Invisible as Air

by Zoe Fishman

  “I couldn’t face anything, Paul. Not one fact. My heart, my body, my soul: they were all broken. I regret everything.”

  A sob rose up from the pit of her stomach, like some kind of ancient battle cry, and she released it into the air. The pretty bird flew off its hidden perch and away.

  Finally, Paul touched her. He put his warm hand over hers.

  “I should have held her. I should have agreed to the autopsy. I should have insisted that we take footprints. I should have taken her ashes home with us,” said Sylvie.

  “Sylvie,” said Paul. He took her hand and threaded his fingers through hers. He was crying too. “You did what you were capable of doing. You were broken. We both were.”

  “But why didn’t you make me!” she sobbed. “Why didn’t you talk sense into me! You were all I had!”

  “Sylvie. Have I ever been able to talk you into anything you didn’t want to do? I tried. God knows, I tried. You wouldn’t listen to me. And the things you said to me, the insults you spewed in response, I had no choice but to surrender.”

  “I spewed insults?”

  Paul nodded. “Awful things. You told me it was all my fault. Jesus Christ, Sylvie, why wouldn’t you go to therapy with me?” He let go of her hand and stood up. “Here we are, three years later, finally talking about this?”

  “I did go to therapy with you,” Sylvie said.

  “Once! You went once!”

  “You went on with your life!” Sylvie yelled. “Three months to the day after she died, and you were back at it. You forgot her.”

  Paul looked around spastically. “Is there a hidden camera? Is this a fucking joke? Back at it? What are you even talking about? I channeled my grief the best way I knew how. I started exercising because moving was the only thing that made me feel better. I think about her every day, Sylvie. Every day. And you never, not once after those first three months where we sat in the dark inside the house like silent prisoners because you wouldn’t even talk about it, would even entertain a conversation about Delilah.” He kicked the ground angrily, and clods of dirt splattered all over her shins.

  “And by the way, you were back at it too. You went back to work.”

  “I didn’t have a choice.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Paul. “I know I screwed up with the shopping. I lost control. I was trying to fill the hole in my heart, okay? But now, now I’m trying to fix it. And anyway, are you trying to claim that if I made a million dollars, things would have been different? That instead of working you would have gotten the therapy you needed? Give me a break.”

  “I got fired,” Sylvie blurted out.

  “What?”

  “I was fired on Monday.”

  Paul stared at her.

  The tent flap rustled again, and this time Teddy and Krystal came crouching out.

  “Good morning,” said Sylvie.

  They straightened up, the impossible beauty of their youth like a halo all around them, even in their rumpled, unwashed state. Especially in their rumpled, unwashed state.

  “Sounds like the day is off to a great start,” said Teddy.

  “I’m going to go looking for horses,” Krystal announced.

  “Okay,” said Paul.

  “Shouldn’t we feed you first?” asked Sylvie.

  “I can’t take another protein bar,” said Krystal. “Maybe I can go scrounge up some powdered donuts or something. Anyway, I’ll be back.”

  “The ferry leaves at ten fifteen,” said Paul. He looked at his watch. “Come back in an hour, just to be safe.”

  “It’s seven A.M. We need two hours to pack up the tent and walk to the ferry?”

  “Well—”

  “I’ll be back by eight forty-five. See you.”

  She gave Teddy a kiss on the cheek and walked off into the woods, looking like the bedazzled fairy that she apparently was, thought Sylvie.

  “She’s a nice girl,” Sylvie said to Teddy.

  “You lost your job?” he asked.

  “I did. But it’s not a big deal,” she lied. “I’ll get another one.” She had no idea if she would get another one, actually. She was old and expensive: the kiss of death.

  “Okay,” Teddy said. “Dad, do you have any water?” Paul nodded and went back into the tent to retrieve it.

  “Was it the pills? Did they get you fired?” Teddy asked her when he was out of earshot.

  Sylvie brushed nonexistent dirt off her shins.

  “Maybe,” she said.

  “Here,” said Paul, emerging with the bottle and handing it to Teddy.

  “Dad, Mom’s addicted to those pills the doctor gave you,” said Teddy. “But she promised me that she’d stop, after the Bar Mitzvah.”

  “Wait,” said Paul. “You two have talked about this?” He loomed over them.

  “I confronted her, yes,” said Teddy.

  “Wow, Sylvie,” said Paul. He raked his hands through his hair. “Just wow. Your own son, staging an intervention with you. Your thirteen-year-old son. I hope you’re proud of yourself.”

  Sylvie looked down into the dirt beneath her feet.

  “Dad, stop,” said Teddy. “You both have secrets, and I, for whatever reason, feel compelled to keep them for you. Or felt, anyway.” He shook his head angrily. “Not anymore. It’s not my job.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” said Paul.

  “What secret do you have?” Sylvie asked Paul.

  “Just some text flirtation from one of the women I ride with. Nothing serious and I certainly never considered doing anything about it.”

  “Oh great,” said Sylvie. “That’s just great. Mr. High and Mighty over here is sending sexts to twenty-year-olds, and I’m the one who’s an asshole.”

  “I never sent a sext!” Paul yelled.

  “That’s enough!” Teddy yelled back. “Enough.”

  “Listen,” said Sylvie, “nothing about this brings me anything but mortification and shame, but here we are. And going cold turkey off these things—I’m going to have withdrawal symptoms. I’d rather not do that on the bimah with the Rabbi, you know?”

  “Oh, you’re not going cold turkey,” said Paul. “You’re going to rehab.”

  “I’m not going to rehab, Paul. Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “You’re going. I made some calls after David told me.”

  “David told you?” Teddy asked his father.

  “I’m not goi—” Sylvie began.

  “You’re going!” yelled Paul. A shirtless man, wrapped in a towel on his way to the shower, tripped over his feet nearby, startled by Paul’s outburst.

  Sylvie put her head in her hands. She did not want to go to rehab. She did not want to sit with a bunch of drug addicts in a sterile room and talk about her feelings.

  “Where is it?” she mumbled.

  “North Georgia. Monday. It’s all set up,” said Paul.

  “How long is it?” asked Sylvie.

  “Ninety days.”

  “Ninety days! What if I hadn’t been fired? How would that have worked out?”

  “Good thing you were,” said Paul dryly. “It’s a sign.”

  “Shit,” said Sylvie.

  The three of them sat on the bench, staring at the tent. Teddy passed her the water bottle, and she took a long swig.

  “Teddy,” said Paul, “are you glad you came here?”

  “I am,” he answered. “You know, I have memories too, of that trip. They don’t just go away.”

  “I’m so sorry you had to witness that firsthand, Teddy,” said Sylvie. “No kid should have to view death up close.”

  “Well, it’s not like it was your fault,” said Teddy. “Nobody planned it. It just happened.”

  “But we could have planned better care for you afterward,” said Paul. “We completely dropped the ball. We failed you as parents then, and we’ve failed you since,” he admitted. “I’m sorry for that.”

  “I was nine. What did I know about therapy?”

  “Nothi
ng, and that’s the point,” said Sylvie. “We were the ones that knew better. And yet, we forgot your pain in the midst of our own, and that’s a mistake I can’t forgive myself for. That you had to run away, to come back here alone to sort out your emotions, to risk God knows what when all we had to do was find you someone who wasn’t us to talk to. We’re so selfish. Or I am, rather.”

  “No, don’t do that,” said Paul. “I’m to blame too. Passivity is not an attribute. I’m ashamed of myself. I should have insisted, Teddy. I should have insisted about everything. With you too, Sylvie.”

  “Why didn’t we ever talk about it as a family?” asked Teddy.

  “That’s my fault,” said Sylvie. “I wasn’t thinking clearly. I thought I was the only one entitled to the pain. Stupid.”

  “Do you ever wonder what our lives would be like now, if she had lived?” asked Teddy.

  “Every day,” said Sylvie.

  “Me too. I think I probably would be, I dunno, a more normal kid. Less in my head all the time. Maybe I’d have a friend.”

  “You have friends,” insisted Sylvie.

  “Not really.”

  “What about Martin and Raj? They’re coming to the Bar Mitzvah.”

  “Raj is popular now. Basketball,” Teddy explained. “And Martin is, like, way into video games. It’s all he talks about. Or all he did, anyway. I can’t remember the last time we hung out. They’re coming?”

  “Yes,” answered Sylvie.

  “Huh.”

  “You have Krystal,” offered Paul.

  “Yeah,” said Teddy. “That’s true. But that’s it.”

  “And your friends from Twilight Manor,” said Sylvie. “That Manny guy.”

  “Mom, they’re, like, ninety,” said Teddy. “And it’s Morty, for the hundredth time.”

  “No,” said Paul, “you were an introspective baby. You are who you are from the moment you’re born.”

  “You think so?” asked Teddy.

  “I do.”

  The only thing Sylvie knew about herself as a baby was what her parents told her: that she was loud and inconsolable much of the time. Well, that tracked, she guessed.

  “What do you think Delilah would have been like?” asked Teddy.

  “Gosh,” said Sylvie. “I have no idea.”

  “I think she would have been like you, Mom,” said Teddy.

  “God help her,” said Sylvie.

  “You’re not all bad,” said Paul.

  Oh Paul, if you only knew, Sylvie thought, thinking about David. She didn’t know if their marriage would survive that truth. It was on life support right now as it was.

  “Anybody want a clementine?” asked Paul. “There are a couple in the bottom of my backpack.”

  “Hot clementines?” said Teddy, wrinkling his nose in disgust.

  “Guys!” They looked up to see Krystal making her way back to them. “I found donuts!” She held up a box. “Four!”

  Sylvie was not going to ask her how or where she had gotten her hands on them. All she knew was that she was starving.

  And so they devoured their prey, powdered sugar coating their fingers and mouths like snow in the hot, hot sun.

  Chapter Thirty

  Teddy

  Teddy looked down into the Torah and began to read. The Hebrew flowed from his mouth, the same passage he had been practicing for nearly twelve months. It filled the synagogue, his voice reverberating off the stained-glass windows. The Rabbi stood behind him. Just the two of them on the bimah and so many, too many, sitting before him.

  To be fair, his mother had invited only those he agreed to, but now, it felt like too many. Too many pairs of eyes staring at him in his starched blue shirt and tie, which may as well have been choking him for how tight it felt around his neck. All his mosquito bites itched in fiery protest, but still he read.

  He considered all the Jewish boys and girls who had gone before him, reciting this same passage, perhaps, in the same airless sanctuary. Did he feel a bond with them? He guessed so. Did he feel a connection to his Judaism that he hadn’t yet felt? Possibly. When his grandfather had given him his tallis that morning, he had felt, quite unexpectedly, a sense of continuity. A sense of obligation to his history. He had wanted to tell his mother this, but she was walking around in a Stepford daze, smiling and nodding at everyone, her eyes dull behind her mask of fake cheer.

  And then, he was finished. He stepped back and took what felt like his first breath since he had woken up that morning.

  He looked into the audience. Teddy knew it wasn’t an audience; technically, it was a congregation, but it felt like an audience. For a brief moment, he entertained the idea of himself at the Oscars, accepting the award for Best Director, and a small smile played across his lips. Lips that just that morning had sported a faint, fuzzy black top hat in the bathroom mirror upon close inspection.

  Finally.

  Now he saw Morty, shaven and slick in a navy-blue suit. He smiled at Teddy and gave him a thumbs-up sign. Next to him was Beverly, in a black suit of her own. Her lips were crimson. She wore a yarmulke.

  “And now, Teddy will share with us his Mitzvah Project,” said the Rabbi.

  Teddy cleared his throat and pulled his speech, which he had folded into a tidy square, from his pants pocket. He was not carrying his green notebook today and felt naked without it, but his mother had insisted it was “too bulky” for his fancy pants. He unfolded his square of paper, feeling nervous.

  But this was it. He just had to get through this speech and he was done.

  “Hello, everyone, and thank you for coming today,” he read too closely into the microphone. He pulled back a little. Took a deep breath. Continued.

  Right in the front, his grandparents. All of them. His Bubbe and Zadie, and his Granny and Pop. Night and day. His Bubbe, dressed in an emerald-green wrap dress and up to her armpits in Spanx, a detail she had shared with Teddy that morning. His Zadie in a tailored black suit, his sunspotted head gleaming in the overhead lights. He didn’t say much, his Zadie, but how could he? His Bubbe never stopped talking.

  His Granny and Pop looked remarkably uncomfortable in their Saturday best. Granny was happiest in her Bermuda shorts and T-shirts that clung to her plump midsection; her trusty visors of which she had one in every color. His Pop favored cargo shorts and Hawaiian shirts, an Atlanta Braves cap perched on top of his thick head of white hair. Today, Granny was in a floral tent and Pop was in a white long-sleeve button-down, red tie and khakis, all brand-new with the crease folds to prove it. They smiled at him. And there was his aunt Gloria, looking like a praying mantis in a purple minidress. She’d been married two times; Teddy had been the ring bearer at the last one, holding what looked like two tiny circles of tin foil aloft on a white lace pillow as he walked slowly down the makeshift aisle.

  Teddy thought it must have been hard for all of them, when his dad had married his mom, someone completely different from them. It was probably still hard.

  “Thank you to Rabbi Cohen and to my parents, Sylvie and Paul Snow, for everything you’ve done for me this year.”

  He looked up to find his mother dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. Finally, some emotion, Teddy thought. His father sat beside her, in his own starched blue shirt and yellow tie, his hair pushed back off his face. He was not crying, but he nodded his head slightly upon eye contact with Teddy.

  “My Mitzvah Project started out one way but ended up being something entirely different. Which, I suppose, is a lot like life,” read Teddy. “But in this case, it was for the better, and I want to thank Krystal Platt and her mother, Patty, for that. Also, Jackie Jones, the director of Twilight Manor.”

  Jackie, dressed in an elegant black pantsuit and a necklace as big as a serving platter, winked at him from the fourth row.

  “When this Mitzvah Project came up, I was annoyed. I couldn’t believe that I had to do even more work. As if reading a foreign language with no vowels in front of a crowded room in a tie wasn’t bad enough.”
<
br />   The music of the congregation’s laughter relaxed Teddy. He unfurled his clenched fists.

  “So my mom took charge, the way moms do, and set me up at a pet shelter. Now, no offense to dogs and cats, but they’re just not my thing. And sure, a mitzvah is to do a nice thing for somebody, or, in this case, some wayward animals, without expecting anything in return, but a mitzvah is something else too. The word itself comes from the Aramaic root tzavta, which means connection. There was no connection between those animals and me. It was an empty experience.”

  Teddy looked up to find his Bubbe whispering to his Zadie.

  “What, Bubbe? I did my research!” More laughter. Teddy felt better.

  “I don’t love animals, but what I do love is movies. I love that for two hours you can escape whatever’s bothering you and reside in a completely different world.

  “So my girlfriend, Krystal, she told me, if you like movies so much, why don’t you share that with others? Let the dog lovers be with the dogs. And she was right.”

  He found Krystal in the audience, sitting with her mosquito-ravaged legs crossed. She was picking at nails that she had painted blue and white for the occasion.

  “The colors of Israel,” she had explained to him on the phone the night before.

  “Of course,” Teddy had agreed, touched by the gesture.

  She looked up at the mention of her name and smiled. His savior. Without Krystal, who knew if his parents would ever have found him? And who knew if they would have ever talked about Delilah? And his mom, would she have ever agreed to rehab if they hadn’t been there at that exact moment, in that haunted space, together? He was glad he had gone. He was glad they had followed him. Maybe that had been his plan all along.

  “Her mother, Patty, is a nurse at Twilight Manor. She got me a meeting with Jackie, who was coo— I mean, kind enough to let me run a movie night once a week, sharing and discussing some of my favorite movies, and that’s when I really got what this whole mitzvah thing was all about.”

  Patty Platt, in a black dress that showed the tops of her breasts, looked bored. He wished, for her sake, that she had worn a scarf or something, to cover herself, but he had a feeling that Patty Platt couldn’t have cared less about the glances the other women in the congregation had given her when she walked in.