room. “Sheila,” he said aloud. Jake had said she was coming; hours ago she had been on her way. He started looking through the rooms. “Sheila?” he said into every dark room of his brother’s apartment. The door to Jake’s bedroom had been closed. It was late now; the sun had gone down long ago. He reached for the doorknob of his brother’s room but thought better of it. He reached for the switch on the television. He needed something else to look at to stop seeing the way her eyes had looked in the water. He needed to watch something moving for a while until morning came. He turned on the television and sat back down on the couch. The couch smelled of Sheila, and for a moment it settled him to find a trace of her.
On the television, it was difficult at first to say what he was seeing, except to say it was the lake. It was the lake as he’d dreamed it. A crowd had gathered. There was the man with the microphone. He was speaking to the camera, and behind him was a crowd, a stretcher, a searchlight trawling slowly through the water and settling on a place close to shore, the shallow parts, where the rocks stood up at odd angles like the ends of sunken boats. There was a swarm of orange vests, circling a bit of land like hurried animals, gathered around the water as if they were trying to pull something out of it. Peter stood in front of the television and waited for the camera to settle on the thing in the water. He felt a warm pulse move from his head out to each of his extremities.
NOVAK AWOKE TO THE uneasy feeling that he was being watched. He had left Seth sleeping on the couch with a pillow and a blanket hours ago, but as Novak forced his eyes open, he was startled to find his brother standing over his own bed.
“Jesus Christ,” Novak said. “What are you doing?”
“I need a ride to the hospital,” Seth said.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m dying,” Seth said.
“You’re not dying,” Novak said. “Go back to sleep.”
“Okay,” Seth said. “You would know better than me. I just swallowed everything in the cabinet in your bathroom.”
Novak sat up in bed.
“So am I dying?” Seth asked.
Novak was looking for his pants. He was looking for the light switch to find his pants. He said, “Get in the truck.”
Seth didn’t
say another word. He walked to the passenger side of the truck parked on the street and was already sitting in it a few minutes later when Novak found the keys and made his way toward it.
Novak started the engine. He began to drive fast. He said, “Don’t put your fucking head down. Talk to me,” he said. “Start talking.”
At first Seth didn’t say anything, and Novak thought he was already losing him. He thought he was starting to go to sleep. He reached over and slapped his brother’s face. He said, “Talk to me.”
Seth’s eyes watered but would not focus. He said, “They’re looking for her body in the lake.”
So the drugs were working quick. His brother was already talking nonsense, but he had to keep him talking. Novak spoke quietly. He said, “Whose body, Seth?”
“Sheila,” Seth said. “Gwen.”
Novak tightened his hands on the wheel. He said, “How do you know that?”
“The cameras there,” said Seth. “I dreamed it. I saw it on TV.”
Seth’s voice had started to drone. His head was shifting with the road. Novak said, “Keep talking.”
“They’re coming for me,” Seth said.
“Jesus, Seth, no one’s coming for you,” Novak said. “We’re getting you some help.”
Seth started to laugh then, a quiet laugh.
Novak pulled up to the hospital and called to two orderlies standing around. He needed their help to lift Seth from the truck; his body had become heavy. Novak pulled at his brother’s hair. He slapped his face.
Seth’s eyes were rolling back and forth in his head. “I’ve changed my mind,” he said softly. He sounded like a child again, the way he spoke to Novak. “Is that okay?”
“It’s okay,” Novak said. He started to think of his mother then. The thought came quickly and landed hard in his chest: he wanted to see his mother. As he watched the men push Seth’s body flat onto the stretcher and wheel him through the sliding glass doors, he thought back to his mother, no older than Novak was now, with her hands hard on his face. Novak hadn’t wanted to be found. He had shut himself inside his closet for half a day, curled still beneath a pile of dirty laundry. He hadn’t wanted to be found, and he hadn’t changed his mind when he woke up in the hospital to his mother’s hands on his face—two days after she’d dug him up from the linens and dragged him into the living world of his childhood bedroom.
The night before, he had tried to ask Seth about their mother. Between his brother’s long bouts of sleep, Novak had gone to the refrigerator and pulled out two beers. He thought a cold drink would do them both good. He walked into the living room and offered Seth one of the cans. Seth propped his head up slowly onto the arm of the couch, like a kid home from school preparing to swallow a spoonful of some sort of antibiotic. Novak tried to offer Seth the glasses that had fallen from his face when he passed out, but Seth waved them away. “I don’t really need those to see,” he said.
“No?”
“They’re more like a disguise.”
Novak nodded. Coming from his brother, this somehow wasn’t entirely surprising. It was hard to see Seth as an adult, despite his size, despite the tenor of his voice; his mannerisms were the same as they had been at six. He had a tendency to blink too much when nervous. His posture was atrocious. But Novak felt like it was time; he had been explaining his side of things up until this point, and now he had questions whose answers he wanted to hear.
“How’s mom?”
Seth shrugged his shoulders. He took a sip from his can. “Fantastic,” he said flatly and looked at the ceiling. “She’s starting to act like an old lady already.”
“She’s sixty-two.”
Seth raised his eyebrows. “You’ve been keeping track of birthdays all the way out here, but never bothered to write home for one of them.”
Novak looked at the floor. The truth was he wrote a letter almost every year. He had a shoebox full of handwritten letters beneath his bed, addressed to his mother.
“When’s mom’s birthday?” Seth asked.
“November seventh,” Novak said.
“When’s mine?” Seth asked.
“January eighteenth. You turned twenty-six this year.” Ask me anything, he wanted to say to his brother, as if a few minutes of trivia could make up for so many years of absent acknowledgement. It was only that acknowledging the passing years at all became increasingly difficult as so many began to pile up on one another, that his handwritten notes seemed pathetic, unwarranted, a selfish desire to dredge up a past that everyone else had already ceased thinking about. He was beginning to understand only now that wasn’t really the way it was.
Seth said, “Sixty-two is young. Her brain is young, but it’s getting lazy. She’s eating almonds and berries for meals like a squirrel or some kind of scavenger animal that hordes things.” Novak smiled, but Seth wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t making eye contact at all anymore. He spoke to the carpet in the living room. “She stopped working at the hospital three years ago already, and so much time alone isn’t good for her, you know, and I’m trying, I mean, I’m trying to be there as much as I can.” He looked up now and met Novak’s eyes, and Novak could see Seth’s eyes were glazed and blinking like crazy. “I never should have left her,” Seth said. “I never should have left her alone, but I thought I had to do it.”
Novak said, “She’s an adult. It’s okay.”
And Seth said, “No, it isn’t.” His voice shook, but his point, his accusation, was made regardless. Novak had already freed himself of such obligations long ago. If anything happened to their mother, it was Seth who would consider himself responsible. Novak was a wildcard, an extra, an other, beside the point. There was no one who depended on him anymore. He had done what he had done in Iowa because he wanted to be free of so many obligations, and he’d gotten what he wanted. He was free. It was a terrible feeling.
He was in the waiting room, waiting again. He was waiting for the doctor, but when finally a man stood over him, Novak looked up to find a police officer in plain clothes flashing his badge.
“Jake Novak?” the man said.
Novak stood up.
“Your relation to the patient?”
“He’s my brother,” Novak said.
“This way please, Mr. Novak,” the man said. He began to walk, and it seemed the man would take him to Seth, but he led Novak into a vacant hospital room and closed the door.
Novak looked to each of the room’s empty beds. He said, “Is he going to make it?”
The officer produced a notepad and flipped it open. “I’m not a doctor, Mr. Novak. The doctors are doing what they can. In the meantime, I need to ask you about your relation to Seth Novak.”
“I thought I just told you he’s my brother.”
“Mr. Novak,” he said again, “are you aware that your brother is wanted by the police?”
Novak had to make a split-second decision. There were two sides to every story, and in that moment he decided he would stick with one version and plead innocent to the other. “What for?” he asked.
“Armed robbery,” the man said. “Illegal possession of a firearm. Abduction of a minor. Grand theft auto.”
“It’s a mistake,” Novak said. “You’ve got the wrong guy.”
“Oh, it’s no mistake, I can assure you of that,” the officer said. “Did you know anything of your brother’s plans to abduct this woman?” The officer produced a photograph of Sheila and placed it in Novak’s hands.
Novak lifted the photograph. “Gwen Stacy,” he said. “That’s his girlfriend.”
The officer shook his head. “This woman’s name is Sheila Gower. She was abducted from her place of employment in Coralville, Iowa, five weeks ago. Did your brother ever speak to you about this woman?”
“Yeah, just yesterday,” Novak said. “He told me he was in love with her.”
The officer wrote something down in his notepad.
When Seth woke up, Novak was allowed into the room. The police officer was already standing
in the hallway, waiting, when Novak approached. The doctor opened the door, and together Novak and the officer advanced toward Seth.
Seth was in bed, propped up with pillows. He didn’t watch either of them walk into the room. He stared straight ahead at the wall directly across from him.
“Seth Novak,” the officer spoke first. “I need to advise you that you’re under arrest.”
Seth said nothing. He stared at the wall. Then he said, “I confess.”
“Confess?” Novak shouted. “Confess to what? You were with me all last night.” Novak turned to the officer. “He was with me all night. What happened to Sheila Gower has nothing to do with him. My brother is confused.”
“Mr. Novak,” the officer interrupted, “I’m going to have to ask you to either settle down or leave the room.”
Seth continued speaking to the wall as if he’d heard nothing. He said, “Gwen Stacy died because of my negligence. I accept culpability for my error.”
Novak walked to his brother’s bedside. He pushed his hand into Seth’s hand. He began speaking low. “Listen to me, Seth,” he said. “Shut up and listen. Peter Parker is a good man. He did the best he could to save Gwen Stacy. You know he didn’t kill her. There was somebody else on the bridge that night, remember?”
Seth continued staring at the wall, but he nodded his head. He looked up at Novak.
“Mr. Novak,” the officer was saying again, but this time it was unclear which of them he’d meant to address.
“Who else was on the bridge, Seth?”
“The Green Goblin,” Seth said quietly. He closed his eyes.
“That’s right,” Novak said. “The Green Goblin killed Gwen Stacy.” Novak was making headway. He felt it in his chest. A small victory, a matter of simple, sound logic, and he would prove his brother innocent. Somewhere in the city, there was a green goblin on whose presence all of this could be blamed, some alternate evil force or deed that could explain these false accusations. Novak turned to the officer who again had taken up his notepad. “I hope you’re getting all this.”