Like No Other (21 page)

D
evorah

S
EPTEMBER
15, 8:15
PM

T
he last time I was in my living room (only an hour and a half ago, my rational brain reminds me, but somehow it feels like days) it was the picture of peace, nothing moving in the gentle dark except Rose’s chest rising and falling beneath the sleeping baby curled on top of her.

Now, it’s a war room.

All the lights are on, and I’m sitting in the chair by the dragonfly lamp, flanked by Jacob, who doesn’t seem to trust me to move more than six inches on my own. His hand, the nail beds grimy with dirt (
but not blood, oh no—he was just the sadistic director, standing by and watching as they beat him
), rests on the chair arm to my left, his body conveniently blocking my path to both the front door and the stairway. Across from me, my father sits in his now-rumpled work clothes, his wide feet stuffed into beige slippers, taking up the whole couch as if his body has expanded with rage, like steam collecting under the lid of a boiling pot. In the kitchen, my mother is making coffee for Rabbi Perl, who like his name is almost perfectly round and translucent, the veins purple and blue under his elderly skin. After some impassioned debate that I was not a part of—but which involved many furious glances and gesticulations in my direction—my father called him at his home and got him out of bed to come and bear witness to my shame. Some others didn’t have to be called; over the shuffling in the kitchen I can hear subtle squeaks in the planks of the floor above that tell me Miri, Hanna, and Amos are listening from the landing, their faces pressed up against the smooth wooden rails.

“All right,” the rabbi says as he enters, his trembling hands clutching a ceramic mug emblazoned with the joke slogan
I
TANYA
—the sacred Chabad text, not a woman. “Tell me what’s been going on.” Out of the corner of my eye I can see Jacob shifting from foot to foot. He must be beside himself that it’s not his place to speak first and that he, like everyone, must look to my father out of respect. Everyone, that is, but me. I can’t bring myself to meet his eyes.

“Our daughter,” my father says slowly, his voice thick with anger and fatigue, “has been seeing a boy.”

“What is the nature of the relationship?” the rabbi asks, lowering himself onto the love seat to my right. He’s not asking me. My opinion on the subject is not expected or required. For the first time in the presence of a religious elder, I feel no subservience, only a stab of defiant anger.

“I only learned of it tonight,” my father says, “But as I understand from my son-in-law, they have been secretly dating for some weeks, and she was planning on leaving on a trip with him this evening.”

“All without our knowledge,” my mother adds, choking back tears. Her hands fly to her face as she sinks into the couch beside my father, who bristles at the sound of her sobs. Jacob leans across to pass her a handkerchief.

“I assumed,” the rabbi says kindly. He turns to Jacob. “Tell me what happened tonight.”

“I was out on Shomrim patrol,” Jacob says soberly, “when I saw Devorah standing alone in front of Eliyahu’s Bakery. This was after sundown, so naturally I was concerned. A black car pulled up, and I watched her get inside. That’s when I decided to intervene, and I found her with the boy in question. In quite a compromising position.” Clearly he has been rehearsing his lines. I almost want to clap.

“I understand there was a struggle,” the rabbi says.

“Yes, unfortunately the boy lashed out at us violently, and we were forced to restrain him.” In a flash I see Jaxon down on the ground, a black boot driving into his back.

“That’s not true!” I cry. “The Shomrim hurt him first. They dragged us out of the car.”

“
Quiet
,” my father says threateningly.

“They punched him!” I say, hearing my voice rise hysterically but unable to control it. “He did nothing to them, and they beat him with his hands held behind his back!”

“That’s not true,” Jacob says. “But I’m sure it’s difficult for Devorah to tell truth from lies at this point.” He turns to my parents. “I told you she had a cell phone, didn’t I?
Now
do you believe me?” Then he smiles ever so slightly, relishing the moment, and I lose what little restraint I’ve been clinging to since I was brought home and forced into this chair, just one more in a series of waiting rooms I get to live in while other people dictate the terms of my freedom.

“You’re a monster,” I shout. “And you’re a liar, too!” I turn to face my parents, who look at me like I’m a frightening trespasser they’ve never seen before. “He knew about Jaxon from the beginning,” I say. “He saw us together. He threatened me and told me he would tell you if I didn’t stop seeing him.”

“Devorah, STOP!” my father yells, a cannonball boom that reverberates through the house. He collects himself and then fixes me with a steely stare. “What has happened to you?” he asks. “You are not the daughter I raised.”

“I found the letter,” my mother jumps in. “The idea that you would leave without talking to us first, that you would go to such lengths to hide, even when I gave you a chance to tell me—” She starts to tear up again. “I just don’t understand how you could disrespect us like this.”

“I’m so sorry,” I blurt, so upset and anxious that I trip over my own words. “I never meant to—I don’t want to hurt anyone. You have to believe me, Mama, I didn’t want
any
of this to happen. It just—” I feel hot tears cascade down my cheeks. “I’m still your daughter,” I plead. “I just didn’t know what to do.”

“You could have done anything but this,” my father mutters, raising a napkin to mop his brow.

Rabbi Perl holds up his hands. “Let’s all try to calm down,” he says. “Devorah, I’d like to hear from you now.” His eyes are wet and cloudy, the lids above them papery-thin. “Is it true that you were planning on leaving the city tonight with this young man?”

I wipe at my eyes with the back of my hand. “Yes, but—”

He waves my explanation away. “Where were you planning on going?”

“It doesn’t matter now,” I mumble.

“Devorah!” my father barks. “Show some respect and answer the rabbi’s question.”

“Just Long Island,” I say reluctantly, as if it’s no big deal, and my mother shakes her head, looking like she’s sitting shiva after a death. Rabbi Perl nods encouragingly. It almost feels reassuring, but then I remember that it’s just his job to be a mediator. He
wants
me to trust him.

“Why Long Island?” he asks.

“There was a house,” I say. “His friend had a house we were going to stay in. Just for the night.” It all feels so far away now, a fading photograph in a family album that will never exist.

The rabbi coughs. “I’m going to ask you a very personal question now, one that may make you uncomfortable,” he says. “But it’s crucial that you answer honestly. Was your relationship with the boy . . . physical?”

Humiliation burns in my gut as I think of the moist warmth of Jaxon’s lips, and those moments in the basement when his hips pressed against mine as we lay tangled on the floor. I shake my head.

“Your legs are bare,” Jacob says disgustedly, and I glare up at him.

“I did nothing,” I say to the rabbi, hoping that he can’t see the lie pulsing in my lips. “I admit to breaking
tz’ni’ut
, but nothing . . . happened.” I can’t believe I’m alluding to sex in front of my parents and the rabbi who has known me since I was a toddler. I wonder if it’s possible to literally die of shame.

“So it wasn’t of a sexual nature,” he prods.

“No,” I whisper into my lap.

“There’s some good news,” the rabbi says, turning back to my parents, who remain rigid and silent.

“Why should we believe you?” Jacob interjects. “If you had gotten away with what you pulled tonight, you would have ruined the lives of everyone in this family. And for what? Some teenage fling?”

“You don’t know anything,” I snap.

“Enlighten me, then.” Jacob chuckles. “Because frankly I can’t imagine what you or anyone would see in him. He looks like every other thug on that side of Eastern Parkway.”

“Jacob,
enough
,” my father says.

“With respect, Dad, if it wasn’t for me Devorah would be on a train right now,” Jacob says petulantly.

“And I appreciate your help,” my father replies. “But what’s done is done, and now it is up to her mother and me, and Rabbi Perl, to decide how to proceed.”

“What about me?” I ask. “Does anyone care what I want?”

“I think you’ve made that very clear,” my mother says sharply. “And you’re going to get it.” She leans forward. “You want to act grown up and live alone with a man? Fine. I’ll call the
shadchan
tomorrow morning.”

“No,” I say, horrified. “I don’t want
any
man. I want Jaxon.”

“You are a child,” my father says with a sigh. “You don’t know what you want.”

“But I love him!” I cry. My mother shuts her eyes as if trying to block me out. Rabbi Perl looks startled and sets down his coffee cup on the side table.

“Devorah,” my father says stonily, “you may go to your room. This conversation no longer concerns you.”

J
axon

S
EPTEMBER
15, 9
PM

D
espite puking up what feels like all my internal organs, it turns out I’m not dead, so I sit on a bench on Eastern Parkway for a while like a zombie, just watching the headlights whiz past. At home I have this writing book from my English comp class last year, and I remember one phrase jumping out at me when I first read it, something about how writing a story is like driving at night down a dark road: You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. Well, I feel like Jacob and his buddies bashed in my headlights tonight, and now I’m lost. I have no idea which way to go.

That’s not some heartsick attempt at poetry, by the way; I’m being literal. Do I head north, back to my house, where I’ll have to spin a crazy lie for my parents about why I’m bruised and bloody and also not, in fact, sleeping over at Ryan’s house? (They said no to my cover-story request initially, but then I invented a college application workshop at 7
AM
, arguing that being right around the corner from school would guarantee I wouldn’t miss a single second.) Do I go south, back to Devorah’s house, and risk trying to get her back from the Shomrim? Or do I hail a cab to Penn Station and catch that train, use my savings to stay in some cheap motel for a night or two until I figure out how to proceed? I give the third option serious thought for about ten seconds, until I realize I’ve got no phone and nothing but a ripped T-shirt and bloodstained jeans for my wardrobe. Yeah, I’m sure hotels all over the Hamptons are going to welcome me with open arms.

I have no idea how much time has passed, but my shoulder is throbbing and I’m starting to get chills, so finally I force myself to stand and walk slowly back home. It would be suicide to go back for Devorah tonight. I’d probably get arrested, or worse. But I know where she is. And the only chance I have to be with her now is to get some rest and go back tomorrow, in bright daylight, when Jacob and the Shomrim can’t pull any of that Rodney King shit. Provided, of course, that my parents don’t kill me first.

I open the front door of our building as quickly as possible with my gimpy arm and slip into the front hall, where I can hear our elderly Puerto Rican landlady and her live-in Jamaican nurse watching some
telenovela
at a ridiculous volume. As the soap opera organ music swells, I check out my battle scars in the hall mirror, which is arranged over a small wooden console table displaying a gold cross in the center of a doily. I need to know how bad I look so that I know how much to brace myself for seeing my mom.

It’s pretty bad. There’s a cut across my left temple, crossing the eyebrow, which looks a little bit like grape jelly oozing out of pumpernickel bread. My lower lip is caked with dried blood, there’s a scrape across my chin, and my right shoulder is visibly swollen and covered in dirt-smeared scratches. But the worst part is just how hollowed out I look, as if I’ve lost ten pounds since this morning.

I climb the stairs, shuffling through various stories that could conceivably explain my current state—a mugging, maybe, or a skateboard accident—but I’m too spent and depressed to even care anymore about what anyone thinks. I just want to stand under a hot shower and then face-plant in my bed, waking up tomorrow to realize this was all a bad dream.

I hear excited cries as I turn my key in the lock, and sure enough, as soon as I step inside, my sisters are upon me. It’s the best reception I could have hoped for, although the fact that they were waiting for me gives me a sick feeling in my stomach. Somehow, my parents must already know.

“It’s Jaxon!” Tricia squeals. “Mama, it’s Jax!” Then she sees my face, and her eyes widen.

“You’re bleeding,” Joy gasps, touching my jaw. I wince, and then try to smile.

I look past their disheveled heads to my mother, who’s standing in the living room in her nightgown with her curlers in, clutching her phone and taking me in with some combination of weary relief and frightening indignation.

“You’re alive,” she says, letting out a heavy sigh. “Thank God.”

“What
happened
to you?” Edna asks. “You get jumped?”

“Was it those guys from across the street?” Ameerah demands. The twins each take an elbow and help me to the couch, where Tricia bursts into tears and throws her arms around my neck while Joy brings me some water.

“Mama called Ryan’s house when she couldn’t reach your cell,” she says, almost hyperventilating. “We thought something happened! Daddy went looking for you!” I picture my dad’s face on Saturday when he told me how proud he was, and cringe when I think about him now, hunched over the wheel of his pickup, sick with worry, wondering what could have happened to his upstanding, responsible son.

“Shut up, nobody thought that,” Ameerah says, rolling her eyes.

“Yes you did,” Joy cries. “
You
were the one who said if Jax didn’t come home you were going to die.”

“Awww,” I say, kissing Tricia’s forehead. “Y’all know I would never abandon you.”

“You
scared
us,” Edna says angrily. “Where
were
you?”

“Girls!” my mother interrupts, laying a hand on my knee. “Your brother is home now, and I know you have a lot of questions, but it’s time for you all to get to bed. You can pester him in the morning, but right now
I
need to have a talk with him.”

“Uh-oh,” Joy whispers in my ear. “Next time we see you, you’re gonna look worse!”

I hug Tricia again, gently detaching her skinny limbs from my torso, and watch as my sisters shuffle off toward their bedrooms, stopping every few feet to glance back, hoping, I guess, that my mother will start to lay into me while they still have a decent view.

But my mother isn’t one to waste words or cater to an audience. She stays where she is, looking me over for a long minute before she speaks.

“I wanted to call the police,” she finally says, her voice shaking with what I realize now is not anger but another emotion. She’s fighting tears. “You’re lucky your father held me back.”

“Mom,” I start, improvising sloppily, “I was on my way to Ryan’s, and—”

“Don’t lie,” she says softly. “You don’t think I know you weren’t staying at Ryan’s? His mother told me he and his father were out at a Yankees game.”

“I can explain—” I say, but she holds up her hand.

“I called
hospitals
,” she says angrily. “I called Cora at home. I even called that family of the boy you tutor, just in case you were there.”

“You called the Schwartzes?”

“I didn’t know their first name, so I called every Schwartz in Park Slope,” she says. “They were number twenty-nine.”

“Mama, you didn’t have to—”

“Of
course
I had to,” she shouts, balling her fists and shaking them in front of her chest. “You’re my
son
.” This burst of passionate anger seems to surprise even her, and she takes a deep breath before resuming her more stoic stance.

“I’m sorry,” I say softly. I mean it.

“Someone hit you,” she says. Her tone is matter-of-fact, but her eyes crinkle in pain.

“Yeah, well, you should see the other guy. He doesn’t have a scratch.”

“Get in the bathroom,” she says. “I’m going to call your father, and then I’m going to clean you up.”

• • •

I sit in my boxers on the edge of the claw-foot porcelain tub as my mother lays out supplies from the medicine cabinet: Band-Aids, hydrogen peroxide, cotton swabs, Q-Tips, nail scissors, tweezers, and a jar of Vaseline. She’s the office manager for a podiatrist in downtown Brooklyn, but for all her competence in makeshift first aid, you’d think she was an EMT.

“Your shoulder looks bad,” she says, wiping it gently with a damp washcloth. “What happened?”

“I fell on it.”

“From where? Onto what?” My mother isn’t the type to just flat-out interrogate; she’ll nudge away gradually, collecting small details until she solves the puzzle.

“From the backseat of a car,” I say.

“Whose car?”

“A car service.” I look up at her, wincing as she applies peroxide to the scrapes. “You want to know the make and model?”

She gives me a look that tells me she’s not softened enough for jokes yet and opens the medicine cabinet again, rooting through old razors and Tylenol bottles before locating a tube of ointment that she squeezes out onto her palm and applies to my shoulder in light strokes. “This’ll help with bruising,” she says. “Based on your level of pain and mobility I’m guessing you tore your rotator cuff. About half the time it can heal on its own.”

“And the other half?”

“We’ll wait and see how you feel tomorrow.” She turns her attention to my eyebrow, dabbing at the wound with a cotton ball. “You know when I called Cora looking for you, she told me you haven’t shown up for work for the past week. Asked me how you were feeling.” She raises an eyebrow. “That wouldn’t have anything to do with
this
”—she gestures to my face—“now, would it?”

“You could say they’re related,” I say, gritting my teeth as she rubs Vaseline on the torn skin with her index finger.

“She also told me you came by the store to borrow money from her today, at nine in the morning,” my mother says, replacing the cap with a purposeful smack. I hang my head. “So you’re cutting school now?”

“Just today,” I admit with a sigh.

“Just today?” she asks skeptically, tipping my chin up with two fingers so she can get at the cuts around my jawline. “What were you planning on doing tomorrow morning, during your ‘college application seminar’?”

I hang my head, too exhausted to come up with another excuse and too guilty to want to. Mom exhales heavily through her nose, her nostrils flaring in momentary anger, but doesn’t say anything for a minute. Instead she finishes with my chin and cleans the blood off my lip. Then she sits on the closed toilet seat and rests her elbows in her lap.

“Jaxon,” she says, “I don’t know what’s going on right now, but I can tell you what I do know. You are my son, and I love you. You’re a good boy on his way to becoming a good man. You deserve everything you can get in this life.”

“Stop it,” I say. I try to play it off like she’s embarrassing me, but really it’s that I’m afraid I might start crying if she keeps it up.

“It’s
true
,” she says. “And don’t let anyone tell you different. Why do you think your father and I push so hard? Because we know you can do anything. You can
have
anything. You’re a straight-A student with amazing talents, and you are going to have your pick of college scholarships. And I’m not about to watch you throw that away getting caught up in some”—she throws her hands up helplessly—“some gang, or whoever did this.”

I shake my head. “It’s not a gang, Mom.”

“Oh Lord,” she says, clasping her hands in front of her face. “Please tell me it’s not drugs.”

“It’s not drugs.”

“Then what?” she cries, looking helpless for the first time all night. “Why else would you skip school, and come home looking like you got into a bar fight? Who would do this to you?”

I look down at my bare feet on the tiled floor. I’m sitting here nearly naked in front of my mother, and I can either tell her the truth or feed her a line. It’s now or never.

“I met a girl,” I say with a sigh. She sits up straight, looking relieved but confused.

“I don’t understand,” she says.

“Her family doesn’t like me.”

“What’s wrong with them? Are
they
in a gang?”

“No. But they’re what you could call an exclusive group.”

My mother frowns. “So . . . this girl’s family beat you up?”

“Sort of indirectly, yeah. It’s a long story, Mom.”

My mother nods slowly, leaning forward, and when she speaks the frost is gone from her tongue. “I guess you must really like this girl, huh?”

I nod. The less specific I am, the better—at least until Devorah and I can figure out where to go from here.

“She go to your school?”

“No,” I say. “She lives . . . across town.”

“How did you meet her?”

“We got stuck in an elevator the night of the hurricane. At the hospital.”

Mom cracks a smile. “That’s very romantic,” she says. “But if being with this girl has you coming home looking like raw rump roast, I have to tell you I don’t think she’s worth it.”

I shake my head vehemently. “She is.”

My mother falls uncharacteristically quiet for a minute, and then looks me in the eyes with a pained expression. “I know what young love feels like, Jax. I know it feels like you’ll never have it again, and that this is your only shot at happiness, but trust me when I tell you that it can be fleeting. So before you see her again or put yourself in any danger, you’d better ask yourself if you really like this girl as much as you think you do.”

I don’t have to think. “I
love
her, Mom,” I say softly.

She studies my face with a sad smile. “Love is a strong word.”

“I know,” I say. “I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.”

“I believe that’s true,” she says, sighing. “And I meant what I said earlier, too. I think you deserve everything you want out of life.
Including
who you love.”

“So you don’t think it’s crazy?” I ask.

“What love isn’t crazy?” she says. “When your father and I met, I was seventeen and he was the twenty-five-year-old painting my house. I thought my dad was going to murder him!” She straightens up, her eyes flashing. “Don’t get me wrong, if you see the men who did this to you again, you call 911 on their asses, you hear me? All I’m saying is, don’t you let anyone else tell you who you can or cannot love. That’s between you and her. Her family’s got no business messing with that, no more business than I do. My mother used to say that no one knows what’s going on in a stew but the pot and the spoon.” She stands up and rests her hand on my head, running her fingers along my hairline. “You know, you’re still my favorite son,” she whispers, leaning down to kiss my forehead. “Even if you
are
grounded for the next six months.”