Their tight little team of two, us against the world, had looked impermeable; it had looked permanent. Ariel had known this wasn’t true, but for years she’d pretended otherwise. That was no longer possible. But the kid was still crawling into her bed almost every night.
“Hey Sweetie?”
They were seated on adjoining sides of the table, the same positions for every meal, for George’s whole life, ever since the high chair. He looked up, wary, already prepared to be angry.
“I think maybe you should sleep in your own bed tonight.”
He opened his mouth to answer, and his lower lip trembled. Suddenly he was not the surly adolescent. This was the same look as the heartbroken toddler when she’d informed him that they’d left Teddy on the ferry by mistake.
“Tonight?” he asked.
She’d grilled steak, even though she didn’t eat beef. George had been craving protein, red meat in particular, which for most of his life he’d never had. Involuntary dietary limitations had been the subject of one of their bigger recent arguments. He’d won.
“I think maybe most nights.”
Ariel could see him trying to understand this, with different developmental stages of himself warring against one another, opposing imperatives. Ariel didn’t know which she was rooting for. A big tear rolled down the new peach fuzz of his cheek, which had become leaner, his whole body longer, like a stretched rubber band, thin and taut and dangerously close to popping.
“Why?”
“I think you need space, you’re—”
He banged his fist on the table and everything jumped—flatware rattled, plates clanged. His fork, which was speared with a piece of bloody beef, fell off his plate, onto the bare table.
The dogs stood, alert, trying to figure out the problem, looking from George to Ariel and back.
“I think—”
“I hate you!” He pushed back from the table and his chair toppled and Mallomar barked. “I hate you!”
Ariel could hear Scotch’s claws clatter up the stairs, following George’s angry clomping, then his bedroom door slam. Mallomar by her side whimpered, and she reached down to pat him, to try to reassure him. To try to reassure herself.
She stared at the space vacated by her child, his upended chair, half-eaten food. She felt her own lip trembling too. Sitting there at her beat-up cast-off kitchen table, Ariel tried to tell herself that this was the right thing to do, even if it caused everyone involved to cry. But she didn’t entirely believe it. She was suddenly so sad about so many things—about every decision she’d ever made, every direction she’d allowed her life to take that had led her here, to this lonely spot where she knew she was going to make her kid cry, and she went ahead and did it anyway, on purpose.
Her life was only going to get more lonely, wasn’t it? Everything was only going to get worse.
Ariel had been ignoring too much for too long. She’d justified her willful ignorance because she’d also brought so many things under control, she’d congratulated herself on her achievements, her competence, her confidence. Maybe it’s zero-sum. You can’t have everything, you need to pick your battles, figure out what you can’t live without, make sure those are the ones you win.
She could hear George upstairs, banging around in his room, the anguished barking of the dog. Ariel would not go up there. She would leave him alone in his anger. Space was what he needed, even if it wasn’t what he wanted. Sometimes there’s a huge difference.
George cried himself to sleep, and Ariel tossed and turned until just before dawn. This wasn’t the first time she’d second-guessed herself all through the night. Convinced that none of her choices had ever been good. Determined to make a change, before it was too late.
CHAPTER 19
DAY 1. 10:44 P.M.
“Hello?”
“Ms. Turner,” he says. “It’s been a long time.”
Ms. Turner? He’s performing. He probably suspects that he’s being recorded. Or maybe he’s sure of it because he’s the one doing the recording himself, to ensure its integrity. These days everything can be manipulated—photos, videos, audios. The only way to counter someone else’s manipulated evidence is to manipulate your own, then amplify it. The loudest voice wins.
“To what do I owe the pleasure of your call?”
“I’m in Lisbon. My husband has been kidnapped. The ransom demand is three million euros within two days.”
He waits a beat before answering, “That’s terrible.”
“It is. And I don’t have that kind of money. Nowhere near.”
Silence.
“I need your help.”
More silence. Ariel waits it out.
“Look,” he says, like politicians do before they say something disingenuous, “I’m very sorry for this unfortunate thing that’s happening to you. I’ll be happy to make an inquiry, to double-check that local law enforcement is giving this matter their full attention, and that the State Department is also participating in the appropriate manner. But you know that I can’t …”
She hears the sound of her own breathing through the earpiece. He hears it too.
“You know that I can’t intervene.”
“Of course you can.”
“What do you think I can do?”
“You can get someone to send in some expeditionary force to rescue him.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“Or you can get me three million euros.”
“Are you insane? I can’t imagine why you’d think I’d do that.”
“Imagine? No, you don’t need to imagine it. You know exactly why I’d think that.”
“Again, I’m very sorry for your predicament, but—”
“You don’t think I’m calling without any leverage, do you?” She sounds desperate. She is. “You don’t for one minute think—”
“Stop talking.”
“—that with the paternity records, and the Hamptons police report, and—”
“Goddamn it! Stop. Talking.”
She stops talking.
“Go to the embassy.”
“I was already at the embassy. Twice. And now it’s the middle of the night. It’s closed.”
“Someone will open it.”
“When?”
“I guess right now.” He sighs. “Go now.”
*
She heads in the general direction of noise, light, people, taxis. She passes an old man walking two dogs, and he gives her a sidelong glance, but no, he can’t be CIA or police or kidnappers, not with two dogs. She looks around at everything else, trying to absorb all the details. You never know what’s going to be useful; you never know what you’re going to be asked to recall.
At the far end of the square, she can see another figure, standing in the darkness beneath a tree, leaning against the trunk. She turns away, as if she didn’t notice him.
There’s a taxi, and she rushes toward it, raises her arm, hops in.
“The American embassy,” she says, and waits for the driver to meet her eye in the mirror, but he doesn’t. She wonders if he’s the person who’s following her; that would make a certain amount of sense.
They hurtle past the occasional nightlife outpost, pools of streetlights illuminating islands of liveliness at bars and clubs, separated by wide seas of empty dark, through which the sticky-seated taxi flies like a rum-running smuggler, and Ariel’s heart races like one too, everything accelerating, expanding, beyond her control.
*
“You can leave your bag and devices here, in a locker. I’ll give you the key.”