The Last Illusion (44 page)

And in that cage that had become her new home, where she sat day after day, drowning out her fellow inmates' infinite variations on every profanity, the sounds of anchormen and women in some distant world overhead, the constant echoes of hard heavy steps—and sometimes, she swore she heard chains dragging down the corridor. She heard it all, and she transmitted right back to him the only thought she had for him:
Zal, it's okay. I know you loved me. And I know you couldn't believe me. And I'm sorry I acted like it mattered. Belief is an optional bonus. What needs to happen will happen. These things were written long before our time. We're just reading the lines off the script. There was nothing anyone could do, and I knew that and I still brought so much pain to us. That's why I'm here. I'm where I belong. I'm where I should have been long ago. Locked up and away from all sorts of people that I could harm. But we'll all be in the same boat soon, so what did the minor points even matter? Everything will be as it should be: equal once and for all.

We're almost free.

You saved my life. Over and over. I owe you my life.

Zal's words swirled through Hendricks's head all evening. He could not get over the feeling of finality in those words. The gratitude, the tenderness, the deep warmth—it was not the usual Zal, the Zal they had until recently still believed incapable of expressing a love like that. Just when he'd become the son he'd always dreamed of, Zal was gone.

You mean free, Tony, free,
he reminded himself. The point of saving Zal in the first place was freedom. His son was finally free. Hendricks hated admitting that freedom scared him.

He poured himself a glass of red wine in hopes that it would melt the worries into drowsiness, but he felt haunted. He tried to keep his eyes closed, but all he saw were other eyes: Zal's, Nilou's, it was hard to tell which. They were his family's eyes: Iranian eyes, large deep dark brown orbs, that looked back unblinking and unguarded, heavy with history, overburdened with imagery, bold receptacles of set and scene changes from stories he'd never quite know.

But the stories I do know .
.
.
and he turned to the only place he ever turned to for comfort: to the
Shahnameh
lying there, in the same place he'd left it that last night he had read to Zal. He went back to his favorite passage, where the giant mythical bird, the Simorgh, frees the warrior Zal and restores him back to his kingdom, but not without one more offering of ultimate caretaking:
Take these feathers of mine with you, so that you will always live under my protection, since I brought you up beneath my wings with my own children. If any trouble comes to you, throw one of my feathers into the fire, and my glory will at once appear to you. I shall come to you in the guise of a black cloud and bring you safely back here .
.
.

It was over, the end—Indigo had known that weeks before. The arresting of Bird Boy's bride had been the final straw. She had thought being a personal assistant to a magician was a matter of keeping appointments, maybe dry-cleaning tuxes and top hats, buying trick boxes and handkerchiefs, but no, especially not that season. She knew the best day to quit would be the end of the day of the illusion. First of all, he'd undoubtedly do several somethings to drive her nuts that day; he'd be the same wreck he always was when he was finally about to poop out the illusion. She could pretend it came out of nowhere and just snap and say,
That's it, Bran, no more! I've had it! Please mail me my last check and see you never.
She'd say it without a single Silberism, too. But it would also be a perfect day because once the illusion was over, he'd be in the phase he lived for—that short-lived period in which anyone and everyone around him was in a constant state of gush and coo. He'd be glowing with self-love, and so losing Indigo Menendez, first assistant who had walked out before—
but this time it's for real, Bran!—
would be “No big whoop, bitch!”
as she
could imagine him saying. Plus, it was a clean finish. She knew he had said that it would be the last illusion, but she didn't trust him anymore. She'd have to walk out before he could even rethink the future of Silber Inc.

So she wrote him a letter. It was four paragraphs and two pages long, a decent length, she thought. She took the advice her mother once gave her:
When breaking up with a boy, write them a letter, but instead of a focusing on all the things they did wrong, go on and on about all the things you'll cherish. Everyone deserves a consolation prize!
So she dug and dug and spit out whatever she could come up with. They weren't all lies. She
would
miss the job; she
would
miss him.
She
did
have no idea what she would do. And she
did,
for the record
,
think meaning and symbol and theme and all that shit
were overrated, and she
was
sad to see that it had made their last weeks together so empty. She added one P.S., the only sentence she couldn't fully stand behind, but it was better than ending on a passive-aggressive note:
The FOT [Fall of the Towers] was so awesome today! Better than anyone thought even! They were moved, they were blinded! Mission accomplished, all hail the chief!

When Shell Hooper was back to her usual thousands of miles away, she thought to herself, for the first time, that it was too far. She started calling Zachary, the only child she really had left, she had to admit, over and over to make up for the distance.

Distance was met with distance. For a while he did not answer. He didn't know how to answer. It took him a while to even realize it
was
his mother. He had never heard her cry before—at Willa's funeral, she had kept her crying completely silent, wary of making a scene even when a scene required a scene.

But on the night of September 10, 2001, he finally called back, even though he knew it was the middle of the night in Hawaii.

She answered and started crying the moment she heard his voice.

“I need you to take care of yourself,” she kept saying. “You're all I've got, you know!”

“Oz's not dead,” Zachary grumbled. He had to admit he felt a tinge of pride for having a sister who was doing time in the slammer. She was tough, and she'd come out tougher, or so he was telling himself.

“I don't want to talk about Daisy right now! I want to know you're okay. Are you okay? Are you happy? Do you have everything you need?”

“We've always had everything,” he snapped.

“Yes, and that's good! I want you to have it all! I want you to be filled with it all!”

“Mother, I have to go,” Zachary said, though he didn't, of course.

“I need to tell you something.”

“Shoot.”

“Oh, Zachary, be nice, now of all times,” she pleaded.

“Let's talk another day.”

“You know we won't!”

“So shoot.”

She paused. It was amazing to her that these words were so hard to get out, words that should feel more natural than any words on earth, especially to her son. But was he her son? Had he ever been? For years, her children had been unknowns to her. And now she was losing them all—but could there be such a thing as too late when it came to family? All these thoughts roamed through Shell Hooper's head as she paused—and eventually Zachary quietly put the phone down, hoping that the gentleness of his click would soften the blow, but he
had
warned her—until something snapped her out of the nightmares of her neuroses and she just let it out,
I love you, son,
not realizing she had said it to no one, just a dial tone.

If there was one person she still wished she could be with just one more time, it was, of all people, Zal. And if there was one thing Willa would tell Zal, it was that it took her being gone for her to remember. She still could not remember the face of the man who had harmed her, but she remembered the ending of the story that had kept her alive.

And the girl held the valentine and said, “This is my heart.” But the man put a fist to her chest and said, “No, this is your heart.” And she said, “I mean no disrespect, sir, but you have no idea. Believe me. Take this heart of mine wherever you go.” The man laughed. “Why would I do that? It's just a piece of paper!” She said, “Because one day you'll be in danger. That's the truth. One day we'll all be in danger, but on your day, you will be protected.” The man laughed again, but this time because her words made him uncomfortable. “Trust me. When you are in danger take this heart and then take your matches and just burn it, just like that. Then you'll see: I'll protect you .
.
.” And the man said nothing, stunned, because he could not imagine that such a small girl would know that he also needed protection.