Distressed Assets #13
It was after one of her mother’s regular phone calls to Beirut, in the evenings. Her father was late at work, her mum had
finished classes for the day. Lili had been playing underneath the kitchen table—she remembers the tile floor of their apartment,
tiny yellow tiles she could run her nails between—reading a picture book upside down to a few of her stuffed animals, the
comforting sounds of her mother—switching between Arabic, French—above her.
When the call ended—the beep of the phone, silence—it hadn’t been a happy quiet; Lili peeked her head out, the shape of one
of the words she’d overheard still ringing clear in her ears. She rested her little chin on her mother’s knee. What does that word mean? she asked.
Her mother gave a confused laugh, stroking her hair. What word, sunshine? She was absently fidgeting with the flimsy plastic long-distance calling card, its rows of tiny numbers and international
area codes.
Lili repeated the word back, as best she could approximate, clumsy in her mouth, unfamiliar to her. She remembered how her
mother’s face had shifted, almost fallen.
Oh. Watan, her mother repeated, pronouncing the word properly. The recollection of her sad smile: distant in its inscrutability to Lili then, comprehensible to her now. Watan. It means home.
Like here?
No, it’s a bit more than that—like, homeland, the place you belong.
Like where your mama and papa used to be? She knew her grandparents had passed. She understood her mother came from somewhere far away.
Her mother gave a half shake, half nod. Sort of.
Lili frowned, scrambling to her feet, reaching for her mum. I don’t understand.
Home isn’t where your parents are, always, she replied, accepting Lili into her arms. It’s where you feel safe.
I’m home now! Lili had declared, grinning as she nestled against her mother’s warm shoulder, her long black hair. She had been a small
child, fit easily into the embrace of her mother, her father constantly throwing her onto his shoulders. Watan, she repeated.
You are, she agreed, pressing her lips against Lili’s forehead. As long as I’m breathing.
Now, Lili settles her cheek against her knees. Warm air, the South of France. She toys with the stem of jasmine. Her nails
slightly dent its green skin, leaving imprints.
Later, she gently dislodges a bunch of flowers, the protesting squeak of their stems as she snaps them free, when Amina calls
her name from the house, food ready. Upstairs, she puts a few tendrils on her nightstand. She throws out the wine in her glass,
fills it with water from the bathroom, tucks in a handful of jasmine, and leaves it in her friends’ bedroom, too, beside Jamie’s
nautical maps of the area and Amina’s hand salve. The bouquet looks small, and insignificant, as she closes the door behind
her. They will start to dry out by morning—the heat, minimal water—but still carry a heavy, heady scent.
They have dinner in Marseille later that week, a long drive. When they get back to the house, night has fallen. Their car
headlights stretch down the white gravel drive, towards the house. Getting out of the car, Amina hums happily. A slight stumble
in her step, too much rosé.
Upstairs, Lili checks her laptop, swiping through the news while she brushes her teeth.
In her inbox, along with the messages from Eileen she’s ignoring, there’s an email from Kerr: wishing her a wonderful summer, hoping she’s found time for a holiday, checking in on how her final revision is going, planning for their first meeting of the academic year—let’s get something on the books for the start of September, end of next week—
Lili’s toothbrush stills in her mouth.
September, end of next week.
They’ve been in France for over three weeks—will head home in a few days, a new school year. The final months of her program,
and then—what?
She knew this, but it’s still striking: how life really will move on; how this is proven again, and again. Past the car crash,
past the self-inflicted cataclysm; on and on it goes, until injuries become bruises, wounds become scars. Things you carry,
things you live with.
Could there be something beautiful in that? Eventually? Remaining marks of something once known, now gone?
Because it only feels indifferent, and it only feels cruel, and it only feels ugly, now.
She doesn’t try to sleep much after reading the email. She lies in bed, thinking wordlessly.
Early in the morning, she pulls on a sweater and climbs onto the roof. She smokes, looking over the slope of hills down to
the sea. Nature’s nocturnal sounds, calming.
After graduation, she could go anywhere; nothing really ties her to New York, not truly. Her degree is almost done; her future
at the farm now floats in the air, another casualty of her actions. Her friendships should last over distance, bonds that
should theoretically stretch over continents, time zones, years. She could go anywhere, disassembling her life. It doesn’t
feel like there’s much left to it, anyway. It’s a gray, drifting potential.
Dawn breaks, as she smokes and thinks.
She tries to consider it—the roads stretched out from here—but that familiar pull of possibilities, the excitement of all
that potential outside of New York—drunk conversations in undergrad, wild dreaming, far-flung locations: Berlin, Mexico City,
Melbourne, Stockholm, Hong Kong, all these places people disperse to in their twenties—it isn’t there.
There’s only one place she wants to go.
Lili plays with the lighter.
Flick, and flare, a rasp of metal, a click of flame. Hiss of gas, snap of light.
This ceaseless restlessness, a scratching at the world around her: Let me in, let me out of myself. It feels like it will yield nothing.
It is barely past six. The sun is already rising behind the hills, and a breeze comes off the sea. The scent of coffee spreads
through the house; someone else is awake, too. Lili pulls her sweater closer around her shoulders.
Are there places to explore still?
Things she could want?
As sunrise grows stronger: the sound of her own breath.
Just her breath.
The buzz of cicadas gives way to birdsong. Morning, again.
After the roof, she swims laps in the pool.
Last night, they’d discussed their autumn plans over dinner: Jamie’s dad needling him about his future, Amina’s hopes for
solid representation with a gallery. They asked her about the farm, graduation. Lili had pushed her salad around her plate.
Finish my thesis, then defend it, she’d said. That’s my focus.
But it’s clear, with the return home looming: the sense of plans creeping in, decisions she needs to make.
Inside the house now, James pages through a magazine, crunching on toast as coffee brews. Finished with her swim, Lili settles
down beside him at the kitchen table, runs a towel through her hair. “—can’t believe your parents get this delivered to their
vacation house,” he’s saying to Amina, flipping through the glossy pages, New York society events. “It’s absurd.”
“I’m not the one reading it like Princess Di’s come back from the dead,” Amina retorts.
“Ah, finally, here it is—need to revel in what I missed . . . you’re lucky we got to skip this disaster, it’s begging for
a bonfire of the vanities.”
“I have been to your parents’ parties before without suffering injury,” Amina comments dryly.
James shakes his head with gleeful disbelief.
“Jesus, this looks intolerable . . . aw, Meredith did look nice—but look at William, he looks miserable, I’m going to frame this .
. . the silent auction had some good pieces, though, look at that Frankenthaler—wait, actually, no, wait, never mind—wait, no, Lili, don’t—”
But she’s already tugged the magazine from him, immediately recognizing the familiar face on the page.
For weeks, for weeks, she’s been thinking of him, caught between suppression and recollection, but still, somehow, it’s a shock like ice water,
to see Aleksandr.
Staring at him—glossy photograph, dark party, bright flash—her breath collapses; she doesn’t think she fully understood yearning
before, its utter muscle-stretch agony, until this moment. Lili looks at him, hungry; hasn’t seen his face since she deleted
the Polaroid on her phone, on the way back into Brooklyn, and here he is now.
Tall, broad shouldered, lithe, with thick black hair and patrician features: familiar, familiar—high cheekbones, straight nose, the line of his jaw, close-cropped beard, and his mouth—known to her, the shape
of it in a grin, revealing teeth, she knows the brush of his lips against her skin—and intelligent, dark eyes, gaze glancing
out of frame, absorbed in some conversation—a gaze that had become intimate to her, like the sound of her own breathing when
she wakes, a calm that is necessary and precious.
He looks healthy, and he looks rested. No signs of exhaustion, restless nights—she should want that for him, to look whole
and unharmed—instead he looks handsome, so fucking handsome. When did she get used to that? When she was falling asleep beside
him, when he was the first thing she saw each morning, did she become used to how handsome, edging into beautiful, he is?
He’s wearing a dark suit, no tie. First few buttons of his shirt open, as always—habits she tries to remember now, every little
habit she can, as if that’ll prove that he somehow still belongs to her, because with him—on his arm, with a smile, with him—
A woman; she is tall, and she is beautiful, and she is not Lili.