Late Air

by Jaclyn Gilbert

  Hands restless over his steering wheel. His neck jerked. At a light, he beat his palms over leather. He hummed.

  “Goddamn it!” he shouted. He pulled over and looked to the empty passenger seat. Nancy’s contorted body that last drive back from the hospital. She had made him pull over. Had told him to let her out, and then she’d hobbled down Orange Street alone. He’d found her beating her fists on the sidewalk.

  Outside his car, by the course, a breeze cooled his skin, but as he walked through the woods, this coolness seemed to have little effect on his lungs; he was breathing heavily. He noticed that the house before him, the one he’d been keeping his eye on all these weeks, was for sale. No cars in the driveway. Lights off. Lawn still unmowed. He read the sign again, FORSALE, letters crammed, bleeding together, and then he thought, There had been a man. Murray was sure of it. But when he edged toward the back lawn, he couldn’t distinguish a figure from parts of the house.

  The gate to the back patio was open. He pulled out a chair and sat down. He checked his phone again. If he called Nancy . . . if she had the same number?

  For a moment, he saw darkness, then a harsh slanted light. He smelled charcoal, but when he lifted the cover of the grill, there was only a rumpled magazine. Still, a fire hazard; he tore it into pieces. He watched the bits fly away.

  He looked for matches. Lighter fluid. Other hazards.

  “Hey there,” someone said. “What are you doing?”

  A man in a suit was walking toward him. Murray limped to his car as he heard heels clicking and the man shouting. “Hey!” the man said. “I’m calling the police.”

  But Murray was certain the man hadn’t had time to read his license plate. Murray had peeled off in the opposite direction. If anyone asked, he was looking for the ball. He looked around. He was just on the edge of the golf course and wished he’d had clubs in the trunk, something to show for himself, for why he was in the neighborhood. Maybe he was lost, maybe he really hadn’t been able to find the ball he was playing with and had friends out there on the sixth hole, waiting for him?

  What if the house had surveillance cameras? he thought. But he wasn’t in clear-enough view for anyone to detect the Y on his jacket, to have reason to contact the school; the main campus was over two miles away. Then, at a red light, he saw a truck parked in someone’s driveway. He saw men carrying brushes and a can, and a sign that said WET PAINT, or had he just imagined that, because you usually didn’t advertise when it was your work or your own home—you were supposed to be safe about it, wear face masks for the fumes, keep others safe.

  He parked at a gas station, crouched over his steering wheel. His hands were blue with squeezing hard, his breath shallower. He’d started wearing a heart rate monitor again—earlier today it had been 72 beats per minute, now it was 95. He couldn’t find the pulse oximeter in his glove box, his hands working furiously among maps and receipts.

  He jumped when he felt on a knock on the window. It was only a service attendant. He rolled down his window.

  “There’s no parking here!” the man said. He had a thick accent and beard. Dark eyes.

  “Oh—”

  He turned the key to his office, thinking little of the stacks of papers he had to file, the scattering of napkins stained with coffee. He opened a window. He went to his desk. “Coach?” Rodney stood in the doorway. “We made this for Becky.” She held up a greeting card. When she handed it to him, he couldn’t read the words: minuscule, delicate script. “Don’t you want to sign it?”

  His pen was on his pad by the watch on the desk.

  “Here,” she said, digging around her pocket.

  “No,” he said. “I got it.” He squeezed letters into a sliver of white space.

  “When can we take it to her?” Rodney asked, holding the envelope. “She’s awake, isn’t she?”

  “I’ll take it,” he said, feeling some sweat on his lips. “Haven’t heard from Becky’s mom.”

  “That’s not true,” Rodney said. “We’ve talked to her. She talks to Anna.”

  “What?” Murray said.

  “We were just doing you a favor. We thought we could all go together, after you signed the card.”

  “No, I’m not taking you all,” Murray said firmly, feeling his father’s eyes on him, saying, The only way you get anywhere is by working, earning your way—your privileges.

  He heard himself saying that now to Rodney. “She actually earns her hospital visits.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Anna. Anna works harder than you do. She deserves to go with me to the hospital.” He saw Nancy gripping his arms outside the hospital, Nancy’s legs collapsing before they’d reached the car in the parking lot.

  Rodney just stood there: eyes small, mouth slightly open. “You mean she’s your favorite. You always have one.”

  “What?” He almost reached across the desk to grab her arm, to tell her to go to her room, to think about what she’d done and write that one hundred times over, like his mother had once made him do—I will not talk back to my father. I will not talk back. I will not talk back. I will not talk back, until his wrists had ached, the lead of his pencil dulled.

  “I’ve seen you look at her funny,” Rodney said. “You look at all of us.”

  She didn’t speak, just stared straight at him, arms crossed.

  “Get out of my office,” he said. “I was going to tell you tomorrow, but you’re on academic probation. That means off the team.” He stood up from behind his desk. “I don’t want you anywhere near us.” He was the one raising his voice. “If I see even a trace of you, hear a mention of you, there’ll be real repercussions. With the dean!”

  “You can’t do that,” she said. “You don’t have that kind of hold. You’re just a deadbeat.”

  The phone rang. He picked it up and pressed the mouthpiece to his chest, his other finger on hold. “Get out!”

  “Just wait!” she shouted.

  “Get out!” He was louder. After three long seconds, when she was gone, he released the button: “Hello?”

  “Mr. Murray?”

  He listened to the silence.

  “Mr. Murray?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m calling from Dr. Almasi’s office. To remind you of your eye appointment tomorrow. At 10:30.”

  “No,” he said, seeing little black letters, narrow, then wide. Yellow eye drops. Dilation.

  “When would you like to reschedule?”

  “What?”

  “I asked if you’d like to reschedule.”

  He hung up the phone, holding it there by its neck. It took some moments to breathe again, to look around the room. He surveyed the wall with its smattering of photographs. Sarah, he had his arm around her, in front of Georgetown’s track: 2001. She had just set a national record of 15:02.02 as a sophomore.

  Then he started to look for a wallet-sized photo from that same year, the one Nancy had found. Evidence, she’d called it, in the glove box of his car.

  He rifled through business cards, receipts, coupons, until he felt it, small and thin and slick. But it wasn’t that. He stared at the silhouette, softly curved in the night.

  “Coach.” It was Victoria this time. Her eyes scorched red, as if maybe Rodney had told her something untrue. Had Rodney even been in his office?

  “I’m not . . . ,” Victoria said finally. “I don’t think I can make practice.”

  “No?” he said. “Why not?”

  “I can’t breathe.” She’d begun to cry. “Ever since Becky,” she started, but had to pause. “Every time I start to run,” she said, “I have to think about it.” She adjusted the chain around her neck: a tiny cross. “I have to think about each breath, and then I count them. I try counting seconds instead, but I always have to stop before I reach sixty. Every workout, all I can see is the seconds.” Her mouth was wet, quivering.

  Murray’s college coach used to ask him this every time. Do you have what it takes? Do you? He would lean in
close to Murray’s face and say that, like he was either going to be punched or he was going to go out there and obliterate himself on the track.

  “You’re excused,” Murray said calmly, trying to focus on Victoria. It was Victoria in his office now.

  “I’m not coming back.” Her voice broke again.

  Ten years ago, there might have been a point to patience. Understanding. But abstract philosophies meant nothing in relation to measurable, foreseeable outcomes. Murray’s father said you were only ever as much as you achieved.

  “I’m sorry,” she wept.

  He looked away, reaching for the photograph. Trapped soundwaves: the heart, this tiny throbbing star, he shoved it back into his drawer. Victoria had left without closing the door.

  Nancy, she’d stormed out and gotten in the car. Said she wouldn’t be back for a while. But it was just a photo. Ask any coach, he’d said. They all had photos.

  It’s the hiding, she’d said. What else are you hiding?

  He should have asked her, Nancy, his wife, the same thing, but he hadn’t. He’d just watched her fold the laundry that Saturday afternoon, the way she’d left his briefs and undershirts in a clump on the ottoman.

  She used to recount the smallest details of her day, disruptions, clips of dialogue. She used to go on and on, analyzing every word, facial expression.

  He thought of the logs she’d kept when they’d been expecting: the foods she ate, the frequency of kicks. Later it was the feedings, the sleep schedule.

  She had borrowed his legal pads.

  Once, she’d told him she thought it was a mother’s job to count. A mother never stopped counting.

  As if he didn’t count every day himself, every hour, and every minute that went into a year. As if this hadn’t been his whole world, as if she were the only one with charts and photographs. Milestones that gave their life meaning, an arc anyone could look at and trace and say, Your life happened as it was supposed to; your life followed its natural course.

  He was counting the days. Twenty-four days since the accident. One more until another set of five, if he went by the hash marks he kept at the top of her sheet: the last day she’d run. She would again, he thought. Patience, he thought. Just wait a few more weeks. Maybe a few more months.

  Outside his office the floor creaked. Even though plenty of people passed by at any hour on a given day, he couldn’t risk another encounter, especially with Rick or another one of his girls. He stood up, the smell of broth and the brown wood of his desk. Becky’s feeding tube, carts rattling down the hospital corridor, the change of light outside in the parking lot.

  He had done his reading. It was all part of the process. For example, a young girl had fallen off her horse in Maine and spent six weeks unconscious before she woke. There were things she’d had to relearn, but synapses strengthened, the body provided valuable feedback. After a point, it could be like riding a bike or hitting a tennis ball. Muscle memory.

  Sometimes people envisioned extremes as protection, as preparation, but Becky was different, he muttered aloud. She would surprise them.

  He sought this image of her at Terre Haute, his favorite, in the late November cold, Becky leading the pack. But instead it was just the two of them standing in the hotel elevator.

  Usually he stayed on a different floor than the girls when he took more than one with him to a competition, but Nationals was such a rare occasion, it hadn’t seemed necessary to stay so far apart.

  In the elevator, she hadn’t locked eyes with him, not once. She’d kept them fixed above, on the ascending numbers, until the bell dinged. She looked so small when she stepped out, practically swimming in her boathouse jacket, clutching the straps of her backpack like a child.

  As she flashed her key card and the door unclicked, for a moment he hadn’t moved away, hadn’t looked down with propriety when the door swung open. He heard Anna, then Rodney, saying that he looked at Becky, focused on her, in a way that was uncomfortable.

  No, it was just Rodney causing a stir, spreading rumors. He’d better go to Rick now so there was no confusion about Lehigh next Saturday. Rodney couldn’t be on that bus. But Rick’s door was locked when he got there. He hurried to print out her academic record, to sign and date the official probation form. He slipped both under Rick’s door.

  He heard Nancy, or no, it was just the softball coach, Vivian Miller. She waved at him. He waved back, his wrist shaking. His knees again.

  Nancy—evidence—words in echo: red-rimmed eyes, her arms ashen and skeletal beneath her robe as she pointed at him, like Lisa. Like he was a criminal, like he’d violated someone, when the truth, if he really boiled it down, was Sarah: the problem with Sarah was all Nancy’s doing.

  Before Nancy found the photo, she’d walked in on him and Sarah in his office. In the middle of a harmless meditation sequence. He never did this, meditate, but Sarah had found some New Age article and wanted to try it. She’d even suggested holding hands, but he felt afraid of that, the optics of it all. Just after he agreed, of course that was the moment Nancy walked in.

  The photo had compounded Nancy’s paranoia, and his explanations, his repeated assurance—they’d only made things worse.

  There was no denying it: Nancy wanted, needed, a lot of things. Attention, security, his emotional support, as she’d put it so many times. But she was the one who’d had the affair. She had broken something in him, as if their marriage—after what they’d been through, what he’d put himself through to keep the beams up, the walls from crumbling—could be reduced to sharing an ice cream.

  He had smelled Richard on her, under all the perfume she’d worn those first months, in the way her hands fussed when he’d asked simple questions about why she was late, again and again. His induction ceremony as head coach in September . . . He’d worn a new suit, proud to walk through Grand Central in it, into the Yale Club on Vanderbilt, greeted personally by the concierge, ushered up the elevator, to the ballroom on the twenty-second floor.

  But Nancy never showed. She’d told him she needed to work a little later but that she’d be there. She wouldn’t miss it.

  He’d been mortified: alone at his table while all the other coaches sat with their wives, whispering in their ears like people did at weddings or during church. They’d asked where she was after they’d come over to congratulate him, shake his hand.

  And the worst part had been knowing he wouldn’t be able to tell his wife I needed you there. In her eyes, he’d never be able to share her pain, his would never be as crushing, because he could manage, go on with things. She hadn’t been able to do that, and she’d never forgiven him.

  He’d needed her there at the banquet—he might have said that out loud. If she’d let him, he might have proved himself capable of what she’d needed, too, those first months especially.

  Sarah had been the only one there with him at the banquet. He had consoled himself and thought, At least I have Sarah. Her accomplishments. She’d been willing to put all her time and energy into training, and she hadn’t suffered one injury, not until senior year when those two stress fractures had come on suddenly in her femur. She had been diagnosed with osteopenia, the precursor to osteoporosis. Appalling, Dr. Owens had said. She’s suffering so young from a disease most women don’t get until after menopause.

  Nancy left before Sarah’s injuries started—the year Sarah stopped running. Before that, he’d been fine. He’d had his appetite, his sleep, and his own training hadn’t suffered, not as much as Nancy believed it should have. A feeling person wouldn’t know how to live with himself. Wasn’t that how she’d put it? After Sarah’s injuries, he’d become increasingly restless, dependent on thoughts of when he’d see her next, how to resume their schedule. He’d needed those hours with her, that consistency.

  One Saturday he’d even made arrangements, through another girl on the team, to meet her in the common area of her dorm. He’d written out notes, objective points to go over about changing her diet to optimize recovery,
a projected timeline for starting PT. He’d assumed it would cheer her up, give her something positive to focus on. And she’d smiled at him when he’d walked in with a clipboard under his arm, a fresh carton of chocolate milk for her to drink. She’d had her crutches propped on the wall, these red indents under her eyes from crying or not sleeping, maybe. But he hadn’t asked her about it. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to, the same way he hadn’t been able to ask Nancy how she was faring once she’d started work again, once she’d decided she was going to try to function.

  No, he hadn’t asked Sarah about her pain either. Instead he just went over his notes, highlighting the strength training she’d want to prioritize, once she could do weight-bearing activities again. In the middle, she’d started crying. My bones are weak, she’d sobbed, gripping the tops of her thighs. They ache so much.

  He’d wanted to hug her. Hold her even. It had felt so long since he’d held anyone. He was disturbed by his own need, its coming on so suddenly. Of course he’d always been aware of his job: how delicate it was, the threat of a lawsuit if he crossed even the semblance of a line. Any kind of lingering embrace—even that pause behind Becky in the hallway—could have been the end of him. All he’d wanted was to show Sarah the recovery plans again, to focus on the future, any future, but that had only made things worse. She’d looked at him like he was crazy—despicable somehow—for wanting to help her. She’d refused to come back to try and finish the season. Then after graduation, they’d lost touch completely. He’d tried looking her up, to see if she was training with a professional team anywhere, but her name hadn’t popped up, not even when he limited his search to major cities like New York, DC, and Chicago because she’d wanted to work in finance. For a hedge fund.