Twenty-nine
Adina
IF AN ANIMAL IS SUFFERING, we put it out of its misery. Years ago the Mizrahis had an ancient, blind cat named Methuselah who developed a goiter on his chin. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t eat. He was in so much pain, I ached to look at him when we went over to their house. Tamar was devastated when they decided to put Methuselah to sleep, but it was the humane thing to do. How could they have let him go on like that?
I am not an ailing cat, and neither is my mother. But the other day when I was researching Huntington’s, I learned that I am not the first person with the kind of plan I’ve been devising. Others have executed it successfully, and it even has a name: death with dignity.
Sufferers of terminal illnesses who are judged mentally competent can request lethal medication. It’s legal in only a handful of states, and Washington is one of them. The catch is that you have to have six months or fewer left to live, and when I read that I wanted to scream. That timeline might not work for me. I searched some more and found there are some doctors who will obtain the medication for patients who have more than six months. Illegal, perhaps, but not wrong. There are even some younger people who have chosen this ending for themselves.
I wasn’t going to think about the details this year, but this is perfect. I can spare myself and my family the gore of a violent death. They’d know there had been a good, peaceful ending for me, and they’d look back with fondness on the time we had together. They’d understand.
Except, perhaps, for Tovah.
My revenge has been more perfect than I could have imagined, though perhaps I felt a bitter twist of guilt when I told Tovah about Peabody and saw the stricken look on her face. I could have easily chosen any of the other conservatories, but I stole Baltimore from my sister because I knew it would hurt her the most.
It doesn’t matter how she feels now, though. All that matters is the future, however near or distant it may be. Now that I have Arjun back and know for certain where I am going next year, I can truly savor the time I have left.
Ima calls me into her bedroom after sundown. I should start counting how many more Shabbatot I have to observe before I leave for school. “Adina’le? I need some help.”
She’s sitting at the foot of her bed, still in her nightgown though it is eight o’clock in the evening. Her clothes are on the bed next to her.
“Do you mind?” she asks, and my heart climbs into my throat, gets stuck there.
I help shimmy off the nightgown. She isn’t wearing a bra underneath. Her body is painted with freckles and wrinkles and stretch marks, physical proof Tovah and I came from her. There’s the scar from her C-section, which is proof of only me. Her stomach is concave, but her breasts sag. My breasts will never sag like that. She has no shame in me seeing her like this, doesn’t make any move to cover herself up.
My relief brings another feeling: sympathy.
“That one first.” She nods toward the bra with the satin cups. I hook it around her back and help her get the straps up her arms. “Todah,” she thanks me after we’ve finished with the soft pants and plain long-sleeved shirt too. It’s a little easier to meet her eyes these days, knowing that I am never going to become like her.
“Bevakasha,” I say.
For a moment I consider telling her about death with dignity. I am not sure it is an option she would ever consider for herself. Religion complicates it, of course, but she might agree it is the best option for me. Another look at her and I know I can’t tell her. It wouldn’t bring her peace, only more anguish, and she has enough of that.
Ima strokes my hair, and I lean into her touch. When I was little, she told me to brush my hair one hundred times before I went to bed if I wanted it to always be soft and silky. I never skimped, not even once. Ima’s hair, which is the rich golden mahogany of a viola, was always so smooth, and I wanted mine to be just like hers. Today, though, her hair is coarse and ribboned with gray and some white. She refuses to dye it.
Ima’s hand drifts to the evil eyes on my wrist. “Where did you get that bracelet?”
Everyone said the snow wouldn’t stick, but it’s snowed hard the past several nights and school is closed and my entire world is frosted. Arjun got his spring blizzard.
I lace my boots over two pairs of tights and toss an Ima-made scarf around my neck. Nothing smells nearly as fresh as the morning after a snow. I can’t wait to take a big gulp of the air outside, feel ice crystals form in my lungs.
Today I will tell Arjun I love him, and he will say it back.
I’ve never felt quite this way before. My heart is floating away and I can’t tether it back to my chest. I find the words hovering on the tip of my tongue, like they could slip out at any moment, delicate as snowflakes, for strangers to hear. “Love” is the only word for how I feel about Arjun. When he laughs, I want to make him laugh again. When our bodies come together, my skin sings. And when I told him my plan, he got it.
Before I leave, I dig around in our pantry to find a protein bar. It’ll be a joke. I dodge a snowball fight as I skid and slide toward the bus stop, and the bus coughs its way slowly, slowly to Arjun’s. Absently, I wonder how many more winters I’ll have, how many more unexpected snowstorms. I’ve always liked winter more than summer, although now it is technically spring. I am a cold-weather, cold-blooded person, from my ice hands to my heart.
Tree limbs are dusted with snow, Arjun’s apartment walkway fossilized with human and canine footprints. When he opens the door, I press myself against him, letting his hot mouth warm me to my core.
“Happy snowpocalypse,” I say breathlessly. He releases me, and I wave the protein bar at him. “I brought sustenance.”
He gives a small smile. “I told you it would happen.”
“Yeah. In April.” God, his apartment is freezing. Is the heat not working?
He rubs his elbow the way he does when he’s nervous. After a few moments of silence, I lead us into the living room and onto the couch, unwinding my scarf.
“I made my decision,” I tell Arjun, deciding to start with something easier.
“Hm? Oh, yes.” He sounds distracted. “What did you decide on?”
“Peabody.”
“Excellent,” he says, his voice flat. “You’ll be fantastic there.”
I touch his wrist. He doesn’t pull away exactly, but his body tenses, and it sets me on edge.
“Arjun. I have to tell you something.”
He lets out a long breath, his face softening. “I have to tell you something too, but you can go first.”
“I . . .” I swallow. I take both his hands in mine. There was a speech I rehearsed in my mind a good hundred times last night before I went to sleep, but now all I can get out is: “I’m in love with you.”
I must whisper it because he stares blankly, blinking a few times.
“Did you hear me? I said, I love you.” I laugh a little, like, of course you heard me. This is the part where he tells me that he loves me too, and then we’ll kiss deeply. A black-and-white-movie kind of kiss, the kind where the woman’s back arches so deeply you think she’d fall if it weren’t for the way the man is holding her.
He withdraws his hands from mine. “I heard you.” Rest, rest, rest. “Adina. You know I like you. A lot, actually. Probably more than I should.”
All the adrenaline I had in me when I made my confession turns to dread. If adrenaline made me feel lighter than feathers, dread makes me feel like I’m balancing a piano on my shoulders again. Like it is crushing me. I want to snatch those words back, stow them away for longer this time.
“What do you mean?”
He makes that sigh-groan sound of frustration. “I keep thinking about what happened last week.”
I shouldn’t have to defend myself, but I do anyway. “I told you, I had to see you. And it worked out okay, didn’t it? We talked about everything and you helped me calm down, and then we were fine.”
“Adina.” He makes a strange sound, kind of like a laugh, but an I-can’t-believe-this laugh, a this-isn’t-actually-funny laugh. “You stalked me.”
“I didn’t—,” I start, but he cuts me off again.
“I like being with you, but I can’t do this anymore. It’s making it difficult for me to focus on my own work and music. You’re . . . you’re not well. I don’t want to put my job in jeopardy by being with you, and I can’t spend this much time with someone who’s not . . . stable.”
Stable. If he means it in both the physical and mental sense, I don’t find it funny at all.
“I’ll change. I swear,” I insist. “I won’t do that anymore. I won’t even text you or call you. I just need to be with you.”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about! This ‘need’ you have. It scares the shit out of me, okay? It makes me feel like if you’re not with me, something’s going to happen, and I don’t want to be responsible for anything.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “What do you mean? Responsible for what, exactly?”
“Your plan. When you said it, I was half-asleep, and it didn’t sink in until you’d already left. At first I was certain you were overreacting. That you’d change your mind someday. But the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that you need to talk to someone. Have you talked to anyone else about this? About any of it?”
“Just you.”
He curses under his breath. “I think I need to tell your parents.”
I cannot speak.
He wants to tell my fucking parents?
He couldn’t stop thinking about it. My plan. Why couldn’t he stop thinking about my lips, my body, my music? I swear I’d settle just for sex if it meant I could keep him.
“You can’t tell my parents.”
“I have to,” he says. “It’s my responsibility as your teacher. As the adult.”
As the adult. Singular.
My breathing races away from me. It makes my words leap entire octaves. “So, what, I’m not an adult? You’re on my side, aren’t you? I thought you could keep it a secret. You’re my boyfriend.”
“Your boyfriend?” He shakes his head. “I’m not your boyfriend. I’m not taking you to the prom, Adina. I’m not going to buy you jewelry or take you on a weekend trip to a charming bed-and-breakfast.”
And he’s right. He’s one hundred percent right. He is not my boyfriend. He is barely a functioning adult, living in this apartment with a stove that is still broken and a tiny bathroom with black mold on the ceiling and probably nothing in his fridge except expired milk.
I always liked the simple classiness of his studio, but of course, his students don’t ever see the rest of his apartment. Not like I have. He told me once that he didn’t usually cook for people or have anyone over. At the New Year’s Eve party, his friends were so happy to see him. But he has never once mentioned other names to me.
Either there is much he’s kept hidden from me, or his life is entirely unremarkable.
I suppose I’ll never know.
I yank at a thread on my outer layer of tights and wrap it around my fingers until they turn white, hoping it’ll balance out the pressure building behind my eyes. “Stop it. God, do you have any idea how condescending you’re being?”
He springs off the couch and punches the air. “You told me you’re going to commit fucking suicide!”
It is forte, that word. It ricochets around the inside of my skull. It pins me to the couch. Shrinks me. It’s a word I have barely used even in my own head.
When I speak again, my voice is tiny. “Not tomorrow or anything. Just when I start showing more symptoms. A lot of people—”
“What do you think you’re going to do? Slash your wrists? Leave the car running in the garage? Swallow a bottle of pills?”
My mind morphs those words into images, and they are red and violent and not me.
“No. Death with dignity. A lot of people do it.”
“I’m sure they are people much older than you are.”
I slam a pillow against the couch, frustrated by the pathetic thump it makes. “You’re so fixated on age! You’ve never been okay with me being in high school, have you?”
“That’s not what this is about,” he growls.
“Is it? You’re always so back and forth with me. I can never tell what you’re thinking.” I crush my palms into my eyes to trap the tears, but it does no good. Not even five minutes ago, I said, I’m in love with you. I thought this between us was more than sex. For once I wanted more than the physical and assumed I could get it, but maybe that is all I am allowed. Maybe men see me only as a pretty thing to play with.
“What was I supposed to do?” He throws up his hands. “I knew you were getting attached, and more than once I came close to breaking things off. But every time I thought about your . . . your situation, I couldn’t bring myself to hurt you like that.”
“You pitied me.” My worst fear, come true. I am the one who should feel sorry for him: Where is his life going? What is he working toward? He already failed as a musician, regardless of what he said about not enjoying the challenge anymore. He is good, but he is not such a virtuoso that he has nothing left to learn.
“One of us has to be responsible here. One of us needs to tell your parents what the hell is going on with you, because I bet they don’t have a fucking clue.”
“This isn’t your secret to tell. It’s mine.” The tears are falling now. I can’t stop them. “What else am I supposed to do?”
“People deal with these things. It’s horrible, but they do. They go to support groups. They go to therapy. They get help.”
“You don’t understand,” I say around a sob. I’m a little kid. I’m the little kid I never wanted to be. “I have to see my mother every day. Every day I look my future in the fucking face, and you know what it looks like? It’s pretty fucking grim.”
He waits a few beats before saying, “And suicide isn’t?”
I wish he’d stop saying that word.
We’re both breathing hard, sharpening our swords for the next round. Finally, I get an idea. A way to get him to back down.
“I will tell them,” I say through clenched teeth. (I won’t. I can’t.) “But I never want to see you again. And if I find out you told them what I did, or what I’m planning, I’ll—” It’s the worst thing I can threaten him with, but it’s also the only thing. Licking my lips once, I continue: “I’ll tell the families of your other students. They might be interested in knowing what we’ve been doing, don’t you think?”
“You wouldn’t dare. Adina.” He reaches for my wrist, but I snatch it away before he can touch me. “Please.”
He looks ill. Part of me wants to shout just kidding! and take it all back. We could rewind to the night I spilled this secret, and instead of telling him about my plan, I’d sink into his body and keep my Siren lips locked tight, tight.
We are measures, movements, symphonies past that night now, and we both know it. I shake my head as though to show how simple it would be to destroy him. I’m not sure I could do it; it only matters that he believes me. “If I find out my parents know, that’s what I’ll do.”
With this I am reminding him that I am the powerful one, that I can control this even when I can’t.
“I don’t know what else to say,” he says softly.
With more confidence than I feel, I say, “Then I guess this is good-bye.”
He pauses, lets out a very long sigh. Dark half-moons droop beneath his eyes, as though he hasn’t been sleeping well. I haven’t noticed them before. There is also a tear in the fabric of his sweater, near his collarbone, and a patch of irritated skin on his neck, probably from shaving. My final observations are all imperfections.
“Good-bye, Adina.”
My fingers are shaky lacing up my boots, and finally I give up with one half untied. I abandon the three words I can never get back and the only person I’ve said them to, pressing L for lobby and glaring at the faded button between three and five, certain I will never press it again. I wipe my face on the sleeves of my coat. My nose is dripping, and the cold isn’t helping.
My boots crush the snow on the walk down the hill to the bus stop. It’s started up again, flurries dancing in my vision before the cold fuses my eyelids shut. I might get buried out here, become a real-life snowman.
Trudge forward. Keep moving.
On the endless bus ride home, I try to create stories for the other passengers as a way to distract myself, because if I don’t, I am going to turn into a mess on public transportation, which is the last place I want to turn into a mess. The memory of making up stories with Tovah crushes me more than I thought possible.
We will never have that again. I have made certain of it.
These are the stories I create. The girl whose boyfriend’s arms are wrapped around her shoulder while she’s texting someone? She’s cheating on him. She’s going to screw some other guy later. The guy with missing teeth who’s trying to hide his can of beer inside a wrinkled paper bag? He’s a drunk. Probably a drug addict, too. The bus driver with the sunken eyes? She wants any job except this one and has dreams of driving this metal box into a lake . . . and one day I will meet her there.