How High We Go in the Dark(7)

“It’s okay,” I caught myself saying, as if Annie could hear me or feel my fingers as I cracked open her rib cage to inspect her hardened organs, black as the stone walls that kept her hidden. I was about to remove her stomach when Miki texted:

Don’t repeat the same mistakes as she did. Yumi only has one childhood. She’s already lost her mother.

I won’t. I’m not. I’m here trying to understand Clara, I responded. Yumi will want that, too, someday.

Miki sent a photo of Yumi at the zoo, another of her napping, one of Yumi and her cousins biking through Golden Gate Park with giant sun hats and air pollution masks during a recent Smog-Free San Francisco Challenge week. I was happy for the update, but I didn’t have anything else to say. I set the phone down and returned to my work. I was living at the edge of the world and everything else seemed like a distant dream.

I pried open Annie’s mouth and found traces of crushed flowers and pebbles that evaded our understanding of Neanderthal and early human migration routes—too far a journey and distance for a young girl. The mysteries of Annie continued to compound as I explored the stories hidden in her body.

INTERNAL EXAMINATION NOTES: Stomach mostly empty but contains traces of marmot and several plants, notably Silene stenophylla (narrow-leafed campion)–—low amounts make it unclear whether ingested for sustenance or as treatment for illness. Teeth and gums in near pristine condition with traces of wood found between molars, indicating possible dental care. Samples of plaque indicate a diet rich in plants, animals, and insects. Unidentified bacteria beneath gum line in addition to variants of Streptococcus. Signs of cerebral edema preceding cranial trauma. Cranial trauma exacerbated by deterioration and thinning of parietal bones and skull base. Genome results and analysis forthcoming from Far Eastern Federal University.

Rigor mortis had curled her fingers. I imagined her asking for help—if her family had possessed medicinal knowledge of plants that could potentially redefine our knowledge of early humans. How do you sing a lullaby in Neanderthal?

Miki and I first started caring for Yumi during her fifth Christmas, when she and her father came to stay with us. Her mother was on a research trip. I’d stay up with my granddaughter to give Ty a break, watching cartoons as she completed her breathing treatment; the wildfire smoke aggravated her asthma. Sometimes I’d fall asleep with her in my arms, and wake to Ty holding a breakfast tray. I’d watch Yumi and her father making weekend plans—a bike ride, a dinosaur exhibit, a ballet class—and remind them to take lots of photos because Clara was missing it all.

It seems like another lifetime that a coroner pulled my son-in-law out from a metal drawer. I had to identify his body after it was spotted floating in Baltimore Harbor by some diners at a dockside restaurant. At first they thought it was a seal. By then, Ty and Yumi had been living in our converted garage apartment for over a year. She had just started kindergarten and he was struggling to find steady work, freelancing as a graphic designer for local restaurants and cash-strapped dot-coms whenever friends passed him a lead.

“Hey, Pops,” he’d say. “What do you think about this logo I made for that new Thai restaurant down the street?” Always enlisting my feedback, as if I had an artistic bone in my body.

“I’d eat there,” I’d say. Or “Maybe this place should give you a full-time gig.” And sometimes Ty would ask, but always the answer was no. He’d moved to the West Coast with Clara after attending college in Boston to give Yumi a better support structure and was never able to find his footing.

“Don’t worry. Next time,” Miki and I would tell him. “The next interview, the next freelance gig will lead to something steady.” He never complained, always asked too little. So, when he wanted to leave for the weekend to attend a friend’s wedding, we paid for his ticket, told him to go have fun. Two stab wounds. No witnesses outside his hotel. I had just tucked Yumi into bed when we received the call from Ty’s friend. Clara was silent for a long time on the phone when I told her. She didn’t cry; she asked me how Yumi was doing, if she knew. I told Clara that I didn’t know how to tell her.

“When can we expect you back?” I asked. In my mind I saw her packing her bags and booking a ticket.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” she said.

But she missed the funeral despite Ty’s family delaying it for nearly two weeks. They simply couldn’t wait any longer. When she finally arrived, I picked her up at the airport and dropped her at the cemetery to visit her husband’s urn niche, waited in the car for nearly an hour. After that, she moved through our house like a ghost, continued to work on her laptop. She cooked and ate alongside us, saying little, leaving the house for hours to clear her head. I’d later find dozens of movie ticket stubs in the trash, crumpled letters to us and Yumi that never progressed beyond a few words— Maybe it’s time . . . I know I’ve been . . . I want you to know . . .

I watched her over the following weeks, slowly packing and donating all of Ty’s belongings. One of the few things she kept: a photo of the two of them and Yumi celebrating Yumi’s third birthday at Disneyland. I wanted Clara to feel the loss. Miki and I worried we’d somehow failed in raising our daughter. But here in Siberia, I read her journals and realized she dealt with loss in her own way. She had a plan, and maybe when Yumi was older, she would have been able to come home and say she played some small part in making the world better.