Carry Me Like Water (49 page)

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice raw and careful, “I’m really sorry it had to—”

He held up his hand to quiet her. “Not another word. Please.” His voice sounded hollow and numb. He walked slowly toward the front door, his body bent with the years. He opened the door, took one last look at Lizzie, then walked out the front door. “I’ll be back by five,” he said softly.

She nodded, unable to speak.

He shut the door behind him.

She had come here expecting some kind of victory. This was not a war anyone had won. She understood perfectly why Jake and Eddie had thought of burning down their childhood home—and
knew why they had been powerless to do it. Nothing could bring down the houses of the past.

There wasn’t much in the house Rose wanted. She wandered from room to room occasionally picking up an object, then setting it back down. Such a large house, she thought, all this space, all this nothingness, all this time in this nothingness. She opened her hand, and grabbed at the air, nothing in her tight fist. Nothing. But she had chosen this house, and chosen to live with the man who bought it. Over twenty-five years in this damn house, and she couldn’t think of anything she wanted to take with her. Rose walked into her bedroom—she and Sam had slept apart for years. She had hated sleeping with him—and yet she had waited for him to suggest they have their own rooms. She did not remember ever having enjoyed sleeping with him. She had long forgotten his touch. The last time they had made love, she had risen from the bed and vomited, not caring whether or not he heard her spilling her guts out over the toilet. The very thought of him inside of her made her fee! like vomiting again. How had she allowed herself to live in this house for so long? She began taking her clothes out of the closet. She examined each dress, wondered where she had bought it, why she had bought it, where she had worn it. So many clothes. She must have thought they were important. Why else did she have so many? In the back of the closet she found a box. She knew what was in it. She placed the box on her bed and stared at the dress. She tried to picture herself on her wedding day. Had she been pretty? How had she looked in this dress? She felt it, stared at it, felt it again, then shredded it with her bare hands. It tore like paper. “My arms are still strong,” she thought.

Jake took a final stroll through the city. He had taken the train in from Palo Alto, walked up Fourth Street, then slowly made his way up Market Street into the Castro.
Last summer, my J was dying. Why am I still living?
He’d lived in this town since he was twenty, and every inch of it was familiar to him. He could daydream and
walk to an appointed destination without even being conscious of where he was going. This town is what he knew, and it was his as much as any town could ever be. It was all he had known for twenty years, and he’d never imagined he’d ever leave. He felt numb and empty, a hollow man. If he cut himself open at that very moment, he was convinced nothing would come out but stale air. No blood. He had never thought of this place as home, not really. There was no home. There was only Joaquin. There was only his brother. He had lost Joaquin, and found his brother on the same night. Jake entered a store and bought a pack of cigarettes. He lit one, sucked the smoke into his lungs, then blew the smoke out of his nose. As he stood on the sidewalk, he noticed a young man staring at him. Jake thought of another life he had lived, a life where he would have smiled at the youth, taken him home, then forgotten he’d ever met or touched or wanted him. He remembered when he had first arrived in this city, how it had made him forget that he’d had a previous life. He had loved that amnesia. And now there was just this dull feeling of a sidewalk under his feet. Why, then, had he come? Why did he need to walk its streets a final time? Why the need to be alone in this town one more time as if he were meeting a lover one last time, looking into the familiar eyes as if seeing them a final time would make the memory easier when the time came to remember? And he would remember. San Francisco had given him Joaquin—and so he was paying it his final respects.
I’m leaving, J.

He found himself standing outside of Tom’s office without even realizing he’d walked there. And becoming conscious of where he was, he entered the reception area. He nodded at the receptionist. “I’d like to see Dr. Michaelsen.”

“Do you have an appointment, Mr. Marsh?” She remembered his name. He thought it was nice to be remembered.

“No, but can you please tell him I’m here?” He sat down and waited.
Maybe I should leave.
He looked at the door, at the patients waiting to see the good doctor.
What the hell am I doing here?

Tom opened the door. “Jake, come on in.” He seemed genuinely happy to see him. He followed Tom into his office.

“How are you feeling?”

“Fine, Tom,” he said. “Well, sad sometimes.” He cleared his throat. “Well, I’m not here about my health.”

“Social visit? I only have two more patients—you want to have coffee?”

He cleared his throat again. “Well, actually, I have to get back to Palo Alto. We’re leaving in the morning.”

“Leaving?”

“Yeah, I’m moving to El Paso with Eddie and—” He couldn’t finish the sentence. His eyes welled up with water, though he made no noise, would not allow himself to sob.

Tom nodded. “I’m sorry to see you go,” he said. “It won’t be the same without you.”

“This town won’t miss me.”

“Not this town, Jake. I meant my life—it won’t be the same without you—or Joaquin.”

Jake smiled crookedly. “You’re a real charmer, Doc.”

“So I’ve been told.”

They sat in an awkward silence for what seemed an eternity to both of them.

Jake rose from his seat. “I just wanted to say good-bye.” He smiled crookedly again, “If you’re ever in El Paso—” He laughed. “You won’t—” He stopped, swallowed hard, then nodded. “Listen, take good care.”

Tom placed his hand on Jake’s shoulder but could not bring himself to speak. In that instant, he hated being a man, hated that he could not bring himself to sob because he fell like sobbing, embrace because he needed to embrace, to speak and to tell this hard and unforgettable man that he had come to respect him—forgive him—and even to love him. “Good-bye, then,” he said slowly and sadly and carefully, the meaning of those words as sad as anything he’d ever spoken.

Jake waved awkwardly, then left the office silently as if he wanted to make no noise as he left, perhaps because then no one, not even himself would notice that he was leaving a whole life behind and the man who most symbolized that life, the man who had taken care of his lover, the man who had told him he was HIV positive. He turned around as he opened the door. He saw that Tom was crying, and he knew he would remember him this way. “You’re a
good doctor,” he said, then shut the door behind him. He smiled to himself. There was someone to say good-bye to after all, he thought as he walked toward the train station. Jake yelled into the street. He listened to what his shout sounded like—then shouted again. It was not always a bad thing to feel pain.

“Are you awake, Eddie?”

He broke out laughing. “I wish to hell I wasn’t.” He placed his head on Maria Elena’s stomach and kissed it. “Are we going to have sex?”

“At this hour of the morning?”

“We used to.”

“We were younger then.”

“Oh, and now we’re so ancient.” He laughed again. “I like to feel your skin. You have a small mole right there.” He touched the inside of her thigh. “You excited?”

“About the move or about where you’re touching me?”

“The move.”

She moaned.

“Is that a yes?”

She moaned again. She heard the baby cry. “Feeding time,” she said. They both laughed.

He turned on the lamp and watched his son nurse.

“Are you watching him or me?”

“Both.”

“Be honest.”

“Mostly him. He’s newer.”

She laughed.

“He’s getting too big to still be nursing. He’s practically walking.”

“I only nurse him at night, now.”

“He eats solid food, Nena.”

“He’s still a baby.”

“He’s almost a toddler.”

“Almost—but not quite.”

“He’s going to be walking—and you’re still going to be breastfeeding him.”

“He’s one year old.”

He smiled as he watched them—then started laughing.

“Why are you laughing?”

“Because I’m scared.”

“Are you, Eddie?”

“Yes.”

“What are you going to do on your last day in Palo Alto, amor?”

“I’m going to take you and Jacob Diego for a walk in the evening and sit in the park and read you a poem.”

“Read me one now,” she said.

He thought a moment, then smiled. He walked out of the room, then reentered waving a book at his wife.

“Where did you find that?” she asked.

“In your secret hiding place.”

“You rat!”

“Shhhh, the baby’s sleeping.”

“He can’t hear.”

“He can feel.”

“I can’t believe you spy on me.”

“I don’t spy on you—I was packing. When one packs, one finds interesting things—and I found this book. It’s a great book, you know?”

She nodded, “I was selfish—I didn’t want to share. I wanted it to be mine.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I won’t read the poem if you don’t want.”

“No, read it.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded.

He opened the book, kissed his wife, kissed his feeding son, and cleared his throat.

“I love you,” she said.

“Shhh.” He cleared his throat again and began reading:

My vision of hell is the large moving van
I am condemned eternally to pack and unpack
as payment for my middle-aged foolishness.
Twice I moved my heavy household coast to coast
and right back, unwilling to give anything up.
Possessions battered from being crated
,
friends lost, things bent beyond straightening.
All for learning; If you’re here, you can’t be there …

Maria Elena listened to her husband’s voice and smiled at him. He was the desert after a storm, calm and clean and smelling of sated earth. There was an innocence about him, an innocence no one could take from him—beautiful—especially when he was lost in what he was doing or reading. She could stare at him for hours, and seeing his face, she could find pieces of her life she had lost. He had written his voice into her skin and listening to him was almost as physical an experience as feeling his hands on her body. She wondered to herself how her life had happened to her, how he had happened to her. “Eres un milagro,” she whispered. She rubbed the back of her baby’s head, and thought it all must be a dream, this child, this man, this light in the room, this bed. It seemed she had forgotten her life before him, and now she was beginning to remember again. She wanted a pan of her life back, wanted to retrieve it and give it to her husband, and give it to her child—and give it to the brother she had tried to pretend no longer existed. Home, she thought, I’m going home. Her heart jumped as if it were reaching for the city of her birth. Place mattered. Brothers mattered. She had dreamed of the river, and she tried to remember what the river was saying. No, it was not the river who had been speaking, but her.
It was a prayer, a prayer to the river. River … Diego … Home … River … Diego … Home.
She stared at her husband. What if he hated it there? What if he hated her for dragging him into a place that was foreign and strange and barren?