Orphan X

35 Hymn to Freedom

They stepped inside Condo 12B, Evan bearing Peter’s slack body like some distorted pietà, Mia bobbling her briefcase and Peter’s backpack. She kicked off one heeled shoe, then the other.

“Will you please just put him in bed? I have to get out of these clothes.” She colored. “Not like that. I just mean—”

“No problem.” Evan carried Peter to his bedroom and nestled him into the race-car bed. He stood a moment in the still of the room, trying to recall if he’d ever slept that soundly.

He walked back out into the living room, hearing Miles Davis playing somewhere deep in the condo. A bright new Post-it called out from the post by the kitchen pass-through: “Treat yourself as if you were someone you are responsible for helping.”

He wondered what exactly that meant.

He wandered back to Mia’s bedroom, nearly colliding with her on her way out. With a nervous laugh, she skipped back a half step. She wore a long sleep shirt that drooped to midthigh. They stood close enough that even in the soft light of her bedroom he could make out the faint scattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Her unbound hair fell across her face, so she took it up in a fist atop her head, her sleep shirt stretching tight across her body. He caught a hint of lemongrass — the smell of her skin, of her.

The tune ended and another started up, a delicate piano riff.

“Oh,” Mia said. “Oh, no. Not the Oscar Peterson Trio.” She swayed a little to the music lazily, one hand still holding up her hair. “I had this psych class once in college. A lecture on meditation. You ever meditated?”

“Some,” he said.

“The professor, she had us pair off and ask our partner the same question over and over again: ‘What makes you happy?’ Just that, time after time. And then we switched. When it came my turn, my first answer was, ‘Hymn to Freedom.’ This song. Listen to the trill right … here.” She dropped her weight a little, let her hair go. The birthmark at her temple peeked out from a fringe of curls.

Her gaze was very direct. “Want to play?”

He said, “Sure.”

“What makes you happy?”

He thought, Long-range precision marksmanship.

“Rhodesian ridgebacks,” he said.

She made a soft noise, gave a half smile. “What makes you happy?”

He thought, Jujitsu double-hand parries.

He said, “French wheat vodka.”

“What makes you happy?”

This time there was no space between his thought and the words. He said, “Your freckles.”

Her mouth parted ever so slightly. She ambled a few steps backward into her room. Started to say something. Stopped herself.

“Do you want me to go?” he asked.

“No.”

“Do you want me to stay?”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I do, yes.”

She stepped into him and him to her, her hands rising to his cheeks even as their mouths met. She pressed her body against his, her face tilted back, lips soft, that wavy hair sliding lushly through his fingers. They broke apart, forehead to forehead, their breath intermingling, and then she said, softly, “No.”

He pulled back from her.

She scrunched up her face. “Nononononono.”

He waited.

“This is a huge mistake. Huge. I have too many complications to have … complications.”

“Okay,” he said.

“If Peter saw anything, it would be so confusing for him. I’m sorry, but you should probably go.”

“Okay,” he said, turning for the door.

“It’s just really a bad time, and—” Her traffic-monitor hands went up, halting the conversation, her own train of thought. “God, you’re so … unflappable.”

“What do you expect?”

“I don’t know. Argue with me. Make it my fault. Get angry.”

“Is that what you want?”

“No,” she said. She blew out a breath, frustrated. “Yes? Maybe?”

“That doesn’t interest me,” Evan said.

“Mom?”

They both swung their gazes to the doorway where Peter had appeared, grinding the heel of a hand into one eye. He squinted at them, exhausted and confused. “What are you guys doing in here?”

“Oh, honey, hi, yes … um. I was just asking Evan here to help me…” Mia’s hand circled a few times, looking to pluck a good excuse from thin air. “… move the furniture.”

“Why do you need him?” Peter asked. “Is it heavy furniture?”

Evan said, “I like to think so.”

Mia stifled a laugh, covering her mouth with a hand. “Come on,” she said to Peter. “Let’s get you back down.”

“’Kay.” Peter looked across at Evan. “Night, Evan Smoak.”

Evan headed out, ruffling Peter’s hair. “Night.”

When he stepped out into the corridor and closed the door of Mia’s condo behind him, he was enveloped in a sudden quiet. The elevator hummed pleasantly as he ascended.

When he entered his penthouse, the ambient light through the armored sunscreens reflected faintly off the door of the Sub-Zero, throwing the edge of a child-size handprint into relief on the stainless steel.

He stood in the near-perfect silence of his condo, staring at the smudge mark, feeling something stir inside, an echo of some ancient battle fought within himself that he’d never known was being waged. In the pristine reflection above the handprint, he saw only himself, wearing an expression of mild vexation. The roll of paper towel, floating on a steel rod beneath the cabinet, beckoned to him.

But instead of wiping away the mark, he walked down the hall toward the master suite. At the edge of the sink sat the red-spotted tissue from Peter’s cut. Evan stepped past it into the shower, resting his hand on the hot-water lever and rotating it the wrong way.

Returning to the feeds from the loft, he brought himself up to speed on the ordinary doings of Katrin White. All the while the thought of that dirty handprint, marring the refrigerator, stayed lodged in the back of his thoughts, scratching like a bug fighting its way out.

He refocused on the monitors, pushing his discomfort away. Once he’d caught up to the feed, he exited the Vault, climbed into bed, and lay in the darkness. The bug scratched and scratched, burrowing through his thoughts, an unwelcome guest. An hour passed. Another.

Finally Evan got up and padded down the concrete hall to the kitchen.

He wet a paper towel and eliminated the handprint from the stainless-steel door of the Sub-Zero.