Names are signed with loving care at the bottom of each card. Some cards have tassels, others bear cloth or banners that hang off of the spine or run along the face. The hairs on the back of my neck stand straight and a feeling of misery swells in my belly. I stuff the cards back into the box and place the box back in the drawer. I push myself off the floor, standing upright with the rush of blood flooding my cheeks and forehead.
When I look up from the desk, I see a figure standing in the doorway. My body freezes in terror as I slowly raise my head to meet Mandel’s worried stare.
“What are you doing, Lily?” he asks with a quivering voice.
“I…was merely—“
“You were rummaging through my personal effects.” His voice snaps at me like an accusatory finger. I feel there is no other course of action other than pure truth. I throw my hands out at my sides and let then smack against my thighs saying, “I was.”
Mandel walks around to the drawer that I neglected to shut all the way and stands there, looking into it at the box with all the cards. I feel a strange sense of tranquility as I look at Mandel. I put my hand on his shoulder and ask, “Why didn’t you tell me about your son?”
He steps back. I return my hand to my side as he swivels his chair to sit in it, then asks me to sit with him. As I sit in the chair opposite Mandel, the hovering glare of the bookcase and all the spines doesn’t seem to bother me anymore. Mandel sighs and covers his eyes with his hand, his forefinger and thumb propping up his head as he rests his elbow on the arm of his chair. He begins to speak like this with his face covered, as if he had been the one caught.
“It wouldn’t have been appropriate for me to lay such a terrible tragedy on you. You just started here…” He lets his hand fall from his face but keeps his head down. “And I couldn’t just heap such a thing on you while you began to learn your way around.”
Mandel speaks softly, like he is apologizing.
“When it happened, I didn’t know how to react.” Mandel stuffs his hand into his pocket. “I told myself it was beyond my control...” I notice there is something in his outside lab coat pocket when he walks behind the desk, “But that was a defense to keep me from fully realizing the gravity of the situation. When I broke the news to my wife, I was prepared to catch her in the event that she couldn’t bear it, but she kept her composure.” His hand searches for a second until he grabs the object. “I was the one who fell to the floor weeping.”
I can’t tell what it is but it protrudes against the coat and takes up a lot of space. Now I am obsessed with this distraction, this object in his pocket, and I can barely focus on the rest of what he says. “She held me in her arms and told me it was going to be alright.” I see a piece of black pop out of the top of his pocket. “But it all felt like a dream. It felt like a terrible dream. It still does.”
Then Mandel pulls out the object and holds it in front of his face. The jet black handle looks smooth, the brilliant gold bracing shines under the florescent light. Mandel smiles and hands me the magnifying glass.
I turn it in my hand, holding it close to my face, until I see Mandel’s smile and move it an agreeable length away from my eye. As I examine it, I notice the glass is one solid piece again. I hold it up momentarily and squint one eye, looking through it. The world on the other end of the glass is enhanced. It pours back through in flawless detail. The magnifying glass shines and sparkles, fully restored.
I ask Mandel why he fixed it. He leans in with his elbows on the desk and says, “It’s important to see things clearly, as they are within the world around us. This helps me to remember... even when things are difficult to perceive, one must never stop trying to see.”
“Where did you find it?” I ask, handling the magnifying glass as if it were a child.
“It was a gift from my father one year, though I can’t remember exactly when. He received it from his father, and so it has become a tradition to pass it to the first son. I remember reading Arthur Conan Doyle with my grandfather and hovering the glass over the words so he could read. I played with it so often that one day I shattered the glass. I was so mad at myself. I kept the broken thing hidden from my father for as long as I could till…one day, he asked why I wasn’t out with the magnifying glass snooping for clues. I had it wrapped up in a cloth and when I presented it to my father, he laughed. I felt all the worries go flying out of me in that moment.”
Mandel sighs as tears form at the corners of his eyes. He smiles, his cheeks push the corners of his eyes up and the tears fall precipitously down his cheek.
“We fixed it that day. As I matured and grew older, it came to represent a truth. The truth that even when our ability to observe is compromised, even when the tools we use are themselves failing, there can be a way to mend. There can be resolution.”
Mandel shakes his head, letting out a laugh through his smiling mouth. I grab the smooth handle and peer through the glass at Mandel. He appears upside down, stretched out; his eyes look massive and dark. The whole room behind the glass is inverted and wobbly, like looking at a funhouse mirror. But when I extend my arm, the image is corrected, and through the glass I see Mandel smiling back at me. Well, maybe he’s right, but I doubt a magnifying glass can fix his son, and I let it rest in my lap.
Mandel tells me a magnifying glass has many parts to it, it has many lenses working together to form one precise image. I think about this while inspecting the wonderfully gorgeous thing again. I notice that inscribed on the golden band that secures the glass, there is an inscription that reads: Aere Perennius. I run my thumb over the inscription as I gaze into the grooves in the band.
“It means something like eternity.”
I look up with wide eyes at Mandel, asking, “What does?”
“That inscription. My grandfather had it engraved. Every time I’d ask my grandfather what it meant, he gave me varying answers. To him, it meant a great many things, I suppose. That...or he couldn’t remember the meaning himself. Who knows?”
All this history and love is wrapped up in my hand and I suddenly feel my heart plunge, as I remember my reason for arriving at Mandel’s door. I have an aching feeling in my back that skips into my hand, tearing up every tendon and nerve as it makes its way through my arms.
I gingerly set the magnifying glass on Mandel’s desk and cross my legs, then my hands, and begin to bounce my foot as I set my eyes to the floor. Finally, I just ask, “Do you think Maddox hurt your son?” The question rips through the air, snatching out any happiness in the room. I ask with so much gusto it almost sounds like I’m provoking Mandel, prodding him to answer me.
Mandel sits back in his chair with a finger tapping his lips. His eyes search the room, shifting from left to right and down until they snap on me. Now his hand covers and rubs his mouth as he shakes his head, saying, “I don’t know.”
I apologize for asking him the question, lowering my head and listing all the reasons it was a terrible question to ask in my head, but he quickly returns with, “I want it to be him. I want to blame Maddox because it feels good to have someone to blame. I don’t know how long it’ll last... I just know the little satisfaction I’ve had from blaming him has only provided an infinitesimal amount of relief.”
“I went to his room and tried talking to him, but he was too irate. He called the nurses on me.” I raised my eyebrows. “Like I’m some kind of a big threat to a guy like that.” We both smiled and Mandel even let a laugh stir in his chest. It felt good to loosen up a little and I was beginning to feel more relaxed, more like my old self again, not holding in a ton of tension. So I told him about the agreement between me and his brother, how I was going to aid in the investigation. He thanked me and told me it was a noble thing to do.
“So, what happens next? I mean, with the police and your brother’s investigation?”
He shrugged. “It’s out of our hands now, Lily.”
I purse my lips and give an understanding nod. “By the way, I’m sorry about your son...his inj
uries, well...his condition and all.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
I push the palms of my hands down the fabric of my skirt and make a motion like I want to stand up. “I guess I should get back to work now.”
Mandel leans forward, taking the magnifying glass from where I had laid it on his desk. As I walk out, I look back one last time to see him lazily twirling the black handle between his thumb and forefinger. Then I walk out of his office and I send my feet down the hall toward the nearest exit.
Chapter 17
I have been sitting outside the building for ten minutes before I realize I am on the bench for shuttles and pickups. The whole time, I’m completely trapped within myself. I shift on the bench, hoping to find a position that allows me to think without the pain of the wobbly backrest digging into me.
Only a few hours ago, I had considered Mandel to be an overbearing dreg of a human being, but now, in the after light of his warm smile, he takes on a less sinister visage. Shifting again, the seat offers its aid to the backrest in my discomfort. I guess I wanted him to be the bad guy. My brain only functions well if it is generalizing everything, saving the important synapses for work.
Mandel is right when he says the situation is out of our hands. Maddox is out of my hands, but I don’t want him to be. Despite everything that has happened, I still very much want him “in my hands”. I walk back into the building with less weight pulling me down, no longer beset by Mandel and Maddox anymore. I no longer have to split myself into two separate people. But the ties that connect me to both Mandel and Maddox are frayed, not broken, which gives me hope and soon my thoughts fill with Maddox as I work.
I’m not free from Mandel, either. His words and our meeting are still bounding along the edges of my mind. The two thoughts are kept in the background, but occasionally, when I let my mind wander, they come rushing up to me. As I walk the cold, chemical hallways on my way to see a patient, the thoughts of Mandel and Maddox appear as an apparition in front of me.
Why has it all come to this? Is it so damn hard for Maddox to just tell me the truth? Why did Mandel have to wait till he caught me in his office to tell me about his son?
It all feels like the world has bundled itself up and hidden away from me. I am floating in some stretch of space, watching all the gas and dust build on itself, and in every direction, there is another world bound and fading in the mist of the universe. How is it that I got this close to everyone and now feel as if I am miles out from everything? Even though I feel like there’s no hope in talking to Maddox, I still want to see him; but for now, I need to see Ms. Margaret. I owe her an apology.
I say her name in my head and it rings so loudly, shaking down my neck until the guilt settles at the base of my back. I can already see the conversation we are going to have. It will be me, saying sorry in a silent room while she stares her crushing gaze at me.
She will lay those heavy eyes into me like a wrecking ball. So be it. I need her to know it wasn’t her fault for my reaction. So I head to her room and each step that brings me closer to her door also drives a heaving slab of nervousness on my shoulders. It seems straightforward at the beginning, but now that I’m rounding the corner to the hallway, I feel the plan is inherently flawed. What the hell am I going to say?
I inch down the hallway with the regret baking my mouth and drying my tongue. Am I going to force my way in her room and say, “Oh, hey there, Ms. Margaret. How ya doin? Remember when I ranted and raved at you like a screaming banshee? Totally sorry about that. Have a nice day. Friends?’ As far as I know, she is plotting to choke me as soon as she sees me.
The door is a few steps in front of me. I blow out all the air in my lungs and breathe in deep. All the chemicals, all the bleach and ammonia, are sucked up into my lungs with the little bit of oxygen that is pumped through the vents from the polluted air outside. I open the door and enter the room. Ms. Margaret raises her head from her book to see who entered. She squints and refocuses her eyes on me. At first, they are glossy and not entirely set on me. I stretch a smile on my face like a white flag, hoping she will return the gesture, but as soon as her eyes behold me in clarity, they switch, like the eyes of a great white shark with blood in its nostrils.
I have learned over the few interactions with this woman that it’s impossible to beat her in an argument. Even now as I come to her to apologize, she has the ability to twist the conversation, bending it to her will and yielding the exact answer she wants. The only thing I can do here is dictate the first word. I have that and little else, so before her lower lip even has time to split from the top I say, “Let’s not do this.”
She closes her book and moves it to her side, almost as if she is clearing the line of fire from any obstacles. With my hands up and my palms facing, her I say, “Let’s not do this whole forgiveness thing. I know you probably don’t want to hear anything I have to say and that’s fine--I understand that--but can we just skip the bullshit and pretend we hate each other again?” She tilts her head to one side, tonguing her cheek and squinting at me.
Then, in a low voice, she replies, “Well, we don’t have to pretend anymore, huh?”
“I don’t want this to be weirder than it already has been. We can leave it alone.”
She straightens her head and lowers her eyebrows at me like a bull lowering its horns. “You just want to get out of it like that? And leave me no opportunity to forgive you?” She lets out a little chuckle and rubs her eyes with her thumb and index finger. “Fine…” she says, dropping her hand in her lap.
“You do not have my forgiveness.” She says it with no flare or gusto whatsoever. The words just leave her mouth and hang in the air like wet clothes on a line.
Even though her eyes are on me, I feel invisible. It’s like she’s staring at the wall behind me. I feel my cheeks flush and the hallway beckon me to fly out of the room and rush towards the exit again for the millionth time in, I don’t know how many days. Here we go again, me always running away from difficult confrontations.
“Is there anything else?” she says, opening her book and moving her eyes over the words. I tell her there isn’t and leave. I close the door behind me, but by the time I take my third step, I can’t move. I feel the same anxious sensation I did when I was yelling at Maddox. My feet want to move forward and be done with it, but I refuse to be moved by impulse.
Every voice in my head is screaming, drowning out the coherent logic that governs my choices, yet in this sea of confusion I feel warm and settled. I turn back for the door and enter the room again. I pull up a chair to Ms. Margaret’s bed and start talking. I tell her I respect her, that I have no reason or explanation for it, but still I respect her. I tell her I was angry that Maddox didn’t talk at all, that I failed. I tell her about Jonathan. I tell her I don’t know what I am doing anymore. It all feels like a bad experiment. I tell her I can’t stop thinking about Maddox; that I am attracted to him and I hate the thought that he might be a killer and I don’t want him to be a killer, because despite everything that has happened--I still like him.
Ms. Margaret just looks at me the whole time. She says nothing as I rant. She doesn’t nod or let me know she is angry or sad or fed up. She just sees me, like before when we were in the hallway. She says it all in her stare. She doesn’t have to waste words on me, she can just see the truth in me.
By the time I get home, my eyes can barely be kept open. I open the door to my apartment, straining to set one foot in front of the other. I walk into my room and pour myself into my bed. The sheets curl and fold beneath my cheek as the exhaustion from the day spreads throughout my body. In the final moments before I completely sink into sleep, Ms. Margaret passes into my thoughts. Her eyes have the brevity of an entire world. She can explain things with her stare. She used her vision not only to interpret the world around; she can say something back, too, with just her sight.
She doesn’t hide behind her eyes like I do. A lot of things can be revealed with just the placement of y
our eyes. She lets you in; she invites you to explain, to talk more, to posit your ideas. When you talk to someone like that, someone who listens like that, you see the mistakes, the flaws, the trivialities embedded in your own speech.
That’s why nobody ever messes with Ms. Margaret. She has the power to make you see your own lies. She turns every word back on you and the words build up a shaky monument. The more you speak, the more it grows, and eventually it topples over on you and then you are standing there, neck-deep in a massive pile of your own bullshit. That’s why I respect her. Damn, I should have said all this to her face.
Chapter 18
My eyes shut and I feel the dreams and the warmth filling up my head. Upstairs, Bharati’s speakers play music and I’m lulled to sleep by the sound of a lamenting horn. Just before I fall out of consciousness, I ask myself in what dream will Maddox visit me tonight? In that brief moment, I can imagine Maddox holding me. I can see him lying next to me and telling me everything is going to be alright.
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