Here I Am (9 page)

Sam was brought back to the other side of the screen by a knocking.

“Go away.”

“Fine.”

“What?” he asked, opening the door for Max.

“Just going away.”

“What's that?”

“A plate of food.”

“No it isn't.”

“Toast is food.”

“Why the hell would I want toast?”

“To plug your ears?”

Sam gestured for Max to come into the room.

“They're talking about me?”

“
Oh
yeah.”

“Bad things?”

“They definitely aren't singing ‘For He's a Jolly Good Fellow,' or whatever.”

“Is Dad disappointed?”

“I'd say so.”

Sam went back to his screen, while Max nonchalantly tried to absorb the details of his brother's room.

“In me?” Sam asked without turning to face his brother.

“What?”

“Disappointed in me?”

“I thought that's what you meant.”

“He can be such a pussy.”

“Yeah, but Mom can be such a dick.”

Sam laughed. “Absolutely true.” He logged off and spun to face Max. “They're peeling off the Band-Aid so slowly, new hairs have time to grow and get stuck to it.”

“Huh?”

“I wish they'd just get divorced already.”

“Divorced?” Max asked, his body rerouting blood to the part of the brain that conceals panic.

“Obviously.”

“Really?”

“What are you, ignorant?”

“Is that like stupid?”

“Not-knowing.”

“No.”

“So,” Sam asked, running his finger around the frame of his iPad, around the rectangular tear in the physical world, “who would you choose?”

“For what?”

“
Choose
. To live with.”

Max didn't like this.

“Don't kids just, like, split time, or whatever?”

“Yeah, it would begin like that, but then, you know, it always becomes a choice.”

Max hated this.

“I guess Dad's more fun,” he said. “And I'd get in trouble a lot less. And probably have more cool stuff and screen time—”

“To enjoy before you die of scurvy, or melanoma from never putting on sunscreen, or just get sent to jail for getting to school late every single day.”

“Do they send you to jail for that?”

“It's definitely the law that you have to go.”

“I'd also miss Mom.”

“What about her?”

“That she's her.”

Sam didn't like this.

“But I'd miss Dad if I went with Mom,” Max said, “so, I guess I don't know. Who would you choose?”

“For you?”

“For yourself. I'd just want to be where you are.”

Sam hated this.

Max tilted his head up and looked at the ceiling, encouraging the tears to roll back under his eyes. It appeared almost robotic, but his inability to directly face such direct human emotion was what made him human. Or at least his father's son.

Max put his hands in his pockets—a Jolly Rancher wrapper, a stubby pencil from a mini golf outing, a receipt whose type had vanished—and said, “So I went to a zoo once.”

“You've been to the zoo a lot of times.”

“It's a joke.”

“Ah.”

“So I went to a zoo once, because I'd heard it was like the greatest zoo in the world. And, you know, I wanted to see it for myself.”

“Must have been pretty spectacular.”

“Well, the weird thing is, there was only one animal in the entire zoo.”

“No kidding.”

“Yeah. And it was a dog.”

“Argus?”

“You just screwed up my timing.”

“Do the last line again.”

“I'll just start from the beginning.”

“OK.”

“So I went to a zoo once, because I'd heard it was the greatest zoo in the world. But the thing is, there was only one animal in the entire zoo. And it was a dog.”

“Jeez!”

“Yeah, turns out it was a shih tzu. Get it?”

“Really funny,” Sam said, unable to laugh, despite finding it genuinely really funny.

“You get it, though, right? Shih tzu?”

“Yeah.”

“Shih. Tzu.”

“Thanks, Max.”

“Am I being annoying?”

“Not at all.”

“I am.”

“Just the opposite.”

“What's the opposite of annoying?”

Sam tilted his head up, darted his eyes toward the ceiling, and said, “Thanks for not asking if I did it.”

“Oh,” Max said, rubbing the erased receipt between his thumb and forefinger. “It's because I don't care.”

“I know. You're the only one who doesn't care.”

“Turns out it was a shit family,” Max said, wondering where he would go after leaving the room.

“That's not funny.”

“Maybe you don't get it.”

“Dad?” Benjy said, entering the kitchen yet again, his grandmother in tow. He always said
Dad
with a question mark, as if asking where his father was.

“Yeah, buddy?”

“When you made dinner last night, my broccoli was touching my chicken.”

“And you were just thinking about that?”

“No. All day.”

“It mixes in your stomach anyway,” Max said from the threshold.

“Where'd you come from?” Jacob asked.

“Mom's vagina hole,” Benjy said.

“And you're going to die anyway,” Max continued, “so who cares what touches the chicken, which is dead anyway.”

Benjy turned to Jacob: “Is that true, Dad?”

“Which part?”

“I'm going to die?”

“Why, Max? In what way was this necessary?”

“I'm going to die!”

“Many, many years from now.”

“Does that really make a difference?” Max asked.

“It could be worse,” Irv said. “You could be Argus.”

“Why would it be worse to be Argus?”

“You know, one paw in the oven.”

Benjy let out a plaintive wail, and then, as if carried on a light beam from wherever she'd been, Julia opened the door and rushed in.

“What happened?”

“What are you doing back?” Jacob asked, hating everything about the moment.

“Dad says I'm gonna die.”

“In fact,” Jacob said with a forced laugh, “what I
said
was, you're going to live a very, very,
very
long life.”

Julia brought Benjy onto her lap and said, “Of course you aren't going to die.”

“Then make that
two
frozen burritos,” Irv said.

“Hi, darling,” Deborah said to Julia. “It was beginning to feel a bit estrogen-starved in here.”

“Why did I get a boo-boo, Mama?”

“You don't have a boo-boo,” Jacob said.

“On my knee,” Benjy said, pointing at nothing.
“There.”

“You must have fallen,” Julia said.

“Why?”

“There is literally no boo-boo.”

“Because falling is part of life,” Julia said.

“It's the epitome of life,” Max said.

“Nice vocab, Max.”

“Epitome?”
Benjy asked.

“Essence of,” Deborah said.

“Why is falling the epitome of life?”

“It isn't,” Jacob said.

“The earth is always falling toward the sun,” Max said.

“Why?” Benjy asked.

“Because of gravity,” Max said.

“No,” Benjy said, addressing his question to Jacob. “Why isn't falling the epitome of life?”

“Why
isn't
it?”

“Yes.”

“I'm not sure I understand your question.”

“Why?”

“Why am I not sure that I understand your question?”

“Yeah, that.”

“Because this conversation has become confusing, and because I'm just a human with severely limited intelligence.”

“Jacob.”

“I'm dying!”

“You're overreacting.”

“No I amn't!”

“No you
aren't
.”

“I amn't.”

“
Aren't
, Benjy.”

Deborah: “
Kiss it
, Jacob.”

Jacob kissed Benjy's nonexistent boo-boo.

“I can carry our refrigerator,” Benjy said, not quite sure if he was ready to be done with his crying.

“That's wonderful,” Deborah said.

“Of course you can't,” Max said.

“Max said of course I can't.”

“Give the kid a break,” Jacob whispered to Max at conversational volume. “If he says he can lift the fridge, he can lift the fridge.”

“I can carry it far away.”

“I've got it from here,” Julia said.

“I can control the microwave with my mind,” Max said.

“No
way
,” Jacob said to Julia, too casually to be believable. “We're doing great. We've been having a great time. You walked in at a bad moment. Unrepresentative. But everything is cool, and this is your day.”

“Off from
what
?” Benjy asked his mother.

“What?” Julia asked.

“What do you need a day off from?”

“Who said I needed a day off?”

“Dad just did.”

“I said we were giving you a day off.”

“Off from
what
?” Benjy asked.

“Exactly,” Irv said.

“Us, obviously,” Max said.

So much sublimation: domestic closeness had become intimate distance, intimate distance had become shame, shame had become resignation, resignation had become fear, fear had become resentment, resentment had become self-protection. Julia often thought that if they
could just trace the string back to the source of their withholding, they might actually find their openness. Was it Sam's injury? The never-asked question of how it happened? She'd always assumed they were protecting each other with that silence, but what if they were trying to injure, to transfer the wound from Sam to themselves? Or was it older? Did the withholding from each other predate meeting each other? Believing that would change everything.

The resentment that was fear, that was resignation, that was shame, that was distance, that was closeness, was too heavy to carry all day, every day. So where to put it down? On the kids, of course. Jacob and Julia were both guilty, but Jacob was guiltier. He'd become increasingly snippy with them, because he knew they would take it. He pushed, because they wouldn't push back. He was afraid of Julia, but he wasn't afraid of them, so he gave them what was hers.

“Enough!” he said to Max, his voice rising to a growl. “Enough.”

“Enough yourself,” Max said.

Jacob and Julia met eyes, registering that first act of talking back.

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing.”

Jacob let it rip: “I'm not discussing things with you, Max. I'm tired of discussion. We discuss
too much
in this family.”

“Who's discussing?” Max asked.

Deborah went to her son and said, “Take a breath, Jacob.”

“I take too many breaths.”

“Let's go upstairs for a second,” Julia said.

“No. That's what
we
do with
them
. Not what
you
do with
me
.” Then, turning back to Max: “Sometimes, in life, in a family, you have to just do the right thing without endlessly parsing and negotiating. You get with the program.”

“Yeah, get with the pogrom,” Irv said, imitating his son.

“Dad, just stop. OK?”

“I can lift the whole kitchen,” Benjy said, touching his father's arm.

“Kitchens aren't liftable,” Jacob said.

“They are.”

“No, Benjy. They are not.”

“You're so
strong
,” Julia said, her fingers wrapped around each of Benjy's wrists.

“Immolated,” Benjy said. And then, in a whisper: “
I can lift our kitchen
.”

Max looked to his mother. She closed her eyes, unwilling or unable to protect him as she did his little brother.

A godsent dogfight on the street brought everyone to the window. It wasn't actually a fight, just two dogs barking at a smug squirrel on a branch. Still, godsent. By the time the family reassumed positions in the kitchen, the previous ten minutes felt ten years old.

Julia excused herself and went up to the shower. She never showered in the middle of the day, and was surprised by the force of the hand that guided her there. She could hear sound effects coming from Sam's room—he was obviously ignoring the first commandment of his exile—but she didn't stop.

She closed and locked the door of the bathroom, put down her bag, undressed, and examined herself in the mirror. Reaching her arm to the sky, she could follow a vein as it traversed the underside of her right breast. Her chest had sunk, her belly had protruded. These things had happened in tiny, imperceptible increments. The wisps of pubic hair reaching to her belly had darkened—the skin itself seemed to have. None of it was news, but process. She had observed, and felt, the unwanted renovation of her body, at least since Sam was born: the expansion and ultimate shrinking of her breasts, the settling and pockmarking of her thighs, the relaxing of all that was firm. Jacob had told her, on their second visit to the inn, and on other occasions, that he loved her body exactly as it was. But despite believing him, some nights she felt a need to apologize to him.

And then she remembered it. Of course she did: it was put there for her to remember at this moment. She didn't know it at the time. She didn't know why she, who had never stolen anything in her life, was stealing. This was why.

She raised one foot onto the sink and held the doorknob to her mouth, warming and wetting it with her breathing. She parted the lips of her pussy and pressed it there, gentle at first, then less so, starting to spin the knob. She felt the first wave of something good go through her, and her legs weakened. She squatted, pulled down the neck of her shirt, and exposed one breast. Then she re-wet the knob with her tongue and found its place between her lips again, pressing tiny circles against her clit, then just tapping it there, liking how the warm metal began to stick to her skin, to pull at it a little each time.

She was on her hands and knees. No. She was standing. Where was she? Outside. Yes. Leaning against her car. In a parking lot. In a field. No, bent, the top half of her body across the car's backseat, her feet on the earth. Her pants and underwear were pulled down only far enough to expose her ass. She pressed her face into the seat and pushed her ass out. She spread her legs as wide as the pants would allow. She wanted them held together. She wanted it to be difficult. They could be discovered at any moment. You have to be fast, she told him. Him? Just fuck me hard. It was Jacob. Just make me come. Just fuck me how you want, Jacob, and walk away. Just leave me here with your cum dripping down my thighs. Fuck me and go. No. It shifted. Now she was in the bespoke hardware showroom. No men. Only doorknobs. She ground the knob into her clit, licked three fingers, and slid them inside to feel the contractions as she came.

She felt a sudden thud, like the violent landing that would sometimes jerk her from near-sleep. But it wasn't that—she wasn't crashing onto the floor; something was crashing onto her. What the hell was going on? Had too much blood rushed to her waist too quickly, causing some kind of neurological event? Masturbation was about mental exertion, but she was suddenly at the mercy of her mind.

Through the ceiling of her pine coffin she could see Sam standing above her, so handsome in his suit, a shovel in hand. She didn't choose this. It didn't bring her pleasure. What a beautiful boy. What a beautiful man. It's OK, love. OK, OK, OK. She moaned, and he wailed, both of them animals. He scooped another shovelful of dirt and tipped it onto her. So this is what it's like. Now I know, and nothing will be different.

And then Sam left.

And Jacob and Max and Benjy left.

All her men left.

And then more dirt, this time from the shovels of strangers, four at a time.

And then they left.

And she was alone, in the tiniest house of her life.

She was brought back to the world, back to life, by a buzzing—it shook her free from her unchosen fantasy, and she was hit by the full absurdity of what she was doing. Who did she think she was? Her in-laws downstairs, her son down the hall, her IRA bigger than her savings account. She didn't feel ashamed; she felt stupid.

Another buzz.

She couldn't place its source.

It was a phone, but not a buzz she'd ever heard before.

Did Jacob get Sam a smartphone to replace the hand-me-down flip phone on which he'd been texting at Joseph Mitchell speed for the last year? They'd discussed the possibility of doing so for his bar mitzvah, but that was still weeks off, and before Sam had gotten into trouble, and anyway, they'd rejected the idea. Too much already pulling everyone too far into the noisy elsewhere. The experiment with Other Life had all but kidnapped Sam's consciousness.

She heard the buzz.

She searched the wicker basket full of toiletry odds and ends, the medicine cabinet: small and huge bottles of Advil, nail polish remover, organic tampons, Aquaphor, hydrogen peroxide, rubbing alcohol, Benadryl, Neosporin, Polysporin, children's ibuprofen, Sudafed, Purell, Imodium, Colace, amoxicillin, aspirin, triamcinolone acetonide cream, lidocaine cream, Dermoplast spray, Debrox drops, saline solution, Bactroban cream, floss, vitamin E lotion…all the things bodies might have a need for. When did bodies develop so many needs? For so many years she needed nothing.

She heard the buzz.

Where was it? She might have been able to convince herself that it was coming from the neighbors', on the other side of the wall, or even that she'd imagined it, but it buzzed again, and this time she could place the sound in the corner, by the floor.

She got on her hands and knees. In the basket of magazines? Behind the toilet? She reached her hand around the bowl, and no sooner had she touched it than it buzzed again, as if touching her back. Whose phone was this? One final buzz: a missed call from
JULIA
.

Julia?

But
she
was Julia.

what happened to you?