Sign Here(85)

“It’s not real, right? You said it’s not real. I know it’s not. Right?”

On the conveyor belt, the first cut is always for love. A rarity among our usual haul, love is a precious resource. I was surprised, therefore, to learn on my first day that we don’t cut it out. I thought we’d use the small scissors to free it—that tender, pulsing riblet—the serrated ones that fit right in against the bone. But we didn’t. Nor did we drain it, like we do so much of the rest. No, in Hell we leave the love in.

Not because we’re sentimental, but because you are.

Love is one of these things humans experience, twist to fit their cage of mortality, and then claim to have invented. I’m not blaming you, far from it. Love was made to be coveted, and humans are nothing if not convinced of their right to take. I don’t even blame you for the jealousy and insecurity; we sent you those viruses ourselves, courtesy of the Fourth Floor. But the way you clutch at love, show it off, lose it and wail, find it again and forget all that you learned the time before—it’s all wrong. To us, you’re like a kid who finds his mom’s vibrator in her dresser and uses it as a microphone for a game of Look, I’m Famous.

Bless your heart, dear. That’s not what that’s for.

Love—as it is in the wild, no fingerprints on the glass—knows nothing of time. If you were lucky enough for your first fall to be in love and not loss, you might get what I’m talking about. The pure stuff, like flying before you look down. Like learning that the body you thought you had to fill all by yourself actually came with an extension; that neither worked alone, but together—bam, all of the lights come on.

That’s how love is supposed to be. When you add in time, however, it does what time always does. Brings everything, eventually, inevitably, to its end.

After loss, love is never the same. That is not to say you won’t love another, maybe even more than ever before. But as you love them, you will mourn them. You’ll try not to, of course. Try to say, “You never know.” But you do. You know.

And every inch gained in flight is an inch added to the fall.

That’s why, when you’re flat-backed on the belt, we don’t cut the love out. Every time you manage to think about that which you love—remember a face or a smell—you will be bird-dogged, instantly, by the bone saw of reality. Not how it will end, but how it already has.

Love tortures you more than we ever could.

“No,” I said. “It’s not.”

“I know,” she said, but she shook her head no as she said it. She was still fingering the tarnished metal holes when the General woke up.

I heard him breathe before I saw his open eyes. He inhaled in squeaks and exhaled in grinds, like his breath was traffic and his throat the Holland Tunnel. He hacked, wiping tears from the ravines of his face, the channels that connected the corners of his eyes to the corners of his lips to the soft wobble of his chin.

Cal heard him, too, and her spine tensed. He opened his mouth without a sound, a fish meeting oxygen, and she tossed the key to me in time to flash him a smile, take hold of his emergency call button, and sink her teeth into the rubber-cased wires, tearing them clean. I was almost surprised there was no blood when the severed remote slid to a stop next to my foot. Then she sat down on the mattress, hard, so that his head had no choice but to slide into her lap. I could see the tendons in his neck straining back, but that was all he could manage.

“So,” she said, pulling his skull against her and stroking the white hairs of his temple. “Where the fuck have you been, Dad?”





LILY





THEY WALKED IN THROUGH the woods, the wild ones, away from the lights of the houses. She didn’t want to take him to the clearing; there was too big a risk of being seen, and besides, she didn’t want to stand in that spot with him. Lily felt Sarah there enough herself; she thought it might kill Gavin. So instead, she took him around to the boathouse, where they could see the lake from the dock. She peeked into the driveway to find the car was back, but Phil’s bike was gone. She had gotten a text back from Mickey saying they were going over to the Watersons’ that night, so she knew the kids weren’t home. Silas must’ve gone out for a ride. At least he hadn’t loaded them in the car and driven for Canada.

Again, she remembered his words. My family. That bike would’ve been destroyed years ago if she hadn’t insisted on reinforcing the shed.

When they reached the property, Lily led Gavin into the boathouse. She thought about talking to Silas about a new boat— nothing fancy, just something to take out with the kids to go tubing—but then she remembered she might never again have that kind of mundane conversation with him. In fact, she realized, she might never again stand in this boathouse, breathing in rhythm with the water.

Then she remembered why she was there.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked, her voice quiet. “You can’t really see anything at night.”

“I just want to stand there,” Gavin said.

Lily nodded and put her hand back for his, and when it stayed empty, she wrapped it around herself.



* * *



—

THE MOON HUNG HEAVY as an udder that night. The sky seemed to strain just to keep it above the horizon. It lit more of the lake than usual, the water pitch black right up to the surface, where it exploded into glitter. When she squinted, she could see the hazy outline of the float, but she decided not to tell Gavin. He didn’t need to see where Sarah went under exactly; it was all the same lake.