What I need is sleep, Lili tells me. And she’s right. I haven’t slept for more than a few hours since the night before my dad was taken. The exhaustion is now hallucinogenic, with swirls of purple and pink filling the world like ghosts. Lili walks me to my apartment and actually tucks me into my own bed. The grief, the shock, all of it fades behind Lili’s stroking of my arm and the narcotic fog of a triple dose of my sedatives.
Sixteen hours after I’d fallen asleep, I wake, still exhausted. But it’s nearly noon, so I get up anyway, shower, take another pill. I pull a chair to the window and stare out at the world, trying not to think or feel. Let today be a quiet day. Let today be silent. But no.
The apartment intercom startles me with its grating electric warble. Someone’s on the street below, demanding I get off my ass to see what they want. I actually laugh out loud. Such a quaint idea, asking permission to burst into my life. Why not just force your way in like all the others?
I shuffle to the intercom and press the button. “Yes?”
“I’m—I’m looking for Gwendolyn Bloom. Is this she?” It’s a woman’s voice I don’t recognize.
“I’m Gwendolyn,” I say. “Who are you?”
A pause, only the sounds of the street coming through the static of the speaker. “It’s Georgina Kaplan,” says the voice. “Your aunt.”
It takes me a few seconds to process the idea of it, as if I’m not quite sure what the words mean. My aunt. My mother’s sister. I press the button to let her in, then wait in the open apartment door. I haven’t seen my aunt since I was, what, seven, right after my mom was killed? And why has she come?
I hear her moving tentatively up the stairs, heels clicking on the gritty tile floor, then she appears on the landing in front of me. She’s a fit, pretty woman of maybe fifty. Her hair is a salon-bought auburn helmet that matches the perfect French manicure. She smiles with very white teeth. “Wow, Gwenny. It’s been so long.”
When she hugs me, I feel the firmness of her five-workout-a-week muscles. Hanging on her clothes is yesterday’s perfume, and the smell of an airplane cabin, plastic and coffee.
“Gwen, Gwenny, I’m so sorry about your dad,” she says, the Texas accent round and sweet as an apricot. “So sorry.”
She holds me for a long time, then takes me by the shoulders and studies my face while I study hers. Thin wrinkles form deltas at the corners of her eyes and mouth, the only flaw in skin that’s otherwise a mask of tasteful earth tones painted with department-store makeup.
“You’re very pretty, Gwenny, like your mother,” she says. “I’m sorry, can I call you that, or do you prefer Gwendolyn now?”
“Gwendolyn.”
“Then that’s what I’ll call you,” she says. “The man on the phone, Mr. Carlisle, he said you’re being looked after by neighbors.”
“Yes. Bela and Lili.”
“I’m sure they’re doing a great job, a great job, but Mr. Carlisle said maybe it would be better if you were with family. You know, if the situation with your father lasts longer than a few days.” Georgina twirls a lock of my hair with her finger. “Well, isn’t this just the prettiest shade of red?”
“Look, I appreciate your coming all this way,” I say as I pull away from her. “But I’m sure you have a life back in Texas. There’s really no need—”
“Oh, I don’t mind. Really,” she says, pursing her lips into something between a pout and a smile. “Robert’s taking the synagogue youth group on a horseback-riding trip and Amber’s going with him. Myself, I can’t stand horses.”
“It’s really not necessary,” I say. “My dad could be back anytime.”
She pulls me into a hug, a hug full of pity and sadness, the kind reserved for funerals. “Of course he will, dear.”
*
We avoid each other for the rest of the day. Or rather, I avoid her by hiding in my room while she keeps a patient, respectful distance. There’s nothing wrong with her. Nothing evil. But this is my apartment, where I deal with my shit, which, maybe you’ve heard, Georgina, is pretty fucking significant right now. I hate the idea of her being here. How embarrassing to have a stranger hear you cry. In the morning, I try avoiding her again, but then, a moment before I’m out the door, she stops me.
“Sit a minute,” she says, patting the spot next to her on the couch.
I’m about to say no, but I have no legitimate reason to be rude to her. She’s come all this way for me. That’s worth at least a conversation. I take off my jacket and sit down in a chair across from her.
“School,” she says.
“What about it?”
“It might be a good distraction. When do you think you’d like to go back?”
I hate to admit it, but she’s right. “A few days,” I say. “Later this week.”
“I’m so glad you agree.” Then Georgina inhales sharply like there’s something else she wants to say. “Look, Gwendolyn,” she manages finally. “If this sounds premature, I’m sorry. But if this situation—the situation with your father—should go on more than, I don’t know, a few weeks—”
I cut her off. “You can go back to Texas whenever you want.”
“That’s just it,” she says. “I was thinking you might come with me. Temporarily. Until he comes back.”
I stare at her, tamping down my anger, resisting the deep desire to tell her to get the fuck out. “Look, I appreciate you coming here. I do. But why would you want a stranger in your house? I mean, honestly, what am I to you?”
“But you’re not a stranger, Gwendolyn,” she says. “You’re family. I’m sorry, but no matter how you feel about us, that’s God’s own fact right there.”
“I don’t want to be a burden to anyone.”
Georgina clears her throat, presses her hands down on her knees. “A burden? Honey, you could never be a burden. I know it won’t be New York City or Paris, but if you give it a chance, I think you’ll like it there. And anyway, it’s just for a while.”
She comes over to me and sits cross-legged on the floor at my feet. Then she pulls her Louis Vuitton tote bag—the real thing, not a Chinatown knockoff—onto her lap and removes her phone. She opens the photos and turns the phone so I can see. There on the screen is a large suburban house in the middle of an impossibly green lawn, a white Cadillac SUV the size of a tank parked in the driveway. “You’d have your own room, of course—there’s plenty of space where we are. You’d share a bathroom with Amber, but she’s tidy, don’t worry.”
She scrolls to the next photo. A pretty girl with curly black hair in a cheerleading outfit standing atop a pyramid of other girls. “And there she is,” Georgina says. “Amber’s captain of the cheerleading team, but she’s also a very good student. She leads a Torah study group at the school. You could go with her, if you wanted.”
“I’m not religious.”
“Just to make friends, then. Look, we’re Reform all the way, very casual about it. You wouldn’t even have to come to temple with us unless it was your choice.” She puts the phone away and digs through the bag, looking for something else. “You’d be free to be your own person there. Be whoever you wanted.”