Orchard (9780062974761)

by Hopen, David

  “Aryeh!” My mother to my left, holding me down, soothing my forehead. “You can hear me?”

  “Yes.” My voice low, hoarse.

  “My poor, poor baby. Don’t stir.” She grabbed my left hand, a look of tremendous relief coming over her. “How’re you feeling?”

  Strange discoveries: a machine blinked beside me. My right arm was in a large cast. My left arm was dotted in pinpricks. “Am I—all right?”

  She nodded, still fighting tears, holding my head in her hands.

  “I’m paralyzed, aren’t I?”

  “Paralyzed? God forbid. You’re okay, Aryeh. You’re going to be perfectly okay.”

  Briefly I wept—relief, exhaustion, misery. Then I stopped. “Imma.”

  “Yes, Aryeh?”

  “Where is he?”

  “Abba just stepped out for more coffee. He’ll be right back. He’s going to be so relieved, Baruch Hashem. I mean, we knew—”

  “Evan.”

  She looked at my vitals. “He’s in the ICU.”

  “He’s okay?”

  My mother shrugged, gently releasing my face. “As far as I know.”

  “I’m sorry.” My voice cracked. “Imma.”

  Now she cried. She did so gently, hardly making a sound, into her hands so I couldn’t see her face. I knew I ought to comfort her, but I didn’t, the prospect of moving, of finding words, too exhausting. “Your father nearly didn’t come.” With some effort, I passed her a tissue. She dotted her eyes. “He’s scared to see you. Scared to talk to you.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I understand.”

  “I think he’s right, Ari,” she said, nodding vigorously, blowing her nose. “Maybe he was all along.”

  “About what?”

  “Leaving home. Coming here. What’s best for you.”

  I closed my eyes, embraced the pain radiating from my arm to my shoulders, my shoulders to my neck, my neck to my skull. How could I not see that my father was correct? And what right did I ever have to consider myself inherently miserable? And how many parents or spouses or children or friends or coworkers or grandparents or rabbis or ministers or neighbors or acquaintances had occupied the seat on my which mother sat? How many sleepless hours had passed through these four walls? How many prayers had been unanswered? How many people, faced with illness, oblivion, had formulated lackluster end-of-life theories from this fucking bed? I opened my eyes again, I said nothing.

  “What’s happened to us?” she asked. I looked out my window, the curtains thrown open: early morning, hot and dry, a view of a towering, sleek-windowed corporate office across the street. “Are you unhappy?”

  “Unhappy?” I tried stretching my legs. “Yeah,” I said, my voice breaking suddenly, “yeah, I think I am.”

  Tears again, the feeling that some natural barrier between mother and child was being peeled away. “But you were always such a happy person.”

  I took her hand in mine. “No, Imma.” I smiled sadly, I rubbed her arm. “Maybe I never was.”

  * * *

  SOMEONE WALKING A DOG ALONG the water saw our wreck and called 911. My parents received the police call at one-thirty in the morning. The doctors found substances in our systems. Evan, as driver, was expected to face charges.

  The hospital kept me for four and a half days. I was beat up fairly well, covered in bruises, in need of three dozen stitches on my forehead, chest and back. My right arm was fractured but wouldn’t require surgery, assuming it healed properly. Dr. Friedman, a kind-eyed man with a bushy, gray mustache, stressed how lucky I was to even be alive, let alone walk away largely unscathed. A minor miracle, he called it. Plus, he stressed, I was in considerably better shape than Evan, who had an orbital fracture, his right leg snapped in three places and would have to stay a week and a half longer, at the very least. “But none of that would’ve mattered, of course,” Dr. Friedman told me, “if he hadn’t made it out of the water.”

  “Yes,” I croaked, sensing the Vicodin kicking in, “I suppose.”

  “They say you dragged him out?”

  Light as air, floating sluggishly toward the ceiling, lungs filled with helium. I tried nodding.

  “Well,” he said, patting my shoulder, leaving me to my oncoming narcotic stupor, “that young man owes you his life.”

  They told me I couldn’t see him until I was discharged. I had little interest in doing so anyway. I couldn’t imagine what I’d say to him. I had questions to work out, questions I pondered during welcome stretches of clarity between painkillers. He had nearly killed me; that was indisputable. His recklessness was deliberate, of that I was certain. To the police, there was little mystery here—two wild teenagers, drunk and high, making a grave mistake—but I was less assured. I couldn’t rule out an accident; it was quite possible that his only intention was to scare me by skirting the jetties. And even if he hadn’t intended to swerve, even if he’d been set on plowing into the rocks and breaking us into human fragments, perhaps it was the result not of malevolence but of combining substances with months of loss, anger, pain? The final option: he had, with a clear mind, intended to kill us, or at least to kill me, using me as some sacrifice while he jumped at the last moment. Lost amid those fluorescent ceiling lights, I struggled through these options, replaying the moments of the crash.

  Noah, Rebecca and Amir visited daily. Noah brought cheer, Rebecca sweets—usually baked by Cynthia—and Amir updates on what I’d missed in class. Kayla came most days, too, hovering guiltily over me, making small talk with my mother, watching a movie with me or sitting silently while I dozed. I saw Oliver only once, though he claimed he’d tried coming when I’d been asleep. He was surprisingly quiet at my bedside, and presented me with a wrapped bottle of Glenfiddich. “Pretty nice beverage, if I may say so myself,” he said. “Tried ordering a stripper, swear to God, but the insurance fiasco for a hospital visit? Real letdown.”

  Not many others came. Remi hadn’t shown, I was told through Rebecca, on her family’s lawyer’s behest. Eddie and Cynthia sent fruit platters, Mrs. Hartman a collection of Blake’s poetry, Davis an inscribed copy of Abba Eban’s My People: The Story of the Jews. Donny popped in once, though I pretended to be asleep when he arrived, and left a basketball, signed by the team. At one point—hospital time an intolerable creep, one day blurring into the next—Rabbi Bloom knocked softly at my door and introduced himself to my parents, my mother regarding him with quiet reverence, my father with disdain. After a bit of small talk, during which he won over my father by adeptly fielding Shulchan Aruch questions, my parents left for coffee, leaving me alone with Rabbi Bloom.

  He looked more worn than ever. His glasses, normally cleaned compulsively, displayed a collection of fingerprints. In his eyes I saw regret tinged with fear. “How’re you feeling, Mr. Eden?”

  “My arm’s killing,” I said. “But otherwise a bit better.”

  He picked up the basketball from my nightstand. “This is touching. Rocky must be beside himself losing two players so close to districts.”

  I shook my head good-humoredly. “About Evan, sure. But I’d be surprised if Rocky even realizes I’m absent.”

  He returned the basketball to its stand. “I’m told Mr. Stark’s a bit worse off.”

  “Haven’t seen him.”

  “No?”

  “Not allowed.” I frowned. “Have you?”

  “I’m stopping in his room next.”

  “Bikur Cholim rounds.”

  “I’m also told you saved his life.”

  “That’s getting out, then?”

  “It’s nothing to scoff over. Whoever saves a life saves the entire world.” I didn’t answer this, and in the meantime he took the seat beside my bed. “Your poor parents,” he said, crossing his legs. “They must have been worried sick.”

  “They’ve been fairly distraught.”

  “You realize how lucky you are, Ari?”

  “The doctor reminds me every time he examines me.”

  “You shouldn
’t forget it. Zichroo niflosav asher ahsah, mosav u’mishpitai feev.” Remember His wonders, which He performed, His miracles and the judgments of His mouth.

  “I know. I won’t.”

  He attempted a cheerful smile, though ended up with a contortion that more closely resembled a mournful grimace. “Can I ask, Mr. Eden,” he said, dropping his voice, glancing behind us to make certain no one was coming, “exactly what happened?”

  The picture of the mind revives again: shrill laughter, jetties looming, an anonymous body suspended in the dark. I didn’t answer.

  “You can trust me.”

  “I can’t decide,” I said, my gaze resting past him, on the cream-colored wall.

  “Whether you trust me?”

  “Whether I understand what Evan was doing.”

  “What was he saying before the crash?”

  “Deep things, crazy things. You know how he gets. Stuff about sacrifices. Nadav and Avihu. The ways he and I are alike.” And then, after a careful pause: “Theories about you.”

  I felt another round of exhaustion coming on, struggled to resist. When he realized my eyelids were fluttering, he snapped to attention from his internal fog, straightened his jacket and stood. “I’ll let you rest,” he said. “We need to get you out of here in short order.”

  “I’d offer my hand,” I said sleepily, erupting into a giggle, raising my cast, the head rush moments away, “but it’s out of commission.”

  “Feel good, Mr. Eden.” A doleful smile. He paused at the door. “I’ll go save him.”

  A buzzing in my ears. “What’s that?”

  “—I’ll go see him.”

  “Oh,” I said, either to him or to myself, and then my vision descended into a haze of white.

  * * *

  SOPHIA CAME THE DAY BEFORE I was discharged. I’d already given up by then, having spent my first several days with my heart quivering at the sound of every visitor, rousing myself into consciousness with the hope that, if I’d only crack open an eye, Sophia would materialize in a burst of phantasmagorical light. When she finally did come, Kayla was reading beside my bed while I watched TV. My mother had left to eat; I’d told Kayla she could leave, too, but she’d refused.

  Sophia knocked shyly, waited for an invitation inside. (“Not wildly unlike a vampire,” Kayla would later put it.) When I saw her I smiled, unable to help myself. Her lips twisted, her hair in a tight bun, a soft, embarrassed look on her face. Kayla glanced up, frowned.

  “Am I interrupting?” Sophia asked, eyeing Kayla.

  I looked to Kayla. She shrugged indifferently.

  “No,” I said. “Don’t worry.”

  “Know what,” Kayla announced too loudly, leaping to her feet, “I think I’ll step out for coffee.”

  “No,” I said sheepishly, “no need.”

  “Suddenly I’m desperately craving caffeine.”

  “Well, it’s good to see you,” Sophia said politely.

  “You as well,” Kayla said, squeezing past her in the doorframe.

  Sophia waited until Kayla’s footsteps retreated down the hall. She remained at the door, chewing her lip the way she did when she was strategizing. “So, Hamlet.”

  “Madam President.”

  “I’ve been sent by Dr. Flowers to retrieve her star student.”

  “Tell her I miss her dreadfully.”

  She moved into the room, pausing before my bed. “You gave me a real scare, Ari, you know that? How are you feeling?”

  “Been better. I’m sorry if that was—awkward.”

  “Only slightly.” She took Kayla’s seat. “You’re something of a hero now, I hear.”

  “I sure don’t feel it,” I said, gritting my teeth at the throbbing in my arm.

  “Everyone’s talking about it. The myth of Aryeh Eden, pulling ashore his drowning shipmate. The very stuff of legends.”

  “I was wondering if you’d come.” I wasn’t sure what made me say this. The painkillers, probably.

  “I should’ve been here sooner. It’s just, I was out of town, and hospitals—they frighten me.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “They just do.”

  “So much for premed.” I squinted, trying my best to ignore the ache spreading through my right arm. “Wait. Your audition.”

  She maintained her look of expressionlessness. “How’d you know?”

  “Evan,” I said, watching the color drain from her face.

  “I see.”

  “So how’d it go?”

  “Well, I think. I mean, I hope. I literally got back last night. I would’ve told you it’s just—we weren’t exactly speaking.”

  I blushed slightly. “What’d you play?”

  “Something new.”

  “I haven’t heard it, have I?”

  “No. A recent breakthrough.”

  “Must’ve been stunning,” I said. “I have no doubt.”

  “Thanks, dear Hamlet.”

  “When will you hear back?”

  She shrugged. “Could be anytime.”

  “And if you get in?”

  “Then I guess we celebrate.”

  “What do you do about Penn, I mean? Don’t you have to go because of Early Decision?”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We’ll deal with that if it actually happens.”

  “It’ll happen.”

  “As always, I appreciate your unwarranted confidence in me.” She paused, allowed herself a long breath. “Listen, Ari. I’m sorry. For everything. I’m sick over it. I keep thinking about you being out there with him and—” I loved her pale skin and her sharp little nose and the way she blinked in confusion. I loved the padded feel of her fingertips, the sound of her breathing, the feel of tucking her hair behind her ears. I loved when she failed to suppress bursts of laughter from ripping out of her throat, when she leaned her face gently into mine, when she tilted her head to the side in photographs, when she bit the bottom of my lips while kissing me. “You must despise me.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “I don’t want to imagine what he said to you.”

  “Yes, well.”

  “Promise you’re not angry with me.”

  “I promise,” I said. “Not anymore.”

  “I wish I’d met you earlier.”

  She waited for me to say something but I didn’t. She stood, said she’d leave me to rest, then lowered herself over my chest to deliver a cool, hesitant kiss. I thanked her for coming and turned my eyes to the floor.

  * * *

  MY PARENTS URGED ME NOT to see him. He was a drunk, they said, a degenerate, a real-life Ben Sorer U’Morer. I wasn’t sure why I didn’t listen. I was curious, I suppose, to see what shape he was in, and anyway knew I’d have to face him eventually. More than anything, I needed to actually see him before I could determine what he’d done.

  I knocked at his door. The lights were off. After a few moments a weary face peered out. Bloodshot eyes examined me before the door opened fully, revealing a handsome, exhausted man in a gray Valentino suit.

  “Oh.” Julian’s face twitched in disappointment. “Thought you might be someone else.”

  “Mr. Stark,” I said, frowning. “My name’s Aryeh Eden.”

  He took my left hand, closed the door behind me. “You look better than when I last saw you.”

  “You’ve seen me?”

  “Briefly, when you first got here. Had to assess the damage. Your parents made me leave. Can’t blame them, I guess.”

  We stood at the foot of Evan’s bed. Evan was not a pretty sight. Wires and tubes snaked around him. His leg was in an enormous cast, suspended above him. A long cut stretched along the left side of his face, and he had burn marks on his neck, his right bicep, his chest.

  “That’ll scar,” Julian said, gesturing at his son’s cheek. I thought I made out vodka on his breath.

  “How is he?”

  “In a good deal of pain. He couldn’t take it anymore so they, you know, morphined
him.”

  “When do they think he’s getting out?”

  “Another week, earliest. I wish it were sooner. Well, of course I do. I just mean I need to get the fuck out of here.”

  I must have given him a funny stare. He rubbed his eyes, lowered his voice. “Not because I’m a prick, though I’m sure my son would be the first to disagree. My wife, is what I meant,” he said. “My wife died here.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah,” he said, his voice ringing oddly, “certainly was an ordeal.” We stood in silence. “Coffee?” He motioned toward a pot near the sink. “Tastes like aluminum, but it works.”

  “No, thanks.”

  He eyed my cast. “He did a number on you, didn’t he?”

  I looked at Evan, lying in bed. “He did worse to himself.”

  “He wasn’t always this way.”

  “What way?”

  “I used to—” He paused, rubbed his eyes. “I guess I used to think he was an unusually happy kid. Bit of a smartass, but full of life, loved learning. There was none of this—this fucking coldness. Not until his mother passed.” His eyes were fixed on Evan’s chest rising and falling. “Something in him died with her.”

  * * *

  THINGS AT HOME MORE OR less reverted to the way they were before the accident. At first my father walked on eggshells, his rage muted to quiet sympathy. We ate together. He shared interesting tidbits acquired through his chavrusah. I told them about the work I was catching up on, the hurried paper I wrote for Mrs. Hartman (“The Repressed Romanticism of Matthew Arnold”), the comically abbreviated version of my paternal family history presented to Mr. Harold. (I omitted, tactically, that I was thoroughly defeated in biology, now that I missed a week of classes.) Neither of my parents broached the subject of what would happen next year, saying only that I was free to choose whatever I wanted: college, a yeshiva program in Israel, a formal Beis Medresh in Brooklyn. Only a few nights later, however, after I told them I was stepping out—I was meeting Oliver, Noah and Amir to smoke for the first time since the accident—my father stewed angrily, muttering about how I ought to look no further than my arm if I needed reminders to maintain distance from my friends. Still, I went.

  “You haven’t spoken to Evan yet?” Oliver asked. We were too high to drive and so sat instead at the edge of the lake, pants rolled to our knees, legs in the water, staring dizzily at the nighttime sky.