Split (20 page)

There’s so much we don’t know about each other.

chapter 31

m
irriam is over at Christian’s
, and I’m finally alone. Three long holiday days here. I’m tired of hanging around, watching TV, and avoiding Mirriam’s I’m-here-if-you-need-me support. Every single morning she asks me how I’m doing, if I want to talk, and when I don’t respond, she tells me to answer her tomorrow.

When she goes, I stretch out on her bed and watch movies on TV. In the middle of a second one, I head into the kitchen to make some popcorn. As the microwave is beeping, Mirriam returns.

“I thought you’d spend the night at Christian’s,” I say. “I wouldn’t mind or anything.”

“No, Christian needs to go to work.” She hands me a letter. “He wanted me to give this to you.”

He lives like thirteen feet from me, and he’s sending letters? Oh, this can’t be good
. I lift my hand to take it.

Mirriam says, “It’s from your mom.”

My hand stops in midair, hovering for a minute.

“It’s addressed to both of you. Christian already read it.”

I take it from her, place it on the counter, and stare at her until she leaves. I’m right back on the roller coaster of
Is she okay? Is he about to kill her? Is she trying to get out?

But I don’t open the letter because I know the answers to all of those questions. I can’t read my mom’s reasons for not saving herself, for choosing him over us. No more excuses. I toss the letter in the trash under the sink, remember that it was addressed to Christian, too, and dig it back out.

After a few minutes Mirriam comes back into the kitchen. She is in her bathrobe, her hair is pulled back, and her face has that just-washed look: strangely pale, except her cheeks. She is carrying two bottles of nail polish—one white and one clear—and sits down at the table. She glances at the empty space on the counter where the letter was.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

She draws an arc of white paint across the tip of a nail and goes to the next one.

“Jace, you blew this off before, but how about talking to a professional?”

“Go to a shrink? Yeah, I have that kind of money.”

She looks up when she hears my tone, which, oddly, feels like a victory.

“I actually meant the school counselor.”

“And what would you have me say to him? That my mom stayed with the husband who beats her? That she wouldn’t come with her kids, who’ve taken beatings for her? What difference would it make, Mirriam? I mean, really? Would talking to a school counselor magically change my mom’s mind?” I slow down. I take a deep breath, and another, until I can talk, not yell. “There’s no point in talking about her. There’s no point in talking
to
her. She made her decision, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

She goes back to her damn nails and finishes the left hand. Finally she says, “I’m not sure you understand how hard it would be for her to leave him.”

“Really? Christian did it. I did it.”

“It’s different for her, and you know it.” She jams the nail brush back in the bottle. “I’m sure he’s told her he’ll kill her if she tries to leave, and every time he hits her, he proves he’s as good as his word. She’s trapped, Jace.”

“It’s not entirely unheard of, you know. Other people do it every day with less than she’s got.”

“She’s scared, Jace.”

“She’s a coward? That I can believe.”

“It’s not that simple,” she says, shaking her head.

“I’m not saying it’s simple, and I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m saying it’s necessary.” I pause, knowing that I’m being unfair to my mom, knowing that necessary doesn’t equal possible. “And I know the law won’t help. I’m not entirely naïve.”

“That’s your father talking. He’s got you and Christian and your mom thinking that the law can’t help you, but that’s what it’s there for. Cops, DAs, even judges … Whether your dad says so or not, that’s their job.”

I think of my dad cutting out the news story and reading it to my mom with a flashlight in the garage. It hits me—getting off can’t be common if it made the paper. You never see a story on TV about how a shelter helped or an order of protection worked, because that’s not news; it happens every single day. I wonder if I could convince her other wise, but he’s got the advantage: legal knowledge and years of molding her reality.

Mirriam looks as though she is reconsidering. She returns to her bottles. She takes the clear one and shakes it up and down. A little black ball goes ping-ponging within the walls of the bottle.

“You’re right, Jace; other women do it. She should have left him years ago. She should have put her sons first. A good mother—I guess she’s just too weak,” Mirriam says.

“God, Mirriam. She isn’t weak. She can stand a beating you couldn’t imagine and then pretend like it doesn’t matter. She can forgive him, and that’s not a weakness. It’s a kind of …”

I trail off, cluing in to Mirriam’s trick, showing how I attack my mom one second and defend her the next. How’s that for confused?

“Jace, it’s okay to get mad, even to hate her a little.”

“Thanks, ’cause I needed your permission.”

“You’re welcome, because you do need someone’s, and right now, you can’t get Christian’s.”

The blood drains from my face so fast that it goes a little numb. I have no idea how Mirriam would know this. Hell, I didn’t even know it.

She goes on. “You get to be mad because she didn’t look out for you, like a mother is supposed to. You got stuck looking out for her. But you’re in a catch-22 because you can’t really blame
her
. You’re too smart to think it’s her fault she can’t leave.”

I know that staying there isn’t exactly a decision. If someone’s got a gun to your head, there’s no choice. It was up to me to get her out. I think about her standing there with her hair in braids and her swollen cheek. He’s killing her by degrees.

“Oh, Jace,” Mirriam says, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“I shouldn’t tell you how you feel. I get too invested and …” She looks at her hands and screws the nail polish bottle tight. Then she looks up at me, her lips puffed out in an embarrassed apology.

I sit down next to her.

“I just wish I could have gotten her out of there.”

“It’s not your fault, either.”

“Yeah? Then whose fault is it?”

“You know the answer to that.”

I slump back in the seat, my cushion soft against my back.

I always thought I was supposed to keep my dad off her, that every time he hit her, I failed.

But I’m not the one digging her grave; I didn’t open her hole in the earth when I drove away that night or when I couldn’t make her come with us. My dad dug it years ago; he forced her to lie down in it and kept her there by fear and beatings. And when she tried to get out, he stomped her back in. She has been lying there for twenty-five years. Her muscles have atrophied, her joints have stiffened, and she can’t see anything except him and the tight little space she calls home. I don’t know how she’ll get out; I can tug and pull and yank, but it won’t make any difference. She was right: she’s gotta solve it her own way.

I’ve heard that some people who suffer from chronic pain only get how bad it is when they are finally cured. Muscles that I wasn’t even aware of go slack. I lay it down.

Mirriam continues, “This whole time you’ve been wondering why your mom won’t leave him, right? But that’s the wrong question.”

I nod slowly. I know the right question: Why is my dad hitting her in the first place? Isn’t that where I need to start? Start with him, with myself.

“I’m working on that question, too,” I say.

She smiles that so-proud-of-you teacher smile. This time it doesn’t bug me so much.

“So, are you going to read that letter?” Mirriam says.

It may not be so bad that she can see right through me.

“I don’t know,” I say.

“That’s fair.”

We nod at each other, and I walk into the living room. The light outside is unusually somber. The sky is gray, instead of the intense blue I’ve gotten used to. I see two—wait, three—snowflakes sidling by, carrying with them the promise of winter. I wonder if here the earth will go quiet after big snows, the way it does in Chicago, as if the world is soothing itself. I think I can feel it coming on.

chapter 32

o
n Saturday, I’m digging for digs.
Mrs. Ortiz, who I’ve talked to on the phone, swings open the door to the rental room. The walls shine bright yellow, contrasting oddly with a pink comforter. Could be worse. It’s pretty small, but it’s clean and furnished. Mrs. Ortiz tells me her brother vouched for me, so she’s sure I’ll behave.

“What does that mean? Behave?” I ask her.

She says she has some policies, and I’m immediately frustrated. I won’t live underneath anyone again. It’s level ground from here on out. But Mrs. Ortiz’s policies are simple enough. She just wants the rent on time, no messes, and no late-night noise.

She leaves, so I can take a look around.

It is small but has everything I need: closet, bed, night table, and lamp (even though a porcelain squirrel is perched on the base). I walk over to the small window, which opens horizontally. The back “garden” is a winding path with a large, lonely cactus standing guard, front and center. Even though it’s native, it looks out of place.

I sit down on the bed and bounce on it a little, as if I could tell whether it’s a good mattress this way. My camera bag could sit under the bed; my books could line the top of the dresser; my shoes could be tucked inside the closet. This room could work.

I look at the bare yellow walls; they are nothing but potential. Christian’s walls are bare, too.

I hurry back to Mirriam’s, and we finish up the pizza dough and spread out the toppings. Once I’m all set to bake it, she lets me into Christian’s apartment (he has the better oven) and tells me he’ll be here, but he can’t get away from work just yet. I bring over my mom’s letter and place it on the table. Then I put the pizza in his oven to bake and hop on the computer, surfing until he comes home.

When he walks through the door, he just nods at me and then stops. He chuckles. “For a second I forgot you’d moved out.”

“Mirriam thought it would be all right,” I say, getting up.

“Of course it’s all right. Don’t be an idiot,” he says, his voice light and casual. He stops. “I mean, thanks for coming over.”

“The ‘idiot’ remark said it all,” I say.

Christian sits down on the couch and leans back. He slides his shoes off with his toes while I pull the pizza from the oven. When he sees mushrooms on his half and pepperoni and pineapple on my half he says, “Good choice.”

To make room for the pizza, he pushes the letter out of the way. I put the pan down and stare at my mom’s handwriting on the envelope.

“I’m not that interested in … I haven’t read it. Do I need to? Does the letter change anything?”

“No.”

“Is she okay?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“What’s it about?”

“Do you want to read it, after all?”

I hesitate.

“The pizza needs to cool for a few minutes anyway, and I’m right here,” he says.

My stomach is tight when I pull out the letter and read, but there is practically nothing in it. Just a bunch of junk: the party was fun, and everyone loved the stuffing, and they’ve decided to go away this year for Christmas. Not a single thing about us going out there.

“What the hell?” I say, turning it over to see if I’m missing something.

“I’m going to start e-mailing her. You okay with that?”

My instinct is to lie, to
Sure, okay
it. Instead, I think about the calmology lessons I’ve been developing: #1: Run every day; #2: Speak if you have something to say; #3: Fix what you can and accept what you can’t.

I apply lesson number two and say, “Look, I’m not going to tell you what to do, but … I can’t do this anymore.”

“I’m not e-mailing her in the hope that she’ll leave. I don’t want to talk about that at all. I’m not even sending her money anymore. If she was going to leave, she would have.”

“Then … why?”

“I don’t have to agree with her to love her.”

I dig my shoe into the shag carpet leaving a little valley. I wonder if someday I could write to her without asking if she’s okay or when she’s leaving. But not now. Maybe not ever, but still maybe.

I say, “I can’t be with you on this.”

“I’m not asking you to. I don’t even want you to.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

He gets out the plates and sets them down. He stares at me for a second and then looks away. He begins the fish-mouth move, the I-want-to-ask-but-won’t. Only this time, words pop out.

“On the phone, Mirriam said you’re going to move. Have you signed anything?”

“Not yet. I’m supposed to let the owner know on Monday. I really was going to tell you,” I say, and get cheese from the fridge. “Do you want Parmesan? How do you like having your place back?”

He reaches for the container and shakes it over the pizza. Parm snows down.

“I might not renew the lease. I’m thinking about moving to a bigger place. Downstairs. A two-bedroom. You know, if you wanted to. An apartment on the third floor is opening up.”

He puts the Parm down and looks at me, his eyebrows up.

I finally say, “I don’t know, Christian. We’ve both gotta move on. I’m not sure how best to do that.”

“I think we’ve done too much on our own already.”

He plates the pizza. His place looks sterile without my stuff cluttering his desk and creeping out from under the sofa. The steam from the pizza drifts and, as he puts the plate in front of me, the smell catches up. I lean down and inhale.

“Since when did you start liking pizza?” I ask.

“I’ve always liked it. Where have you been?”

“Here. You have not had one slice of pizza since I showed up,” I say.

“Oh, that. I’m just too picky to order it here. I’ve been spoiled by Chicago and New York pizza, I guess.”

I take a bite. The crust is gummy. I guess I still have a ways to go on this cooking thing. But the quality of the ingredients (and I paid a lot for those) saves it.

“So …,” he says. “If you’re game, and you want the small bedroom, we’ll share expenses. No more ground rules. No more lectures about how to contribute. Brothers.”

I look at his blank walls. I know what I want to do, but what if Christian does another 180, like he is prone to—like he does, I realize, when
he
panics? Well, I know what to do with panic. Panic, I can handle. I’ll talk him down, or crack a joke, or take him for a run. He would do it for me.

“Besides,” he says, “I need someone to beat at gin rummy.”

The last time I saw that dopey grin on his face, we were at the Costacoses’ and he was among family.

I say, “I wonder if the Salvation Army sells beds.”

“Consider this one on me,” he says.

My stuff is already packed, anyway.

“Okay,” I say. “It’s on you.”

“Okay.”