Читать книгу The Apotheosis - Darrell Lee - Страница 24

Amira pulled up in front of Ethan’s apartment building. Ethan stood outside against the brick wall at the edge of the sphere of light issuing from the large decorative lamps at the front entrance. His hands in the pockets of his black overcoat, collar pulled up, he huddled against the brisk wind. Amira got out, walked around the back of the SUV, opened the back passenger door and unlatched Elona. Now in the lavender coat that matched her dress, she sprang from the SUV to the sidewalk. The massive ponytail bounced with her.

“Daddy!”

She ran to him. Ethan squatted and she ran into his open arms. He lifted and held her to his chest.

“Oh, I’ve missed you,” Ethan said.

“Missed you, too, Daddy.”

Ethan leaned her back to get a good look at her. She smiled at him. He smiled too, the first time in the last three days. His child, his daughter, had the power to obscure his sadness. He felt the weight of her in his arms. The most important thing. The only person in his entire life who had given him unconditional love. Unable to betray. “Did you have fun at Grandma Sharon’s house?”

“Yes. I slept with Mommy in her old bed.”

“I bet that was crowded.”

“I liked it, but Mommy says I kick a lot. You should see the new apartment!”

“Do you like it?”

“Yes, I have my own room. We ate pizza on the floor like Japanese.”

“You did?”

“Yep, and Grandpa said his knees are broken from it. And my room looks just like the room in your apartment.”

Ethan put Elona down and looked at Amira, standing in front of him. Amira thought he looked pale. Mangled beard, disheveled hair, perhaps even thinner in the face. His eyes, bloodshot and puffy, that a moment ago had looked at Elona lovingly, had rage in them.

“I’d like to talk for a moment.” Ethan glanced at people passing on the sidewalk and at Frank standing by the door. “Not here. Come up to the apartment.”

Amira felt something that she had never felt with Ethan before. The thought of being alone with him made her uneasy. He had slapped her in their last argument; she hadn’t expected that, but even then, with his handprint on her face, she didn’t feel like he was capable of extreme violence. On that night, it was about control and his loss of it. His hope to regain it. Now, the hope for control was gone. Now, for an inexplicable reason, she felt the whisper of a threat in her ear. “Elona has school tomorrow and I don’t want to go back to the apartment.”

Ethan looked at Elona.

“You would like to come up, wouldn’t you?”

Elona looked at her mother. Amira grabbed Elona’s hand. “No, we can’t.”

“If you want a job, I could talk to Dr. Jones. Perhaps the company could hire you to be my assistant at the lab… maybe a few days a week.”

Ethan’s tone was as close to a plea as she had ever heard.

“Of course, you would want me to work there with you. You don’t want me to do anything that you don’t control.” Amira let out a sigh. “We’re past the point of discussing any of this.”

A tear rolled down his cheek.

“Crying, Ethan,” Amira said. “Does your desire to manipulate have no limit? Will you give me the box of food so we can go?”

Ethan wiped it away, his face void of expression. “It’s your disloyalty to your family that has no limit. I left it sitting in the foyer.” Ethan squatted down to Elona and gave her a long hug. Amira held tightly to her hand.

“I love you,” Ethan whispered.

“I love you, too, Daddy.” Elona looked up at Amira. “I can come back to see Daddy on Saturday, right?”

“Yes, you can,” Amira said.

Ethan stood and walked to the front door. Frank opened it for him. Amira picked up a sullen-faced Elona and walked back to the SUV. She placed her in the child seat and closed the door. Elona remained quiet. Amira turned around in time to see Frank opening the door for Ethan, who was carrying the box of food. She met him in the middle of the sidewalk.

“I don’t know why you are doing this to us,” he said, holding the box in his arms in front of him. “The rabbis of Talmud consider marriage a holy contract, and the dissolution of a marriage an unholy act.”

“Ethan… try to understand… I don’t love you. I don’t know if I ever did. I must move on. I’m not living my life according to something some old men said three thousand years ago.”

“The prophet Malachi said, ‘The Lord has been witness between you and your wife, she is your companion, the wife of your covenant.’ That is what I understand.” Ethan handed the box to her and lowered his head. He turned around and walked toward the front doors. Amira did the same towards her SUV.

He pivoted. Shouted, “Even God sheds tears when anyone divorces his wife!” A black automatic pistol came from his right jacket pocket. He raised the gun at her back and pulled the trigger. It did not move. For an instant, he was confused. He hesitated. Then he remembered the safety and flipped it off with his thumb.

Frank lunged, striking Ethan high on the shoulder and reaching for the gun. Ethan squeezed the trigger again.

Amira didn’t hear the gunshot so much as she felt it behind her. Thunderous and surreal. Erupting the quiet Boston evening. Her subconscious mind registered a burn on her right arm as the nine-millimeter bullet ripped through her jacket and sweater, passed barely under the skin, then exited. By reflex she whirled around. Frank fell with Ethan to the cement. In Ethan’s hand was a pistol; both men struggled with each other. Neither said a word as they pried and squirmed for control of the weapon. What had been an ordinary evening suddenly turned into a fight for life or death.

Amira screamed.

The assistant doorman, David, had heard the shot from the small office in the foyer. He came running out the door. He grabbed Ethan’s hand that held the gun, pinning his arm and shoulder to the sidewalk. Unable to move, Ethan went limp.

“You are unholy!” Ethan shouted from underneath Frank. He sobbed.

David pried the pistol from Ethan’s grip and Frank forced him onto his stomach, twisting his right arm behind his back.

“Call 911!” Frank yelled at David. David ran back inside.

Amira noticed a warm sensation on her right arm, looked at her jacket sleeve, and could see loose threads and a small amount of red. She placed the box on the ground and wiped at the threads with her hand. I’m shot.

“Oh my God,” Amira said. She stood, shocked, as people moved around her. An elderly couple came out the front door, dressed for dinner. The woman put her arm around her.

“Are you okay?”

Amira knew her, but only by her last name. “I—I—I think so, Mrs. Schultz.”

“Is this your box?” the woman asked, pointing to the box sitting at Amira’s feet.

“Yes.”

“Why don’t we take it inside while we wait for the police.”

“No, it goes in the car.”

Mrs. Schultz picked it up. Amira’s mind re-ran the events of the last sixty seconds. “Okay.” She turned back to her SUV to open the front passenger door. She saw the bullet hole in the back-door window.

“Elona!”