Origin

by Diana Abu-Jaber

  THE NEXT MORNING, DISTANT RINGING WAKES ME, THEN A VOICE floats through the walls. I’m curled up in my clothes, alone in the guest bedroom. A low, sand-colored light warms the windows beneath the drawn shades. Gradually, I wake enough to make out Keller saying, “Yes, yes, last night. She’s fine—sleeping—”

  I wait inside my cave of blankets, listening.

  Keller drifts back and forth, talking. Last night, I’d hooked the door on its little silver latch, but it stays propped open a sliver, so now I watch Keller’s shadow flickering from place to place. Then I hear the phone click and the shadow stops outside the door. I get up and unlatch it.

  He’s wearing a soft old pair of plaid pajama bottoms and his hair is rumpled. He comes closer. “I wondered why you left.”

  “I—I just—” I gesture at the room behind me. “I liked it in here.”

  He’s smiling, so close our bare feet touch. “I’m relieved you didn’t run off again.”

  I can smell the warm aftermath of sleep rising from his skin. I have a great urge to slide my hands under his arms, encircle him, press my nose into the hair and the small valley at the center of his chest. But the feelings make me dizzy: I hold back, clinging to the doorframe. “I’m pretty much done with running around in the cold for now.”

  His eyes lift to my hair. His smile deepens and he reaches for me: I step backward and he steps forward. And I hear myself saying, “I can’t, I can’t.”

  “What, you ‘can’t’? Sure you can,” he says. There’s laughter in his voice. He tries to draw me back, following me, his hands sliding along my arms, breathing into my hair. I’m disoriented by the rush of it all. I lower my head and put my forearms up between us.

  “What is it?” His hold loosens. “What’s wrong?”

  I shake my head. “This won’t—I can’t do it, I’m sorry. Really, I’m sorry.” I keep my head lowered. “I think—I don’t know—it’s too fast for me. Too—something.”

  “Fast?” He stops, lowers his arms, and just looks at me. “But I thought, last night. . . .” He looks at me helplessly. “Things seemed fine.”

  “I know. I guess I just, I don’t know. Maybe I need more time with it all. To think.” I know how strange and inarticulate I sound. And I want to say, Never mind, come back! But I just can’t do it. It’s not fear—not purely fear. But something furtive and animal inside of me.

  Keller reaches for me again, then stops, the gesture nearly protective now, yet uncertain. He ends up shrinking back, crossing his arms. “If that’s how you want it.” He clears his throat. “I guess I should tell you that was your boss on the phone.” He pauses, his eyes tracking mine. “He says they got slammed with reporters at the Lab—they got worried when you didn’t answer the phone at your apartment.”

  “What did you say?” I don’t loosen my hold on the doorframe.

  “Mainly just that you’re here.”

  “But then . . .” I consider this. “Why did Frank call you?”

  He shrugs, still watching me. “I guess he knows you and I are friends. Well. Sort of friends.” He leans against the door. “Anyway, they’re calling all over the place. He says Alyce’s going nuts, saying she chased you away. They’re all worried. You should tell them something.”

  “I will,” I mutter. “Monday.”

  Keller looks at me again, waiting, perhaps, for me to change my mind, tell him I was only fooling. Finally, something in him seems to give. He sighs and drops his hands, as if at a loss. I ask if he’ll give me the tour. At first he looks as if he has no idea what to make of me. Then he sighs and says, “Sure, why not?”

  I follow him through the place. The room I slept in is at the back of the house, a hallway leads to a guest bath, a master bedroom, then a large kitchen, a small dining area (dining table piled with folders, letters, magazines—Police Journal, Field and Stream, American Woodworker) adjacent to a living room with an enclosed porch in front. Each room tucked neatly in front of the next like boxcars on a train. Its simple geometry strikes me as elegant and sensible. Each room is painted a pale tropical color—yellow kitchen, ivory hallway, turquoise bathroom; the living room and dining room are faint tones of sea foam and sand.

  It’s like a house on the beach—the notched, whitewashed floors, mats of sea grass, and windows glimmering with lights, there are even hatchlike skylights in the kitchen and two bedrooms. He knocks on bookcases, the dining room table and chairs, and tells me that he built them. “I’ve been fixing this place up for a long, long time. Just rattling around in it. Design, carpentry . . .” he says and pauses for a moment. “Really I just like to have my hands on stuff.”

  Keller’s house is deeply appealing; it seems as if this is not only a home, but the best and most obvious way to arrange things. And as I walk through the house, touching his belongings, I can’t help thinking of my own apartment in the St. James, reflecting on all the ways I have failed at making a “home.” In his bedroom, I notice the conch shell on the nightstand by Keller’s bed: it’s a giant thing, gleaming, petal-shaped, unfurling rose-lips, heavy as porcelain—alive and sexy.

  “Wonderful.” I pick it up and study this artifact for a few moments, turning it over. I notice Keller watching me, his gaze dark and ready, an invitation. I put the shell down, then guiltily swipe at it with my scarf.

  “It’s okay, Lena,” he says as we turn toward the door. “I won’t be dusting for prints.”

  A television is on in a corner of the living room, flashing a hockey game. I sit on the couch and Keller picks up the remote as if to switch it off, but I stop him. “Do you suppose we could watch the news?”

  Another befuddled, vaguely amused glance. He flips through the channels till there’s a reporter in a blazer, pointing to a playground set, the words Poison Alert glow beneath her. I settle into his couch; it has an appealing, compact shape that reminds me of the conch shell in his room. Keller dresses, then we sit next to each other and look at the news report, but it’s hard for me to concentrate—there’s too much around me for me to take in. Outside the living room windows, showers of snow come loose from trees, black-winged butterflies float through my peripheral vision. I hear the crisp television voices rising and falling:

  “Syracuse police report they will be renewing their hunt for the so-called Blanket Killer, who has been implicated in as many as eight recent unexplained infant deaths in Onondaga Country. Todd Haynes, Syracuse police spokesperson, describes their suspect as a possible Unabomber-style assailant.”

  Keller moves to slip into the chair nearest the TV, leaning toward it. Haynes’s wooden face flashes on the screen and Keller says scornfully, “That guy.”

  Haynes is wearing a business suit; he leans against a podium piled up with mics. “We believe we’re dealing with a deeply disturbed individual . . .”

  Keller snorts.

  “This may be someone with an agenda—trying to make some sort of misguided social protest or statement, if you will. And yes, to answer your earlier question, we are also actively exploring the possibility of ties to terror cells.”

  The camera switches back to the broadcaster saying, “Both Syracuse police and the sheriff’s department are operating hotlines. They ask anyone with possible leads on these cases to call at . . .”

  After the report, Keller snaps off the remote and says, “Eight now? Where’d they get that number?”

  My head feels heavy, waterlogged; I press my right temple and feel the throb of my pulse through the skin. “Can they do that? It isn’t true. Can they just make it up?”

  “Well, if one paper reports a bunch of new deaths, the others jump on it, they’re so obsessed with not getting scooped.”

  “It’s not a terrorist,” I say.

  He tilts his head back a little and looks at me through narrowed eyes. “Why not?”

  I look out at the clumps of sno
wfall, but I’m thinking about the fuzzy little blanket tucked in the toy box. “It feels more personal. The killer was very particular—sending blankets right to the families’ home addresses.”

  “Not so different from the anthrax killer.”

  “But to go after babies? Not public figures, CEO types?”

  “You mean the sorts of people we’d all like a crack at?” He smiles. “You’re assuming that terrorists have reasonable rationales. Not just trying to scare us shitless.”

  “Who knows?” I mutter. I sigh and sit back, eyes closed, running my hand over the nubbly upholstery. I swish it back and forth. “Your house is so, so nice.” I rest my elbow on the back of the couch. There’s a lovely old fireplace opposite the couch with a marble mantelpiece and some ashes under the grate.

  He smiles vaguely. “Well, I like it better now.”

  My mood slides into uneasiness. “I didn’t mean to mess up . . . your schedule . . . and all.” I put my hands on my knees to stand. “I should probably get—”

  “Please don’t.” He looks alarmed. “Well, if you don’t mind . . .” He clears his throat. “Can we at least just sit and talk about things—last night—for a second here? I mean, it seems like maybe you’ve already thought this all out.” He dips his head a bit and says, “I’d like to propose that—I mean, right, we had our—I don’t know what—we had our night, last night, okay? I don’t know what that meant to you exactly.” He studies the painted wooden floor. “It’s not like that happens all that much for me. I mean—me and another woman like that. In, um, bed. I mean, of course, it happens. Okay—anyway. That’s neither here nor there. I guess. But the thing is?” He points to the window. “I really, really don’t want to be worrying that you’re going back out there.” There’s something sweet and deft in his voice.

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. No, I like to think I have a bit of an instinct for this sort of thing myself, and I don’t like the direction this case is starting to take—the way you’re getting pulled into things, chased away from the office and hounded by reporter people.” He sits back and folds his arms over his chest, his shoulders high. “I really don’t want to ever have to worry about you freezing yourself to death. I mean, you remember I’m a cop, right? I’ve actually seen it happen. People do freeze to death up here. It’s not unheard-of.”

  “Sorry,” I mumble. “That wasn’t actually my plan.”

  “Good, good.”

  “There were all those reporters at the Lab, and I had to get out, and I just, sort of, lost my bearings.” I remember something. “You know yesterday afternoon?”

  He smiles.

  “No—I—I mean, before that—” Face burning, I laugh. “I mean, when you found me out on the street? How did you know where to find me?”

  “How did I?” He seems stuck for a moment. Then his expression lifts. “Oh—I followed you.”

  I draw in my chin.

  He slips his hands into his pockets and looks out the big window. “I came to the Lab first thing, soon as I saw the paper. I had a feeling the media would be after you. I wanted to be there if you needed help. Of course, when Alyce ran out to you, she tipped them all off that you were there.” He cuts his hand through the air. “You looked so . . . wild. I didn’t know if you wanted to talk to anyone. I figured I’d just make sure you got home okay. And then you didn’t go home.”

  I look out at the fir trees heaped with inches of bluish white snow. “You actually followed me? But I was walking around all day. For, like, hours.”

  “Yeah, that took a while.” He laughs and jingles the change in his pocket. “When you went into that café? By SU? That’s where I lost you. I never saw you come out. . . .”

  I squint through the window again. I can see our trail from yesterday, starting at Keller’s car, cutting across the yard, softening with new snowfall. “I can’t believe you waited like that. Not saying anything.”

  He shrugs. “Don’t be too impressed. I lost you. I would’ve been sunk if that’d been a stakeout. That’s why you were about frozen before I finally tracked you down again.” He says this lightly, but I can tell that he does blame himself. “I should’ve spoken to you instead of trailing around behind you. But I didn’t know if you really wanted rescuing and then I started to feel like a moron. Like you’d think I was some kind of lurker in his Camaro.”

  “God, you were out in all that weather,” I marvel.

  “Oh well . . .” his voice tapers off, he looks down. “So were you, remember?” There’s a bump of silence. Then he scrubs at his hair with one hand. “Anyway—I was saying? About maybe you staying here? I mean, it doesn’t have to be for forever or anything.” He laughs a sharp, anxious laugh. “I’m not trying to hold you captive. But I—I’d like you to know you’re welcome here—for as long as you want. It seems like you might be avoiding your place—I know what reporters can be like. And I want you to be safe, Lena. You know? Does that sound creepy? But I want to say it.”

  I touch his knee—which reminds me of how much I like touching him. I don’t quite know why the events of last night happened, except that maybe being half frozen is like being half drunk. And today, my old boundaries are back. Not entirely restored—slightly compromised, I’d say. We are closer than we were, but neither of us knows how close that is. I roll forward to match his posture. “Thanks, Keller,” I say. And then I decide to push it a little farther: “If I stay—I mean, just for a while—but if I stay, I will need your help, I think. If you can give it.”

  He opens his hands.

  CHAPTER 23

  PIA AND HENRY LIVE ONLY A FEW MILES FROM ME IN NORTH SYRACUSE, but I haven’t seen or talked with them in nearly four years. Despite the many times she informed me that it was “wonderful” that I’d unearthed someone who’d marry me, Pia was never all that crazy about Charlie. She often expressed the opinion that he was “earthy” and “really something.” I knew his voice and gestures seemed coarse to Pia. She cringed whenever he was around, as if his presence left bruises on her body. And then, half unconsciously, I began to try and compensate for my loud husband. I started to shrink; I lowered my voice to a whisper. Pia would shift her eyes furtively from Charlie to me. Eventually she’d scurry through the swinging door to prepare endless snacks and would spend most of our visit hiding in the kitchen.

  Once, as we were leaving their house after a dutiful dinner together, Charlie shook hands with Henry and gave him a manly slap on the arm. But when Charlie moved to embrace Pia, she let out something like a muffled shriek and flinched. Charlie said, “Whoops!” even though he hadn’t touched her, and stepped back. Pia turned away; she looked deflated and miserable. I couldn’t take the neurotic tensions of our visits any longer. So we just stopped coming over. It was easier to always be “busy, busy, just going nuts,” with work and life—the way everyone always seems to be, anyway. Even Pia, who had never held down a full-time job, was always harried with gardening and housework and exercise classes. When I declined invitations by saying that we were “busy,” my foster parents accepted this automatically, even respectfully. Gradually the invitations and calls tapered off. Henry had his stroke a few years ago—I visited him once, in the hospital, where he stared at me with such agonized regret that I could barely look at him.

  And even though Pia left several messages of “consolation” on my answering machine after Charlie and I broke up, I never answered. They wanted to come “check on” me, she said. But I thought it would be more upsetting to see Pia than to grieve in solitude. I don’t even know how she heard we’d broken up, though I’d bet Charlie called them. It seemed that despite their mutual dislike, Charlie maintained a stronger emotional connection to Henry and Pia than I did. I didn’t feel up to seeing my foster mother anymore and I’d lost the habit of visiting them. Keeping my distance seemed less taxing for all concerned.

  KELLER WAITS BEHIND me as
I press the doorbell. Neither of us is clear on his role, but he’s driven me here and I realize that I’m happy that he’s standing there, close enough for me to pick up strands of a spicy aftershave on the cold, white air. We wait, not speaking, staring ahead into the door. I didn’t call ahead—it seemed too fraught somehow. I also worried, right up to the last second, that I might not manage to do this.

  Standing there on the old front stoop, on the same mustard-colored bristle mat, where I’d waited alone for a thousand years for the school bus to come, I feel the weight of our long silence. I’d always thought that I’d get back in touch with them soon. Yet four—almost five—years had passed like that. My colleagues at work complained about their families, dissecting their quibbles and bickering. They especially complained about the holidays that seemed to require that everyone come together. Yet they still came together, despite themselves. I assumed that these were the hidden workings of real family—a magnetism like an undercurrent. I was curious to test this for myself—to see how much the bonds of family were linked to blood.

  Pia opens the door and there’s her unguarded, everyday expression—mild, impassive as a distant drift of clouds. After four years, it’s as if we are friendly acquaintances—people who once shared a long bus ride together.

  “Why, Lena!” Her impeccable features soften into a smile, but she doesn’t let go of the doorknob right away. She seems to be scanning the space behind us. Then she swivels and calls over her shoulder, “Henry, you won’t believe it.” She turns back and finally holds her hands out to me. We grasp each other at the elbow and I touch my lips to her cheek. I sense something new, tremulous and powdery, about her skin, a softening quality of age. She must be nearing her late sixties now, I realize. “Lena, you should’ve called first!” she says. “I could’ve been ready for you.” Her hands tighten around mine. “You’re not in some kind of trouble, are you?” Her eyes flick in alarm from me to Keller and back. “My neighbor Miriam thought she saw you on the news the other day—were you on the news? Why didn’t you tell me?”