Bird hears it, too: the sound of someone at the back door. It is raining, he realizes; though he can’t see it through the boarded-up windows, in the sudden silence he can hear it tapping against the plywood, like small, insistent fingers. Over the rain they hear the rattle of the knob being tested. Then the faint low beeps of the keypad: One number. Another. Another.
Bird turns to his mother, waiting for a cue. To fight or to flee. To brace or to take cover. Margaret doesn’t move. A thousand scenarios flicker through her head, each worse than the last. Where Bird will be taken. Where they’ll take her. Stay calm, she tells herself. Think. But there is nowhere for them to hide, and even if she takes him by the hand and flees through the front, out into the street, where would they go, in the rain, in this city of strangers? Into whose hands?
Footsteps thud out in the darkened hallway. Someone trying to move quietly, and failing. And then the door to the living room creaks open. It’s the Duchess, in a black raincoat. Shaking the wet from her feet.
Fuck, Domi, Margaret says. You scared me.
She lets out her breath, and Bird finds this more unsettling than her profanity, even more than their unexpected guest: that his mother, too, could be frightened.
I couldn’t exactly ring the bell, could I, the Duchess says. Or call ahead.
She and Margaret exchange a shrug, and Bird understands: cell phones, of course, can be traced.
What time is it? Margaret asks.
Almost four.
I thought we said tomorrow morning.
The Duchess unzips the raincoat and peels it from one arm, then the other. With a glance she takes in the table, the litter of wire snippings and bottle caps and the shiny coins of the batteries.
So you’re still going through with it, she says.
Margaret stiffens. Of course, she says.
The Duchess’s gaze sweeps around the room like a searchlight, illuminating things Bird himself has barely even noticed. The garbage can in the corner, overflowing. The foam cup from yesterday’s noodles, still slick with oil, on the floor at Bird’s feet. Bird himself in three-day-old clothes, his hair unbrushed and untidy, half-obscuring his eyes.
I thought things might have changed, she says. Now that— Her eyes pause on Bird.
Nothing’s changed, Margaret says sharply.
The Duchess drapes her raincoat over the back of the armchair. As always she moves like a ship in full sail: puffed with purpose. She settles herself on the arm of the sofa, beside Margaret.
You can still change your mind, she says.
Margaret fiddles with the knob on the soldering iron, lifts it from its wire sheath, touches its tip to the damp sponge. It gives off a faint, resentful hiss.
It’s not just about me, she says. You know that.
Under the tip of the soldering iron a drop of molten metal shines silver, then dulls to gray. His mother’s eyes are shimmering, like sunlight speckles on wind-rippled water. They tighten and twitch, as if she can’t quite make them focus.
I have to, she goes on. I promised them. I owe it to— She hesitates. I owe this, she says.
The Duchess places a hand on top of hers, and Bird sees the tenderness there. The affection.
Margaret looks up, her eyes meeting the Duchess’s, and the Duchess sighs—not convinced, but resigned. I’ll come tomorrow morning and take Bird, then, she says.
Bird’s head jerks up. Take me, he demands. Take me where?
To see Sadie, Margaret says brightly. Domi will take the two of you out of the city. Just for one day. While I get this—she waves a hand at the table—this project under way.
Somewhere nice, Domi says. I think you’ll like it.
Why, Bird says. Unconvinced and wary.
His mother sets the soldering iron down, leans across the table, takes his hand in both of hers.
There are some things I have to do, she says. Which I can’t do with you here. Domi’ll take you, and bring you to Sadie, and then we’ll both come and fetch you back. Do you trust me?
Bird hesitates. On the table, the soldering iron lets off a thin curl of smoke. A hot scent, singed metal and pine. He looks at his mother, her hands calloused and rough. But still they are strong and warm and gentle on his. The same hands he remembers lifting a seedling from the soil, plucking an inchworm from his T-shirt and setting it in the grass. Almost by instinct, they align their hands together, finger to finger, palm to palm, the way they used to when making promises. Now his hands are nearly the size of hers. He looks at the deep brown pools of her eyes, and finally he sees her. His mother. She’s still there.
Okay, he says, and his mother closes her eyes, lets out a breath.
Tomorrow morning, she says, in Domi’s direction. Say ten o’clock. Come for him then.
She opens her eyes and peels her hand away, then picks up the dangling ends of the wires and crimps them savagely.
We don’t have much time left, she says. Still a lot to do.
By the time the Duchess leaves, the rain has slowed to a drizzle. As the afternoon begins to fade, Margaret snaps a lid onto the last cap. It is Wednesday. Tomorrow will be three years since she left home.
Enough, she says, softly, and though Bird can hear it, it’s clear she’s speaking to herself. As if she’s telling herself to let go. Giving herself permission to stop, or to move on, neither of them will ever be quite sure which.
With one hand she sweeps the pile of bottle caps from the table and into a plastic bag. Then she hesitates.
Do you want to come with me, she asks. Just this one last time.
* * *
? ? ?
For almost four weeks she’s been making and planting them, over a hundred a day, in plain sight. No one paid any attention to the old women who wandered the streets, gathering bottles and cans to sell; if anything, people edged back or turned away, embarrassed or disgusted or both. She’d seen them for years: of all things the Crisis had not changed, of all things that had survived, somehow these women were one of them. Dogged, unproud, patiently sifting the trash for what could be salvaged—and many of them, even before the Crisis, Asian. Their faces reminded her of her grandmother’s, her mother’s, her own, and she thought of them each time she pulled her straw hat lower over her eyes and shuffled down the sidewalk, bending over garbage bins or at the roots of trees. Dressed like one of them, she could go anywhere, if she was careful.
Still, there were close calls. Sometimes the police came: she never saw those who’d called, only looked up to see them peeking from behind the curtains as the patrol car pulled up beside her. When the officer approached, she would tuck a twenty into his back pocket, but once that wasn’t enough. He’d clutched her elbow with tight fingers, his breath hot on the side of her neck, until she followed him into an alley and undid his zipper, slipped her hand beneath his waistband. As he writhed and groaned, she’d fixed her gaze on the badge on his chest until he’d arched backward and scrabbled at her hair and let out one last strangled yelp, and at last she was free to go on her way. When she’d straightened herself and emerged back onto the street, the patrol car was pulling away, and in the windows above she saw the lights on, the people behind it going about their delicate lives, the ragged woman below already forgotten.
Today, she must be extra careful. With Bird in tow, she can’t afford a mistake. They will be quick. The last few places she hasn’t been.
Stay a few steps behind and pretend you don’t know me, she says, pulling on her hat. And wear your sunglasses.
They emerge from the subway at West Seventy-Second Street: the territory of wealthy women with rhinestoned phone cases, of small white dogs on taut leashes. Everywhere the sidewalks are a damp silvery gray, the car windows streaked with rain. On the corners, the bodegas still have umbrellas hooked over their door handles, ready for sale.
Margaret slips the first of the bottle caps from the bag on her wrist, palms it in one curled fist. After a few minutes of searching, they find a spot: a trash can, half overflowing. Crushed beer cans and plastic wrappers spilling onto the wet pavement.