She grimaced, then smiled, a confusing combination. “See, that’s where I feel like we aren’t quite understanding each other.”
I stared, stupidly, my ears already burning hot. I had a hard time listening as she spoke. “See,” she said, “as you were talking, I realized, you know, I’ve done this a hundred times before. Not with you, I’m not saying you’ve done this to me a hundred times. But in my life, I’ve listened to a man cry and sob and bemoan what a failure he is or what a bad person or tell me how tragic his life is. And I have always let my heart go out to them, and I have always tried to mother and to fix and to help, but you know what? It never actually works. I’m just getting too old to keep doing it, Lucas. You can’t imagine how surreal it was, as you kept going on and on, it was like I was trapped in a scene I had played a thousand times. And the truth is, we don’t really know each other, do we? It’s not my job to leap in and help you get your life sorted. You need to grow up and do that on your own. We’re just strangers, really. We’re both only here on vacation.”
I nodded. “Right,” I said, my mouth dry, my voice cracking. “You’re right.”
“You’re going to be okay,” she said, and she reached out and squeezed my hand. “I’m going to go pay my bill and go to the afternoon tour. It’s the last one, and then there is the goodbye dinner after. Are you going?”
“No,” I said.
“I know I’m being harsh,” Susan said, withdrawing her hand.
“Yes,” I said, “you are being harsh. But I understand.”
“I’m very sorry about your daughter,” she said.
But I couldn’t make my throat work to answer her, so I just nodded again and stared at her plate of half-finished carpaccio, the beautiful streaks of olive oil, yellow green against the white of the plate and the pink of the fish, gleaming in the sun.
—
It was only when I got back to my apartment and I felt the familiar buzz of my phone notifying me of an e-mail or some kind of status update that I realized I hadn’t ever turned it off after calling Katya that morning. The roaming charges would be insane. I was about to shut it off when I saw that I had four new voice mails, one of which was from Fang and was dated day before yesterday. I listened.
“Hey there, Mr. Lucas,” Fang said, and then continued so solemnly and carefully that I wondered if he had written out what he wanted to say ahead of time. “I hope I am not out of line in calling you, but Vera has told me that you know about weaning down from her medication, and so it is my belief that there are no secrets between us anymore. I’m worried about her. She has been sending me long, occasionally incoherent e-mails. I worry that she is manic again and that it is my fault. At the same time, there is little that I can do from this distance. I hope that you will attend to this matter. Hopefully, I am wrong, but I do not think so. Thank you for allowing me to call you.”
And then he hung up.
What a simple and straightforward warning. One day too late.
I sat with the phone in my hand for a moment, dazed. Then I called Katya.
“Just get on a plane and come here.”
Chapter 14
Date: 7/14/2014 11:16 PM
From: FangBoy76@hotmail.com
To: Vera.Abramov@gmail.com
Subject: Re: What’s done is done
My Lovely V,
As you can imagine, defending myself against your recriminations is wearying and agonizing and weirdly boring, all at the same time. It is not that I hold them against you. I understand that we are far away and you are insecure. But let me be clear: I do not care if you do not forgive me because there is nothing I need to be forgiven for. NOTHING HAPPENED.
I am profoundly relieved that you have confessed all to your father. It is a weight off my shoulders, perhaps more than you imagine. I was also quite taken with your description of him as simple. I like your image of him as perfectly transparent, like some kind of crystal or very clean water. It is summer in California as you well know, and when you go off on such tangents it causes small cascades of thought, flights of fancy in my mind that keep me from sleeping and give me that sense of late-summer magic. Indeed, you above all other people convince me that magic is real. Not the cheap transubstantiation of handkerchiefs into doves but the abiding ontic mystery of june bugs dancing under yellow streetlights.
Vera, we are lucky that we found each other. Before the spectacle of you, I become a toothless baby clapping in delight. Or maybe it is that you animate me, so that I become a friendly snowman instead of a pile of lumpy snow. Whatever it is, dolclass="underline" You are my magic hat.
Still, I am unhappy, lover. Your obsession with the photograph of me and Stephanie Garrison appears to be ongoing, and I do not know what to do or say to break you of the habit of that train of thought.
Think instead of this: That we are all as simple as your father. That we are all, at heart, so breathlessly childishly clear. That is our true nature, Vera. Everything else is a mask.
Yours truly,
Fang
Date: 7/17/2014 1:30 AM
From: FangBoy76@hotmail.com
To: Vera.Abramov@gmail.com
Subject: Re: The Shoah and your pretty idiot
My Lovely V,
I wish you could know how helpless I feel when you present me with your wild emotions and I am able only to read them on this blinking blue eye of technology as all around me the household sleeps, except for the occasional somnambulistic pilgrimage to the kitchen by my mother. She keeps a key lime pie in the freezer and feeds off of it in the night, like a pie vampire. She prefers it frozen. She does not want it thawed. She passes by me here at the computer without saying a word. I believe she knows that I am writing to you and that I am like a love-sick puppy.
It is time for me to confess what I have been withholding. If only it were as simple as having kissed Stephanie Garrison! You can’t know how badly I wish I had done something so straightforward. But we are not straightforward, you and I.
I have been harboring in my heart, Vera, the secret and treasonous suspicion that all is not well with you. I try valiantly to keep from viewing you with a distance. I do not wish to become your doctor or your keeper. I dislike the idea of evaluating you, as though everything you utter to me, every idea, must be judged fit by me. I am not your judge, nor do I wish to be your jailor. And yet I am filled with the icky certainty that something is going wrong with your brain chemistry.
Please reassure me and tell me that I am wrong.
In either case, I am very sorry that you fought with Judith. But I would also remind you that she is your elder and that listening to her wisdom will serve you more deeply than getting to practice running your mouth. You can practice running your mouth on me.
Yours truly,
Fang
Date: 7/17/2014 11:15 PM
From: FangBoy76@hotmail.com
To: Vera.Abramov@gmail.com
Subject: Are you ignoring me?
My Lovely V,
There has begun to be a disconnect in our letters. I write to you with my concerns. I cite passages in your letters, explaining why I am worried, and you ignore these and persist in writing me as before. Now you say the ghost of your grandmother is contacting you.
I am concerned.
I am afraid for your safety.
But I am also increasingly angry. We have always said that we were a team. We were a team before your episode, we were a team afterward. Together we waded through it all, the drugs, the disbelief of your parents, the unfortunate situation at school. Even at your most lost, I felt I could count on you to be honest with me. We were in this together.