Earth, receive the strangest guest.
In the Dispersal Area I slipped away toward the yews for a dab of makeup and a cigarette. Grief brings out the taste of cigarettes, better than coffee, better than booze, better than sex. When I turned again I saw that Miriam Rockwell was approaching me. Under her black headscarf she looked like a beautiful beggar from the alleys of Casablanca or Jerusalem. Beautiful, but definitely asking, not giving. And I knew then that her daughter wasn’t done with me yet. Not by a damn sight.
We held each other—partly for the warmth, because the sun itself felt cold that day, like a ball of yellow ice, chilling the sky. With Miriam, physically, there seemed to be a little less of her to heft in your arms, but she wasn’t obviously reduced, scaled down, like Colonel Tom (standing some distance off, waiting), who looked about five feet three. Less crazy, though. Sadder, more sunken, but less crazy.
She said, “Mike, I think this is the first time I’ve seen your legs.”
I said, “Well enjoy.” We looked down at them, my legs.’in their black hose. And it felt okay to say, “Where did Jennifer get her legs from? Not from you, girl. You’re like me.” Jennifer’s legs belonged to some kind of racehorse. Mine are like jackhammers on castors. And Miriam’s aren’t a whole lot better.
“I used to say, let her for the rest of her life wonder where she got her figure from. Let her try to piece it together. Her figure and her face. The legs? From Rhiannon. From Tom’s mother.”
There was a silence. Which I lived intensely, with my cigarette. This was my moment of rest.
“Mike. Mike, there’s something we now know about Jennifer that we want you to know about too. You ready for this?”
“I’m ready.”
“You didn’t see the toxicology report. Tom made it disappear. Mike, Jennifer was on lithium.”
Lithium… I absorbed it—this lithium. In our city, in Drugburg here, a police quickly gets to know her pharmaceuticals. Lithium is a light metal, with commercial applications in lubricants, alloys, chemical reagents. But lithium carbonate (I think it’s a kind of salt) is a mood stabilizer. There goes our clear blue sky. Because lithium is used in the treatment of what I have heard described (with accuracy and justice) as the Mike Tyson of mental disorders: Manic depression.
I said, “You never knew she had any kind of problem like that?”
“No.”
“You talk to Trader?”
“I didn’t tell Trader. With Trader I kind of talked around it. But no. No! Jennifer? Who do you know as steady as her?”
Yeah, but people do things without people knowing. People kill, bury, divorce, marry, change sex, go nuts, give birth, without people knowing. People have triplets in the bathroom without people knowing.
“Mike, it’s funny, you know? I’m not saying it’s any better. But with this we turned some kind of corner.”
“Colonel Tom?”
“He’s back. I thought we’d lost him there. But he’s back.”
Miriam swiveled. There he stood, her husband: The heavy underlip, the scored orbits. Like he was on lithium now. His mood was stabilized. He was gazing, steadily, through the universal fog.
“See, Mike, we were looking for a why. And I guess we found one. But suddenly we don’t have a who. Who was she, Mike?”
I waited.
“Answer that, Mike. Do it. If not you, who? Hen-rik Overmars? Tony Silvera? Take the time. Tom’11 push you some compassionate. Do it. It has to be you, Mike.”
“Why?”
“You’re a woman.”
And I said yes. I said yes. Knowing that what I’d find wouldn’t be any kind of Hollywood ketchup or bullshit but something absolutely somber. Knowing that it would take me through my personal end-zone and all the way to the other side. Knowing too— because I think I did know, even then—that the death of Jennifer Rockwell was offering the planet a piece of new news: Something never seen before.
I said, “You’re sure you want an answer?”
“Tom wants an answer. He’s a police. And I’m his wife. It’s okay, Mike. You’re a woman. But I think you’re tough enough.”