“Isn’t it obvious?” Michael Boni said.
April focused in on him. “Blow shit up?”
Michael Boni spent a moment sourly exploring the gaps and grooves of his teeth. “There’s more to it than that.”
April shrugged. “From the stories in the paper, I really couldn’t tell.”
Michael Boni turned to McGee. “Is she always like this?”
“No,” April said before McGee had a chance to answer. “I’m trying something new.”
“This has nothing to do with you,” Michael Boni said.
McGee reached out and put her hand on April’s slender arm. “I explained it to you.”
“But why?” April said, pulling her arm back toward her lap. “That’s what I want to know. This isn’t you. You don’t just destroy things.”
“Have you been outside?” Michael Boni said. “Have you looked around?”
McGee nodded. “It’s already destroyed.”
“But this?” April glanced around the restaurant. “Is this what you want instead?”
“Why not?” Michael Boni said.
“It’s still ruins.” Darius said, the sound of his voice surprising even himself. “It’s just ruins made into something else.”
“What did you expect?” Michael Boni said. “Skyscrapers?”
Darius had never stopped to put it into words, but yes, he supposed he did. And why not? This place certainly wasn’t what he wanted. Castoffs, scraps, leftover trash from businesses that had failed or fled or gone up in flames. How could McGee and Michael Boni not see how depressing this was?
“It’s just nerves talking,” McGee said. “Stress.”
Darius took a slow sip of coffee. “It’s been a long time since I felt this calm.” He turned to April. “How about you?”
“I feel fine.”
Darius turned to McGee and Michael Boni. “We feel fine.”
In a whisper, April said, “Maybe it’s the two of you feeling nerves.”
Now Michael Boni was glaring at Darius. “You’ve known all along.”
Had he? He was no longer sure. All he’d ever really wanted was to be a better sort of person, the sort of man who provided for the future, who fixed what was broken. Above all else, he’d wanted to stop being weak. But what would Sylvia say, he wondered, if she were to see him in this dump, surrounded by these characters? Would she see the new man he’d been trying to become?
They’d known each other more than thirty years. All the way back to elementary school. No one believed them when they told the story, how he and Sylvia had grown up on the same block, identical adjacent buildings, apartments on the very same floor, rooms in the very same corner. But they’d been kids; they’d thought everything worked that way. And how one day when they were eight years old, they’d smuggled rulers home from school, and in their separate bedrooms they’d measured the exact same spot on the exact same wall, and there they’d drawn a circle, and into that circle they’d pretended they could talk to each other. Into that circle they could say whatever they wanted, could share their every secret. This went on for years, until over time they gradually forgot, the circles eventually fading. But by then Darius and Sylvia were inseparable, no longer needed their imaginations.
The mistake Darius had made was assuming everything with Sylvia would always come that easily.
He’d tried to change, and he’d failed. Ever since the day he’d seen what was in Michael Boni’s garage, Darius hadn’t been able to go a single day without getting tangled in Violet’s limbs. Nothing had worked out like he’d planned. He’d wanted to be a better person. Instead, he’d just made things worse.
In less than an hour, Sylvia would be waking up. If he wasn’t there when it happened, he’d miss his chance to see her. Another day would pass in which he wouldn’t get to curl up beside her, wouldn’t feel the warmth at the back of her knees. And then Darius found his mind wandering up from Sylvia’s knees to warmth at higher points on Violet, places less subtle but agonizingly unforgettable, no matter how hard he tried to forget them.
“Where are you going?” Michael Boni said as Darius rose from the table.
“Home.”
April was sliding toward the end of the bench, making way.
“You can’t leave,” Michael Boni said.
But of course he could. It was just a matter of will, of following through. And Darius had been practicing. Not for this moment in particular, but it seemed to him now the skill was transferable. If he could just squeeze out of the booth and then allow his feet to carry him out of the restaurant, he thought, he’d be okay. He’d go home, wake Sylvia up, tell her what he’d done. She might forgive him; she might not. Either way, it would be over.
“You’re a fucking coward,” Michael Boni said as Darius reached the door. “I always knew it.”
“I’m going, too,” April said.
McGee’s frown sharpened. “What do you mean?”
April shifted in her seat, slid the phone back into her pocket. “I’m going home.”
“You just got here,” McGee said. “You came all this way.”
“Let her go,” Michael Boni said. “We don’t need them.”
April rose, and McGee did, too.
April was so much taller, she had to bend low, scooping her friend in her arms, almost like a child. “I’m glad I came.”
“I need your help.” McGee’s voice was muffled in April’s shoulder.
“No, you don’t. You never really have.”
McGee said, “I told my parents you’re coming.”
“It’s you they want to see, not me.”
“I can’t do it alone.”
April shook her head, smiling sadly. “They’re your parents.”
“What do I say?”
“Tell them the truth.”
McGee stepped back, laughing without a trace of humor.
“If you’re so sure you’re doing the right thing,” April said, “tell them the truth.”
McGee kept drifting backward, collapsing against the corner of the booth. “Everyone’s gone.”
Were those tears in her eyes?
“You can go, too,” April said. “There’s nothing stopping you.”
“Everything we ever did was a failure.”
“Go to Portland,” April said softly. “Find Myles.”
McGee looked almost disappointed. “Portland doesn’t need me.”
April looked as if she were about to say something more, but even from across the room, Darius could see it wouldn’t do any good.
“Please be careful,” April said, folding McGee one last time in her arms. And then she was coming toward him, and Darius stepped aside, holding open the door.
Twenty-Six
They are asleep.
At this hour, as if they might be doing something else.
How little a tree changes, even over years.
Always one dog barks and then another.
Never alone.
And did I leave footprints across the lawn?
Mother, father.
And yet my tree, still.
Mom, Dad.
Otherwise, how incredibly silent.
Cold.
A winter carnival, a carny, and Myles picking his prize, a fluorescent green dog.
The random things one thinks of at the randomest times.
And what did I expect to find?
I should have brought another sweater.
Maybe to find the curtains drawn, something, anything, blocking the view.
Music, they say, for some reason being a trigger for memory.