Archive of Our Own

If you die in a dream, you wake up.

-

James is fifteen next Tuesday. He eats the day away, spends too much time in the bathroom and plays tackle football on his school’s junior varsity team. He’s blond and hot-headed and annoys Phillipa like it’s an art form. James has always been a good kid, quick with numbers, afraid of heights, and since Arthur taught him to use a table saw, obsessed with carpentry. James keeps making coffee tables and Cobb is running out of places for them. “Make a birdhouse next, huh?” Cobb suggests.

James shrugs, the afternoon sun setting in the distance behind him, rose hues on the crown of his hair. “I have football practice. Maybe after that. Maybe this weekend.”

-

Phillipa was five-years-old when Cobb finally got back home and though her initial instinct was to stare at Cobb in rapturous awe, it faded. They’re in a grocery store, buying groceries, and Phillipa is five and says, “Dad, we need pickles.”

“Pickles?” he asked, smiling—he couldn’t stop for the first three months. “Why do we need pickles?”

“They’re James’ favorite in the whole wide world,” she says, hands thrown open to represent the world.

James, sitting in the carriage, says, “Pickle!” and claps his hands.

“Really now?” Cobb asks, dubious, but he can’t think of a reason Phillipa would lie.

Phillipa nods, utterly serious, “Yep, you were gone, Dad, but it’s okay. I’ll tell you everything you missed.”

“Did I miss a lot?”

“Yep,” she says and takes his hand, guiding him. James claps again, “Pickle.”

“You missed my dance recital,” she informs. “It’s okay, though, Dad, I remember the steps. I’ll show you.”

-

They were children, well, they’ll always be children to their father but—they were ten and seven, pinching each other like maniacs in the backseat of the car.

“Dad—Phillipa pinched me!”

“James started it!”

“Did not!”

“Did too!”

“Liar!”

“Cheater!”

“Dad!”

“Uncle Arthur!”

“Enough,” Cobb shouts, “Both of you, opposite sides of the car, sit still and don’t touch each other, don’t look at each other, don’t breathe each other’s air, or so help me god, I will turn this car around and leave you both at home!”

“But—“

“I don’t want to hear it!”

Arthur, sitting in the passenger seat, laughs quietly into his hand. Cobb turns on him, “You’re not too old for me to ground you, Arthur.”

Arthur laughs louder and then clears his throat, “Sorry, Dad.”

Cobb rolls his eyes and the kids start giggling and that’s all they are: kids.

-

He was twelve and slumped in the passenger seat, pouting. He huffed all the way home but on the last turn before they pull in, Cobb pulled over by the curve. “Okay, enough. What’s going on?”

“What do you mean?” James asks innocently.

Cobb sighs, turning off the ignition, “I’m old, James, not blind. What’s her name?”

James glances at him and then back out the window. Cobb sees the flicker of hesitation and fears of a moment he’s overstepped his boundaries. James hasn’t been particularly open but maybe this is different.

“Jenny,” James flops unhappily. “Her name is Jenny Keeler and she doesn’t know I exist.”

“James,” Cobb shifts to face him in his seat, “Don’t you think maybe you’re too young for this sort of thing?”

“Dad,” James whines, “I’m young, not blind. Jenny Keeler is totally hot!”

“Oh dear lord, okay, look, I’ll help you if you never refer to anyone as ‘hot’ ever again.”

“Deal,” James says immediately.

“Alright. Have you tried talking to her?”

James looks horrified, “Of course not!”

Cobb rolls his eyes, “Why on earth not?”

“It’s Jenny Keeler, dad. I can’t simply walk up to Jenny Keeler.”

Cobb is unsuccessful in containing his laughter.

-

“This is Arthur’s direct line. I haven’t answered, which probably means I’m dead in a ditch somewhere because nobody is competent in this business anymore. If not, I’ll call you back.”

“Does your mom have this number?” Cobb says to the recording, “If she does, you’re a terrible son. Call me back.”

-

Saturday, Cobb comes home from a business lunch and Phillipa is seventeen, James will be fifteen on Tuesday and the house is utterly silent. Phillipa is asleep on the couch with a calculus book creasing her cheek. He pulls a blanket over her shoulders and heads into the kitchen.

James is sitting on the kitchen table, eating a sandwich, and holding a .45. It’s the Beretta Px4 Storm Arthur bought Cobb for his thirty-second birthday in Dresden. It’s polished, reflecting off the marble countertops violently. “Hey dad,” James says and bites into his food.

Cobb sits down next to him with frozen joints. “Hey,” and it’s sickening how fast he curves to the situation. “What’re you doing with that?”

“Huh?” James asks with his mouth full, “Oh, the gun,” he finishes chewing and drinks from a glass of orange juice to wash it down. “I was just going to shoot myself but Phillipa’s asleep and I didn’t want the noise to wake her.”

“Oh,” Cobb says and the sudden clutch in his chest is unforgiving; his son looks at him with his mother’s eyes, “oh.”

“Yeah, she’ll be awake soon, though,” he shrugs.

“Can I—May I see it?” Cobb asks and he’s already reaching for the gun.

“Sure,” James says and hands it over.

Cobb takes it and the metal is cold, the room is cold, and his son is only fourteen, “Wh—why would you do this, James? Why would you want to?”

Dark-eyed and watching the clip slide out of the gun, James looks genuinely confused, “What do you mean?”

-

Phillipa turns sixteen and all of a sudden starts sunbathing. She’s got dark blonde hair and looks nothing like Mal, which is equal parts a mercy and torture. They’re sitting on the sundeck Arthur built while recovering from a bullet wound and Phillipa pops her gum absently.

“Your mom used to do that,” Cobb says abruptly. He’s supposed to be reading the new James Patterson novel but it’s truly horrific and he’s already figured out the murder, so instead, he stares at his sixteen-year-old daughter. “You have her toes, too.”

“What?” Phillipa says, pulling out her earbuds, “Did you say something?”

“I said your music is too loud and you’re too gorgeous for the rest of the world.”

“Old news then,” she replies cheekily.

“Can you do your old dad a favor and put more clothes on?”

Phillipa smiles, wide, and it’s exactly like Mal’s, “Course,” she says and that’s the torture, the small, almost imperceptible ways she resembles Mal. The inside creases of her arms, her nail beds, and the freckles across her cheekbones, the way her hair frizzes from humidity, the scowl she wears when James is annoying, her smile—

“The sun is setting anyway,” she says and pulls on some shorts and a tee over her bathing suit. Instead of sitting back in her own chair, she pushes her way onto Cobb’s.

Cobb sets the book down and hugs his daughter and smells the strawberry of her hair. “Tell me about mom. Tell me about what she was like when you were young. When you first met.”

“Your mom and I—“ he starts, “when we met—the first time I saw her,” he starts again, “Everything around her bent towards her, effortlessly—like this truly natural grace. I’d never seen anything like it, she was untouchable and I couldn’t resist—I wouldn’t have wanted to, I just kept coming back for glances and smiles. She was so vibrant and enigmatic and meeting her, really knowing her was like a dream.”

-

“Dad,” she wails desperately into his shoulders. The inside of his chest feels like bursting and it’s been a long time since Arthur put a bullet between his ribs but it’s not the type of thing you forget. “Dad,” she says and she’s got the same tears as Mal, the same desperate sob. “Oh god, Dad.”

“It’s okay, honey,” he says and she’s seventeen but she’s his baby, “It’s okay, I’m right here, let it out. Let it all out.”

Her fingernails dig into his skin, breaking red lines but he can’t feel them. “It’s all going to be okay. We’re going to get through this. And so is your brother, sweetheart. James is going to be fine.”

-

In Cobb’s briefcase, the dusty one he used his first year out of college, the one locked in a safe in his study, there is a small slit that opens a false bottom. There are other objects in the safe: cash, guns, jewels, totems, but the briefcase opens to a collection of handwritten notes, all in Mal’s slanted script.

Some are torn off, shopping lists, reminders.

Get milk. Call Arthur. Return library books.

Others say things like: James is your son. Phillipa is your daughter. Dominic is your husband.

Do not harm them.

Others say: this sun heats a dying city

Some are in French: Votre monde n'est pas réel.

-

It started when James was young, maybe eleven or twelve. He’s so young and suddenly growing new limbs and asking to for money to take to the movies, “without you, Dad.” Cobb tries to take it all in stride. Phillipa is fifteen and she already can’t control her sailor mouth so James’ new habits aren’t too much of a bother.

After Jenny Keeler rejects his advances, James sulked about the house for a bit. One night, Cobb is shuffling his briefcase and various blueprints to reach his keys when the front door opens and James is standing there, grinning.

“Oh,” Cobb says, “Thanks,” and more or less stumbles inside, dropping everything on the couch.

“How was work?” James asks, wielding a random spatula.

Cobb breathes deeply, “Alright, I suppose. Just coming up on a big deadline.” He scrubs his hands through his hair then realizes how late it is. “Wait, what are you doing up? It’s one in the morning.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” James shrugs. “Are you hungry? I’m making pancakes,” he gestures vaguely towards the kitchen.

“At one in the morning?” Cobb raises an eyebrow.

James’ answer is another shrug, “Come on.”

Cobb’s stomach, awakening at the mention of food, suddenly growls and so he follows after James.

They eat at the kitchen, straight from the pan, sharing a fork and spreading heinous amounts of maple syrup everywhere. “So,” Cobb says through blueberry pancake, “Are you still upset about Jenna or why can’t you sleep?”

James rolls his eyes, “Her name was Jenny and no, she’s old news, she’s not even pretty to me anymore. I like Melissa now.”

“Melissa—Melissa Hamilton, the one that punched you in the eye last summer?”

“Yeah.”

Cobb just eats more pancakes and goes along with it. At least James goes to bed after they eat.

-

It keeps happening, though. Cobb will wake up early on days he has to be on site or give a lecture, days where he has nightmares of drowning in vans and dying on beaches. Dawn will be rising and James will be outside on the sundeck, barefoot and practicing the jiu-jitsu Arthur taught him.

It happens enough that Cobb asks him about it. James’ response is to ignore him by picking up Phillipa’s guitar and pretending to be interested in it. It happens enough that James gets better at hiding it.

-

“You’ve reached Arthur. If you have this number, you know I’m a busy man, so maybe you should do something with your life and quit bothering me. That means you, Ari.”

Cobb rolls his eyes, “You two are like children. Call me back.”

-

Miles dies two years after retiring from teaching, one year after Marie. He smiles at Cobb in the end, glowing eyes and the night fell behind him. The funeral is small and elegant, white roses curved away from the coffin, Marie beside him, Mal beside her.

Phillipa is fourteen and sobs the entire time, clutching a gold necklace Miles bought her when she turned eight. Cobb holds her shoulders and asks Arthur to take James home so Phillipa can stay longer. She grieves harder than anyone else and Cobb could not deny her the right.

When they get home, Arthur is giving James his first lesson in jiu-jitsu, rain blurring their vision.

-

“Buy me a drink?”

Cobb turns around to find a brunette with large eyes and thin lips. He only glances at her hands before announcing, “You’re holding one.”

“Well, yeah,” she concedes, “but how else am I going to break the ice?” she says and sits, dress neck low and thigh cut high. She’s all tanned skin and plunging neckline, overcompensation.

“Weather’s nice,” Cobb suggests and drinks from his whiskey.

“It’s raining,” she argues.

“Not great, then,” he corrects and sets his glass down.

Her laugh is a high-pitched chuckle of genuine amusement. “Sam,” she says and holds her hand out to shake.”

Cobb looks back at her, flicking his eyes down to the flat of her dress over her stomach, the swell of her breasts. She’s not exactly supermodel material, but for tonight, she’ll do. “William,” he says and shakes her hand.

“So, William,” she starts, eyes glinting, “How about that drink?”

At her apartment, Cobb fucks her on the living room floor, caught up in the rough friction and wet heat of her body. She’s not smart or gorgeous or even interesting but her body is hot and her nails are sharp down his back and that’s enough for now. When they’re done, he leaves her still breathless and sweaty, not bothering to pretend he’ll call.

Sometimes they have names like Samantha, Danielle, or Cassandra. Sometimes they have nice lips or large breasts. Sometimes they approach him and buy him a drink. Sometimes they approach him and lead him out the door. He tells them his name is Charles, William, Robert, sometimes he doesn’t tell them his name at all.

They’re hot-blooded and when it’s not enough, he drinks at home.

-

James was born on a Wednesday like this. Rain is pouring down the windows of his study and the streetlights glow in the haze of water droplets. Mal was weary and lovely then, staring down at her son with glassy eyes and exhausted affection. “He’s beautiful,” she says and he hasn’t stopped crying yet.

Cobb stared at his wife and his son—his beautiful daughter and her grandparents in the waiting room—and he couldn’t believe it. His vision hazed with rain and light and he didn’t need to spin his top to know this was reality. A dream would never be this exquisite.

“You’re grounded,” he says, snapping back to the present time, where his beautiful son is thirteen and suspended from school.

“What!” he shouts back.

“For a month. No video games, no television, no internet. I’m locking your laptop, the desktop, your phone, and both tablets. If you use it, I’ll confiscate it.”

“Dad—”

“You’re only to leave the house for school and football and Phillipa’s ballet recitals. No friends over.”

“Dad, that’s not fair—”

“I don’t want to hear it!” Cobb says and he really couldn’t keep himself from yelling.

James glares back at him, absolutely livid. Through gritted teeth, he says, “What am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t care.” Cobb returns, “Read a book, for god’s sake.”

James scoffs at him.

“Your Uncle Arthur didn’t teach you jiu-jitsu for you to beat the shit out of kids at your school, James! You’re lucky and I really do mean absolutely blessed that Tom’s parents are not pressing charges. You’re grounded, and if you’re really so bored, I’ll have a list of chores for you to do every day for a month. You—you should be happy, as far as I’m concerned, I’m going easy on you, James.”

“Easy!” James shouts and his eyes are wide, long blond hair licking into his lashes.

Cobb thinks of the day James was born, his eyes hazing with rain all of a sudden. James is scowling, Phillipa’s scowl, Mal’s scowl, and Cobb feels the rising urge to hit him. He’s too young to be facing assault and battery charges, goddamn it. “Get out of my sight,” he says and James leaves, slamming the down behind him.

Within seconds, Cobb is dialing Arthur.

“You’ve reached Arthur, if I haven’t answered, it’s because I’m out breaking the law. Love you, mom.”

“Arthur, you son-of-a-bitch, call me back before I kill your teenaged moron of a nephew.”

-

When James is six, Phillipa falls out of a tree and breaks her arm. Cobb hears the ear-splitting cry from inside the house and drops a glass as he runs out. He was only gone for a second, just a second. On the grass, James is petting her teary cheeks, smearing dirt and snot. “Daddy, Pippa has a booboo.”

Her arm is broken and though James falls asleep in the emergency room, he wakes up on the drive home. Phillipa falls asleep in the car, holding her cast to her body. James yawns loudly at a stoplight, “Daddy,” he asks, “is Pippa feeling better now?”

“Not just yet,” Cobb glances at him in the back seat, his beautiful son, sticky hands reaching out to pet the gold hair on the crown of Phillipa’s head. “She’s asleep, Jamie, let her rest.”

“Daddy,” he whispers loudly, “we have to take good care of Pippa.”

“Yes, we do,” Cobb says and cuts down the tree.

-

Phillipa has a very public, very messy break up with Tom Keeler the day before Spring Fling and names get thrown around the school. James gets suspended the same day. He’s thirteen and Arthur taught him jiu-jitsu, goddamn it, of all things.

After they fight, James is awake at two in the morning, making quesadillas from Kraft singles and PIta bread. (“That’s not—“ “Shut up, Pippa.”) He looks Cobb right in the eye and says, “I’m not sorry, Dad. I have to take care of Pippa.”

Cobb doesn’t know what to say.

-

Her senior year, Phillipa takes too many AP classes and gets everything done by spending all her time working furiously. Cobb has forgotten most of his high school education but he helps her with chemistry and psychology and buys her as many note cards as she needs. He buys coffee a lot more often than usual but carefully makes no accusations.

James has decided to leave her be at least 72% of the weekend, clean up after himself, and take up some of her chores. When his dad falls asleep, he closes Cobb’s door so he won’t hear Phillipa typing papers at one in the morning. He doesn’t play Call of Duty anymore because Phillipa is addicted to procrastinating with first person shooter games. He makes her food in the middle of the night and changes her Facebook password and when she crashes—on the couch, her room, the backseat of the car—he stays as quiet as he can.

-

Arthur was an angel when Cobb met him. Rushed through high school in two years and 19 when he was already a Grad student, Arthur stepped into Miles’ classroom five years younger than anyone there and intimidating in his intelligence. Mal took to him immediately, swinging their arms together every time they were in public. Arthur looked shell shocked with an ecstatic French girl on his arm.

The first time they met was at a nightclub, Cobb was being chased my Melody Richards’ deranged boyfriend who doesn’t apologize after he knocks over Arthur’s drink. Arthur, the angel, knocked him out with two swift blows. Mal laughs uproariously and throws her arms around him, “Arthur! You are too much!”

Cobb meant to thank them but then Melody is pulling him through the club doors and away.

The next week, Cobb has his first training session with Miles and Arthur is sitting there, dressed in pressed slacks with Mal talking animatedly in French beside him. Neither of them remembers him from before but it was probably better that way. Cobb forgets Melody’s name and takes them out to lunch.

The first dream they drop into is a small café about a block from his apartment. The dream is stuttered and inelegant, they can’t even hear each other speak but when Miles drops in, everything shivers to clarity.

Arthur still walks like he used to back then, refracting the world into and away from him like Mal taught him. Arthur isn’t an angel anymore. His skin is still clear after all this time, high cheekbones and youthful lips but the world cracks and splits away and he says, “Not my problem,” and turns away.

One of the briefcase notes says Arthur is no angel.

-

“Where’s my Welcoming Committee?” Arthur asks, luggage in arms.

Cobb frowns and does his best Phillipa impersonation, “Dad,” he rolls his eyes dramatically, “I’m seventeen! Uncle Arthur, too old, blah, blah, blah.”

Arthur laughs and his dimples are still as cute as ever. “Wow that is dead on.”

“It comes naturally,” Cobb says into his shoulder as they embrace.

“Your mannerisms always did resemble those of a seventeen-year-old girl.”

“It’s good to see you.”

“It’s good to be back,” Arthur says.

-

Cobb starts this conversation by lighting a cigarette. His hands tremble, burning over the flames but he steadies it when he talks about James. By the time he finishes, Arthur is already disassembling the two firearms he brought. The first thing he says is, “Let’s stop at your safety deposit box.”

Cobb turns left and they’re already on the street of his bank. “Where did you think we were going?”

Cobb drops the guns off quick and when he gets back to the car, Arthur is smoking a dark cigarillo. “What about Phillipa? Have you told her?”

“I don’t really know what to say to her,” Cobb says, starting the engine.

“Much less James,” Arthur guesses. “Fuck. Well, first off, what the hell happened to him?”

“I don’t know,” Cobb says and drags from a new cigarette. “He hasn’t had trouble in school lately, won’t say if anything is bothering him, God only knows what sort of hours he keeps.”

Arthur frowns, “Do they—do they know about Mal?”

“Phillipa does, not James,” Cobb glances at him, “And no, she wouldn’t tell him without consulting me.”

“Alright, fine. What’s next? Child psychiatrist?”

“Already done, but the doctor said a diagnosis takes time. I don’t know how long it’ll be.”

“My flight leaves on Wednesday.”

“Does it?”

“I’ll cancel it.” Arthur says and immediately starts tapping on his tablet. “You didn’t freak on him did you? When you found him in the kitchen?”

-

“James, you have plenty to live for—” he didn’t realize he was crying until his lips are trembling. “I love you and Pippa loves you and—what have I done wrong, just tell me, Jamie—and I’ll fix it—”

“Why’re you crying, Dad?” James asks.

Cobb wipes at his face quickly and says, “When Pippa wakes up, you’ll see, she wouldn’t want you to do this. You shouldn’t,” he says to his son, born with table saw snips on his fingers, splinters in porcelain. “You shouldn’t do this, James. I would miss you, Pippa and Uncle Arthur, we’d miss you so much,” he stands and the gun pieces clatter on the floor, bullets rattling away.

Cobb kneels before him on the floor, “Jamie, please.”

James’ brow is furrowed but he says, “Alright, but he’ll be mad.”

“What? Who? Who will be mad?”

“The Crab. He’s the one that told me to do it.” James turns back to his sandwich and holds it towards Cobb. “Wanna bite?”

-

“I did my best,” Cobb says and Arthur nods, seeming to understand.

“Can we have a fight now? I mean, I have a question for you and you better get defensive on me and give me an excuse to punch you in the mouth.”

“Uh…” Cobb says.

“You took a job?” Arthur accuses, suddenly vicious. “I talked to Eames before I got on the plane, you took a fucking job!”

“No, it was a consultation and not even that, he asked for my advice. It was all hypothetical, I’m not going to be credited for any improvisation or heroics.”

“Cobb, you fucking idiot,” Arthur spits.

“I’d like to contest that,” Cobb replies conversationally.

Arthur slaps the dashboard deafeningly. “This isn’t a joke, Cobb. The job was on a Russian politician, extracting locations of nuclear defense missiles. Half of Russian politics is in uproar right now and the other half is too hot to touch. England is hot; MI6 is livid and hunting Eames’ entrails. If your name gets pulled in, even a whisper, the CIA will happily hand your ass to the Russian government. You’re going to have fucking spooks tailing your car on the way to fucking soccer practice.”

“James plays football.”

“I will kill you myself.”

At the stoplight, Cobb turns to glance at him and Arthur is flushed bright red, adjusting his tie and breathing deeply. “Eames wouldn’t give me up.”

“Yes he would,” Arthur returns without hesitation. “But lucky for you, Saito likes you and he’s already got people on it.”

“And by people you mean…”

“Money.”

“Oh. There you are then, one richer politician, one less secure nuke. My name is nowhere in there.”

“That’s not the fucking point,” Arthur says quietly. “How are you supposed to watch your back and James at the same time?”

There’s a silence between them and Cobb feels the nostalgia in his bones, ceaseless. He should go out this weekend. Pick up another warm body or get obscenely drunk. “I’ll stop,” he says, “I won’t—I’ll stay out of all that now. Seriously.”

Arthur doesn’t say anything but he doesn’t scream at Cobb and that’s a victory, however small.

-

arsonist hands sleep with the dead
black-eyed baby
i dare not dream of angels
Arthur is no angel

-

Phillipa is stunned for one absolute moment. Then she’s upset, looking back and forth between Arthur and Cobb like she’s expecting a punch line. “What? What does that even—?” She’s got the same breaking sound in her voice as the day she broke her arm, “How did he even get a gun?”

“He’s good with numbers, Phillipa.”

Arthur frowns, “He’s not that good at numbers. If anything, he’s good at you and numbers combined, which sort of made it inevitable.”

“Well, in any case, that’s not the important part. There are no more guns in the house, “ Cobb says and he knows Arthur doesn’t need a gun.

“So—what—I just don’t understand. What does this mean about James?” Phillipa asks, white-knuckled grip on her Psychology book.

“We’re not sure yet, but he is almost certainly in danger. Your father has already scheduled a child psychiatrist and he will get the help he needs. But in the time being, we need to know if James has said anything strange to you lately.”

Phillipa casts her eyes around the room, searching for a memory. “Uh, yes, yeah, the, uh, other day, we were out running and he asked me to pick up my feet because they were scratching on the pavement. But I--,” she clutches the front of her shirt, “I wasn’t dragging my feet. I haven’t done that since freshman year of track. He said he heard scratching—like claws, he said he heard like a crab.”

“A crab,” Arthur repeats.

“Yeah, like how crabs scratch the floor or whatever when they walk. He said that I was scratching like a fucking crab. He kept telling me to stop, he got mad, so we just came home.”

“What did you do?”

Phillipa licks her lips, “I thought he was joking. I thought he was just being a dick—oh, fuck, oh my god—Dad, that’s my, he’s my baby brother and he—” her chest heaves and rattles with sobs and Cobb stands to take her into his arms.

“Dad,” she wails desperately into his shoulders. The inside of his chest feels like bursting and it’s been a long time since Arthur put a bullet between his ribs but it’s not the type of thing you forget. “Dad,” she says and she’s got the same tears as Mal, the same desperate sob. “Oh god, Dad.”

-

For James’ 15th birthday, they go out to dinner at a restaurant without ‘Mc’ prefixes on the menu, and Arthur cuts Phillipa’s steak with short, precise snips. “Chivalry is dead,” she complains, “I am perfectly capable of cutting my own steak.”

“Pippa, the last time I cut your food, you weren’t tall enough to ride roller coasters or old enough to handle a knife. Leave me to my habits.”

She wraps her hand, delicate fingers, around his calloused knuckles. “Did you know mom then? When she wasn’t old enough to handle knives?”

Arthur smiles fondly at her hands, “No, but she made your father cut her steak all the time. She loved to watch him struggle.”

“Hey!” Cobb cuts in indignantly.

Arthur finishes cutting and takes her hands, ignoring Cobb. “You have her nail beds.”

“Dad says that,” Phillipa replies. “What does James have?”

When Arthur looks over at him, James snaps to attention, blue eyes hazed in a fog and reflective light, shallowly fathomless. “Her eyes.”

-

Phillipa takes James home early, complaining of being tired, and trying to keep her face as stoic as possible. Arthur watches them go and Cobb watches Arthur who was just as young as them once, such a long time ago. “He made you a coffee table.”

Arthur turns back to Cobb, “I know, it’s sitting in the safe house in London. It’s a little uneven but I’m always sitting at it, I’m obsessed with it. What else did he make?”

Cobb shrugs, “Coffee tables. I told him to make a birdhouse but I don’t know if he’s started working on it yet.”

“Do you help him much?”

“Only the mechanics, physics of a coffee table are pretty straight forward, I check his dimensions and measurements but he won’t even let me write on his blueprints.”

“He has blueprints?” Arthur’s eyes light up.

“Tons of them,” Cobb smiles fondly, thinking of the half-rumpled stack of papers. “He loves them.”

“Can we go look at all of them and cry like old men?” Arthur says, eyes lighting up like they used to when he saw a Tom Ford.

“Check!”

-

They stumble out of the garage at dawn, drunk on four hours of uncomfortable sleep and stiff necks. Phillipa and James are practicing jiu-jitsu on the sundeck and question them with bemused expressions.

“Hey kids,” Cobb says sheepishly and Arthur loosens his tie, dimples catching in the shadows of dawn.

“Coffee will be ready in twenty,” Phillipa says, continuing their practice.

Arthur and Cobb laugh and head inside with their rumpled suits and snapping joints and matched grins.

James watches them go, “When is he going to figure out that there are worse things in life than having two dads?”

“I dunno,” Phillipa shakes her head at them, “Those kids.”

-

“I’m afraid it will take time, Mr. Cobb, I have only seen your son for one session. I’m going to ask I see him twice more this week and hopefully I’ll be able to form a diagnosis in the coming week.”

-

James quits football.

“What? Why?”

“I’m going to focus on carpentry.”

“I thought you had fun playing with your friends.”

“I used to but they’re all losers now, Dad. All they care about is Call of Duty and jerking off.”

“James.”

“Sorry, but it’s true. They annoy the hell out of me.”

“You really weren’t enjoying it?”

“Nah, dad, it’s boring.”

“Well, I guess it’s fine, so long as you know what you’re doing.”

-

Arthur practices jiu-jitsu with James every day. They arch off gravity and twist in elegant symmetry, brushing hair out of their eyes, then sparring, cutting at each other like hummingbirds. Cobb watches him, sipping tea and helping Phillipa with some homework, but he can’t seem to focus. “Don’t worry,” she says, “Uncle Arthur spends the whole day with him.”

“I know,” Cobb says but he can’t associate his voice with his body. “I’m hearing from the psychologist tomorrow morning,” he sighs, “I’m just anxious.”

“I know,” Phillipa says, “It’s okay, you don’t have to explain.”

Phillipa smiles with all her wisdomless teeth and Cobb holds his breath for all the exquisite pain in his chest.

-

Arthur ices old aches and sits on Cobb’s desk in the study. He wears loose pants and showers and shaves in Cobb’s guest room. He’s a guest and presses his fingertips to the creases of Mal’s old notes. “I have some of these in my house in Colorado.”

Cobb glances up from his drink and James is eleven, Phillipa is fourteen. The house is silent with the sounds of his children sleeping and rain pelting against the roof and Arthur icing an old injury. Cobb says, “Mal left them everywhere.”

“Eames told me she left him some, too. One of them said something about starbursts, a few were about you, and one had the lone word ‘Phillipa’ on it.”

“When she found out she was pregnant,” Cobb clarifies, sipping the scotch.

“That’s what Eames thought, too.”

“Since when do you talk to Eames so much?”

Arthur shrugs, “We all kept up with each other after the Fischer job. Except you, that is.”

“You knew where I lived.” Cobb says, disinterestedly.

“And you knew my phone number, “Arthur returns icily.

Cobb is silent, listening to Arthur rustle ageless post-its. He didn’t think it would strike a nerve in Arthur. He sips from his drink and stares at empty bookshelves. “I’m sorry.”

“This one says ‘Dominic thinks he can carry the world on his shoulders,’” Arthur reads, ignoring him.

Cobb sets down the drink and stands, pulling the notes away from him so Arthur will meet his eyes. “One apology is all you’re getting, Arthur.”

-

The psychiatrist sits before Cobb and Arthur and folds her hands over and over with manicured nails. The windows leads to a fire escape, a corridor outside leads to elevators and there stairs at the end of hall. Arthur sits with his back straight, proud of himself for having wrestled Cobb into wearing a suit.

“Now, Mr. Cobb, when I say this, I do not mean for you to panic.”

There are two exits in this room, three on this floor, Arthur is wearing a knife in his boot.

“After spending time with you son, I have gauged that he may be in the initial stages of schizophrenia. Now, I remind you that our time together has been limited and I would like to spend more time with him and order some tests before I truly conclude this, but as you asked for an advanced prognosis.”

“What? He—how the hell—how can he have that?” Cobb feels the tips of his fingers go numb, the room thins and shudders with rain. “He’s only—”

“It is not uncommon for young men to develop schizophrenia at this age, and certain environmental factors, such as trauma, or even puberty, can trigger the disorder for those who are genetically at risk for it.”

“Genetically at risk?” Arthur repeats, “James isn’t—”

“I recognize that you marked the forms otherwise but I am wondering if it is at all possible for a family member to have gone overlooked? It’s actually very common, forgive me if it seems out of line, but is there a history of suicide at all? Depression? Brain aneurysms?”

“No, no—”

“Suicide,” Arthur repeats. “A history of…” Arthur says, to himself.

“No, yes, I mean, James’ mother, she committed suicide when James was a baby,” Cobb says.

The psychiatrist with the slanted face and manicured nails writes something down, “James didn’t mention that. Are there any details you’d be willing to tell me about his mother in the months prior to her death?”

“Why? What does that have to do with it?” Cobb says and he can’t see two steps ahead of him.

“Nothing yet but her history would help cross out some other disorders.”

“What kind of history would that be?” Arthur asks, back straight, boots flat, voice steeled.

The psychiatrist flips back through her notepad, writing on a different page, “Social abnormalities, inappropriate emotional responses, erratic sleeping patterns—”

“Delusions?” Arthur asks.

She stops writing and folds her hands again. “Auditory and visual hallucinations have been known to occur in cases of—”

“Like the crab,” Cobb says, “The crab that James hears.”

“I am concerned about that, yes.”

“What else?” Arthur says, though he’s gripping the arm of the couch expectantly like he knows what comes next.

“Well, hallucinations usually imply a difficulty distinguishing reality. Is there a history of delusions of that nature in the family?”

Cobb pulls at Arthur’s fingers for him to relax. “No.”

Votre monde n'est pas réel.

-

Instead of driving home, Cobb and Arthur sit in the parking lot for ten minutes. Cobb lights a cigarette with shaking hands and doesn’t speak. Arthur runs his hands through his hair a few times, mussing it loose and doesn’t speak until he can longer bear the silence. “She—”

Cobb is ready for him, “This could not have happened. This is impossible.”

“It could have, I mean—”

“No.”

“Dom.”

“She could not have, Arthur. She could not have, she was my wife, I would have known—”

“Dom, don’t.”

“I would have known. I would have known. There is no way, Arthur, no way. I would have known and it was not—god, it could not have been. I did that to her, it was my fault; I did that to my wife, Arthur. I made her a monster, I did it—it was my fault—”

“Cobb, stop, listen to what she said.”

“No.”

“Listen to yourself, you’re hysterical.”

Cobb tosses the cigarette out the window and breathes unevenly. “No, Arthur. You were there, too. She said this is her initial prognosis, she could be wrong, James is sick because of something I did. Bad parenting, maybe, neglect or abuse, or maybe I’m crowding him, but it’s my fault, my problem, my solution, he’ll get whatever he needs and then we’ll work on whatever it is I’ve done wrong.”

“Dom,” Arthur says, voice hard, “You’re being irrational.”

“Well, I’ll work on that, too,” he says and starts the ignition.

-

A few years ago, on a business trip to New York City, Arthur slid through corporate executives to meet the company’s new architect. Arthur’s faked his way through several levels of government, a couple of suits expecting a stock investor’s personal assistant posed little challenge. When they’re ‘introduced,’ Cobb keeps his features expressionless and Arthur makes a half-assed comment on neo-gothic building in New York.

In the bathroom, Arthur fixes his hair and makes sure the place is empty. Cobb raises an eyebrow at him until Arthur grins devilishly, “What?”

“What are you doing here?

Arthur shrugs, “I missed you, I was already here. All I had to do was pick up some dude’s dry cleaning and mess up my hair a little.”

“You don’t look that young anymore.”

Arthur’s grin widens, “But I don’t look too old either.”

They hug a little tighter than usual; Arthur couldn’t make it into California the last time he was scheduled to. “How are my charges?” Arthur asks.

Cobb smiles, “Your niece won’t stop shouting over the phone about girls at her school who are, and I quote, ‘ugly fucking sluts,’ and your nephew sprained his ankle trying to do some insane parkour stunt.”

“Those kids,” Arthur sighs, though it does nothing to hide his smirk, “I swear, I wish I had a time machine.”

Cobb laughs and gestures to the PASIV case Arthur has on the counter, “You do.”

-
The first time Mal left a note in Dom’s possession was the morning after their first night together. She left it sprawled in pen on a napkin, under his alarm clock. The door shutting behind her wakes him to a cold Paris flat and her curled handwriting. The note read, Your mouth felt like wine. It would be in your best interest to call me again, Dominic.

Dom scrambled for the phone and only bruised himself a bit. He said, “I never dreamt of doing differently.”

Mal sounded like she was walking down a busy street, wind rushing through her speech. “After class today, meet me at the bridge we cross to get to the university.”

It was the first note of many. On their wedding night, Mal folded one into the breast pocket of his jacket. Scrawled with red pen and punctuated with a lipstick print, it reads: Tonight begins eternity, Dominic, flush against your skin and marriage bed. At the altar, I couldn’t breathe for how much I love you.

Dom finds her dancing with Arthur and immediately cuts in. Arthur says predictably indignant things but Dom was occupied kissing Mal breathless. When they parted, Dom said, “I can never breathe around you.” Mal laughed.

The night of their anniversary, slipped into the bathroom mirror, Dom found another note. It’d been ripped off a larger piece of paper and read: I cracked open my cherry skull and scooped the pit out. Run, darling, eternity will chase you.

Dominic runs and runs but it’s too late before he realizes he isn’t getting anywhere. Arthur pulls off to the side of a road in Dresden and talks Dom through his first panic attack. Some of Mal’s notes read: Cheese, milk, eggs.

One says: I must have drunk the worm at the bottom of your Rorschach.

One says: I’m drowning in a river, shrinking my lungs into the black.

¬-

When they were young, Eames used to forge amateur passports and get them detained by border patrol entering Algeria. Mal sweet talks her father into pulling the strings necessary for their release. Book bags slung over their twenty-something shoulders, Arthur says, “At least we made it this far.”

On the jet back, flown by a contact Miles refers to casually as “Smiths,” Mal argues with her father. Arthur does his best to keep his eyes averted but curiosity gets the better of him. Arthur swears it was only a half second but it was long enough for Miles to turn the blame on him. He accuses Arthur of poorly orchestrating a business trip and Arthur looked close to having an apoplectic fit before Mal steps in again.

Mal gets kicked out of her house for cursing at her father, for getting caught by border patrol, for defending Arthur and in the moment of her perfect fury Dom knew he was in love. Mal moves into his apartment and they dream together.

-

Arthur has habit of following Dom around the house oblivious to what he’s doing. The week Arthur visited to recover from a bullet wound, he shuffled around the house barefoot and proclaiming his boredom as obnoxiously as possible. That is, until Dom deemed him the task of building a sundeck.

This time, Arthur seems fully aware of his actions and he’s wearing heavy boots that stomp every step. Dom can’t even make breakfast for his kids before Arthur is at the table, tapping his foot. Even when Dom promises to disembowel him if he doesn’t stop, Arthur says, “In your dreams.”

Phillipa and James are out running and Arthur crowds Dom into the living room with a PASIV device on the coffee table. James has been getting MRI’s at the hospital and there are medication pamphlets on the kitchen table and Dom knows this can’t be it. “This isn’t the answer.”

Arthur watches him stand completely still and says, “If you change your mind, let me know.”

Dom watches him walk away with the PASIV in hand and says, “Thank you.”

-

Dom’s favorite time with Mal was the summer of her second pregnancy. The waves would drive up on the shore and Phillipa would run from them, screeching happily. Beaches in California were boring though, and Mal spent her second trimester curled in the sand of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Mal cradled her belly and spread suntan lotion on her golden skin and said, “Let’s live here instead, Dominic.”

Phillipa was walking already, carrying insignificant objects from her father to her mother. Dom wrapped his arms around her and said over Phillipa’s squirming, “You don’t speak Spanish, Mal.”

Phillipa frees herself and waddles back to her mother, just as Mal raises a two-fingered salute at Dom. Phillipa grabs her fingers and asks, “Mommy, what’s that?”

Mal laughs uproariously, sitting up to kiss her, “It’s nothing, darling. Where is your papa?”

Phillipa turns to point one chubby finger at Dom, “There!”

Dom turns his hands up at her in questions, “Where’s Maman?”

Phillipa twists back to point at Mal but Mal is hiding her face behind her shawl, giggling obviously. Phillipa gasps, “Oh no! Where is Maman?”

-

Arthur builds the sundeck and it’s almost inevitable that he pulls his stitches. Dom helps him into the bedroom—once Guest Room, now Arthur’s Room—and helps peel his shirt off. The wound has already started healing, so ripping the stitches was nothing particularly major or minor. Dom actually finishes pretty quickly. He’d been practicing his suture since the last time Arthur was over. That time, Arthur got a brick wall to the forehead.

When Arthur’s finished, he sits up on the bed and says, “Thanks.”

Dom shrugs, “Can’t let you bleed all over my new sundeck.”

Arthur laughs all straight teeth and sweet dimples. His eyes are dark and they’re all Dom can see, narrowing his vision until Arthur is breathing at his lips, beating too fast, leaning too far. “Stop.”

Arthur falters, blinking and then shuts down, eyes dark and dark. “Sorry—I—I’m sorry,” he says and walks out of the room.

Dom’s voice is stuck in his throat, he didn’t want Arthur to rip fresh stitches but Arthur is already gone. The sundeck is built overnight and Arthur calls a cab for the airport.

-

“Are you fucking kidding me? She’s such an ugly fucking slut, I can’t stand her, she’s an idiot.”

“Fuck that, let’s go to the beach.”

“I don’t give a fuck about your last year swimsuit, let’s go to the beach, don’t be a cunt.”

“James you left your skateboard out, pick it up, douche!”

“Phillipa,” Dom says warningly, for the last three years.

“Fuck—sorry, Dad,” she calls back but at least she shuts the door to her room while she’s on the phone.

-

Arthur and Phillipa go grocery shopping, slinging reusable canvas bags all over the place until they leave. Dom sits with James in the drawing room, watching a soundless movie. James is sitting back and murmuring to himself to the empty air beside him.

“That’s my dad, old a lot, he’s home pretty often, though, I don’t know how he pays for everything. I think we’re rich, but that implies he does something, I don’t think he does majority of the time, mostly watches me practice. He tries to read my mind, too, pretty intense at fourteen.”

“James,” Dom says and touches his shoulder.

“Watch the movie.”

James doesn’t want to stay in the psychiatric hospital and after the moment in the kitchen, Dom doesn’t feel particularly safe with him away, even if Arthur and he have to sleep in shifts. The psychiatrist has prescribed psychotherapeutic medications and James has only just started them.

Dom sits back and pretends to watch the movie but listens to James talking instead.

-

Arthur sits on the edge of his desk, wearing jeans and an old jumper, but this time, there is no ice in his hands. Dom lets him have all the godforsaken notes this time and listens carefully for stirring in the house. Phillipa and James fell asleep in the living room, watching an infomercial.

Arthur collects a note and reads, Close your eyes, Dom, eternity is closing in.

Arthur reads, “I’ve shred my hands through this epiphany but wasted it on you.”

Arthur reads, “Water above me, water below.”

Dom wrings his hands and Arthur says, from his own mouth, “You might have thought to use these during the trial.”

“And say what?” Dom snaps, “Reduce limbo and inception to nothing? It doesn’t matter now, it didn’t matter then. Besides, I didn’t find most of these until after I came back. Any letter Marie found she hid again, she hated me so much.”

Arthur reads, “The bloom of winter blood, strikes and rattles teeth.”

“Stop it, Arthur, goddamn it. I did my penance already, stop torturing me.”

“Listen to yourself,” Arthur says, “you’re not allowed to brush this off so easily.”

“Easy? You think this is easy for me?”

“Yes, the one scenario where the world doesn’t revolve around your mistakes and you refuse to accept even the remote possibility,” Arthur gestures at him angrily. “Why can’t you admit that this is even an option?”

“Exactly which part is the option, Arthur, explain your reasoning to me. As far as I see it, I incepted Mal, that was an accident, but still something I did, and using my teenage son as an excuse is not acceptable. That is not an option.”

“It’s not an excuse, Dom, there is legitimacy behind it, stop pretending you can’t see it just because you don’t want to complicate things again.”

“Right,” Dom scoffs, “because my life was doing so well this time around.”

“This isn’t about you,” Arthur says and then checks his pocket, where Dom knows he keeps his totem.

“Arthur, this is irrational, even if we go down into a dream, she won’t be able to confirm or deny anything.” Dom slumps into his desk chair and tries to keep calm, “What am I supposed to say to her or even—”

“Can I show you something?” Arthur asks, interrupting.

“What is it?”

-

 Today is a Wednesday. When I came home from school, Maman was playing piano in the study. I love to watch her play. She said she was playing Beethoven. It was a lovely song, it made me sleepy. School makes me sleepy, too. It moves too slowly.

Claudet does not want to speak to me, she says I was being very rude to her the other day but I don’t recall. It is no bother, anyway. Amil and I have voted her out of the group because Claudet likes John but Amil likes John, too. I like listening to Maman play. I have to go now, supper is ready.

I’ve just woken from a cauchemar, I was sleeping in a room but it was totally white. I woke up there and everywhere I touched, my hands and feet would stain black, like I was dirty, but I wasn’t. There were no doors, only a window and I couldn’t open it or break the glass. Outside the window, there was only darkness but after moving all around the room, the inside was just as black.

It felt like the walls were closing in and I couldn’t breathe and there wasn’t any monster there but it had to be a cauchemar, I was scared. Père said to go back to sleep but I wanted to remember.

Today I had my first root canal. Père came to the dentist with me and promised to stay in the room. I wasn’t scared when the dentist used his laughter gas, I was asleep for the whole time. When I woke up, Père was holding a small figurine, it looked like a stone but he said I’m not allowed to hold it or touch it.

He promised tomorrow we could have ice cream. I like strawberry.

-

“What is this?” Dom says and flips randomly between pages.

“It’s Mal’s journal, from when she was a child,” he says, “I don’t want you to get upset but I had Phillipa pick it up yesterday.”

“What?” Dom stands, though he isn’t sure what he means to argue.

Arthur eases him back into his chair, “Listen, for a sec. When Miles died, he willed his safety deposit box at a bank in Anaheim to Phillipa. Do you remember that?”

“Yeah,” Dom realizes, “he asked her to open it when she was eighteen. Wait, you took her to open it? Why would you keep that from me?”

“I knew what was inside and I didn’t know how you would react.”

“What was inside? This journal?”

“The journal, a few pieces of old jewelry, Miles’ totem, and a hunting dagger. But inside the journal, Miles tucked a letter that Mal mailed to him before she died, after limbo.”

-

Père,
  By the time you get to this, it will be too late. You never check the mail at your Berlin apartment and by then, your Berlin will be rubble and dust behind me.
  I want you to know that I knew. I can see it. Dominic is insisting that this life is not a dream but he wasn’t raised like I was. I’ve lived in the periphery of Dreamshare nearly my entire life and now, at the forefront, living a meticulous dream, I know it. I can only hope that once I wake up, Dom will realize the same. If he stays down here, take care of him.
  I know he took it hard, falling into a dream like this after our real lives and our children have all been left topside. It was like a rupture, Père, it was so loud up there, with breathing and bleeding hearts, the screaming, screaming universe and it’s like a rupture down here. It’s so quiet here, everything is hushed and no one’s heart is beating.    Could you imagine it, Père? The rupture of a city compressed into a dream.
  Dom says this is reality but this can’t be it. My top has stopped spinning and so someone must be after us.
  It doesn’t matter in the end, I have to go. I have to wake up, I have to find Phillipa and James, they’re waiting. These creatures here, projections or forgeries or whatever they may be, they are not my children. This is not my house, you are not my father, and this is not my world.
  Fortunately, when you die in a dream, you wake up.
  My father taught me that.

-

Phillipa was five the first time she asked about Mal and that time was easier than any of the rest. When she turned twelve, she picked at her food and abruptly asked, “What happened to mom?” The next time, she’s thirteen, and instead of asking for facts, she says, “What was mom like?” Arthur comes over and she asks him about Mal. She asked Miles, Marie, even Ariadne.

“I never knew her, I’m sorry.”

After she turns fourteen, the parental controls on Phillipa’s laptop alert Dom that she’s been researching strange topics. Dom scrolls through a history of “how to wear eyeliner” and “zac effron” searches until one says “suicides in california 2010.”

“mallorie cobb LA obituary 2010”

“mallorie cobb murder”

“mallorie cobb murder investigation”

“mallorie cobb dominic cobb murder”

Dom buries his face in his hands and tries to keep it together.

The next day, he keeps Phillipa home from school and makes crepes for breakfast, her favorite. They sit across from each other in the living room and he starts with, “Phillipa, there’s something I have to tell you.”

Phillipa sets down her orange juice and says very calmly, “Did you kill mom?”

“No,” Dom says immediately, “No, I did not, sweetheart. I would never have done anything to hurt you mother, I loved her. Maman committed suicide, Pippa. She was under a lot of stress and she wasn’t herself. One day I’ll show you, but for now all I have is the truth—”

Phillipa is silent, watching Dom move frantically to explain the events that occurred that evening, ages ago. Phillipa’s eyes are watery and her lower lips trembles but at the end of it all, she says, “I believe you, Dad.”

Dom holds her to his chest when she starts crying and doesn’t hide his own tears. Phillipa shakes but promises not to tell James. He’s too young.

-

Arthur waits for him that night, dressed in loose clothes when he finally makes it to Arthur’s room. Upstairs, James fell asleep on Phillipa’s bed while she was writing an essay on As I Lay Dying. Arthur shuts the door behind him and presents the PASIV from underneath his bed. Dom’s out of practice, and watches Arthur slip the needles into his skin without flinching.

“What do you think? Ten minutes ought to do the trick,” Arthur says and reclines beside Cobb on the bed, PASIV cables between them.

“Make it fifteen,” Dom suggests and Arthur’s arm flexes for the machine, “Fifteen it is.”

The world blurs with the sound of compression, narrows into warm sheets and sleep and Arthur’s dark, dark hair.

-

Arthur’s dream is a perfect reincarnation of the hotel from the Inception job. Dom wakes up in the lobby, receiving a room key from the hotel manager. His hands are smooth, slightly calloused and young. He turns the keys over in his old fingers it was all so long ago. “Thank you,” he murmurs absently and heads to the bathroom.

Arthur is there, washing his hands with something akin to marvel. His hair is slicked back and long, gelled immaculately but when Dom approaches, Arthur picks at it, laughing. “Holy hell, look at me, look at my hair—”

Dom laughs, “I’m guessing this isn’t the usual way you dream then.”

Arthur rolls his eyes, “I’m not even sure how we’re doing this. If I’m doing it or you are,” Arthur slaps the table excitedly, “Damn, look at my biceps,” he flexes, “I used to be so good looking.”

Dom raises an eyebrow at him but instead of teasing him, says, “It’s probably me, I mean, it’s all trying to get back to the past. You look young, I look young, when I find Mal, and she’ll probably be just as young as us.”

Arthur smiles at him, dimples flaring and eyes pinching just as much as they used to, that rare Arthur smile, “Eames is going to love this.”

Dom turns back to the mirror and he’s dressed as he was the day of the Fischer job, thin hands and bare boned. He’s not even this tall anymore, topside. “Yeah, well, I’m going now. I don’t know where she may be. I have a room here, if you want to go up and wait for me there.”

“Yeah,” Arthur says and takes the key right out of his hand. He laughs at it, “It would be that room.”

“What is it?”

He flashes the key at Dom, “Room 528.”

-

James wakes up to a quiet house. Pippa’s room is dark but the door is open, allowing light through. He kicks off the blanket and steps toward the light with heavy limbs. Beside him, Pippa is asleep at her computer, papers scattered on the floor. James watches the rise and fall of her shoulders for a moment but then heads downstairs.

The rest of the house is dark, too, except for the light under the closed door of Arthur’s room. James heads into the kitchen and sits under the table. The dinner table is sturdy, made of thick, heavy oak, cloaking him under its shadow. James thinks about grass blades and shuts his eyes as hard as he can to count the stars bursting inside of them.

The world is silent down here, the oak of the table closes out the rest of the house and down here in the shadow, James can hear his own heartbeat. He counts it, closed eyes and hands around his own throat to feel the jump of is pulse. James listens to the buzzing of the refrigerator and his own beating dark matter and breathes.

The crab scuttles and scratches and hisses but doesn’t say a word.

-

Dom lets his feet guide him through the dream, catering the whims to turn left or right until he finds himself before the entrance to the bar and stops. The weather outside doesn’t change but he takes a moment to know that if he spins the top, it will not fall.

As expected, Dom walks through the door and immediately lays eyes on Mal. She looks the same as she did twelve years ago, just as subtle as ever, just as beautiful. Poised at the bar in the dress she died in, her limbs are just as graceful as ever. Dom’s whim carries him, and regardless of perversion or propriety, he kisses her cheek.

Her ghost eyes flare at him, “Hello, Dominic.”

Dom sits beside her and flags down the bartender. “Whiskey, neat,” he turns to Mal, “Would you like a drink?”

Mal smirks knowingly and Dom feels like running, “Sure.”

“And a glass of your best red wine,” Dom tells the bartender, who serves them rather quickly.

Mal sips at her glass, fluttering her eyelashes in all directions. Dom keeps the words in his throat and sips his own drink instead. “I suppose I should feel lucky,” she says. “These days, you don’t even buy a girl a drink before you use her.”

Dom can’t even deny it, “I’m not here to use you, Mal.”

“Aren’t you,” she says, unimpressed. “Why are you here then?”

“I could ask you the same question,” he says, and it was so long ago when he was last here, carving into Robert Fischer, what is he carving at now? “It’s been a long time.”

“It has,” she contemplates. “But I live here, Dominic. I have always been here, it appears, I always will be.”

Dom almost smiles at the irony, “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see.”

“So long lives this and this gives life to thee,” Mal finishes but doesn’t look anywhere near smiling. “Shakespeare wrote that sonnet for a man, didn’t you know?”

“Did he? I was absent that day?”

“You know it doesn’t make sense for you to be here,” Mal says.

“I know,” Dom ducks his head for a moment, counts to five.

“Then why are you here?”

Dom snorts, “Oh, god, what is this? Self-assessment?”

“Yes,” Mal says seriously. “There’ll be a written, so pay attention.”

“I don’t have a pen,” Dom challenges.

“Then you’ll fail.”

“That’s just not fair.”

Mal looks no less somber, “Justice is blind, Dominic. Surely, you of all people recognizes that.”

“That was not justice, Mal,” Dom argues, suddenly flushed. “That was your malice, it was your vengeance—I mean, how much did you hate me? You must have really hated me, goddamn, Mal. You hung me out to dry. You hung me.”

Silence drops and Dom turns to find the projections staring at them. Dom sighs and relaxes to ease the projections. Topside, one note says: Pain is in the mind.

Mal settles in her chair, undisturbed, no less immaculate, “You want to know if I did the same to our children.”

“Did you?”

“Do they miss me?” she asks instead.

Dom’s throat burns, “They don’t know anything but how to miss you. You didn’t answer my question.”

Mal shrugs, “You didn’t answer mine.”

“Mal, I’m here because I want to know—”

“And yet, you know I can’t answer that for you, Dominic. I am not a conduit, I am a manifestation. I am your crab, scratching at your skull for twelve years. Perhaps you should look into your own genetic make ups—”

Dom rubs at his brow, “I shouldn’t have come here. This is perpetuating a dead end.”

“You knew that,” Mal says in sing-song, but when Dom stands to leave, she is outraged. “Why are you here?” she screams.

The projections watch her in fascination but no one moves. Mal sighs, “Why are you here? I am made of your impressions of me, Dom. I am the most corrupt, most unreliable form of me you will ever reach.” Mal stands, wine glass forgotten until she shatter it in a single crack. She doesn’t take her eyes off Dom and she doesn’t bleed. “I cannot tell you, but in all honesty, would it matter if I did?”

“Yes,” he pleads, “James needs to know, I need to—”

Mal touches his cheek, like approaching a wounded animal, “No, Dominic, it doesn’t matter. Why doesn’t it matter?”

-

Dom finds Arthur in the hotel room, doing back flips that he hasn’t been able to do in years. Arthur laughs wildly and they take the elevator to the roof of the hotel. They tumble down the inseams of the skyscraper and Arthur falls just as fast, youth crashing—

—into age, warm beds, and Pippa standing in the doorway. She’s seventeen, and she says, “What are you doing?”

Arthur glances at Dom with wrinkled skin and Dom says, “Going through time to chase a ghost.”

“Did you catch any?” she says but her voice isn’t steady.

Arthur sits up and removes both of their needles, throws them away.

Dom touches her bare arms and says, “Did you want to see her?”

Phillipa bites her lip and casts her eyes down. Dom touches her chin for her to meet his eyes. “It’s okay, I’m not angry with you. You deserve this, you deserve to know. Join your uncle on the bed, he’ll only prick you for a moment and then you’ll fall asleep, okay?”

“I’ll be safe,” Phillipa says.

Dom leaves the room, having never expected anything else.

-

James is in the kitchen, cooking, when Dom finds him. He’s murmuring to himself about seafood and Dom sits outside the kitchen door and listens. The house is silent with the echo of his top spinning on the floor. When it clatters on the hardwood, James is absolutely silent.

Dom stands and Phillipa drops and James listens.

-

Phillipa dreams of tomato sun and sweet smelling flowers and meets Arthur’s projection of Mal, who hugs Phillipa to her chest and speaks entirely in French. Arthur explains to Phillipa that Mal is not real, her form is a cautionary tale, a memory, and a projection and Phillipa understands. Phillipa is safe.

Arthur and Dom sit in his study, icing old wounds with pink post-its and aged eyes.”She was a natural, Dom. The dream was beautiful, it was like the inside of a Monet. She’ll go back to it, she was better than Ariadne, than Eames—better than the new kids trying to run the game.”

Dom drinks from a glass of water and says, “What are you doing after this?”

Arthur stops, “I was thinking of showering, but I have developed a tendency to trip over stuff while on Somnacin.”

Dom stands and tells Arthur he meant after LA. “Oh,” Arthur says, “I don’t know, a job, probably.”

“Don’t go,” Dom says. Arthur puts down the post-its and it’s been too long, and Dom says, “Look at me.” Dom can hear his kids in the living room, probably watching a violent film, kids these days always are, and Dom says, “Stay with us. Stay with me.”

Arthur’s eyes are the same, are no different, are quiet, are reserved, are open. “Yeah, okay.”

-

Rising and falling between dreams makes Dom feel weightless. A part of him belongs to the dreams, even after twelve years, dissociation is not so easy. James is sick; James has antipsychotics on the kitchen table these days and takes one in the morning, one after school, and a different one for when he goes to bed.

He sleeps now, he sleeps at nine o’clock and Phillipa shuts her own door to muffle the keyboard clacking. Dom will find her sometimes, tanning or writing or staring into the distance and in her resemblance is foreign to him. The first thing Arthur taught her was French, when she was two and could pronounce almost anything. In dreams, the first thing he teaches her is protection: totems, militarization, krav maga, and forgery. Dom drops with her and creates irrational architectural structures, he teaches her how to traverse a mine field, open safes, open minds.

James sleeps now and says at the breakfast table, “I want to do it, too.”

Dom stirs his coffee and smiles when Arthur says, “Finish high school first.”

Phillipa graduated and shrugged into a dream. Dom shakes off Dreamshare and worries about a mortgage. He ushers the secrets of Mal’s death to his fifteen-year-old son and goes to bed at night beside his oldest friend. Iced wounds and cracked wine glasses blur into the periphery and James listens but can no longer hear it—can no longer hear the hissing.

-

Miles dropped into their first dream and the world shuddered into clarity. James drops with Phillipa and they carve the oceans open, burst dreams out of black and bent everything around them into a matrix. They dream at heights Dom would never have dared and they take care of each other. Dom cleans the coffee table in his living room and pulls them back when they swim out too far. He is patient and cautious and because he threaded infinity for his children to sow.

Inside his dream, Mal shattered glass, defied time, and approached a wounded animal to say, “Because James and Phillipa are waiting for you.”