Is This Tomorrow: A Novel (33 page)

It wasn’t that he didn’t miss drinking—he did, sometimes so much he could taste it at the back of his throat. But he liked being able to master that need and walk away from the one thing he wanted the most, the same way he’d had to do with his family. And every time he turned away from drinking, there was someone to cheer him on. When it was his turn to stand up at AA meetings, he talked about everything except his ex-wife and son. You were supposed to make amends to the people you had hurt, to ask forgiveness, and Brian did, every night, in his mind. The only reason he didn’t call or go back to Waltham again was because he needed to keep feeling that he had turned his life around, that he was a good man. Ava and Lewis were reminders that that hadn’t always been true.

W
HEN
B
RIAN FINISHED
speaking, Lewis felt as if the world had unraveled. He stared at his father. “Lewis,” Brian said. He unlinked his hands, opening them as if he were praying. “I’m so sorry. For everything, son. Can you forgive me?”

“You came to see me?” Lewis said. He tried to swallow, but his throat felt as if it were made of fabric. He thought of all the times he had jumped when the phone rang, sure it was his dad. He remembered the many weekends he had sat out on his front porch, watching the cars, imagining that one of them might be driven by his father coming to see him. “You wanted us to be a family again?”

“I did. Don’t you remember?”

“When was this? When did it happen? Why didn’t you call first?”

“I told you, I didn’t think your mother would allow it—”

“Don’t blame her.”

“Well, she must have told you all sorts of horrible things about me, considering how you ran away from me. Maybe I deserved that, the way you ran. I wasn’t such a great father, I know that. And then I didn’t call. I didn’t visit. I screwed everything up so royally and I don’t know why, but can’t people change? Didn’t I deserve a chance from you?”

“I don’t remember any of this.”

“Well, it was a long time ago.”

“I wouldn’t have forgotten. How old was I?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been living here ten years. It was probably ten years ago. Spring. It was a nice day.”

“Oh, my God,” said Rose quietly, sitting up straighter. “It was spring?” she asked.

“Sure, it was spring, but really hot out.”

“Was it April?” Rose said.

“Yeah, probably. That sounds about right.”

Lewis looked at Rose, but she was leaning toward Brian now, staring at him.

Brian went on. “You still haven’t answered my question. Why’d you run away? Why’d you
bite
me? Did you really hate me that much?”

Lewis’s head was spinning. “I never would have bitten you. I really don’t remember any of this.”

“Don’t give me that. You came out of the house. I remember you had on this red shirt, these plaid shorts. These sneakers that looked like you wrote all over them. Bet your mother loved that.”

Rose started to cry, little chuffing noises. She dipped her head toward her lap, but her hands stayed tightly folded. Brian reached for her gently. “What? Are you okay?” He tried to put one hand on her shoulder, but she moved away from him. “You need a tissue? Glory—” Glory got up and came back with a box and handed it to Rose. She patted Rose on the shoulder.

There was a metallic taste in Lewis’s mouth, like he had bitten down on tin. The sneakers. He remembered the sneakers. He could smell the Magic Marker.

“It wasn’t me,” Lewis said.

“What are you talking about?” Brian said. “What wasn’t you?”

“You ran after Jimmy,” Lewis said. “My best friend. He was always at our house.”

“Who?”

“Jimmy. Jimmy Rearson, my brother,” Rose said. She brushed at her tears and then took another tissue from the box. “He vanished that day.”

“What are you kids saying to me? You think I wouldn’t know my own son? Don’t give me that.” He moved closer to Glory on the couch.

“My brother had those sneakers,” Rose said. “With words he wrote all over them. My mother kept throwing them out, but he would dig them out of the trash and write on them some more.”

“Anyone could have those—”

“I didn’t,” Lewis said. “No one else did, either.”

Rose took another tissue, balling it in her hands.

“They found him?” Brian said.

Tears began sliding across Rose’s cheeks, but she didn’t move to stop them.

“His remains. They found them recently in a neighbor’s abandoned bomb shelter,” Lewis said quietly.

“A what? Jesus,” Brian said. “But how can you think this has something to do with me?”

“You chased him.”

“Because I thought he was you! Why didn’t he tell me who he was, then? Why didn’t he say his name or tell me he didn’t know who I was?”

“Because he was scared! Because a strange man was yelling at him and running after him!”

Brian sat back. He took Glory’s hand and Lewis saw how tightly he clutched her fingers. “Who knows who else was out there that day,” Brian said sharply. “One moment I saw him and then I didn’t. I’m telling you I didn’t do a thing. There’s no proof of anything. Don’t make me feel wrong when I was trying to do something right, and I was trying to do it for you.” He leaned forward and downed the rest of his drink. “I was being a good father. I was coming for you.”

I was coming for you.

Lewis thought of Jimmy running, how scared he must have felt. Lewis remembered talking to Jimmy about Brian. Lewis made up stories about what kind of person his father was, what he looked like. He had been too ashamed to tell the truth, that he didn’t know anything anymore about his father, that no matter how many letters he wrote, how many stars he wished upon, his father was gone, and his memories of his dad had grown fuzzy and thin.

Lewis knew how hard he had tried to find his father. He remembered how he had found the letter from the lawyer saying his dad would no longer seek custody, how he had been so furious with his mother. “Did you want custody of me?” he asked, and his father lifted up his hands.

“But did you? Did you really want custody? It wasn’t just a threat? Why did you give up?”

“I drove all the way out to see you, didn’t I?” he said.

“Who can remember anything exactly?” Glory said. She looked from Brian to Lewis and Rose and then back to Brian again. “This is a terrible tragedy.”

His father didn’t need to answer. Lewis understood now. Brian said he had come by that day to make amends, but he hadn’t stuck around. There had just been that one moment and then things had gone wrong for him, and he had gotten into the car again and never looked back.

His father hadn’t changed. He had never taken responsibility for Lewis. And he’d never take responsibility for anything that had to do with Jimmy, either. He just wanted to look good.

Brian looked up at Lewis and held out one hand. “Hey, come on, now,” he said. He glanced at Rose. “I’m so sorry about your brother, but why don’t we just talk about something else now?”

Lewis stood, helping Rose up. “We have to go,” Lewis said.

“What, you’re kidding? It’s not that late. You really have to go?” Brian stood up, along with Glory, who put one hand on his shoulder. “What kind of a visit is this? You’re here and then you go? Please. I don’t get to see my son every day.”

“It’s late,” Lewis said.

“You’re welcome to stay over,” Brian said. “We have a guest room.” As soon as his father said that, Lewis wondered what guests Brian ever had. Did Brian ever expect that that room might be for Lewis?

Rose was looking at him, waiting. “No, it’s okay,” Lewis said. “But thank you.”

Glory insisted on giving them a red plaid thermos of coffee for the road. At the door, Brian stared at Lewis, as if he were memorizing him. “What?” Lewis said, and Brian shook his head. “We finally see each other,” Brian said. “Imagine that. After all this time.” He turned to the table and scraped open a drawer, taking out a small white card and handing it to Lewis.
LARK MOTORS,
the card said.
WE SATISFY YOUR DRIVING AMBITIONS!

“My address and phone are on the back. Call me, please, or write. Next time you’re in town, you’ll stay longer,” he said. “We’ll plan it out and I’ll show you the town. We can sit and really talk, finally get to know one another.” Then he waited, and Lewis knew he was supposed to write down his own phone number, his own address for the tiny little efficiency he kept in Madison, but he couldn’t imagine making his fingers work. The world seemed to have shifted upside down and here he was hanging on to its edges. His father was looking at him, so he scribbled down a made-up address and phone number and handed it to him. Then he folded the paper his father gave him and tucked it into his pocket. “Thanks,” he said.

“Everything’s all right then, isn’t it?” his father said. He looked at Rose. “I’m so sorry about your brother,” Brian said, again. Rose stepped silently back from him. Brian reached to hug Lewis, and Lewis instinctively stiffened. His father held him so close, Lewis could see the pomade in his hair, something no one really used anymore, and when Lewis looked up, Glory was standing there, beaming as if something wonderful had just happened.

“Don’t forget your old dad,” Brian said, a catch in his voice. “No matter what, we’re still family here.”

His father and Glory stood in the middle of the driveway when Lewis and Rose pulled away in the car. His father waved, his mouth half-open, as if, any moment, he would say something important to Lewis. Lewis watched him from the rearview mirror, his father growing smaller and smaller, and then he saw Glory rest her head on Brian’s shoulder. He saw Glory trying to pull Brian back inside the house, but Brian wouldn’t move. It was as if Brian couldn’t believe that this time Lewis was the one leaving.

Chapter Twenty-one

Lewis pulled the car onto the main road, his head swimming. He thought of his mother, arguing with him about his father, and how he had refused to listen. He hadn’t wanted to believe her. He rolled down his window and tossed his father’s card out, watching the wind whip it out onto the road. Then he reached over for the thermos and he flung it out of the car as hard as he could, so it smashed. He felt Rose flinch in the seat beside him. He rolled the windows up again, breathing hard.

“Well,” Rose said quietly. “Now you know your father.”

He and Rose didn’t speak the whole way back to the motel. They rode the elevator up to their room with the two twin beds and the green-printed bedspreads, the photo of the geese staring at them. Lewis sank down on one of the beds.

“I never want to see him again,” Lewis said.

Rose sat on the bed opposite him, her hands in her lap. She couldn’t meet his eyes and she was silent. “Rose,” he said. He moved to sit beside her, but she leaned forward and then she kissed him hard on the mouth, moving closer to him, as if she wanted to put her whole self inside of him. He knew what this was, and it wasn’t love or need or desire. It was panic sex, when you needed something—anything—to take you away. You didn’t even have to like the person you were fucking, but that person was alive, there was a pulse beating up against yours and making you remember you were alive, too. Rose unbuttoned his shirt and he felt his own breathing quicken, and he shut his eyes, and when she kissed his neck, he began to tug away her clothing. He kissed her hair. He kissed the base of her throat, the creamy pearl of her shoulders, and then they were on the hotel bed, naked. “Open your eyes,” he whispered, but she kept them closed.

It felt different making love to her now. His body felt on alert, with all his senses so switched on, he wouldn’t have been surprised if her eyes or her hair changed color, if he suddenly noticed her skin was blue. His mouth was breathing against hers, and when he finally entered her, he felt a shock of recognition, as if he had been waiting for this all along and just now realized it. “Rose,” he said, and then she opened her eyes and looked at him, but her eyes were wet, and all he could think was,
Come back. Please, come back.

“A
RE WE ALL
right?” he said. “Rose, are we all right?” He tried to keep awake, to keep watching her, but she was curled into a comma. He wrapped himself like a blanket around her. He took her hand in his, her fingers limp with sleep, and he held on fast.

S
HORTLY BEFORE MORNING,
Rose dreamed Jimmy was a kid and she was an adult. She was in their old house, watching him through her bedroom window, as if he were on a TV screen. He was walking lazily outside in the neighborhood, which was empty and silent, until Brian Lark appeared. She tried to open the windows, but they were bolted shut. She banged her hands on the glass, shrieking his name, but Jimmy couldn’t see or hear her. She ran to her front door and sped out into the street and Jimmy flashed past her, running and terrified. She heard footsteps thundering in the distance and saw Brian. Then Jimmy ran across the street into Mr. Gallagher’s yard. She heard his sneakers stamping on the ground, his heart beating so loudly she wanted to clap her hands to her ears. She saw him crouch and tug open the door. “That’s no place to hide!” she screamed. “Keep going, run!” she shrieked. “Keep running!”

Shaking, he lowered himself into the shelter, clinging to the rickety ladder, closing the top, and suddenly Rose was right there beside him. Once inside the shelter, she felt his fear. She heard his thoughts, like dictation in her mind. As soon as the coast was clear, he could run back home. He would stay here just as long as it took to be safe and then he would go. And so he waited, clinging to the ladder, listening for footsteps, for Brian’s shout, but the ladder, freckled with rust, pulled away from the wall, opening like a zipper, and Jimmy hit the ground. She heard the crack of his ankle, the bright bolt of pain like an exploding star, and she moved down beside him but she couldn’t help him. He gulped in the dank, heavy air. She watched helplessly while Jimmy hobbled to the shelf and tried a flashlight he found, but the batteries were no good anymore, and the light made a dull flicker before it vanished. The hunger began hours later. He had to use his hands to feel around for the cans of food he knew were there, for the rusty opener. He went through tuna first, and then corn niblets and he cut his fingers on the jagged edges, but he kept going because he was so hungry. He found the water and finished it. He screamed, but nobody heard him. And then everything she saw became a circle, with her brother at the center, and the circle grew smaller and smaller, and he curled himself up as tightly as he could, his scribbled sneakers tucked under him, his plaid shorts damp and dirty from mud. He gulped at the air until he was panting. She was right there with him when he felt like there was no air left for him to breathe, when he knew no one would ever find him.

She woke up, leaping from the bed, her whole body shaking. She focused on the hotel dresser, the TV, the minibar. Her fingers brushed the bedspread. She was alive in this room. These things around her were real. All these years, she had been desperate for Jimmy to visit her in dreams, frantic to see him, and finally he came and it was more terrible than she could imagine. When she felt a hand on her, she whipped around to see Lewis, and she began to cry. But she couldn’t tell him about the dream. “Can we just get out of here?” she asked.

R
OSE AND
L
EWIS
went to a restaurant near the motel for breakfast, and then they took a walk, but neither one of them was talking very much.

Rose felt Brian everywhere, like a ghost, haunting her. At the restaurant, Brian was sitting at a table with a child on his lap. When they went to the bookstore, a man with thick hair like Brian’s was browsing the shelves. Rose put one hand over her face. “Are you all right?” Lewis asked.

“I don’t know,” she said.

Everything seemed wrong. She used to think that if she knew what had happened to Jimmy, if she had all the pieces, she’d be able to move on, and instead, she felt even more broken. She had thought all she wanted was to be with Lewis, but being with him reminded her of so much she wanted to forget. She had never understood why her mother had left the neighborhood, but now all she could think was, Of course that’s what you did, fleeing from the pain as if it were a wild animal about to tear you in two. How could she not have seen it? When the pain reached a certain point, how could you do anything else?

T
HEY DROVE BACK
to Ann Arbor, as if distance would make things better, but the dreams kept coming. Every night, as she slept beside Lewis, there was Jimmy running and her chasing him. Every night, she felt Jimmy’s loss of hope, heard his desperate pleas.
Come and find me.

She went to the Thrift-T-Mart and bought Sominex, but the pills just made her groggy and cranky and didn’t stop the dreams at all. She couldn’t speak to Lewis about any of it because she didn’t want him sharing her guilt. She was afraid to go to sleep. She wanted to stay up all night. “You have to sleep,” Lewis told her. He rubbed her hands and stroked her hair. He stayed up with her as long as he could, and then he was sleeping fitfully and she was staring at the walls, waiting for the dreams to come and haunt her.

She got up and went into the living room and turned the TV on and then off again. She lay down on the couch, waiting, and then, despite herself, she fell asleep, not waking until Lewis shook her. “Come back to bed,” he whispered.

She sat up. “I didn’t dream,” she said in wonder. “I didn’t dream.” As soon as she went back to bed with Lewis, his arm around her, there she was again, running on the street, trying to grab her brother, following him down into the hole. But this time, Jimmy saw her and when she reached for him, she actually touched his skin, and she was able to hold him, to feel him against her, alive. He pulled away and then looked at her as if it was the most unsurprising thing in the world for them to be there together. “It’s over,” he said, his shoulders hunching. “It’s the end.” She bolted awake.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Lewis wrapped himself about her, but she felt as if she were suffocating. She broke the band of his arms.

“You just had a bad dream,” he said, and she shook her head, crying.

“It’s not just a bad dream. And I can’t do this anymore,” she blurted. “I can’t keep being this sad. I can’t keep dreaming about me and Jimmy and your father.”

Lewis looked at her, shocked. “You’ve been dreaming about my dad?”

“Yes.” She lowered her head.

“All this time?”

“I wish I didn’t know what happened,” she said finally.

He was quiet for a moment. “I wish that, too,” he said. “I never thought I’d say that.”

“I can say that,” she said abruptly. “But you can’t. He’s your father. He’s in our life.” As soon as she got the words out, she felt as if she were sinking.

“What are you talking about? Who says I want to see him again?”

“You’re upset about him now, but you loved him so much as a kid. He was so important to you. How do you know that you’re not going to miss him?”

“Are you kidding? I never will. I’m done. Why are you even bringing this up?”

“You don’t know that. You can’t know that. A father’s a father. My mother told me you’re with a man, you’re with his family, whether you like them or not. That’s just the way it is. I have to move on from this. I have to find some way to deal with it. I want to be with you, but how can I be the kind of person who tells you not to see your father?”

“You won’t have to, I told you.”

“What if he’s sick, Lewis? What if he’s dying? What if he gets thrown out of his house and Glory is gone and he has no place else to stay, no one else but you to turn to? You wouldn’t give him another chance? I know you well enough to know that you would.”

“Rose, come on—how long have you been thinking about this? Why didn’t you talk to me about this?”

“I know how you feel about me. I know. We haven’t talked about it, but what if we stay together and we have a child some day? You know as well as I do what it’s like to grow up without family—are you going to deny your kid grandparents? My mother’s parents are dead, but my father’s family just made themselves dead to us. After my father died, my mother said they froze us all out cold. That’s not right. It’s family. It’s got to mean something.”

“How do you know what’s going to happen? Can’t you just focus on now?”

Her shoulders rose and fell. “I don’t want to be sad anymore. I feel like I can’t ever escape this.”

“You’re so upset, you’re not thinking straight. It won’t always feel that way.”

“How do you know that? So we’ll be together and every time we see each other, we’ll have that day in our minds.”

“I love you.” It was the first time he had ever said it to her, and she stepped back, blinking her eyes hard. He stood there looking at her, and she thought how easy it would be to say yes to him, and then she thought of everything she’d be saying yes to.

“I think you need to go home,” she said, her voice small.

“No,” Lewis said, and she looked at him with pity.

“This isn’t the real world,” she said. “It’s just you and me in my apartment.”

“We can make it the real world,” Lewis said. His voice sped up. “My job’s portable. I can live anywhere, hospitals always need help. I can move to Ann Arbor. Or you could come live near me—there are so many schools there—you could find another teaching job. You said yourself, what if we were together, really together—”

“Aren’t you listening to me?” she said. “I can’t do any of those things. This horrible thing happened and I need to get over it, or at least around it. I can’t feel like this anymore.”

“I don’t understand,” he said. “Is this it? We’ve gone through all this and now we don’t see or talk to each other again? How does that make sense? Who else knows you the way I do? How can you do this?”

“Because I have to.” She started getting dressed. “When I slept by myself, without you beside me, I didn’t dream and it was like a little breath, like a respite. I’m not blaming you. I know it’s all in me, but I need to be able to get up in the morning and not feel like I want to die.”

“Rose—” he pleaded, but she got up and began straightening the room, and when she came to Jimmy’s map, she carefully folded it, hesitating before she gently put it into the wastebasket. “You really have to go,” she said.

L
EWIS WAS SURE
that any moment she’d change her mind. She was just upset. She wasn’t thinking clearly. He didn’t press her because in the hospital that usually made patients do the opposite of what you wanted them to do. But then she brought out his little suitcase and handed it to him, and he looked at it, dismayed. “Will you call me?” he asked. “Can I call you?”

“Just give me some time.”

“How much?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I won’t know until I feel better.” Tears streaked her face and he stepped forward to hold her, but she moved back away from him, drying her face with her hands. “I can’t watch you leave. I’m going to take a walk, so when I come back, you’ll be gone.”

“Rose, come on,” he said, but she grabbed her jacket. “You have to let me be by myself,” she said, and then she left, the door slapping behind her.

For a moment he didn’t know what to do, where to go. He wanted to stay and wait for her, but he didn’t want to get her more upset. Maybe he could drive home to Madison and call her later, but he didn’t have to be back at work yet, and he didn’t want to be in Madison by himself. He found a piece of paper on Rose’s table and started to write,
Rose
—just that, that one word seemed to be enough, so he put the pen down, and that’s when he noticed Jimmy’s map in Rose’s wastebasket. He picked it up, tucked it under his arm, and left her house.

H
E DROVE.
A
LL
these cars around him, full of husbands and wives and kids, families on their way someplace or on their way home. On his right a man leaned over and kissed the blond woman beside him and when she cupped the back of his head, the way Rose did to Lewis, he averted his head. He didn’t even have a pet fish at home to welcome him.