Apollo raised his voice to a child’s register. “Tell me what happened in Iskandariyah, Uncle Patrice.”
Patrice leaned close to the baby. “Tell your daddy I said, Fuck you.”
“I haven’t mastered language yet.”
Patrice grinned. “I’ll teach you the gesture.”
Now Apollo had to smile. “You’re going to be a bad influence on me.”
“No worse than your daddy’s going to be.”
Apollo smooshed Brian right up against Patrice’s face. “Can you spell PTSD?”
Then Apollo turned and moved to the basement door with the baby.
Patrice shouted after him. “I understand why your pops abandoned you!”
THE BASEMENT FELT warmer than the garage. Down the Kagwa boys went. The basement sat as one grand open plane. In the far corner stood the boiler—a large white cylinder with a blue control panel, copper pipes running up into the ceiling and a silver tube running outside through the wall. It looked like something from the set of James Whale’s Frankenstein. The boiler rumbled now as if reanimating life.
In the opposite corner sat the washing machine and the dryer, and beside the two machines lay cleaning materials, shovels and rakes, and paint cans showing rust. The third corner of the basement was cluttered with children’s toys that had been sitting down here for a decade or four. Plastic dolls gone nearly gray and their dresses threadbare. Toy trucks overturned or dismantled. Teddy Ruxpin looked like he’d died in hibernation.
In the corner closest to the basement steps lay seven cardboard boxes. Maybe the garage had been too full to accommodate them. Apollo went down on one knee. He sniffed his son’s head. Didn’t even realize he’d done it until the smell made him smile. A moment later Brian wriggled and squirmed.
The fluffy blanket came out of the diaper bag. Apollo spread it out right beside the boxes of books. He set Brian down on his stomach, and the boy lay there, eyes wide, opening and closing his mouth, small gasps trickling out. Brian’s feet wriggled, and his hands swam over the blanket. In a moment he set his hands out flat and with a push he raised his head.
“Tummy time!” Apollo shouted, as if Brian had just successfully piloted an airplane.
A moment later Brian dropped his head back down onto the blanket. Apollo rolled him onto his back, and the baby looked up at the boards of the ceiling. Apollo left him to it and scooted forward to the first of the cardboard boxes. As he opened the flaps, he looked back at Brian.
“My father, your grandfather, disappeared when I was four years old. I used to have a nightmare about him leaving. His name was Brian West. We named you after him.”
Brian wriggled his head from side to side and threw his hands out wide.
“I didn’t hear anything about him, nothing from him, until I turned twelve years old. Then, out of nowhere, he left a box at my front door. It had the tickets to the movie he and Grandma saw on their first date. The headshot of the woman who testified against the shady businessman Grandma worked for. The thing was like a time capsule.”
Brian lifted his chubby legs, then dropped them back down. He rocked his body slightly and looked like that turtle once more, trapped on its back and trying to turn over.
“I always wondered why he did it. Why’d he leave the box and then disappear again?”
Apollo helped roll Brian back onto his belly.
“Now that you’re in my life, I understand. He wanted me to know how much I’d meant to him. He didn’t want me to go my whole life thinking I just didn’t matter. I don’t know what kind of situation he was in at the time, I don’t even know if the man is still alive, but I don’t think he could have been all that different from me. And I’m so happy with you already, little man. If I was trapped on Saturn, I’d still find a way to send a message and let you know you were loved.”
Apollo stopped moving, even breathing, and watched his baby boy labor to his lift his head. This small act, working to develop the muscles of his neck, would someday lead to sitting up, crawling, stumbling, sprinting. All that began here and now, in this basement of a Riverdale home. Apollo felt so fortunate to witness it. With the baby only two months old, Apollo was a mess of raw nerves. He got back to work just to keep from crying.
The books in the first box were worthless, so Apollo moved on to the second. The second box had as little to offer as the first. The third box, too.
“Brian left a book behind. A children’s book that he used to read to me. It’s called Outside Over There. I know it from memory by now.”
The fourth box had nothing good in it and neither did the fifth. Brian’s head lowered, the muscles exhausted, so Apollo turned him over again. The baby whimpered there on his back, so Apollo came closer to check him. After pulling off socks and shoes and pants, undoing the snaps on the onesie, he found the cause. As he changed Brian’s diaper, he spoke to his son again.
“ ‘When Papa was away at sea,’ ” Apollo recited. “That’s how the book begins. That’s the first page. Papa is gone and Mama sits out in an arbor. I had no idea what an arbor was. It’s basically a small wooden structure people put out in their gardens, like a trellis. She sits on a bench underneath the arbor. So dad is far away and mom is outside in the garden.”
He wrapped the boy back up, slipped the piss diaper into the special pouch provided in the diaper bag, and put away the wipes and the tube of coconut oil.
“But inside the house there’s a little girl named Ida. She’s very young, but she’s left to take care of her baby sister all on her own. She plays a horn for the baby to try and help it sleep. But she’s looking out the window while she makes music. She’s in the same room, but even she’s not watching the baby. And that’s when the goblins sneak in.”
Brian fell asleep. Apollo scooted backward quietly. Two more boxes to go. When he opened the sixth, a cloud of fungus funk entered the air. Every book in this one, all hardcovers, showed black spots on the endpapers. Worthless. Ruined. Only one box left.
Brian sighed in his slumber. It looked like contentedness, comfort. The seventh box could wait. Apollo took out his phone. Emma would want to see Brian like this, the holy vulnerability of their sleeping infant. He snapped eleven pictures and sent all of them to Emma’s phone, even the blurry ones. He couldn’t bear to erase even those. Then he went on Facebook and posted all eleven again. Lillian joined Facebook the day Brian was born, and she always wanted more images of the kid. This is how he justified what he did even as he knew what kind of parent he’d become, the kind that used to make him gag as recently as two months ago. The ones who blithely assumed their online friends were gluttons for punishment. Here’s my baby lying on his back! And here’s my baby also lying on his back! And how about this one: blurry baby on his back! Good God, the vanity of it all, the epic self-centeredness. He knew all this, and still he uploaded eleven pictures of Brian. Decorum be damned, he was in love. Then he hit “post.”
While Brian slept, Apollo turned back to the last box in the basement. He decided he’d go slow with this one. At the very least it would save him from checking too quickly for likes on all Brian’s photos.
A SCREAMING COMES INTO the apartment. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now. This time it’s the loudest Emma Valentine has ever heard. It’s Apollo, practically howling, as he unlocks the front door and rushes the living room with their son wriggling in the BabyBjörn. At first she thinks maybe Brian has been hurt, but Apollo’s holding a book out in front of him like a shield. To make the moment more chaotic, Emma has the television on and the breast pump running. Their apartment sounds as loud as a rocket attack during World War II.
“I got it, I got it, I got it!” Apollo shouted, as he had been shouting since, well, since he’d strapped Brian back into his rear-facing car seat and drove the Honda Odyssey home. He’d been chanting those three words all along the Henry Hudson Parkway, then when he got pulled over by the police and was given a ticket for driving “less than the normal speed of
traffic.”
Apollo had incredibly important news to share with his wife, the kind of thing that would bear no interruption. Or so he thought. Now he lowered the book in his left hand slightly, and with his free hand he pointed at his wife’s chest.
“What are you wearing?”
Emma Valentine looked down at her chest. She wore a beige nursing bra, and a pair of suction cups were attached to the nipples. Those cups fed into a pair of small plastic bottles collecting her breast milk. A pair of clear tubes, each thinner than a straw, ran from the cups toward a breast pump on the floor. The pump remained on, generating a repetitive sucking noise like something a mechanical squid would make as it thrust itself through the sea. Emma stooped and turned off the machine. She stood again.
“How have I never seen you using that thing?”
“You’ve seen me use the breast pump,” she said.
“But not with that bra attachment. It’s like hands-free milking.”
“I don’t want you to call it ‘milking.’ I’m ‘pumping.’ ”
She mimed a soft slap in his face, then pulled at the BabyBjörn so she could look at Brian. She didn’t wait for Apollo to unstrap the kid but did it for him with one hand. With the other she detached the cups from her bra and brought Brian to her chest. He sniffed the air, an animal out to root, and attempted to latch. It took two tries but Emma remained patient and sure until they were connected.
“How was the first day?” Apollo asked.
She might’ve answered him, but Brian’s face captured her attention, and she went quiet watching him. “I missed you,” she whispered. “I missed you.” She contorted her neck so she could kiss the boy’s head even as he suckled.
The television remained the only thing making noise now. It showed a home improvement show.
“I’m just not sure we’ll get this whole project done in five weeks,” a man on the screen said, speaking directly to the camera.
“We’ll blow our budget if we don’t,” the woman beside him said.
Emma picked up the remote and muted the screen. She settled onto the couch, never once looking away from Brian.
On the television the man and woman who’d been fretting about budgets and timetables wore clear goggles and swung sledgehammers at the walls of an ugly kitchen.
“That part looks like fun,” Apollo said.
“I like to watch the demolition,” Emma said, smelling Brian’s ears as she sat on the couch.
Sitting together, Apollo finally revealed the object he’d been holding when he entered the apartment screaming.
“To Kill a Mockingbird,” Emma read aloud.
Apollo opened the book, flipping to the copyright page. “A true first edition of To Kill a Mockingbird,” he said. “With the original cover. The whole thing in Fine condition. That alone would make this worth five thousand dollars. When she dies, that’ll at least double the price.”
Emma winced.
“Did he bite you?”
“No. What you said was morbid.”
“Sorry.”
Emma leaned against Apollo, shifting Brian so he tucked closer against her ribs.
“You know Harper Lee never does interviews or anything, but she also never signs books.” Apollo opened to the title page. “Well, she signed this one.”
Emma lifted her head. “Wow. And she signed it to someone. Pip. Who’s Pip?”
“Oh, Pip?” Apollo asked, enjoying the buildup. “That’s her best friend from childhood. He turned out to be a writer you might’ve heard of, too.”
Emma, a well-versed librarian, gripped Apollo’s leg so tight it hurt. “Truman Capote,” she whispered. She looked at the book with a new reverence, grasping the kind of difference this one little item might make in their lives.
“You know they put out that second novel of hers this summer? The one where Atticus Finch is all racist and crabby? Seems like nobody liked it. They didn’t want to see Atticus in that light. It was too honest. I think Ms. Lee knew the deal even back when she signed this book decades ago. Check out what she wrote to Truman,” Apollo said. “That’s the cherry on the cherry on the banana split.”
Emma leaned closer so she could read it, and Brian twisted in her grip. Milk dribbled from his lips, and her breast released a faint spray that dappled his cheek.
“ ‘Here’s to the Daddy of our dreams.’ ”
Apollo closed the book. This would outdo the D’Agostino haul by a factor of ten, maybe more. With that signature and dedication, this find could end up being national news. They could buy an apartment with the loot it would bring. Or at least put a nice down payment. Not a huge place—this was still New York City—but it would be theirs.
Apollo had understood exactly how fortunate he’d been when he brought this book out of the basement in Riverdale. When he knocked on the side door and called out for the old woman’s son, he’d tried hard to sound calm. The man didn’t even let Apollo into the house. Suggested they finish the transaction out there in the driveway. Apollo offered fifty dollars, trying not to choke on the lowball offer. He let the guy talk him up to one hundred so he would feel like he got one over on Apollo. The whole time the man kept checking his phone. He even stopped talking midsentence to return a text. Apollo paid cash and practically levitated back to the minivan.
Apollo left Emma and Brian on the couch. Home improvement shows were in heavy rotation, and Emma enjoyed vegging out to the next one with her son clutched tight. Apollo went into the back room, the former den and Brian’s future bedroom. There he found a footstool and pawed at the highest shelf in the closet. He found the box and set it on the floor.
Improbabilia.
How long had it been since he’d opened this lid, pawed through the contents? Years. But tonight he felt ready to add to the time capsule. He opened the lid. The only thing he removed was the children’s book. He thought he might start reading it to his son just as his father had once done to him. From his wallet he fished out Emma’s red string. It had gone bunchy and tight so he pulled it straight. Four or five inches of frayed red thread, and yet, he had to admit, the fabric seemed to warm to his touch, as if it still burned with sentimental magic. He set it down inside the box.
He went to the bookshelf in the room and found the second book he’d bought at Mrs. Grabowski’s, the one he’d used as camouflage for Fields of Fire. He scanned the cover. Once Upon a Die. That didn’t even make sense. He leafed through the worn-down thriller. A few pages were falling out. He couldn’t sell this piece of hot garbage if he tried. But every time he looked at it, the book would remind him of the night his son had been born. He laid it in the box.
Stuffed in his front pocket, he even found the ticket he’d been given on the drive home this evening. That too? Why not? When Brian grew old enough, he’d sit with him and tell him the story behind it. He planned to be here to explain everything.
Last Apollo placed the copy of To Kill a Mockingbird inside. What better place for a find like that than in a magic box? Apollo closed the lid, climbed back up on the footstool, and hid Improbabilia in the dark.
BRIAN LET THEM sleep in the next morning, didn’t wake until five A.M. A new record. Apollo had been awake since three. The old record. His body anticipated Brian’s wake-up, and he couldn’t convince his nervous system to rest again. Anyway, he had all the book excitement brewing, too.
Though it should be a wholly unnecessary step, he decided to hire an appraiser through the American Society of Appraisers so he’d have outside certification of the book’s authenticity. Big outfits like Bauman’s had their reputations for quality and rare books, but a guy like Apollo might need some outside body to assure potential buyers.
By five, Emma’s breasts were so full, they hurt her. They’d become used to the three o’clock wake-up, too. Apollo brought Brian to her. She fed him lying on her side, feeding and cuddling him while still largely asleep. When she finished, she forced herself up to change his diaper.
“I’ll take him
to the park,” Apollo whispered.
Emma nodded and grinned appreciatively and tried to kiss her husband but didn’t have the energy to stay upright, so she fell back into bed and rolled the blankets around her until she looked like an enormous enchilada. Today would be Emma’s second day back to work, and another two hours of sleep might mean the difference between showing up incredibly tired instead of utterly drained. Apollo kitted up, dressed the baby and himself warmly, slipped Brian into the Björn, and they were out by five-thirty.
Apollo had become one of those men. The New Dads. So much better than the Old Dads of the past. New Dads wear their children. New Dads change the baby’s diaper three times a night. New Dads do the dishes and the laundry. New Dads cook the meals. New Dads read the infant development books and do more research online. New Dads apply coconut oil to the baby’s crotch to avoid diaper rash. New Dads bake sweet potatoes, then grind them in the blender once the baby is old enough for solid foods. New Dads carry the diaper bag—really a big old purse—without awareness of shame. New Dads are emotionally available. New Dads do half the housework (really more like 35 percent, but that’s still so much better than zero). New Dads fix all the mistakes the Old Dads made. New Dads are the future, or at least they plan to be, but since they’re making all this shit up as they go along, New Dads are also scared as hell.
Five-thirty in the morning, and the parents were already out at Bennett Park. There were moms in a huddle at one end of the playground, over by the swings. Apollo sought out the other New Dads. Four of them already there, by the padded play squares. Apollo made five. Most of them in their thirties or early forties. One guy might be fifty, or just in terrible shape.
Apollo greeted the other fathers, and they greeted him. He didn’t remember their names. They didn’t remember his. They knew the names of each other’s children, and that mattered more.
“Brian!” the men called, one by one, as Apollo unhooked the Björn.
Apollo greeted the other kids, Meaghan and Imogen, Isaac and Shoji. The children weren’t required to respond. The greetings had been for each parent to hear.
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