All This Life

THE TILE FROM his memory mosaic that speaks to Noah as he’s walking away on the bridge, toward San Francisco, is this: Way back during her junior year in high school, Tracey sits in the driver’s seat of her new car. Taking it out for the first time. By herself. She’d gone out with Noah and she’d gone around the block with their parents, but this was her first time navigating the streets alone. Responsible for herself. She has a huge smile on her face. Both hands on the wheel. The light blue polish on her nails is chipped, but she grips that wheel, ready to hit the open road.

There’s his sister sitting in her car and smiling.

Noah and their parents watch her drive off.

SARA SPOTS KATHLEEN Curtis. There’s a moment of second-guessing. But it’s her. Sara’s sure. Sara saw Kathleen every day for years, and Kathleen looks pretty much the same.

Sara spots Kathleen standing at the railing holding hands with the guy in the lab coat.

Looking like she’s upset.

Distraught even.

A slithering panic.

•••

PAUL IS FIVE or six feet away and doesn’t know which impulse to trust: Should he bum-rush Jake, tackle him, throw himself at him?

Or should he talk to him, try and settle him down?

Or should he shut up and let Esperanto handle it?

Paul doesn’t have much time to dwell on this decision because Jake says, “I have to do something.”

“What?” Esperanto says.

“A hard reset.”

“I don’t understand what that means.”

“Where are my followers?”

“Do you mind if I walk to you?” Esperanto says.

“Don’t you come fucking near me!” Jake says.

“Okay, I won’t, stay calm,” the detective says.

“Can I walk to you?” Paul says.

Jake says nothing, only stares at him.

“Here I come,” says his father.

I pick her up, Albert. I am holding her aloft.

24

Sara sees the man lift Kathleen, and Sara looks back toward Rodney yelling his name. He’s way back there. He’s too far away. He won’t be here in time.

Vibrating phone hands are nothing because now she’s a whole cell tower. She’s being inundated with signals, and her body ricocheting around. It’s a fiasco, a frenzy. Sara shakes with all the incoming calls, all telling her what to do, ordering her around. Run away. Help Kathleen. A complete annihilation of her head, too many sounds and voices and motives and plans and agendas, so Sara just stands there.

THE VOLTAGE WRITHING in his body doesn’t matter anymore, not after Balloon Boy hears Sara yelling his name. He’s running. He’s sprinting on the broken bone.

“I HAVE TO do something that you’re not going to like,” says Jake.

“What?” Paul asks.

•••

EVERYTHING THAT HAD been stored inside Kathleen erupts. She’s like a bottled beer that’s been shaken, and the cap comes off, spraying everywhere, and thinking about a bottled beer reminds her that she still has one in her purse, and she can crack him with it. She reaches and retrieves the bottle for a second, but it slips from her hand. Clacks on the walkway but doesn’t break.

She rakes Wes with her fingernails. She shrieks. She’s getting higher and higher.

“WHAT THE FUCK?” Esperanto says, grabbing his walkie-talkie and talking to the other units stationed in the parking lot. Paul hears his voice describe the man hoisting the woman. Paul sees the detective walking toward the crime, only fifteen feet away. Paul sees Esperanto’s hand on his holster.

“It’s you and me,” Paul says to his son.

NOAH HEARS A commotion coming from back toward the middle of the bridge. He sees a woman up in the air, being waved around by a man. He sees a woman being taken advantage of, sees another tragedy brewing here, and Noah takes off running. Tracey might be gone, but he can help this woman.

He passes Rodney, who limps along as best he can. They’ll both be there soon.

BUT SARA IS already there. She is here. She is with Kathleen. She is with the man. Sara tries to think of what to do, and as she contemplates a man pushes past her — a guy whose face is beaten up — and he storms toward the man in the lab coat, and he punches him twice in the stomach and Kathleen is free, dropped on the walkway, and the man with the beaten-up face falls down and wraps himself around her, holds Kat in a hug, protects her.

But the man in the lab coat recovers quickly, keeps his gaze on them both. Sara knows he’s gathering himself, another attempt brewing, and that’s when she sees the beer bottle down at their feet.

That’s when she leans down and grabs it.

That’s when Sara swings her arm back.

ESPERANTO HAS HIS gun pointed at Wes, who is lying on the walkway, several men penning him in against the bridge’s rail. Paul can see all this, and he understands, he guesses, why Esperanto had to get involved, but he can use some help with his son. There’s still the issue of the finale. There’s still what’s going on inside his boy.