Hannah shook her head. “Michael Fritz.”
The name hit me like a rush of cold air. Michael Fritz—one of Gabe’s best friends at Mills. Hair the color of flame and a snigger of a laugh.
“Yeah?” I asked, feigning casualness. I was stirring pasta water, and my hand on the wooden spoon was already clammy. “What’s he doing here?”
“He’s working for a start-up. Something to do with data technology.” Hannah closed the door and kicked off her clogs, walked to the couch. “Hey—sit down with me for a sec, will you?”
The pasta had two minutes left, but I turned off the water and drained it, dumped it into a bowl with a powdery packet of orange cheese. I sat down beside her and picked at the shells. Hannah’s breath was shallow, her cheeks flushed.
“Gabe has a kid,” she said.
The pasta was underdone; it crunched between my teeth, stiff and rubbery as plastic. I spat it out, my heart rattling.
“What?”
“I know, Sylvie,” said Hannah, putting a hand on my knee. “I wasn’t sure if I should tell you, but I thought—in the long run, you know . . . I thought it’d help you move on.”
“Who is she?”
“It’s a boy.”
“The mother,” I said.
“Oh.” Hannah nodded, inhaling. “Apparently, he met her in upstate New York, when he and Keller were working at that college—the one near Canada?”
“Was she a researcher? Or a student?”
“No, no. I think she worked in the town. Sarah something? Works as a receptionist in a dental office—or maybe it’s a chiropractor, I can’t remember. Anyway, he met her there and stayed. Mike visited them on a business trip last year—drove up from Albany. She’s nice, he said. Laughs a lot. Gabe seems happy.”
I nodded and walked to the window. I couldn’t bear the weight of her gaze. When she left for the restaurant that evening, I waited only minutes before going into her closet. I found the shoe box beneath a stack of winter sweaters, Gabe’s envelope on the bottom. I couldn’t wait to bring it to my room; I sat down against the closet wall, Hannah’s white work shirts grazing my knees, and ripped the envelope open. I wouldn’t admit it, but I hoped to find a plea—Gabe begging me to come back to him, moving on only when he received the silence of my answer.
I tore open the top of the envelope. Inside were two paintbrushes. The wooden handles were caked in color, but the bristles had been newly cleaned. They were my favorite brushes, ones I’d had since Mills. Gabe had wrapped them in lined paper, and when I unfolded the page, I saw he had scrawled something inside it.
I hope you’re still painting, Sylve, and that you’re not covering them up anymore. I never wanted you to.
Love,
Gabe
P.S. I’m so sorry.
I put it on the floor of Hannah’s closet with the brushes on top, my throat constricting. I was about to throw the envelope away when I noticed that something else was crumpled at the bottom. It was a glossier piece of paper, folded and unfolded so many times that it was now as soft as fabric. When I smoothed it open, I saw that it had been ripped from Mills’s fall 1999 alumni quarterly. Gabe had circled a photo that took up half the page. Such Great Heights, read the caption beneath: The class of ’99 watches an eclipse.
And there we were: David Horikawa making an ill-fated tower of apples, Michael Fritz balancing his tray on his head, Hannah pointing to the moon with her head thrown back. I was kneeling beside her, following her hand. Only Gabe sat apart from the larger group. He was leaning back on his arms, several feet behind us, and he wasn’t looking at the sky. He was looking at me.
In the pit of my stomach, I felt a low swirl of mourning. If I could arc back through time and begin again, winding the spool of thread back to that hill and the gaping blackness of the sky—if I could change what I’d said when Gabe asked me to come with him, what would I do? I pictured the gate to Keller’s garden, the bloom of the doubled flower, the whole ache of possibility. And I knew that I still would have followed him.
•••
To my surprise, the guy from the club called that weekend. His name was Jesse. He lived on Polk Street, and he wanted to take me to dinner. I borrowed and belted one of Hannah’s floral dresses—at seventy-eight degrees, San Francisco was in the middle of a heat wave—and took the train to the city. Like a giant steel caterpillar, it wound through the lit world of the Castro: past the brightly colored banners and the men in leather, the neon signs of stores with names like Does Your Mother Know, and uphill, into the muted and staggering streets by Randall Park. I got off at Alamo Square—lights threading through trees, the smell of sweat and barbecue ember—and walked to the seafood bistro he’d chosen. He was already there, an open menu on his plate, his chin resting in one hand.
Jesse: a cherub’s curly, close-cropped hair, a small space between his two front teeth. When he smiled, the skin around his eyes crinkled like cellophane. He grew up in the Hudson Valley, the only child of parents who owned an outdoor theater company, and ran as far away as he could: all the way to law school in California, where he’d never have to sweep another stage or play Mustardseed—“Five lines, yellow tights”—when there weren’t any child actors available. I worried that he was too normal for me, but when I told him I’d spent most of my twenties doing experimental dream research, he looked up from his mussels and grinned.
“Few weeks ago?” he said. “I had this dream that I lived on a sex farm run by Carol Burnett.”
“A sex farm?”
“And here I thought you were going to give me shit about Carol Burnett.”
“We’ll get there,” I said, my laughter a release; I hadn’t realized how nervous I was. “But really—what is a sex farm?”
“Not a clue. In the dream, of course, it was clear as day—sorry, couldn’t resist—but when I woke up? Damned if I could tell you.”
He rode home with me on BART, even though I told him I wouldn’t let him stay over. (“I gave you the wrong impression, that night at the club,” I said as we hurtled through the pitch-black underground, our hands in our own laps. “I usually don’t step on a guy’s feet until at least the third date.”) But when we climbed into bed, our bodies tenting the sheets, it was he who buttoned the top of Hannah’s dress back up and suggested we just sleep.
Gabe has a child, I said to myself. Gabe has a son. Beside me, Jesse’s breath was deep and slow, his body exquisitely unfamiliar. I pictured Gabe’s bulldog jaw, his broad palms, in miniature—pictured a baby with someone else’s nose and a troll tuft of hair on Gabe’s shoulders, reaching for the ceiling as they walked. The two of them building a house of Lincoln Logs or splashing in the tub, surrounded by rubber creatures and soap scum. I knew he would tend to the kid with the same dedication he did our research. He would stay up late reading parenting books; he would teach the boy to spot poison ivy, to catch bugs in jars, to turn over stones. He would point to the busy, roiling worlds beneath them: the ants seaming the mud, the dogged wildflowers, here a newt. He would take the tender, green body in both hands and hold it up to the light, for however long it would stay there.
21
MARTHA’S VINEYARD, 2010
To the east of Martha’s Vineyard lies the small incorporated island of Chappaquiddick, accessible only by way of a three-car ferry. Technically a part of Edgartown, Chappaquiddick feels separate, wilder and less traveled than its mainland counterpart. The roads are mostly unpaved, and the houses are farther apart. Dune grass and poison ivy braid along its coast. In the relative absence of human life, the beaches have flourished: they crawl with hermit crabs and ticks, the water full of foot-long, iridescent bluefish. Perhaps people were scared off by the Chappaquiddick incident of July 18, 1969, when Senator Ted Kennedy drove off Dike Bridge into the rocky water below—where his only passenger, a teacher named Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned.
Digital modes of
tracking and detection have made it more difficult for someone like Keller to live off the map. I found him on Instant Checkmate, a website that gives paid subscribers access to the phone number and address of anyone in the United States. With Keller’s equal appetites for intrigue and solitude, I was not surprised to find him on this island. His house is in the northwest corner of a large, grassy knoll. A woman bicycles down the road as I sit in the car, the engine idle. When she passes, the street is empty.
I put the car into park and turn off the ignition. It is four thirty in the afternoon, the sun hazy and diffuse. I’ve checked out of the motel in Edgartown. After this, I’ll turn around again and begin the long journey back west. Just as I’m about to unlock the door, a wave of heat rolls through my body, and my vision goes starry. It only lasts a second, but it’s enough to knock the air out of me. I count to ten, inhaling slowly, and then I take out my cell phone. Hannah picks up on the first ring.
“I can’t do it,” I say. “I’m terrified. I just had a fucking hot flash.”
“Jesus, Sylve, what is it with the hot flashes? You better not be going menopausal on me.” But there is warmth in her voice, and I can practically see the dimples in her cheeks, distinct as fingers pressed in dough. “You can do it. I’m positive. You wouldn’t have made it all the way to his freaking house if there was a shred of doubt in your mind. Remember why you’re there.”
“Why am I here?”
“To get closure,” she says. “To show him that you’re different now, that you’re strong. That you’re not hiding or ashamed.”
I nod, though I know she can’t see me, and look at the house. It’s smaller than many of the others in this area, beach mansions made New England–modest by their lack of distinction, but it has the same white trim and cedar shingles. They haven’t yet turned to silver, which means the house can’t be very old. I wonder how recently he moved here. Did he build the house himself? To calm myself, I picture Hannah sitting on the paisley couch we found at a church rummage sale with a bowl of cherry tomatoes in her lap, looking out at the used bookstore on Shattuck. Hannah with a leg tucked underneath her and a red bandana holding her hair back. A brush of flour on her nose, her old cut-off jean shorts.
“Sylvie?”
“I’m here.”
“Good. Was worried you might have fallen asleep on me.”
“Screw you,” I say, laughing, and something in my chest is gratefully dislodged. I think of quarters shaken out of a vending machine, their palmable brilliance. Something to keep with me. “Okay. I’m going in.”
“That’s my girl,” says Hannah. “Oh, and one more thing. If it’s appropriate? Give Keller a kick in the balls from me.”
“I can pretty much assure you that won’t be appropriate.”
I pop the lock on the door and step out, smelling the salt in the air, the sweetness of the warm grass.
“Stranger things have happened,” Hannah says.
When we hang up, I don’t let myself hesitate. With the sun hot against my arms, I walk along the wooden fence that separates the hill from the road. Though I could easily climb over it, I decide to go through a low gate, latched but unlocked. The grass on the knoll is uncut, swaying knee-high with the breeze, and there is no path to the house. Does Keller want to deter people from coming here? Or does he rarely leave the house himself? There is a small gray door with a lion’s head for a knocker. But before I can reach for it, noises of movement come from inside the house: slow and creaking at first, then faster and deeper in pitch, as if the building is waking after a long hibernation. The doorknob begins to shake, coughing rust, and then the edge of the door is pulled back into the house.
And there he is. I calculated on the ferry that he must be fifty-seven. He has changed, I see now, in ways that only someone close to him would notice: a thinning of the face, a slight droop in the skin around his eyes.
“Ah,” he says. He takes off his glasses and squints; his irises, a clear and watery blue, seem to widen as the lids contract. “Sylvia.”
He smiles. At once I feel a rush of affection for him. He wears a pair of scrub pants and a collared shirt, a canvas apron wrapped around his waist. This is, in part, what I have come for—proof that he has aged, that he is no longer almighty.
Then he puts his glasses back on, and the old feelings return: the resentment, the terror—the sense that he has visited me, and not the other way around. All feelings I’ve come here to do away with.
“You’ve found me,” he says, “how sly of you”—and now he is opening the door all the way, ushering me into a front hall filled with the fading natural light of afternoon and the dank smell of soil.
“I should have given you warning.”
“No, no, that’s all right. You’ve every right to surprise me.”
But he doesn’t look surprised. He is, I can tell, in one of his lighthearted moods. I expected him to be caught off guard, to ask me why I’ve come. Instead, he is playing host, as though I’m simply an old friend who has stopped by on the way elsewhere.
“Sylvia,” he says again, leading me into the living room. “What a pleasure. Can I get you a drink? Water? Or something else?”
“Water is fine.”
This side of the house is mostly in shadow. He walks through a low entryway into the kitchen, and from there he flicks on a light that brings the living room into view. There is a small brown couch, a reclining chair, and an old table piled with books. Everywhere else, though, are plants: trees potted in the corners, succulents hanging from the ceiling, flowers climbing the walls. Their leaves are pungent and fleshy, grotesquely ripe. All over is the close, moist smell of growth. I can’t help it; I cover my nose with my sleeve.
Keller returns to the room and hands me a glass of water.
“So you’ve found my perennials. Gorgeous, aren’t they? They get just enough sun. I’ve never had a green thumb. But the terrific thing about succulents”—he takes a seat in the reclining chair, gesturing toward the ceiling—“is that they prefer neglect. Truly: they thrive on it.”
His affect is still one of ease. But he’s talking too much, too quickly. I see now that what I thought were the contours of the chair is actually the imprint of his body. He fits perfectly inside it, like rubber in a mold.
“I can’t stay for long,” I say. “But there are a few things I want to say first.”
Am I imagining it, or does a sudden blankness come over his face—an instinctive absence, the chalkboard wiped clean? He waits for me to continue.
“First,” I say, “I don’t want to talk about Gabe.”
“Very well. He told me he tried to reach you—years ago, it must be now.”
“He wrote a note.”
“And you didn’t reply.”
It isn’t an accusation, but it’s not a question, either—just a scientist’s habit of blank-filling and estimation.
“No. I didn’t.”
He waits for me to continue. I shift on the couch, warm. Despite the weather, I’ve worn pants.
“I drove past Snake Hollow yesterday,” I say.
“I’m sorry to hear that.” He smiles. “It’s hideously changed, of course. I’d rather you be able to remember it as it was.”
“I’m sorry you sold it. It was Meredith’s, wasn’t it? Your wife’s?”
“It belonged to her family, then to her. And when she died, it belonged to me.”
“They didn’t mind when you gave it up?”
He raises an eyebrow.
“It was their suggestion, I’m afraid. Too many bad memories associated with that house—and worse, perhaps, too many good ones. They were in favor of selling it right after she died. I held on a little longer. But everything, good and bad, must come to an end.”
Keller cocks his head. His lenses flash with light.
“Does that make it less alluring to you?” h
e asks. “No family drama, no bitter struggle?”
Again, the clinical voice—the weighed curiosity of a professor, imbued with just the right amount of mildness. Still, I’m startled into silence. He stands and walks to the kitchen. When he returns, he holds a green watering can with a bulging belly and a thin, long spout.
“She was very much like you, in fact.” He waters the soil around a ficus, dirt splattering his hands. “Very inquisitive, especially when it came to her own mind. A touch of obsessiveness—later, of course, more than a touch of it. And the capacity for self-destruction.”
“Everyone has that capacity.”
“You’re right. But in some of us it goes unfulfilled.” He stands the watering can upright and wipes its nozzle on his apron. “Still, I wasn’t referring to your disorder. More, I would say, your inability to let go.”
“And you don’t think that’s what Meredith did?”
“My wife didn’t kill herself to let go. She did it to hold on—to life as she knew it, to herself as she was.”
The surprise is wearing off, and now I’m eager. He has given me license; I’ve wanted a fight.
“Is that why you left San Francisco? Holed up in a small town in Northern California and began to teach high school students? Or was it that they were easier to control?”
“It’s true that I left the university when my wife died.” His voice is clipped, and I can tell I’ve prodded him. “I thought I could live a quieter life at a place like Mills. But it began to feel cowardly, such an obvious lie. So I returned to my research. I tried to do it in her honor. Moving forward, all while respecting the past—it’s a delicate balance, Sylvie, and I don’t claim to have mastered it.”
“In her honor,” I say. “Or was it that you got inspired again? At Mills, you had a whole new group of subjects. Stu Cappleman. Me. You’d be nothing without your patients, but the saddest part is that you haven’t helped any of us. You want to know what Meredith and I have in common, Adrian? You. You wrenched us open and used your tools to rummage around in our minds until everything inside got squiggly and confused. It’s just like what happened to Anne March. You left us worse off than we started.”