The Sunshine When She's Gone: A Novel

by Thea Goodman

  “What the fuck?” John said. “You’d think this was Nolita.” Hadn’t the name Edelson meant anything to them? They’d failed to understand the tinyness of the world.

  Derek shrugged his shoulders. “They’re just doing their jobs,” he said, and smiled modestly while John glowered. Slowly, Derek turned on the ignition. Gingerly, he turned the car around, and they drove at a child’s pace over the broken-seashell drive, past the abundant bushes of bougainvillea in their unreal hues, moving back past the damp green mounds of the golf course to the world outside the gates.

  PART TWO

  MEMORY

  6

  Saturday

  Veronica

  Veronica woke up happy. It was not the very common five-fifteen in the morning or even the marginally better five-forty but an otherwordly nine. She had slept for ten straight hours. Was her contentment purely chemical? She wanted to believe that her mind and not her body was in control, but after two full nights of sleep she felt purified, oiled like a machine that was finally, once again, in tune. She stretched as each limb came to life, to the future that was Irvington.

  She’d have to tell Dr. Weiss, her former therapist, that hers was not a problem of the mind at all but one of the body. The body trumped the mind, and if you attended to it, with a special homemade formula, with sleep, a bedside tray of pills, all could be healed. On that awkward first visit back to therapy, after the baby was born, Veronica had wrapped Clara like a papoose and showed her to the older woman as evidence of her own worth: Look what I made.

  She’d confessed to Dr. Weiss how she’d wanted her own mother; she’d wanted her to appear regularly, offering homemade lasagnas and remedies for clogged milk ducts, though this would have been entirely out of character. Veronica had lifted the bundle of the baby up to her cheek and kissed her. She didn’t know how to explain to Dr. Weiss that she’d never been so happy and so miserable at the same time. But going to the Upper East Side with the diaper bag, the heavy car seat, and the baby was a feat she could manage only twice before she gave up.

  * * *

  There was a train leaving in one hour. A free hour was something fat and full, in which she’d read the entire Times and go out to eat duck farm eggs at her favorite place on 12th Street: one person, her knees neat under the counter. She would, in that fat gift of an hour, steep herself in the sensation, however temporary, of being rested. In the shower, she knew time was not something to be taken for granted. She could taste it, and it felt like soaring, like greatness.

  She opened the shower door with a vague disappointment: John was not there to hear about what she’d do with an hour. How could she have been angry at him yesterday? He had given her the hour! In fact, he’d given her twenty-four.

  If she left even later, she’d have time to draft the entire proposal for the Jasper School lunches with inspiration (for she did want to overhaul what students at Jasper ate). This was her contribution, work that mattered, not the aesthetic reverie she’d inherited from her mother. Although lately she wondered where that reverie had gone; her love of paintings had abandoned her. She missed seeing with insight. As she fastened her bra, a pigeon worked at tapping a pane of glass. He paused and fixed a red eye on hers. “What?” she said. She stared back at the bird, searching for some nuanced gradation in his urban feathers, but there was none. They were gray. She returned to the desk and enlarged the train schedule to fill the computer screen. She could pick her hour. If she left for Irvington even later, she might go to MoMA before she made it to Grand Central. She opened her phone to call Irvington, but before she had a chance, it rang.

  It was Art, and he was whispering. “Can we meet at Greek Statuary?” Before Clara was born, Veronica had wandered the Greek galleries at the Metropolitan Museum almost every weekend.

  “Why are you whispering?”

  His voice returned to normal volume. “Ines just got in the shower; I can talk. You know how I never got her a diamond engagement ring—remember how I was against it? All the evil mining practices?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, now, since we’re having a baby—even though I think this is the foulest example of late-stage capitalism—there’s this thing, a push ring, and I want to get one for her. I need your help.”

  She couldn’t help laughing. “A push ring?”

  “I didn’t coin the phrase.”

  “You’ve found no correlation between possessions and happiness, remember?”

  “On some level they correlate, if there’s a measurable difference—like having a house versus being homeless; it’s complicated. Money doesn’t make people happier, though. We know that. Except for an increase that lifts one out of poverty. But Ines is so down; come help me look this morning while she’s at prenatal yoga.”

  “You have months to pick a ring. What about your moral code?” Art loved to say moral code. It was one of his favorite phrases, along with blighted when discussing an abandoned neighborhood and mature trees when discussing a very established one.

  “It’s a slackening, frankly. On my part. But I want to do it now, not in six months.”

  Ines had been through hell, and she would love diamonds and wouldn’t care where in the world they came from. “I guess I could take the later train.” It was a bright day, and the unfiltered winter light spilled on the bare floor. Shopping on a Saturday seemed sort of touristy and nice. Art suggested they meet at the very obvious Tiffany’s.

  “You have no idea how hard I’m going to hug you when I see you,” he said.

  “I think I have an idea.” The plan cheered her up. Forget pushing: He could give Ines the ring right away to celebrate the pregnancy. She dialed Irvington.

  “You’ve reached Evan and Muriel Reed,” a recording began. Muriel’s voice, recorded before Evan’s death, wavered slightly as if with prescience. But then it continued with the bold assurance, the confidence, of the most deeply enmeshed couples, who assumed they’d never part. Muriel overenunciated each numeral, mistrustful of this simple technology. But there was a lilt in her voice that was emblematic of the Reeds—the forever-empathic Reeds—who made you feel both cared for and slightly smaller, with their wise, seasoned assurances. Veronica heard Muriel’s fallibility too; she’d not yet changed the recording to delete Evan, and this moved Veronica so sharply that tears sprang to her eyes.

  “Muriel, hi,” she said. “Can you guys pick up?” They must have gone out for bagels. “It’s Veronica. Can you tell John I’m on the one o’clock train that arrives at one forty-six, so he can get me at the station? Kiss Clara for me. I’ll see you soon. Bye.” She called John’s cell, and the recording said that the customer was “out of range.” That was bizarre. Their service was always screwing up.

  She tossed the useless phone on the bed. Why had he not called this morning? She sulked on the radiator by the window. As she stood up, one of John’s cactuses, a dry, undernourished husk, scratched her bare thigh. It was a cactus and he forgot to water it enough. She squeezed the cut until it bled. She’d always disliked the plants, and now she had reason to hate them; she opened the window and threw it out. The clay pot made a satisfying crash in the alleyway.

  * * *

  In the cab uptown, Veronica was suspiciously happy again. It was necessary, she told herself, to give in to friendship, despite what her morning’s original goals had been. Alone, a veil was lifting, the texture of the world returning to her. She found a red cotton hat of Clara’s in her purse and held it to her face. Her daughter was made of pure sugar.

  The cab lolled to a stop at a red light near Union Square. Feathers and a lone plastic bag whirled up into the shaft between two buildings. On the corner she saw the familiar Happy Deli, with its crisp yellow awning.

  “The formula!” she said; there was no way that John had brought enough. She leaned forward to speak to the driver. “You can stop here.” The car glided to the corner. The Turkish deli owners knew her and smiled as she walked back to the dairy section and selected two con
tainers of organic goat milk. She paid and took a few swigs of the goat milk to make room for the herbs, then emptied one packet—it made her feel safe to always have them on hand—into the container. She shook the bottle, then checked to make sure it was well blended.

  John and Muriel were probably rushing around the gourmet market in Dobbs Ferry by now, looking for more goat milk while Clara grew hungrier. He could call to reassure her. He was taking her for granted, forgetting about her. Maybe she took him for granted. Art’s romantic mission was inspiring. She and John hadn’t surprised each other in a long time.

  She walked past the prenatal yoga studio where Ines was strengthening her pelvic floor. It was the same studio where John and Veronica had endured the birthing class. The teacher, an unwavering yet timid woman named Naomi (Art said of course her name was Naomi), had extolled the virtues of natural childbirth and passed around totemic items that one could take into the birthing room, like the pilly hand-knit red stirrup warmers she herself had used, or a scented candle, or “a favorite CD,” Naomi had said in a high-pitched voice, displaying one by Kate Bush.

  One evening she had passed around a bowl of ice, urging each woman and her partner to hold a cube in the palm of their hand while practicing breathing through the discomfort. Veronica’s palm burned slightly, then grew a little numb. The ice melted fast, dripping onto the wooden floor. Naomi scurried around the circle, drying the floor with a gray cloth. Veronica could cup ice for days.

  John had raised his hand. “You said discomfort. Do you mean of childbirth?” Naomi nodded. “It must be harder than holding a piece of ice in your hand.” The women in the room murmured their assent. Veronica had loved him for saying something.

  Despite the incident with the ice, Naomi’s own birth story was inspiring. Naomi had labored for six hours with no interventions and no complications. The photos of her own pink-cheeked toddlers seemed like evidence of her success. Naomi had made specific instructions in her birth plan; she would avoid all drugs and monitoring and would labor in a tub of warm water. She had not said explicitly that her good planning had caused her happy outcome, but that was the very powerful suggestion. Veronica had maintained this ideal in her mind for months. She hoped that the birthing class would quell her fears, but as the weeks passed her terror mounted.

  She kept searching for some shred of comfort, some connection to the other women present—they were going through it together, all larger each week than they had been the one before—but the vague repetitive inquiry “Where are you delivering?” never led to much beyond the name of the hospital or birthing center.

  As much as she wanted to be natural, she wanted to be safe. Veronica’s OBGYNs, who Art said represented the “medical industrial complex,” stressed safety. They relied on testing and statistics and informed decisions. They were, admittedly, modern. They would preempt all disaster with their information. They quoted percentages and rates of success. They harped on your fear. At the same time they would entertain no possibility of failure. It was impossible to fully trust the fictions of her doctors or Naomi.

  In the end, Dr. Berlin had stuck to protocols, forcing the testing and then the labor, when there was no sign of labor at all, because Veronica was thirty-five and had been pregnant for forty weeks. Thirty hours of Pitocin had made the uterus paper-thin. The massive bleeding of the uterus could not be stopped and led to the hysterectomy. The refrain of the birthing class, about the domino effect, about one thing leading to another, had been true.

  John, after his initial resistance (he’d said there were about ten thousand things he’d rather do on a Sunday afternoon than attend the birthing class) and their laughter about the ice cubes, had never complained again. She saw now how he had supported her. He had let her believe what she attested to.

  * * *

  A green diamond glittered on Art’s pinkie. “The ring makes you look like a gangster,” Veronica said.

  “Too much?” he asked, waggling his fingers.

  “A colored stone can be very chic,” said a blond saleswoman with total sincerity, a bracelet of keys jingling on her wrist. Veronica nodded politely, then peered into the cabinet while Art consulted his phone, scrolling through his e-mail.

  “I think Ines likes simpler things—maybe this eternity band,” Veronica said, slipping into the saleswoman’s vocabulary. She pointed at a small platinum band ringed with tiny diamonds. The woman nodded with approval and placed it on a blue velvet tray. “Holy shit,” Art said, staring at the phone in his palm.

  “What?” Veronica asked.

  “Nothing. A work thing.”

  Art slipped various rings onto Veronica’s fingers, shoving them too roughly over her knuckles.

  “Ouch!” she said.

  “Sorry.”

  “How are you doing,” she asked, “about the funny test result?”

  “I’m optimistic. I’m sure it’s an error,” he said, but he looked worried.

  “That’s what John would probably say.”

  “Have you heard from John today?” he asked, relinquishing an entire tray back to the saleswoman.

  “He gets very wrapped up with Muriel, talking about Evan and going through stuff in the garage. We’re playing phone tag.” Art wandered away to a different counter. “Do you see anything you like?” she asked, catching up with him.

  He wiped some imaginary drip from his nose with his thumb and moved to yet another counter, so she found herself following him.

  “Why are you moving so fast? You’re not even looking.”

  “Okay, let’s focus,” he said.

  “You look like you’re holding your breath or something.”

  “Maybe we should take some pictures of these.” Art crouched down to look into a glass cabinet of emerald rings. Veronica checked her watch while Art started to snap photos. Hopefully Clara had had enough of the special formula to get her to this moment, which was eleven-forty. A voice asked her if anything grabbed her fancy.

  “They’re all lovely,” she said, growing impatient with Art.

  He popped up and walked away again. They stared down at rings made to look like they were from antiquity. Amulets, Roman twists, and braids of gold. Veronica said, “Remember, today you’re just seeing what’s out there. You’re not buying anything. She’ll love whatever you get.”

  “No she won’t. Ines?”

  Veronica sighed. “Well, what are you gravitating toward, Art? What do you like?”

  “I have to borrow money from the furrier for this ring. I want her to love it.” Art called his father, Larry Greene, “the furrier,” because he was one.

  “You have time,” she said. Once again, she did not; she had no time. The expansive moment in the shower was an illusion. She was walking around in the vessel that was her body, carrying her various parts—the necessary liver and the unnecessary appendix. Even if she left now, she was probably going to miss the twelve o’clock train.

  Art waved his hand like an old pro. “By the time I get the image over to Abe in the diamond district and he copies it—you never want to buy retail, Veronica.”

  “Aren’t you the expert all of a sudden. Who’s Abe?”

  “Abe Zelnick—he’s an old friend of my dad. A jeweler. I’m going today. He’s on Forty-seventh. Can you come?”

  “I’m helping you now. I’m trying to catch a train. I don’t have time.” Her scar seemed to tighten and then release.

  “John will be fine without you,” Art said, as he studied a large diamond he could never afford. “The four C’s,” he murmured. “Color, cut, carat, and—hell, what was the last one?”

  “John will be fine without me?” The carpeted ground shifted beneath her. Where was John? Art’s eyes dodged around the glass case. They had to be back from Dobbs Ferry by now.

  “I meant, taking care of the baby. But you know what, pumpkin—”

  “I’m not your pumpkin, Art.”

  People around them hushed and stepped away, clearing a berth for their argument.r />
  “Jeez, John was right, you know that?”

  “He was right?”

  “Forget it.”

  “You know, I don’t even want to hear it,” she said, striding ahead of him.

  “Wait!”

  She faced him. “Why should I wait? I have very little time. Do you understand that? You couldn’t possibly. I’m doing you a favor. This is the first Saturday—” She stopped herself. He stared up at her—he was that short—his stocky arms folded across his chest. His slightly imperious smile made her continue. “You two get together and gripe about your wives, about all your deprivations. You poor, poor things. It’s unbelievable! I don’t know what he told you, but it’s none of your business, Art!” She trembled slightly, her heart racing.

  “You have gone completely…” He paused and then murmured, “Bitch,” under his breath.

  “Gone bitch? Who says that? Since when is gone bitch an expression?”

  “Excuse me, you’ve changed, okay? You have changed.”

  She looked up at the ceiling, where small halogen lights were embedded in the coffered wood. Little rainbow prisms danced about the rafters; there was still beauty. She could find it. She could see it again. But stones kept filling her throat, little pebbles, like something raw and undigested. She felt Art’s thick hand on her elbow and flicked it off.

  “What do you expect? I had a child.” The blond saleswoman with the bracelet of keys walked by and lowered her eyes. “But it’s good, the change. You know what Clara does?” Veronica improvised. “She makes everything perfectly clear; she breeds conviction and shows me what’s true. The false stands out in high relief. Like you right now.”

  A box of tissues appeared on the counter near her elbow, and she took one, out of habit. Absently, she separated the two layers. After, she got angry this new way. These flashes of total conviction almost felt good. It was true: Clara set the priorities. There was nothing that meant more than her.