by Amanda Leduc
“Timmy,” she says, breathing hard. “You have to go.”
He blinks. His eyes are red and puffy. “Lilah. I didn’t think you’d come back.”
Israel will be here in minutes. Seconds. “I know, sweetie.” I know. I know. “You have to get up. You have to go.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
“Tim.” She holds his face between her hands and kisses his nose, his cheek, his eyes. How could she have been angry? “Tim. Listen to me. Someone’s coming. You need to get away from here. Now.”
He stands. He moves so slowly. “I don’t hate you,” he says.
She shakes her head so hard that tears fly off her cheeks. “I don’t hate you. I’ll never hate you.” It is so hard to breathe. Any minute now and he’ll be around the corner, her lover, with power in his hands and darkness in his heart. “Run, Timmy. Please.”
And he goes, down along the water and then back up the alleyway from which she’s just emerged. Gone.
She whirls around to watch the other street. Seconds later, there he is, emerging from the intersection like a magician. He crosses the street at the end and walks up to her, his hands in his pockets.
“Delilah.”
She nods, and tries to make it look as though she hasn’t just been running. Her legs shake with the effort of it all. “Hello.”
“Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“Shouldn’t you be at work?”
His eyebrows go up. “Perhaps I am. And you are . . . doing what, exactly?”
“Here,” and she digs for the packet of coffee and tosses it at him so that, surprised, he must bring his hands up to catch it. “Running errands.”
“You sound displeased.”
She’s so angry, or terrified, or both. “Why would I be displeased? Isn’t this what every girl dreams of — fetching things for a man, like a dog?”
He laughs. He doesn’t touch her. “I forget,” he says softly, “how delightful you are. All of you.”
“What?”
“Timothy was here,” he says. “Yes?”
“I haven’t seen him. I told you — I like being by the water.”
“You are hiding him from me,” he says and smiles. “How sweet. But — surely you must know this, Delilah, by now — unnecessary. Haven’t I said this before? If I want Timothy, I will find him. Perhaps I already have. I found you, didn’t I?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She balls her fists to stem the sudden flush of terror. Then she nods to the coffee in his hand. “Anyway — you have it now. I’m going back to work.” She starts back in the direction of the office. Israel doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t follow. She risks one glance back when she reaches the corner of the street. He stands in the same spot, staring at her, and as she watches he tosses the coffee in one hand, up and down, his fingers fast and sure and catching it, every time.
—
The next day, the last day, she finds Timothy on Beach Avenue. He’s playing chess with a man in a pinstriped suit. The man’s name is Bob.
“Just Bob,” he says. “Nothing else.” His hair is dark, flecked with grey, and gold-rimmed glasses swing from his breast pocket, an unsteady pendulum.
He is a good chess player, but not as good as Timothy. In fifteen minutes — ten moves, fifteen, Lilah’s not sure — Timothy has the black king cornered. He shoots furtive glances at her when he thinks she isn’t looking.
Bob surrenders with a smile, then nods to her. “He’s good, your brother.”
“I know,” she says. She doesn’t ask how he knows who she is. She reaches over to move Timothy’s hat and ruffle his hair, and then remembers. Bald. He flinches at the approach of her hand and so she pulls away slowly, tries to make it look natural.
“Well,” says Bob. He fumbles the chess set into a box as he speaks. “Time for me to get back to work. You have a good day now, Timothy. Miss,” and he nods to her, then gets up and walks down the street.
“He seems nice,” she says, watching Bob’s dwindling pinstriped back.
Timothy nods, stares at the ground. “I’ve discovered a lot of nice people,” he says. “Here. On the street.” His fingers, clumsy and awkward in gloves, thread around and around the hat that sits in his lap. A red woollen toque, a ridiculous pompom.
Deep breath. “About before.”
He rocks on the ground and says nothing.
“I’m okay,” she says. Even though he won’t believe her.
Still nothing. He rocks, and she notices two rips in the back of his jacket. Between them, flashes of skin. He’s so pale. “Tim.” She takes a deep breath. “You need to go away for a while.”
Now he looks up, confused. “What?”
“I want you to be safe. There are — there are bad people out here too.” Someone looking for you, a dark man in a trench coat and smooth leather shoes. “If you’ve found someone who can help you, you need to go there, to be with them. Please, Timmy. Is there somewhere you can go?”
“Yes,” he says. His voice is very small. “But I won’t see you.”
“Even if it means I can’t see you anymore.” Especially then. “I can’t keep doing this, Timmy. Wondering if you’re safe.” Another deep breath. “And you can’t keep waiting here for me, because I’m not good for you.”
“What? No.” Timothy shakes his head. His lips are white and cracked — he runs his tongue across them, then across his chin, like some chalky lizard. “You are. You’re what keeps me here.”
“Exactly. You deserve so much more than this, Timmy.”
“Why are you hurting so much?” he whispers. “It’s not your fault.”
“Isn’t it?” She’s led the Devil right to him. The shards of her life will kill him now, if he gets close enough.
“Sometimes things are bigger than you,” Timothy says. “Maybe what’s happening to me — maybe you’re not supposed to understand, Lilah. Maybe there’s nothing you can do.” He takes her hand. A miracle. “I think even God would tell you that it’s too much. Whatever you’re doing, whatever it is that’s making you feel so guilty. It’s too much.”
“I don’t suppose God would listen to me,” she says. “Not now.”
“God always listens,” he says. “He just doesn’t answer all the time.”
“Does God listen to you?” she asks, her voice low. “Does He speak to you, Timmy?”
“I don’t understand what He says,” he tells her. An answer, and not. “I don’t understand what God wants me to do.”
She pulls his hand close to her heart. “Me neither,” she whispers.
“No one’s safe,” he says. “None of us.”
“Please, Timmy. Is there somewhere you can go?”
“Yes,” he says. He sits up. “I know the address. I can give it to you.”
Lilah shakes her head. Could he find it, Israel Riviera, locked somewhere in her mind? Could he bring it out of her, just as he brought out the story of her brother? “Don’t tell me. I’ll come and find you, when it’s safe.” She does not say when safe might be.
“Are you sure?” he says.
“I’m sure.” She squeezes his hand.
Timothy looks at the ground. “I love you.”
She pulls his head close and kisses his cheek. “I love you,” she whispers.
Timothy stands, shakes off her hand, and walks down the street. Lilah sits rigid on the bench and watches him go. At any moment now, Israel will swoop down on Timothy and crush him into dust with one wave of his hand. Any moment.
But nothing happens. A thin boy walks to the edge of the street, then disappears around a corner. She hears no scuffle, no cry for help, nothing. There is no sound. There is no wind. There is no sign to show her that Timothy will keep walking, that he will go to his new home, that he will be safe — nothing but the knowledge now that h
e is passing into the hands of someone else. Even the birds are silent.
—
“You don’t have to keep coming all this way.” Roberta is ashamed. “I don’t like it.”
“It’s fine, Mom,” Lilah says. “Really.” She smoothes the sheets by her mother’s hand. “And anyway, I was thinking. I might come to Victoria for a while.”
Roberta shakes her head vehemently. “You can’t leave. What about Timothy?”
“He’s safe,” Lilah says. Strange benefactor, of extra clothes and unseen home. “He found someone who — who can help him, I think.”
“He needs you,” Roberta says. “You need to be there for him. I need you to be there for him.” She points to Lilah’s neck. “That spot, there. Is that a bruise?”
“I fell.” Her hand comes up automatically. “I fell out of bed and banged it on the nightstand.”
“Are you in trouble?” Roberta says sharply.
“No. I’m fine.”
“Is your brother in trouble?”
“He’s all right. He’s surviving.”
“He’s in your city,” Roberta spits. Suddenly she is incandescent, livid with rage. “You’re supposed to take care of him.” She shakes Lilah’s hand away. “You’re just like your father,” she says. “You just don’t care.”
How easy, truly, to hurt the people you love. “I do care,” Lilah says. “But I can’t do everything.”
“I’m not asking you to do everything,” Roberta snaps. “But he’s just a boy.”
“What do you want me to do? Lock him up? Beat him senseless and drag him to the psych ward?”
“Don’t be dramatic. You’re always so dramatic.” Her eyes well up. “You were always so good to him — surely you can convince him to stay with you. Surely you, Delilah, if no one else.”
“I’m trying,” Lilah whispers. “I’m doing everything I can.”
“It’s not enough,” says Roberta. She looks like a spider, emaciated and picking at the sheets. “You, me — everything we do. It’s like we’re being punished just for wanting him to be safe, to be happy. I don’t understand it.” Her voice cracks. “Don’t we deserve a miracle?”
Doesn’t everybody? Lilah clenches her hands in her lap, stares down at her fists. What would Israel tell her, if she asked him? That miracles are for children, just like Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy? “I don’t know, Mom. I think Timothy deserves a better miracle than me.” Or maybe there are no such things as miracles — only good decisions and bad. Like the decision that brought her here, or the words that sent her brother away. Or the decision that will take her back to Vancouver, where a beautiful man waits to beat her.
—
“The pain is very bad now,” says the doctor. He is young, nervous. “These things she says — it’s just the pain.”
“It’s not just the pain,” Lilah says. “She’s angry.” She presses a hand to her temple. “Can you give her anything? Anything more?”
“We can up her meds,” the doctor says. “She’ll probably sleep, a lot.” He puts a hand on her shoulder and she starts. But he is only concerned. “Is that what you want?”
“Will the pain go away?”
“Most of it,” the doctor says. His nametag says Dr. Sand. “She won’t be able to talk very much. And if she does, you might not understand her.”
Lilah shakes her head. “Do it,” she says. “Just make her feel better.” She goes back into the room and sits. The nurse comes in and adjusts the medication. Roberta continues to sleep. Just before night comes she starts to shiver, so Lilah asks for more blankets and when those do not help she climbs into the bed and places her arm beneath her mother’s head. Roberta wakes up.
“Delilah.” Her breath smells of stale air and fear. “Where have you been?”
“Right here,” Lilah says. “I’ve been right here.”
“You were gone,” Roberta breathes. “I asked for you, and you weren’t here. You were lost.”
“Timothy was gone, Mom. But he’s okay.” Please let him be okay.
“Timothy?”
“He’s okay. He’s in Vancouver. He’s safe.”
Roberta frowns. “I don’t. Understand. Who is Timothy?”
“Timothy, Mom. Timothy. He went to Vancouver, months ago. I’ve been watching over him. Like you wanted.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
Is this what the doctor meant? “Mom. He’s your own fucking son.”
“Don’t swear,” Roberta whispers, and for an instant, Lilah relaxes. “And don’t . . . make up stories. That’s not. Very nice.”
“Mom.” She pulls away. “Timothy. Of course you remember Timothy.”
“I remember you,” says her mother. She is puzzled, once more falling asleep. Yet her eyes are calm and clear now. Medication? Release? “I remember you, Delilah.” She turns her head away, and sleeps.
Lilah stays on the bed until it’s dark and listens to Roberta breathe. The nurses come and ago. God dances around the room, around them both. Capricious and clever, dark and wanting. God, whom she has begged to save her brother. Who has given her instead a man with a beautiful voice, a man with a soul so deep she can’t tell where it ends. God in a trench coat and smooth leather shoes.
—
In the morning, the doctors tell her that it’s likely Roberta won’t wake up. That she could sleep like this for days or weeks. No one knows.
“What should I do,” she says. She speaks to the young doctor and stares at the floor.
“Did she leave an advanced directive?”
Lilah blinks. “What?”
“I’m sorry,” the doctor says, blushing. “Did she say anything, or write anything. About what to do if something like this happened.”
“Nothing,” she says. “It happened fast this time.” Cancer in the breast. Cancer in the heart, the lungs, the liver.
“Is there someone else who might be able to help?”
She laughs. “There’s no one.”
“You should talk to someone,” he says. “We have a therapist here at the hospital — ”
“Not a therapist,” she says. She breathes deeply and tries not to lose it, not in front of Dr. Sand with the hesitant smile. Then she says it again. “There’s no one.”
“Isn’t there a son?” The doctor checks his chart. “She’s listed here as having two dependants. Your brother?”
“He’s gone,” Lilah says dully. She has sent him away. And now Roberta will die and he won’t know. “I’ll just — I’ll need to think about everything.”
“Of course.” Dr. Sand nods. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” says the doctor. He blushes again and moves down the hall.
She stares after him, then stumbles to a chair and puts her forehead in her hands. People walk past her — feet slap hurriedly against the tile, others shuffle along, the slide of paper slippers quiet, unmistakable. At the other end of the hall lies the entrance to the hospital cafeteria; if she listens very carefully she can hear the faint clink of utensils, the clatter of plates. Laughter.
She gets up, eventually, and makes her way back to Vancouver.
—
It is raining in her city. The bus shelter is narrow and cramped. The man in front of her coughs something into his hand, then shivers with the damp. Everything around them is grey, dark, cold. The bus is little better. Lilah crawls into a window seat and watches the world rush by. She could get off the bus now and find another one that might take her somewhere entirely different. Seattle. The Interior. Or she could stay here, by this grimy window, until the bus reaches its end, and then start walking. Fade into the landscape, dissolve into the air like water.
But she disembarks at her old stop, and she’s in front of her apart
ment, then in the foyer, then climbing up the stairs. She unlocks her apartment door and opens it.
He’s there, in the hall, in front of her.
“Delilah.”
Lilah drops her bag. “Jesus fuck.”
Israel takes two steps and pushes the door shut. “I told you,” and he’s so close, his voice hot in her ear, “not to take the Lord’s name in vain.”
She closes her eyes. “How the fuck did you get in?”
“You left the door open.” He stands over her, quiet. His arm is taut against the door.
“I never leave the door open.” She tries for bravado but the words are a whisper. “Did you break in? I wouldn’t put it past you. You followed me before.”
Israel chuckles and traces a finger down her cheekbone. “Ah, but I am not going to follow you everywhere, Delilah. That would hardly befit a gentleman, no? Get your things,” he says, his voice crisp. “Emmanuel is waiting for us.”
“I was going to tell you something,” she says. Forcing the words out before she loses her nerve.
“Oh?” Israel flexes his wrist.
“Take me,” she says.
His eyebrows go up. “Delilah, how very kind of you. But surely you realize that that happened long ago?”
“I mean — you don’t need to worry about Timothy. He’s gone. He doesn’t have a . . . hold . . . on me anymore.” The anguish is so sharp she can’t breathe. She turns her palms up and says it again. “You can take me. All of me.”
“An offering!” He smiles. “How quaint.”
“There’s nothing quaint about it,” she snaps. She holds tight to the fury and doesn’t look away. “Do you want me or not?”
“But of course.” He steps forward so that he’s directly in front of her. His body blocks the light from the window. “I have wanted you for a long time.”
“Yeah,” she says. She tries to shrug but can’t quite pull it off. “I know.”
Israel laughs. “And haven’t you waited for me?” he says softly. He steps even closer, traces a finger down her cheek. “Haven’t you hungered for something else all these years? You were a child who saw holes in the nighttime sky, Delilah. Don’t think I didn’t notice, even then.”