Page 17 of Rooke
Father of the deceased child and husband to Sasha, Andrew Varitas gave a moving statement outside the hospital this evening, thanking Keaton Banks for his heroic actions. Mr. Varitas openly wept as he asked news crews and photographers to please respect the family’s request for space in order that they might be able to grieve the death of their son.
Police have identified Reginald D. Whitson as the driver of the refrigerated truck that collided with the Varitases’ car on the bridge, and have also confirmed that Whitson fell asleep at the wheel. Many motorists driving on the bridge have reported that the large ten-wheel truck was swerving erratically in the moments before the accident. It’s yet unknown what recourse will be taken against Whitson, though State’s District Attorney Helen Underwood advised us earlier that in cases such as these, penalty to the full extent of the law is nearly always pursued.
I scan the article, looking for a date, and I find what I’m searching for at the very bottom of the page. June, 2012. Five years ago. Fuck. Sasha lost her son five years ago in what sounds like the most fucking awful ordeal imaginable. Being hit by a huge truck, tumbling from the bridge, hitting the water and probably watching her son drown? Holy fuckingshit. Doesn’t get any worse than that. My chest feels like an elephant is sitting on it; it physically hurts to breathe. I don’t try to overcome the feeling. I want to know it, to experience it, so I can understand. If I can feel just point one percent of the pain Sasha felt the day she lost her son, I might be able to understand her now.
I can’t hold on to the pain for too long, though. It’s too great to bear, even this small, microscopic, far removed part of it, and I have to shake it off. I close my laptop and set it down on the bed beside me.
How did she recover from something like that? How? It seems inconceivable that a mother could ever heal from such a brutal, tragic event. And even before all of that, her son was deaf? How did she cope withthat? How did having a son who couldn’t hear affect her life?
Suddenly, I think I understand why I’ve been so drawn to Sasha since I met her last week. The knowledge hits me hard—a very real, very disturbing thing. I’m drawn to that hollow look in her eyes. I’m drawn to the sadness of her, the way she seems to visibly throb with it, even when nothing about her suggests she might be unhappy. I’m attracted to the dark ache in her soul, because it’s something I can understand. Something that feels real to me.
Seriously fucked up shit.
TEN
TOO LATE NOW
SASHA
I’ve never believed in god. Not even when I was a little girl and my mother used to take me to church every Sunday. Religiously. Pun most definitely intended. I liked the atmosphere inside the church—the smell of the incense; the echoing ring of people stomping snow from their shoes in the vestibule; the low susurrus of chatter before the priest appeared to give his homily; the way the light took on a different, syrupy kind of texture as it slanted down onto the pews from the great stained glass windows overhead. Mary, Mother of God, weeping over all of us. Jesus Christ, savior of the world, guarding his flock of lambs. Saint Peter, weeping for the sins of the wicked. I never really invested in the stories I heard there, though. Never took them on board.
As I got older, the atmosphere inside the church underwent a tragic metamorphosis, and the chatter just turned out to be gossip. The stomping off of snow in the vestibule had the ominous crack of gunshots, and the priest’s homily made me progressively angrier and angrier each week. Weren’t Christians meant to be kind and saintly? Weren’t they meant to preach acceptance and forgiveness, not fear and hate? And I began to understand what I was being taught in Sunday school. I read the Bible, and it didn’t make any sense to me. There were parts of it that were good, of course. I loved the bits about leading a morally good life. I knew it was right to respect your elders, to always be honest, to share and help and be kind always. But the other stuff? An unknowable deity living in the sky? An eye for an eye? Stoning and hell? Eternal damnation and punishment?
If I’m to believe everything the Catholic Church told me when I was growing up, my six-year-old son is now languishing in purgatory, never to know true peace or happiness, becauseIdidn’t have him baptized. Andrew wanted to get him baptized purely to please his own very strict Catholic parents, but I’d put my foot down. It had seemed stupid to participate in some outdated ritual merely to appease two people we only saw once a year at Christmas.
I didn’t put my foot down when we had Christopher buried, though. I was too weak and broken to even register what was happening really, and so he was committed to the ground at St. Thomas’s Catholic Church, five blocks from the house, less than a week after he drowned. I have to pass St. Thomas’s on my way to work every single damn day. Not today, though. I leave the house and I cross over to the other side of the street, turning right instead of left. I don’t ever cross the Brooklyn Bridge. I don’t ever take the ferry, so I’m left with only one option to transport me to Williamsburg: the train.
The sound of the casters on the tracks numbs me quite nicely. By the time I reach my stop, I’m actually feeling better than I did when I woke up this morning, which is impressive given where I’m headed and what I’m about to do once I get there.
Ihateapologizing. It’s strange to admit that there were benefits to being locked in such devastating grief, but it’s true. Therewerebenefits. One of them was that I never had to apologize for anything. Late. Upset. Dirty. Hair a mess. Rude. Drunk. You name it. All sins are forgiven when you lose a child. I didn’t have to say I was sorry for any of it. Time has past now, though, and those rules don’t apply anymore. Alison made sure to tell me so last night, after she made everyone leave and came up to my room. Apparently, you have to start apologizing after five years of getting away with blue murder. Apparently, apologizing is what a sane, responsible, functional member of society would do, so here I am, trudging grumpily toward an antique watch repair shop in Williamsburg, wondering what the hell I’m going to say to Rooke.
I’m sorry I made you feel unwelcome in my house? I’m sorry I shouted at you? I’m sorry I ruined book club, and I’m sorry I didn’t say sorry immediately last night when I acted so inappropriately?It’s going to feel forced, that’s for sure. He was uninvited, and he only came to create a spectacle. I still don’t like that he did that.
The sky is a weary gunmetal grey over the rooftops of Red Hook as I slowly drag my heels toward what feels like my impending doom. I keep turning over the coins in my coat pocket, pressing the pad of my thumb against their flat surfaces, trying to count them as I walk. I also keep imagining Rooke’s face when I walk into his place of work, though, and the smug sense of satisfaction I know I’m going to feel is very distracting. He’s not expecting me. Now the shoe is on the other foot, how ishegoing to react?
The shop front of Lebenfeld and Schein Antique Jewelry, Watch Repair & Curios is just about what you’d expect it to be—dimly lit interiors behind windows that are caked with at least a couple of decades’ worth of grime. Faded gold leaf lettering spells out the long, convoluted shop name, and the paintwork—rust red—that must have looked quite flashy back in the day is chipped and flaking all over the place. The glass is cold underneath my hand as I place my palm against the door. I don’t just want to bull my way in here without planning what I’m going to say first. It will look rather pathetic if I saunter in like the cat that got the cream, only to open my mouth and for nothing to come out. I could quickly tell him that I feel bad for shouting at him and I could leave. Short and sweet, straight to the point. That would be the smartest thing for me to do, then I can get to work and this whole ridiculous debacle will be over.
“If you stand there much longer, my dear, your hand is going to freeze to the glass.” I turn around, quickly removing my hand and stuffing it into the pocket of my pea coat. A tall, strangely dressed black man stands behind me, brandishing a takeaway coffee cup in one hand and the straps of a Louis Vuitton bag in the other. Balanced precariously on his head, a fawn skin bowler hat is knocked to a jaunty angle, and a faux mink stole is wrapped snugly around his neck, folded under his chin. He flashes me a million-dollar smile. I’d like to say I gather my wits about me and return the gesture but the truth is that I open my mouth and gawk at him.
He laughs. “Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t mind a lovely door ornament such as yourself, sweetheart, but sales haven’t been great this month and I’d really like to pay my rent. If you’d like to come on in, I’m sure I could find something very pretty for you to compliment that ivory skin tone of yours.”
“I’m actually just…I’m actually looking for someone.”
The smile slides off the guy’s face like butter from a hot knife. “Oh, lord. Well you really had better come in then.” He squeezes past me, shoving the door open with one hip, his bag clanging against the glass, and I’m left frozen to the spot, wondering if I can gracefully make an escape without looking too odd. In the fantasy where I showed up to Rooke’s place of work, embarrassing him and makinghimfeel uncomfortable, there was no flamboyant shop owner involved. Now I have to apologize to Rooke, passive-aggressively making him feel bad at the same time, while a fantastically dressed stranger oversees the proceedings? This is not ideal at all.
I step inside the shop, instantly hit by the musty, very familiar smell of old furniture and books that appears to be the same, no matter which antiquities store you may find yourself inside.
The guy throws his bag onto a chair behind a worn, ancient looking desk and takes off his coat. “I’m Duke,” he says. His tone implies that I should somehow already know this piece of information. “And since my boy Rooke is the only other person who works here in this emporium of wonder, I assume it is he you’re looking for? Oh, shit. He hasn’t gotten you pregnant, has he?” Duke wrinkles his nose, shaking his head. “That would be very unfortunate.”
“No, he hasn’t.” Should I be offended that he looks relieved when I tell him this? I suppose I’d be relieved if I were in Duke’s position, although it cuts a little. “I just wanted to talk to him briefly, if he’s around. I promise it won’t take a moment.”
Duke eyes me with open, burning curiosity. “The place is already lit up and open. He must be in the back. Let me go and find the boy for you. In the meantime, have a look around. You never know what you might find.” He disappears through a moth-eaten velvet curtain into what I’m assuming is the back room, and I nervously pace the floors, waiting for him to return with Rooke.
The shop is a strange, strange place. Duke called it an emporium of wonders. I’m not sure I would go that far, but it certainly does boast some bizarre and unusual things: a Victorian era style porcelain-faced doll, whose eyes have worn off; a very creepy taxidermy of some kind of creature, half monkey, half sea monster; a replica statue of the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz; an entire shelf of dusty tincture bottles with peeling, yellowed labels.Cocaine Toothache Drops. Instantaneous cure! Dr. Wilson’s Finest Worm Syrup. Robertson’s Heroine Hydrochloride Cough Elixir, guaranteed to calm your cough in moments!
Yeah, no joke. Heroine hydrochloride? I’ll bet that did calm coughs in moments. And also render patients generally unconscious or dead.
As I wander around, peering into the vast cabinets of rings and necklaces, running my hands over the shelves, turning things over in my hands, trying to figure out what they are, I can’t imagine Rooke in a place like this. His presence here wouldn’t make any sense. With his slicked back hair, so closely shaved on the sides, his neck tattoos and his pressed hipster shirts, his leather jacket and his bad attitude, I just can’t seem to bend his persona in my mind to fit inside a quirky, unusual place like this. He should be a barista in a pretentious DUMBO coffee shop. He should be a clothing designer in a co-op workspace in Tribeca. He should be a photographer, or some kind of beat poet.
