Jess Walter - The Zero

“Thanks,” Remy said.

Mr. Selios’s face was tracked with tears. He wiped at them like they were mosquitoes he could kill. “She always went to work early, because she was working on things in Europe and the Middle East, other time zones. She called when she knew we had left for the restaurant. I think sometimes that she wanted to talk to us, but she didn’t want us to talk to her. We weren’t allowed to ask questions about her personal life.”

“The phone call was at six fifty-eight-?”

“Yes,” he said, “seven, that morning…” He covered his mouth.

Six fifty-eight in the city that morning. Forty minutes before. Just minutes after the technician said she got the call that agitated her. Minutes before she left her desk.

March Selios’s mother, tall and pretty, with a broad face and silver-streaked black hair, came into the room with a cup of coffee. The woman Remy had heard crying in the kitchen. She’d tried to compose herself but her eyes were red and swollen. “Here you are.” She set the coffee down on the table in front of him, which was covered with photo albums, school yearbooks, and letters.

“Thank you,” Remy said.

He picked up the coffee, and just then the wife fell into her husband’s arms.

They held each other, and the woman’s shoulders shuddered as she cried. Her husband cried too, but forced himself to do it silently. Remy was caught in the room because they were in the doorway and he was on the loveseat.

“Excuse us a moment,” Mr. Selios managed to say.

“Of course,” Remy said. “Take your time.”

They left the room and Remy rubbed his eyes. He put the notebook back in his pocket and looked around the room. Then he picked up one of the photo albums. There was a family picture: the parents, March, a young boy and another girl, an older sister who looked like a thinner, lighter version of March, pretty and dark-haired and familiar. Had he interviewed the sister and forgotten her? Or was it just that she looked like March? He flipped through the pages and came to the older sister’s wedding pictures. March was the maid of honor; the young brother, who shared their dark hair and eyebrows, was a groomsman. He looked at the young bride again.

March…

Remy’s throat went dry. April?

He stared at the picture. It could be, although he couldn’t recall her face just now, only the back of her head, the girl he had – April? April Kraft.

He stood and looked around the room. There were pictures of the two sisters everywhere, but none of the back of her head… senior pictures in front of fanned chairs and phony grottos, candid photos of the two girls in footed pajamas at Christmas. March. April. Was that when they were born? Some new immigrant’s trick to make them sound American? And what was the brother’s name – June? Remy sat back down and rubbed his temples. Had he slept with March Selios’s sister because he’d wanted to, or because he’d wanted information? Was he genuinely interested in her, or… he didn’t want to consider the alternative. His throat felt salty and dry.

Mr. Selios came back into the room. “You must excuse my wife. This has aged her twenty years, Mr. Remy. A horrible time for our family.”

“Yes.” Remy pretended to concentrate on his notebook. “Your other daughter…”

“April… this has been hardest on her, I would assume, losing both of them.”

Remy’s head fell back against the couch.

“Unfortunately, April and I…” Mr. Selios frowned. “We don’t really talk. We haven’t for years. She was the first to leave and I said some things… I thought this might make her realize… but she still won’t talk to me. She didn’t even come home for March’s funeral.” Mr. Selios shrugged. “Maybe it was just too much, losing March and Derek the same day.”

“Derek… her husband?”

“Yes,” he said. “They were separated when it happened. He worked in the same building as March. He was a contract lawyer for another firm.”

“Derek… Kraft?”

“That’s right.”

“How did they meet?”

Mr. Selios didn’t seem to find it odd that Remy had changed the subject to his other daughter. “March introduced them. Her company used Derek’s firm for some contracts and she thought he and April would hit it off, I guess.” Mr. Selios sighed. “I was furious. I believed Derek was a pushy man with women. Frankly, I did not approve when they married. He was older and too… fast. Everything was so fast with him. You have to understand, I did not want my daughters moving to the city, especially April. I was not as worried about March. Even though she was the younger, she always seemed more… solid. But I have always worried about April. I didn’t like her selling real estate. She is not a salesperson. She has the mind of a poet, too sensitive and… aware. Too trusting.”

Remy’s teeth felt like sandpaper.

“I wanted April to have a man with his feet on the ground, not this slick lawyer, this man who was so fast. So I refused to pay for the wedding and-” Mr. Selios cleared his throat. “April was angry and said that she had never expected me to pay for the wedding. I told her she was disgracing my family.” He covered his mouth, but composed himself. “Are you married, Mr. Remy?”

“Divorced.”

“Do you have daughters?”

“A son.” … who believes I’m dead, he almost added.

Mr. Selios nodded and looked up at the picture of his own son. “Sons are the devil’s payback, yes?”

“Your son…”

“Augustus. Gus.”

“Yes,” Remy said. “Where is he now?”

“He’s in…” He paused, as if it were too difficult to admit.

Prison? Remy wondered. A cult?

“Entertainment,” Mr. Selios said. “He lives in Los Angeles.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

Mr. Selios shrugged. “Yes,” he said. “But girls. Ah, girls.” The old man’s eyes reddened beneath black lashes. “I suppose I was a rash and difficult father to them, Mr. Remy. Even though March still talked to me, she would never think of telling me about her life. Both girls believed that I was… disapproving. Old fashioned. And I suppose that I was. I wanted for them… what women have wanted for centuries. That’s all. Marriage and children… I wanted for them to work in the family restaurant, to stay here in Kansas City. Where I could protect them.” His head bowed forward. “When March was eight, she used to have nightmares. Every night… a dream that she was falling. She would brace and scream and I would run to her bed and hold her and tell her it was okay. Does that sound like a bad father, Mr. Remy? Does that sound like a hard man, a disapproving man?”

“No.”

Mr. Selios looked up and wiped at his mouth. “I am desperate to know what happened to her that day. I watch on the TV as long as I can but I always have to turn away. I imagine her curled up beneath a desk, crying… or tumbling… like when she was little. Every time they show one of those poor people falling…” Tears rose and migrated into the stubble on his round cheeks and his voice caught. “I just want to know what happened. Maybe it would be too hard to know, but maybe there would be some… peace.” His voice shattered and he spoke with wavering force, as if pushing each word through a mask. “As it is… Mr. Remy, I can’t forgive myself for not being there.”

“There was nothing you could have done,” Remy said gently.

“I could have caught her,” he cried. “I would have.”

Remy let Mr. Selios compose himself and then he stood. “Thank you for your time, sir.” He looked down at the wedding picture in the open album. As he put his coat on, he looked down at a mug shot he’d paper-clipped to his notebook: Bishir Madain. “Do you know this man?”