Page 31 of Madame X

I am Spanish.

I had your DNA analyzed.Such an easy phrase, so easily spoken.

What does it mean to me, to know I am of Spanish origin?

Nothing; everything.

My eyes prick, sting. My lungs ache and I am dizzy, and I realize I have been holding my breath. I blink and breathe. Such wrenching emotion over what? Knowing where in the world my unnamed and unknown ancestors came from? Weakness.

I’ve decided today is to be your birthday.

Another fact that feels both weighted with meaning and utterly devoid of it as well. A birthday?

A girl with dark hair walks by, dozens of stories below, on the opposite side of the street, holding her mother’s hand. It is much too far to see much else. They know their origins. Their family. Their past. A mother’s hand to cling to. A daughter to sing sweet songs to. Perhaps a daddy, a husband waiting for them.

“X?” A single letter, spoken in a murmur that would be a whisper for anyone with a smaller voice.

“Caleb.” An acknowledgment is all I can manage.

“Are you all right?”

I shrug. “I suppose.”

“Which means no, I think.” Warm palm on my waist, just above the swell of my hip. “What’s wrong?”

“Why?”

“Why what?” True confusion.

“Why have my DNA analyzed? Why tell me? Why give me an arbitrary birthday? Why bring me here for dinner? Why now?”

“It was meant to be—”

“Are you going to give me a Spanish name now too?”

A fraught silence. I interrupted, spoke out of turn. In dark and gritty noir novels, someone would say,Men have died for less, and with the man behind me, it might just be true. It seems possible; I look down at the hand on my waist. It looks capable of violence, of delivering death.

“Your name is Madame X.” A harsh rumble in my ear. “Don’t you remember?”

“Of course I do.” When one possesses only six years’ worth of memories, each one is crystalline.

“I brought you to the MOMA, the day they released you from the hospital. All of the museum at your disposal, and you spent the whole time in front of two paintings.”

“Van Gogh,Starry Night,” I say.

“And John Singer Sargent’sPortrait of Madame X.” Another hand on me, this one lower, below my hip bone, where itbecomes thigh. Pulling me backward, taut against a hard chest. “I didn’t know what to call you. I tried every name I could think of, and you’d just shake your head. You wouldn’t speak. Couldn’t really, I guess. Had to roll you around in that wheelchair, remember? Hadn’t relearned to walk yet. But you pointed at that painting, the Sargent. So I stopped, and you just stared at it and stared at it.”

“It was the expression on her face. It looks blank, at first. She’s in profile, so you’d think it might be hard to tell what she’s thinking. But if you look closely, you can see something there. Beneath the surface, maybe. And the curve of her arm. It looked strong. She’s so delicate, but... that arm, the one touching the table, it’s... it looks strong. And I felt weak, so helpless. So to see such a delicate-looking woman with something like strength? It just... spoke to me, somehow. Reassured me. Told me that maybe I could be strong, too.”

“And you are.”

“Sometimes.”

“When you need to be.”

“Not now.”

“Why?” Breath, wine-laced, from lips at my ear.