The Geography of You and Me

Owen’s heart was already thumping hard as he slid to the floor. “Dad?” he said, his voice full of panic, shaking him a little. “Are you okay?”


His father had nodded and attempted a feeble smile. “Just a little tired,” he said, his tongue too thick in his mouth. “I walked.…”

“You walked? All that way?”

He swallowed, as though steeling himself to speak, then changed his mind and simply nodded instead.

“It’s okay,” Owen said, repeating the words dumbly as he tried to figure out what to do. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

Dad muttered something else, but his words were slurred, and his face had a grayish tinge to it. He must have walked all night, all the way from the very end of Brooklyn; he was clearly dehydrated, and he probably had heat exhaustion, too, if not worse. Owen’s thoughts were slow and hazy. There was no water pressure, no way to cool him off. He felt frantic as he looked around the apartment without knowing what exactly he was looking for; something to help, something to make this better.

“Look, Dad,” Owen said, stooping so that they were at eye level. “I’m going to get you to bed, then go out for some water, okay?”

“Okay,” he whispered through cracked lips.

“I’ll be right back,” Owen assured him. “You’re okay now.” He sat back on his heels, shaking his head. “I can’t believe you walked all that way.”

“To get back home.”

Owen tilted his head toward the ceiling, trying to swallow the lump in his throat. But all he could think was: This isn’t home.

“Okay,” he said after a moment, snaking a hand under Dad’s arm and around his back. “On the count of three.”

Once he managed to get his father up and into his bedroom, bearing most of his weight as they shuffled along, he helped lower him down on top of the sheets, and then promised he’d be back, grabbing the keys and heading for the lobby. He thought of asking one of the doormen for help, but after his dad had disappeared yesterday in the middle of one of the biggest crises the city had seen in years, he decided it would be better not to draw any more attention to themselves.

He slipped through the lobby, then went sprinting around the corner to the same bodega from last night, but they were out of water, and so were the next two shops he tried. His heart was hammering in his chest as he thought of his father. He didn’t know much about heat exhaustion other than the importance of water, and as he moved from store to store with no luck, he could feel a widening panic inside him. Finally, he found a pretzel cart with only two bottles left, and he practically threw a five-dollar bill at the man before taking off down the street at a jog.

All day, he watched over his father. He sat in a chair beside the bed, keeping a damp washcloth pressed to his forehead and fanning the stuffy air with an old issue of Sports Illustrated. Dad only woke once, and when he did, Owen helped him take a few sips of water. But he fell asleep again almost immediately, and there was nothing to do but sit there, looking on helplessly. It wasn’t until mid afternoon that the color slowly began to return to his cheeks, and Owen finally allowed himself to sit back with a sigh, realizing for the first time how tense he’d been all day.

When dusk crept in through the window, dipping the room in shades of blue, Owen had decided it was safe to venture outside again for more water, and he circled the neighborhood for what felt like forever before stumbling across a hot dog vendor who was charging ten bucks apiece.

Now he stood across the street from their building, juggling the bottles in his arms and watching the giant clock above a department store, which had just come back to life along with everything else, the slow ticking completely at odds with the urgency he felt as he waited for the signal to cross.

The lobby was still unbearably hot, but there were a few people standing around the front desk, and Owen bent his head and hurried toward the mailroom, hoping to go unnoticed, eager to return to his father. But just before he could disappear through the door, he was pulled up short by the sound of his name.

“Owen Buckley!”

His first thought, strangely, was of Lucy. That something might have happened to her today—that he shouldn’t have left her on the roof, that he should have come back for her, like he’d meant to—and his chest flooded with fear. But when he swiveled to look, he realized it wasn’t that at all, and his shoulders slumped.

Striding toward him was Sam Coleman, his father’s second cousin and the owner of the building, the one who had given him the job here.