Still Not Dead, page 22
But before that happened, Paolo’s mom called someone to come drive her car upstate as a diversion. The woman who showed up to drive seemed incredibly familiar to me, and then I saw the three-year-old girl with her. It was the mother of Dylan, who I’d seen on the train the night of my deathdate and again when I escaped from my mom’s safe house. “Holy crap, you work for the DIA?” I asked her.
“No,” she answered, pointing to Paolo’s mom. “I work for her.”
“Single moms get the real dirty work done,” Paolo’s mom said.
Then we split up. I realized people might recognize me from that drawing on the news, so I went into an overpriced souvenir shop and bought a green trucker cap that featured the Statue of Liberty’s face. The bus I was supposed to take was delayed for two hours—it had broken down in New Jersey somewhere—so I spent way too much time drifting through the Port Authority, the brim of my flimsy cap shadowing my eyes, the phrase My mother is dead looping in my brain. By the time I got on a bus, traveled the seventy minutes to Westfield, and hopped in a cab to Brian’s, it was past eleven.
“I was just getting used to the idea of her being alive,” I say to Felix.
“This sucks so much,” he says, putting his hand over his eyes. “And you want to know what the funniest part is?” he asks, wiping his cheeks and blinking a lot. “Part of me kind of wishes I had known her deathdate. Because this is too shocking.”
I know what he means. My mom’s death still doesn’t seem real. How can people be here one day and then gone the next, with no warning at all? Maybe it’s what my mom always wanted, but it feels unfair to the people she’s left behind.
“I already miss her so much,” Felix says. It’s followed by another set of sobs.
I wish I were crying about my mom, too. I’m definitely feeling the tragic loss of this woman I was just beginning to understand, but I’m also feeling a strange disconnect.
As Felix wails, it hits me: Cheryl is Felix’s mom, not mine. That may sound obvious, but it feels like a revelation. They loved each other so much. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that her whole movement existed because she wanted to stay alive for her son Felix.
“Are you okay?” Yuri asks Felix, looking up from his book.
“All good, Yuri,” he says, blowing his nose.
“Don’t say that,” Dane says, suddenly choosing to engage in our conversation. “It is not all good. Nothing is good.”
Brian walks in, holding a teapot, followed by Langston, who’s carrying at least five mugs. Everything gets placed on something that looks more like a sculpture than a table.
“Here you go, Denton,” Langston says. For all of my mom’s resentment toward Langston, in person there’s nothing that offensive about him. He seems like a gentle guy, and I can see how he and Brian make a good couple. I nod and thank him as he passes me a mug.
“It will be good again, though,” Felix says. “We’ll continue forward with the movement, the way she would have wanted to. You’re down, right, Dent?”
I’m not sure what to say, so I just stammer for a few seconds.
“Please,” Brian says, “as I’ve already said, Felix, let’s take time to honor Cheryl and her life before we start, you know, making new plans to do…whatever it is you’re doing these days.”
“We are honoring our mom’s life,” Felix says. He glares at his tea. “This is what she would have wanted. Just because you got married and your husband—no offense, Langston—doesn’t approve of what we do doesn’t mean you have to shit all over it.”
“I agree, but please watch language,” Dane says, gesturing to Yuri.
“All right,” Brian says, standing in front of us. “This has got to stop. Felix, I didn’t leave the movement because of things Langston said. I mean, maybe Cheryl had to tell herself that to feel better about it, but it’s not true. I left the movement because…there is no movement. Not anymore.”
It’s shocking to hear him say that, mainly because I know right away that it’s probably true.
The room is silent except for the ticking of an ornate grandfather clock in the corner.
“Oh, there’s no movement, Brian?” Felix finally says. “Then how the hell is Denton alive right now? Tell me that!”
“Yes, okay, sure, there once was a movement,” Brian says. “And we worked on a virus, and it was actually effective. And we did inject a few other women with it, women who have started new lives across the country. But those women never cared about Cheryl’s political agenda. They just wanted to keep living!”
“Not true!” Dane says. “Matilda cared about more than that. And I want still to find her. And also to get revenge for what the government has done.”
I remember what Karen Corrigan said about Matilda starting a new life in a new city. But given what happened with Miguel, who even knows if that’s true? I decide not to mention it.
“Now that Denton has lived,” Felix says, “we can do things. Life-changing things!”
“Look, that may be, and I don’t blame either of you for still caring about it,” Brian says. “I just can’t do it anymore.”
Felix stands up, practically vibrating with anger. “Fuck you, Brian,” he says, and walks out of the room.
“Language, please!” Dane shouts after him. He turns back to Brian. “Why you have to say these things?”
“I’m sorry, man,” Brian says. “But it’s how I feel.”
Dane sighs. “I think Yuri and I will take walk now.”
“I want to do some jumping, too,” Yuri says as they head out the front door.
Now it’s just Brian, Langston, and me. I drink my tea.
“How you doing, Dent?” Brian asks. “You’ve really been put through the wringer this month.”
“Is that true?” I say. “What you just said about the movement?”
Brian looks to Langston, then back to me. “Well, truth is subjective, but, yeah, it’s true as far as I’m concerned. Your mother hasn’t really been herself for at least ten years, Denton.”
It’s so sad to hear him say that. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, that intensity you probably experienced these past weeks, that was always there to some extent, but it’d gotten way more extreme. She was consumed by this movement stuff, and for what? Money from the life insurance industry? I mean, she was so reluctant to take their money at first, but once she did, I feel like it changed her. I wanted her to start a new life, you know? She had this new identity as Nadia Forrester; she could have been out in the world instead of plotting in the lab all the time.”
“But maybe that was the life that made her happiest,” I say.
Brian thinks a second, then nods. “Maybe,” he says. “Who even knows. It just seemed to me that she never really lived after she, you know, lived.”
I take another sip of my tea. I remember that whether the movement is real or not, Karen Corrigan is definitely still going to be after me. And Paolo is still going to die.
“Brian,” I say. “This may not be the best time for this, but the reason I called you yesterday—before I learned about my mom—was that, um, well, you remember my best friend, Paolo, right? His deathdate is Wednesday. I’m trying to save his life, but my mom did tests and said he’s immune to the virus because I passed it to him on my deathdate. I thought maybe you would know some way…something we could do?” Brian has this pained look on his face that doesn’t seem very promising. “Do you?”
Brian stares down into his teacup for at least fifteen clock ticks.
I’m desperate. “I mean, when your best friend was dying, you helped her….”
He sighs. “There is…something,” he says, looking up. “Nobody knows about this, Denton. Like, nobody.” He turns to Langston, who shrugs. “You know what, screw it.”
I put my tea down.
“Your mom and I knew so little about the virus,” Brian says, “because we weren’t the ones who created it.”
My breath catches in my chest.
“What? Who did, then?”
Three more clock ticks go by.
“Your dad,” Brian says. “The virus was created by your dad.”
I’m in my backyard, staring at the house where I grew up.
It’s almost dark. I breathe in the familiar smell of grass and dirt. A firefly circles my head.
I can’t believe I’m here.
I’m not entirely convinced that the quiet man who rarely wants to discuss anything deeper than the Knicks’ insistence on shooting so many three-pointers is the person who might be able to save Paolo’s life.
But for lack of any better options, here I am.
In light of the high probability that Karen Corrigan would be waiting for me here with scores of DIA agents, Brian convinced me it’d be better to come after dark. He also convinced me that, since my likeness was recently featured on every major network, I should probably change up my look again. So I ditched the glasses and shaved my head. Ridiculous.
As we approached my parents’ house in Brian’s green Honda Civic, there was, sure enough, a lineup of three black Escalades and a police car in front of the house. Brian took a quick right turn to the next block over, where, my hands shaking, I thanked him for everything and proceeded to stealth-walk through the Ritters’ backyard, remembering the exact spot in the chain-link fence where Felix and his onetime friend Ian Ritter said you could bend it up and sneak underneath.
So now I’m standing here at the back door, my heart beating in my throat, trying to imagine how this will all play out. It’s almost 9 p.m. on a Monday night. Both of my parents should be home.
Here we go. I hope my dad can help.
I turn the knob. It’s locked. I can’t even see inside, because of the curtain covering the door’s window.
I knock. My whole body is vibrating.
A mosquito buzzes in my ear, and I trip over myself as I wildly smack it away. I collide into the covered barbecue grill my dad rarely uses. It doesn’t make much noise, but I do when one of its corners slams into my hip. I clench my teeth and hop around, producing a low Ah! sound. I see the curtain on the door lift up to the side, and part of my dad’s bespectacled face peers out at me.
He opens the door. “Denton?” he asks. “Are you okay?”
“I am,” I say as the hip stabbing starts to subside. “I ran into the barbecue.”
“Oh wow,” he says. “Yeah, gotta watch out for that.”
My dad already knew that I wasn’t dead, but you’d still think he might express a tiny bit more surprise at finding me in his backyard. We stare at each other in the fading light. I can’t quite see this soft-spoken, befuddled man as the person who created the splotch virus and incited all of this insanity.
“Is it safe for you to be here, Denton?” he asks.
“No, not really. Not at all.”
“What’d you do to your hair?”
“You’re really asking me that right now? Can I come in? So it’s more safe?”
“Oh. Um.” My dad looks back into the house. “Of course, yeah. Come on in.” He steps outside and ushers me forward. I stop on my way past and give him a hug. “Ah,” he says, surprised.
“It’s really good to see you, Dad.”
“You, too, Dent.” His arms wrap around me, strong and fatherly. I had no idea how much I missed him. We hold the hug for at least ten seconds, a new record for us.
I walk inside. My dad lingers a moment longer in the yard, looking both ways, before coming in and closing the door. He walks with a limp.
“Oh man, that’s right. Is your leg okay from the car accident?”
“It’s healing,” he says, lifting his pant leg to reveal a brace. “Slowly but surely. Just got out of the cast two days ago.”
“I’m so sorry. Is Mom all right?” I ask, and it feels good to use that word for my stepmom, in a way it never did when I used it for my actual mom. Though I feel bad thinking that so soon after her death.
“She’s okay. Her bruises have mainly healed. She’s been going to a chiropractor for her neck.”
“That’s good. Is she here?”
“No,” my dad says, leading the way to the family room. “She’s at book club.” I’m disappointed, though this means it will probably be easier to get down to business. “But there’s lots of leftovers in the fridge, if you’re hungry.”
“Dad, that was really sexist, the way your mind just worked.”
“Huh?”
“As if Mom’s sole purpose in being here is to provide us food.”
“Oh…I see what you mean. Yeah, I should work on that.” He pauses. “That said, do you want any leftovers?”
“Um, no, not right now,” I say, even though I’m hungry. Being with my dad, I find it easy to get lulled into our usual slow, easygoing rhythms, to forget that I’m on a very specific, very urgent mission. “Let’s sit down, Dad.”
“All right,” my dad says, joining me on the couch. The last time I was in here was for my Sitting.
“I mean, I don’t know if you’re putting on an act right now or what, but I know about you.”
“What…what’re you talking about, Dent?”
“I know that you know about all this.”
“Uh…” My dad sticks a finger under his glasses and scratches his eye.
“Did you create the virus?” I ask.
“Huh?”
“Come on, Dad. The virus that saved me. The virus that saved my mother. Did you create it?”
My father stares at me. He blinks and shrugs, his head subtly nodding, a bobblehead seconds away from stillness.
“Ohmigod,” I say.
“It was a different time,” he says.
“You saw how terrified I was on my deathdate as this purple splotch slowly crept over my entire body, and you didn’t say anything?”
My dad looks up at the ceiling for a moment. “I thought I was protecting you. And, honestly, I didn’t know if it would work. Nobody did.”
“Sidenote,” I say. “Did you ever consider letting me know that MOM WAS ALIVE?”
“Please, lower your voice,” my dad says.
“You’re a total bigamist, Dad!”
“It’s…not bigamy. In the eyes of the law, your mother has been dead all these years.”
“Yes, but in the eyes of, like, reality, she was alive. And that didn’t seem like worthwhile information to share?”
“Denton,” my father says. “You know I couldn’t tell you that. You’re being irrational.”
“Well, shit, Dad, if the way you behave is rational, I’ll choose irrational every time!” I’m up on my feet. It’s like somebody’s accidentally bumped the rack during a game of Connect Four: all the chips are pouring out of me.
“Please calm down.” My dad gets to his feet, too.
“You want me to be like you? Like, I don’t know, like a statue or something? You want me to never show emotion and never be honest with people so that we can all be perfect, rational creatures living our lies together? Screw that!”
As if struck by a gust of wind that stirs up out of nowhere, I find myself slammed down by the shoulders onto the couch. My dad hovers over me, leaning into my face. “You need to be quiet, Denton,” he says. It scares the shit out of me. “I’m sorry for the choices I’ve made that haven’t been to your liking, but it’s always you I’ve been thinking of. Always.” His eyes are calm but shimmering with moisture. That scares the shit out of me even more. My dad almost never cries.
“Oh,” I say.
“Do you think I wanted to lose your mother? Or to live without her once she lived?”
He pauses, as if he’s waiting for an answer to his seemingly rhetorical questions. “Uh…,” I say.
“Of course I didn’t. That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But I knew it was also the right thing. And once I learned you had such an early deathdate, I was even more sure. Was I going to have you spend your short life on the run with me, your brother, and your undead mother? Absolutely not.”
I’ve never seen my dad exhibit this much passion. The only moment that’s come close was when he scared Mrs. Donovan into letting us into prom.
“I figured if you really did end up surviving,” my dad continues, sitting down next to me, “you’d have plenty of time to be on the run as an adult.”
“Oh,” I say, still stunned. “That makes sense.” I never had any clue that my dad had thoughts like these.
“Trust me,” he says. “There were many times when I considered telling you. But I couldn’t do it. You always wanted your life to be normal, Denton. And letting you in on all this, well, it felt like the opposite of normal.”
He’s got a point there.
For the first time, I’m seeing my father as a man who’s been stuck in an incredibly weird situation.
“I worked tirelessly, for years, on a serum that would save your mother. When I finally thought I’d done it, it turned out it couldn’t alter a human’s DNA once they were born. You needed to inject it into a fetus before birth. But there was a loophole: when you injected the virus into a fetus, it would transfer to the mother-to-be, too.
“So your mother wanted to get pregnant again. Even though she’d spent our whole relationship saying she didn’t want kids, because she would abandon them when she died. Felix was an accident, a surprise, and I fought tooth and nail to convince your mother we should keep him. But then, when she learned having another child could help her, she suddenly wanted another baby, and I just couldn’t do it, Denton. Creating another person—a person she would immediately abandon along with me and Felix—just so she could survive?”
The person he’s talking about is me. I wouldn’t have existed if he’d won that argument.
“That’s what I was trying to explain to you in the kitchen at your Sitting, how your mother went off birth control without telling me and we conceived you. I was furious. Because she’d gone and made a huge decision without me, a decision that impacted my life maybe even more than hers.”
I have never heard my father talk this much. Ever.
“I refused to inject you, and, by extension, her, with the virus, but she convinced Brian. The two of them had been helping me in the lab, so they knew enough to be able to do it without me. At a certain point, it wasn’t about a movement for them at all. It was about Cheryl looking out for herself, even to the detriment of the people she’d leave behind. I wanted no part of it.” My father sniffs and takes off his glasses. “So you ask why I never told you about your mother? It’s because as far as I was concerned, she was dead. It was the only way I could go on, Denton. Most of me started to believe it.”
