James Siegel - Detour

So while it was enormously comforting to see John’s face, it was discomforting having to lie to it.

Paul was forced to create details on the spot, to make all of it seem convincing, coherent, and perfectly logical. The trick was to mix in enough truthful stuff—everything he remembered about his daughter—to give it the ring of authenticity. Downing two glasses of wine proved only mildly helpful.

It didn’t do anything to alleviate his guilt. Or his fear.

Chatting about Joanna as if she were simply waiting for him back in a Bogotá hotel room felt horrifyingly callous. Joanna might be waiting in a room, but it lacked maid service and you couldn’t pick up a phone and order a burger and fries at 2 a.m. She might not be waiting for him at all.

There were hidden pitfalls in the thicket of lies.

“Give me her number, for Christ’s sake,” Lisa said. “I haven’t spoken to her for ages. Why hasn’t she called me?”

“You know what long distance costs from Colombia?” Paul said. A ten-minute call to New York from L’Esplanade had cost him $62.48.

“Okay, I’ll call her, ” Lisa said. “Got the number?”

“I have to look it up,” Paul said.

The room went silent as Lisa and John waited for him to do just that.

And waited.

“Frankly, I’m exhausted,“ Paul said. “I need to turn in. Promise I’ll find it for you later.”

Lisa and John reluctantly stood up. They hugged him, told him that if there was anything they could do for him, he shouldn’t hesitate to ask.

HE COULDN’T SLEEP.

He called Rachel Goldstein.

He was still hoping she might lead him out of the rabbit hole.

“Yes?” Rachel said after he’d identified himself.

“I wanted to check and make sure you’re okay.”

“Why?”

“Why?”

“I hardly know you. I appreciate your concern, but I’m kind of baffled at it. You’re not a relative. You’re not a friend.”

“I felt like a friend,” he said. It’s true. For a while Miles had felt like his only friend on earth.

Rachel didn’t bother disputing him.

“How are you holding up?” Paul asked.

“I’m holding on . Eighteen years of marriage and I’m finding out there was a husband I didn’t know. How would you feel?”

One of her sons must’ve come into the room. It’s all right, Paul heard Rachel murmur. I’m fine. Then the sound of a door gently closing.

“Who was he? That’s what I keep asking myself,” Rachel said, her voice sounding unbearably weary. “How do I even remember him?”

“The way you want to, I guess. What’s wrong with that?”

“The way I want to,” Rachel repeated, then said it again. Either because she thought it made sense or because she was ridiculing its stupid sentimentality. “Okay. I’ll give it a try.”

Silence.

“I met one,” she said.

“One what?”

“One child. You asked me today if I had met any of the adopted babies, remember?”

“Yes.”

“I did. Once. Not a baby, though.”

“No?”

“A little girl.”

A little girl.

“I think I’ll remember Miles like that . Why not? Walking through the front door with a little Colombian girl in his arms.”

Okay, Paul thought, slowly .

“Do you remember her name?”

“Her name ? It was over ten years ago.”

“You sure? If you thought about it a little.”

“Why do you care what her name was?”

Good question.

“Before we adopted, we talked to a couple who used your husband. They adopted a daughter. She looked, I don’t know, around thirteen. I was wondering if it might’ve been her.”

Rachel went silent again.

Think, Paul urged her, think .

“Something with an R maybe? Sorry, I don’t remember.”

R, Paul thought, like her father.

“What about her parents? You remember them? Why weren’t they there?”

“I have no idea. Maybe they couldn’t pick her up till the next day.”

“That’s odd. You’re required to go to Colombia and bring your baby back with you. That’s the way it works.”

“Maybe they ran into problems. The girl, as I recall, had some problems of her own.”

“What kind of problems?”

“Emotional stuff. Something was just a little bit wrong with her.”

“What?”

“I’m not sure. She cried and screamed a lot.”

“She was probably scared. Don’t you think that’s normal?”

“I have two children who’ve been scared occasionally. Even terrified. They’re terrified now. Finding out your father killed himself will do that to you. This was different. The girl was afraid of the dark, afraid of the light—afraid of everything. Something was, I don’t know, off . I remember Miles going into her room in the middle of the night trying to calm her down.”

“Did he?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. In the morning he took her to meet her parents. That was that. She had beautiful eyes—I can still remember them.”

“Well,” Paul said, suddenly anxious, even desperate, to get off the phone. Something had been buzzing around his brain, something someone said. “You should get some sleep. If there’s anything I can do.”

She didn’t bother saying good-bye.

FORTY-ONE

He couldn’t hear the elephants.

Or the lions.

Certainly not the llamas.

He could hear the industrial-strength air-conditioning. The clink of metal trays being loaded onto a wheeled lunch cart. The intercom system marred by sudden bursts of static. The insistent banging against the meds window—a bathrobe-clad teenager demanding his caps now.

He could hear the voice in his head too—the many voices banging around in there.

For instance, there was Julius’ voice, the kid from Miles’ days in legal aid.

Walked into the zoo at fifteen. We called it the zoo ’cause it was across the street from the Bronx Zoo.

And there was Galina’s voice. Hello, Galina.

She’s seen things no child should ever have to see. No one should have to see. She has nightmares.

And while we’re at it, add Rachel’s voice to the mix.

The girl was afraid of the dark, afraid of the light—afraid of everything. Something was, I don’t know, off.

And then, finally, the last voice, the one shouting to be heard over all the others. The one in the letter that Paul had first attributed to Miles’ son, but now knew better.

Dear Dad, Daddy, Pop, Father: Remember when you took me to the zoo and you left me there?

And suddenly, he was listening to his own voice.

“Yes, from the insurance company,” Paul was saying to the matronly woman behind the admissions desk. The woman who admitted you to Mount Ararat Psychiatric Hospital, the redbrick, barred-window, linoleum-floored institution that stood directly across the street from the Bronx Zoo. Two zoos, side by side, human and otherwise.

The woman was staring at Paul’s business card as if it were a lotto ticket that had miserably failed her. Paul wondered if Julius had looked into the same face at fifteen.

If she had?

“What’s her name?” the woman said.

“Name?”

“The name of your client’s daughter?”

Paul hesitated just a second.

“Ruth,” Paul said. “Ruth Goldstein.”

Okay, it was a shot in the dark. Or maybe it was more like twilight, just light enough to make out the title of that book crammed full of letters.

The Story of Ruth.

Something with an R , Rachel had said.

“Uh-huh,” the woman said, staring into a computer screen that seemed to be having trouble waking up. She slammed the mouse with a beefy hand.