The Heart of the Circle

by Keren Landsman

  “I know you’re fine.” This time the rebuke in her voice was loud and clear. “I heard it on the news.”

  I recoiled. Lee looked up from the screen and glanced at me. I sent him a calming wave, and he went back to the movie.

  “So when are you coming? The soup’s getting cold.” It was my mother’s way of telling me she was worried about me. She fussed about details without ever discussing actual feelings. And she of all people had a moody for a son.

  “I can’t go outside. There’s…” If I said I had a policewoman guarding my house, my mom would have freaked out. They didn’t know about the future Daphne had seen.

  Daphne stood up and reached her hand out to me. “I’ll fix it.” She flashed me a suspiciously wide smile.

  “What’s going on there that’s more important than your parents?” My mother’s voice rose. I felt like a kid again, trying to think up an excuse for not doing my homework.

  I handed the phone to Daphne.

  Daphne smiled and told my mother, “Reed’s new boyfriend’s here. They won’t leave each other’s sight.” She winked at me. I felt a sinking sensation spreading through my body. Lee turned pale. He looked more shocked than last night at the rally. Sherry started laughing. Daphne turned to her and added, “And the girl Matthew has a crush on is here too. We’re making sure she won’t run off before Matthew arrives.”

  I snatched the phone from Daphne’s hand. “Mom, it’s not true. Daphne’s just…”

  I heard my mom laughing. “Oh, that Daphne,” she said, and added a few words in Romanian. Some proverb about shoes always walking at the wrong time. Lee and Sherry were sitting perfectly still on the couch. I heard my dad scold my mother in the background. My mom’s laughter calmed down. “We’ll come over with dinner, don’t worry.”

  “We don’t need–”

  “We’ll just drop off some food and leave. I promise.” She let out another chuckle and hung up.

  “My parents…” I cleared my throat. “My parents are bringing us dinner,” I said, just barely managing to strain out the words.

  I looked at Lee, and felt the anxiety washing over him. “I’m not good with parents.”

  “You don’t have to stay,” I said.

  “He’s staying,” Daphne interjected, and shifted her gaze to Sherry. “And so are you.” With a somber expression, she looked at me and said, “You realize this is exactly what’ll help your parents, right?”

  I collapsed onto the couch between Lee and Sherry. “To come here? And I’ll have to…” I couldn’t organize my thoughts into clear sentences. Lee was something private. We were just beginning to establish intimacy.

  “For afterwards,” Daphne said. She wasn’t smiling anymore. “After everything. Your parents will remember this day, when they came to check out your new, cute boyfriend. And they’ll remember you were happy, and that’ll help them. They won’t suspect you tried to kill yourself.”

  “I don’t…” I brushed my hand through my hair, trying to control my tone. “You know I wouldn’t…”

  Daphne snorted. “You really think they’ll listen to me afterwards? They’ll blame me for not stopping it.” I felt the stifling tightness creeping up my stomach to my throat. My parents had in effect adopted Daphne after her mother’s passing, and my mom had never stopped trying to be a surrogate mother to her. If I die, and they think Daphne had something to do with my death, they’ll abandon her. I could see it with painful clarity. Daphne standing over my grave, and my parents snubbing her, leaving her to her own devices.

  I felt Lee poking around inside me, dismantling a little of my anger. I nodded to signal him to continue. He understood without me having to say anything.

  “OK,” Lee said, stretching out on the couch. “So what do I tell Reed’s mom when she asks about the wedding and grandkids?”

  “She won’t ask that.” I buried my head in my hands. “She’ll only talk about food, and ask what you like, and what your parents do for a living, and avoid any question whose answer might be construed as a conversation-ender.” I peeked at him through my fingers. “You don’t have to stay.”

  “You afraid I’ll make a run for it?” He smiled.

  I shook my head. “I’m afraid my mom will like you.”

  Lee laughed. “Don’t worry. If your mom gets too close, I’ll let the cop here pull out my entire rap sheet.” He glanced at Sherry. “The federal bureau already transferred it over, I assume?”

  Sherry rolled her eyes. “I never betray my sources.” She stood up and straightened her shirt. “Am I supposed to play Matthew’s girlfriend?”

  “It’s just so we won’t have to talk about why there’s a police officer around. If you’re there because of Matthew, it will distract their mom, and she won’t grill you.”

  Sherry nodded. Her expression was blank, unrevealing. She shot Lee a glance. “Looks like I’m the one who’s going to have to deal with questions about marriage and grandkids.”

  “Thanks,” Daphne said quietly.

  Sherry shrugged. “No different than any other undercover work I’ve had.” She patted Daphne’s back. “Maybe you should bring Matthew over, just to make it more believable?”

  I was already dialing before Sherry finished her sentence. If I was going to suffer, so was Matthew. It was childish and silly, and I knew he had spent the entire night in the operating room, and certainly wouldn’t want to spend the next few hours in the company of our parents, but I couldn’t face them on my own.

  My parents entered the apartment carrying heaps of food. My mom made a beeline to Daphne, crushing her with a tight hug. She asked how Oleander was doing, and how she was managing, and whether she needed anything, and inquired into her grandmother’s health, and finally handed her a stack of home-cooked meals in Tupperware containers for Oleander at the hospital. I didn’t even know Daphne had told her about Oleander.

  The next to be crushed between her arms was Matthew. She had bestowed upon him the title, “My brave boy.” It turned out that during all those hours I had spent in bed with Lee, Matthew was being interviewed by every news outlet as the normie doctor who marched in the rally and saved a seer’s life.

  “He even talked about you!” My mom finally turned to me with a hug. “He said how much you had influenced him to help others.”

  Matthew rolled his eyes. “They shoved their cameras in my face in the middle of my morning round, inconveniencing my patients.”

  My dad patted him on the back. “And humble. That’s my boy.” Lee was standing behind me. My mom could barely suppress her giant smile when she noticed him.

  “This is Lee,” I said, gesturing at him, my heart pounding. I prayed they wouldn’t do anything embarrassing. Anything that would make him regret agreeing to stick around. Anything that would ruin what we were just starting to build.

  My dad reached out his hand.

  “I’m an empath,” Lee blurted, his accent heavier than usual. He was oozing discomfort.

  My dad shrugged. “So is my son.” He let his hand linger in the air. Lee shook it. My mother was literally squirming with questions. Instead of letting them out, she simply smiled and shook Lee’s hand.

  A small wave of happiness crept out of Lee in my direction. I exhaled my trapped breath. I introduced Sherry, to save Matthew the embarrassment. Another round of handshakes ensued.

  Daphne and my parents got busy in the kitchen while Matthew and I set the table. Lee and Sherry tried to help, but my mom shooed them out of the kitchen, arguing that we didn’t put our guests to work. Lee sent me a small gloating wave. Instead of sending him a wave back, I looked at him and touched him inside the place he marked as mine. I felt his passion stirring. I flamed it enough to make him lean against the wall behind him, breathing slowly. I withdrew from him and turned back to the kitchen, still smiling.

  Matthew elbowed me. “What did you do to him?” he whispered.

  “Everything he wanted,” I whispered back and winked. Matthew shook his head and mumble
d something inaudible.

  My mother turned from the counter and said, “Sit, sit, don’t let the food get cold.”

  We sat at the table. Daphne stopped Lee as he was about to sit next to me, and directed him to the chair in front of Matthew. She crinkled her brow, pointed to me to sit next to Matthew. I followed her instructions without asking why.

  My parents were sitting in front of each other, Matthew and I on my mom’s side, Sherry and Lee on my dad’s, and Daphne at the head of the table. My mom had made at least two versions of every dish. There was vegetarian pea soup and pea soup with chunks of sausage; a meat lasagna and a vegetarian lasagna; chopped vegetable salad without onion, another without cucumbers, and a third with everything. It appeared she had spent the entire day cooking.

  I tried to think about a topic we could discuss, anything that didn’t involve the rally or the murder. It was too late. My mother turned to Lee and asked him, “What do your parents do?”

  Lee gave her his most charming smile. “My mother is a journalist and my father is a lawyer.”

  My mother hummed. “And are they sorcerers?”

  “Mom!” I hissed.

  Lee sent me a small wave of anxiety and replied with his unwavering smile, “Air sorcerers. Comes in handy with two teenagers in the house.”

  My mom was like a dog with a bone. “Do you have a brother? Sister?”

  Lee put down his spoon, sending me a clear wave of rancor, gave my mother a giant, captivating smile and replied, “One sister, River. She’s two years younger than me, a water sorcerer, and Blaze’s girlfriend. It’s through him that I met Reed. I work at a publishing house and do quality control for our books’ designs, which includes moodification. I studied history and graphics in college, and I have a master’s in graphic design. I make a decent living, but I made more back in the Confederacy. I moved here because things are pretty dismal back home, and Blaze suggested I join him. River came with him. She’s not pregnant.”

  It sounded nothing like the story I had gotten from River. However, a mentally unstable person who couldn’t stay in one place for too long wouldn’t have made a very good impression on my mom. He paused to catch his breath, and before my mom managed to say anything, he lifted his spoon and pointed at Daphne. “Did I forget anything?”

  Daphne shook her head.

  “Good.” Lee’s smile disappeared. He looked at me. “Can you pass the salt?” On the face of it, he looked like his usual calm self, but his psyche was roiling. I shot him a well-aimed arrow of affection.

  My mother brought her napkin to her mouth. “Thank you, that was very informative.” She then took a deep breath, and I was scared she was about to ask Sherry something. The latter was concentrating on her plate, cutting up the lasagna into tiny slices.

  She looked up, smiled at my mother as widely as Lee had, and said, “Four brothers. I’m the youngest. A police officer. I met Matthew at a vigil. Make a lousy salary. It’s been that way since the Ministry of Finance decided to privatize the investigations department. Doing my bachelor’s in history and ancient Israel studies, and it will take me at least three more years to complete it because of my job. I keep kosher and observe Shabbat, unless it interferes with my job. It has nothing to do with being half Moroccan. It’s a compromise between the two sides of my family. Everyone on my dad’s side is religious, and everyone on my mom’s side is secular.” She turned to Lee. “And that, I believe, means I won our bet.”

  Lee closed his gaping mouth. “Doesn’t count. You didn’t wait for the question.”

  My mom sat completely motionless at the end of the table, not knowing where to look.

  I shifted my gaze between them. I felt a wave of glee from Daphne. I turned to her. She was covering her smile with her hand. I pointed at her. “What did you do?”

  Daphne shook her head. “Nothing,” she said, feigning her most innocent expression.

  Sherry tilted her head towards Daphne. “I asked her what the fastest way would be to get through this stage of the meal.”

  My dad looked up from his plate, clearly intrigued. I wondered how many times he had searched for a way to end my mother’s interrogations.

  “She said I needed to know in advance what your mother was going to ask, and memorize the answers.” Sherry went back to dissecting the lasagna on her plate.

  Lee sent me an amused wave.

  “So you memorized the entire conversation before it took place?” Matthew leaned in and smiled.

  Sherry waved her finger. “No, we memorized different parts of five different conversations.”

  “I only had to memorize three,” Lee said, smiling his thin, sardonic smile. “Your mom kicks me out of the house in the other possible futures.” He leaned further over the table. “You want to know what I tell her?”

  “No.” My mom’s voice gave me a jolt. I was expecting her to be mad. She just sighed. “I should have known,” she said, pointing at me. “He’s a smartass like you, isn’t he?”

  “Much worse,” I replied, and sent Lee the warmest wave I could muster.

  My mom gestured at the lasagna. “Well, eat up, it’s getting cold.”

  Daphne laughed, and my dad chuckled. Lee smiled. Sherry and Mathew exchanged glances. And I felt almost normal.

  30

  “I need a beer,” Matthew said after my parents left.

  Daphne followed him into the kitchen to get the Tupperware. “I’m going to visit Oleander.” She took three of the containers and placed them in a bag. “You want to come? We’ll have the entire night together, and I’m sure he’d appreciate some company.”

  I wanted to go back to bed, but it was thanks to Oleander that I was alive right now. I looked around me. “OK, who’s coming to pester Oleander instead of letting him recover quietly?”

  Lee gestured towards Matthew. “Take the beers. They probably don’t carry that brand in the hospital.”

  Matthew took a six-pack out of the fridge. It was something bitter Daphne had bought two weeks ago that neither of us drank. I helped Daphne carry the bags of food. It was only on the way down that I noticed Sherry was unusually reserved. I stopped on the staircase and waited for her.

  “Everything OK?” I whispered.

  Sherry pursed her lips. “I don’t like the way you’re leaving the apartment when I’m supposed to control the comings and goings.”

  “Daphne’s a damus. If something could go wrong, she’d stop it.”

  “Exactly,” Sherry whispered back. “If anything goes wrong, it means she planned it. Every seer has plans.”

  Lee sent me a small wave of impatience. I heard their voices at the bottom of the stairwell.

  “I trust her.”

  Sherry didn’t answer, but simply turned her back and continued down the stairs. I followed.

  Daphne suggested Lee sit up front, so he’d have enough legroom. I sat behind him and stroked the back of his neck. He leaned back and purred with pleasure.

  “Aww, aren’t you two sweet,” Daphne said, and smiled at me in the rearview mirror.

  Matthew sat behind her with Sherry squeezed between us. He pulled Daphne’s hair. “You want some of that? You won’t regret it. It is a truth universally acknowledged that the Katz boys are experts in neck feathering.”

  “I never feather and drive,” Daphne laughed. She started the car and pulled out of the parking lot.

  I dragged my finger lightly up and down the back of Lee’s neck, sending him warm waves to accompany my strokes. He amplified the warmth. We entwined ourselves into one another. I heard Matthew and Sherry talking, and felt the motion of the vehicle, and didn’t care about anything other than the sensations Lee amplified inside me. Not even the fact that we would both pay for our mutual maneuvering.

  The guard didn’t notice that we’d entered the parking lot, and the parking spot closest to the building was unoccupied. Matthew led us through the labyrinth of corridors and elevators to the wing in which I had been hospitalized in what felt like ages ago
. I carried the Tupperware boxes, Lee the beer; Daphne could barely keep herself from running to Oleander’s room, and Sherry scanned every corner as if dozens of Sons of Simeon were about to lunge at me The walls were painted according to the types of sorcery: red for pyros, blue for splashers, green for pebbles and yellow for airheads. We proceeded along the corridor until the color of the walls switched to purple. Psychics. I felt a heaviness spreading inside me.

  Sherry looked at me. “Something wrong?”

  Lee gestured at the walls. “Too many suffering people in one place. Feels almost like a sorcery fountain.”

  “Wow,” Daphne mumbled. “It wasn’t like this when you here, Reed.”

  “There’s been a spike in attacks,” Matthew said in a clinical, detached tone. “A lot of new patients admitted in the past week. More pain, more suffering. I assume it influences you the most.”

  “A lot of damuses in the same place, which means no one can look in and see what’s happening here,” Daphne said.

  I shot her a look. “What do you see?”

  “Tons of timelines,” she replied and gestured to a spot near Lee. “Oliver? Lee’s friend Oleander had mentioned? I can see him, he’s almost solid. Even I could have gotten mixed up now.”

  Lee looked at the spot to which Daphne had gestured. “What’s he doing?”

  “He’s annoyed that I’m peeking into his timeline.” She waved at the man we couldn’t see and continued to walk down the corridor.

  A doctor in scrubs and pink Crocs emerged from one of the rooms.

  “Lilac!” Matthew called out, and she turned around and approached us. They hugged, and Matthew introduced her to us. “This was the best intern in my class. I almost lost my position to her.”

  Lilac laughed. “Who even wants to do an ortho residency? Vascular surgery is so much more interesting.”

  It turned out she didn’t work at Rabbeinu Gershom but at the Gates of Zion hospital, and was just here to look in on one of her former patients. She and Matthew soon dove into a conversation, chit-chatting about mutual patients and trading OR anecdotes.