Love Saves the Day

16



Prudence





THE PHONE RINGS WITH TWO SHORT RINGS INSTEAD OF ONE LONG one, the way it does when the man who lives in the lobby downstairs is calling to say someone is on their way up to see us. Laura looks up in surprise from where she’s sitting on the couch with me on one side of her and a stack of papers bigger than me on the other. On the coffee table are a lot of thick books that Laura went to get from her office one night. Josh is out at a meeting, so it’s just Laura and me by ourselves in the apartment.

“Yes?” Laura says when she answers the phone. After a pause she says, “Of course, send him up.” Then she runs to the little bathroom in the short hallway near the front door, where she pulls a brush through her hair and splashes cold water on her face. I stretch and walk over to the entrance of the kitchen, which is also next to the front door, to help Laura in case this surprise is a bad one. She’s patting her face dry when the doorbell rings.

“Perry!” Laura says, as she pulls the door open. “What a surprise!” There’s a smile on her face, and she reaches out one hand to hold the stranger’s for a moment, but her eyes are cautious.

Perry’s eyes aren’t cautious like Laura’s, but they look at her closely without seeming to. When he says, “You look good. Better than good, actually,” Laura’s face turns pink. The lids slide closed over his eyes so briefly it almost isn’t noticeable, as if Laura’s face changing colors has confirmed something he suspected. “May I come in?” he asks.

“Of course.” She leads him into the living room, where he sits on one of the chairs facing the couch. “Can I get you anything?”

“A glass of water would be nice,” he says, and Laura walks into the kitchen to get it for him. Now I’m standing near the other entrance to the kitchen—the one that opens onto the dining room table and living room—and from here I take a closer look at Perry. Some humans, when they see a cat, immediately want to pet her and say something like, Come here, kitty, come here. Some humans look annoyed (especially if they’re allergic), and some humans don’t even notice cats at all. Perry doesn’t do any of these things. He sits in his chair, his shoulders and spine held in a way that looks alert yet completely comfortable, with the kind of control that cats have mastered but that humans rarely can. He looks right back at me with his dark brown eyes, and in them I see a hint of amusement.

I notice his outfit, which is a jacket that matches his pants, both of them made from a material that looks wonderfully soft, yet doesn’t bunch up or wrinkle the way a lot of humans’ clothes do when they’re sitting. Around his neck is a piece of dark yellow material that some of the human men on TV wear, although I’ve never seen Josh wear one. His shoes are black and perfectly clean, what Sarah would have called “immaculate.” I can tell why it used to be so important to Laura to make Perry happy with her work, and suddenly I’m glad the fur on my paws has grown almost completely back.

Laura walks into the room with two glasses and hands one to Perry. The two of them talk for a while. Laura says the names of humans who work at their office and asks how they’re doing. Both of them seem to know, as they sip from their glasses, that Perry didn’t decide to visit us so he could tell Laura that her assistant got her hair cut too short, or that someone named Greg keeps making everybody look at pictures of his new baby. But Perry seems comfortable and not like he’s in a hurry to say his real reason for coming.

“So how’s Josh?” he asks. “I don’t think I’ve seen him since your wedding. I was hoping I’d get to say hello.” His voice is deep and strong without being loud. It’s so deep that listening to it starts a faint rumble in my chest, like a purr coming from outside my body.

“He won’t be back for a couple of hours,” Laura says. “He’s working on a project, and there was a meeting he had to go to.”

“Ah, yes. The Mitchell-Lama on Avenue A. I read about it in the Times.”

Laura laughs. “I always forget you know everything,” she says. “Yes, he’s meeting with the owners of the music studio in the building’s Basement. They’re incorporating as a 501(c)(3) so they have a firmer legal standing if it comes down to a hearing. Josh is helping them with the paperwork.”

Perry nods. “You’ll forgive an old friend for prying, but what are Josh’s plans after this whole thing is over?”

“If things go our way”—Perry’s eyebrows rise when Laura says our—“we’re hoping that, eventually, he might be able to help them raise enough funds for their community outreach programs to justify some kind of paid position. If not …” She spreads her hands in front of her. “Who knows? It’s tough out there right now. We’re trying to take things one day at a time.”

Perry tilts his head at her. “You say I know everything, but I have no idea why you haven’t been back to the office in nearly four weeks.”

“I’m taking a leave of absence,” Laura says slowly. “If you check with HR, you’ll find the paperwork properly filed and authorized.”

Perry leans forward. “Come on, Laura. I always thought you and I could talk to each other like people. Of course all the paperwork is in order. That’s not what I’m asking you.”

Laura squares her shoulders and straightens her spine. “To be honest, I’m surprised to hear you’d want me to come back. I thought Clay made himself fairly clear about that the last time we spoke.”

“Clay knows how good you are as well as I do,” Perry tells her. “People get overworked sometimes, and tempers flare. We all know how it is in this business. Everybody at the firm wants to see you come back. Actually”—Perry smiles—“you’ve become something of a legend. Like the man who shot Liberty Valence. You’re the associate who told Clay off in his own office and lived to tell the tale.”

Laura’s smile is teasing. “I see. You want me to come back so you can prove Clay didn’t have my body dumped in the East River.”

He looks her in the eye. “We want you to come back because we think you have a great future with us.”

“The kind of great future that might include a raise?” Laura’s smile gets wider, although her eyes narrow as she looks at Perry.

“A raise, yes.” Now Perry is smiling, too. “A raise big enough to justify that Cheshire-Cat grin? Probably not.”

“A bigger expense account might get me to come halfway.” Laura’s voice still sounds playful.

“So we’re negotiating now? I may know of a corner office that’s about to open up. Normally we’d save it for a new partner but …” Perry laughs. “We could probably work something out. If you’re serious.”

Laura’s face is friendly, but her smile fades. “I don’t know, Perry. It isn’t really about Clay or my salary or which office I’m in or any of that. I took time off because I needed to think about where my life is going. I don’t know if I want the same things I wanted a few years ago. Right now I want to help my husband save this building. You know,” she adds, “it was your idea.”

Perry looks startled for the first time. “My idea?”

“Don’t you remember?” Laura’s posture relaxes, and she leans back a little. “When I came to ask you that time about Mitchell-Lama buildings, you were the one who said that an attorney who was an ace with paperwork, and who could ferret out all the contradictory statutes and building maintenance issues, might be able to force the owners to the negotiating table.”

“I see.” Perry shakes his head. “Hoisted by my own petard.”

“Anyway,” Laura continues, “this just seems like the right thing for me to work on now. And after that, I truly don’t know. Things are … changing in my personal life. A position with a smaller firm might be a better fit.”

“I suspected as much,” he says. “Is it too early to offer my congratulations?”

Laura’s face turns light red again, although it’s hard for me to know why she seems embarrassed. Usually, congratulations are things humans like to hear. “We won’t start telling people officially for another couple of weeks.” Her voice is hesitant. Then she smiles and rests her hand on the swell of her belly. “But no, it isn’t too early.”

“Arrangements can be worked out,” Perry says. “Flextime, reduced hours for a while. We’ve done it before.” Laura opens her mouth like she’s about to say something, and he insists, “I just want you to think about what you’d be giving up. You’ll never see the kind of money with a boutique firm that you’ll be on track to make with us in a few years.”

One corner of Laura’s mouth turns up in a half smile. “I know,” she says. “But money isn’t everything.”

Perry nods his head again, just a little. He sips one last time from his glass, then stands, running one hand over the front of his jacket. Laura stands, too. “I should be getting back.” With a sigh he adds, “It’s the end of the month, and I don’t think anyone in our group has submitted time sheets yet. They can’t all be like you.”

They’ve reached the front door when Perry stops and says, “I almost forgot. I was hoping I’d get to meet the famous cat who started all this ruckus.”

Laura looks around and spots me sitting on my haunches near the entrance to the kitchen. “Hey, Prudence,” she says. Lately she’s been talking to me sometimes in the same kind of special voice Sarah had when she talked to me. That’s how she says my name now. “Would you like to come over and meet my friend Perry?”

It’s only when I get closer to them that I realize Laura is taller than Perry, although neither of them acts like she is. It’s also the first time I notice the smell of Perry’s cologne. Usually I don’t like artificial human-cologne smells, but Perry’s is different. His smell is deep and rich, like earth, and other animals, and flowers that only send their odor into the air at night. He smells so good that I find myself rubbing my head against his ankles without waiting for him to put his hand down for me to sniff, and then I squeeze between them until I walk all the way through to the other side, where I rub my head some more against the backs of his legs.

“Wow,” Laura says. “I’ve never seen Prudence act so friendly with someone she doesn’t know.” She smiles in a way that lets me know she’s joking when she adds, “Maybe she wants to follow you home.”

Perry also smiles down at me and notices where some of the white fur from my chest has rubbed off on the legs of his pants. He laughs and says, “It looks like I’ll be taking some of her with me.” He bends to put one hand under my nose, and I lean my whole head against it. “She’s a beauty,” he tells Laura.

“She’s perfect.” Laura’s voice is more serious when she says, “We almost lost her. Someone was looking out for us.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Perry stands up straight so that he’s looking at Laura again. “Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers, Grow, grow.”

Laura’s eyes look shiny, and without warning she reaches out to put her arms around him. “Thank you, Perry,” she says in a choked-sounding voice. “For everything.”

He puts his arms around her, too. “You can always call me. If you change your mind about coming back to us, or if there’s anything else you ever need. You know that, right?”

Laura takes a step back and nods. Perry kisses her once on the forehead, and then he leaves.





Laura has been more tired than usual in the mornings because she doesn’t drink coffee anymore. But she seems alert at breakfast this morning when she tells Josh, “I have a meeting this afternoon with the attorneys representing all the different sides in this thing. I’m hoping we’ll be able to start formal negotiations.”

Josh looks startled as he puts his cup of coffee down next to his plate of toast. “Are we at that point already?”

“Well …” She rests one hand on the stack of papers she was reading while Josh made his toast. “I have a complete list from the tenants of every unaddressed maintenance and repair issue. There are about two hundred, actually.” She makes a face. “And I’ve noted every statutory regulation that would be violated by the proposed deal between the landlord and the development corporation wanting to buy the property. Mostly because the regulations are so contradictory that nobody could be in compliance with all of them.” She rubs the corners of her eyes beneath her reading glasses with the thumb and first finger of her right hand. “Honestly, I don’t know who writes this stuff. Luckily for us, though, all the confusion works in our favor. You said the property’s been assessed at seven and a half million and that the tenants have raised ten through grants and loans?” Josh nods. “The development corporation’s offering fifteen. We’ll offer eight and try to convince all parties that a prolonged legal battle would be more painful and expensive than the property’s worth.”

Josh pushes his plate of toast away, then puts a piece on the floor so I can lick the butter from its top. “So you’re saying this could all be settled today?”

Laura makes a pfft sound. “No. We just want to get the ball rolling and show them how serious we are about fighting this thing. We’ll let the landlord talk us up to ten million if we have to. Hopefully either the development corporation will drop their bid or the landlord will decide it’s better to take our ten million now than spend months or years fighting for the development corporation’s fifteen.”

Josh still looks doubtful. “What about a DHCR hearing? The City paid for ninety-five percent of that building. Technically they get a say in whether or not it’s converted out of the Mitchell-Lama program.”

“They do have the right to a say in it, and as a matter of principle maybe they should exercise that right more often,” Laura says. “But as a matter of practice, they generally don’t. The problem with a hearing is that it’s a one-shot, yes-or-no thing. And if our side gets the no, it’s game over.” She pauses to take a sip from her glass of orange juice. When she starts talking again, her voice is gentle. “I know you have this romantic idea of a big hearing and cheering crowds, but realistically a compromise is nearly always the best solution. The landlord gets more than the property’s technically worth, the tenants gain all the rights and privileges of ownership, the community gets to retain affordable housing along with the programs and services the music studio offers. This would be a good thing for everybody.”

Josh stands up to dump the rest of his toast in the trash and give me a nibble of cheese from the package on the counter. “You’re right,” he tells Laura. “I guess I’ve been working on this so hard for the past few months, it’s hard to think of my part in it being over.”

Laura looks surprised. “But it’s not! It’s more important now than ever for you to keep up the pressure on the publicity front. That’s what’ll convince the landlord he might lose at a hearing if he were to turn us down flat and walk away from the table. Every news camera and article in the paper is one more reason for him to question the strength of his position.”


I never knew that a human you actually know could end up on TV. But a week after Anise came over to visit us, there she was on our TV set, along with a bunch of other humans who Josh said were famous musicians. They were in a room with no windows and lots of musical instruments, and Josh and Laura were there, too! They were standing in the background, while a man with a microphone talked to Anise and some other people. Laura and Josh were already home when the show came on, and it was weird to see them here in the room with me and also tiny versions of them on the TV screen at the same time.

After that the phone rang constantly for weeks. People were calling Josh to talk about doing more TV shows and newspaper word-writing about the building, and the people who own the building were calling Laura to talk about what they should do with it. Laura was hardly at home at all those few weeks, because she was always out at meetings with the humans who live there and with other lawyers. Finally one day she came home with the news that the negotiating was over. She was still taking off her coat and hanging it in the front closet when Josh came down the stairs with an anxious look on his face. “Well?” he asked.

“It’s done.” Laura’s voice was very serious, and Josh’s face went white. “The owner’s willing to take nine from the tenants’ association. The developer dropped his bid. The lawyer for the tenants’ association and I have to get some paperwork going to make it official, but …” The smile on Laura’s face was wider than just about any smile I’ve ever seen. “It’s over.”

Josh made a loud whoop sound and grabbed her in a hug so big it nearly lifted her off the ground. I don’t think Laura likes being lifted off the ground any more than I do, because she almost lost her balance and swatted at Josh’s shoulder a couple of times until he put her down. “We did it!” Josh yelled.

“You did it,” Laura answered. “The tenants’ association did it. I just kind of swooped in at the very end.” The way she says this makes me imagine her with a pair of wings, circling in the sky like a pigeon. I don’t think that’s what she really means, though, even though it’s what she said.

The two of them went to a party that night that the people who live in that building threw to celebrate, and they’re still celebrating now a week later when Josh’s parents and sister come over with the littermates for another special holiday dinner. Josh spent two whole days cooking a huge turkey, and by the time his family gets here I think I’ll go crazy if somebody doesn’t give me some of that turkey right away. It’s unbearable to watch Laura and Josh talk to everybody and pour drinks and bring out little plates of smaller foods as if there wasn’t a whole turkey sitting in the oven just waiting for someone to eat it! I make it my job to stand in front of the oven and meow at everybody until they remember the most important part of the day. Once everybody is (finally) sitting down to eat, they all go around the table to say what they’re thankful for. I’m thankful that this time they put some turkey and other foods on a little plate for me before everybody sat down.

That’s when Josh announces that Laura is going to have a baby. I guess that explains why she keeps getting bigger. I’m surprised at how excited Josh’s parents are, because it sounds like Laura is only having one baby. If she were going to have five or six at the same time, that would be a really big deal. But having only one baby at a time is just typical of the inefficient way humans do most things. And it’s probably better for me if Laura’s litters are only one baby at a time, because it will be easier for me to teach one baby proper manners than it would be if there were a whole bunch of them.

“Let me ask you something,” Josh’s mother says. (Josh’s mother likes to begin sentences by saying, Let me ask you something.) “Do you know yet if it’s going to be a boy or a girl?”

Laura and Josh smile at each other. “We’d like to be surprised,” Laura says. “Sometimes surprises are a good thing.”

“It could be a Martian, so long as it’s healthy,” Josh’s father says. “You and I didn’t find out until we were in the delivery room,” he reminds Josh’s mother.

“You’ve thought of names, though,” she insists.

“A few,” Laura answers. “If it’s a girl, we’d like to name her Sarah.”

“That’s the right thing.” Josh’s father nods. “And if it’s a boy, you can still name him for your mother. Samuel is a fine name you don’t hear very often anymore.”

“Dad,” Josh’s sister says, “I’m sure they can pick a name themselves.”

“We should go through our address book tonight,” Josh’s mother says to his father. “If it’s a boy they’ll make a bris. We need to think about who we’d invite.”

“There’s plenty of time for that, Zelda,” Josh’s father tells her. Winking at Josh, he adds, “Your mother’s looking for an excuse to call everyone she knows with the news.”

“I’m just so excited!” She stands up and walks around the table to hug Laura. “Listen to me. If you have any questions, or if something doesn’t feel right, or if you want someone to go to the doctor with you, you call me or Erica. We’ve had four babies between us.”

“Do you think Prudence will like the new baby?” It’s Robert who asks this, putting one hand up in the air. Abbie adds, “Will she, Uncle Josh? She didn’t like us very much when she first met us.”

“That’s true,” Josh’s mother said. “Sometimes cats and babies don’t get along.”

Josh laughs. “I think Prudence is going to love having a baby to boss around.”

“What do you think, Prudence?” Laura asks. I’m sitting next to my now-empty plate, waiting to get someone’s attention. It’s only polite, at a holiday dinner, to refill somebody’s plate for them once it’s empty. Seeing that Laura is looking in my direction, I stalk back into the kitchen and sit in front of the counter where the rest of the turkey is waiting. I can worry about the baby and whether or not I like it when it gets here, but the food you like should always be eaten while it’s still in front of you.


The people who live in the building that Josh and Laura saved in Lower East Side don’t have to move, but we do. Laura and Josh say that this apartment is too expensive for us to live in while Josh still can’t find a job, especially now that Laura is going to work at a smaller law firm that pays her less money. Once this idea made Laura’s face and shoulders knot up with tension whenever she and Josh talked about it. Now she seems happy, though. We’re moving to a place called Greenpoint, which is in a country called Brooklyn, and Laura says that she’ll be able to come home on time for dinner every night. Our new apartment will have an upstairs and a downstairs, like this one has, but it’s at “ground level” with no lobby and no man to open doors. Laura and Josh even say it has a little backyard with a high fence and that I can go outside with them sometimes! Too much change all at once is never ideal, but the thought of staying with Laura and Josh and also getting to lie outside in sunlit grass sometimes almost makes me think that this move might be a good thing.

For now, though, we’re all living in a mess, as Laura puts it, throwing lots of things away and packing up what’s left into boxes. Having so many boxes around is by far the best part of moving. Boxes are just about the best place to sleep, because they’re small and safe and when you’re in a box, you can see whoever is walking up to you before they can see you. My new favorite thing is to crouch down low inside a box and wait for Laura or Josh to walk by, and then leap out at them. Sarah used to pretend to be surprised when I would hide in the big plant and do this to her, but I think Laura and Josh are surprised for real when I spring at them now. Which just goes to show why a box is such a perfect hiding place for a cat. “It’ll be nice when we unpack at the new place and get rid of these once and for all,” Josh said last night while I hung on to his left ankle with both paws. I think about how much time I’ve spent in boxes—I’ve been in boxes all the time since I’ve been living in Upper West Side. I’ll miss them when they’re gone. But sometimes you have to put your memory-boxes away, so you can start living your future.

It’s cold outside now, and the pigeons on the roof across the street almost blend into the snow. I wonder if Laura will miss them. She says we’ll be living in our new home by New Year’s.

New Year’s is another made-up story—like hours and minutes—that humans tell themselves. Years don’t begin and end because everybody gets together at the same time and says they do. Years really start when important things happen to you. When you’re born. When you find the human you’re going to live with forever. Your life begins when it becomes important. Like the day when Sarah found me. I’ve been counting my years from that day ever since.

Laura and Josh have brought all the Sarah-boxes downstairs into the living room so we can look through everything and decide what to bring with us and what will be left behind when we go. The Sarah-smell of them fills my nose and goes straight into the part of my mind that still dreams of her sometimes. Laura and Josh are dividing everything into three piles—a “yes” pile, a “no” pile, and a “maybe” pile. Josh put all of Sarah’s black disks into the “yes” pile right away. Laura put things like Sarah’s address book and bongo drums into the “no” pile. The matchbook toys and bird-clothes are in the “maybe” pile. “I hate to throw them away,” Laura says, “but it’s an awful lot of stuff to take with us.”

“We could put everything in storage for a while,” Josh replies.

Laura’s face is doubtful. “I guess. We’ll probably need to rent a storage unit anyway. How is it that every time you move, you end up with more stuff instead of less?”

“I think it’s a law of physics that things in closets and boxes expand over time.” His voice sounds very serious when he says this, but there’s a grin on his face.

“Speaking of things expanding …” Laura says, and scoops me out of a box. “Somebody’s put on weight these past few months.” I think how unfair it is for Laura to say anything about my weight when she’s the one who’s getting bigger every day. But her eyes sparkle the way they do when she thinks something is funny, so probably she isn’t really trying to insult me. She puts me on top of a stack of black disks, which surprises me because Sarah never let me touch her black disks. Josh looks surprised, too. But Laura just laughs and says, “Well, Prudence is coming with us, isn’t she?”

The stiff cardboard holders the black disks are kept in feel cool and smooth beneath my belly, and I’m happy to lie here for a while. Suddenly Josh jumps up and says, “I almost forgot!” I hear his footsteps going up the stairs, and then he comes back down holding the Love Saves the Day bag. “I put this in my room after I found Prudence shredding everything in it one day.”

Shredding! I remember that day. It was one of my first few days living here, and I just wanted a comfortable place to fall asleep with my memories of Sarah!

I try to fix Josh with my best indignant stare, but he’s already sitting on the floor with his arms in the bag. “I think this is just old newspapers and stuff,” he tells Laura, and puts the bag in the “no” pile. But I remember, now, that I found something else in the Love Saves the Day bag that day. Leaping from the pile of black disks, I dive into the bag headfirst and start pulling out all the old newspapers. (This is where having “extra” toes comes in handy.) Laura and Josh are laughing as more and more of me disappears into the bag, but when I get to the metal box in the bottom—the one Sarah took my red collar from the day she gave it to me—it’s too heavy for me to pry out. I pull and pull at it, my back straining so hard that it arches up and almost rips the thick paper of the bag.

Laura finally notices what I’m doing and reaches into the bag to help me. When her hand and my head come back out, she’s holding the box. It’s crushed and dented, and I remember how difficult it was even for Sarah to open it. I can’t see Laura’s expression, because she’s looking down, but she holds the box in her hands and turns it over and over for what seems like a long time.

“What is that?” Josh asks.

“This is from our old apartment.” Laura’s voice is hushed. “I always assumed it was lost the day they tore it down.”

“Do you know what’s in it?” Josh looks curious and then concerned when it takes Laura a few moments to answer.

“Not really.” She’s still turning the box around in her hands, looking for a way to open it. “How did she even get this back?”

“It looks like it’s been through a war,” Josh says. “Let me get a hammer from the toolbox and see if we can pry it open.”

“I think I can get it.” Laura slides a finger into a tiny gap between the crushed lid of the box and its body, using her other hand to flip up the latch that holds it closed. She strains against it for a moment, and just when Josh is reaching over to help her, the box flies open. Laura’s hands shake as she starts pulling things out. There are some red satin ribbons, and an old, balled-up T-shirt with a funny picture of a fake ear with black disks hanging from it and word-writing across the top. Laura says the word-writing spells EAR WAX RECORDS. There are also photos of a very young-looking Sarah standing next to a man who looks a little like Laura. Sarah is holding a baby and smiling at us. In another picture that’s creased, like it’s been folded in half, a young-looking Laura is hugging an old, old man.

Josh has moved over so that he’s sitting behind Laura now, looking over her shoulder as she finds a small velvet bag that holds a plain gold ring. “This was my mother’s wedding ring.” Laura looks up at Josh. “I don’t think she ever got over my father. She never dated. And every year on their anniversary, she’d pull out old records and listen to ‘their’ songs.”

Josh puts his arms around her. “That’s the trouble with romantics. Once they fall in love, it’s for life.” But he doesn’t look like he really thinks this is “trouble,” as he kisses the top of Laura’s head.

The last thing in the box is a small plastic rectangle with two holes punched into either side. “A cassette,” Josh says. “What’s on it?”

“I … I’m not sure.” Laura lifts it from the box and looks at the front and back of it, but there’s no word-writing on it. “She made so many mix tapes back in her DJ days. This could be one of them, or …”

She doesn’t finish the sentence, so Josh says, “Let me get my cassette player. It’s in my office.” Josh runs to the stairs again, and I hear the sound of things being moved around above our heads in Home Office before Josh comes running back down holding what looks like a black radio with a window on the front of it. It’s dusty, as if it hasn’t been used for a long time. He presses a button to make the window open and, taking the tape from Laura’s hand, drops it inside.

First there’s a sound like a long sssssssss. Then music starts playing. A voice that sounds like Sarah except a little higher says, Are you ready? A little girl’s voice says, But I can’t sing as good as you do. Sarah’s voice says, We’ll sing together. Just try.

“Oh my God.” Laura’s voice is a whisper, and one hand rises to cover her mouth. “We made this together, at Alphaville Studios. I was only a few years old.”

Sarah’s voice hums a little, like she’s trying to show this younger Laura what the tune should sound like. Then both of their voices sing:

Winter is over

Gone is the snow

Everything’s bright

And all aglow …

Hearing Sarah’s voice now is like being there again the day we found each other. Sarah’s singing was my first beautiful thing, the thing that all the other beautiful things in our life together came from. It’s the sound of cold nights cuddled up under the covers together and sunlight shining butter-gold on Sarah’s hair through the windows, and the hand that used to stroke my back when something frightened me. It’s the sound of feet-shoes coming up the stairs at the time of day when I knew Sarah was coming home and I’d wait for her in that little ceramic bowl by the door. It’s the sound of Sarah’s voice saying, Who’s my love? Who’s my little love? and knowing the answer to that question even though I couldn’t say it to her in human words. My first beautiful thing. It’s here in this different apartment in a whole different country.

I know now what Sarah meant when she said that if you remember someone, they’ll always be with you. Sarah is here with us now. As I listen to her sing, I know that she never left.

The water that fills Laura’s eyes makes them look darker, until they’re the same color as Sarah’s eyes were. When her hands rise again to cover her whole face and her shoulders begin to shake, I know it’s because this is the same for her as it is for me. Sarah’s voice was Laura’s first beautiful thing, too.

It’s the sound of Laura sobbing that makes Josh and me go over to her at the same time. Josh’s arms go around her again and I crawl into her lap. It’s harder for me to get comfortable there than it used to be, because her belly has gotten bigger, but I press my forehead against her chest anyway and purr as fiercely as I can. “Look,” Josh whispers. “I think Prudence remembers, too.”

The three of us sit together like that until Laura’s shoulders stop shaking and one hand falls to stroke the top of my head. In the light from the window, I think again how much Laura’s hands look like Sarah’s. Outside, on the rooftop across the street, the white and amber pigeons huddle together against the cold air and prepare to take flight. One after the other they throw themselves into the sky. Soon, though, they’ll flutter back down again and return to the place they know is home.





Author’s Note


On January 24, 1998, a century-old tenement building still in use and located at 172 Stanton Street was demolished by the City of New York following a 911 call reporting damage to the rear façade during a rainstorm. Some two dozen residents were evacuated early that morning without being allowed to gather any personal belongings. Firefighters and city officials assured them that they would be allowed to return within a few hours. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani entered the building without a hard hat at approximately eleven AM, but ultimately residents were not allowed to return before demolition commenced eight hours later.

Whether or not the building was in danger of imminent collapse is a question still hotly debated. Witnesses say that it had to be leveled to the ground over a thirteen-hour period and never collapsed on its own. Today, luxury condominiums occupy the site.

The events portrayed in chapter 13 of this book, while inspired by eyewitness accounts and newspaper articles about what happened that day, are a fictional creation and not intended to accurately depict real events. The characters in this book are also fictional creations and do not represent any actual persons who occupied 172 Stanton in 1998 or at any time in the building’s history.

There was, however, a real “Honey the cat.” Honey was one of two cats and a parrot living in the building on the day it was demolished, whose owners were not allowed to retrieve them. Neither the cats nor the parrot were ever seen again.