Being with you and not being with you is the only way I have to measure time.
J. L. Borges
. . .
"And that's why I'll die without leaving any heirs, just like my father."
He said it every Saturday morning, still in his robe and slippers, right after making himself a cup of tea and just before the bane of his existence shuffled into view, dragging his damn feet like a condemned brat. Head down, eyes screaming guilt. He was looking for some kind of sympathy, a lifeline, a pass. But Levi? Levi was unrelenting.
"Carla, he's here!"
"I'm looking for the breathalyzer!" came a voice from the kitchen.
"Ugh, ugh, ugh," groaned Eren, clutching his head like he was the tragic hero in some cheap-ass drama. The idiot didn't know when to quit; his theatrics only made things worse. "Ghhhk…"
"For fuck's sake." Levi recoiled at the sound of a gag and turned pale. "Not here, you moron! I just cleaned the place, it's spotless! Get your ass to the bathroom and make sure you scrub it down when you're done!"
"Royal flush." Kenny flashed his cards and his teeth. "With age comes a shitload of Kennying!"
"Bullshit, you're cheating." Zeke slammed the table and got to his feet. "Three goddamn royal flushes in three games? What the hell!"
"Watch your mouth," Carla warned, shuffling the deck again. "I'll admit, I think there's something fishy going on here. I'm not saying you're cheating, God forbid I'd accuse anyone, but…"
"But nothing!" Zeke cut her off, now fogging up the lenses of his glasses. "This old demon knows every trick in the book. I'll figure it out, I swear I will. But for now, I'm done playing with you. It's not that I think cheating's unfair—there's nothing fair about life anyway—but if anyone's gonna cheat, I wanna know how to do it too."
Levi languished on the couch, watching the chaos unfold with the weariness of a man who'd made peace with his life choices. He'd married Carla fully aware of what came with the package. Along with their dimwitted son, there was also Carla's scruffy stepson, Kenny's favorite little apprentice. "His mother doesn't love him, so we have to love him more," she always said, and Levi had softened toward him, though only slightly.
"I don't lose, kid," Kenny boasted.
"Impossible. In this game, you lose more than you win."
"Oh, he's lost plenty," Levi muttered from the couch.
"Doesn't matter! If ya wanna beat me, ya'll need more than a patchy beard. Shuffle, niece. Levi, bring me the whisky!"
"What am I, your butler? Get it yourself, and while you're at it, maybe God will be kind enough to choke you while you drink it."
"The only thing that chokes me are the things that are supposed to choke me."
"And what the hell are those, Kenny?" Zeke grinned, enjoying the show.
"Those are things we don't talk about, kid, especially not with a lady present. What, doncha have any manners? Those are the kind of things ya've got to know. One day, I'll introduce ya. How old are ya?"
"Twenty-six."
"Well, ya're old enough to deserve them."
"I swear to God," Carla said with deadly seriousness, "if you keep talking about brothels, you're never stepping foot in this house again."
"My nephew knows them too," Kenny added smugly.
"The fuck I know!" Levi leapt off the couch. "You dragged me to some dump when I was young, but I stayed at the bar while you—Carla, no, don't leave! I swear on my life, I've never set foot in a whorehouse. Never! Not once in my life! You perverted old shitty bastard, you're gonna get me divorced!"
"Damn, I need a smoke. Can I smoke in here?" Kenny asked, a long habano dangling from his mouth. "No? Well, too bad. I'm gonna smoke anyway—doctor's orders for my circulation. Light me up, blondie. Dying with clean lungs? What a goddamn waste."
"Divorce is a messy business," Zeke said, pulling out a cigarette case. "Especially when you're married under community property laws."
Carla found a cookie tin while they were cleaning out the attic. Inside, there were threads and old photographs.
"I used to just need a box," Levi said, "to keep everything in one place."
They sat down on the floor. A young Kenny at the beach, giving a piggyback ride to a kid. Kenny was smiling, but the kid wasn't.
"You never liked the beach," Carla remarked.
"Hell no. Sand, seaweed, and crap everywhere. But my mom liked it. This picture… Yeah, she took it. Over thirty-five years ago. It's been a long time."
"We need to go see her, clean up the gravestone, put some flowers down. I told your uncle, but he's only good for bitching and drinking."
Sometimes Levi would drift off, thinking of his mother, the one he silently worshiped at the shrine of the wallet photo. He didn't talk about it much. Kenny, though, seemed to get some kind of life back when he mentioned his sister. Levi usually found a way to slip out when it started. "She was too young, and she went out in such a shitty way. My Kuchel, poor thing. A saint."
"I'll go. You don't need to come with me."
"I do," Carla replied. "The kid'll come too, and we'll stop by to see Grisha. She's my mother-in-law, even if I never met her. Your cookie tin is mine too. Throw it out."
"What?"
"Empty it out, throw it away. We'll put the pictures with the others. You can't keep everything you want in a box. It won't fit."
He nodded, his hands holding the photo. He had a striking resemblance to the woman in the picture.
"She won't be alone anymore, Levi."
"Does my mom know?"
"No."
"You didn't tell her? You tell her everything."
"Should I? I'm not telling her. You want to? Be my guest. I don't give a shit."
Levi shot him a sideways glance. The idiot had gotten his ass beat and wouldn't stop checking his face in the passenger mirror.
"I'm not your father. If you want to tell me, I'll listen, but I'm not gonna be chasing you around asking. Let me guess: it was the other guy who started it."
"Of course!" Eren exploded. "What the hell am I supposed to do? I'm not just gonna stand there with my hands in my pockets while they call my mom a whore."
"I didn't tell you to stand there doing nothing. What I'm saying is, if some dumbass gives you a black eye, you give him two."
"Aren't you gonna scold me?"
"I'll do something better," Levi decided. "I'll teach you how to hit harder, like we used to in the army. I'll teach you how, when, and who. You'll decide why, but make sure you think it through and don't piss your mom off. Her stress is my stress."
"I don't think they fuck," Zeke said, having smoked through the whole pack and now dragging deeply from the last cigarette, savoring it. "I'm pretty sure they not. I just can't picture it. Nah, I'm telling you, they got together just for company. Both middle-aged, him the lifelong bachelor and her the widow. Hell, I'd do the same thing. But damn, they have a blast together: when they're not at each other's throats, they're cleaning the house or watching 'true crime' together."
"Kid, my nephew was gonna be a priest, mark my words," Kenny chimed in, blowing out O's from his habano. "A priest or a fag, or both. I never saw him with a chick, and that's not normal. The men in my family like women, cards, booze, and smoking. Hell, what else can I tell ya? Ya're one of us. My nephew? Nothing. Worked all his life, came out of the army and took up street sweeping, but that's it. Work and pay, no vices. Living without vices? That ain't living. I always thought, 'This one's into di…' Look, I don't mind those modern ways, but I always thought it. When he came to tell me he was getting married, well, shit! I had to sit down. 'Where'd ya find her?' I asked him, 'With that shitty face of yours, who the hell's gonna wantcha? Not even the beggars!' 'I met her in the cemetery,' he tells me. 'In the cemetery!' Damn, he's weird even for that. They say death doesn't separate 'em, but hell, these two, death brings 'em together."
"I don't know this one. What do you mean, in the cemetery?"
"Yeah, in the cemetery, by the flower stand. Bought the same flowers, apparently. I know all this from her, the little shit doesn't even give me the time of day. So, my nephew went to visit his mother—God bless her soul—and yar mother went to see yar father."
"May he rest in peace."
"Sure. So, funny thing, they ended up talking. Well, I think she did most of the talking, but damn, seems it didn't bother him (which is rare, usually his shadow annoys him) and they kept talking, and talking."
"And here we are. I was surprised too. Not by Levi, but by Carla. She had a rough time when my father passed, I thought she'd follow him. Bad… bad. I was already grown and could help her with the kid. That kid, by the way, went off track after that, always in trouble. I couldn't straighten him out, but Levi did."
"Eren? Well, I'm not surprised. That's because he hasn't had kids. Hey, between us, what if they're thinking about it…?"
"What? Hell no! You think…? Nah, they're too old for that. Dealing with a kid at their age? Crazy. Plus, there's my brother, he's enough work."
"Yeah, but the kid would be cute. He'd probably get our dark hair. Strong genes in the family."
"You got kids, Kenny?"
"Discreet kids, like all of us in my line. The shitty-face one is like he's mine. I raised him, he's my pride, but doncha dare say a word about this, a'right? And don't mention the other stuff either. I didn't tell ya anything. In life, ya gotta know when to cheat and when to shut the fuck up."
If Levi said something hurt, it meant it hurt like hell.
"I was raking the leaves from the park next door," he said, lying in bed, propped up on a pile of pillows, "and I felt a twinge in my lower back, but since I'm used to it, I didn't think much of it and kept going."
"And now you can't even walk!" Carla yelled from the bathroom. "Tomorrow you're making a doctor's appointment."
"It's the hernia. The doctor's gonna say the same thing he always says: 'If you get surgery, this might happen, and that, and the other.' It'll pass, and if it doesn't, well…"
"Well, nothing! You're not gonna leave me a widow just like that…"
"It's just my back."
"Grisha said it was just his arm."
"You're not gonna be a widow. Who do you think I am? I'd never leave you like that."
"You better not. If you die, I'll kill you." She finally appeared, after slathering on her night cream. "You've probably got the evil eye, that's why all this is happening. I'll call someone to get it fixed."
Levi didn't answer. He couldn't care less about superstitions, but there was a little truth to them.
"What a hassle," Carla muttered as she got into bed and grabbed the book from her nightstand.
"I'm sorry."
"Why?"
"For giving you trouble."
"I give you trouble. I've got a troubled kid and you don't like my stepson."
"Please, Kenny's a fucking piece of shit."
"That's true."
"It's just…"
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Levi."
"Recovering was impossible under the same roof as my uncle. It feels weird, but… nice."
"Of course it's nice. Don't you dare think that tomorrow you'll just get up and clean just because you think you're fine. You stay in bed and I'll do everything."
"No," Levi decided. "We stay in bed and Eren does it all."
"You're that young and already throwing a fit? Straighten up and grab the hoe properly. Look, like this. Don't go breaking your back. We've got more mounds to make and tomatoes to pick."
Levi looked him up and down. This guy's never lifted a finger in his life, he thought. Eren wiped the sweat off his brow.
"Why are we doing this? They sell potatoes and tomatoes at the supermarket!"
"Because I said so. Because your mother and I want the garden cultivated, and because maybe, just maybe, you'll learn something useful. You think a store-bought tomato tastes the same as one you planted, watered, and picked with your own hands? With that shitty attitude, you're gonna lead a shitty life, but hey, I can still fix it. Now, keep going. I'm gonna grab a snack. You know why I can go and you can't? Because I've hoed more fields than I can count, and I've earned it. Keep at it. I hope you're done when I get back."
In the kitchen, Kenny's complaints drowned out the unrelenting hum of the August cicadas.
"Teaching an old dog new tricks…" Kenny muttered, hidden behind an apron. "Never ends well."
"By St. Peter's keys," Carla said, eyeing the mess on the cutting board, "what do you eat when you're alone?"
"Whatever I find here and there."
"We ate with his girlfriends," Levi said, pulling a chilled tinto de verano from the fridge. "He had a few hundred, so we could eat at a different house every day of the year."
"You're disgusting."
"Me? They were thrilled to feed us!"
"Go check on the kid," Levi told his uncle. "Don't give him a break."
Kenny disappeared quickly.
"God forgive me for what I'm about to say," Carla sat down, and he poured her a glass, "but for you to have the same blood as that man… I've never met a bigger lazy bastard. You know what idea he's got now?"
"It's impossible to know what's going on in his head."
"Well, he told me he wants to live here."
"The fuck, Carla?"
"Yeah, in this house. Zeke told him it's fine, that he can have his room."
"That damn bastard. What if we change the locks so he can't come in anymore?"
"He's my son's brother, and he grew up here, even though he's independent now. I can't do that."
"And did my uncle say why the hell he wants to move here? There's got to be some angle, like always."
"Look at him, Levi."
"I've seen enough."
"Really look."
The window faced the garden. He saw him from afar, standing with his back turned, a scrawny old man in shorts and a tank top. Once sinister, now oddly friendly. His uncle was talking, and Eren's face was twisted in disbelief.
"I see him just fine. That old man's got iron health. He's gonna outlive us all."
"But he's old, and he's been alone since you moved to town. Why do you think he spends so much time here and not with his girlfriends?"
"Erectile dysfunction, who knows. The nasty stuff that comes with age."
"We're his only family."
Levi snorted, took a drink, brushed the black hair from his sweaty forehead, and snorted again.
"Fine, but if he starts smoking or pissing standing up, we're shoving him in a nursing home and praying he gets a nasty-ass nurse."
"Plus, he gets along with Eren."
"Speaking of Eren…"
"What did he do now?"
"Nothing bad, I've got him on a short leash. I found him a job since he doesn't want to keep studying."
"I gave birth to him, I know what he wants before he even knows it. Where'd you put him?"
Against all odds, Eren landed the mechanic job — the owner, Mike, was an old army buddy — and that Christmas, he spent his paycheck on gifts: all sorts of sweets for his mother, marzipan, shortbread, alfajores, yemas; a baseball glove and a Tom Ksaver T-shirt for his brother; a bottle of expensive whiskey for Kenny, who downed it all before New Year's; and a jalopy for Levi.
"You're telling me this cleans? Doesn't it crash into shit?"
"No. It's got sensors. Look, you download this app and control it. Cool, huh? It's the highest rated."
"I don't know, mmh... Too much fancy shit…"
"It's a gift," Kenny cut in. "Thank the kid".
"Thanks, Eren. I'll use it to clean the shit from this pest."
"Watch your mouth, Levi," Carla scolded. "It's the holidays, no swearing."
"Well, I love my gift, brother." Zeke still had an enviable enthusiasm. "Let's play before dinner."
"But no sweating," Levi warned. "If you show up sweating like pigs, don't sit at the table."
"Yeah, yeah. Let's go, Eren!"
Kenny took a swig of the whiskey. The tassel from Santa's hat dangled comically to the side of his face.
"Hey, old man, stop drinking like that."
"Pour here, Kenny," Carla said.
"It's Christmas, ya sour-faced bastard, and yar birthday too." His uncle shrugged and filled the glasses. "We gotta drink, gotta celebrate. Ya hear those young bucks laughing? This could be the last time we're all together."
Levi didn't say anything. Suddenly, Kenny seemed mortal. The lowest of men had dared to age. One day, he thought, one day he'll go, and he won't come back. One day, he'll get tired, crawl into bed, and be gone. I hope he never leaves, I hope we can stay like this forever.
"Yeah," Levi finally replied, a faint smile playing on his lips. "Let's drink."
Carla had a peculiar devotion to Sunday mass, the kind of shit not even Kenny, slippery bastard that he was, could get out of. Back in some godforsaken corner of time, he'd been an altar boy, all wide-eyed innocence. But then he leveled up—graduated from the parish to the parishioners—and became a devout worshipper of chalices. Not just the ones that held wine, mind you, but the other kind, too.
That Sunday, standing in the communion line, his suit a Frankenstein patchwork that smelled like whiskey and regret, Kenny spotted the priest. And he knew, instantly. Not as a man of God, oh no. But as a comrade-in-arms in the only faith that mattered: the one born in bars and baptized over domino tables.
"Holy shit, Nick! How many times have we been partners at dominoes, huh?"
The priest, no saint himself, gave him a crooked grin. It was true: they knew each other more from shot glasses than scripture. It wasn't long before they ditched the holy formalities and decided to grab lunch together.
Eren was off somewhere in the hills with Armin, probably doing God knows what, and Zeke? Well, no one had heard a damn thing about him. Praise be for small mercies.
"We've got the house to ourselves!" Carla declared, her eyes sparkling like she'd just hit the goddamn jackpot.
"Well, let's get a move on. They'll be back by nightfall, and that'll be the end of our fucking peace." Levi wasn't walking; he was practically trotting, like some stray mutt ready to bolt. He was this close to grabbing Carla's hand and hauling her along. "What's the plan?"
"Sex."
"I meant what are we cooking," he shot back, deadpan but with the hint of a smirk. "But if that's what you're suggesting…"
One spring day, stumbling back from a rowdy kickabout with the deadbeats he called friends, Eren didn't notice the hiss of the pressure cooker—his irrational nemesis—because the air in the house was thick with something unfamiliar. Roses from the garden? No, it was sharper, stranger. And there were suitcases in the living room.
"Uh… hi," was all he managed. He was thrown off, like someone had tipped his world sideways, and he dropped into a chair. By the time he found his voice again, she was already gone. "Who's she?"
"Family," Levi said, folding the newspaper with deliberate care, as if weighing each word. "Third cousin, fourth? Shit, I can't remember the details. Point is, she's my cousin. She was at the wedding. Don't tell me you've forgotten."
"Nope. Don't remember at all."
"Well, that's that. A cousin from somewhere or other. Half-something, I always forget. Mikasa, where the hell is your mom from?"
"Hizuru," Mikasa called back from the kitchen.
"Right. Hizuru. Middle of nowhere, where even God couldn't be bothered to finish the job. She's here for some wedding—maid of honor—and Carla offered her the attic. We cleaned it last year and put a bed up there."
"How old is she? Spill it. I want all the details."
"She's older than you," Levi replied with a shrug. "These things slip my mind. Mikasa, how old are you now?"
"Why are you so damn nosy, shorty?" Mikasa shot back, appearing briefly in the doorway. "Twenty-four. Why the fuck do you care?"
"Well, it looks like you've got an admirer," Levi said, glancing at Eren, who was now trying to bury his face in his hands. "Your mom and I are five years apart too, you know."
"Where is she?"
"Buying bread. Oh, and those suitcases? They're not gonna move themselves. I'd do it, but I don't feel like it. Besides, the best way to win a woman over—"
"Enough."
"—is by being useful." Levi crossed his legs, flipped the newspaper open, and clicked his pen. "God, these crosswords are absolute shit."
"The women in my family? Built like steel," Kenny said. "Tough as hell, every one of them. Almost all divorced or single because they've got a knack for picking losers and morons. My sister? Christ, you'd need legs like a racehorse to outrun her temper. Unfortunately, one dipshit knocked her up, and she didn't abort. Different times, I guess. Anyway, Eren, watch your damn step."
"I'm not gonna do anything!" Eren blurted, face already red. "She's probably got someone waiting for her back in Hizuru. I mean, look at me—I'm nothing next to her."
"Well, that's true," Levi said.
"Come on, don't make me feel worse!"
"Man up, little brother," Zeke chimed in, slapping him on the back. "You can't walk through life like this. You're not… hideous. Ugly, no. I mean, you've got… well, shit, you've got nice eyes."
"Yeah, I'll give him that," Kenny agreed, nodding. "And he's got some muscle on him now from working."
"This conversation is exhausting," Levi grumbled. "Talk to your mom about it."
"No, Levi, no!" Zeke cut in, patting Eren's shoulder like a coach rallying his team. "This is a man's conversation!"
"Exactly. Which is why I'm exhausted."
"Well, then ya give him some advice, shorty! How'd ya win over Carla? It sure as hell wasn't with your height!"
"How did I…?" Levi frowned, clearly annoyed. "You clearly know what they say about shorties. That… Nevermind. I don't fucking know. It just happened. Now leave me out of it."
"Look at him! He's embarrassed," Zeke teased.
"It's like when I used to ask him if he liked the girls at school," Kenny said with a wicked laugh.
"Feel free to keep poking fun at me," Levi said, fixing them both with a cold stare. "But here's the difference between you and me—I've managed to build a stable, successful relationship with a woman. Can either of you jackasses say the same?"