Twinkling blue and yellow lights decorated the Christmas tree guarding the Cupcake Project’s entrance in Greenwich. Soft white cleaning cloths waited on the counter; brooms and mops leaned against the wall. Phoebe and Eva wore Christmas-red aprons emblazoned with the Cupcake Project logo. Hours of scrubbing faced them, but neither wanted to stop talking. Maybe they had poured just that much more brandy than usual into their tea, or maybe the full moon loosened their tongues—whatever the reasons, secrets flew like rare birds.
“Eleven of them rattled like glass marbles in a can.” Eva clutched her mug as she spoke of her cousin’s worst days in Rwanda, the girl Eva had adopted after she and other members of her family had made a rescue operation for the family left behind.
“One day she was home on college break, the next, hiding in their neighbors’ basement—which was nothing like you think of a basement. She escaped there after watching men use machetes to murder her family to death. Her mother. Her father. Her brothers. My girl hid in a box after her parents and siblings were butchered. She had escaped to a dirt hole where she lived for seven months. Eighty thousand people were killed in a hundred days. We all know people who hacked children to pieces.”
Phoebe tightened her arms, gripping her elbows until the points dug into her fingers.
“My cousin’s daughter arrived in America with images of her family during their last moments carved into her heart like initials in a tree.” Eva reached for Phoebe’s hand. “And still, she wants to return home. She wants to look at the people who killed them and see how they survived. Do they fall to their knees in shame each and every day? She wants to see how our country managed reparations.”
“Is she truly planning to go back and visit?” Phoebe asked. “Would you go with her?”
“I don’t think it can be just a trip. Most days my darling girl can’t bear the thought of returning and other days she feels she must return and stay.”
“She survived a massacre. How can life not be filled with impossible choices?”
“Survival isn’t the only point, Phoebe. Afterward, you must endure with dignity and then you must learn how to live without your loved ones. Why be surprised you want closure with Jake?”
“What your cousin, your family, went through—was that part of why you could bear to connect with me after all Jake did that hurt you?”
“My life isn’t a mythical lesson to explain your troubles.”
“I didn’t start this conversation.” Phoebe slammed her teacup.
“Hey, we don’t have much money backing us. Watch the damn cups,” Eva said. “I snap around the topic of my country. We’re not a made for television movie. And I am not an African fountain of wisdom for Americans.”
“Duly noted.” Phoebe poured more brandy in her teacup and then tipped it toward Eva, who nodded assent.
“The people who hid my cousin were Hutu. Their relatives most likely slaughtered Tutsi, our people. You and I both saw evil we can’t make sense of, and it haunts us. Sometimes that malevolence exists in people who also hold strands of good. And I suppose there are some who are purely wicked. Which do you think describes Jake?”
Phoebe fumbled in her apron pocket for cigarettes and found the chunky beaded bracelet Kate had given her, with the note “Fidget with this when you want to smoke.” Phoebe considered it her antismoking rosary. “I’m not sure. He writes me every day. Why does he do that? Are his pleas for forgiveness a sign of some hidden good? Or does he just want a caretaker? Someone to fill his jail bank account?”
“Do you read the letters?”
“Most I put in a box. Once a month, I open one, looking for changes.” She stood and grabbed a broom.
“Do you find any?” Eva began refilling the napkin dispensers.
“No. His letters are repetitive. He recites his day-to-day routine, justifies his crimes repeatedly, and then begs for forgiveness, spotting the paper with crocodile tears as he writes of needing and missing me.”
“No wonder you can only read one a month. Does he mention Noah?”
“Every time. He’s waiting for me to forgive him for our son’s death along with everything else. Kate shreds his letters the moment they arrive. Why can’t I?” She swept debris and cupcake crumbs into the standing dustpan. “Keeping them makes me feel like I’m still caretaking him, still bearing witness. Still connected.”
“Is that what you want?”
“No. I want to sever all ties, not just physical ones. I need to figure out how to make a final psychic separation.”
“I doubt a complete break ever comes.” Eva moved behind the counter and brought out the unsold cupcakes. At the end of each day, they boxed them up for the senior center. “I think of Jake’s crimes as crueler than they even seem. He had so much; why did he need to steal more? He should be graded on a curve of most awful.”
“Even worse. If we’d stayed in Brooklyn, living the way I did as a girl, we’d be doing fine.” Phoebe sprayed organic cleanser. “I wish we’d never left.”
“I dream of home every night,” Eva said. “Do you dream of Jake?”
“I do. In my dreams, we’re still together. I’m aware we’re not supposed to be, that he should be in jail. He whistles around as though everything is fine, while I panic, trying to figure out why he’s there and not locked up. It’s never a happy dream.”
? ? ?
Jake approached the visiting room table. Her breath stopped for a moment as she assimilated his image with the many Jakes she carried in her memory: the muscular eighteen-year-old; the young adult, bursting with ambition and chutzpah; the father twirling his daughter; the grandfather, happily surrounded by his girls.
This man in prison cloth, shorn of his thick hair, ropy from exercise; this man she didn’t recognize.
Jake sat. He took her hand. She let it lay limp in his and then, unable to resist, she stroked his familiar skin—just for a few seconds—before pulling back.
“Pheebs. My God, you’re really here. You didn’t warn me. I’ve missed you. When they said I had a visitor, I was afraid to hope. Are you okay? Jesus. I missed you,” he repeated. “Happy New Year, honey. I pray 2011 is a better year for us.”
“Our son died,” she said.
Silence sat between them for long minutes. Finally, he spoke. “I wish I had died instead.” He reached for her again. “My poor Pheebs. How did you get through?”
She ignored his outstretched hand, his words. “I won’t forgive myself for standing by you. For leaving Noah alone.”
Jake buried his head in his hands. She remembered this: her awareness of his tactics hadn’t been erased. More quiet surrounded them as he waited for Phoebe to fill the space, expecting the wife and mother who’d rush in and stitch up the family.
She remained still. Finally, he said, “You . . . you aren’t responsible for his death.”
“No. I am. You are. We both deserve blame. We were given this sweet, sensitive boy, this funny, quirky, brilliant boy, and you tried to shape him into the person you wanted as your son. And I let you.”