Everybody Has Everything

But not that night. The venting had been neutered by the unavoidable, continuous kindness the family had shown them, by the way Je

“Did you have fun tonight, Fi

“Go see Mama,” said Fi

Ana straightened; it was Je

“Go see Daddy,” said Fi

“We can’t see them right now, honey,” said James. “I’m sorry.”

Ana looked behind her, expecting Fi

But he was simply staring out the window.

“Should we put on some music, Fi

The three were quiet for the rest of the ride. James found a parking space right in front of their house but didn’t comment on it.

He carried Fi

Dim light from the inside of the house caught the yard, and something looked different to Ana’s glance. She leaned closer to the French doors. The men had been coming. James had not mentioned it, and with her late nights, she had been returning in the darkness and had not noticed. Day after day, while she worked in her tower, they had been transforming the yard. The limestone was laid, a gray skating rink in the center of the garden. A large red Japanese maple stood in a bucket, waiting to be planted. The perimeter was empty of plants but covered with rich, churned soil. These invisible men were determined to bring life into the place, even though winter was coming. They had been so late that James had negotiated a discount. No one used landscapers in this infertile season.

Something in the limestone unsettled Ana. She felt a tug of certainty that the hole was still beneath it, that a toe on a stone could break through the surface, pull her down into a muddy pit. This reminded her of Sarah, in her hospital bed, perched on the edge of the depths. The last visit had been the same: no change. Decisions were waiting for them, Ana knew. Decisions about Sarah, who had decided everything for them.

She pulled her face from the glass and turned to her e-mails.

Soon, there would be plants in the ground, or at least seeds. She should think about that instead. She reminded herself to look again tomorrow.

Ana didn’t want her personal life stuffed into files at her firm, so years ago, James had found a lawyer downtown whose two-room office was over a fish shop.

He went there first, to sign papers delivered from Sarah’s lawyer, whom he had visited the day before. That office had been fancier, in an office building, with a receptionist. Despite Sarah’s pigpen cloud of mess, and Marcus’s Zen-like quiet, it turned out they were affairs-in-order types. And now he, James, whose affairs had never been in order, had power of attorney over their family. He could see their bank account, which was healthy, and their credit card bills (Sarah charged $3.76 at Starbucks four or five times a week, which made James laugh). One day, he would be able to access that money. The insurance company moved along at its arthritic pace, but there had been a decent policy. If Sarah died, Fi

All of these revelations were intimate and unwanted (Marcus was a careful, clever investor; their portfolio was almost as impressive as the one Ana had put together). As he met with each official and signed each document, James remembered the feeling of having sex with someone he didn’t love; a little part of him kept repeating: “I can’t bear this. I can’t do it. I’m the wrong guy.”

But as he was informed many times, Sarah was not dead. So this was just the preliminary hacking of the weeds of Sarah and Marcus’s life. The deep digging would come later, if and when. For now: temporary guardians. Although the will clearly stated that Fi

Unless Sarah woke up, of course. If Sarah woke up, then what? He tried to want this, because it was the right thing to want, and because of Fi

On the streetcar, watching the city take shape in the cooling gray light, he knew Ana would be anxious for him to return, still uncomfortable alone with Fi

James stepped from the streetcar, moving with the crowd toward the hospital. At the second door, a security guard pointed at a dispenser of antibacterial soap. James’s first instinct was to refuse, as was his wont in the presence of a direct order, but the security guard issuing the order was bull-bodied and redheaded with a slack jaw and the bored arrogance of a bouncer. Then James spotted a withered old woman sitting on a bench, coughing into her curled waxed hand, sport socks pulled up to her green-veined knees. Eagerly, James hit the soap dispenser, slathered, and rubbed.

Up the elevator, along the painted footsteps on the floor. But he was following the wrong painted feet and suddenly they ran out. James found himself up against a pair of doors with ship’s portholes at the top; half of one of the painted feet was lost on the other side of the door. Only the heel remained. James pushed at the doors. They were locked.

He turned around and kept walking, following green feet this time and trying to make sense of the signs overheads. GR4–T76. The numbers and letters seemed random, something Fi

Then he found the door, but inside, the bed was empty. He shut the door quickly. A machine on wheels, knobs and buttons, came crashing through the opposite doorway, and attached to it, a woman in scrubs.

“My friend was in here last week—”

“We’re repairing this part of the hospital.” She moved around him, pushing the cart. “Check at the nurses’ station.”

It seemed strange to him that certain ventricles in a hospital could be closed when all he ever heard about was overcrowding and waiting rooms leaking unattended illnesses. He decided to take that as a good sign, then; some kind of lessening of the amount of suffering as a whole contained in the city. Of course, the other reading, he realized as he walked, was that there was the same amount of suffering, but nowhere to put it.