Another time, he would have been thrilled to see a young girl like her. Like the ones he observed from his office at the university where he taught. Young female students walking through the parking lot, often late at night. Alone. He imagined the things he could do to them. How quickly he could drag them to his car. Sometimes he got carried away with these thoughts as they sat in his Classics class, never imagining what he was imagining. How close he let himself come to carrying out his fantasies, but didn’t because he worried they could identify him. And because of the one time campus security had come asking him questions when a student complained she was being followed.
Too capable, the older ones.
It was what he was thinking the day he saw a young girl playing alone on the playground at the elementary school next to the university.
That day, every simmering slight he’d ever felt by those other girls, who’d thought themselves too good, who had even complained about him so he’d had to be careful—so, so careful—came to a boiling rage. But he’d shown them, all of them, that he was not someone to be dismissed. He wasn’t intimidated by them. Any of them.
Except, this girl. The one he saw now outside his window as he lay helpless and dying. She scared him. With that black coat, and black hair, flitting around, gaping, squawking, she hardly looked human. Carl Smith blinked, strained his eyesight. The breathing apparatus calmly clicked as he struggled for a breath.
Yes, she looked more like a giant bird, the kind he’d been terrified of ever since he was a little boy, when children laughed at the sight of him cowering and trembling as they flapped their arms and ran circles around him.
He felt her dark black eyes looking straight at his window. She could smell his fear with her animal instinct. She knew exactly where he was. And what he was.
Carl Smith trembled in his bed. Closed his eyes, even as he was certain she was at that moment opening her beak and crying out, calling the rest of her flock to her.
Carl felt himself falling into an opaque darkness. He felt his lungs being squeezed as he tried so hard, so hard, to suck in more air. The clicking of a faraway machine echoed in his ears even as he sank deeper and deeper into a frightening darkness.
More air!
His heart raced as he realized he was dying. This was it. This was the moment. This was what dying was. Any moment he would see a bright white light. His mother would come and beckon to him, explain it was time to go with her. And he would go into the light.
Carl waited, but only more darkness and silence engulfed him as he slipped deeper and deeper into his death.
In that darkness, Carl was confused as he heard the inhuman shriek of a million birds. He tried to will himself back to living, he tried to will himself to see a bright light, but instead he heard more and more shrieks coming from the dark abyss that surrounded him, and the unmistakable sound of a million wings fluttering toward him. He tried to bring his arms up, but his body was useless.
Oh god, he could smell them. Millions of birds, their repulsive feathery smell. And the gush of wind as they descended upon him.
The birds had finally come for him, digging their sickening talons into his flesh. He felt them begin their pecking at his body and his heart drummed out of control, faster, as his lungs demanded more air.
More air!
But there was none, and Carl Smith felt himself being devoured by his sins and his fears in a place where there was no breath, no life, no salvation.
PART SIX
Spring 1995
The Cold Months
The cold months thawed.
Outside, trees that had been brittle and breaking were now full of leaves. The fluttering each time a breeze came through sounded like a collective sigh of relief at having survived another winter.
Ian sat in his car and watched from the corner as yellow bulldozers and cranes knocked down the elementary school. Walls were crushed; bricks crumbled and tumbled down. The crane nudged the room that was once his third-grade classroom—that place where he had handed back a graded paper to Emilia and she had smiled at him—and pushed it to the ground.
Stay away from Emilia DeJesus, his mother had warned him.
But I didn’t. I loved you. And you loved me.
He had gotten to kiss Emilia DeJesus. And he knew her, I did know you, he thought. Even if he didn’t. He knew how she was always thinking of something and what her back felt like under his hand. How she’d tuck her hair back, and how she’d relax a little when she thought no one was looking at her. The feel of her breath and her voice in his ear.
The rhythmic clanking of the machinery surrounded him and he watched. He’d been watching every day, but today was the day those metal teeth clamped into their old classroom. And he saw the large bird on the wall. For a few seconds, he saw it clearly, its enormous wings lifted to the sky, the sun shining on it before it, too, was cut away.
Emilia.
It was Tomás who’d taken him to the room days after the funeral. He’d told Ian he had to show him something. So they got in Ian’s car, and Tomás told him to drive to the school.
I know Emilia would’ve wanted you to see it, Tomás told him as they drove. Their shoes scraped on each step as they walked upstairs, and then echoed in the hallway as they walked toward the room. He saw the way Tomás braced himself before he opened the door. Ian did the same, but even then he was unprepared.
The paper birds. The walls that looked iridescent. The mural with Emilia’s face. Ian’s eyes filled with tears and he took a deep breath before he walked to her.
He saw the picture of them as little kids and his heart crumbled in his chest.
He touched the heart she’d drawn around them and sobbed. He’d only loved one girl in his life. Emilia DeJesus. And now she was gone.
When did you do all this? he whispered.
She didn’t answer, only that smile he’d never see again, that seemed now to hold back so many things.
He stood there a long time, searching for answers in that picture. A clue, some indication of why, but found none.
Finally, he walked away and looked around at all the items that decorated the room. The squirrel, broken bowls that had been glued together, striped salt and pepper shakers, a pair of kiddie boots, a bird skeleton Tomás held carefully in his hands.
Ian walked to the window.
He stepped closer and stared at the tree outside.
This is the last thing you saw.
He could feel Tomás’s gaze on him. He reached out and touched the glass, and then he looked down.
He tried not to imagine her on the ground. But his mind conjured it up anyway.
He did not want to think of the force with which her body hit the concrete. The sharp, deafening sound of the crack of her skull. He did not want to think of the fluids that were excreted, the arms and legs at odd angles. He closed his eyes, but still, he saw her.
He was crying, saying her name, over and over, but didn’t realize it until he felt Tomás’s hand on his shoulder. Until he heard him crying, too.
She didn’t mean to, I know she didn’t, Tomás managed.
Ian nodded. He knew she didn’t. He remembered the way she looked the last time he saw her alive. I’ll call you later, she’d said to him.
I know, Ian said. She’d turned and looked at him at the platform. She had blown him a kiss. She never would have given him that hope if she intended to never see him again. She knew he would be waiting by the phone, waiting for her call that night. She wouldn’t have him wait if she never meant to call. Would she?
* * *
*
Over the weeks it was he and Tomás who cleared the room. Took all the precious things Emilia had so carefully placed in there. Neither of them could stand for all those items she cared about so much to be crushed by a bulldozer. All of it fit in just a couple of boxes. Ian knew Tomás would someday
take them out, look for clues in each item.
When they were done, only the mural remained. And the pictures of Emilia and her family. He and Tomás stood in front of the photos.
Let’s go, Tomás said. He turned around and left the room.
Ian didn’t feel like he had any right, but he knew Tomás would want them later. So he unpinned them from the wall, put them on top of the items in the box he was carrying, and followed Tomás down the stairs.
* * *
*
Ian watched the crane tear into the school. The only comfort he had was that Emilia’s face was not being crushed in that rubble. If he hadn’t taken the pictures down, he wouldn’t trust himself not to rush and climb over the rubble now to find them.
Stay away from Emilia DeJesus.
The words felt so near and real, as if he were eight years old again, standing in the kitchen, and his mother had just uttered them.
He thought he couldn’t cry anymore; he’d cried so much these last few months. So he was taken aback by how more sadness and pain swelled up inside him again, so quickly, so completely.
He wiped away fresh tears. He knew he’d feel this way for a long time, maybe the rest of his life.
But I didn’t stay away from you, Emilia. And god, I’m so fucking mad at you. Why didn’t you let us help you? Why didn’t we figure out a way to help you? I’m so fucking mad at us. But I’m glad I didn’t stay away.
He wiped away the hot tears that kept sliding down his face, and after a while, he took a deep breath and tried to collect himself.
He had somewhere to be.
Ian put his car in drive and made a U-turn, the screeching barely slicing through the sound of heavy machinery. He imagined Emilia next to him. What she’d say if she were here.
Looks so small, doesn’t it?
It does.
I wonder what they’ll do with it now.
Ian shook his head, drove to the other side of town, where Anthony was waiting. His cousin had come back for him.
A week leave, man. Let’s get out of here awhile. A small road trip.
He was glad Anthony hadn’t asked Jane to come along. He couldn’t see a couple holding hands without thinking of Emilia. The thought of not being here—of not being home—felt like a relief, maybe, from picturing every moment they’d had together each time he looked toward her bedroom window, or seeing her just ahead every time he turned down a block. He thought about highways and gas stations and miles and miles of road ahead.
What if it were you and me instead? he thought as Emilia’s face filled his mind.
He wondered if he’d always wonder what if. And if every moment would feel like a strange version of what was because of what wasn’t.
Ian rolled down the window, letting the warm air dry his tears as he drove faster, away from the school, Emilia’s ghost now next to him.
I can’t believe it’s really gone. Her voice rang in his ears.
“Me neither,” he answered. So much was gone.
He reached over, felt for her hand, and touched only air.
Sam DeJesus Was Flying
Sam DeJesus was flying. He left the place he’d returned to, had once called home, but which could never feel like home again. He had stayed and watched over Nina for three months. His mind filled up with those moments—sitting by her bed, begging her to eat. Those nights she sobbed herself to sleep and let him hold her.
He tried to be there for her, for Tomás, took on everything he could. All those things too horrible, or too mundane, or now too meaningless. And somewhere in the days that made up the months that followed Emilia’s death, he thought maybe Nina forgave him a little for the time he wasn’t there.
But then one day, the sun was too bright. And the chill in the air was less biting. And he could sense the slightest bit of spring.
It’s getting warm, he told Nina one day as they sat outside, on the patio. The doctor said she needed to get out.
It is, she said. And then she looked at him the softest he could remember, and he knew she was releasing him. It’s time, she said. And he was ashamed of how he almost collapsed with relief and gratitude.
So she knew. She would have to be strong again. He watched as she gathered herself, as she drew herself up, for Tomás.
Sam had never deserved Nina.
Or Tomás.
Or Emilia.
Just then the pilot announced they would be landing soon. Sam looked out the oval of the airplane window, at the vast snow covering the land below. He’d looked for the coldest city in Alaska where he could realistically survive. He wondered if it would be cold enough here. And he hoped the cold would help his heart pump the hot pain more slowly through his body.
I’ll return, Sam thought. I just need to stay cold a little longer.
He’d told Nina the same, and she nodded, though he knew she didn’t believe him. He didn’t blame her; he wasn’t sure he believed himself.
He stared out the window, at the snow that awaited him.
He welcomed the freezing cold; he prayed for the numbing of pain.
Nina Never Felt
Nina never felt her daughter inside her womb, never felt the kick of Emilia’s small feet, or the turning and stretching of her small body inside Nina’s own. But Nina felt her daughter’s absence as if she’d carried Emilia inside her all these years, as if now she’d suddenly been ripped out of her. And along with her, all of Nina’s insides, her heart, lungs, muscles, blood, and veins.
This is what empty means, Nina thought.
She was glad Sam was leaving. Not because she hated him. Hate seemed useless to her now. But because if he’d stayed, Nina knew she would continue letting him take care of everything. She knew she would stay in bed, in the darkness of her room, until she disappeared into that darkness. For a moment, she thought she understood Emilia.
But Sam said he was going. And she could hear Tomás’s voice again. She heard in it how he needed her, though he didn’t say it. She’d forgotten, in the grief of Emilia’s death, that someone still did. So she got up, amazed at the heaviness of her own body. As if she’d been out in infinite space, and just been shot back to Earth; she’d never felt such heaviness in her life.
But she got up. And tried to live.
At first, she didn’t think she could get through the days on her own. She found herself pushing a cart in a store and wanted to take everything, but couldn’t take a single thing. Because none of it meant anything anymore, none of it could fill her, none of it made sense. She felt like Emilia was watching. And then she saw herself, from a great distance in the sky, through the roof of the store, pushing that empty cart. Nina left it and was almost out the door when she started to cry. She saw herself fall. Great, heaving sobs gushing from her as two people came to her side.
That wave of grief had almost crushed her, but she had to keep going.
The next day, she booked a few appointments, the first since Emilia’s death, which had left her unable to function. Just local ones at first, then more. Her friends sent her old clients back her way, little by little. Until suddenly she was in her old routine again, standing on a train every morning and night, carrying her makeup supplies, not knowing how she got there.
One Saturday, she was driving and thinking of Emilia when she was little and wondering about time, how it passed and didn’t. She looked at the address in her appointment book again. She turned into the neighborhood and recognized it.
No, she thought, please no, as she went down the street, knowing exactly where she was headed.
She drove through the gates, her heart already in her throat. When she knocked on the door, she could hardly contain her shaking, and she blinked back tears as she remembered being here only months earlier.
Only months earlier.
Her heart swelled with pain.
“Hello,” the
woman said.
“Hi,” Nina whispered.
She set up in the same area as before. Only now it was brighter, even fuller with flowers than last time. Even as the past several months had been brightening, Nina’s world had felt void of color. She didn’t want the flowers to look so bright, but they did.
She felt the woman’s eyes on her as Nina quickly set up, as she put the smock around her client’s shoulders and quietly asked, “Evening or day event?”
“Evening,” the woman replied.
Nina busied herself immediately. Worked quickly, meticulously, gently. She thought only of her work. Only of the blending, and smudging, and sweeping, and brushing.
She tapped the excess eye shadow off the brush and swept it across the woman’s eyelids, blue-black, like Emilia’s hair.
She handed the mirror to the woman, who nodded approvingly. “Thank you,” she said.
Blue-black, her hair, and the cold, and the dark, and her body. Bruised. Cold. Blue-black.
Nina began shaking then. Her eyes filled with tears. She saw the woman’s gaze in the reflection of the mirror as tears escaped and fell down her face.
She’s gone, Nina thought. She’s gone.
The thought wrecked her each time it forced its way in. It did so without permission, multiple times a day, demanding to be acknowledged, in the middle of everything and nothing at all. Sometimes she could withstand the pain that came with it; other times it knocked her down so completely.
Months compressed into nothing, into a second and a single breath. And it felt like no time had passed.
“I’m sorry,” she said to the woman, through her sobs. “I’ve lost . . . my daughter . . . my daughter.”
The Fall of Innocence Page 29