How High We Go in the Dark(38)
“It’s not my business.”
“I was in Mexico when the first symptoms began,” she said. “Some of my friends were going, the vacation was paid for, he said I should join them and have fun. I was touring the Aztec ruins, sitting around bonfires on the beach while he was throwing up in a toilet. He didn’t say anything until I was ready to come home. Ridiculous, right? Never wanted to bother anybody about anything. If a neighbor hadn’t seen him passed out in the hall with pustules on his arm, he probably wouldn’t have gone to the doctor at all. His family flew out. My sister was helping him. When I got home, I thought I’d take care of him. That’s what people expected me to do. But when I saw him, I didn’t know how to handle it. His skin was sloughing off his face like wax. He had no hair. He could barely speak. I was afraid to be near him. They say he contracted a strain of the plague during a business trip, some aggressive flesh-eating bacteria in the water that had the virus. I let my sister do the heavy lifting. I went to school. I stayed at the library. I did everything I could to avoid his hospital room.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks, outlining her eyes with a wavy blue corona from her eyeliner. I let her head rest on my shoulder and thought about how my life could have been different if someone like Val had bothered to be my friend when I was young. I left the fire escape and returned with a box of tissues from a nearby guest room.
“When he passed, I didn’t get the call right away. I was at a movie, stuffing my face with popcorn. I never got to say goodbye. I didn’t even try.”
“What was the movie?” I asked. I knew it was a stupid question, but that’s how I’d always been: attaching the little things to the stuff that hurt me, the jar of licorice with my high school principal’s office, the smell of Old Spice aftershave and my father’s belt.
“Night of the Living Dead. It was part of some classic horror festival.”
“I probably would have been at the movies, too,” I said. “In case you haven’t already figured it out, I’m pretty shit with family.” I wanted to hold her hand. I passed her the blunt instead.
“Well, you need to ask yourself what the hell you’re waiting for,” she said. “I like you, Den, but I’m tired of hanging out on this fire escape having the same damn conversation. You only get one goodbye.”
When I went back to my room, I reviewed my missed calls, listened to my brother’s numerous voicemails. He didn’t sound angry, just tired. I’ll call him tomorrow, I told myself, definitely sometime this week. If not for myself then maybe for Val. I sat on the fire escape outside my room and gazed at the city trying to resuscitate itself—a blimp floating over the bay, an ad projected onto its side for a new school of mortuary science, the bells of cable cars running up and down Powell Street for the few tourists brave enough to visit, someone playing a saxophone down below. Back inside my room, I did the dishes and packed all my belongings into garbage bags, caught up in the comforting idea of a reset, those transitional movements toward all that might be possible. I played music as I swept. I thought about patching things up with my family, making my mom proud. I’d learn Dad’s recipes (even his famous curry chicken bowl), redecorate her room the way she wanted, and maybe, on her good days, I’d take her to one of the few remaining Vegas shows, the revival of Cirque du Soleil with its surviving troupe members— V: The Odyssey of a Virus, an acrobatic journey of our will to survive. In my mind, I heard my mom telling me she loved me. But my phone remained on the kitchen counter, untouched for hours. When I finally bothered to pick it up there were several missed calls, voice messages from my brother, each angrier than the last. I considered calling him back this time, but I didn’t need all the drama. I deleted his holier-than-thou lecture and again told Val that the next day would be the day I called home. Until Val finally said she was done with me.
“I can’t, Dennis,” she said. “I don’t know what to do for you. You need to grow up and stop being so damn selfish.”
“I know,” I said. “I promise I’ll call today. I’m sorry.” But a few days passed and then a few more, and Val quickly became a ghost, moving through our shared hallways as if we were strangers. She’d nod, make small talk about work. She no longer asked about my family. Drinking out on the fire escape suddenly felt more pathetic. Outside of my tiny life I could feel the world reaching for the light—after an unexpected wave of thunderstorms, the air was marginally comfortable to breathe again, washed from the veil of wildfire smoke. People were starting to go out, filling restaurants and bars. I thought about finally calling Bryan, asking to talk to Mom. Maybe if I promised, heard her voice, I wouldn’t be able to back out afterward. Maybe if I told her I really wanted to help this time. I imagined the conversation for so long it almost felt like it had happened.
I was removing a body from one of the rooms when he called. Several times in a row. Bryan was the brother I didn’t deserve, the kind of person I’d never know how to be. How had he turned out so different? Was there something in his upbringing? Soccer? The fact that my parents had spent so much time trying to help me not fail out of school? All the attention they wasted on me, leaving him alone? I remember him crying on several occasions, saying how I always got everything, that it wasn’t fair. My thumb hovered over the decline button, but this time I picked up. The entire summer had passed since I’d held my mother’s hands.