by Rachel Kane
What I’d never gotten back for my trouble was love.
I questioned whether Val could even comprehend that. Whether he knew what love was at all.
He could understand duty. He could understand tasks.
But love? The basic give-and-take that drew people together?
I stared at him and my heart broke all over again, wondering what it must be like to live inside his head, so disconnected from everyone, so lost in a world that only cared about the numbers he could generate.
And my parents? What had happened to them, that they had raised two boys to be like this?
I didn’t feel like blaming them right now. The anger I had felt just moments ago had faded into something else, a need to understand.
Didn’t they care about us? Or had my dad’s own father drilled into him the importance of money, the importance of the greater good above all else, and had that lesson been like a virus, infecting my mother, until all she cared about was the legacy? Even now, when she claimed she wanted to break free from it, all she could think was that I should obey the family, obey my brother, obey the company.
I stood up.
“Where are you going?” Val said weakly.
“I’m going to my office. I’m going to have a goddamn drink to keep myself sane. Then I’m going out. Somewhere. I don’t know where. Somewhere far away from this.”
“But—”
“Call Mother. Talk to her. I don’t know what else to tell you, Val. But I’ve got to get away from here.”
28
Micah
The land in question was off the highway. You could see it from the overpass, stretching out beneath you, but it took some doing to find the road leading down into it. I was going slow enough that people behind me were angry and honking. I ignored them, studying my GPS until I found the secluded turn-off.
It gave me a flash of nostalgia, which wasn’t too surprising, since everything was giving me a flash of nostalgia these days. But this in particular was a sharp one, moving from the bustling city highway to another, more primitive world, in less than a hundred feet. It reminded me of how you emerged from pine forests and dry farmland to Harrison Lake.
So many birds in the distance, following their ancient migratory path through this area. Many of them would winter here, filling the air with raucous cries and alien songs, finding each other in the great mass of trees and grasses and ponds.
Finding each other.
No. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t think about animals finding one another, or I’d start thinking about people doing it, and that would lead me to Theo finding me, and that just didn’t bear thinking about. The mere thought was enough to cut myself open.
That part of my life—that brief, tiny interval of my life that had promised so much more—was over.
And more than that little sliver of life was over.
I realized that Theo abandoning me one more time, put a punctuation on my youth as well. Proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was no returning to those days, no going back to being a fresh-faced, innocent kid with his whole life ahead of him, his best boy by his side.
My hands were so tight on the wheel, I had to consciously loosen my grip. I rubbed my eyes. How long had I been sitting here? I had a job to do.
Bernard was worried about me, back at the office. He’d helped me clean. It doesn’t matter, I can do it, you take the day off, he’d said, when in shuddering breaths I had described what happened.
So I had gone home. Home, to my tiny closet of an apartment, a cramped, uncomfortable space I hated. Who was I kidding, living in a place like that? Efficiency? I wasn’t a damn robot, why was I living like one? There was no room for furniture, no room for books, no room to breathe, just me and my lungs and my ribs and the walls pressing down on them.
I missed the Victorian I’d been living in before. Missed elbow room. Big windows and nice places to sit.
People with money didn’t have to live like this. They didn’t scrimp and save and make do, hoping that all their hard work would eventually pay off, hoping that they’d be one of the rich, successful lawyers in a few years.
No, people with money just lived. They got on with their lives. They didn’t have to wait, they weren’t in stasis, they didn’t stash themselves in a microscopic claustrophobic tomb pretending they were nothing outside of work.
It was time to start living again. If Theo had taught me anything (aside from the fact that I wasn’t worth his love, aside from the fact that I wasn’t worth anyone’s time or love or sacrifice), it’s that I wanted something bigger than this. He’d never had to work for his money. Oh, sure, he’d given up a lot, but he’d started with a lot too, hadn’t he? It seemed a small price to pay, to have a room big enough to turn around in.
That’s why I was here, checking outside my car to make sure I wouldn’t ruin my shoes when I got out. Here to take a look at the wetlands that Braddock Moore wanted to turn into a neighborhood. Posh, well-heeled people, energetic up-and-comers, the cream of the crop, here to replace the ducks and herons.
Maybe I could get a place here. Maybe Braddock would give me a deal. Or maybe I didn’t need a deal, with the money I would make from him.
It clearly wasn’t going to be a tough job, if his so-called friends could scare off all his enemies.
I could get used to that kind of power. Maybe I could be one of those scary people.
Micah Reynolds, Gangster Lawyer.
It sounded like a 1970s crime show.
The ground was dry, but I could see where it sloped down into the little ponds that dotted the area. I pushed my car door shut softly, by instinct, like I didn’t want to disturb anyone here.
A warm front had moved in overnight, pushing ragged clouds ahead of it, and we’d gone from sweaters and jackets, to short sleeves. The air was humid, like a last reminder of summer.
Not that I ever wanted to think about summer again.
We make our choices, don’t we? We either point ourselves to the past, where we keep visiting again and again, making a little circle of our lives, never getting anywhere, never making it any further…or we point to the future, a straight line, a path forward, maybe not understanding the destination, but at least we’re not always retracing our steps.
I looked over this land and tried to see it through Braddock’s eyes. Curved streets, leading to endless cul-de-sacs, the illusion of seclusion on every road.
Bronchioles, I thought. Another of those words from high school that you learn and never use, until suddenly it pops into your head one day. The little passages in your lungs. The passages start off large, then branch off, then branch off again, terminating in the… Where did it end, again? What was the word? Why did one word occur to me, but not the other?
I took a deep breath and inhaled an entire world. The air was rich and heavy, full of the scents of living and dying plants. The birdsong had not ceased. Overhead a flock of geese pointed themselves south, passing in front of the blinding white sun.
A row of turtles arranged themselves on a rock in the pond, aiming their backs to that white sun, soaking up what heat they could.
He would set up his easel here, up at this slight elevation, so he could see the whole panorama in front of him. The turtles would be near the center. To me their shells look the color of mud, that greeny-brown that covered everything back home at the lake, but to him, there would be a myriad colors involved, and he’d pull his brush through shade after shade, trying to get just the right color for the way the sun played off their drying shells.
No. Absolutely not.
Fill in this pond, put in a road. A gate, a gatehouse, a security guard. A kindly old man who would nod at you when he recognized your car, with his official-looking guard cap and his hand on the button for the gate. Replace all those trees over there with something decorative, perhaps some small cypresses, something you could keep under control.
“Are you from the state?”
I nearly jumped out of my sk
in. I’d thought I was alone here, would not have come if I’d known there were people around.
I didn’t want people around right now. I wanted this wetland, and to watch its destruction, as it financed my new life, my lonely but wealthy new life.
The man who had emerged from the trees was muddy, and I would’ve thought he was homeless, perhaps someone living here in the swamps, someone needing to be evicted, papers filed at the courthouse, a court order against trespass, I could picture the process in my head.
But no. He was wearing waders, and had a mostly-clean cap on to shield his head from the sun. Thick gloves on his hands, and the trim beard of a younger man.
He’d asked me a question.
“No, I represent the buyer. Micah Reynolds, attorney.” Gangster attorney. Be scared of me. I had the absurd instinct to reach for my business cards.
I’ve never seen anyone’s face hardening so fast.
“This isn’t his land yet,” the man said. “I’m allowed to be here.”
“I’m not here to kick anybody out,” I said. “I just came to look at it.”
“Probably ought to introduce myself,” he said. “I’m Taggart McLain, and I guess you’ll be suing me at some point. I’m head of the Corinth Nature Society, and I’m fighting to protect this land.”
I considered the ungloved hand he reached out to me, then shook it.
“Ah, the enemy,” I said. “Well, the less said the better, I suppose.”
“Yeah. Although I’m glad you’re getting a look at it, before it’s destroyed. It’s a beautiful place.”
I stared off into the distance. “It really is,” I said.
What, was I going to lie? It could all burn to the ground for all I cared, but it was still pretty.
He looked at me strangely. “What makes a man do that?” he asked.
“Do what?”
“Look at a place like this, and only see its destruction. The hillocks, the ponds, the trees…how can you agree that it’s beautiful, but see it as an obstacle to something else? The same big cheap houses that are falling apart all over town, the same roads that start to crumble as people drive their oversized SUVs on them, the yards getting drowned because the hydrodynamics aren’t considered hard enough. You want this place to look like every other so-called nice neighborhood in Corinth. Why? There’s nothing else like this in town. This is nature, working out a problem, figuring out what to do with flooding, providing homes to over a hundred species of birds—”
“You don’t have to narrate,” I said. “I can see it for myself. I grew up somewhere like this, I understand how it works, what it does, what it’s for.”
Maybe something in my tone caught him off-guard.
“Then…then why? Why do it? Why pull it all down?”
“Progress,” I said. “The show must go on. We’ve all got lives to lead. Straight lines into the future. This place is the past.”
“Bullshit,” he said, shaking his head. “You don’t believe that. Nobody actually believes stuff like that, it’s just the nonsense you say when you want to justify your greed.”
“I’m not greedy,” I insisted. “Believe me. Hell, I used to want to be an environmental lawyer. I understand land like this.”
What a strange, pushy man, I thought. What kind of guy accosts strangers in the wetlands, accusing them of greed?
“You used to want it,” he said. “Typical. Everybody has big dreams when they’re young, but as soon as they grow up, they toe the line. Well, Mr. Lawyer, some of us grew up to fight for what we believe in. So bring on your lawsuits. Take us to court. Try to mow us down. We’re going to fight you every step of the way.”
“I’m not the bad guy here,” I said. “You’re being weirdly hostile to someone you’ve just met.”
“You’re not the bad guy? Then who is? Me? My group? The ones fighting for the birds and the fish and everything that can’t defend itself from bulldozers? Am I the bad guy?”
“No—”
No, my client is the bad guy, I started to say.
My client is the bad guy, and if I do what he says, I’ll get a big house and a big car, and all the comforts of home. The certainty of a big payday, and the confidence to lord it over others. I’ll have a house for my mom, and a house for me.
I looked at this guy, muddy, filthy, bronzed by the sun.
It reminded me of how Theo and I looked back then. Exploring the muddy bank of the lake, looking for dragonfly nymphs, ankle-deep in muck. The way Consuela would cluck at us when we came in, our finds preserved in water-glasses, Wipe your feet! Don’t track mud! Don’t let the missus see you like that!
Back in the days I believed in things.
People made choices.
If you believed in something, you might end up like this guy, on the losing side. You’d sacrifice everything for the greater good. It was a gamble, and you knew you might not win, but look at his face, look at the casual certainty he had, that he was doing the right thing.
So different from my face lately, the worry lines, the hesitance. Worrying about the way people thought of me all the time.
And I thought of Theo, who thought he was sacrificing for the greater good, too. Except he wasn’t. He was sacrificing for a family that would never stop taking from him. For a family that fed off his love, fed off his energy, and gave nothing back in return.
Sometimes in life you’re faced with a stark choice. We talk about dreamers as though they’re impractical, as though they’ve got their head in the clouds, and then we get back to our prosaic daily lives and wonder where everything went wrong.
But that ignored the fact that dreaming leads to hard work. Dreams aren’t in the clouds, they’re down here on earth, you have to get your hands around them, you have to use them like tools, building the life you know in your heart you want and deserve.
Dreams are tools.
That meant I had a choice.
I could fight for what I believed in, and life would be hard. I could take the side of the little guy, and the turtles, and the lush grasses that grew beside the ponds and lakes, take the side of all the things in the world that couldn’t afford an attorney, that couldn’t afford help, but deserved it anyway…
…or I could take the easy road. Take Braddock Moore’s money and avert my eyes when he broke the law. Comfort myself with a big house here where the pond used to be. Tell myself that someone’s got to represent him, someone’s got to cash in their conscience, and it might as well be me as anyone else.
After all, I’m a goddamn shark, right? Never stop moving.
I had to make a choice. And somewhere, deep down in my heart, in a place I didn’t want to look right now, I realized that choice also involved my dreams of love.
Eventually I was going to have to admit that I deserved love, no matter who had left me in the past. Eventually I was going to have to ask for that love I deserved.
You have to fight for something in life.
It’s fight or flight. You’re either doing battle for your dreams, or you’re running away from them.
That’s the choice.
“Nice to meet you. Talk to you later,” I said to the muddy man, and headed back to my car.
29
Theo
I didn’t go to a bar.
Yes, I know, completely out of character.
Because what I was meant to do at times like these, was to hide from everything. Wasn’t that my reputation? I’d sit in a bar—a nice one, mind you, a posh one that didn’t serve just anyone—and try to decide between an interesting cocktail or a plain whiskey, and the choice would start to stress me out so I’d just go with whiskey, I’d line them up and start working my way down to oblivion.
Yeah, that’s what I was meant to do. Stressed the fuck out, feeling like my entire life was closing in on me, like I was at the bottom of a hole and my family was up there on the surface, shoveling the dirt down to cover me. Who wouldn’t drink? I defy anyone to face that sober, to face it clear-eyed.
I went to the museum.
I should be more specific. There are endless museums in this city. The historical museums, with their mannequins and carriages and a couple of old train cars, detailing our progress from the first settlers to today. The nature museums, full of taxidermy and skeletons and dioramas, to remind you of what lived here before we lived here.
No. I needed art. And even for that, there was a great selection in the city. Modern places where young artists could find their work on the walls, perhaps financed by Nice Old Men like Mother’s new boyfriend. Galleries aplenty to showcase the latest and greatest. But I wanted something old. I wanted…
…something that had stood the test of time.
I stepped into the quiet air of the art museum, the door sliding shut with a hiss behind me, as though I were now safely stored in a bottle.
This is where I had come as a boy, on one of our field trips at school. Don’t touch anything, hands to your sides, the teacher said. A note of despair in her voice. What was the use of bringing a bunch of rich little kids to a place like this? They wouldn’t appreciate it. They wouldn’t understand what it meant, what it was worth. But it was all part of the training. You’re brought to these places, because when you’re an adult, they’re going to ask you for money. They’re going to ask you to sit on the board. This is one of the places you’ll be expected to protect.
Don’t touch anything. Eventually you’ll protect it, but right now, you’ll destroy it with your sticky hands.
Kids running and being cautioned not to run, their footsteps echoing over the marble floor. I remembered the sound so clearly, it might have been happening right now in front of me. I could almost picture myself, so much smaller then.
I didn’t run. I wasn’t trying to chase and play tag.
No, the paintings themselves had caught my eye.
They’re like…pictures, I’d said to the teacher.
Well, yes, they are pictures.
No, I mean… Like you’d take with your camera. Except someone made them.
