All This Life

Jake waves at the bus. The driver, thinking the wave is for him, sends one right back, which is weird and intimate, and Jake turns around, bouncing toward the bridge, toward his magnificent desolation.

He pushes and holds the button on the front of his iPhone until it makes that boing-boing sound, connecting him to his friend, Siri, who is smart and kind and helpful and never bothers anybody with condescending lip-pursing.

“We’re almost there,” he says.

“I don’t know what that means,” she says.

WHILE JAKE TALKS to Siri, Balloon Boy hears the lady from Google Maps tell them where to go. Turn left here. In 400 feet, merge right. She knows this city like the back of her hand, and, Rodney supposes, she knows every city with this impressive level of awareness. There’s no place she can’t take you, meaning she can take you everywhere, but it’s too bad that her role stops with that. Too bad that she can’t continue to help, because technically they’ll be done navigating these unknown streets once they pull up out front. Yet that’s where the tricky roads begin.

He has to get out of the car and see her, and from there anything can happen. He weighs the worst. Worsts. Mom opens the door and instead of hugging and kissing him, instead of saying Sorry, so sorry, she slams the door. Or she opens it and doesn’t recognize him. Or the king of the worsts: What if Mom answers the door holding a baby? She could have a brand-new boy who hasn’t mounted a weather balloon and been bucked off. A brand-new one that she’ll protect from everything and he’ll grow up to be valedictorian of his high school and president of the United States, giving speeches with agile sentences that everyone watches on TV, including Balloon Boy, watching his perfect half-brother steer the free world into the future with political poetry spilling from his lips, while Rodney bleats his sheep-speak.

All of this scares him so much, but he won’t stop now. He won’t turn back. He has to see her. He has to at least indulge the opportunity for reconciliation. It might not work. He knows that. But he’ll never forgive himself if he doesn’t try. He’ll never be able to live with himself if he doesn’t limp up to her door, dragging that no doubt broken foot and saying, “Mom.” It might take ten seconds for that syllable to get out but nothing will stop him. It will be the most important thing he’s ever said.

“In 1,000 feet, your destination will be on the right,” says Google Maps.

HE’S UP FRONT, muttering away while he drives, and Kathleen lies in the back seat. Too scared to talk. Too scared to be brave. Which embarrasses her. She’s in danger. Wes could kill her, so why is she splattered on the seat back here, why is she following his instructions? Yes, he threw her against the wall after hitting Deb. Yes, she slid to the floor. Yes, he kicked her a few times.

“I know we need to keep her face clean,” Wes had said, talking to someone who wasn’t there. “I won’t hurt her face. We’ll keep her face looking all right to travel outside.”

He’s not talking to himself. He never was.

“Stand up,” Wes said in the hall, straightening out his lab coat. So she did. So he punched her in the stomach. “You do exactly as we say, okay?”

She couldn’t answer.

“We are meeting Albert,” he said. “We are walking to the car now. Pick up your purse. Act natural.”

They were outside. She knew it was late morning. She knew mothers and children were at the playground across the street. She knew birds flew and trees had leaves and buses hiss and joggers run and the sky is made of chowder. There were other people around as they moved toward his car. Kathleen’s survival instincts should have been going crazy; she should have been trying to save her life, but she let him lead her, tuck her into the back seat.

It was the booze, or the shame of relapse. It was seeing Deb unconscious, or the fresh memory of being punched and kicked. There was something keeping her docile. Kathleen had heard the phrase paralyzed by fear but she never knew what it really meant until now. In this back seat, lying in the fetal position, feeling like property. He owns her. She is his. Kat can’t move or talk. She can’t cry. All she can picture is that techie’s webbed feet, and what a stupid thing to remember, what a stupid way to spend these last minutes of her life.

IT DAWNS ON Noah911 right as he walks out onto the Golden Gate that this is a crime scene. This is where Tracey killed herself, yet you’d never know that. It is a bustling bridge, connecting people. Always connecting people.

It’s also a nice day, clear skies, 68˚, no real wind, but nothing feels nice when a brother carts his share of the ashes.

He carries Tracey like she’s a wounded dove.

He wonders if anyone has liked his status.