He hadn’t parted ways well with Wolfe (quitting wasn’t part of the gig), and he was now working for one of Wolfe’s rivals in New York—a practice, he said, that was all too common. He wasn’t traveling as much, which I loved, and he was fine with it. Most of the shoots they did were for big ad firms in the city. It was a step down in sexy, but not as bad as the Digicam days, and the pay was decent, it was a job, and we were together. I knew he wasn’t entirely happy with work, though, and it nagged at me. My defense of Matty often felt like a way to quell my guilt about Tobias—It’s okay to grow up.
I stood in the small, wood-floored apartment as Matty and Tobias took turns running up and down the stairs with boxes. I played director. “To the left.” “In the bedroom.” “By the far wall.” We had too much stuff for this tiny place, which was, all in, about a third of the size of our old apartment. Things had accumulated over the years. Old chairs and throw pillows and small stools purchased at thrift stores on Second Avenue. Prints picked up on New York City sidewalks. Odd Ikea furniture (is it a TV stand or a desk?). Kitchenware caught between Tupperware and frying pan. Rubiah took little, and Tobias couldn’t throw anything out (what if we needed that second egg beater?). It was a strange trait of his—out of character—this need to hoard. I tried to suggest cuts, but the move was stressful enough, so most everything made its way over.
Except, strangely, the photograph of his I had bought all those years ago. The tribal man. I couldn’t find it anywhere. Not in the boxes when we unpacked, not misplaced in with the toilet articles, or stuffed in a bag of clothes. As the days went on and we broke down the boxes and stacked the dishes in the kitchen, I started to panic. I stopped by the old apartment—no one had seen it. I called Matty to check the van—nothing. I sat down on the bedroom floor one week after move-in and stuck my head, for the twentieth time, under the bed.
“Give it a rest,” Tobias said. He had seemed less than curious about where it had gone. It occurred to me that maybe he had gotten rid of it.
“I can’t,” I told him. “It’s the first thing I have of you.”
“Who cares?”
“It was there in the beginning,” I said.
“So were we.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
Matty was in the kitchen, trying to make a meal of condiments. We’d ordered pizza every night that week; I was sure we would again. Tobias took me in his arms. “Who cares about a photograph when I have you?”
“You never liked it,” I told him.
He went back to arranging books on the shelf. “It wasn’t my favorite, and I had better work. I was nineteen years old. I sucked.”
He didn’t understand. Who cared about the quality of the work? The point was the story. It was our bread crumb, maybe even our grail. I couldn’t lose it. I felt, for some reason, like losing it would mean something significant for our relationship—some bad omen. Like the photograph was our lucky charm and without it we’d be doomed.
“Did you get rid of it?” I asked. “You can be honest with me.”
“No,” he said. And left the room.
That night, one of the first in our new place, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about the photograph, about where it could be. About how, of all the things we moved over, all the useless, random appliances and furniture, that had to be the thing to go missing. I had been so careful with it. I took it down and wrapped it in that same paper—the sheets that had housed it for two years. I folded it and locked it with tape. What had happened to it?
Tobias snored next to me, unconcerned. His head was on my chest and his curls tickled my neck. I thought about the boy who had taken that photograph. Who I had gone to see all those years ago. I didn’t find him then, but I found that photo, and for all the things I didn’t have, I still had that. Or had. That grainy man. I wondered if I had been holding on to the wrong thing.
9:52 P.M.
“TOBIAS IS DEAD.” NO SOONER HAS Jessica said it than I feel the crunch of metal through my body, the press of steel, the pounding pounding pounding of the cement chewing up my skin. When Tobias was hit, I felt it all, every last cracked rib and drop of blood. I’ve been trying to forget it happened. But of course it had. He’s gone.
Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid.
Jessica is looking at me curiously, like she’s not sure what my reaction will be. Like I may overturn the table. I won’t, of course. It’s not like this comes as a surprise. He’s dead, I know. I was there.
Conrad is wearing a look of concern, and Audrey keeps repeating “Oh dear” under her breath. Robert says nothing.
“I’m sorry,” Tobias says. “I’m so sorry. I thought tonight—”
“What?” Jessica interrupts, the fire in her voice back. “That you could turn back time?”
For some reason, at that moment, we all look at Conrad. Maybe it’s that he’s a philosophy professor, maybe it’s that he’s been the authority at this table thus far. But I think it’s something else, too. Why are we here? How did this happen?
He holds up his hands as if to keep us at bay.
Audrey steps in then. “I think maybe we need a moment to digest this news.”
Jessica digs the heels of her palms into her forehead. “With all due respect, we’ve been digesting this news for the last year.”
The reality of his death crashes over me, the way it has so many times before. Those first few weeks, waking up gasping for air. The bolt of ice every morning realizing it wasn’t a dream, this is my reality, he’s gone.
And yet for the first time in a year I feel a seed of something different, something bright, new. Because maybe …
I reach for Tobias’s hand under the table, and this time I don’t let go, I hold it there. I feel his fingers curl through mine, the cool press of his palm. This is what I’ve been missing. This. Him. Flesh.
I know Audrey isn’t coming back, or even my dad, but Tobias can. Tobias is mine. If it weren’t for our mistake, if it weren’t for what went wrong, he’d still be here. It’s my job to fix this.
“What if that’s why we’re here,” I say. My voice is shaky and I see my hesitation reflected on the faces of my dinner mates.
“I don’t know…” Robert begins.
“No,” I say. This is it, it has to be. I feel like I’ve stumbled on the key. I’m not interested in another point of view. I want to take Tobias’s hand and lead him out of here, away from all these nonbelievers. “That’s what we’re doing here tonight. We’re going to be able to change things.”
“Sabrina,” Audrey says, and it’s the first time she’s addressed me by name. “I do not think that is such a wise notion.”
“Why not?” I’m feeling defiant, wild. Because what else matters, really, other than having him back? “You said yourself we’re here to figure out what happened.” I turn to Conrad.
“I did,” he says. “I didn’t say change it.”
“Maybe you can make peace,” Robert says. “I know it sounds—”
“No,” I say. “Stop, please, all of you.” Their voices feel harsh, loud, like the cement drilling outside the apartment on Tenth at seven A.M. on a Saturday. I want it to stop.
I look to Tobias, and his eyes are filled with the kind of hope I feel, and I drop down into that—that shared space between the two of us. The place we resorted to time and time again over the last ten years—where we needed only each other. The one that smoothed over our toughest moments, that drew us back together.
“We can try to change, can’t we?” Tobias says.
“I can’t stay for this,” Jessica says. “I can’t. I can’t see you…” She stands, and then Audrey stands, too.
“Sit down,” Audrey says.
Jessica looks taken aback. She pulls her blazer more tightly around her. “I will not.”
“I said sit down,” she repeats, even more forcefully this time. Conrad puts a hand on Audrey’s arm. “This is Sabrina’s dinner, you remember? Jessica, please.”
Jessica shakes her head. Then she plunks back into the chair. “That’s easy for you all to say. When it doesn’t work, I’m the only one who’s going to have to stick around. You’ll all go back, but I’ll have to hear about how it didn’t work, how it feels like she lost him all over again.…” Jessica’s voice cracks, and she sucks in her bottom lip.
“Jess,” I say. I’m still holding Tobias’s hand. “I’m sorry; I have to.”
“You want me to just sit here?” she says. She wipes the back of her hand against her face.
“No,” I say. “No one here knows me as well as you do.”
“That’s not true,” she says. “He does.”