The Practical Navigator (19 page)

It frightens her how much she's missed Michael these last two weeks. It seems like months, years, since she's seen him, touched him. The longing for him has made her angry at herself. And at him. It doesn't bode well for a future without him.

How could you have been silly enough to put yourself in this position?

She's never met his mother. Though he's mentioned him to her any number of times, she's never met his son. When he called to tell her they had both almost died in a fire, she acted as if he were talking of strangers. “Of course, Michael, you must do what you need to do. I'll be here when the air clears.” She had wanted to run to his side. Support him. Be with him. Why didn't she?

Because you're a control freak with intimacy issues.

Guilt, of course, is unforgiving. She's not naïve. She knows she has held on to her loveless, long-distance marriage because it is a good excuse for keeping others at a distance. It's an escape hatch. Affairs can only go so far. It never occurred to her that Michael might have his own escape hatch as well.

What nerve you have telling people anything at all about what to do with their lives.

*   *   *

Michael looks up from where he's sitting on the front stoop as Fari comes out of the gathering evening shadows. He rises from the steps, feeling relieved that she is in running clothes. He left the house without changing, showering, or shaving. He smiles gratefully as she approaches, wondering now why he felt in such a panic to get here.

“I am
so
sorry. I lost track of the time. I tried to call.” It comes out in a nervous rush.

Fari looks at Michael as if surprised.

“I forgot my phone. Why? Did we have plans?”

It is Michael's turn to look surprised. “You were going to make us dinner.”

“I must have forgotten.”

“I guess there was no reason for me to rush then.”

There is suddenly every reason in the world for Michael to have rushed and they both know it.

“Well, it's not so late, would you like to come in? I think I have something in the refrigerator. And there's an open bottle of wine.”

It's the white Burgundy. Left out, it's now at room temperature. Fari pours it into a long-stemmed wineglass anyway and hands it to him. He takes it.

“Aren't you having any?” he asks.

“No, I don't think so.”

Michael looks at the fragile crystal glass a moment. Riedel Vinum Chablis. She gave him a pair for Christmas. It will make any wine you drink taste better, she told him. He quietly sips. The wine doesn't taste good at all.

“How's your mother?” Fari is moving through the living room, not so much picking up as incrementally moving things that don't need to be moved.

“She's okay.” Another sip of the too-warm wine.

“It will take time to get over her loss.”

“I guess it will.”

“And your son, how is he?”

“What is this, a shrink session?”

“I'm just asking, Michael.”

“He's all right. He's good.”

“Has he seen his mother?”

“Yeah. Today.” Michael hesitates. “I got pulled in as chaperone. That's why I was late.”

“Ah. And did it go well?”

“Will you please stop talking to me like a shrink?”

“You don't usually complain about my tone of voice, Michael.”

“You usually look at me when you talk to me.”

Fari raises her eyes. “I'm looking at you now and all I'm asking is how it went today with your wife and son.”

“Ex-wife. And it went just fine.”

“Good. I'm glad.”

Michael takes a gulp of wine. Glass or not, it tastes worse than ever, hot and sour. “So how you been? Long time no see.” There is an edge to his voice. The hinge of his jaw feels tight.

“I'm all right. Busy, as I said.”

“
Good!
That's just
great
!”

“Why are you being sarcastic?”

“Why aren't you being honest with me?”

“I'm always honest with you.”

“No. You never lie to me but you never tell the entire truth. And you never
forget
anything.” Michael puts down the glass. “What the hell's going on?”

She is silent. She is lost.

“Do you want me to leave?” asks Michael.

“Only if you wish.” Not looking at him again. Knowing if she does, she'll never recover.

“Okay. Sure. We'll do this another time. When we're both in a better place.”

Michael can feel what's coming as he turns for the door. He should be moving faster.

“Michael.”

He stops and turns back, not wanting her to say it.

“I don't think we should see each other anymore.”

He takes a breath, fighting for composure. “Why?”

“You care for her, Michael.”

“You know that, huh?”

“It's in your voice. Your look when you speak of her.”

“How do I look when I look at you?”

“Michael—”

“What do I sound like then, huh?”

“Don't make this harder than—”

“You are reading something that's not there.”

“Even so.” She takes a breath, retreating further inside herself from his growing anger. “This was bound to happen sooner or later.”

“This. What is
this
?”

“Our lives catching up with us. Yours now. Mine eventually. You need someone who sees you more than once a week, Michael.”

“I'm not asking for more.”

“You should be.”

“Yes. All right, yes, maybe I
am
.” He fights now to keep his voice calm.
Control. Always having to be in control.
“But not her … not her.”

“Are you so sure?”

Is he? Is he sure about anything anymore? He has no idea. “Fari.” He doesn't want to beg. He begged once before in an earlier life, it didn't do any good. “Don't do this.”

“It's already done.”

*   *   *

Fari listens to his truck start up. She is in the entryway where he first took her, where she allowed herself to be taken. She leans back against the door. The sound of the truck fades far too fast as he motors away. Her legs are suddenly weak and she slides to the floor, reminding herself that the day she almost hit him with her car, he was the first one to get to his feet.

*   *   *

We're different people.

He repeats this to himself over and over again as he drives down the boulevard.

A doctor of psychology and a contractor—what a joke.

It would be except they don't even laugh at the same things. Correction. She doesn't laugh at all. It'd be beneath her.

She's a good lay, that's all.

“You have this need to save women,” Anita once told him. “It's a gift from your mother.” She was talking about their relationship and she didn't mean it as a compliment. “Chivalry, Michael, means you do all the work.”

No more. I'm done.

Burn me once, shame on you, burn me twice, shame on me. Well, shame on me.

Because I lied to you.

He didn't forget the time. He knew where he was supposed to be. It was a test. They failed.

I did.

Deep in his stomach, something heavy as a stone, something Michael thought was long gone, begins to hurt again. Pulling to the side of the road, he puts the truck in park. He sits, unable to drive, for what seems like a very long time.

Beware if you make a woman cry because Allah counts her tears.

He read that one night, longing for her.

 

Heading: the direction in which a vessel is pointed at any given moment. Heading changes constantly due to sea, tide, wind, and steering error.

 

32

Michael watches as Jamie floats through the air in a silk drape. Tightly nestled in a hammock swing tied at the top, he is being pushed by Julie, the plain-faced, deep-breasted goddess of wounded children. Michael has been sitting in the observation room for the past forty-five minutes watching through the one-way glass as she directs three boys, Jamie one of them, through a series of games and exercises played over a soft-form obstacle course—pits filled with hollow plastic spheres, foam barriers, tire and platform swings, miniature trampolines, tumbling mats, exercise balls, and resistance tunnels.

“Help Todd and Nicholas across the forbidden zone, Jamie! Nicholas, why do we call it a forbidden zone?”

“You can't cross it alone!”

“Yes, we have to help each other! What do we tell Jamie when he's doing a good job, Nicholas?”

“Good job!”

“What do we say to Nicholas, Jamie?”

“Thank you!”

“Thank you who?”

“Nicholas, thank you! Todd too!”

“Todd, what do we say to Jamie?”

“D'no.”

“We say you're welcome.”

“Welco!”

“That is so good! Todd, ten jumps on the trampoline! Jamie and Nicholas, we have to get on the platform swing before it leaves for the moon!”

Play-based occupational therapy like this, Walter Seskin has explained to Michael, coupled with applied behavior analysis, teaches spectrum kids how to interact, how to cope, and how to problem solve. “A kid's
occupation
is playing and learning. We want to get them communicating and developing social skills in small groups. The other physical stuff is gravy.”

It's like watching someone herd cats.

“Todd, you're not jumping!”

“Can't!”

“Yes you can! There's no such thing as can't! Jamie, you and Nicholas have to swing together!”

“He won't!”

“Then you have to help him! Todd, are we jumping?”

“Wan' jooze!”

“Five more minutes and then juice!”

“Arrgghh!”

“‘Arrgh' is not a word, Todd!”

“Which one is yours?”

Michael turns. The woman is Asian. He knows from having seen her with her African-American husband in the waiting room that the family is military. “One hundred twenty-five an hour, twice a week,” the uniformed man said to Michael, talking about the cost of OT. “Thank God for Obamacare.”

“Jamie. The little guy on the swing.”

“Mine is Todd.” The woman points as if Michael might have trouble picking out the only child of color in the OT room. Todd, the least communicative of the three boys, the one prone to noises, sudden grimaces, and gaping-mouthed, bug-eyed faces.

“Your son is handsome.” The woman has a soft, Asian accent. Michael has no idea which country it might be from.

“They're three good-looking kids,” says Michael, lying. Jamie and Nicholas at least look normal. Todd looks like the village—

Oh, you bastard, how dare you go there
—

“Maybe Jamie and Todd have playdate. We pick up.”

“That'd be great,” says Michael, knowing Jamie will refuse. “Maybe we can get all three of them together sometime soon.”

“Todd like Jamie and Nicholas very much.”

“Thanks. I'll be sure to tell him.”

It's the fourth week of this and if swinging and climbing and doing obstacle courses is making a difference, Michael has yet to see it. And yet …

“Way to go, Jamie! Way to go, Nicholas! Good job!”

Michael sees now that Jamie and Nicholas are swinging on the board in unison, back and forth, back and forth, giddy with success. That's new. And at home, he's not drifting off into his own little world quite so much, the world of toy soldiers and plastic superheroes.

“Let's practice our handwriting, bub.”

“Oh-
kay
. Which hand?”

“Mrs. Andersen says you're a lefty.”

“Like Mom.”

“Yup.” Anita once telling him, in her mother's opinion, left-handed children were behaviorally challenged. Sinister children, Tisha Beacham called them.

Thank you, Grandma.

“Todd, Jamie, Nicholas! Who's going to tell me how to climb to the top of the climbing wall! Jamie, what do we do first?”

“We spot each other!”

“Yes, we help each other stay safe!”

Jamie is pink cheeked and breathless when the session's over. Spent.

“What'ja think, little man? Did you like that today?”

“I had a good time.”

“Sure looked like it.”

“I have friends.”

“You sure do.”

“Are we coming next week?”

“We can come twice a week if you want.”

“I want to.”

Why not, thinks Michael. For a good time with friends, not to mention a woman who laughs and encourages and has beautiful breasts, one twenty-five an hour is cheap.

 

33

“You seem particularly edgy today.”

“Do I? You don't.”

In the five weeks that Anita's been seeing Fari Akrepede, not once has she noticed so much as a dark strand of hair out of place. Makeup—check. Clothes—check. Expensive shoes—check. Unruffled mental and emotional state—check and double check. What must it be like to be so composed, so imperturbable, so regulated?

I'll never know.

“Yeah, I am a little edgy. Maybe you could give me something for it.”

Whatever you're on.

“I can't prescribe medication but I can recommend somebody who will. Right now, though, I'd rather talk about what's making you feel this way.”

Questions, questions, always questions when what you're looking for is somebody to give you some answers. Anita rises abruptly from her chair and moves to look out the window. She can see the ocean in the distance, the ocean that always makes her think of Michael.

“I've always felt this way.”