She thinks of all the big parties thrown by and for Soren. In the movie, the art director gave them the fantastical, Dionysian feel of Fellini or Cocteau (one of them was even a costume party, which Morty would never have condoned), when, in reality, they felt more like gatherings of extremely privileged people trying on mildly bad behavior for fun—and eating too many deviled eggs. But the movie was art, glorying without excuse in its simplifications and necessary lies as a means to a particular, pointed truth. (Soren’s movie demise—at the house, in a bedroom far larger than the one in which the actual Soren had slept, with a weeping Morty sketching his lover’s face in death—had a revisionist nobility that might have gratified Morty; perhaps he would have come to regard it as gospel. Not that the two of them ever discussed Soren’s physical death, that final night at the hospital.)
Morty, of all people, would have embraced all the fancification—especially because, at the end of the story told in the movie, Mort Lear is a figure whose ordeals have brought him not merely survival but wisdom, generosity, and joy. In the final scene, after his solitary scattering of Soren’s ashes from a crumbling pier on the Hudson River (more wholesale invention), Nick-as-Morty returns home by taxi, train, and on foot, through falling leaves—Soren’s fictional death occurring in the autumn, not a callow, colorless winter—to spy Ivo lurking in wait, high in the branches of a vast, vibrant tree, a twin to the granddaddy maple. Morty watches Ivo (no matter how supple, always a drawing, never a true boy) clamber down the trunk and then follows the phantom boy into his studio. He watches as Ivo brings to life—and to exquisite, almost supernatural color—all the figures, human and animal, depicted in the monochromatic sketches and drawings pinned on easels, stacked on tables, framed on walls—among them the boy from Rumple Crumple Engine Foot; the fox in the balloon; the inseparable, not-quite-invincible trio of Boris, Stinky, and Greta. Even the clay figures made by Morty’s youngest fans come to life.
Nick gazes at Tommy, silently, through his dark lenses. Tommy remembers him as someone who talked almost relentlessly; has she offended him? She says, “Do you know what? I think seeing you become him, the Morty of years ago, when he was so much younger, I think it would have made him feel less alone—like bumping into a lost twin. I didn’t even realize until after he died how essentially lonely he was.”
“Thank you,” Nick says after a moment. “Really, quite truly, thank you.”
Another awkward silence settles in—especially difficult because it’s hemmed in by so much ambient din and hectic, carefree play. Tommy reaches for the book that lies facedown in Nick’s lap. “What’s she reading, Fiona?”
“Oh, she’s ripping her way rather precociously through Andersen’s fairy tales. Broody, depressing stuff, if you ask me. Hans Christian didn’t much like little girls, I suspect. I’m not even sure he liked people. Sometimes I think she’s only pretending to read it. That, or she’ll be growing some very thick skin!”
The jacket depicts an elaborately stylized, Rossetti-esque portrait of the Little Mermaid. Nothing more tedious than a modern artist putting on Old Master airs: Morty’s sharp, often barbed observations still braid themselves into her own.
Tommy returns the book. “She’s how old?”
“Barely six, if you can believe it.”
“She’s just falling in love with tragedy. A little early, but then she’ll get it out of her system earlier, too.”
As if having guessed she’s under discussion, Fiona deftly halts her swing, gets off, beckons to the next child in line, and strides toward them. She sits next to Nick. “What time are we meeting Mum?”
“Half one,” Nick says, sliding an arm around her shoulders. “Can you hold out a trice more?”
She nods and repossesses her book.
“I suppose,” says Tommy, “you must be working on another movie by now.” How, she wonders, will they bring this meeting to an end? Has she kept him too long?
“Oh no. I mean, eventually, yes; taxes must be paid! But for now, I’m all about the stage. All about sticking close to home—once I’m done with this tour. And talking of tragedy, I am all about comedy this go-round! I’m a rapscallion playboy whose ex-lovers collaborate on a surprise party for his fortieth. Pure farce. But genius. The play, I mean. At one point, I cross the stage—well, I enter and careen about for a minute—on my hands. We’ll see if I’m fit enough to do that night after night! My character’s description includes ‘nimble as a flea.’ Did I ever fool those producers.”
Fiona, overhearing, looks up from her fairy tale. “You can walk on your hands?”
“Oh, Fee, wait’ll you see your old uncle. Except I’ve a hunch your mum’s not going to let you see this play. Things get a little randy.” He turns back to Tommy. “Best thing is, I wake up every day in my own damn bed. The mice are finally clearing off.”
Tommy wonders if he wakes alone or with a lover. She feels a twinge of envious longing, though she’s not sure if it’s for someone to wake up with or for Nick’s wide horizons. He’s at that age when the most fortunate people cannot possibly appreciate how young they still are.
Fiona now merely fidgets with her book, opening and closing its cover.
“I think we’d best be clearing off ourselves,” says Nick. He lays a hand on Tommy’s knee—the hand that portrayed Morty’s at the outset of the film. “Thank you.”
Two women sitting in the sandbox with their children are peering repeatedly at him, turning their heads to and fro like birds.
“But!” he says as he stands and takes Fiona’s hand. “I’ll see you at the museum thing, right? I have to rush off after the screening, but I’ll search you out before.” He smiles winningly. She’s sorry to be confronting a double reflection of her own face where she’d rather be looking into those indelible eyes.
“Yes. I’m taking Dani and his wife.”
“Your brother,” Nick says, probably uncertain.
“I’m off to have lunch with him now.”
“You’re so different, the two of you. Well, as siblings often are.”
He begins to walk toward the gate, and Tommy tries to stay beside him. But they have to choose separate detours to avoid collision with oblivious children, small construction vehicles, and a zigzagging tricyclist. Tommy barely dodges a soccer ball kicked forcefully through the air by a boy who’s really too old to be here. She shoots him a warning look. “Hey!” The boy startles. She retrieves the ball from under a bench and carries it over, hands it back. “Not a good idea,” she says as gently as she can.
She catches up with Nick at the gate. He holds it open.
“I want you to know,” he says once they’re out on the sidewalk, “that it wouldn’t have been the same at all, I wouldn’t have been the Mort Lear I was, without your being so open to me. I wanted to tell you in person, Ms. Daulair.”
“Mr. Greene,” she says, “can you please stop thanking me?”
“I can, but I probably won’t.” He shakes her hand.
She laughs at the formality. If only to bring an end to the awkwardness, she raises her arm at the sight of an available taxi. “You want this one?” she asks.
“All yours,” he says.