And how could you make it clear to Julia that you were so shook up you were scared to even whisper about Nick?
One AirPod in, the other clamped in my fist, my free ear perked at the bedroom door crack, the inert gloom in the landing, straining to detect the minutest sound creeping upstairs, heralding Nick . . . or someone else. Shit-scared that Julia’s way-too-loud voice would break right through the noise cancellation, down through two stories of stagnant air, to be picked up by whatever was lurking down there like a mega black hole in the cellar, a black hole that sucked in all sounds, thoughts, and doubts and even seemed to bend the house’s gravity out of shape. Abs and pecs: check. The phantom of the opera: check. A million times the sun’s mass’s worth of everything I didn’t dare mention: check.
I said, “I mean, what’s he even doing down there?”
“Dude, cut him some slack,” Julia said. “The guy just survived a serious mountaineering accident and a terrorist attack. I’d also be fucked up.”
I said, “It wasn’t a terrorist attack.”
“Yeah, okay, but everyone thought it was. And no one knows what it was. CNN calls it an ‘unknown medical anomaly.’ That’s just as traumatic.”
Her face stuck in a seriously-not-making-this-up expression. “The AMC thing, on io9 they’re trending that it was a kind of Captain Trips outbreak that they managed to isolate just in time.”
Her face stuck in a seriously-don’t-shoot-the-messenger expression. “Infowars says it was nerve gas but they’re keeping it under wraps. That explains all the broken bones.”
“Who by?”
“Duh, Zionists. It’s Infowars.” She said, “I only mean you’re lucky he’s still alive.”
I said, “You don’t get it. It wasn’t a mountaineering accident, either.”
And Julia’s pixelated face frozen in expressions six time zones away, but still feeling closer than she’d been in weeks.
“Sam. The time to talk? It’s now.”
So I gave her the whole ball of wax.
Told her about Nick’s manuscript, and the more I told her, the more it all seemed to disperse before my very eyes. It just became a story—not a true story, not anything that ever really happened. A haunted mountain, a possessed valley, almost funny.
Not funny was Cécile’s conclusion that there musta been violence up there, and that it was mutual, and that Nick was alive even though Augustin was dead. Dead. I said all I wanted was to believe it was self-defense cuz Augustin attacked him with a fucking ice axe, but why didn’t he just tell me then? No one woulda blamed him. Denying it was the real killer, because now I knew nothing. Now there was Augustin’s photo that Louise’d found and what the fuck was that? What the fuck, sis?
Frozen screen again, Julia’s peepers piercing right into me like no other pair had done this summer, saying, “Tell me what happened today.”
5
Know the feeling? When you’re thinking something so terrible you’re ashamed of it, and you try to abort it out of your mind with all your might but it’s stuck there and won’t budge, no matter what you do? Like a jack-in-the-box, a tiny, eternally smiling Mr. Hyde at the end of the umbilical cord of your conscience.
The day had already got off to a bad start, as is often the case when your day starts at prosecco-and-roasted-macadamia-extravaganza o’clock. I was still wobbly, still feeling I would trip over my feet as I trudged down the stairs, not what you’d expect after x many hours of sleep. What you also didn’t expect was Nick’s parents waiting downstairs on the couch. Harald and Louise Grevers, not knowing better at this stage than that Nick’s face was smashed off by rockfall, brought some of those chocolate cream puffs. Me discombobulated; me thinking, The whipped cream—no way you can suck it out with a straw.
Till I registered that they were for me, duh. A bomb belt bursting with calories for the long-lost son-in-law. They wanted to fatten me up. Create a monster to compensate for their misshapen son.
Sam Avery, Bride of Frankenstein.
The Creature himself was sitting, elbows on knees, in the shadow under the drawn curtain, iPad on lap. If I gauged his expression right, while Louise covered me with kisses (she tiptoed, me hunched, cuz if Nick makes you think basketball, Louise makes you think midget tossing), then he was now wishing they lived on the other side of a deep-sea trench.
In it, for all he cared.
They also brought Nick something. A plastic cup full of blended permaculture. Avocado, I guessed. Wheatgrass or some other hip stuff.
“I’ll get a straw,” Louise said, and strode kitchenward.
Despite everything, I was relieved Harald and Louise were there—said that to Julia, later that night. To Julia on FaceTime, whispering out of fear Nick would hear us. Not only did this postpone the inevitable talk—what was I gonna say to him, anyway?—but their being here helped a bit to get used to the whole new ballgame. With his parents around, Nick was plain Nick. Right then, I could almost kid myself that Nick was recovering from some prosaic accident, and I could almost pretend my suspicions didn’t matter.
Okay, so I go down to him, give him the most awkward nonhug in my repertoire. Sit next to him, clench my eyes shut, tighten my throat. Oh, Jesus, wishing someone would beam down a cup of ginger tea, materialize something that’ll decentrifuge my stomach, cuz I know right there if I stand up I’ll have to puke.
And Harald and Louise giving me the third degree. How it was in NY. Whether the separation gave me the space I needed. Me wishing the ground would swallow me up, me feeling guilty, as if each extra word about me would undermine what Nick had been through. I reluctantly fessed up that my classes had already begun on the first of September and that I’d requested a postponement from my tutor. In-laws’ sympathy or not, I sidestepped their questionnaire, because it suddenly dawned on me that it wasn’t love; it was inability. Louise looking so tormented. Harald’s eyes constantly straying toward Nick, shaking his head in confusion, as if it all made him just as dizzy as it made me. Nick’s open eyes staring into space through the strips of bandage, holding them hostage. That was the shift that had taken place. Harald and Louise would never have control over their son again. Nick would define them, not the other way round. Those bandages, the concealed scars, they had his parents in their power.
All Harald could say was “Here, have a cream puff,” handing me a plate.