When You Were Older (33 page)

‘Come on, Buddy. Let’s get us a room.’

But it was absolutely impossible to wake him. No matter how many times I shook him, he kept snoring lightly.

I got out and walked around to the passenger’s side, and opened his door. I let his seat down. All the way back. Nearly flat. So he’d be more comfortable. Then I got back in on the driver’s side and did the same with my own.

What could I do? I couldn’t leave him in the parking lot by himself.

I think I dozed for about an hour before my cell phone rang, snapping me awake again.

I shook the sleep out of my head, and answered on the second ring.

‘Hello?’

I learn.

‘Oh, good,’ my favorite voice said. ‘You’re there.’

‘Well,’ I said. ‘I’m somewhere.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Kentucky.’

‘What are you doing in Kentucky?’

‘I have to tell you something.’

Something that could ruin everything. Something that probably
would
ruin everything. I kept hearing Chris Kerricker saying, ‘She sure as hell won’t want to spend her life with the guy who set her business on fire. Right under her hands and knees.’ I’d been hearing that a lot lately. Ever since I offered to take Ben back.

‘All right. Tell me.’

‘I have Ben with me again.’

‘Oh! You got him out of jail. That’s wonderful. How did you do it?’

‘Well …’ Needless to say, I was thrown by her reaction. ‘Turns out it never really was any of his doing.’

‘Of course. I knew that. Didn’t you know that?’

But that proved a difficult question to answer.

It was cold in the car. I wondered if Ben was warm enough. Maybe we’d have to drive again. Just to run the heater and stay warm. I breathed out and watched my breath turn into an icy cloud.

‘So you might still come back?’

‘Are you still willing to pay for a ticket?’

‘You know I am. I won’t be home for another day. At least. But then I’ll check the prices.’

‘From Cairo,’ she said. ‘I’ll travel by ground to Cairo.’

‘I could just wire you enough money.’

‘You could wire it to the American Express office nearest the Cairo airport.’

‘When will you come?’

‘That’s the part I don’t know.’

‘Will he try to stop you?’

‘Not physically. He knows I’m a legal adult. But he will try to talk me out of it. And I’ll need someone to help me. I can’t even pack for myself, not to mention carry heavy bags. He will try to prevent anyone from helping, but that’s probably all. But all the same, I’ll go when he’s not around. It will break his heart. That’s the biggest thing I needed to think about. If I was willing to break his heart. But then I decided … I decided your father raises you, and then he needs to let you go to start a family of your own. Your father is the past. Your partner is the future. It’s nice to keep a good relationship with your father, but for that to happen he must tolerate the partner you choose. It’s just the way life is. So I hope I can have some contact with my father. But that will be up to him.’

That stopped the conversation for a moment. I lay still in the frozen air, watching the clouds of my breath.

‘I hear you say you really are coming. But I’m having trouble letting myself believe it. It feels too good to be true.’

‘You know I never stopped loving you, Russell.’

‘I wish I could honestly say I always knew that.’

‘How did you think those feelings could go? Where did you think they would disappear to?’

I pulled a deep breath. And said it. ‘I had an experience. With a woman I guess I thought I loved. Something bad happened, and she was associated with it in my head. I couldn’t get the two untangled again. It did kind of seem like the feelings went away. And to answer your question, I don’t know where they disappeared to. I only know they disappeared.’

‘Let me ask you this, then. You say you guess you thought you loved her. That’s not a very strong endorsement. Were the feelings you had for her as clear and strong as what we’ve felt?’

‘Not even close.’

‘There’s your answer, then.’

‘I thought you wouldn’t come home if I had Ben. I let you go all over again in my head, because I thought when I told you he was here, that would be that. I thought I had to decide between the two of you if I went through with picking him up. But what else could I do? No one else will take care of him. How could I leave him in that hospital when I know he doesn’t deserve to be there?’

‘If you did,’ she said, ‘if you would, then you would not be the person I thought you were. And then I would not come back, because why try to make a life with a person who would do such a thing as that?’

‘I wish I could be more like you. He’s been acting weird. I can’t understand it. He’s been really quiet. And agreeable. He says everything’s fine. At first I thought they broke his spirit. But I’ve been watching him. And he doesn’t seem broken. He seems kind of … satisfied. I don’t know what to make of it at all.’

‘Maybe he’s learned that the things he used to throw tantrums over were not as big as he thought.’

‘Maybe. I was even thinking maybe he threw tantrums because they worked on Mom. And they worked on me. But maybe when you’re in with a bunch of insane criminals it takes more than just pacing and crying to get attention. Maybe he figured out he’s not the center of the universe.’

‘If you don’t mind my saying so, you’re overthinking it. Be grateful. Hope it lasts. I really hate to say this. I would talk to you all night. But I need to save some minutes on my calling card. I’ll need to let you know …’

I wanted to ask, Are you really coming? But I knew better. She couldn’t promise such a thing. She would if she could. It was better than what I’d thought I had before she called.

After we said our goodbyes, I drove for several more hours. To stay warm. And because I knew I wouldn’t get back to sleep anyway.

IT WAS NEARLY
dark again by the time we neared home.

Ben powered down the window and stuck his head out, craning his neck to see the tall buildings towering above the car.

‘I never saw buildings that tall,’ he said, with a slight push of volume to be heard over the wind.

I was thinking, Wait till you see Manhattan. But I wanted to spring it on him a little at a time.

‘What do you think of them?’

‘They’re fine. Why ask them to be shorter?’

I opened the three locks on my door, and we stepped into the apartment.

‘This is home now. What do you think?’

Ben was already headed for the Christmas village.

He stood in front of it with his mouth open. I locked the door. Walked around him and plugged in the power cord. I heard him suck in his breath when
the
lights came on in the windows of the little houses.

‘Makes me think of Mom,’ he said.

‘Yeah. Me, too.’

‘I’m sleepy. Where do I sleep?’

‘I’ll show you your room. I cleaned out my office for you. I hope it’s OK.’

‘Do I have to share it with anybody?’

‘No. It’s all yours.’

‘Then it’s fine.’

‘I really have to apologize for the fact that I don’t have any of your stuff. We’ll just have to start buying stuff. We’ll buy clothes and whatever else you need. But, here. Let me show you what you’ve got to work with for now.’

I led him into his new bedroom, the second bedroom that used to be my tiny home office. My office was now even tinier, shoved in the corner of my bedroom.

‘Right now it’s just an air mattress on the floor, but we’ll get you a proper bed.’

He reached a hand down to it. Pushed it, then let it spring back.

‘It’s fine,’ he said.

‘You have this little half-bathroom of your own, and I got you soap and a toothbrush. And I put a washcloth and a hand towel in there for you. When you want to take a shower you’ll have to use the big bathroom off the hall.’

‘That’s fine,’ he said.

He pulled off his jeans and shirt and climbed into the
little
bed I’d made him. In his jockey shorts and undershirt. His feet hung off the end.

‘Goodnight, Buddy,’ he said.

‘Hope you sleep well.’

‘It’s really quiet. I like quiet.’

Actually, it’s no more quiet in Jersey City than it is in Manhattan. You can hear the voices of people on the street all night long. You can hear the bass of car radios as they low-ride by. Car doors slamming. Car alarms going off.

But Ben was snoring a few seconds after I flipped off the lights. Before I even stopped staring and let myself out of his room.

IT WAS THE
following day. I woke up to find Ben sitting at my kitchen table eating breakfast cereal. As if he’d lived here all his life.

‘Morning, Buddy,’ he said.

I decided it was time to have a little talk. I’d put it off way too long.

‘I want us to think about a memorial for Mom.’

‘Memorial?’

‘How do I explain a memorial? It’s like a celebration. But a sad celebration. For somebody who died.’

‘Is it like a funeral? Because I don’t like the guns.’

‘No. Nothing like that. We have a box of ashes for Mom. And we have to think about where to put them.’

‘Ashes.’

‘It’s what’s left of somebody after they die.’

‘Where do
you
want to put them?’

‘Well. Sometimes people sprinkle them on a place they think the person who died would like. Or did like.
Sometimes
people take a boat a couple miles out to sea and sprinkle them on the ocean.’

‘Oh, no. I don’t want Mom out there. It’s too cold and wet.’

‘Where do you think she should be?’

‘My room.’

‘Really? You want to keep Mom’s ashes in your room?’

‘I think so. Can I see what they’re like?’

‘Sure.’

I brought the box in from my room. I’d received her ashes in a heavy wooden box, vertical, about the size of a gift box for a big bottle of whiskey. Despite my not liking that analogy. It had a top that lifted off. I hadn’t lifted it.

I set it on the table in front of Ben.

‘Can I open it?’

‘I guess.’

He worked for a moment or two on the snug-fitting lid while I wondered if this would prove to be a mistake. Then it popped off. Inside was a heavy plastic bag with a twist tie at the top. You could see the ashes clearly through the plastic. Ben looked in for a moment or two.

‘That’s all that’s left when somebody dies?’

‘Um. No. Not really. She left us the Christmas village. You said yourself it makes you think of her.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Yeah. Actually. You want to come see?’

He left his breakfast cereal to get soggy and followed me to the hall closet, where we took down the boxes
marked
BEN and RUSTY and carried them into his room.

I told him these were all the parts of us she’d saved, all our lives, and that by saving them and collecting them like this, it was almost like her love for us was all in one place, where we could still see it.

Right, I know. Sounds like a bad greeting card. But it seemed like a good way to present it to Ben.

‘Can I open mine?’

‘Sure.’

So we both started digging around in all that stuff.

It took me about an hour to realize that this was our memorial. Plowing through the ridiculous minutiae she’d treasured, observing, each at our own level, how much she must have loved us to have hung on to all that worthless crap.

ANAT CALLED ME
at about ten in the evening, New York time.

‘I almost missed my plane,’ she said. ‘Waiting for him to go. But I didn’t. I’m on it now. But I have to talk fast. They’re about to close the door, and then I’ll have to hang up. 10.44 a.m. Egypt Air. LaGuardia. I’m sorry. I know Newark is better, but I couldn’t get Newark. Not at the right time. Is it OK? Is it a problem?’

‘It’s fine. LaGuardia is fine.’ I sounded like Ben. Everything is fine.

‘So you’ll be there. What would I do if you weren’t there?’

‘You sound really scared.’

‘I have to go. They’re closing the door.’

Then she hung up.

I sat up all night. I didn’t even try to sleep. I didn’t even bother to lie down. I never even closed my eyes.

‘
THIS IS A
long … thing,’ Ben said. ‘What is this?’

‘This is the Holland Tunnel.’

‘Tunnel,’ he said. ‘Like underground?’

‘Actually, it’s underwater.’

Silence.

He rolled down his window and looked straight up. At the roof of the Holland Tunnel. Then he pulled his head back in again.

He said, ‘I don’t see any water up there.’

I said, ‘Here’s hoping you never do, Buddy.’

He rolled up the window, and turned to me, leveling me with a spontaneous grin. ‘I can’t wait to see Anat,’ he said.

And something broke through in me. For days I had been watching Ben as if he were about to shatter like a china cup. Listening to him say he was fine, but unable to fathom how he could be. And so assuming he was not.

But I looked into his grinning face, and he was. I could tell.

‘So you’re really fine?’ I asked.

‘I’ve told you that like a million times.’

‘I guess I didn’t believe it.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. I guess because nothing’s been fine for so long.’

‘I know!’ Ben said. ‘Everything was so not fine in the hospital. So that’s why when I got out it really was. And now with Anat coming, I’m really happy.’

‘Happy,’ I said. ‘That’s even better than fine.’

‘OK. Then I won’t say I’m fine any more. I’ll say I’m happy.’

Which, according to my career goals, is all anybody ever really needs to be.

We were six or seven miles outside the airport. Snared up in the inevitable traffic. But it didn’t matter. Because we were so early it was ridiculous.

My cell phone rang.

My heart jumped into my throat. Not literally, of course, but there’s a reason behind that expression. I just hadn’t known it until now.

I thought, She changed her mind. I thought, Part of me knew she would.