Read The Weight of Heaven Online
Authors: Thrity Umrigar
Tags: #Americans - India, #Murder, #Psychological Fiction, #Married People, #India, #Family Life, #Crime, #Psychological, #Family & Relationships, #General, #Americans, #Bereavement, #Death; Grief; Bereavement, #Adoption, #Fiction
hon,” he had answered brightly, pleasantly surprised that Ellie was
calling him this early in the evening, forgetting for a second that it
was not even dawn in Michigan. And then, listening to her quiet,
worried voice, the gin that he’d been sipping suddenly burned in
his stomach. And he felt that sharp, helpless anger toward Ellie, as
if he wanted to cup her mouth with his open hand and shove the
words back into her throat—The doctors say he’s very sick, Frank.
They’re pretty sure its meningococcus. You better come home.
Shipla had been wonderful. Worked the phones like a madman,
trying to get him a flight out of Bangkok that same evening. I
need to get out of here, he’d said as he paced the hotel room frantically, throwing whatever clothes he found into his large duffel bag.
They’d finally put him on a flight to Paris, with Shipla promising to
get him a connection to Detroit before Frank landed at Charles de
Gaulle. “Call Pete,” he’d said to his Thai colleague as he got out of
the car at Don Muang International Airport. “He’ll know what to
do.” He had a seven-hour layover at de Gaulle, and Frank had never
hated the airport as much as he did that day. He was offended by
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the martini bars, the bright, glitzy stores selling duty-free perfumes
and chocolates, all these people rushing around, looking bright and
cheerful and active, while his son lay in a hospital bed chained by
plastic tubes. He glanced at the digital clock on the wall every few
minutes and caught himself swearing out loud. Get a grip, Frank,
he chided himself, but there was nothing to get a grip on. His very
core seemed to have collapsed, and in its place he felt a fear that was
vaporous, a gas filling the cavity of his body. His hold on the world
itself seemed to have loosened. He couldn’t believe it. While he sat at
the airport in Paris, surrounded by all the riches and material things
the world had to offer, his son was in an existential fight with— He
shook his head. He wouldn’t let his brain conjure up the dreadful
word.
He fished for his cell phone, to call Ellie again. He’d already tried
her six times since landing in Paris, but she wasn’t picking up, and
after leaving her an irritable message the first time, he’d realized
that she probably couldn’t use the phone in the hospital. He’d left
her a second message, gentler this time, repeating his flight arrival
information, telling her to hang in there, that he’d be home soon and
they’d all be together again. This time, he dialed her number with
no hope of her answering and felt a dip in his stomach when she said,
“Hello?”
“Babe? It’s me. How are you? How is he?”
“I just stepped out to call you back,” Ellie said, and even at this
distance he could hear how raw and weary she sounded.
“So . . . how’s it looking?”
“Not good.” He heard the sob in her voice. “Not good. I’m
scared, Frank. I think he’s not—he may not—make it.”
His jaw locked, but his voice was gentle as he spoke. “Hush,
baby,” he said. “Don’t say that. This is not the time to give up. It’s
up to us to save him. Those doctors don’t know everything.”
“He asked for you just before they moved him to the ICU,” she
said, and he felt the world collapse around him. He looked up with
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bloodshot eyes, and everything seemed transformed—the spotless,
shiny stores melted into rivulets of gold and molten glass; the busy,
rosy-cheeked people rushing around seemed absurd and foolish.
His son had asked for him, and he was not there. His son was sick—
even dying—and he wasn’t at his side, holding his hand, talking to
him, pulling him back to the land of the living.
“Frank?” Ellie asked. “You there?”
He blinked a few times before he trusted himself to speak again.
“Tell him I’m coming,” he whispered. “Tell him to—hold on until
I get there.”
There was some background noise at Ellie’s end, and then he
heard her say, “They’re paging me. I gotta go.”
“Call me,” he yelled. “If anything . . . happens, leave a message
on my phone.”
When they finally took off, Paris looked green and tranquil from
his plane window. He didn’t trust it. The world suddenly felt sinister, evil, a place where a young boy with the sweetest smile in the
world could be fighting for his life. He felt as if he was staring into
the bleached bones of the universe, into the ugly pit at the center of
all existence. A pit that was usually covered up by grass and trees
and butterflies and sunflowers. He felt foolish to have ever believed
that the world was a benign place, ruled by a kind, benevolent God.
He saw it clearly now—the beauty of the world was a distraction, a
sleight of hand, meant to make bearable the irrefutability of death.
I need a drink, he thought. Until now he had refused the free
alcohol that the smiling stewardesses had tried to ply him with. But
now, he pushed the call button and ordered a Bloody Mary, to still
the tremors that kept attacking his body in icy waves and to dull the
jagged edges of his thoughts.
After his second drink, something loosened in him. He picked up
the phone on the back of the seat in front of him and dialed Scott’s
cell number. “Scotty?” he said as soon as he heard his brother’s
voice. “It’s me.”
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“Hey.” Scott sounded breathless, as if he’d just run a mile. “We’re
walking into the hospital right this minute.”
“You’re in Ann Arbor?”
“Yup. Just got in. Didn’t Ellie tell you?”
“No. I’ve barely managed to reach her. Keep missing each other.
How’d you—is Mom with you?”
“Yup, sure is. Wanna say hi to her?” And before he could react,
Frank heard his mother’s voice say, “Sweetheart? How are you?”
He was trying not to choke up, uncomfortably aware of the fact
that the Italian man across the aisle was listening to every word he
said. “I’m fine, Mom,” he said. “Trying my damnedest to get home
quickly.” He gulped hard. “Kiss him for me, will you, Mom?”
His mother’s tone was calm. “I sure will, honey. And I want you
to stop worrying. Benny’s gonna be just fine, now that his grandma
is here. You just wait and see.”
His heart sank as he realized that he didn’t believe his mother’s
words. Still, he smiled faintly into the phone. “Thanks, Mom. Can
I, can I talk to Scott for a second?”
There was a rustle, and then he heard Scott’s deep tone again.
“Does Ellie have your flight schedule, Frank?”
“Believe so. I left it on her cell phone.” He hesitated. “Scotty, I
want you to do me a favor. You go see Benny, and you tell him that
his daddy is on his way and that he should—he should hold on.”
He heard the crack in his brother’s voice. “You just get here,
kid,” Scott said gruffly.
“I’m trying. If I thought hijacking a plane would make it go
faster, I would.” Too late, he realized that he’d chosen an inopportune place to say those inflammatory words. But when he glanced
at the woman sitting to his left, he noticed the ear buds sticking into
her ears. She hadn’t heard. Nor had anyone else, thank God.
“Be safe, Frankie,” Scott said. And then, “He’s in God’s hands,
Frank. Pray.”
And Frank did. Prayed to God, fought with God, argued with
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God, on the long flight from Paris to Detroit. He reclined in his seat
with his eyes wide open, staring into the dark cabin. Listen, he said,
I haven’t asked you for anything in a long, long time. Not since Dad
left, to be precise. So I have a few chits coming due, don’t you think?
Though to be fair, you haven’t given me much reason to ask for
things over the years. All in all, you’ve been pretty generous. I have
everything that I want, really—a great wife, a good job, a gorgeous
son. And that’s all I’m asking for, to keep what I have. I don’t want
anything extra. Because if you take away what you’ve granted us,
well, that’s a dirty, cheap trick, don’t you think? You’re better than
that, right, God?
He heard the anger, the defiance in his voice and checked himself. Scott had asked him to pray, to beg, and what he was doing
was snarling at God. And so he tried. Sweet Jesus, he started again.
Don’t take my son from me. I won’t be able to survive that, please
God. You punish me in any way you want to, dear God, and I’ll
take it. But not this. Not Benny. He made a few more attempts to
continue in this vein, to promise things to God, to strike bargains,
but soon gave up. Because it reminded him too much of those awful
months after his dad had left. He thought back to that young boy
pacing the front porch or lying in bed at night listening for the slamming of car doors, and his stomach turned at the indifference of a
God who had stood by and watched silently. What kind of a father
treated his children so shabbily? How could someone all-powerful,
someone with the ability to perform miracles with the flick of his
wrist, perform so few of them? How could an omnipresent being
not know the whimpering frailties of the human heart, and if he
did, how could he not be moved with pity? How could he bear to
witness all this suffering if he had the power to end it? In a human
being, these qualities would be contemptible, would be seen as the
epitome of evil, the stuff tyrants and war criminals and psychopaths
were made up of.
Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n 1 9 3
Well, if he could not plead with God or bargain with him, he
would fight him for Benny’s life, would wrestle with him for the
right to keep what was his. Because Benny belonged here, on mortal
earth, with him and Ellie. He would walk into that hospital in a few
more hours and keep vigil by his son, not leave his bedside for as
long as it took. He and Benny would leave that hospital together.
He called Scott again as soon as the plane landed in Detroit, willing his brother to answer the phone. “How is he?” he asked as soon
as he heard Scott’s hello.
“He’s alive,” Scott replied, and Frank’s body went slack with
relief. Benny was alive. And now he was in the same city as his son,
instead of hovering in the heavens, keeping company with a deity he
didn’t like very much at the moment. “Where are you?” he asked.
“At the airport, outside of baggage claims. I’ll see you in a few
minutes.”
Pete Timberlake had accompanied Scott to the airport. Frank
saw the two men startle as they took in his appearance—the crumpled clothes, the unshaven jaw, the bloodshot eyes—and felt a moment’s embarrassment. “Hey,” he said to his brother, who took his
bag from him and popped open the trunk. “Thanks for coming,
Pete,” he added.
Pete grabbed him in a bear hug. “Are you kidding me?” he said.
He took a step back. “You holdin’ up, bud?”
He shrugged and got in the car just as Scott came around and
slipped his bulk into the driver’s seat. He was off before Frank could
even buckle his seat belt. Frank glanced at his older brother. “How’s
Ellie?” he said quietly.
Scott threw him a quick look. “She’s hanging in,” he said. “Anxious for you to get there.”
He nodded. “Did you . . . did you give Ben my message?”
“I did.” Scott chewed on his lower lip. “But Frankie, I gotta tell
you. He’s pretty out of it. The doctors say he’s not technically in
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a coma. But I can’t tell if he can hear anything we’re saying. And
I just want to prepare you for this—he’s . . . they’ve put him on a
ventilator.”
Frank looked out of the window, afraid that he was going to lose
control of his body. He willed his brain to forget what his brother
had just said, cleared his mind to get rid of the horrifying images that
were rooting themselves in there. He felt Scott’s hand on his thigh
but ignored it. His task was to sweep out of his mind the debris of
Scott’s words. He was so involved in this benign task that he heard
the awful sounds coming from his mouth at the same time the other
two did and was therefore as startled as they were. He sounded like
an animal with a bullet in its leg, which is how he felt, wounded,
crippled, helpless.
The car swerved. Scott was half turning in his seat, one hand on
the steering, the other on his brother. “Frankie,” he said. “It’s okay,
boy. It’s okay. He’ll be all right. He has a lot of people praying for
him.”
But the animal noise didn’t stop. Frank bent from his waist and
leaned forward, his hands clenching his stomach. The sounds that
came out of him were as old as the world itself. He had never known
that the human voice was capable of this range. He knew he was worrying Scott, felt he should reassure him, but human speech seemed
beyond his ability at the moment. He was gripped by a fear so large,
it was swallowing him alive. It felt almost prehistoric, existential.
It no longer seemed as if Benny had only been in his life for seven
years. He felt as if Benny had lived within him forever, had been
part of his flesh, carved his initials on every cell of Frank’s body
for all of eternity. It was as though Benny had begun to exist from