“Our sister,” I said. “I know.” I put the knife back in the plastic bag with the sneaker and placed the whole thing on the ground. I was crouched down next to him, trembling with cold.
Outside, the sun was rising. A shaft of orange light pierced the tunnel. This was what the Tunnel Man saw every morning, I thought. It was gorgeous.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Pilot said. “Why didn’t you help me remember?”
I said this as if I were ashamed: “We didn’t want you to.”
He sobbed into his hands. He wore a black overcoat, and layers and layers of sweaters beneath it. He had been out in this cold waiting for me all night. The camera hung loosely around his neck.
“Have you been taking your medication?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Not since the island.”
“Will you do me a favor, little brother? Will you please go home and take your fucking pills? Please?”
He nodded.
I helped him up.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay.”
I walked with my brother through the tunnel, my hand on his shoulder, carrying the Wonderbread bag with the sneaker and knife inside it, and I left him at the path that led to our mother’s house. We didn’t say anything. We didn’t even hesitate, just separated smoothly into our opposite directions.
An hour and a half later, I was pulling into the long driveway of my beach house. I was getting out of the car with the same Wonderbread bag in my hand and walking without stopping, without even closing the door, to the water. No one was around. The wind and the sounds of the waves were blasting into my ears. Was it always this loud? I had no jacket, just that thin pink shirt, monogrammed. My shoes slipped in the sand, failing to gather traction. When I got to the edge of the ocean, where the waves licked the shore, I stepped in a few feet, the water rushing up around my shins, soaking my pants, and I didn’t give a shit about the cold or ruining my Italian leather shoes. I looked up and down to make sure no one was watching. I reached into the bag and took out the knife.
This was the blade that cut so cleanly through Halley’s leg, I thought. This was the way it felt in my hand.
In the daylight it seemed different. It had been years since I’d seen it, of course, but I didn’t remember the handle being this sleekly black, and the blade seemed oddly shiny. I guessed it was just a well-made object. It wasn’t even the slightest bit rusty after all those years. I got the heft of it, momentarily tossing it up, and then I threw it as far into the ocean as I could, so far out I couldn’t even hear the splash. I still had an arm, I thought. I took the plastic bag with Fiona’s shoe in it and I filled it with a handful of wet sand. I twisted the plastic around the shoe and whipped it, like the knife, far out into the water. I knew it could come loose eventually and might even float back to the shore. But that didn’t matter now. A single shoe, water-soaked, on a beach somewhere. The knife, I knew, would never resurface—not in this lifetime, anyway.
Stupidly, I stood in the cold water up to my knees for a few long minutes, and then I turned around and walked back to the beach house, my feet aching. It was extremely cold inside, so I made a fire and, after the furnace heated up, took a long hot shower. I was probably in there for over an hour, just standing beneath the spray, my eyes closed, trying to let a lifetime of worry drain from my body. I had a change of clothes in the bedroom. I had a few cans of soup in the kitchen cabinet. I’d stay here tonight, I thought. I’d get some rest.
Hannah opened her eyes that Christmas morning to a dazzle of gold coming in at a sideways angle through her bedroom window. It was clear and uniform, a single shaft filled with individual particles of brilliance and glittering dust. It was late for Hannah, too, almost eight o’clock. From the bed she could see the minute hand on its way toward twelve, the hour firmly on eight, the red second hand gliding smoothly forward into the day. She could look across the covers of her bed and see the old maple bedposts, glossy and brown in the morning shimmer. She could see every green twist in the ivy motif of her duvet cover. She held up her hands. Her fingers were long, thinner than she remembered, the flesh translucent. The bones and muscles were plainly visible, the metacarpals and phalanges, the joints and ligaments, the arteries and veins on clear display. Her fingernails were blunt, with ridges across their surfaces.
Hannah threw her legs onto the floor and stepped into the hallway, her ankles making a small crick-crick-cricking sound as she walked. With her eyes she followed the old oriental runner carpet and noticed with surprise and amazement how dirty it had become, flecked with bits of leaves and clods of dried mud. She looked at the black-and-white prints of forest scenes on the walls—remembering how she’d picked them out with my father at a photography gallery all those years ago—where was that? Martha’s Vineyard—and saw them clearly, it seemed to her, for the first time since that afternoon. She could hear movement downstairs. It was Thalia, the nurse Eric had hired to take care of her in her blindness, preparing something in the kitchen. Hannah went into the bathroom and closed the door softly, hoping Thalia wouldn’t hear.
Inside, the full-length mirror revealed an old woman in a dingy, yellowed nightgown. Hannah put a hand to her face, touching her lower lip delicately. She was so pale. She ran a finger along the blue vein on her temple, noticing the way it disappeared into her hairline. She closed her eyes and rubbed them, and when she opened them up again the old woman was still there, still gray, singular and small—how small she had become, how frail—in the reflection.
Had she been breathing? She took a breath.
There was no wind outside, she noticed, no rattling in the treetops, no sound at all, so she went to the little bathroom window and looked out at the yard.
There was the flagstone patio, the pool/garden, overgrown with her dead plantings from the spring. She had known Eric would never get around to that. There was the patch of grass, still green, but fading to brown a bit in its winter cycle, and then there were the woods, the line of trees clear and solid against the grass. There were two girls’ bicycles, one pink, one purple, with white handlebars, pieces of Christmas ribbon attached. Hannah strained, leaning her face against the glass, to see into the yard next door, wondering if the two girls were out there on this cold day, but she could not see from this perspective. Her forehead touched the glass of the bathroom window, and she could smell the dust that had gathered there, the musty odor. She had never been a good housewife, she thought, had never been able to keep the house clean the way other women did. But Jim had never complained. That had been her own criticism. She turned and, as her body twisted toward the bathroom interior with the thought of its cleanliness, she was certain she heard something in the backyard, a voice, a small voice coming from where she had just been looking, just seen so clearly, with a singular, lucid vision, that no one was there. She thought she heard her daughter. Was it Fiona? And when she looked, she saw not only one, but two little girls, one ash-blonde, one brunette, each in their red woolly Christmas coats. Hannah could even see how pink the cold wind had made their little-girl cheeks. She could see how one of them sucked on a piece of her blond hair like a string. She could see how one was stronger than the other, one quieter, one more brash, one more beautiful, one more sensitive. She could see these two little girls so clearly. They took their bicycles and rolled them away then, into their own yard, out of view.
“Mrs. Airie… Hannah, are you in there?” It was the nurse out in the hall.
“I’m just, um, I’m just going to take a shower, Thalia, and then I’ll be downstairs for breakfast, okay?”
“Can you find everything all right in there? Can I help you with anything?”
“I know just where everything is,” Hannah said. “I can remember my own bathroom.”
“Trying to be helpful, that’s all.” Thalia allowed a pause. “And Merry Christmas.”
Hannah stood at the window and focused on the trees in the distance, the bare branches of the perennials, the dark green needles on the evergree
ns. And as she looked at them she saw the familiar blurring of colors, the softening around the edges of things, the running together. But she could put her fingers into her eyes and wipe away the tears forming there, and when she did, everything became clear again. She could see. She could see it was winter outside, and there was no water in the pool, and there was no little girl in the yard.
I had told Thalia I just wanted to be alone, and she’d said I was just like my mother, Merry Christmas to me, too. I had been sitting on the blue couch in the living room, still wearing my overcoat, the layers and layers of sweaters. I still had a chill under my skin from being outside all night. I still had the camera around my neck. I had been staring at my new sneakers, a pair of blue-and-silver Nikes. I had been imagining my brother up to his knees in the winter surf.
Hannah stood at the end of the stairs with her hand touching the banister and said, “I can see you.”
I lifted my head. “You can see?”
“I can see everything. I can see absolutely—”
I got up. “You’re not kidding me, are you, Mom?”
“—everything.” She walked into the room. “I can see better than I could before, I think. Why do you have that camera?”
“Come on, Mom.”
She pointed to the newspaper on the coffee table. She read the headlines. “Chemical Spill In Westchester County.” She was smiling. “Middle East Conflict Intensifies.” She came toward me. “Popular Newscaster Implicated In Extortion Trial. You’re better, too,” she said. “I can see it in your face.”
“What happened?”
“I woke up,” she said.
“You woke up and you can see?”
“That’s what happened.” She reached to my face. Her hand was trembling. “You look handsome.”
“You opened your eyes—”
“—and I could see,” she said. “The ivy pattern on the bedspread, the trees in the yard, the little girls next door.”
“That’s wonderful,” I said.
“Let me make you some breakfast.” She started to walk toward the kitchen, but I grabbed her arm, which felt like a thin branch.
“Wait,” I said. “I want you to see something.”
“What is it?”
“Come upstairs.”
“Now?”
“Please,” I said. “It’s important.” I was like an astronaut. I was stepping onto the moon, my hands and feet growing lighter. I walked to the stairs, my overcoat still on. Hannah followed me. I had a feeling she knew where I was leading her. I had a feeling the force of gravity was growing less oppressive. “It’s in Eric’s room.”
“Pilot—”
“It’s in here.”
“—I don’t think I want—”
I opened the door and she stood in the hallway.
“—to see this right now.”
“You have to come all the way in.”
She stepped into the room. “Pilot,” she said, “no.”
I reached up to the top of Eric’s shelf, all the way up to the large silver bowl, the New York State Junior Scientist cup he had won for designing a prosthetic limb for Halley the Comet.
“Pilot, please, I told you I—”
I pulled it down and removed the old plastic Wonderbread bag inside it. I put the silver trophy on the bed and held the plastic bag out toward my mother. “This is it,” I told her. “This is the evidence.”
She put a hand over her mouth.
I could feel the clothes lifting away from my body. I could feel the helium filling the inside of my veins, the buoyancy. Under the layers of dust, the Wonderbread bag seemed as new as it had the day I placed it there, all those years ago, standing on the same captain’s chair that was now pushed under my brother’s old desk. Maybe the colors had faded. Maybe the red, blue, and yellow Wonderbread graphics had changed since then, become more streamlined. But it looked as though I could have placed these things inside that silver trophy one minute ago. Inside the bag were a single red shoe, clearly visible, with no lace, and of course the black-handled hunting knife with the silver inlay of the rhinoceros on the handle.
Hannah sat down on Eric’s old bed. She looked around. A million years ago, long before I could remember, she had decorated this room with a nautical motif, and there were anchors and sailboats all over the wallpaper and drapes. I think she couldn’t help—even at this strange moment—but to marvel proudly at the imagery of this room, the dozens of silver and gold trophies, the sea-blue decorator curtains, the brass, anchor-shaped handles on the dresser. She exhaled heavily. “What are you going to do?”
I sat down beside her, pushing the old New York State Junior Scientist trophy out of my way. “I’m going to do what I should have done when I was nine.” I felt like my body wasn’t touching anything.
“Oh.”
“Did you know?” I said.
“Pilot.”
“Mom, did you know what he did?”
“Katherine,” I said, and I was holding the phone in the living room, rotary-dial, black, “I’d like to meet Jerry Cleveland. I mean, I’d like to see him again.”
I took my father’s sparkling blue four-wheel drive, blue like the sky that late December day, and drove it out to Sky Highway, traveling along the strip malls and shopping plazas, the apartment complexes and office parks that led to the Better-Than-New Auto World where Katherine had told me the old police detective worked. In the passenger seat beside me was the evidence, the plastic Wonderbread bag, amazingly, still intact. I pulled into the parking lot next to a row of old Buicks, Mercurys, and Lincolns and waved off the redheaded salesman who came toward me in a gray suit, his tie brightly patterned, his hand out for a shake. “I’m looking for Jerry Cleveland,” I said.
His shoulders slumped. The guy hooked his thumb toward the lot, where car after car glinted and glittered in the bright winter sun. “He’s out there,” the salesman said, “with a customer.” He squinted at me. “Sure there’s not something I can show you?”
“Thanks,” I said, “but no.” I climbed out of my four-wheeler, closed the door gently, and walked off through the lot. It was jam-packed with dark late-model luxury sedans, Lincoln Continentals, one or two Cadillacs, their sleek, chromed bodies tucked together like a school of fish. Out toward the perimeter, there were the more practical vehicles, the minivans and four-wheel drives like mine, even a couple of old woodgrain-paneled station wagons. I could see him, an old man, gesturing toward one car after another, leading a young couple through the lot, car by car, describing past owners, delineating the features and extras, the miles driven, the detailing and tune-ups. He was commanding, I have to say. His voice boomed across the roofs all the way to me. When I finally reached them, Cleveland had opened a Ford Taurus, and the couple—not much to describe, really, the woman was blond, pregnant, the man was short, dark—were sitting inside it. The short, dark man was gripping the wheel, pretending to drive.
“Go on.” Cleveland was chuckling. “Get a feel of it.” He was laughing at them, I thought. “You look good in that color, ma’am. I have to say you were right about the red one. You look better in the green.”
The woman smiled at Cleveland, flattered. Her husband gripped the wheel, imagining a curving highway ahead of him.
“Mr. Cleveland.”
He turned to me. His eyes flickered across my face and then down to the Wonderbread bag. “Just a minute,” he said.
I knew that he knew me. I knew that he remembered.
“You do all the financing here?” the man asked him.
“Yes, we do,” Cleveland said. He stood with his hand on the roof of the car. “Yes, sir, we do.”
“What do you think the monthly would be?” The man pretended to turn sharply to the left. Now to the right.
“The monthly. Can’t say exactly,” Cleveland said, scratching his chin. “But I imagine around one-sixty. Could be wrong.”
The woman put her hand over her husband’s, which was still gripping the steering wheel. “
That’s not bad,” she said encouragingly. “Honey, that’s not—”
“It’s not bad at all,” Cleveland stated. “As a matter of fact, I challenge any other dealership to do better.”
“Mr. Cleveland,” I said again. “Excuse me, but—”
“Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy,” Cleveland said, “would you mind terribly if I took a moment to speak with my son?”
The couple turned to look at me, eyes wide, noticing me here for the first time. “Oh, not at all.” The woman smiled warmly. From here I could see that she was pretty, with rounded features.
“We’ll be here.” The man nodded, hands on the wheel, eyes focused on some imaginary point in the distance.
“Come on.” Cleveland put his arm around my shoulder and led me about fifteen cars away. He was wearing a wine-red blazer with large yellow stitching in the lapel. He smelled like cigarettes.
“Your son?” I said.
He winked. “I don’t want them to think you’re another customer.”
“You remember me.”
“You’re a lot older now,” Cleveland said. “But so am I.” He laughed a little bit. “And I’ve been expecting you.”
“You have?”
He reached out his hand. “Can I see?”
I handed over the bag. “Careful,” I said. “There’s a knife in there, and it’s still sharp.”
He looked inside it. He nodded, looking up. “You ever touch these things?”
“No,” I said. “No one has. Not since—”
“—they were put in the bag.” He furrowed his brow. “Excellent. But I’m not a detective anymore. You understand that, don’t you?”
“But you know what to do with it.”
Cleveland rolled his neck, rubbing his hand on the back of it. He grimaced as if in pain. “Yes,” he nodded. “Yes, I do.” He paused now, looking at me directly, his eyes boring into mine. “You knew what happened.”
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