Origin

by Diana Abu-Jaber

  He looks away.

  “That’s fine. Please don’t worry. You’ve given me a lot here. This is a lot.”

  Henry is writing, shaking his head at the same time. “Please—do not tell your mother. Promise? She would—” He runs out of space at the bottom of the page and simply stops writing.

  “I promise,” I tell him. “Really, Dad.” I put my hand on his shoulder, try to radiate nonchalance. “Really. It helps. It’s so—it’s really just—”

  “Leeh-leyy—” he tries to speak, but his voice twists, the muscles in his throat and face ropy. He turns his face away, as if angry; a single muted sound rises from him.

  I hunker into his chair, put my arms around him once more. I can feel the sharp bones in his back like bits of flint. “Don’t worry, Dad,” I say. “It’s going to be okay.”

  But his attention has swung back to the window. I feel twinges of the old anxiety tightening in my shoulders and neck—reminding me of Saturdays in the garage with Henry, knowing that Pia was waiting for me inside, full of grievances and veiled threats.

  Keller shakes hands with Henry, but he looks anxious for us to go.

  I manage to keep myself calm and clear as I thank Henry. But he doesn’t meet my gaze—perhaps already regretting telling me. After all, he has changed history for me, if only in this one detail.

  I hug him and say I’ll call soon; I’m downright casual. But once we’re outside, the door swished shut behind us, I feel unsteady. I drop my gloves in the snow, then my hat; I slap the flakes off. Keller unlocks the car door and opens it for me, but I forget to climb in and stand beside the car staring off for a few moments, gazing across the neighborhoods into the ghost-sky, until Keller comes back and helps me into the car.

  As I wait for Keller to climb in, I notice Henry at the window, one hand holding back the curtain, his head craning forward, as if he’s lost his balance.

  I wave, but Henry just stands there looking shell-shocked, and we begin to back out into the white vapor of the engine. Keller is saying something—I’m too preoccupied to hear him—but as he shifts from reverse into first, the car keeps going, fishtailing into a backward arc, our front end swinging into the middle of the slick street. I gulp air, the snowy landscape blaring around us. “Fuck!” Keller turns into it and the car shimmies, then straightens itself into forward momentum. As I look up, a car is passing us. I look right into a drawn white face, stark eyes: Pia.

  KELLER TAKES ME along Route 57, the road that skims along the southern edge of Onondaga Lake. The long, riverine lake is cracking with ice, snow skating off its surface.

  Keller’s hand curls around mine and I’m glad for it. His palm is warm and damp—always so warm! A marvel. I know I could uncoil his fingers and read the map of a traceable biological history in the lines of his palms—heart trouble, good lungs, blue eyes—like pools of genetic memory. A bead of something like envy forms inside my throat. He’d never have shocks like this—new foster parents and uncertain heritage.

  He says, “So, we go check this out, see what this lady can tell us? Maybe she knows something about the kind of person who wears teeth around their neck.” When I don’t respond, he gives me a long, evaluative look. “All right,” he says. “Maybe a break first.”

  We’ve passed the old French fort and now we’re approaching the village of Liverpool. He decelerates and turns the car into the parking lot of Sandor’s Restaurant, white sleet running like pearls across the windshield. Sandor’s is at least half a century old, the windows covered with pull-down shades of blue cellophane. It’s a noble, nostalgic dive—hamburgers and hot dogs and an ice-cream stand that reopens each summer. Henry and Pia used to take me here; buy a single cone and watch as I ate it—licking drips down the sides of the cone.

  Keller goes to the counter and brings a cheeseburger and a Coney to the table. “I tried to cover all bases.” He stops and looks at the tray, then at me. “You’re a vegetarian?”

  “Supposedly I eat fish.” I slide the meat out of the bun and keep the pickles, ketchup, and cheese, then sit back in the molded booth bench. Outside, a gust of wind hits the windows and the panes rattle and let in a thready draft. Beyond the glass is the little business district—the IGA, the sporting goods store, the gas station, and cars grinding through slush. No one’s outside in the elements.

  He takes a great bite of the burger, chewing thoughtfully, before he swallows and says, “Why are you afraid of this woman?”

  I swallow a bite of the bread and pickles. “It just seems like the more I study this case, the more shocks there are about my own past.”

  He nods with a mouthful of hot dog, then says, “There’s some freaky stuff coming up. But that’s how it is sometimes. I mean, criminal investigation? I’ve had times I’ve felt so—just freaked by this job that I’m up all night long. My teeth start to hurt just from clenching.” He cups his jaw for a second.

  “How do you deal with it, though, like, get through it?”

  “New York Rangers.”

  “You mean . . . ?”

  He takes a sip of Coke, puts it down, and says, “Ice hockey.”

  I consider this. “I should start watching.”

  He puts down the Coney, turns the paper cup hissing with black soda. “Although, frankly, I don’t think any investigation has ever scared me as shitless as getting a divorce.” He holds his hand capped flat over the soda.

  I nod, studying the plastic tabletop.

  He takes another meditative sip. “You know, sometimes, what helps? I think about people who are . . .” He shrugs. “Well, braver than me, to tell the truth. Who did things the way I’d like to be able to. Like with what happened to my father.”

  I push my half-eaten food to one side. “Please. Tell me.”

  He gazes toward the back of the restaurant. “Oh, it’s a whole story.” He runs a hand over the back of his lowered head, sighs. “Well, the Cliffs Notes version—my dad had this heart thing, cardiomyopathy—it’s like a weakening of the muscle in the heart. But it affected all of us in the family, always worrying about him. Trying to watch out for him. And then this weird stuff happened.”

  “To your father?”

  He nods. “About fifteen years ago, he was hospitalized—on the wait list for a heart donor. And this Mattydale kid, Theo Donne—twenty-two years old—he wiped out on a motorcycle. No helmet, as usual.” He fans his hands apart. “Killed instantly. A day later, that guy’s heart goes into my dad.” His hands hover just above the paper plate. “I mean, can you imagine? A stranger’s heart bumping away inside you? A heart.” He shakes his head heavily.

  “Well, it saved him, right?”

  “Yeah, it did. But that’s the weird part—after the operation I thought Dad seemed different. He seemed, sort of, younger.”

  “He probably felt better.”

  Keller nods very slowly, as if reluctant. “Yeah, there’s that. But it was more than that. Like, he started to listen to jazz! He never liked jazz before. He ate all sorts of things he never ate before—peanut butter and dark chocolate and jam.” He looks at me hazily. “Like this other person had really gotten inside of him. I was even jealous, if you can believe that.” He holds his chin in the flat of his palm, the Coney half-eaten and forgotten on its paper plate.

  “Jealous how?” I shift, the plastic seat pressing against my vertebrae.

  He pushes the food and the cola to one side, then gets up and throws all of his food, including the half dog and naked burger, away into a plastic-lined barrel. He plonks back down and glares out the windows. “I felt like this kid—I know this is crazy, but—this kid—”

  “The one who died?”

  “Yeah.” He squints. “I don’t know how to say this.” He lowers his face. “Well, I was only fifteen, but I felt like that kid got to be, in a way . . . close to my dad. But in a way that
I would never be. Like, he died to save my dad—gave him the heart out of his own body. How do you top something like that?” He laughs hopelessly, his face drained. “So how sick is that? I know it’s crazy, but there you go. I’m crazy. Now you know.” He draws one finger through the rings of water his cup left on the table. “Bottom line is that kid and his heart saved my dad.”

  Keller stares long and far out the window, past the tire shop, the Amoco station, past the row of traffic lights creaking in the wind. “It was a goddamn resurrection.” Again his shrunken laugh. “So, you know what? About a year after the operation, he gets this call—from the hospital where they did his transplant? They want to know if he’s willing to meet the donor’s family. . . .”

  “Oh. Oh wow.” I touch the edge of the table with my fingertips.

  “It’s the new thing. It used to be that organ recipients were totally in the dark about where their donation came from. I guess it’s not that uncommon—people want to know, like, where it came from—or, where it went. Which makes some sense to me.

  “So fine. Dad gets this call—the hospital says, don’t decide now, take a little time to think things over. And for a couple days, he’s, like, what should I do? Should I do it?”

  “My God,” I say. “That must’ve been hard.”

  Keller looks dazed under the humming lights. Pieces of his hair are tamped down at his hairline, as if he’s sweating, but the air has a drafty chill. “It drove me about out of my mind. That’s all he could talk about, should he do it or shouldn’t he. I was, like, hell no! Who are these people anyway? I actually started to worry that they thought my dad sort of . . . you know—like, killed their son? Honestly. Or, what if they wanted their heart back or something?” He rubs the flat of his hand against his forehead, laughing dismally. “But then one day Dad wakes up and it was just like, that’s it—he had to meet them.” His voice goes faint and then simply stops. He pauses a moment, then says, “You want some coffee? I was thinking that I might get coffee.”

  I shake my head.

  “Okay,” he says, but doesn’t move. He sifts one hand through his hair. “Anyway. A week later, he asks if I’d like to go for a walk in the park. That’s all he tells me—a walk in the park.” Keller looks at the window, but it’s opaque with condensation. There’s a rinsing sound of cars on Route 57, and then, more distantly, the soft moan of a train; it rises in the cold air beyond the window and holds still; Keller seems to be listening to it. Then he rubs his eyes. “So we’re out on this ‘walk,’ right? And the first one I see is this boy—he’s younger than I am, but he’s dressed up, his hair brushed, he’s wearing a little blazer.” He smiles, taps his fingers on the table. “Then there’s an older woman, and a really old guy. And it’s them. It’s the family.”

  I bite the inside of my lower lip.

  “Dad didn’t have the nerve to tell me what we were doing. He didn’t think I’d come if I knew. Which was probably right.”

  “Oh,” I say it so softly, I barely hear myself.

  “Yeah.” He stops for a moment, head lowered, then lifts his gaze, his dark blue irises like a puff of smoke. “So. They came up to my dad and right there they all started hugging and crying like they’re all old friends, and I’m just standing there. Dad finally says, ‘Kell, this is where my new heart came from.’ Even then I couldn’t take it in. I really didn’t want to, you know? And then the weirdest thing—the kid opens up a paper bag and takes out an actual stethoscope. Dad asks if he wants to hear it and the kid just nods. So my father unbuttons the top of his shirt—right there in the park—and he puts the little disk up by his heart, holds it there while the kid listens. I remember that so well.”

  Keller tilts back his head a little and closes his eyes. “It took a good while.” Keller’s voice has gone dim and still, a quiet grave sound. “They all listened. Each of them put on the stethoscope and crouched next to my dad. It was like this strange, very quiet conversation they were having.”

  “Without you.” I speak before thinking. I bite my lips closed.

  But Keller nods. “Then Dad really changed. He had different sorts of dreams, even. He told me. Not bad ones, just, like, the dreams of a different person.” Keller smiles and glances at me. “Is that psycho? Do I sound psycho?”

  “No, no.”

  But he’s nodding like I’d said yes. “Even so. Even so. I remember thinking, He belongs to those people now.”

  “Except he didn’t really, Keller,” I say.

  He shrugs. “Maybe. But he sure didn’t belong to us, either. And see, I always thought that if he hadn’t met those people, then somehow maybe he would’ve come back. It’s hard to remember how it all went exactly. That meeting was so . . .” He holds his hand up flat. “Definite. It’s hard to remember what things were like before that day.”

  Keller reaches across the table, as if I’m the one who needs comforting, and takes my hands. The sensation of his touch travels through my skin, radiating in my elbows and shoulders. “Thing is, Lena—once you know something, you can’t give it back.” He rubs his thumbs over the pads of my fingers. “It’s why I decided to become a detective, I wanted to be in charge of finding things out, to try and control how I found out.”

  “And did you?” I ask; his fingers moving over mine feel warm and smooth as butter. I lean in toward him.

  “No.” He lowers his face and I feel a surge of attraction, like a small electric shock. His eyes dip to the table, then back to me. “I don’t seem to be able to control much of anything anymore.”

  I ignore this last comment that seems, somehow, to be directed at me. Instead, I gaze out the window across the frozen surface of Onondaga Lake, to its opposite shore where the chemical plants used to be, to the mall built over decommissioned oil drums. “So what happened?” I ask. “With your dad and you. After all that—the meeting and everything.”

  He turns sideways in the booth, legs stretched out and his shoulder resting against the wall. He taps a plastic fork against the table. “Just mainly that he got better.”

  “You mean, physically?”

  He shrugs. “Physically, emotionally, mentally. He kept in touch with that other family—writing letters, calling. One time, when he got off the phone, I could tell he’d been actually crying. My dad! I hated them, of course. That little brother, especially. I was terrible—I’m ashamed to say it. I couldn’t feel compassion for any of them—all I could see was that my father was different. He took classes in art appreciation and design, he started going for walks—which I refused to accompany him on. He took up cooking—which Mom did not like.” Keller pauses, looks over his shoulder at the windows. The echo of traffic from the highway seems to lift, a clear white syrup of noise. “He made this great pasta thing once.”

  “I guess he wanted you all to change along with him?”

  “It didn’t seem fair at the time. Like, I wasn’t the one with the stupid heart condition!” He smiles. “Now I wish I had. God, I wish I had.” He taps the stirrer against the table. “Anyway, about two years later he had a major heart attack, and that was it.”

  “Keller, God, I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah. Hell. Sometimes I really just miss him. But I have to say, his last two years—maybe those were his happiest? He told me meeting that kid’s family helped him see he was getting a second chance. He said to me, Kell, life is so fucking good.”

  I laugh and Keller nods. “It wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t ever met that family. I see that now. Sometimes I think I even understand about the ‘fucking good’ part.” He sneaks a little look at me. “And see, he was brave enough to find out. He let himself go there and do the hard thing—even with this pain-in-the-ass son of his trying to hold him back, even no matter how scared he was. He still went.”

  Both of us lapse into silence. Finally, I place my forearms on the table and smile. “So, it is bette
r to know these things.”

  He shakes his head, folds the fingers of his flattened hands together. “It’s always better to know. It is. That’s the great thing about being a detective, Lena. Information makes you stronger. And if it’s bad news, it makes you even stronger. This woman your dad told us about—she might really have something for us. She might recognize that tooth or give us a lead on where it came from.”

  I nod, my chin propped on my fist. “Yeah. I know. Thought of all that.”

  “It’s creepy—I know—to think there might be some connection between you and some lunatic out there. And sometimes you get tired of having to be brave. Brave wears you right out. Down to the bone. But if you can stand it—it’s always worth it.” He looks at me, a slim gray gaze. I look down; heat ripples along my spine. The thing that I don’t want to know is already there, like a germ inside my body. I know this. I slide my hands over his. He takes my hand, holds it under his nose like a bouquet, barely touching his lips to my skin.

  Something in me sways toward him, but I hold back. I say, “I just needed a moment—to catch my breath.” I turn my hand over reflexively, removing it from his grasp.

  Keller smiles. He stuffs a napkin into his empty soda cup, tosses it from the seat into the open trash barrel against the wall. He says quietly, “Then let’s do it.”

  CHAPTER 32

  THERE’S A SOLEMN STATELINESS TO THIS SMALL VILLAGE, FILLED with older homes, cottages and quaint colonials. 426 Third Avenue is a wooden house with chocolate-brown shutters and terra-cotta window boxes. Keller pulls in front and places his hand on the seat back above my shoulders. “Any of this look familiar?”

  “Not really,” I say.

  Keller wraps his hand around mine. “All right?”

  For a moment, I don’t move. I shrink away from the car door. The house seems to wobble, its outlines soften, miragelike. Keller turns toward me, my hand still suspended inside his. It’s like a shift in the chemistry of my body, this panicky sense that I’m not ready to hear what this woman may have to say. I try to stall: “Wait—maybe . . . I’m thinking maybe I better get back to the Lab. I can do this another time.”