You have no right to be jealous, said her mother.
But then what can she be?
This is the worst problem, of course, the one that hangs over everything else, like a silent, fiery planet on the verge of explosion, or maybe implosion—what Lily is going to do with herself. Beyond mothering. And being mothered. And screwing her husband and fantasizing about his friend/colleague. And trying to save Ruth. She’d been given someone to save after all. She’d been given a mission, albeit a twenty-first-century, American, self-involved mission. But unlike Esther, Lily failed. Now that Ruth is gone, what force will steer her? Beyond semiprofessionally screwing up laundry, which strikes her now as pitiful in the same way that hiding the New York Times Book Review from herself is pitiful: opposite ends of the same spectrum. To care or not to care. Even the spectrum is pitiful. As if all Lily boils down to—if one were to boil her, singe her shell off, pick out her meat—is a poster woman for a think piece on having or not having it all. But Lily’s conundrum goes beyond whether or not to work. She will work again, if not at the work she already knows how to do, if only because they will eventually need and be able to afford—once both girls are in school—a second income. Her question is, Who will she be?
Lily sips her scotch and winces. Why is she drinking scotch? She doesn’t like it. She is drinking it because it’s what her brothers drink. She slides her glass toward Ian and waves for the bartender. “Do you know what Mom liked to drink when we were kids?”
“Bourbon on the rocks,” Ian says.
Lily orders a bourbon. Six hours have passed, then seven. Out the bar’s window they watch the last slash of light disappear from the narrow street. Ian lays his cheek down on the bar, and Lionel says to Lily: “You did good.”
“What do you mean?”
“With Mom. This whole … all of it.”
“Okay.”
“Did you ever feel—did you ever want to just call the doctors and …?”
“I did call the doctors. Often.”
“But I mean just to—”
“Wait a second. Was that a backhanded compliment?” Lily’s head is heavier than she realized. She is maybe drunk. “Are you accusing me of not seeing what was happening?”
“No!”
“What happened was entirely common in non–small cell lung cancer patients. The chemo weakens the immune system, and once infection sets in, sepsis—”
“Lily! That’s not it. I promise. I was just saying, I don’t know how … if I were in your place, I don’t know if I could have …”
Ian slides his glass into Lionel’s, shutting him up, then lifts his face off the bar and slides his glass into Lily’s. Clink. Clink. “He’s saying thank you,” he says, and slides Lionel’s glass into Lily’s.
The clinks repeat themselves in her ears. Her brothers are quiet, watching her. For years she has thought of them as enlarged versions of their boy selves: Lionel the natural boss, interested in money, attentive to details; Ian the jock and peacemaker who tried his best to go along. She has sensed that they think in the same way about her: the smart but hapless baby, overly sensitive, thinks too much. But Lionel is anxious, even fearful, and Ian, if she bothers to think for even a minute about the basic facts of his life, has not been able to just go along.
Lily picks up her glass, empties it, then clinks it against her brothers’ glasses. I’m the one doing it now, she thinks. May you be Lily, in all that you are. One of the glasses will topple off the bar in a minute, and then they will leave, and get in cabs, and go their separate ways, but until then she toasts with her brothers, clink, clink, and they nod together to the beat.
SUSA
ESTHER
Descent
The bird is perfect. She has taught it the scent of sumac, and cardamom and sesame, too. When she frees it in the courtyard, the bird flies without hesitation over the wall and away. She trusts it as she trusts herself. It is her, in a sense. When it reaches Nadav’s mother, and speaks, it will speak Esther’s words. The guards eye her but no more than usual. They do not ask questions. The triumph she feels with the bird safely over the wall is so replete she could lie down on the stones and sing; she feels as if the bird has been released from her own chest.
But that night, on her pillow, she finds the bird’s bones, picked clean. She knows the bones as she knew her own hands; she knows they are not another bird’s bones masquerading as her bird’s. Next to them is a miniature scepter: an invitation to a banquet in the king’s rooms.
She is not surprised, the following evening, to find herself seated next to the minister. He wastes no time. “Spices have been prohibited in the camp for months now,” he says in greeting, swirling his finger in his wine. “Your poor bird didn’t have a chance.”
Esther stares at her plate, avoiding the minister’s glinting ornaments and his toothless, fearsome smile.
“And your eunuch? He’s a coward. Soft. Always has been. But you knew that, didn’t you.” The minister slows his words, as if talking to a child. “He didn’t go close enough to the camp to have any idea.”
Esther imagines strangling the minister with the gilded collar he wears. It might be doable, she thinks—if she could bring back the beast, she could do it. But she doubts she will ever again have enough power to become the beast. And even if she could, wouldn’t Darius be harmed, seeing his mother like that? And the new child inside her—what would happen to it? Still, she can feel her giant paddle hands on the minister’s neck. She sees vividly the color his skin would turn, a red as fierce as the sumac he’s banned. She faces him. “How did you capture it?”
“Your Majesty. Did you really think they would listen to you? Are you so arrogant as that? Even now?” Spittle shines in the corners of his lips. “You must know they are cowards, too. Like you, trying to escape fate. Yours, theirs. Your poor bird was the only brave one. You should have seen it when it found me, my palm outstretched, full of spices. Oh, the fragrance of my skin!”
A hand arrives on her thigh. It rests for a moment, then the fingers begin to walk her robes aside. The king rises to say something and the minister’s head follows but his fingers stay behind and keep walking. Esther clamps her legs together and watches the king’s mouth move. When he is seated again, the minister grows bolder. He looks at her as he speaks; he speaks to her as he forces his fingers between her thighs; he forces his fingers between her thighs as he brings meat to his mouth with his other hand. “I twisted its neck,” he says. “It was easy. Not so different, really, from ordering the killing of the queen.” He leans closer. “The king regrets that, you know. You must—you are not stupid. You must know that Vashti is the one he wants.”
Did she know that? Esther can’t decide. And she can’t see how it matters now. She presses her legs together more tightly, trying to squeeze the fingers into retreat, but it’s difficult to clamp down one part of your body with all your might while keeping other parts—in particular the face—appearing jovial and relaxed. It is, in fact, as Esther is neither the first nor last to discover, pretty much impossible. And the face must take precedence—the face either masks or gives away. As the minister’s fingers reach their intended goal, Esther shifts sideways but cannot escape.