“No,” Amy says flatly, gripping your hand in a way that reminds you of your father. “No. No. No way.” She’s got her eyes closed against the mere thought, shaking her head back and forth.
“We need to consider this. It’s going to be really bad.”
“No shit,” she says. “No shit it’s going to be bad.” Her sudden anger subsides just as quickly as it flared, and she puts her head on your shoulder. “Sorry. Jesus.”
“That’s okay.”
“It’s actually kind of pretty,” she says. “Like the northern lights. I can’t believe I just said that.”
“Why not? It is pretty.”
“Nothing this terrible can be pretty.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. One thing I’ve learned, it’s always to heed the evidence of your senses.”
You’re quiet for a few minutes. Then Amy says, “How would we do it?”
“Pills, I guess.”
“And who gets to give them to her?”
“I would,” you say. “If you wanted me to.”
“I don’t,” she says.
“Me neither,” you say. “I can’t bear the thought of taking her life. And I can’t bear the thought of letting her live.”
“Junior, no,” Amy says. “We’re not doing this. Debate over.”
“Were we debating?”
“I guess not. Not really.”
“Because I was really only looking for you to tell me what I already knew,” you say.
“That we’re not doing this?”
“Exactly.”
Amy reaches up and takes your face between her hands and kisses you. “Junior,” she says, “why is this happening?”
Because you have the answer but could not explain it to her in five lifetimes, you sidestep. “Let’s go to bed,” you tell her.
And you do. You make love like the frightened teenagers you once were; quietly, carefully, all fingertips and ragged breaths. After, you lie awake. Sleep would not be possible even if the sky outside the window weren’t lit up like Times Square.
And then a strange and wonderful thing happens: one by one the others join you. They come without words, like sleepwalkers, like dying animals seeking their den. First is Ruby. She stands at the foot of the bed, backlit by the comet’s glow, her silhouette thin as God’s alibi. She’s carrying Tiki the global warming penguin, which is odd because Tiki’s been relegated to the back of Ruby’s closet since she was six. You sit forward and lift her into the bed. She nestles between the two of you and alternates resting her head on Amy’s chest, then on yours. She does not fidget or cry.
Next comes your mother, padding across the hardwood floor in slippered feet, smelling of Nana perfume. She gets into bed on your side and drapes her right arm over you.
Finally, just before the sun rises, bright and redundant, Rodney lurches into the room. His blue sleeping cap sits cocked back on his head, the soft fleece cone collapsed and off to one side. Like Ruby he favors the space between you and Amy, and somehow manages to wedge his huge frame in there. Ruby offers him part ownership in Tiki, which he accepts.
You lie huddled together, silent and relaxed and fully awake, a warm package of humanity. All of you feel everything. The sun clears the hills on the far side of the valley and you think to close the shade because the light is almost unbearably brilliant, but there is no way now that you’re leaving the embrace of your family. After a while—you’ve no idea how long—the Earth begins to tremble and grow warm. Outside you can hear the first sounds of panic. Shoes slap the pavement, running in every direction. There’s the squeal of tires, followed by the nauseous crunch of metal on metal, shattering glass, and the brief, strange pocket of silence that always follows a car accident. From a distance comes what sounds like gunfire. There is screaming, a collective scream. You listen and feel pity for these people. You wish they understood, as you do, that there is no escape and never was, that from the moment two cells combined to become one they were doomed. You wish they understood that there is joy in this fact, greater joy and love in just this one last moment than they experienced in the entirety of their lives. You wish they would stop running and screaming and shooting each other long enough, and then they might see for themselves. Because even in this last moment there is still Everything, whole galaxies and eons, the sum total of every experience across time, shrunk to the head of a pin, theirs for the asking, right here, right now. And so anything, anything, anything is possible.
Acknowledgments
First last and always, many thanks to my agent, Simon Lipskar—a dedicated, no-bullshit advocate to whom I owe just about everything.
Thanks to my editor, Molly Stern, who took a chance that I hope she feels paid off. Also to Liz Van Hoose for her keen eye, tirelessness, and patience, and of course Laura Tisdel, for all the varied things she does throughout the year to make my life easier/make me feel good about myself.
Big thanks to Monsignor Gary Socquet, partner in many, many crimes, who offered great insight into the editing of this book, but who more importantly was always willing to listen and reassure when the reflexive loathing of my own work kicked in, or whenever anything else was weighing on my mind.
Thanks to my friends and colleagues at Zoetrope, a talented and generous bunch who have been immeasurable help both artistically and personally. In particular I’d like to thank Jessica Lipnack, Jim Ruland, Stephan Clark, Roy Kesey, Dave Fromm, Don Capone, Anne Elliott, Pamela Erens, Mary Akers, Jim Tomlinson, Cecilia Baader, Myfanwy Collins, Avital Gad-Cykman, Bev Jackson, Richard Lewis, Alicia Gifford, Ellen Meister, and Cliff Garstang.
Thanks to my friends and family: you know who you are, and perhaps more importantly, who you aren’t.
To my father, gone a year now as of this writing:
And I scarce know which part may greater be—
What I keep of you, or you rob from me.
Everything Matters! Page 34
