Part 41 (1/2)

And unlike Joe, Carter cries-something else he does quietly, with his shoulders hunched up and his chin to his chest. She kisses his wet eyes, his wet cheeks; she can still smell the cabin smoke in what there is of his hair. That smoke. ”Carter.” She holds him as she held Joe and Lee toward the end, climbing into their hospital beds to comfort them. Joe. Lee. Everett. Reedie. And Cato-Cato. She's pained for Carter, pained for them all, though she does not cry herself-having no tears left, it seems. Da gun-she's attained some sort of terrible detachment. So that even as she mourns, she's aware how fleshy he is, how healthy and uncolonized. Never mind his hairs and moles and patches of eczema, it is a strange loveliness to hug someone with back muscles over his ribs.

Carter, at least, has come back to her.

She squeegees his eyes. ”Reedie,” she says.

”Reedie.”

”I'm so sorry.”

”It was terrible.”

”You blame yourself.”

”Was there something I could have said. Was there something I could have done. About how he saw the world-about how he saw himself. Of course, to do that, I would have had to see him. And I didn't see him, did I? You said that once. And now Everett. Was there something we could have done about Everett?”

She holds her tongue, or maybe sleep does. Exhaustion. It's been a long day. Her body is a dead weight. A steady thing, though, at least. A thing that can be leaned against, snuggled into. Big as he is, Carter nestles into her like a child, crying himself to sleep, only to wake again.

”Chhung,” he says. ”It could have been Chhung.”

”Chhung?” says Hattie, groggily.

”The only difference between Everett and Chhung,” he says, ”was you. You saw the Chhungs. Sarun. Sophy. They were part of your picture.”

Hattie opens her eyes, then closes them-nothing to see in the dark.

”If only Everett had been as clear to me as the Chhungs,” she says.

”Could we have saved him, do you think? Was there something we could have done? Something we could have said? People say you can't stop them. People who are going to kill themselves, that is. That they just have trouble with impulse control. But I still wonder if there's something we could have done.”

”Maybe.” If only it weren't true! But that moment they could've taken a different tack-maybe it was. And her anger at Ginny, which she sees now was one part Ginny's reminding her of Carter-keeping you around when it was convenient but kicking you out when it wasn't. And what about Carter himself? Contributing for better and worse to her life, and to the lives of others. ”Let's talk about it in the morning,” she says.

Half expecting he'll say, Now, let's talk about it now.

But he turns over instead, taking the covers with him. They recede like a tide in thrall to a moon on his side of the room; she has to pull and pull to keep covered. Yank.

He wakes again.

”I'm not Everett,” he says.

”And thank goodness for that.” Hattie struggles to wake herself again-that lead ap.r.o.n. ”Poor Everett's dead.”

”I didn't even know what that was. To be Everett. I was so unable to imagine such a man, I didn't even know that wasn't what I was. I only knew I wasn't Anderson. Reedie wasn't me, and I wasn't Anderson.”

”That was hard enough.” She opens her eyes out of habit. Blinking, though there's nothing to see.

”He really loved Ginny, didn't he? I gave my life to science. He gave his life to her.”

Annie makes a snuffling noise.

”He stuck with her through a lot,” says Hattie, slowly. ”Too much, maybe.”

”A man like that was beyond my ken. Do you know what I mean? He was beyond my ken.”

They are lying on their backs. She straightens out her nightgown, which has bunched up under her, then finds his hand. His hand is not papery, as it tends to be, but almost moist. Warm.

”He was a madman,” she says.

”He could have used some of your what. Your Confucian moderation,” agrees Carter. ”If you don't mind my bringing up your sage.”

Her sage.

”He was a vet, you know. Everett, I mean,” she says. ”Vietnam?”

”Yes.”

”Which explains something, everything, or nothing. Something, everything, or nothing.”

”Exactly.”

”He had my number all the same. What was that he said? 'You'd have thought better of that plan.' ”

Hattie hesitates.

”He knew I couldn't love like that. Love you. Another person. In that headlong way. Regardless of the consequences. He knew I'd second-guess myself. Weigh and consider. Cut my own heart out if that was required.”

How wrong it would be to cry as hard at this as at Everett's death, or at Reedie's. Yet Hattie feels as though if he goes on, she might.

”What a match we were,” he goes on. ”Two smart people who cut their own hearts out. What did Everett say? All them years. We were as good a match as they were, weren't we. As good a match as they were.”

”All them years,” repeats Hattie.

Carter snuggles up to her, turning on his side. His arm reaches across her body like a shoulder belt.

”Why did you leave the lab? Tell me. I should have asked you this years ago, I know, but let me at least ask you now. If I may. Why did you leave research?”

How wide awake he is; that Hatch intensity. She should have known he would be this way even in the middle of the night-a train. Whereas her breathing is still slow and rolling, her thoughts still stuffy. ”Let's talk about it in the morning.”

”No, now,” he says. ”Now. Don't back away. Don't shy away-that's the word, isn't it? You don't stonewall, you shy away. Maybe as a matter of nature, though it could be nurture, too, of course. All those years as an outsider. As a-how do you say it in Chinese?”

”Yangren. Though today people mostly say waigoren. Waigoren or yangizi, but not yngren.” She should explain the differences, but yawns again instead.

”There was something else you used to say.”

”Wailaide, maybe?”

”Wailaide, that's right. 'Come from outside.' You were wailaide. Though it isn't even from everything, is it? That you back away. Only from things close to your heart's wound, as Meredith would say.”

You always were well insulated, Hat. Probably you had to be.

She doesn't answer.