68
Eileen knew facing the crowds and the cold might not be a good idea—Ed was more sensitive to cold than he’d ever been, and the excess stimulation might put him in a frenzy—but she couldn’t help herself. Though they’d gone every year they lived in Jackson Heights, she hadn’t been to see the Christmas windows on Fifth Avenue since she’d moved to Bronxville. She was loath to miss them again.
She parked in a garage close to the strip of stores. She expected him to gripe his way through the wall of humanity, but he didn’t pull against her as she led him by the hand.
They started at Lord & Taylor. “Jingle Bells” poured down from the hidden speakers above, and in the first window, figures revolved and bobbed mechanically in a mute and tireless tableau of Christmas morning. A boy moved up and down with his arms spread wide as though in a Cossack dance as he beheld the miracle of his new bike; a girl swung her new baby doll back and forth as if it were a model airplane; and their father forever pulled a stocking from the mantle above the fireplace. Ed jabbed her shoulder.
“Isn’t it the greatest thing you’ve ever seen?” he asked in a surge of enthusiasm more unlikely than any she’d seen from him over the course of their marriage. “Look!” he said. “Look!”
It was the same at the next window, and all the windows from Fortunoff to Macy’s. His childish wonder never abated, and his expression was blank with anticipation as she led him to the next garland-wrapped queue.
Later, in bed, she was disappointed not to be able to recall any of the scenes. Instead, all she could see was Ed’s huge smile and his glasses reflecting the lights of the displays.
Connell called the next day to let her know he wasn’t coming home for Christmas. He had decided to spend the holiday at the house of his new girlfriend. He’d had the same excuse at Thanksgiving.
“Who is this girl? Thanksgiving and now Christmas? Sounds like someone we need to meet.”
“You will,” he said, to her dismay.
“Well,” she said. “Your father will certainly be disappointed.”
She decided to cancel the little Christmas Eve party she’d planned. Ed wouldn’t know the difference; they could eat frozen dinners and watch television. She’d have followed through if her cousin Pat hadn’t called shortly after she’d gotten off the phone with Connell and said he and Tess and the girls were going to be able to make it after all. Pat was as close to a brother as she had. He used to come over to her parents’ apartment every year, starting in her late teens, to put up the Christmas tree with her father. He reminded her so terribly of her father. When he heard how upset she was that Connell wasn’t coming home, Pat said they’d come on Saturday the twenty-third and stay through the long weekend.
“The girls will help you get ready,” he said. “They’ll cook, they’ll clean, they’ll do whatever I tell them to.”
She knew she should have been touched, but it wasn’t as she would have planned it, and she wanted something, anything, to go exactly as she’d planned it.
? ? ?
Ed was there to greet Pat and Tess and the girls when they arrived, but a few minutes later, when it was time to eat the big lunch she’d prepared, he had disappeared upstairs. She found him sitting on the divan at the foot of the bed, looking confused.
“Are you planning to join us?”
“That lady downstairs,” he said. “I know I should know her. Who is she?”
“You mean Tess?”
“That’s her name?”
“Tess,” she said. “Yes.”
“Okay,” he said, rising. As they got to the door and were about to head downstairs, he stopped her. “Don’t tell her I don’t know her.”
“But you do know her.”
“Don’t tell.”
“I won’t,” she said. “Believe me.”
“Good.”
“Do you remember her name?”
“Don’t test me.”
“It’s not a test,” she said. “I’m trying to help.”
He stood there thinking. “What is it?” he asked after a bit.
“Tess.”
“I said don’t test me.”
“No,” she said, laughing. “Not test. Tess. Tess is her name.”
He repeated the name a few times. “And how do I know her again?”
“She’s Pat’s wife.”
He looked annoyed. “Pat, your cousin Pat?”
“Yes,” she said, unable to keep from laughing.
“Well,” he said, “why didn’t you say so?”
“You know who Pat is?”
“Your cousin Pat,” he said, as if she were being obtuse. “Of course I do.”
“Of course you do,” she said, chuckling. She straightened his glasses on his face and led him downstairs.
? ? ?
In the morning, Ed went for the paper. She was relieved to get him out of the house for a while. She had a lot to do for the party, and her nieces were there to help her. It was unseasonably warm, so she imagined he might take a seat on the bench by the Food Emporium.
Elyse helped her chop potatoes and Cecily polished the silverware. She showed the two of them how to make quiche. The Christmas music gave her movements an upbeat, cheery punctuation, and as she directed the girls she remembered the joyous way Ed, in the days before he switched over to headphones, would stand in the living room conducting along to the symphony recording with an invisible baton. She enjoyed watching him work himself into a frenzy. She loved how he laughed at his own ridiculousness.
She was happy enough that she could almost forget that Connell hadn’t come home. Watching Elyse and Cecily work in their purposeful way, she wondered what it would have been like to have a daughter instead of a son. Daughters didn’t leave the way sons did. Her friends’ daughters never seemed to move more than a few miles away from their mothers.
Ed had been gone an hour and a half. With his slow gait it wasn’t unreasonable to think he was still in transit, and anyway she was enjoying herself. A little while later, though, Tess asked, “Where’s Ed?” and Eileen began to worry: not that anything bad had happened to him, but that he’d gotten lost. She had allowed herself to get complacent.
“Topps,” she said. “The local bakery. They spoil him there. I’d better go and save the counter girl from him. He’ll haunt that place all day if they let him.”
She drove slowly down Palmer, stopping at storefronts to peer inside, feeling like a criminal casing them out. She did a circle of the town. He wasn’t on any of the benches. It had grown colder since he’d left; the wind had picked up. She regretted giving in to vanity, both his and hers, in not getting him a MedicAlert bracelet. He was wandering the streets with nothing to explain his situation.
She drove down Kimball Avenue to double through the back streets where he might have gotten turned around. When she got to Midland, she saw a man approaching a car at the stoplight under the Cross County overpass, waving his hands, and it took her a second to realize that he was her husband. She threw the hazards on and walked toward him, and when he saw her he started clapping his hands. She pulled him back by the sleeve. A blue Mercedes honked and slowed as it passed. At first she thought it was her neighbor from up the block, but she was relieved to see a gray-haired man she didn’t recognize. Still, had he recognized her? Would he recount the scene over dinner?
She was too angry to speak. She tried to imagine the melee Ed had caused since he’d gotten to the intersection. How long had it been? She was lucky the police hadn’t gotten to him yet.
She buckled him into the passenger seat and returned to the driver’s seat before saying anything. “What were you doing so far from the house?” she asked finally.
“You found me,” he said. “Don’t make a big deal of it. Let’s go.”
“Did you get lost? Were you disoriented?”