Chapter xxxviii
xxxviii
THE SATURDAY AFTER I MET WITH JOSEPH LANDIS at the gallery was a waiting-for-the-kids-to-come-home Saturday, and I spent a lot of it wondering what would happen when the kids came to me—would Darren be the one with them? Would I have a moment to pull him aside and talk after the kids ran into the house? Would he let me? I decided my best plan would be to ask him to go out to coffee with me, somewhere we could have some privacy away from the rest of our family.
While I thought about that, I cleaned the house, I went grocery shopping, I looked at the calendar and organized my week, and I sent an email to Bashir asking his thoughts on my idea, whether he would take up your mantle, so to speak, become your eyes from beyond the grave. He wrote back quickly, saying that he didn’t think he’d be able to fill your shoes, but that he would be honored to try, and he sent a link to a folder of photos he’d taken for school assignments and for pleasure. I flicked through them on my phone, just as impressed as I was by the original images he showed me in Rome. The photographs weren’t as I’m not sure how to explain it, but maybe the word is polished ? They weren’t as polished as yours, but they were wonderful, and I could tell that given more time, his photography would be spectacular.
I sent them over to Joseph and asked his thoughts.
Then I looked through your book’s proof pages and the catalog you’d saved from your first gallery show and noted the images that I thought might work for a then-and-now, knowing that Joseph and Eric would choose just a few, with time and money as the limiting factors. I marked the Arab Spring protests in Cairo, Egypt. A celebration of the end of the Iraq War in the Green Zone. The Moscow metro station after the bombings there. A family in Myanmar looking at their flattened home after a cyclone hit it. One of the damaged coaches from the Mumbai train bombing. Ground Zero. And, of course, Bashir and the other children in Lampedusa.
I looked at the last photos you shot, the ones in Gaza, before you died.
I wouldn’t ask Bashir to go there, wouldn’t risk his life, but I couldn’t help but think about you, about how disheartened you would be knowing that the same centuries-old hatred that took your life is taking so many more.
I sent my ideas for then and now over to Joseph, and he wrote back quickly saying he liked Bashir’s work, he liked the idea, and then added: I also want Bashir to take a photo of you. And one of Gabriel’s grave site.
Reading those words sent an involuntary shudder through my body. Your grave was like Ground Zero to me. Something I didn’t need to see. Something so painful, I wasn’t sure if I could keep myself together if I did see it. Something that might break me altogether. I didn’t even want to see a photograph, but I knew why Joseph did.
Sounds good , I wrote back, just glad he was interested in the idea.
I let Bashir know and put him in touch with Joseph and Eric so the three of them could work out the logistics and the creative plan.
Then I made myself a quick salad for dinner, which I ate with a glass of white wine, while I texted Dax and waited for the kids to arrive.
Wish you were here , I typed. Darren is driving me to the brink of insanity. I’ve been trying so hard not to involve the kids in any argument we’ve had over the years, but it’s getting harder as they get older.
Wish I were there too , he wrote back. I’m on the boat now, but maybe we can talk later?
I hearted his message but was left still wondering how to treat Darren when he arrived. But all that wondering and worrying was for nothing.
It was Courtney who brought them over.
“Hey,” I said to her, walking down the front stoop as the kids came running up. Sammy’s foot was still bandaged, but he was able to put weight on it now.
“Hey,” Courtney said. Her face looked tense.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She sighed. The kids had already gone into the house.
“Darren told me,” she said. “About Sammy.”
I was a bit surprised she hadn’t known, but not entirely. “He hadn’t said anything before?”
She shook her head. “Not great for marital trust,” she said.
I winced. “I’m sorry. I’m causing trouble ”
“No,” she replied, shoving her hands deeper into her coat pockets. “This isn’t about you. This one is on him. Entirely on him. And for what it’s worth, I agree that Sammy should know the truth. Though are you sure the time is now?”
I shrugged. It was cold enough that her words were coming out in puffs of smoke. “The older he gets, the more he’s like his biological father,” I said. “And I don’t want him to be the last to know. I just found out that a friend of mine who knew Gabe had already suspected it.”
Courtney nodded.
We were both quiet for a moment.
“It’s a control thing, right?” Courtney said.
I realized she was talking about Darren. “It is,” I said. “The secrets he keeps aren’t a reflection of how he feels about you. They’re about controlling how the world sees him. How you see him.”
“He likes to control the narrative,” Courtney replied, as if the thought had fully crystallized for the first time.
“Always,” I said, thinking about how he chose our old dog, Annie, on his own, how he didn’t tell me when he bought the beach house and renovated it, how his need to control the narrative was a part of our eventual downfall.
We were quiet again. I wondered if I should say more, offer more support or comfort. I was in a unique position to do so. But I also didn’t want to get in the middle of their marriage any more than I already was.
“Well,” Courtney said finally, “I should get back home.”
“I’ll see you next week,” I told her.
I watched her walk down the street, her body hunched slightly in the cold. I know she said it wasn’t my fault, and the fact that Darren kept secrets from her wasn’t, but the fact that he had this secret to keep was on me. If I hadn’t cheated, they wouldn’t be having this particular fight. I just … I couldn’t get over how much had come from our one night together, Gabe, how the repercussions were still being felt a decade later.
That was what I’d thought then. I’m trying not to think that way anymore, though. It’s toxic, it’s too much. And my new therapist—I started to see someone Julia recommended when I told her how hard it was to unravel all this on my own—has been trying to show me how we all make our own choices, and the ones Darren made, Courtney made, they’re not on me. Even if the situation was on me, the choices weren’t.