“Mom made us lunch after the soap ended. Soup. It’s funny, but I can never remember the kind it was. It tasted terrible, that’s the most I know. Mom said I had to have it anyway. We ate it in the living room, right on the couch, and that was the third strange thing about the day. We weren’t even allowed to bring a drink into the living room, and now we’re slurping up soup during The Bold and the Beautiful.”
“We sure watched a lot of television,” Emma said.
“Yeah,” Kim said. “We finished that soup, as much as we could, and then I’m at a loss for time. Next I know Daddy is standing over you and me on the couch and the house is hot. It’s full of smoke. House on fire. That’s what Daddy says to me, so tired he sounds calm about it. Better get up.”
“We were in the house?” Emma said.
The mothers of the girls greeted the parents of the boy, and the adults became a quartet while the kids tested diplomacy. The girls were interested in whether the boy wanted to go down the slide with them. The boy, who hadn’t acquired language yet, clapped and smiled at them. At the tire swing, the eight-year-old finally flopped free onto the rubber mat, and now she moved toward the younger kids, wobbly and curious.
“We were in the house,” Kim said. “I remember the soup bowl was right in my lap, turned over, like I’d spilled it and fell right to sleep. Next thing was Daddy standing over me. House on fire. Better get up. I remember that part perfectly. But I couldn’t get up. Too foggy. Daddy had to do it. Small as that man was, skinny as a matchstick, but he picked you and me up at the same time, one over each shoulder.
“Once he had me up, I could see what he meant about the house. Burning all over. I couldn’t see anything. I started choking on the smoke. Daddy took us into the kitchen. And Mom was in there.”
“Did he try to carry her too?”
“Mom set the goddamn fire.”
Kim grabbed Emma’s elbow and squeezed it so hard the tote bag fell from her hand.
The parents by the jungle gym looked up at once. Even the grandmother on the bench leaned forward to see. The parents made a quick scan of Kim and Emma, the bag, then another sweep of the playground. Which kids belonged to these two women? Why would these women be here without kids? Kim could see both questions occur to the three mothers and the dad. Two black women in the kids’ park. Were they nannies?
“Daddy brought us into the kitchen,” Kim continued. “And Mom was there, at the kitchen table. She had a bowl of soup in front of her, half finished. She shouted at Daddy when he moved toward the kitchen door with us. She grabbed you and pulled you off his shoulder, pulled you into her lap. She held you so tight, I thought you were going to choke, but you were so calm. That was wild. I started crying like a crazy woman, and you just sat there calm as could be. I understand now you must’ve been in shock. Daddy shouted at her. It was like they were just having the same fight as they had that morning, except now the house was on fire, and we were all fit to die.”
“How did we get out?” Emma whispered.
“Well, Daddy had me already. He yelled for Mom to let you go. I started begging too, but I doubt I made any sense at all. Mom cried. She said she didn’t want to leave us girls as orphans. Better if we died with her. What kind of mother would leave her girls to deal with this cruel world alone? She gripped you close.”
“But here I am,” Emma said. “Here we are.”
“And it was you that saved us. You helped, at least.”
“Me? I was five.”
“Me and Daddy and Mom are screaming and crying, and the house is burning down, and you turn to Mom and you said two words. Let go. Just like that, didn’t even shout it, but we all heard it. I can’t explain that part. It was like we could hear you, I don’t know, inside our heads. And Mom opened her arms, and you climbed down and walked over and took Daddy’s hand. He took us outside. Last thing I saw was Mom with her head down and her hands in her lap. She looked so alone.”
“But he died,” Emma said. “In the fire, too. Didn’t he?”
Kim spoke barely louder than a whisper, as if she was the same young woman witnessing the old horror anew.
“He went back in. I thought he was going to get Mom out, but when he reached the door, he looked back at me. I saw his face. I always dreamed he was trying to tell me something, like from his mind to mine. Maybe I just wish it was true. I saw his face, and he looked beat. He grabbed the handle of the kitchen door. It must’ve been so hot, I can’t understand how he could hold it. But he grabbed the handle, and he went back inside with her.”
Kim and Emma sat on one of the benches. When Kim looked up, she discovered they were alone in the park. The parents must’ve taken their children and fled. Did the two of them look so monstrous? Maybe so.
“EMTs took us to the hospital to treat us for smoke inhalation,” Kim said. “We were in there for five days. Then we were in foster care until I turned eighteen. We lived with a nice couple, Nathan and Pauleen. You remember them?”
“Pauleen made the best oatmeal cookies,” Emma whispered.
“Yes, she did.
“I turned eighteen and applied to be your guardian, and that’s how we rolled until you finished high school.”
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?”
Kim leaned back against the bench, crossing her arms. “I wasn’t ever going to tell you. I know how that sounds, but I made an executive decision long ago. You didn’t seem to remember, so why would I remind you? I’m not saying that’s right, but it was the choice I made. I thought I was protecting you.”
Emma leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “So why’d you change your mind?”
Kim rested a hand on her sister’s back. “Because you’re scaring me. You’ve got a look on your face that’s like Mom on that morning, and I—”
“Sometimes I look at Brian, and I don’t think he’s my son,” Emma interrupted.
“What do you mean?” Kim asked, patting Emma’s back lightly.
“Maybe it’s his eyes,” Emma said. “Or the way he puckers his lips? He looks like the Brian I gave birth to, but it’s like he’s someone else. When I hold him with my eyes closed I can almost feel the difference.” Now she sobbed softly. “I know how I sound. I understand.”
Kim leaned close to Emma. “Let me tell you what I understand, Emma. You’re exhausted. You had to go back to work way too soon. And when you were a baby, your mother and father were taken from you. It doesn’t surprise me at all that you might start to worry that you’re going to lose the person you love most in the whole world.”
Emma sat upright and leaned against her sister’s shoulder. She pointed at the bag. “Brian’s room is the one with the fire escape. We have a security gate, but it doesn’t feel like enough. I wanted to wrap these chains around the gate, too. It would just make me feel better, but I’m afraid Apollo won’t let me do it. He’ll argue with me.”
Kim squeezed Emma and looked down at the bag. “Let’s tell him it was doctor’s orders. I’ll even help you put them on.”
Emma grinned. “You’re a good sister,” she said.
Soon enough they rose. Kim took one handle of the bag, and Emma took the other. Together they carried the chains home.
KIM VALENTINE LOVED and supported her sister. She also suggested she go on an antidepressant. Zoloft. One of the potential side effects was rapid weight gain, but somehow it went the complete opposite for Emma. She stopped eating and lost six pounds in two weeks. Most mornings Apollo made oatmeal for breakfast—quick and easy and filling—but only he and Brian ever finished it. This morning Emma offered to make the meal. A small act of kindness. Apollo appreciated it.
The Harper Lee book had been sitting with the appraiser for weeks by now. Apollo used a guy off in Connecticut because he had a strong reputation among rare book dealers, but the guy’s high standards caused him to work slowly. Carefully, he’d say whenever Apollo called to check his progress. The kind of thing Apollo might’ve appreciated if his mind hadn’t already
been worn thin. Some nights Apollo felt sure the guy had designs to cheat him out of the find and sell it off—fuck over the small-time black businessman. But that had been the whole point of going to this dude, his reputation for scrupulousness and honesty. Fine, fine, but Apollo Kagwa wore the tension like a lead apron.
Brian could sit up now, roll from his back to his stomach. Whether on his back or sitting up on his butt, the kid liked to laugh. Nearly everything made him smile, things that were actually funny and things that were simply new to him. For instance, shoes. Boy, did he find shoes hilarious. Didn’t matter if it was Apollo’s or Emma’s. Set a shoe down in front him, and watch him grin. Apollo would sit there trying to guess what exactly made footwear so pleasing to Brian. Could a six-month-old have a foot fetish? Although, technically, this would be a footwear fetish. To make things even stranger, Brian would smile at the shoe but then call out the only word he knew:
“Bus!”
Like a gunslinger, Apollo found his phone, tapped the camera, and held his finger down so the lens would snap ten quick shots in a row. Apollo uploaded all of them to Facebook right away. This practice became a running joke on Apollo’s page. Those who still commented (only two or three) would bet on how many versions of the same shot Apollo would post the next time. Twelve almost always won, though Lillian had guessed twenty-four one time and turned out right. Lillian regularly wrote him to ask for more photos. Patrice regularly wrote him to ask for fewer. (“You used to have outside interests, my man.”)
Brian might be six months old, but Apollo felt as if he’d aged five years. He sat in the same chair as always, back to the nearby steam pipe, tucked into the kitchen corner in raggedy underwear and a threadbare T-shirt. He’d showered recently, hadn’t he? Maybe weariness had an actual smell. Emma stooped over her bowl of cold oatmeal and didn’t look up at her husband or her son. Was the Zoloft making her sluggish, or was that due to some deeper cause? She’d fallen asleep in the clothes she wore yesterday, the jeans so loose on her they dangled around her waist when she stood up again.
Say something about this photo…Facebook demanded.
Apollo dutifully typed: OUR HOUSE IS FULL OF SUNSHINE!
“I want to get the baby baptized,” Emma said. She didn’t even look up when she spoke, so at first he didn’t realize she’d said anything to him.
“Brian?” Apollo said. “You mean Brian?”
Now she looked up from the bowl. “Your mother’s been asking ever since he was born. I thought we should finally do it.”
Apollo sat back in his chair. Brian reached for the shoe in front of him, batted at it. Apollo scooped a spoonful of oatmeal into Brian’s mouth. Brian swallowed, then opened his mouth for more.
“He’s got such a good appetite these days,” Apollo said. “I think a growth spurt is coming.”
“The church around the corner,” Emma said. “Holyrood. That’s where we could do it. I made an appointment with the priest. Father Hagen. He seems nice.”
“When?” Apollo asked.
She looked at the clock in the microwave. “Today,” she said. “In an hour.”
“I’m glad you gave me some notice.”
“You don’t have to be there. I can take him on my own.”
“You’re not taking my son anywhere without me,” Apollo said. He stood and cleared their bowls just to get up from the table, just to move. He set them on the counter in case Brian had room for a little more, picked up the pot to scrape out the last of the oatmeal, took it to the garbage, and opened the lid with his foot.
“Why is your phone in the garbage?” Apollo let the lid close and looked at his wife.
She turned in her chair. “I got another text last night. A photo of you and the baby in a Zipcar. He was in the backseat, in a car seat. It looked like you were stopped at a red light. The photo was taken through the passenger window. As if someone crept right up next to the baby.”
“Brian!” Apollo shouted. “His name is Brian!”
He raised the pot into the air and didn’t know what he was about to do with it so he dropped it into the sink to get it out of his hands. A sharp, metal clang filled the kitchen. Brian startled.
Apollo rushed to him and picked him up. “I’m sorry little man,” he said, kissing the boy, holding him so tightly he squirmed to be free. “I know that was loud.”
Emma spoke over him. “GOT HIM. That’s what the text said. Right under the picture. GOT HIM.”
Apollo moved to the garbage again, stepped on the lever, and reached inside. “Show me that on this phone. Show me just one of these texts.”
Emma crossed her arms and leaned forward, looking as if she would throw up. “They’re gone,” she said. “You know that. They’re always gone.”
“They were never there,” Apollo said.
Emma looked up to the microwave clock again. “Let’s just go, let’s get ready.”
Apollo looked into Brian’s face, then back at her. “We are not going to church with you. You probably told this priest you wanted an exorcism instead of a baptism.”
Emma shot up in her chair. She held on to her pants with one hand. “That’s not it. I just want to talk with someone else around. You and me are not talking to each other. On the message board, they suggested therapy or church. And we can’t afford therapy.”
“On the message board? I’m so happy a bunch of stir-crazy mothers offered suggestions about fixing our family. But the answer is simple. You’re what’s wrong with our family, Emma. You. Are. The. Problem. Go take another pill.”
Emma left the kitchen and went to their bedroom. Apollo stayed in the kitchen with Brian, trying to give him another spoonful of oatmeal even though the boy had already had his fill. He just felt too angry to enter the bedroom and speak calmly with his wife.
Emma reappeared. She’d thrown a coat over her shapeless clothing. It shrank her, tidied her slightly. Apollo couldn’t ignore how small she’d become. He felt himself wobble slightly. He scooped Brian up and held the baby while Emma opened the front door.
“You don’t see,” she said. “But you will.”
As she left, she slammed the door. Apollo saw she’d left her keys hanging on the wall. Instinctively he thought to give them to her, but he stopped himself. Instead he locked her out. He held Brian up and looked into his son’s eyes.
“No matter what happens,” Apollo whispered, “you’re coming with me.”
SOMEONE IN THE apartment was screaming. Had been screaming for a while now. Was it him? No. He didn’t think so. How could he scream underwater? Underwater was how he felt. Sunk. Waterlogged. Drowned. He couldn’t see. Felt nothing. But he could hear. That goddamn screaming. Wailing. And it wouldn’t stop.
In a way this was good. If he couldn’t hear that high-pitched voice, he’d be lost in this darkness at the bottom of the sea. But the screams were like a light, flickering at the surface of the waters. He could move toward it. Hone in on the howls. Did he really want to? Better than being left down here. He could hardly breathe.
He kicked his legs. He was a strong swimmer. He tried to use his arms, but for some reason they wouldn’t move. They’d gone so numb that he couldn’t even be sure they were attached to him anymore. There was only this deep chill in his shoulders. An arctic stab in both sockets. This was because his arms were chained behind him. They’d been that way for hours now.
He didn’t open his mouth for fear of swallowing water. He wasn’t in a river. Nor in the ocean. But that’s how he felt. Submerged.
He was in an apartment in New York City. His apartment. Where he’d lived with his family for two years. Being guided back to clarity, to consciousness, by the lead line of another person’s agony. In a way, he had to be grateful for this stranger’s pain. If not for that screaming, he’d only flail aimlessly in this darkness. Lost.
When he finally opened his eyes, once he blinked away the seawater of stupefaction, he saw he was in a kitchen. His kitchen. Sitting in one of the white IKEA chairs Emma had or
dered for them six months ago. He was backed into a corner. Was saturated not by seawater but by sweat. There was vomit across his chest, on his pants. Still moist. The color of a crème brûlée. He couldn’t smell it, not yet, because he was too confused.
He kicked his legs again, like when he’d been swimming, and his feet rattled. He shrugged his pinched shoulders and heard another rattle. He tried to look down, but when he did, his neck got squeezed so tightly, he had to open his mouth to gasp. He was in his own kitchen. Chained to one of his chairs. A bike lock, a U-lock, had been looped around his throat. It held him tight to the steam pipe that ran from the kitchen floor into the ceiling. Because winter had lasted so long, the steam pipe was on. When he pulled forward and gasped, the lock resisted, and he slumped backward. As soon as he did, the back of his exposed neck touched the steam pipe like a pork cutlet pressed against a hot skillet. He hissed, the same sound as frying meat, and lurched forward but got yoked in the throat yet again. He had to sit in one position, exactly straight, to keep himself from being choked or burned.
The whole room felt tropical. Heat in the high nineties filled the place. The steam pipe was partly to blame, yes, but he could also hear now, from the other rooms in the apartment, the rattle and fizzle of the radiators. All were on. The apartment might as well be melting. His face, his exposed arms, his bare feet. His skin puckered all over from this heat.
And then there was the screaming. Which still hadn’t stopped.
He could turn his head if he did it carefully. He could look around the kitchen if he mastered the natural panic. He scanned the kitchen, panning like a security camera. There was a claw hammer on the counter. A carving knife on the windowsill. And the wooden floor was littered with hundreds of tiny green pellets. This was rat poison. They’d found a box of the stuff under the kitchen sink when they moved in and just left it there. He’d meant to get rid of it now that Brian was crawling, but there had been so many other things to handle that he’d forgotten. Now the pellets were sprayed across the kitchen floor like buckshot.
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