DEEP COVE
Four years before the crash
“Can we eat?” Clark asked. He sat slouched in his favourite armchair, arms dangled over the sides in a performative show of impatience.
“Let’s just give him another few minutes,” I answered, looking at my phone. No calls, no messages. “It’s not like him to not show up.”
“Sure, little brother. He’s always been so dependable.” The sarcasm was as thick as his chestnut hair. “Maybe he’s afraid of Mom’s cooking.” He laughed in that ugly, arrogant way of his.
Clark and I were at our parents’ house in Deep Cove, a suburban village on the outskirts of the city, for our weekly family dinner. The ritual has become irregular these days, planned for whenever we can find the time, but back then my mother made sure we met every Sunday.
Elias and I had been together for almost four years by that point, and he refused to take part in the Caraway family Sunday dinner. When I first invited him after he moved in with me, I didn’t blame him for not wanting to join. These dinners could be gruelling: Dad describing which beloved civic institution he planned to demolish next, Mom fussing over every little thing, Clark just existing at all. Over time though, it began to bother me that Elias seemed to have no desire to spend time with my family and that my family didn’t seem to mind.
This changed the week prior. Elias asked unexpectedly if he could join us for dinner. It caught me by surprise, but I was elated. I was also nervous about the idea of Elias, Clark, Mom, Dad, and me sitting down together for a civilized meal. The stakes were high. I knew this dinner would set the dynamic between Elias and my family, and there was much that could go wrong. I forbade my mother from patronizing him with her distorted idea of Mexican cuisine. We decided to play it safe with a simple, rustic menu of coq au vin and garlic mashed potatoes, with butter tarts for dessert.
The meal was keeping warm in the oven while we waited. Elias was supposed to have arrived an hour earlier. He wasn’t picking up my phone calls or answering my messages.
“Honey, I’m sure he’s fine,” said Mom. “Traffic can be horrendous on the bridge this time of night.”
“It’s Sunday,” Clark said, “and he doesn’t drive.”
“Hush,” she snapped back. “He’s taking a cab, isn’t he? I’m sure he’s just stuck in traffic, Sunday or not.”
“Can you try him again?” Clark’s face wore a trademark expression of his, a perfect fusion of boredom and impatience and contempt. “He’s an hour late. If he doesn’t have the decency to notify us, then I don’t see why we need to extend the courtesy of waiting for him all night.”
Choosing not to respond, I stepped into the hall to call Elias for the seventh time. I’d been able to stay relatively calm, but I could sense the shadow approaching. It tickled the hairs on the back of my neck, sent flashes through my fingertips. I focused on bringing air into my lungs as the phone rang. Elias’s recorded voice sounded distant after the fourth ring. “Hello, you have reached Elias Santos …”
The hum in my ears began, dull but steady. I had to get out of there.
“I have to go,” I said to everyone in the kitchen as I passed them on the way to the front entrance.
“Coen, where are you going?” I heard my mother protest. Ignoring her, I slipped on my shoes and headed into the darkness.
I drove with the windows rolled down, letting the icy air numb my skin. My fists gripped the steering wheel as I made my way over the bridge, the ocean black like tar underneath, then through the lights of the city toward home.
I don’t know what I expected to find when I walked through the door. I searched our apartment, shouting his name, but it didn’t take long for me to see it was empty. There was no note on the kitchen counter. His shoes and jacket were missing from the coat closet. There was no sign of him.
It took all my energy to keep the pricking of the needles at bay. The ringing in my ears remained a steady hum. My hands shook as I called Vivi and Decker, neither of whom had any idea where Elias would be. Realizing there was nobody else in our lives Elias would feasibly be with, my hands shook even harder as I called the nearest hospital. Then the second nearest. Then the third. It took over an hour to get through and confirm that nobody matching his name or appearance had been admitted.
I walked laps around every tidy, compact room for hours, checking my phone obsessively while drinking wine. I held my breath every time the phone rang, but it was my parents, Vivi, Decker.
I anticipated the worst, as I always did. I waited for the police to call to tell me there had been a horrible accident. It was a familiar prophecy. Elias would be late coming home by fifteen minutes, and my mind would imagine him falling on train tracks or being run over by a truck. I couldn’t help it.
The only thing worse was the idea of Elias simply vanishing. No horrific accident. No tragic death. Just gone.
Elias always showed up eventually. He would return home without fanfare, and I would silently reprimand myself for letting my imagination run away from me. I always knew that one day it wouldn’t just be my imagination. One day he wouldn’t return.
It was past midnight when I heard the front door open. The shadow disappeared as soon as the key clicked in the lock. I don’t think I felt relieved, or thankful, or angry. I felt nothing.
Elias entered the room slowly, his face grim. I think it was guilt, but I can’t say for sure. We stood there looking at one another.
“Where were you?” The sound of my voice startled me as it broke the silence.
“I needed to be alone.”
I paused before repeating, “Where were you?”
“That’s not important. I should have answered your calls. It was wrong of me to let you worry. I know that. I’m sorry.”
“Where were you?”
I felt so tired then. My mind was cloudy and my legs ached, but I needed an answer from Elias.
“Coen, I told you. It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry.”
“Of all the days, you had to disappear today. Why? To humiliate me in front of my family? In front of Clark?”
“What are you talking about?”
“We waited for you for over an hour. Imagine how stupid I looked not being able to explain where you were or why you weren’t showing up.”
“Coen, I was never going to your parents’ for dinner,” he said carefully.
“You were supposed to be there when you were done.”
“Listen to me. That was not the plan.”
“Don’t you dare,” I said, my voice fraught. “You always do this. You know you’re in the wrong, so you try to turn it around on me, to make it seem like I’m the wrong one. You have been missing for hours. I’ve been calling you. I’ve been calling hospitals. Don’t try to make this about me.”
It was becoming harder to breathe, and I couldn’t help but choke on my words, but I was able to say what I needed to. I expected Elias to be defensive. He just stood there, silent.
“I got my licence today,” he said finally. “I’m a pilot.”
I didn’t know how to respond. I looked at him. He looked at me.
“That’s great. Isn’t it?” I managed to say, barely louder than a whisper.
“It is.”
“Then why aren’t you happy?”
“I just needed to be alone.”
I never discovered where he was that evening. I never found out why he didn’t show up for dinner or answer my calls. We were both so exhausted that we went to bed, and neither of us brought it up the next morning. It was easier that way.
Instead, we decided to celebrate. When I first met Elias, becoming a commercial airline pilot was his only dream. We knew his training would eventually lead to his certification — he took it more seriously than anything, and he had become one of the top prospects — but there had always been suspicion lurking in the back of his mind that something would go wrong. But it didn’t, so we celebrated.
After dinner at our favourite Persian eatery, we went to
a haunted carnival being held on the other side of town. We laughed and screamed as we wandered through the fairgrounds, where actors dressed as killer clowns jumped at us through the fog. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Elias laugh as much as he did that night. I guess he could finally let his mind rest, be free to laugh instead of think.
A few months later, Elias was hired as first officer for a major airline. His pride was palpable. The night before his first flight, I walked in on him staring at his uniform hanging on a hook behind our bedroom door. He looked at me and smiled.
I woke up the next morning, and he was gone. I wanted to see him before he left, to kiss him goodbye, but I had slept through the alarm. He must have decided not to wake me. Instead, there was a note on the kitchen counter.
My dear,
I am off to fly around the globe. But worry not! I will return. And when I do, we shall celebrate. Do not miss me too much. I love you.
See you from the sky.
E.
ESPEJO ROTO
Five days after the crash
At one point in time, the Aztecs were the most feared and powerful people in this land of dusty plains and soaring mountains. They commanded an entire empire from the centre of their universe: Tenochtitlan, their island capital in a vast lake cradled within the Valley of Mexico.
Rulers and councilmen congregated in the capital with ambitions of expanding the empire across Mesoamerica, while commoners farmed the land and raised families. They built cities and alliances and pyramids, making enemies along the way. But that didn’t matter. They were untouchable.
Then along came Hernán Cortés and his conquistadors. When they dropped anchor near the coast, not far from Isla de Espejos, the Aztecs mistook these strange men — with fairer skin and weapons that shot thunder — as gods. The ruler of the Aztecs, Moctezuma II, sent gifts of gold to the Spaniards before receiving them in his capital as a gesture of peace.
What happened next? Just another tragic display of the impressive human capacity for destruction. Cortés’s heart didn’t grow three times larger, and there was no surprise happy ending. The Spaniards imprisoned Moctezuma II within the walls of his own city before murdering him. Thousands of Aztecs were killed in battle. The Spaniards razed Tenochtitlan to the ground and built their capital of New Spain directly on its grave. All that is left of the great Aztec capital are the ruins of its once-mighty pyramids. They rest, defeated, in the main square at the centre of Mexico City, a reminder of how greatness can fall when trust is misplaced.
A vague feeling of dread stirs within my belly as if my body senses an impending attack. The vessel drifting toward me is not a galleon filled with Spaniards but a double-decker ferry carrying people who know me from a distant home.
It’s arrival day. Everyone has flown in from a faraway land and now sails into the lagoon of my island fortress. The sanctuary I’ve created is about to come under siege. This is my Tenochtitlan. My Neverland.
The faces of these people may be familiar, but they are foreign nonetheless. They don’t know this island like I do. They cannot know how it feels to be me. They will step off the boat like they belong here and attempt to deceive me with their sympathetic words, but I know better. They will never belong, and they could never understand. We are different now.
I awoke this morning with a ringing in my ears and the sheets wrapped around my body like a protective cocoon. The room was dark and still. The only indication of morning were the slivers of light peeking along the edges of the blinds that covered every window.
Elias’s altar rested by the window nearest the bed, looking less reverent today. The candles must have burned through the night. The wax had melted away, leaving hollow pillars of glass coated in black ash. The marigolds appeared duller, less alive. The display was more forlorn than holy.
“I apologize for my amateur attempt at an altar,” I said, sitting up in bed.
There was no answer.
“Even an atheist like you doesn’t deserve this convenience-store version of spirituality.”
Silence.
I scanned the room, expecting Elias’s voice to project out of nowhere, like an audible version of him springing from the closet to get a jump out of me. There was nothing but the burned-out candles and his last note to me lying on the nightstand.
I read the note again. Then again. For years, Elias signed off his notes in the same reliable way.
See you from the sky.
This last note was different. Not significantly so but different nonetheless.
See you in the sky.
I crumpled the paper in my hand and let it drop to the floor.
The unsettled feeling that clouded my thoughts only seemed to get worse, foggier, as the day wore on. Now, standing on the pier with the sun warming my skin, the breeze streaming through my hair, and the most important people in my life so close to being reunited with me after having travelled so far, I realize how defective I am. A normal person would be happy, or at least relieved, rather than whatever it is I’m feeling now.
As the boat is moored to the pier, I am pulled back to reality by a pair of deceptively strong arms that wrap around me. All of a sudden, I am surrounded by noise and movement. Another familiar body holds me from behind. They smell like coffee and vanilla and sweat.
“Babe, I am never letting you spend this much time away from me ever again, do you hear me?” Vivi says, holding my face in her perfect piano-playing hands.
“I’m never letting you go, ever,” Decker shouts from behind me, his muscular arms clenched like a vise around my chest. “I’m the Rose to your Jack.”
I surrender myself to them as they hold me and shout things at me, first smiling and bright-eyed, then smiling and teary-eyed. I can’t think of anything to say. I just watch them in a stupor, soaking in their energy. For the first time in days, I feel like my old self. The unease that had gripped me just minutes before has melted away into something warm. I had forgotten how much I need these people in my life, how lost and alone I am without them. As they shake me and hold me, I feel hopeful. I am still human. I can survive this.
“Say something, damn it!” Vivi screams at me, simultaneously laughing and crying.
“Welcome to paradise!” The words tumble from my mouth like I’ve dropped a fistful of coins. They do the trick. Vivi smiles and wraps her arms around me again as Decker tightens his grip.
When they finally release me, I am swept away by an undertow of faces and hugs and good perfume and bad perfume. The pier feels so impossibly crowded with people and luggage that I’m sure it will collapse beneath the weight. I float through the scene as though on a marvelous drug. Familiar faces swarm around me, vying for my attention.
I make facial expressions and say words, wondering if they will be the ones people want to see and hear. Condolences are offered like little gifts of sadness, and I’m sure my careless responses are deemed inadequate. But that’s fine with me. This is my island. I can relax the usual control I assert over myself. Plus, Vivi and Decker stay close by my side. They’re my sentinels, my defenders.
My senses sharpen when I see my mother and father. They look less imposing in their matching resort-wear outfits of khaki shorts and polo shirts in complementary pastels, but my lungs inhale deeply in preparation nonetheless.
I’ve always been an outsider in my family. At some point in time, we must have accepted that we would never truly understand one another. I used to place the blame on them for not trying hard enough. Then I placed the blame on myself for being too difficult to love. Now I know we are all at fault.
My mother approaches with her arms open, engulfing me. “My poor son,” she says, arms outstretched to cradle my face in her hands. Her eyes are unblemished by tears, not that I’d expect otherwise, but they appear to corroborate the compassion in her voice. “You don’t deserve this.”
It takes me by surprise when she buries her face against my shoulder and begins to sob, shaking rhythmically with each hiccup. My father s
tands behind her, unsure of what to do. He decides the most appropriate action would be to pat her on the back in the most mechanical of comforting gestures.
“It’s okay, Mom,” I say, feeling as helpless as my father. I rub her back while trying to avoid colliding with my father’s patting hand. “I’m doing fine. Really, I am.” I look at her and force a smile only she would believe. She smiles back and pulls away.
With a sharp inhale, I turn to my father. He offers a sympathetic look and extends his right arm. “It’s good to see you, son.”
“Likewise,” I respond, taking his hand in mine. After a second’s hesitation, he catches me off guard by pulling me in for an embrace. Now he’s patting my back.
“It’s a terrible thing,” he says. “Remember that we love you and that we’re here for you.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I say, not knowing where to put my hands. “I’m happy you’re both here.”
He takes a step back and studies me with an uncommon tenderness in his intense eyes. We three Caraways stand together in a triangle of what may be the sincerest moment we’ve shared in years when I glance past my father’s shoulder. I had almost forgotten about someone.
My brother stands there, looking solemn and uncertain. He’s dressed like an outcast from a yacht club, wearing seersucker shorts that are rolled up above his knees and a matching blazer, with the accoutrements you would expect to complete this look: plain white T-shirt, tortoiseshell sunglasses, braided belt, leather boat shoes. I’ve done a decent job of remaining calm up to this point, but my muscles tighten now.
Clark Caraway was born two years before me, the same year as Elias, and we’ve shared everything since the day I was born. From our genes to our education to the colour of our hair, the similarities in our origins should have resulted in other parallels. But I can’t think of two people more different than me and my brother.
When I was eight years old, Clark and I built a fort together in the woods behind our house. It took several weeks. We collected old pallets and plywood that we convinced shop owners to give to us. We even scavenged a few pieces from back alleys. Once the materials were gathered and the plans were drawn, we began construction. Clark took charge of the hammering while I helped by holding things in place. We had fun. It was the only time we did something I imagined brothers should do together.
After Elias Page 9