“A threat?”
“The Project welcomes all, but many of the people who come to us have been hurt. Many of them find comfort in my story. Some relate to it on a deeply personal level. Rob and I shared similar pasts and he idolized me. He’d never seen someone go through something like what he had, until he met me. And he would have never imagined what was possible in his life until he met me. He developed—a fixation. It was unhealthy.”
“What do you mean?”
Lev lifts the corner of his shirt just a little, revealing his scars. It makes my stomach hurt, to see them. I can’t get used to the sight of them.
I never want to get used to the sight of them.
“He tried to make himself in my image.”
I step back, hand to mouth. “My God…”
He lowers his shirt. “As his … devotion intensified, members had to be good enough in his eyes to be worthy of me. He acted on my behalf, without my knowledge, and he hurt them to keep them in line.” Lev pauses. “I had to tell him to leave.”
I wrap my arms around myself.
“He didn’t take it well, I’m guessing.”
“He felt if he wasn’t good enough for me, no one was. He’s threatened us multiple times over the years. He did promise me he would be the end of The Unity Project.” He exhales and looks away from me, to the fire. “I wanted to help him so badly, Lo. I count him as one of my greatest failures.”
“You know for sure he wrote the op-ed?”
“Yes.”
I watch as he takes off his clothes, leaving them carefully on the coffee table, before heading into the shower. I pick up his shirt and press it against my face, breathing him in. When the shower turns off, he finds me waiting for him on the bed, naked, my hair falling over my shoulders. He pauses just to take me in. I rarely see Lev smile, I realize, but I can tell when something pleases him. It’s in his eyes.
I see it now, in his eyes.
“So how do you get the retraction?”
“Everyone has a price.”
“And then what?” I ask.
Lev makes his way to the bed and leans down, his lips achingly close to mine.
“I will forgive him,” he says. “And I will love him as God loves him.”
2017
Bea steals away to the far corners of Chapman House from time to time and searches for Lo on the Internet, but she never manages to find her sister anywhere. Lo steadfastly refuses to live any part of her life online and Bea, in a strange and unfair way, resents her little sister for not being a light in her darkness, especially given the risk she takes in borrowing Lev’s laptop to check. When her latest attempt to find Lo leaves Bea empty-handed, she impulsively googles Patty’s name instead. She’s shocked to discover the obituary.
She thinks it must have only just happened, but when she sees a full year has come and gone with her great-aunt six feet underground, it feels like the world has dropped out from under her. She tries to imagine Lo, somewhere, alone in that aftermath and it’s so unbearable to her she’s sick to her stomach. She sneaks into Casey’s office for the landline—because she’s sure now, they’ve been monitoring her phone for as long as she’s had it—and calls Patty’s number but it doesn’t work because Patty has been dead for a year and no one told her.
MARCH 2018
It’s quiet in Chapman House since the other members left, but Emmy does her best to fill the silence. Her audience whittled down to four means most of her demands for attention fall on me. She’s exhausting, but I don’t mind and I wonder if the novelty of her will ever fade, could ever fade. I’m playing with her in the Great Room, papers scattered everywhere (the game: draw whatever Emmy says), Atara dozing in a sunbeam at the windows, when Lev and Casey walk in. I can tell by the looks on their faces something’s happened.
“Rob has demanded an audience in Bellwood,” Lev tells me. Casey looks at one of Emmy’s drawings, quietly praising it as she puts on her coat. “We’ll be back later today.”
I straighten. “I want to go with—”
“You can’t,” Lev interrupts before I can make a case for my presence, though I’m not sure I have one. “He was very clear about the terms of this meeting.” His eyes meet mine. “I told you everyone has a price.”
“We need to go,” Casey tells him.
Lev gives Emmy a kiss, then presses his forehead to mine, promising me, under his breath, that everything will be fine, and then he and Casey are gone. I watch the SUV pull away from the house, uneasy, until Emmy decides I have a greater purpose.
“Draw!” she commands.
But I can’t focus. Emmy is losing patience with me and it’s a relief when Foster comes in and offers to put her down for her nap. He lifts her in his arms and blows a raspberry on the sliver of belly peeking out from her shirt. She shrieks happily.
“Foster?” I call when he’s at the door. He turns. “Did you know Rob?” He hesitates, and then he nods. “What do you think of…” I hold out my arms, trying to find the words. I don’t want Foster to think I’m asking if the op-ed is true; I’m not. “What he did?”
“There’s a name for people like Rob,” Foster replies. “False witness. I hate the idea of him getting anything from us for it, but … like Lev says: leave it to God. He’ll sort it out.”
He leaves with Emmy. Atara paws at the front door and I let her out. I wrap my arms around myself and pace the room, can’t shake the bad feeling that’s taken hold. I can’t even text Lev or Casey to check on them; they still haven’t replaced my phone.
After what feels like a long time, I realize Foster hasn’t come back. I make my way to Emmy’s room. The door is half-open and I poke my head inside and the scene that meets my eyes is achingly sweet. Foster is stretched out on Emmy’s bed, Emmy resting in his arms, the two of them fast asleep. I watch the steady, near unison rise and fall of their chests, their faces perfectly at peace, before closing the door softly behind me.
When I step back into the Great Room, a new sound reaches my ears. Atara barking wildly outside. She gets frenzied whenever she so much as scents any wildlife whatsoever. I make my way over to the door and listen, waiting for her to settle. She doesn’t.
It’s something else.
I turn toward the hall, to get Foster, but change my mind.
I put my shoes and coat on and slip outside.
“Atara?” I call. She continues to bark. I follow the sound to the end of the road, where she stands, her hackles up, pointed toward the highway.
I slap my thigh. “Atara. Here, girl.”
But I’m not Lev and she doesn’t listen to me. She continues to bark, agitated, at whatever it is she’s seeing. And she definitely sees something.
My stomach flutters.
I glance in the direction of the house.
I could go back or I could go forward.
I go forward.
There’s an old station wagon parked at the side of the road, its lights on, running idle. The sight is eerie in how out of place it is. No one comes out here that doesn’t already belong here. I reach for my pocket, for my phone, and then I remember, again, that I don’t have one anymore and that’s the moment I realize this was a mistake.