Authors: Kim van Alkemade
Rachel told herself to nod her head, to smile like she knew what Naomi was talking about, hoping her confusion didn’t show. She managed to say, “Was there enough?”
Naomi nodded. “I don’t know how much you had from your mother’s insurance, but I think there’s still some left. The Home gets to keep it, though, Nurse Dreyer told me. Whatever’s in a kid’s account, if they run off, the Home keeps it. Too bad Sam
couldn’t have figured a way to get his share of the insurance like you did.” Naomi seemed to be expecting a reply. Rachel’s brain froze between trying to figure out what just happened and simply being amazed. It was like witnessing a magic trick.
“I didn’t tell you because I thought you’d try to talk me out of running away,” Rachel said. Would that be enough? She hoped so. If Naomi never knew the truth, they could be friends again. More than friends. They could be the way Mary had been with Sheila. Sentences from their letters scrolled across Rachel’s mind. Thinking of them with Naomi beside her made it hard for Rachel to breathe.
“I guess you were right then, because I would’ve tried talking you out of it. After what we did that night, the last thing in the world I wanted was to let you go. I can’t tell you how much I missed you and worried about you. Seems like I thought about you every single day.”
“I thought about you, too,” Rachel said, reading the hurt in Naomi’s eyes.
“Oh well, you’re here now, come back to me after all.” Naomi put her hands on either side of Rachel’s face. “You have come back to me, haven’t you?”
It was that easy. All Rachel had to do was let Naomi believe the lie, and it would be true. She didn’t care anymore about being unnatural. Now all she wanted was to have a life with Naomi like Mary and Sheila never got to have. She leaned forward and kissed her lips, their faces hidden by the carved sides of the bench.
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
Naomi’s smile was like the sun breaking through clouds. “Then I’ll just have to forgive you.”
It was more than a magic trick, Rachel thought. It was a miracle.
“I got another counselor to cover for me today. I’m on my way to my aunt and uncle’s. How did you know where to find me?”
What could Rachel say, that it was an accident without intention? “I saw Vic at the parade.”
Naomi nodded, as if that explained it. She pulled Rachel to her feet and led her across the platform of the carousel. Standing at the edge, she grabbed Rachel’s hand and counted to three. Laughing, they jumped together, holding each other up as the ground stopped spinning.
T
HE DOOR SWUNG OPEN
. T
HERE SHE WAS, STRUGGLING
to extract the key, a shopping bag weighing down her arm. I thought I was dreaming. I sat up. She saw me, dropped the bag, kicked the door shut, ran to me.
“Where have you been all night? I was worried sick. I almost called the police.”
Her fingers circled my arms. I felt the crescents of her nails bite into my skin. She wasn’t a dream—she was real, and she was back.
Something loosed inside me that had been holding tight all day, all night, all week, all summer. I sighed so deeply I got dizzy. I dropped my head against her shoulder. “Are you really home, Naomi?”
“I’m here, aren’t I? Where have you been, that’s what I want to know.” She held me at arm’s length, looked me up and down. “You look like you haven’t slept in days. And is that Amelia’s hair you’ve got on? When did you start wearing that old wig again?”
I pulled it off and dropped it on the floor. My scalp felt liberated. She bent to pick it up. “Leave it,” I said. “I’m done with it now.”
“Just let me put it away.”
I swatted at her hand. “I said leave it!”
“Rachel, what’s the matter with you?”
It wasn’t how I’d envisioned welcoming her home. She couldn’t tell from the way I was acting, but seeing her put me over the moon. Her skin was dry from the Florida sun, little wrinkles reached out from the corners of her eyes, and her dark hair was streaked with gray, but I could still see in her face the girl she used to be. She was even more beautiful than she was at eighteen, all those years ago. I wanted to tell her all this, but just the thought of it threatened tears.
“Nothing. Everything.” I cleared my throat. “When did you get back?”
“Yesterday. Uncle Jacob was feeling so much better, I changed my ticket and came back early.”
“Yesterday?” I couldn’t believe it. At any time during my long and terrible night, I could have walked away from Mildred Solomon, hailed a taxi, and been in bed beside her. I could hardly wrap my mind around it. “Why didn’t you let me know you were coming home, Naomi?” My voice was heavy with regret. “I called and called but no one answered.”
“I wanted to surprise you is all. Is that such a crime? Anyway, the last couple of days were pretty hectic. Uncle Jacob’s neighbor had us over for a farewell dinner, and he wanted me to go with him to his lawyer’s office before I left. Listen to this—he gave us the apartment, Rachel.”
She expected excitement, but my mood was too dark. “Gave it to you, you mean.”
“Well, technically, sure, he signed it over to me. But isn’t that great? It’s not just a free sublet anymore. You know he made plenty when he sold his old workshop to the developer, that’s
why he never charged us for taking over the apartment when he moved down to Miami. I guess being so sick got him thinking, though. He always meant to leave it to me, but he didn’t want me to have to pay an inheritance tax, so he decided to give me the apartment now.”
“So we don’t have to live here, then? We could sell it, move back to the Village?”
She smiled at me, like a teacher whose pupil has finally figured the solution to a problem. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Now you tell me, where have you been all night? I thought you were working, so I called the Old Hebrews Home, just to ask when you’d be getting off, but the receptionist said you weren’t on shift yesterday.”
I was trying to understand. “What time was that, when you called?”
“As soon as I got home, around one o’clock. And later, when you still weren’t home, I called back to ask for Flo, to see if she knew where you were, but she wasn’t scheduled last night.”
I tucked a gray-streaked strand behind her ear. “We switched shifts is all. Flo worked yesterday and I worked last night. It was kind of last-minute, I guess the receptionist didn’t know.”
She rolled her eyes. “How could I not have thought of that? I knew I was being silly, worried you were hurt or something. I thought you must have stayed in Manhattan. I was about to start calling around to our friends to see if they’d heard from you.”
“You should have asked the switchboard to put you through to Fifth if you wanted to talk to me. I’ve told you a hundred times not to worry about Gloria.”
“Oh well, you’re here now. Let’s start over, okay? Rachel, surprise, I’m back!”
I had to laugh. “Oh, Naomi, I’m so happy to see you!” We kissed then, and held each other. I felt myself fit into the contours of her body. The soft pressure where our breasts met reminded me what was in store and I pulled away.
“Something’s wrong, isn’t it? What’s the matter, Rachel?”
Where to start—back at the Infant Home, with everything I now knew had happened to me there? I was too tired to go back to that beginning. I could buy some time, simply say I was upset because a patient died on my shift, but she’d know I wasn’t telling the whole truth. I recoiled from confessing what I had done in the night. Rules of right and wrong didn’t seem to apply as I helped Mildred Solomon die, but in the light of day, what if mercy sounded like murder?
I drew a breath. I’d start at Dr. Feldman’s office. It was only yesterday morning. Mildred Solomon could come into the story later. I needed only to begin with the ache I felt, the lump I found. I parted my lips but couldn’t make myself say the word.
Cancer
—it sounded like a curse. The tumor would have to speak for itself, I decided. I pulled the straps of my slip off my shoulders, reached behind my back to unclasp my bra. I pulled her hand close to the diseased breast, preparing myself for her reaction.
Her hand shaped itself to the familiar roundness. “Oh, Rachel, I know, it’s been so long.” She leaned me back against the couch. Her lips found my temple, my cheek, my chin, then traveled down my neck and shoulder, settling on the lifted nipple with a moan.
I intended to push her away, to tell her no, that wasn’t what I
meant. But in the moment it took my hands to find her shoulders, the sensation spreading from my nipple had shivered into knees and fingertips, sparked between my legs. A moment ago, I was so exhausted my body seemed made more of water than bone. Now it was reanimated by desire, with an agenda of its own.
I realized how much I wanted this, one last time without her knowing. Giving myself over to my body, I pulled her closer. Her left hand gathered in the small of my back, arching my chest. The right followed the line of my leg until her fingers found their favorite place. I closed my eyes and watched the colored lights swim across my vision.
Her kisses traveled from my knee to my navel and back down again, cheek and teeth nuzzling the curves of my thigh. Then she draped my leg over the back of the couch and dipped her head. Her tongue and fingers explored my inner landscape, navigating its furrows, cresting its ridges, circling its outcroppings. There is a place where the roof of a cave becomes the floor of a sea, yielding yet rough. She found it. I imagined myself a mounted butterfly, wings flapping open and closed, pushing against the pin that fixed me. My ears were filled with the roar of surf. I came in waves that shuddered my muscles.
She pulled herself on top of me, kissed me. I licked her lips, greedy for the ocean taste on her mouth. She rocked against me until she came, her cry muffled in my shoulder. Shifting her weight, she settled her head into the crook of my arm. Our feet twisted together. I felt myself lifted from my body on a rising tide of sleep. As oblivion welcomed me, I wondered if this was what dying would feel like.
I
WOKE ALONE
in darkness, a sheet tucked around me on the couch. I was amazed at the number of hours I’d slept—she must have tiptoed around the apartment all day. I didn’t blame her for finally going to bed. The couch was no place for a good night’s sleep, as the ache in my hip and the stiffness in my neck were telling me. Back when I was working shifts, Naomi would arrive home from teaching at exactly four o’clock every day, never sure if I’d be awake and eager to talk or sound asleep from working all night. I taught her to leave me as she found me, to follow her own routine whatever schedule I was on.
I was glad for the time to myself. Wrapped in the sheet, I got to my feet and padded to the bathroom. I paused by her bedroom door to reassure myself she really was there. I discerned her warm shape in the bed, heard the silly sound of her snore. I resisted the urge to curl myself around her like a puppy. Now that my rested mind was alert and calm, I needed to gather my thoughts before we spoke again. I closed the door so my wanderings wouldn’t wake her.
I showered in cool water, rinsing off the sweat and worry of the past two days. I avoided touching my breast, didn’t lift my arm too high—the gestures that had allowed me to hide the truth from myself for who knows how many months. I was so much happier then, not knowing. But my ignorance hadn’t slowed the renegade cells, mindlessly dividing and multiplying whether I was aware of them or not. If Mildred Solomon had stayed downstairs, how long would my ignorance have lasted—until the metastasized cells ulcerated my breast?
I still blamed Mildred Solomon’s selfish ambition for my cancer,
still cursed the X-rays for causing this tumor, but I had to acknowledge it was her arrival on Fifth that had prodded me to discover what had been done to me. If I hadn’t found Dr. Feldman’s article, how large would my tumor have grown before I felt it? Past the point of surgery, I had to concede. It made my head ache to balance both thoughts at once: that I had Mildred Solomon to thank for revealing the cancer she herself had given me.
The bathroom mirror reflected my body back to me. I let my hands follow its curves and hollows, cupping and scooping out, the sheen of my smooth skin showing every dimple and imperfection, every swell and touch of pink. I imagined my scars after the surgery, bandoliers of stitches crossing my chest. I’d look like Frankenstein’s monster. Then Naomi’s voice popped into my head, as if she were standing behind me and speaking over my shoulder, saying no, not a monster—an Amazonian warrior. Ridiculous, yet the idea did make me straighten my spine. Why not let her name it? The reality would be the same either way. My body had already sacrificed so much in the name of science, and for no good reason. This time, there would be a reward for the flesh it gave up to the surgeon’s knife: Rachel Rabinowitz, alive awhile longer.
My stomach growled and I had to laugh at my digestion, ignorant of its fate, concerned only with the now. Tying a robe around myself, I went into the kitchen. I put up the percolator and looked to see if Naomi had gotten milk at the grocer’s. She had, and more: the open refrigerator revealed a treasure of pastrami and coleslaw; a paper bag on the counter yielded hard rolls seeded with poppy. I ate at the table, my eyes following the swirls in the Formica as I reveled in the taste and texture of food in my mouth.
I took the coffee onto the balcony. The sky was dark enough to show a few stars despite the competing glow of streetlamps. It put me in a philosophical mood, and I gazed for a long time, my mind entertaining half-understood concepts like relativity, distance, and time. That I could see a star meant that its light had journeyed from the far reaches of the universe to land, on this night, at this moment, in my eye. A haphazard coincidence—or had I always been its destination, my upturned face on this Coney Island balcony foretold millennia ago? No, that way of thinking wasn’t for me. Like Mr. Mendelsohn, I didn’t believe in destiny or fate. Other people found comfort in imagining God pulling the strings on their lives, but it would drive me crazy trying to figure out His inscrutable reasons for everything.