The thing is, these days I’m convinced.
Clay knew he had to do it.
He just wasn’t sure if he could.
When I walked back inside, he stayed awhile, stranded on the porch, with the fullest weight of the choice. After all, what I’d promised was something I couldn’t even bring myself to say. What was the worst thing you could do to a Dunbar boy, anyw
ay?
For Clay, that much was clear, and there were reasons to leave, and reasons to stay, and all of it was the same. He was caught somewhere, in the current—of destroying everything he had, to become all he needed to be—and the past, ever closer, upon him.
He stood watching the mouth of Archer Street.
And the tide comes in with victory, and struggle along the way—for likely the fairest thing to say about Penelope’s entrance to life in the city was that she was constantly torn and astonished.
There was great gratitude to this place for taking her.
Then fear of its newness, and heat.
And then, of course, the guilt:
A hundred years he’d never live.
So selfish, so callous to leave.
* * *
—
It was November when she got here, and although not normally the hottest time of year, occasionally it produced a week or two of brutal reminders that summer was drawing near. If ever there was a time not to arrive, it was one like this—a binary weather chart of that heat, humidity, heat. Even the locals seemed to be suffering.
On top of that, she was obviously an intruder; her room at the camp clearly belonged to a squadron of cockroaches, and God almighty, she’d never seen such terrifying things. So big! Not to mention relentless. They fought her each day for territory.
Not surprisingly, the first thing she bought here was a can of Baygon.
Then a pair of flip-flops.
If nothing else, she understood you could go a long way in this country with crap footwear and a few good cans of fly spray. It helped her get by. Days. Nights. Weeks.
* * *
—
The camp itself was buried deep in the unruly rug of suburbs.
She was taught there, from the absolute basics, to speak the language. Sometimes she walked the streets outside, and the rows of peculiar houses—each one set in the middle of giant, lawn-mowered lawns. Those houses seemed made of paper.
When she asked the English teacher about them, by sketching a house and pointing to the paper, he burst forth loudly with laughter. “I know, I know!” But soon he gave her an answer. “No, not paper. Fibro.”
“Fi-bro.”
“Yes.”
* * *
—
Another note about the camp and its many small apartments was that it was much like the city; it sprawled, even in such a tight space.