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Kate was staring at him, wide-eyed. “What happened?”
Well, Michael went on, that was the funny thing. He had expected the whale to move on, but it didn’t. For nearly an hour it ran alongside the Nautilus. Occasionally it would duck its enormous head beneath the surface, only to reappear a few moments later with a spout from its blowhole, like a big wet sneeze. Then, as the moon was setting, the creature descended and did not reappear. Michael waited. Was it finally gone? Several minutes passed; he began to relax. Then, with an explosion of seawater, it reared upward off his starboard bow, hurling its massive body high into the air. It was, Michael said, like watching a city lift into the sky. See what I can do? Don’t mess with me, brother. It crashed back down with a second detonation that blasted him broadside and left him drenched. He never saw it again.
Kate was smiling. “I get it. He was playing a joke on you.”
Michael laughed. “I guess maybe he was.”
He kissed her good night and returned to the main room, where Hollis and Sara were putting up the last of the dishes. The power had been cut for the night; a pair of candles flickered on the table, exuding greasy trails of smoke.
“She’s quite a kid.”
“Hollis gets the credit,” Sara said. “I’m so busy at the hospital I sometimes feel like I barely see her.”
Hollis grinned. “It’s true.”
“I hope a mat on the floor is all right,” Sara said. “If I’d known you were coming, I could have gotten a proper cot from the hospital.”
“Are you kidding? I usually sleep sitting up. I’m not even sure I actually sleep anymore.”
Sara was wiping down the stove with a cloth. A little too aggressively—Michael could sense her frustration. It was an old conversation.
“Look,” Michael said, “you don’t have to worry about me. I’m fine.”
Sara exhaled sharply. “Hollis, talk to him. I know I won’t get anywhere.”
The man shrugged helplessly. “What do you want me to say?”
“How about ‘People love you, stop trying to get yourself killed.’ ”
“It’s not like that,” Michael said.
“What Sara is trying to say,” Hollis interjected, “is we all hope you’re being careful.”
“No, that’s not at all what I’m saying.” She looked at Michael. “Is it Lore? Is that the reason?”
“Lore has nothing to do with it.”
“Then tell me, because I’d really like to understand this, Michael.”
How should he explain himself? His reasons were so tangled together that they weren’t anything he could assemble into an argument. “It just feels right. That’s all I can say.”
She resumed her overzealous scrubbing. “So you feel like you should be scaring the hell out of me.”
Michael reached for her, but she shook him away. “Sara—”
“Don’t.” She refused to look at him. “Don’t tell me this is okay. Don’t tell me any of this is okay. Goddamnit, I told myself I wouldn’t do this. I have to get up early.”
Hollis moved in behind her. He placed one hand on her shoulder, the other on the rag, bringing it to a halt and gently taking it from her hand. “We’ve talked about this. You’ve got to let him be.”
“Oh, listen to you. You probably think it’s just great.”
Sara had begun to cry. Hollis turned her around and drew her into him. He looked past her shoulder at Michael, who was standing awkwardly by the table. “She’s just worn out is all. Maybe you could give us a minute?”
“Sure, yeah.”
“Thank you, Michael. The key’s right by the door.”
Michael let himself out of the apartment and exited the complex. With nowhere to go, he took a seat on the ground near the entrance where nobody would bother him. He hadn’t felt this bad in a long time. Sara had always been a worrier, but he didn’t like upsetting her; it was one of the reasons he came to the city so rarely. He would have liked to make her happy—find someone to marry, settle down with a job just like everybody else, have kids. His sister deserved some peace of mind after all she’d done, stepping in to look after him when their parents had died, though she’d just been a kid herself. Everything they did and said to each other contained this unspoken fact. If things had happened differently, they might have been just like any other brother and sister, their importance to one another fading over time as new connections took precedence. But not the two of them. New people would take the stage, but there would always be a room in their hearts in which only the two of them resided.
