Fiona Maazel - Woke Up Lonely

“And your marriage?”

“Solid. The feds thought maybe they could get one of their own in here as a fake counselor or something. But, son, enough of all this craziness, okay?”

“Don’t you care if I go to jail?”

Wayne had begun to pack up Tyrone’s things. “Of course I care. But I’d rather you in jail than dead or carrying on like this. Now go tell those four people to come out. I swear. Sometimes I think you have totally lost your mind.”

“I am not letting them go. They are all I have now to get Esme back. Her and Ida. Dad, she’s ten years old next week!”

“ Ida? Esme? Is that what this is about? You really have gone insane. All this for a woman? That witch. There is no more destructive thing on earth than a woman!” He pounded his fist on the table, upsetting an empty can of root beer.

“You weren’t so sympathetic when it mattered,” he said. “Too little, too late.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. If you tell the press your neglecting dad is to blame for this stupid thing you’ve done, I will kill you myself.”

“Fine, Dad. If you can just wait five minutes, I want to give you a videotape I made for Ida. Then you and the bird can get out of here.”

His father stopped his labors and came to sit opposite him. “Son, if you really want them back, how did you think this would help? Were you planning on ransoming — oh, good God. You were.”

Thurlow frowned. “But I didn’t. I was afraid they still wouldn’t come, so I didn’t.”

“Right, and to hell with all the people who apparently believe in what you’re doing.” And when Thurlow seemed taken aback, Wayne said, “Do I look brain dead to you, son? The whole world knows about the Helix.”

Thurlow put his forehead on the table and spoke into his lap. He said, “I have no hope of ever seeing my family again. I wish I were dead.”

Wayne stood up. “But I don’t. So let’s go.”

“Can’t you wait a few minutes? Let me just give you this present for Ida. Just do this one thing.”

Wayne said no and asked again if Thurlow would come. “Do you really want to change people’s lives? You can. Every news station in town is here. Everyone is watching. I’m going to tell them that you are coming out and releasing the hostages and to hold their fire.”

Thurlow put out his hand, and when Wayne shook it, Thurlow was surprised to feel the adamance of his father’s grip and his own reluctance to let his father go.

Norman was dumped on a couch. The despair was coming off him in whorls.

Thurlow said, “How many of us are still here?”

Norman and him, the hostages, some midlevels.

“Deborah?”

No idea.

“Charlotte?”

“Split.”

“The rest?”

“Split.”

“This captain-goes-down-with-the-ship thing has its virtues.”

Norman said, “Do you have to see everything as though it’s not actually happening to you? There’s a reality here. We need to deal with it and consider an exit strategy.”

Thurlow held up his hand, which was red and thick like a beet. “The dietician,” he said. “With her flashlight.”

“That’s absurd,” Norman said, and began to laugh. “Of all the ways to get hurt on a day like this.”

“Don’t laugh.”

Norman stopped, and the look on his face was awful.

Thurlow squinted and puckered the skin between his eyebrows, which he pinched until it hurt. “You know I didn’t mean for it to get to this.”

Norman knew.

Thurlow unwrapped his hand because he could not feel blood touring the digits.

Norman sat with his legs parted wide and flapped his knees. His lips began to quiver. He said, “I know how to get out of here, but where am I going to go?”

“You’ll be all right. I have faith.”

“When did things start to go wrong for us?”

“February 27, 1995. 5:43 p.m.”

“Has it really been ten years? She must be a little lady by now.”

Thurlow nodded. “I saw her, you know. Just by chance, on the street when I was in D.C. With Esme. She was wearing all green.”

“Oh my God,” Norman said, and so now he knew exactly what had gotten them to this moment.

“Norman, listen. I’ve been making this videotape for her. If you can just hang on for a little longer, I’ll give it to you and then you can go.”

But Norman was done hanging in. He wished Thurlow luck and turned his back on him for good.

11:58:11:29: And so, my little one, I guess that’s it. I am all alone now, as I deserve. I hope, when you’re older, you won’t judge me too harshly. I’ve just been confused and hung up on the wrong questions. Do I think love is an answer to loneliness? Maybe. Sometimes. But I suspect there’s more than one path leading away from estrangement, though for some people, there are no paths at all. But now I see the more important question is: What does it matter when you miss your wife and child? So what if I am the one for whom loneliness is insoluble — so what? I’d rather be lonely with you. I’d rather treat loneliness like the air I breathe, and breathe it with you. Why couldn’t I have figured this out ten years ago? I know I have wrecked my life. I hope to God I have not wrecked yours. I hope, too, that you never have to struggle with this stuff and that you are among the lucky who, in their solitude, still understand themselves to be a part of the universe and beloved by others. Just remember this: There is no lonely course that doesn’t still belong to the plexus of human experience being lived every day.

My darling girl, is there anything else I can tell you? Have I documented every stop along the plummet to this day? Should I buss your toddler socks and press them to my cheek? Will you think on me more kindly if I say I have the dried columbine of your mother’s bridal bouquet in my safe?

I only had you for a year into life, but I still have memories that come upon me all day long. You in turtle pose, a month old, staring at the fuzzy dice I’d bought you myself. You swaddled in a ladybug blankie and wanting out. Your Mohawk hair and your arms thrown overhead as you slept. Your cactus pose. Your Jesus pose. Your seal and ostrich pose. The distended belly. Six rolls of fat per leg. The day it was five. You wobbling on all fours, going nowhere. Your callused little knees once you got going and never stopped.

I know you don’t know me, and that you never did. You’ve grown so much. I was in D.C. a couple weeks ago, and I saw you. You were walking in green rubber boots with a frog face on each side. Soon you will need a new pair. I bet you look just like your mother. I hope you listen to her in all things, even though you are getting smarter all the time. If one day you ever wonder about your dad, please know that you are all he ever thought about from the moment you were born.

ESME WAS CONCUSSED AND LOCKED IN A HOTEL BATHROOM. There was dusk out the window, bullfrogs in one ear — no, both — and a bellows whumping through her brain at three-second intervals. She’d been passed out the entire afternoon, and, for the girth of the swell atop her skull, she guessed Jim had whacked her hard. The irony of getting knocked in the head while giving head was not lost on her, though it was also not top on her list of ignominies that needed undoing.

Jim had left her bag but no wallet or phone. No one was likely to come up to this room uninvited. The window was too small to get through, and even if she could, it was eight floors up. The lock had been jacked; she would be in this bathroom until Martin got a clue. Tick-tock.

She rinsed her face and showdowned with the loony in the mirror. By now, she knew, the siege was being broadcast worldwide. The thinking: We need to appear as though we’re doing everything in our power to get our people released and to hold accountable the delinquent who sent them there. We. Ha. There was no we. There was just her and her madness and a break from the certainty that had floated her for years: that she would figure this out, hatch a plan, marshal the weaponry at her disposal against the anomie of love. The anomie of love! Who still pines for the same man nine years later?