I think of all the ways that books have failed me, all the ways they’re less than what I thought, but it’s still the language that I like the best in the show. I find the colors of the paintings almost painfully off-putting; the attempts at beauty, large flowers on blue-and-green canvas, I find grotesque. But the language that he uses, its anger and its sharpness. There’s an empty room with a large window that’s been covered with a screen to keep most of the light out and one can sit inside the room and listen to this artist speak the angry words he’s written on some of the work. He died of AIDS at thirty-seven. He lost so many of his friends. There’s a fury to not just the words but the way he says them, unapologetic. I imagine, as I listen, there was spittle on his face when he was done.
* * *
That night, in bed, after we have FaceTimed with the children, after they’ve told us about swimming and about searching through the woods for moose; after we have gone to the cheap restaurant close to our house and had a bourbon each; after we came home and he sat down on the chair beneath our bed in our room to watch soccer and I saw him, and walked toward him, climbed on top of him, wearing a short cotton summer dress, and we had sex; after my husband’s gone to sleep; after I sit up and scroll through Sasha’s still unpopulated Instagram; my phone rings and it’s Kayla’s name across the screen.
Hello? I say.
Hi, she says, her voice flat. You busy?
It’s 1:00 in the morning.
Not really? I say.
My husband sits up, mouthing to ask if it’s the children. I shake my head and climb slowly out of bed.
You okay? I say.
Can you come here? she says. There’s been a thing.
What kind of thing, Kayla? I say.
She lives in the Bronx, which is an hour at least from our house on the subway. We don’t have a car. I can’t fathom what a cab would cost.
I’m at the police station, she says. I need someone. She starts to cry and I reach into my closet to find jeans and a bra and T-shirt.
Tell me the address.
I tell my husband where I’m going but he’s bleary, still half-sleeping. I kiss him, make sure his phone is attached to the charger, that I have an extra charger in my bag.
Keep me posted, he says, as I walk out the door.
The trains are running better than expected and I’m at the station before I told her I would be there. It’s quiet, only one cop at the desk when I come in, and she motions me back.
Can I help you? asks a guy at another desk once I’ve entered.
I tell him Kayla’s name.
He looks at me, wary. You’re not her mother, he says.
I’m … I’m her teacher, I say.
She needs a legal guardian to come get her.
What happened? I say. Is she okay?
She needs a guardian, he says. You have some sort of proof that you have a legal right to her?
I don’t, I say. I don’t have any rights to her.
She comes out then and I go to her and hug her. Her lip is swollen. There’s a bite mark on her chest.
Honey, I say.
She’s not crying, hardly breathing.
Honey, I say again. Are you okay?
She was in an altercation with a man we now have in custody.
You didn’t take her to a doctor?
She refused medical assistance, the man says.
Kayla, I say.
I’m fine, she finally says down to her feet.
Can I take her? I say. Why would you keep her?
If she wants to charge him with assault she has to stay.
Do you? I say. Honey? What do you want to do?
Kayla nods. To stay.
She needs a guardian, the man says. You’re not a guardian.
I look at Kayla.
Where’s your mom? I say.
She hands me her phone and I see she has eleven missed calls from her mother, texts from her also.
You didn’t call her? I say.
Kayla shakes her head.
I take the phone into the front room of the precinct and I call her.
Kay? her mom says. Baby? You okay?
Miz Kane? I say.
I tell her who I am.
Why do you have her phone? she says. Where’s my baby?
Miz Kane, I say, I’m at the police precinct. I give her the address. Kayla got into a fight with someone, I say. I think. Can you come down?
Why— then stops. She says: I’m on my way.
She’s there within minutes, ten or twenty, head-wrapped, frantic, in jeans and T-shirt.
She runs past the front desk, straight to Kayla. She doesn’t look at anyone but her.
My baby, she says. She holds her a long time, her arms around her, then straight, and she looks at her, hands on her cheeks and her face close.
She talks to the cops and they tell her what has happened. She looks at Kayla, sharper this time. Jesus Christ, she says. Are you okay?
They hand her paperwork to sign and she signs it and she whispers to her daughter. Kayla nods, not looking at her or anywhere but down, and quiet. The cop leads Kayla, by herself, to another room.
Don’t say anything until I’m there, her mother calls to her. You’re okay, she says. I’ll be right there.
She goes to her one more time and holds her face and whispers to her. She pulls her to her then she walks toward me.
I reach out my hand and say my name.
Kayla’s mom looks at my hand and holds, then drops it. She tells me her name. Come here, she says.
I look past her, trying to get a glimpse of Kayla.
She’ll be okay, says her mother.
She leads me further from the other cop, in front of a desk that’s empty.
You have kids? she says.
I nod.
That’s good, she says.
I nod again.
You want someone else trying to raise your kids?
I shake my head.
That’s good too, she says.
I nod at her, not wanting to have to hear her ask me to no longer talk to Kayla. I want to still be able to talk to Kayla, but I know I won’t if her mother says I can’t.
Take care of yourself, she says.
I will, I tell her. I try to.
Take care of your kids, she says. The “your” is slightly firmer, louder, than the other words.
I nod one more time.
She looks at me long and walks back to where her daughter is.
* * *
At yoga, there’s a teacher I’ve never had before. She’s more solid than the other women, short and stocky. She wears a thin red T-shirt with white writing that pulls at her breasts and bunches overtop her ass. She has curly, light-red hair held back and wide, round legs.
This is a multilevel Vinyasa flow, she says, which means some of your neighbors might be making modifications, so please keep your eyes off your neighbors and just follow what I say.
She keeps saying this throughout the class, a little scolding. I always get behind and have to watch the women in front of me or behind me and I get nervous, hoping that she doesn’t see me as I look.
Please take your eyes off of your neighbors, she says again, as we sit in a squat, and I think I’ll never take a class with her again.
Except there is a rhythm to the class and I get inside it. We move more quickly than I’m used to and I think I’ll fall or the woman behind me, whom I’ve seen before and who can do the headstand, will fall over laughing at the fact that I can’t even touch my toes.
I sweat more than I usually do at yoga, and my back straightens and it lengthens and my stomach pulls back further to my spine and I look straight ahead.