Thirteen #2
“Americans are the best intermediaries,” Andrei said. “They are the only ones other people listen to.”
“I don’t know—well, I can try.”
“Yes,” Marmar said. “You can try.”
Marmar opened the rear door and the dogs followed her inside to their various bowls, with Amy and Andrei in the rear.
Methodically, she began scooping ladlefuls of kibble to each dog, each of whom knew to wait patiently for its turn.
As she fed them, she murmured gently, calling each one by a name that Amy could not understand.
“Let’s go upstairs,” Andrei said.
“Is it going to be World War Three up there?”
Andrei paused. “Just Afghanistan.”
But upstairs it was actually Mars—deserted, chilly, dark.
“Irine?” Andrei called out, but the house responded with silence. He flicked on the swinging lamp over the kitchen table to illuminate a mess of papers, an overturned chair, a broken mug on the floor. “Irine? Irina ? Maia? ”
“Oh dear.” Amy turned the chair upright, picked up the broken mug and threw it in the garbage.
“They fight like this sometimes,” Andrei said. “I’ve seen it more than once since I’ve lived here. You know how children are.”
“It’s not how my child is.”
“Yes, well,” he said, smiling, “we are more passionate on this side of the ocean.”
Under the bare kitchen bulb, Andrei’s blue eyes glittered. To distract herself from them, Amy straightened the papers on the table. He watched her for a second, and Amy felt an expectant hum. Something could or would happen between them; she felt it.
She finally spoke. “What should we do now?”
“Hmmm?”
“I mean, should we look for them or—?”
“Look for them?”
“I mean, to make sure they’re safe?”
“I’m sure they’re safe,” Andrei said.
“But maybe we should look?”
“You can do whatever you want,” he said. “But I don’t think this is really any of my business anymore. I’m going to watch TV.”
“TV? Do you want company?” This flew out of her mouth before she could stop it.
“Do you like watching Russian detective shows?”
“Maybe?”
He chuckled as though she had been trying to make a joke. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Amy Webb.”
She blinked. “See you tomorrow.”
But he didn’t move.
If she went upstairs after him, maybe she could follow him into his room, ask him to turn on the closed captioning on his cop show and sit on his bed and then—or she could just be a grownup about this, invite him to her bedroom, make what she wanted clear.
Wouldn’t he respond to that? Didn’t men always respond?
“Good night,” he said, and then retreated into the darkened hall.
“Good night.”
And she sat frozen at the table, staring at the home screen of her phone. Beneath her, she could hear Marmar still humming through the floorboards. She could still go upstairs, she thought. She could knock on his door. She could—
Her phone buzzed and she grabbed it. “Judd?”
“Hey love,” he said, and her face flooded with shame.
“What’s going on?”
“Just got back from the hospital,” he said.
“Oh my god, what—”
“Uno needed to be admitted, and nobody was around for her. She called. I couldn’t say no.”
“No, no, of course,” Amy said. “What now?”
“It’s a strange infection,” Judd said. “Usually antifungal medications can clear it up, but sometimes it’s resistant. The docs don’t know yet what they’re dealing with, although they sound optimistic. They basically have to throw all the medicine they have at her until something works.”
“How long does that take?”
“Days, at least,” Judd said. “Maybe months.”
“God,” Amy said. She had been gone for five days, and this is what happened.
Yet it all felt so distant. She couldn’t imagine being in their apartment, wiping up the familiar mess on the counter, doing the laundry, walking the dog.
But she also knew that as soon as she returned to New York, Georgia would become a dream.
“Have the doctors made any predictions?”
“They can’t,” he said. “It’s really a wait-and-see kind of thing.”
“I’m sorry,” Amy said, because she was.
“Yeah, well.”
“How’s everything else? How’s the menagerie?”
“Cats are fine. Roxy misses you.”
“I miss her,” Amy said.
“We all miss you.”
“Should I come home?”
Judd paused. “Well, did you find the dog yet?”
God, the way he said it. It made her feel so small.
“Almost,” she said.
He was quiet for a moment. “I think Uno’s stable. You can see what Ferry thinks if you want.”
“Does he know what’s going on?”
“He knows,” Judd said. “I don’t know if he understands how bad it is.”
“I thought it wasn’t that bad.”
“It wasn’t,” Judd said. “Now it is.”
Amy sighed.
“I mean, I don’t want to tell you what to do, but—”
On the one hand, she thought it was a good sign that Judd wanted her home, or at least hopeful—if he had been busy fucking Meret he probably wouldn’t want her back on the same continent.
But on the other hand, it felt a little manipulative (a little?), using Uno and Ferry to reel her back in as he’d done so many times before.
But on the other other hand, she and Judd had known for a long time that this moment would come, when Uno’s tortured body would finally crap out on her, when they’d be left to pick up the pieces for their child.
Of course, ever since she’d gotten sober they’d talked about it less—they’d both assumed that the health benefits of sobriety would cancel out the decades of havoc Uno had wreaked on her own body.
But of course bodies didn’t work like that.
“I can’t come home yet,” Amy said, surprising herself. “But let me know if she gets worse.”
“Why not?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Just—I mean, why can’t you come home yet?”
“Lynne said she saw Meret crying outside Le Coin the other morning.”
“What?” Judd sounded truly and very surprised.
“Did you break up with her?”
“Amy, there was nothing—I didn’t do anything. There was nothing to break up.” They were back to this. “I have no idea why she was crying.”
“Did you fire her?”
“I told her I received those pictures and they were inexcusable and she was mortified. She said she thought she’d sent them to her boyfriend.”
Amy was silent.
“Amy?”
“Okay,” she said.
“I swear, I don’t—”
“Whatever,” she said. “It’s fine. I don’t care.” And she thought she was probably telling the truth.
“Are you still mad?”
“This isn’t about you, Judd.”
“It’s not about me?”
“This isn’t about—” How to even begin to explain?
She heard footsteps and turned around. Andrei had come back downstairs, was standing in the doorway.
“I’m not mad,” she said. “I promise. I’m just not ready to come home.”