She lowers her hands and takes a deep breath, reaching for any amount of composure she can grasp. After a long moment, she says, “It shouldn’t surprise me.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“That all this finally happened. Whenever there’s anything good in the world, people just want to take it away. When there’s something pure, they want to pervert it.” She wipes at her eyes. “The Project holds up a mirror to the world’s failures and the world’s response is to break the mirror. We exist in spite of the world, Lo, not because of it.”
* * *
Certain things must remain untouched by this.
Emmy’s bedtime is one of those things. I’m part of her ritual now, inserted myself by insisting I needed to say good night because she needed the promise of my being there in the morning—but maybe it’s more that I want that promise from her.
We sit in the chair in the corner of her room and she stands on my lap, running her stubby little fingers along the spines of the picture books on the shelf behind me before picking one and settling in against me. I’m hoping she won’t feel my tension. I hope she won’t hear the waver in my voice as I read to her. I hope she won’t notice my shaking hands.
At first, I was self-conscious about doing this, letting the stories die on my lips in all my awkwardness, but now I try to make them come alive for her the best I can and am rewarded with the funny, strange and unexpected questions each page inspires. She reminds me of me. I used to walk around as a kid brimming with questions my mouth was too afraid to ask. The difference, though, is Emmy isn’t afraid to ask them. That, she gets from Bea. Sometimes I quiz her on what we’re reading. What character is this? What color is that? And she answers and she gets all the answers right because she’s listening to me and every time I stop to consider this, it’s overwhelming. She loves when I tell her she’s right. I love it too. I’m making memories with her, stitching myself into the fabric of her life.
I refuse to let a single shadow infringe on her light.
“Tomorrow,” Emmy says, slipping off my lap, “I’m going to draw.”
“Yeah?” I put the book back. “What are you going to draw?”
“CREEPY UNDERWEAR!”
She cackles, no doubt inspired by what we just read.
“What’s this about creepy underwear?” Lev asks, stepping inside the room.
She starts telling him about their eerie green glow but he interrupts her, scooping her into his arms, airplaning her around—to her total delight—before crash-landing her among her pillows. He pulls the blankets out from under her and then tucks her in. She has a nightlight in the corner because, just like I was at her age, she’s afraid of the dark.
“See you tomorrow?”
My voice cracks, in spite of myself. Lev notices. She doesn’t.
“Tomorrow!” She nods.
“Settle down,” Lev says, sitting at the edge of her bed. I make my way slowly out of the room, listening to his good night to her. I’ve memorized it. Peace …
“Peace I leave with you. Peace I give to you. So lay down and sleep…” There is no hint of the last few days in his voice. He keeps it from her, makes sure all the ugliness outside doesn’t get in. I don’t know how he does it. It’s all I feel as I close the door behind me, just as he finishes the prayer: “You’ll wake, for God sustains you.”
He emerges from Emmy’s room to find me crying, trying not to suffocate under the weight of all these future losses when I’ve barely survived the ones of my past. He looks at me, his face full of concern. I tell him I want to join The Project.
“Oh, Lo,” he says, and pulls me to him.
Arthur is unlikely to win his wrongful death suit, but there’s something deeply compelling about a devastated father showing up on TV, his tie askew, holding a photo of his dead son, lamenting their lack of reconciliation, the years that have been stolen from them, saying that he knew it all along, he knew we were bad. It’s gasoline, thrown on the fire. Jeremy was pushed to the brink in The Unity Project, forced to witness and endure untold atrocities that put him in the path of an oncoming train. I know how compelling Arthur is because when he sat across from me in McCray’s, I believed him.
It inspires a whole new series by Vice; anyone who has ever circled Project space—especially those who attended public sermons—has a story to tell.
The public thinks we are monsters.
The press asks Governor Cuomo his feelings about the “cult” operating out of upstate New York. One by one, The Unity Center’s connections cut ties. MURDERERS is slashed across the center in Morel in crude red paint, and as the world continues to ask Lev to answer for his crimes, he holds fast to the fact he has committed none. He will offer no explanation and settle for no less than a retraction.
But to get the retraction, he needs the name.
My heart pounds as I slip into the Reflection Room. Atara tries to follow me in, and I shoo her down the hall before closing the door behind me. After a long afternoon of quietly roaming the halls, I discovered this is the only other place in the house my cell gets any bars. I stand near the window and I call Paul. He picks up on the third ring. The familiarity of his voice makes me sick. I can almost hear the victory in it and I can imagine how he looks right now, unkempt in the way he gets unkempt when everything good is happening and he can’t quite keep up with himself. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was sleeping in the office, trying to stay on top of the glow and basking in it as much as possible.
“Denham,” he greets me and I almost don’t know who that is anymore. “Thanks for calling back. I haven’t seen you around town and I’ve kept my eye out … you hiding?”
“It doesn’t matter where I’ve been.”
My anger quiets him. I tighten my grip on the phone.
“You’re right,” he says after a moment. “Believe me, I’m well aware that any amount of time you’re willing to give me is more than I deserve.”
“Way more than you deserve.” I pause. “How is it over there?”
“Intense.” But he can’t mask his satisfaction. This is Paul in his element, Paul with his hooks in, Paul with his teeth dug into the bone. “Incredible. I’m sure you saw it was the nationally trending topic on Twitter. Stayed in the top five for twenty-four hours. Crashed the website more than once. And now with Arthur … this thing’s going strong. I’m connecting with CNN this afternoon. It’s a big moment for SVO and every time I step into the office, I keep thinking you should’ve been a part of it.”
I stare out the window, at the gray sky outside.
“And whose fault is that?”
“You didn’t have to quit on the spot,” he replies and it’s the wrong thing to say. He exhales. “Look, I know how unprofessional it was. I don’t do that. In fact, I’ve never done that before. I understand how it probably looked to you.”
“Do you?”
“I do. It’s serious with Lauren and it didn’t start until after I promoted her … she thought if you’d want to know anything, it’d be that.”