My phone rings just as I’m herding the kids in the door. It’s Jalal. I tap to answer but then just hand the phone to Adam. “It’s Daddy. Say hello.” While they talk, I set Mia Grace in the play corral and turn the TV on for Adam. He hands me the phone and says, “Baba Daddy say you talk.”
I walk into the kitchen before I say anything. “Yes?”
“Are you coming home today?” he asks.
“I don’t know.”
“Will you tell me why you left?”
“I needed to be alone.”
“You have Adam and Mia Grace; you are not the one alone.”
“You know what I meant, Jalal.”
“And I mean, either bring them home or I will come get them. For some reason, you feel a need to punish me so find a way to do that without punishing them.”
He waits silently for my response. What if Jennie is right? What if I didn’t hear what I thought I did? He’s right. I’m punishing the kids when I’m not even certain he deserves to be. “I need to clean up here,” I say “and then we’ll leave.”
“Thank you.”
I hang up and call Jennie, who assures me she didn’t call Jalal after we talked. I tell her we’re going back to Coelho. “Good,” she says. “Talk to Jalal. Get the truth out and then you’ll know what to do.”
Eighteen
Adam thinks it’s a game to run around the garage while I get Mia Grace out of her car seat. Despite his joy at being home, I have to herd him like a baby goat to get him to the door into the house. “Adam, up the steps. Now.” If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to guide him directly to the kitchen door. If not, he’ll continue the game and run for the stairs up to Aza’s apartment. Today, he doesn’t get a chance to do either because as soon as we step into the laundry room, Aza grabs him. Her face is a solemn mask as she reaches for Mia Grace with her free arm. Before I can protest, she says, “Jalal told me to take them upstairs. He needs to talk to you.”
I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut, but I hide it and give Mia Grace a kiss. “Adam, be good for Aunt Aza.” He asks if she has any ice cream as soon as they start up the steps. I wait until Aza’s door closes behind them before I enter the kitchen.
Jalal is sitting at the table, looking at some papers in a folder. His brow is creased, his jaw set, as if he’s worried and angry at the same time, and yet his eyes are sad when he looks up at me. My heart slams against bone, and I imagine pieces breaking off with each beat. Don’t do this, Jalal. Please, don’t do this.
Then, as I walk toward the table, my anger blazes white. He’s already seen a lawyer? Drawn up the papers? Sign here, Renee, and out the door you go? I stumble. It’s too dark in here. Why is he looking at me like that? Why is he getting up?
“Renee?”
I only realize I’m falling when Jalal catches me. He picks me up and carries me to the couch. I sit up the instant my head clears, but he stops me from standing.
“What happened?” he asks. “Are you sick?”
“No. Get me a Coke.” As soon as he walks away, I get up and stagger to a chair at the table. At the sound, he turns to look at me, shakes his head, and continues on to the fridge. I will not show him another ounce of weakness.
“When was the last time you ate,” he says, setting the Coke in front of me. “If your blood sugar is low—”
“It’s not.” I pick up the can and gesture toward the papers on the table. “You wanted to talk?”
He sits down across from me and starts gathering up the papers. “Maybe this should wait.”
“Maybe it shouldn’t.”
He frowns at me. “Why are you so angry?”
How can he even ask that question? I’m battling tears, but I can’t tell if they’re from sorrow or rage. Probably both. It should be both. I take a drink and swallow hard. “Will you just say what you have to say?”
He looks down at the paper on top of the stack in his hand, but he doesn’t speak. The words tumbling around in his mouth make tiny movements with his lips and jaw. I can’t take it. “Just give them to me,” I say and hold out my hand.
He hesitates, and then he lays the papers face down on the table. “This is the report from the detective agency. Nathan finally located your brother.”
For a moment, a mixture of relief and confusion paralyzes my tongue. I stare at Jalal for so long he asks me if I feel faint again. I grab one of the thoughts swirling around my brain and force it to my mouth. “Where is he?”
“Nathan had trouble finding him because we gave the wrong name.”
“No, we didn’t.”
“His name is Brandon Marshall.”
My hope sinks so fast it nearly pulls me out of my chair. “No. That’s not him. His last name is Cooper. Brandon Cooper. Only my name was Marshall. Nathan found the wrong—”
“Renee—”
“Damn it, Jalal, I think I know my own brother’s name.” He opens the folder and hands a printout to me showing a California I.D. photo. It looks too much like the Brandon I remember not to be him. I stare at his face for a while. “Is he dead?”
Jalal reaches for my hand, but I pull it away. “Is he dead?”
“No.” He glances away for a second. “He lives in Sacramento.”
“Sacramento? Was he living there when I was?”
Jalal reaches across the table quickly and grasps both my hands. “He moved there nine years ago.”
I shake my head. “My brother would have been living with his father in West Virginia then. Your detective found the wrong boy.”
“Brandon is not a boy. He’s twenty-two, now. And he lives with his father in Sacramento.” He looks me in the eye and waits a beat. “Do you understand?”
I stare at him. I understand that he’s got everything wrong. Why is he trying to convince me some stranger is my brother?
Jalal lets go of my hands and slides the file folder to me. “You need to read this.”
I shake my head again. Something begins to strangle me from within. “Tell me.”
He takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. “Your mother lied to you, Renee. Cooper, the man you thought was Brandon’s father, turned out not to be. Less than a year after … after you were separated, Brandon had an accident. A serious one. He needed transfusions. His blood type … the tests proved Cooper was not his father.”
He stops and waits for me to react. When I say nothing, he forces out a breath and continues. “When they realized Cooper was not his father, they contacted your mother. She told them the truth.” His eyes search mine.
“My father?”
“Yes.”
“My father let my brother live with him? He welcomed him?”
“Brandon was critically injured. He needed a lot of rehabilitation. I am sure a bond—” He cuts himself off so abruptly his teeth clack together. “Maybe it was just easier with a boy.”
“The son of a bitch couldn’t get rid of me fast enough.”
“Renee. Maybe you should talk to—”
I pick up the file and throw it at him. “Fuck them both.” I’m on my feet and a step away before Jalal catches my hand.
He pulls me to him. “I know this hurts, but you have to deal with it. You wanted to contact your brother.”
“I wanted to know that he was all right. Now I know.”
“You do not.”
“Sure I do.” I jerk away from him. “Brandon was living well while I was burying our mother and scraping by on pennies. And our dear, loving father didn’t give a damn about that. That’s all I need to know.”
“Your brother is not your father. He was just a kid, a sick kid, when he moved in with your father.”
“When my father welcomed him with open arms, you mean.” I’m so angry I can’t stand still. Jalal follows me through the hall. I’m shaking so badly, my shoes threaten to skitter on the slick marble floor. It’s a relief to reach the carpeted living room.
“Nathan gave us a number, so you can call—”
“Never.”
“Brandon lives with my father—our father—and I never want to see that man again.” I’m pacing, so Jalal sits down in the chair mid-way along my path.
“You can talk to your brother without seeing your father.”
I stop in front of him. “Listen, I appreciate your trouble and expense in searching for Brandon. I’m glad to know he’s alive and well, but I don’t need him in my life. Understand?”
“No.”
“Well, tough.” I head back toward the hall. “I’m going to get the kids. They missed you.”
“This is naptime,” he calls after me.
In the kitchen, I pull out my phone and text Aza. Her response confirms Jalal’s. I pick up the photo again. Brandon grew into a handsome man, even with a scar down one side of his forehead. Despite my anger, I’m curious about his accident. I sit down and start reading.
Jalal walks in and goes to the fridge. A few minutes later, he sets a sandwich in front of me and sits.
“He almost died, didn’t he?” I ask him.
“It sounds like it,” he says.
“At least Becky told the truth in time.”
Jalal picks up a book and reads while I eat. My stomach is too tense from stress to finish even half the sandwich. I push the plate over to him. I lean forward, elbows on the table, and rest my forehead in my palms.
“You should lie down for a while,” he says.
“I don’t want to see my father. Do you understand?”
“I understand how you feel.”
He put a slight emphasis on feel, meaning he accepts my feeling but disagrees with it. He’s thinking of the way he felt about his father, but this is not the same. His father loves him. “Can we not talk about this anymore?” I say.
I interpret his silence as an agreement to drop the subject—for now. He picks up the untouched half of the sandwich and goes back to reading as he eats. Could my life get any more stressed? I can’t handle this deal with my father when I don’t even know what’s going on with my marriage. And what is going on? I used to have the survival skill of assessing Becky’s mood with just a glance or hearing one word from her mouth. Now, apparently, I see what’s not there and hear what wasn’t said. But I heard something. “What don’t you want to tell me, Jalal?”
“I told you everything. Or you read it in the report.”
“I’m not talking about Brandon. On Tuesday, what was Aza telling you not to keep secret from me?” He doesn’t answer right away. I look up and see his confusion. “I heard you over the monitor.”
He sinks back in his chair and closes his eyes. A moment later, he sighs. “I should have known Aza was right.”
I hold my breath.
He opens his eyes. “I was going to tell you after I met with the department head again. I figured if no job was offered, there would be no reason to discuss it with you.”
Flabbergasted is one of those old-fashioned words Jennie uses, but it’s the perfect word for what I feel right now. I close my gaping mouth, only to open it a second later. “A job?”
“I want to teach. At Cal Poly.”
“Creative writing?”
“No. Business. Finance.”
“That’s why you went down there on Monday?”
“I talked to them first, briefly, when I was down there for the conference. They called me back for an interview. I apologize for lying to you. Hank did drive down with me, though.”
“I don’t understand the secrecy.”
He looks down, his smile sheepish. “I thought you might think the idea stupid.”
I’m so relieved to know his secret has nothing to do with Diane I can hardly keep from laughing. “Should I be offended that you don’t know me better than that?”
“Me with a regular job?”
“You’ve had regular jobs before.”
“But now,” he gestures at the room, “with all this money …”
“So, you don’t need the money. So what? People work for other reasons.”
“If I get the job, my salary will go toward a scholarship fund.”
“There you go.”
“I might not get it.”
“They called you back.”
He smiles.
“I thought you enjoyed lecturing that creative writing class, though, so why don’t you want to teach it?” He looks out the windows, and I wait for his fingers to thread through his curls. There they go. I bite back a smile, thinking of what Jennie said. Jalal could never shave his head; he’d never be able to think.
“I felt like a fraud, standing in that room. I know how to write poetry. I know how to teach others to write it. But …”
“It doesn’t excite you like it used to.”
“Exactly. But when Hank and I discuss the market, and when I talk with Jason and Ryan about what they’re learning …”
“You get hard?”
He laughs. “Almost that good.” He picks up his glass, forgetting it’s empty. “Am I getting old and boring?”
I get up to refill his glass. “No,” I say, “you’re not boring.”
He shakes his head. “Why do I keep setting myself up for that one?”
Jalal made love to me in complete silence, as though his mind was on something else. After where my thoughts have been lately, his obvious distraction was no comfort. Now, as we lay silently in the dark, I wonder what if Nathan hadn’t found Brandon? Maybe Jalal wouldn’t have insisted I come home. I keep pushing those thoughts away, but they push back. Just as I finally sink down toward sleep, Jalal’s hand on my shoulder draws me back to the surface.
“Why did you almost faint?” he asks.
I roll over toward him. “What are you talking about?”
“When you came home this morning. You walked in the door and almost passed out.”
“I didn’t sleep well last night … and my blood sugar—”
“You said it had nothing to do with your blood sugar.”
I try to hide any expression because tonight the moon is full and he’s in silhouette, which means my face is clearly visible in the light from the windows. “I saw the file and thought you were going to give me more bad news.” That’s not the whole truth, but it’s not a lie. He rolls to his back and lies still. After a moment, I close my eyes daring to believe he’s going to sleep.
“Tell me the truth, Renee.”
“It doesn’t matter—”
“It does.” He turns back toward me and tilts my face fully into the light. “What were you expecting me to say?”
Closing my eyes is the only way I can hide from him. Maybe if he can’t look into my eyes, he won’t know what I’m thinking. “I thought you were going to tell me you want a divorce.”
A half laugh escapes him before he chokes it off. “My god.” He leaps from the bed. “I thought you were joking.”
I open my eyes. Against the light from the windows, he’s only a black shape looming over me. I sit up and hug my knees. “I’m sorry.”
“How could you think that?”
“Well … you didn’t tell me about not writing or the lecture or the job and—”
“And because of that you thought I wanted a divorce? Damn. If I had known keeping those things to myself would make you leap to—”
“Are you sorry you married me?”
For a moment, he makes no move or sound, and then he sinks to the edge of the bed, twisting to face me. The tears welled in his eyes glisten in the moonlight. “Marrying you is the only decision I have not once regretted.”
Why can’t I believe that? I want to. I need to. But. “Sometimes … I feel like you need someone better.”
“Better?”
“Different. Someone who fits in your life better. I’ve tried to change, but—”
“Oh, sweet love.” He leans toward me and cups his hand around the back of my head, pressing my forehead to his. “If I make you feel that way, I am the one who needs to change. Forgive me. Please.”
Jalal gets up to refill his cup and then stops behind my chair and rubs my shoulder as he gazes out the windows. “We should go to the aquarium,” he says.
“Where’s that?”
He pulls on my braid to tilt my head back. “You have never been to the Monterey Bay Aquarium?”
I shake my head. He grins and kisses my nose. “Then off we go.”
After breakfast, he takes the kids upstairs to dress them while I straighten up the kitchen. When I go up to shower, I find the kids playing on the floor, one packed bag on our bed, and Jalal simultaneously talking on the phone and packing another. I question him with a look, but he only mouths the word shower and points. It appears he’s turned this into an overnight trip.
When I come out to the vanity area, Kristen greets me. Her face is bare of makeup and her hair is still wet. I’d bet she climbed out of bed fifteen minutes ago. “Uncle J says you have ten minutes to get packed.”
“Aren’t you going to be late for school?”
“I’m going with you guys.”
“Oh. That’s nice. Have you been before?”
“Yes, but Mom doesn’t know, so my official answer is no. Okay?”
“Does she know you’re going today?”
“She’s going too. And Paul. And grandma and grandpa are meeting us there.” I pause with my mouth open and the comb halfway through my hair. She nods. “He kind of takes an idea and runs with it, doesn’t he?”
“Indeed.”
Jalal waves his credit card like a magic wand and makes wishes come true. He flew his parents down, so they could share the kids’ first aquarium experience. It was so cool to hear Nasrin and Mia Grace squeal together with delight at the sea otters and to watch Adam and Korush penguin walk side-by-side. I have to admit spending money like that is a blast.
With the kids at the hotel, in the care of his parents and Kristen, Jalal and I go out for the evening with Aza and Paul. After laughs and drinks and a wonderful dinner on the bay, they go up to their room and we go for a moonlit walk on the hotel’s beach. Even though we’re not dressed for it and I’m freezing, I love it because this feels like the old days. I guess because I married a poet, my life will never lack in romance.
An Illusion of Trust (Sequel to The Brevity of Roses) Page 20