This Thing Between Us

Thiago tells the whole story to the police, but they attribute it to mental illness. Jacobson is blamed for Diane’s murder, and the local police hand everything over to the FBI, including the vet’s body. When the police call Vera’s stepfather and tell him that Diane died due to an attack, he asks if Thiago was responsible. Mr. Diaz won’t answer Thiago’s calls, and though he came to town to identify Diane’s body, he immediately flew back home. When Thiago is released from the hospital, he flies back to Chicago for Diane’s funeral. This time, no one smiles at him, and he knows they all think he’s cursed. Thiago apologizes to Mr. Diaz and leaves. He fears that the afterlife reflects the individual’s expectations, and he worries that he’ll “die wrong.” He just wants the truth.

Thiago awaits the cook, testing whether he is dreaming or awake from time to time while realizing that reality is no longer logical. He stays at a hotel downtown, and one day, he is served papers. Mr. Diaz’s family is moving to have him declared “mentally incompetent” so that all his money will go to Vera’s stepfather. They cite the police report as evidence. Thiago buys a one-way ticket to Durango, Mexico, where he plans to wait out the end. He takes out a bunch of cash and then goes to a bar. Suddenly, the Def Leppard song that was playing on the jukebox skips, and Bruce Springsteen sings, “You may think I don’t hear you, and that may make you blue…But I got plenty of time, so who you talkin’ to…” (221). Thiago downs his drink and leaves. Outside, he sees a shadow, and he hears Diane’s voice singing, “I’m here whether you neeeeed me, here whether you seeeee me…” (221). When he sees her, there’s something wrong with her face, and he knows it’s not really her. She says that Vera breaking up with him was the happiest day of her life because he held Vera back. Diane blames his mother’s cancer for driving Thiago and Vera back together and says that Vera would still be alive if she never took him back. Suddenly, he begins vomiting blood and spits out several teeth and a piece of his tongue on the sidewalk.

Thiago goes to an emergency dentist who anesthetizes Thiago to fix his mouth. Thiago wakes up on the beach. There’s a banquet table full of people, including Diane, Brimley, Jacobson, and the cook, though Vera is not there. The cook tells him that this place is “beyond reality.” Thiago’s mother says that she has missed him and that his father doesn’t drink anymore. When he says that he misses Vera, they all seem to sigh with relief and begin to laugh. Thiago senses that the cook “could never be destroyed, only delayed” (229). When Thiago asks who he is, the cook says it doesn’t matter because he was “called.” The cook says that Vera is waiting for him, and Thiago sees the wall at the end of the jetty. His feet begin to walk, unbidden, and his arm reaches out. He thinks of the Garden of Eden and humankind’s loss of innocence. Something inside the wall grabs his wrist and pulls him in. Then he wakes up in the dentist’s chair.

The dentist is surprised to hear that Thiago dreamed while unconscious; that doesn’t ever happen. Thiago returns to his hotel. He takes several Vicodin and is suddenly paralyzed, watching as several days pass outside his window. He closes his eyes, and memories play on them like a movie projected onto a screen. He sees himself and Vera making love on their wedding night; then his face changes into the cook’s, and he sees Vera marry and sleep with him. A dark shape appears behind Thiago in the hotel room, and he wants to scream. The television turns on to 2001: A Space Odyssey, and HAL’s voice tells Dave to sit down and be calm; just then, Thiago’s knees bend, and he sits back onto the mattress. HAL says to take a “stress pill,” and Thiago takes five more Vicodin. HAL says to think things over, assuring Dave that he wants to help him, and Thiago falls back into darkness.

In his dream, Thiago watches from outside himself. He finds Fidelia Marroquín hiding under a blanket; she asks what he wants, and when he speaks, it is not in his own voice but in the voice of first Jacobson and then Diane. He asks if Fidelia knows who he is, and she nods, saying that she doesn’t want to die. He tells her not to worry—that heaven awaits. Then, in a second dream, Thiago is trapped against something hard and struggles to breathe. He hears someone talking about a sound coming from inside the wall. Next, he finds himself in the condo’s living room, but a new family lives there. He steps forward, and the floorboards creak, but when he looks down, he realizes that he has no body. A man walks toward the sound, passing right through Thiago, and calls out that he found another cold spot. In the nursery, next to the sleeping baby, sits an Itza.

Next, Thiago goes to the county jail to visit Esteban Lopez. Thiago reminds Esteban that he claimed to have turned on the platform because he heard a man call his name. Esteban is panicked, picking at bleeding fingers and begging to be left alone. He finally admits that the man who called his name on the platform was Thiago. He says that Thiago’s scalp was peeled back and that he had an intense light on his face, his mouth foaming with blood and jagged teeth. Esteban recognized Thiago in court, and he didn’t want to point him out.

Vera’s stepfather won’t take Thiago’s calls. Champagne, caviar, and other expensive food items are delivered to his hotel room, but Thiago never ordered them. Determined to do Diane’s spell again, he asks the waiter if he can have his notepad and asks another hotel worker to get several items for him. He then goes to the cemetery with a pint of vodka. Thiago feels that he understands the cook’s intentions and that he won’t be able to stop the entity from taking him over. Further, he thinks, the reason the entity hasn’t taken Vera is because it cannot gain access to her, wherever she is. He believes the cook is tired of being trapped between worlds and is trying to find a way to get a real body. 

Thiago begins to blame Vera for leaving him behind to deal with this entity, as though she took the easy way out because she never struggled the way he did. The cook stands behind him, reassuring him that he won’t be alone. His father’s voice emerges, saying that at least they “got Fidelia” for releasing the entity on Thiago. Thiago gags when he remembers what they did to her. He asks his father why he had to go see Esteban, and his father answers, saying Thiago needed to see all the lives he ruined. His father says that the family is cursed and that Thiago keeps their sins alive. Thiago hears his zipper move, and when he looks down, he is urinating on Vera’s grave. He remembers the priest in The Exorcist saying that “the point of possession [is] to make us despair. To see ourselves as animal and ugly. It [is] hard to see [him]self any other way” (248).

Thiago stumbles back to the hotel and calls the concierge to see if she’s obtained the things he asked for. He opens the champagne and swallows all of the Vicodin he has left. He plans to burn the pages he wrote as soon as he has the supplies he needs. Then he’ll get into the bathtub and slip away. He says that this is the only way he can apologize to Vera: to take responsibility for his faults. 

At this point, the perspective changes. The concierge knocks on the door, and Thiago looks up, but all he sees is stone and moss, which envelop him. The new narrator says that it is only in darkness that “we” can be whole again, and the speaker describes this moment as one in which “we [become] singular” (251). Thiago claims his seat at the banquet, crying while everyone else shrieks and moans, and the speaker says that “your” cries will be the same.