The Shades Read online

  Up on the roof she had appeared to her so tangible, that at any moment she could have reached out to slap or stroke her pale cheek. Yet, with her final stirrings of consciousness, the awareness that she, not the girl, had made the sheer plunge down, the illusion of certainty dissolved as she was pulled along stream by the current, to the sea.

  She wasn’t leaving but swimming. The water was ultramarine and welcoming—she had already heard that the temperature was warm. She would swim to her mother, swim to Rachel and keep going until all that held her were the waves.

  Rachel was happy the night before she died. When Rachel’s small effects were returned, Catherine looked at the last photograph taken on her daughter’s phone. Rachel was in a swimming pool, leaping up from the water like a dolphin, arms outstretched with an expression of unbelievable joy.

  The heat was searing.

  It was better than the chill.

  The previous day, Catherine had driven into town, to a camping store. She had purchased a sleeping bag for Rowan, and had it sent to him at school. It was the best Primaloft, cocoon sack that money could buy.

  He would need it for the cold nights of protest ahead.

  The children were bantering again. She liked the way they looked out for each other. Rowan was telling his sister about his dream: “The radiators were leaking oil. We’d borrowed Mum’s rugs. I was freaking out. It was traumatic.”

  Haha!

  Rachel’s laughter was

  Why don’t you comewith?

  water

  warm

  Mira is here in a sexy bikini ?

  ??

  Answer me!

  Your such a prick!

  Ro?

  u will always b 2 Yz for me.

  Michael liked to stay late in the office after most of his colleagues had gone home. The din of construction outside had stopped and the telephone didn’t ring, leaving him free to concentrate on whatever loose ends needed tying up on his desk. Having cleared his head of aberrant thoughts about Paige, which were exactly that, a test of who he was and what he wanted, he was able to finish looking over the paperwork for the Horsemead Estate. It would have been neglectful to leave the contract unread any longer.

  As a child Michael always had fantastical dreams. This was, in part, because his father had fostered an interest in history by telling him stories from Greek and Roman mythology. From his father—later, his own readings—he learned of capricious gods, multiheaded monsters, and incestuous mothers. These tales worked on his imagination and gave him license to find adventure away from a home that was devoid of drama or conflict, where nothing much happened beyond the pages of Homer, or the outgrowing of a pair of shoes. At night, Michael became Odysseus, hurtling in his bark on the crest of a wave, or fighting his way out of a Cyclops’s cave. In his dreams, he was as brave as Theseus. He strode unarmed into battle to mediate a truce between Achilles and Hector. For his courage, he was carried on men’s shoulders and hailed Michael Francis, Peacemaker of Troy. With his incarnations not just limited to noble fighters and demigods—there was a memorably hairy one when he was a donkey on a sacrificial altar—the triumph wasn’t always in his heroism but that in critical moments of danger he could wake himself up by saying, Everything is going to be all right, with these words acting as a spell to grant him release and bring him safely back to consciousness. For the last fourteen months, he had walked with Catherine in darkness. There were no words to charm death, nor an Apollo to raise them up to heaven from the underworld. Rowan had emerged as a guide. Much as a prayer, his son’s example had worked on him, making him alive to the holiness of existence. Seeing him on the weekend had been a waking spell from the perpetual night of Rachel’s death.

  On Sunday morning, he had repacked his overnight bag before driving to London. He had asked Catherine to go with him. She had hesitated; then refused. Something made him ask, “You are not waiting for that girl to come back, are you?”

  “No,” Catherine replied. “Not anymore.”

  Just as he was leaving, she’d said, “You’ll always be all right. All you have to do is be yourself and keep walking.” This had struck him as odd, but he had accepted the remark as an off-centered compliment. He had crossed to the bed, where she still lay naked under the sheets. He kissed her on the cheek, which he remembered afterward had been clammy. “Point is to walk together . . . Come to London this week?”

  She tilted her head slightly and pouted slightly. He used to tease her that she did that when she was thinking. “We’ll see.”

  The message light on the office landline was still flashing. It was the missed call from Hamdean. He couldn’t delay playing it any longer.

  He took a deep breath and told himself:

  Everything is going to be all right.

  Everything is going to be all right.

  Acknowledgments

  Heartfelt thanks to: my editor, Jill Bialosky, whose suggestions, intelligence, and empathy shaped this book; my agent, Sarah Chalfant, for her staunch support and tireless belief; Rebecca Nagel at the Wylie Agency; the editorial and production teams at W. W. Norton; Hilton Als, who guided me through the drafts; Ann Biderman, Michelle Hunevan, and Becky Johnston, for their invaluable comments on the manuscript; Holly Goldberg Sloan; Yassi Mazandi, who shared her knowledge of clay; stalwart early readers Annette Bening, Rabia Cebeci, Cressida Connolly, Grace Griesbach, J. Leigh, Paul Lister, Brian Siberell, Maura Swanson, Suzanne Tenner, Susan Traylor, for their wisdom and the oxygen of friendship; Julian, Natalya and Imogen, for the ineffable joy and wonder.

  ALSO BY EVGENIA CITKOWITZ

  Ether: Seven Stories and a Novella

  Copyright © 2018 by Evgenia Citkowitz

  All rights reserved

  First Edition

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  Book design by Michelle McMillian

  Production manager: Beth Steidle

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

  Names: Citkowitz, Evgenia, 1962– author.

  Title: The shades : a novel / Evgenia Citkowitz.

  Description: First edition. | New York : W. W. Norton & Company, 2018

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018001584 | ISBN 9780393254129 (hardcover)

  Subjects: LCSH: Psychological fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3603.I89 S53 2018 | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018001584

  ISBN 978-0-393-25413-6 (e-book)

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