“Your parents are the sweetest people.” Carmen hung her coat in the hall closet and headed for the living room. Last year Malcolm had invited her to Atlanta for Thanksgiving with his folks. She declined—she didn’t have the holiday off and for once that came in handy since she wasn’t ready for a parental encounter. This time he had sprung them on her last minute, told her they were coming up for a visit and made dinner reservations with her schedule in mind, so she didn’t have much time to be nervous. As soon as she met Marian and William Wyatt she realized there was no need for jitters; they were as wonderful as Malcolm made them sound.
Malcolm’s dad was a gifted storyteller and after a career filled with talking to some of everybody from plumbers to bank presidents as a conductor on the train from New York to Trenton, he had them howling with tales Carmen was sure Malcolm and his mom had heard a thousand times. It was easy to see what Malcolm meant when he told her about his parents’ relationship. From a gentle touch, or an intimate glance, the love they shared was obvious.
“They remind me of Regina’s folks. You know, even when we were in school I used to want to shake her. She gave them such a hard time, but she’s lucky to have them, especially now.”
“Sometimes you can’t see what’s staring you right in the eye ’cause it’s too close to your face.” Malcolm zoomed in, eye-to-eye, gave Carmen a kiss. “Now, I recognize I’m lucky to have you. And since you say I look just like my dad, consider tonight a preview of me for the next century. All in all he’s a good-looking old dude so my prospects are good.”
Lucky to have me? When he said things like that it made Carmen nervous, like it was a jinx.
She liked the way Malcolm included her in the time he spent with his friends and family, and when they were tramping through the woods, or eating pizza, or having dinner tonight and she was relaxed and laughing, she felt like one of the people in those commercials she used to think were so fake. The ones full of smiling, happy people, but they were over in thirty seconds. “Well, thanks for the scenes from coming attractions.” A change of direction seemed in order. “And dinner was great too. My paella was delicious. I haven’t had any since Jewell tried to make it once in college. It didn’t taste like that though.”
“You think that’s good, wait till I make you some.” Malcolm came up behind Carmen, massaged her shoulders. “These are like rocks. I can take care of that for you.”
Carmen patted his hand, slipped out of his grip. “You have so many talents. Teacher, chef, massage therapist—”
“You haven’t even begun to scratch the surface.” He sat on the sofa arm, pulled her into a kiss, light at first, then slower, deeper. “I’d be happy to, ah, demonstrate some of my other skills, but I need an assistant.”
“So you’re a magician too? Is this the part where you saw me in half?” Carmen backed up, flipped on the light, needed to get away before this went any further. “I’m gonna make some tea. Do you want—”
“Why do you always do that?” Malcolm threw up his hands, walked across the room. “Do I have BO? Am I not your type—”
“It’s not that. It’s not you.” Carmen had been dancing around what Malcolm meant to her for months. She resisted giving it a name, afraid that if she called it something, it could be called away, but when it was time to look for a post-residency position, it became clear that Malcolm was someone she didn’t want to do without. To her surprise, most of the jobs she applied for resulted in offers from all over the country: hospitals, clinics, private practices. As she weighed the pros and cons of locations, benefits and her future, she realized she didn’t want to leave where she was. The more time they spent together, the more she wanted him around. “I’ve been sort of freaked out, about what happened to Regina, you know?” Carmen sat on the couch. “Malcolm, she looked so awful, beat up and bruised, there was blood on the sheets, I can’t imagine what happened.” Except she could, and Carmen hadn’t been able to strike that image from her mind. In the dark, when there were no patients or charts to distract her, it would sneak up and lead her directly back to that elevator on Montgomery Street and Randy.
Malcolm sighed, sat down next to her. “Regina’s doing okay, isn’t she?”
“I haven’t heard anything definite. Nobody can visit for the first two weeks. I can’t imagine how she’s liking the isolation.”
“It’s not about liking it. That’s not what rehab is for. In fact, she’s supposed to hate it so much she won’t ever want to go through it again.” Malcolm rested his elbows on his knees, looked at his hands. “Look, I know you’re upset for your friend. Drug problem aside, nobody deserves what happened to her, but that’s not the only thing that’s going on between you and me.” He looked over at Carmen. “I don’t push. You’re busy, you’re tired. Okay I’m a reasonable man. I can handle that. And I’m not saying being physical is my top priority. If that was the case I’d have skipped out a while back, but I don’t understand what’s going on here.”
Carmen leaned against the sofa back, stared at the ceiling. It had to come up sooner or later. Until Malcolm, sex in general and Randy Dale in particular had been relegated to a footnote in her life story, but now it had all been moved up to the top of the page. She knew that hanging on to what had gone wrong in her life wasn’t worth risking what was so right. She just hadn’t figured out what to say to him, how he would look at her afterward, how she would feel. A tear slid down her face, dribbled onto her neck. “When I was a kid there was this guy who hung around with Z. This guy named Randy…” She couldn’t look at Malcolm while she spoke or she would never have been able to finish. “After that I didn’t let a guy anywhere near me, so Milton was my one and only experiment in dating, if you can call it that. When it didn’t work, I washed my hands. I obviously didn’t understand how all that stuff worked, I wasn’t good at it and there was never going to be another man I trusted that much again, so I removed it from my plan. Then you showed up.”
Carmen realized she trusted Malcolm months ago when the standard family fiction she had told him felt more and more like a lie. So one afternoon while he was teaching her how to play chess, she had given him the unabridged version of the Webb family legacy, complete with her father’s murder, her mother’s mental illness and disappearance, her brother’s brutal hostility and abandonment, Jewell and Regina’s rescue. If her twisted lineage was going to freak him out, it was better for her to know up front so she could cut her losses, but he never wavered. “To come out of that with your head screwed on straight makes you even more special than I already knew you were,” he had said. Now she had revealed the last secret in her closet, and she was afraid to turn and look at him because she didn’t know what she would do if he didn’t understand. Then she felt his fingers on her face, wiping at the tears that continued to fall. She rolled her cheek into the palm of his hand.
“I can’t imagine what you’ve been through, or how that makes you feel. I’m sorry sounds lame, but I don’t know how else to put it,” he said quietly. “I won’t tell you I’m not interested in you that way, but what I feel for you is not about some jacked-up power trip. What I want to share is from my heart, but you be my guide. Right now a hug just means I want to hold you, and a kiss won’t lead anyplace you don’t want to go.”
Carmen leaned into his arms, her head on his chest, comforted by the steady beat of his heart. They stayed that way a long time, until he said good night. After he left she made tea, feeling like she’d been trapped in a cave for most of her life and now somebody had rolled back the rock. Thank you Milton. She wished he was still in his hammock, enjoying the sunset, but he had given her a precious gift. He told her to go get a life, and she was beginning to feel she finally had.
The next morning Carmen called Malcolm early. She could tell by his voice he wasn’t awake yet, wondered what he looked like while he was sleeping. “I recognize it too,” she said.
“What?” Malcolm asked, his voice still foggy from sleep.
“How lucky I am.”
A week later, Carmen went to see Regina, unsure of what to expect. When Regina appeared at reception to meet her, Carmen was pleasantly surprised by how different she looked. Not just from that night, but different than she had in a long time. There was still a hint of greenish, purplish bruise on her jaw, but her face was free of makeup and some of the fullness was back in her cheeks. Her hair was brushed back into a ponytail and enough of the latest red had grown out to reveal the natural soft brown for the first time since sophomore year. In jeans and a sweater she no longer looked like a caricature. She looked like herself, and talked fast as ever.
“I assume you’ve been searched and are free of mouthwash, hair spray and all other contraband.” Regina took a swig from her paper cup. “Let’s go to the cafeteria. It has all the comforts of public school, but the coffee’s hot.”
Carmen wasn’t quite sure what to say. “How are you?” suddenly seemed like a loaded question. “You look good.”
“A helluva lot better than our last get-together.” Regina refilled her cup, avoided Carmen’s eyes. They sat at benches on opposite sides of a lunch table. “This is a nice change of pace from scrubbing pots. That’s my chore this week, which is a promotion. Last week I had to mop the hallways. Do you have any idea how many this freakin’ place has?”
Regina always talked fast, but today it seemed nervous, embarrassed. “My mother is coming at the end of the week.” She took a sip, looked off toward the woods outside the window. “Scrubbing toilets was easier. I don’t know what to say to her.”
“Your dad’s not coming?”
“He’s coming later. Barry, my very own counselor, has decided I have issues with my mother.” Regina rolled her eyes. “I know you think she’s perfect but—”
“Nobody’s perfect, Regina.”
On the drive home from Carson, Carmen thought a lot about Regina and her mother. They still didn’t know how to talk to each other, but at least they could still try. As a practicing physician, Carmen understood that when Geraldine walked out, she couldn’t have helped herself. And since Carmen had safely passed through her early twenties, the period by which the symptoms usually showed up, she had begun to believe she had been spared her mother’s illness. But she still wondered if Geraldine ever found help, found someone to save her from herself and that still nagged Carmen.
After hemming and hawing and trying to figure out what to say, Carmen asked one of the social workers at Mid-Jersey to make some inquiries for her, but New York Department of Social Services didn’t have any information on a Geraldine Webb or Geraldine Martin, her maiden name—no shelter assignments, no hospitalizations—mental or otherwise. Carmen decided it was time to do her own research so she started at the beginning.
“No birth certificate unless the party’s dead, even if it’s your mother.” An officious clerk at the Health Department said, and just like that, pointed Carmen down the hall toward the death records, like he was showing her to the corn flakes on special in aisle three. She followed the clerk’s directions to the records room, a suitably dismal, institutional gray box with long wooden tables. She found the section she needed and began plowing through a stack of ledgers, starting with 1974, the year Geraldine disappeared. Carmen scanned the random assortment of names, organized by date, occasionally remarking a very long life, or a very short one, until she hit 1987. And there, waiting on the page, was Zachariah Webb Jr.—March 18. It was a gunshot wound that caught up with him. Carmen slammed the book closed, like that would change what she’d seen. Z. She opened it again to the same page, snuck up on the entry. It wasn’t a common name. The birthdate matched. Of course it’s him. Probably messed with the wrong person. It just never occurred to her she might find her brother’s name in the book of the dead.
Carmen waited for some emotion to surface. The only one she’d felt for years was hate, and now she sat under the buzzing overhead fluorescents, realizing she’d spent all that time and energy hating someone who was already gone. She copied the pertinent facts in case she needed them one day, then returned to her search for Geraldine, but after she turned the last page of the last book she had found nothing more. She left with the same questions that brought her there.
“His address on the death certificate was right down the block from our old address.” Carmen moved the salt shaker in wide circles on the kitchen table. “If I’d stayed in the neighborhood I’d have run into him—at the post office or the subway.”
“Haven’t you ever been back?” Malcolm had five classes’ worth of midterms to grade, but he’d come over as soon as he got her message.
“For what? To revisit the scene of the crime? I barely got out the first time.”
“Maybe your mother is around there too,” Malcolm said.
“She’s just as likely to be on the moon.”
“I can’t drive you to the moon, but my car goes to Brooklyn.”
At first Carmen dismissed the idea as a waste of time and gasoline, but after years of avoiding her father and her past, even Jewell had found some answers there.
“That’s where they found my dad, dead in his cab.” Carmen showed Malcolm the spot as they drove past Lincoln Terrace, but she felt disconnected, like it was a stop on somebody else’s personal history tour. She pointed out a parking space by the old car dealership that was now a funeral parlor. “We’re a couple of blocks from my building, but we might not find one closer.”
“That’s a space?” He backed into the small slot between a battered van and a Seville with blacked-out windows.
Carmen had been tempted to stop on Eastern Parkway, see if her old boss was still overseeing the special sauce, but she decided to pass. White Castle was still at East New York, the fried-chicken place across the street had changed names, but the air still smelled like greasy batter and salty French fries. In the twelve years since she’d last walked up the steep hill of Utica with her shopping cart and her fears, the stores along the avenue had changed awnings, but the street was still clogged with double-parked cars and on a Saturday afternoon folks hurried about their business or somebody else’s. Malcolm draped an arm across her shoulder as she led the way. For as much as the neighborhood looked familiar, walking through it didn’t bring the dread she expected, but she was also sure that visiting the old neighborhood would not become a regular activity.
When they got to the corner of her block, Carmen was disappointed to see that steel gates shuttered the windows of the old dry cleaners. Only a faded ONE HOUR MARTINIZINGsign identified what it had once been. “Mr. Willis used to sweep in front every morning and every night.” The sidewalk was now littered with debris, blown by gusts of March wind. “When he heard I was going to college he gave me twenty-five dollars, right out of the register, said it was for my first textbook. Until then, I didn’t know I had to buy them.” She had hoped to see him, show him his investment had paid off, ask him if maybe he had seen Geraldine anywhere.
Carmen’s old building looked much the same as she remembered with weathered red brick and turrets at the corners that made her think it was a castle when she was young enough for fairy tales. The glass front door had been replaced with a gray metal one with a foot-square glass window embedded with wire mesh. The buzzer system had been replaced since she lived there although the apartment numbers had no names next to them, not that she expected to know anybody. A new crop of men probably played dominos and drank beer out front in the summer. When two guys in North Face parkas came out, Malcolm grabbed the door. “Want to go in?”
Want to was not exactly how Carmen felt about it, but she’d come this far.
Carmen’s skin tingled as she got into the elevator and she squeezed Malcolm’s hand tight. She could feel what happened there, but it wasn’t happening now. She was safe and she wasn’t alone. When they got off on her floor, the apartment doors looked like they’d had a fresh coat of paint. It was the same green as she remembered, and as she stared at the one that had been hers, the anger that always bubbled up when she recalled her past seemed to leak away, replaced by a budding thankfulness that for all that had happened, she had been strong enough to survive.
“You okay?” Malcolm asked.
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
While waiting for a light to change, Carmen told Malcolm about the adventure of walking all the way to the Carvel with her dad on a summer night and trying to make her cone last all the way back home. “It’s probably only half a mile from here but I used to think—”
“Yo, Li’l Bit. Is that you?”
Carmen recognized the voice immediately and anger shot up and out of her mouth, bypassing any fear. “Don’t you dare call me that.” Hands balled into fists, she turned to face him and there she stood, eye to eye with Randy in his motorized wheelchair. She would have passed right by him if he hadn’t called out. Frowsy cornrows had replaced the Jheri Curl, and where he had been big and round before, even in his quilted Bulls jacket he was narrow with a face that looked older than she knew he was. Carmen could feel Malcolm’s body tense beside her.
“No harm. Just ain’t seen you in a oooh-wee long time. What are you, like some big-time doctor or somethin’ now? You was always smart. As you can see I’m not doin’ too good. Got shot a few years back—dude mistaked me for somebody else.”
Carmen could not believe he was rattling on like they were old buddies catching up on the glory days. “What happened to Z?” She figured he’d at least know that.
“Man, he tried to take off this liquor store, up on St. John’s.” Randy shook his head at the sad memory. “Dude blew him away.”
Carmen had a feeling Randy was closer to that event than hearsay, but she’d found out all she needed to know from him and now she had a few things to say. “What you did to me in that elevator was disgusting, Randy.”
He wiped at his half smirk with his hand. “Aw wait now, see—”
“Shut up and listen to her,” Malcolm barked.
Carmen had never heard that tone of voice from him or seen that hard expression. “Guess you thought it was big fun then too, call yourself teaching me some kind of lesson. But you were weak and pathetic, and you didn’t bring me down, Randy. You didn’t win.” Carmen looked at him squarely, with unblinking eyes until he looked away, then she marched blindly across the street.
Carmen didn’t say a word once they got in the car. She had said so many already, ones she never expected to get the chance to voice. Her hands stayed balled in her lap until they crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, then she began to let them uncurl, to release the tension in her shoulders, to take off the armor, to feel some peace.
“Want me to stay or would you rather be alone?” Malcolm asked when he got her home.
“Stay. Please.” Carmen didn’t hesitate.
“How about a fire?”
“Sounds nice.” Carmen usually protested that it was too much trouble, but tonight she wanted to watch the flickering golden flames, let them soothe her. She nestled on the end of the sofa and watched him work. In a short while Malcolm had built a respectable fire, not from the instant logs she kept handy and unused. He went out to the deck for the cherry wood he had stacked at the beginning of winter and the former Boy Scout built a real blaze from kindling up, one that looked like it might burn for the next three days. He brushed his hands on his jeans, joined her on the couch. “Pretty good huh?” He draped an arm around her shoulders. “You want the afghan? Some tea?”
Carmen rubbed her hands together, held them toward the heat. “No. This is great.” She thought about relaxing into the curve of his arm, and as if he sensed her ambivalence, Malcolm pulled her close, her back against his chest. He idly rubbed her arm while they watched the fire and after a few minutes she let a deep sigh escape.
Malcolm kissed the top of her head. “You’re beautiful by firelight.”
“Excuse me?” She looked up at him.
“If you don’t know that I’ve been falling down on the job.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Okay. I have obviously been derelict in my duties, so here’s something else you need to know.” He continued to stroke her arm. “You know I love you, right?”
He said it matter-of-factly like, “the sun is shining,” or “today is Saturday.” Simple, but stunning. Words Carmen hadn’t heard in a very long time. She knew he meant it. She’d just been afraid that it was asking too much to have a life so full and this kind of happiness too. She leaned her head against his chest to collect herself before she looked up at him. “I love you too.” And she was sure she did, today more than ever before.
They lounged by the fire with no agenda or timetable, and when Carmen awakened, still in the shelter of Malcolm’s arms, only smoldering embers remained. He had pulled the afghan over, tucked it around her. She lay still, letting the feel good seep in, wanting to snuggle closer, but she didn’t want to wake him yet. She glanced around the room, letting her eyes settle on the photo Milton had taken of her with Regina and Jewell. All three of them were smiling, but now Carmen noticed the emptiness behind her eyes. Why didn’t I see that before? All the other photos of herself showed the same sad void.
Malcolm stirred. Carmen held her breath. He adjusted his hold on her, slipped back into sleep. She continued to think about the girl in the pictures, what she had been through, how hard she’d worked to hold herself together, how much of herself she’d shut down to do it, and for the first time she was able to feel compassion for herself, feel that happiness wasn’t too much to ask.
Slowly, Carmen turned around until she was facing Malcolm. He looked so content. She smoothed the stray lock that flopped across his brow, even in sleep and his eyes fluttered open.
“I love you,” Carmen smiled.
“That’s better than good morning.” He lowered his head toward her, and she lifted hers to meet his kiss. They shared tender, early morning nuzzles at first, Malcolm staying within the lines. But then Carmen wrapped her arms around his neck, embraced his body with hers and opened up to accept his love and trust.
Malcolm pulled back, let his gaze ask the question. Carmen knew this was the moment, this was the man she wanted to share it with, and she answered.
He held her face in his hands. This was important and Malcolm wanted all the choices to be hers. “Do you want to go upstairs?” This was a first for him too. He’d been around some, had girlfriends before, but he’d never been given this key.
“No. Let’s stay here.” Carmen willingly suspended her clinical knowledge of bodies and let Malcolm guide her. This first time she expected some pain—that’s what she’d heard, read, learned, explained to patients, but it was overshadowed by the fulfillment of their union. He held her, kissed her, touched her, not shaming, but embracing her and she buried her face in his hair, his neck, his scent. It felt like home. Malcolm had given her a keepsake, a forever memory to replace the old one and Carmen felt different, special. She wanted to walk around, show it off, but instead she lay there, happily wrapped in cozy comfort.