AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Thank you, Luis. I’m sorry.”
“I love you, Anna. No matter what, okay?”
“I love you too. I’m so sorry.”
Thirty-Nine
I start the engine, then I sit there, letting it idle. I don’t know what to do. I can’t bear to go home and be on my own, so I drive to the studio because all I want right now is Luis. I desperately want him to hold me, to help me make it right even though I know nothing can ever be right again. The police will come for me soon. Hey, maybe they’re at the house already. I have so little time and all I want is to curl up on the sofa and maybe watch him work, just to pretend for a little while that none of this is happening.
I let myself into the building and up the goods lift. I knock on the heavy door but he doesn’t hear me. I rest my forehead against the cold metal. I can faintly hear music inside. I pry the key loose from its trusted place and let myself in.
“Luis?”
His large sculpture,The Nest, is back. It’s bigger than I remembered. More somber, too, somehow. I walk around it and to the other end of the studio, and turn off the sound system.
“Luis?”
I check my cell but there’s no message.
I stare at the sculpture.The Nest. His apogee. I think how much I wanted him to succeed, how much I supported him, loved him, trusted him, admired him. And that work? His grand masterpiece? It should have been about us.The Nest. It should have been forme. And I can’t stop crying as I think back to that night at the opening:Isabelle might have a shot at sellingThe Nestto the contemporary art museum for their permanent collection.I think of him crossing his fingers, his eyes closed, his face turned to the ceiling, and I remember the words that floated in my mind then, like a whisper.
He’s in love.
I don’t know what happens after that. I just feel all the pent-up pain and fury roar through me and before I can stop myself my hands have gripped the long metal rod that seconds ago was leaning by the window and I’m screaming as I raise the rod over my head and strike the sculpture as hard as I can. But the hook gets caught on something and I pull the rod up and blindly thrash into it again, and again and again until the cables snap and the whole structure falls with a loud crash and the creatures in their eggs roll out and I smash them too, I smash their faces and their eyes and the delicate shell around them and I’m screaming because they should have represented our children, shouldn’t they? This should have beenournest, shouldn’t it, Luis? Didn’t we deserve this homage to your genius, Luis? Weren’t we enough for you that you had to fall in loveher?
And I can’t see anything anymore and it’s all his fault and everything I did, I did for us, and all there is now is noise and dust and splinters flying and bouncing against the walls and I’m still screaming and I can’t breathe but I don’t want to stop until it’s gone, until thatthingthat sits there like a monument to all that went wrong isgone.
I am on my knees. I drop the rod with a clank. I can’t breathe. I don’t know how long I sit like that, in the middle of the wreckage, my arms wrapped tightly around my sides. I open my eyes and see the creatures at my feet, broken, eyes smashed, no longer pleading, like they were real and now they’re dead, and suddenly I have this overwhelming urge to put them back together. I scramble around the floor to find the right pieces and grab a chunk of the shell, then another, and I want to put them back together but they don’t fit. I stare at them in my hands, sobbing. Something catches my eye: Letters. Words. The shells were made of paper, glued together and shaped. I pull it apart gently and smooth the creases out as much I can, and I see now, what caught my eye. It’s my name, on an official document, or what’s left of it. It’s stained with dark spots, like it was kept somewhere damp for a long time.
It’s a residential purchase agreement for the house I grew up in, in Youngstown. What I think of as my mother’s house, after my father died, before she moved to California. I know that my mother sold that house and moved years ago, but I don’t understand why Luis would have a copy of this purchase agreement. I look closer, and I know then that something isn’t right with me. That I’m doing things I have no memory of doing, because the seller on that document is not my mother, it’s me. It says it right there. In 2006, I owned, and sold, my mother’s house to a complete stranger.
I gather the other pieces I can find, carefully separate layers of paper and smooth them out as much as I can, and now I’m wailing like an animal, because Luis said my mother was alive and of course she wasn’t dead, he said. Wouldn’t we know? But he must have known, because this, in my hand, is a piece of her death certificate. And when I look at it again it’s as if the light dims around me and the walls are closing in and I throw it to the floor and push myself away from it as far as I can, and I hit the wall with my back and I’m stuck there, shaking, crying, calling his name and I’m so scared, I’m losing my mind, because the manner of death isAccidental fall on stairs.
The floor is littered with debris and as I scurry around on my hands and knees, blood roaring in my ears, I catch sight of something long and strange and out of place. I pick it up. It’s some kind of tube, partly transparent, with a yellow and white sticker, and at first I think it’s a tube of solder wire, and it’s only when I read the label that I realize what it is.
Epipen.
I haven’t seen this exact type before. It’s different from the ones that you would see today, but that’s what it is, and my heart knocks around in my chest because I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that this belonged to Monica. It falls out of my hand and disappears under the couch. I’m on my knees and I peer underneath. It’s been stopped by something small and shiny, like a button, and I have to extend my arm as far as I can to reach it. I feel it with my fingertips but accidentally nudge it away. I have to use the rod to drag it out, and it slides out, along with the shiny button. Except it’s not a button. It’s a ring. Silver, oddly shaped.
He’s a very interesting metal artist. French.
Forty
My chest feels so tight, even drawing in a breath feels like a burn. I have to calm down. I make myself breathe but it hurts, like a stitch. I close my eyes, my forehead against the steering wheel, the phone pressed hard against my ear and I notice my hand is bleeding.
I press my fingers between my eyes as the call goes to voicemail.
“Luis?” My voice cracks and for a moment I think I can’t do it. I can’t summon the will to pretend that everything is as before, that nothing’s changed. I have discovered nothing. Then I think of my kids and I bend down at the waist, a hand over my mouth covering a silent wail. When I take a breath again, it’s like I’ve come out from under water.
“Luis, it’s me. Are you home yet? I need to talk to you. Will you call me as soon as you get this?”
I hang up, and call June.
Pick up! Pickuppickuppickup…
“Hi! I’m sorry I can’t take your call right now, but please leave a message!”
“June.” My voice is high-pitched with panic. “It’s me. Listen to me very carefully. If Luis comes over to your house, do not answer the door, do you understand? Pretend you’re not there. If you’re home, go out now, as soon as you get this. Go anywhere, go to the mall. Stay out. But under no circumstances should you let him inside your house.”
