A Vision of Fire

After the beep she said, “Once more, please.”

He huffed but set the countdown, and she picked up his left hand with her right. Nothing happened for a few seconds. Then Jacob suddenly focused, like the time he’d seen a hawk fly by the window. She wasn’t sure what he was focused on—he seemed to be looking at the table rather than at her hand—but she recognized the stillness that settled into his body, the serious expression on his face. She felt nothing in her hand or anywhere else but clearly something was happening for him.

Suddenly Jacob broke their connection. Not violently but with some urgency, as if he’d touched a hot pan handle. He leaned across the table and put his hands on her cheeks and held her head. Staring at her face he said, “Mommy… ,” as if he was affirming it was her.

“I’m here. Are you okay?”

He moved his hands away to sign but held her firm with his gaze. “I’m sorry,” he signed. “I’m not big enough to help hold it.”

The look on his face showed the feeling of his phrase.

“Hold what?” she asked. But he was sliding off his chair and not looking at her. He gave her a hug and went to his room. Caitlin was about to follow when she was interrupted by the arrival of the sitter, Theodora, who would watch him when she went to the Pawars’.

After letting the sitter in, Caitlin poked her head around Jacob’s door; her mind wouldn’t drop the conversation. He was doing his homework and held up a drawing of Captain Nemo he’d made.

“That’s lovely,” she signed. And it was. Nemo’s beard in particular was enchanting, drawn as though it were a frozen white wave.

“Jacob, before, what did you mean by ‘hold it’?” she signed.

Jacob tapped three fingers near his mouth, then made a stretching motion with both hands: “water” and “big.”

Caitlin felt a chill. She positioned herself to make sure he could read her lips. “Do you mean the ocean?” she asked, as she repeated his signs for “big water.” Jacob visited the ocean several times a year with his grandparents on Long Island.

He nodded.

She relaxed a little. “Did you see the ocean when you were holding my hand?”

He shook his head no.

“Then how did you know it was the ocean?”

“It was really big and it was moving.”

“Moving—like waves on the beach?”

He shook his head again. “I have to work now, Mommy.”

He turned back to his schoolwork like a mini-Caitlin. She lingered a moment in case he decided to say more. When he did not, she bent over and gave him his good-night kiss, which he returned. Nothing about the event seemed to be bothering him and for that she was relieved, but his reaction still unnerved her. Why would he mention a wave? Had he somehow tapped into her visions?

Halfway down the stairs, heading out of her apartment, Caitlin remembered how she had once described psychiatry to Jacob: helping people hold their problems in the light until they solved them. Maybe he had simply sensed her preoccupation with the traumatized girls and went to a place where he always felt calm—the ocean.

The ground was shifting under Caitlin’s feet, more than it had when she was working with hundreds of people after the Phuket tsunami. Those were tragic multitudes; these were two girls, two individuals whom she knew and had spoken to. She was usually so balanced. If she suddenly wobbled, Jacob would surely feel it.

In the cab to the east side, Caitlin did some quick reading. Upon arriving at the Pawars’ apartment, she asked for a few minutes alone on the balcony before she saw Maanik. Kamala showed her outside and shut the door behind her. Caitlin looked at the lights of apartments and streetlamps rippling on the East River, looked up at sharp clouds slipping past a full, bright moon. Despite the fact that Ben was about to arrive, she felt strangely alone. Maybe it was because their history was like a circus act. Sometimes they were hanging from the same trapeze, sometimes they were on opposite ends of the tent, and sometimes they were plummeting toward the net. Their relationship wasn’t exactly something to hold on to.

Still, she was glad to see him standing before her when she went back into the apartment. He had a warm smile—a relaxed smile, for the first time in days—and a bag full of gadgets: video camera, backup sound recorder, and tablet.

“Good day?” she asked hopefully.

“Almost,” he whispered. “The representatives huddled separately so I didn’t have to interpret too much today.”

They set up the equipment in Maanik’s room and the girl watched them without comment; she seemed more distant than she’d been earlier, but not apprehensive. Resigned? Braced? It was difficult to tell.