“You have so much else going on,” Damian said. “I’m sure it’s partly mental.”
He’d meant it to be reassuring, but to Fiona it was an indictment: This was her own fault, not just a failure of the body.
And in fact the nursing never worked, despite the best efforts of three lactation consultants. Claire was underweight, Fiona was bleeding and then her breasts were dangerously infected, and in the end it was in everyone’s best interest to stop trying.
Not that it should have mattered! Whole generations turned out fine on bottles. Fiona hadn’t bought all the La Leche stuff about bonding. But as she lay on the bed with eight-year-old Claire, what she remembered far too clearly was her resignation to the idea that this baby would never be able to take comfort from her—that Fiona had nothing left of herself, that first day or ever since, to give.
And what she remembered now, staring out Richard’s window toward the afternoon sun, was the absurd feeling back then, when Claire was eight, that they’d already missed the boat forever. That the damage had been done sometime in the past, not the present, and they were living in its aftermath. That the best they could hope for was good scarring.
1986
Yale didn’t say anything to Bill about messing up with Debra. He told him Nora had given a few general dates, provided some context, but that she wasn’t great on specifics. “Roman will type it all up for you,” he said. “Including a lot of stories about Ranko Novak!” He felt gross going for the cheap laugh; Ranko had grown on him.
He had a message waiting on his desk from Esmé Sharp, and when he called her it ended up spilling out that he had no place to stay, and so at her insistence, he spent the night at the Marina Towers in the fifty-eighth floor apartment Esmé and Allen let lie empty all winter when they were in Aspen. “Stay as long as you like!” she said. “You can water the jade plant.”
It was far enough from Boystown that he wouldn’t run into Charlie. He did want to see Charlie soon, wanted to yell at him all the things he hadn’t yet yelled, but only when he was prepared. He didn’t want to bump into him at the ATM.
Esmé insisted he could take the master bedroom, but instead he set himself up in the smaller guest room, which had its own half-balcony and featured a shelf of architecture books. In the kitchen was a rack of wine that Esmé said “better be drunk up the next time I check.” In the living room was the best stereo system Yale had ever used, and a shelf of classical CDs and opera and Broadway and Sinatra. Left to his own devices, he’d have been listening to The Smiths, which wouldn’t have helped a thing; and if it turned out he only had a few years to live, shouldn’t he be listening to Beethoven? He could see the river and the Sears Tower from the windows. At night, the city below him turned to constellations of yellow and red.
Back when Charlie had first taken him to the Bistro, right up the street, he’d been fascinated to see the two Marina City towers up close, the way each flower petal projection was really a curved balcony. And now, from the inside, he was terrified by how low the balcony railings were, how easily someone tall might lose balance and pitch over, how easily someone could step up and jump.
He wouldn’t do this, not even if he tested positive. Because the test didn’t mean you’d get sick this year or next year. If he ever went blind, he thought, he might end it then. If he couldn’t get through the day without shitting his pants. He and Charlie had met a guy in a bar that summer who’d sat there telling them about his lover, how this guy had vowed to kill himself when he couldn’t dance. And then when he couldn’t dance he’d changed it to when he couldn’t eat. And when he couldn’t eat, he’d said, “When I can’t talk.”
“He never did it,” the guy said. “He fought for his last breath. And what does that tell you? What does that tell you?” Yale and Charlie hadn’t offered an answer, and neither had he.
* * *
—
The days were ticking by, the odds of a reliable blood test increasing. Good news still wouldn’t be definitive, but bad news might be making an early debut. And then at least he’d know. It was the kind of decision he’d have loved to bounce off a friend, if the ones who knew about Charlie didn’t hate him, and if the ones who didn’t know could be told. He hadn’t seen anyone, really, since he’d run into Teddy at the Laundromat. One evening Yale was coming out of the dentist on Broadway—an appointment he’d made in another lifetime—and Rafael from Out Loud was passing with a friend. Rafael, drunk, kissed Yale on one cheek and bit him on the other—but they hadn’t had a real conversation.
Roman kept to his normal schedule, coming in both Wednesday and Friday afternoons—and, mercifully, the first time he entered Yale’s office, Janice the cleaning lady was in there with the vacuum, making any greeting other than a silent wave impossible. Roman went about his normal business, albeit more nervously. About twice an hour, he put his forehead down on his desk, and Yale didn’t dare ask if it was over some frustration in transcribing Nora’s letters or in the grant applications Roman was assisting with, or if it was a more existential crisis, one to do with Yale himself, one to do with Roman’s own soul. In any case, Roman was the last person on earth Yale would confide in about his fear of infection.
* * *
—
On Sunday evening Yale saw Julian at Treasure Island. He could have gone to the Jewel right near Marina City, but he hated figuring out the layout of a new store. And maybe he’d been hoping to run into someone after all. Julian was buying a plastic-wrapped roast beef sandwich. He looked better than he had two weeks ago, or at least he had more color in his cheeks. He froze when he saw Yale, stood there like he’d been punched in the gut, and it wasn’t till Yale stepped closer and squeezed his shoulder that he relaxed, said hello.
“Teddy’s been feeding you,” Yale said. “You look good.”
Julian glanced down the aisle. He whispered. “Teddy’s suffocating me. Have you noticed that he never stops moving? Like, ever. And he’s in my face, like I open my eyes in the morning and there he is. Listen, don’t say anything till it’s done, but I’m getting out of here. Out of the country.”
Yale wasn’t sure he believed him—Julian was prone to overstatement—but he acted as if he did. He said, “Where?”
“I got a passport two years ago, and I never used it. Seriously, I’m not going back there. I have my stuff.” Julian turned to show Yale his backpack. “I don’t even know where I’m going. I gave up my apartment.”
“You’re not going to Thailand or something, are you? You’re going to be careful?”
“Listen,” Julian said, “I heard a rumor that you’ve got a place. What if—I just need like three nights, just to get my shit together before I leave. If I stay at Teddy’s, he’s gonna sedate me and tie me to the bed, I swear. I know you hate me right now. I know that. Why wouldn’t you hate me? I hate myself. You should—you should let me stay with you, and then you should throw me out the window. You can say no. I can’t stay with Richard again, it’s too weird there. I could pay you.”