Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self Part 6

"How," the reporters wanted to know, "did this happen?"

Their smugness made him angry. There were so many things they could never understand about how, so many explanations they've never bothered to demand. How could it not not have happened? have happened?

At night, when no one had opened the door for hours, the reporters trickled off one by one, their questions still unanswered. Lanae must have taken the day off from work: her car was still in its parking s.p.a.ce, the lights in the house still on. Finally, he made his way to the house and rang the doorbell. She was at the peephole in an instant. She left the chain on and opened the door as wide as it could go without releasing it.

"Georgie," she said. She shook her head, then leaned her forehead against the edge of the door so that just her eyeball was looking at his. "Georgie, go away."

"Lanae," he said. "You know I didn't mean it to go like this."

"Georgie, my five-year-old's been crying all day. My phone number, here and at my job, is on the Internet. People from Iowa to G.o.dd.a.m.n Denmark have been calling my house all day, calling my baby a liar and a little b.i.t.c.h. She's confused. You're confused. I think you need to go for a while."

"Where?" he asked.

He waited there on the front step until she'd turned her head from his, stepped back into the house, and squeezed the door shut. He kept standing there, long after the porch light went off, not so much making an argument as waiting for an answer.

The King of a Vast Empire

Two weeks before Thanksgiving, my sister called to tell me she'd decided to be an elephant trainer. At first, the only thing I could think of elephants being trained for was the circus, which we had never been to as kids, so I pictured cartoon elephants balancing on giant plastic beach b.a.l.l.s, like in Dumbo Dumbo. I thought for a second that Liddie was dropping out of school altogether to wear sparkly spandex and chase them around with a baton, which seemed unlikely on any number of counts. My sister liked college, had once been banned from the local Fluff N Stuff pet boutique for trying to liberate a show poodle, and hadn't been near a stage since she quit dance school, in the sixth grade, after calling its photo display of smiling ballerinas the hall of kiddie p.o.r.n for voyeurs without the b.a.l.l.s to be real pedophiles, the hall of kiddie p.o.r.n for voyeurs without the b.a.l.l.s to be real pedophiles, in front of the academy's male director. Liddie was not running off to join the circus. What she actually had in mind was working at some kind of conservatory for elephants with post-traumatic stress syndrome. in front of the academy's male director. Liddie was not running off to join the circus. What she actually had in mind was working at some kind of conservatory for elephants with post-traumatic stress syndrome.

"Elephants experience trauma the way humans do," she informed me. "They're fascinating animals."

"Humans aren't that fascinating," I said.

What was happening with me right then was, the first woman I'd been with for longer than a year had left me, my car had died unexpectedly, and someone named Carlos was stealing my ident.i.ty and improving my credit in the process. I'd found out the last bit while trying to buy a used car, and had yet to do anything about it because I kind of liked the idea of someone wanting to be me. If I were my parents, I'm not sure Liddie's the kid I'd worry about, but maybe they'd given up on me. with me right then was, the first woman I'd been with for longer than a year had left me, my car had died unexpectedly, and someone named Carlos was stealing my ident.i.ty and improving my credit in the process. I'd found out the last bit while trying to buy a used car, and had yet to do anything about it because I kind of liked the idea of someone wanting to be me. If I were my parents, I'm not sure Liddie's the kid I'd worry about, but maybe they'd given up on me.

My mother called three days after Liddie had.

"Terrence," she said, "you need to talk to your sister."

"I just talked to my sister," I said.

"Well, talk to her again. She's changed her major to some sort of comparative biology nonsense, and she's not coming home for Thanksgiving this year."

I thought of last year, when Liddie had come home for Thanksgiving with her white anarchist poet boyfriend and caused my mother to glare at me every time Liddie referred to Thanksgiving as the Day of Native Resistance, as if I were somehow responsible for this. I'd played a drinking game that involved taking a shot of whatever was convenient every time a glare happened, and was utterly s.h.i.+tfaced by the time Liddie drove me home and told me that I ought to watch being drunk around our parents on holidays because it obviously upset them, as if she'd been Marcia Brady all night.

I wasn't too broken up about scaling back Thanksgiving this year. Liddie and I did better with each other on our own terms. When I talked to her, she said she wasn't mad or anything, it was just that changing her major from ethnic studies to comparative biology meant switching into a lot of cla.s.ses late in the semester, and she had some catch-up studying to do. Liddie seemed OK to me, or at least she'd had way more alarming phases. I figured the elephant thing would end, as had the summer she converted to Judaism and the year she stopped eating cooked food.

Difficult phases notwithstanding, Liddie was the most together person in my life, which says maybe more about my life than Liddie's togetherness. I was a mess before I met Gabi, but it got worse when she left me. We'd had something like a fight the week before she took off, but nothing compared to the worst of them. Fighting with Gabi, I'd thought, was like fighting with Liddie: at the end of the day she wasn't going anywhere. Gabi, understand, was addicted to bad news. Every morning she read five newspapers in three languages, and if she couldn't get to a newspaper, she'd start shaking and looking for the nearest television. On really bad days she binged and purged on old microfiche the way bulimic girls I'd known in college did with food, sucking it all in and then hurling it back out into the world at the first opportunity. The worst of the news she thought was appropriate to share in the middle of s.e.x, and when I say worst I mean: dismembered child soldiers, bomb victims burned beyond recognition, elderly women beaten and raped, and when I say middle I mean we're naked and sweaty and I'm inside her and it's really not the time. The last time I stopped and said she was f.u.c.king weird and perverted. Liddie was the most together person in my life, which says maybe more about my life than Liddie's togetherness. I was a mess before I met Gabi, but it got worse when she left me. We'd had something like a fight the week before she took off, but nothing compared to the worst of them. Fighting with Gabi, I'd thought, was like fighting with Liddie: at the end of the day she wasn't going anywhere. Gabi, understand, was addicted to bad news. Every morning she read five newspapers in three languages, and if she couldn't get to a newspaper, she'd start shaking and looking for the nearest television. On really bad days she binged and purged on old microfiche the way bulimic girls I'd known in college did with food, sucking it all in and then hurling it back out into the world at the first opportunity. The worst of the news she thought was appropriate to share in the middle of s.e.x, and when I say worst I mean: dismembered child soldiers, bomb victims burned beyond recognition, elderly women beaten and raped, and when I say middle I mean we're naked and sweaty and I'm inside her and it's really not the time. The last time I stopped and said she was f.u.c.king weird and perverted.

Without bothering to put clothes on, she'd proceeded to explain to me, not for the first time, that really, all pleasure was perverse, that it was perverse to ever enjoy anything in such an awful world, that any moment of happiness was selfish when infinite horror was always happening somewhere else.

"Tell me," she'd said. "Tell me, Terrence, how you can ever be happy about something as stupid as s.e.x, in a world where children are beheaded for no reason. Doesn't that make you really f.u.c.king sick?"

"You make me really f.u.c.king sick sometimes, Gabi," I said.

She silently walked into the kitchen, still naked, opened the cabinet, and proceeded to line up my cherry-red drinking gla.s.ses and one by one throw them at the living room wall, waiting for the last to shatter before reaching for the next. When she finished she looked up.

"If you're going to call me crazy, I'm d.a.m.n well going to act it," she said.

Technically, I hadn't called her crazy. I did not, in fact, think she looked so much like a crazy person as a quite rational and calculating person behaving the way she thought a crazy person might-a prospect I found significantly more frightening and not entirely unattractive. I said nothing, went for a long drive, and returned to find the gla.s.s swept up and a new set of gla.s.ses lined up on the kitchen counter. I thought it was a peace offering and not a good-bye.

I never paid for the newspapers after she left and most of them stopped coming, but the German paper still came weekly. It was a week behind the present and in a language I didn't speak, but I read it religiously, reveled in its deliberate and drawn-out words. I thought that so long as you didn't understand a thing, it was a G.o.dd.a.m.n lovely world.

Two months after that I bought the new car, and Jane the credit bureau lady, who somehow managed to give her voice the blank intonation of a dial tone, informed me that my credit report had been red-flagged for an unusual amount of activity and I ought to review it to make sure it was all mine. I didn't; I was vaguely flattered. Plus, I had to consider the minuscule improvement in my credit score. I'd almost forgotten about it by the time the cops showed up a month later. I'd had the day off from the bookstore, and was stretched out in bed in my boxers and a T-s.h.i.+rt when they knocked. I answered the door just like that because even after the breakup, the only person I could think of who'd drop by in the middle of a weekday afternoon without a phone call was Gabi. The sight of two of Fairfax County's finest was a disappointment.

"You Carlos Aguilar?" they asked.

I tried to squint at their badges, wondering whether it was a trick.

"No," I said, after a second.

It was cleared up pretty quickly. I may have been brown, but my Spanish was pathetic, and I had a wallet full of c.r.a.p with my name on it: license, employee ID, college ID, ID from the university where I'd pretended I was going to get a master's, library card, Giant discount card, Hollywood video card, et cetera. Enough to prove that I never let go of things, and that I was not who they were looking for.

According to the cops, Carlos was in serious trouble. He was facing several counts of credit card fraud for impersonating other people, some of whom now owed thousands of dollars. Carlos had also been selling people's Social Security numbers on the black market. Mine he was using to be a good citizen, getting the cards he paid on time, apparently renting an apartment in my name. The cops left me with a number to call in case I had any more trouble. I thought about Carlos during the next few days, feeling a certain solidarity with him. I knew most likely I'd just been careless with some kind of important paperwork, but I couldn't shake the feeling I'd been chosen for a reason.

Bored and curious, I spent a lunch break doing an Internet search for myself and pulled up six addresses, one of which was my parents' house, one of which was the s.h.i.+thole apartment I'd had in college, and one of which was my present address. The most recent of the other addresses I thought I recognized as an apartment complex just over the Wilson Bridge, in Maryland. I considered going there, maybe to introduce myself, maybe just to watch for a while, to see if I could pick this guy out of a lineup. The possibilities of such a situation seemed limitless, but the fear of having to explain myself put a stop to most of them. I thought about giving the cops the other address I'd found, but I figured they had people who got paid for that. I'd never even bothered to file any of the things they told me to. I had an imaginary conversation with Gabi about it, in which she told me this was the physical manifestation of my existential crisis, and I told her to stop talking bulls.h.i.+t and then left the room.

While I was having imaginary conversations with my ex-girlfriend, Liddie was finis.h.i.+ng up her first semester of junior year at Harvard. It was no wonder that even people who'd known me for the three years that she didn't exist often mistook her for the older sibling. I always thought it was because of the accident, the one she swore that she remembered in perfect detail. Driving us back from the city, Dad had slammed into a car stopped in the middle of the highway. I was nine and sleeping and was carried out of the car in perfect health. Liddie, six and wide-awake, was. .h.i.t by a piece of flying gla.s.s and put in the same ambulance as the children in the other car, two of whom died on the way to the hospital. Liddie was released a few hours later with twenty-five st.i.tches across her forehead. They left a faint scar when they came out. having imaginary conversations with my ex-girlfriend, Liddie was finis.h.i.+ng up her first semester of junior year at Harvard. It was no wonder that even people who'd known me for the three years that she didn't exist often mistook her for the older sibling. I always thought it was because of the accident, the one she swore that she remembered in perfect detail. Driving us back from the city, Dad had slammed into a car stopped in the middle of the highway. I was nine and sleeping and was carried out of the car in perfect health. Liddie, six and wide-awake, was. .h.i.t by a piece of flying gla.s.s and put in the same ambulance as the children in the other car, two of whom died on the way to the hospital. Liddie was released a few hours later with twenty-five st.i.tches across her forehead. They left a faint scar when they came out.

When Liddie was twelve, a plastic surgeon neighbor mentioned to my mother that Liddie's scar could probably be surgically corrected.

"Great," Liddie said, before my mother could respond. "And when we're done with that, why don't you just give me a b.o.o.b job? Is there anything else you see wrong with me?"

"I'm sorry," the woman murmured. "I know it's a sensitive subject."

"We were in a little accident a few years back," said my mother. "I think Liddie wants her battle wound."

"It wasn't a little accident," Liddie said.

"She was six," my mother said, as if this proved something about Liddie's reliability. as if this proved something about Liddie's reliability.

The truth was we all trusted Liddie's memory, and she knew it. Anytime Liddie wanted a favor from me or wanted our parents' permission for something she had no business doing, she'd lift her hand and push her hair back ever so slightly, so subtly you couldn't call her on it. I blamed her-sometimes-for my mother's cheerful denial of everything that was wrong with us, and for my father's whiskey habit and nightly disappearances into his study. Without her, it might have been easier to forget what had happened. It was Liddie who knew most of all how fixated our father was on the accident, because she regularly brought him coffee and food at night, even during that year when she was boycotting cooking.

"Don't you think he goes in there with the door locked because he wants to be alone?" I'd asked her once when we were teenagers.

"I'm just trying to get his mind off it," she said. According to Liddie, our father had a drawer full of clippings about the accident. Alone in his office, each night, he drank and read them over and over.

"Maybe he wouldn't dwell on it so much if you weren't always throwing it in his face so you could walk all over him," I said. She'd done it at dinner that night: flashed her scar at our parents when they started on her for mouthing off to her history teacher.

She looked at me, exasperated more than angry.

"It's called love, s.h.i.+thead. You hurt people, and then you make it better."Every woman in my life had a screwed-up philosophy about love. My mother's was that love was built on a series of unbreakable formalities, which was her excuse for buying me a train ticket from DC to Boston so that Liddie wouldn't spend Thanksgiving alone, which I had understood to be the whole point of her not coming home in the first place. Gabi had spelled hers out in the note she left me: my life had a screwed-up philosophy about love. My mother's was that love was built on a series of unbreakable formalities, which was her excuse for buying me a train ticket from DC to Boston so that Liddie wouldn't spend Thanksgiving alone, which I had understood to be the whole point of her not coming home in the first place. Gabi had spelled hers out in the note she left me: Terrence, Terrence, When I was a kid I had these caterpillars I used to pick up off the sidewalk on the way home from school and keep all over the balcony, in s...o...b..xes and jelly jars with the tops off. My mother wasn't a fan. Little furry worms, she called them. She always used to say, If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you it is yours, if it doesn't it was never yours to begin with. She said this especially often once I started with the caterpillars. I think really she just wanted the balcony clean, but at the time I didn't know that and I felt guilty about having them, so after school one day I said good-bye to all the caterpillars and dumped them out of their jars from our fifth-story balcony, where, of course, they fell to their deaths. I am thinking there ought to be a corollary to that set it free thing. If you love something, don't throw it off a balcony. But I'm not quite there yet. When I was a kid I had these caterpillars I used to pick up off the sidewalk on the way home from school and keep all over the balcony, in s...o...b..xes and jelly jars with the tops off. My mother wasn't a fan. Little furry worms, she called them. She always used to say, If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you it is yours, if it doesn't it was never yours to begin with. She said this especially often once I started with the caterpillars. I think really she just wanted the balcony clean, but at the time I didn't know that and I felt guilty about having them, so after school one day I said good-bye to all the caterpillars and dumped them out of their jars from our fifth-story balcony, where, of course, they fell to their deaths. I am thinking there ought to be a corollary to that set it free thing. If you love something, don't throw it off a balcony. But I'm not quite there yet. Gabi Gabi That was it. I pictured her as a child, beige and freckled and crying over the smushed and mangled bodies of caterpillars, her eyes flickering from brown to green the way they did when she was upset. It seemed like the kind of thing that she would dwell on; though her childhood was a TV movie waiting to happen, she would blame her craziness on some dead caterpillars. I thought about tracking her down, begging her to come back, but I was not given to sweeping romantic gestures. Anyway, I didn't know where to look. She'd worked in the bookstore that I managed, pouring overpriced and watered-down coffee for people too cheap to buy books before reading them. I was so used to her being everywhere I was that I had no idea where to look for her once she was not. Her coworkers didn't know where she'd gone, even when I abused my authority as manager to bribe them with s.h.i.+ft changes and unearned overtime bonuses. Really, there was no one else to ask. I was not the first person she'd disappeared from in her life.

After I got done being angry at her for walking out like that, I was p.i.s.sed that she had compared me to a caterpillar-though I had to admit, hungover and sprawled on the living room carpet, I was not unlike a spineless insect. It was, I told myself, the suddenness of the whole thing; sudden for me, anyway. Scanning the bedroom, I noticed that all of her perfumes and brushes and inexplicable tubes and creams were gone, that as impulsive as her leaving seemed, she'd thought about it long enough to pack completely.

It was beautiful in Boston when the train pulled up, and even more beautiful when I arrived in Harvard Square via rental car. Harvard's campus seemed designed to demonstrate to outsiders what was missing in their lives. It was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and the Square was much emptier than the other time I'd visited, but the trees were lush with color, and the brick buildings looked almost theatrical. I parked without much trouble and waited for Liddie on a cobblestone corner until she finally appeared wrapped in a brown sweats.h.i.+rt that was too big and too plain-looking to actually belong to her. Her hair had been dyed some shade of burgundy since I'd seen her last, and she'd lost weight in a way that made her features look sharper. in Boston when the train pulled up, and even more beautiful when I arrived in Harvard Square via rental car. Harvard's campus seemed designed to demonstrate to outsiders what was missing in their lives. It was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and the Square was much emptier than the other time I'd visited, but the trees were lush with color, and the brick buildings looked almost theatrical. I parked without much trouble and waited for Liddie on a cobblestone corner until she finally appeared wrapped in a brown sweats.h.i.+rt that was too big and too plain-looking to actually belong to her. Her hair had been dyed some shade of burgundy since I'd seen her last, and she'd lost weight in a way that made her features look sharper.

After confirming that Mom had authorized me to use her credit card for this trip, Liddie dragged me to a Mediterranean restaurant called Casablanca for dinner. It had giant scenes from the movie painted on the walls, and while we gorged ourselves, me on three kinds of chicken, Liddie on dressed-up squash, she dramatically said things like Well, there are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn't advise you to try to invade Well, there are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn't advise you to try to invade and and You know how you sound, Mr. Blaine? Like a man who's trying to convince himself of something he doesn't believe in his heart You know how you sound, Mr. Blaine? Like a man who's trying to convince himself of something he doesn't believe in his heart. Mostly she was speaking to her silverware, which both entertained me and kept me from having to make conversation. We were at wine and dessert before she asked me about myself.

"What's with you?" she asked. "Where's wifey?"

"That's a boring story," I said. "What happened to the poet?"

"Broke up with him. He loved me so much, it was starting to get weird. Besides, he wasn't a very good poet." Liddie licked some chocolate off of her spoon. "That was a boring story too. Tell me something interesting."

"Someone's been using my Social Security number to get credit cards," I said.

"I thought you you couldn't even use your Social Security number to get credit cards anymore," Liddie said. couldn't even use your Social Security number to get credit cards anymore," Liddie said.

"That's the thing," I said, "f.u.c.ker makes his payments on time more often than I do. The cops said he's probably illegal or something and just needs the number."

"Undoc.u.mented," said Liddie, "and there are cops cops involved?" involved?"

I told her about my unexpected visitors.

"Aren't you curious?" Liddie asked when I'd finished my story. "I mean, don't you want to find this guy?"

It was moments like this when I remembered why I loved my sister so much: anyone else would have nagged me about the paperwork. Liddie looked like she'd been presented with an early Christmas present and couldn't wait a week to shake it or carefully peel the wrapping.

"His name's Carlos Aguilar," I said, and I didn't mean for there to be anything in my voice when I said it, but Liddie flinched anyway. Then she shrugged.

"There's like fifty billion people named Carlos Aguilar," she said. "He's not ours."

"Of course not," I said, as if the thought had never crossed my mind, maybe like I didn't even remember the name.

It wasn't impossible that I'd forgotten; I deliberately remembered very little about the accident and the years immediately following it. What I remember about the year after the accident is mostly silence: the silence of our house without the television, which my parents locked in the bas.e.m.e.nt in case I was old enough to connect our accident to the vigils and fund-raisers for the dead children and their surviving family; Liddie's three weeks of complete silence, which caused our parents to call every child psychologist in the New York area; the dinner-table silences as our parents tried not to blame each other; my own silence, because I had no one to talk to; and the silence of my parents' friends and colleagues, who knew it wasn't technically their fault but could not bring themselves to offer condolences. that I'd forgotten; I deliberately remembered very little about the accident and the years immediately following it. What I remember about the year after the accident is mostly silence: the silence of our house without the television, which my parents locked in the bas.e.m.e.nt in case I was old enough to connect our accident to the vigils and fund-raisers for the dead children and their surviving family; Liddie's three weeks of complete silence, which caused our parents to call every child psychologist in the New York area; the dinner-table silences as our parents tried not to blame each other; my own silence, because I had no one to talk to; and the silence of my parents' friends and colleagues, who knew it wasn't technically their fault but could not bring themselves to offer condolences.

The children were survived by their bereaved parents and an older child who had not been in the car, Carlos, age ten. They were poor and immigrants and there was a public outcry when the family returned to El Salvador to bury the children and was denied reentry into the country. A popular right-wing talk show host lost his job for saying it served them right for being here illegally and implying they'd been driving poorly because they couldn't read English. There was too much tragedy to be compounded with sympathy for us.

If you were wondering who to blame, it goes like this: The family is driving back from the city, coming around a curve only to find the road blocked by fallen lumber. The father, maybe he looks backward, maybe he thinks about whether he can make it if he swerves, maybe he confers with his wife, but he slows, he stops the car, he gets out to move the wood so they can pa.s.s. We are coming around the corner, on our way home from dinner at my aunt's house, and my father does not see them until it is too late. Maybe it happened because the road was curving and poorly lit and no one could have. Maybe I shouldn't have whined that I wanted to stay at my aunt's house until the cartoon I'd been watching was over. Maybe my mother shouldn't have told my father to hurry up so that she could make her church board conference call that evening. Maybe my father, who had been drinking wine with my aunt, but wasn't drunk by any legal standard, should not have had the second gla.s.s. Maybe the other father should have swerved around the roadblock. Maybe he should have put his hazards on. Maybe the city should have lit the road better, or maybe it's all the fault of some jacka.s.s truck driver who let lumber fall off the back of his truck and drove off scot-free.

The official police report says that it was a no-fault accident, but it is always someone's fault. At the start of high school, they sent me home with this puzzle: The king of a vast empire is so impressed with his new and foreign territories that he is hardly home, forgoing the palace to visit the rest of his realm. Lonely, the queen takes a lover, a n.o.bleman in a neighboring town. Not wanting to raise the awareness of the king's loyal guard, she sneaks out of the palace to meet him disguised as a peasant. The guard is aware of this deception, but says nothing and does nothing to stop her. Traveling alone, the queen is attacked and murdered by highway robbers who have no idea who she is. Who is most at fault for the queen's death: the robbers, the guard, the queen, the king, or the lover? The king of a vast empire is so impressed with his new and foreign territories that he is hardly home, forgoing the palace to visit the rest of his realm. Lonely, the queen takes a lover, a n.o.bleman in a neighboring town. Not wanting to raise the awareness of the king's loyal guard, she sneaks out of the palace to meet him disguised as a peasant. The guard is aware of this deception, but says nothing and does nothing to stop her. Traveling alone, the queen is attacked and murdered by highway robbers who have no idea who she is. Who is most at fault for the queen's death: the robbers, the guard, the queen, the king, or the lover?

I took the puzzle home and told Liddie about it. I said the robbers were to blame, Liddie picked the queen. The next day, the teacher told our cla.s.s that who you blamed showed what you valued: justice, duty, faith, love, or family. I thought it was bulls.h.i.+t, and when I got home I lied and told Liddie that the teacher had said she was wrong, that only the robbers were at fault, because only they acted with intent. Liddie shook her head and said that was stupid, the queen probably knew the road was dangerous and anyway the robbers were the only people who didn't owe anybody anything to begin with.

To me the accident is something like that, blame for everyone and no one. A stupid puzzle, not worth solving. My parents never saw it that way. It was a difficult fall and a worse winter. Once Liddie spoke again, my mother began talking to her nonstop, about everything but the accident. Mid-conversation my father would get up and disappear. My mother first threw herself into Christmas with an enthusiasm as profound and suspect as that of department stores. Then she began to yell at us, mostly at me, since everyone else had chosen not to listen. We got used to yelling, and when Becky from the electric company called the morning of Christmas Eve to complain about the bill being late, not because we didn't have the money but because my parents had stopped thinking about that sort of thing, my mother yelled at her too. The difference between being Becky and being anyone else my mother yelled at was that Becky turned off our electricity.

Christmas Day my parents left the dark house early in the morning. They didn't tell us they were leaving, they just walked out and shut the door, and Liddie and I weren't sure whether we had been left on purpose or forgotten. The lights had been out all night, and the food in the refrigerator was starting to go bad. Liddie and I sat in our pajamas, alone, staring at the tree that wouldn't light up. When our parents returned hours later with pizza and Chinese food and flashlights and candles, we exhaled breath we didn't know we'd been holding and ate cold food in the dark silence.

The next summer we moved, hoping for redemption through change of location. My father accepted an offer from Georgetown, where so far as anyone knew he'd always been quiet and eccentric and p.r.o.ne to drinking, not unforgivable traits in a law professor. My mother devoted herself to the kind of ostentatious suburban pursuits that let her pretend we were the ideal family, without actually having to talk to us. She chauffeured us to sport and dance lessons until we were old enough to refuse, she won three homeowner's a.s.sociation bake-offs in a row, and she made such a show of ceremonial occasions that Liddie and I tried to skip our own birthday parties. Even when we had good days, at night it was clear that we had run away from everything except ourselves. Most nights my father was locked in his study, and my mother was knocked out on sleeping pills. Liddie brought her nightmares to me; I did what I could to comfort her. She slept in my bed more often than not until she was twelve and I was fifteen. When I woke one night and found my hand cupped over her breast I shook her awake. we moved, hoping for redemption through change of location. My father accepted an offer from Georgetown, where so far as anyone knew he'd always been quiet and eccentric and p.r.o.ne to drinking, not unforgivable traits in a law professor. My mother devoted herself to the kind of ostentatious suburban pursuits that let her pretend we were the ideal family, without actually having to talk to us. She chauffeured us to sport and dance lessons until we were old enough to refuse, she won three homeowner's a.s.sociation bake-offs in a row, and she made such a show of ceremonial occasions that Liddie and I tried to skip our own birthday parties. Even when we had good days, at night it was clear that we had run away from everything except ourselves. Most nights my father was locked in his study, and my mother was knocked out on sleeping pills. Liddie brought her nightmares to me; I did what I could to comfort her. She slept in my bed more often than not until she was twelve and I was fifteen. When I woke one night and found my hand cupped over her breast I shook her awake.

"Liddie," I told her, "you can't sleep here anymore." If my mother, who already looked at us like slightly dangerous strangers, walked in on us curled up in bed together, she'd throw herself off the nearest bridge. Liddie looked at me like I had slapped her. It had never occurred to her that we could be anything but kids together and I had shattered something by the very suggestion, forced her into premature adulthood. She went back to her bed and slept there for the rest of our adolescence, though her nightmares continued; I could hear them through the wall.

At fifteen, she started bringing her boyfriend over and having s.e.x with him in her bedroom. No one stopped her. My father was pa.s.sed out in his study, and my mother, when she was awake, knew Liddie had more control over the house than she did. I listened to the frantic panting for a few nights, then bought a Walkman with headphones.

Sometimes I thought she'd never forgiven me for not taking some action to save us. For never taking action when I should. She was pleasant enough tonight though, singing "As Time Goes By" off-key all the way back to her dorm room. My mother had refused to pay for a hotel room, on the grounds that if we each had our own s.p.a.ces we'd probably ruin the point of the visit by confining ourselves to them. It was a rare insight on her part. I dropped my stuff in Liddie's wood-paneled common area and tried to think of something brotherly to say about the formality of her living quarters, but all I could think of to say was, "It's very clean in here." she'd never forgiven me for not taking some action to save us. For never taking action when I should. She was pleasant enough tonight though, singing "As Time Goes By" off-key all the way back to her dorm room. My mother had refused to pay for a hotel room, on the grounds that if we each had our own s.p.a.ces we'd probably ruin the point of the visit by confining ourselves to them. It was a rare insight on her part. I dropped my stuff in Liddie's wood-paneled common area and tried to think of something brotherly to say about the formality of her living quarters, but all I could think of to say was, "It's very clean in here."

Liddie ignored me. She'd grabbed a book from out of her bedroom and sat across from me on a beanbag chair, reading furiously and applying yellow Post-it notes to pages. She was sitting between the radiator and the open window, and occasionally a breeze made the pages flutter. Watching her, it seemed even sillier to me that my mother had sent me here to advise Liddie. I had no business telling her anything about how to be a student. When I was in college, I'd lived in an off-campus pigsty and spent most of my free time playing video games. I'd been an OK student, but I did more reading working at the bookstore now than I had back then. I picked up a newspaper and pretended to care about things for a while, then I switched to her suitemate's copy of Entertainment Weekly Entertainment Weekly and stared at Beyonce instead. Liddie muttered to herself about vertebrate bone structure. After about an hour she slammed the book shut. and stared at Beyonce instead. Liddie muttered to herself about vertebrate bone structure. After about an hour she slammed the book shut.

"Let's find him," she said.

"Who?"

"That guy who wants to be you. Let's confront our curiosity."

There were many reasons why this was a bad idea. I wasn't supposed to take the rental car out of Ma.s.sachusetts. Even if we left now, it would probably be early tomorrow morning before we arrived in Maryland. When we got there we'd be twenty minutes away from our parents. If we didn't show up, we'd get caught or feel guilty about not getting caught. If we did, there'd be explanations to give; neither of our parents would believe we'd driven nine hours because we missed them. Our curiosity about Carlos was probably not the best motivation for a trip like this. Right then, though, it seemed so easy not to disappoint my sister, and such opportunities were rare.

"You know it's not him, right?" I said.

"Of course," Liddie said. "But I want to know who it is is. I mean, who wants our lives?"

I hadn't unpacked anything, and Liddie hadn't bothered to pack at all, so it was only an hour later that we found ourselves headed south on the interstate. It was already after midnight, and the roads were emptier than I had expected. People had either done their leaving already or they were waiting until the last possible minute. The weather was clear, and you could even see stars, which felt like a good omen. Liddie fiddled with the radio until she found a jazz station and then continued reading her textbook with a flashlight. We were just outside of Hartford when she finally shut it.

"So, Gabi," said Liddie.

"She left me."

"Obviously."

"I could have left her."

"No," Liddie said, not obnoxiously. "No, you couldn't have."

"I could could have," I said. "I just wouldn't have." have," I said. "I just wouldn't have."

Liddie didn't respond.

"So," I said finally. "The elephants. What's so amazing about them that they need my sister as their shrink?"

"Lots of things. They're so much like us. Elephant society has been breaking down just like ours has. Increased violence. Pack violence, even. They experience shock. They've got elaborate grieving rituals, like humans. I guess that's why they always seemed sad to me."

"Always?"

"I used to go to the zoo sometimes in high school. It was calming." A minute later she said softly, "Let's go see them. The elephants. Before we look for Carlos, I mean."

She turned to look at me with very big eyes, and very lightly brushed her hair off her forehead. I knew what she was doing, but it was working anyway.

"Liddie," I said, "it's Thanksgiving."

"The National Zoo is open every day of the year except Christmas."

"That's ridiculous," I said.