Vicious Grace

“He’s hurting,” Chogyi Jake said. “The information in that file is causing him a lot of pain.”



“That’s deeply stupid,” I said, knowing as I said it that I was out of line. I couldn’t help it.



“You’re hurting too. We all are.”



“Then we’re all stupid,” I said. “We don’t have any idea what the context of that file was. Okay, it looks lousy, but we don’t know what would have happened if Eric had done something else, right? I mean, maybe he knew that Kim would get killed if she stayed in Denver. Or with Aubrey. Magic does that sometimes, right? Tells you what’s going to happen.”



“It can,” Chogyi Jake said.



“So how is Aubrey so sure that wasn’t how it started? How do we even know for sure that it’s not a fake that someone snuck in here to mess with our heads? I’m just amazed, you know? We find one thing that looks weird, and he just loses faith in Eric. He’s just . . . folding.”



Chogyi Jake looked at me in silence for what seemed like an hour and probably took fewer than ten seconds. He lifted his eyebrows and looked down at the floor. Back me up on this, I thought. I already knew that he wouldn’t.



“I hear what you’re saying,” Chogyi Jake said, picking his way through the syllables like they might explode. “And I understand what Aubrey is thinking too.”



The refrigerator hum dominated the room. My mouth tasted like ashes. A flock of pigeons wheeled past the window, gray wings skimming so close to the glass I could have reached out a hand and plucked them out of the sky.



“But you can’t be sure, right? We don’t know why he decided to do that. And even if Eric did break Aubrey and Kim up and put her here, he might have had a reason.”



“You can never prove a negative,” Chogyi Jake said. “There always might be some letter or notebook or simple fact that changes everything. Makes it not what it appears to be. Always. Even if we go through every drawer and box in every property Eric owned, we can’t know that something new won’t show up. Only that it hasn’t yet.”



“And if it’s not true at all?”



Chogyi Jake didn’t answer. For a few seconds, I thought the countertop had started shaking. Then I realized it was me. I was trembling. My fingers were digging deep into my thighs. I was losing control of my own body, only unlike when I got into a fight, there was no uncanny competence rising up to save me. And the strange thing was that this feeling of waking up from a good dream into a tragic life was familiar. It was like I’d done this all before.



Because, of course, I had.



“I can’t do this again,” I said.



“Again?”



I took a deep breath.



“So here’s the thing. I went to a secular college,” I said, fighting to keep my voice steady, “despite what my father wanted. Big fight. Ugly. Don’t darken my doorstep stuff. He thought Arizona State was the first step on the road to hell, and I went anyway. I got this little scholarship and some financial aid. Work-study. That kind of thing. Anyway, I moved out there, and I didn’t know anyone. And I didn’t have anyone back at home who could talk to me. I think my mother would have, but with Dad doing the patriarchal shunning thing, I don’t think she had the option.”



Chogyi Jake was looking at me. Bearing witness. It was what he did. I went on.



“I made some friends, right? Around Thanksgiving break when I didn’t have a family to go home to, my roommate in the dorm sort of took me under her wing. She got me into her circle. They were just a bunch of college rowdies, but they were tight-knit. There was one girl who was the center. She had a house of her own near campus with her fiancé and another guy, and we all used to hang out there. Make dinner for the group. My roommate and her boyfriend. And then my boyfriend too. And this girl. The one with the house and the fiancé? We really clicked. We were best friends.”



As if the word were magic, a flood of memories came back to me. Her almond-shaped eyes and weird orthodontist-defying eyeteeth. The way her house had always smelled like sandalwood and patchouli. Sitting in a circle in her living room, playing card games and drinking too much beer. The time the neighbor’s cat had come in the back door and demanded love from each of us in turn. Scenes from a different and better life, made painful only because I knew how it all came out. I took a deep breath, let it out slowly.



“We were best friends,” I said again, “until about a month before the end of the spring term.”



“What happened?”



“I don’t know,” I said. “I couldn’t stay in the dorms over the summer, and the other guy who lived at her place was going to Nova Scotia with a bunch of his friends, so I was going to sublet his room. And then one day she said that it wasn’t going to work. She stopped calling me. They all stopped calling me. My boyfriend, Cary, hung around longer than the others. Every time I asked him what was going on, he pretended not to know what I was talking about, and then he’d pick a fight about something else. Eventually we called it off, and then there was no one. And it messed me up. I missed some of the financial aid deadlines. I dropped out.”



“I understand,” he said.



I hated talking about it. The confusion and betrayal and sense of being suddenly, unexpectedly lost back then folded itself into today. Aubrey walking out and my college friends turning cold, Cary pretending nothing was wrong and Eric’s manipulations of Kim’s life. They weren’t the same. And they were. I’d lost two families already. I couldn’t lose another one. Chogyi Jake’s usually placid brow furrowed.



“I can’t do that again.”



“Nothing lasts forever. Everything changes, all the time,” he said. “And that’s all right. We all came together last year, and if some part of that changes, it’s because it’s time that it change. We’ve all lost families and lovers and things that were precious to us, and we’ve all survived.”



It felt like he’d punched me. I couldn’t take a breath. He wasn’t looking at me. I wanted him to stop talking. I wanted his eyes to meet mine. I wanted to know if he was telling me that everything was going to be all right no matter what happened, or if he was giving me his justification for leaving too, but I was afraid of what he’d say. My arms wrapped around my rib cage, and I found that I was hugging myself and crying.



“We make a picture,” he said, “of how we want the world to be, and most of the time it isn’t like that. Holding on to that image causes the suffering. Not the world, not the truth. Our disappointment is what makes us hurt.”



“Aubrey’s not going to stay, is he?”



“He’s in a difficult place,” Chogyi Jake said. “I think he feels that whatever he does will involve being disloyal to someone. You or Kim. And he isn’t comfortable with that.”



“But I didn’t do anything wrong,” I said, choking on the last word. “This isn’t my fault.”



“It isn’t,” Chogyi Jake said. “And it isn’t fair. To you or to Aubrey or to Kim. Or to me. But this isn’t about fault or judgment or righteousness. Those are all traps. This just is what it is.”



My cell phone went off, Eric’s voice coming from the bedroom, muffled and mechanical and distant. I pushed myself off the counter and walked away, still crying and trying to stop. The phone was in the pocket of yesterday’s jeans. Because it had almost rolled to voice mail by the time I wrestled it out, I didn’t pause to check the incoming number. I just accepted the connection and said hello while I wiped my tears away with the heel of my palm.



“Jayné! It’s David. David Souder. I’m in Chicago.”



“You’re what?”



“I’m here. In Chicago. I had this idea last night about Grandpa Del. I know you said not to go to the hospital, but I think the reason I’ve been having all these dreams is that he’s still there. You know?”



“David—”



“No, listen. The dreams weren’t just nightmares. They were trying to say something. To ask for help.”



“Just tell me where you are,” I didn’t quite yell. The pause wasn’t longer than a heartbeat, but when he spoke again, he sounded a little taken aback.



“I’m at a Starbucks. It’s on Franklin and Chicago. Right by the El.”



“Okay, listen to me. I want you to hang up, go to the counter, and ask them for a very big cup of coffee. Decaf. When you get it, I want you to find a nice comfortable chair, sit down, and then don’t even think about moving until I get there. All right?”



“I didn’t mean to—”



“Don’t. Move. All right?”



“All right,” he said, and I dropped the connection. Chogyi Jake stood in the doorway while I pulled on a light jacket and the backpack I used instead of a purse.



“That was David. It’s calling to him,” I said. “And he’s going.”



“That might not be wise,” Chogyi Jake said.



“Y’think?” I said, checking for my wallet. It was in my pocket. “The car’s not here. Right?”



“Ex took it shopping.”



“Fine. I’ll get a cab.”



“Should I come?”



Of course I wanted him to. Everything from the back of my throat to my stomach was the solid, stretching ache of wanting someone I could count on. But he had just finished telling me that I couldn’t rely on him or anyone else. That families fall apart and get lost.



Holding on. That’s what causes suffering.



“I’m good,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”



I saw him hesitate, but I left before he could talk about it anymore. When the elevator doors closed on me, I almost started crying again. But only almost.



The Starbucks was indeed right by the El. The hazy white sky didn’t cast clear shadows, so the darkness under the orange-brown supports and dark webworked steel didn’t have a clear border. It just seeped in. The gray stone of the building looked like a cross between a storage facility and a mausoleum. The building just down the street was taller redbrick with ornamented windows at the front and a billboard on the side, and it made the coffee shop’s two stories look squat. I pushed my way in, stepping out of the real world and into customer service land. The smell of fresh coffee filled the air, and Pink Martini’s “Tempo Perdido” was playing softly from hidden speakers. I felt vaguely betrayed that my favorite band had been here without me.