Heart the Lover (29)

Suitcases start emerging from a hole in the middle of the carousel, up and over they go, sliding down to the belt. It happens fast, the way people grab them and disappear. Soon there is only one silver suitcase going around and around. It isn’t his. I go to look at the arrival board. There’s another flight from Knoxville in two hours. I go to the bathroom. I pass a bank of pay phones but I don’t use one. I wait. After an hour, I go to the phones and call Carson to see if Yash has left a message for me. He hasn’t. The next flight from Knoxville lands and Yash is not on that either.

I go back to the phones and dial his dad’s number. My heart is pounding.

I’m trying not to cry but I’m crying. His stepmother answers. A small blessing.

‘Oh, Jordan, we worried it would be you.’

‘What happened?’ I hear my voice ring against the three walls of phones.

‘Oh, sweetie. Calm yourself. He’s fine. He told me to tell you he’d be on the road till late and that he’d give you a call at Carson’s tomorrow.’



‘On the road? He’s driving here?’

She doesn’t answer.

‘He’s bringing his car to New York?’ He decided against that months ago.

‘He’s not driving to New York, hon. He’s gone to Atlanta. To Sam’s.’

Somehow I find a cab to Brooklyn. I howl the whole way. The driver never says a word. It’s New York. He’s seen it all.

I press her buzzer and Carson comes down in her old slippers.

My coat can’t button anymore so she sees the shape of me, the mess I’ve made.

‘Oh, honey.’

I wail in her arms.

‘Does he know?’

I shake my head.

‘Oh, my little chicken,’ she says.

She holds me for a long time, then she carries my heavy suitcase up the stairs.





II





My boys unleash themselves from the back, shove open their doors, and race across the dirt road to the silver slide. Their steps ring out on its metal rungs.

‘That’s old school,’ you say about the slide as we trail behind them.

Why are you here, is what I want to say.

The park is on a long finger of land that pokes into the Atlantic. The water glints and dances through the pines all around us.

Harry gets to the top first, Jack right behind him, grabbing onto his brother’s back. They drop down fast. Jack tumbles sideways off into the dirt and pulls Harry with him and they’re rolling and laughing. They’re five and seven, my boys.

You watch, shake your head. ‘That thing is way too high and way too steep. Are there no safety codes up here?’

‘I’ll have to check the paperwork on that, Mr. Cautious.’



You look at me and laugh. The boys get up from the ground and run back to climb up again. Jack makes it to the steps first.

I wait for you to say the things people like to say about Jack, about his speed, his fearlessness, how he’d soon be giving his older brother a run for his money.

‘They’re happy kids,’ you say as they slide down again.

‘You’ve been here less than two hours.’

‘I can tell. All my friends’ kids are fucked up. These ones seem okay.’

You bend down and pick up a brown pine needle off the ground. ‘God, when was the last time I saw one of these?’

As if I know.

‘Harry! Jack!’ You jog toward them. You had a runner’s body once, sharp glutes beneath the band of your gray sweats. Now it looks like things hurt. ‘Let’s climb one of these.’ You’re pointing to the pine trees behind the swings, silhouettes against the dark, sparkling ocean.

I don’t think Jack has climbed a tree yet. They look at me and I nod and they run to you. They each take a hand. Does this surprise you? Jack starts to skip. How easy they both are with you. They normally hold back with other men, men who aren’t their father.

You choose a tree. I’m stationed at its base. Up you all go. I have to lift Jack up to get his feet on the first branch and then he climbs like a spider monkey.



‘Higher?’ you say to them.

‘Higher!’ my boys chime.

There are creaks and snaps of tiny twigs and then you stop before I have to say anything and the boys climb up to where you are and stop, too.

‘Mumma, can you still see us?’ Jack says. He’s straddling a big limb, patting it like a horse. If he slips, I can easily catch him.

‘Barely,’ I say.

Your three faces are looking down on me, the bottoms of your sneakers swinging. You tell them the story about Daphne fleeing from Apollo through the woods, running, running, calling to her father the river god for help, then her arms becoming branches and her feet roots. You put your hand flat on the tree’s trunk. ‘And for a few seconds,’ you tell them, ‘Apollo can feel her heartbeat through the bark.’

The boys press their hands to the trunk, too.

A squirrel leaps from the tree next door onto a high branch, looks down, and leaps back in surprise. The three of you laugh and the tree’s needles tremble.

What do you know and why are you here?

You and the boys come down the tree.

‘My highest is eleven,’ Harry is saying.