When we stopped in front of your building, I took my bags and stood at the entrance. There was a wooden door behind a metal gate, both set into a beautiful stone archway. I would’ve chosen a building like this too. It looked solid, comforting, like it had protected families, kept them safe, for centuries. I fumbled in the plastic bag for your keys, and then tried a few before I found the one that opened the gate and then the door. I took the stairs to the third floor, and then struggled again to find the right key.
Inside, by myself, all of a sudden I felt like an intruder. I’d forgotten that you’d only been in Jerusalem briefly before you were in Gaza. And that even when you were here, you were working like crazy. Your apartment hadn’t really been set up yet. There were boxes of books opened but not unpacked. A few photographs framed and leaning against walls, but not hung. There were rugs patterned in bold colors, like I’d seen at the bazaars in Turkey. A brown couch. A wooden desk piled with electronics and wires. A chair. I imagined you working in that chair, at your computer, cropping, adjusting color saturation, increasing contrast, the way you did when we lived together. I did my best to think of you here, and not in the hospital. You were alive, you were doing what you loved, you were smiling. In my mind at least.
I pushed open the door to your bedroom and saw, folded on the foot of your bed, the same blanket I threw at you the night you told me you were leaving. I picked it up and touched it to my cheek. It still smelled faintly of you. There was a nightstand with a copy of All the Light We Cannot See. I sat down on your bed, noticing a piece of paper that marked your place. Page 254. That’s the farthest you’ll ever read in that book. You’ll never finish it. Your life was interrupted, cut short. A film that snapped on its reel and wouldn’t get to its natural end. There is so much you left undone. So much you’ll never complete, never see, never know.
“I’ll finish the book,” I said out loud. “I’ll read it for you, Gabe.”
Then I looked at your bookmark. It was the receipt from our afternoon at Faces & Names. I traced the date with my fingertips. Even if I’d known that was the last time I’d ever see you, I don’t think there’s anything I would have done differently. I still would’ve pressed my body against yours in the bar. I still would’ve made love to you over and over in your hotel room. And I still would’ve told you I couldn’t come with you to Jerusalem.
Still, I can’t help but wonder if this would have happened if I’d said yes. Would you have been more careful, if I was home, waiting for you? Would you have been more careful if you’d known there was a baby that might be ours?
I touched my stomach. Did we conceive a child that afternoon?
Numbly, I wandered back into your living room and then into the kitchen. The refrigerator was almost empty—mustard, a few bottles of beer. There was a bag of coffee beans and a half-empty box of chai in the cabinet, along with two bags of pretzels, one unopened, the other closed with a binder clip. I didn’t know you liked pretzels that much. Why didn’t I know that about you?
Back in the living room I found an iPhone cord on your desk and plugged in my phone to charge. There were two cameras there and an iPad. I assumed your laptop was wherever you’d been staying in Gaza. I wondered if I’d have to figure out how to get that back. Maybe the AP could help, I thought. I should call them. I should call Kate. I should really call Darren.
As soon as my phone had enough power to turn back on, it started dinging with text messages and voice mails. My mom, my brother, Kate, Darren, Julia, the office. I opened your desk drawer to look for paper and a pen to make a list, and instead found an envelope, the only thing in the drawer, that said Last Will and Testament of Gabriel Samson.
I bit my lip and opened it. Your pointy handwriting filled the entire page. I have the letter here with me now.
I, Gabriel Vincent Samson, being of sound mind and body, declare this to be my last will and testament, and revoke all former wills I have written.
I appoint Adam Greenberg as the executor of my will. If he is unable or unwilling, I appoint Justin Kim.
Do they know what happened? Did your boss call them too? I should call them. I should call Adam.
I direct my executor to pay, out of my accounts, any taxes or fees associated with my death and burial, and any outstanding bills or debts I owe.
I bequeath to Lucy Carter Maxwell the rights to all my creative work—any photographs I have taken, along with my book Defiant, and the new book I’ve been working on, which is saved on my laptop in a folder called “New Beginnings.” I grant her complete control over and ownership of my copyright.
I was surprised when I read that part, Gabe. I wondered if it was an apology of sorts for putting those pictures of me in your gallery show in New York without asking. I realized, too, that it would tie me to you for the rest of my life. I’ll die before your copyright expires. Were you thinking about that when you wrote your will? Did you want to hold us together for as long as you could?
The remainder of my monetary estate, after all taxes, fees, and bills are paid, should be divided equally between two charities: the National September 11 Memorial & Museum and Tuesday’s Children.
If Lucy Carter Maxwell would like any of the physical items I own, I grant them to her. Otherwise, I would like my executor to find an appropriate place to donate those.
I attest to all of this on the 8th of July, 2014.
Was that the day you left for Gaza? Did you write a new will each time you left for a new conflict zone? Or was it different this time?
There are so many conversations I want to have with you, so many questions I want to ask, I wish I had asked. And so much I wish I’d told you. I decided then, after I finished reading your will for the first time, that there was one thing I needed to tell you before you died, even if you couldn’t respond, even if I wasn’t sure you’d be able to hear me say it.
I pulled out the card Shoshana Ben-Ami had given me, and I dialed her number.
“How quickly,” I asked, “can the hospital run a paternity test?”
lxxix