Among the Dead and Dreaming

by Samuel Ligon

  “Where—”

  “I know it’s been an awful surprise,” I say, “but I just had to. . . ,” and I sort of choke up for a second looking at Alina looking at me and reaching for the phone. I hold up my finger again. “She just looks so much like you,” I say, “taking me deep into all our time together, all our love, all I thought we’d lost. . . .”

  I nod at Alina with my finger still in the air.

  “Me too,” I say. “Just a second.”

  I palm the phone’s mouthpiece.

  “Go on to the bathroom,” I tell Alina. “She just wants to talk a minute more to me. We got so much catching up to do. Then she wants to talk to you.”

  Alina beams as she makes her way into the bathroom.

  I whisper into the phone. “I want that money now, Nikki. Today.”

  “Please,” Nikki says. “Just let me talk to her.”

  “Listen,” I say. “Tell her I’m her father, and nothing more. And don’t act all crazy. Tell her, ‘Steve’s your daddy.’”

  “Steve?”

  “Get it together,” I whisper. “Say ‘I want you to spend some time with Steve. With your daddy.’ Say that right now so I can hear it.”

  She says it like a robot.

  And I know it ain’t gonna work.

  “Listen,” I whisper. “That ain’t no good. You have that money ready when I call back. And don’t even think about the cops. I got somebody watching you, Nikki, who you ain’t never gonna know is there, hidden on Wyoming Avenue. So if there’s any sign at all of the cops, you can just say goodbye—”

  The bathroom door swings open behind me. “Okay, baby,” I say into the phone. “I’ll tell her. Yes. I will. I love you, too,” and I hang up, Alina there waiting.

  “She’s too broken up,” I tell her. “Wants us to call back in a little while.”

  “Let’s just go over there,” Alina says. “We can sit on the porch or in the backyard. We can walk down to the beach.”

  “We will, baby,” I say. “All that and more. That’s just what she wants to do. But we’ll call her back first. In a bit. She just wants a little time to get used to the idea is all, to get herself together. There’s a lot of emotion running through her. Exactly like you said. What I never dared hope. All that love of ours like a rising river inside her.”

  I usher her out the hallway and back to the dining room, not sure of my next move. But knowing we have to keep moving.

  “Is that okay?” I ask her. “If you and me spend a little more time together before going back home?”

  She nods as fast and shallow as Nikki’s breaths on the phone, and I can see how hard she’s trying to keep from crying as I radiate my love toward her, all my love radiating, and my future out on the beach waiting.

  28

  Nikki

  29

  Gail

  We’d fly out over the country or up into space, just the two of us, before Nikki was born, or holding her as a swaddled baby—just the three of us, like astronauts above the big beautiful earth, all blue and dreaming down below. I gave her Michael’s name, hoping he’d come back and claim her. Fiore. My beautiful little flower. That’s what she was for so long—my beautiful little flower. We’d fly up over the planet in our body ships, Michael and me, no sign on him of the agent orange poison that killed him, sometimes with Nikki and sometimes without, but always together, searching for Alina, born or unborn, entwined, our bodies whole and young and beautiful as we flew into eternity.

  Mark

  I watched the emotions play across her face, a deep relief finally sending her to the floor. “No,” she said into the phone. “Wait,” she said, after he hung up. “Wait!”

  I went to the floor with her, but didn’t touch her. She seemed to be holding herself tight. I reached out and put a hand on her shoulder and she fell into me.

  “You think you’d be able to tell,” she said. “But I can’t. He said she was—I mean—but why should I believe him? Part of me thinks she was, because—for just a minute—I could almost see her. He wanted me to say, ‘Steve’s your daddy.’ That’s what he called himself. Steve. And I’m like—but then he’s like.”

  “It’s going to be okay,” I said.

  “Her daddy,” Nikki said. “I can’t—”

  She put her hand to her mouth, her eyes closed tight.

  “I think she was there,” she said. “Just how his tone changed. Like he was acting. I think that might be a good thing.”

  “It’s definitely a good thing,” I said. “But he’s going to call again. And that’s why we should call the cops.”

  “No!” she said. “He said someone was watching the house—here on Wyoming Avenue. He said I wouldn’t see them, but they’re watching, and he’ll kill her the minute he knows something’s wrong—if he even suspects something’s wrong. I know he might be lying, but I can’t take that kind of risk.”

  “Of course not,” I said, my mind racing, knowing I probably had no shot at the money with so little time, thinking my only chance was maybe—but it was ridiculous. “So, when do we need the money?” I said.

  “Soon,” she said. “You have to get it now.”

  “I’ll get it,” I said, knowing I wouldn’t be able to get it. Knowing I’d have to do it the other way. “I’ll sneak out the back door,” I said.

  “But what if someone sees you?”

  “They won’t,” I said. “I’ll sneak out and get the money and bring it right back.”

  She walked me through the kitchen.

  “But you can’t let them see you.”

  “No one will see me.”

  “You’ll bring the money back and leave again,” she said, “because I have to be alone here,” and I said, “Sure, I will. Of course, I will,” knowing I wouldn’t let her face that shithead by herself.

  Nikki

  When the phone rang again, I couldn’t dare hope she was okay, but I couldn’t talk to him without knowing.

  “Five o’clock, Nikki,” he said, “and we’re watching you.”

  The sound of his voice like Cash and so much worse.

  “Do you have it?”

  “I’m getting it,” I said, thinking of Mark, but also the money I’d already gathered, sitting at the bank. “But I have to talk to her.”

  “No, Nikki,” he said. “You’ll talk to her when I say you can talk to her.”

  “I have to talk to her now,” I said. “And I have to leave the house to pick up the money.”

  “You can leave the house,” he said, “but if you go to the cops or if you call the cops or if someone else calls the cops or if a cop drives by on your street or if someone who looks like a cop drives by on your street—she’s dead, Nikki. And you ain’t never gonna see her again.”

  “I have to talk to her,” I said, and it was like I was in this tunnel, everything black around a tiny circle of light I was staring at five hundred miles away.

  “No,” he said.

  And I knew again what he’d done to her and I told him again that I had to hear her voice to know she was okay.

  “You’ll hear her after I get paid,” he said, and I said, “I can’t wait that long,” and he said, “You’d rather she was dead? Is that what you’re saying to me?” and I said, “I’m not saying that—please—but imagine not knowing and not being able to do anything until you know. Not being able to breathe even. I want to do what you want me to do, but I’m saying I have to know—I’m saying I can’t get my breath. I have to know like you would have to know—”

  “Shut the fuck up, Nikki. I’m the one saying what happens, here.”

  “I know,” I said, hoping as hard as I could and trying to breathe. “Except for this one thing. Because I have to. Just as you would have to. Because of your love. Just exactly what you would have to—”

  “You godd
amn!” And then the phone smacking against something, and knowing again what he’d done to her, letting out this moan, like he’d kicked me in the stomach and was still kicking me, knowing I’d never see her again or touch her, but saying, “Are you there?” and nothing, and, “Are you there?” and nothing, and, “ARE YOU THERE? and him finally saying, “You goddamn—you filthy—but if you say anything—if you—we’re going to goddamn,” and I thought, Okay, and I said, “Okay, just let me—”

  “And remember,” he said, “I’m her father. Steve. You goddamn.” And he told me a few other things, but I couldn’t listen and couldn’t see and couldn’t breathe because she was so close, and it wasn’t until I heard her voice that I would breathe, and then it was waves of euphoria, even as I held myself back, the beautiful sound of her voice, even knowing he was listening and that if I gave anything away he’d do everything I’d already imagined. But not yet, because she was fine in the moment. Upset, but with me, because of all the lies he’d told her, which she told me now, that he was her father denied by me, and also that she was so happy to finally be with him, to meet him, to spend time with him. I just had to flatten myself, waves of revulsion following waves of euphoria, not letting her know the danger she was in, no way of telling her without increasing the danger, so flattening myself and not letting her know anything, and knowing in the moments inside the sound of her voice that she was alive and unharmed, which was plenty, more than enough, everything, as long as I could hear her, but even in the moments of knowing she was alive, I dreaded hanging up and having to wait again, and no idea where he had her or what he’d do, but he hadn’t done anything yet and that would be enough until I could see her, and her saying, “But we want to come now,” him in the background saying her name, and I remembered what he told me—that they wouldn’t come until five, when I had the money, and her saying, “Why can’t we just,” and him saying her name, and me finally saying, “No, baby. In just a little while. I want to make everything nice. I want to make everything ready,” and her spewing this awful poison from him. But it’s nothing. As long as I can hear the sound of her voice.

  And then she hangs up.

  He hasn’t hurt her yet. He might. But he hasn’t hurt her.

  And if he does—

  I bring my toolbox up from the basement. Take out the hammer. Two big Phillips head screwdrivers and a standard screwdriver. Just in case. An exacto blade. Could I have said something that would have made her know, that would have alerted her to the danger? Run? That man is a liar? A killer? Even minutes off the phone, I can’t think of a coded way I could have told her. I can hardly think of anything. I jam the big kitchen knife, blade down, into the planter on the landing near the bottom of the stairs, hiding its handle under drooping leaves. I put my hammer by the toaster on the kitchen counter, a screwdriver beside the TV, a screwdriver between couch cushions, a screwdriver under a newspaper on the kitchen table. There was nothing I could have said to warn her. Not without risking everything. And now it will just be a matter of giving him money and him leaving and then me telling her everything that led to this, none of which matters anymore. A boning knife on the toilet tank under a magazine. Two steak knives under each pillow on my bed. Just in case. Trying to grab for the euphoria at the sound of her voice fading, alternating waves of euphoria and revulsion, a box cutter on the mantle under some dried flowers, and still hours to go.

  I take Cash’s finger bone from its pink, silk pouch and scrape it across my palm, creating a weird itch in my open hand as I rub the chip across it, waiting and waiting, because if not the knife or the hammer, maybe the bone. Just to prove. To show how much. The fact that I still have it. Just to prove.

  Alina

  He’s got a rental car and wants me to show him around and tell stories about myself connected to places, but I don’t really know how to get anywhere once we’re up on the main island out of Long Beach. I ask if we can maybe go home now, because I want us to all be together, not even afraid that she’ll act the way she always does because of how I heard him talking to her on the phone back at the diner.

  He pulls into a gas station with an old phone booth on the corner and sends me inside with a twenty dollar bill to get some soda and candy and other “provisions” I might think we need. “I just want to talk to your mama alone a minute,” he says, “to see if she’s ready for us.”

  “She will be,” I say, because how could she not love him?

  But apparently not.

  Because when I get on the phone, she sounds half dead. Bored. Exactly the opposite of how I thought she’d be—which was finally accepting of all these things I deserve to know, finally believing I can take care of myself, which I’m not even by myself, but with my own father! For the first time in my life! But she’s all distracted, like with Kyle, like she can’t ever care about anything but herself and whatever it is she’s thinking about herself, how beautiful she is probably, and how everyone falls in love with her, even if she is completely selfish. She says we can’t come home yet because she wants to take a bath first. That she’s cleaning. That she’s cleaning! That we can come at five, but to call first.

  All this after I told her how excited I was! How happy!

  She doesn’t care about any of that. At all.

  “Why did you keep him from me?” I ask her, him in the phone booth with me, shaking his head.

  “Give her space,” he whispers. “Give her time.”

  He doesn’t know her like I do.

  She says, “Let’s talk about this later, Alina. We’ll have dinner together.”

  “Let’s talk about it now,” I say.

  Steve—my dad—keeps shaking his head, reaching for the phone in my hand. “Let it go now,” he says. “Give her space.”

  “He doesn’t deserve to be treated that way!” I tell her. “Neither do I.”

  And I hang up on her.

  Steve—my dad—understands that I need some time to be angry, and we end up driving past Jones Beach, mostly quiet in the car together, and then out the Ocean Parkway all the way to Robert Moses, where he drives in the traffic circle around the big tower six or seven times, looking at me and grinning until I have to laugh with him as we go round and round, because he’s so funny and sensitive and acts exactly like a father should. And even though that makes me kind of sad, or mad again, I decide to just let it go. I ask him to park so we can walk the beach together, where I push her away from myself, from us, for just a little longer, just a little while, until the three of us can finally be together for good.

  30

  Mark

  I snuck through a neighbor’s yard to the other side of the block and around to my car, Mister Casual. I didn’t know where to start looking for a gun. There were people in Chicago who would have been able to help me, but I didn’t know anyone to approach in New York. Kyle would have been my first choice, but Kyle was dead. I could feel a springiness in my arms and legs. I hadn’t shot a rifle since summer camp, and had never touched a handgun. Once Burke showed up and realized Nikki didn’t have the money, who knew what he might do to her and Alina. What he’d already done. I’d make him drop his gun if he had one and hold him for the cops, like in a movie. I drove out of her neighborhood and called Liz. I got her fucking voicemail again, but she hardly mattered anymore.

  I called my cousin Jack down in Houston—who grew up in the house I was now occupying—to see if he might know someone on Long Island who could get me what I needed. We’d been close as kids. I hadn’t seen him since my mother’s funeral. After he offered condolences for Cynthia, we wandered through the small talk, until I finally asked if he could help me find some coke. There was no point worrying him by mentioning a gun, but the coke might lead to what I needed. Of course it would. It was the only chance I had. He hemmed and hawed and I told him no, I wasn’t planning anything crazy in the wake of Cynthia’s death, that I was doing all right, all things considered.
Broken up, sure. Devastated, of course. But all right, too. Holding up. It was a delicate balance. I just needed a little something to help with the pain. He told me he’d call back as soon as he determined if anyone was still around.

  “But soon,” I said. “Right away,” I said.

  I read his concern through the silence.

  “There’s this woman,” I said.

  And I knew I was making it worse. As if I could possibly tell him about Nikki—or even mention her less than a week after Cynthia’s death.

  “Her sister,” I said. “She’s fucked up over this whole thing. Like me. But worse. I just thought—”

  He told me he’d call back. Soon. Told me to take it easy.

  I called Liz again, got her fucking voicemail again.

  “Call me back,” I said to her voicemail. “If you want me to do this thing with Kara, call me back.”

  Nikki called and said she’d talked to Alina.

  “That’s good,” I told her. “That’s great,” I told her.

  “I know,” she said.

  I listened to her cry for a minute.

  “That is so great,” I told her.

  “I know,” she said. “I know,” she said.

  “So,” she said, sniffling and crying a little still, “do you have it?”

  “Almost,” I said. “Just about.”

  “They’re coming at five,” she said. “You have to have it.”

  “I know,” I said. “That won’t be a problem,” I said.

  Jack called and I told her I had to go, the money and everything.

  “I’ll never be able to thank you for this,” she said, and I said, “Yeah, you will,” hating myself for saying that, as if she’d owe me, and then I said, “I mean—forget it. I want to do this.” And I did.