Alex appeared distracted, still giving the pretense of figuring out how to help. Diego knew his time was running short. He pulled his smart phone from his pocket and replied to the first text message in his queue, one from the woman who’d managed his old restaurant. He typed: Alex murdered Dad. Carole helpe
His brother interrupted: “Whatcha doin’ there, baby brother?”
Diego looked up at him and replied as calmly as he could: “Letting a friend know we’re stuck up—”
Alex snatched the phone from his hands. He looked at the screen, then shoved the device between the bars and let it fall.
Diego didn’t hear it strike the ground. He hoped it hadn’t hit anyone.
Alex looked at his younger brother and asked, “How’d you figure it out?”
Diego thought about feigning ignorance, but it seemed ridiculous at this point. He shrugged and answered, “I smell her on you.”
The tall blond man frowned, shook his head, and said, “Freak.” He sighed. “It doesn’t matter. If anyone asks, I’ve been here all afternoon.” Alex leaned back and draped his arms over the seating area. “You’ll never prove otherwise.”
Diego knew what he had to do. He didn’t like it, but it was his only choice. He brought his boot up hard into Alex’s groin. When his brother doubled over, Diego yanked up the leg of his khaki pants and wrested the compact Beretta free from its ankle holster. He released the safety and pointed the handgun at his brother’s heart.
Eyes wide, Alex looked at him and said, “You hate guns.”
“Just because I hate them doesn’t mean I don’t know how to use them.”
Nostrils flared, his brother glanced from side to side. Alex had become the caged animal.
“After you left for Harvard, Dad worried about me because I was so small and you weren’t around to protect me anymore. He put me through personal defense training—a lot of personal defense training. I won’t hesitate if I need to use this.” Diego paused. “Why did you kill him?”
Alex shook his head. “I didn’t.”
“Then whose blood is that on your pant leg?”
His brother looked down at his khakis, then closed his eyes.
Diego took a deep breath of Bel Ami and 24, Faubourg and a faint whiff of fried food rising up from below. “You and Carole are having an affair. Dad found out. He cut off the funding for your campaign. You needed the rest of your inheritance. And mine too. Right?”
His brother gave him a blank stare.
“Why didn’t you just lie like you always do?”
Alex looked away.
“You’re my brother, Alejandro. Te quiero. How could you do this?”
Eyes wide, voice almost a growl, the blond man said, “You ruined my life.”
“I ruined your life?” Diego felt rage welling up inside. “You cheated on Carole a week before you were supposed to marry her. She got me drunk and had sex with me to get back at you.” He felt the tears streaming down his face. “I was an eighteen-year-old virgin with no tolerance for alcohol. She practically raped me!” Diego drew a deep breath and wiped his cheeks with the back of his free hand. “Nothing that happened to you was my fault. You brought it all on yourself.”
Alex dropped his head into his hands. His shoulders began to heave.
Diego had never seen his brother cry, not even when their mom died. He lowered the handgun and hoped the ride would be over soon.
As Diego lost himself in the knowledge that he’d never hug his father again, Alex sprang forth and tried to grab the Beretta. Diego held firm. He might have been small, but that gave him better physical leverage. As he twisted the weapon free from his brother’s grasp, a loud bang pierced the still air.
Alex released the weapon and slumped back in his seat. Diego looked for blood, first on his brother, then on himself. The only red was the single drop on Alex’s pant leg.
There was motion at the edge of Diego’s peripheral vision. Beretta still trained on his brother, he glanced to the side to see the gondola’s door swinging open. When the gun went off, the bullet had shredded the lock mechanism.
The Ferris wheel began to turn. Diego sat back, keeping the gun pointed at Alex. “We’ll be on the ground soon, then we’ll let the police take over.”
Tears ran down Alex’s cheeks. He said, “I’m sorry, baby brother.”
Diego didn’t know how to respond.
In one slow, deliberate motion, Alex raised his hands over his head and stood. Eyes red, jaw quivering, he smiled down at Diego. “I hope you can forgive me.”
“Sit down, Alex.”
The tall blond man took a sideways step toward the open gondola door.
Voice a hammer, Diego said, “Siéntate!”
“Or what?” Alex let out an audible sob. “You’ll shoot me?”
Diego reached for his brother. “Give me your hand and sit down.”
Alex inched closer to the open door. “Carole doesn’t have any family. Promise you’ll take care of the baby?”
“What baby?” As soon as he’d said the words, Diego realized why Alex hadn’t been able to lie his way out of the situation. He thought about Carole’s distended stomach and the new mommy-mobile and her “getting Alex.” It finally made sense.
Water pouring from his eyes, mucus dripping from his nose, Alex said, “Promise?”
Diego nodded.
Alejandro Días Smith turned and stepped out in the air.
THE CLEARING
BY EMMA RATHBONE
Plano
I always think about this thing that happened. It was when I was a kid, and I was sitting on the curb outside our house one afternoon. I would look back and the house would seem dark. I knew my mom was in there somewhere. I had a rock, and I was scraping it along the sidewalk. I liked the sound it made, along with the thin, chalky line. I just kept scraping it. I sat back.
It was hot. I remember that. Hot and bright. My mom had said earlier that day, “You could fry an egg on the pavement!” and I had considered trying. But instead I just went out and sat there. I don’t know. The sun was pounding down and bright in my eyes. I don’t remember what I was going to do that day. I don’t remember if there was something I was waiting for or waiting out. I was just sitting there.
This was at our old place in Plano, Texas, on a cul-de-sac called Dalgreen Grove. It was before the area expanded with hot concrete plazas, spilling out over the plains, glinting with metal benches; before they built the freeway we weren’t allowed to cross, and the multiplex on the east side of town.
Like I said, I knew my mom was in the house, vacuuming or doing the dishes or something. She was really fragile. I was a kid but I could tell. She was like the cranberry glass vases she collected and put in a display case. I always thought that one day she was going to fall over and crack with a giant pop.
So anyway. I was sitting there scraping my rock and this car pulls up. It was big and gray, like a Cadillac or something. I don’t remember the exact make. It pulls up right in front of me and this woman leans out the window. Her hair was gray like the car, and curly. She was old. Maybe like around my mom’s age. She says, “Little boy,” even though she’s already staring at me straight in the face. “What’s your name?”
“Jonathan Meyers.”
I don’t know why I said both my first and last name. I remember thinking to myself after I said it, Why did you do that? Now I realize it wasn’t that weird a thing to have done.
“You live in that house?” She pointed behind me. I looked back. My house was dark, dark even though it was such a bright day. And my mom was inside there, fragile. I nodded dumbly. I might as well mention right now that I was an overweight kid. I didn’t like it. I couldn’t help it. I grew out of it. What more is there to say? The woman leaned over and said something to the person in the driver’s seat, who I couldn’t see.
“Is there anyone home?” she asked, craning out the window again. When I was a kid, a fat little kid, I didn’t have many friends and I thought ad
ults knew everything. So I thought to myself, Why is she asking me that if she already knows? I said, “Yeah, my mom.” I was looking up at the woman, squinting.
She said something else to the person in the driver’s seat then leaned back out the window. “Does your mom like company?”
Even then, I knew it was a weird thing to say. When I think about it now, I can’t imagine anyone saying something like that to a kid, sitting on the street. But even then, I knew. I glanced up at the woman and she pushed some gray hair behind her ear and now I noticed that she was old, older than I thought at first. The skin under her eyes looked like it was slowly dripping down her face. She had a square jaw and a bulky nose.
I said, “Um, I don’t think so.” I thought of my mom, inside the house, arranging her cranberry glass. The woman shifted back into her seat and they drove away. I guess I was pretty relieved.
I scanned the street. There was a wide crack down the middle of the cul-de-sac with grass bursting out in some places. There was a pile of newspapers lying next to Mr. Cunningham’s mailbox because he never picked them up. The sun was still pounding down. It was pretty quiet. Across from us was a Korean family called the Lees. They had two small white dogs that would chase each other around and bark at Mr. Lee when he came home from work. The sprinklers were on in their front yard, throwing ropes of water across the grass.
I felt the rock in my hand, and figured I could go back to how I was before, just scraping it along the sidewalk. Then I noticed the gray car again, driving back down the street. It parked under the tree in front of the Perkins’s house, the one with wide, shiny leaves. I just sat there watching them like an idiot. They got out of the car. The woman was big and she walked with a cane. And not only were her car and her hair gray, but she wore a gray suit like the First Lady of America. The person with her was a man, a younger man. He was tall and skinny.
They walked down the sidewalk, and then turned toward my house. They didn’t even look at me as they went by. I don’t remember if I was thinking anything in particular as this was happening. All I remember is that my heart was pounding. The man was pale and had a scattered mustache. The woman had a tattoo on her leg, under stretched nylon, but I couldn’t see what it was. I turned and watched as they rang the doorbell and stood and waited.
I could picture it. My mom would be doing one of three things: watching television, wiping down a window, or moving the cranberry glass around. There were two pieces she liked the most. One was a small glass vase with tiny hoofs like a horse. The other was also a vase, a tall one. It was thin too, like it was only made for one specific flower. She could never figure out how she wanted them to be arranged. She would move them into different places and then stand back and look at them and walk away. Then she’d stop and put her hand on her cheek, turn around, and go mess with them again. That’s probably what she was doing when the doorbell rang.
I watched as the door opened and my mom stood there, staring at the two people. She made a plank with her hand over her eyes to shield from the sun and then scanned the street until she located me sitting there. The man and the woman were saying something, and she said something back. I couldn’t hear the actual words, I could only hear the notes and bumps of their voices. They started all talking at once and it reminded me of the way pine needles get tangled up at the edge of a creek. Don’t ask me why.
The old woman’s voice sounded urgent. My mom shook her head and started to push the door closed, but the man stuck his foot out so she couldn’t. Then I watched my mom’s mouth make a dark circle as they pushed her inside and closed the door.
I blinked and stared at the house. I turned back to the street. Everything was the same. It was quiet except for the sprinklers in the Lees’ front yard. Then a plane flew by overhead and made a loud, scraping sound. I looked at the rock in my hand.
What I did next was get up—which took a lot of effort, because when you’re big and fat everything takes a lot of effort, everything is like trying to pull a root out of the ground—and walk slowly toward my house. Except that it didn’t feel like my house anymore. It was all kind of unfamiliar. For instance: I noticed for the first time that our walkway was made up of tiny brown shells stuck in circular formations in the concrete.
I opened the front door and my mom was in there, sitting on the couch in the living room with her hands folded, pushed down deep in her lap. The man was standing next to her. She saw me and said, “Johnny!”
“Tell him to come over here,” said the man. One of his hands was in his pocket. “Tell him to come over here and sit next to you. Tell him we’re not doing anything wrong.”
“Come over here, Johnny,” my mom said. “Come over here and sit next to Mommy.”
She must have been feeling pretty strange. Because at that point she never referred to herself as Mommy anymore. I never even called her that anymore. But I went over there and sat next to her. I sat right on the part of the couch I didn’t like, the part where I had spilled barbecue sauce once and it never really came out. My mom was wearing the blue and white checkered dress she always liked, it cinched around the waist with a small belt.
“Tell him,” said the man. “Tell him what we’re doing.” He was thin but had cheeks that puffed out like a baby’s.
My mom looked slowly up at the man, then she stared straight ahead and started talking. “This is Mr. Givens. Mr. Givens has brought his mother here, to look at our house.”
“Tell him why,” said the man.
“Mr. Givens’s mother used to live here. When she was a little girl. She lived in our house. She grew up here. She just got out of prison . . .”
“Eighteen years,” said the old woman. She walked into the living room and looked at me. “I was there for eighteen years. Texas State Penitentiary, Walls Unit. I just got out and I wanted to see my old house. The house where I grew up. This house. Is there anything wrong with that?” She looked at her son and then looked at me and then looked at my mom. She was leaning on her cane and there were sweat stains under her arms, seeping into the gray material of her suit. “Is there?”
“No, Mom,” said the man.
Everyone was very still.
The old lady walked to our television and pointed at it with her cane. “This is new,” she said. “We didn’t have one of these.” She was breathing hard. “This is new too.” She pointed at the mantel above the fireplace. “Fancy. They must have put it in after we moved. We didn’t have anything like that. You, uh . . . you put things on it sometimes?” She looked at my mom. “Well, do you?”
My mom looked down at her lap.
“Answer her,” said the man, and he moved a little bit closer.
My mom nodded her head and whispered, “Yes.”
“What kinds of things?” asked the lady.
“Pictures. Family pictures.”
“Well,” the old lady slumped a little bit into her cane, “why wouldn’t you? All this paint,” she said, looking around. “All this paint. It looks good on the walls.” I heard a car skid somewhere. The woman’s son shifted his weight from one leg to the other. “You get the color from a catalog? A magazine?” My mom continued to look into her lap. The old lady turned away. “It feels different in here. You got all this furniture in here. It feels different.”
She pointed to the couch where me and my mom were sitting. “That’s where Clarry used to sleep. You remember Clarry?” She looked at her son.
“No, Mom.”
“Well, you weren’t born yet!” She laughed and then coughed. “He’s always been a little dim.”
Her son shifted his weight again.
I wasn’t touching my mom as we sat there on the couch, but I could still feel her.
“That’s where I used to read to Clarry,” the old woman continued. “Lots of books, paperback books, we had stacks of them. I read them to him all the time. They were filled with filthy stuff, some of them. Those were the ones he liked. The filthy ones. The ones with women on the cover. Stacks and stacks o
f filthy books.”
She started to say something else and then fell forward. She fell onto her hands and knees. My mom’s eyes got as big as dinner plates.
The woman’s son yelled, “Mom!” and ran toward her. “Get some water!”
The old woman was crawling toward the couch and she looked like a big gray rhino. Her son helped her onto one of the chairs. She was breathing really hard. “I must of lost . . .” she said. “I must of lost . . .”
“Get some water!” yelled the son, then looked at me. “Go!”
I got off the couch and then walked around it and out of the living room and into the kitchen. It felt like a whole different country in there. It was bright with the sun coming in through the windows and glaring on the sink. I got a glass from one of the cupboards and filled it up with water. My mom sometimes made me go to church with her, and there was this part where the priest seemed like he was preparing something with all kinds of quiet motions. And that’s how I tried to be as I turned on the faucet. The water came out loud, like Niagara Falls. I filled the glass all the way to the top and got a napkin out of a drawer. Then I carried it out of the kitchen and back into the living room.
From the back, it looked like they were all friends. Like my mom had invited some people over for coffee. I walked around the couch and gave the old lady the water.
“What took you so long?” said the man.
The old lady’s suit was crumpled and the petticoat under her skirt was sticking out. For me, at that time, I wasn’t used to seeing that kind of thing and it was like a tongue sticking out at me. My mom was still sitting there staring ahead like she had never done anything else in her life. The man was standing next to his mother.
“They always had women on the covers,” said the old lady. She was saying it to my mom. “And the women always looked scared.”
I sat down next to my mom where I had been before. I couldn’t stop looking at the old lady’s slip.
“Clarry made me read every single one to him. There was one where a woman comes home to find her husband with another woman and then they all carry on together. And another one where almost that same exact thing happens. There was one where a husband makes a detective follow his wife around and the detective and the wife get mixed up together. I read Clarry one about a cowboy who tries to break a wild horse but he didn’t like it because it didn’t have any girls. Clarry couldn’t read because he never went to school.”
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