by Sara Shepard
“It’s just…even if I have some strange memories from there, it’s hard to think that it’s just going to go away. That it won’t be ours anymore.”
“I know.”
We stood facing the street, our breath coming out in translucent puffs. I felt him looking past me—but for what? “What if I bought it from you?”
He smirked. “At market value?”
“No. What if I…I took over your mortgage? I could probably manage that with a job, right?”
“They would have to do a credit check on you,” my father said slowly.
“I have good credit, probably.”
“Would you and Philip buy it together?”
“No, just me.” I felt a rush of euphoria, followed immediately by a stomach-gnawing surge of doubt. I imagined living in the apartment alone, sleeping in my old bedroom.
My father pulled at the edges of his hat. “New York City is going to be nuked. It’s dangerous to live here these days.”
“You don’t really believe that, do you?”
He shrugged.
“I mean, seriously, Dad,” I said. “You’re going to come back to New York eventually. Don’t you want somewhere to live once you do?”
He stared at me. Suddenly I wanted my father to tell me something important. Anything. Something that indicated that someday maybe we’d be normal around each other again.
But instead, he said, “There’s a new subway line, you know. The V. It’s part of the Sixth Avenue train. I saw it on the subway map on the way over. I guess it’s an alternative to the F, although not in Brooklyn. The end of the line is Second Avenue and Houston.”
I eyed him carefully, but his face was blank. This was who he was now, at least for me. The crack between us had instantaneously sealed after September 11, because it had seemed petty to fight about anything. I never mentioned anything about the things I’d said, and he never mentioned anything about the things he’d said. Our conversations remained superficial, usually arts-and-culture-related, or about things Philip and I did on the weekends, or about llamas and Vermont—because, I supposed, it was easier that way. Sometimes, when we were talking about nothing on the phone, I wanted to tell him all Stella had said to me about his accident. All those secrets. I also wanted to ask him where his rehearsed speech years ago had come from. Had his new therapist told him to get on the phone with me and tell me that I was hindering his growth as a person? Or had he come to that conclusion on his own?
A tall, slender woman with a fur-lined hood walked on the other side of the street. After a moment, she stopped and peered at us. The hood was tight around her head, so it was hard to see her face, but I could tell she was in her thirties or forties. Her black down coat extended past her waist, ending in two thin dark denim-clad legs and tall black boots. She was sophisticated in a different way than the ghetto-fabulous girls of Crown Heights, the neighborhood the diner bordered. To my astonishment, the woman held up a gloved hand and, with some uncertainty, gave my father a little signal.
“Do you know her?” I asked. My father’s face grew pale. His hand was at his chest, and his fingers were curled. I wasn’t sure if he had been waving back. The woman slunk down the block in the general direction of the Brooklyn Museum, pulling her expensive-looking black leather purse close to her side.
“We should go back in,” my father said, turning back for the door. I didn’t know what else to do but follow. On my way past the line of customers, I got a big whiff of the plate of orange slices a waitress was passing around. They smelled so ripe and tart, they brought tears to my eyes.
Stella had remained in that central Pennsylvania hospital for a few more days until she was stable enough to travel back to Cobalt. After that, there was really nothing we could do. We had to accept this. Stella’s oncologist had pushed hospice pamphlets into my hands. They referred to this as the death process. Hospice professionals made the death process as comfortable for the patient as possible. Hospice professionals were available around the clock, because patients often fear going through the death process alone.
I imagined the spots on Stella’s brain the latest MRI had detected. They were palpable and writhing. After a while, I would enter her room and she would think I was someone else, often her sister. “So did you talk to him in study hall?” she babbled. “Who?” I asked. She rolled her eyes. “Tommy Reed. Jesus, Ruth! You’ve been talking about him all week.” Her hands fluttered open and closed, like she was a little squirrel digging in the ground.
And one time she glared at me and said, “It’s been three years, Ruth, and you’ve said nothing to him.” She wagged her fingers in my face. “Get over it. So he made a mistake. The baby is healthy. You think the world knows, but who cares if they do? The only one who really cares is you.”
“What are you talking about?” I’d asked. “What baby?”
Stella snorted. “Always in denial.”
Stella made less and less sense. I worried she would die in her room alone, so I set up a cot near the door. Once, in the middle of the night, she sat up in bed and stared at me.
“Your father was in a mental institution,” she screeched, witchlike.
“I know that,” I said.
“And he’s got something in hiding.”
“What is he hiding?” I asked.
“Like the Nazis,” she announced.
“What?”
She flopped back down on the bed, exhausted.
A few days later I spoke to my father on the phone, telling him about Stella’s worsening condition and how he should probably come to Cobalt soon. Stella says you’re hiding something, I wanted to add. She told me everything about your past. Sometimes she thinks I’m your mother. Will you help me understand this?
But I didn’t. Instead, I went to the old chest of drawers in the living room and pulled on the brass handles. I had moved the secret engagement photo of Kay and Mark from my father’s old desk drawer in his bedroom to the top drawer in the chest, next to the deed to the house, Stella’s insurance information, and the pamphlets for the hospice. Kay’s center part was so finely etched. I know something about you, I whispered to her. I wished she could talk back, tell me what she knew, too.
twenty-eight
I shot up in bed. The moonlight pooled across my lap, white as milk. There was an art project I had made during my junior year in high school propped on my old desk. It was a self-portrait of me, done in blues and greens. I had cat eyes and a scaly neck. In the darkness, it seemed alive.
“It was my mother,” I whispered, partly to the portrait, partly to Philip. “It was my mother across the street from the hardware store, down the street from the diner.”
“Huh?” Philip shifted. He’d been lying in an awkward position, scrunched up against the wall with one arm over his head. He noticed that I was awake and opened his eyes wider. “What’s going on?”
My pulse was fast, and my veins were hot, as if coffee were flowing through them. “You know how I told you this woman was waving to my father from across the street? And my dad waved back? I think it was my mother.”
“Did you see her face?” Philip sat up, too. A horn blared outside, even though it was two a.m.
“Well, no. She had on a big jacket, and the hood was pulled tight. But of course it would be, right?” I slapped the bed for emphasis. “I mean, she doesn’t want me to know that it’s her.”
“I don’t know if that makes any sense.”
“It makes perfect sense,” I answered quickly. “My dad told me the two of them talked after the terrorist attacks. He said she called her to see if he was okay. He tried to pass it off like it was a onetime thing, but I bet they kept talking after that. Maybe they’re both on the apartment’s deed. He’d have to settle that, at least. He’d have to make her part of this sale. But maybe they’ve been talking about…other stuff, too.”
Philip squinted. “Wouldn’t they have settled that in the divorce?”
I shrugged. Who knew? “My father has been
so nervous this whole time he’s been up here. Did you see the way he couldn’t even form a sentence at breakfast? How he kept looking over his shoulder? How he kept checking his cell phone?”
“He said he was just looking at the time.”
I pressed my hand to the windowpane, which was thickly frigid. “Do you think they’ve communicated a lot? It’s not like he and Rosemary are married. They could end things at any time, no strings attached.”
Philip looked at me carefully. “But your mom…she…would you really want her back?”
There was a thin layer of dirt on the windowsill, the city soot that permeated everything. I pressed my thumb into it, then stamped it on a clean piece of wall, leaving behind a black print. “You wouldn’t get it,” I said.
“Maybe I would.”
Philip’s parents had been together all this time. They’d overcome lots of things—his mother’s cancer, a relocation for work, people’s backlash about his father being a Sikh, especially post-9/11. Their lives had been far from easy, and yet they’d prevailed. “It’s just…I think about her a lot,” I said.
“What do you think about?”
“Where she is. What she’s doing. That sort of stuff. It’s weird to think she’s out there, living. Putting on clothes in the morning. Drinking coffee. Having dreams at night. That’s all.”
“So if that was really her across the street, and you see her again, what do you think it would be like?”
“I don’t know.” What would we talk about? Who had I been, when she left? How much of me had changed? It might be more like meeting a potential employer in a job interview. I’d have to describe my strengths and weaknesses, where I went to school, that I was a good multitasker and a team player. And another bonus is that I share half of your genetic material. So please hire me.
“It will probably be awful,” I whispered.
Philip moved his legs around under the covers. It made a soft, comforting swishing noise. “I have something to tell you,” he said. “Promise you won’t get mad.”
I pushed my hair out of my face. “How can I promise that when I don’t know what you’re going to tell me?”
“Okay.” Philip sat up. “I sent in your résumé for that research job.”
A bus swished down the BQE. Mrs. Guest, who had lived below us for years and had always been an insomniac, switched TV channels. The new channel was much louder than the previous one, and I could hear very clearly it was some man shouting about something called Kaboom, which pulverized stains on tile, tubs, and showers.
“When?” My stomach jumped around.
“Last week.” Philip took my hands. “I just…I think you could get it. I don’t think you give yourself enough credit. You want to do something in science, right? Why not try for it?”
“Jesus.” I shot off the bed and walked across the room to the closet.
“I’m sorry,” Philip said. “I thought…I don’t know. I thought you’d be happy.”
“Why?” I didn’t turn around. “I’ve been telling you over and over again that I don’t want to apply for something like that. And you didn’t even listen to me! You just…just did it anyway!”
“I just wanted to give you a push.”
“You should’ve asked.”
“What are you so afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid,” I spat.
“You know what I think?” Philip said quietly. “I think you don’t want to apply for it because it’s easier just to have the job at Chow’s. Because you can quit it at the drop of a hat, and it won’t really…I don’t know, affect anything. It’s not like it’s going to go on your résumé. It’s not like you’re making big connections there. It’s easier not to commit to something real, because then you’d have to admit to wanting something, to feeling something.”
I whirled around. “That’s not true.” But I could feel the blood creeping into my cheeks.
“You’ve been like this for months now,” Philip said. He was still sitting on the bed, saying this so calmly, rationally. “Maybe the whole time we’ve been together. If you just want to leave, then leave. Don’t make me keep wondering.”
“What are you talking about?”
He curled his hands around his knees. “Tell me how you feel about me. Right now.”
I laughed uncomfortably. “You know how I feel about you.”
“No. I don’t know if you’ve ever said it.”
“Of course I’ve said it.”
“So say it again, now.”
I opened my mouth, but my eyes got distracted on the crown molding, the old bronze radiator, the heavy plaster windowsill.
“That time we first met?” Philip’s eyes shone. “Years ago, when your grandmother died? Sometimes I think that was the last time you were truly honest with me. When you told me about…about your dad, and how scared you were.”
“That’s crazy!” I exploded. “How about everything I tell you every day? None of that matters?”
“Of course it matters,” Philip said. “But it’s also like you just get to this point, and then you just…stop. It’s like you have your comfort zone—and if you leave it, you’ve given up too much of yourself.” He trailed off, but I understood where he was going. “Shouldn’t you be able to tell me more? Why can’t you just say it? And why can’t you tell me how you feel? Is it because you feel nothing?”
“You know that’s not true!”
“Well, then, why can’t you say it?”
I shook out my hands. What did he want me to say? My relationship with Philip was scarier than caring for my father and Stella combined. I wasn’t here just to listen to Philip’s problems and to take him to doctor’s appointments. I had no real utilitarian purpose, in fact, besides taking up space in his apartment…and being his girlfriend. What were the requirements for that job? Perhaps I’d entered into this too quickly after losing Stella. Who knew why I’d entered it at all? I thought about what Stella had said all those years ago at my grandmother’s funeral: relationships could be a bitch, and it was hard for people to be truly happy together. Some people couldn’t take it, and that was all right. I thought she’d been talking about my mother, but maybe she sensed something about me, too.
Only, why was I one of those people who couldn’t take it? Was it because of my parents’ relationship or my mother’s abandonment or my father’s descent into illness, or was it because of something deeper than that? Perhaps the problem was in my blood, right down to the tiny little things I couldn’t see. The little coiled pieces of DNA pulsing inside me that very moment, tracking precisely how I behaved, whether I wanted them to or not, just like crazy Mr. Rice had said. It was all neatly spelled out in chemical code—why we waited, why we took care of people, why we always had to be the one who needs taking care of. Our sense of direction, our taste for bland pasta or for Belgian waffles, or why love—real, unconditional love—scared us.
If I could just get to the genetic core of myself, I could solve all my problems—and fix them. I could fix my father’s, too, and my mother’s, and Steven’s. I could glue things back together, build things back from nothing, stitch in the right piece of DNA and remove the wrong one. It was all there before our eyes, both too small and too big to understand.
Philip waited, pumping his foot up and down. Yes, I have a hard time admitting it, I wished I could say out loud. Because doing so would mean I want something, I need something. When Claire told me at the pool to not let things bother me so much, to let go, I thought it could be possible. But despite what I knew, it still felt like something I couldn’t do.
The early morning light began to drip into the apartment, first gray, then pink, then orange. I lowered my eyes, hardened. “I think I need some room right now, okay?” My voice wasn’t particularly friendly.
He blinked. A car outside had its hazard lights on, making the room strobe light and then dark. “Okay. Fine.”
He stood up, then, and pulled on his jeans. He put his shoes on slowly, tying them in
a neat double-loop bow. “Where are you going?” I asked.
“Well, I have the car. I can drive home.”
I breathed in, knowing that this was the moment when I should tell him that he was being silly and that he shouldn’t go. Philip paused a moment, looking at me, maybe waiting for me to say it, too. His face was lit up by the moon. There was either a mole or a pimple on his smooth right cheek. We both silently counted to three. I just let it go by.
He looked past me, then, and pointed to the window. “You should close that.”
I turned around. The window was slightly ajar—no wonder it had been freezing in here. When I hefted it closed and turned back around, Philip was gone.
“Where’s Philip?” Rosemary asked, coming into the apartment with a bag of groceries.
“He…he went back to Annapolis,” I said. It was the following morning, and I was still stunned Philip had left. I thought he might come back in the middle of the night, curling into me and apologetic. Had he really driven the whole way back home? What would he do the rest of the weekend?
Rosemary looked startled at my answer. She searched my face, trying to gauge a reaction. “He was worried about the blizzard,” I said quickly, before she could ask.
“Oh, the blizzard.” Rosemary walked down the hall and plopped the grocery bag on the new island. Inside were pretzels, bottled iced tea, and apples. It made me ache a little, seeing Rosemary navigate so easily around the apartment. She plucked an apple from the plastic produce bag, wiped it on her shirt, and took a bite. “Do you really think we’ll get that blizzard?” she asked, apple juice dribbling down her chin.
“Well, yeah,” I said. I tried to soften the remark with a little laugh at the end, but I wasn’t sure if it worked. We both heard my father fumbling at the door. He burst in, wearing a long black wool coat and a bright red scarf. He looks good, I thought. Really good. His eyes were bright, his hands steady.
“It’s freezing out there,” he said.