He shrugged.
‘I mean, seriously, Dad,’ I said. ‘You’re going to come back to New York eventually. Don’t you want somewhere to live once you do?’
He stared at me. Suddenly, I wanted my father to tell me something important. Anything. Something that indicated that someday, maybe we’d be normal around each other again.
But instead, he said, ‘There’s a new subway line, you know. The V. It’s part of the Sixth Avenue train. I saw it on the subway map on the way over. I guess it’s an alternative to the F, although not in Brooklyn. The end of the line is Second Avenue and Houston.’
I eyed him carefully, but his face was blank. This was who he was now, at least for me. The crack between us had instantaneously sealed after September 11, because it had seemed petty to fight about anything. I never mentioned anything about the things I’d said, and he never mentioned anything about the things he’d said. Our conversations remained superficial, usually arts-and-culture related, or about things Philip and I did on the weekends, or about llamas and Vermont-because, I supposed, it was easier that way. Sometimes, when we were talking about nothing on the phone, I wanted to tell him all Stella had said to me about his accident. All those secrets. I also wanted to ask him where his rehearsed speech years ago had come from. Had his new therapist told him to get on the phone with me and tell me that I was hindering his growth as a person? Or had he come to that conclusion on his own?
A tall, slender woman with a fur-lined hood walked on the other side of the street. After a moment, she stopped and peered at us. The hood was tight around her head, so it was hard to see her face, but I could tell she was in her thirties or forties. Her black down coat extended past her waist, ending in two thin, dark, denim-clad legs and tall black boots. She was sophisticated in a different way than the ghettofabulous girls of Crown Heights, the neighborhood the diner bordered. To my astonishment, the woman held up a gloved hand and, with some uncertainty, gave my father a little signal.
‘Do you know her?’ I asked. My father’s face grew pale. His hand was at his chest, and his fingers were curled. I wasn’t sure if he had been waving back. The woman slunk down the block, in the general direction of the Brooklyn Museum, pulling her expensive-looking black leather purse close to her side.
‘We should go back in,’ my father said, turning back for the door. I didn’t know what else to do but follow. On my way past the line of customers, I got a big whiff of the plate of orange slices a waitress was passing around. They smelled so ripe and tart, they brought tears to my eyes.
Stella had remained in that Central Pennsylvania hospital for a few more days until she was stable enough to travel back to Cobalt. After that, there was really nothing we could do. We had to accept this. Stella’s oncologist had pushed hospice pamphlets into my hands. They referred to this as the death process. Hospice professionals made the death process as comfortable for the patient as possible. Hospice professionals were available around the clock, because patients often fear going through the death process alone.
I imagined the spots on Stella’s brain that the latest MRI had detected. They were palpable and writhing. After a while, I would enter her room and she would think I was someone else, often her sister. ‘So did you talk to him in study hall?’ she babbled. ‘Who?’ I asked. She rolled her eyes. ‘Tommy Reed. Jesus, Ruth! You’ve been talking about him all week.’ Her hands fluttered open and closed, like she was a little squirrel digging in the ground.
And one time, she glared at me and said, ‘It’s been three years, Ruth, and you’ve said nothing to him.’ She wagged her fingers in my face. ‘Get over it. So he made a mistake. The baby is healthy. You think the world knows, but who cares if they do? The only one who really cares is you.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I’d asked. ‘What baby?’
Stella snorted. ‘Always in denial.’
Stella made less and less sense. I worried she would die in her room alone, so I set up a cot in her room. Once, in the middle of the night, she sat up in bed and stared at me.
‘Your father was in a mental institution,’ she screeched, witch-like.
‘I know that,’ I said.
‘And he’s got something in hiding.’
‘What is he hiding?’ I asked.
‘Like the Nazis,’ she announced.
‘What?’
She flopped back down on the bed, exhausted.