Another wasted day. Hilton began to pack his briefcase with papers he knew he’d never look at once he got home. But hope springs eternal, he thought to himself.
He didn’t realize Stu was standing in the office with him, so he gave a start when he heard the doctor’s calm voice. “Hil, I just told Ahmad to get an ambulance here.”
“He’s that bad?”
“He’s dead.” He said it carefully, gauging Hilton’s response.
Hilton let his leather briefcase flap shut. “Jesus.”
“Can I ask who brought him here? He’s not a client.”
“I think Curt brought him, until a shelter could come get him. He’s homeless.” Hilton felt a bit unhinged, and he dreaded the task of filling out a police report. Just what he needed.
Stu sighed. “Not much chance of finding his family, I guess.”
“He doesn’t have any family. He told me it’s just him.”
Stu gazed at Hilton over the top of his reading glasses. “He told you that when?”
“I’d just left his room when I saw you, Stu. I was talking to the guy. That’s why I figured he had a cold, because his voice was so bad and he was coughing. But I didn’t think—”
Stu slowly pulled out Hilton’s chair and sat down, his face glum and thoughtful. He pulled his reading glasses off.
“What?” Hilton asked.
Stu wrapped his hands around his glasses, staring straight ahead toward Hilton’s desk. “Hil . . . I’m no M.E., but the corpse in that room is in early rigor mortis. He’s cold and stiff. He’s been dead at least a couple of hours, probably longer.”
i hope i’m finished traveling
Hilton’s hand began to tingle where the old man had touched him with his icy fingers. He couldn’t speak as the tingle began to course through his entire frame, holding him motionless. He should have known that touch, just like Nana’s. Tears came from nowhere, breaking the spell, and Hilton quickly wiped his eyes. He turned away from Stu. “He went to Bucknell. He said his wife’s name was Carol. His kid died of leukemia,” Hilton said hoarsely, feeling a flood of grief, as though he’d lost someone dear to him.
Stu’s voice was unsteady but firm. “You need a leave, Hil. I mean it. You need time away from here.”
Hilton sniffed, gazing at his skin where the old man’s pale fingers had found him. “He was a traveler, he said. Like me.”
“Are you hearing me, Hil?” Stu asked, sounding alarmed.
Hilton could only nod.
CHAPTER 27
At first, a week away from Miami New Day helped repair Hilton’s disposition and peace of mind. With nothing else to do, he began to obsessively clean the house, starting with his sanctuary in the den and making his way to the kitchen, the bathrooms, the floors, and then outside to scrub the empty pool with bleach, prune the trees, and mow the grass. He walked Charlie several times a day, covering two miles with each outing, then drove to pick up Kaya and Jamil at their schools in the afternoon. For dinner, his steaks and pastas became the house staples. Hilton was the model of industry.
Anything to keep busy. Anything to ward off sleep.
Kaya and Jamil were visibly pleased with seeing so much more of Hilton during his “vacation,” as he’d explained it. The divorce fears ran deeply, apparently, so they were possessive of his attention. After school, instead of heading to their rooms to do their homework, they lingered with him. Kaya would ask him to help her run lines for the musical she was rehearsing and to coach her maturing singing voice, which was thin as a wisp but lovely.
“Yo, Daddy, want to go to the park and shoot hoops?” Jamil asked one afternoon, and Hilton obliged. His son was small but strong and had an accurate shot when he was close enough to the towering net. They played shirtless at a park a short drive away, and Hilton pushed himself so hard that he was breathing in gulps and felt slicing pains in his side. “You give up, Daddy?” Jamil asked, grinning as he dribbled the ball in a circle around him.
“That’s it for today. I’m too old for this, chump.”
“You’re not even forty yet.”
“I’m aging in dog years,” Hilton gasped.
“Then you’d be . . . more than two hundred.”
Hilton laughed, wrapping his arm around Jamil’s head as they headed off the court. The laughter felt good to his battered spirit. “You did that in your head, huh? You can do our taxes.”
“Unh-uh. I’m gonna be a ballplayer.”
“And what happens when you get injured?”
“Then I’ll be a judge, like Mom.”
After Hilton showered and realized he still had an hour before he should start cooking dinner if he wanted it to be hot when Dede got home, the living room couch looked too inviting to ignore. He crawled across the cushions and enjoyed the fiery luminosity of the near-dusk sunlight flooding the living room through the open curtains. There his mind wandered to Dede; unless it was his imagination, life with her felt better. He’d seen an occasional smile spring across her face, she was willing to share the frustrations she felt after a month on the bench, and she even slipped into unselfconscious conversation with him when she allowed herself to forget how strained life had become for them. One night, they’d talked for an hour about which Spike Lee film was the most didactic and why, as they would have months before.
Even Charles Ray Goode, strangely, seemed far away. He hadn’t sent any more notes, just as the FBI had predicted, and Hilton was freed of the nagging sense that Goode was nearby.
On the couch, Hilton ached to rest, but as usual his insides stiffened involuntarily when he feared sleep might come. He’d forgotten what it felt like to surrender to the comfort of tranquility. Even his eyes hurt because they were overtired.
Hilton felt a bump against the back of the couch.
“Sorry, Daddy,” Jamil said, bounding toward the birdcage to feed Abbott and Costello, who flitted their wings, cooed, and whistled. Jamil shook the box of seed into their trough loudly. He was wearing a fading Disney World T-shirt from the family’s trip last spring, a shirt he wore nearly every day after school.
“No problem. I’m awake,” Hilton mumbled.
“Costello’s such a pig. See? He eats so fast. That’s why he’s fat. He sure wasn’t expecting what you had waiting for him.”
Hilton sits up, bewildered. He tries to make out Jamil’s blurred figure in the torrent of bright light. “What did you say?” Hilton asks. “Jamil?”
“Daddy?” The voice is distant, suddenly, winding away from him in every direction. Hilton doesn’t know where to turn to pursue him, and his limbs feel weighted down. He is still sitting on the couch, so he tries to stand. He can barely see in the blaze, which waves around him like searchlights, but he pushes toward what he believes is Jamil’s room.
“I’m in here, Daddy.”
Hilton stands in Jamil’s doorway but stops when he feels something soft beneath his bare foot. When he squats down to the floor to see what it is, he finds a duckling with its neck twisted, its eyes wide and startled at the cruel suddenness of death.
“Here, Daddy. Come here.”
Hilton props his hand against Jamil’s wall to steady himself so he can stand, but his palm slides away and he nearly falls. The wall feels as though it is splattered with thick syrup. Hilton brings his palm to his nose and his head jerks back at the strong, acrid scent. Blood. Blood everywhere. When he takes a step into the room, his foot slips on warm blood.
“Get out of here, Jamil!” Hilton screams, fighting for his balance. Next, his foot glides across something small that feels fleshy, like a limb. His toes curl tight. He is afraid to look at what is there. “Jamil!”
“I’ll huff and I’ll puff,” says a voice that resembles Jamil’s at first, but then it sounds gravelly, like a monster’s: “And I’ll blow your house down.”
The floor has collapsed from beneath Hilton, the walls have folded until there is nothing but solid light suspending him as he flails his arms. This isn’t real, he tells him
self. This is just a dream. I’ll wake up and it’ll all be over. I’ll wake up.
He looks at his palm, and the blood is still smeared there, seeping beneath his fingernails. He knows the blood is Jamil’s, and his chest feels crushed with sorrow. This is real. The blood is real. What’s done is done is—
“Jamil!” he wails one last time.
Hilton hears a pattering child’s voice somewhere beyond his reach, beyond his comprehension, like a hundred-year-old memory.
Hilton awoke with an unsung cry in his throat, thrusting his hands to the floor in time to prevent himself from falling off of the couch. The sunlight from the windows was blinding, and he blinked into the light feeling panic. He was alone in the living room. He must have been sleeping, his mind reassured him eagerly. A dream, yet again.
He felt a sharp bump against the back of the couch, which made him snap to sitting. Jamil scooted from behind him, clasping an orange box of Hartz birdseed. “Sorry, Daddy,” Jamil said.
“No problem. I’m—” Hilton started to answer, but sat motionless as Jamil opened the door to the birdcage and began to shake the food into the trough. The seed rained against the tin.
Jamil giggled. “Look, Daddy. Costello’s a pig. He eats too fast. That’s why he’s so fat.”
Panic clutched Hilton again, and he felt the blood draining from his face and neck. Jamil was standing against the light in the window, wearing his too-big Miami Heat jersey that reached his knees, and the sun darted beneath his arm in a brilliant shaft when Jamil raised it to latch the cage closed. “Just watch him, Daddy.” Then Jamil stood motionless, silent in the cast of light. Hilton’s heart was thrashing as the room around him felt as though it were swerving, careening between planes. He’d just lived this moment once before.
This wasn’t a dream, was it? Had dreams finally taken his life hostage?
Hilton realized that his son was staring at him, spellbound. “What’s wrong, Daddy?”
“Come here,” Hilton ordered him. The sound of his own voice, the firm resonance against the walls, encouraged him. He spoke again, sounding more harsh than he intended. “Come here, Jamil.”
“What did I do?”
The child felt like less than a corpse in her arms, Kessie had told him on this exact spot on the couch. Like nothing. Hilton held out his arms to Jamil, as though he would hug him. “You didn’t do anything. Come here. Let me touch you.”
“What for?” Jamil took an uncertain step forward.
“Right now,” Hilton said, angry.
Jamil cocked his head slightly to the side but walked to the spot between Hilton’s knees so Hilton could look at his face. They were eye to eye, and Hilton peered into the deep brown of his son’s irises. Jamil’s eyes.
Hilton ran his fingers across the smooth fabric of Jamil’s black jersey. “When did you put this on?” Hilton whispered.
“After we played basketball.” Jamil looked nervous, still suspecting he’d done something he would be whipped for.
“Where’s your Mickey Mouse shirt?”
“Mom put it in the wash last night.”
Hilton took the box of birdseed from Jamil’s fingers and shook it; it was half full. “How many times did you feed Abbott and Costello today?” Hilton asked, still barely audible.
“A little before school, and just now,” Jamil said, a whine creeping into his voice. “Like I’m s’posed to, right?”
Hilton allowed the birdseed box to fall to the floor, and he suddenly clamped his palms across Jamil’s cheeks so he could study the tawny face that was his in miniature at the nose and forehead, but Dede’s at the mouth and eyes. Less than a corpse. Hilton’s fingers were trembling slightly, and he tightened his grip.
“What’s wrong?” Jamil asked, his lips pushed into a pucker.
It has to make sense somehow, Hilton thought. The Mickey Mouse shirt, the jersey, the remarks about Costello being fat. He struggled to find the sense of it, searching every possibility in his mind. He was still groggy, as he felt more and more often, so maybe he was dreaming after all. If not, the possibilities were more than his thoughts could endure. He’d already endured so much. “Are you real, Jamil?” Hilton implored him. “Is this real?”
Frightened tears flooded Jamil’s eyes. He gently tried to pull his face away, but Hilton held on. The tears flowed across Jamil’s cheeks, dampening Hilton’s fingers, and Hilton saw Jamil’s face changing shades, turning darker. Real tears.
“You’re . . . scaring . . . me . . . Daddy,” Jamil said in a strangled voice. His brown face was staining with bright red.
Terrified. The kid was terrified of him.
Instantly, Hilton released him. His palms had left pale prints on Jamil’s face, which filled with color once he was free; Hilton didn’t realize he’d been holding him so tightly. Hilton’s breathing quickened as he saw their exchange through Jamil’s eyes. Jesus, Jamil didn’t understand. He couldn’t possibly understand.
Hilton grabbed Jamil and pulled him close in a hug. “I’m sorry, Jamil,” he said tenderly. “Don’t be afraid. Daddy’s okay. Everything’s okay. Daddy’s sorry.”
He heard Jamil sob in his ear, so he patted his back and tried to quiet him. He didn’t want Kaya to hear him crying from her room. He couldn’t explain to her what had happened either. Jamil hugged Hilton back, clinging hard.
“You okay?” Hilton asked, and he felt Jamil’s head nod against his shoulder. “Hush up, then. Go on to your room and clean up your face. I’m sorry.”
Once Jamil scampered out of the room, Hilton curled into the fetal position on the couch and stared at the countless tiny balls of many-colored seed scattered on the shining wooden floorboards.
The last two strips of seasoned sirloin were sizzling in the pan on the stove, and Hilton stirred the rice once more to make sure it wasn’t sticking before checking the temperature of the fresh green beans simmering with almonds on the rear burner. Perfect timing. Time to tell Kaya and Jamil to set the table.
He would never have the chance.
Hilton hadn’t even realized Dede was home because he didn’t hear her unlock the front door, nor had he heard her voice in the house, but when he glanced away from the stove he saw her sitting at the kitchen table, resting her forehead against her hands as she stared at the Formica tabletop. Her face was stricken with melancholy. Had there been another note?
“Baby?” he prompted.
Dede looked at him. Her red eyes were free of tears. “I understood about the gun, Hilton, I really did,” she said. “You may not think so, but I’ve been trying so hard. Even after that day you were cleaning the gun and you asked if I was afraid you would shoot me, and I realized I was. I’ve lived with it, being afraid. I’ve lived with the gunfire in the backyard, the compulsive security, even when a voice in my head was telling me, ‘No, Dede, something’s not right. Something’s terribly wrong.’”
“What are you talking about?” Hilton asked, concerned by the look on her face. He’d never seen it there before, even in their worst days together.
Dede went on without answering, barely leaving a pause. “But I told myself, fooling myself, that I could cope as long as you never hit me. As long as you never hurt the children.”
Suddenly, Hilton understood her despaired expression, the reason for the hastily recited speech. He felt stunned. I can explain about Jamil, his mind said, but he couldn’t bring any words to his lips. In the moment of silence, he heard sizzling and realized the beef was getting too brown. He turned around to flip the steaks.
“You have to go,” Dede said in a phantoms voice.
Mechanically, Hilton poked the two-pronged fork into one steak to flip it, then the other. Smoke floated into his eyes.
“I’ve asked you to get help,” Dede went on, “but you’ve ignored me. I can’t help you, Hilton. I don’t know how. I wish I did, but I don’t. So now I’m left holding on to the one truth I know: I can’t let you stay here to do whatever you did to Jamil today, or worse. I can’t al
low it. No fit mother would.”
“Do I get to testify on my own behalf, Your Honor?” he asked without looking at her, his voice sharp with sarcasm.
“His jaw is still hurting him!” Dede screamed at him, losing the composure she’d no doubt been mustering since she’d seen Jamil. “He’ll barely say a word to me or Kaya. There’s no excuse! I want you out, Hilton, and I want you out tonight.”
The rage that had visited Hilton at Miami New Day reappeared, and he flung the pan from the stovetop with his palm, burning his fingers, until the metal clattered to the floor and spilled hot grease and food two feet from Dede’s feet. She cried out, leaping out of her chair. Dede backed away from Hilton, her eyes wide, and took refuge on the other side of the pass-through counter.
She raised an unsteady finger at him. “You see? Just look.”
“This is my house,” Hilton said, “and you need me here, you ungrateful bitch. You need me here. Kaya and Jamil need me here.”
“You need to go to a hospital, Hilton,” Dede said, her face wrenching with suppressed tears. “Please go. I’m afraid of you. He’s afraid of you.”
“Afraid?” Hilton roared, taking a step toward her. “What the fuck is there to be afraid of? I’ve given him his life. He wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for me. Don’t you get it? They weren’t even supposed to be born!”
Dede began to sob, shaking her head as she backed from Hilton. “Get out!” she shouted.
Hilton lashed at her with a fierce flurry of obscenities he’d been holding back since the days, weeks before, when her insensitivity first began to infuriate him. He heard words flying from his mouth he’d never spoken, that he’d never consciously thought. Dede shrank from him, crying, until she was backed against the wall in the family room.
Suddenly, her eyes darted away from him to the family room entrance. “No. Go to your room,” Dede choked.
Kaya was there. Her face was splotchy and damp with tears, and all of her limbs were trembling. “Why are you doing this?” she shrieked at Hilton with a rage in her eyes that robbed them of their youth.
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