I’m shocked. “That’s all we pay you? You ought to make more than that. As of today, we’re doubling your wages.”
She tilts her head. “You discuss this with Se?or Andersson, se?ora? No?”
“No.” I shake my head firmly. “But trust me—he won’t mind.”
After Michael and I have lunch, I ask Alma what her plans are for the afternoon. “No mucho,” she says. “I think I go after the kitchen drawers. They need organización. And cleaning.”
“How would you feel about watching Michael for a few hours?”
She eyes me suspiciously. “You sure, se?ora?”
“Alma.” I put my hand on her arm. “If I have ever acted as if I didn’t trust you . . . please believe me, it’s not because of you.” I can feel my eyes pleading with her. “It’s because of me. It’s my guilt, and . . . this is my life.” I remove my fingers from her arm, but keep my gaze on her. “In the meantime, I think Michael would have a fine afternoon with you.” I turn to glance at him, still seated at the table. “Wouldn’t you, buddy?”
He does not look up. “Can I count the money again?”
I’d hoped he’d want to page through the dictionary some more, but counting money is better than nothing, I suppose.
Baby steps, Katharyn, I remind myself. Baby steps.
“Sure,” I say to him. “Why not?”
He nods. “Well, then I think I’ll have a fine afternoon with Alma.”
And so it is that at exactly one fifteen on a snowy Thursday afternoon in early March 1963, I find myself opening the garage door of the big house on Springfield Street and sliding behind the wheel of my green station wagon.
Starting the car’s engine and waiting for it to warm, I take a look at the bicycles, in a haphazard pile near the east wall of the garage. Michael’s blue bike is among them, next to my old Schwinn. I study the two bikes, side by side, and remember the day I was so determined that Michael had to learn to ride a bike. Why did I think this was so important? I can no longer remember. Who cares if he learns to ride a bike now, at age six? Who cares if he ever learns? I shrug. He might never learn. Or someday he might decide—as he did this morning, when he voluntarily looked in the dictionary and found the word anchor all by himself—that he is ready to take it on.
Either way, it is not my decision to make. I am Michael’s mother, but I cannot control who he is. My attempts to do so, I realize, only make both of our lives more difficult than they need to be.
I remember how excluded I felt on that day—just this past Sunday, it was—as I watched Lars comfort Michael. I am quite certain that Lars and I rarely quarrel—but when we do, it’s nearly always about Michael. Does Lars consider it my fault that Michael is who he is? No, I don’t think that’s it. I think it’s more that, while he does not believe I am responsible for Michael’s condition, Lars can become irked with me for my impatience, my blunders. And I, in turn, become angry that Lars does not realize how irrational, how unfair, it is for him to be cross with me about that. After all, Lars is not the one who spends every day caring for our son.
I bite my lip. I cannot change the mistakes of the past. All I can do is move forward with whatever future my new reality holds.
I put the car in gear and back down the driveway. Leaving the neighborhood, I make my way north on University Boulevard, then get on the Valley Highway and head toward downtown.
I looked up her address in the telephone book before I left home. It was right there: Green’s Books and News, Corporate Offices, with an address on Eighteenth Street, downtown.
Whether she will be at the office, whether I will be able to get in to see her—whether she will even be willing to see me—is a different matter entirely.
After finding a parking space a few blocks away, I walk to Frieda’s block. As the salesgirl at the Green’s in University Hills mentioned, there is a Green’s bookstore across the street, in a rather modest, single-story row of storefronts. The other side of the street, where the corporate offices are, is another matter. Craning my neck to look up at the soaring office building, I wonder if Lars’s firm designed it. No sooner have I begun to speculate about this than I’m struck with the knowledge that this was not Lars’s project, that the work was done a couple of years ago by an out-of-state architectural firm. I have a distinct memory of Lars telling me about it—I recall his disappointment at not getting the job, which he bid on. I also remember that it was Lars who told me, after construction started, that he’d heard Green’s Books and News had plans to lease office space here. The structure is clean and modern, constructed of concrete, with large plate-glass windows. There’s a small plaza with a fountain out front; next to the fountain are several heavy concrete sculptures in geometric designs—a cube set on its tip, a pyramid with a sphere balanced atop it, like enormous children’s blocks defying gravity.
The office building is fifteen stories tall; the Green’s offices are on the eleventh floor. I glide up smoothly in the elevator, pressing my hand nervously against my hair, putting on fresh lipstick, straightening my stockings.
At the reception desk I ask for Frieda Green, and am informed coolly that she is in meetings for the rest of the day. “Truly, with no break?” I ask. “I’m . . . an old friend. I would love to see her, even for just a few minutes.”
The receptionist regards me suspiciously. “Are you a writer?”
I smile inwardly at that. Indeed, I am not a writer. But I’d like to be.
“No,” I tell the receptionist, shaking my head. “As I said, just . . . a friend.”
“We get a lot of people off the street wanting to sell their books here. At our stores.” Her look is disdainful. “But we do all our book buying through publishers and distributors. I want to make sure you understand, ma’am.”
I tap my foot impatiently. “I’m perfectly aware of how books are purchased for bookstores.” I lean forward and put my hands lightly on the receptionist’s desk. “I’d just like to see my old friend.”
She gives me a look of resignation. “And your name?”
I pause. “Andersson,” I say softly. “Please, just tell her that Mrs. Andersson is here.” I glance back toward the glass outer door, see the bank of elevators a few feet away. So invitingly polished, those elevators—so safe, like big metal wombs. I could walk out of here, press the button to summon one of them. I could abandon this preposterous plan before it goes any further.