All he had in his pocket were a few copied keys and his wallet, heavy with Ravi’s cash. He had waited outside the bank in Miami while Ravi had withdrawn the money from the teller. He had not spent a dollar, and he had told no one but Rooster about it. Watching the ferry sail away, untethered and bright, Johnny couldn’t help thinking that it could buy him and Rooster two tickets out of New York, out of his marriage. Maybe it could buy Rooster some time, a dose or two of meds.
Johnny felt the spirits of the city howling for his attention—not the dead but the waiting to die and the waiting to be born. Yama, the god of the dead, was the one who decided which souls would be sent to the heavenly realm and which would be cast into new bodies on earth. Johnny had appealed to him to bring Teddy back, but he wondered now if reincarnation really was a curse, if his brother would be better off in the afterlife, floating as free as the ferry on the water. He wondered if the baby would be better off with someone else’s past lives instead.
Across the water was the graveyard skyline of Staten Island. Were they still over there, his father and his uncle, living in the same cell, sharing a bunk bed, like brothers were supposed to? Eating breakfast together, playing poker, saying good night? If Johnny saw them on the street, he wasn’t sure he could tell them apart, but he wasn’t sure it mattered. They were one and the same. Max and Marshall. His father’s betrayal was his uncle’s. His uncle had abandoned him as his father had, left him out in the cold. Johnny would never do that to Teddy’s baby. He would never do that.
But maybe there was a way to leave a baby without leaving it in the cold. He imagined, for the first time, Eliza handing the baby to someone else, someone who could care for it. As Harriet must have cared for Jude, rocking and bathing and feeding him as though he were her own.
Who was that?” Jude asked his mother.
“Who?”
“That voice. Some guy’s voice.”
“I didn’t hear it.”
Di’s cordless phone was known to play tricks on the ear, to abduct the voices of other callers, but he was sure he’d heard a man say something to his mother, and then his mother, putting her hand over the receiver, say something to him. It was late, close to eleven. Past his mother’s bedtime.
“You’re in one piece? You’re not calling from the ER?”
“I’m at Eliza’s. We’re staying here.”
Harriet paused. “Is her mother there with you?”
“No. That’s why I’m calling. Now we can’t find her.”
Jude was lying on Di’s waterbed. From the living room, he could hear the moaning saxophone of the Playboy Channel.
He’d been sitting out there yesterday, watching TV, when Eliza had walked in the door. Although he’d been waiting for her for some time, he had not expected her home so soon, and he had not expected her to return alone. “I want my mother,” she’d said. She had not been wearing shoes.
“She wants her mom to come home,” Jude explained.
Harriet said, “Well, I think that’s wise.”
“But Di’s not answering her car phone. We need to find her. Is she still in Chicago?”
Jude could hear the muffled voice again, then his mother’s sigh.
“I knew that was a bad idea, throwing her off. And a lot of good it did—now you want her to know where you are. Do you have a pen?”
The front door of the apartment slammed shut. Jude hung his head into the hallway long enough to see Johnny storm into Neena’s room. Then that door slammed, too.
“Uh-oh,” Jude said.
“What’s going on, Jude?”
“I think Johnny and Eliza got in a fight. I think he just came back for his stuff. He didn’t sleep here last night. I don’t know.”
“You’re too young for this,” said Harriet. “You’re all too young.”
“Mom, how easy is it to get a divorce?”
For months the sharp little word had been residing quietly in his head. Yesterday it had loosened, like a kernel of food from his retainer, and now it was out of his mouth, free.
“Oh, don’t tell me.”
“I don’t know. Maybe they’ll make up.”
“She needs her mother,” said Harriet. “This is ridiculous. We should be arrested. I should—”
“Hey, baby.”
The words were as clear as if they had been spoken at Jude’s side.