Close Your Eyes (5 page)

“I met someone,” said Alex after a few minutes. “Her name is Suzy.”

“Hey, that’s great,” I said. Alex was right: if I focused on something other than my body, the terror receded and my heart stopped its wild thudding.

“We’ve been together a few weeks,” said Alex. “But last night she told me it was over. The whole Iraq thing—she’s just not up for it.”

“Alex …”

“What if I never find her?” said Alex. “Listen to me: Mr. Melodramatic. But really, what if I don’t? I’m tired of watching
Without a Trace
by myself.”

“That
is
pathetic.”

“On Halloween,” said Alex, “I was biking through Hyde Park, and there were all these parents pushing strollers. All these kids in costume, monkeys and bumblebees. And the light was so nice. Dusk, whatever you call it.”

“Hey.” I took his hand. “You’ll find her. You will.” I tried to figure out how to ask my brother why he was going to Iraq. A suicide mission? Some misplaced sense that he should sacrifice himself? I said, “Alex …”

“I want my life to mean something,” said Alex. “That’s why. I didn’t ask for Iraq, but I did ask Doctors Without Borders for something to … to do with myself. I don’t know how to explain it.”

“No, I mean … that does make sense, I guess.”

“I know you don’t feel the same way,” said Alex. “Maybe nobody does. Suzy, she … she didn’t understand why I can’t stop thinking about … what the point is. Why I’m here. And normal people, I guess, they don’t think this way. But I don’t want to stop being myself. I’m proud of wanting to do something amazing, something important with my life.”

“So what I’m doing—”

“That’s not what I’m saying. And while we’re on the subject—”

“What?” I said sharply.

“Don’t you love Gerry?” asked Alex.

“We’re not talking about me,” I said.

“Maybe we should,” said Alex

“No, thanks,” I said.

We sat quietly then, which was something I never did with Gerry, feeling that we should be communicating at all times lest we become one of those couples who never speak. Frankly, it was a pleasure to be with my brother. I didn’t have to worry about him falling out of love with me or loving me so much it could lead to misery. Alex was the only person who understood exactly how I felt, what it was like to grow up without parents.

We never even got our own room at Mort and Merilee’s—the guest room (furnished with mahogany furniture and tasseled curtains) was where we’d sleep whenever we came back to Houston on school vacations. Alex and I never had a place that belonged to us, not after Ocean Avenue.

“Lauren,” said Alex. “I just want you to know some things.”

“Look at these stars,” I said.

“The night of the murder—”

“What a night sky,” I said.

“It’s different this time. Lauren, if you look in the files—”

“Oh my God!” I cried, standing up. For years, my brother had been looking through the case files, trying to solve a mystery that, in my estimation, did not exist. I was so tired of Alex’s attempts to rewrite fact.

“We both know what happened,” I said, “and sometimes I feel like that’s the only thing I
do
know. Mom was—”

“Lauren, please listen,” said Alex desperately.

“Mom was so wonderful,” I said. “Let me remember her the way I want to. I don’t have a dad. I’ve made peace with that. I’ve gone on with my life.”

“Your life,” said Alex scornfully.

I thought about Gerry, our house, and our dog. I didn’t want to look into the shadowy places—the night of the murder, the way love could turn on you. “How can I marry him?” I said. “We both know what can happen, Alex. How it can all just …” I opened my fingers as if releasing a bird, then dropped them to my lap. “How it can all just go wrong.”

“You have to believe in something,” said Alex.

“Why?”

Alex wouldn’t meet my gaze. After a minute, he reached out and took my hand. I watched the campfire. We were high on a ridge, and somewhere beyond us was the sea.

“Okay,” I said. “Okay. Say what you want to. Go ahead.”

Alex swallowed. He squeezed my fingers too hard as he spoke, as though I would escape if given the chance. “In the case files,” he said, speaking quickly, maybe afraid I’d interrupt him, “the detective wrote about household items that were found at the scene of the crime. In other words, they were found in Mom and Dad’s room. I got him to send me a list of the items. One was an earring, a jade earring.”

“Jesus Christ,” I murmured.

“Lauren, please. I’m just asking you to hear me out.”

“Sorry,” I said. “A mysterious jade earring. Go on.”

“Why do you have to be so difficult?” said Alex angrily. “I’m just wondering, Lauren. Why can’t you shut up for once?”

I pulled my hand away, made fists in my lap. “It’s just …” I said. “It’s ridiculous, Alex! An earring? She could have borrowed earrings. Someone could have given them to her—a patient, a friend—who knows?”

Alex pressed his lips together. He breathed out through his nose, then spoke in a measured tone. “Lauren, I need you to listen. For me, okay?”

I nodded. “Okay.”

“So I didn’t remember Mom having any fancy things. I didn’t want to get Dad’s hopes up, so I didn’t tell him anything, but I did ask him if Mom had any expensive jewelry, and he said no, just her engagement diamond. The earring was an antique. I got the police to send it to me, and then I traced its origins. It was bought at Harry Winston in 1968, then sent to a woman named Pauline Hall. They even had her address.”

I felt a twinge of jealousy at the thought of Alex and our father chatting on the phone. It wasn’t that I didn’t
want
a father—I did. But I had loved him so fully, a girl’s love, and he had betrayed us all. I felt a familiar rush of anger and need; they were bound together for me. So as not to be subsumed, I shoved the surging back. In my mind, I pictured a heavy metal door. I closed it with all my strength and tried to listen to Alex.

“I made a list of people named Pauline Hall,” said Alex. “In New York and around New York. And I … I called them. I called them all.”

“Oh, Alex,” I said.

“Please
be quiet
,” he said. He stood, facing away from me.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Alex didn’t say anything. “So that’s it,” he said. He turned back around, his eyes burning. He crossed his arms over his chest. “A dead end, okay? You were right. I just wanted you to know.”

“Is that all?” I said.

“That’s all,” said Alex. Unburdened, he was my brother again: wistful and sad, with really good posture.

“What do you want me to do about all this?” I said.

“I just wanted you to hear me,” said Alex. “I just wanted you to know.”

That night I lay awake with the name Pauline Hall spinning in my head. My heart was beating too fast. I thought I could hold it together but was scared I could not. I climbed from the bunk and took three Tylenol PM tablets. In time, I fell asleep.

4

Alex’s apartment, one half of a duplex, was right underneath Interstate 35. When he had parties, you could sit outside at his splintered picnic table and watch the lights of cars flying by overhead like spaceships. Alex played sad jazz music or heavy metal from his computer speakers and stood by his barbecue, poking meat with giant tongs, usually wearing his favorite yellow T-shirt, which read
GOOD TIMES
.

It was completely dark on the morning I picked up Alex to take him to the airport. Though it was early September, it was clammy and warm, with no hint of fall, which didn’t arrive in Austin until late October. Around Halloween, the weather shifted abruptly from scorching to tepid, then in December to vaguely chilly. January held a few thirty-degree days during which people pulled out parkas and even fur hats, and by March it was hot again. Once every few years it snowed for twenty minutes to an hour, and people crashed their cars or stayed home from work and school to marvel. I had never seen a snowman in Austin.

“Hey,” said Alex when he opened his front door.

“Hey,” I said.

Alex picked up his duffel. It was a flowered bag; Alex had bought it for cheap from REI online. It said
HANNAH
on the side, and sometimes I wondered about the woman who had ordered it and then changed her mind. I saw her as a stewardess from Honolulu, a woman who had finally admitted a wheelie bag was more damn practical.

Alex seemed thin in his worn jeans and black cardigan sweater with a white button-down shirt underneath. He was good-looking in an unkempt way—you wouldn’t guess he was a medical doctor in his Converse sneakers. He looked more like an out-of-work actor or a philosophy graduate student. But Alex stood with his shoulders back and had a loping gait that told the world he was someone important despite his scruffy getup.

I didn’t turn down the radio; it was
Love Songs for the Lonely
, my favorite show. On the drive to Alex’s apartment, the husband of an elderly woman had dedicated Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” to his wife. “She’s sitting right here with me now,” he had told the DJ, “and she’s as beautiful as the day I met her at the Dairy Queen on Hamilton Boulevard.” The radio show was syndicated, but it didn’t really matter in what city (or town) Hamilton Boulevard was located. At least not to me.

“I’ve got to say, I’m excited,” said Alex, settling next to me.

“How nice,” I said, putting the car in gear. Whitney Houston ran out of steam, and the DJ (her name was Mary Helen) began talking to a high school freshman who had been dumped by a baseball player. “My heart hurts for you,” said Mary Helen, “but you have so much happy ahead, honey, and this is just God getting you ready for your real true love.” Mary Helen cued up “Like a Virgin,” which seemed an odd choice.

“What a load of crap,” said Alex, snorting.

“I love this show,” I said.

“I find that really strange.”

“What?”

“You are the least romantic person in America,” said Alex.

I felt a headache gathering behind my eyes. “That isn’t true.”

“Forget I said anything.”

I didn’t answer, but I knew Alex was wrong. I was filled with desire. I read romantic novels. I watched Lifetime television. I wanted love so badly it made me feel sick sometimes, scraped out. But I knew the cost.

The sky lightened as we drove south on Airport Boulevard. “I’ll be honest with you,” I said. “I feel like maybe you won’t come home.”

“Hey.” Alex put his hand on my knee. “Shhh,” he said, which was what he always said when he wanted me to calm down.
Shhh
also meant that he would protect me.

“Even if you marry a beautiful Iraqi,” I said, “come home and tell me in person.”

“I promise.”

“Or a TV reporter. Christiane Amanpour. Is she married?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think she is. But to tell you the truth, Alex, I could see it. She’s similarly dour.”

“I am not dour!” He shook his head, smiling. He smelled so familiar—that dirty-sock funk had been the same since we’d shared the guest room at our grandparents’ Houston house.

“Alex,” I said, “what happened to all our stuff?”

“What stuff?”

“From the house on Ocean Avenue.”

“It’s in a storage locker. I guess if Dad ever gets out, he’ll want some of it.”

I ignored the bait about my father, who was never getting out, as we both knew. “Where?” I said. “Where’s it in storage?”

“White Plains.”

“How do you know this?” I said.

“I’m paying for it,” said Alex.

“Are you kidding me?”

“Gramma and Pops told me to clear it out years ago,” said Alex. “I didn’t. I don’t know why. I haven’t been there. I just called and had them send the bill to me.”

“I only have that one picture of her,” I said.

He knew what I was talking about because he had the same photograph: our mother sitting on the living room couch, a toddler me on her lap, a boy-size Alex to her right. She was reading to us, a Richard Scarry book,
Busy, Busy Town
. Maybe that book was in a cardboard box, too, somewhere in White Plains.

“Where’s the key?” I said.

“Don’t go there without me,” said Alex.

“Why not?”

“Why not? You’d freak out! And you were too young when everything was put in there. You won’t know what’s important and what can be tossed.”

“When you come home,” I said.

“Right,” said Alex. “When I come home.”

Austin-Bergstrom Airport was bustling with early-morning commuters. I turned in to the parking garage, and Alex said, “It’s expensive to park. You can just drop me off,” and I said, “Shhh.”

I carried one strap of Alex’s girlie duffel bag, and he carried the other. “Did you pack any books?” I asked.

“Blue Highways,”
said Alex.

“I loved that in college,” I said. “This is the ultimate blue highway, I guess.”

“I guess,” said Alex.

“Or blue
air
way,” I said.

“Hm,” said Alex, unimpressed, or maybe not listening.

I stood with my hands on my hips as Alex checked in, showing his new passport to the woman behind the counter. I had gone with him to Kinko’s for photographs, and had applied for my first passport as well, in case Alex wanted—or needed—me to visit. I didn’t want to go to Iraq. I didn’t want my brother to go to Iraq. My general feeling about Iraq was: leave them the hell alone.

We walked across shiny floors, past a Swatch shop, a Which Wich? sandwich shop, a Waldenbooks. I noticed a woman with a baby staring at us. Though it had been ten fucking years since the attacks, our coloring still earned us nervous glances at the airport. I wanted to meet the mother’s gaze with defiance but turned away, peering into the window of the bookstore.

“What are you going to read on the plane?” I said. “Let me buy you another book.”

Alex looked at his watch. “Okay,” he said.

I scanned the best sellers, trying to figure out what might bring Alex comfort, or even better, a story that would make him think twice about leaving. What book, I wondered, would make him get off the plane, meet a nice woman who could be my friend and his wife, and encourage him to buy the 3/2 for sale down the street from us? I could even broker the deal and give him the commission for some new clothes.