Chapter 15
I woke up the next morning with a desperate urge to get out of Sawyer.
I found a late flight and booked it and drove to the airport in the evening.
On my way through security, I called my mother.
“I’m coming to Chicago to meet you and Dad.
” She was surprised, of course. I made an excuse, said there was an archive at the university I needed to visit.
A quick trip, but we could spend Saturday together, before their party.
It was a short flight, just over an hour, and I found myself hoping it would last longer.
The claustrophobic hug of the plane soothed me.
If only we could stay there, suspended in space, circling the Earth forever.
At some point, I nodded off and came to as we approached for landing into a rain-shrouded city, the lights dull and fuzzed out below us.
Chicago’s vastness always shocked me, spread out across disappeared plains, comfortable and at ease with its own reach.
I checked into a hotel a mile or so from where my parents were staying; I’d meet them in the morning.
I scanned the room service menu but didn’t have the energy to make decisions.
Down in the lobby, in a mirrored corner, I found the bar.
I had a view of the entrance and, as the bartender fixed my drink, two women appeared through the revolving doors, bodies arced toward one another as they strode along.
I recognized the intimacy at once: they were lovers.
One seemed to be trying to convince the other of something, tugging playfully at her sleeve.
As they approached I could hear her coaxing.
“One more. We’re celebrating. It’s too early for bed.
” She flashed a smile and I watched as the other shed the last of her resistance. She smiled back. “Just one.”
The coaxing one pulled the other toward her, into the fold of her arm. She pointed beside me at the empty stools. “May we?”
“Of course.” I shifted, making room.
“Don’t move. You’re perfect.” She waved down the bartender and ordered two beers and then added, “And two shots of whiskey—” she looked at me “—no, three. Three shots.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“We’re in this together. I’m Justine. This is Clara.”
Clara reached across Justine and took my hand. “You’ll never be rid of us now.”
“Why would he want to be rid of us?” Justine asked. “He’s been waiting for us, haven’t you?”
“I guess I have.”
Justine passed out the shots. Clara raised hers. “I’m a little tipsy. Did you tell us your name?”
“I didn’t.” I wanted to stay unknown to them. Someone other than who I was. “I’m Mark.”
They were beautiful, both of them. Justine had dark cropped hair, the wide bridge of her nose jutting, eyes black and deep set. Clara’s face was placid, almost plain. Lovely and still.
“Where are you in from?” I asked.
“New York,” Clara said.
Justine laughed. “Have you noticed how nobody in Chicago cares about New York?”
“That young girl tonight—”
“What did she say? I went to New York once. It was okay.”
“It’s kind of refreshing,” Clara said. “What about you?”
“Ohio,” I said. “But I used to live in New York, does that count for something?”
“Ohio,” Clara said. “That must be interesting. Which part?”
I told them Sawyer and Justine’s face lit up. “Do you teach at the college?” I nodded. “My sister went there. She’s the smart one.”
“What brought you to Chicago?” I asked.
“This woman,” Justine said—and she rested a hand on Clara’s arm; for all her bravado, she was gentle, and affection for Clara rolled off her—“just had a solo show open at the Art Institute.”
“Amazing. What do you make?”
“She’s a photographer. But that doesn’t really do it justice. What did the review say?”
“Stop,” Clara said, but she was smiling. She enjoyed it, basking in Justine’s adoration.
Justine cleared her throat and glanced up, recalling. “The play of light almost extends from the frame, dissolving the barrier between the photograph and the world it does not so much capture as … Wait, what does it do?”
“Shut up.”
“Expose?”
“Reveal.” Clara shook her head. “Now stop.”
“The world it reveals!” Justine grinned, triumphant.
“Enough of that,” Clara said. “What are you doing in Chicago?”
“My parents are in town, for a friend’s seventieth. I came to meet them.”
“Look who’s a good son,” Justine said.
And then it clicked it into place. “I just realized who you look a little like,” I said to Clara.
“Who’s that?” she asked.
“My sister Cassie.”
“Cassie.” She rolled her mouth around the word, tasting the sound of it. “A lovely name.” It was something in her eyes. And the bend of her lips. A sly lift that let you know she was thinking more than she said. “Is she staying here, too?” At the question, I felt a knot tighten in my chest.
“Text her to come have a drink.” Justine swiveled in her stool, one hand cupped at her mouth. “Cassie!” she called out. “We’re down here.”
I pictured it: The elevator doors slide open, Cassie steps out and crosses the room toward us. Pushing the hair from her face with the back of her hand. Would she recognize herself in Clara? Would she recognize me?
“Sadly, she’s not here,” I said.
“That’s a shame. Why not?”
“Well—” I hesitated. “She couldn’t get away from work. But I think she’d really like both of you.”
“Of course she would,” Justine said. “Next time.”
“Yes,” I agreed, and smiled. “Next time.”
Some noise on repeat pulled me from sleep and as I came into consciousness I recognized it: the yap of a barking dog, shrill and insistent.
From behind the wall against the bed. I pictured a small wiry thing, weaseled into the hotel by an overbearing owner.
My gummy tongue filled my mouth, my head pounded.
I peered at the clock on the bedstand. Just after six.
I pulled open the curtains, woozy with the head rush of standing up too fast. Dim morning light eked through the window.
Muffled sounds of the city waking—the hum of traffic, a sharp horn—rose up from below.
I showered, choked down some aspirin. I dressed and headed out.
A hard cold hit me, but I liked it. I offered my body to it.
The streets were opening to life, the day beginning.
Couples and packs of tourists and food carts and buses and taxis and bike messengers.
After the emptiness of Sawyer, Chicago’s streets surged.
A young kid walked between his parents, holding a hand of each one.
The mother nodded along to his story, the father scrolled through his phone.
Twenty minutes later, I was warmed up, even sweating a little.
My parents’ hotel came into view, a behemoth of stone and glass.
I stepped into the lobby, vast and ornate.
The ceiling soared and the grandiosity of the room unmoored me: the shock of human creation—that we had learned to carve the space of the world into volumes such as this.
I felt myself almost lift from the ground …
“Mark?”
The sound of my mother’s voice brought me crashing down. The lobby erupted in noise—a motorcycle screeching from the street, a man barking into a cell phone, two children arguing. I spun around, searching her out.
“Marky.”
She was there in front of me, wrapped in a heavy coat despite the warmth of the room.
“Mom.” I could hear the small child in my voice and I stepped forward into her arms.
We pulled back and she looked me up and down. “You’re so skinny. Are you eating?”
“Of course I’m eating, Mom. You can’t sustain life without food. Where’s Dad?”
“Talking to the concierge.” She waved behind her; he stood at the desk. “About god knows what. This could take forever.” She laughed. “I just can’t believe you came all this way for such a quick trip.”
My father joined us, greeting me with a barrage of questions: the length of my flight, what airport did I land in, which hotel, how did I get there.
These were the mundane details in which he dwelled, the mechanics of infrastructure, the certainty of driving directions.
When I was young, these interrogations annoyed me.
How did any of it matter? Now I found comfort in it, the questions a kind of loving attention.
I had mapped the day. Breakfast nearby and then to one of the city’s oldest department stores.
My mother had been there once, in her twenties, her only trip to Chicago; she wanted something for the evening’s party, but kept insisting it wasn’t necessary.
She pulled her coat tighter across her so she disappeared into its puffs and folds.
It must have been thirty degrees colder than Florida.
We walked to the restaurant, my father announcing the streets as we passed.
Michigan. Lake Street. Huron. At breakfast, they asked about work, about Stephen and Safie—they didn’t know I’d lost them both.
I made up details; I was getting good at that.
I asked them to remind me of the friend they were seeing.
“You remember him,” my mother said. “They visited us. I don’t know, you must have been five?
Cassie said his breath smelled like feet. ”
It was rare for my mother to speak of Cassie and the scene came back immediately.
“I remember. You got so mad at her.”
My mother blinked, her mouth set in a straight line. “I did not.” I’d upset her without meaning to. She looked down and reached for a menu, opening it across the table, although we had already ordered.
We got in a cab after breakfast, my father arguing with me when I paid.
The department store was housed in an art deco building, untouched by time.
My mother dazzled at the facade, trying to piece together her recollection from so many decades ago.
“Nothing in Florida is old,” she said. “Well, besides the people.” She laughed at herself and touched my father’s arm. “We’re old.”