Apart From Love (36 page)

So I murmur, close to his ear, “Here I am... All’s fine, I promise. I’m here, by your side, my dear, dear Lenny. Don’t you worry.”
 

And again he calls, only softer this time, “Taaah...”

I let his head lean on me, on my bare shoulder, and at once the chill’s gone, both inside and out, because I kiss him—so long and so tender—right here, in the middle of his forehead. And I hope I can take on his burden, that burden of guilt, and of pain too, because in the end I don’t really mind, I don’t care no more if the name he’s calling is mine—or else, if it is Natasha.

As Told by Ben

A
nd on the other hand, something must be done to take care of me, because my stomach is growling. This morning there is no breakfast waiting there, on the kitchen table—not even a morsel of food. Instead, tucked in a wrinkle of the white tablecloth are a few peculiar specks.
 

Wiping the sleep from my eyes I get closer, and discover a pair of pearl earrings and a matching pearl necklace, with a silver fishhook clasp. There are also a few bunches of hundred dollar bills, which must have poured out of that large manila envelope. They are tied with rubber bands, and scattered in plain view.
 

I lament my misfortune, realizing I should have risen from bed much earlier, because there she is, already counting some of them, holding them close to her chest, as if trying to rearrange a deck of cards without being too obvious about her game plan.
 

At my age, having to ask my father for pocket money is an embarrassment. As for Anita, I suppose it is no fun for her, either. At stake here is independence, at least for a time—for one of us. Oh, money! Sweet freedom! I figure it is not only on my mind, but on hers too, so naturally, it is the
one
thing neither one of us is quick to mention.
 

I stare at Anita. She stares at me. I have no idea how much cash we are
not
talking about—except to know it is a whole lot. It could pay the rent for a whole year, maybe.
 

Somehow this big heap of money—the likes of which I have never seen in my life—changes things between us. At this moment I am watching her with the eye of a rival, realizing that I must stop wasting time blowing hot and cold. This is war!
 

I must fight, must make a move—if only I knew what it could be—or else, she will soon plunder what I believe to be rightfully mine. And yet, I find myself wavering.
 

I wonder how it came about that she got her hands on those pieces of jewelry, which in a flash, look terribly familiar. One thing seems clear: I have been looking for mom’s pearl earrings in all the wrong places during the last few days.
 

Maybe Anita can see all that—the doubts, the suspicions—in my face. Her cheeks turn, all of a sudden, as red as apples. I should have ducked, because out of the blue, here comes a rubber band, vibrating, singing in the air, missing me by a breath.
 

She tightens the oversized cotton shirt, which used to belong to my father, around her waist, trying to tidy it up by smoothing the crinkles. And something wild seems to flicker in her eye when she looks up at me, while plucking at another rubber band.
 

“As usual,” she says, “you’re acting like a child.”

And I say, “What did
I
do?”

And she says, “You want others to make decisions for you.”

And I say, “Why, what did
I
say?”

And quite sharply, she counters, “Exactly.”

And I say, “Exactly what?”

And she says, “You didn’t say nothing exactly—so you think I don’t get it?”

For lack of an answer, I shrug.

Anita fixes me with a bright gaze. This time it is all but sultry, which immediately makes her seem so effortlessly irresistible. “I bet I can tell what you’re thinking, like, right now,” she says.
 

And then, in a tone that mimics mine, she acts
me
out, as if she could tell, somehow, every thought that has crossed my mind just now, as if it were etched on my forehead.
 

“
The jewelry
,” she says in that lowered tone, a tone that is just like mine, “
it belongs to my mom; the money—to my father. So I guess, if I wait long enough, I should get it. I mean: All of it!
”

I shrug again, so on she goes, mocking me uninterrupted, speaking from deep down in her throat, as if in my voice.

“
Yes, it is entirely mine, well, almost—even though I am not at all greedy, no, not at all! So like, despite not having a penny to my name, I am in no hurry to grab it already. And anyway, what is it doing here, just like that, out in the open, instead of in a safe or something? That woman, she should keep her hands off it, because really, it don’t belong to her, and never will! It belongs to my family! And she, she comes from outside. She should not even come close enough to breathe on it—much less, touch it! Her being married to my father? That’s nothing, really. Nothing more than a sad mistake!
”
 

I make up my mind not to show her how embarrassed she has made me feel, and when that fails me, there is always Plan B, which is this: to avert my eyes.
 

So I keep lowering them till they fall right there, on the manila envelope—only to discover her name writ large on it, in his handwriting.
 

“It is just that I wonder, I mean, about my father,” I mutter. “What on earth made him give you all this? Not that you don’t deserve it—but why—why now?”

“You mean, he must have gone nuts,” she says. “I swear, he’s out of his mind, that’s for damn sure.”

“I mean, something must have happened to him, all of a sudden.”
 

“Something did happen,” says Anita, “but I ain’t exactly sure what to make of it. Lenny cried in his sleep last night.”

“Really?
My
father? I cannot believe it. Are you sure? Maybe he just snored, or sighed, or whistled from his nose?”
 

In place of an answer, she goes on to say, “Then, way before dawn, he got up, and trust me: He looked plenty strange. Frantic! Searched every drawer in his desk. Said he’s gonna be late coming home tonight, and I said, What, again? And like, what’s your excuse this time? And he said not to worry, ‘cause like, he needs to look at some docs and some papers and stuff with his lawyer.”

“Mr. Bliss?”
 

“You know him?”

“Yes,” I say. “When I was away in Europe, my father wrote to me once or twice about consulting him
. You see, Mr. Bliss always pops up at times of misery.
”
 

“Misery? Like what?” asks Anita.

“Ten years ago,” I say, “He put together the divorce papers for my parents.”

She says nothing, but at the mere mention of the word
divorce
, her skin turns papery white. She seems to be weighing some odds in her mind, as if to compare her version of the past against mine—or else, to project it onto the present.

According to my recollection, Mr. Bliss provided legal advice one more time, five years later, after the divorce had already taken place. He helped my father transfer some assets into his name, assets which up to then, had belonged to mom.
 

My parents had been leading separate lives at that point, so to me, this whole transfer business seemed more than a bit odd: It
seemed utterly confusing, to the point that I did not know if to laugh or cry
—
but now, with the secrecy about mom’s condition lifted, at long last, I think I have gained some clarity, with which I can try to reconstruct the timeline of events.
 

So this, I guess, is what must have happened: about five years ago, mom was diagnosed with a form of Alzheimer’s. By transferring her assets dad wanted, perhaps, to shield her estate from the costs, the treatment costs which she was likely to face, as her disease would go on, making its progress.
 

I try to think of a short version of what happened, which I can tell Anita.
 

At last I say, “My father wrote a letter to me, in which his tone
was unusually gloomy. I could see that he was pondering the mistakes he had made in his life—”

“Me being one of them, I bet.”
 

“It was, I think, the first time he wrote to me about having a sense of his own mortality.”

“Like, what does that mean?”

“He lost his appetite, which used to be immense, and began saying vague things, thing such as,
Life hangs by a hair
, which made my own hair stand on edge with worry. I imagined him doing something rash, something unusually reckless, such as putting a blade to his throat. And a fear fell on me from my own thoughts.”

Anita looks puzzled.
 

“I don’t recall him saying nothing like that,” she insists. “I must have gone back to my mama, just then.”

“At the same time,” I tell her, “my father mentioned that he
had gotten some assets
, which had not been in his name before,
so now he was trying to figure out what to do with them, in case, God forbid... If, you know... I mean, should he die. So his longtime lawyer, Mr. Bliss, put together a will for him.”

“Have you seen it?”

I pace around the kitchen, feeling uneasy. “No,” I say, noting an unsteady tone in my voice, and hating it. “I have never even asked my father about the details, never wanted to be bothered with some convoluted legal clauses, because, I mean, being an only child, I trusted him to be fair, to take care of me.”

“I wish I had a pa like yours,” says Anita. “Someone who’s gonna care for you, like, always.”

Which brings me to a halt. I recall, all of a sudden, how I found myself wondering about him. I remember thinking that he had not only been disloyal to mom, but was perhaps unfair as well. He told me he would be managing her assets for her, but that hardly explained why they were transferred in his name.
 

It might have been just a coincidence, I told myself—but once the deed was done, the tone in his letters changed back to normal, by which I mean, annoying. Lots of useless fatherly advice. I guess that meant that he went back to normal, and so, thankfully, did his appetite.
 

In his letters from then on, there was rarely a mention of mom—except to suggest, in a vague way, that she was away, perhaps on some tour, giving piano performances here and there, in distant places around the world. Only now do I recognize that what I was given was a sketch of reality, which was as faint as it was misleading. And yet, being away, I rarely asked any questions of my dad, because I wanted to trust him. I was so desperate for this sketch to be true.

Meanwhile, Anita avoids breaking my silence. Holding her breath, she traces that wrinkle across the white tablecloth, till her finger is only a touch away from the two pearl earrings. I can see their twin glint mirrored there, in her eye, the luster floating over the green shadow, which seems so intense at this moment, now that she is tempted. Her tongue passes, with great thirst, slowly over her red lips.
 

By the end of that lick, she seems to have come to a conclusion. She says, first to herself, “Lenny has something up his sleeve, but it isn’t divorce papers. Things ain’t
that
bad, I don’t think. I bet it’s a new will, then.”
 

And to me she says, “Yes, it must be that. And you’re wrong, totally wrong about one thing: your father has two sons to consider, ‘cause like, you ain’t an only child no more.”

And with that, Anita pushes away from the table, and takes a step back to the kitchen window, and stands there in profile, bathed in sunlight, as if to give me a chance to take her in, to discover the change taking place in her.