Late Air Read online

  When she’d asked him about marathon training, Murray had looked at her concernedly, rubbing a little bristle on his chin. He’d started at square one: the essence of establishing a base of thirty miles per week. It was all about weekly long runs, about working one’s way to eight miles, adding a mile every week after that, until twenty miles was reached. After several twenty-milers, a runner knows she’s ready, he’d said with a smile. Nancy had been too distracted by the scent of tuberose, and the small muscles in his arms while he ate, to ask: How do you know you’re ready for the full twenty-six? Wasn’t the difference of six miles significant, especially at the end of a race? She supposed she’d been afraid, was still afraid, of appearing foolish, in knowing so little about his world.

  Yet it was Murray who had walked into hers that first afternoon, into the café where she’d been reading for her dissertation. He’d shown up sweaty in his running clothes like only an American would, and this had made her smile—though at the time, she’d acted like she hadn’t noticed him. She was good at that, she thought, pretending to be oblivious to a change in a room. Oblivion had always seemed easier than risking the tiniest of failures, or worse, admitting them to herself out loud.

  In high school her mother used to scold her: If her nose was always in a book, and she never went to social events, how was she to meet anyone?

  But then Nancy had met someone, the final year of her PhD, for that matter; she had written her mother of the news, and her mother had written back congratulating her, insisting that she and her father visit as soon as possible. Her mother was terrified of overseas travel, so Nancy had been deeply moved by this gesture. But both parents were beyond disapproving of Murray’s background: his father had worked in a coal mine; and Murray had majored in anatomy and was a college running coach. What of the doctor, the lawyer, the possibility of a desk, of real colleagues? Murray had insisted on wearing his track jacket over a T-shirt with jeans, despite Nancy’s repeated suggestion that a blazer—at the very least, a button-down—would be best. This had frustrated him, his irksome tone suggesting the importance of being himself, and so she’d yielded, because wasn’t that what one did for love?

  She shuddered to think of the way her mother had been at the dinner table that night, not smiling once under the dim lighting of the restaurant, La Petite Chaise, a space so small and warm it seemed carved into the side of some great topography. And Murray had gone to such great lengths to secure a reservation. Both her parents had ordered steak au poivre, and Nancy had found herself forgetting to eat as she studied the slow and careful rhythm of her mother’s knife, comparing it with Murray’s hasty pace. At one point, she’d watched, stomach clenching, as he’d used the edge of his pinky to push some risotto onto his fork.

  Murray competed in the Olympics, she’d said, reaching for Murray’s knee under the table. Her own father had played golf for Brown, after all. Nancy’s mother, who always wore her white hair pinned with two black clips, had merely pursed her lips, and her father had nodded faintly, the same nod she’d often witnessed as a child; once, he’d given it to a plumber, after the plumber had asked for a glass of water before the job was over, and then, as her father had put it, gone so far as to detail the troubles of his personal life.

  Neither Mother nor Father would ever accept him, Nancy knew. But it didn’t matter. Shouldn’t matter. Murray was her life now, her family.

  She recalled with fondness those first months together in Paris—how slow and full the days had felt, yet how quickly the weeks had amassed. Murray had abandoned his hotel to stay with her in the apartment she’d rented from a widow, Madame Arnaud, on Boulevard Raspail. Nancy guessed the Madame fed a stray black cat that liked to lurk about the building; on a few occasions, she’d caught it perched on the ledge of her bedroom window, watching her and Murray through filmy panes.

  She liked to reminisce over the many mornings they’d spent waking up next to one another, gazing around at the strange array of paintings lining the walls. She used to speculate over different stylistic techniques and the historical influences behind them, and Murray would listen patiently, same as when she’d gone on about Monet’s Water Lilies in the Orangerie, or Rodin’s bronze bust of Balzac in his sculpture garden. She could still see Murray’s eyes, how fixed they were on the smallest details she’d needed to account for: the size of the boat Monet had painted his masterpieces from, the proportion of green to turquoise Rodin used for his patinas, the dates on the newspapers Picasso cut up for his collages. Until she met Murray, Nancy had always assumed herself alone in her passion for precision, for noting each and every choice that went into producing a perfect object.

  Her mother had answered the phone when she’d called with the news they were expecting. Afterward, she didn’t tell Murray about the call—the management of her weight, the consumption of the right calories, her exercise were so much easier to discuss. She hadn’t spoken to her parents since they had refused to acknowledge her marriage. She hoped their child might level things, bring them to their senses.

  Nancy, her mother had nearly whispered, did you leave him yet? There’d been a long pause. Or are you just now planning to?

  Nancy almost hung up the phone, but she’d found the courage. We’re pregnant, she’d said. I thought you should know. And then she’d pressed the power button on the cordless and listened to the dial tone. She’d held the earpiece and receiver to her chest, then lower by her belly, as if Baby might affirm they were both still living, that the pain would pass. The first weeks had been the worst; she’d had no way of fully anticipating the degree of her disappointment, her guilt. Her anger. Why was it so hard for them to acknowledge her marriage? Even after Murray was offered his coaching position, and she—after less than three weeks of searching—had secured a job at Yale, too, as Beinecke Library’s American literature curator. Surely the stars would continue to work in their favor. Couldn’t her parents see that too?

  There was nothing more to say to them, but why did she still feel like she needed to justify her choices? As if it were possible to point to a single moment that could explain everything. Was there even one?

  She supposed that there had been that one hot afternoon in early July, when it had been over ninety degrees; somehow she and Murray had resolved it wasn’t bad enough to stay inside, and they’d taken the metro to Montmartre, since Nancy had insisted on showing Murray the Sacré-Coeur.

  Even as beads of sweat dripped from his chin, Murray coached her up the hill, at least three hundred steps. She’d had to pause at every landing, hoping he wouldn’t notice her smoker’s hack, the kerchief she’d had to untie from her hair to cough into. When he’d asked if she was alright, she’d claimed the start of a cold—and then she’d cringed when she’d had to use that soiled kerchief to cover her shoulders before stepping into the basilica. At least she’d found some solace in the dusty pews, sunlight splintering through the open doors.

  Silently they’d admired the stained glass together and the magnificent apse mural with the Holy Trinity above, and they’d donated a few francs to light a votive on the way out. Afterward, they’d gone for gelato. Murray only ever had ice cream once or twice a year, he’d explained, but then he’d smiled, and she knew that this was his idea, that he wanted to impress her.

  As they waited in line, she’d clutched the strap of her satchel, but then after they’d gotten their cones and began weaving through tourists—she wasn’t sure when—she’d felt the strap loosen over her shoulder. The buckle had come undone, and her wallet was gone.

  Murray reacted frantically, sprinting through more throngs of people in the narrow streets. She’d teetered after him in sandals, legs aching, down more steps, fingers sticky with her discarded gelato cone. She followed him to the police station, a tiny office buzzing with fans, Murray leaning in close over the front counter, shouting fruitless English. She’d had to take over as translator, and he’d nearly been kicked out for seizing the office telephone so she could cancel her credit c
ard; he’d helped her jog her memory, to account for the exact amount that had been stolen, a little over two hundred in US dollars. It could have been worse, but Murray’s concern, his utter devotion until the end, had proved he was more than a lover; he was a partner, a friend.

  It was 6:00 p.m. by the time they’d left the station, both of them starving. They’d eaten dinner at a little crêperie, sharing a bottle of wine. It seemed crazy that they’d stayed, but Murray had wanted to treat her, and after the wine, they were both too tired to travel all the way back. They decided to spend the night in a small hotel. Bastille Day was at least a week away, but there’d been a fireworks display over the Tuileries. They’d hurried after the distant cracks, the throb of sound—to a stone wall at the edge of the hill, promising a clear view of the city. As they watched tiny blossoms of light against the black sky, she’d felt her faith in Murray burgeon. Something about him made her body feel light and grounded all at once. Two weeks later: a proposal, an acceptance.

  Nancy could not discuss her anguish over her parents with Murray. Not only was it a sore subject after their visit, but both of Murray’s parents had passed: his father when he was a child, and his mother just last year. He no longer kept in touch with his younger brother, Patrick, after he’d moved out west to work at a casino, leaving Murray to care for their mother after she fell ill. Nancy never wanted to remind Murray of his many losses.

  Nancy had visited his hometown in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, only twice: first, in October after they married and moved to New Haven, just a few months after the July proposal. Murray’s mother had recently had a stroke. The second visit was just four months later, in February, after she’d died. Nancy held just a few images of the place: hills arched in autumn red and gold, hills ridged with snow; afternoon skies, a cold, crisp blue. She remembered feeling oddly compelled by the spectral feel of forgotten industry, of a past waiting to be reclaimed. This was the place that had produced her husband, the determined set of his lips, his need for the clock and its calculations. Though Murray never spoke of returning there, she hoped one day he’d show their child the land he knew.

  THREE

  Monday

  10:35:29 a.m.

  After Murray had waited four hours in the hospital, with still no word from Becky’s parents, he headed to the exhibition pool on campus, this dark, cavernous hole below the first level of the gym. A series of tunnels ran behind the stadium seating, and Murray entered from high up, at the fifteenth-level row. Every Monday, when the diving team was in the middle of practice, he came here. The intermittent spring of the board calmed him, as did the stillness of the water afterward, when he could be left alone with its deep, electric blue.

  But now he crouched into a seat, the scent of chlorine burning his nose. Humidity made it difficult to relax. He rolled up his jacket sleeves and noticed a hint of blood, dried, along the inner part of his forearm. The wound was bleeding? He saw the bruise, the red rim before he searched for her pulse. Had he touched her head?

  He looked up to where a male diver stood on the board, at least twenty-five feet above the water. The diver had strong pectoral muscles, rounded ever so slightly at the edges. His abdominals were the same, clear cut and striated.

  Murray wasn’t close friends with the diving coach, Theo Fischer, but they respected one another. They’d spoken a few times at administrative meetings, mostly about their common approach. Success, they both believed, depended on a careful mixture of repetition and focus, in honing the athlete’s attention to the most minor details: keeping the shoulders perfectly square and relaxed, engaging both big toes to activate inner thighs and arches—squeezing the gluteal muscles during push off—or, in the case of this diver, during the jounce. Murray watched him now, three measured pulses before the creak, the fated zing, as the diver sprung up and twisted, suspended midair before he fell, clean and melodious against the water’s skin.

  Theo had assured Murray he didn’t mind his presence. He’d told him to come anytime. Usually he waved when Murray found his seat in the third or fourth row, or else Murray would raise his pad in acknowledgment, but today he’d snuck in just high enough not to be noticed, covered in shadows.

  A young woman approached the board. She didn’t bother testing the spring, just stared fixedly ahead. The water filter lapped. Overhead lights buzzed. A glare rippled over the water, disfiguring it.

  Before the jump, she squeezed in her body, then arced perfectly through the air. She slid in palms first, minimal splash.

  When she popped up, her teammates clapped. “Good, Lydia!” Theo yelled from behind. But she never smiled, only absently parted the water with her strong arms until she’d reached the stepladder and slowly climbed up.

  Murray looked down at his pad, still turned to the page with Becky’s name and all her splits. He noticed some coffee spilled over the paper, and some grease from the breakfast sandwich he’d never opened in the car. He’d been planning to give her the other half of it after practice as a reward.

  Could Murray be accused of negligence? After all the time he’d invested—thoughtfully, meticulously? Becky’s parents, like everyone else, knew Division I running required morning practices for top athletes, countless hours of solo time.

  Take Nationals last year, in Terre Haute. Becky had qualified at Heptagonals, the biggest meet of the season against all the other Ivy Leagues. She’d run an exceptional time of 16:35.42, even after they’d only had three weeks to prepare. He’d had to keep her over Thanksgiving break, since the race was always held two days before, and though Doug had questioned him about that at first, he’d understood when Becky placed second, overall, in a time of 15:22.08.

  He and Becky had left early for the race one Tuesday morning, and he thought of how she’d refused to place her backpack in the overhead stow. She’d held it on her lap instead, hugging it like a stuffed animal, while he’d spread out a copy of the newspaper to review seed times. At one point, she unzipped her backpack for a water bottle filled with a pale pink liquid, most likely Pedialyte, and then she’d pulled out a copy of Spenser’s Faerie Queene.

  Becky’s deciding on the English major still surprised him. He’d assumed she’d pursue science or math, something more concrete and useful. But Becky had seemed passionately focused on her reading through the whole flight, turning each page carefully, almost exactly a page per minute. She’d kept her pen poised, ready to underline, and when the flight attendant came, she’d foregone the complimentary beverage and peanuts. He’d asked for seltzer water, somewhat self-conscious about shaking salty peanuts onto his cocktail napkin, studying their seams and considering his blood pressure.

  Becky hadn’t spoken until the ground came into view, these gray and brown specks of trees and neighborhoods she’d pointed to. She’d said though her mother was from Ohio, she’d never been to the Midwest, mostly because her grandparents didn’t live there anymore. He’d asked where they lived now, and she’d said Florida, nearly whispering.

  The first time Murray had met Becky, with her mother, Lisa, in his office, she’d been exuberant. Becky must have weighed ten, maybe fifteen, pounds more then. She’d been small, but she had flesh around her smile, a bright color to her lips. She’d asked him all kinds of questions about the program and where she could expect to compete. Her eyes had been bright, too, as he’d listed all the opportunities that would open up to her, especially since she hadn’t peaked yet. As a high school junior, she’d already run 17:23—under mediocre coaching and a low mileage plan, at that—so Murray had told her, if she was willing to commit herself to his program, honed since his own Olympic days, they could expect to see great things.

  Why couldn’t they still? Why jump to any conclusions? Murray didn’t know that she wouldn’t run this season, or next.

  Nancy used to comment about how careful he was about every detail when it came to coaching, but was blind to the bigger picture, especially when it involved their marriage. It was her tone, always, that had carried her judg
ment of him. His ex-wife was chronically jealous of the time he spent coaching. It had been so easy for her to assume he was responsible for all that had gone wrong in their lives.

  Mary Hannan’s torn hamstring in ’97, or Kim Degrise’s bulging disk in ’98—Nancy had been quick to link those first injuries to her own dissatisfactions with him, when he came home too late, or spent too much time on the field. Nancy wasn’t an athlete—any true athlete knew injuries came with the package. More often than not, he’d had to remind her, it was the culture of the team, not the coach, that spread bad habits. Coaches didn’t have control over other girls setting a poor precedent around diet and sleep—from too much studying or partying—or trying to slim down by cutting calories. All coaches faced the same predicament, Murray thought. Even Theo here. Murray was sure Theo had the same problems if one of his divers started eating less because one of her teammates was.

  Murray was sweating. He hadn’t felt it, not at first, but along his wrists were small beads. He breathed deeply.

  The only thing a coach could do, he’d remind himself again, and again, was focus on the present. The present was the only thing that mattered in sports: schedules, itineraries, workouts.

  Murray turned his pad to a fresh page, hands quavering. He wrote Anna Bradley at the top. Technically, Anna was next in line on his roster—nowhere near Becky’s talent—but at least she was disciplined enough, a fierce competitor.

  Anna had been running 5:55 pace up to this point. He needed her closer to 5:30. There were only two weeks until the first meet of the season.

  By the time the medics came, a string of pink saliva had hung from Becky’s mouth. Blood had bubbled from her nostril—that was where the blood on his forearm had come from? But she had been breathing, he reminded himself. There had not been a lapse in Becky’s breath, no hidden symptoms, no sudden pause.