Page 97 of Our Last Resort

Not mentioning him was an option, of course. But every date started feeling like one massive lie by omission. And to be frank, what happened to Gabriel took a big chunk out of my faith in humanity. When we were younger, it had been easy to convince myself that cruelty was Émile’s thing—and that once we left, people would, simply, be better. But clearly, I’d been wrong. Onmy dates, I kept waiting for someone’s worst instincts to take over. I couldn’t relax. It became impossible to enjoy myself. So I stopped.

After everything—the loss of Annie, Gabriel’s relocation—the shutting down of my dating life felt like the smallest loss of all. I missed the good parts, but not the complications that came with them. There was no great love lost, no thwarted passion to mourn.

Which isn’t to say I don’t believe in romance. It happens to some people. They meet, and suddenly their whole life makes sense. I guess being in love and being in a rush are very similar feelings.

And theywerein love, Gabriel and Annie. Early in their relationship, we met up for beers, the three of us. When Gabriel got up to get us a second round, he rested his hand on Annie’s shoulder, and I realized I’d never seen him like this. At ease. Comfortable in the world.

He couldn’t believe his luck. That someone likeherwould take a second look athim.

“I mean, have you seen her?” he asked me once. “She’s gorgeous.”

She was. Multiple levels of gorgeous. Annie was a natural beauty who took care of herself. Her eyebrows were threaded; her nails were done; her clothes fit just right. She wasn’t just elegant or pretty, although she was those things, too. She had something extra. Something that can’t be faked, or drawn on, or injected.

I have to imagine it was a thrill, being seen by her.

Actually, I don’t have to imagine.

I was picked, too, once.

Within six months, in April 2012, Gabriel and Annie were engaged. It was an unstoppable force, this domestic bliss they conjured up out of nothing.

This was the time when, finally, Gabriel’s life started falling into place. For a while, when we lived in the storage unit, he’dworked construction. Except, of course, he wasn’t in a union, and he didn’t have an ID card, much less a bank account, and so what he really did was work the job of some guy whowasin a union but preferred to outsource his work to Gabriel.

(A few years later, when I started watching the mob show, it hit me: The guy in question had hired Gabriel to free up his time so he could go earn the bulk of his income through illegal means.Duh.But he paid Gabriel cash. He didn’t ask questions. And he was the most polite person we’d ever encountered. So the arrangement worked for us.)

Then, Gabriel became depressed, and he didn’t work for six months. Afterward, we moved to the shelter, and he found jobs as a contractor—legit, this time. It was the logical occupation, given his background at the compound. But it wasn’t his passion. It wasn’tHoward.

While at the shelter (I should say “shelters”: one for men, one for women), we got public library cards. Gabriel started attending whatever talks he could, at whichever branches he could get to. He liked learning, and—crucially—the talks were free.

One Saturday morning, Gabriel listened as Howard Auster spoke about Agrippina (the Roman empress) and her fucked-up family. (Where to begin? A despot brother, an uncle who became her husband, a son who had her killed.)

Gabriel was transfixed. He had found the Romans, or maybe the Romans had found him. From then on, any spare time he had, he devoted to them. Gabriel browsed the internet from the library’s computers, spent entire afternoons reading Howard’s books.

He kept going to events. If Howard Auster was speaking publicly anywhere in the Tri-State Area, Gabriel Miller was in the audience.

Howard started recognizing him. Gabriel was known to ask insanely detailed questions—the kind someone could ask only if they’d read Howard’s books multiple times.

One night, Gabriel came back from one of those events completely elated: “During the Q and A, Howard joked that heshould hire me as his assistant. I said I’d do it. He took me out for coffee afterward and we kind of…spoke for two hours?”

We lived in the apartment—a studio in East Harlem—by then. Life was still fragile, but filled with possibility.

“What did you talk about?” I asked.

Gabriel put down his messenger bag. He carried it everywhere, and it was invariably filled with books.

“A bit of everything, I guess? His work, his next book, and, like, my life. Our life.”

Our life?

We didn’t talk about our life. Or rather, we talked about it on an as-needed basis, like when we applied for the apartment or did paperwork. But it wasn’t the kind of narrative that made for a pleasant, professional talk over coffee.

“What did you tell him?” I asked.

Gabriel was rifling through his messenger bag.

“Just the basics,” he said. “You know. Émile. How we grew up.”

When he finally gazed up from his bag, he looked slightly worried.

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