Absent Friends

MARIAN'S STORY

Chapter 14

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Leaving the Cat

November 1, 2001

Marian took the long way past the park because she liked to look at it. The sunlight glowed and the breeze was fresh, whisking tan and yellow leaves along the sidewalk. Someone—whoever lived now in the Faherty house—had planted a Japanese maple, and it blazed red as a fire.

She'd called the office and told Elena she'd be in by lunchtime. When she'd left his house, Tom had offered to drive her. But the day was so beautiful, why not walk? And there was more to it, and Tom knew that and did not insist. Marian was on her way to see Sally and Kevin, and the more was this: she did not want to have to explain to Sally why she was with Tom so early in the morning. Not, she reminded herself firmly, that there was anything wrong with what she and Tom had done. They were adults, neither of them promised to anyone else, neither of them being unfaithful by accepting the comforts of the other's arms.

But it did seem . . . upside down, somehow. No more so than the rest of the world now, and no one was hurt, and no one would mind. And Sally would never ask. With a quiet smile she would wait for Marian to tell her what the sight of Marian getting out of Tom's car already had. She would wait, but she would expect to be told, and she would deserve that, because that was who Sally and Marian were to each other.

Marian had only ever had one secret she had not told Sally; she doubted if Sally had any she had not shared. And Marian's secret had always been less a secret than a trembling fear, less a monster than a grasping shadow. Until last night. Until Tom's words had released the hissing serpent truth. Marian dreaded being alone with that serpent, that secret, that truth; she always had. Her horror of its hot breath on her neck had driven her into Tom's arms, as into the arms of all the young men over all the years. This was what Marian knew. This was the one thing she had always kept from Sally.

And on this bright morning, on her way to Sally's, Marian walked.

It was Kevin who answered the door, leaning on his crutches. His unshaven face was sprinkled with the beginnings of a beard that would grow in as red as his hair, if he let it. His T-shirt and boxer shorts were sleep-rumpled. From knee to ankle his right leg was bandaged, and still that was an improvement: the bandage in the beginning had enclosed his thigh also, but skin had not been grafted there, and that burn had soon healed. The shiny scar there matched the one on his right wrist, also unbandaged now.

Kevin's surprised smile appeared half a beat late, but it was the same sunshine beam he'd been giving her since, she swore, the day he was born.



Kevin was eight hours old when Marian first saw him, his hair already red and his arms and legs already in motion. She'd planned just to go to the hospital nursery and take a look, not to bother Sally (though when Markie called Jimmy and Marian to tell them about it, to tell them it was a boy, he and Sally had a son, he said Sally felt great, he said it was an easy delivery, maybe an hour, the baby just popped out; he told them Sally's mom said that meant the boy would never give them any trouble). But when Marian got off the elevator, Markie was in the corridor, looking through the glass, grinning at the babies. His grin was so big it included them all, but when a nurse came and picked one up, Marian thought the way he smiled then would split his face in half.

“I guess that's him?” she said.

“It sure is. Isn't he great?”

“Yes. He's great.”

“It's time for Sally to feed him. Come on, say hello.”

So Marian visited with Sally and Markie while Sally nursed Kevin. “It usually takes a while,” Markie told her. “Like a day, the nurse said, before they really figure out how to do it. But this kid, he figured it out already.”

Sally looked tired but radiant. Because, Marian thought, being this happy makes you radiant. When Kevin was finished nursing, Markie took him from Sally, wrapped his blankets a little better—his blankets, as far as Marian could see, were just fine—and asked Marian if she wanted to hold him.

“Really?”

Markie grinned and handed Kevin to her. Marian had held babies before, many babies, many times. She took him with practiced hands, cradled him in experienced arms, and found he was the smallest, softest, warmest thing she'd ever known. Holding him, wondering at his tiny eyelashes and his miniature fingers, Marian found herself suddenly overwhelmed with two sensations she had always thought of as separate, even contradictory: an enormous energy and a deep, boundless peace.

Kevin stirred in her arms. He opened his eyes, and then he smiled right at her, a wide smile like his father's, of recognition and joy. They can't even see yet, Marian tried to tell herself as her heart leaped, they can't make expressions, he doesn't have any idea who you are or who anybody is or anything. None of that, true though it all was, had any effect on her whatsoever. Marian had never been happier than she was at that moment, holding her best friend's baby, and she knew she never would be until she was out of school and Jimmy was out of the Academy and on the Job and they had babies of their own.



Now, a lifetime later, Kevin stood at the door, smiling that same smile. “Aunt Marian, I didn't know you were coming over today.”

Something was caught in Marian's throat; she had to clear it to answer. “Me either. Is it too early?”

“I just got up.” He looked abashed, the way he used to when he was a little boy and she caught him in mischief. “But Mom's been up for hours. Come on in.”

He moved aside so she could pass in front of him. She turned back to say something, something innocuous about the beauty of the day, and found herself unable to speak, overtaken by the same fullness of heart she had felt on his first day on earth. Caught by this, she watched Kevin push the door shut with the tip of one crutch. It was an unconscious act; he appeared to be preoccupied, thinking about something else, and he did not notice her eyes on him as he swung himself down the short hall. He moved smoothly and quickly, and in his casual, newly learned grace, Marian saw, and was dazzled by, hope.

Kevin's world had changed. Friends had died. He was disabled, though only, thank God, temporarily; he was in daily pain—yet he'd adapted. And when he was finally rid of the crutches, back on the Job, and once more the man he had been—different, but the same—he would adapt to that, too.

Since September 11 Marian had been grateful to be middle-aged, glad at least that she'd had her youth, under some clouds and some looming shadows to be sure, but not like this. Her heart had ached for the young people who would have to live the rest of their lives with the knowledge of what had happened and what therefore, at any moment, could happen again. But watching Kevin now, Marian became less sure that she was fortunate in this. Perhaps the sheer forward momentum of youth, the impulsiveness and lack of subtlety (the subtlety that could be in people her age a cause of, and cover for, an unwillingness to choose and commit), would carry the young through into a world whose changes they would accept, adjust to, and even thrive within.

“You should see him when he's clean.” Sally's voice startled Marian. She spun to find Sally in the kitchen doorway behind her.

“What?”

“Kevin. He's much more worth staring at after his shower. He's almost handsome if you can get him to shave.”

Kevin dropped himself onto a chair and rolled his eyes.

Marian said, “Was I staring?”

Sally hugged her and murmured, “A little, but who could blame you?” She crossed to the kitchen table, kissed Kevin's cheek, took the crutches, and propped them in a corner. “What are you doing out here so early?” she asked Marian. “Did you stay with your dad last night? Want some coffee?” She brought out three yellow cups and saucers from the cabinet and put the coffeepot on the table.

“Thanks, Mom,” Kevin said, pouring coffee, reaching for the sugar.

“Could I have tea?” Marian asked.

“Real tea? Or smelly flowers?”

“Flowers, thanks. Kevin, darling, you can just unwrinkle your nose.”

When he was four, Kevin had asked Marian why she always drank smelly flowers. He hadn't understood what was funny, but that she'd laughed was good enough for him. From then on, for years, he'd clapped his hand to his head in mock horror and announced, “Smelly flowers!” every time the chamomile tea box came off the shelf.

“How do you feel?” Marian asked Kevin.

He shrugged. “Pretty good, I guess.”

She peered more closely. “You look like you're worried about something. Is your therapy going all right?”

“The PT?” Kevin glanced down at his leg. “It's going fine.”

“His physical therapist says he's improving faster than she expected. She says he's impressive. Fantastic, extraordinary, unbelievable—”

“No, Mom, that was you. Mrs. Cummings said I sweat a lot.”

“Same thing. Marian, did you have breakfast?”

“Yes, thanks. Can I help you do something?” Marian made the offer quickly, before Sally could ask where she'd eaten. Marian's father liked to take her out to breakfast whenever she stayed over in Pleasant Hills.

“No, I have it under control.” Into melted butter Sally broke three eggs. She popped bread into the toaster and sliced a grapefruit in half. The scents of domesticity, of the life Marian had not had, crowded the sunny air like phantoms.

Sally asked, “Are you sure you don't want anything?”

“No, the tea will be perfect, thanks.”

Marian felt herself distracted. She tried to force herself to focus on her task, but before she could begin, Sally asked quietly, “Did you see the paper this morning?”

Marian nodded.

“What?” said Kevin. “What's in it?”

Sally reached for the New York Tribune from the counter and handed it to her son. It was already folded to the story on the bottom of the front page, the story Tom had read aloud to Marian an hour earlier, Tom glancing up from time to time, Marian's hand lifting to cover her mouth as though to smother despair.

Marian watched Sally cook, watched Kevin read. His face could hide anger no better than it could joy. When it came time to turn to the inside pages, he snapped the paper to a new fold. His skin flushed, his scowl deepened.

Marian waited until she judged he was finished, though his eyes remained on the newspaper. She took a breath and said, “Listen, you guys. I came over to talk to you about something serious.”

Now Kevin looked up. Sally, back at the stove, turned to regard Marian over her shoulder. The two concerned pairs of eyes so exactly alike, so dear to her. Marian thought, Can I take it back? Can I leave them out of this? Hasn't it been terrible enough for them? Why don't I just say, No, never mind, I'll handle it, you guys just go on doing what you're doing, it's enough.

But of course she couldn't. It wasn't her choice. Earlier, watching Tom drink coffee, she had seemed to choose, but it wasn't her decision. The real choice was Jimmy's, made long ago. All Marian had done, all she'd been able to do, was to determine to take whatever action she must to limit the damage now.

“What is it, honey?” Sally set Kevin's eggs in front of him. “Is everything all right?”

Such an odd question, in these times. Is anything all right? would have been better, and even that Marian was not certain she could answer.

“These newspaper stories,” she began. She would have said more, but Sally raised a hand to stop her.

“There's no need to discuss them,” Sally said. Standing next to Kevin, she laid her hand on his shoulder. “I don't believe any of it.”

“Sal—”

“No, honey, really. It's okay. I don't believe Jimmy was there, and I certainly don't believe he shot Jack. That's so completely ridiculous. Someone could only say that who never knew him. That he let Markie go to prison? Jimmy? And,” she went on, as Marian's stomach twisted, “Jimmy would never have had anything to do with a man like Eddie. Any of the Spanos, anytime. It just isn't true.”

“Sal,” Marian said gently. “Sal, the money—”

Sally shook her head. “I know.”

“You know what?”

“I know about the money.” Sally spoke quietly, like someone admitting a wrongdoing.

Confused, Marian asked, “You know?”

Sally said slowly, “It was Phil's.” Kevin twisted in his chair to look at her. She met his gaze. “That's right, isn't it, Marian?”

Kevin flushed and turned away. He looked at neither of them as with a fork he broke the yolks of the eggs.

“Phil's?” Marian spoke uncertainly.

Sally came around the table to slip into the chair next to Marian. She picked up a teaspoon and turned it over between finger and thumb. “He always wanted to give me money. I never let him. I never wanted him to think it was that.” She stopped the spoon in midtwirl as if catching herself in a bad habit she'd meant to break. She put it gently down. “Phil always wanted to take care of us. He wanted me to marry him.”

Kevin lifted his eyes to her. “He asked you? When?” His voice was uneven.

“Over and over. Honey, I'm sorry. I know you'd have liked that, to have a dad. But he wouldn't move here.”

“Move here?”

When Kevin asked that, Sally frowned, as if she'd heard something untrue, as if someone had said something she could not let pass. “No,” she said. “No, that's not fair. It wasn't . . . Phil said he'd buy us a house anywhere, in Manhattan, or Brooklyn Heights, or maybe up in Westchester. Just not here. I said, only here.”

Marian had a feeling there was something she should do, say, right now, some step she should take, but how could you take steps on such treacherous, shifting soil? Kevin was watching his mother with his lips pressed tight.

“When I said I'd only marry him if he moved here, he said it wouldn't be good for you, for me, if he did that. Because he'd been Markie's lawyer. Because he's Jewish. And it's true, those things would have made it hard. But it wasn't that.”

“Then what was it?” Kevin asked.

“It was—that we had to live here—I said it because I knew he'd say no.”

Kevin's forehead creased. “I don't get it.”

“No, I don't suppose you do,” Sally said softly. She reached across the table to touch Kevin's cheek, as though her hands could tell him something words never could. “The way we lived, Kev, I don't know if you can understand this, but it's the only way we could have lived. I love Phil. I do. I gave him everything I could. But not everything I had. There was always Markie. Still. Always.

“So I . . . it was like in a fairy tale. Do something impossible, and you win the princess's hand. But you know what happens in fairy tales. Only the right prince can do it. The monster kills the other ones when they try.

“Phil knew that. He knew I made it impossible on purpose, and he knew he wasn't that prince. So he . . . you could say he agreed. To call it impossible. He agreed not to try. So that we could go on. So that we could have as much as we had.”

The teakettle began to whistle. Marian started to rise, but Sally was there before her. She turned off the burner, poured steaming water into Marian's cup, and returned the kettle to the stove. When she sat again, she picked up her coffee and said, “I thought, all these years . . . it was somehow like Markie was still taking care of us. I was grateful for the money, of course I was. It meant I could stay home when you were little. But even more, it was something Markie was still giving us, every month, and that made it so precious. . . .

“But it wasn't. Now it turns out it wasn't. Do you see?”

Sally asked that of Kevin. He didn't answer. She turned to Marian. The question hung in the air.

“Of course,” Marian whispered. This wasn't true. Marian did not know what she saw. She had stepped through a familiar gate into a landscape so alien, it might have been on a different world or from another time. She did not understand what she was seeing, but she knew what Sally had to hear. “Of course.”

“I wish Phil hadn't done this,” Sally said. “I wish he'd been straight with me. All those years . . . But what the paper's saying about Jimmy? That just can't be true.”

Marian wanted to leap up, to take Sally in her arms and protect her forever from evil, from disappointment and truth. But it was too late for that, far too late.

She kept her seat. She looked from Sally to Kevin, wondering what the right thing was. To hold her tongue? Or to say what she had come to say?

How could she, now?

But how could she not?