Harry refills drinks, gets tissues, but the sky is changing now, the day has passed in spite of us and he whispers to me, “Gigi, this is time for your family now, I should go. Unless you need anything? Unless I can do anything else? I’ve written down the numbers for places you can call for help, they gave them on TV. They said it’s quite difficult now, they don’t have much information.”
“I, I, could…” But I can’t speak. I mean to say something but I don’t know what. He reaches out to touch me, pat my arm or hold my hand, but then he doesn’t. He nods at me, looks down, turns away. Harry says goodbye to my parents and Matty and Michelle, says the right things, I can see by the way they hug him, the way my dad says thank you, the way Ma nods her head, grabs his hand and squeezes it wordlessly.
He walks to the front door and I follow him. Outside, I stand on the landing and he stands a step below me. I look only at his face, trying not to see the City still smoking behind him. “I’m sorry, Gigi. I’m so sorry.” He means it. He doesn’t try to hug me. I would freeze and turn to a pile of dust if anyone touched me. Somehow he knows this.
As he walks down the steps in Frankie’s old shirt, hands in his pockets, I stop him. Stand two steps above him. I use the edge of my T-shirt to clean the smudge of dust still on his forehead. “You missed…” I mean to say You missed a spot, but that would have been me before, trying to lighten the darkness. Our eyes lock instead. Then I watch him turn and walk away.
As Harry walks down the block, Sharon, Danielle, and Stacy, my oldest friends, run towards Ma’s house and brush past him as though he isn’t there. Danielle’s crying, Stacy’s trying not to, saying my name over and over, arms outstretched to me. I’m quickly enfolded in their perfume and big hair and love and sorrow on the steps of my childhood home. Matty must have let them know. They loved Frankie like their own little brother. They hug me and smooth my hair, hold me by the elbow, try to take my weight as their own, but I’m stiff, numb, and they don’t know that their embraces are like a steel brush on my skin. I watch Harry walk away as I say to the girls, “Frankie’s gone,” and this is only the first time of the hundreds of times that I will say the words. He’s gone.
The girls hold me, arms around my waist as we go up the steps to the front door. I stop before I open it. I don’t look back because I don’t have to. I know Harry’s still there, watching me, sad for me. For all of us.
A couple days later when we finally get to the City to make the rounds of the hospitals, Manhattan is covered in flyers of the smiling dead. And by then we’ll know it’s thousands. For days—weeks, months—afterwards, there will be calls to hospitals, hotlines, police. We’ll tell them Frankie’s missing. And day after day he won’t come home. He won’t come through the door telling us a crazy story about how he escaped and almost didn’t make it. Because he didn’t.
But tonight, Ma will hide the phone from a drunk Michelle and keep it for herself, and sleep with it in her hand even though she knows she wasn’t the one he called.
Tonight, I’ll find Harry’s suit jacket, left behind on the arm of the sofa. And I’ll keep it and never clean it. Just in case Frankie’s still there. In the ash on the shoulders.
2
gold
A Wednesday in August 2016, 7:25 a.m. London
I’m still walking, Harry and Johnny and the baby and the car alarm and the shoes behind me now. I’m not sure where I’m going but it doesn’t matter. I see a church, the door unlocked. I slide into a pew, close my eyes and try to feel something.
A strong smell of wood polish. I thought I was alone but the bitter smell is followed by an old lady rubbing circles into the wooden pews with her cloth, taking her time. I wonder what I’ll be like when I’m old. I wonder if I’ll actually get to be old. Barbra Streisand says that in that movie, right? Remember? That she wishes she was old so that at least she’d know she’d survived all this. My dad loves that movie. He always liked chick flicks.
I leave the lady to her work. I’m intruding on her God time and, anyway, the sharp smell of the polish makes me think of cigarettes. I push open the heavy church door and stand on the stone steps pulling my robe closer, wishing I had changed before I walked out on my family this morning. It’s August. I’m in long sleeves and Harry’s old track pants, I mean sweatpants, whatever they call them here—tracksuit bottoms? And I should be fine, I should be hot, actually, but not in London. It might as well be autumn this morning. I keep waiting for the heat. Today in New York it’s probably hot-hot, spike-in-the-murder-rate hot, steam-rising-off-the-sidewalk-after-the-rain hot. Not here, though. Arms crossed against the chill, keys and wallet and phone in my hands, I walk to the corner shop to buy some smokes.
August. When it’s August-hot I remember the last weekend with Frankie at the Jersey Shore; the Saturday barbecues at Matty’s mom’s house that we’d been going to since we were kids; the Brooklyn Cyclones game we went to with Dad. When the heat of August pours out of the sun like syrup I feel the days before we lost him on my skin. And the memories have a place to stick.
The night I left my parents’ house Frankie woke up and stood in the doorway of my bedroom in his underwear while I packed. I was seventeen, he was eleven. He looked like Jordan from New Kids on the Block. Curly dark hair, like Johnny’s now. Destined to be a heartbreaker. I had to explain to him about how I loved him but me and Ma couldn’t live in the same house anymore, so I had to go, but I would still take care of him. I put a dozen Hot Pockets in the freezer and hid a case of mac and cheese under his bed with ten bucks for emergencies. I told him to take Dad’s bus with Matty to school and to call Sharon or Stacy or Danielle because I’d stay with one of them.
“What about my games? Who’s gonna go to my games?” he said. He was really good at basketball. I said I would be there, even if he couldn’t see me I would be there and I would watch. And I would wait for him after school every day to check in and make sure he was OK.
I looked at him. His little-boy body was lit by the nightlight in the hall and it made a shadow the size of the man he would be one day. I told him I loved him and that he was better than all of us put together and I held him but he squirmed to get out of my grasp and he said, “Ew, Jeej, that’s gross,” so I had to settle for rumpling his hair. I was already halfway down the block when he came running after me in his underwear and sneakers. He said, “You didn’t take any food.” He gave me a juice box and a bag of Cheetos. “Love you,” he said and ran back home. I waited in the street until I saw him go inside.
I went to every game, I waited for him after school, like I promised, and I gave him half of every paycheck from my job at the bagel store to make sure he had everything he needed. I took care of him like I did our whole lives, from when he was a baby. Then he grew up.
That summer before he died was day after day of heat, sudden summer rain that left us just as hot, Technicolor sunsets over New Jersey seen from the deck of the ferry, cold beer and cigarettes on the fire escape of his new apartment. He moved into a building on Victory Boulevard with Matty and they couldn’t afford A/C but that didn’t take the shine off it being their first place. I came over after work once a week. We’d go up to the roof and look at the disco-ball shimmer of Manhattan against the black sky, and that’s when he would talk, lay out his plans, map his future. I was proud of him, the boy I raised. We didn’t know that we were looking at his grave.
When August comes around and I feel like I can stand it, I listen to his voice. I kept my old answering machine and re-saved his messages until I figured out how to get them recorded. Two messages: “Jeej, how you doin’, just seeing how you doin’ ’cuz you had that thing today at work, love you, bye.” And then: “Jeej, I’m short this month for Ma’s bills, I need $65 if you got it, OK? It’s OK if you don’t got it, but if you got it. Bye.” His voice in August.
Today I’m like a broken compass. I can’t find north. It’s never wa
rm here. There’s twelve and a half beautiful summer days every year when London is lush and full of light and green and the people rise up and strip down and lie in the sun. But today is gray and misty and my memories are mixed up. I left my kids and I should be home packing Johnny’s bag for soccer camp and taking Rocky to baby music but instead I’m buying cigarettes at the corner store.
I buy a little half-pack. Ten cigarettes patiently waiting in a slim box. So European. Like those tiny two-person elevators and eating cheese for dessert. I walk down to the common—it’s called a common instead of a park—to sit on a bench. Mist hovers over the grass. It feels like it’s rained, but it hasn’t. That’s just the morning air here, so thick you can see it. So thick you can take a bite out of it. I strike a match and light a cigarette. But the air is so damp and heavy that I can’t tell the difference between the mist and the rising smoke. Smoking is one more thing that’s not like it is at home.
I’ve been holding my wallet, keys, and phone in my hands all this time. When I left the house I reached for the diaper bag out of habit. I hate that bag. The main zipper’s broken from overstuffing, the shoulder strap’s fraying. The front utility pockets always spewing their guts of baby wipes, chewed-up board books and empty baby-food pouches. I couldn’t stand the sight of it. So I just grabbed the essentials and walked out of the house. That’s what happens when you escape a burning building or a war. You grab what you can. And run.
That’s very fucking dramatic, Gigi, don’t you think? Who are you at war with? Who burned down your house?
I stand up from the bench and start walking toward the high street. I don’t know why they call it “high” instead of “main.” I look over my shoulder as I leave the common to enter the stream of pedestrians on the way to the Tube and I see a woman pushing a stroller walking in the opposite direction. Fit, firm, and looking good for thirty-something with a baby in her turquoise Lululemon outfit. I wonder if she’s ever felt like me. Probably not. She’s not shuffling in the streets in men’s sweatpants and a bathrobe so I’d say that alone puts her several levels of functioning above me. You never know, though, I guess.
I walk with the commuters past the common but it’s hard to keep pace in my flip-flops. As everyone branches off to the Tube and the Overground and the bus stops I keep walking until I get to the Grand Euro Star Lodge Hotel on the other side of the station.
“Hello, I’d like a room, please,” I say to the very pretty, very bored Slavic girl at reception.
“Yes, madam, we have vacancy, how many night you require?” She doesn’t look at me, and even if she did, it’s clear she wouldn’t be concerned about the fact that I’m wearing pajamas and holding all of my possessions in my hands.
How many nights? I hadn’t thought about that. How long do you leave a family for? Not knowing what else to tell her, I say, “Two, two, please.”
“Yes, madam, single room available two nights. Cost is £45 per night, £5 extra for towel.”
“Is there a TV in the room?” The TV is critical.
“If you want room with TV is £10 extra, Freeview.”
“Yes, yes, please, a room with a TV.”
“Is deluxe room, also has half bathtub.” I don’t know what she means by that and just assume it’s a language thing. The important thing is the TV and checking in even though it’s 8:45 in the morning.
“Great. Can I check in now, please?”
“No, sorry, check-in half-past-three. Leave bag if you like.”
“I’ll pay fifty percent extra if you let me in now.”
“No, sorry, madam, I cannot make excuse. I have to explain my boss.”
I pull out all the cash I have, £25 in bills and two £1 coins, and slide it across the reception desk. I force her to meet my eyes. “I’d like to check in early, please,” I say, with a smile. I haven’t brushed my teeth today. And the cigarette. A toxic smile from a crazy lady but this girl’s seen worse. She doesn’t give a shit about me. She slides the money across the counter and under a folder on her desk.
“Room 506. I bring key.”
Should I do something different? I got all of London at my feet, should I take this credit card and go to the Dorchester and drink champagne all day and get a massage? Or go to Westfield and buy a new wardrobe? Get a manicure, get a haircut. Put me first. Fuck it all and take a train to Paris? No, that’s not what I want.
I get to the room and put my phone, wallet, keys, and cigarettes on the little card table next to a metal folding chair. This place is a shithole. An anonymous place for hippie backpackers and married men who don’t want to spend money on their lunchtime lovers and people in business suits engaged in “business.” It smells of stale smoke, lemon air freshener, and prostitution. A shady, cheap, crappy place. Perfect.
I put my head down on the pillow and sleep is instant. Then the phone dings. Another message from Harry. He’s been calling and texting since I left the house. I don’t read it.
Harry should know it’s August. He should know that it’s almost Frankie’s time. It’s been eight months since Rocky was born and seven years since they gave me Johnny and fifteen years since Frankie died and none of them are here in this room with me. And neither is Harry. But he should be.
Staten Island, June 2009
“Sharon, Jesus, slow down!” I shout from the backseat of her Honda Civic, the car she’s had since senior year of high school. I’m in the backseat with the baby. He looks so small, and he is, very small for six months. I’m still nervous so I always ride in the back with him, both my hands gripping his car seat, just in case.
Sharon talks to me through the rearview mirror: “I’m going, like, fourteen miles an hour, Jeej. This kid’s gonna have an uphill battle with you. You gonna put bars on the baby room windows, maybe? Maybe you could home-school him too.” I ignore her. I don’t say that I’ve thought about putting bars on the windows. I live in a sketchy part of Brooklyn. And there is no baby room. There’s a crib crammed into my tiny bedroom because until a couple weeks ago I didn’t know there was going to be a baby.
I adjust the baby’s blanket. She’s right, of course. I’m overprotective. Obsessive since the baby came. New moms are like that, but this isn’t the usual situation, and I’m not his mom, not officially, anyway, not yet. I’m jittery, I don’t sleep, and it’s not just because he’s up every three hours. I’m terrified. Of how I’m going to do this alone. Of hurting him by accident because I don’t have the right instincts. Of the day I’m going to have to explain everything to him. Of him growing up and feeling a space in his heart where his mother’s supposed to be that I could never fill, no matter how much I love him.
We pull up to Michelle’s parents’ house. A four-foot-tall statue of Mary greets visitors at the path leading to the front door. Her blue veil is faded, her palms facing out and down, her head cocked to the side with motherly affection, undisturbed by her nose being broken off. She’s missing three fingers of her left hand, where the metal spokes that held the plaster together poke out, sharp and rusty. Behind her, the grass and weeds are high and chaotic in the spaces between the other statues on the lawn—St. Joseph, St. John, St. Theresa. Jesus on the cross, all of his paint worn off almost down to the plaster, except for the red drops of blood on his forehead from the crown of thorns. And the angels—dozens of angels, wings in various states of neglect, eyes worn away by years of wind and rain and snow but still upturned to God.
Gloria Costello, Michelle’s mom, is standing behind the screen door, watching as I pull her grandson from the backseat. She’s expecting us. I start to sweat. My skin feels tight, like I’m wearing another woman’s life and Mrs. Costello can see it.
Michelle and Frankie were supposed to be together forever. They had been sweethearts since they were twelve years old, when the Costellos moved to the neighborhood. Then he died. And part of her died too. Part of all of us died. But it n
ever stopped for Michelle. Pieces of her just kept dying.
We tried, we all tried, to help. But the needles and bottles had gravity on their side in Michelle’s downward spiral. I let her stay with me a few times, once for a couple months. When I’d see her on the block, underdressed for the winter weather, hair pulled back and graying, nails worn down to the sore red nail beds, I would take her to the diner, but she never ate what she ordered. I bought her cigarettes. One time I found her asleep on a bench in the ferry terminal. I gave her my coat and took her to her parents’ place. She fought me the whole way. She didn’t want anyone’s help. She wanted to get high and forget about the life her and Frankie were supposed to have but didn’t.
No one saw her for a long time until she showed up at Ma’s house with a baby in a broken stroller. Ma said she asked her if she wanted coffee and by the time she’d come back from the kitchen with the milk and sugar Michelle was gone, the baby asleep in the stroller barely standing on its busted wheels in the middle of the living room.
Ma waited to call the cops until I got there so that the baby would have someone to go to the hospital with. Dad was driving the bus, Mrs. Costello wasn’t answering the phone, Michelle had left and we had no idea who the father was. So it had to be me. I knew he wasn’t mine, but no one else was there, and once I saw him, when I picked him up and held him, I knew I couldn’t leave him. He was a part of Michelle and she still had a piece of my brother buried deep.
I stayed in the hospital visitors’ lounge that whole weekend. “Excuse me, I’m sorry, can you just tell me if he’s OK?” I would ask doctors and social workers, but they couldn’t do more than nod and say, “He’s OK.” I wasn’t family so they couldn’t give me details and I couldn’t stay with him. There was a sweet young nurse who would let me know once in a while on the sly how he was—dehydration, a bad cough, infected diaper rash, underweight. He was struggling and scrawny but he was going to be alright.
When I Ran Away Page 3