The Cost of Knowing, page 16
“You don’t have to be scared of it,” she says.
I’m not scared of it. I’m just confused.
“What’s the occasion?” I ask.
“The occasion,” she says with a smile, “is that you’ve become a man.”
Now I freeze. What the hell is she talking about? I’ve heard that milestone represented as a lot of different things—voice cracking, growing a mustache, and, most often of all, losing your V-card. Please don’t let her try to give me “the talk” at sixteen. She’s about four years too late trying to teach me how it all works. The internet and post-PE conversations have taught me all I’ve needed to know so far. I’m staring at her weirdly enough for her to erupt in laughter again. She unwraps the foil from the bottle top and twists the corkscrew into it.
“I don’t think I’m talking about what you think I’m talking about,” she says, as the bottle releases the cork with a loud pop! She pours the clear bubbly elixir into my glass, then hers. It smells warm and sweet, like those hot toddies my dad used to drink every Christmas. Just once he let me try it, thinking I wouldn’t like it. But before he realized it, I’d downed a few swigs. Minutes later, I was out like a light.
I watch the mountain of bubbles dissolve from the top of my glass, and I wonder what criteria Aunt Mackie is using to determine that I’m “man enough” to handle alcohol now.
She takes her glass between her index finger and thumb and sinks back down onto her barstool. Her eyes are still red and puffy, but they’re calm, and her mouth is pressed into a happy, proud smile as she raises her glass to me. I glance at my glass, and she motions to it with her free hand.
“Go on,” she coaxes.
I take hold of the stem hesitantly, blink away the vision of our glasses clinking together in a toast, and then tap my glass against hers. She takes a swig and sets hers down.
“Sweet as I remember,” she says.
Sweet? Since when was wine sweet?
I sniff at my glass, and that sour soda-y smell swells strong in my nostrils. I bravely take a sip, and the intense tangy sweetness and fizz dance on my tongue. Forget whatever I said about wine being bitter and miserable.
This shit is good.
“This is the champagne your parents drank at their wedding.”
I look at her and then back down at the champagne. Suddenly it goes sour in my mouth.
“Oh,” I say, setting the glass down and staring at it. I wonder if it tasted just like this. I wonder if it was Mom or Dad who picked it out. Probably Mom. She was the one with the sweet tooth.
“Katie was already pregnant with you, so she asked me to make sure the chefs knew to put sparkling cider in her glass.”
Mom was already pregnant with me?
“I was the only one who knew,” she says between sips. “I kept that secret all these years. I figured you should be the first to know.”
“Never knew I was an accident.”
“Oh,” she says, downing the rest of her champagne before reaching for the bottle again, “you were no accident. Your parents knew they wanted kids before they knew they wanted to get married.”
I don’t even know how to feel about that. I guess I should feel special, that they were trying to have me, that they threw caution to the wind and decided fuck what Grandpa Jack and Grandma Georgina say Jesus says. At least that’s how I like to imagine how they felt about what Jesus says.
“Oh,” I say. “Cool.”
I’m sure it sounds sarcastic, but I don’t mean for it to. I genuinely think the history is cool. I wish I could’ve been there. I’m still kinda jealous that Isaiah can just go there—to the past—whenever the universe wants him to have a vision. But I guess he’d say the same thing about my powers. Curse. Whatever this is.
“Why are you telling me this now?” I ask. Aunt Mackie pours the champagne into her glass until the bubbles run slightly over, and then splashes a little more into my glass, as if she hasn’t noticed I only took one sip.
“Because,” she says, reaching over and wrapping her long-nailed fingers around my hand, “I want to thank you for being such a good kid. When I signed the papers to be legal guardian for you and your brother at the hospital when you both were born, should something catastrophic happen, I never thought I’d actually have to do it.”
There’s a lump in my throat as I put myself in Aunt Mackie’s shoes. I can’t imagine losing a sibling, even though I know I’m about to, but I definitely can’t imagine inheriting that sibling’s kids all of a sudden, especially if I were the face of Chicago’s real estate market.
“Sorry,” I say. I feel her hand tighten around mine.
“Don’t you ever apologize for that. You and Isaiah are the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Does she mean that? Does she really?
I don’t know what to say. I just nod and stare at my glass.
“You boys,” she continues, “give my life meaning. And you keep me laughing. You constantly impress me. And you, Alex, have been a stellar example to Isaiah of what it means to be a man. Even when it’s scary.”
That shocks me. I feel like I haven’t said a word to Isaiah since we moved here, not unless I had to. I haven’t done a good job. I haven’t included him in anything. I’ve hardly driven him anywhere since getting my license. If I were a real big brother, Isaiah would know how to ride a bike by now. He’d know how to throw a perfect spiral—well, maybe not that, because I can’t even do that—he certainly wouldn’t have to drown his boredom in BeatBall, and he’d probably be more open to vegetables instead of trying to build muscle out of fried cheese, pepperoni, and rainbow marshmallows.
“Nah,” I chuckle. “I’m not as brave as you think I am.” I reach forward and take the glass in my hand again, and blink away the vision. I take a bigger sip than last time. I can minimize the number of visions I have to have of the glass if I can drink this down faster. I take a swig and set it down on the counter again.
“You absolutely are,” she says. “Think about all the laughs you have with Talia, and how you smile when you have your headphones in across the room and think I’m not paying attention. Joy in the midst of oppression is its own kind of bravery.”
And I guess she’s right.
“I know you two don’t talk much, and you may not think you’ve had an impact, but he’s watching. He sees the way you go to work every day, how you’re responsible with your car, and the way you treat Talia.”
I’ve just been fired, my car is going to kill a married businessman one day, and Talia’s heart is broken because I can’t give her a good reason why I’m not going to see Shiv with her tonight. And because I’m scared to get close to her, to let her see the real me, for all my visions and all my fears.
I take a deep breath and think.
Responsible. I guess, on paper, I am. But why do I still feel so… lacking? Is it really enough to be a good example for Isaiah? Is it really enough to show him how to live life by the manual? What good has that done him in the face of his regret about the past?
“Hey,” she says, leaning back against her barstool. “Wasn’t there a barber you used to go to in East Garfield Park that you were close with? Do you ever see him much anymore?”
“Galen?” I ask. I remember so many times, sitting in his chair and shutting my eyes against the tufts of hair falling around me, and telling him about my worries in school. Telling him about Talia and how excited I always was to see her, even before we were dating, and about how much I missed Shaun.
I smile and chuckle a little, sadly. “That was forever ago.”
Aunt Mackie shrugs.
“Couldn’t hurt to call and make an appointment. We all need someone to talk to now and then.”
I would’ve done better to spend less time following the rules and more time just being there for Isaiah. Talking to him. Letting him know it’s okay to talk to someone about what he’s going through. Letting him know he’s not alone. Like Aunt Mackie is doing for me now.
“Thanks,” I say. “I’ll think about it.”
Maybe that’s what Isaiah needs from me most. To know that he’s not alone.
“Anyway, all I’m saying is, you could’ve turned out a lot worse,” she says. I can feel her eyes on me. “That kid who broke into the Martins’ house today was your age.”
My blood runs cold.
“Mr. Zaccari killed a kid?” I ask before thinking.
“It’s not quite that simple,” she says. She breathes deep and taps her nails on the counter before continuing, “This boy was staying with Eric and John—you know, the Davidsons down the street?”
I nod.
“They rented out the guest wing of their house this weekend, and while they were both away at work, he went next door to the Martins’ and hopped the fence. He was too young to even be on that app by himself, but I guess he must have lied about his age. Mr. Zaccari saw him across the street and went to investigate—”
“With a gun?” I ask.
“He wasn’t armed at first. He saw the boy prying open a window in the backyard and went back for his pistol.”
I have so many questions. Was Mr. Zaccari just peering out his front window like a bulldog all day? Is that what it means to be on neighborhood watch? How did he know this guy wasn’t actually staying with the Martins? Maybe he’d locked himself out of the house and was trying to get back in while they weren’t home.
Aunt Mackie explains further.
“He says he told the boy to put his hands in the air and”—she pauses—“the boy lunged at him instead.”
“Was the kid armed?” Always my first question when another person joins the roster of people shot over petty shit.
“It doesn’t appear so.”
“Was he particularly tall? Aggressive? Within punching distance?”
“We don’t know,” she says. I can hear the hesitation in her voice.
I can feel my blood pounding through the veins in my neck, and my cheeks are burning. I think back to every name that turns up on the news with the hashtag #sayhisname, #sayhername #saytheirname, all the times news reporters have announced that another kid who looks like me has been killed before seeing the inside of a jail cell, let alone a courtroom. I know the stats. I know what the news tells me my future is. And in this case, I know the past.
“Was he Black?”
She goes quiet. I hear a car roll by on the street outside, and the ticking of the clock in the hall. It’s that quiet in here for what seems like forever, until I finally decide to answer my own question.
“Never mind,” I say, downing the rest of my champagne. “I already know.”
* * *
My mouth liked the champagne, but my stomach didn’t. I turn the knob on the door to my bedroom just as I realize I see a vision of myself darting into the bathroom next door. I follow suit, flip up the toilet seat, and empty every last drop of what I drank into the toilet.
After I swish out my mouth with water and head back to my room, I’m surprised to find Isaiah sitting on the edge of my bed, where he was yesterday, when I told him a whole twenty-minute lie about how he’s going to grow up, get married, and live a long and healthy life.
“Hey, man,” I say. He’s quiet. His forehead is still covered in lines from sleeping with his face smooshed against the leather sofa. His eyes are focused on his hands. His thumbs are dancing around each other, and his feet are dangling in concentric circles off the edge of the bed.
Anxious habits. I know them well.
“What’s up?” I ask, sinking down next to him. He doesn’t look at me. He just shakes his head and asks in a raspy little voice, “Why’d you quit your job today?”
Okay, I thought I understood his powers until now.
“What makes you think I quit my job?”
“Well, now it’s the fact that you didn’t immediately deny it.”
“I don’t have to deny it for it to be false,” I say.
“That’s still not denying it.”
“Fine. I deny it.”
“Denying it doesn’t make it not true.”
Smart-ass. I roll my eyes and wish I could lock my arm around his neck and give him a good old big-brother noogie. But since touching him would mean seeing what happens to him, I keep my coward hands at my coward sides. I sigh and look at him. He’s already staring at me.
“How’d you know I quit?”
“I knew it.”
“Come on, man, tell me.”
He shrugs and shakes his head.
“I can’t really explain it. The whole time you were gone at work, I could just feel something different. I couldn’t sit still. My stomach hurt. I felt like, really tired, and my heart wouldn’t stop racing. I knew something had happened. Something recent. And when you showed up outside ten minutes later and I ran out to meet you and saw your face, I saw a vision of you running out of Scoop’s in tears.”
“You knew specifically that I had quit my job?”
He shrugs. “I mean, I put it together. I saw a vision of you because you were regretting going to work in the first place today. Plus, nobody runs away from where they work in tears in the middle of their shift. I don’t know how else to explain it to you. It’s something you have to live with to understand.”
I remember my conversation with Mrs. Zaccari this morning, having to explain why the cops make me nervous even though I don’t have so much as a parking ticket on my record.
“I feel that,” I say.
“So, why’d you quit?”
I sigh. I quit because I thought I saw on the news that Isaiah was dead like I’d seen in my vision, but there’s no way I can say that. So I dodge the question.
“You can see that I quit my job, but you can’t see why I quit my job?”
He makes a weird gurgling sound, and my paranoid ass looks at him in a panic, thinking maybe he’s choking on something or having a heart attack. But he’s giggling. Hard. Until it bursts out of his open mouth into all-out laughter.
“What?” I smile.
“You sound just like Grandpa, overthinking everything.”
That’s super weird to hear, considering both our grandpas died before Isaiah was born, when I was too young to remember. All I have are pictures of Grandpa Harold holding me at the hospital, and Grandpa Jack holding me at my christening, which he and Grandma Georgina insisted my parents go through with regardless of their lack of religious affiliation. Aunt Mackie once told me his exact words were, Just because you don’t believe in the Lord doesn’t mean the kids should have to suffer for it.
But Grandpa Jack was Mom’s dad. Dad’s dad—his whole lineage, apparently—had whatever curse Isaiah and I have. I might believe when the Bible can explain this shit.
“Which grandpa?” I ask.
“Dad’s dad,” he says.
“Grandpa Harold?”
He nods. “He overthinks everything and asks way too many questions, just like you.”
I smirk at first, but what he says next surprises me. “He had the same power as you.”
He did?
“He told me he knew Dad was going to die, and he regretted not making the most of the time they had.”
I don’t know what to say, I really don’t. I could ask if he did anything to try to stop it, but if his power was exactly like mine, I already know the answer. By the time he was old enough to have Dad, he would’ve known he couldn’t do anything to prevent his son’s end. I know already and I’m only sixteen.
At least Isaiah and I are getting started brainstorming a solution together, while we’re both young. But then, I guess, if we have to face what scares us most, maybe…
The realization hits me sharply.
“Did… did Dad get into that car because… he was trying to face his fear?”
Isaiah goes silent and then manages in a helpless voice, “Of dying? Yeah.”
“He was… trying to end the curse before it got to us?”
He nods.
“Before we experienced fear so bad it triggered the curse in us?”
He nods.
Fuck. I take a long, deep breath. Dad really got into the car that day for us. He… he loved us that much. My eyes are burning and my mouth feels dry. I clear my throat and try to keep from crying.
“Do you… know that because he regretted doing that at the last second?”
“No,” he says, “I know that because he regretted not telling us more often that… he loved us.”
My chest tightens. Dad regretted not telling us that he loved us? But he did tell us, didn’t he? I think back to when he came into my room to kiss me good night. I remember all those Sunday evening drives we used to take, laughing and cracking jokes as Mom held her face in her hands in shame at how bad they were. But then I wonder when I heard him say it. When he really sat me down, looked me in the eyes, and said it.
And I realize I can’t remember.
Isaiah continues before I can say anything. “Our great-great-grandpa had the coolest powers, though. Buddy Lyons.”
We have a great-great-grandpa named… Buddy Lyons?
“Sounds like the name of a baseball player,” I say.
“Eh, he was a batboy for the Montreal Royals a couple of times, and he shook hands with Jackie Robinson once, but the coolest thing about him was that his powers were a combination of yours and mine.”
“Wait, our ancestors all have different powers? Why are they all different?”
Isaiah shrugs. “You said yourself anxiety is different for everybody. So why can’t our visions be different for everybody?”
Something tightens in my chest. He’s absolutely right. I nod, a smile tugging at the edge of my mouth. This goofy BeatBall-playing kid in front of me might still be a kid, but he’s wise when he wants to be. My mind drifts back to Buddy Lyons.
Some kind of weird combination of the past and the future? Poor dude.
“He could touch anything and see all potential outcomes of his next decision.”
“Holy shit, that sucks,” I say. “I thought my powers were stressful enough. I’m… kinda thankful I don’t have that, honestly.”
Then a thought crosses my mind.
