“I can’t, Willem,” he said, and he yearned for Ana. Ask me one more time, Ana, he said to her, and I’ll tell you. Teach me how to do it. This time I’ll listen. This time I’ll talk.
That weekend they went to Richard’s house upstate and took a long walk through the woods that backed the property. Later, he successfully completed the first meal he’d cooked since he was released. He made Willem’s favorite, lamb chops, and although he’d needed Willem’s help carving the chop itself—he still wasn’t agile enough to do it on his own—he did everything else by himself. That night he woke again, screaming, and again there was Willem (though without the glass of water this time), and him asking about Brother Luke, and why he kept begging for his help, and again, he wasn’t able to answer.
The next day he was tired, and his arms ached, and his body ached as well, and on their walk, he said very little, and Willem didn’t say much himself. In the afternoon they reviewed their plans for Morocco: they would begin in Fez, and then drive through the desert, where they’d stay near Ouarzazate, and end in Marrakech. On their way back, they’d stop in Paris to visit Citizen and a friend of Willem’s for a few days; they’d be home just before the new year.
As they were eating dinner, Willem said, “You know, I thought of what you could give me for my birthday.”
“Oh?” he said, relieved to be able to concentrate on something he could give Willem, rather than having to ask Willem for yet more help, thinking of all the time he had stolen from him. “Let’s hear it.”
“Well,” said Willem, “it’s kind of a big thing.”
“Anything,” he said. “I mean it,” and Willem gave him a look he couldn’t quite interpret. “Really,” he assured him. “Anything.”
Willem put down his lamb sandwich and took a breath. “Okay,” he said. “What I really want for my birthday is for you to tell me who Brother Luke is. And not just who he is, but what your—your relationship with him was, and why you think you keep calling out his name at night.” He looked at him. “I want you to be honest, and thorough, and tell me the whole story. That’s what I want.”
There was a long silence. He realized he still had a mouthful of food, and he somehow swallowed it, and put down his sandwich as well, which he was still holding aloft. “Willem,” he said at last, because he knew that Willem was serious, and that he wouldn’t be able to dissuade him, to convince him to wish for something else, “part of me does want to tell you. But if I do—” He stopped. “But if I do, I’m afraid you’re going to be disgusted by me. Wait,” he said, as Willem began to speak. He looked at Willem’s face. “I promise you I will. I promise you. But—but you’re going to have to give me some time. I’ve never really discussed it before, and I need to figure out how to say the words.”
“Okay,” Willem said at last. “Well.” He paused. “How about if we work up to it, then? I ask you about something easier, and you answer that, and you’ll see that it’s not so bad, talking about it? And if it is, we’ll discuss that, too.”
He inhaled; exhaled. This is Willem, he reminded himself. He would never hurt you, not ever. It’s time. It’s time. “Okay,” he said, finally. “Okay. Ask me.”
He could see Willem leaning back in his chair and staring at him, trying to determine which to choose of the hundreds of questions that one friend should be able to ask another and yet he had never been allowed to do. Tears came to his eyes, then, for how lopsided he had let their friendship become, and for how long Willem had stayed with him, year after year, even when he had fled from him, even when he had asked him for help with problems whose origins he wouldn’t reveal. In his new life, he promised himself, he would be less demanding of his friends; he would be more generous. Whatever they wanted, he would give them. If Willem wanted information, he could have it, and it was up to him to figure out how to give it to him. He would be hurt again and again—everyone was—but if he was going to try, if he was going to be alive, he had to be tougher, he had to prepare himself, he had to accept that this was part of the bargain of life itself.
“Okay, I’ve got one,” Willem said, and he sat up straighter, readying himself. “How did you get the scar on the back of your hand?”
He blinked, surprised. He wasn’t sure what the question was going to be, but now that it had come, he was relieved. He rarely thought of the scar these days, and now he looked at it, its taffeta gleam, and as he ran his fingertips across it, he thought of how this scar led to so many other problems, and then to Brother Luke, and then to the home, and to Philadelphia, to all of it.
But what in life wasn’t connected to some greater, sadder story? All Willem was asking for was this one story; he didn’t need to drag everything else behind it, a huge ugly snarl of difficulties.
He thought about how he could start, and plotted what he’d say in his head before he opened his mouth. Finally, he was ready. “I was always a greedy kid,” he began, and across the table, he watched Willem lean forward on his elbows, as for the first time in their friendship, he was the listener, and he was being told a story.