Late Air

by Jaclyn Gilbert

  It took some time getting used to seeing Jean so exhausted from all the new stimulation; after work, she only had to feed her and then Jean was asleep. Nancy hated wondering about all the new things her child might have perceived without her or Murray being there to witness every moment. But eventually they both adjusted, got into a rhythm of trading days leaving work early; Ed was understanding about Murray’s needs, and Marjorie promised to call Nancy at home if anything at the office was so urgent she needed to come back. Actually it was a joke between both of them—her and Marjorie—that rare manuscripts could be so life-and-death as they sometimes seemed, all the threads of a project raveling or unraveling on any given week. Nothing is as urgent as Jean, watching her grow, Marjorie had said. You don’t want to miss it.

  Nancy was overjoyed when she could be there, with Murray, too, one Thursday night, to celebrate the first time Jean grasped a toy, firmly, in her tiny hand at four months—and a few weeks later, when she’d started babbling. They’d been deciding what to make for dinner, Jean at Nancy’s hip. “Ba-baba,” Jean said, waving her fist. Nancy and Murray had looked at one another, eyes matching in brightness. “Yes!” Nancy had said. “That’s a good girl. Can you say Da da? Da daa? . . . or Ma maa?” She and Murray repeated both a few times, but Jean just smiled back at them. “Soon,” Nancy had joked, kissing Murray’s cheek. “I promise I won’t be too offended if she says your name first.” She’d laughed again.

  At five months, Jean was right on target during tummy time, lifting her head and balancing its weight against her little neck, trying to sit without Nancy or Murray’s support. “That’s it!” Murray coached, his hand just grazing the back of her neck. She was surprised he didn’t have a timer or his notepad to log the time. But Nancy was keeping track; she kept a board in the nursery, charting each of Jean’s milestones: the first time she rolled over from her belly to her back and then back to belly; the first time Jean recognized herself in the mirror by the foyer one morning; the first time she started solid foods—just a piece of banana Nancy had smooshed into the tiniest taste for her to try. Jean’s eyes had gone wide as Nancy lifted the banana to her mouth and nudged it in, and she and Murray watched her little lips work around the food, deciding its texture, before swallowing; they cheered her on. “Another one?” Nancy asked. Jean had smiled back at her and Murray both, slapping her high chair tray.

  Next weekend, they had plans to take her to a fall party Marjorie was hosting at her home, and Nancy couldn’t wait to show Jean off there. Maybe they could give her a nibble of pumpkin puree, if Marjorie was making pie.

  Nancy laughed silently to herself. Marjorie hated baking—so she thought, I’ll bring my own.

  NINE

  Sunday

  1:15:08 p.m.

  Inside Mary’s Toy Shop on High Street, there were plastic kitchen setups and miniature strollers, rows of dolls and stuffed animals on display.

  “I used to have one just like this,” Anna said. She held up a baby doll, its head naked, eyes two beads.

  Murray fingered the edge of his jacket sleeve. “Did we come here to look at that stuff?”

  Last night Lisa had called him. She hadn’t sounded as angry on the phone as she told him about Becky. About how her eyes had fluttered six times since the first flutter two days ago. On Friday.

  “How about this one?” Anna reached amid a row of stuffed animals for a teddy bear. She squeezed its soft brown fur.

  “I said terry cloth,” said Murray, thinking of the bear he’d brought home and the way Nancy had laughed at its largeness, but she had kissed him. She had called him thoughtful.

  “I don’t think they sell them,” Anna said, her eyes confused, her cheeks still red. Just before they’d met, Anna had done her thirteen-mile-long run, clocking in at 1:34:06, or 7:23 minutes per mile. They’d gone over her splits in the gym lobby, and he hadn’t given her time to shower before walking to the toy store.

  “Did you hear me?” she asked again. “I don’t think they have them.”

  “They do,” Murray said. He was moving toward a doorway that led to a smaller room brightly lit by a series of overhead fixtures. It was the same as he remembered, from when Nancy had wanted to pick up more things, more bath toys and linking rings.

  “Here’s something.” Anna held up a gray octopus. “It’s not terry cloth, but the arms might be good?”

  When she passed him the creature, he felt for tiny rubber suction cups.

  “A little one at home?” The clerk had come up behind them. She smiled, eyes dark, unlike the room.

  “We’re shopping for someone else,” Anna said. Her ponytail had loosened, rust-colored strands grazing her neck.

  “I said terry cloth. Like this bear.” Murray went immediately to the register and paid for it with two crumpled twenties. He didn’t wait for change.

  “I’ll carry it,” Anna said. Did she think him incapable?

  Tissue crinkled as the clerk began to pack the bear in a box. Murray watched as her hands readied pink ribbon from a long spindle. They reached for thick-bladed scissors.

  “No!” he said. “We don’t need it wrapped.”

  “Oh,” the woman said. “I should have asked.” She handed Anna the bear to hold.

  Outside, Murray told Anna where his car was parked, but she wanted to walk. “It’s only a mile,” she said, squeezing the bear to her chest. “It’s so nice out.”

  Murray nodded, not because he agreed, but because this way she would avoid cramping. She could stretch out her legs.

  “When did Becky’s mother tell you about her eyelids?” Anna asked.

  “Last week. Again this morning. Will you stop and fix that?”

  “That’s great.” Anna stopped and handed him the bear. “Isn’t it?” She knelt over her shoe, laces unfurling, dirty. Then she looked up at him, hoping, he guessed, for approval.

  “Sure,” he said. He liked that the girls wanted this from him, but sometimes he thought it made them weak. Men didn’t operate this way. They just said what they thought. Did what they had to do.

  At the next crosswalk, a woman was also waiting for the light to change. She wore a purple blazer, her hair in a french twist, like Sarah used to wear it, for special occasions—banquets, award ceremonies.

  “We can cross,” Anna said.

  “You know Sarah Lloyd?” asked Murray. He was searching for a better sign, such as the birthmark on her right cheek, but it was impossible from this distance.

  “Who?”

  “Sarah Lloyd. Her picture is on the recruiting brochures. Her name’s on the record board for the 5K. In the gym.” He was speaking quickly, hopeful she might pass them so he’d know. But if it was her, wouldn’t she recognize him? She would, wouldn’t she?

  “Right,” Anna said. “I think—I’ve heard of her.”

  His first prodigy’s induction into the hall of fame. Already eight years ago. Becky’s accident was in the news, but as far as he knew, there’d been no picture of him. Rick was managing it, not for personal reasons, only because the school’s reputation was on the line. It would take some other means, such as a reporter contacting Sarah, to ask her about her experience running under him.

  Murray refused to take any of their calls—all of the reporters’. One had been so brash as to try and stop him on his way out of the gym, to see if he would answer any questions, but Murray had said he was late for a meeting.

  “Watch it!” screamed Anna. “The car!” Murray stumbled back and fell. His palm pressed into the ground and scraped against the asphalt. When he looked up, the car’s grille was there, gleaming silver, and it waited while Anna helped him up. She guided him, one hand on his arm in a firefighter’s grip, the other still clutching the bear.

  “How did you not see it?” she asked.

  “But it was our turn,” he said, shaking her arm off.

  “No, it wasn’t,” she said. They’d stopped, and she was looking at him like he was crazy. An embarrassment. “Are you going to be oka
y to walk?”

  “I’m fine.” He looked around, but the woman—Sarah—she was also gone. And he had badly scraped his hand. Red splotched, bleeding just a little, burning. He brushed off some debris.

  “I’m worried about you,” she said. “Let’s find a restaurant or something so you can wash your hands.”

  He didn’t see one anywhere, just an industrial lot with dumpsters. The smell of grease and spoiled milk. He might vomit.

  “No,” he said. “Let’s just get there.” He swallowed, pressed his hand along his tracksuit and thought it was just a few more minutes, maybe five, until the hospital, but he couldn’t show up with blood on his hand.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. But when he didn’t say anything, she went on. “We are all really worried about you.”

  She had her head turned toward him. He kept looking straight ahead.

  “We want to talk about it with you. I don’t know what to tell the team either. They don’t understand why I’m visiting alone.”

  “Why would you tell them?” He’d raised his voice. “I thought you’d use your common sense and not tell them.”

  “But it’s not fair,” she said, and then, “I’m sorry.” She said it more softly this time. “But I don’t think it’s fair.”

  “Do me a favor,” he said. “Stop apologizing. And speak louder if you have something to say.”

  “Coach—” She was whining, like a child. He wanted to cover his ears.

  “What!” said Murray. “What is that? Do you hear that?” They were cutting past the parking lot of a strip mall. The blur of a pizza parlor, a nail salon, an Indian restaurant, its gold name glinting. “There’s crying,” he said.

  There was, wasn’t there?

  “Just traffic,” Anna said, her words muddled, like the liaison Nancy had once tried to teach him in French; he did not know where the letters of one word ended and the next began. But still he’d heard it. The crying.

  “Why don’t you go into that pizza parlor? To wash off. Please, will you?” Her eyes searched him again, pitifully, it seemed, but he refused to let her guide him inside.

  He limped inside alone, where a man behind the counter was ladling marinara sauce over freshly rolled dough. The bathroom was dark and cold, its mirror fogged with film. He let the cold water sting him, cleanse him. He thought of how he needed to act: calm and assured. His tone even, like he had acted when Nancy had required that of him, to wake up and get dressed and walk out the door—he saw her then, Nancy, behind him in the mirror, her mouth about to open, to tell him something—or was it Anna? Anna had come in?

  He was in a pizza parlor, he thought. In the bathroom. He breathed, stared hard at the mirror, until the image of his wife faded, until there was quiet again. He continued to breathe as he dried his hands, as he walked back outside.

  “Are you okay?” Anna asked.

  He nodded, and they made it another hundred yards, to another light, when she turned to him.

  “Can we still talk about it?” she asked.

  “About what?”

  Murray’s hands were cold and tremulous, this tingling sensation, over his watch, in his pocket.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know what to tell them. The other girls, about the visit.” She was looking at the sidewalk now, hugging the bear tighter to her chest. He wanted to tell her to grow up and realize their conversation was over. He was an adult, an authority, and she’d better learn to listen, but before he could translate that, this thought, others unfurled.

  “Organize whatever you need to prepare for her delivery.”

  “You’re not making sense,” Anna said. “You mean recovery?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “No, you said delivery,” she said and paused. Into that silence: “But we don’t know about her recovery, at least not really. Right?”

  York Street, the street the hospital was on. They were close, where sirens rang day and night. Becky’s dorm, Branford College, faced York, and once, the day of a race, she’d complained about the alarms keeping her up. Recovery. Delivery? Which had he said?

  “Don’t worry about it, Anna. I will,” he muttered. “I’ll talk to the team about visiting.”

  There was a sever, a crack in the sidewalk, one slab tilted far above the other. “Watch!” he’d nearly shouted. But Anna gracefully sidestepped the slab. She extended her hand to help him. Pain pierced his lower back.

  “Do you have water or anything?” she said. “I’m worried.” Anna’s hair had spidered like red veins along her neck. She looked distracted. She looked away from him, then back.

  “Don’t you think we should have brought something else too?” Anna said. “Like flowers or a card or something? From the team?”

  Sweat. More sweat had soaked Murray’s back by the time they stepped through the automatic doors. In the elevator it was cool, though it smelled like latex, like cleaning products, smells he couldn’t bear.

  Lisa was waiting for them outside Becky’s room. She wore a white T-shirt under loose overalls. She hugged Anna, not him.

  “Thank you for coming,” she said, still looking only at Anna. “They took out her trach today. We’re happy. It’s a big step.” She blotted her eyes. “Doug’s not here. He’s in the cafeteria.”

  “It’s okay,” Anna said. She held out the bear. “It was Coach’s idea.”

  “How thoughtful.” Lisa looked at him this time, smiling faintly, but she didn’t take the bear. He could still feel Lisa’s rigidity, her distance. How could she, even after nearly two weeks, not see it was an accident of the most impossible kind?

  Anna placed her hand over Lisa’s, reassuring her that the team was doing okay. As Lisa explained Becky’s state carefully to Anna, Murray began to wonder how old Lisa was. She was a young mother. She couldn’t have been more than forty, which would have made her twenty, at most, when Becky was born.

  Murray studied Lisa’s tan face, her wavy blonde hair. So unlike Becky’s black. Doug’s was gray from what he remembered, not as gray as Murray’s—but gray.

  “We’re going together, right, Coach?” Anna hugged the bear even closer to her chest, as if she’d never registered that Lisa hadn’t taken it. Hadn’t accepted their gift.

  Then, inside the room, he felt Anna’s jolt, her gasp. She turned to him, as if to verify it was Becky’s violet face and body they saw. Her arms were bound to the bed by restraints, her stomach, rising and falling beneath thin blue bedsheets. Her life they were watching.

  No more tracheal tube: the stable rhythms of her heart rate monitor, the ventilator’s steady surge and hush.

  Anna reached for him, pressing her firm body into his, the way Nancy had as they’d waited for news. The doctor’s quiet footsteps over linoleum, approaching.

  Where was Anna going now? So close, too close, to the bed.

  “Don’t!” he said.

  “What?” Anna wept.

  “Don’t touch her,” he said.

  “I wasn’t,” she said. “I didn’t.” She turned and laid the bear by Becky’s side. She crouched over her teammate, weeping. When she looked up, he saw Nancy’s green eyes, her mouth white and covered in tears outside the emergency room.

  “Sleeping isn’t the right word,” Anna said later. How much later, he didn’t know.

  “What, no—I—”

  “You said, Let her sleep.”

  “I did?”

  Anna looked straight at him. She walked to the sink in the room and leaned over it. Murray could have comforted her, placed his hand over hers. He saw only Nancy’s back, her loose nightgown those mornings she’d been unable to rise. She’d resented him for it, how he’d sought to resume his work those first months.

  “Coach,” Lisa said.

  He’d walked out and left Anna alone in the room.

  “How did it go?” Lisa’s hands clutched a tattered tissue.

  “Okay,” he said, but his eyes avoided hers too. In his periphery, a woman on the other side of th
e room. She was in a wheelchair, reading a magazine.

  When Anna emerged, she reached for Lisa. More red hair, wet along her neck. Her back quavered.

  “Doug is coming,” Lisa said. She wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry. But you both have to leave.”

  Hours later, at 5:00 p.m., Murray went to the empty natatorium to regain himself. He wore his swimming trunks and brought his own towel. At first he considered water running, but it had been so long since he’d last tried. He sat along the edge of the water, looking down at his shrunken, sun-spotted thighs. A regimen of fifty squats a day, at least one hundred jumping jacks, that was what he needed. He swirled his feet, toenails gnarled and yellow, in the water.

  Once, not long after they’d married and moved to New Haven, he and Nancy had gone to a small swimming hole in Old Lyme. Murray had brazenly peeled his clothes off and watched Nancy do the same. They usually made love in the dark, but by the swimming hole, where the sun slit the river and had cast shadows around their feet, he’d seen her shape clearly, the perfect line of her hip bone, her long neck.

  Murray closed his eyes and slipped into the deep water. He began to push, frog-style. Without gravity, his hips relaxed and opened, a little more with each stroke. His eyes burned from the bitterness of the chlorine. He closed them tighter. He tried to take long, full breaths, but the capacity wasn’t there, in his lungs. He felt his heart, the thrum of overhead lights, saw in his mind a mosaic of Nancy’s soft back and legs. Then he saw her on her back, faceup at the sky, in the swimming hole, the sunlight warm and scintillating, before she turned over on her belly. She pushed toward him, several long strokes, before she reached him, pressing her lips gently into his.