Authors: Robin Antalek
Ruthie tapped Suzie on the shoulder and, when neither Suzie nor Bella responded, she tried to pull them apart. “All right, all right, you need to tell us how you got here and how you knew! Where have you been, Suzie Epstein?”
Bella pulled Suzie down with her onto the lounge chair, and
Suzie leaned back against Bella's fur-covered knees. Just like that they were fifteen all over again.
By the time
Sam stumbled home it was midnight. He had learned that Suzie's parents had lasted only another year after their attempted reconciliation in Massachusetts, and that Suzie had graduated from high school a year early and been accepted to Harvard, where she now was a senior, premed, studying to become a psychiatrist. She had bumped into Michael in line for coffee two days before, and Michael had told her about Bella's mother.
Sam stood at the sink and tossed back two aspirin chased by a large glass of water. He squinted out the window, through the dull spray of a streetlight, and wondered what Bella and Suzie were doing. Suzie had not left Bella's side all evening. He imagined them inside now, curled together on Bella's bed, whispering into the shadows, wrapped in that damn fur. Suzie hadn't made eye contact with him again all night, and he wondered what that meant, if it meant anything. It probably meant nothing.
The television was on, an infomercial for weight loss on the screen. Michael was asleep on his back on the couch, one hand resting on his chest, the other grazing the floor. Sam stooped down, picked up the channel changer off the floor, and clicked off the sound.
At the sudden silence, Michael snorted awake. “Hey, hey. What time is it?” He fumbled at his watch.
“Midnight. Sorry.”
“It's okay.” He waved his hand in the air. “I'm used to sleeping for five minutes at a time.” The usual snap of sarcasm in his voice wasn't there. “Medical school. One of the perks.” He snorted again and smacked his stomach. “Damn, I'm hungry.”
“I could make you something.” Sam couldn't remember the last time he and Michael had spent any time together, and making him something to eat seemed like an easy enough way to do that. Besides, he was curious enough about Suzie and Michael that he was hoping for some more information.
Michael cracked open an eye and looked over at him. “Seriously?”
Sam nodded and moved past him into the kitchen. “Egg sandwich okay?”
“Ah, Sam-man, seriously, that would be fantastic.”
Sam opened the fridge and pulled out a carton of eggs, a jar of salsa, a block of cheddar, and butter. From deep in the freezer he found a bag of bagelsâgrocery store version, but they would do. He heated the griddle pan and sliced the bagels, putting them facedown on the butter to slowly toast before he cracked half a dozen eggs into a bowl.
Sam heard the scrape of a kitchen chair and looked over his shoulder to see Michael slumped at the table. Michael poked at the pile of soy sauce. “Dad is going to get high blood pressure if he doesn't stop eating this shit.” He gathered the packets up, leaned over for the trash can, and swept the packs in.
“There will be more next week,” Sam said as he set the plate in front of him. Steam rose from the sides of the bagel, off the eggs. Cheese and salsa oozed onto the plate. His own mouth watered as Michael lifted the sandwich and took a large bite.
He was still chewing, head down, when Sam sat across from him with his own sandwich. He ate half and then pushed it toward the middle of the table. Michael was licking salsa from his fingers and he looked up at Sam as he lifted the remains from the plate. A piece of egg was on his chin, slick with grease. “This is amazing.”
Sam laughed. “Did you even chew?”
Michael shook his head. “I'm telling you, medical school, especially the last two years, fucks with everything. Between rotations and classes and studying, you can't sleep more than an hour at a time and you eat like a pack of wolves is at your back.” Sam handed him a paper towel and he wiped his mouth and chin. “And at the end you get a diploma.”
“And a cushy life.” Sam knew his perspective was probably ignorant. But considering his future looked less than bright, anything seemed cushy in comparison.
“Hey, yeah, but it takes years to get to that life. And frankly, health care and insurance being what they are, I don't know that the monetary rewards of being a doctor even exist anymore.”
“I'm flunking more than half of my classes,” Sam said. He didn't know where the confession came from, but he wasn't entirely sorry it was out there.
“What the fuck?” Michael looked concerned, but not shocked.
Sam shrugged. “I know some of it's my fault. But, I don't know, I just can't get it.”
Michael shook his head. “There's a difference between can't and don't want to. Do you need a tutor? Do you need to change your major?”
“I don't know if that would help.” Sam hesitated. “I just don't think I'm you, Michael. I'm not cut out for the books, never have been.”
Michael made a face. “Nobody is asking you to be me. But, Sammy, it is so freaking hard to get a job without a college education. Have you told Dad?”
“No.”
“You have to talk to Dad.”
“And what is he going to say? Try harder?”
Michael ran a hand through his hair. Sam noticed that he too needed a haircut. “Is that impossible?” He squinted at something past Sam on the wall before he turned his attention back. “So you finish in five years instead of four. You take summer classes.”
Sam sighed, pushed back his chair, and stacked their plates in the sink. “Feels like impossible is the answer.”
“What are your options: make goat cheese?”
Sam grinned. Michael and he rarely brought up the topic of their mother. He looked over at his brother and was surprised to see him smirking. “Would that qualify as learning a family trade?”
Michael threw back his head and laughed. Sam watched his Adam's apple move up and down. When Michael stopped laughing he snuffled a few times and said, “I mean, when I think about Mom, I still picture her with Dad. Quiet, sad, moody. And then I remember where she is now.”
“You remember her like that?”
Michael nodded.
Sam swallowed hard. He remembered their mother singing silly made-up songs, lining up his plastic army men on sheets of newspaper and spray painting them crazy colors, letting him drive the old station wagon while sitting on her lap, allowing ice cream to dribble down his arms on a hot day and then hosing him off. Sam knew she could be quiet and sad, but that wasn't all he remembered.
“Shit, Sammy, look at your face. We had it pretty good. Even after, we did, you know?”
Sam nodded. What would Michael know about after? He had been away at college. But he was right. They had survived more or less intact.
“Was it awkward with Dad tonight?” Sam asked, then clarified, “because of Suzie?”
Michael stopped mid-yawn, his hands above his head, his shirt untucked to show a hairy slice of his lower belly. “What do you mean?”
Sam stared hard at Michael. Was he kidding?
Michael shook his head from side to side. “Sam?”
“That summer Mom left was the summer the Epsteins moved. I think Mom and Mrs. Epstein were close, or, you know, Mom felt bad for her when Mr. Epstein left.” Sam knew he was stammering idiotically, but Michael had already seemed to lose interest. If Michael didn't know about their mother and Mr. Epstein, now didn't seem like the time to tell him.
Michael stood again, shrugged, and yawned. “You going to crash?” Sam asked, eager to get off the subject.
“Yeah. I have to be back in Boston for nine
A.M.
rounds. So I'm leaving in”âhe checked his watchâ“three hours.”
Sam didn't want to ask if he was taking Suzie with him. He nodded and said weakly, “Any time you need an egg sandwich . . .”
“You rock, Sammy-boy. Thanks for that.” Michael patted his stomach, then started down toward his room. He paused at the door and looked back. “And talk to Dad. Don't worry, I won't spill your secret.” He reached up and tapped the molding and then he was gone.
The spray of
something hard against the window above Sam's bed woke him. He thought it was raining until he remembered how cold it had been, how cold it was even right now in the house because his dad turned the thermostat down to fifty-eight while they slept. He had just tucked his comforter back around his shoulders and legs when the sound came again.
Sam sat up and lifted the shade. The window was smeared with ice and water and seeing anything was impossible. He kneeled to squint out of the upper part of the glass that remained streak free and saw someone in a long, dark coat hurrying back down the driveway toward the Epsteins' old house.
Sam yanked on a pair of jeans and a sweater. Downstairs he shoved his feet into his dad's shoveling boots, which he kept on a plastic tray by the back door. When he got outside Suzie was standing with her back to Sam at the edge of her old driveway. She wore a knit cap topped with a giant puffball. Her head was tilted back as she took in her house.
He touched her on the shoulder and she turned around. “Sam.”
“Suzie.” He noticed she was wearing the plaid scarf Michael had been wearing earlier.
She smiled. “I know I'm going to sound like every person who goes back to look at her childhood home, but I'm going to say it. Looks smaller.”
Sam nodded. It looked exactly the same to him.
“So,” she said, and shrugged. “Your brother wants to leave at three. I wasn't sleeping. I thought I'd come early.”
Sam glanced back at the house, but it was dark. No light from the bathroom or Michael's room.
Quietly Suzie said, “We have some time.”
Sam didn't know what to say. Would asking how much time sound like he was expecting something?
“You grew up handsome, Sam.” Suzie gave him a tentative smile that broke into a grin. “Not that I ever doubted that.”
There were puffs of frost in the air between them. Sam felt the heat rise to his cheeks despite the cold and Suzie giggled.
“I'm glad to see you haven't changed, Sammy.”
“That's what you think,” Sam said weakly.
“That's what I see. You and Bella? I'm glad about that, glad that it's you she has to lean on. I'm glad she is with someone who has a good and generous heart.”
“Bella's a cool girl,” Sam said, and stared at the ground. He didn't want to talk about Bella with Suzie. “So, a psychiatrist, huh?”
She looked embarrassed and brought a hand up to her mouth. “Am I that transparent? Do I sound like one of those jerks who takes a class and diagnoses everyone they meet?” She put her hand on his arm. “I'm not, really. If anything it has taught me to say what I mean.”
Sam nodded, concentrating on the feel of her hand through his sweater. He wished he could tell her that after all this time, after all these years, she still had the same effect on him.
Suzie looked back at her house again, her hand still on his arm. “I spent most of my life right here in this spot, and I feel like I can't remember anything about that time at all. It's like my life has only started now, and nothing before has any significance.” She dropped her hand and Sam stepped back. Suzie didn't look at him, and right then he knew she hadn't meant a single word she'd just said.
Sam took Bella
back to Vassar because the last thing he wanted to do was return to school, although he admitted that to no one. When he went to her house to pick her up Mr. Spade patted him on the shoulder and called him a “good man” for seeing Bella safely back.
On a snowy day, they boarded a nearly empty train. Sam nudged Bella toward a window covered in crystals and stowed his backpack and Bella's small leather satchel above. The satchel
contained some of Bella's mother's things, and as far as Sam could tell from the bulk and the heft of it, there was no clothing at all inside.
Bella put her hand against the window and pressed hard, leaving an imprint. “It's like being inside a snow globe,” she said before putting her head on his shoulder and closing her eyes. She was still wearing the fur, and either he was getting used to the smell or the coat was actually airing out.
Back at Vassar Bella returned to classes right away. She was a serious student, serious about her English degree and her dead poets and her writing. She mentioned several times, first in a tone of awe and then of envy, that she was amazed Suzie had skipped a grade, that she was a soon-to-graduate senior on the cusp of her real life. That if Bella had known that was an option she would have taken it. Sam realized then they all had someone they measured themselves against, and even the brightest weren't immune.
Sam stayed because
he was hiding and then he stayed because he couldn't leave. He made Bella breakfast before she left for class each morning. One morning, as he was pouring them each a mug of coffee, he glanced over at Bella, sitting at the table, framed in the curtainless window that looked out over the parking lot. Her hair, like his, was still wet from the shower. Sam's muscles felt warm, pulled, like ribbons of saltwater taffy. Bella was bent over a book, wearing a white long-sleeve T-shirt, loose at the neck, without a bra. She held a piece of cinnamon toast halfway to her mouth. As Sam slid her coffee across the table at her she looked up at him and smiled wide.
Sam sat down opposite her and returned her smile. He
genuinely cared for Bella; if he focused on that, on living with her and making her breakfast, he could ignore the fact that the rest of his life seemed to be imploding.
The phone rang and Bella leaned over, squinting at the caller ID screen. She frowned. “It's your dad, again.”
Sam shook his head and brought his coffee to his lips.
Bella frowned again and pressed ignore. “Sam, you never called him back?”