And, of course, the elemental part of all this: If it hadn’t been for Karen’s product, none of this would be happening. If only Vin would listen to her, if only he would go and live in the main house or take over the Big Island Bungalow now that Ed was cohabitating with Dee. If only she could give Nat another Korean lesson. The language needed constant reinforcement, and watching endless videos of Bomi the Spelling Octopus, who often made funny but instructive mistakes, wasn’t going to do the trick. If her own mother had been stricter with her about that one damned thing, learning the mother tongue, she’d be a different, prouder person now. Maybe it would have all worked out.
Vinod heard a commotion above the meadow, one made by people, not birds. They all knew one another’s voices by this point, and he could hear Dee and Ed quarreling in public, along with the panicked interjection of Senderovsky’s anxious mezzo-soprano. What was happening? It was nowhere close to dinnertime. It must have been Karen then. She must have taken a turn for the worse. He should have stayed near her in the polluted front room of the bungalow, even if she shooed him away.
As he got up, his book fell out of his grasp. He reached over to pick it up, its garish onion-domed cover suspended in the grass, but came up with nothing. He reached for his area rug, but it was now too far away to reach. How could that be? It was right there. He lifted his arm after it, but came up with no more than a waving motion, as if the rug was driving off to carpet college and he, worried parent, was bidding it farewell.
The day felt impossibly long now as if it belonged inside an extraterrestrial calendar. He must have been living inside a single day for weeks on end, as would a Venusian. He decided to breathe in the humid but wind-stroked summer air around him, but that very act, contract chest, pause, expand chest, now seemed to have too many steps to follow in short order.
Migraine colors flickered at the bottom of his vision. He knew what he had to do—trudge up from the meadow to their bungalow, but it now seemed like a half impossibility, as if he had to emigrate up the treacherous slope without the necessary papers. He took a few steps, then leaned into the ground before him with an outstretched palm for bracing. His calves felt hot, someone must have been stroking them with a warm hand, but when he turned around, his neck a painful vice, to look behind him, there was no one for companionship （even the sun was decked out in frilly clouds）。 Why must he climb this hill to the cluster of pastel bungalows, each showing him its backside? Why shouldn’t he arrange a siesta upon the newly mowed velvet slope? What was the purpose of all this striving? Karen, he had to get to Karen. He continued to climb, keeping his hand out in front of him as a form of security in case he crumbled. By the time he reached the cedar steps of the covered porch, the first outpost of civilization, it took him a few seconds to figure out where he was exactly.
Once he opened the door to their bungalow, he thought he would fall into the grace of the shadow-laden air-conditioned room. But the air felt warm and sultry in all the wrong ways. His beloved was lying on the couch beneath a blanket, her golden shins and Japanese novelty socks sticking out below, a tiny compress on the left eye reminding him of the gold coins placed upon the eyes of the dead. “Karen!” he shouted. Only it wasn’t a shout. It was a tiny squeal. She stirred miserably. Once again, as it had been for most of his life, they were together while being apart. But at least she was alive, still. He went into his room and fell on their bed. There was something he had to get out of the bottom of his luggage. That small stack of notarized papers along with a larger bundle of articles printed out in his Elmhurst studio during the earliest days of the virus. He needed only to find the will.
* * *
—
Karen discovered the paperwork three days later. He was lying flat on his stomach in their bedroom. She had her afflicted eye closed and was wearing gloves, a mask, and one of the plastic face shields her assistant had ordered for everyone in the colony on Masha’s instructions. His suitcase was opened and looked ransacked, a torrent of black Jockey underwear and holey white socks, which she had been planning to replace when long-sock weather came around. “Vinod,” she said. There was a murmur. She heard a long wheezing sound, the accordion trapped within. “Vinod!” she shouted, shaking his leg.
“Cover me,” he said. His body shuddered lightly at regular intervals, mostly around his armpits and haunches, as if he were a cowering dog.
“Are you cold?” she said. “I’ll get Masha to come and look at you. What is this?” She picked up the papers lying next to him.