it was coming. Had been able to smell the scent of it on his loose skin. She’d opened the window a crack even though it had been frigidly cold, just for some relief from that relentless death stink. She’d understood she ought to stay, but so often these last twenty-two years, her intuitions had proven false. The product of unfounded worries, and guilt for not having been there often enough. Just as easily, the day might be tomorrow, or next week, or fifty years from now. She could not succumb to such fretting when she had work on her desk, and a life to be lived. So she’d left her son with his nurse, and six hours later gotten the call that he was dead. It had taken her more than a day to call family and friends because she hadn’t wanted to say the thing out loud.
“Is there an afterlife?” He’d asked, and now she wished she’d swallowed her terror, and told him: Don’t worry, my love. There is a heaven for you on the other side of the stars, and if there is not, I will make one.
Would leaving him to die alone be her greatest regret? Or would there be more, unfathomable, that would pile over the years so that when she died of old age, she would see two lives, the one she’d lived and the shadow path, full of all the things she should have done. The truth her father had implied: if she’d been a more righteous person, her favorite son would not have died.
In the old sickroom, Markus opened his eyes. Average grades, average looks. No special skills except an ability to put other people at ease, because he so rarely spoke, but always listened. He was the wild card of all her children—stronger than his frail body appeared and kinder than the rest of them, too. His eyes bulged now, and he startled. Next to him, fey Charles grunted.
“I’m sorry,” he mouthed.
She waved, to let him know she didn’t intend to make a scene. The tips of her fingers flagged up and down in unison. “Ice mother,” Julian had once called her, and to her dismay, the others had laughed. Julian was the only one who’d ever teased her, and now she wondered if the rest, even her husband, were afraid.
She leaned in the doorway. Julian’s bed was empty and stripped of sheets. On the bureau were piles of clothes that she planned to take to Goodwill. A poster of the Dubai Tower was tacked to the wall, because it scraped the sky, and had reminded Julian of Babel. He’d wanted to build bridges and skyscrapers. Plan the cities of tomorrow. She could smell him in here. Poor Markus, this room was haunted by a ghost.
Markus sat up. His eyes were wet with grief, or maybe shame, as if he believed that for this transgression with Charles, she might love him less. Still sleeping, Charles snuggled against Markus’ bare chest, and kissed it.
To her surprise, she wasn’t angry. Just grateful to Charles, for transforming this miserable room that would live forever in Markus’ memory, into something bittersweet. At least he would not have to be alone on this terrible night.
“I love you,” she whispered, because he looked so much like Julian. Because she did love him. Because there was a reason, after all, that she’d left Ohio, and made a new life for herself in New York.
She shut the door. When she got back, Tom was dressed. He’d heaped the white flowers into a black Hefty bag. She nodded her approval, then sat next to him on the bed. “What was that all about?” he asked.
“The person on the phone. She was so sad. I got worried one of the boys was hurt.” She weaved her fingers between his and squeezed. These last few days, they hadn’t been able to stop touching each other. In their way, returning to the source of their lost son. “I should have been there for him. I wasn’t a good enough mother,” she said.
He sighed, and she wasn’t sure if he agreed or was too tired to answer. “No,” he finally said. When she opened her mouth to reply, he interrupted. “No. No. No. No. No.”
Now it was her turn to sigh.
His face was clean-shaven, and his hair freshly washed. They were alike in that way: even in tragedy, they firmly believed in the rituals of living. Over the last week, not a single bill had