The Between (32 page)

Kaya nodded, and Hilton saw a pool of tears in her eyes. She blinked and wiped them away. “I just don’t want you to leave again,” she said.

He squeezed her hand, his throat aching. “I know,” he said. “I’m trying hard to fix everything, but I can’t make promises about the future. Nobody can. You know that, right?” Kaya nodded. “Now stop that crying, or you’ll have me doing it.”

Kaya laughed halfheartedly. “I thought men aren’t supposed to cry,” she said.

“Men do a lot of things they’re not supposed to.”

“I love you, Dad,” Kaya whispered.

The silence in the house screamed at him. He remembered the first time she’d spoken those words to him, at eighteen months old, still in diapers. A part of him knew a circle was closing around them. The first time. The last time.

“I know, Pumpkin. I love you, too.”

Hilton’s birthday, a Sunday, dawned with a bright sun fighting its way through thick cloud cover, signaling another day of sporadic south Florida rainstorms. Hilton lay awake beside Dede for a long time before she stirred, gazing at the photograph of Nana he’d propped up on the bureau. The photo gave him some peace, but all night he hadn’t slept or dreamed. He’d been waiting for morning, for this day to begin.

Already, it wasn’t what he had expected. After all of the talk about stealing birthdays with Raul and Andres, he’d believed he would wake up to find every inner sensor rife with unpleasant premonitions. He felt good, though, except for his fatigue and a slight disappointment in the glum rain clouds outside. He was thirty-nine years old today, in good physical health, in his wife’s bed. So far, so good.

“I’m supposed to pretend I’ve forgotten all about your birthday,” Dede told him sleepily when she woke up, kissing the tip of his nose. “I’m a bad actress. I can’t do it. Happy birthday.”

“I won’t tell.”

She furrowed her brow, concerned. “Did you sleep?”

“Some,” he lied. “I just woke up early. I saw the sun rise.” She nestled her back against him, and he wrapped his arm around her middle with his chin resting gently against her neck. “No more dreams?” she asked hopefully.

“No more dreams.”

By the time they came out of the bedroom, Kaya and Jamil were sitting in front of the television set, balancing cereal bowls in their laps. As he’d been warned, they simply mumbled good morning without a word about his birthday. Kaya was completely straightfaced, but Jamil had the giggles.

“You might as well know,” Dede said quietly while they brewed coffee alone in the kitchen. “I’ve been instructed to send you on a long errand this afternoon to get you out of the house. Which errand do you prefer?”

“Jesus, just not the grocery store—please.”

“I do need to go, but that wouldn’t take long enough, anyway.” Now Hilton felt slightly uneasy. “I don’t have to stay away all day, do I?”

“Three or four hours,” she said, handing him his mug. “Please, Hil. You don’t know how they’ve been planning. Leave sometime after lunch and get back here by five, okay?”

Hilton grumbled to himself later, snarled in the slow traffic on South Dixie Highway under a hot afternoon sun, which had prevailed over the clouds. It was his birthday, and yet he’d somehow ended up on the road with a list of a half dozen chores that would take him all over the city. He had to return Dede’s library books downtown, get his car washed, replace a floodlight that had burned out on the patio, who knew what else.

He should have held firm, surprise or no surprise. There’s no way he should have allowed them to send him away for so many hours, today of all days. Complacency was a dangerous thing.

Trapped behind a white and blue Express Mail van stopped with its hazard lights on in the middle of the right-hand traffic lane on Flagler, Hilton was so annoyed he thought about turning around to go home. But he’d already driven twenty minutes to get downtown, and the library was so close it didn’t make sense to go back now. The uniformed driver carried box after box out of the belly of his truck, stacking them in front of an electronics store. Traffic was so dense that Hilton couldn’t budge to change lanes. Why the hell did the post office make deliveries on Sunday, anyway? He tapped his car horn. “Could you move it?” he called out his window to the young driver, who shrugged and motioned for him to drive around.

Asshole. Like Hilton hadn’t thought of that already. Finally, Hilton cut off a BMW to bolt into the neighboring lane. He heard the driver behind him brake and curse at him in Spanish. Goddammit, he hated driving on Flagler and dodging its tourists and bargain-hunters. On top of that, the sun had turned truly merciless, rapidly draining what little energy he had. Some birthday.

Hilton grew more calm as he climbed the tile steps leading to the palatial Spanish-style library building and its patio with benches and tables beneath umbrellas, a small oasis on the crowded city street. A woman in sunglasses sat watching her twin sons chasing each other in a circle while they laughed gleefully. Two shabbily dressed older men napped leaning against each other on one of the benches. Silently, without waking them, Hilton slid a ten-dollar bill into each of their shirt pockets. The woman in sunglasses smiled at him as he walked past.

It was a beautiful day, after all.

Inside the library, Hilton lost track of time, browsing without particular interest in an aisle of travel books. The sun was still bright when he returned to the patio. The woman and her sons had left, but the homeless men still slept. Hilton bought a cherry Popsicle from a vendor and sat on one of the shaded benches, aching for a small rest. Sunlight always made him so drowsy.

And why not? Hilton curled his legs onto the painted wooden bench and savored the cool spot he’d discovered. He could hear car horns and sirens around him, but he felt untroubled. Maybe he could nap safely today, just for a time.

“. . .
how many of them in the house? . . . we’ll need dental records for a positive ID, if we can salvage that much . . . looks like maybe everybody wasn’t home . . . Nobody comes within fifty feet, including the reporters . . . it’s James, J-A-M-E-S
. . .”

When Hilton woke up, his shirt was sagging with cold perspiration and he shivered despite the heat. He sat, confused and alarmed. Where was he? He recognized the patio benches and the two homeless men sleeping across from him, but something was different. The late-afternoon sun had dipped out of sight behind the library building, and something indescribable and sinister hung in the air. This place, where he was now, was another doorway.

He had slept, and a balance had shifted somehow, just like Andres had said. Something was wrong.

sweet dreams, baby

Dede’s whispered voice was so clear behind him, he turned to see if she was standing there before he realized the voice was only in his head. In a flash that burst into a staggering headache, Hilton knew with agonizing certainty that he would never see his wife again. Something had happened, was already in motion.

He wasn’t sure about Kaya and Jamil. He ran toward the pay telephone across the patio, digging for change in his pocket.

The phone seemed to ring forever, each interval launching Hilton’s heart into a more frantic pace. Kaya answered on the sixth ring. “Hello, James residence.”

“It’s me. Put your mom on the phone,” Hilton said, so relieved to hear her voice that he thought he would collapse. His voice shook with urgency.

“What’s wrong?”

He couldn’t explain. He wasn’t sure himself. “Nothing, sweetheart. Just please put her on.”

“She just left. She had to go to the market.”

Distraught, Hilton had to stop himself from pounding the receiver against the phone booth. He was breathing heavily, thoroughly soaked, and his mind was in such a severe whirl that he could barely stand. Gone. She was gone.

“You sound funny, Dad. Are you sure you’re okay?”

What now? Hilton tried to catch his breath, covering the mouthpiece so Kaya wouldn’t hear his panting. Oh, Jesus, Jesus. Something was horribly wrong. He had to control himself somehow, or it would all be lost. All of it.

“Kaya . . . are you and Jamil in the house alone?”

“Yeah, Dad. Everything’s fine.”

“Are the doors locked? Did Dede activate the alarm?”

Kaya paused. “I guess so. I’m not sure about the alarm. Dad, I’m worried about you. You sound awful.”

i’ll huff and i’ll puff

A voice again, from beyond his dreams. He’d heard it this time. I’ll huff and I’ll puff. Goode’s note.

Hilton’s hand was trembling as he grasped the phone. “Listen carefully to me. Make sure all of the doors are locked. I want you to set the alarm, okay? Don’t let anyone in the house. Has anyone come to the house?”

“Uhm . . .” Kaya began, hesitating. “Just a mail guy, right after Mom left. But he’s gone already, and he didn’t come in—”

and i’ll blow your house down

A mailman. Goode. Hilton left the receiver dangling on its metallic cord and ran, racing across the length of the patio and flying down the steps so fast he had to cling to the arm rail to avoid stumbling. He ran two blocks, pushing his way past passersby until he found his car in the parking lot, a ticket tucked beneath his windshield wiper. He turned his key in the ignition so hard that the starter squealed like a dying child.

“Help me, Nana,” he heard himself say, roaring to the street. Nana had shown him what to do, in a dream. He only had to remember. “Please don’t let me get there too late,” he wheezed as he sped beneath a red light and a chorus of car horns objected. Hilton felt dizzy as hidden knowledge began to storm his psyche. Doorways. He could feel the unfolding rows of doorways all around him like a divine vision, a kaleidoscope. In some of them, he was still asleep on the bench. In some of them, he’d just awakened and was peering around the library patio, confused. In some, he was still talking to Kaya on the telephone. He could hear his own voice, Kaya’s voice, faintly from the fringes of his reason, inside a unison of voices sharing a splintered moment of possibilities in time.

. . .
Don’t let anyone in the house, okay? . . . Has anyone come to the house?. . . It’s me. Put your mom on the phone . . . Hello, James residence . . . Dad, I’m worried about you . . . Are you and Jamil alone in the house? . . . Hello, James residence
. . . A
mail guy came right after Mom left . . . Don’t let anyone in the house . . . Hello, James residence . . .

Hilton shook his head to clear it, hot tears streaming down his face as he wove in and out of traffic on South Dixie Highway. He alone controlled the events of this moment, this doorway. Had he found the right one? What if he hadn’t?

Maybe this wasn’t real. Maybe he wasn’t real at all.

Hilton’s head pounded with frustration. Did all of the sleep doorways lead to a reality, or were they just options that were meaningless so long as his true consciousness lived in this moment, driving in the car? He should have talked to Andres more about this to try to understand. He had to believe in one genuine reality—in this reality—or it was all pointless. Running was useless, the doorways were useless. It wouldn’t matter what he found when he got home because it would be different everywhere else. He couldn’t bear that thought.

What had Andres said? Wherever the spirit rests is that moment’s reality. Wherever the spirit rests. He was the spirit.

Hilton lost his concentration, his foot jerking on the accelerator as he sensed his nightmares coming true. Explosions. One after the other, in sickening succession. His mind showed him walls of fire, burning wood, collapsing concrete. Explosions were all around. In some of the doorways, he was too late already.

The realization made Hilton’s lips quiver as he drove: he’d made a deadly mistake. Instead of telling Kaya and Jamil to lock themselves inside of the house, he should have told them to run. Goode wasn’t there. Goode wasn’t the danger. The danger was in what Goode had sent in the mail.

His speedometer told him he was driving eighty-five miles per hour, and his tires screeched as he steered around the cars crawling in front of him. Perhaps he would finally die in his car after all. It was just like Nana had told him; she only thought she had fixed it, but she hadn’t. She’d failed to save him, ultimately, and he couldn’t save them. What’s done is done is done is done.

His street was silent except for the call of birds hidden in the tangled tree branches and the whine of his own brakes as he rounded the corner. The shadowed street was deserted.

Hilton had never seen such a beautiful sight as his own coral wall and the archways of the house intact, still standing undisturbed. Dede’s Audi was gone and the driveway was empty. A light was on in the living room, and he could see a banner strung across the picture window inside of the house as his car lurched to a stop at the curb. Charlie was in the backyard barking wildly, standing against the fence on his hind legs. Even Charlie could smell the danger. He could smell it in the air, just as he was trained.

Hilton started to run up the walkway, but he halted after passing the aluminum garbage can left standing at the curb. He stared at the can, and his heart leaped. Yes. This was in his dream, he remembered. Was the answer here?

He fumbled to lift the lid. He was disappointed when he found the can empty except for mildewed paper crushed finely at the bottom. Goddammit. It was in the house.

Hilton unlocked the front door and burst through, not bothering to deactivate the alarm panel, which flashed a red warning. Police would be notified within thirty seconds. Good. The police would need to be here.

The living room was decorated with red, black, and green streamers and balloons, liberation colors. Now inside, Hilton could see that the multicolored banner hanging across the picture window was for him.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD,
it said.

“Kaya? Jamil?” Hilton shouted hoarsely. He’d lived this moment a million times before, in his sleep.

As he ran down the hallway, he heard the clatter of silverware. The house was warm from the oven. Dede must have been cooking. The smell of simmering foods was so thick that Hilton felt sick.