A few days later I spoke to my father on the phone, telling him about Stella’s worsening condition and how he should probably come to Cobalt soon. ‘Stella says you’re hiding something,’ I wanted to add. ‘She told me everything about your past. Sometimes, she thinks I’m your mother. Will you help me understand this?’
But I didn’t. Instead, I went to the old chest of drawers in the living room and pulled on the brass handles. I had moved the secret engagement photo of Kay and Mark from my father’s old desk drawer in his bedroom to the top drawer in the chest, next to the deed to the house, Stella’s insurance information, and the pamphlets for the hospice. Kay’s center parting was so finely etched. I know something about you, I whispered to her. I wished she could talk back, tell me what she knew, too.
28
I shot up in bed. The moonlight pooled across my lap, white as milk. There was an art project I made my junior year in high school propped on my old desk. It was a self-portrait of me, done in blues and greens. I had cat eyes and a scaly neck. In the darkness, it seemed alive.
‘It was my mother,’ I whispered, partly to the portrait, partly to Philip. ‘It was my mother across from the hardware store, down the street from the diner.’
‘Huh?’ Philip shifted. He’d been lying in an awkward position, scrunched up against the wall with one arm over his head. He noticed that I was awake and opened his eyes wider. ‘What’s going on?’
My pulse was fast, and my veins were hot, as if coffee were flowing through them. ‘You know how I told you this woman was waving to my father from across the street? And my dad waved back? I think it was my mother.’
‘Did you see her face?’ Philip sat up, too. A horn blared outside, even though it was 2 a.m.
‘Well, no. She had on a big jacket, and the hood was pulled tight. But of course it would be, right?’ I slapped the bed for emphasis. ‘I mean, she doesn’t want me to know that it’s her.’
‘I don’t know if that makes any sense.’
‘It makes perfect sense,’ I answered quickly. ‘My dad told me the two of them talked after the terrorist attacks. He said she called to see if he was okay. He tried to pass it off like it was a one-time thing, but I bet they kept talking after that. Maybe they’re both on the apartment’s deed. He’d have to settle that, at least. He’d have to make her part of this sale. But maybe they’ve been talking about…other stuff, too.’
Philip squinted. ‘Wouldn’t they have settled that in the divorce?’
I shrugged. Who knew? ‘My father has been so nervous this whole time he’s been up here. Did you see the way he couldn’t even form a sentence at breakfast? How he kept looking over his shoulder? How he kept checking his cell phone?’
‘He said he was just looking at the time.’
I pressed my hand to the windowpane, which was thickly frigid. ‘Do you think they’ve communicated a lot? It’s not like he and Rosemary are married. They could end things at any time, no strings attached.’
Philip looked at me carefully. ‘But your mom…she…would you really want her back?’
There was a thin layer of dirt on the windowsill, the city soot that permeated everything. I pressed my thumb into it, then stamped it on a clean piece of wall, leaving behind a black print. ‘You wouldn’t get it,’ I said.
‘Maybe I would.’
Philip’s parents had been together all this time. They’d overcome lots of things-his mother’s cancer, a relocation for work, people’s backlash about his father being a Sikh, especially post 9/11. Their lives had been far from easy, and yet they’d prevailed. ‘It’s just…I think about her a lot,’ I said.
‘What do you think about?’
‘Where she is. What she’s doing. That sort of stuff. It’s weird to think she’s out there, living. Putting on clothes in the morning. Drinking coffee. Having dreams at night. That’s all.’
‘So, if that was really her across the street, and you see her again, what do you think it would be like?’
‘I don’t know.’ What would we talk about? Who had I been, when she left? How much of me had changed? It might be more like meeting a potential employer in a job interview. I’d have to describe my strengths and weaknesses, where I went to school, that I was a good multitasker and a team player. And another bonus is that I share half of your genetic material. So please hire me.
‘It will probably be awful,’ I whispered.
Philip moved his legs around under the covers. It made a soft, comforting swishing noise. ‘I have something to tell you,’ he said. ‘Promise you won’t get mad.’
I pushed my hair out of my face. ‘How can I promise that when I don’t know what you’re going to tell me?’
‘Okay.’ Philip sat up. ‘I sent in your résumé for that research job.’
A bus swished down the BQE. Mrs Guest, who had lived below us for years and had always been an insomniac, switched TV channels. The new channel was much louder than the previous one, and I could hear very clearly it was some man shouting about something called Kaboom!, which pulverized stains on tile, tubs and showers.