I sat down to view it on the computer. I was completely mesmerized. When it was over, I must have slept for three days straight, waking up briefly to eat and use the bathroom. On the third day I sat up in bed and told Julia and my parents what I remembered. “Her name is Kathy,” I said. “And she told Adrian and me that when we can’t speak, that we should sing.” I looked at my father. “I know I teased you about calling it all ‘classified’ stuff, but you’re right, Dad. I remembered that this woman taught Adrian to play guitar. I think she protected us, but from whom or what I don’t know.” My dad pointed out that if I could harness the power of that access, that I could move my siblings from the precarious state of mystery into the power of knowing. They could finally control their fears and insecurities and build a new foundation. But I felt impotent, because there I was, in bed most of the time, nauseous and exhausted after each cycle of chemotherapy, barely able to move. I keep reminding myself that some energy would return, eventually.
My parents and I spent Easter Sunday with the Griswolds at Julia’s uncle’s house in Hamden. After the cheesecake with thimbleberry topping, the patriarch, Uncle Mick, announced that the family had come to an agreement. They would give me my own turn at the house and island in August. They were happy to enable the first reunion of the “starfish children” at the Griswold homestead. After the next chemo treatment, even as I was throwing up, I imagined this distant happy dream. There was so much work to be done in preparation. Go away, cancer, I thought. I don’t have time for you.
Chapter 18
One Saturday in mid-May, Julia found David bawling, his head resting on his arm, his shoulders heaving violently. She put her hand on his back and asked him what was wrong. He said, “I need to learn Spaniel. And I can’t.” Julia looked bewildered, so he pointed to a stack of Berlitz Spanish audio books he had gotten from the library.
Julia said, “David, if you injured your ankle you wouldn’t expect to ballroom dance the next day, would you? You’d need therapy; first you’d walk, then run, then dance. Learning a second language is like asking your brain to ballroom dance in high heels. It’s not fair to ask that of yourself right now.”
But David’s dark mood was really about the news he had received that day: Dr. Levine had declared that the swelling in his brain was gone. This meant that his recall and reading abilities weren’t going to get any better. His expressive aphasia was mild but permanent.
“I’m just so tired,” he said. “I’m tired of trying. And nothing’s happening.”
“But David . . .”
“I’m so tired,” he said. “Stop making noise. Please.” He got up and heaved himself onto the daybed in the office. He barely made it, and one arm and one leg were hanging off the edge, so she pushed him deeper into the bed. His was a face of transformation, of pain, even labor, if that was possible. He was trying to stand in physical, mental, and spiritual defiance of what was happening inside his body. Each time he did this, he would need to remain without mental or sensory stimulation for at least twenty-four hours. His eyes were shut tight. He needed total silence.
Before she left, though, Julia rubbed his shoulder, like a mother encouraging a child. “Hey,” she said excitedly, “you said ‘I need to learn Spaniel’ when you meant to say ‘Spanish.’ Just aphasia, right? But you know what I just realized, David? You combined the word ‘Spanish’ with ‘Español’ and you got ‘Spaniol.’ At first I thought you said ‘spaniel’ as in the breed of dog, but that’s only because I’m an English speaker. Your brain is compensating, David. It’s smarter than you are. And now you’re half-bilingual!” A soft snore interrupted her. His breathing was slow and deep. She touched a hand to his forehead, but his temperature was normal. She noticed, suddenly, that his skin was not its usual sallow gray, but rather, that he was glowing. His face and hands were bright and translucent, as if he was releasing a steady flow of soft, inner light.
Chapter 19
David
A neighbor volunteered to come every day for an hour to read me a copy of Lance Armstrong’s memoir about surviving testicular cancer. Lance is my hero, and I studied his method, which was to commit to his future by bombarding himself with statements of faith in his survival. I loved that idea, so I start making long-term plans too. I sent my dad to the antiquarian book dealer to buy vintage, leather-bound copies of the poetry of Robert Frost, of Walden and Henry David Thoreau’s journals and poems, and of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Complete Works, all of which cost big bucks. I’m not a huge reader of classic literature, but I love those guys because they’re naturalists. I envisioned these essential works in my library when I’m an old man, so I acquired them as a way to build a bridge to my twilight years. I also bought a chess set. I called my financial planner and asked him to buy annuities. I’m building a tiny forest of bonsai trees. And I convinced my mother to let me have the diamond ring.
Julia had just left for the night. I was alone in my bed, thinking about our old bedroom, the queen-size mattress and box spring on the floor, the plain wood dresser, how she said she had to show me something in the Bassett showroom. We fought non-stop for a week over the decision to invest in “grown-up” furniture. I refused, of course, feeling it was akin to being dragged to the altar. The old adage “you made your bed, now sleep in it” couldn’t be truer. There I was, lying in a twin bed, trying to recall what it was like to make love to Julia. What did her breasts look like? What did it feel like to push up inside her? I had no freakin’ idea. Hell, I couldn’t remember ever having sex. I scrolled through my mental little black book. There was Mary Smitty in high school, Lizzy Mancini freshman and sophomore years of college, June Jones junior year, and Elaine Freedman and a handful of others my senior year. A few stray cats after that, and then Julia. But it was like the memory was on lockdown. Classified! Was this a joke? The good stuff was a blur, cannibalized into the compost pile of unremembered things, with no med school video footage to help me through this one. Even watching porn didn’t help. It was just gone.
But while my language and memory centers were clearly damaged, apparently my imagination was working just fine. Imagining must happen in the tough-as-nails frontal lobe, then, because I easily envisioned popping the pearly buttons off the black cardigan Julia had been wearing that night. I imagined myself carrying her upstairs and dropping her on the bed. The sheets weren’t child-themed, but a dignified white. The bed a king. I lowered my face to hers. But before I got to do what I wanted, I tumbled, head-first, down into sleep.
When I reached the bottom of what could only be described as the rabbit hole of my subconscious, I remembered two large boys climbing into my crib. I saw the outline of their figures in the dim light, felt the mattress sink where they were standing. One climbed on top of me, the other, onto my brother. A hand pressed over my mouth. Next to me, my brother cried out. I bit down deep into the bone of one of the boy’s fingers. He screamed. A light went on. A pair of arms encircled my shoulders and I knew that I was safe—for now. And I understood then that this assault had been the final straw, the moment when someone decided that it was the time to get us out of there.
Chapter 20
In the last week of May, People en Español published an article with the headline: “¡Crisis familiar para Adrián Vega!” with David’s illness as the hook. The by-line credited Veronica Mayorga. There was a photo, dated November of 2005, of Veronica, Adrian, David, and Julia at the Delano in Miami, with the hotel’s signature white curtains billowing behind them. Adrian was dressed in jeans and a black jacket, his arms around Veronica and Julia. David looked freshly showered and was wearing jeans and a wrinkled navy blue polo shirt. Adrian recalled how hard he had tried to get David to dress up a bit, told him he looked like a frump, even offered him the pick out of a closet full of linen guyaberas. But David refused, arguing that “comfort trumps beauty.” Toward the bottom of the article, there was a photo of Adrian embracing Julia in the hallway of a hospital. The caption read, Adrián Vega comforts Julia Griswo
ld, his brother’s fiancée. Several of Adrian’s ex-girlfriends, most of them from the Miami area, were quoted as saying that the brothers seemed to “trust only each other and their immediate families.” Adrian’s publicist was thrilled. By the middle of the week, Adrian’s download volume tripled. Adrian tossed the magazine in the garbage and waited anxiously for the week to pass and for the new issue to replace it on newsstands.
In mid-May, the O’Farrells needed help. They wanted to visit some elderly relatives out of state, and Julia was busy winding down the school year. Taina was traveling to spring fashion shows for work. Adrian had agreed to “David-sit” for a week. Julia was to pick Adrian up at Bradley Airport in Hartford. David was spending the day at home in the company of an old hiking buddy. He had had a dose of chemo the week before, so he was tired but on the way up, energy-wise.
Adrian was accustomed to the hustle of the airports in Miami, San Juan, and New York. Arriving at this quiet airport made for a striking contrast. Julia was waiting for him at the baggage claim. She looked stately even though she was dressed very simply in jeans and a white, long-sleeved blouse and a pair of riding boots. The combination of loose, blonde hair and equestrian boots gave her the air of a prep-school blue blood. But rather than allow himself to be impressed by her, Adrian chose to tease her, as an older brother would, by inquiring where she’d tied up her horse.
After a half-hour of waiting, Adrian discovered that his checked luggage (just an acoustic guitar and case), along with those of several other passengers, was on a flight that wouldn’t arrive for another hour. They decided to wait it out at the airport hotel bar.
Julia ordered a glass of red wine and Adrian ordered a gin and tonic. Then Julia called the house and talked to David’s friend, who told her that David was napping. She hung up and tucked the phone into a leather case clipped to her belt loop. She raised her glass to his. “To time,” she said, with a great sigh. “The only real commodity we have.”
Adrian looked into his drink, full of sparkling bubbles and festive lights reflected from the bar. He held it up. “May we spend it well then.” They clinked glasses and each took a sip, their eyes registering faint smiles over the rims of their drinks. Her gaze dreamily trailed the path of a departing jet. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “I’m happy to get a break.”
As he drank, Adrian remembered how envious he had been when David appeared with Julia on that trip in Miami. How pretty, how dignified he had found his brother’s New England girl. David had confessed, late one night, that while he loved and admired Julia, he wasn’t sure if he was in love with her. Who could have guessed that she would one day become someone so vitally important to their family, a sixth sister, a partner and hands-on manager in David’s care. What he had not known, but learned in the course of draining the gin and tonic, was that she and David weren’t together as a couple anymore. That was the most remarkable part of it to Adrian, because when he broke up with someone, that was it. He could no more imagine nursing an ex-girlfriend back to health than he could imagine becoming a priest. That Julia was nothing more than just a friend now to David was baffling, but admirable nonetheless.
“So are you seeing anyone?” he asked casually, two friends arriving at an inevitable topic.
“You’re spying for your brother. How sweet,” she said.
“I’m not spying,” he protested with a laugh. He tilted his head a little. “I’m just curious.”
“Why, you got a guy for me?”
“Not a chance. We’re keeping you in the family.”
Julia confessed that she had tried several times to move on, but that her decision to help David through his illness didn’t leave her much room to socialize. “How about you, Adrian,” Julia asked. “Who’s your latest conquest?”
He was totally stumped by the question, not because there wasn’t a name but because there were so many. He had to pick just one?
“No one special,” he said, and he wasn’t lying, because the women he was dating were, in fact, equally beautiful, smart, successful, interesting. They illuminated the marquee of his life like rows of white lights in the night, all of them dazzling but indistinguishable from one another. And very much like light bulbs, his lovers were bright and then suddenly dull. They were replaceable, unreliable, fragile, and occasionally, cutting.
Chapter 21
It was time to start carting supplies to the house on Griswold Island. Julia’s trunk was full of paper towels, cleaning products, bottled water, potting soil, and fertilizer for the garden. She had promised her mother that she would make a run out there, even though it really wasn’t prudent to go alone. “What if something happened?” her father used to say. “Who would hear you scream?” On the way home from the airport she asked Adrian if he wanted to “preview” Griswold Island. This way she could unload the supplies without breaking her promise to her father never to go alone. Adrian agreed, and they picked up some fast food and drove to Branford. They parked at the Stony Creek town dock parking lot and Adrian helped her load the water taxi.
Adrian remarked that the chunky rock bases of the Thimble Islands reminded him of Maine, that he had the sensation of being farther up the coast than Connecticut. Julia explained that the Atlas Mountains in Northwest Africa fit neatly into Branford like pieces of a puzzle, and that they have granite exactly like Stony Creek granite, because those two places were believed to have been connected before the continents ripped apart.
Even from the dock, the Griswold house looked desolate and unkempt. The late Victorian had three stories and a cupola. Double-deck, wraparound verandas framed the first two floors of the house. The shutters were closed and the gray wood shingles were weathered. But the house maintained its old-world dignity, with its varied rooflines, gables, double chimney stacks, and cupola tower. It pointed up, cleanly and proudly, toward the sky.
Up in the gnarled old cedars, birds built nests and added their music to the cheerfulness of the timid sunshine, but the air was still chilly. Julia and Adrian wandered down the slate path that wound around the island, through small forests of sea grass and clusters of early-flowering bushes. Adrian peered closely at the unopened flower buds, twisted into tight little knots, and the tender yellow-green shoots in the trees. “Living in the tropics, you don’t get a sense of seasons,” he said. “I’m always amazed when I come up here.”
The empty porches were strewn with sticks and dead leaves. Julia threw open the grand, creaky doors of the house. Adrian was behind her, carrying a wholesale-sized package of paper towels. They went from room to room, and he helped her open shutters and curtains and lift windows to let the air in. They had to push their shoulders against sticky doors to get them to open. In the great room, she pulled back the folds of the curtains and tucked them into a wall hook, like a girl tucking a strand of hair behind an ear. The sun flooded though the tall windows, and a beam of sunshine illuminated the grand piano like a spotlight. Adrian lifted the cover and turned his head sideways to test the sound. “Needs tuning,” he said. Then he sat down and began to play “Piano Man” but the notes were off. He looked up at the open book of sheet music. “Someone was having a romantic night,” he said. “ ‘This Guy’s in Love with You.’ Herb Alpert. Nineteen sixty-eight. Harry Connick Jr. did a great cover in One Fine Day.”
“Oh, will you sing it? I mean this summer, if I promise to get the piano tuned?”
“Deal,” he said, then got up and roamed the room, looking at the items on the shelves and studying the artwork on the walls. He ran a finger over the leather spines of the family’s history books.
“Just a bunch of dusty books about people who are, themselves, just dust,” Julia said. “But among those tedious accounts of births, military careers, illnesses, and deaths there are these little bits of wisdom. So many of our soldiers managed to come back alive from Germany, France, Korea, and Vietnam, against all odds. And then they spent their last days sunning themselves out on the porch.” She pointed to a window. “Some of the
m with pieces of metal still lodged in their bones, mercury in their livers, and the taste of blood in their mouths.”
“Would that be one of them?” Adrian pointed to a yellowed human skull that was serving as a bookend on one of the shelves.
Julia laughed. “No. That came from one of the anatomy labs at Yale. One of my aunts worked there in the sixties. When they moved to a new building, the skull was in a pile labeled ‘miscellaneous junk,’ so she brought it home. It’s been a part of the family ever since. Would you care to see our record collection?” The skull was forgotten the second Julia threw the lower cabinet doors open to reveal the family’s vast collection of vinyl. Adrian made an exaggerated gasping noise. “A phonograph,” he whispered, “I’ve never seen a real one before.” He pointed at the contraption on the bottom shelf.
“The 1910 compact Victrola XI,” Julia said. “It still works. I think we have some of the original 78s.”
“Can I hear it?” His eyes were as wide as a child’s. Julia stepped aside and let him pull the Victrola out of the cabinet, because she knew it was heavy. “Whoa,” he said, as he strained to pick it up. He set it down and Julia wound it up with the handle, like her uncle had shown her. It only played about a quarter of a song before it had to be wound up again. Adrian chose romantic-sounding titles like “There’s a Girl in Havana” and “Sugar Moon.” “Too bad they all sound alike,” Adrian said after a few minutes of listening. “That same prewar piano banging away.”
“Try something else then.” Julia pointed at the rows of records. “They’re grouped by decade, and they stop at 1980. Anything after that is considered too modern for this house.” She pulled one out and held it up for him. “Do you like the Platters?” Adrian took it from her, wound the machine and dropped the needle onto the disc. As the first crackly notes of “Only You” filled the room, he leaped up and offered his hand. Julia took it and they danced, each singing out loud, with his hand resting firmly on her lower back. He swept her around the room in ballroom high style, then dipped her to “thrill me like you do.” The notes got lower and slower and the song wound down completely. They stood in place, awkwardly, for a moment. “Bummer,” Adrian said, staring down at the motionless turntable. “How can you dance if you have to wind the thing up every two minutes?”
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