“He’s dead, Anna. They found him a few hours ago.”
Her words conjure the image I’ve been trying to banish from my mind. I feel my chest compress the air out of my lungs, and there’s a moment where I’m not sure I can get it back in. I sit there, looking at her, suddenly unable to speak. The room is airless in spite of the broken crank. Then I realize I’m not asking any questions. I find my voice again.
“Who told you? Who found him?”
“The police called. Val in student services told me just now.”
I cover my face with my hands. “Oh my god.”
June comes around my desk and touches my shoulder gently. “It’s not your fault, Anna.” I look up so quickly it hurts my head.
“He was not well. Everyone knows that. There was nothing you could have done.”
I breathe out again, slowly. “You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Maybe I pushed him too hard.” I stare at her in shock: did I really just say that? I put my hands over my face and pretend to cry but suddenly I’m laughing and I can’t stop. Luckily, tears are streaming down my face anyway.
June scans the room for a chair, then pulls the one from the other side of the desk around to my side. She sits so close to me our knees almost touch. I’ve never been this close to June before. I barely notice her, to be honest. I realize now how pretty she is, with her bouncy black curls and her curvy shape. She looks younger than me, but I think that’s because she’s in better shape than I am; we’re both nudging forty.
“That has nothing to do with it,” she says, and for a moment I forgot what we were talking about. “You know what Alex was like, how difficult it was for him. He was depressed…”
I stare at her for a moment. “How would you know that?”
“He told me. He was worried about how obsessive he had become. He didn’t sleep for days at a time. I don’t know how he managed, frankly.” I stare at her in disbelief. Alex was my student, my protégé, and yet June who, as the faculty executive assistant, isn’t even part of the teaching staff, knew so much about his inner demons.
What else did she know?
“He told you all this? When?”
“I don’t know exactly. Over the last few weeks. You saw what it was like. Did you see how much weight he’d lost? Did you see how he changed? He would get over-excited, too much so, like he was on drugs. He’d say to me, ‘June, one day you’ll be able to say you knew me when!’ Then the next day he wanted to quit and go sailing for a year. To be honest, I never thought he was cut out for academic research, not at this level anyway. He was too… unstable.”
“How did he die?”
June’s face looks full of pain when she says it: “I’m so sorry, Anna. He jumped. Out the window of his apartment.”
Bile rises and for a moment I think I’m going to be sick, right there on the dark blue carpet. “I thought you were going to say he took an overdose or something.”
“I know.”
“But jumping out of a window?” I feel as pale as June looks. “He’s really gone?” I ask, god knows why. Maybe because hearing it from someone else makes it real. Even more real than yesterday, when I looked down at his bleeding and broken body wedged behind a dumpster three floors below.
June says something else but I don’t hear the words, only the sound of blood pulsing inside my ears. Her mouth is still moving when I step out of the room and almost run down the stairs and around the corner to the parking lot. I drop my keys before I can open the driver’s door of my car, where I spend the next twenty minutes with my forehead resting on the steering wheel, hyperventilating, vaguely recognizing the symptoms of a panic attack. I can’t even tell if it’s because Alex is dead or because of the magnitude of what I’ve done.
Eight
I have a longing to be with Luis, to rest my head on his shoulder and hear his soothing voice. I reach for my bag on the passenger seat and fish around for my cellphone, but the call goes straight to voicemail, which I half-expected. He always turns off his phone when he’s working.
“Hi, it’s me. Can you call me back?” Then I add in a smaller voice: “I know you’re busy, but do you think you could come home early?” I pause, about to tell him about Alex—Remember Alex? He’s dead—but instead I just say, “I miss you.”
I start the car, but let it sit idle for a moment. I shouldn’t go home to my kids in this state. I will Luis to call me back, then I think, Why don’t I go to him? I could watch him work while I tell him about Alex and why it’s all my fault. Not the real ‘all my fault’, obviously. I mean the bit about pushing him too hard, having high expectations. No. Don’t tell him about Alex. I will tell him later. Instead I will say, “Let’s go away after the exhibition, just the two of us. The kids will be fine without us. They can stay with your dad for a week or two. They’d love that. I’ll take time off work. We wouldn’t tell anyone where we were. Let’s remember us, the way we were. I miss you.” That’s what I’ll tell him.
I text Carla.
Working late, eat without me, there’s a lasagna in the fridge you can microwave. Make sure Matti does his homework, please. I’ll see you later, honey. Love you xox
She replies immediately.
K x
I stop by the liquor store on the way, because one thing I need right now is a drink. I’ve been needing a drink for hours. I pick up the first bottle I see, a Napa Valley cabernet, when I catch sight of the box wine further along the shelf. A wave of nostalgia rolls over me and for a moment I am back at college. Luis and I, seated crossed-legged on the floor of his room, Cher or Celine Dion on the CD player. We’d drink Franzia wine out of jam jars and kiss till my lips hurt. We’d talk of our plans for our future, how many kids we wanted (two: a boy and a girl), we’d talk over each other, our hands flying around as we constructed a life where Luis was a famous artist and I would be a famous mathematician.
I put the bottle back on the shelf and grab the box wine instead. The guy at the till recoils slightly at the sight of me. I glance at my reflection in the mirror behind him and see that my cheeks are streaked with dried-up rivulets of tears stained with mascara. I find a scrunched-up Kleenex in the bottom of my purse and check it. It’s stained with something vaguely oily, vaguely yellow. Chicken korma from the other night, I bet. I use the least stained corner of it to wipe my cheeks clean and add a small packet of tissues from the counter to my purchase.
Luis’s studio is in an old industrial warehouse on the west side of the city. He occupies half of the third floor, which is huge. It’s perfect for him, with massive windows, exposed red bricks and high ceilings.
I park outside and automatically look up, expecting the light to be on, but his windows are dark. Could I have missed him? I check the time on the dashboard—ten to six. I pull out my phone and try his number again but still get voicemail. I text Carla.
Hi honey, is Dad home?
No. When r u coming home?