In Sight of Stars(46)
“It looks like a giant Christmas cookie,” Tyler says happily. His eyes are huge, his cheeks a deep, rosy red.
I smile, pleased with myself, as I maneuver us expertly through the crowds. The closer we get, the clearer the carolers grow. Their voices rise in harmony, above the rat-a-tat-tat of tin drums, together on the melancholy rumpum pum pums.
Camera flashes pop, tiny light explosions illuminating the snowflakes that tumble steadily down.
When we finally get close enough, I stop and let Sarah and Tyler move the remaining few feet ahead of me toward the tree. Still within sight, but able to truly take the magnitude of all of it in. I can hear them singing, Tyler on tippy-toes, head turned up to the sky, his rumpum pum pum louder and more joyful than all the other voices.
And when Sarah finally turns back to find me again, her black hair shimmering with colors that reflect off the melted snow, the look on her face is so sad and lost, even though she sees me, even though her brother holds fast to her arm, that it makes my chest squeeze tight and my breath disappear.
She’s right there, I think. She’s right there.
So why does she feel so far away?
*
It’s weird to walk the floor at this hour, with the skeletal night staff, and nursing stations all but empty, in a pair of yellow swim trunks that don’t belong to me. As we pass through the main lobby, one nurse sits with her back to us, staring up at a wall-mounted television.
“She loves her old movies,” Sister Agnes Teresa whispers, indicating the sepia glow of the screen.
An orderly I don’t recognize drags a bucket, swabbing a mop across the floor, unconcerned.
When we reach the stairwell, Sister Agnes Teresa wraps her short fingers around the door handle and works to pull the weight of it open. I don’t know if I should help or not, if offering would somehow insult her. She’s probably stronger than I am anyway.
Watching her maneuver the stairs is equally uncomfortable. She grabs hold of the railing and tilts slightly as she drops herself step to step. The other hand holds up her robe so she doesn’t trip on it.
We go down a flight, stopping at a door marked L1. I reach out to open it, but she says, “Wait, we need a special key,” and she extracts the magic set from her pocket.
The door opens into a dark hallway, and I follow her until we reach a windowed stretch of wall beyond which I can make out the hulking silhouettes of gym equipment. Elliptical machines, treadmills, and weight stations. Past that, at the next bank of windows, a dark, rectangular abyss of water.
“Here we are,” Sister Agnes Teresa says, opening the door. The sharp smell of chlorine enters my nose. “I always love it best at this hour when we don’t have to contend with the therapy crowd.”
“Yeah,” I say, soothed by the gentle waffle of water that comes with the shift of air as the door closes again.
Sister Agnes Teresa moves to the wall and switches on a rear bank of lights. “How about just those? We leave it ambient, is that okay?”
I don’t answer, stand lost in the play of light across the water’s surface, reticulated patterns that shimmer and dance like it’s a night sky, and we’ve disappeared from this room.
*
“It’s beautiful up here.”
We’re on the observation deck of the Empire State Building, where Sarah clasps her fingers around the guardrails and stares out across the building tops of Manhattan to the shimmering Hudson River in the distance. Her breath puffs out like cigarette smoke.
“I’m glad we came,” she says, reassuring herself, or maybe me. “I’m glad to be with you.” Things have been weird and distant between us, so it fills me with hope to hear her say this. Especially since it’s Valentine’s Day. “You’re a hopeless romantic, you know that, Alden?”
I lean in against her and close my fingers around hers, feeling, as always, the rush of electricity that glues me to her. “I hope not,” I say, wishing things could feel easier between us. Be easier. Be clearer.
“I just mean you’re good at this,” she says. “I’m not. And you are.” She twists toward me for a second and says, “Good at all this stuff. Good at being good, you know? I’m not sure I really deserve that.”
“Of course you do,” I say, and I want to say more, but her words choke me up, and I’m hyperaware these days of seeming too weak, or saying too much, of wanting more from her than she’s willing or wanting to give. I need to be strong if I want to hold on to her.
Or maybe I’m trying too hard, overthinking everything. If she wanted to, she would have broken up with me. But she hasn’t. Like with a cat, the more I stay back, the more she seems to gravitate toward me. Maybe that’s the secret of Sarah. That I need to let her come to me when she wants to. In her own time. Still, I want to pull her to me now and kiss her, kiss her the way we used to always kiss. It’s been weeks since we’ve kissed like that, since before she went to her father’s for the holidays.
“That’s good, right? That you get to spend time with him?” I had asked when she first told me she was spending Christmas Day through New Year’s at his house. As much as I hadn’t wanted her to go, wanted her to be here to celebrate with me, I was happy for her, too. A chance to get away from her mom, and have real quality time with her father. “You’ll get to see your brother, too, right?” I’d asked, trying to be supportive and muster genuine enthusiasm.