“God, of course you are,” he says sincerely. “I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I brought you here. Into all my problems.”
“It’s fine,” I say, lowering my head back on my forearms. I feel like I’m going to be sick.
“You’re not fine,” he says, coming closer. “You’re sick, and I dragged you all the way out here. God, I’m an idiot. What can I get for you? What do you need?”
You, I want to respond. I need you.
But I don’t. I’ve lived twenty-seven years without him. I can live twenty-seven more.
“Really, I’m OK,” I say, forcing myself to stand up.
“You sure?” he says.
I nod.
He scrutinizes my face, and I can tell he doesn’t believe me, but he doesn’t push further. “OK,” he says. “Well, ah . . . make yourself at home. The takeout menus are in the top drawer to the left of the sink. I turned the water back on, but you might want to give it a while to heat up, if you want to take a shower. There are towels in my bathroom. Clean sheets in the closet. You can have my bed tonight.”
I nod again but don’t raise my eyes to him.
And then, just like that, he’s gone.
THERE ARE TWO couches in the den where Aja and I lie down after Eric leaves. Aja turns on the TV but he passes out within minutes and I’m left to my thoughts, my mind still reeling about what he said.
At first I was mad—how could Eric not have told me he was leaving? How could he have allowed me to get so comfortable with him, to feel so close? But then reality sets in and I have to acknowledge the truth: Why would he tell me? It’s not like he owes me anything. I’m just some girl he’s been giving a ride home for a few months. His words to Stephanie ring in my ears. I’m just a librarian. A friend. And I’m suddenly embarrassed that I ever thought it was anything more. But then another part of my brain chimes in: He tried to kiss me. And last night—his hands. His hands were . . . where they were. I shake my head to rid myself of the memory. No—what does any of that even mean? I’m old enough to know that kisses aren’t contracts. And almost-kisses, well, they mean even less. And a hand on my breast, over my shirt? Well, more happens to fifteen-year-olds under the bleachers at football games. I can’t believe that I thought so much of it. People get caught in the moment, but that’s all they are—moments. They don’t mean anything. I realize with Eric, I’ve just been seeing what I wanted to see this whole time, what I hoped was happening. But I can’t be touched—not under my shirt, not anywhere, really. And he knows that—so how could we be anything more?
And really, I should have known he was leaving. And not just because he’s a good dad and he would obviously choose to be near his daughter, but because Mr. Walcott used to say: “Look for the pattern.” Of course, he was talking about solving math problems, but it’s a strategy that works for life, too. The pattern is: everyone leaves. Or more specifically: everyone leaves me. And I don’t mean it in the pathetic, sad, self-pitying way it sounds (although I acknowledge that it is, in fact, pathetic, sad, and self-pitying). It’s just facts, the pattern of my life. My father. Mom. Hell, even Louise. If I remotely find myself caring about someone, they will not stick around. I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before Madison takes off.
At some point in my meanderings, I must have fallen asleep, because I wake later on the couch, groggy, with the TV still on. Aja’s awake and watching it.
“What time is it?” I ask, noticing my throat feels a little better. Small favors.
“Five,” he says.
“P.m.?” I ask, a little stunned I slept that long.
“Yeah. I’m starved.”
“Me too,” I say.
I get up to find the takeout menus and about thirty minutes later Aja and I are eating greasy noodles and chicken in some kind of thick, overly sweet sauce on the floor of the den. There’s a dining room table and chairs in the room adjacent to the kitchen, but you can’t see the TV from there and Aja wanted me to watch X-Men. He points out the character Jubilee when she’s on-screen.
“She’s not a main character in this one,” he says, his mouth full of rice. “Or the next two. But you’re going to have a bigger part in Apocalypse. Well, not you. But you know.”
“Apocalypse, huh? That doesn’t sound too promising.”
After X-Men is over, Aja flips channels, stopping on Discovery. It’s some ocean-mysteries show and an underwater camera is focusing up close on a blue whale as he filters plankton through his big grille of a mouth.
Seeing the whale reminds me of something. “Did you know there’s this whale scientists discovered that sings at a higher tone than any other whale in the world?” I say to Aja. “They measure the sounds in hertzes or something like that. Anyway, he just swims around the ocean by himself, unable to communicate with any other whales.”
“Really?” he asks.
“Yep. Read it online a few years ago.” I pause, and then add: “It was one of the saddest things I think I’ve ever read about an animal.”
Aja’s quiet for a minute and then says: “I don’t think that’s the saddest thing.”
“No?”
He sits up straighter on the couch. “Do you know how koalas die?”
I narrow my eyes, trying to recall any vague information I may have accumulated over the years about koala bears. “No. I don’t.”
“Their teeth are built for eating eucalyptus leaves, right? But after years and years of eating it, their teeth get worn down to these little nubs and they can’t chew it anymore, so they starve to death.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I think that’s the saddest thing.”
I think for a minute. “Did you know that chimpanzees don’t swim?”
“That’s actually not true,” he says.
“Wait—what?”
“Yeah. It’s a commonly believed falsehood, but a couple scientists documented chimps swimming a few years ago,” he says. “So, they can swim. They just generally choose not to.”
“Huh,” I say, genuinely surprised by this new information. “Well, anyway, I read that if one of them falls in a river or something, another one will go in after it to try and save it, even though it means they’ll both die. It’s happened at a couple zoos—chimps drowning in the moats surrounding their enclosures.”
Aja nods, taking this in.
“I’ve always thought that was really sad, too. And also, kind of sweet.”
Aja’s quiet for another minute. And then: “I still think the koala one wins.”
I smile at the way his mind works and turn back to the show.
And then a fresh wave of anguish flows through me, as I realize when Eric leaves, Aja will be leaving, too.
I DON’T BELIEVE in séances, but standing in Eric’s room at midnight, I understand why mediums in movies always want you to bring artifacts of the person’s life—shirts, a wallet, jewelry. It’s like a piece of them is still attached to it. It’s why I can feel my mom every time I go into her room. And now, it’s why I half expect to see Eric materialize in front of me at any minute, even though I know he’s still at the hospital. I get undressed and take a shower in his bathroom, trying but failing to ignore that this is the same place Eric stands, the same water that arcs and bends and flows around his sharp edges and soft curves, the same towels that get to touch him in places I’ve never seen.
What am I doing here? In New Hampshire? In his house? With fresh reminders of everything I’ll never have at every turn. I suddenly want to be home. Such a strong yearning emanates from my gut that I think about calling a cab, with no regard to how much a five-hour drive might cost or how uncomfortable I’d be in the backseat of a strange car, a stranger navigating it. I just want to get out of here.
But then I remember Aja in the next room. And I know I can’t leave him alone.
I towel off and hurriedly get dressed, in a T-shirt and track pants from Eric’s drawer (sniffing them first to make sure they’re clean, so I don’t have
a reaction; they smell like laundry soap). I cover the bare mattress in clean sheets, crawl in, and close my eyes, but I can’t sleep. Eric is everywhere. His scent, his possessions, the indent where his body lies night after night—his presence is palpable. But it’s like the air—all around me, but impossible to touch.
twenty-four
ERIC
ELLIE LOOKS OLDER and younger at the same time, if that’s possible. Her flat-ironed hair now has streaks of cerulean, the same color her lips used to turn when she devoured those artificial ice pops in the summer. Raspberry, her favorite, was inexplicably blue.
But she’s tiny, impossibly tiny in the hospital bed, as if she’s Alice in Wonderland and just drank the shrinking potion, her shoulders turning in on themselves, her body being eaten by the thin mattress.
I turn my attention to her nose, where a tiny diamond rests in the curve above her nostril, and try not to have a coronary about Stephanie’s letting her get a piercing. At least it’s not a tattoo.
While I study her, breathing in the relief that her body is still full of life, no matter how she’s decorated it, she stares right back at me, her eyes cold and unflinching. I wait—does she still hate me? I’m afraid to say anything—afraid to say the wrong thing.
And then she says: “Daddy,” and I think my knees might buckle from relief.
“Ellie.”
“Daddy, I’m so sorry.” Her face crumples in segments like an accordion, starting with her forehead. Tears leak down her cheeks.
“Oh, honey,” I say, scooping her into my arms. I sit on the edge of her hospital bed, letting her drench my shoulder. I stroke her blue hair until her ragged breathing slowly regains an even cadence.
She extricates herself from my arms and sits back, wiping her nose with the back of her bare arm. I reach over for a tissue from the counter and hand it to her.
“What were you thinking?” I ask, reaching up to her face and tucking an errant lock behind her ear.
“I don’t know,” she says, looking down. “Darcy said it was just like regular weed.”
“But even the weed, Ellie. This isn’t you,” I say, flicking the blue strands grazing her shoulder to emphasize my point.
She jerks away, anger flashing in her eyes. “You don’t know who I am.”
I drop my hand. Look at her. Let her words sink in. “You’re right. I don’t know who you are. Not anymore. But, Ellie, I’m trying. I really want to know.”
“What, by reading some stupid books?” she snaps.
I flinch.
“Yeah, by reading some books,” I say, mindful to keep my tone calm, steady. “Reading your journal. I didn’t have much choice, did I? You wouldn’t exactly speak to me.”
“I wonder why.” She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms in front of her chest.
“Ellie, I know what I said was awful, but I’m sorry. I’ve apologized a hundred times. You know, people say things, sometimes, that they don’t mean. It happens. People make mistakes. I made a mistake.”
“You think this is all because of what you said?”
“Well, yeah.” I sit up a little straighter. “Isn’t it?”
She scoffs. “Oh my God. Mom was right. You are so emotionally clueless.”
I try to ignore this dig and wait for her to continue. She doesn’t. She just turns her head and looks out the window, as if the street lamp is a completely fascinating piece of technology she’s never seen before.
“Are you going to—”
“You left me!” she screams, startling me. “You left! You said when you were divorcing Mom that you would still always be there. Just not in the same house. But you weren’t!”
Jubilee flashes in my mind. Her rumpled body in the passenger seat of my car, shoulders heaving at her mother’s betrayal. Is that how Ellie has felt this whole time? The thought levels me.
“And you took him with you.”
“Aja?”
“It’s what you always wanted, isn’t it? A son. Someone that’s not complicated and emotional. A kid that’s easy to understand. And you got him and then you had your chance to leave. To have some easy life without me and you took it.”
My eyes grow bigger with each thought that tumbles from her mouth. I don’t even know where to begin when it’s my turn to speak. “Aja,” I start, “is anything but uncomplicated and unemotional. And I think I’m doing a worse job with him than I ever did with you, if that helps at all. And this job, what I moved for? It’s just a temporary assignment. Six months. Didn’t your mother tell you that?”
“Yeah,” she says. “But that’s what they all start out as, and then you do a good job and they want you to stay.”
“Why do you think that?”
“That’s what Darcy said. Her dad moved them here on a ‘temporary’ one-year assignment.” She makes finger quotes around the word “temporary” and it strikes me as very adult. I wonder if Darcy taught her that, too. “And they’ve been here for two years now with no sign of leaving.”
Oh, if only it had been temporary, I think, but I bite my tongue.
“Well, this is temporary. I’m filling in for the VP’s maternity leave and she is coming back. We’re working on the transition now. Besides, even if they did ask me to stay, I never would. I would never leave you. Not for good.”
She sniffs. “Even if they asked you to be partner?”
I look at her sad eyes. Her nose stud glints in the fluorescent light. And I say with utter confidence: “Even if they asked me to be partner.”
She gives a little nod and looks down at her hands. I’m not sure where to go from here. I’m not sure if she believes me. I’m not sure if I can undo all the damage I’ve unwittingly done. But I am sure that I’m moving back, as soon as I can. And that I’ll never leave her again.
And then, for the second time in that hospital room, I think of Jubilee.
I GET HOME around three a.m., bone tired despite a quick, uncomfortable nap sitting up in a hospital chair that afternoon. The house is dark, but thankfully warmer than when I left it. I walk down the hall, peeking into Aja’s dark room, his dark figure a restful mound on the bed. I continue to my room, the old floorboards creaking beneath my feet. I unbutton the top of my shirt as I go. A sour tang wafts up, reminding me I haven’t showered in nearly forty-eight hours, but I’m too exhausted to deal with that now.
I come to the foot of my bed and stand there. Jubilee, like Aja, is a waifish shapeless heap under the sheets, but I feel pulled toward her, like she’s on the winning side in a game of tug-of-war. I would give anything to surrender. To crawl in bed beside her, feel the length of her body against mine, the heat of her skin, the drumming of her heart. I wonder if she thinks about it, too.
And then suddenly, I’m overcome with the desire to find out. To know if I’m alone in my longing, a lighthouse signaling to an empty sea.
“Jubilee,” I breathe. My veins thrum as I wait for her response. She doesn’t stir. I try one more time.
“Jubilee.” I peer at her in the dark and can just make out her face, the outline of her upside-down pout against my pillow. I walk to the opposite side of the king-size bed and hesitate. In theory, two people can sleep in this bed and never find each other during the night. I should know—Stephanie and I successfully avoided each other for months in a bed this size.
But the thought of Jubilee just an arm’s length away—the waves of her hair beckoning me like the ocean to the shore—proves too tempting to bear. I pick up the extra pillow, reach for a blanket from the top of the open closet, and stretch out on the carpet below her feet, listening to her breathe and waiting for sleep to overtake me. But it doesn’t come for a long, long time.
THE NEXT MORNING, I get up before the house is awake and run to the corner market for coffee and bagels. When I get back, Jubilee is in the kitchen filling a glass at the sink.
“Morning,” I say, setting the sack on the counter. She’s wearing one of my white undershirts and a pair of track pants. Even with the wai
stband folded over three or four times they still hang on her hips.
“Morning,” she replies, and then gulps the water.
“Um, I’ve got to go back to the hospital this morning. Help Ellie get checked out and settled at home. And then we can leave. Is that OK?”
“Sure,” she says, but the word has a chill. It’s a tone I haven’t heard from her before and it gives me pause. “Can I use your washing machine?” she asks.
“Of course. Anything you need. Oh, and I bought bagels.” I pat the bag for emphasis. “Will you let Aja know?”
“Yep,” she says, putting her glass under the faucet again.
I turn to go, not knowing what to say next. After all, I just dragged this woman across many state lines to my house in New Hampshire with no warning in the middle of the night—I’d probably be a little miffed, too.
WITH A STIFF hug and the promise that I’ll return every other weekend before I move for good in February, I leave Ellie at Stephanie’s house.
“Answer my texts,” I say, fixing her with my best dad look.
“Only if you stop sending stupid ones.”
“Not much chance of that.”
She offers a half smile, and though I want to shout, No more drugs! No more Darcy! No more leaving the house! I decide it’s best to leave on a high note. Besides, Stephanie surprisingly agreed with me that Ellie should be grounded for a month, so at least I can rest in the knowledge that she won’t be leaving home for anything but school for the foreseeable future.
On the way back to New Jersey, Aja taps at his video game, while I let the last few days sink in, along with a bone-weary exhaustion. It’s not until we’re halfway through the drive that I realize Jubilee isn’t speaking. Hasn’t since I picked them up at the house and loaded everyone into the car.
“Did you call in to the library?” I ask, realizing that it’s probably open today—the day after New Year’s—and that she’s missing work.
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