Periphery, page 37
“Hey, Sid,” Andrew called to the retreating lieutenant. He turned back. “Sorry a water tower fell on your car.”
Sid smiled. “I had insurance. But the loss of my Wu-Tang Clan CD. That will take some time to get over.”
Andrew rejoined the others, struck once again by William’s appearance. He was having trouble reconciling this version of the man with the one he’d met in the park. The suit, the tie, the haircut. He tried not to stare, but he couldn’t shake the impression Will was in costume, being fed his next line by the young woman in the short black dress at his side.
“I have something for you,” Dr. Cho told Grace. She’d obviously been waiting for Andrew’s return and now pulled a folded, letter-sized envelope from her handbag. She passed it over.
“Oh, my god.” His wife squeezed the paper with exploratory fingers before ripping it open. “Are you kidding me?”
“I wasn’t holding out much hope. But miracles of miracles, someone had turned it in to lost-and-found.”
Grace slipped the wedding ring onto her finger and pulled the other woman into an embrace. “I hope they didn’t give you too much grief when you asked for it.”
“They know better. No one dares incur the wrath of Dr. Doom.”
His wife held her left hand out toward him and wiggled her fingers, eyes wide with amazement. “Can you believe it?”
Andrew could only nod and smile. It had been enough for him that she’d asked Cho to make inquiries into her wedding band, especially in the chaotic hours after The Big Sink. Like Dr. Cho, Andrew had assumed the ring was gone for good. Its reappearance at his father’s funeral was surreal, dubious even. It held the same portent as a tarot card reading in a dank carnival tent. The Hanged Man? The Five of Cups? A reaction was clearly expected, but he had no idea what any of it meant. He decided to keep smiling and nodding.
“Mommy got her ring back,” Anna chirped. “Mommy got her ring back.” She pirouetted up to her parents and Andrew gave her a squeeze before kissing Grace. Her lips tasted of salt, but from sweat or tears, he couldn’t tell.
“Speaking of miracles.” Andrew turned to Cho. “What’s this I hear about you finding Jesus?”
“This from Janet?”
“Who else? She mentioned it yesterday when Terrance and I were dropping off a cardiac arrest.”
Dr. Cho lifted the hair off the back of her neck and let it slip slowly through her fingers as she spoke.
“When we were in the tower, Booker invited all of us to attend a service at his church. Turns out he was a deacon there. His funeral wasn’t what I expected. It was… nice. Jubilant, actually. A real celebration of his life. So, I decided to drop by for a Sunday service. I don’t know if I buy into all the halleluiah hype, but I like the people there. They seem to like me. They think I can be salvaged.” She laughed. “We’ll see.
"Hector’s funeral was a lot more formal. The incense made me dizzy, but at least the church had power. Your dad’s service was somewhere between the two.”
In the wake of her comment, the adults fell silent. A cranking car engine heralded the departure of the hearse. It crept slowly toward the gates, gravel popping under its tires and the small black flag still affixed to its hood.
“Too many funerals,” Katie said after a moment. He knew she was thinking of her brother, as did William. He said nothing, but brought his head close to hers. Without raising her eyes, she reached up and touched his cheek. “Well,” she sighed, a clear prelude to departure. “I guess we’ll see you Saturday, then.”
Andrew proposed gathering for lunch at his place first. “We’ll call it a house warming.”
William rubbed his ear. “You doing okay there?”
“It’s creepy,” Katie declared, her expression daring anyone to contradict her. “I’m sorry, Andy, but it is. You couldn’t find somewhere else to live?”
“All his research is there. It’s furnished. And the landlord’s agreed to keep the rent the same. At least for now.”
“But all those memories,” she said shuddering. “I couldn’t do it. I’d always feel like I’m being watched.”
“I don’t believe in ghosts.”
“Who’s talking about ghosts?”
In the topiary off to Andrew’s left, something shifted, fluttered, resettled. He gave Anna a surreptitious tap on the shoulder, prompting her to turn her back on the tree. When she asked ‘what?’ he gave her a puzzled, ‘who me?’ look.
“I know it was you, Daddy,” she said with exasperation. It was already a tired joke.
“So, noon, Saturday.” he said.
William extended his hand and Andrew took it, pumped three times and let go, a brisk, businesslike exchange, the kind of handshake that signified the acceptance of a contract, although Andrew had only the vaguest notion what the terms of the agreement were.
“Saturday.” Katie gave him a peck on the cheek and glanced around as if surveying the landscape. Andrew noticed she did not look in the direction of the topiary. “It’s weird being in a cemetery and not blowing something up.”
Arm-in-arm, she and William began the trek back to her car.
“I hope it works out for them,” Cho said once they were out of earshot. “They make a cute couple.”
“A little May-December,” Andrew noted.
“Don’t be mean.” Grace gave him a playful slap on the forearm. “Everyone deserves to be happy.”
“Hard to believe most of us were strangers three weeks ago,” Cho said.
“Or even one week ago,” his wife added.
“How are you holding up, Emily?” Andrew tapped Anna on the shoulder and she glared at him. But she glared at him in a safe direction. “Still getting questions?”
“Not so much in the last few days. I think they’re about to give up and close the book. How about you two?”
“Same,” Andrew said after a confirming glance at Grace. “They know we had nothing to do with the tower’s collapse. Everything points to a structural failure most likely triggered by seismic activity. That’s exactly how it’s going to be phrased in their reports. I have it on good authority. As for the rest?” Andrew raised his hands, palms up. “There’s nothing to contradict anything we’ve told them.”
“I hope you’re right.” Dr. Cho removed a small folding fan from her bag and began waving it furiously at her face. “Theodore Hillsdale was a certified lunatic, no one’s doubting that. But the detectives who took my statement were having a hard time believing he could break his handcuffs, kill…” she gave Anna a brief glance before resuming. “Do what he did to the guard outside his hospital door, steal his gun and take John and me hostage.”
“You said the nurses and orderlies on the floor corroborated everything,” Andrew pointed out.
“Except for him kidnapping us.”
“Everybody was hiding by then. It’s a shame the security recordings were erased,” He sighed with saccharin resignation. “Now the police only have your word to go on.”
Cho’s grin was impish. “Who would have thought a massive power surge could destroy an entire day’s worth of tapes? Janet said Lenard was just beside himself when he had to break the news to the detectives.”
“Leonard?” Grace asked.
“Head of security at Tampa General. Janet actually saved his wife’s life recently. She came into the ER complaining of nausea and a backache. The idiot attending physician diagnosed menstrual pain and prescribed 800 milligrams of Motrin. Turns out she was having a heart attack. If Janet hadn’t swung by to check on things, who knows what would have happened. Lenard has been devoted to her ever since.”
Grace gave a theatric nod, arms akimbo. “And well he should be. What about Hector and Booker? Why were they at the tower?”
“Hillsdale made me call them. He had a grudge against all of us and was going to shoot everyone once we were inside. How he knew the tower was open…” Cho shook her head. “Total mystery. As for your ex-partner…”
“Hillsdale somehow coerced Gary to do what he did. That’s what I told the detectives. They were obviously working together. The hows and whys will probably never get sorted out. The police have bigger issues to deal with right now anyway. The guys who interviewed me looked like they hadn’t slept in a week. They just took my statement and left.”
“They’ll be back.”
“Maybe.”
Cho slipped the fan back into her bag. “The power’s on at my house. I’m going to try and bake a cake. Should be interesting. I’ll bring it Saturday.”
“You’re going, too?” Grace asked in surprise.
“We’re all part of something now, whether we want to be or not. I’m going to think of it as the weirdest neighborhood watch in the world.”
Grace glanced toward the funeral tent, where two attendants were folding chairs and stacking them on a hand dolly. “For some crazy reason, I assumed all of the bad things would just disappear after this was over.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice?” Cho checked her watch and gave a small sigh. “Sorry to mourn and run, but my shift starts in less than an hour.” She leaned forward and brushed her lips against Grace’s cheek, gave Andrew’s hand a squeeze, ruffled Anna’s hair.
“See you soon,” Andrew said to her retreating back. She raised her hand without turning and fluttered her fingers. As he watched her go, a small hand filled his. He ran his thumb lightly over the knuckles, feeling the thickened and folded skin, the irregular topography of scar tissue.
“Daddy?”
“Yes, honey?”
“Can we go home now?”
“You and Mommy can.”
“But not you?”
Andrew closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. Sinking to his knees, he ran his hands up his daughter’s arms and cupped her shoulders. “We talked about this, remember? Daddy needs to stay away for a little while. He’s not feeling well and he doesn’t want you and Mommy catching what he’s got. Maybe after a little while, I’ll get better.”
“Then you’ll come home?”
“We’ll see.”
“I know what ‘we’ll see’ means.” Her face crumbled. “ ‘We’ll see’ means ‘no.’ ”
Grace knelt next to them. “Honey, that’s not true. Daddy wants to come home. It’s just that he can’t right now.”
“You promised you’d take me to the park again and protect me from the dragons while I ran through the fountains. You promised you’d teach me how to swim and jump off the diving board. You promised to set up my tent so we could eat 'smores and watch Cinderella inside.”
“We can still do all those things.”
“When?” Her voice quivered, but her dry eyes shone with the first hard light of betrayal.
“Soon. Someday soon.”
“I know what ‘someday’ means.” She shook his hands off her shoulders and covered her face. “ ‘Someday’ means ‘never!’ ”
“Anna.”
“Leave me alone! You don’t love me! You don’t love anybody!”
She darted off toward Grace’s Outback. His wife sighed and gave chase. Kneeling in the dirt beneath the sprawling oak, Andrew watched as they passed the quintaloch curled around the trunk of a cabbage palm, watched as they swept around the squim in the podocarpus and the volvoxes drifting lazily above the hood of the groundskeeper’s truck. Kneeling on the damp earth, he watched his family survive the gauntlet.
Anna pounded the Outback’s fender and Grace said something to her, their heads nearly touching. After a moment his wife looked in his direction and waved, not an invitation to approach but a gesture of farewell. He waved back.
“I see you.”
Grace opened the SUV’s doors, started the engine, stood talking to Anna as the air-conditioning pushed the worst of the heat from the cab.
Something flat and close to the ground snaked leisurely toward Andrew. He watched his wife buckle his daughter into her car seat, saw Anna reach for something next to her, a plush toy.
The grass next to him rustled softly. It was a furtive, almost timid approach. Probing. He watched Grace climb into the driver’s seat and slip on a pair of sunglasses. She closed her door. Thump.
Something brushed the side of his hand so lightly he might have imagined it. Grace backed up, spun the wheel, ease backward.
A brief thrumming, soft as an infant’s snore, but he did not turn. He watched as his wife and daughter crept down the lane, rounded a bend, turned right at the gate. They were nearly gone, but he kept watching as Grace accelerated toward the presumed safety of the place he had once called home.
Andrew Tate never took his eyes off his family.
After
Berko Obasanjo stood before the yellow wall of spear grass, machete in hand, waiting for his bibi to motion him on. She had fallen into one of her spells, motionless, eyes nearly shut, swaying slightly as if in imitation of the rustling stalks all around them. He was thirteen and this was the first time she had allowed him to accompany her on one of her muda mrefu kutembeas, her long walks. Some in the village considered his grandmother an obayifo because of these bouts of stillness, but Berko knew better. She was not possessed by evil spirits. She was a mlinzi, a watcher, and it was her duty to keep the village safe from the unseen ones.
She had tried to explain it to him as best she could, but it was still a puzzle with too many missing pieces. He knew, for instance, that she had slipped into the subtle stare, the seeing-without-looking. Someday he would learn do the same. But not yet. The unseen ones were too dangerous. More dangerous than a leopard at night. More dangerous than a startled mamba or cornered buffalo.
But why? He did not know. And why did she return again and again to the same termite mounds, the same leadwood stump, the same narrow rock outcroppings that reminded Berko of stone fingers clawing their way from beneath the ground? Yes, he had secretly followed her on many occasions. He suspected she knew he did this. She was a mlinzi after all. But she had never spoken of it.
Until today. This morning she had handed him the machete and told him it was time he made himself useful. He was proud of the path he had cut through the tall grass. He was strong and he knew how to use the blade. When he swung the stalks fell before him, the way they did when his father cut sightlines to the river so tourists could take photographs of hippo snouts poking from the water.
Berko wanted to continue cutting his path. He knew where they were going: the termite chimney next to the old mining road. They were almost there. Just a few more swipes and they would emerge into the clearing. He was strong and not tired. He would need a drink soon, though. Path cutting was thirsty work.
Finally, his grandmother roused herself and motioned him to continue. Although she said nothing, Berko sensed her unease. It was not like his bibi to be unsure of herself. Was she second-guessing her decision to bring him along? Was she worried he was too small, too young, too weak? He would show her. Berko swung the machete. The grass parted before him. He was covered in chafe. It made him sneeze, but he continued to swing. Three times, four, six. And then he was through. Now his grandmother would know he was no longer a boy.
He turned as she emerged into the open, expecting a word of appreciation, admiration even. Instead, a queasy knot unraveled in his belly. His grandmother’s eyes were wide and unblinking. This was not the seeing-without-looking. This was fear. Naked terror. His grandmother, afraid? Never had he witnessed such a thing.
Berko spun, expecting to see a lioness racing toward them. There was no lioness. There was only the rutted mine road and the red dirt and the termite chimney. The machete fell from his hand. The termite chimney had caught fire. It was burning inside, red and pulsing like stoked coals in the blacksmith's forge. The light leaked out from many cracks, as if the mound had been shattered by a great blow.
Berko blinked. Rubbed his eyes. The mound was crying. A great teardrop had formed at its tip, and as he bent to retrieve the fallen blade, the tear lifted and began drifting off toward the river.
“Run,” his grandmother hissed. “Run as fast as your legs can carry you. Take the road. Find your father. Bring him here. Tell him the time of the awakening has come. Can you remember that?”
“The time of the awakening has come,” Berko repeated.
“Go then. Fly. Faster than you have ever run.”
Berko ran. He was young and strong and not tired at all. He ran faster than the hot wind kicking the dust before him, and as he ran, he repeated what his grandmother had told him: the time of the awakening had come. It had come. The time of the awakening was finally here.
About the Author
Michael Winter is a 2015 graduate of the University of South Florida’s MFA program, with a degree in creative writing. He is, among other things, a former newspaper columnist and feature writer. He is the author of numerous short stories, articles, and quippy commentaries about the challenges of parenthood.
He lives in Florida with his wife, daughter, and assorted creatures of the feline and canine variety.
Michael Winter, Periphery
