Is This Tomorrow

by Caroline Leavitt

  “I like that idea,” Brady said. He looked at Rose again. “I’d be able to see you even when you aren’t there.” Rose felt the color rising in her face.

  That evening, to meet the parents, she put on her favorite striped T-shirt dress and her lace-up sandals. She brushed her hair and held it back with a leather clip Ava had given her when she was a young girl. She didn’t look anything like the paper figure of herself, in her buttoned-up dress, her sensible black flats, her hair in a ponytail. She got to the school early and as soon as she walked into her room, she felt a kind of giddy shock. Her paper image was taped into her seat, looking out at the sea of paper students, sitting up straighter in their seats, paying more attention than the real ones ever would. It was eerie, and yet comforting, to have all her kids frozen in time like this. You’ll be with me, she had told them.

  She checked her watch. Ten more minutes and parents would start arriving and she would need to talk to each of them about their children. She wanted to make them feel their kids were the most important thing in the world to her, and the truth was, they were. Already, she felt her first year of teaching ending, and it made her feel bereft, because she knew her kids would leave her, and when they came back, it would be to another grade.

  She heard footsteps and turned and there was Brady, in a tie and a suit jacket.

  “Did you come to see the paper me or the real one?” she tried to joke

  “Both,” he said. “There’s a new store that opened called Wind Me Up. Two floors with nothing but windup toys in it,” he said. She thought he must be thinking about the kids, but his grin spread across his face. “Want to go check it out some time?”

  She hesitated, wondering if she was just the next girl in line. But part of her was curious about the toy shop, and too, she wanted to see what the fuss was all about him. She didn’t expect anything other than a nice time out. But she was surprised when he came to get her a few nights later. He showed up wearing a suit jacket, tie, and good pants again, instead of his usual chinos and casual shirts. He even had a handful of irises for her. The whole walk to the store, while they made small talk about school, he looked at her as if what she was saying were the most important thing in the world.

  Wind Me Up had half a dozen clacking teeth walking in front of the open door. “Allow me,” Brady said, giving her his arm for support so she could step over them. Inside there were shelves and shelves of windup toys. She picked up a walking nose, a teapot that opened and shut its own lid, and a kitten that mopped at the floor. “Pick the one you want,” Brady urged her. He held up a blue little robot and wound the key in its belly, until it moved its legs and spit sparks. “Oh, that one,” she said. “Definitely that one.”

  She was surprised what a good time she was having. He walked her back to her apartment, slowing at her door. She didn’t want to give him the wrong idea, but she didn’t want the evening to end. “Come have some tea,” she said.

  As soon as she let him in, she was glad she had thought to clean her apartment that morning before school. On the way to the kitchen, his eyes went to the wall and the photo of Jimmy, standing in their backyard with his hands on his hips, squinting at the sun. “Who’s this cute kid?” Brady said.

  “Jimmy,” she said quietly. “My brother.” She moved closer to the photo. She had looked at it every day since she had hung it up, but every time she did, she saw something she hadn’t noticed before, a wrinkle in his shirt, an untied shoelace.

  “I hope I get to meet him,” Brady said.

  Rose’s eyes filled with tears. Brady looked at her, concerned. “Hey,” he said.

  “He vanished when he was twelve,” she said. “I don’t know where he is. No one does.” She swiped at her eyes with her fingers. “I’m sorry,” she said, but he shook his head.

  “Sorry for what? For being human?” He drew her to the couch and held her close. “It’s okay,” he said. He dug in his pocket and handed her a clean white handkerchief. He was so sweet and sympathetic that she slid against him, fitting her body to his.

  “I just have this feeling that he’s out there somewhere in the world,” she told him.

  He shrugged and held her closer. “Who knows,” he said. “Maybe he is.”

  THE MORE SHE was with Brady, the more she liked him. One month turned into two and then three. He popped into her classroom several times a day to tell her a knock-knock joke. He sang Beatles songs into her ear. “You’re just a big, crazy kid,” she told him and they both laughed. He was a sweet and tender lover, spooning against her when they were finished, and getting up to make her breakfast. She had to admit that she really liked his family, too, even though they all lived in California. One night, when she was at Brady’s, his mother called and insisted on saying hello and her voice was soft and rich as pudding. “I can’t wait to have another woman around,” she told Rose. “You come visit and you’ll fall in love with California and maybe you can convince that one to move back.” In the background, she heard Brady’s father’s voice booming. “You let me talk to that girl!” and when he got on the phone, he wanted to know, “Is my boy treating you right?”

  By the time Rose hung up the phone, she was still laughing at Brady’s father’s elephant jokes. (“How can you tell if an elephant has been in your fridge? Footprints in the cheese!”) “Your parents are great,” she said.

  She had no family anymore, but Brady’s seemed ready to let her into the fold and all she had to do was ask. Already, one of his brothers said he would teach her to golf. “I’ll give you a slew of new elephant jokes to spring on my dad,” he promised.

  She felt so comfortable with Brady. She knew the other teachers were looking at her when she was with him, wondering what she had that they didn’t, but all she knew was it felt like a good fit.

  One Saturday morning, she couldn’t get out of her bathrobe because she was missing Jimmy so hard she could barely breathe, but when Brady came over, he wrapped his arms around her and swayed her against him. “I know it’s hard, baby,” he told her.

  She never really got leads anymore about Jimmy, and because the case was cold, she couldn’t call the detective, but every once in a while, someone tracked her down to tell her they thought they had seen someone who could be Jimmy. Brady never told her she was crazy to talk to these people. He never said, “I told you so” when she tracked down a lead who was supposed to be Jimmy, and it turned out to be a man who had been born and raised in Texas, who had living parents, and who didn’t appreciate Rose’s call. One time a lead was actually in Ann Arbor. A woman called Rose and said she worked with a man who fit Jimmy’s description and who refused to talk about his past, except to say he grew up in Waltham. “I think it’s him,” she said. She told Rose to meet her at Troubles, a local diner, and she would show her a photograph. Brady insisted on driving her there himself. The diner was empty except for a family with a baby, and a woman with scraggly dark hair sitting there waiting for them. The top button of her coat was missing. “Please, can I see the photo right away?” Rose asked.

  The woman smiled.“Give me fifty dollars and then I’ll show you,” she said. She patted the seat beside her. “Sit,” she ordered. “Or I won’t tell you nothing.”

  Rose stared at her, incredulous. “There’s no photo, is there? There’s no man.”

  The woman held out her hand. “You won’t know that until you pay me now, will you?” Rose turned away. “Wait!” the woman called, but Rose kept walking, and she heard Brady’s footsteps behind her, like an echo. She got in the car, watching the diner window, where the woman was still sitting. “Take me home,” she said, but he didn’t.

  He kept driving, and she lay her head back against the headrest, watching the car swallow up the white lines of the highway. She fell asleep, waking with a jolt to find the car parked. She blinked, looking around, and Brady was half smiling at her. “Where are we?” she asked, and he beckoned her outside.

  He had parked in a field somewhere, but he pointed up at the sky.
“Look,” he commanded.

  She raised her head and saw thousands of spangling stars. He put his arm around her. “Did you know that every element that’s in these stars now was here when the world began? We’re all made of stardust. Doesn’t it make you feel great, to know we’re all part of something so much bigger than we are?”

  “What if he’s looking at the same stars that we are?” she said.

  Brady sighed. He tilted her face so she was looking at him, closing her mouth with a kiss.

  NOW, ROSE PUSHED open the door to We All Scream, waving at Brady, who was already there. After all these months of dating, he had never left her waiting, at least not after the first few times he saw how anxious she got when he was late, how she craned her neck to search for him. We All Scream was crowded with parents and kids and she wound her way to Brady and kissed him, loving the feel of his cheek against hers. She had finally talked him into growing his hair longer, and though he complained that he wasn’t the type to be a Beatle, she saw how he sometimes preened in the mirror. She bet if she tried she could even get him into some floral shirts and wide ties. “We did the space race today,” she told him, and he nodded, leaning over the case to study the flavors.

  “Chocolate mint, right?” he said to her, moving toward the counter girl.

  Rose was looking around when a mother and two kids wandered in, a boy and a girl. Rose gauged the kids to be about six or maybe seven. They were fooling around, not paying attention, but neither was their mother. Distracted, she was studying the flavors. The woman didn’t notice when her kids sprang outside the shop like jumping beans, but Rose did.

  “Those kids aren’t with their mom,” she said to Brady and he shrugged. “Let her take care of it,” he said.

  But Rose couldn’t. If she turned to the right, she could see the kids on the street. All a car had to do was move closer, a door swing open, and they would be gone. Rose cleared her throat. “What’s wrong with her?” she said to Brady in a low voice. “Doesn’t she know they’re outside by themselves?”

  “They’re fine. She can see them through the window.” For the first time, she heard an edge in his voice. “You don’t have to be so overprotective, especially about someone else’s kids,” he said.

  She looked outside, and one of the kids, the girl, was wandering around the sidewalk, looking up at people passing by her, chatting to a couple, who then walked away. Rose strode over to the mother. “Do you realize your kids are alone outside?” she asked. “And your daughter is talking to strangers?”

  The woman glanced outside. The kids were sitting on a bench, lazily swinging their legs and intently talking to each other. “Why don’t you mind your own business?” the woman said.

  “Why don’t you watch your kids?” Rose snapped, and that was when she felt Brady’s arm on hers. She was so angry she was trembling. She glared at the woman, but she let Brady guide her away. She heard the woman muttering something to another customer. “The nerve of her. She probably doesn’t have kids of her own, and if she did, she’d drive them crazy.” Rose twisted around to respond, but Brady’s grip tightened and he tugged her out the door. They passed the kids and Rose crouched down and sharply said, “Go inside. Your mother wants you to go inside.” The kids stared at her. “Now!” Rose said, her voice louder, and the children scrambled up, striding back into the store.

  She could tell something was wrong by the look on Brady’s face, but she kept walking. “She should watch her kids,” Rose said to fill the silence, and then Brady stopped walking and she could see how angry he was.

  “Why did you do that?” Brady said. The corner of his mouth twitched.

  “She wasn’t watching her own kids! This is a city, not Sunnybrook Farm!”

  “You overreacted, Rose.”

  “What? I get mad at a mother who’s irresponsible and suddenly I’m in the wrong?”

  “This isn’t even about that woman.”

  “Of course it is. What are you talking about?”

  “It’s about Jimmy. Like everything else in your life.” His face was so grave, it made her uncomfortable. She couldn’t help but think he was looking at her like a scientist, trying to figure out how to fix her.

  “He’s my brother,” she said, and he looked at her impatiently.

  “He’s gone, Rose,” he said.

  “Don’t say that,” she said stiffly.

  They walked to her apartment without speaking, and when they got to the door, Brady hung back. “I’m tired,” he said shortly. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “I did the right thing at the ice-cream place,” she said, but he was already halfway down the walk, retreating from her.

  He didn’t call the next day, but she was still sort of mad at him, so it didn’t matter. Sunday, she felt like she was coming down with a cold. She tried to sleep and couldn’t, and she was about to call Brady just to see what he was doing, to smooth things over, when her bell rang. She came to the door in a ratty bathrobe, exhausted, and there was Brady, but before she could feel relieved, he gave her a look of deep concern. “It’s nearly six and you’re not dressed,” he said quietly. “What’s going on here?”

  “I couldn’t sleep last night,” she said. She tapped her nose. “I think a cold’s coming on.” She wandered into the kitchen to make tea. He followed her, and the first thing he noticed were the dishes piled in the sink, the basket of laundry by the door that she hadn’t had time to put away yet. He looked at them and then at her. “What?” she said. “I’m busy. I can’t afford a maid.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  She moved some newspapers off the table, stacking them on a chair. “Because I didn’t wash a few cups?”

  The kettle bleated and she poured two cups, dunking a mint tea bag into each, sitting down at her table with him. “You’re still mad at me about the ice-cream incident, aren’t you?” she said.

  “That was bad, but that’s not what I’m upset about,” he said. “It really bothers me how you can’t let go of this, how it’s front and center in your whole life.”

  She gripped her cup, the warmth of the mug moving through her hand.

  “It’s all you talk about,” Brady said.

  “Maybe I don’t want to let it go,” she said. She didn’t like feeling that he wanted to change her. She thought of the psychic her mother had dragged her to, the way the neighbors kept watching her as if they wanted to take an eraser to her and redraw her from scratch. She was overtired and Brady was making her cranky. Her nose felt clogged with cotton, and all she wanted to do was crawl back into bed and watch television until she could sleep. She took a sip of the tea, scalding her tongue because it was so hot, wincing. Her eyes flooded with tears.

  “But look at you. Maybe talking to someone impartial would help. I’d even go with you.”

  “And do what, sit in the waiting room?” She thought of Brady waiting, how she’d sense him outside expecting her to come out and slough all this off, like an extra skin. She didn’t have the energy to explain any more of this or herself to him tonight and it made her tired just to think about any of it.

  “I’m beginning to feel like there’s three people in our relationship,” Brady said. “You, me, and Jimmy.”

  “He’s my brother.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Rose, he’s dead. You’ve got to face that and move on with your life.”

  “Don’t tell me what I have to do,” she said. “I thought you understood—”

  “I understand that you’re stuck, that you need a little help.”

  She tried to breathe. She got up, bracing her hands on the counter. She thought suddenly of the way his other relationships at school had soured and she had never understood why. She saw a flash of Flora, one of the teachers, crying into her sandwich and she thought maybe Flora hadn’t been whom he had expected, either, and maybe he had tried to fix her, too.

  “Can you please leave now,” she said. She looked at him
and she couldn’t understand anymore what she had ever seen in him. The slow, methodical way he was standing made her want to scream.

  “Well, if that’s the way you want to be,” he said, and there was something new in his tone, like he was talking to a stranger. He was changing right there in front of her. Even his face looked different, as if his features were rearranging themselves. His eyes didn’t look as green. His hair wasn’t as thick. You tried to hold on to a person, and they floated away. No matter what you did. She stood up, her legs buckling. She felt as if she were swimming through sludge, sinking with every step.

  “When you feel ready to deal with this, you can call me,” he said. “But I don’t want to do this anymore.”

  “Don’t slam the door when you leave,” she said, her voice with an edge.

  He blew out a breath of air. “You don’t even realize I’m trying to help you,” he said and then he was at the door, jerking it open, letting it bang closed.

  As soon as he left, she began to clean her apartment, as if she were scrubbing Brady right out of her life. Who did he think he was, telling her what to do about her brother? When the phone rang half an hour later, she was sure it was him. She was still angry and she’d tell him not to call her again. “Brady,” she said into the receiver.

  “Miss Rearson?”

  She swallowed. “This is Rose.”

  “This is Detective Roy Shuler. Waltham Police.” He hesitated. “We found your brother’s remains.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Lewis sat on his couch, hands gripping a coffee cup, still reeling from his conversation with his mother. He didn’t believe it. If Ava had called to tell him that Jimmy’s body had been found at the side of a road, or in a ditch, or washing up on some shore, he would feel it was true. If she had called to say they had found him living with another family, brainwashed, he might have bought that, too. But he couldn’t believe the bomb shelter. His mother kept asking questions like, “Why didn’t we know that you knew?” until he finally told her he had to get off the phone. He couldn’t catch his breath.