Page 19 of The Immortalists

Simon rides the train home that evening. Thinking about Robert’s mouth makes him so turned on that all he can think about is getting through the door, getting his hands on himself, pumping while he calls up the unbelievable potency of that kiss. It isn’t until he’s halfway down the block that he sees the cop car parked outside his apartment.

A policeman leans against the hood. He’s rangy, a redhead, and looks barely older than Simon. “Simon Gold?”

“Yeah,” says Simon, slowing.

The cop opens the back door of the car and bows with a flourish. “After you.”

“What? Why?”

“Answers at the station.”

Simon wants to ask more, but he is afraid of giving the cop new information—if he doesn’t know Simon is working at Purp underage, Simon won’t be the one to tell him—and he can barely swallow: something fist sized and firm, like a fig, is stuck in his throat. The backseat is made of hard, black plastic. Up front, the redhead turns around, looks beadily at Simon, and shoves the soundproof barrier shut. When they pull up in front of the Mission Street station, Simon follows him indoors, then through a maze of rooms and uniformed men. They emerge in a small interview room with a plastic table and two chairs.

“Sit,” says the cop.

On the table is a scuffed black phone. The cop takes a crumpled piece of paper from his shirt pocket and jabs at the buttons with one hand. Then he holds the receiver out to Simon, who looks at the phone with apprehension.

“What are you, thick?” asks the cop.

“Screw you,” mutters Simon.

“What’d you say?”

The man shoves him by the shoulders. Simon’s chair skids back, and he scrambles for his footing. When he scoots back to the table and reaches for the receiver, his left shoulder throbs.

“Hello?”

“Simon.”

Who else would it be? Simon could kick himself for being so stupid. Immediately, the cop seems to disappear, and so does the pain in his shoulder.

“Ma,” he says.

It is terrible: Gertie is crying the way she did at Saul’s service, guttural and heavy like the sobs are something in her stomach she can physically expel.

“How could you?” she asks. “How could you do it?”

He winces. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry. Then I expect you’ll be on your way home.”

There is a bitterness in her voice that he has heard before but which has never been directed at him. His first memory: lying on his mother’s lap at two as she ran her hands through his curls. Like an angel, she clucked. Like a cherub. Yes, he left them—all of them—but he left her most of all.

And yet.

“I am sorry. I’m sorry for what I did—for leaving you. But I can’t—I won’t . . .” He trails off, tries again. “You picked your life, Ma. I want to pick mine.”

“Nobody picks their life. I sure didn’t.” Gertie laughs, a scrape. “Here’s what happens: you make choices, and then they make choices. Your choices make choices. You go to college—my God, you finish high school—that’s one way of tipping the odds in your favor. What you’re doing right now, I don’t know what the hell will happen to you. And neither do you.”

“But that’s the thing. I’m fine with not knowing. I’d rather not know.”

“I’ve given you time,” Gertie says. “I said to myself, Just wait; I thought, if I waited, you’d come to your senses. But you haven’t.”

“I have come to my senses. My senses are here.”

“Have you ever once thought about the business?”

Simon grows hot. “That’s what you care about?”