Fire & Water (40 page)

“Not hide nor hair.”

I leveled my voice, not wanting to alarm Ryan, though Jake’s absence was setting off alarm bells in my brain. “Any clue where he is?”

Before Burt could answer, a pale, studious-looking man stepped up beside him. They exchanged handshakes. “This unassuming genius here is Jeremy, Jake’s new right-hand man. Jeremy, meet Katie and Ryan Bloom and their dear friend, Mary K.”

Jeremy delivered a warm but weak handshake and pushed oversized glasses up his nose. He looked like he could use some sleep. “So nice to meet you, Mrs. Bloom,” he said, his eyes darting through the crowd, presumably looking for Jake.

I suddenly felt about ninety years old. “Please. Call me Kate,” I said. “I hear you’re doing a marvelous job.”

“I try. But I must say, I’ve never worked with anyone like your husband. It’s quite an honor. And, well… an experience.” At the sound of the word
husband
my eyes met Burt’s. Was the twitch at the corner of his mouth a wince of regret?

Conversation with the very fretful Jeremy gleaned that he had also not seen Jake all day, nor had he seen what was inside the silk curtain. Those alarm bells in my head were ringing louder.

“Not to worry,” Burt said. “Jake’s one of those blokes that works himself silly and then goes off like an old bear and hibernates. You’ll learn that soon enough, Jeremy. The exhibit is already over for him once he’s got it done. Doesn’t care much about the hoopla.”

Mary K took Ryan’s hand. “Ready?”

Burt placed his hand on the small of my back and its warmth radiated through me. Was that a gesture he’d done before? “I think I’ll stay out here and help Jeremy with details. I’ll see you all later,” he said.

My stomach roiled, but I remembered Jake’s past installations. Jake’s art had always been a thing of wonder—beauty he was able to find everywhere. The sweetness of his soul always emerged in his art.

I parted the curtain. Once inside, the silken pathway served to guide us. Despite the thousands who waited to enter, it seemed no one existed but the three of us.

We meandered separately, at first finding nothing out of the ordinary.

Ryan made the first discovery. On the ground along the path’s edge lay a female form about four feet long. The grass had been clipped short, revealing the gentle topographical curve of hip and shoulder in the earth. “Look, Mommy,” Ryan squealed. She ran ahead pointing out one and then another human shape along the path—some male, some female, some childlike in shape. At first they were mere suggestions, but they became larger and more detailed as we proceeded. It was as if some distant call had pulled sleeping spirits—both magical and eerie—from the earth, and we were witness to their emergence.

Then I spotted something new: a crevice, just millimeters wide, two feet long, in the ground. It was lined in crimson. Unmarked, this crack in the earth would go unnoticed. But draped with brilliant red, the gap took on the image of a wound, moist, ripe, and ready to bleed. The dewy flesh had been added, of course, though it was impossible to discern the ingredients. Perhaps it was a pulpy mash of the red mum petals and maple leaves. It emitted an earthy, decayed smell, at once plant and animal.

Steps ahead, at eye level, another scar appeared on the side of a boulder. It, too, glowed blood-red, moist, and raw. Each gash lured us to the next until more unmistakable human forms rose. Anatomical curves of hips, shoulders, breasts, and thighs gave the appearance of bodies in repose strewn about the lawn, emerging from the roots and trunks of trees and rising from stones. These human forms had not been created, but discovered and exposed. Gnarled tree roots became elbows and knees, stones became shoulders, soft mounds of earth formed hips, jaw lines, and cheekbones in profile.

Each body bore a shimmering crimson slash, a slice across the torso, throat, or limb. Whether supine, prostrate, or climbing the twisted trunks of trees, the bodies became larger in scale—their corresponding wounds more gruesome in proportion.

We reached a clearing so vast that the curtains that surrounded us seemed to disappear in the distance. My eyes were assaulted with the destruction of wounded bodies and tangled limbs. It was a battlefield of bodies ravaged and torn by some force of otherworldly violence.

The fiery heads of mums and falling maple leaves conspired with Jake’s work to complete the composition. Under the beauty, behind the glory, alongside the delight of blossoms, everywhere Jake had found the flaws—the cracks—the carnage—that lay just beneath everyone’s everyday awareness. He’d marked them so that everyone else could see what he knew existed all along.

The scene of slaughter overwhelmed me. How could he move leaves, mash flower petals, and crush patterns in the soil and grass to create such a scene? The paralysis I’d felt in the penthouse had been my warning. This scene was the same that had met me in the bathtub of our home—the same beautiful destruction.

Then I spotted it.

Because of the sheer scale, I didn’t at first recognize what I saw. In the center of the clearing, tucked among the soft swells of lawn, with a torso a dozen feet long, lay the body of a woman. From the line of her chin to the curve of her thigh, she’d been revealed. Her breasts were inviting mounds of earth. Her hips a gentle swell. Her shoulder the exposed, gnarled root of a tree. The lines of her tortured body pulled my eye to her core, where her abdomen lay splayed and glistening red, her womb raw and torn. Her chin in profile screamed her anguish, her mouth agape. The redness of her exposed womb seemed to throb. She seemed not only to bleed from her wound, but from her soul.

My vision blurred with my tears. I was unaware of Mary K’s presence next to me until she spoke. “Fuck me sideways,” she whispered. “I’ve seen autopsies less wrecked than this.”

Ryan’s scream felt like a slice into my own skin.

The sound of my daughter pulled me from my stupor and I ran toward her where she sat covering her face. Expecting Jake’s whimsy and finding this carnage was more than she—and I—could bear. She hid her eyes in her hands and I rocked her, unable to take my eyes from all that surrounded me.

* * *

“She’s sleeping,” Mary K said as she sat beside me in front of the fireplace in our suite. Only Mary K had been able to calm her, and only many hours after we’d returned to our suite. Burt and I sat on the couch. “I exercised medical privilege and gave her a dose of Benadryl. That’ll help her sleep through the night,” Mary K sighed as she fell into a chair by the fireplace.

“Poor angel,” Burt whispered, shaking his head. “My God, Kate, if I’d known. I’d never have—”

Ryan’s screams had instantly summoned Burt into the exhibit. He’d snatched Ryan into his arms.

“Shut it down,” I said to Burt as we fled. “He can’t be exposed like this.” Jake’s art had always revealed his inner beauty. This exposed the depth of his disturbance.

“I don’t even know if I have the authority. We don’t own this. It’s the property of the museum.”

“Just look at her,” I said nodding toward the bundle in Burt’s arms.

The curator would not close the show, but Burt convinced him to post signs that warned of the graphic nature of the exhibit and that it might not be what families expected for their kids to see.

Police managed the crowd. Press swarmed, barking questions at us as we made our escape. Burt charged through the crowd carrying Ryan. Mary K and I followed in the wake he created. His presence and the fury on his face repelled attacks. In mere moments we were through the crowd and in the sequestered safety of our suite.

With Ryan asleep we could finally speak with candor.

“I should have prevented this,” Burt said.

“If anyone should have known, it was me,” I said.

The door of the secrets I’d held about Jake had been blown off its hinges. In the hours that followed, Burt and I revealed all of the small details I’d held back from Mary K about Jake’s decline over the past two years.

“Jeez, Murphy. Why didn’t you say something to me?”

“I just kept thinking that it would pass. That he would get better if we just found the right medication. That I was smart enough to figure it out. I guess I felt ashamed, too. What must you all think of me, with my life so out of control?”

“It’s fucked up logic, but I get it. Not so great at asking for help myself. But, Jesus Christ on a raft.” She looked at her watch. “I know you said to go ahead to my folks’ place tonight, but I should stay. It’s no big deal.”

“Your family invited you. It’s been so long since they welcomed you home. Go. I can’t bear the thought of causing you to miss an opportunity to reunite with your family.”

“I’m staying right here on this sofa,” Burt offered.

“I’d rather be alone.” I squeezed Burt’s ropy forearm. “Can you try to find Jake? See if he’s okay? That’ll make me feel better.”

“Anything,” he said.

“You’re sure?” Mary K asked. “I should get back about midnight.”

“I’m sure.” I refilled my glass from the scotch bottle on the coffee table. “I’d like to go home tomorrow, though. Ryan should be home.”

“No problem.” Mary K stood but seemed reluctant to move toward the door. “If you need me, you know. You’ve got my cell number.”

“And I’m here in two shakes. Just give a jingle,” Burt said, giving my forehead a kiss.

They both moved toward the door. With a sudden burst Mary K leaned down and embraced me. With her cheek against mine, she whispered in my ear, “I love you, Kate.”

I could not remember Mary K ever uttering my first name, and the tenderness of it stunned me. Just as suddenly as she had embraced me, she disappeared out the door.

Though I knew she couldn’t hear me, I whispered my response: “I love you more, Mary Louise.”

* * *

With a bang and a burst of light I was jerked from sleep. I shielded my eyes from the glare and read the bedside clock. Twelve-thirty.

“Murphy, wake up. Where’s Ryan?” Mary K shouted. She’s not in her bed.”

“The bathroom—”

“I looked. She’s not here.”

My heart ricocheted against my ribs.

Mary K dialed the front desk. “Yes, this is the penthouse. Have you seen Ryan Bloom tonight? She’s almost seven years old, but tall for her age. Pale skin. Dark, curly hair.” I searched her face for clues to the answer from the other end of the phone.

“How long ago?”

Another pause. I could hear my own blood surging through my eardrums. Bile rose in my throat. I prayed to no one in particular.
Please, please, please
.

“Thanks,” Mary K said, hanging up the phone.

I searched for my shoes. “Where is she?”

“They saw her leave around eleven. With Jake.”

For a millisecond her words disintegrated first into syllables, then into a jumble of unintelligible sounds. “Ryan would never leave without telling me. How did Jake get in here?” I jammed my feet into sneakers.

“We’re in the fucking
BLOOM
Tower, Murphy,” Mary K spat. “I think they’d let Jake Bloom into the penthouse where his wife and child are staying, don’t you?”

The next seconds were a blur. Mary K called Burt, and then the police, who told her they could do nothing if the child was with her father. “Motherfuckers!” she shouted as she slammed down the phone.

I grabbed Ryan’s jacket from a nearby chair. I held it to my lips, taking in the fragrance of baby shampoo. I allowed myself only the hastiest glance around the room—a few heartbeats to gather my thoughts. Her suitcase rested on the floor, garments strewn as she’d left them. Sketches of princesses and white horses lay on the writing desk, pencils and markers scattered on top. The rumpled sheets and pillow bore the impression of her but they were cool to my touch. The only thing missing, besides Ryan herself, was her love-worn stuffed lamb.

“Come on,” Mary K called from the entrance. “Let’s go! We’ve got to see what they know downstairs.” Her jaw was set and her eyes squinted into a warrior’s expression.

Fending off the greetings from doormen and desk staff, Mary K and I sped through the lobby. I’d fallen asleep in my clothes, or I’d have fled in my pajamas. The concierge tipped his head as we approached. “A night outing, Mrs. Bloom? Can I get you a car?”

Mary K spoke up when words failed me. “No. Thank you. We’re meeting Mr. Bloom.” Her eyes dipped to take in the gold nametag on the lapel of young man’s navy blazer. “Byron, did you happen to notice if they took a cab or remained on foot?”

Oh God
. My brain was too addled to come up with such a cogent question. Give me a patient in cardiac arrest, an emergency C-section, or a compound fracture, and I’d know how to respond. But with Ryan in the balance, hysteria nearly erupted in me.

The eyes of the concierge darted between us. “It seems that Mr. Bloom and Ryan were going for a walk as well.”

I wanted to pound him with questions.
Was she okay? Did she seem scared? Was she crying? Did Jake seem crazed, high—dangerous?
Instead, I wrangled my voice from the dusty column of my throat. “Did you notice which way they were going?”

“A little nighttime scavenger hunt,” Mary K said, turning her full attention to the doorman. “Help us get a jump, will you? And might we borrow a flashlight?”