Here I Am (18 page)

It had been more than eight hours since they'd driven home in silence from the vet's office, four hundred ninety minutes of avoiding each other in the house. There were ingredients, but there was no will, so Jacob microwaved burritos. He arranged a dozen baby carrots that had no chance of being eaten, and a heaping dollop of hummus so Julia could see the amount missing from the container when she returned. He brought the food up to Max's room, knocked, and entered.

“I didn't say come in.”

“I wasn't asking for permission. Just giving you time to take your finger out of your nose.”

Max put his finger into his nose. Jacob put the plate on the desk.

“Wat'cha doin'?”

“I'cha not doin' nothin',” Max said, turning the iPad facedown.

“Seriously, what?”

“Seriously, nothing.”

“What, dirty movies? Buying stuff on my credit card?”

“No.”

“Looking up home euthanasia recipes?”

“Not at all funny.”

“Then what?”

“Other Life.”

“I didn't know you played that.”

“No one plays it.”

“Right. I didn't know you
did
it.”

“I don't, really. Sam won't let me.”

“But the cat's away.”

“I guess so.”

“I won't rat you out.”

“Thanks.”

“Get it? Cat's away? Rat you out?”

“Sure.”

“What's the deal with that, anyway? It's a game?”

“It's not a game.”

“No?”

“It's a community.”

“Well, I don't know about
that,”
Jacob said, unable to resist using his most belittling voice.

“No,” Max said, “you don't.”

“But isn't it more—to my understanding, anyway—more like a bunch of people who pay a monthly membership to gather and explore an, I don't know,
imagined landscape
together?”

“No, it's not like synagogue.”

“Well played.”

“Thanks for the food. See ya.”

“Whatever it is,” Jacob said, trying again, “it looks cool. From what I've been able to see. From a distance.”

Max plugged his speech orifice with a burrito.

“Really,” Jacob said, sidling up. “I'm curious. I know Sam plays—I mean,
does
—this all the time, and I want to see what it's all about.”

“You wouldn't understand.”

“Try me.”

“You wouldn't understand.”

“You realize I won a National Jewish Book Award at the age of twenty-four?”

Max turned the iPad faceup, swiped it bright, and said, “I'm currently recruiting work valences for a resonance promotion. Then I can barter for some psychic upholstery and—”

“Psychic upholstery?”

“I wonder if the winner of an
actual
National Book Award would need to ask.”

“And that's you?” Jacob asked, touching an elflike creature.

“No. And don't touch the screen.”

“Which one is you?”

“None of them is me.”

“Which one is Sam?”

“None.”

“Which is Sam's person?”

“His avatar?”

“OK.”

“There. By the vending machine.”

“What? The tan girl?”

“She's a Latina.”

“Why is Sam a Latina?”

“Why are you a white man?”

“Because I didn't have a choice.”

“Well, he did.”

“Can I take her for a spin?”

Max hated the feeling of his father's hand on his shoulder. It was repulsive to him—an experience somewhere near the middle of the spectrum whose opposing poles were runny eggs and thirty thousand people demanding gratification when the Nationals Park Kiss Cam imprisoned his mom and him in the Jumbotron.

“No,” he said, shaking his shoulder free, “you can't.”

“What's the worst that could happen?”

“You could kill her.”

“Obviously I won't. But even if I
did
, which I won't, can't you just put in some more quarters and continue?”

“It took Sam four months to develop her skill set, bounty of armaments, and psychic resources.”

“It's taken me forty-two years.”

“Which is why you shouldn't let anyone take your controls.”

“Maxy…”

“
Max
is fine.”

“Max. He who gave you life is begging you.”

“No.”

“I command you to let me partake in Sam's community.”

Max let out a deep, dramatic sigh.

“Two minutes,” he said. “And only aimless wandering.”

“Aimless Wandering is my middle name.”

With great reluctance, Max handed Jacob the iPad.

“To move, just slide your thumb in the direction you want to go. To pick something up—”

“My thumb is the squat one on the end, right?”

Max didn't respond.

“I'cha
kidding
, dude.”

“Keep your eyes on the road.”

When Jacob was a kid, games had one button. They were simple, and fun, and no one felt that they were in any way lacking. No one felt a need to crouch, to pivot, to switch weapons. You had a gun, you shot the bastards, you high-fived your friends. Jacob didn't want all these options—the more control available, the less control he felt.

“You kinda suck at this,” Max said.

“Maybe it's this game that kinda sucks.”

“It's not a game, and it made more money in one day than every book published in America that entire year combined.”

“I'm sure that isn't true.”

“I'm sure it is, because there was an article about it.”

“Where?”

“The Arts section.”

“The
Arts
section? Since when do you read the Arts section, and since when were video games art?”

“It's not a game.”

“And even if it did make all that money,” Jacob said, sliding his feet into the stirrups of his high horse, “so what? What is that even a measure of?”

“How much money it made.”

“Which is a measure of what?”

“I don't know, how important it is?”

“There's a difference, I'm sure you realize, between
prevalence
and
importance.”

“I'm sure you realize that I don't even know what
prevalence
means.”

“Kanye West is not more culturally important than—”

“Yes he is.”

“—than Philip Roth.”

“First of all, I've never even heard of that person. Second, Kanye might not be valuable to you, but he's definitely more important to the world.”

Jacob remembered the period when Max was obsessed with relative values—
Would you rather have a handful of diamonds or a houseful of
silver?
For a moment, which disappeared as it emerged, he saw the smaller Max.

“I guess we look at things differently,” Jacob said.

“That's right,” Max said. “I look at things correctly. You don't. That's a difference. How many people watch your TV show every week?”

“It's not my show.”

“The show that you write for.”

“That's not a simple question. There's people who watch it when it's first on, then people who watch other showings, and DVR—”

“A few million?”

“Four.”

“Seventy million people play this game. And they had to
buy
it, not just turn on the TV when they didn't feel like spending time with their kids or making out with their wives.”

“How old are you?”

“Basically eleven.”

“When I was your age—”

Max pointed at the screen.

“Pay attention to what you're doing, Dad.”

“Of course I am.”

“Just don't—”

“Under control.”

“Dad—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeahs,” he said, then turned his attention from the iPad to Max. “They're a band.”

“Dad!”

“You really inherited Mom's talent for worrying.”

And then there was a sound Jacob had never heard before—a cross between a screeching tire and the dying animal it just ran over.

“Oh shit!” Max screamed.

“What?”

“Oh
shit
!”

“Hold on, is that blood mine?”

“It's
Sam's
! You killed him!”

“No I didn't. I just smelled some flowers.”

“You just inhaled a Bouquet of Fatality!”

“Why would there be a
bouquet of fatality
?”

“So assholes have a stupid way to die!”

“
Easy
, Max. It was an honest mistake.”

“Who cares if it was honest!”

“And with all due respect—”

“Oh shit, shit, shit!”

“—it's a game.”

Jacob shouldn't have said that. Clearly he shouldn't have.

“With all due respect,” Max said with scary composure, “fuck you.”

“What did you just say?”

“I said”—Max was unable to look his father in the eye, but he had no trouble repeating himself—“
fuck you
.”

“Don't you
ever
speak to me like that.”

“Too bad I didn't inherit Mom's talent for eating shit.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.”

“Didn't sound like nothing.”

“Nothing, OK?”

“No,
not
OK. Mom does a lot of things, and eating shit is not one of them. And yes, I know you weren't speaking literally.”

Had Max also heard them fighting? The broken glass? Or was he merely fishing, seeing what kind of response he might get? What kind of response did he want? And what was Jacob prepared to give?

Jacob stamped to the door, then turned back and said, “When you're ready to apologize, I'll be—”

“I'm
dead,”
Max said. “The dead don't apologize.”

“You aren't
dead
, Max. There are
actual
dead people in the world, and you aren't one of them. You are upset. Upset and dead are different states.”

The phone rang—a reprieve. Jacob was expecting it to be Julia; when away, she always checked in before the kids went to bed.

“Hello?”

“Hi.”

“Benjy?”

“Hey, Dad.”

“Is everything OK?”

“Yeah.”

“It's late.”

“I'm in my pj's.”

“Do you need anything, buddy?”

“No. Do you?”

“I'm fine.”

“You just wanted to say hi before bed?”

“
You
called
me
.”

“Actually, I wanted to talk to Max.”

“Now? On the phone?”

“Yeah.”

“Benjy wants to talk to you,” Jacob said, handing the phone to Max.

“Could we have a little privacy?” Max asked.

The absurdity of it, the agony and beauty of it, almost brought Jacob to his knees: these two independent consciousnesses, neither of which existed ten and a half years ago, and existed only because of him, could now not only operate free of him (that much he'd known for a long time), but demand freedom.

Jacob picked up the iPad and left his offspring to talk. While he fiddled, he accidentally maximized the window behind Other Life. It was a discussion board, with the heading “Can You Humanely Euthanize a Dog at Home?” The first comment his eyes fell upon read: “I had the same problem, but with a grown dog. It's so sad. My mum took Charlie to our friend, a farmer down the way, who said he would be able to shoot him. It was much easier for us. He took him for a walk, talked to him, and shot him while they were walking.”

Instead of calling to check on Benjy, who was obviously fine, Julia fussed with her hair, sucked in her cheeks, tugged down her shirt, scrutinized her makeup, pressed her belly, squinted. She texted Mark, if only to create a hard stop to her self-loathing:
confirmed kid is alive. ready whenever
. By the time she got to the hotel bar, he was already at a table.

“Spacious accommodations?” he asked as she took the seat across from him.

“A room of my own? An
oven
would feel spacious.”

“Sounds like you were born seventy-five years too late.” And then, with a faux wince: “Too soon?”

“Let's see, my father-in-law would say it's absolutely fine, so long as the person making the joke doesn't have a cell of goyish blood. Then Jacob would disagree. Then they'd switch positions and fight with twice the energy.”

The waiter approached.

“A couple of glasses of white?” Mark suggested.

“Sounds great,” Julia said. “Are you going to have one, too?”

Mark laughed and held up two fingers.

“How is Irv? Seems like he's stirred up a lot of shit.”

“He's a human plunger. But it beats being ignored.”

“Being universally reviled?”

“Talking about him is exactly what he'd want us to be doing right now. Let's not give him the satisfaction.”

“Moving along.”

“So how's it going?”

“What? The divorce?”

“The divorce, your rediscovered interior monologue, the whole thing.”

“It's a process.”

“Isn't that how Cheney described torture?”

“You know that old joke: ‘Why are divorces so expensive?' ”

“Why?”

“Because they're worth it.”

“I thought that's what they said about chemo.”

“Well, both make you bald,” he said, holding back his hair.

“You aren't bald.”

“Please, God, not
distinguished.”

“Not even distinguished.”

“Just taller than my hair.”

“You're all the same: endlessly experimenting with facial hair configurations, obsessed with thinning hair where there isn't any. And yet indifferent to the paunch spilling over your belt.”

“I am a very bald man. But that's not the point. The point is, divorce is profoundly expensive—emotionally, logistically, financially—and it's worth it. But just.”

“Just?”

“It's no landslide. It just barely ekes it out.”

“But you eke it out with your life, right?”

“Better to get out of the building with burns over ninety percent of your body than perish inside. But best to have left before the fire.”

“Yeah, but it's cold outside.”

“Where's your burning house? Nunavut?”

“I always imagine house fires in winter.”

“And you?” Mark asked. “What's the news on Newark Street?”

“You're not the only one in a process.”

“What's going on?”

“Nothing,” she said, unfolding the napkin.

“Nunavut?”

“What?”

“You'll be sharing none of it?”

“It's truly nothing,” she said, refolding it.

“So, fine.”

“I shouldn't talk about it.”

“You probably shouldn't.”

“But even though we haven't started drinking, I've got a psychosomatic buzz.”

“This is going to be a bomb, isn't it?”

“I can trust you, right?”

“I suppose it depends.”

“Seriously?”

“Only a trustworthy person would admit to his unreliability.”

“Forget it.”

“I cheated on my taxes last year, OK? Badly. I deducted an office I don't even have. Now you can blackmail me, if it comes to that.”

“Why would you cheat on your taxes?”

“Because it's an honor to contribute to our functioning society, but only to a point. Because I'm a schmuck. Because my accountant is a schmuck and told me I could. I don't know why.”

“The other day I was at home and heard a buzzing. There was a cell phone on the floor.”

“Oh shit.”

“What?”

“There is not a single story about a cell phone that ends well.”

“I opened it up and there were some pretty sexually explicit messages.”

“Texts, or images?”

“Does it make a difference?”

“An image is what it is. A text could be anything.”

“Licking cum out of assholes. That kind of stuff.”

“Image?”

“Words,” Julia said. “But if you ask for the context, I'm going to call the IRS.”

The drinks arrived, and the waitress scurried off. Julia wondered how much, if anything, she had heard, what she might tell the hostess, what young, unencumbered women might have a laugh that night at the expense of the Bloch family.

“I confronted Jacob about it, and he said it was just talk. Just some seriously overheated flirting.”

“Overheated? Licking cum out of assholes is Dresden.”

“It's not good.”

“And who was at the other end of them?”

“A director he works with.”

“Not Scorsese…”

“
That's
too soon.”

“Seriously, Julia, I am so very sorry to hear this. And shocked.”

“Maybe it's for the best. Like you said, the door has to open to light up the dark room.”

“I didn't say that.”

“Didn't you?”

“Do you believe him?”

“In what sense?”

“That it was just words.”

“I do.”

“And does the distinction matter to you?”

“Between talking and doing? Sure it matters.”

“How much does it matter?”

“I don't know.”

“He cheated on you, Julia.”

“He didn't
cheat
on me.”

“Too big a word for having had sex with another woman?”

“He didn't have sex with another woman.”

“Of course he did. And even if he didn't, he did. And you know it.”

“I'm not excusing, or minimizing, what he did. But there's a difference.”

“Writing to another woman like that is a betrayal, no hairs to split. I'm sorry, but I can't sit here and allow you to think you don't deserve better.”

“It was only words.”

“And if you'd written those ‘only words'? How do you think he'd have reacted?”

“If he knew that we were having this drink, he'd have a grand mal seizure.”

“Why?”

“Because that's how insecure he is.”

“In a marriage with three children?”

“He's the fourth.”

“I don't get it.”

“What?”

“If he were only pathologically insecure, OK. He is who he is. And if he'd only cheated, I suppose I can see the way back from that. But the combination? How can you accept it?”

“Because of the boys. Because I'm forty-three years old. Because I have almost twenty years of history with him, almost all of which is good history. Because regardless of the stupidity or evil of his mistake, he's a fundamentally good person. He is. Because I've never sexted with anyone, but I've done my share of flirting and fantasizing. Because I often haven't been a good wife, often on purpose. Because I'm weak.”

“Only the weakness is persuasive.”

A thought walked in, a memory: checking the boys for ticks on the porch of the rental in Connecticut. They passed the kids back and forth—looking in armpits, through the hair, between toes—she and Jacob double-checking each other's work, always finding ticks the other missed. She was good at removing them in their entirety, and he was good at distracting the boys with funny impressions of their mother shopping in the supermarket. Why that memory right then?

“What do you fantasize about?” Mark asked.

“What?”

“You said you've done your share of fantasizing. About what?”

“I don't know,” she said, taking a drink. “I was just talking.”

“I know. And I'm just asking. What do you fantasize about?”

“That's not of your business.”

“
Not
of my business?”

“None.”

“Drunk on your weakness?”

“I don't find you cute.”

“Of course not.”

“Or charming. Despite all of the effort.”

“It's effortless to be this charmless.”

“Or sexy.”

Mark took a long drink, draining the remaining half of his glass, then said, “Leave him.”

“I'm not going to
leave
him.”

“Why not?”

“Because marriage is the thing you don't give up on.”

“No, life is.”

“And because I'm not you.”

“No, but you're
you.”

“There is not a part of me that wishes I were alone.”

But as the words entered the world, she knew they were false. She thought about her one-bedroom dream homes, the subconscious blueprints for her departure. They predated the sexting, by years.

“And I'm not going to destroy my family,” she added, at once a non sequitur and the logical conclusion to the line of thought.

“By fixing your family?”

“By ending it.”

Just then, at the best, or worst, possible moment, Billie came running up, giddy or asthmatic.

“I'm sorry to interrupt—”

“Is everything OK?”

“Micronesia has a n—”

“Slow down.”

“Micronesia has a nu—”

“Breathe.”

She reached for one of the glasses and took a gulp.

“That's not water,” she said, her hand to her chest.

“It's chardonnay.”

“I just broke the law.”

“We'll testify to your character,” Mark said.

“Micronesia has a nuclear weapon!”

“What?”

“Last year Russia invaded Mongolia. The year before was bird flu. Usually they wait until the second afternoon, but. We have a nuke! Isn't that cool! So lucky!”

“What do you mean we have a nuke?” Mark asked.

“We need to convene the delegation.”

“What?”

“Pay for your drinks and keep up with me.”

Mark put some cash on the table and the three race-walked toward the elevators.

“The program facilitators released a statement that a weapons dealer was caught attempting to smuggle an armed suitcase bomb through Yap Airport.”

“Yap Airport?”

“Yeah, I don't know, that's what it's called.”

“Why through Micronesia?” Mark asked.

“Precisely,”
Billie said, although not one of the three knew even approximately
what that meant. “We've already started to get offers from Pakistan, Iran, and, weirdly, Luxembourg.”

“Offers?” Mark asked.

“They want us to sell them the bomb.” And then, to Julia: “You understand, right?”

Julia gave an uncertain nod.

“So explain it to him later. It's a whole new ball game!”

“Let's round up the kids,” Julia said to Mark.

“I'll get the ones on eleven, you get the ones on twelve. Meet in your room?”

“Why mine?”

“Fine, mine.”

“No, mine is fine, I just—”

“Mark's room,” Billie said.

Mark got on the elevator. Billie held Julia back for a moment.

“Is everything OK?” Billie asked when the elevator doors closed.

“It's confusing to have a nuclear weapon.”

“I meant you.”

“What about me?”

“Are you OK?”

“Why do you ask?”

“You look like you're about to cry.”

“Me? No.”

“Oh, OK.”

“I don't think I am?”

But maybe she was. Maybe the artificial emergency released trapped feelings about the real emergency. There was a trauma center in her brain—she had no Dr. Silvers to explain that to her, but she had the Internet. The most unexpected situations would set it off, and then all thoughts and perception rushed toward it. At the center was Sam's injury. And at the center of that—the vortex into which all thoughts and perceptions were pulled—was the moment when Jacob carried him into the house, saying, “Something happened,” and she saw more blood than there was but couldn't hear Sam's screaming, and for a moment, no longer than a moment, she lost control. For a moment she was untethered from rationality, from reality, from herself. The soul departs the body at the moment of death, but there is a yet more complete abandoning:
everything
departed her body at the moment she saw her child's flowing blood.

Jacob looked at her, sternly, hard-hearted, godlike, and made each word a sentence: “Get. Yourself. Together.
Now.”
The sum of everything she hated him for would never surpass her love for him in that moment.

He put Sam in her arms and said, “We'll call Dr. Kaisen on the way to the emergency room.”

Sam looked at Julia with a prehuman terror and screamed, “Why did that happen? Why did that happen?” And pleaded, “It's funny. It's funny, right?”

She gripped Sam's eyes with her eyes, held them hard, and didn't say, “It will be OK,” and didn't say nothing. She said, “I love you, and I'm here.”

The sum of everything she hated herself for would never surpass her knowledge that in the most important moment of her child's life, she'd been a good mother.

And then, as quickly as it had seized control, Julia's trauma center relented. Maybe it was tired. Maybe it was merciful. Maybe she had looked away and looked back, and remembered that she was in the world. But how had the last thirty minutes passed? Had she taken the elevator or the stairs? Had she knocked on the door of Mark's room or was it open?

The debate was under way and roiling. Did anyone notice her absence? Her presence?