Jake’s eyes widened. “Jesus, of course not. Gus appointed himself my moral compass. No, it was only me. Then me and Gita-Rae. A shortcut here and there at first, but I needed to make more money, and then more, and before I knew it, the scheme took over and began eating me like a monster. I always meant to make it right. Always. I never wanted this.” He gestured around. “How could I?”
“Why didn’t you try selling everything? Right away. Lived small. Been content. Couldn’t you be happy without the trappings?” For a moment, she became Jake’s wife again, helping, working to make life better and grasping at what might have been.
“I thought I’d manage to climb out and still hold on to what I’d built. I always wanted to be the best, own the finest. Hell, it worked so long that I began to feel invincible. Fuck it. I loved being a big shot and having people hanging on my words. I constructed a kingdom. But when the bottom fell out of the economy and everyone wanted their money . . . I missed my time. I got screwed.”
“Jake. You never built anything. You never got screwed. You screwed—”
“Don’t you think some of those guys—like Louis, for instance—wink-wink knew?” he asked. “Big genius businessmen should remember there’s no something for nothing. And guess what? They made a hell of a lot of money off me.”
Their brief moment of connection ended. She finally accepted that this man, this awful, morally corrupt man, this was Jake. This had always been Jake.
“Perhaps some people, like Louis, convinced themselves to believe in the impossible, but that’s more than irrelevant. Jake. I don’t care how old you are—if you live to be a hundred, atone for your sins until you take your last breath. Face your crimes. Teach the illiterate prisoners to read. Write letters of remorse. Give away your organs. Sell your true story and let the money go to the victims. Make amends. Somehow. I can’t offer you anything but that advice. And I can give you nothing more except the past.”
Phoebe walked around the table. Aware the guards watched, not caring if they chastised them—sure this was their last time together—she took Jake’s hand and without words, urged him up to stand with her. “I left a package for you with the guard. A box with the letters we wrote when we tried to kill ourselves. And all the letters you’ve written me since you’ve been locked up. You can hold all the sadness now.”
Prison cloth scratched her cheek as she laid her head against his chest for the last time. Jake was thinner, but he still felt like Jake. That his essence endured foretold his future.
The day she’d removed her wedding ring and given it to the federal government, she thought her life had ended.
After Noah died, she had wanted to follow him.
After Jake’s confession, Phoebe had become two-dimensional, a photo that faded more each day. Now, leaving the last vestigial remains of that hologram in prison with Jake, she walked out of the visiting room and didn’t look back.
? ? ?
Twenty miles away from Ray Brook, Phoebe stopped crying. The scent of coming snow and pine drifted in when she rolled down the window.
They’d all experienced agony from Jake’s sins: the children, the family, and every investor. But for the first time, she knew—not with forgiveness, but with the gratitude of knowledge—that he’d also suffered by spending a lifetime waiting to be uncovered. But then he became lucky. His unveiling brought torrents of hatred, but prison blessed him with protection from the stares of an angry public, the pain of his shattered family. In prison he held fast to his pretense of importance.
In Ray Brook, Jake was a big shot.
Being a hotshot, no matter the venue, remained his top goal. She’d find a resting place for her lost marriage. How soothing it would be if love died retroactively. What did her mother say? “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”
Wallow enough, and you sicken of swimming in self-pity. Phoebe would stop indulging in heartbreak. She could choose to believe that Jake loved her in his limited fashion, or suppose that loving anyone was impossible for him. She’d select her reality, understanding it would be the most mutable of decisions.
Someday she’d allow remembrances to float in without chastising herself. She’d loved Jake before comprehending he was part golem, a self-created Frankenstein. He’d always built walls around his center, ensuring a place she couldn’t reach. Now she knew that her frustration had been well founded.
Love didn’t die with death. Noah would always be with her. She prayed the pain might lessen, making more room for the tender memories of her son. She’d always be his mother. Unlike marriage, with children, death did not part.
Jake had been her family, and now he wasn’t. For too long, she considered him either a dominant father or an unruly child. Holding and caring for him as such had chained her to her vows. But a husband wasn’t a child or father. He couldn’t grip your heart forever.
Phoebe might mourn the chimera of Jake, like missing fairy tales and once-loved mirages. Feelings could remain, like phantom limbs after amputation, but she couldn’t lean on recollections of love one more day.
Jake’s success had led her to believe she’d secured the right to wear silk and cashmere, to spend twenty thousand dollars the way her mother might have spent twenty. But she’d learned that nobody was guaranteed anything; nobody earned the right to such enormous riches. Reaching that level usually meant you hit a fluke, were born to it, or cheated.
Jake thought he could straddle the world on other people’s legs. He paid a price, but not high enough. No price could be high enough to pay for Noah’s death. Phoebe wasn’t sure what Jake’s missing pieces were; she knew only what he’d squandered and the lessons he’d never learned.
Rich people thought themselves special, but in truth, they simply possessed extra layers of insulation against the winds of misfortune.
Perhaps Phoebe could allow herself thoughts of a life that held more than survival. Of a future where she’d be there for her daughter. Her granddaughters. The women of Mira House.
Phoebe could atone for her blindness.
Quiet overwhelmed her. She slipped a Leonard Cohen mix Ira had made for her into the CD player. The moment “Dance Me to the End of Love” began, she turned up the volume and allowed one more round of tears to pour forth.
When the song ended and “Hallelujah” began, she dried her tears. She thought of those who still surrounded her. The reasons she had to wake. She remembered the most important lessons of life.
Fortunate are those who can dry the tears of others.
Blessed are those who can hold their family and friends close.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS