Bright Before Us (30 page)

You love to worry,
you told me once, shaking your head. It was high school, we were rushing back to Alameda to retrieve my noisome truck, convinced it was going to be towed—I had left it in a big abandoned lot on the naval base so we could take your car. I don't remember now why we had to take yours; maybe your air conditioner worked better. Something like that.
You love to worry, so you do things that worry you,
you said. More than you touching me, more than the feel of your body beneath mine years later, that subtle judgment was an aphrodisiac—the sense that you were looking at me closely. I was lulled by the revelation that I was a man of pattern, a creature of inviolable temperament—that I did things a certain way, that there
was a center to me, a consistency.
You do so love to worry,
you said, and it was true—I had long worried that I was
no one in particular
, an absence that negotiated the world not by action but by reaction. That you thought otherwise, seeing in me a quality, an individual texture—that, Nora, is what made me love you most. As though I could look deep inside you and see not you, but a reflection of myself. As though you could tell me, on a daily basis, who I was.

The day after we first slept in my bed, unable to drag ourselves from our talk, you asked me a hundred questions. Your hand was on my forearm, the pads of your fingers cold.
Tell me all the bones you've broken,
you said.

Tell me all the scars you have,
you said.

I looked down at my hands, counting.
This one from a burn in the kitchen. This one from chicken pox.
I pointed to a knee, skinned on my first cycling foray without training wheels.

I frowned.
I don't think it will.

You paused, somber.
Tell me the most pain you've ever been in.

I guess the collarbone,
I said.

No,
you said.
The worst you've ever felt.

I couldn't think of anything.

You must be able to think of something,
you said.

So I tried again, and what I thought of was the reverse; I thought about how that moment—you, lying in my bed—was my
happiest
time. And I thought about how you, in the same moment, were riddled with pain. It weakened you. It distorted your gait, fogged your vision, fucked up
your speech. It was like a fist around your central nervous system, every firing synapse filtered through a sustained hurt. I thought about how we were smack in the middle of the worst time in
your
life, and I felt the situation get pale and undermined, beating back a flickering doubt. I did things that worried me and then I worried, yes. But I suppressed the questions I ought to have asked, letting your imploring eyes and naked legs file down that sharp thing within me, dulling it into an approximated peace.

That pain you carried was something I better understood years later, when I saw the body on that beach; I was slapped back by duality—there was sorrow, but there was also an insinuation of relief. Long before my conscious mind entered the equation, a part of me wished you dead. And I believed you were. If Buckingham or anyone else didn't, it didn't change the simple truth: I could bear your death better than I could your abandonment.

That day, you asked one more question before we went out looking for signs. As you spoke, your head was propped on your arm, your legs curled beneath you.
What is your greatest fear?

I knew immediately. It was that someday I too would be forced to face the pain you were facing then.

But I lied. It was my first lie to you, and I added it to the others I'd told, accruing like bricks in a wall, like layers of gauze over a wound. My lies were always miscalculations: every one I hid behind revealed more than the truth would have.

That I won't be strong enough,
I answered,
to live the way I ought to.

In Chappell, I had remembered how to do it. Two years earlier, the policeman had called your apartment to notify you of your parents' death. I had been on your couch, you were making French toast; the phone rang. He had taken off his hat like a gentleman to tell you he was sorry and you asked him,
How did you know where I live?
He explained to you how easy it had been. He said,
It was actually pretty easy.
He explained to you how people, out there in the world, were no longer difficult to find.

 

The light behind you slid away as you stepped into the hall. Your face came into focus. You held a vice grip on your breath. I asked a sudden question of myself: What do you expect from this?

Francis,
you said.

I rejected a stream of words, none of which worked.

You studied me.
Can I ask you a question?

I wish you wouldn't,
I said.

I'm glad to see you,
you said. As you said it your hand went to your mouth, as though you had violated a selfimposed order.

I thought you were dead,
I said.

I was thinking of calling you,
you said.
To catch up.
You sighed, a kind of retraction.
I think about calling you,
you said, correcting yourself.

What do you expect from this? I asked myself again. Why are you here? And then I knew. I wanted to say the two words that could go at least an inch toward my redemption.

You cut me off.
How did you find me?

That day in Chappell, standing at the pay phone in the yellow dust, the operator's voice had been clinical, pinched.
L-U-C-A-S,
I had enunciated.
New York City. Yes, thank you.
I had left Nebraska with a number and an address; there were more Nora Lucases in New York than I expected but only one who had opted to put “Ms.” in front of her name. I wondered if you had known I would look for you someday. I wondered if you had wanted to force me to see how proud you were of your autonomy.

But I had called Buckingham first. I had said, without greeting,
I'm calling about the woman.
He said,
Pardon?
And I said,
I'm calling about the woman my class found on the beach.
It felt incorrect to say it; that had been someone else's life.

I was unwell,
I said.
I think—I doubt I need to tell you that.

Her name was Mary,
he said.

Mary,
I said.

I hear you're out of a job,
he said.

I'd have to look at my files,
he said, before hanging up.

A nothing name; the name of a stranger.

With your address on the dashboard I drove. Two useless years, my life in shambles. Consult the directory, a call made with loose change, three thousand miles. All this wasted time.

You stood in your doorway, awaiting my answer.

It was actually pretty easy,
I said.

You had lived there almost a year and a half, had sold your car ages ago. You rarely went to California anymore. It was hard to get out there very often.
I don't fly,
you said.
It's one of my things.

I hate to fly, too,
I said.

We were still standing in the hallway. I was acclimating to the ideas. That old car of yours was gone because you had sold it. This was where you lived now. You had this apartment, to which you returned each night; you had this apartment that you called Home.

Actually,
I said,
I really hate flying. I feel like I have to hold perfectly still or I'll anger fate and the plane will crash.

What if you have to pee?
you said.

I wait,
I said.

You have to take control of your destiny,
you said, smiling faintly.

We still hadn't gone inside, as if there were a line you wanted to avoid crossing. You motioned behind me, and we went down the stairs and out to the street. I toured your neighborhood with you as though we were normal people, out for a stroll in the middle of a sunstroked day. With every step it became more natural, a feeling not unlike a heart rate slowing, cold fingers warming. At the bottom of your street we went into a wine shop that was bigger than your old apartment. You picked up a bottle from Spain and said,
This looks good. Though I guess we should stick to wines from California.
We were quiet. Your lame joke was an offering. The bottle fell from your hand—for a wrenching second we watched it fall, certain it would break.
I am always so goddamn clumsy,
you said. You retrieved it, placing it back on the shelf.

With my cash I bought two bottles and we went back to your place: it, too, was bigger than your old apartment. Up to then, we had kept it light:
Do you like this neighborhood? It gets so much hotter here, and then way, way colder.
But at your front door you busied yourself with the keys as you said,
You can take a shower if you want.

I did, as thoroughly as I could without being in there for too long. I borrowed your toothbrush, spitting faint trails of blood into the sink. I brushed twice, three times, and returned in your Giants T-shirt and a pair of pink pajama pants. You looked up from the kitchen table.

It's like seeing a ghost,
you said.

Yes,
you said, not moving. Waiting.

I closed my eyes.
What I said. It was horrible.

Which time?
you said—immediately, without a second of lag time.

I was glad. Anger was better than indifference. Though I didn't answer, you stepped forward and everything dissipated, like a vapor clearing, like dust wiped clean. It was like living a moment out of order: time had gone into reverse and we would find ourselves beneath the Golden Gate, before attending that drab funeral, then greeting your parents, alive and well, and finally shrinking back into children, and then babies, and then nothing. Your arms felt thin on my back.

You smell just like you,
I said.

Open the wine,
you said.
I'll order dinner.

We had sushi, strange and wonderful—a lobster roll with banana, shrimp with coconut. After six weeks of cold, unmarked cans, I could have cried.

I watched you examine my face.
Let's just ask our questions now,
you said.

I nodded.
Why do you live in New York?

You speared gyoza with your chopsticks.
San Francisco felt ruined. Now tell me your story.

I don't know how to begin,
I said.

No,
I said.

I swallowed. There were people talking in the courtyard outside, children's jump ropes slapping the concrete. You continued.

You pushed away your food.
Was the baby a boy or a girl?

No,
I said.

You winced, and went quiet.

Do you think we were ever really in love?
you said finally.

I looked you in the eye for the first time.
Of course,
I said.

 

I changed, my clothes washed and dried in the basement of your building, and we went out. You showed me how to ride the subway, and despite the briefness of our trip the rocking train nearly lulled me to sleep. We went to a narrow, deafening bar at the top of a hill, where there was a sign posted: NO DANCING ALLOWED. The staff seemed to know you.

Where are we again?
I said.

Washington Heights,
you said.

You spoke to the bartender.
We'd like two Manhattans, please.
You slapped the counter like you were in a Western. The guy pulled out martini glasses and dropped in two maraschino cherries. He frowned.
I'm out of bitters,
he said, dumping the cherries back into the jar. You ordered us two Belgian beers, and we sat on a zebra-print bench.

It's too loud in here to talk,
you said.

That's probably for the best,
I shouted.

You pointed to a TV over the bar.
We'll watch the game. Yankees–Twins.

You rested your head against my shoulder. I set my beer on a spool-shaped table and put my arm around you, pulling you close.
Have you been to any ball games out here?
I said. But you didn't hear me.
Nora,
I said. You didn't answer, didn't stir. I leaned down and spoke into your hair.
I'm sorry.
I inhaled, strands suctioning to my nostrils.
I'm sorry,
I said again.