Exiles in America(150)

tonight, they wouldn’t know and could remain innocent. Daniel hoped the

phone would ring and it’d be Elena saying they’d changed their minds in West

Virginia and were coming back. Or that the e-mail was just a joke and they’d

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C h r i s t o p h e r B r a m

only gone to Richmond to buy clothes for the kids. But Zack’s reaction made

clear that this was real. Maybe that’s why Daniel was angry with him.

“So what happens next?” Daniel asked. “What do we do now?” What he

really wanted to know was: How do we make this real?

“We wait and hear from them when they get to Tehran. Or we hear from

the FBI. Or maybe we don’t hear a damn thing.”

Daniel shook his head. “It’s like a bad movie. People always say that, but

we know stuff like this only from movies. The good movies leave out the bor-

ing parts, the parts that make no sense.”

“It’s like they died,” said Zack. “I know they didn’t, but that’s how it

feels.”

Which was an extreme thing to say, but Daniel understood Zack well

enough to guess where it came from. “But it’s not your fault,” he said. “You

did everything you could. You can’t blame yourself.”

Zack looked surprised by the possibility. “It’s not that. Well, it is that.

Maybe. But something else, too.”

Zack only picked at the dinner they put together—just soup and sand-

wiches—saying little, which was surprising. Usually Daniel was the one who

preferred silence, while Zack insisted on articulating every damn thought.

Not tonight. He looked so sad sitting at the kitchen table, so defeated.

When Daniel returned from walking the dog, he asked Zack if he wanted

to share his bed tonight. “I think we both need company.” Zack was pleased

by the invitation, touched. They got into Daniel’s double bed, Zack in his

nightshirt, Daniel in his boxer shorts and T-shirt, and lightly embraced, hook-

ing legs around legs, like the old days. Daniel couldn’t remember the last time

they’d slept together at home, although they often shared a bed on trips.

There was nothing sexual about it, except for the sad reminder that they no

longer felt sexual with each other. After a few minutes Daniel kissed Zack on

the temple and scooted back, so they could have room to breathe. Zack rolled

over on his back and sighed.

“I wonder if they’ve gotten to Toronto yet.”

There was no way they couldn’t talk about the Rohanis, was there? “I

think it’s like a twelve-hour drive,” said Daniel. “Do you really believe Iran is

such a terrible place?”

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“It won’t be an easy place for a gay man and a woman like Elena.” Zack

sighed again. “What did we do wrong? I keep asking myself that. What

should we have done differently?”

“There was nothing else we could do,” Daniel insisted. “It’s like you said.

If Abbas had been committed at Eastern State, he would’ve fled the country

as soon as he got out.” He paused to swallow. “And it’s their choice. They’re

grown-ups. We can’t feel responsible for the choices that other grown-ups

make.”

“Maybe,” said Zack. “Maybe.”

He let the repeated word hang there, open-ended, incomplete, unable to

add anything to it.

He held his silence until he fell asleep. Daniel was surprised that Zack

could doze off. Maybe he wasn’t so upset after all. But Daniel was the one

who usually had trouble sleeping in a shared bed.

Jocko jumped up on the mattress and made a nest in their valley of legs.

Then Balthus came out of hiding and curled into a ball at the foot of the bed.

Everyone could sleep except Daniel.

During their first ten years together, Daniel’s body and Zack’s had grown

easy and familiar in bed. They were able to shift around in their sleep without

crushing an arm or poking an eye. About the time they moved to Virginia,

however, things began to change. They stopped having sex altogether, which

was actually a relief. Sex had become infrequent, and their bodies fell out of

sync; desire only caused aggravation. Now they could stop worrying about

who wanted what and simply sleep together, which is a lovely act to share with

another person. But as they got older, each began to experience insomnia,

bouts of night fret, worry, sleeplessness, always suffered alone, although the

awake party inevitably woke the other. So they took separate beds in separate

rooms, and that worked well—they could talk to each other through their

open doors—but they slowly forgot the language of each other’s bodies.