Sunday's on the Phone to Monday (9 page)

At three-thirty in the morning, Mathilde was so stressed she
ate an entire zucchini in bed. First she fried it on the stove, adding garlic and salt. She cut a mangled diadem out of newspaper and wore it as a hat. She thought wearing this in the mirror would make her happier but only said to her reflection,
I look weird fat.

Claudio came home at five in the morning. He was lucky to have made it up the stairs, let alone home. He turned on the lights, and Mathilde covered her eyes.
Your feet are sticking out of the bed. You little creepy crawler!
said Claudio, taking off his shirt. He looked like he had gotten a haircut, and Mathilde wondered who the fuck had given him one. The rest of him looked like what dies in the winter. His arms were thin tree-skeletons, his cheeks a pair of pallor-mortis-white pumpkins.

What were you doing?

I'm not sure. The usual.

What have you done to yourself?

It won't happen again.
Claudio may have been drunk, but he still could do damage control.

You broke your promise,
said Mathilde, one hand cupping her belly with the baby inside her and the other hand grabbing her foot, shrouded in fuzzy sock.
You've never lied to me before.

I promise. Never again.

You're a father.
Mathilde stared into her husband's crumply hair. Was it possible that she loved him even more? Seeing him hurting their family? -
Boots, what was the very best part of your day? -
She pushed the thought aside. -
I'm just reminded that I can lose him. That's all. -

I'm sorry. I need to sleep. I was thinking about something.

What?

My sister.

A silence, for sanctity. Jane as a subject was often taboo, depending on how honest Claudio felt like being.
Did you speak to her?

She called me as soon as I got there. Don't even know how she got Zane's number.
Claudio was not remembering how after his sister's
visit he'd given her the phone numbers of every residence he could possibly be at, with fear, with hope. Jane would always be able to track Claudio down, if she pleased.
Talking about how the president keeps calling her. She couldn't even remember the president's name. She called him Grover P. Rockefeller.

Why didn't you call me? I'm here to help you.

Nobody can help me or her.

That's not true.
Claudio didn't know which of the two Mathilde was referring to, and Mathilde didn't either. Big tears hung down her face. Claudio knew he didn't deserve her. She was the type of woman who deserved to live in a villa or a fancy hotel. The kind of woman you named a star after. A quaintrelle.

Claudio snored, tossing like an imported market fish. At some point in the night Mathilde flipped her husband over as though he was a record. He whispered in his sleep,
drugs shmugs.

Wake the fuck up,
said Mathilde.

Hmph?
asked Claudio.

I know you're hurt. I know it's hard. But you can't pass that hurt on to me. And you certainly can't pass it on to our daughter.

I promise you I won't do it again.

You promise? Because if you do, I'll leave. I give my word.
Mathilde could leave her family. Claudio had done it and rarely looked back, except on nights like this. It was a conundrum, wasn't it? Almost funny. She'd take Natasha Maude, of course. It was a perfect name for a perfect baby. Even with the Simone. She'd keep the Simone too, because she knew that even if she had to leave him, she'd always love Claudio.

I already gave you mine,
Claudio murmured into her thigh.
So you don't need to threaten me.

Gave me what?

My word.

A few thatched hours passed: of Claudio sleeping, of Mathilde awake. At 7:00 a.m., Claudio felt the jolt of the last drug and booze traces leaving his system. He turned to his wife.

Hello,
he said.

Mathilde lay fallow. Her décolletage was exquisite; her skin an otherworldly, cake-flour white. He'd never find another Mathilde. No matter how hard he'd look.

I promise you, from now on, to be of my word.

All right,
said Mathilde, feeling startlingly good, the pollutive kind of catharsis obtained after crying.

And I promise you,
groveled Claudio,
we will figure something out.

You will,
said Mathilde, too tired to say anything else.
You will and I'll be here. For you, and if you continue, then without you.

Can we look at this morning?
He stood up, his hand out for Mathilde. Their master bedroom had windows all over the south side, one of the reasons they chose to live there. They watched the sun rise, holding hands at each window, catching glimpses of their city's skyline from a slightly different angle each time.

N
atasha slept in Mathilde's arms. So far, an easy baby. She was what they'd created with love and what Mathilde wasn't sure she deserved.
I feel like I'm going to cry,
she kept telling Claudio, but she never did.

Claudio called his sister. He was at his shop, and his wife and daughter were at home. Now was the one time he'd have privacy.
Congratulations. You're an aunt now.

Your wife,
said Jane,
is a Jezebel.

Claudio had prepared all week for this call. So far it was the worst thing about being a father: having to worry about people other than his daughter.
Her name is Natasha Maude. She weighs six pounds and an ounce.
She was a perfect person. The third love of his life.

She's not your baby. She's the Devil's child. A breech birth. The Devil wears a velvet jacket. Me oh my. My collar smells like okay roses. You love my belly!
She spoke calmly in sentences that made a sense in no context, with the precision of a comfortable articulator. The delivery contained no panic—she could have been talking about riding a Ferris wheel or buying a scone from the bakery.

Jane, I was thinking,
said Claudio.
I know somebody who wants to marry you. We've told him all about you. I think he's smitten. Would you marry him? It's my brother-in-law, Sawyer.

Why in the world would I want to marry someone I've never met?
Jane laughed. To fill her life with somebody besides Otis? Otis, who was hard on the eyes and harder on the hands and a force as indispensable to her as shelter?

It's what you need.

I beg your pardon?

It's what Sawyer needs. A wife.
Sawyer and he had discussed this discreetly, for weeks in Claudio's shop. Owing a favor was the last thing Claudio ever wanted to do, but he hadn't been able to conjure any other options. Because Sawyer and Noah weren't allowed to marry in New York, Sawyer offered to legally wed Claudio's sister to get her the insurance to stay in a New York mental hospital for as long as necessary.

Sawyer translated full-time for a publishing house, and while the salary didn't make him particularly
wealthy
by New York City means—his mother, after discovering he was, in her words,
one of those appalling homosexuals,
had cut him off financially—he had a lovely cafeteria plan, which could extend to any legal kin. Claudio had gone to visit Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center in the Bronx and thought it was fine, a perfectly decent home. -
It'll do. -
Walls the color of Jordan almonds and dinner mints. Nurses growing smiles wide as lichen. A hospital for people like Jane. -
For Jane, it'll do. -

Mathilde can't know,
agreed the two living men who most treasured Mathilde in the world. If Mathilde knew, she'd never let it happen, for she loved her brother just as much as Claudio loved his sister and as much as Sawyer loved her (a cyclical love: because Sawyer loved his sister, he would help Jane).

Mathilde had already asked her mother for the money but had been denied. Maybe it was the cancer, which had already had its way with about two-thirds of her mother's body, or maybe it was the eight years as a widow that had hardened her, made her solely focus on the luxury of dying in peace and with status.
I don't believe in mental illness,
her mother had said.
Everyone
these days thinks they have something or other. Nobody was in therapy when I was a girl. Why can't that boyfriend of hers take care of her? It isn't my problem, Mathilde, and neither is it yours.

There was no other way Jane could be institutionalized. Claudio and Sawyer had explored every option.
She'd need to commit a crime,
said Claudio, who had stayed up late doing research until his eyes felt like they were going to split into fifths, who'd drank coffee by the pint, feeling like he was doing more dying than living those nights.
Commit a crime in order to get committed. It's almost funny. Not ha-ha funny, but, you know, uh-oh funny.

Funny,
paralleled Sawyer.

She'd probably die before the police catch her.
It was the type of girl Jane was: always in harm's way but somehow stealthy enough to escape any authorities—as though she repelled them instinctively.

One other thing you have to promise me.

Anything,
breathed Claudio.

Noah can't know,
said Sawyer.
Either.

Wow, um.
Claudio swallowed.
I mean, are you sure?

I'm sure he can't know,
said Sawyer.
Not if we want this to work.

Can I ask why?

It would be worse,
said Sawyer,
if I asked him to pay for her. I can't do that, you see? Not that he would ever say no. No, the trouble is, he would say yes. And I'd never be able to pay him back.

Well, I just don't know what to say.

Trust me,
said Sawyer,
it would be worse if he knew.
It had nothing to do with the sting and guilt of his mother's rejection. It had nothing to do with how hazardously persuasive Claudio was. Sawyer felt as though Noah already did too much for him. This was Sawyer's decision, and he chose with his Heart. This same Heart of his was sure that neither of their lovers should ever know the truth. This frayed Heart, faulty with reticence, a timid belief that even its most pure love came with conditions.

This makes things harder,
said Claudio.
I don't want you to lie to your soul mate.

You're lying to yours.

But this would be your marriage,
argued Claudio,
not mine.

It's a temporary solution. And besides, I already can't marry the person I want to. I might as well have a selfless marriage if I can't have an authentic one.
Now only to wait for the day Sawyer's mother died or until Sawyer's real love became recognized by the state—whichever came first. Or more likely, whichever came last.

Claudio just had to convince Jane to come to New York, go through with the ceremony, and bide her time until it was time to check in. Then, hope. -
We'll know where she is all the time, -
Claudio coddled his mind. Scumbags wouldn't take advantage of her. She'd have a clean bed every night. Food with vitamins. Clean water. Half-luxuries.

On the phone, Jane said,
I'm still with Otis
.
I don't know how happy he'll be.

Can I talk to Otis? Is he there?

Claudio heard a shuffle.
god!
somebody yelled. And that same somebody said
yeah?

Is this Otis?

Who's asking?
Who was this man, with his pebbly deluge of a voice, with his bewitchment over Jane? Claudio imagined a portly guy with a ponytail, one of those scuzzy alphas girls somehow go gaga over.

This is Jane's brother, Claudio. There's a man in New York who wants to marry Jane.

Sure, take her.
Otis chortled.
Why not?

- My god, -
thought Claudio, -
he's killing her. -
This was possession, as simple as it appeared and yet as intricate as a multiplicity of toxins. Filaments of rage shook loose in Claudio, the marrow of a temper he hadn't felt in years.

Then Claudio's rationality, so suffered and industrious,
arrived. -
I can't get angry, -
he thought. -
For Jane's safety, I do what needs to be done. Get the information. -
It was such a fucking useful notion. He could have cried.

Do you live together out there?
he asked.

If by live together you mean for an afternoon here and there, sure.
Otis laughed.

Where's she normally?
Claudio usually sent the money Jane requested to a FedEx office.

Make no mistake; your sister's a wild child. I want to say sometimes in my lap, sometimes in the sewer, but don't quote me on that.

Would you hold on a second?
Claudio walked over to his desk, where he kept a baseball. He threw it through the closed window. Glass sprayed across the room—splintered, evicted versions of his face on the floors. It was the poverty of being human. If only being generous meant you could be in some amount of control!

Claudio spent seconds tucking the animal back inside himself. Then in turn he tucked himself tight inside his fear, returning to the line, asking to speak to Jane again. He told her he'd send a plane ticket to the FedEx center, hanging up before his sister could say
no
or
stop
or the very worst,
please.