Happy Family Part 12

"I don't know. It's not like I've done this before," Cheri says. "Let's just see what happens." Cheri doesn't take her eyes off her ice hole. The picture she sees through the patch in the window is like a snow globe after it's shaken and everything is settling into place.

"This calls for getting way sober or way stoned and I'm neither." They light up another bowl to forget the cold, then another. Eventually, the twinkly lights on the house next door flicker, then go dark. The last thing Cheri remembers is looking up at the sky and thinking, It's like a giant black tongue, capturing the snowflakes.

With no one to maintain it, Cheri's ice hole closes in on itself.

Certain sounds immediately evoke a sense memory. The rhythmic sound of a shovel sc.r.a.ping the pavement says Snow day, snow day, and Cheri's dreaming mind conjures the image of her young self, dressed in her red parka and rubber boots, excited to see the world covered in white. Cheri bolts upright. It's light out. Taya's in the backseat buried beneath clothes and magazines. Cheri reaches over and turns the key in the ignition. She flips on the winds.h.i.+eld wipers and the snow is swept aside. There he is, shoveling the driveway of 5521.

Sol wears his pants tucked into boots Cheri has never seen. She's also never seen him hold a shovel or a rake or do anything that Gusmanov could do. But her father is fully engrossed in his task, shoveling with determination Then Cheri notices a young boy, maybe five years old, sitting on the front steps of the house. He's dressed in a snow outfit, the kind that makes a crunchy rustle when you walk, watching Sol intently. When Sol motions to him, he comes running. Sol bends down and puts the boy's hands on the shovel's handle, on top of his; together, they are a great big machine for moving snow. The boy laughs, but his legs wobble and he takes a tumble in the snow. His hat falls off and his hair is a halo of strawberry curls, his little fists are at his eyes. If there had been any doubt in Cheri's mind before, there is none now. It isn't just that the boy has her father's red hair and fair complexion; it's the way he's looking at Sol, lifting his arms: Pick me up. Sol sweeps him up immediately. She experiences a frisson of that same primal need. She suddenly remembers falling, finding herself at the bottom of the slide at the park, in her favorite red parka: bright, loud, now dirty. Reaching toward him: Pick me up, pick me up. Her father looking at her like a package he doesn't know how to unwrap, then turning away. Cici's arms reaching in.

Sol sets his son down and brushes the snow off him. The blond woman from the Most Sacred Blood Church opens the door, smiling. She waves at them: Come back inside.

Cheri has glimpsed an alternate universe, one that apparently exists alongside hers. What would happen if she blinked? Would she be in Montclair, walking in the snow up her driveway to find her mother waiting in the doorway in her bathrobe, her father behind her with a shovel, ready to clear their path?

"Oh, s.h.i.+t," Taya says softly, leaning over Cheri's shoulder, seeing what she's seeing. Taya has racc.o.o.n eyes from last night's makeup and a sweater wrapped around her head. She puts her arm softly on Cheri's shoulder. "Let's get out of here," she says.

Cheri doesn't see Sol for weeks after her secret trip to Rye. He is out of town on business; she has exams. It's easy to avoid him until there he is, standing outside her lecture hall, saying, "I'll walk you to your next cla.s.s," like they're in high school. She isn't prepared for the bile she tastes when she makes eye contact. She imagines him just a few hours ago handing his kid a Superman lunchbox. Thanks, Dad, she hears the mop-headed little boy say as he hugs Sol good-bye.

Sol leads her down the crowded hallway, making small talk. "There's another storm coming in; looks like we could get more snow."

"A snow day, how perfect." Cheri can't contain herself. "I saw her. I saw you and your kid playing in the snow."

"What?" Sol stops in his tracks.

Cheri looks at him with contempt. "Forest Drive. Your other life. Which you couldn't even manage to do in another state. You disgust me."

A kid wearing a backpack gives them a look, then brushes past.

Sol is fl.u.s.tered, tries to take her arm. "Let's go somewhere and talk," he says in his best I'm-the-grown-up voice.

"I'm not going anywhere with you."

"There are things you don't know, Cheri. A compendium of things that all affect each other. This is not the place to do this." Sol's tone is becoming defensive, which only angers Cheri further.

"A compendium? A f.u.c.king compendium? Take your hand off me. I said I'm not going anywhere."

Sol backs off, waits for an arm-in-arm couple to go around them. "I understand how this looks," he says, grasping for a phrase that might calm her down.

"Is that all you care about, appearances? f.u.c.k how it looks! How could you do this? To us, to her? You're a f.u.c.king lying bigamist. I could have you arrested." She turns to storm off.

"Whoa," he says, grabbing her arm again. "The only woman I'm married to is your mother. And keep your voice down."

"Oh, great. You're only married to one of them. I guess that means you're in the clear!"

"Please," Sol says, relaxing his grip on her arm. "I don't know what you were doing there or what you saw. Were you following me?"

Cheri laughs ruefully. "I don't think you're in any position to be questioning me."

Sol lets out an exasperated sigh. His shoulders slump for a moment, but he quickly returns to his full height and clears his throat. "What do you want me to do here, Cheri? Tell me and I'll do it. I'll tell you the truth."

"You know, the irony is that I thought I was actually getting to know you. Why did you even bother when everything you do is a lie? Does your other family even know about us?" Cheri pauses, trying to grasp all the implications. She hasn't, until just this moment, considered that this little boy is her half brother. "Forget it, I don't want to know." Cheri wrenches her arm out of Sol's grasp and barrels her way outside. Sol is behind her.

"I can understand that." He pants, struggling to keep up.

"You don't understand anything about me and you never have." Cheri halts, lights up a cigarette, watching as her hands shake. "You never liked me. Can we get that out in the open? I was never enough for you. Would it have been different if I were your own flesh and blood? Well, now that's a moot point."

"That's not true. I may not always like how you behave, but you're my daughter. I love you."

"You might love me out of obligation, but you never liked me. I know the difference."

"You're wrong," he says adamantly. "You have a right to be angry. But this is not about you-"

"It never is!" Cheri says angrily, exhaling smoke in his face. "And that's part of the problem! But forget about me. What about Cici? You didn't just do what Taya's dad did, f.u.c.king a secretary and then dumping her. Oh no. You've got a whole other wife, a kid. A whole other f.u.c.king family!"

"Jesus Christ, I told you she's not my wife." Sol's face is growing red.

"And I suppose he's not your kid?" Cheri knows the little boy is just another victim of her father's lies, but she can't access sympathy for him, or for the blond woman. She can't calculate how many lives he's hurt, but all she cares about in this moment is Cici.

Sol can't look at her. "Cheri, it's not that simple."

"No, it's not." Cheri feels the weight of what is now their shared secret get a bit heavier. Of course it's on her, not Sol, to make the choice about whether to keep it. Cheri looks down at her shaking hands. "As much as I hate you," she says icily, "I'd hate myself more if I ruined Cici's life. Telling her...would ruin what she believes is her life. "

Cheri sees Sol's shoulders relax. His obvious relief makes her hate him all the more. She needs to get away from the woody smell of Sol's cologne, his semi-tearing eyes, Was.h.i.+ngton Square Park. Nowhere could be far enough.

"Just stay away from me. You're not a part of my life anymore."

The End of Thanksgiving.

Ever since Sol died on the day before Thanksgiving, both the bird and the holiday were verboten by Cici. It's only three p.m. but Cheri's neighborhood market is jammed like people are getting ready for the Siege of Leningrad and she's thinking, Wasn't it just Halloween? There are cardboard cutouts of turkeys everywhere and too many carts for the narrow aisles; it's claustrophobic. This is why she avoids grocery stores. She snags toilet paper and paper towels and heads to the deli, where there's a sign about ordering your holiday birds. But with Michael on the road for The Palmist, she'll likely settle for commemorating the holiday with a turkey sandwich.

Her favorite sight when she was a kid was the foil-wrapped bundle Cheri would pull out of the fridge and pick on for days after a holiday. Her fridge is currently a wasteland dotted with old takeout containers. The woman at the head of the line orders a pound of corned beef. Sol loved his corned beef on rye. "If only he'd gone out for a corned beef," her mother had been known to lament.

When Sol died, it had been fifteen years since Cheri had agreed to keep his secret. Since that day, Cheri had avoided him whenever possible and when-for Cici's sake-she went back to Montclair for obligatory holidays like this one, she kept her sarcasm to a minimum. It was hard enough for her to handle the pretense in her conversations with Cici, but seeing it up close and personal challenged her resolve to stay silent.

Cheri was told that it had been a crisp fall morning. Sol decided to walk to Citronella's to pick up the Thanksgiving turkey. Cici had debated between an eighteen- and a twenty-pounder. It was just the two of them, but Sol liked plenty of leftovers and Joe the butcher had picked out a lovely hen for Cici. Sol was in a wonderful mood; he had a spring in his step because he'd lost a little weight and was getting his tennis game back. Sol had had a mini-stroke three years earlier, after which he had re-prioritized his life. He started eating healthy, exercising daily, and working less. His phlebitis was finally under control; by all accounts, Sol and Cici were enjoying a second wind in their marriage, happily ensconced in their Eighty-first Street apartment. Semiretirement also rejuvenated Sol's humanitarian interests and he volunteered a few hours a week at a free health clinic.

Cici had told him to take Cookie's grocery cart to collect the turkey, but he scoffed; it wasn't right for a man to be seen wheeling a cart down Fifth Avenue. He felt the same way about a man being seen in public walking a small dog. Joe the butcher said he was surprised to see Dr. Matzner that morning, as they'd scheduled the turkey's delivery for later that afternoon. But they joked around and Sol looked in perfect health. "Happy Thanksgiving to you and the missus," Joe remembered saying.

The police report quoted witnesses who said they saw a well-dressed older man carrying a large package on Eighty-first Street suddenly fall to the ground. They thought he'd tripped but on closer observation, they realized he was clawing at his chest, unable to breathe. When the EMS team arrived, the man had lost consciousness, and they quickly packed him in the ambulance. Apparently, a bystander had thought to put the package in with him.

Cheri got a garbled call from Cici saying her father had been hurt carrying a turkey and was in the hospital. Come home immediately. Sol died of sudden cardiac arrest at 3:47 p.m. while Cheri was in seat 23C of a United airbus. During her three and a half years as a police officer, Cheri had often been in the position where she had to tell people a loved one had died. She knew it was important to look them in the eye, keep it brief and neutral. The doctor who told Cici the news no doubt adhered to those rules, but Cici was so distraught she'd needed to be sedated and was sleeping when Cheri checked in on her. The hospital administrator gave Cheri a plastic bag filled with Sol's belongings: clothing, watch, wallet. And then he handed her the sodden turkey, wrapped in once-white paper blotched with pink juice. "Can't you throw it away for us?" Cheri asked. She was told she'd already signed for it; staff could not take personal effects that had been signed for and released, and disposing of raw poultry in the hospital trash was a health hazard. So Cheri carried the dripping turkey out to the street and dropped it in front of the first homeless guy she saw. "Do I look like I have a stove?" he protested.

The images are so vivid, as if it all happened yesterday. Later, Cheri would hear every detail of that day recounted over and over by her mother, and she'd listen and nod and say, "Yes, it's shocking." And it was. Because no matter how she felt about her father, his absence loomed as large as his presence ever had. He was the white s.p.a.ce around words.

On the first anniversary of Sol's death, Michael and Cheri flew in from Chicago. Cici prepared a rib roast while Cookie fussed. "Now, don't you be crying into the food, Mz. M., that meat's too expensive to blubber in it. Why you can't make turkey like usual I'll never understand."

"I should eat what killed my husband?"

They ate prime rib and mushroom risotto and Cheri went to Ma.s.s with her mother. That was the last Thanksgiving Cici would ever celebrate.

Things I Hate About Her.

When Cheri gets home from the grocery store, she logs on to her computer to see if Michael's online. He's not. But Jessica the intern answers his phone. Cheri was used to Jane or Bertrand picking up his calls, but lately, it was always Jessica, with her offhand way of acting like she knew everything about Michael. "He's in a pre-interview, but we should wrap by midnight if you're still up," she says in her cartoon bubbly voice. It was hard to tell how Michael was really doing. He said he was maintaining weight, on track with his regimen. They were on schedule and getting great stuff for the doc.u.mentary. Cheri knew he'd never admit to anything less, but the last time they video-chatted, his eye was twitching, and she knew the grueling pace on the road had to be taking a toll. Whenever he checked in, it was from another noon-struck little town, a new motel room, always on the move.

She calls to video-chat later. Jessica Rabbit with her red ponytail is on Michael's computer in the van. It's just after midnight and she's whispering. "It was a really long day. He's sleeping." She looks over her shoulder. "Yeah, he's out. Do you want me to wake him?" If Michael's sleeping, what is she doing there?

"I guess not," Cheri says. "Just tell him I was looking for him."

"Will do. You should have seen him today. It's amazing how he gets people to relax and say these incredible things like it was rehea.r.s.ed. I'm learning so much from him." Jessica leans into the camera. "You know, Cheri, your husband's a genius."

"That's why I married him, Jessica." Cheri closes her computer and feels like a snarky a.s.s. Back when she met Michael, there was always a Disco, Doughnuts groupie in the background, a young production a.s.sistant who hung on Michael's every word. But there's something about Jessica that gives Cheri pause.

Cheri can't sleep. Fretting over Michael's health, Jessica's devotion, and the infuriating ongoing silence from the university, Cheri gets out of bed and crosses the yard into what's now HMS Base Camp. It smells like Michael is still there: Indian blankets, nag champa, and marijuana. A notecard with Sit with your fear and find your love is tacked up above his big computer screen. The last time they were in here together she and Michael had s.e.x on the floor. Maybe he's having s.e.x on other floors with Jessica Rabbit. Longer-lasting s.e.x. He's telling her the story of how he almost died when they ran out of gas in the Ozarks with his crew and didn't have any water or food. How he saved them by urinating in the gas tank to get enough fumes in the carburetor so they just made it to a gas station. He's explaining the Tyndall effect, how to see light in shadows and shadows in light. Cheri loved his black-and-white photography; he'd once taught her to see through the shadows. Is it inevitable that the oxygen runs out in every marriage, each person consuming the other's air until both are left gasping? You pledge allegiance to a united state and with that comes compromises, adjustments, a snip here and a snip there until you are more alone together than apart. Did she think that her suffocated feelings would all disappear because he had cancer? She'd wanted to face it with him, to be united in the battle. But now he's so far away. Spending his remaining time with someone else. A younger someone who doesn't argue with him or make demands or challenge every decision he makes. And why shouldn't he have that, she thinks in a rare moment of selflessness. Doesn't he deserve a few moments of happiness now?

Cheri had never been tempted to open Michael's diary before. He'd kept a journal for as long as she'd known him. It was on his bedside table or on his desk, never hidden. He has his current journal with him, but at the bottom of his bookshelf there's a stack of black, hardbound books filled with his lefty scrawl. She's sure there's plenty she doesn't want to know in there, but she feels so disconnected from him she's willing to risk that to feel-what? Close to him again? She takes a journal off the shelf and skims through quotidian complaints and confessional thoughts on fear: that he won't finish his film, that he won't make money, that he's getting older. But one sentence jumps out, cries for her to stop: I want to fall in love again. Her throat catches. She wasn't even looking for Jessica, she tells herself, but there she is. But it's not about Jessica. It's not about infidelity at all.

It's all about Cheri. Michael's bemoaning their lack of intimacy. Although this is nothing new, seeing it in writing feels like a spotlight is being shone on her failure. She wants to look away. She's about to close the journal when she notices a list at the bottom of the page: Things I Hate About Her.

1. has stopped kissing 2. won't recycle.

3. incapable of intimacy 4. Sol's money thrown in my face.

5. no maternal instinct-how long to continue the delusion?.

6. RM suggests separation-look to rent an office outside of the house Michael wrote about how he secretly hoped she wouldn't get pregnant, as it would only make separating harder. His words had oceans of glare. There is more, but this is more than enough.

Her mind is churning, restlessly circling back to a sick realization: Michael wanted to leave her. Long before she'd brought it up, he'd spoken to his shrink, Robert Meirs-RM-about separation. While she had harbored a belief that they'd either get pregnant or split up, her thoughts were blunt knives rendered harmless by her single-minded focus. The notion that he'd been sitting on this for so long cannonades what was left of her defenses. She tells herself it's high school semantics-who cares who wanted to break up with whom first?-but a crus.h.i.+ng sense of abandonment overwhelms her anyway. He wanted to leave her first. He was thinking of leaving her the whole time they were trying to get pregnant. Or rather, she was trying. How had she not seen through his patina of acquiescence?

But just as bad was Michael's doubt about her maternal instincts. This echoed her deepest fear: Did she have the ability to nurture, to love unconditionally? Or was something irrevocably wrong with her? Michael couldn't understand what was driving her to such lengths to have a child. Maybe she'd just been trying to prove to herself that she was better than the woman who'd given her away. That she was better than the woman who suffocated her with her love.

Cheri wakes up with the same gnawing sense of dread she'd gone to bed with but a new resolve to regain some control-at least of herself. On one of her pilgrimages to the suburbs to see her fertility doctor she'd noticed signs for Pro-Maxx Sports, Illinois's premier gun store and shooting range, but she'd resisted the temptation to go out of deference to Michael. She drives there now and hands the clerk her firearm owner's identification card. Even after all these years, a gun club feels like home. She says she's looking to demo a few handguns and selects a Kimber, single-action, semiautomatic chambered in .45, an HK P95 9 mm, and a Beretta PX4. "You know your s.h.i.+t," the clerk says admiringly, his dentures clicking like a snapping turtle.

The shooting range has the usual mix of weekend warriors, but once Cheri puts on her hearing protectors and eyewear, everything gets quiet. She tunes in to her breath, focuses on her front sight. She notes every detail of the HK: the weight of the trigger, the crispness of the pull, the softness of the recoil. After her initial bout of self-criticism-she is out of practice-she centers on one moment, and then the next. Steady the body and the mind, don't antic.i.p.ate, she tells herself. Let it happen. Soon she's made a tight cl.u.s.ter of bullet holes right in the center of each target, so she increases her distance. The trick is to exert only as much energy as she needs for each shot. Michael had his meditation; she'd forgotten how much this was hers. For the first time since his diagnosis, Cheri feels herself relax.

When she's back at the front desk, the clerk says, "I was going to come get you, we're closing-holiday hours this weekend." She hadn't even looked at her watch and, like her mother, had opted to ignore Thanksgiving. Cheri buys the HK and the Kimber and gives the clerk instructions on how she wants them adjusted. She pays for a year of locker fees. Despite her temptation to conceal and carry, she won't break the law or her promise to Michael. She's already violated his privacy and paid a painful price for it.

When she walks in the door, she's. .h.i.t by the resounding stillness. In the past, Cheri loved having the house to herself. But now she keeps the news on in her office at all hours-is she turning into a little old lady, watching TV to keep her company? Or just a bad-news junkie? While there are still a few hoops to jump through with UN inspections, an invasion of Iraq is looking imminent. She imagines Samuelson firing off impa.s.sioned e-mails to Was.h.i.+ngton, making a list of sites that need to be protected, warning about the antiquities that could be destroyed in the event of a war. In a normal world where Michael didn't have cancer and there was no Richards, Cheri would have been adding her name to those e-mails.

At least now she has a little something to occupy her mind. The package from Peter Martins finally arrived-the photocopies of the tablet pieces he'd identified, along with his notes "for your edification and eyes only." Two-D representations go only so far; Cheri knows she needs to have and to hold all of the fragments, including the ones in Baghdad, to determine how they fit together before they could be translated. Peter wouldn't attempt a transliteration without the pieces in Baghdad. And neither should you, she tells herself as she hunkers down in her den and spreads the copies out on the floor.

Translating a dead language that scholars could approximate only phonetically was the kind of maddeningly complex work that appealed to Cheri's type A personality. Precision. Control. Working with cuneiform put her in the same zone she achieved at the shooting range. There were six hundred signs that the Sumerians used regularly; knowing which code words went with which symbol was the easy part. Even a slight directional change in one character could alter the meaning. Words and sentences would collapse, change, emerge as something different, then disappear again. That was for an a.s.sembled tablet. This was a tease, an unsanctioned taste, but it was a welcome distraction, far better than pawing through Ugaritic texts for the umpteenth time.

What are you without your work? She hears Michael in her head and starts to panic; is he okay? Rather than risking getting Jessica on the phone, Cheri calls Bertrand, who goes on about Michael's "indefatigable spirit" but confides that he looks thinner. Bertrand says he's forcing Michael to take naps; they can afford to slow down the pace. It's upsetting that everyone on Michael's crew knows more about what is going on with her husband than she does. They're enclosed in the terrarium of their road show, and whatever's outside of it reanimates only upon their return. She's experienced this on his other shoots, but this time the question he's tracking is about his own life and death. Cheri knows that as long as Michael is on the hunt, he can be the predator and not the prey. She understands it perfectly and knows that she can't really claim to understand how he feels at all.

The Lamppost Survives.

It's always nighttime when the voices come prodding. As Cheri's lying in the dark, trying and failing to stop her lazy Susan of a mind from circling back to "Things I Hate About Her," the phone rings. Michael sounds panicked. "Bertrand's daughter was in a car accident. It's bad and she's in the hospital-" Michael's voice is breaking up due to a poor connection. After hanging up and calling back, all Cheri gleans is that Bertrand flew home yesterday as soon as he got the news. Karen is in the ICU at Northwestern Memorial. The last time Cheri saw Karen, she was in their kitchen with Bertrand, proudly showing off her baby b.u.mp. Cheri feels ashamed that she'd felt an ugly twinge of envy at the time. When the connection is better, Michael tells her that eight-and-a-half-months-pregnant Karen was driving home from Whole Foods when she swerved to avoid a racc.o.o.n in the street and drove smack into a lamppost.

Cheri is haunted by if-onlys. If only Karen had left the house a few minutes later; if the counter man had kept her waiting for just a few seconds longer; if she'd bought an SUV, because who gives a s.h.i.+t about carbon footprints when this can happen? The lamppost survived. So did Karen, albeit with extensive injuries-four broken ribs, internal bleeding, and a serious concussion-but the baby did not.

Michael tells Cheri that a memorial service will be held for the baby tomorrow afternoon, at the hospital chapel, since Karen is in no condition to travel yet. He's coming home for the service, arriving at O'Hare in the morning around eleven thirty. Of course he'll be there for Bertrand at a time like this, though Cheri can hear in his voice the anxiety over completing the shoot on schedule. "It's only one night," he says, more for his benefit than Cheri's. "Let's meet at the chapel."

The death of a baby destroyed the natural order of things; the parent should always die before the child. Parents should fly on separate planes so if one goes down in a fiery crash, the children aren't orphaned.

The next day, as Cheri contemplates what to wear for the memorial of an infant, she's struck by the irony: when she was trying to get pregnant, all she saw were pregnant women. Now that Michael has cancer, she's immersed in grief. After nine weeks apart, she will spend her first minutes with Michael in the company of mourners. How many days did he have until his last? This was the question Michael was trying to face by making this doc.u.mentary, but Cheri didn't want to know. Nor did she want to count how few she was going to be sharing with him. She's suddenly leveled by the reality of time. How little Michael may have left; how much of it was wasted these past few years in moments of lost connection.

Cheri picks her most conservative black dress and places one demure gold hoop through each earlobe despite her profusion of piercings. At the last minute, thinking of Jessica, she puts on lipstick. The hospital chapel is filled with Bertrand's family and friends, some of whom Cheri recognizes from Karen's wedding. The room is like a yoga studio: candlelit, scented with lilies and patchouli, a guitarist to one side playing James Taylor songs. People mill about, sipping herbal tea. "Karen, I'm so sorry for your loss," Cheri says, bending to hug Karen, who is in a wheelchair with a rose-colored scarf wrapped around her hospital gown. Her face has a purplish bruise on one side, and she's clutching a small bouquet of wildflowers.

"Thank you," she says, her eyes blurred with tears. "We're choosing to look at it as a celebration of life." Cheri isn't quite sure how to respond. Bertrand comes up behind her and gives her a hug. It's devoid of his usual papa-bear warmth.

"Michael's plane was delayed; he's in a cab now," he says. "Thank you for being here." Cheri nods and starts to offer her condolences to him, but Bertrand, ever the producer, notices an elderly man with a walker and goes to help him find a seat. It's then that she notices the small white casket on the dais. Cheri is taken aback to see that it's open. People are going up to pay their respects; some put in a flower or a note. Other than for one of her former professors, the only funeral Cheri had ever attended was Sol's. He had wanted a closed casket. As well versed as she was in ancient rituals, she hadn't partic.i.p.ated in many modern ones, but she slowly makes her way up to the pulpit. Inside the casket, the baby is perfect; uncreased, pink-hued, seemingly sleeping peacefully. Moon kissed, still blessed. It reminds Cheri of the Victorian photographs of dead infants posed to look as peaceful as cherubim. Those were creepy, but this is just sad. Where is Michael? she wonders with a tinge of impatience. Cheri feels slightly self-conscious without him, as well as overdressed. For this "celebration of life," she's one of the few people who chose to wear all black. Cheri takes a seat by the door and drapes her coat on the next chair to save him a spot.

A female minister with a gray bob steps up to the podium, and the musician puts down his guitar.

"Josephine's parents and family wish to express grat.i.tude for her brief presence in this world. Let's take a moment to let in the joy she brought to everyone who antic.i.p.ated her arrival. Who is to say that this child didn't lead a more impactful life in the few short hours G.o.d granted her than most of us do in our entire lives? It is not time that determines the quality of our existence."

Cheri cranes her neck to look for Michael as people stand up and read poems in wavering voices and speak about how moved they were by this little girl's fight. Cheri's underarms dampen and she feels her throat closing like she's swallowed pepper. How many more plat.i.tudes does she have to hear? When Michael slips in next to her, her heart drops. His clothes hang on him and he's got the prominent Adam's apple of a very old man. Everything about him seems to have diminished. "Hey, kiddo," he says.

"Hey, you."

"It is hard to comprehend why G.o.d would do this," the minister says. Cheri is looking at Michael, trying not to stare. His color is off, way off. "There are no answers, save that each life, no matter how long or briefly lived, is a precious gift. It's not about the amount of time we are here, but how we use it, how we love." She ends her sermon and people nod and close their eyes in silent prayer. Michael's face looks pained, and she doesn't think it's solely because of the occasion. Behind the wear of the road, the exhaustion, there's a searching vulnerability in his expression. Suddenly, what Cheri read in his diary feels utterly irrelevant. Jessica is utterly irrelevant. Cheri wants to leap to her feet and yell, Life is f.u.c.king unfair, people! She can't believe she doesn't have an Ativan on her. The room is close and cloying.

The guitarist plays Joni Mitch.e.l.l's "Woodstock." Cheri watches Michael make the rounds; he looks like a crane as he stoops to put his hands on Bertrand's shoulders. She'll give him a few more minutes and then she'll insist he come home and get some rest. Is she the only one not feeling the hippie vibe, the magical thinking? Cheri half expects someone to flick a Bic and start swaying. She's had enough. She locates Michael in the crowd and taps him on the shoulder, hoping to steal a moment of privacy. When he turns to her, focusing on her for the first time today, she sees the whites of his eyes are pale yellow. "Michael," she says, her voice betraying her fear. "Michael, something's wrong with your eyes."

She fishes around in her purse for a mirror.

"What's wrong with my eyes?" Michael pulls out his phone and looks into the camera.

"I think you have jaundice."

"f.u.c.k me," he says.