At that moment, Jessica had forgotten that David would have to make it through the night and all of the next day, and through an airboat ride, and through a journey to some hospital bound to be far, far away. She kept thinking he needed to make it through the night, until morning, that was all. And he’d be all right. Hadn’t he said something like that? If he just made it to morning, everything would be fine.
She needed to check on him. She needed to go back.
Jessica was gasping to breathe when she made it up to the cabin and kneeled on the blood-spattered floor beside the bathtub. She hadn’t realized she’d been thinking please, please, please over and over again until David’s eyes opened and the thought turned into thank you, thank you, thank you.
David didn’t say anything, but he looked like he was trying to smile. His head was still resting on the pillow she’d propped up on the rim because she couldn’t think of how else to make him comfortable after she drained out the tub. She would have liked to carry him out of the tub herself, but she didn’t think she would be strong enough even if she acquired that superhuman strength people get in a crisis that she’d read about in Reader’s Digest; and, besides, what if she was carrying him across the room and his intestines spilled out? She’d seen something—she didn’t know what—some soft, bloody organ poking through the hole in his belly.
David hadn’t said anything in a long time, since he’d told her that he was sorry, right in the beginning when she first found him. He’d been crying before, with her, the two of them crying hysterically, but he looked too weak to cry now. It wasn’t all the blood or even her shock that made Jessica cry. It was David looking so scared, writhing when she touched him, screaming for the pain to go away.
Jessica squeezed his hand, and she felt him move his fingers inside of hers. “I’m here now. I won’t leave you,” she said. “You just hold on. Okay? Just hold on.”
David was fighting to swallow. Then, when he did, he opened his mouth to try to speak. No sound came out. I waited, his silent lips said. His head sank back into the damp pillow, and his mouth closed again.
Jessica didn’t know what else to do, so she began to sing the most cheerful church song she could think of: “Jee-sus loves me … This I know …”—she swallowed back a sob—”Cuz the Bi-ble … Tells me so …”
A very rational voice in Jessica’s mind spoke to her in such a calm tone that it transfixed her. Your husband is about to die, the voice said, and there is nothing you can do about it except sit here and hold his hand, so that is what you must do.
Jessica squeezed David’s fingers, but he didn’t squeeze back. Pursing her lips, she gazed at his eyes. They had fallen shut. His eyes had been closed when she came back, she remembered. His eyes had never been closed before she went outside.
I waited, he said.
“David?” she whispered. “Honey, please …”
No, he would not open his eyes again. His chest had stopped moving, so his breathing was gone. Most of his blood was in the tub, dripping down the open drain. His heartbeat was gone.
David was gone.
Jessica cradled her husband’s head against her breastbone. “You don’t have to be scared anymore, baby,” she said. “See? See? The hurt’s all gone. It’s all gone now.”
That was all that mattered to her shutdown mind. Then the rational voice inside whispered to her, nudging: David is dead.
The fanatical woman’s strange wailing jarred her again.
Dawit’s first sight when he opened his eyes was Jessica. She was sitting half naked on the bathroom floor in a bloody T-shirt, her legs spread straight out in front of her, her head resting against the wall as she slept. Her face was not at rest. In fact, he barely knew that face; it was ashen and crusty, her eyelids swollen, her mouth half open as though she’d fallen asleep in the midst of a moan.
Still, Dawit smiled. He could not move his head yet to do much more, or reach out to touch her, but he smiled. It was a privilege to be so loved. An honor. His eyes overran with tears he didn’t have the strength to wipe away. He felt as though he would need to sleep for days, but he knew he could not. It must be dawn, and there was so much to do. So much to say.
“Jessica,” he rasped.
Her eyelids flinched, but she did not answer.
A few minutes passed. Finally, Dawit strained to raise his hand to his tender stomach, where he felt so much pressure that it was a labor to breathe. She must have tied something around him, a tourniquet. Bless her, she had been so desperate to help him! His fingers found a knot in the sheet beneath his rib cage, and he fussed with it until it loosened slightly. There.
The next time Dawit glanced back at Jessica, her eyes were open, regarding him. Her expression had not changed, as though she were dispassionately watching a hallucination.
He smiled again. “I’m sorry I scared you,” he whispered.
Jessica sat bolt upright, her eyes darting frantically from her hands to her bloodied shirt to him again. All her confusion and gratitude and fear were written in her face, in her trembling mouth. “I thought I’d lost you,” she said with wonder, kneeling beside him, pressing a warm palm to his face. New tears streamed down her cheeks, clearing a path through the the old ones.
Dawit struggled with the knot to untie it, summoning all his strength to arch his back so he could pull the blood-soaked sheet away from his flesh. Alarmed, Jessica grabbed his hands.
“No,” she said, holding him with a firm grip. “Shhhh. Don’t do that. You’re hurt. David, don’t. Baby, stop that.”
He stared into her eyes. “My wounds heal, Jessica. It’s morning now. It’s all right.” She looked at him, frozen, her eyes squinting with bewilderment. She didn’t move as he clawed at the sheet to expose his abdomen. “Look. I heal.”
Above his protruding navel, there was a jagged, closed scar. Fading signs of a wider lesion remained at one end, where Dawit had first stabbed himself and twisted the blade while he struggled, through the pain, to carve across his abdomen. It had not been pretty work. He’d only progressed seven or eight inches, roughly halfway, before he began to feel faint from the agony of his task.
The scars looked old, as if they were from many years before. The blood that remained on Dawit’s skin, while it still appeared fresh, was not seeping from the closed wounds. He wiped his palm across his stomach, cleaning some of the blood away.
Jessica was leaning over the tub, peering at his flesh closely. She touched him, gently at first, running her hand across the scar, then she began to prod. Dawit felt a burning sensation and hissed. “Cuidado. I’m still sore, Jess,” he said.
Jessica drew her hand away, staring wild-eyed at his face. Her mouth fell open and closed as she struggled for words. “I don’t … But I saw …”
Dawit took her hand and kissed it. “Remember what I said? My blood isn’t normal. My body isn’t normal. My wounds heal. In an hour or so, even these scars will be gone. I’m all right, Jessica. Just like I said, remember? I said that by morning, I would be all right. I had to show you.”
“ … Show me?” she whimpered, still helplessly confused.
He nodded. “I’m sorry. It was the only way.”
Jessica blinked uncontrollably. Then, a guttural sound rose in her throat, turning into a rage-filled scream, and she began to pound Dawit’s chest with her fists. Her blows hurt, sapping away what little energy Dawit had gained. He cried out and fumbled to grab her fists, to hold them tightly. “No, baby,” he said. “Please don’t. That hurts.”
Jessica gasped, as though he’d struck her. She stared at David with reddened eyes that were wide, frantic. Then, her pupils drifted upward, gazing toward the ceiling, and she collapsed against the tub with heaving, wretched sobs.
“It’s all right, Jess. It’s all right. I’m here. I’m never going to leave you,” Dawit said, reaching over to drape one arm across her shoulder. Jessica flung her arms around him, burying him, and sobbed into his ear. Her grip around his neck was so tight that he
felt he would choke, but he tolerated the discomfort. He stroked her matted, sandy hair. His own tears stung his eyes.
“It’s okay, baby. I’m sorry. I’m here. I’m here forever.”
Though she would try many times, Jessica could never fully remember the details of her first day with David after she watched him die.
Her first memory was being in the cabin’s bed, somehow washed, wearing her own fresh-smelling nightshirt. A cool washcloth was draped across her forehead, and occasionally she felt David take it away and bring it back, damper and cooler than before. The blood smell was gone from her, but she could still smell it on him.
“You have a fever,” she heard David say, and it reminded her of being a little girl in her bedroom, when she would stay home from school with the television playing Partridge Family reruns, and her mother would make her sit up to chew bittersweet, orange-flavored children’s aspirin. And she’d dab cool water across her forehead, just like David was doing now.
She slept a lot. That much she knew. She awakened when she heard a noise—the clatter of some pot from the kitchenette, the running water from the bathroom, the cabin door opening or closing—and she would open her eyes and stare up at the wooden planks across the ceiling.
Once, she smelled food and it nearly made her vomit.
“Are you hungry?” she heard David’s voice ask, floating somewhere above her. She shook her head without opening her eyes.
It seemed to her that she must have been lying there for many days, an eternity, though the daylight was always there. At some point, David leaned across the bed to close the heavy curtains across the picture window, making the room darker, and she remembered being glad.
And she was glad to smell his scent, his perspiration, the freshness of his shampoo, even the chemical pine scent from some disinfectant that had cleaved itself to him. She knew those smells. The blood smell, that was the one she hadn’t known. That was the smell that pitched her into semiconsciousness, the one her mind retreated from, lulling her to a calmer place.
At last, David sat at the edge of the bed and kneaded her shoulder until she opened her eyes. He was wearing a UM T-shirt and cutoff shorts. He smelled like smoke. She could remember being confused about why he smelled like smoke. Much later, he would explain that he had burned the blanket and bedsheet because of all of the blood, and he’d paid Mantooth extra to replace them. She never knew what explanation he’d given him.
David was smiling at her. She was convinced by now that his image was part of some cruel, elaborate dream, so she did not smile back. Or, had the blood and moaning all been part of an equally elaborate nightmare? She didn’t know which.
“Almost time to go, Jess. The boat will be here soon. We’ll go pick up Kira, okay? Won’t you be glad to see Kira?”
Kira. Oh, yes. Thinking of Kira, Jessica felt her mind emerging from its protective clouds. Kira was at her mother’s. The weekend was over. It was time to go back home.
Jessica reached over to David and lifted his T-shirt so she could see his stomach. She saw a crooked path of hairlessness under the cluster of wiry hairs growing around his navel, nothing more. Nothing. She blinked, waiting to feel something. Whatever it was didn’t come.
“You didn’t have to do it that way,” she said. David leaned closer. He hadn’t heard her. She struggled to raise her voice slightly. “I wish you hadn’t done it this way, David.”
David gazed at her and nodded solemnly. “Okay,” he said, “I’m sorry.” He kissed her open palm. “I’m really sorry.”
“You said there’s more.”
“Yes,” he said. “Later. We don’t have time now. Wait until we get back to Ochopee. I’ll talk to you in the car.”
David tried to stand up straight, but she held tight to his hand, pulling him back down toward her. Her words came without thought. “You have to say thank you to God, David. You told me we’d both see a miracle, and we did. You can’t see a miracle without saying thank you. That’s all He asks. That’s all.”
David stared at her tenderly and touched her cheek with his index finger. She saw a struggle in his face, words wanting to come, but he didn’t speak at all. Then, he gently pulled his fingers from her grasp and stood up, walking away.
30
“Daddy! Mommy!” Kira cried, flinging the front door open to run out to the van as they drove into Bea’s driveway. Jessica’s heart surged to see her daughter dressed up in new matching purple shorts and a tanktop, her hair parted into two puffballs secured with purple barrettes.
Bea followed closely behind Kira, laughing. Bea was always overjoyed to see Jessica come home from vacation in one piece. And Alex would be next, Jessica knew. Her BMW was parked beneath the shade of the front yard ficus tree. Jessica was so glad to see them all, and yet it was a strain to pull the latch to try to open her door.
“Just stay in the car,” David said, patting her knee, before opening his own door and climbing out. He called to Kira. “Come here, Duchess. What did Grandma do to your hair?”
Kira giggled as David lifted her into the air, hoisted her over his shoulders, and began to spin her around. Her laughs sounded nearly hysterical—half joy, half fright.
“David, you’re going to drop that child,” Bea muttered, walking past him to lean into Jessica’s window. “Get your lazy behind out of this car. Dinner’s waiting. How was the swamp?”
Before Jessica could open her mouth to answer, David walked behind Bea and knelt down, easing Kira to the ground. “The swamp was great, but poor Jess came down with something. She’s not feeling well.”
“Mommy’s sick?” Kira asked.
“Just a little cold or something.”
Bea reached over to touch Jessica’s forehead. The gesture was so familiar, so warm, that Jessica longed to tell David she wanted to stay at her mother’s house tonight. Just for one night, that was all.
“You’ve got a temperature. Snake didn’t bite you, did it?” Bea asked. “You look worn out, Jessica. I don’t know about this camping out in the swamplands. That’s for white folks.”
Weakly, Jessica shook her head and smiled. “No snakebite,” she said, “but worn out, yes. Definitely.”
Alex appeared next in her window, wearing a smart mauve dress from church. “Hey, girl. What’s wrong?”
Jessica wanted to shrink from their stares. What would they see in her face? So much had happened. So much had changed. How could people go through changes and not show it on their faces? How could soldiers leave battlefields and simply go home to their families, after all they had seen?
“I’m just tired,” Jessica said.
“Go get your bag, Kira,” David said, playfully swatting her backside. “We need to get Mommy home to bed.”
“Lord, well at least let me fix you some plates. Don’t you leave me with all this food. Come help me, David,” Bea said.
Alex stayed by the van window, smelling of Giorgio, the scent she saved for Sundays. She looked worried, gazing into Jessica’s eyes. Jessica glanced away from her sister.
“Everything okay?” Alex asked.
“I don’t think I’m cut out for camping,” Jessica said.
“That bad, huh?”
Jessica nodded. When would her brain wake up?
“Well, I’m just glad you two are back. I couldn’t believe it when Mom told me you were off to some island somewhere without a telephone. I just think of those slasher movies. I don’t think I could go for that.”
Jessica couldn’t think of a response.
“You sure you’re okay? Everything okay with David?”
“Why would you ask that?” Jessica asked, looking at her.
“Just asking, that’s all. He seems like he’s in a big hurry to go home. And he’s smiling too much. He only smiles when something’s wrong.”
“There’s nothing wrong,” Jessica said, wondering how convincing she sounded to someone as insightful as Alex. She realized what a profound burden David’s secret would be. She kept very few
secrets from Bea, and none from her sister. Theirs was not a family of secrets. She’d even mentioned the incident with Mahmoud to Alex, and David’s explanation. Now, there would be a barrier between them.
“Call me later if you feel like it. I met somebody last night. No big deal yet, but he’s an immigration lawyer…. Well, I’ll tell you later,” Alex said, smiling.
Ordinarily, a love interest would have been big news to Jessica. Now, she had to force herself to feign a reaction. Nothing in her life, she began to realize, would ever be able to affect her the way it had before. Everything would seem trite and inconsequential compared to the past twenty-four hours.
During the drive home, Jessica tried hard to listen to Kira’s excited chatter about how she’d spent her weekend. How the little boy next door was a meanie, how he’d broken the toy she got in her McDonald’s Happy Meal. How Grandma watched The Lion King on video with her for the hundredth time. David filled up Jessica’s silences, telling Kira about the woods and the cabin and the airboat.
Jessica’s thoughts could not drift far away from the extraordinary story David had told her during the ninety-minute drive from Ochopee to her mother’s house. He’d begun after taking a deep breath, and his tale had been barely punctuated by any pauses as he spoke, his eyes hidden behind his sunglasses as he stared straight ahead at the road.
My name is DAH-weet. I was bom in what is now called Ethiopia nearly five hundred years ago. I am an immortal. There are fifty-eight others like me. Our blood lives forever, and our bodies heal. We do not age. We were not bom this way, and our condition is not genetic. We underwent a Ritual.
We do not have extraordinary strength, and it is not our purpose to harm others. We are merely a race of scholars. Most of us choose not to mingle among mortals, but some of us do. We love, and we have families. I have had wives and children before you. I have either outlived them or been forced to abandon them.
We have a Covenant that forbids us to reveal our truth. For what I am telling you, I expect someday to be punished. I take that risk because I love you. I have been told that it is time for me to leave you, and I cannot. I hope we can all leave together.