Bittersweet (15 page)

“Nothing so far as I can tell,” Chloe said. “So, maybe he does know?”

Edy knew better than that. She knew they were better than that, in fact. “I trust Hassan, Chloe. He trusts me. There’s nothing else to talk about.”

Kori snorted. “You trust your friend, little girl. Isn’t that what she said?”

Edy reared on her. “I don’t care what she thinks, okay? And I don’t care what you think, either!”

Everyone froze, including TJ with a joint between his lips. “So, are we going to party now or what?” he said.

“Go party by yourself,” Edy said and crossed the street.

 She walked home alone that night.

Wyatt’s maternal grandfather visited him on the Friday morning he finished a ten page letter to Edy. In it, he had all his transgressions, all his shortcomings, all his confessions, every wrong he could think of. Jammed on the page. Scratched out and explained clearer. No excuses. Not one. Angry tears fell as he wrote, as he cast aside wicked lies he’d told year in and year out. For her, he did this.
For her.

“What’s that you have there, the Gettysburg Address?”

He didn’t need to look up to place this voice; it was his own. Everything about this man belonged to him, and therein was the joke. His ultra posh, yacht owning, lushly rich, maternal grandfather looked and sounded like Wyatt.

Ha ha.

“No, sir,” Wyatt said and tucked the letter—booklet—into his desk drawer.

His grandfather surveyed the room, nose wrinkled, before looking down on Wyatt again. “Have you given further consideration to my offer?”

“The one where I consent to being locked away? Thanks, but no. I’ll stay where I am.”

His granddad had a long, hand carved walking stick complete with ivory handle. The old man rapped that against the floor in disgust. “It is not ‘being locked away.’ It is psychological treatment. Complete with the greatest care money can buy.”

All in exchange for his freedom. Don’t leave that part out. Please, don’t forget it.

The old man crossed the room with a ridiculously poised step, before lowering himself onto Wyatt’s bed gingerly. He looked as if thought the mice would rise up and eat him, as if the roaches would launch the rebellion any moment.

“Wyatt,” he said regally. “Sandra assures me that she’s explained all the details to you.”

Wyatt nodded.

“And you understand that should you consent to treatment, you would be released to my custody should you be discharged before your 18
^th
birthday.”

Which wouldn’t happen.

“Also, upon release, you would gain your share—your mother’s share—of a substantial inheritance.”

Which he would never get, because he’d never be released.

“And the only way to get a dime from you is to commit myself into psychiatric care,” Wyatt said.

The old man paused. “Perhaps, you don’t understand how much is at stake for you.” He rose again and borrowed Wyatt’s stationary supplies, before bending his awesome height to scribble a number and slide it over.

2.

“Two what?”

“Two million,” his grandfather said. “Established in a trust.”

This wasn’t real. This number wasn’t real. How could one man spare to spend it?

“There’s a girl,” Wyatt said and felt himself swallow.

“I’ve heard. Edith Phelps. How could I not have heard?”

Right. He had been shot because of her.

Wyatt touched the paper, touched the number two, and saw it smear from perspiration.

“What about my mother? Isn’t this her money? Since she’s missing, couldn’t she show up and … reclaim it?”

“Your mother isn’t missing, Wyatt. You can see her when you like. She’s strung out most days on Blue Hill Ave. and likely not to recognize you.”

“That wasn’t for you to tell!” Wyatt’s dad boomed like a cannon from the door.

His grandfather looked on calmly at a sweating, chest heaving, red-faced Roland Green. “You should trust your son with the truth more often. He isn’t as fragile as you make him seem.”

Wyatt looked from one to the other. His mom. His mom on drugs.

“How long?” he said.

“Listen,” his dad started.

“How long!” Wyatt screamed. It took all that he had not to maul his father. Why hadn’t they gone for his mother? Why hadn’t they dragged her back? That’s what you did for loved ones; you dragged them back. You made them see.

“Wyatt, there are hard facts you must face,” his grandfather said. “Your mother’s a troubled woman. Even as a teenager she struggled with substance abuse.”

His father tried next. “Wyatt, I made a judgment call about what I thought was best for you. So, I let your mother go. She knows the way home.”

Just shut up. He didn’t want to hear that. He didn’t want to hear the finality in that. So he turned to the man his father hated. “Where’s this place you want to send me? This facility you’re talking about?”

“Malibu, California. I can have Sandra bring you brochures.”

Malibu sounded beautiful; far more than Chaterdee. Only …

“Edy,” he said softly. It gave him comfort to have her near.

To his grandfather’s credit, he didn’t snort the way his dad insisted on doing. Instead, he folded his hands and nodded at the paper where he’d written Wyatt’s fortune. “You’d be offering her a better you, Wyatt. Do it for yourself. You could also do it for Edy.”

Yes. That’s the one. He closed his eyes with the thought.
Do it for Edy.
He could do anything for that girl.

“I need some kind of guarantee,” Wyatt said and his eyes flew open. “That if I go—I’m not saying I’ll go—but if I go, I’ll get out in time for college. Also, no matter when and for what reason I get discharged, I still get to keep my money.”

“No,” his grandfather said. “You’ll prescribe to a standard set of treatment. Provided you’ve put forth a good faith effort and participated for a satisfactory amount of time—”

“Forget it,” Wyatt said. He reached in his drawer for the letter.

“Wyatt—” his grandfather said.

“Forget it,” he repeated. “I’ll take my chances on life.”

No one would lock him up indefinitely. He’d do anything to avoid that.

Hassan and Edy had been visiting Harvard Yard since they’d toddled around on stubbly legs. Just about every soul in the Kennedy School of Government knew them on sight. New hires were identifiable by their inability to recognize the two. But now he felt the drift, a tug between his dad and him. He even felt it between him and Nathan, though he shoved the sensation of both out his mind when he could. Maybe this distance was a part of growing up, he told himself. Or maybe it had a source he wasn’t ready to confront.

Anyway, Hassan wasn’t visiting the Kennedy School of Government that day. If he had been, he could have found decent parking on Eliot Street or over by Winthrop, instead of parking all the way in Broadway Garage on Felton. Harvard was old, more than a hundred years older than the U.S. old; navigating its streets in a Mustang was a hassle.

Dr. Chandra Dhumal expected him, so he appreciated the yawning distance between the Kennedy Building and the William James Hall where the Department of Sociology was housed. No faculty or administrators or program coordinators commenting on how much he’d grown, and oh, those eyes. Edy never got it any better, because hadn’t she grown so much? And smart! My goodness. Just the thought of them gave Hassan a flutter of desperation. Sometimes, when he visited Harvard he imagined he heard the desperate whisper of ‘help,’ that maybe people like his dad and Edy’s dad never lived, but only thought, processed, and dissected everything; digging for the underneath without knowing how to stop. What do they do when they get to an atom; try to break that down, too, and get a boom in the process?

Or maybe it wasn’t a crazy compulsion. Maybe scholars really did want the answers to life’s questions. As he cut the campus at a run to William James Hall, he told himself that Dr. Dhumal sought some truth that could help him, too. As it was, he didn’t know what questions to ask her beyond one. If she shrugged her shoulders, he expected their meeting to be short. If she told his father, well, he’d have a different problem altogether. Hassan wasn’t in the mood to think like that or to process more than one worry at a time. He was in solution mode right now.

A whistle pierced the air, so sharp and close that his head whipped around without meaning to.

Three girls stood jammed in a cluster like they did at South End. One grinned rabidly. Another’s eyes darted back and forth as if searching for witnesses. The third actually spoke. “Do you go here?” she whispered.

“Or—or to M.I.T.?” nervous eyes said.

Hassan shook his head and watched the grin collapse first. Then the wild eyes looked him over as if he’d lied for the last time.

Whisper girl cleared her throat. “So where do you go?” she said softly.

“South End High.” He flashed a smile. “See you around, okay?” He took off at a sprint, ultra aware of three sets of eyes on him.

He made it to Wheeler and rode up to the Sociology Department to announce himself. When Edy texted him during the wait wanting to know what he was up to, he spent a full minute staring at his phone, contemplating whether to answer the message, and if so, with what. The arranged marriage was his bull to wrestle down, and he wasn’t putting up with her helping at all. She carried enough of a burden in knowing about it.

A mouse of a woman led him down the hall to Dr. Dhumal’s office. It was okay, but nothing nearly as polished as his dad’s or Nathan’s across campus. For starters, compared to the space either one of them had, this was a squatter’s corner. Secondly, both dad number one and dad number two had some sort of wood grain paneling and deep crimson carpeting. Dr. Dhumal had a sick lime wallpaper peppered with baby brown flowers, while her carpet looked like packed earth. He wondered if university politics were to blame and she had no juice behind her, or if the bare truth laid in the way Sociology was pancaked with Psychology and Social Anthropology in their building. Over at the Kennedy School of Government, which just “happened” to sit riverfront, prestige over there could get fanatical. After all, a lot of those folks considered were the children of leaders and considered themselves tomorrow’s leaders. It was nothing to see some a diplomat or elected official doing his thing over there, either. The way Hassan had heard it; they had programs even for them. Given that, it was no wonder Dr. Dhumal’s office looked like some old sock drawer.

She gestured for him to sit down and offered tea. Darjeeling or Lipton. When he shot down both, she insisted on getting him iced. Hassan checked the time on his cell. He’d already been a little late, fooling around with parking first, then stopping for those silly girls because he’d been so surprised to be catcalled, and now she wanted pleasantries. He’d burst with anticipation.

He could hear himself breathing, in and out, as if he’d ran hard; he willed himself to relax. She was the one who explained to him that she had only half an hour. She wouldn’t blow their metered minutes on Darjeeling, would she?

“I don’t have a lot of time to spare, unfortunately. I’m expected at a meeting across campus at the top of the hour. And I do need a cup of tea. You’ll have to bear with me as I make it.”

She stood and turned her back to him, so that she could busy herself at one of those do-it-all coffee machines on a file cabinet in the corner. Hassan caught sight of her swinging ponytail and remembered the one she wore while jogging. Did she wear them every day, like Edy?

Thinking of his girl warmed him and before he knew it, his mouth opened. “Dr. Dhumal?”

“Yes, Hassan?”

“I need help. My parents are shoving a marriage down my throat and I don’t want it. I don’t any girl that isn’t my choosing.”

Dr. Dhumal stood before him with two cups of tea.

She sat one before him. “I notice that you might have chosen your own path,” she said and smiled just a little.

A joke. Right. Because now was a great time to try a stand up routine.

Dr. Dhumal rounded her desk, took a seat, and sipped her tea indulgently. She nodded at Hassan to do the same, to sip the tea he had not wanted, that he’d asked her not to make.

He picked up the tea and took a sip.

“Have you asked your parents to be released?” Dr. Dhumal said.

Hassan’s phone sirened with a message from Edy again. He cringed. How had he forgotten to turn the thing off?

“Sorry.” Hassan jabbed at it once, twice, three times because in his hurried state he’d done it all wrong, and then pocketed it in his jeans. “Okay. Dr. Dhumal? It’s not as easy asking; otherwise I would have done it. My parents are dead serious about this. My mom stakes her life on some of the old ways. After twenty years away, she still misses India and she cares what people think. Did I mention that she cares what people think? Anyway, I can’t marry this other girl and I can’t lose Edy. This is your area of expertise, right? Tell me what to do.”

He’d begun to freight train his words together as his leg tap tapped. The idea that she could give him some solution, even a possible one, shot excitement straight through him.

“You really should begin by talking to your parents, no matter how scary the prospect may seem.”

‘Scary.’ She picked the word that made him seem most childlike and Hassan had recoiled.

“Be respectful when you approach them. Deferential, but firm. Let them know it’s not the bride they’ve chosen but arranged marriage that you reject. I know Ali—”

Better than me?
Hassan bit down on the question.

Dr. Dhumal smiled as if she’d read his mind, or, his willingness to ram his head into her desk. “Your father is extremely respected. It might surprise you that he harbors progressive thoughts. I think—”

A waste of time. This woman was a friggin’ waste of time.

A little voice demanded that he challenge her on her research, her life’s work, her beliefs. He’d read some of it before his visit, and while it was difficult to navigate, he found himself able to keep up with the concepts. He knew the words she uttered came from a different place, a place of practicality. How often had Hassan heard that his father was well respected in his field and at Harvard? He’d been tenured for awhile now. Maybe Dr. Dhumal needed a piece of that. Maybe she’d been playing it safe in even accepting Hassan’s appointment, not wanting to chance offending his dad or Nathan. Now she wanted to pass off stale advice, rote commands that any robot could have said. He could have gone to the guidance counselor at school for this.
Talk to your parents. Be honest. Tell them how you feel.
Buckle up and don’t do drugs. Oh, shut up.

Hassan forced his mouth to mutter the appropriate polite words then got up and left. He felt pissed and stupid, naïve and young, for believing she’d be his Indian fairy godmother.

Had he really thought he’d find resolution simply by asking for it? Right. Because requests for freedom had always been granted, throughout history. He must’ve been an idiot. Or a child, a stupid child, with his hand out hoping she’d put a treat in it. There were no treats for him, nothing he wouldn’t earn. But that was okay. He was used to running until his guts churned and his legs screamed and the white dots swarmed before his eyes. He was used to taking hits that made him want to stay down and nap for awhile. He kept going. He kept fighting. He found a way to win.

This game would be no exception. He’d find a way to win.

~~~

Hassan slid into Edy’s room around eleven-ish and caught the backside of her slipping on a nightshirt. Uninterrupted skin had a way of hypnotizing every time. When she turned, startled to see him, the hem of her shirt fell mid-thigh as she yelped.

“Hassan! Cough or something so I know you’re here,” she hissed.

He shut the window behind him. “Sorry I’m late,” he said and nodded toward the nightshirt. “A few seconds earlier would have made all the difference.”

Edy giggled and punched him in the arm. Was it crazy to love a girl’s laugh that much? That laugh refueled him; it gave him infinite miles for the journey.

He remembered when they visited the house on the Cape with their family and she’d been dancing up on their rock, the rock where they’d carved their names so long ago. He’d watched her, melting beauty of a dancer that she was and finally, finally dredged in an inhale. How long had she kept his breath? He didn’t know. But even that was hers to have.

The house on the Cape. That brought a scowl. Why was it being appraised? Were they selling it?

Edy sat on the bed and looked up, eyes leery, mouth pouting. Already, he thought about kissing it off. “What have you been up to today? I texted you, you know.”

He pulled off his jacket and draped it over her desk chair. Lying wasn’t really his thing, especially not to Edy. Still, he wanted to handle his problem his way, without her feeling like she needed to jump in and help. He’d spent all evening going back and forth over whether to talk to his parents. He had no other ideas. In the end, the gauntlet had been thrown for him when he overheard his mother on the phone with Mala’s aunt, making plans for tea at Tealuxe in Harvard Square. Did Hassan want to come since he was listening?

Edy blew a raspberry and thumped him on his nose. Hassan thumped her right back.

“What?” he said. “What’s wrong?”

“You’ve got that backwards, haven’t you?” She leaned back on her arms, eyes soft. “Why are you so distracted?”

He looked away. It was the only thing Hassan could think of to do. If she kept looking at him with those warm brown eyes, eyes that knew the rough parts and still loved him … Hassan knew everything would tumble out.

“Football stuff,” he said. “I—met your father on campus. We got sort of carried away. Sorry I didn’t answer you.”

There. A full out lie. And of course she knew it, because she only saw the back of his head as he spoke.

“Oh,” she said, in that way that ‘oh’ means ‘oh, I see,’ when the person really did see. And it hurt her. Hurt bled both ways between them. It always had.

“I had a fight with your mom,” she said, and inexplicably, guilt hung in her voice. He wished it wouldn’t.

“About what?” He stretched out on Edy’s bed.

She lay down to face him. “Ballet. You. The future.” She dropped her gaze. “She says you talk about college all the time and where you’re going.”

He raised a brow. “I don’t know where I’m going.”

“Do you talk about college all the time? With your parents?”

Hassan hesitated. “It comes up.”

“But it doesn’t come up with us?”

This was a mudslide and he needed off it, fast. “I don’t know, Cake. It’s still early. You know how parents are. They get hyperactive about the future.” He ran a hand over hers. She slipped away and went for the desk drawer.

“I wasn’t going to say anything, but not telling you about the fight bugged me,” She handed him a wad of papers. Stamped at the top was ‘Youth International Ballet Competition’. “Your mom wants me to compete. She thinks I haven’t been as aggressively in pursuit of my future as you’ve been with yours. She also pointed out that she’s my only support system, and when I lose her, I lose everything.”

“When you lose her,” Hassan echoed. “Not if.” He’d laugh if it weren’t so sad.

Edy stood in her nightshirt and inhaled deep.

“Tell me,” Hassan said.

“No, you tell me first. Start with where you were.”

He cursed inwardly. He had no skill with deception. “Alright, alright. I didn’t meet your dad today. But I’m not ready to talk about what I did do. Just … know it’s something for us that might take a long time to finish. I’m working on a better us, that’s all.”