The Alchemy of Noise

by Lorraine Devon Wilke

  Incongruous pink.

  In a flush of adrenaline, she yanked the papers out, tossed them to the floor, and there, lying at the bottom of the cluttered drawer, caught in the light like a precious artifact, was the pink nametag from the backpack. Same material, same color. She picked it up: “Samantha P (312) 555-2239.” She refused to think, she ignored all questions and emotions, and with the familiar pounding of her heart, pulled out her phone and punched in the numbers.

  A woman answered. “Hello?”

  “Hi, I’m the manager at a club called The Church and I believe we may have a backpack that belongs to someone at this number.”

  “Oh, my God!” the woman yelped. “I am so glad you called! My daughter has just been heartbroken about losing her sunglasses . . . they were a gift from her grandmother. When the original guy called, he spoke to my idiot son—and I’m only kidding, I love my son—but my idiot son obviously got the number wrong, because when I called, I got some woman at a senior home. I kept hoping the guy would check back—though, why would he, right?—but I’m so glad you did!”

  The guy. That would be Chris. Her Chris. He called. Just as he said he had.

  “Can you confirm your daughter’s name and color of the backpack?”

  “Samantha—and it’s pink. Are the glasses still in it?”

  “They are.”

  “Oh my God, she’s going to be thrilled!”

  An arrangement was made: Sidonie would bring the pack to the club and leave it behind the bar; whoever was working when Samantha’s family came by would hand it over. Gushing thanks were bestowed, a little girl was predicted to be delighted, and a man’s honor . . . a man’s honor . . . had been doubted.

  Sidonie could not possibly reconcile what she was feeling. She could do nothing but walk out of the booth and go to her office, where she typed a note that was left on Frank’s desk:

  Frank: I’m leaving for the night; it’s a slow one so Jasper can handle things. I wanted to let you know ASAP that I will not work with Troy. Period. If that means it’s either him or me, that’s fine. I think it’s time for me to move on anyway. Sid.

  EIGHTY-TWO

  SHE WENT DIRECTLY HOME, SAT AT HER COMPUTER, TYPED out everything she wanted to say, printed it up, and put it in an envelope. She then got in her car and took the long, fraught drive to Hyde Park, with no idea if Chris was home or would even acknowledge her presence if he was. When Delores answered the door, the surprise on her face conveyed that she was fully aware of the status of things. It stung, but was certainly understandable.

  “My goodness, Sidonie! What a nice surprise!”

  “I doubt it’s really that nice.”

  “Nonsense. Come in.” When Sidonie hesitated, Delores stepped out to the snow-crusted porch to pull her in. “It’s cold out there and you do not need to be foolish with me.”

  It turned out Chris was working for Vanessa—a fundraiser at a local high school—and not expected until later. Sidonie and Delores had the place to themselves.

  They settled in the parlor, where they’d sat that first memorable night. A night when amazing peach cobbler had been savored, an inebriated Vanessa castigated her whiteness; when Chris proudly presented her as the woman in his life, and Delores made her feel like family. A night that seemed so long ago as to be a different century.

  Sidonie’s plan had been to find Chris, give him the letter, and see where his response took them. Now, seated on Delores’s sofa, cold, discombobulated, and ashamed, she wasn’t sure if what she’d hoped to achieve had any footing in reality. She shook her head as if trying to rearrange her thoughts.

  “Sidonie,” Delores asked quietly, “what is it?”

  With that the tears started. “I’m not sure I know how to lay this out.”

  “I usually find beginning-to-end is best.” Delores smiled gently.

  “How much do you know?”

  “I think I have it all.”

  “Even the backpack thing—”

  “Yes, dear, all of it.”

  The burn of humiliation was fierce. “I know how horrible that must seem.”

  “Yes, horrible, indeed. You lost your faith in someone you love. You began to believe something that could not possibly be true. But I’m aware of how much weight you were bearing. You suffered too, Sidonie, I know that. And the forces pulling at you—the police, the prosecutor, the people in your life who doubted Chris—they created a lot of noise for you to sort through. Should you not have buckled? Stayed strong, believed in your man? Certainly! We should all be so brave and unbowed as to never question what we know, what we feel. But we’re human. You’re human. And you’d been chipped at for long enough that your emotional immune system was compromised, enough to let doubt creep in. And here we find ourselves.”

  It was astonishing to Sidonie how one person could take a pile of words and arrange them in ways that turned chaos into cogent, sensible assessment. She’d not been able to formulate that explanation for herself and she knew Delores’s take was as close to absolution as she’d likely get.

  “Thank you. I don’t think I could face myself again without someone having that understanding. That it was you means everything to me.”

  Delores took her hand. “Life is a damn beast, isn’t it?”

  Sidonie’s tearful nod was her answer.

  “When my beloved son and husband were taken from me far too early to be acceptable, I railed at God and thought I would never again be able to embrace a good and loving moment. But like I tell Vanessa and Chris, you have to find the balance—it’s your obligation as a human being. You get both, good and bad, joy and sorrow. We all do. It’s how we handle those polarities, how we adjust and heal and forgive— sometimes even ourselves—that allows life to go on, to have some meaning. And it seems to me that if you got in your car and drove all the way down here in the snow, willing to face whatever came your way, you are ready to go on.”

  “I think I am . . . I don’t know. Do you think he is?”

  “That’s his to answer, sweetheart. He’s angry and he’s hurt. And though much of what I’ve said to you I’ve also said to him, what he comes to is his journey. Not mine, not yours. Part of yours will be accepting whatever he chooses. You do what you can, yes, but you adjust to reality, whatever it may be. That, Sidonie, is finding the balance.”

  The concept demanded a level of wisdom and maturity she wasn’t sure she had in her toolbox these days. Still, she remained committed to her quest. “I wrote a few thoughts in a letter,” she said, pulling the envelope from her purse. “I was hoping to give it to Chris, let him read it on his own, and if he wanted to talk to me after that, we could.”

  “Sounds like a good plan. Why don’t you leave it on his bed?”

  As Sidonie rose to go upstairs, Delores added:

  “I do want to say one more thing, sweetheart, just so you understand. I want the best for you both, I do, but I don’t know if that means you two should be together or if this was just one chapter in your lives. But whatever it is, I respect Chris’s process and I won’t intervene from here on out. No matter what he decides, I won’t try to talk him into anything and I won’t represent your perspective. This remains solidly between the two of you. I hope you can understand that.”

  She did. It made sense. She was on her own with this, as it should be.

  Sidonie put the note on his bed, hugged Delores, and set back out to a cold night and the uncertainty of what was next. When she got in the car, she checked her phone: there were two text messages. The first was from Karen:

  Wanted to get this to you as quickly as possible. They did and do have fingerprints . . . which belong to a repeat felon named Jelani Thayer, in custody as of yesterday, positively ID’d in the rape case as well as the neighborhood break-ins. Unbelievable, right? My friend shot me a picture and damn if he doesn’t actually resemble Chris a little, which might explain a few things! It kind of makes me sick when I think about what happened . . . what could have happened. On the
other hand, I hope this news gives you some peace. Call me! xxoo

  The second was shorter. And more unexpected:

  I said I’d stay out of it, but this seemed important. Fingerprints belong to a Jelani Thayer, a repeat offender collared yesterday. He’s been charged with all the stuff they had on Chris. I don’t know if this makes you feel better or worse, but I wanted to pass it on since it answers some questions. Mike.

  It did. The irony was, all the important questions had already been answered.

  EIGHTY-THREE

  CHRIS HAD A LATE NIGHT, BUT A SATISFYING COLLABORATION with his sister, a changed woman these days. Though earlier in the week there’d been a brief but intense spat about the brutality lawsuit— she wanted to proceed; he didn’t—they’d come to an accord (shelving it until further notice) without bloodshed. Given the tumult in every other corner of his life, it was gratifying to find peace with someone who’d so long been a source of agitation. That she didn’t ask him about Sidonie or offer any input on the situation kept things nonconfrontational. Mostly he was happy to see her happy. It made it easier to oblige when she asked for help.

  Chris wasn’t surprised that his mother had already gone to bed. Though she occasionally stayed up reading until one or two, more recently her lights were out by eleven. He wondered if the tangential stress of his life was wearing her down.

  The small lamp in the parlor was on. It was a room rarely used and certainly not by Delores herself, so that was strange. When he went in to turn it off, he noticed two teacups on the table. Interesting. Normally his mother would have tidied up. Since there’d been no mention of expected visitors, it felt like a clue.

  He took the cups into the kitchen, and utterly exhausted, stood over the sink eating a well-seasoned drumstick with a side of homemade potato salad. While he thoroughly enjoyed his mother’s cooking, one of the perks of being there, he was also aware of how unsettled he felt. Diante texted earlier in the week with the not unexpected news that Jordan had moved out, extending to Chris an invitation to return, but it was time to get his own place. He already had appointments to look at a few lofts in the Brownsville neighborhood.

  When he got to his room, he was again surprised: the desk lamp was on. Then he saw it. The letter on his bed. The Chris on the envelope was not his mother’s handwriting, though he recognized it immediately. He sat and opened the letter; held it for a long moment, then began reading.

  Chris . . .

  You’re right to be angry with me. If someone I loved wasn’t able to hold on to their knowledge and belief of who and what I am, I wouldn’t want them in my life either.

  I never before experienced the world as I have over this last year. I didn’t know it existed. In the world I knew, I worked hard, I had family dramas like anyone else, I built a career, married an asshole, lost a pregnancy, got divorced, started a project that excited me, then fell in love with you.

  Falling in love with you was the best part of this new world. YOU were the best part of this new world. Your being black was not an issue. It was not a deterrent, a strange fascination, or a reason to reject you. It was just one of the characteristics attached to you, and I fell in love with YOU, the man, the person, the being, the soul.

  What I didn’t know then is that by falling in love with you I would be stepping from my world into yours. Or maybe, more accurately, straddling both. I didn’t know that because I didn’t fully realize there were two worlds, two really distinct worlds with different sets of rules, as you said.

  It’s not that I’m naïve or unaware. I read the papers and watch the news. Events shock me. I’m outraged about people being treated differently, by the statistics and stories that prove that everything about life in this country can be, and too often is, biased and bigoted against people of color, but somehow I thought it was all out there somewhere. Out there impacting gangbangers and hoodlums and street thugs and bad guys and clueless, irresponsible people. I’m ashamed to say I wasn’t as aware that everyday people—honest, hard-working, good people living their lives while existing in black skin—were just as vulnerable. That someone like you was just as vulnerable. Loving you and living with you has taught me that . . . and so much more.

  But I was unprepared—from the first time the cops stopped us, to the moment I watched Alice’s video, to the night I walked out to see you battered and bloody, to being handcuffed to a police bench, to being told you were a rapist and serial criminal—I was unprepared for all that.

  And I didn’t deal with it as well as I should have. I lost my footing. I overreacted. I felt stupid and helpless. I got scared and confused. I felt abandoned by you sometimes. Dismissed and ignored. It bothered me, but I kept telling myself I wasn’t the important one, all that mattered was you and what you were going through. So I did my best to hold my center, to hold on to what I knew, even when people were telling me I was wrong, that you were a bad guy, that I was being duped and manipulated. And even though I knew that wasn’t true, sometimes it was confusing. It was always overwhelming.

  All that led up to me finding the backpack. After the trial was dismissed, you went home to your family, you didn’t come home to me. I was really hurt by that. I said I understood, and on a certain level I did, but it made me feel like I wasn’t important to you, that I didn’t matter, that everything I’d endured with you and for you had been of little significance. When I found that backpack—a bizarre thing to find and something I hadn’t heard anything about—given my turbulent, anguished, diminished state of mind, I admit, it shook me. I couldn’t figure it out. As if I were in a fugue state, or some delusional, paranoiac hysteria, fear got the better of me and my mind went toward a sort of weird, disconnected “what if?” I kept batting it away, grabbing on to what I know of you so clearly, but it was like an evil bee and eventually it bit me. It was brief and quickly lost its sting, but yes, it bit me. Which shames me to even think about.

  Looking back now, completely outside of that state and clear on the facts, my fear looks completely insane. I look completely insane. I look faithless, traitorous, and disloyal. Did I honestly believe it? NO.

  But my mind did go there, ever so briefly. And I am so deeply sorry for that.

  If it really is unforgivable, if you feel like you can never trust me again, I understand. All I can tell you is that it was one tortuous night of doubt and disbelief. The rest of the time, which is all the time, I know exactly who you are: you are Chris Hawkins, the best man I know. Whether you give me another chance or not, I promise you I won’t ever forget that.

  I love you.

  Sidonie

  He stared at the letter as if trying to decipher nuances behind the words. He could sense his emotions gathering—grief, anger, loss, betrayal, longing—but the walls built against those feelings, solidified in the weeks since he’d last seen her, were thick and impenetrable. He tried, in deference to her clear earnestness, to breach them, but couldn’t.

  He felt . . . empty.

  So he folded the letter, slipped it into its envelope, and dropped it on his desk on the way to the bathroom. When he returned after brushing his teeth, he shut the light, turned off his roiling confusion, and fell asleep.

  EIGHTY-FOUR

  AFTER TWO DAYS WITHOUT RESPONSE, SIDONIE HAD NO choice but to do as she’d promised Delores: “Accept whatever way he chooses . . . and adjust to the reality.” There were tears, but she was so cried out, so exhausted and weary of being weary and exhausted, there was some relief in just letting it go.

  She made the requisite calls to Karen and Patsy, omitting details of the backpack, which carried more shame than she was willing to share right now. She explained that the distance between her and Chris had become insurmountable. Which was true enough.

  Karen, devastated for her sister, was subdued in her response; sad, empathetic, and thoughtful. She told Sidonie she had no wise words, but would call when some dawned on her. That was worth a grin.

  Conversely, Patsy wept with her friend. They had a g
ood, commiserating cry, with Patsy declaring she wouldn’t talk about Ned, the brunch fellow, until she felt more certain and Sidonie felt less raw. Sidonie alerted her that she’d need employment, as odds were good she was out of a job. Patsy promised to light a fire under the investors and, in the meantime, offered the option of producing a few high-end catering gigs for good money. Sidonie shuddered, but knew she’d take her up on it. It would be like returning to the galleys.

  Frank’s only response to her note was a text saying he hoped they could talk about it when she got in on Wednesday, but Jasper confided that Frank had already floated the Troy idea, clearly greasing the rails for his new agenda. Life, it seemed, was determined to transform itself whether she was leading the charge or not.

  Her last step was to sweep through the house and restore it as best she could to pre-Chris days. It was too painful otherwise. Pictures came down and chairs were moved, though she so loved the way he painted the walls she knew they’d stay.

  By evening’s end the only thing left was laundry. She stripped the sheets and when she emptied the basket, found one of Chris’s T-shirts. She held it close and breathed in, hoping some vestige of his warm, musky scent remained. Though the softness against her cheek brought his touch to mind, it had been too long for anything else.

  She headed down to the garage and loaded the washer, turned off the light, and walked out to her favorite bench. She sat, jacket pulled tight, and stared upward. The cyan of dusk was giving way to inky darkness, the glow of streetlights illuminated the clouds that floated slowly across the sky. It was a beautiful night, not too cold, and the wind’s gentle push seemed determined to sweep out the day.

  “‘I look to my feet to keep from stumbling. I gaze straight ahead to find my way . . .’” A man’s voice suddenly wafted from the sidewalk.

  Startled, Sidonie sat up. Did she hear that right? Was she imagining things? She looked past the gate and as her eyes adjusted to the dark, she saw . . . him. Standing with his hands in the pockets of his jean jacket, his face drawn but empty of anger. Chris Hawkins.