The Admissions (28 page)

“It was,” said Arthur.

“Oh,
Arthur,
” said Nora. “Arthur. I never knew.”

“
She
was,” said Arthur. “But she didn’t live. She didn’t live past the first day.” His voice caught and he gave a meaningful nod that signified to Nora that she was not to take the conversation any further. Then gave a quick shake of his head, as if to banish all memories, and repeated, “It was a very long time ago.” Nora understood in that instant that everything she thought she’d known about Arthur and Linda Sutton had been based on incomplete information. The uncluttered house, the tickets to
The Nutcracker
with the Hawthorne girls: these things now took on a different, darker patina. Even the yoga obsession. She understood that what she’d always believed to be a conscious choice of Arthur and Linda’s had been no choice whatsoever. You never quite knew another’s story, did you, if you hadn’t walked by that person’s side their whole long lives.

“This is difficult for me, Nora. Maybe as difficult for me as it is for you, I’m not sure.”

Nora nodded—they were finished with the first conversation, then, and on to the next—and bit her lip. She felt suddenly like crying. She couldn’t speak. Her bag lay by her feet and she pulled it into her lap and searched for a tissue, which she didn’t find. Arthur, again channeling an English butler, slid a box toward her. Where the box had come from Nora couldn’t say—she hadn’t noticed it anywhere in the room before. It seemed to have appeared from the very air.

Arthur downed the rest of his drink, and Nora saw that his hand shook in a way that suggested that this was possibly not his first drink of the day.
Goodness,
thought Nora.
This is almost as hard on him as it is on me.
(Please, Genie, let Angela get some sort of scholarship. Let the Millers decide not to sue me.) Arthur went on. “You are one of the best I’ve ever seen in this industry.” He paused and nodded, confirming the truth of his own words, before continuing. “Probably the very best. You’re better than I am. You’re years better than Sally Bentley. The things you understand about people, about what makes them tick, what they want and don’t want from their lives, what their homes represent to them—well, it’s rare.”

Nora whispered, “Thank you.” She clutched her tissue and kept her gaze on the facedown picture frame. From another room, a clock struck the hour. Twelve chimes, high noon. Leave it to Arthur to own a clock that still struck the hour. If Nora had a clock like that, which she didn’t, she would never remember to keep it properly maintained. You had to take care of things like that, you had to respect the craftsmanship that went into them. She thought of the Tower of Jewels: cut glass on the surface, burlap and plaster underneath. That was more her style. “You could have excelled at so many things, Nora. And I’ve thanked my lucky stars more times than you know that you chose to be good at this, and that you chose to do it with me.”

Nora nodded again. Big compliment. There was a boulder stuck in her throat. It was too big to swallow around.

“But you made a big mistake, at the Millers’. A very, very big mistake. As you know, of course. And you put the reputation of the firm at risk.”

This time Nora didn’t even have it in her to nod. Nora had read somewhere that when they trained doctors to let a family member know a patient had passed away they had to use the exact words, “and he died.” Because otherwise people willfully misunderstood the message; they allowed themselves to believe there was still hope. Had Arthur Sutton read the same article? Because so far he’d said only that she’d made a big mistake. There was room for hope.

“I’m sure you know you can’t continue working for me. Nora, I have to let you go.”

And: he died.
Arthur had read the article.

Three wishes, Genie? Oh, screw it. What’s the point.

Nora might have been okay had she not spoken, but the very act of opening her mouth to utter the pitifully inadequate trio of words (“I’m sorry, Arthur”) released a torrent of tears over which she had zero control. She took a great, gulping breath; she was like a toddler having a tantrum in the cereal aisle, trying to regain control of herself so her mother would let her out of the cart.

As inadequate as the words was the tissue, and the next one she selected, and the one after that: she was soaking through all of them. She didn’t know where to put them so she collected them in her lap. Arthur said, “Oh, Nora,” and he moved closer to her and placed a comforting, paternal hand on her back. She could smell that tweedy cologne and the sharp scent of the liquor on his breath. “I’m so sorry, Nora.”

“
You
don’t have anything to be sorry about,” sobbed Nora. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I hate to see you this upset,” said Arthur. “I hate that this has happened. I hate that you felt—well, for lack of a better word—
desperate
enough to do this. After the Watkins incident.”

“Yeah,” said Nora from around what was now her fifth tissue. “Me too.” Desperate was the perfect word for it. She hadn’t put it that way, even to herself. Desperate. That’s exactly what she’d been: desperate to pull those little plants out of the ground, desperate to save the sale, desperate not to get sued, not to get in trouble. Desperate enough that she hadn’t even told her own husband about it. Now she’d have to tell Gabe about this, and her children. The other mothers at school—soon they’d know, if not the specifics of her job loss then at least the fact of it. (“I’m so
glad
!” Cathy Moynihan might say. “We’ll get more of your time now, Nora!”) They’d want her in the classroom; they’d want her painting Adirondack chairs and going into the science lab or helping out on some art project that she’d be hopeless at. They’d all assume it would be good for Cecily and Maya and Angela but it
wouldn’t
be good for any of them, to have a dreadfully depressed, hopelessly unemployed mother around more. It wouldn’t be good for anyone.

There wasn’t enough air in the room for Nora. There wasn’t enough air in the entire city of San Francisco to fill her empty lungs, her empty heart. Because Nora wasn’t crying just for her job; she was also crying for Cecily falling on the stage, and for Angela coming in eighth in a race she wanted to win, and for Maya trying to hold her tears in after school, and for the tiny unborn baby in the ultrasound picture, and even for this glorious city that rebuilt itself again and again, the phoenix rising from the ashes. She was crying because it was so hard to be a parent, but it was also hard—look at Arthur, look at Linda!—
not
to be a parent. It was all just so, so hard.

“I’m so sorry,” she said again. She knew she should pull herself together, get up from the couch, gather her things, exit as gracefully as she could manage. “I’m trying to—I mean, I can’t—”

“Take your time, Nora,” said Arthur. “I’m going to go back into my office for a minute, I’ll be right here if you need me. Please, take all the time you need.”

At first Gabe thought it was one of the golden retrievers, back for a visit. A flash of tawny brown, silent in the already silent hills, one in the afternoon, nobody around.

“Jesus
fucking
Christ,” said Gabe softly, and he knew Nora would disapprove of his language but he hoped this one time she might forgive him. Under the circumstances.

The mountain lion was on the skinnier side—bad sign, Gabe knew, that meant it wasn’t hunting effectively on its own. It was below Gabe, looking up at him, not yet advancing. But Gabe couldn’t descend without passing it. He was close enough—just—to see the yellow eyes. The animal held Gabe steady in its gaze. Neither man nor beast moved.

And then Gabe realized it: the drought. Not enough food or water sent the animals out of their usual locations, into residential areas, sometimes. Or maybe just a well-traveled hiking trail they would typically avoid.

The mountain lion, standing now, somberly beautiful, almost innocent (though not), whiskers, snub nose, softly rounded ears, like a house cat (though not), mouth closed over what (Gabe knew) was a formidable set of teeth. And the paws! Oversized, compared to the size of the lean body, like a Labrador puppy that hadn’t yet grown into its own. Though of course it had. Those paws could kill with a swipe. The teeth, of course, presented the greater danger.

A plaid quilt, pulled tight around his bed at the ranch house.
Will you marry me, Nora?
His father’s funeral, his mother crying into an old-fashioned handkerchief Gabe hadn’t known she owned. A Lego set spread out in front of a fire, construction vehicles in primary colors, working with one of his brothers, his concentration utter.
No,
his brother said.
The wheel goes over here. Let me do it.
An infant Cecily grasping at his finger.
Will you marry me, Nora?
His father lifting him into a saddle for the first time.
There, you’ll be all right, easy does it.
A grilled cheese sandwich dipped into a bowl of tomato soup. A bull elk. A rifle hiked over his shoulder. A yellow school bus rounding the corner. The steering wheel of a pickup, Gabe’s hands steady. Maya toddling toward his open arms: her first uncertain steps. October snow in Wyoming, a bison calf trekking through the drifts.
Nora, will you make me the happiest man alive?
Angela on his shoulders at the Harvard–Yale game. A crisp New England fall day, colors so bright it almost hurt to look. His hand on Nora’s thigh, on her beautiful pale neck.
I’m sorry, Mr. Hawthorne, but I couldn’t reach anyone else in your family. I’m afraid I have some bad news about your father.
Center field on a day as hot as blazes, running, running, a pop fly to the middle of the glove. A beautiful catch, everybody said so.

It was true, then, about your life playing before your eyes. Wait. Did that mean he was going to…

And one thought ridiculous enough to push its way to the surface, glinting in the sunlight so quickly—like the flat edge of a knife—and then disappearing before he really had time to grasp it, was how embarrassing it was going to be to die here, in the early afternoon, in the East Bay (of all places!) on a Monday, a workday, when he was supposed to be at Elpis. To add to that, his bladder had given way and the front of his khakis was soaked.

No.

Remember, he told himself, you’re an animal too. He tried to recall exactly what the sign at the trailhead had said. Make yourself big. Don’t back away, don’t run. Make lots of noise. Throw rocks, throw sticks, throw anything. If attacked, fight back.

Carefully, carefully, his eyes on the mountain lion, he bent and felt for a rock. When he bent, the animal took a step forward. Considering. Gabe straightened.

Lots of noise, the sign said. Don’t retreat. Don’t turn your back.

Later, a couple of hikers pretty far away, on the Hemme trail, reported an unearthly noise. They thought it might be coyotes—mating, maybe, or fighting. God-awful, they said. One of them tried to capture the sound with her iPhone but by the time she got the video on (she had the new iPhone, and, annoyingly, the camera often froze) it was over and done with.

But it wasn’t a coyote. It was Gabe Hawthorne, father, husband, partner at San Francisco–based Elpis Consulting, opening his mouth and letting loose what he would think of later as a primal scream.
The
primal scream. It was a sound he never would have guessed he had inside of him, and it echoed over the mountains and bounced back again. Arms above his head, waving. The rock, thrown at the animal, who, when struck, had such an expression of bewilderment that had the circumstances been different Gabe might have felt sorry for it.

And the mountain lion fled.

The khakis were now a complete loss. The torn knee, the urine. A little extra digging in the trunk eventually revealed a pair of crumpled track pants, not clean, necessarily, but serviceable enough, and Gabe climbed into the passenger seat to make the switch, praying that no dog walkers or—worse—young mothers with strollers wandered by at this most inconvenient of times. The residential street was mostly quiet, though down the way from where he was parked Gabe could hear a leaf blower and the distant drone of saws or drills: instruments of the upper class’s inevitable, insatiable quest for more and better.

He stopped at a gas station in Alamo on the way to the freeway and bought a bottle of water. And if the man at the cash register noticed the incongruity of his dress shirt and his track pants; if he noticed Gabe’s hands shaking, and his knees too; if he looked deep into Gabe’s eyes and understood that here was a man who had fought death and won, well, he said nothing about it.

And there was no point in keeping the secret anymore. He’d go home, and he’d take a shower, and when Nora got home he’d tell her everything.
Everything.

Something about the house didn’t look right. Gabe squinted at it. What was it? It was the driveway. It was Nora’s car, in the driveway, at three o’clock in the afternoon, on a weekday. Something must be wrong. Nora had said she had a packed day at the office. She had said she’d never get it all done.

Nora was sitting on the couch in the living room watching television. This was odd in and of itself: Nora never watched television. In fact she rarely sat down. Also: she was crying. Nora seldom cried. The last time he remembered seeing her cry was when Frankie died.

“Hey,” he said. He slipped off his shoes. “Hey, Nora. What is it? What’s wrong? Where are the kids?” His first thought, of course, was,
Angela! Harvard!
But it was the first week in December and she’d only just had her alumni interview. No, it was too early for that. He was ashamed, maybe, at the relief he felt when he realized Nora must be crying over something else.

Then he thought,
She knows!
He imagined Abby Freeman showing up at the door, inviting herself in, releasing Gabe’s lie into the atmosphere.

But it was neither of these things. “Nelson Mandela died,” she said. “Didn’t you hear?”

Gabe sat down next to her. She held a Kleenex box in her lap and on the floor was a giant pile of used tissues: a veritable mountain. She must have been at this for quite a while. He glanced at the television: cable news. He said, “Of course I heard. Lead story on NPR.” He had been only half listening. He had almost been mauled by a mountain lion! South Africa seemed very far away.

She took a deep and shuddering breath, and blew her nose loudly, and said, “What are you
wearing
?”

“Oh. I, ah, worked out at the gym before I came home.” Another lie. “I thought you’d be at work,” he said.

She waved a wet tissue toward him and said, “Came home early.” She paused and looked at him. Her eyes were rimmed with pink, like an albino rabbit’s, and there was a small bright circle of red, Rudolph-like, on the tip of her nose. He thought Nora was beautiful, but she did not have the skin tone that lent itself to handsome crying. She pointed the universal remote at the television like a weapon. On the screen, hundreds of South Africans were dancing, swaying, singing, crying. “Some of these people aren’t going to sleep for days, they said. To honor him. Can you imagine? For
days.
” Her crying began anew.

Gabe hadn’t known that Nora cared so deeply about Nelson Mandela. He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard her talk about apartheid, or South Africa. Or, really, any part of Africa. South
America
she’d expressed interest in. Chile, Brazil. But Pretoria? Soweto? He moved closer to her and rubbed her back.

“Even the children are crying, Gabe. Crying and dancing. Even these little kids, what are they, five, six? They get this. They grasp the significance of it. Look at that little boy swaying.”

Gabe looked at the little boy swaying.

“Maybe,” he said carefully, “maybe they’re crying because they see all the grown-ups around them crying. You know how kids are. Suggestible.” He hadn’t meant any harm by the statement but Nora fixed on him such a look of venom that he wished he could take his words back.

“Why aren’t we more like that?”

Gabe definitely couldn’t tell her now. Definitely not. On the screen he saw flashing images of the great man from various stages in his life, interspersed with footage of the mourners. “Well,” he said. “You’re Catholic. And a New Englander. And Irish! Those aren’t groups that are known for dancing in the streets, whatever the reason.”

She wiped savagely at her nose. “Not as a
family.
Besides, you’re not exactly Johnny Emotion. I mean as a
country.
Why aren’t we more like that as a country? Who do we mourn like that? Who has this country ever mourned like that?”

“I don’t know. Kennedy?”

She sighed. “It wasn’t the same.”

“We weren’t born then.”

“I know. But I’ve seen footage of the funeral procession. It wasn’t the same. Everybody just stood there somberly. No rejoicing. No swaying. This country doesn’t know how to mourn, Gabe. Let’s face it. We just don’t.”

“Nora…”

“Do you know he was in prison for more than a quarter of his life? Twenty-seven years, Gabe. In prison. And we complain when we can’t get a table at Poggio.”

Her eyes were fixed still on the television screen. Now they were showing the current South African president making the announcement. He was at peace now, the great man was at peace. Nora turned to Gabe and buried her face in the sleeve of his shirt. “I’m just sad, Gabe. I’m just really, really sad.”

No way could he tell her. Not now.