Infinite Us

by Eden Butler

  The cityscape was boring, Brooklyn always had been. The only thing remarkable about it was the bridge in the far distance, but that was more New York than Brooklyn no matter the name or how close it was to us. Out there in the city, everything moved and bustled. In Brooklyn, on my roof, everything went in slow motion. Especially when I turned and with a jolt, spotted Willow hunkered down, her head hidden behind the long back of the lawn chair as she rested in it.

  That wild hair was up in a bun and little flyaways framed her sweet face. She held a box in her lap but didn’t touch it, didn’t do much of anything but stare forward. Then she seemed to notice me, and sat up straighter, which is when I caught a glimpse of the bottle of bourbon under her arm. Her face was drawn, her features tight with tension but she didn’t speak when I moved close and sat, sharing a seat with her.

  I nodded at the bottle, but kept my voice calm. “You feeling a little southern tonight?” She’d told me the first night about her granddaddy and his love of cigars and whisky. I’d almost half expected to see her puffing on a stogie.

  “A lot southern,” she said, drinking from the bottle without watching me.

  “You’re not from the south, Will.” There was a small twitch on the left side of her mouth when I called her that. She’d smiled wide and happy the first night I'd used her pet name, like the sound of the endearment had made her all fuzzy headed.

  She set the bottle down next to her hip, steadying it with the crook of her elbow before she pushed the box on her lap toward me. “My folks stopped by yesterday. It’s been exactly two months since my great grandfather died and they wanted me to have this box. Dad thought it had been lost, all this…stuff…”

  “What is it?”

  She waited, licking her lips like she had cotton mouth before she answered. I wasn’t sure what to make of that expression. It was serious, a little worried. “Pictures, letters, rings he bent and twisted from silver dollars and pennies during the war when he was on watch.” She pulled one out of the box and slipped it on her pinky. It was old, dingy copper, splotched green, but Willow stared at it like it was a Tiffany diamond. I liked the look on her face, how, for a second it made me forget that I wanted her gone, that she’d walked away so easily.

  “I remember you mentioning him dying.”

  “Yeah, well, my folks thought I’d want this stuff. It’s all the things that meant the most to him, expect maybe us.”

  Her fingers were small, the nails short but trim and when she handed over a small black and white picture, my fingers grazed hers, lingering as I held the old photo with a little reverence. Not long ago, I’d kissed each finger, and let them run over my body, across my naked chest. There were no calluses, nothing that would take away her softness, nothing that made her seem hard around the edges.

  “It’s him and…I suppose one of his friends when they were kids back in New Orleans.”

  I stopped then, frowning when I glanced down at the picture. “My great granddaddy was from New Orleans. They were all Creole. Or so my Dad claimed.” The two boys in the picture, a light skinned black kid and a white boy with light hair, were smiling, laughing at something behind the camera, maybe the person who took the picture. Something felt odd, something that twisted my stomach and I caught a flash of déjà vu. It filled up my chest and made it hard to breath.

  “Who is this?” I asked Willow, turning it over to see only two things written on the back. “Summer, 1927” and “D and S”.

  “My great-grandfather and his friend. He’s in this one too,” she said, digging around in the box before withdrawing another image.

  The edges of the picture were frayed and the corner on the bottom left side was torn off. But they were clearly the same two boys, both standing on either side of a pretty girl. Her hair was curled, hit just below her ears and she had dark eyes with the smallest slant to them. That twist in my stomach got worse as I concentrated on the girl, trying like hell to remember why that face looked so familiar, why I knew what the sound of her voice was like or how she looked when she laughed.

  “That’s…I don’t…” And then, it hit me, like a slap across the face. It hit me hard and dramatic and I stood, the photo dropping from my fingers. “That’ s impossible.”

  Around me the night got cold, like a twister had somehow swept through the city, not disturbing anything on the streets—no trash cans or post signs along the sidewalks, no tourists taking long shots of the Brooklyn Bridge. Everything was still and quiet, except for the ripping rhythm of my heart and the sweat that formed on my forehead.

  Willow looked scared when I stepped back, her wide eyes. “What is?” Willow asked, picking up the picture from where it had fallen on her chair. “Nash?”

  It occurred to me then that maybe this was all tied in to Willow after all. All this…this weird connection, the memories that rose up inside me since I met her. I was a man of logic and science. I didn’t believe in things like angels or second chances or different lives. I believed in life and death and that both only came around once. But Willow didn’t. At least she swore she didn’t. That’s why she’d left me the night we slept together. That’s why she swore she couldn’t be with me. Having no faith meant I couldn’t have Willow. But this…this connection, it was too much. It was just too damn much. It literally shook the foundation of what I thought I believed.

  “What is this?” I pointed at the picture, at the face I’d seen so many nights. The smile was the same, the smooth, dark skin, the flash of laughter in her eyes. It was her, I knew it. But good God, how? “What the hell is this? My God, Will, how is this even possible?”

  “What…”

  “Your granddaddy?”

  “Great-granddaddy,” she said, moving her head into a tilt. “What about him?”

  “This…” I took the picture from her, head shaking, unable to keep a tight grip on the picture. “That’s…that’s Sookie.”

  Willow stared at me, mouth dropping open. “How do you know about Sookie?”

  I blinked, eyes narrowing before I answered her. “She’s…she was my great-grandpaw’s sister. But she died, Will. She died in…”

  “A fire.”

  The noise I’d heard fogging up my head, clogging sense and reason, turned into disbelief and fear, all went away with Willow’s words. Something burned me up from the inside when I looked at her. Something that made my head swim and my chest flood with dread and worry as she stepped closer. For the first time since I’d met her, I worried Willow was someone I wouldn’t be safe around. A harbinger of something unexplainable. The touchstone of something that simply could not be.

  “They chased her,” she said, her voice strained, waiting for confirmation. I gave it, my head moving in the slightest nod.

  “Those white men. Dempsey’s father and his friends,” I said, speaking so low that I had to strain to hear her.

  I fell against the brick wall behind me, my fingers shaking, my palm sweating. She knew. She’d seen Sookie same as me. Willow had dreamed the same dream.

  “How is this possible?” I could hear the alarm in her voice, the disbelief.

  “Willow…”

  She shook her head, fingers trembling as she covered her mouth. “Nash…I saw it.” She watched me, pleading, like she needed me to understand. The tremble in her fingers worsened and a small shudder worked over her shoulders. “I watched the whole thing happen. I…I watched Sookie die.”

  Willow

  There were flashes I did not recognize. Swirls of memory, the feeling of loss and want and anger—it all swam around me, filled my head so that when I dreamed, there was no rest.

  My bedroom was silent and cold. It felt like a tomb, a dread that even a touch of light and the slip of laughter could not splinter. It was my cave away from the possibility of what I’d seen, what I’d always believed and how, with one conversation, Nash had dismantled that belief.

  “Maybe you should take a vacation.” Effie’s voice was clam, soothing over the phone, but even with the
cool she covered herself with, I caught the hint of worry in her inflection. “Head out somewhere peaceful…the coast, or…oh, I know. Virginia.”

  Virginia reminded me of the places Riley recalled with such clarity. I couldn’t go there. I couldn’t go anywhere and not remember the life she’d led and the man she’d loved. She was everywhere.

  Riley had loved Isaac. I knew that. She’d loved him like Dempsey had loved Sookie. Those dreams were fainter, the memory not as strong, but running like a current through all those lives was the pulse of something strong. Something that wouldn’t be denied. Something, I knew without knowing how or why, that demanded to be felt.

  “Or…”

  “I think I’ll just hide in my bedroom,” I told Effie, settling my cell phone on the pillow next to me. The earbud wires got lost somewhere in the tangle of my hair and the pillowcase. “I just want to…I don’t know…rest a little bit. Hide from the world.” I exhaled, not liking how quiet Effie had become; like she geared up for an argument and needed to decide how to begin it. “You ever feel that way, Effie? You ever just want to forget the world for a little while?”

  “Of course I have, sweetie. Everyone has, but you know…”

  “Then that’s what I’ll do.” I’d already decided to hang up before she finished speaking. “I’ll call you tomorrow. For now, though, I just need to sleep.”

  Washington D.C.

  Senator Mansfield had given a great speech before the formal dinner. There was talk of honor, justice and liberty. The room was crowded with the elite of D.C. insiders—men and women who’d worked with the late President Kennedy championing Civil Rights. Others came in later, when Lyndon Johnson promised to finish that work, and now it was time for toasting the people who had chipped away at another chain of injustice, my parents among them.

  “That man, he would make a good president,” my mother said, leaning close to my father.

  “Maybe so, my love.” Dad shot a wink across the table, and then turned to his two law clerks. “Work isn’t done, not by a long shot, though.” he added. The clerks were a pair of young, idealistic Harvard grads eager to take on D.C. single handedly. But first, Dad promised, they’d need to learn the difference between pleadings and briefs.

  Ryan sat next to me, smiling like he wanted desperately to ask me how my weekend at the cottage with Isaac had been, but I kicked him under the table when he started to drop cryptic hints, earning a wince as Dad watched over the rim of his glass.

  “What’s happening with the two of you?” He leaned close, elbow nearly toppling over his half empty water glass. The room was noisy with people moving around and socializing, and I could barely make out his question.

  “What do you mean?” Ryan asked innocently, clearly not disadvantaged by the crowd and the rolling noise of clinking dinnerware and emptying glasses.

  “The pair of you, all night, you’ve been snickering and talking behind your hands. You want to share your secrets?”

  “Nothing worth sharing, Dad,” I quickly cut in. He didn’t buy it, that much I gathered by the way his eyes met mine and held them for a beat longer than strictly necessary. My father was a busy man and he took his work seriously but that didn’t mean he’d ever give up being a parent, regardless of how old his kids had grown.

  “Come now, Eric, leave them.” my mom said teasingly, leaning in so he could hear her over the dinner buzz. “They are both here, yes? Both under one roof. You will scare them away with your meddling.” My mother’s Polish accent had grown slightly more pronounced due to her being on her second glass of chardonnay, but it only made her sound more charming.

  Our parents were like two kids, still besotted and smitten after some twenty-five years. Dad kissed her forehead and she momentarily laid her cheek on his shoulder.

  It was true that I had been conspicuously absent from the family home over the past few months, taking the odd call from each of them or dashing off a quick note after my mother had dropped off another box of cookies or homemade pierogi at my dorm room, but that was about it. My mother was not one to pry, but my dad was understandable suspicious—after all, I was his only daughter. And, as much as I hated to admit it, I had been drawn into the D.C. social scene that, like it or not, impacted the way things got done.

  “Does this low talking have anything to do with why Trent is sitting over there with his parents and not at our table, Riley?”

  “Dad…”

  “I know you two had a fight, but I think everyone expected you to have patched things up by now…”

  I smiled at him even as something shifted in my chest. His tone was mildly teasing, and had we been somewhere else, I might have taken the opportunity to admit to him right there and then what had gone on between Trent and myself. But now certainly wasn't the time or the place, not with our table full of colleagues my parents had worked so hard with over the past year. I wasn't going to let his bringing up my love life ruin the evening.

  “Daddy, please.” I downed what remained of my red, dissatisfied when it did little to boost my resolve, and decided deflection was my best course of action. “You know that a girl doesn't kiss and tell.”

  He shrugged, patting my mother’s hand when she whispered in his ear. “Whatever it is, Trent seems to have no problem with broadcasting it. It’s pretty obvious he’s fixated on you. He’s either been mooning over you all night, or shooting daggers in your direction. Damn, Riley, what on earth did you do to him?”

  “Me?” I said in mock shock, but next to me Ryan straightened in his chair, holding my hand still when I balled my linen napkin in my fist. But try as I might, I couldn’t keep up the façade. “It wasn’t…” Thank heavens Ryan was there, giving me a wide, teasing smile but whispered, “Now’s not the time, Riley” under his breath.

  “Well, it looks as if we're going to find out, anyway.” Dad said, standing and smiling at someone behind me.

  I turned, and saw Trent and his father heading towards our table. I shot Ryan a panicked glance as Dad moved forward to shake hands with Mr. Dexter, and then motion at two empty chairs that sat at our table. Ryan, however, looked just as stricken as I did.

  Mr. Dexter had been working the room, typical for the consummate social climber he was, always worming his way into the good graces of whatever cabinet member or high-ranking staff member could push his personal agenda. While I was not exactly enamored with his behavior, it was not uncommon nor even remotely surprising in this city. Everyone in D.C. wanted power, except maybe my parents, and that came hand in hand with double dealing and promise breaking. Trent’s despicable behavior hadn’t been learned in a vacuum—men like Trent and his father were used to getting whatever caught their eye, be it women or influence or power. Once they got them, they moved on to something else. My rejection of him was a challenge that Trent just couldn't let pass.

  “You look beautiful, Riley,” Trent said, leaning toward me with that watery-eye glint that I supposed he thought made him look charming, flashing me his million dollar smile. It was all I could do to keep from snapping at him to leave me alone, but I opted instead to ignore him.

  My father spoke to Mr. Dexter in animated tones, high spirited, but every so often he would glance at me, mildly curious as to why I dutifully ignored Trent even as he continued to speak to me.

  “You can’t be civil?” Ryan asked sotto voce and I cut him a cool look, silently telling him to mind his own business. My brother leaned back, pretending to look to his left while scooting closer to me so as not to be overheard by Trent, still hovering at my shoulder, wine glass in hand, but waving to someone across the room. “You being with Isaac is one thing. But you know if you ignore Trent, questions are going to be asked. Is that a conversation you’re ready to have? Is that something you want to share with these nosy people?”

  I closed my eyes, wishing for once that I could escape my life, shoot far away from my family and the lives we lived in Washington D.C. In that moment I only wanted to be on some imaginary island with I
saac, forgetting the world and everything in it but the two of us. No one mattered, no one existed in that place but me and the man I loved.

  “Riley, are you all set for classes this upcoming semester?” I started, hitting my elbow on the table as Mr. Dexter’s booming question cut through my private reverie and struggled to gain my composure as I noticed everyone around the table looking at me, politely waiting for my answer.

  I crossed my leg, keeping my ankle out of reach of my brother’s nudging foot. “Yes,” I answered Mr. Dexter, falling back on my most practiced, sugary sweet expression. “I’ve enrolled in a course on the fall of Constantinople, one on statistical methodology, and Dr. Matthis is doing a seminar on the Protestant Reformation. Should be a good semester.”

  Trent’s father smiled at me patronizingly. “Indeed, indeed,” he crooned, but I don't think my answer even registered with him as he turned his attention to my father. “It’s good you let her continue on with studying, Eric.” His hand fell on my father's shoulder, in an attempt at a shared camaraderie. “Mind, it’s best not to let young women become too invested in their studies.”

  “And why’s that?” My father asked, his good-natured smile never lowering, but I could see the muscles in his jaw suddenly clench. Mom must have sensed something in his demeanor, in the way she sat up straighter, as if preparing to intervene if need be. “A good education is such an important part of any young person's development, women as well as men. Why on earth should my daughter, anyone’s daughter, not be invested in their education?”

  Trent’s father didn’t know my dad that well. Their paths crossed, yes, especially with Trent and me dating for a few months, but I don't believe they’d ever spoken about anything personal, certainly not outside of work. From the look of the effort my dad was having to go through to maintain his composure, I guessed that was likely a good thing.

  “Ah, so,” Mr. Dexter said, dismissing my father's question and turning to his son. “Trent, you must bring Riley back around next week. Your Uncle Ray will be in town; we’ll have to take the boat out to show him the lake. You'd like that, wouldn't you, Riley?” He smiled at me as if he had just bestowed on me a great honor, nodding once as his own confirmation, fully expecting me to agree. When I only glared back at him, Mr. Dexter cleared his throat, obviously not used to his gestures being met with anything other than delight and gratitude.