Max smiled at her old face. He remembered the shameful secrecy of adolescence, moving his pornography and cigarettes from one drawer to another, rotating them away from her searches. She had found them anyway. “You’re right, Mom. You were no fool.”
“Why did you send that thing to me?”
“What thing?”
“You know—” she winced. She lowered her eyes. They were still young despite the wrinkles around them. They sparkled with humor and curiosity—and pain. “You know what I’m talking about. Why did you send that box of tools to me?”
He had forgotten about the gift buying. That belonged somewhere in the smashed part of his brain. He thought about it before answering. He remembered the nervous salesman copying the address. He had had to send the gift to his father. Where did his father live but with his mother? “You didn’t look at the card.”
“I looked. That was crazy and it hurt me. But I don’t believe you meant it. It was sent to me. You were sending me some kind of message.” She tapped his hand again. “Just tell me what you want to say to me, Max. ”
“I wanted to buy Dad a gift. You know I never got to buy him anything.” She turned away from this answer, wounded, ready to walk out. He continued, “Where could I send it? To his grave?” She looked back at him. Her young eyes wavered in their crinkled settings. “I bought the toolbox for my living father,” Max went on. “And where does my father live? With you. His picture—that picture where he’s ten years younger than I am—is still on your living room wall, and there’s another beside your bed. You haven’t remarried, you haven’t forgotten. He’s still alive in your house. If I want to give a gift to my father I have to send it to you.”
Her eyes searched him. They went back and forth across his face, in no hurry. She expected him to wait until she had finished her search, just as she used to while interrogating him for confessions of adolescent debauchery. “You’re not crazy,” she mumbled.
“No,” Max said and he gently slapped her hand.
She laughed. Her eyes teared up suddenly. She reached for her purse. She opened it fast, found a tissue, and blew her nose. With that done she looked at him: “Don’t ever do that again. You want to buy something for your father? Do what I do. Make a donation in his name to your favorite charity.”
“That wasn’t the idea—”
“I don’t care about your ideas!” She got up. “Don’t do that to me again.”
“Why didn’t you remarry?” Max shot this past all the sentinels that had always halted the question before it could be given a voice.
It was a shot that stopped her in her tracks. “Nobody asked,” she said.
“Come on, Mom. Did you love him that much? Was he that perfect?”
She smirked. It was a private amused twist of her curvy lips—almost mischievous. “I had two children, I was almost middle-aged. I wasn’t much of a prize.”
Max felt bound by his hospital bed. Its thin sheet was drawn taut across his stomach by the nurse’s overzealous bedmaking. He pushed at it with his belly and pulled at its edges with his hands, but remained trapped. He wanted to get up, in spite of his aching head. His mother came over and pulled them away. “What are you doing, Max?” she asked. “You want to get up?”
He was trembling. He was frightened. But of what? “I’m forty-two years old, Mom!” He got himself turned and slung his legs out of the mechanical bed. It had been raised so high only his toes reached the floor. “Why don’t you tell me the truth! Are we strangers? Do I have to worm it out of you? Do I have to get you drunk?”
She took his arm and supported him as he slid down until both feet rested on the cold floor. “What do you want to know, Maxy?” she asked, startled into using her childhood name for him.
Standing beside her he looked down at her small skull, sparsely covered by dyed hair. He felt her feeble arm in his. He was astounded at how little and old she was. “You didn’t even try, Mom,” he said, despairing of the interrogation. He pressed on hopelessly. “Why didn’t you try to find another man? You lived without love—”
“I had love, Maxy, I had my children.”
“I mean sex! You lived without sex!” His head seemed to blow up. A bell of pain rang in his ears; a cloud of pain worsened the fog in his eyes. He slipped down into the chair she had moved next to his bed. The back of his dressing gown must have opened. His bare ass slid on the unnatural smoothness of the molded plastic seat. He had to grab hold of its sides with his hands to keep from falling out.
“You shouldn’t be up,” his mother said. She didn’t sound scandalized. With a child’s squeamishness he had expected her to react prudishly to any discussion of sex.
“Answer me,” Max said in a sigh of exhaustion.
“Sex,” she said wonderingly as if she had just discovered its existence. “It wasn’t that important. I didn’t miss it that much. I’ve read books that say I’m wrong. They say it was important to me,” she said without irony, still wondering. “I missed it sometimes and I—” she met his eyes and caught herself. She didn’t blush, but she smiled slyly and smirked with her curvy lip: “There are ways to have sex by yourself as I’m sure you know, Max.”
“Are you telling me the truth, Mom?” Max felt small and naive looking up at her. He was a middle-aged infant, unable to walk. “Didn’t you live without love for me?”
She considered his question thoughtfully. She frowned a bit, her eyebrows drawing together, but her puffy cheeks stayed smooth and untroubled. “It had nothing to do with you. Aunt Essie thought I should get married—to almost anybody, even a thief—just to get you a father. But you didn’t need a father, Max. ‘My little man,’ your father called you. And you were—long before he died—you were a man.”
“No, I wasn’t,” Max said. He wanted to weep. He couldn’t; his head was too smashed. “You made a mistake. I needed a man to help me carry my grief. And you’ve made a mistake with your daughter. She’s a widow who’s never been married.” There—he had spoken—the terrible secrets were out. He waited for the world to be destroyed.
“I don’t think I made a mistake,” she said easily, evidently unaware Max had dropped his nuclear bomb. She reached for his limp right arm. “Let’s get you back into bed.” She urged him up. “I didn’t want to marry the schnooks who were available. Until this thing happened, Max, until that plane tragedy, you were a fine man. Ask my friends, ask yours, and they’ll tell you—Max Klein is a mensch. So I don’t agree with your opinion of yourself.” She pushed him toward the high hospital bed. Max grabbed for it with the gratitude of a tired swimmer reaching for a life preserver. “As for your sister,” she said, nudging his legs up onto the noisy sheets, “she was damaged by what happened. No question. But she was much younger than you; she had less of your father; and she isn’t pretty and she doesn’t have a good sense of humor. I don’t care what anyone says—it’s a competition out there for men. You don’t have to be a great beauty; you don’t have to be a genius. But you have to have something—maybe even a bad quality, a vicious temper—for men to want to marry you. Maybe because there was no man in the house for her to learn how to entertain—maybe you’re right.” She rolled Max into the bed; he fell face-forward onto the stiff sheets. His sinuses were hot. He wanted to sleep. The planet was pulverized; listening to her rebuild it was exhausting. “I didn’t want to settle. Most marriages are unhappy, Max. Most women hate the lives they live with their men. I know. They call me with their complaints. Many of them bury their husbands and enjoy life for the first time. Your sister doesn’t miss a man. She misses children. I told her—she can have children without a man—”
“You’re wrong, Ma,” Max mumbled as his eyes shut. His brain wanted to visit a different part of the galaxy; a place with fewer bomb craters. “Women and children need a man—” he called back to earth.
“A good man, Max,” his mother said. “You rest. But if they don’t have a good man they’re better off alone.”
“No,” he told her as he
launched into cool black space.
“We agree to disagree, Maxy,” she said. He fell toward the stars.
Max woke up with a clear head and a nosebleed. He phoned Brillstein, but the lawyer was out; Max left a message. He dozed lightly during the rest of the night replaying yesterday’s conversations; by dawn, he was convinced that Debby and Brillstein were up to something.
On his morning rounds the resident told Max he was better, ready to go home tomorrow, although he’d have to take it easy for a while. A psychiatric resident came by half an hour later and said he had to ask some routine questions because of the head trauma. It sounded like a lie. Max pretended his head was aching and asked him to come back later. The psychiatrist left.
Within five minutes Brillstein appeared in an excessively tight brown suit. The lawyer entered with his usual bustle. He scanned the room, obviously empty except for Max, and said, “You’re alone. Good.” Brillstein moved to the foot of the bed. He shifted his weight from one shoe to another restlessly. From his still position on the bed, Brillstein seemed to Max to be a skittish brown bird. “They want a meeting. About you, Mrs. Gordon and Mrs. Fransisca.” Brillstein’s head had been down while he searched for something in his breast pocket. The jacket was drawn so tight across the chest that his sleeve rode up nearly to the elbow and the right vent billowed like a skirt. “I just want to get a feel for what kind of numbers we might consider acceptable,” Brillstein said as he produced a small spiral notebook and a ballpoint pen. He looked at Max expectantly, a waiter ready to take his order.
“It’s what you’re going to get Nan and Carla that’s important,” Max said. “I’ve got plenty from the partnership insurance—”
“Shh! Shh! Shh!” Brillstein hissed with vehemence. He scolded Max with the ballpoint pen, shaking it at him. “Don’t talk like that. You’re not a well man. This whole experience has been horrific for you. We don’t know how long it will be before you’ll be able to earn a living again even leaving aside the loss of your firm’s key man.”
“Key man…?” Max pictured a fat man in medieval dress; and around his creased neck, he imagined a dazzling golden key dangling from a chain.
“Key man—Mr. Gordon. He brought in the clients and you did the designs. Maybe ‘key man’ is the wrong term from your point of view, but he did bring in the business. Obviously there would be no business to bring in if you weren’t doing the designing.”
Max remembered Jeff vividly: in his chair at his desk, swiveling at Max and then away, talking cheerfully to the phone, “We can do it—no problem. You’ll be as happy as Mr. Ben-David,” rolling his eyes at Max as he turned in his direction, then smiling at the ugly FIT buildings across the avenue as he swung away, always coaxing, always talking, keeping the clients busy with their greed for more space, more plumbing, more closets, more things…
“It’s so simple to you,” Max commented.
Brillstein wrinkled his pale forehead and comically raised his skinny eyebrows up to the lines. “Simple…?”
“Jeff brought in the business. He died. So I had to close the business.”
“Mr. Klein, I know you’re a sensitive and honest man. But those are the facts. No matter what other reasons there may be, the fact is: the plane crash brought an end to your business. Under the law you’re entitled to be compensated for such a devastating consequence. ”
“I have been compensated. I got the insurance money.”
“That isn’t admissible to a jury. As far as they would know you lost your partner and your business and that’s it.”
“It’s all a lie.” Max smiled wanly. His head no longer hurt. He noticed the absence of pain and then he realized that his sight, which had been doubled for two days after the accident and blurry since, was suddenly clear. He could see distant objects well. He sat up with excitement. He scanned the low buildings near the water and saw them first as shapes: rectangle, square, triangular lot; then in height: five stories, four, double-height warehouse; then the details of their condition: bad, bad, bad. Nothing to look at. If only his room faced Manhattan he could enjoy its variety of size, and at night, wonder about the life of its lights.
“It’s not lying,” Brillstein said, flitting back and forth along the foot of Max’s bed. “I don’t want you to think that there’s anything dishonest about your compensation. That’s in your head. I don’t know about your head, I’m not a psychologist. In fact—speaking of psychologists—I need you to do some psychological testing to strengthen our case. I need you to take a simple test, it’s really just answering a questionnaire. I can have the hospital psychologist do it if you like.”
“Sure,” Max said. He was up to this struggle. He looked at Brillstein and smiled.
“Good, good, good.” Brillstein flipped his notebook shut. He put a finger on his bare forehead; the skin crinkled around it as he frowned. “Did we discuss a figure? I don’t think so. It probably isn’t important, but I just need to know when I talk with them. Does a two-million-dollar settlement seem low to you?”
“You’re kidding,” Max said.
“Too low?” Brillstein said fast.
“Low!” Max chuckled. “It’s ridiculously high.”
Brillstein relaxed. “We’re talking about your expected after-tax earnings over your prime earning years. The Nutty Nick stores deal alone was a million-dollar loss.”
“We didn’t have that job.” Max grunted. “Aren’t they laughing you out of their offices with this stuff? I mean, my share of Nutty Nick wouldn’t be a million-dollar net.”
Brillstein had brought his forefinger down to his lips and he nibbled at the nail. “No?” he mumbled and then flipped his notebook open. “In his deposition the CEO of Nutty Nick says your and Mr. Gordon’s fee would have been two million dollars over the course of the years of work he had planned. You were a fifty-fifty partnership, correct? ”
“But we didn’t have that job. He hadn’t seen—”
Brillstein shook his pad. “In the deposition he says he planned to hire you, but he couldn’t because of the accident.” Brillstein smiled so widely he showed teeth. A calm happiness raised his lips. His eyes sparkled. “It’s a strong case,” he said without bluster.
“For Nan it’s a strong case,” Max said. “Jeff’s dead. He can’t work. But let me ask you something. Unless you prove I’m unable to work, isn’t my case weak?”
Brillstein put his notebook away. “Not necessarily. Just because you’re able to work doesn’t mean you can earn the same kind of money as you did with Mr. Gordon. And it doesn’t address the issue of the loss of the Nutty Nick stores contract.”
Max nodded solemnly. Brillstein now paced back and forth in a pattern that took him closer to the door with each pass. Max gestured for him to return to his bedside. Brillstein stopped. He paused and looked curious. Max repeated the gesture. Finally, Brillstein walked to the side of the bed. He held himself stiffly, though, his shoulders back and his head leaning away, as if ready to run. Max said quietly, “You get a third of the settlements, right?”
Brillstein pursed his lips gravely and nodded vigorously. The expression suggested that he disapproved of this fact.
“You’re going to make a big score with Nan’s case and Carla’s case. Do you need money so badly that you’re willing to have me declared insane just to make more money out of me?”
For a moment Brillstein did nothing but blink his eyes. Abruptly he sat down in the plastic chair Max’s mother had moved beside his bed. Brillstein rubbed his forehead with his index finger and studied Max. He seemed to come to a conclusion. He exhaled with a rush of words: “I told you these kinds of cases are almost always settled. And that’s true. But sometimes one side or the other decides not to compromise, to go the whole route. Not necessarily because of the merits of the argument. It’s for the future, for credibility. If you get a reputation for always settling, of being afraid to go to trial, then you can be taken advantage of. I’m up against heavy hitters. Their case stinks. We sti
ll don’t have the official final judgment of the NTSB but that isn’t legally binding anyway. All the data is in and it shows that it was negligent maintenance that caused the engine to come apart and wipe out the hydraulics. So TransCon is going to be on the hook for this. They should settle. They know it. They’ve already settled seventy-five percent of the suits—got them cheap if you ask me. They did it in a bunch with the two big firms, like a discount sale, using three formulas depending on age. Most anyone got was six hundred thousand. They paid a hundred thousand for the children.” Brillstein shook his head with disgust. “They may—”
Max was impatient with his tedious logic and cut him off—“They may go to trial with you to prove a point, since they’re safe on the other cases if they lose.”
Brillstein snapped his fingers and then pointed at Max. “You got it. Also, I’m working on new law here. Well, not new. There’s been two rulings so far, but not for airplanes. Have you ever heard of posttraumatic stress syndrome?” Max shook his head no. “You’re suffering from it!” Brillstein said eagerly and with a hint of delight, as though it was clever of Max. “We can sue them for compensation for the syndrome’s effects. It’s a gamble for them but they may decide to take it to trial and beat it.”
“ But if they lose on that point they’re screwed in the future, no?”
Brillstein folded his arms. He smiled without showing teeth. “They’re screwed either way. If they settle on this issue, even if we agree to keep the numbers and the argument confidential, other lawyers will find out and use it again.”
“You know,” Max said. He shifted in the bed, to get on his side and face Brillstein. The sheets and all its plastic undercoverings rustled and swished. He let their surf noise the down before continuing. “I’ve never done anything really good or useful in the world.”
Brillstein nodded eagerly, almost encouragingly.
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