Woke Up Lonely A Novel

IV. In which fathers do what they think is best. Betrayal, betrayal. In which: My darling little girl.

IV. In which fathers do what they think is best. Betrayal, betrayal. In which: My darling little girl.





05:50:21:03: MY DARLING LITTLE GIRL. My beloved Ida. This tape might be the last you see of your dad. I’m sorry about some of the other stuff on here. Maybe you’ll understand when you’re older. I’m sorry, too, if I can’t finish the rest in time. But that’s okay. I have some time now.

I want you to know that I started to chase your mother the second she fled my apartment and that I’ve never really stopped. I called every hotel in the area. I spoke to the people who had moved into her parents’ house. Any clue where they went? No. Any forwarding address? No. In ’94, the Internet was hardly the resource it is today, but still, I made use of what I could. I put ads in local papers across the country. The response was overwhelming, and at first, I tracked down every lead. Bus, train, hitch, hobo. I went to every state in the continental U.S. and probably through at least half its small towns.

Eventually I got word she was living in New Paltz, in New York State. At the time, I was in Miami, but decided I could be in New Paltz in two days if I hitched nonstop. I remember the ride into town. A college kid picked me up, then asked me to drive while he toked on air freshener. Butane high.

There wasn’t a working stereo in the car, so this kid listened to his CD player. Sometimes, he’d slap the dash with his hands or sing along. But mostly he stared out the passenger window. I had driven long stretches of road before. I was accustomed to the populace of cars. The freeways. The solitude expressed by so many people en route together. But that day’s ride seemed especially grim. I was going to find Esme, and yet I was grim. Probably this should have set off alarm bells, but who has that kind of foresight in the moment? I felt alone, even more alone than usual, so that I began to tremble all over, with tremors you could actually see ten feet away. A paroxysm of loss for missing Esme but also, maybe, because of the loss we’re born into.

“I’m going to New Paltz to meet my girlfriend,” I said. I said it once, then louder, and finally I punched the kid in the leg. “She’s incredible.” Because, really, this shudder from within was too much. Sometimes hurt just likes a stage.

The kid took off his headphones just long enough to say, “That’s cool.”

“She was my first, you know. You always keep them close.”

“Look, I’m not much for talk,” he said, and he turned up the volume on his CD player.

We made it into town. A town cloned from other college towns. Head shops, bookstore, deli. The kid said this was as far as he went. He gave me his number, and after I wandered around New Paltz for an hour, as if I’d run into Esme just for being there, I called him up.

There was a line outside his dorm room. Students with liquor and chips; one with a dog on a leash. I tried to get by. I tripped over a glass bong the length of my arm, but no one was letting me past.

The kid, whose name was Reese, poked his head out the door. He reached for me and clapped me on the back. “You get in free, my friend.”

“Why’s that?”

“I made some calls.”

I’d been to a lot of campuses by now, and Reese had probably heard about some poorly attended events in which I insisted that a repeal of solitude was not only sufficient but ample grounds for a movement with only one requirement to join: a desire to join.

For half an hour, I wallflowered while a couple made out next to me. After that, a girl with a pink Mohawk took their place.

“Nice spot,” she said. “One thing about me, I like to watch people. A place like this, you can really watch. All this space.” She outstretched her arms.

“These your friends?”

“No”—and she sank to the floor.

“Come on,” I said. “It can’t be that bad,” though I suspected it was. And I was right. She touched her belly. “Freshman with a bun in the oven. It is that bad.”

“I’m sorry.”

She returned to her feet. “Second wind, baby. Want to dance?”

I said no. I could not keep time. Even my heart beat erratically.

“Is it that you don’t want to dance with me?” she said. Her eyes had tears.

“Oh, God, no. It’s not that at all.”

“You think I didn’t want to be pretty? This isn’t by choice,” she said, pointing to her face. “How do you think I got knocked up, anyway? A girl like me, you get passed around.”

It was nearly eleven. I dropped my beer. Three hours of sleep in two days. The dog lapped up the suds before they were lost to the carpet. I decided to make for the bathroom, where I planned to fold up in the tub.

“You know, I haven’t told anyone about the bun,” she said. “Weird that I just told you, right?”

I nodded and smiled because this was the Helix, right here. She asked if I wanted to have sex. I said no, but that I’d be happy to stimulate her *oris if she thought it would do her any good. She said this was not the most enticing proposal, but sure, why not.

She took my arm. Only, when we got to the bathroom, I really did collapse in the tub. I was just so tired. She said there was a Korean doctor in town who was an OB but also a healer of some kind and maybe, from the look of things, what I needed was some healing. She had been to see him about the baby and in the waiting room she’d met another pregnant woman who told her about the healing. In fact, the other pregnant woman had recently come to town precisely to see this Korean doctor, who was, she swore, the best.

I almost passed out, though not from fatigue. What did the woman look like? She was lovely. How pregnant? Six months. A blanched star of skin on her earlobe? Could be, yeah.

I raced down the hall and turned on the lights. I was looking for Reese; I needed his car. A boy getting oral sex on the couch said, “Ignore it! Keep going!” Reese said, “Sure, man, but when you get back, we want to hear about the Helix.”

The OB’s name was Choi Soon Yul. I found his office in the phone book and sifted through a dumpster out back until I found an electric bill with what I took to be his home address. Two hours later, I was banging on Yul’s screen door, smelling very much like the garbage I’d just been through. Porch lights went on, a dog went nuts, and I was sure someone would call the police, which would at least have given me a place to sleep. It was nearing 3 a.m. Instead, Yul came to the porch in slippers. Yes, yes, please would I come in and stop making that racket.

He was oddly self-possessed. He made us tea. I drank two cups and asked about Esme. He made a pretense of doctor-patient confidentiality but gave it up when it became clear I was not to be deterred and could, in fact, spend the rest of the night wailing on his doorstep. Finally he said yes, he had a patient who fit the description, but so what? Her file was in his office. I said we had to get it. He asked if I was threatening him. I was not. Only, was she okay, the patient? Was the baby okay? At last he seemed taken aback. And I was confused. Should I have been asking something else?

We agreed to visit his office the next day. In the meantime, he gave me a blanket.

I slept late into the afternoon and awoke to a flashlight pointed at my face and someone squirting me with water from a spray bottle. The room was dark; the shades were pulled. I felt massively hungover. I shaded my eyes and headed to the bathroom. My urine was a russet color I had never seen in nature. I was still feeling parched and groggy, so I went back to sleep on the couch. Next I knew, there was a voice saying, “Lift up your shirt,” and a hand feeling for the softest part of my stomach and something sharp breaking the skin.

“B-twelve plus,” she said, and again came the flashlight.

I swatted at the barrel until she turned it off. My Esme, six months pregnant, with hair parted down the middle and trussed in short pigtails. The look was not at all in keeping with the woman I knew, nor was her floral maternity blouse or canvas satchel. But it did not matter. She could have been in a chicken suit—my feelings were unchanged. I wanted to solder my body to hers, but it would not do to have Yul watching. He had served his purpose; now go away.

“B what?” I said.

“Twelve. Twelve plus. Will help with the grogginess. Yul said you drank two cups. One would have been enough.”

I rubbed at my eyes and tried to think. But—what?

Esme sat next to me. “You’ll be feeling better in a second,” she said, and she touched my forehead with the back of her hand. I was starting to already. She took my pulse.

I’d had many feelings in the anticipation of this moment, though none was on hand to help me recruit Esme back into my life. I had intended to plead and, that failing, to use the adamance of my passion to win a chance. But my head was still gruel.

You will ask why I loved her, and the answer is, I do not know. Once we’re past the qualities we all rejoice in our lovers—she is kind, she is funny, she is smart—there comes the X factor. Norman says that when you cite X factor, you are unburdening yourself of the onus to think. Imagine we chalked up all of our feelings to the X factor. Why do I kill? I dunno, it’s just got that special something. Norman has a point, but it does not attend to the experience of meeting a person who makes you want to live forever.

Esme said, “In any other universe, a man coming for Yul at three a.m. is the RDEI. Only it’s not the RDEI; it’s Thurlow Dan come to find true love. Jesus.”

“What’s the RDEI?”

She slipped her fingers under her glasses and began to press and rub at her eyes. “You’re going to cost me my job,” she said. “Which is almost ironic, since you pretty much got me this assignment to begin with.”

I didn’t know what she was talking about, only that she was not saying what I most dreaded to hear. Go home, Thurlow. Leave me alone, Thurlow. I never want to see you again, Thurlow.

She leaned back into the couch and touched her stomach. “I’m going to be a tennis ball at a party tonight.” She lifted her blouse, and there was the outline of a tennis ball in white paint. “A costume party at the high school gym. I’ll probably be the only person without a date. Bare-balled and pregnant.” She laughed grimly.

I did not ask whatever happened to not wanting the baby. I asked, instead, if she’d been feeling okay. She shook her head. There had been some bleeding early on, all-day nausea that sneered at the misnomer morning sickness, and a test for CF that boded poorly. I watched her relate these difficulties and was just beginning to marvel at the stoicism with which she’d met each one when the unexpected happened. She wept.

The effect was to make of the B12, in contrast, a shot of tar. I vaulted to her side and took her hand. She wiped at the tears with the hem of her shirt and said, “Listen to me very carefully. Yul is a North Korean defector. You don’t know what I do for a living, but it’s enough to say he’s helping us. And so is this pregnancy. It keeps our cover. But, Thurlow”—and here she started to cry anew—“I’m scared. I’m going to have a baby. I’ve never held a newborn. I never even had a pet.”

“You had lizards.”

“They died.”

We stayed like that for a while, her crying into my chest and me acclimating to the opportunities grown between us with every tear. When we’d both taken our thoughts as far as we could alone, we aired them out. She said I should leave; I said we should marry. She said, “Have you heard anything I’ve been saying?” I said, “Yes. Perfectly.” We set a date for two weeks later.

I’m aware that for Esme, there was a degree of convenience to these nuptials. But that did not have to preclude feelings she might have had for me, or could grow to have in time. I saw the look on her face when she realized I was there to stay. There was incredulity and some pity—I would, after all, do anything for her—but also relief and gratitude. She would not be going through this alone.

In the weeks that followed, I heard more about Yul. He and his wife had escaped from North Korea through China. Crossed the Tumen River from Musan in the northeast territory using a flotation device for children. Traveled four thousand miles through the mountains down the coast, shirking border patrols, opium smugglers, and slave traders, any of whom would have sold his wife as a prostitute and returned him to North Korea, where he’d have been executed or jailed in a concentration camp, some of which are thirty miles long. Bigger than Auschwitz. Possibly more brutal in the day-to-day. They traveled at night, mostly by foot, passing into Vietnam and Laos, over the Mekong and into Thailand.

The Chois were not forthcoming with their experience; I got it all from Esme, in whose pillow talk were breaches of security that could have won Pulitzers for every journalist in America. Yul, though a trained OB, had worked as a propaganda writer when it became clear this was the only way to support his family. To live in Pyongyang and get rations that rivaled in bounty what the government allotted its prize citizens, among them four American soldiers who had crossed the DMZ in the early sixties and lived in Pyongyang ever since.

And here was where Esme fit in. And why, years later, I had good cause to go to North Korea myself. At some point, these four American GIs would get to be of growing interest to the White House, for two reasons. First, a Pentagon memo about the four would be leaked to the press. What an uproar! Were they defectors or prisoners? The Pentagon denied knowledge of any living POWs but did concede to having watched a North Korean movie, Nameless Heroes, in which, lo and behold, the four American soldiers had starring roles as Western agents of evil. For years, the army’s theory on these men was that they were MIA. The North Korean theory was that they were promised body and soul to communist North Korea. Since neither seemed likely, the Americans figured maybe the thing was to get the three (by then one had died) to exercise influence from within. They were movie stars. And since Kim Jong-il was a movie buff with a library of twenty thousand films, and since he’d written volumes on the subject of the movie arts, the thinking was that he would not be able to withstand the allure of four movie stars, never mind the country of their birth or ended allegiance.

Second, one morning, a sub would wash up in the Sea of Japan, empty of its twenty-six North Korean commandos, who were apparently on the lam in South Korea, plotting God knows. The result? Sixty thousand South Korean troops on their tail for fifty-three days, and during this time, did the U.S. have any idea what was going on? Not really. Meantime, the North Koreans had flouted the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty again and again. Did the U.S. have any clue what her intentions were? No on that, too. Wouldn’t it be nice to have people on the inside? You bet. Enter Yul and Yul’s contacts, some of whom were in the film business. Enter Esme, on a mission.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Before all this, Esme and I still had our nights together, when she’d read to me from Kim Jong-il’s manifesto On the Art of Cinema. I had a hard time getting past the foreclosing austerity of the man’s author bio—Kim Jong-il is leader of North Korea. Kim Jong-il succeeded his father, Kim Il-sung, who had ruled North Korea since 1948—though I did appreciate the singleness of purpose with which I imagined him recording his thoughts. The section titles were no joke. Life Is Struggle and Struggle Is Life. Compose the Plot Correctly. The Best Possible Use Should Be Made of Music and Sound. At no point did you ever get the sense that any of the tome’s fluorescence was lost in translation. I can still picture Esme, whaled out on the bed, pointing a Cheeze Doodle to passages she liked. “Look at this,” she’d say, and laugh so big I could see the snack-food paste around her molars. And so I’d look and read aloud: “Once agreement has been reached in discussion, the director must act on it promptly, firmly basing the production on it and never deviating from it, no matter what happens. If the director vacillates, so will the whole collective, and if that happens, the production will fail.”

“Jesus,” I’d say. “I would hate to be on that guy’s set.”

“Imagine he’s directing your country.”

Mostly, though, when it came to her work, I had no idea what she was talking about. DPRK, IAEA, DMZ, NPT—she’d rattle off this shorthand as though I were in the know, and such was my ignorance that I thought these were clandestine agencies entrusted to my discretion. The first time I heard mention of the IAEA in public, I thought it signaled the toppling of our secret service. But it was just news: the International Atomic Energy Agency, having exposed its inspectors as titular in Iraq, was going full tilt on its evaluation of North Korea’s nuclear sites. As a result, negotiations were breaking down, and the North Koreans would likely not just defy the NPT but leave it altogether.

Esme would say, “If that nut job really does have a nuclear bomb, forget five bombs, we are in a world of shit.” She’d be lying on her side with a pillow between her legs. I’d be lying on my side, too, and so there we were, belly to belly, while she foretold the end of the world and I touched her breasts because her breasts were so lovely that I always wanted an excuse to touch them, and I needed an excuse, since bald-faced admiration fell into a category of motives Esme could not stand. These included admiration without pretext, fear of the unknown, and indifference to situations just because you are unversed in them. I continued to touch her breasts and marvel at the summer palette of her skin—cream and sand, milk and flax—the gossamer above her lips, her sleepy breaths at night, and hair snarled across the pillow. And once she was asleep, I began to study the world in earnest.

For those last months of her pregnancy, our lives were routine. On the weekends, I’d meet with Reese and peerage to discuss ideas. It was a reading group. We assigned each other the usual suspects: Freud and Lacan. Schopenhauer, Hegel, Kant. Maybe Hume. William James. Mostly, though, I went there to lend credibility to what I’d been thinking about on my own. I was looking for quotes.

At issue was the predicament of being alone, which I thought about obsessively, because I was a little confused. I’d found Esme and married, and we were going to have a baby, and so the wasteland of my heart was to have been lush and gay and departed from the isolation whose fix was the Helix mandate. And yet something felt wrong. I still felt unmoored.

In the meantime, I needed a source of income. It turns out that having a child has pecuniary obligations you cannot quantify. It’s not about allotting funds for diapers or food or even higher education, but about needing to afford whatever this baby needs, whatever this baby wants, may she have everything I can give her and all the things I can’t.

Esme wanted to name the baby Roxanne. I demurred but did not press. She wanted to name the baby Ida. Ida Dan? Don’t be absurd. Ida Haas.

I got a job filing cases for a law firm. They called me a paralegal, but all I did was file. It was a large practice. Corporate and, as far as I could tell, engaged to flout protections of the Hudson River. The office was a tic-tac-toe arrangement of cubicles and hallways. Most days, I came home feeling like mulch.

Still, I tried to retain this job because we had moved into a house that needed more renovation and repair than was apparent when we bought it. There were loans to pay down. A testy sump pump. Corroding pipes and backyard sludged with overflow from a septic tank twenty years old. The problems were menial, but of the sort I thought typified a young marriage.

In the meantime, Esme was spending more and more time with Yul, who had been unable to make contact with the Americans on the inside and who, frankly, did not want to. His desire to topple the system from which he had fled was nominal at best. He just wanted to deliver babies in the free world, maybe to have one of his own, and to move on. Esme was appalled and, for being appalled, spiked her blood pressure. The baby was due in two weeks.

Three days later, I was sitting at my desk, shooting rubber bands at the wall of my cubicle. I’d set up a bull’s-eye of pushpins. I was league champion. Coworker Janice poked her head over the panel divide. She wore silver hoop earrings that slapped her neck.

I was in low spirits. That morning, I’d found a skein of Esme’s hair atop the shower drain and been disgusted. The feeling passed in a flash, but there was no denying it. I’d been disgusted. By my own wife. The shock of it made me feel woozy, and I pressed my head to the wall tile. And then came a siege of misgiving. All the times I’d pressed my lips to her more delicate nature and not enjoyed it. The way she let her nail polish chip for weeks before reapplication. How, for no reason, she walked on tiptoe. And then, and then, her inability to wash cookware, so that, on mornings I wanted eggs, I’d find the skillet greased in fat. Her toes, which gripped each other during movie night on the couch—have I mentioned how much I didn’t like her toes? And then perhaps the frequency with which she’d begun to say she loved me—perhaps I did not like that, either.

I’d stayed in the shower so long, my skin had crimped and the water gone cold. But this was nuts, right? That the dream—of marriage, love, togetherness—never accords with practice is a timeless bromide. Even so, I began to query the content of this dream because I had thought it was about Esme. About Esme’s penetrating the horrible isolation that until her had struck me as simply the thing we are all born into. I am not certain what in her made me think love and family were an antidote, but I thought they were, at least until that moment in the shower, at which point I crouched on the mat, drew my knees to my chest, and promised with everything I had to suppress what I’d just come to doubt. I swore to be a good husband and a good father and petitioned God not to smite me for thinking ill of my pregnant wife. I didn’t mean it; I was just scared and stupid and didn’t know better.

Janice asked if I was going to Ed the custodian’s funeral. He had collided with a tree on Putt Corners Road, the canard being that he’d had a heart attack, though everyone knew he’d done it on purpose. Everyone but Janice. I remember her saying he always seemed so happy and me saying, “Jesus, Janice, misery can be looking you straight in the face, and you’d never know it.”

She said, “Work is just too boring today—let’s play a game. It’s a drinking game, but I guess we can adapt.” It was called State of the Union. “You have to itemize everything that’s good and bad in your life. You know, talking points. So, you want to play?”

This was the kind of thing we did at our Helix meetings. But I wasn’t in the mood. “I have to call my wife.”

“Call her after.”

I slumped in my chair. “Okay. The good? I’m married to the woman of my dreams, and we’re about to have a baby.”

“Wow! That’s amazing! But way to sound happy about it.”

“The bad? I’m married to the woman of my dreams, and we’re about to have a baby.”

She frowned. “Is that like Nietzsche or something? Everything good is bad? You know Dale in HR? His brother goes to those meetings of yours at the university, so I know the stuff you guys read.”

“It’s your game,” I said.

She returned to her side of the panel, so I stood and draped my chin over the ledge. “Okay, wait, maybe this will explain it. Don’t laugh, but all my life, I’ve had this theory about loneliness, that it’s congenital, fundamental, but that you could escape or defeat it. And I thought I had, only now I see I haven’t even come close. And I’m worried it’s not even possible. But forget that. I just have to work harder, redouble my efforts. I think that falls into the good category, right?”

She had been about to make a call, but now she replaced the phone in the cradle. “I just have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said. “But it doesn’t sound good at all.”

“No, no, it’s good. I’m recommitting. I started those meetings a couple years ago, but now I’m going to make them huge. Nationwide.”

I gave her my best smile. I’d wanted to try out my resolve, to see how it sounded aloud. To find in my speech a nostrum for anxieties fallen to me at that moment, among them my wife, the coming baby, and the fulcrum anxiety of knowing I might run out on them both.

But Janice was right: It sounded bad.

I went to the lounge and thought about Ed. If he was desolate inside, could the Helix have helped? Was suicide a more workable option than what I’d been trying to do?

Then I heard Janice yelling my name from across the floor and getting closer. And something in her voice—I knew what she’d come to say. I jumped behind the couch and got low. Dust bunnies clotted the air vent. I held my breath and waited for her to pass. Then I snuck back to my desk. Six messages on the machine, all from my frantic wife. She was in labor, hurry up.

That day, I was supposed to speak at an event on campus, and I felt the pull of this event so strongly that every turn I made toward the hospital had to be won from its clutch. The symposium was called “Iraq: Five Years Later.” I was scheduled to speak last on the bill. I would say something about self-interest and question whether we’d have invaded Iraq to protect a place like Singapore, which has almost no natural resources. I would go on this way for a few minutes and then swell the discourse to include matters touching and dire and germane to the malcontent I knew these people were feeling, the organizer in particular. Her name was Marshall. She was well loved by well-meaning people, which meant that, besides feeling isolated and unreachable, she also felt guilty, because, come on, how much love does a person need to feel a part of? What was she doing wrong? Driving to the hospital, I could not have empathized with her more.

Ida, sweetheart, you were a breech baby. You nearly died from several problems, among them a dislodging of your mother’s placenta and a noosed umbilical cord. There was a C-section. I’m told she stayed awake through the entire procedure, asking for me at intervals of one to two seconds. I’m told she cried and feared for my life, because only a terrible accident could have kept me from her. I was told this by a nurse while Esme slept. I did, after all, get to the hospital, at least to reception, where I counted black diamonds patterned across the floor and tried to will myself to her room.

The nurse told me you were in an incubator—you were having trouble breathing—but that Esme was awake and asking for me again.

I said I’d be right there. I had flowers delivered from the lobby florist with a note that said: I’m on my way! And then I did something awful. I left. I raced my car through every yellow in town and got back to campus.

Marshall gave me a kiss. And I was so relieved to be there with her. For months I’d been telling Marshall about the Helix. That I wanted to believe in this thing to save me from myself. Maybe to save a few other people, too. She said if I was going to be a leader, I’d have to shore up my pitch and make it coherent. Hone my ideas, communicate in story. She said I talked drivel and didn’t have the charisma to hide it. I was, she said, more Koresh than Jim Jones, though we were agreed I was neither.

The plaza was full, which was insane for February. There were banners and balloons, torchlights and pizza. I started to panic. It would be hours before the horror of abandoning Esme tided over me so that I could not breathe, which meant the distress of the moment was caused by something else. And it was this: Those hundred people in the audience? Their lives could change for hearing me vaunt ideas I barely understood myself. Did I really think the predicament of being alone was soluble? I’d just left my wife and new baby to start their lives together without me for dread of us never being able reach each other, no matter what we said. So I don’t know. I was afraid. Too afraid to test out the very ideas I was about to insist were a retort to loneliness and despair. And yet there I was. Because maybe one in those hundred applauding my name would be less scared than me.

They introduced me as a social psychologist who lectured nationwide and whose highly anticipated writ on the topic of loneliness would be issued by an eminent and heroic publishing juggernaut in the spring. I glanced at Marshall, who smiled big, and the smile said: In time, these lies will come true, so who cares?

From the dais, I did not recognize anyone. I found out later that my childhood friend Norman was in the aisle, three rows in, but that he didn’t stay for the whole speech, just long enough to make eye contact with me. Or so he thought, because it wasn’t faces I saw but the same face in every one, of my wife, anguished and alone. And so I started talking about her. I said I worried she was as unknown to me as a stranger in the park. I said that the negative space contoured by our absence in each other’s lives gave shape to what was impossible to shape otherwise but which I could now see with a horror I could barely put into words. What does loneliness look like? So long as my wife was out there, this person I adored, clamoring for me and getting no response, I had a good idea.

I said, “But this isn’t about me. It’s about us all. Because everywhere and all the time, people are crying out for each other. Your name. Mine. And when you look back on your life, you’ll see it’s true: woke up lonely, and the missing were on your lips.”

I blinked at the audience, which had been quiet for a while. As I spoke, the antiwar posters had come down like the flag post-death. I’d noticed a few balloons released and bound for paradise. I turned off the mic. The crowd dispersed. I’d say it was funereal except that no one goes into a funeral expecting to be stoked. This was more like the aftermath of a big loss for the home team.

Marshall gave me a hug. I told her that my baby was three hours old and that I had to go. She lifted the hem of her T-shirt, and there was a double helix tattooed on the small of her back.

I rushed to the hospital. This time, Esme had company. I found Norman sitting next to the bed and holding her hand. It was even possible he was trying to explain me. I was stunned but then not, because if Norman was his own season, he came every year.

I gave him the nod and took her other hand. Kissed her on the forehead and said I’d seen the baby, that she was a marvel. I had not seen the baby, but in my head, I knew I was right.

Esme’s voice was quiet, and for a second, I thought all would be well. Then she said, “Where were you, Lo?”

I’d had hours to prepare an answer, but in my will to believe I was not shirking responsibility in the most horrible way, I had refused to accept this moment would come. I looked at Norman. I half expected a miracle to intercede on my behalf. Just give me a minute, let me think.

Her face was blanched; her hair was matted. I spliced my fingers with hers and thought I’d never loved her more.

Norman said, “Esme, it’s like I said before: I’m so sorry. It’s my fault. I talked Lo into leaving work early and taking a drive with me and the car broke down. We just got back. Lo was just paying the cab.”

I nodded, restated, embellished, and finally I just wept. I pressed each of her knuckles to my lips and wept. I had escaped discovery—the relief was palpable—and so I wept for this. Norman had secured for me a chance to redress this terrible mistake, and so I wept for that, too. I wept because I knew I would not redress the mistake and, in fact, would do worse in the months to come. My wife loved me, my daughter would love me long before she knew what this meant, and for these travesties I wept most of all.

It pains me to have to say it, but I will: In the year after you were born, there were other women. Several. People I tried to connect with because I could not connect with you or your mother, though it turns out I couldn’t really connect with them, either. Still, I tried. They all knew I was married. I told them everything. I talked and shared and it helped. At least in the short term. I’d come home less afraid. Less unknown. And, while I knew it was wrong, it also felt right. So I was confused. And depressed. And when it got so bad, and I stopped knowing what to do, Esme made the decision for us. She packed you up and split. She left me to the Helix.

After that? Magical thinking. I’d wake up with hope. Not hope legitimized by a real development for good, not hope born of faith in the world’s benevolence, but hope that is your way of staying alive. I believed you were coming back. Some days, this was okay. Other days, I’d take myself down. What insanity! You’re an idiot! They are not coming back; they are never coming back. The rest of the day might be given over to sobbing in a ball, only the next morning I was up and at ’em, sprightly as before.

It got so quiet in the house, I’d put a fork down the garbage disposal just so I could call a repairman. I clogged the bathtub drain with screws and dimes and a sock, and when the plumber took a break, I undid his good work. But these people never stayed more than an hour.

I quit my job and began skimming a salary from donations to the Helix. We headquartered on campus, but I went everywhere, and at every stop, I asked after my wife. I wanted a miracle. Esme worked for the government; if she wanted to vanish, she would.

I went to therapy all the time. The regret of what I had done was awful, but the permanence was worse. A shrink at SUNY told me I should believe in myself. And I did. I believed I was stupid and evil and without hope. I thought I would not make it. Only time intervened—it always does—and with it came the prize and mercy of endurance. In lieu of facts, I had possibility. Since you could be anywhere, I began to see you everywhere. My little girl, in saddle shoes and party dress.

Esme left most of your stuff behind, so I have your baby socks in a drawer by my bed. But these are just artifacts, and as the years go by, they have become less solace than rebuke. One time I had your baby photo age-progressed, then made the mistake of doing it again elsewhere, and when the results were girls who barely resembled each other, I postered my wall with their likenesses.

Do you have my blond hair? Is it thick like your mother’s, does it lift and dip as you cruise the playground, do you have knock-knees and braces, are your eyes still bear brown?

For your last birthday, I sent you an unlimited gift certificate to the American Girl store in New York. It was returned. I sent you guest passes to the Oscars and afterparties and guaranteed a private interview with a teen heartthrob of your choosing. These were repulsed. I’ve sent letters begging for news. A photo. Something you made at school. And every day, every year: nothing.

What do you think this does to a man? I’ll tell you. It sends a man to North Korea.

And so, at last, the story of why I am in this mess. The story of Pyongyang, City of the Dead.

To be fair, and for the record, it was the North Koreans who approached me. Under the aegis of wanting an improved image in the West. They knew the Helix had reach. Daily contributions were up; sales of the Helix Monthly were up. RYLS attendance had gotten so huge, we outsold the Spanish pop phenomenon Enrique Iglesias. In the meantime, Pyongyang’s rapport with the United States was foundering badly. The U.S., which had promised to help them build two cold-water reactors, had called them a bad name. Others in receipt of the bad name were being bombed comprehensively. Pyongyang, nonplussed and ever sensitive to a patrimony of occupation, copped to having atomic weapons or, at the very least, the resources to make them, so back off. Another impasse that had already isolated the country to the point of starvation. Two million people dead of famine, which they blamed on cataclysmic phenomena in the soil. But which they also blamed on the American tyranny pledged to kill them all. Enter the Helix. They needed our help.

We were a good fit. For one, I sympathized with their anti-Americanism. I did. After all, what hubris on our part to have regarded Korea as war booty and divided it with the Soviets. The sundered families and affronted national esteem within five minutes of freedom from the Japanese. Kim Il-sung’s aggression, though unwarranted, punished with a million dead. It was no small wonder they hated us.

Two: North Korea is the last black spot on the map. Solipsism, repression, and homogeneity are its standout qualities. So imagine what I could do for them. Improve their image? Fine. Use the Helix to forge ties—one person at a time—with the most isolated people on earth? Nobel Prize–winning. And in the meantime, because I knew to hedge my bets, I’d try to finagle contact with the American defectors Esme had been trying to recruit so many years before. I wanted to make her a hero. I wanted to make us both heroes so that she’d see in me something to love.

So I went to the North, to meet Kim Jong-il. To set up some Helix events, and to propose bringing many of my followers to participate. The plan wasn’t just to thaw relations but to change the way we thought about each other. If this could be accomplished in North Korea, it could be accomplished anywhere.

I decided to take Isolde. She’d been a prostitute when we met, and so I thought her vocation would provide me with some comfort. Putage may not be unique to the free world, but it’s still totem for the erotic and transactive possibilities therein, and I wanted these reminders of home to protect me in this forbidding and scary place.

We flew from Beijing on Air Koryo, one of only six flights making the descent into North Korea a week. I was sure the plane wouldn’t make it. As soon as we sat down, the anachronistic hairstylings of the crew seemed to suggest other, more dire anachronisms—a gunpowder engine, for instance. We were the only Caucasians onboard, though the cabin was half-empty. Who wanted to visit North Korea? Who was permitted to visit North Korea? The occasion for the Japanese tourists we’d come with was the Mass Games, which meant the DPRK had relaxed its antipathy to foreigners to help internationalize the harmony of the socialist state manifest in eighty thousand gymnasts tossing a ball at the same time. The Japanese were excited. Isolde was excited. She had never seen an Asian or heard a foreign tongue, so consider the disarrangement of mind caused by so many doors flung open at once.

Our seats were upholstered in a tan fabric textured like denim. Our reading material comprised fictions sponsored by the North Korean government to the effect that the United States endorsed Satanism. We were a fount of colonialist doctrine currently or at one time expressed in the following: Mexico, China, Greece, the Philippines, Albania, Iran, Guatemala, Haiti, Panama, Vietnam, Cambodia, Zaire, Brazil, Cuba, Chile, Fiji, Turkey, Iceland, Taiwan, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Grenada, Haiti, Afghanistan. Where were the American imperialists most in evidence today? Iraq. What was the country most likely to stampede the third world on the flimsiest of pretexts? America.

I was hard pressed to argue with this agitprop, supplied in full by our stewardess. I felt bad for her. She had been chosen among a handful to consort with the alien ideology. Her ill will was patent.

The Pyongyang airport looks, from the tarmac, like a prison block. It is a trellis of windows that together are lintel for a billboard of Kim Il-sung. We deplaned and passed through customs without fanfare. We’d had our marching orders. No cell phones, no laptops, no literature in which North Korea makes an appearance, no American flags or icons of patriotic zeal. Then we were relieved of our passports, which agreed with me but which Isolde didn’t like. I’d forgotten to tell her that for the duration of our stay in the Forbidden City, we were captive to the Forbidden City. She wore stilettos that jabbed the floor until she snapped a heel in dudgeon. I promised to buy her flats. She hobbled to the bus.

We dined in our hotel, which was marooned on an island in the Taedong River, and were sent to our room at 8 p.m. I had the sense not to ask our minders when we might dispense with the charade that I was but another tourist, and spent the evening wandering about the hotel. As with most places in Pyongyang, it was large-scale and finessed to screen the essential poverty of the state. There was a bowling alley with lights and power that were turned on by request and shut down the instant you were done. Likewise with the casino, movie theater, nightclub, and bar. You might be looking at the largest movie screen in Asia, but with no electricity to run the projector.

That night the theater billed cinema verité, part one of the 1978 epic Nameless Heroes, which starred the four American soldiers who had defected. The movie is probably twenty-five hours long. Isolde and I got through twenty-five minutes. The theater was deserted, just us and a hotel guide who cautioned that to talk during the film was to discredit its organizing principle, which was the eminence of Kim Jong-il.

I told Isolde to keep quiet and that we would not stay long. She asked if there were any other movies playing, or maybe we could just watch TV? She wondered if Friends was syndicated abroad. I took her hand. She had frosted her lips pink and wore her hair, a sunny blond, fanned about her shoulders. Her Southern accent was not pronounced but was still noticeable—a swallowing of medial consonants and a tendency to diphthong her words so that they went on and on. Fire was ray-yed. Her favorite band was the Grateful Day-ed. You know what’s not any fu-uhn? This movie lauding Kim Il-suh-ung.

Our guard told us to shut up. But Isolde just couldn’t. She kept asking why the Americans in this film were killing everyone without cause and then remembering that killing people without cause is often just what we Americans do. And it wasn’t like the North Koreans were ever going to forget that. God knows why I had thought otherwise. Where I saw in Pyongyang a desire to improve relations with the West and put the hatred aside, they saw in me distaste for my government and a stake in its downfall. Their thinking: What would happen if North Korea backed a heterodoxy opposed to the U.S. imperialist wolves and baby killers? A chance to destabilize the U.S. from within. Perhaps to lodge a spy or two among us. To get a foothold where before they had had none. How naive I am? Very, it seems.

And so, sitting there watching Nameless Heroes, I began to get a bad feeling. Perhaps I had not given North Korea its due as a repressor of men. The Pass of Tears to labor camp was but one misstep away. Sneak a Western soap opera—a favorite in the North—and you could be sent to the notorious prison compound Yodok. Consider this: It’s midnight and all of a sudden, the People’s Security Force kills the electricity before a house raid just so you can’t eject your tapes smuggled in from the South. And for this: twenty years’ hard labor.

If the Koreans were even showing us Nameless Heroes, it meant they knew to whom I’d been married and the nature of her work. It meant they knew she was after those soldiers. And so it began to seem possible they had actually invited me here to end my life at Yodok.

The only way off the island was by bridge. We had no transportation and no passports, and I hardly thought Isolde was dressed for the four-thousand-mile trek to freedom. There was nothing to be done.

They woke us up at 4 a.m. General Kim Jong-il, it seemed, had insomnia. It was unlikely Isolde was intended to join me, but when my five minutes to recoup sense and bathe were up, the escort was more than a little vexed to find her languishing in bed. One got the impression his livelihood—possibly his life—was riding on the timeliness of our arrival at the general’s abode.

What sorts of men are granted audience with a quixotic, possibly insane but more likely astute megalomaniac? What sorts of men does this megalomaniac prefer? Men who drink. In the limousine were two in uniform and a third in civilian dress. The officers did not talk to us but decanted a malted beverage into four glasses. I don’t much like the drink, so I gave mine to Isolde, at which juncture I was advised to take it back.

Traversing the city at night was not much different from during the day. In the day the roads were stippled with cars—a handful—and at night there were none. Lights were scarce, there were no traffic signals, and every road felt epic. These were not roads, they were runways. Tree lined. Swept clean. Flanked in the distance by the gray slab architecture we’ve come to associate with the Eastern Bloc. I looked out at the full moon and starscape and decided this must be the only capital city in the world with industry so depressed, you could see the starscape.

Isolde began to nod off. Both military men nudged my foot. I pinched her leg. She said, “All right, all right,” and asked for a drink of her own.

Now, perhaps I am a Westerner who thinks all Asians look alike, in which case and insofar as I share this problem with millions, I should be forgiven the following observation: the civilian between the officers of rank looked a whole lot like Kim Jong-il. The multiple chins and pompadour. The tan leisure suit with elastic waist. The pudgy wrists and feminine eyeglasses that came halfway down his face. The way he regarded Isolde, whose Swedish coloring I’d been told the general preferred. Based on what I knew of him, there was no chance he was in our Benz, unacknowledged and without the pageantry imperious men like to grant a summit, but even so: the likeness was astonishing. But also discomfiting. Now and then, if a streetlamp happened to be on and illuminated his face, something about it seemed off. Skin grafts, maybe. Silicone implants. I’d heard he was vain like that. But still.

We drove through the city and out toward the coast. I knew Kim Jong-il had a beach residence and assumed this was our destination. By night’s ebb, however, we were still driving. The guards never took their eyes off us, but the man in the leisure suit was charming. He tippled without pause, refilling my glass and his. We made small talk. I was fettered in my speech, assuming the car was bugged. A lovely city, Pyongyang. Most hospitable. Yes, yes, but how did I like the movie? I said it was testament to the creative genius embodied in the general’s seminal tome on the subject of filmmaking. I said, and here was the biggest risk I’d ever taken in my life, “In particular, the Americans were great, a wonderful coup for Korean cinema.”

He nodded and smiled and asked Isolde what she thought, and since I’d told her that the Americans might be living in the Mangyongdae District, on the west side of town, I expected her to wile a tour of the area and a visit with at least one of the Americans for an autograph.

“What do I think?” she said. “I think that movie was crap.”

From then on, I was sidelined. They talked about Elizabeth Taylor, Peckinpah, and the displacement film Westworld, set in a recreational frontier town of cyborgs. Isolde railed against cartoon movies and bristled when asked whether she agreed that Friday the 13th was the best horror movie ever. That honor she reserved for Evil Dead II.

The liquor was cognac, and I was starting to feel ill from thought of my caloric intake for the day, well in excess of what my diet allowed. I looked out the window and was certain we’d passed this bridge before. I despaired of this drive ever coming to an end.

I sat back. I was exhausted. The man in the leisure suit asked me about my family, and when I told him about my wife and child—how much I missed them—he finished the last of his drink and appeared to shut down. Stopped talking. Leaned back and stared at his hands with an expression so leached of feeling, it was as though you could source the country’s bleakness to his face. Perhaps he was a paid look-alike, but no matter. I liked him and began to pity the fallout of having to live as we did, at the top of our field, commanding the people and forging ahead. I expected Kim Jong-il’s personal life was no less dismantling than mine. He had four wives, seven offspring; I wondered how many of his wives couldn’t stand him, either. I had the urge to pat him on the knee and say I understood. But the moment passed. And next I knew, we were back at our hotel. It was a Monday morning, 7 a.m., and the city, for its millions, was dead.

That afternoon, I met a low-level official who took notes on the Helix—our numbers and stats—and that was that. Homeward bound. Home to this, which is soon to be a eulogy. Can you hear what’s happening outside? It’s the madding crowd, come to hang the king.

There were choppers overhead. News crews just beyond a perimeter that berthed the house at fifty feet, and guys in bucket trucks who had already started to deforest the grounds. There was tension about when to aggress against the Helix House, and tension between SWAT, which would have welcomed the elevated vantage of a tree-house bower, and the National Guard, which wanted to tank through Cincinnati without stop.

Thurlow trolled the halls. Light from the clerestory windows had vanished behind clouds that had rolled in fast. Even the weather seemed to have been conscripted into the narrative of doom being written outside. People in Cincinnati always liked to talk about the tornado outbreak of ’74 and its follow-up in ’99. In ’99, eight of the city’s civil defense sirens malfunctioned or lost power, which betrayed the stupidity of relying a bad-weather siren on electricity when electricity tends to fall victim to bad weather. Most civil defense sirens made use of a minor third to sennet bad news. The sound was not the clamor of police or medical transport but a howl that seemed to exercise the grief of things unsaid; cf. the sob that issued from the Thunderbolt apparatus of downtown Cincinnati when a tornado was afoot. Thurlow had modeled the house alarm on it so that if the house were breached, the news would anguish for miles. But for now, all being inside, he was safe.

He checked his watch, seven o’clock, which meant he was expected online for his weekly appearance. Showing up today was probably not a good idea, though it might be fortifying to gauge the mood of his people. Maybe no one actually cared what was happening at the Helix House, in which case he could cut himself some slack.

On the back end of the website were chat rooms, among them one for the members wanting sex. Critics said that organizations like the Helix encouraged bacchanalia, and that as leader Thurlow must be an incorrigible roué, but it wasn’t true. Or not entirely true. He’d made these rooms accessible by video because the I Seek You protocol rewarded disclosure at a clip, and faces could help. Or so he’d thought until the Play Room took hold. In there, what strides the video option had made toward facilitating intimacy were Pyrrhic.

Just last night he’d seen a man fellate himself with a Winnie the Pooh hand puppet, though what had Thurlow rapt was the affection and solicitude the man’s free hand lavished on the bear, as if the only way to thank ourselves for love received was through displacement. This show, one among thousands. People registering disbelief and gratitude for what was being offered them. A longing for more. Please don’t sign off until I am done. Don’t leave, please. It was a peacocking of misery that reasserted the virtue of what Thurlow was trying to do with the Helix, and so depressing as to keep him riveted for hours.

Now he fixed on a live stream of Sophie18, who was a man in thong and thigh-highs, watching Lena04, who wore the same. They were doing for each other what could not be done otherwise. And so, for a second, Thurlow loved this chat room because it was a mercy killing of at least some of the self-hate grown in his heart for what he was soon to do to the people who supported him most.

Before he signed off, he scanned a thumbnail list of users and noticed someone new. A guy not looking for pleasure; he just wanted to talk. He asked if his camera was working. He didn’t understand all this technology, but his wife had given it to him so that he might get out and make friends, he being incarcerated in his house and the Internet being the next best thing to bingo at the lodge. He was pecking at the keyboard with his index fingers. Thurlow wrote back immediately. He wrote:

Dad, can you find some other chat room to be in? There’s about ten million to choose from.

Dad, can you find some other chat room to be in? There’s about ten million to choose from.

But Wayne wanted to talk about how his life was being dismantled from the inside out. How his marriage was on the skids. The torpor and routine. Mutual disinterest in all things relating to the home, money, or politics. Thurlow wrote back.

But u don’t care about these things, Deborah or not.

Dont be smart ass.

But codependency and trust and comfort are important. Marriage is a sum of parts, some good, some bad, but maybe the sum is still good.

Wayne smirked.

Dad, sometimes u gotta take risks to get what u want.

??? Son wha ts the mater w/ y ou?

But u don’t care about these things, Deborah or not.

Dont be smart ass.

But codependency and trust and comfort are important. Marriage is a sum of parts, some good, some bad, but maybe the sum is still good.

Wayne smirked.

Dad, sometimes u gotta take risks to get what u want.

??? Son wha ts the mater w/ y ou?

This was not the first time they’d had a conversation that veered in this direction, though its precedents were few.

“Dad, stop typing—you are driving me nuts. We can talk, you know. There’s a microphone.”

Wayne got up close to the screen and pressed his ear to the camera, which felt like the lewdest thing Thurlow had seen in this room to date.

“Dad, stop it, just sit in your chair.” Only the volume was on high, and, since Thurlow was not whispering, Wayne recoiled from the speaker with shock and began to chowter, “Stupid machine. Who ever heard of this talking machine?” So Thurlow said, “Dad, I can hear you,” and again with the shock, and because Thurlow was so strung out he couldn’t remember who he was to whom anymore, he said, “Dad, don’t make me demote you, too.”

Finally Wayne sat back, which gave view to what Thurlow expected to be his room but was not his room at all.

“Dad, what are you doing in the commissary? You know you’re not supposed to be there. What have I not given you such that today, of all days, you were moved to leave your place of dwelling and venture into mine?”

“I was looking for the marriage counselor. I heard you called one in. And why are you talking like some poofcake?”

“I have not called in a counselor. Where’d you hear that? And what made you think he’d be in the commissary?”

“Last I heard, it was called a pantry. Son, are you all right? These four people here have been telling me some things”—and he glanced the camera at the hostages, who were supposed to have been returned to the den gagged, hooded, cuffed. Wayne, who was suddenly adept with the zoom function on the camera, had zeroed in on Anne-Janet’s nose, which was narrow up top but fanned at the base like maybe she’d spent her formative years face pressed to the window, waiting.

Thurlow said, “Dad, I don’t want to see those people.”

Wayne said, “You know, this one’s a professional arbiter, which is almost like a marriage counselor, right?” He framed in close on Olgo.

“Dad, what? You’ve been talking about your marriage? To them? What else have you been saying?”

“Not too many options for chat around here.”

“Dad.” But he stopped there. He could not expect to rationalize with this man. This man was his father; he was intractable. “Dad, you need to stop talking to those people. They are full of lies. Just stay put until I get someone over there.”

Wayne shrugged. “Where exactly would I go?”

“I’ll call for Dean, and he’ll escort you back to your quarters. There’s pink jellies in the kitchen, by the way. Edible foil. FYI.” He offered these as an olive branch because he didn’t like to be stern with his dad. He did like to take precautions, though, and he made a note to disable Wayne’s door opener and short the emergency override. Also: No more computer. And guards at his bed.

At last he got Dean on the phone. Dean, frantic, saying, Where the hell was he? Thurlow was so vexed Dean had left the hostages with his dad, he could barely contain himself. Only, Dean insisted Thurlow had called him not half an hour ago, demanding he meet him in the basement. Aha, so that mole Vicki had them played. Never mind. Just hurry up and get to Wayne. And reassemble the film crew. To hell with it—they had to make the ransom tape right now.

“Okay, Dad? You hear that? Dean’s on his way, so just sit tight”—which was when he noticed Wayne’s face derange and lock. Oh, crap. “Dad,” he said. “Not now!” But of course Wayne had no choice. He lowed, he bellowed, his limbs clenched. And though Thurlow had seen this happen many times, it never got any less awful, and today it seemed worse. Perhaps because where the footage should have lagged for being streamed online, it seemed to mayhem twice as bad. The tonic phase of the seizure lasted for thirty seconds, which gave Thurlow no time to get there before the clonic phase, which was more dangerous, insofar as Wayne could fall and hit his head, which he did. Some epileptics flail and twitch, but for Wayne the movement was more like the string of an instrument, a cello bass, that had been plucked too hard. Luckily, he had pitched to his side, which meant he wouldn’t inhale his own spit. Thurlow waited for Wayne’s body to slow down and then made a run for it.

He had never sprinted across the house, so he was surprised how quickly he got there. Less surprising was that he was winded and likely to convulse himself if he did not sit down. The hostages were appalled, but what was he supposed to do? Wayne was on his side, unconscious. Thurlow propped his head on his leg and waited. The hem of his jeans had crawled up one calf. A vein thick and soft like pasta showed under his skin. Wayne’s head weighed a ton. Thurlow had his back to the hostages, but he knew what they were thinking. He said, “It looks worse than it is, I swear.”

Then he spoke to his dad, “Wake up, boss,” which was the appellation Wayne preferred but never got. When he began to come round, Thurlow tried to diffuse wake-up panic with the facts: “You had a seizure, but you’re fine.” Only he wasn’t having it. He said he’d broken his skull and needed to go to the hospital. Normally, it was hours before fluency with the language returned, and sometimes, for how long it took, Thurlow wondered if maybe Wayne didn’t have a tumor lodged in his brain. But today, he was all rebound. “I could probably get a doctor to come,” Thurlow said, but Wayne said no, it could not wait, his head was broken. The man tended to exaggerate—over the years he’d claimed six heart attacks and three strokes—but it wouldn’t do to ignore him. Ignore him, and he’d just have another seizure from the upset. To be fair, he was slurring his words. And one of his pupils appeared larger than the other.

Thurlow said, “It’s possible you are just experiencing a postseizure headache.”

Wayne said, “Do I look like the sort of man who can’t tell the difference between a headache and hematoma? Call an ambulance—I need to get out of here.” He winced in pain and then seemed to pass out from it.

Dean arrived, breathless. He took in the scene and said, “Where’s two through six?”

“How should I know?” Thurlow shook his head with disgust. So Dean had left guards on duty. But where were they now?

“He all right?” Dean said.

Thurlow nodded.

“Wayne’s a tough old bastard.”

“He wants to go to the hospital. Says he broke his skull.”

Dean gripped his lower lip between thumb and index finger. A thinking man’s pose. He had a set of formulas that helped him determine risk-to-benefit ratios so that when he spoke, it was never knee-jerk.

“Not good,” he said. “Downright stupid. Chances of hematoma: slim.”

Thurlow glanced at the hostages, hoping they agreed with Dean and would indicate as much in their bearing or demeanor. What he did not hope was that they would volunteer advice out loud, which Anne-Janet did, saying, “Not to overstep, but you’d best let him out,” the others nodding and maybe even weeping because, if nothing else, watching someone have an epileptic fit was terrifying.

Wayne looked peaceful, but his breath was short.

“Call an ambulance,” Thurlow said. “And, I don’t know, tell the feds not to shoot anyone when they come out.”

Then he kissed his father on the cheek. He probably would not see him again, though he knew Wayne would be fine.

An hour later, a knock at the door. Norman.

“How is my father?” Thurlow said. “What’s the news?”

Norman flipped through a notebook. “Dean handled it. Ask him.”

“I’m asking you.”

Norman palmed the back of his own neck like he might slam his face into the desk. He said, “I thought I was the one dealing with the negotiator. Dean let one out and got nothing in return. Good job.”

“He’s not one, he’s my dad.”

“Just trying to get with the lingo,” Norman said. “Now that we’re all criminal.”

“You weren’t around, Norman.”

“You could have called.”

Was this really the time to be discussing his hurt feelings? Thurlow said, “You should know and tell the others: Vicki is out. She was bugged.”

“I heard.”

“She won’t be the last, either.”

“Naturally.”

“So, can you find out about my father?”

His face blanked just long enough for Thurlow to realize he wasn’t listening. “Fine,” Norman said. “I’ll check it out. Sorry.”

“You’re sorry. Since when is ‘I’m sorry’ our panacea of choice?”

This time, Norman did not hesitate. He said, “‘Self-indictment will be considered adequate restitution for mistakes made in dereliction of duty, so long as the derelict is earnest in apology.’”

Thurlow snorted. Norman said, “I’m sorry. I’ll look into it.”

“Norm, look, I know this day hasn’t produced yet, but let’s make it happen—right now, okay? Let’s get this tape filmed. How hard can it be just to hit Record? I’ll talk about the Helix; we’ll grow tenfold! Can’t you round up the crew and get us going here?”

But no. Norman looked like candle wax come down the shaft. He was melting, drooping.

“Norm, come on, cheer up, things will change once the ransom tape is out—you said so yourself. When have I ever let you down?” But the look on his face stayed put, and it was as if the specter of their history together scared out all the breathable air in the room.

“We just got word from the money,” he said, which was what he called Pyongyang. He pulled up a website, and there it was: a plaint from the North Koreans. Apparently, they appreciated how the Middle Eastern clubs communicated worldwide and, to similar effect, had usurped back-end control of websites unlikely to attract big notice. Today’s effort had been dumped in noise on the Birdhouse Network.

The message said they were not happy. They were concerned about the safety of their investment. They wanted reassurance that the Helix had not been imperiled by this hostage situation, and they wanted this reassurance in the form of words Thurlow was to speak on the ransom tape. They had instructed him to pay tribute to the most beloved leader Kim Jong-il but to do so in a way that would not expose their relations. By way of subtlety, Pyongyang had suggested he say, “In the tradition of the most beloved leader Kim Jong-il, and though I cannot speak with half as much wisdom as he, and though the DPRK is the most blessed and enlightened nation on earth, the ascendancy of which I cannot even hope to broach with what feeble ambitions are mine and my people’s, nonetheless, hello.”

Norman read over his shoulder.

“These people have some nerve,” Thurlow said.

“Maybe they just want what’s been promised them.”

“I promised to try to make them look good, that’s all. Everyone’s been promised something.”

“Great,” he said. “I’ll be sure to pass that on.”

Thurlow wanted to shoot him a look of such authority, it would crush the revolt in his heart. Except why bother? He noticed Norman’s Helix boutonniere was brass, not silver, only they had never ordered brass, so it was all clear. Clear like Vicki—one by one, down they went. Norman followed his eye—“You must be kidding”—and he wrested the pin from his lapel. He plunked it in Thurlow’s hand with the insolence of a kid surrendering his gum to the principal. Thurlow examined it with a magnifying glass he kept in the desk, and when he was satisfied the silver was just tarnished, the button was a button, he squirreled it away among other contraband, including a sunburst, a class ring, and an ivory cameo heirloom his new TC had cried about for an hour.

“What do you want me to write back?” Norman said. “Tell Pyongyang that everything is fine and not to worry.” “You should know a couple tanks just crossed the river. There’s kids giving the National Guard balloons and pie outside the stadium.”

“So much for the stealth of night,” Thurlow said.

“So much for everything,” Norman said back. He tossed a crumpled sheet of printer paper on the desk, which he’d obviously snatched from the garbage. It read:

If my wife comes here with Ida.

In exchange for the hostages, Ned, Bruce, Olgo, Anne-Janet, I request. I demand. The Helix requires.

On behalf of the Helix, I demand that for the release of the four detainees, Esme Haas and daughter Ida present themselves at my door for cookies and milk. Tea and cookies. Hot chocolate and pfeffernüsse, because what little girl can resist the spicy, chewy, finger-lickin’ euphoria of the German pepper cookie?

Christ f*ck bring me my wife and daughter or I will kill myself. Or them. Or someone.

If my wife comes here with Ida.

In exchange for the hostages, Ned, Bruce, Olgo, Anne-Janet, I request. I demand. The Helix requires.

On behalf of the Helix, I demand that for the release of the four detainees, Esme Haas and daughter Ida present themselves at my door for cookies and milk. Tea and cookies. Hot chocolate and pfeffernüsse, because what little girl can resist the spicy, chewy, finger-lickin’ euphoria of the German pepper cookie?

Christ f*ck bring me my wife and daughter or I will kill myself. Or them. Or someone.

Thurlow ironed the sheet with his palm. He summoned for calm—Will the calm in me please stand up?—and said, “Norman, why are you sifting through my trash?”

Norman shook his head. “It’s one thing to do this to me, but what about everyone else? They’re expecting something. Something great.”

“I wasn’t going to say all that on the tape, Norm. I was just messing around. You found it in the garbage, right? Where is your head?”

“Yeah? So what are you going to say?”

They gave each other the eye. When two people had been friends that long, the eye was murder. Thurlow decided to murder first and thought him the truth: Nobody wants to play the endgame of his life alone.

Norman leaned against the wall and murdered back: You are the collapse of all the hope I have ever had.

Thurlow said, “So you told the film crew to go home? No crew, no tape? Are we just supposed to walk out of here now, hands up?”

“There’s worse ideas.”

Thurlow didn’t even have to tell him to get out; Norman turned his back on him unbidden.

His study was locked, and his bedroom was the least solacing place on earth. He could get to a meditation parlor via one of the tunnels, but, with the encampment outside and the rigors of what was left to him of this day, he settled on his stepmother. She was not parent enough to reap from his flaws motive to hug him, but she might not curse his name, either.

The halls were quiet as he went to her quarters. He had hoped to find guards outside his parents’ door but was not surprised to find it unmanned. On the bright side, since there was nothing to keep Deborah from leaving, her being there was a gesture. She believed in him and wanted to help. That or, in her deafness and solipsism, she still had no idea what was going on. There were no windows on this side of the house, but there was still the noise of sirens and helicopters, and the special din of so many cameramen struggling for best sight line to the action. All part of what Thurlow imagined was a late stage in the day’s ratcheting into chaos.

He found her at the computer.

“What news?” he said, and by this he meant, What was up with his dad? She was accustomed to Wayne’s seizures, so he was not shocked to find her unruffled by his latest.

“I’m checking my Google,” she said.

Because Deborah did not understand the principle of the Internet, she did not understand how a search engine works. He found this charming but for the part where he’d told Dean to disconnect their cable line. All he needed was for her to be getting word of the siege from some blog or, God knows, IMing with the feds. Did the feds IM? There was something weird about that idea, hard to say what.

“You want to tell me about Dad?” He tried to lure her gaze from the computer screen to the mien of the worried son.

She closed the laptop.

He put his hand on hers. “He’s going to be all right, you know.”

“Of course he is. He’s in the bathroom. Tyrone’s getting a shower.”

Thurlow shook his head. He was beginning to despair of ever knowing again what went on in this house. When did his father get back? How did his father get in? Why wasn’t he told?

He found Wayne misting Tyrone with a bottle of Evian. He had stood the bird on the vanity and turned on the bubble show lights.

Thurlow sat on the lip of the tub and asked after Wayne’s health. His head was wrapped in gauze.

“False alarm,” he said. “Just a cut in the back. I had some stitches. The wrap is to prevent swelling.”

It was tight and layers deep, and more like a turban than cladding swath. But since Thurlow had not sought medical care since the infarction, perhaps the new science preferred a turban.

“You got out of the hospital pretty quick,” he said, because if there was a new science, he hardly thought there was a new efficiency as well. “Did anyone talk to you?”

“Like who? I got in an ambulance. I went to the ER. They checked me out and sent me back. I figured you paid for the ride home.”

“So you only spoke to the doctors? No one else was out there?”

He stopped with the Evian. “Like who, son? My paramedic had a hoop in her nose; she was leaning over me the whole time. Now, can I get on with this?”

He checked to see that Tyrone was wet throughout, then lathered his hands with baby shampoo.

Thurlow had the urge to cry. Sense was in exile from his life. His father was in the dusk of his power as a decently healthy and self-sufficient man, and here he was, lavishing what energies were left him on a bird. Not on his son, but a bird.

Wayne finished rinsing and said, “Hold this open,” meaning a towel monogrammed with the Helix. “Don’t just stand there,” he said. “Wrap him up.”

Thurlow enwombed Tyrone so that only his head was free, and thrust him at his father.

“Easy, son. You don’t have to destroy everything at once.”

“What are you talking about? I thought you said you didn’t talk to anyone out there.”

Wayne patted Tyrone down and inspected his breast and under-wings. “Son, I asked you for a marriage counselor, and you have not produced one. So if my marriage falls apart, I blame you.”

“You asked me not three hours ago. I’m not a magician.”

“Then let us talk to the arbiter. The Indian.”

“Are you kidding? He’s busy.”

“He is not. But if you won’t help, I’ll find him myself.”

Thurlow got between his dad and the door. “You will do no such thing. Just—just stop interfering.”

He made for the door, only in the time he’d been here, Dean had carried out his order to disable the exit. Wonderful. There was no way out except a hatch in the walk-in closet, which his father and Deborah were not supposed to know about, but what choice did he have?

He closed himself in the closet and pulled back the carpet. Located the door in the floor, secured with a padlock and hasp. So far, the only blessing in this day was that he’d had the foresight to wear his key chain of universals.

He gripped the handle and tried to lift from the knees. He had passed on the compression-spring install, but finally the door opened. It had a holding arm that locked in place at ninety degrees. This was a welcome precaution against losing a finger but not ideal for closing the hatch after yourself. He left the hatch open and descended the ladder. The rungs were slippery with condensation from a heating pipe, but he managed just the same. For good measure, when he hit bottom, he turned the ladder on its side. Just in case his father decided to come after him.

The architect’s best contribution to the house was actually the house inside the house. A warren: reticulate, waterproof, and climate controlled. Most of the tunnels were passable upright. Some of them led to underground and illicit facilities open to anyone privileged enough to get access, but this was not Thurlow’s doing. Cincinnati was a strange town.

For his purposes, he’d had electrical lights arrayed throughout the network. Those failing, he’d had flashlights mounted on the wall every few feet. Those failing, he’d had secured to the floor photoluminescent strips. No foresight had been lacking in the preparation of this route to the basement, so why in God’s name was it pitch-black? He was afraid of the dark. He had dermal crises in the dark. As a boy, he’d once woken up in the middle of a blackout and within five minutes was weeping fluid from sores erupted down his spine.

He threw out his arm and prayed to graze a flashlight along the way. He did, but the light had no batteries. He felt about the floor for the photoluminescent strips and found they had been painted over. He knew this because he could feel the impasto. He was going to kill Vicki. And Dean, because he had obviously been in on this. Who else had a universal? He wondered what the feds had promised him.

Thurlow had taken one yoga class in his life, so he knew what to call the position he was in, child’s pose, which was part supplicant come to pray for his child’s life and part child taking a nap. He had watched his daughter sleep this way, many years ago when she was not even a year old, on her belly, with upraised posterior and arms out like Superman. Most beautiful thing he had ever seen, before or since.

The tunnel floors were linoleum. Slick if there was moisture pearling on the walls and pipes, which there was. It smelled of boiler room. And wet fur. He told himself there was plenty of air in circulation and that, while he was afraid of the dark, he was not afraid of restricted space and, what was more, to manufacture anxieties post hoc did not suit a man of his stature. Never mind that a man of his stature should not be lumped on a tunnel floor, weeping in a pitch of love for his family that would not come.

He made it to the basement and felt along the wall for a light switch. With luck, his dietician would still be waiting for him by the cistern. They did this once a week, hydrostatic testing, which had him get inside the cistern, dispatch all the air from his lungs, and something about the water level and Brozek formula would tell him how fat he was inside. Today, though, the floor was wet—a couple of inches wet—and the cistern was overturned.

He was just about to investigate what toll spillage from the cistern had taken, when he got a bad idea about the how of its capsizing. It’d take at least two men to knock it over. Men with training, men with guns.

He heard a puling by the cistern, which turned out to be issuing from the cistern. It was the dietician, hiding. He said, “Marie, it’s only me, you can come out.”

She did not seem heartened.

“Marie, come on. It’s not as bad as all that. Listen”—but as he said this he realized there was actually something to listen to, a voice in a bullhorn or speaker demanding they come out in pairs, unarmed and docile. No one had to get hurt. “You heard them—those people are not going to hurt you. Just come on, give me your hand.”

But still she wouldn’t budge.

“Do you have a flashlight in there?”

She did.

He told her to turn it on, and when he was satisfied with the conditions, he crawled through the mouth of the cistern and joined her. She was sitting upright with her back in the curve of the pot; there was plenty of room for two. Her lab coat was wet, and she was shivering. Poor Marie. She was a French exchange student who hobbied in nutrition and anti-American sentiment, cowering in a pot with a man whose days were numbered.

They faced each other. Their legs rafted atop the water pooled in the basin.

The helicopters circled overhead, closer than before, which had the welcome effect of drowning out the bullhorn.

He said, “Just tell me, did you see who tipped this thing over? Men in some kind of military uniform?”

She nodded.

So SWAT had already been in the basement. Good thing you needed pass codes to get into the house.

She had the flashlight in her lap, aimed up at their chins, so that they might have been telling ghost stories.

“Come on, we need to get you some dry clothes,” and he made to leave the pot with her in tow. But she didn’t come. He said, “What’s wrong? Okay, let me rephrase. I understand there’s a bit of a ruckus outside, but barring that, is there anything else I should know?”

“I’m afraid,” she said, and she seemed to shrink just for having said it.

“Don’t be silly,” he said, and he put out his hand.

“I’m afraid of you,” she said, and she whacked it with the flashlight before retreating into the gut of the pot. Whacked it so hard, he was sure she’d fractured a bone.

He leapt out of the cistern and wedged between his thighs what had instantly come to feel like the omnibus of every pain he had ever had.

So now he, too, was afraid. But also hurt. What had he ever done to Marie? He’d been putting her through school. What sort of thanks was this? His intentions were good. They had always been good! His knuckles looked like popcorn. He had to find ice.

It had been more than two days since the Helix had taken the hostages. Thurlow had not provided a ransom tape or issued any demands, so when he found Norman on the phone, hashing it out with the FBI negotiator, he could well imagine the impatience with which Norman’s parries were met. The pain in his hand was blunt but durable. He could not move his fingers. Still, there was nothing like pain to make appreciable the rapport between crime and punishment. Suffering always feels punitive, even when it’s not. Why should his hand be any different? And when ATF ignited the house and his skin took on the hue and texture of boiled toffee, why should that be any different, either?

Norman put the negotiator on speakerphone. Thurlow listened for a carrot-stick routine and got a version thereof, something like: Come out and get shot; stay in and be gassed. He looked at the fireplace. There was a Duraflame in the grate and a bellows on the hearth. A fire might be nice. The candent logs, crackle of wood. He was about to light up when Norman flipped closed his phone and swatted the matches out of his hand. Fire at a time like this? Need Norman mention the FBI wanted to gas them? That this gas was pyrotechnic?

Thurlow’s phone rang, and for a second, his heart was conned—It’s her! It’s her!—only it wasn’t Esme, just his father telling him to look outside.

He crawled over to the window on his stomach. He parted the blinds. He saw police cars and tanks, the Mount Carmel brigade, a few ambulances, a festival of lights, and several men in BDUs aiming firearms at the front of the property, likely the rear and sides also. And there, in the middle of this half-moon formation, was his father, sided with the enemy.

Thurlow’s mouth fell open. He was not quick to anger, and when he did anger, he did it poorly. So, fine, he could not break things. What he could do was hurt people, so he left off from the window and ran to his father’s quarters. His phone started ringing again, again and again, and he could hear Wayne yelling for help.

He punched for the elevator, and when it did not come fast enough, he headed for the stairs. At last, the house alarm went off in its minor key. And it was so sad, it wrung his heart of just enough rage that instead of taking the stairs three at a time, he took them by twos and allowed his father to beat him to his bird, Tyrone.

Wayne was barring access to the bathroom, though by now Thurlow didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything.

He could hear his father breathing hard; he was doing the same. He sat at the table. Flicked at the ashtray so that it skidded overboard. A cigarette butt rimmed with lipstick fell into his lap.

“So,” he said, “father mine. Father dearest. How long? A month? A year?”

“Just today.” His father unwrapped his turban bandage to disclose the smallest camera Thurlow had ever seen at the tip of a snake wire. “I’m sorry, son.”

“Impressive,” he said.

“Wireless broadcast. Good quality, too. Technology is a marvel.”

Thurlow shook his head. “Jesus, Dad. How did they get to you? And what about the seizure?”

Wayne grinned. “Fake. You’d think for how many I’ve had, I’d have a clue what they looked like. But I had to study. Ask Deborah. She had to watch me flailing on the floor all morning.”

“And your marriage?”

“Solid. The feds thought maybe they could get one of their own in here as a fake counselor or something. But, son, enough of all this craziness, okay?”

“Don’t you care if I go to jail?”

Wayne had begun to pack up Tyrone’s things. “Of course I care. But I’d rather you in jail than dead or carrying on like this. Now go tell those four people to come out. I swear. Sometimes I think you have totally lost your mind.”

“I am not letting them go. They are all I have now to get Esme back. Her and Ida. Dad, she’s ten years old next week!”

“Ida? Esme? Is that what this is about? You really have gone insane. All this for a woman? That witch. There is no more destructive thing on earth than a woman!” He pounded his fist on the table, upsetting an empty can of root beer.

“You weren’t so sympathetic when it mattered,” he said. “Too little, too late.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. If you tell the press your neglecting dad is to blame for this stupid thing you’ve done, I will kill you myself.”

“Fine, Dad. If you can just wait five minutes, I want to give you a videotape I made for Ida. Then you and the bird can get out of here.”

His father stopped his labors and came to sit opposite him. “Son, if you really want them back, how did you think this would help? Were you planning on ransoming—oh, good God. You were.”

Thurlow frowned. “But I didn’t. I was afraid they still wouldn’t come, so I didn’t.”

“Right, and to hell with all the people who apparently believe in what you’re doing.” And when Thurlow seemed taken aback, Wayne said, “Do I look brain dead to you, son? The whole world knows about the Helix.”

Thurlow put his forehead on the table and spoke into his lap. He said, “I have no hope of ever seeing my family again. I wish I were dead.”

Wayne stood up. “But I don’t. So let’s go.”

“Can’t you wait a few minutes? Let me just give you this present for Ida. Just do this one thing.”

Wayne said no and asked again if Thurlow would come. “Do you really want to change people’s lives? You can. Every news station in town is here. Everyone is watching. I’m going to tell them that you are coming out and releasing the hostages and to hold their fire.”

Thurlow put out his hand, and when Wayne shook it, Thurlow was surprised to feel the adamance of his father’s grip and his own reluctance to let his father go.

Norman was dumped on a couch. The despair was coming off him in whorls.

Thurlow said, “How many of us are still here?”

Norman and him, the hostages, some midlevels.

“Deborah?”

No idea.

“Charlotte?”

“Split.”

“The rest?”

“Split.”

“This captain-goes-down-with-the-ship thing has its virtues.”

Norman said, “Do you have to see everything as though it’s not actually happening to you? There’s a reality here. We need to deal with it and consider an exit strategy.”

Thurlow held up his hand, which was red and thick like a beet. “The dietician,” he said. “With her flashlight.”

“That’s absurd,” Norman said, and began to laugh. “Of all the ways to get hurt on a day like this.”

“Don’t laugh.”

Norman stopped, and the look on his face was awful.

Thurlow squinted and puckered the skin between his eyebrows, which he pinched until it hurt. “You know I didn’t mean for it to get to this.”

Norman knew.

Thurlow unwrapped his hand because he could not feel blood touring the digits.

Norman sat with his legs parted wide and flapped his knees. His lips began to quiver. He said, “I know how to get out of here, but where am I going to go?”

“You’ll be all right. I have faith.”

“When did things start to go wrong for us?”

“February 27, 1995. 5:43 p.m.”

“Has it really been ten years? She must be a little lady by now.”

Thurlow nodded. “I saw her, you know. Just by chance, on the street when I was in D.C. With Esme. She was wearing all green.”

“Oh my God,” Norman said, and so now he knew exactly what had gotten them to this moment.

“Norman, listen. I’ve been making this videotape for her. If you can just hang on for a little longer, I’ll give it to you and then you can go.”

But Norman was done hanging in. He wished Thurlow luck and turned his back on him for good.

11:58:11:29: And so, my little one, I guess that’s it. I am all alone now, as I deserve. I hope, when you’re older, you won’t judge me too harshly. I’ve just been confused and hung up on the wrong questions. Do I think love is an answer to loneliness? Maybe. Sometimes. But I suspect there’s more than one path leading away from estrangement, though for some people, there are no paths at all. But now I see the more important question is: What does it matter when you miss your wife and child? So what if I am the one for whom loneliness is insoluble—so what? I’d rather be lonely with you. I’d rather treat loneliness like the air I breathe, and breathe it with you. Why couldn’t I have figured this out ten years ago? I know I have wrecked my life. I hope to God I have not wrecked yours. I hope, too, that you never have to struggle with this stuff and that you are among the lucky who, in their solitude, still understand themselves to be a part of the universe and beloved by others. Just remember this: There is no lonely course that doesn’t still belong to the plexus of human experience being lived every day.

My darling girl, is there anything else I can tell you? Have I documented every stop along the plummet to this day? Should I buss your toddler socks and press them to my cheek? Will you think on me more kindly if I say I have the dried columbine of your mother’s bridal bouquet in my safe?

I only had you for a year into life, but I still have memories that come upon me all day long. You in turtle pose, a month old, staring at the fuzzy dice I’d bought you myself. You swaddled in a ladybug blankie and wanting out. Your Mohawk hair and your arms thrown overhead as you slept. Your cactus pose. Your Jesus pose. Your seal and ostrich pose. The distended belly. Six rolls of fat per leg. The day it was five. You wobbling on all fours, going nowhere. Your callused little knees once you got going and never stopped.

I know you don’t know me, and that you never did. You’ve grown so much. I was in D.C. a couple weeks ago, and I saw you. You were walking in green rubber boots with a frog face on each side. Soon you will need a new pair. I bet you look just like your mother. I hope you listen to her in all things, even though you are getting smarter all the time. If one day you ever wonder about your dad, please know that you are all he ever thought about from the moment you were born.