When he opened his eyes, a man stood a few feet away from him—invading his space the way Gore had invaded Bush’s. The man was much bigger than David, tall and bearlike, with baggy, dreary gray pants and a gray sweatshirt, unlaced work boots. David noticed the man’s eyes—blue with frighteningly dilated pupils—before he saw the knife. The man took a step forward so that the knife was one quick jab from David’s heart. He felt his balls constrict. His breath quickened. Swish pulled, probably wanting the man to pet him. David tightened his grip on the leash. The man hadn’t asked for money or anything, hadn’t asked David to back up against the fence behind him. He had nothing to offer anyway: no money, no wallet, only his house key in the pocket of his running shorts.
Then, suddenly, his fear was gone. He didn’t care what happened. This might be the way he deserved to die, he thought. It would make for an interesting news story. Former presidential candidate David Christie was murdered early this morning in Philadelphia. The man hadn’t blinked. Swish kept pulling on the leash, and then David knew what to do. He didn’t care what happened to him, as long as the dog wasn’t harmed. He dropped the leash, and Swish bounded along the path and back; he wanted to play. The man looked at the dog, and David might have run then. He was sixty-one years old, but he could outrun this man. Swish returned to David’s side. The man finally blinked, his eyes filled, he looked about to cry.
And then the man walked away.
David leashed Swish and stayed where he was. He watched the man wander to the end of the path, where he dropped the knife before continuing toward Center City. David’s hands were shaking, but not because he was scared.
OCTOBER 2004
Betsy kneeled on the kitchen floor. “It’s all right, Dad,” she said. “Let me take care of it.”
She’d come home to see her father, to tell him about the man she’d been dating. His name was Cal, and he used to be one of her mother’s students at Buchanan. He was a psychologist and had volunteered to help with the foundation, counseling high school students from single-parent homes. He was eight years older than Betsy—he’d been a freshman in college when Betsy was ten, when Nick died. When she met him to talk about her mother’s foundation, she thought he was handsome. A buzz cut rarely made a man look handsome, Betsy felt, but Cal’s made him look boyish, and he had dimples, and maybe because he’d been her mother’s student, she imagined him younger than he was. The first time they met for coffee, she couldn’t ask him enough about her mother. What had she been like as a teacher? What grade did he get in her class? He told her that it was strange to see her as a woman when the last time he’d seen her she’d been a girl—maybe eleven or twelve. He’d stopped by during her mother’s office hours, and Betsy was there doing her homework. She didn’t remember, she told him. She liked that he’d called her a woman; she liked that word, about her, in his voice. And she liked that he already knew her, in a way, through her mother, and that he knew what had happened with Nick; and certainly he knew everything else too. She wouldn’t need to explain much to him.
“Really, Dad, it’s okay. It’s just a spill. No big deal.”
She knew it wasn’t just a spill.
No, she wouldn’t tell him about Cal now. If her mother were alive, Betsy probably would have told her first. Then her mother would have told her father. She would have told her mother about the mud. Actually, if her mother were alive, there would be no educational foundation in her name, no summer retreat for high school students—bright kids who would be, Betsy hoped, the first in their families to attend college—and she never would have met Cal. So: bad led to good and good to bad, and she supposed that if you lived long enough, those words lost their meaning.
She spent most of her time in an office, and she looked forward to each retreat in Upstate New York—hiking and swimming and color wars, some college advising. It had rained the first three days of this summer’s retreat, and on the fourth day, one of the kids waded into the lake and her feet got stuck in the muddy bottom. She wasn’t in any real danger, but she was scared, and so Betsy took off her sneakers and waded in to get the girl. Except she got stuck too—she couldn’t lift her feet, the mud was like quicksand—and then she fell under the water. She started to panic, but managed to stand. Then she fell again.
Cal didn’t strike Betsy as the outdoors type—he was great counseling the kids, but he was always swatting at bugs or wiping dirt from his white sneakers—but there he was in the lake, holding her up. He held her hand, and she held the girl’s, and he led them both out. Everyone cheered and clapped. Betsy, covered in mud, hugged the girl. When she opened her arms to hug Cal, she sensed his hesitation—he was wearing a white polo shirt—but then he pulled her against him. After a long hug, when they separated, his shirt was muddy. “Sorry,” Betsy said. He smiled, reached out, and wiped mud from her face.
No, she wouldn’t tell her father that story, and she couldn’t tell her mother, except in her thoughts. She wasn’t even sure she understood what it meant. Something beyond her articulation, something about her being muddy and Cal being clean and his taking away some of her dirt—maybe it was best not to understand it and just enjoy falling in love.
She wanted to tell her father, but not now. She was on her knees with a rag.
She thought at first that he’d spilled the coffee because his hands were shaking—she’d noticed—but now she saw that the mug was upside down, and he seemed to have no idea. Coffee had run off the kitchen table and onto the floor. Betsy had gotten out of the way just in time or she would have been burned.
“Shit!” her father said.
“It’s okay,” Betsy said, “it’s okay.”
“Shit!”
“It’s just a spill.”
“Stupid.”
Her father reached down and tried to take the rag from her, but she said, “It’s all right, Dad. Let me take care of it.”
Ten years ago her first college roommate had asked her if she was an only child. No one had ever asked her that. The question had been in the present tense: “Are you an only child?” Well, she had been—then. But “yes” wouldn’t come out of her mouth. It wasn’t true, no matter the verb tense. She’d had a brother. But sometimes—now, for example, as she cleaned up spilled coffee, her father standing there with his hands in his pockets—she felt him in the present: I have a brother. He’s here. Only a memory, someone might say. Just missing him. But it felt more than that: like the light beneath her closed eyelids, and the Nick-presence she felt hovering above her shoulder when she walked to school those first days after he died. Painfully close. And even if it was only a memory, even if that was the only place where they might all meet again, then so be it.
“Are you an only child?”
No, actually, I have a half sister I’ve never met.
“I had an older brother, but he died.”
“I’m so sorry,” her roommate said.
“It was years ago. He was sixteen.”
“I’m really sorry, Betsy.”
Her second college roommate told Betsy that she wanted at least three children—definitely not just one. That way, she said, they would have each other to deal with their old and sick and crazy parents. “I think of my own parents,” she said, “and I’m glad not to be the only one to have to deal as they get old. I mean, can you imagine?”
“I don’t think of elderly parents as things to deal with,” Betsy said.
“I never said things.” Then: “Shit, I’m sorry, me and my big mouth. You’re all alone.”
“I’m not alone.”
“You know what I mean—an only child.”
“I had a brother.”
“Right, I know, but—”
“I cared for my mother when she was sick, and it was an honor.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“And I’d feel the same about my father.”
“Betsy, all I said was I want three kids.”
“That’s not all you said.”
“Hold on,
how did we get here?”
Betsy closed her eyes and considered this. It was a great question, maybe the question: How did we get here? How does anyone wind up wherever they are?
“I’m being sensitive,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“And I wasn’t sensitive enough,” her roommate said. “I’m the one who’s sorry.”
“It never happened,” Betsy said.
“What never happened?”
“Our little argument.”
“What argument?”
“Oh, I get it,” Betsy said. “A joke.”
But now this was no joke; spilled coffee was not just spilled coffee. She was an only child, and her father was shaking—not only his hands—and she did wish Nick were here.
FEBRUARY 14, 2006
The year she was thirteen. Unlucky thirteen. The year she let a boy get lucky with unlucky her. Three years older than her, but still a boy. Closer to being a man than any other boy she knew. She knew the difference. Her mother’s boyfriends were men. When she used to ask her mother if a guy was her boyfriend, her mother would say, “Oh, you know, we’re involved.” But about one man, the year Avery was thirteen, her mother said, “I guess you could call him that.” Avery didn’t like to call them by name—only “your friend,” “what’s-his-name,” “you-know-who”—except for the man her mother was dating now. Edward Plank, but her mother called him Eddie. Avery’s boy, though she never called him hers and he never called her his, was Steve Hoffman, though everyone called him Hoff.
Eddie was a big guy who wore his weight well and dressed impeccably. Button-down shirt, khakis, loafers. He wore cologne, but not too much. His dark hair, slicked back and parted on the side, was always just the right length, as if he had it trimmed weekly. He was one of the few men her mother had dated who was as handsome as she was pretty. Nice smile, striking green eyes, long girly eyelashes. He didn’t blink so much as close his eyes briefly and calmly as if resetting his vision. He kept his mouth closed and breathed evenly through his nose. He owned an Italian restaurant in Brooklyn. Avery’s mother took her there for her thirteenth birthday. Eddie noticed her mother, came to the table, and that was it—he was gaga.
Hoff went to the high school for gifted kids that Avery would eventually attend. He was quiet and smoked and rarely smiled and had a James Dean thing going on. Dark half circles under his eyes, torn black sweater, a tortured soul. Too cool to play sports or join clubs, too cool to do too well in school, too cool to have a girlfriend or best friend. He was the guy standing on the corner, smoking. He was the guy who paid for cigarettes with change. He was the guy you never saw eating. He was the guy other guys would walk up to just to shake his hand and say, “What’s up bro.” Avery pretended not to be as into him as she was because she didn’t want to be the way her mother had been with her father. Being crazy about someone meant that you were weak and vulnerable.
Hoff didn’t seem to care who Avery was—or rather, who her mother was and what had happened. They never talked about it; others did, she knew.
It was Valentine’s Day night, and her mother and Eddie were fighting behind her mother’s closed bedroom door. Avery did her best not to listen, but it was impossible not to hear her mother say, “You think you’re so important,” and Eddie say, “You’re a real piece of work,” and her mother say, “I knew from the moment I met you that you were nobody,” and Eddie say, “Stop being a child,” and then her mother crying, and Eddie saying, “Would you please stop,” and her mother saying something Avery couldn’t make out, and Eddie saying, “Rae, please calm down,” then for a while no one speaking, then her mother’s little-girl voice.
Avery made sure they didn’t hear her leave. She called Hoff and told him to meet her in the park where they’d sometimes go to smoke and kiss. During her walk there, she had the feeling that someone was following her. She was certain that the same car—a silver Audi—had driven past her three times. The man driving the Audi wore round glasses and had long brown hair in a ponytail.
When Avery arrived at the park, she sat in the outfield grass, the usual spot where she met Hoff, and watched the Audi circle the park. The second time around it stopped near the entrance and the headlights went out.
It was too dark to see, but she heard a car door open then close.
A figure approached across the baseball diamond: the sound of dirt kicked, a casual walk, hands in pockets. The person came closer, and now she could see that it was Hoff.
She was less scared now that he was there. Even less when she kissed him and they fell back in the grass. But she became scared again when he popped open the button on her jeans, unzipped them, pulled them down below her knees so that he could spread her legs, and slid his hand beneath her underwear.
She watched her breath make dying puffs of steam in the cold air above her. After it was over, she pulled up her jeans, and then he did. They sat silently in the grass, Hoff’s hair hanging over his eyes. They shared a cigarette as they walked to his car. As they kissed by the park’s entrance, there was a camera flash, close, then another, and another, and the ponytailed man hurried to his Audi and drove away.
Hoff said, “What the fuck,” but Avery said nothing. She made herself a promise—she wasn’t sure that she could keep it—that she would not check the tabloids in the coming days. It would not be the first time she or her mother had appeared in them.
When she got home, Eddie was pounding on the front door, yelling for her mother to open the goddamn door and let him in. Hoff asked Avery if she wanted him to stay, and she said no.
Eddie saw Avery and stopped yelling but kept banging on the door.
“The neighbors are going to call the police.”
“Screw the neighbors,” he said.
“They call the police for every little thing.”
“Let them.” Eddie raised his middle finger to the world.
“What exactly do you want?” she said.
“I want her to open the door.”
“It’s dark inside.”
“You call her—she’ll let you in.”
“Why are you out here?”
“I was leaving,” he said, “but then she went to the window and said things.”
“My mother says things.”
Avery sat on the stoop. She was sore, and her mouth was dry and tasted of cigarettes. Eddie sat beside her. She was sure she’d be sick.
“Go home, Eddie.”
“Don’t you have a key?”
“It’s in the house.” This was true, and she didn’t know how she’d get in, but she would figure that out when Eddie was gone.
“What good is a key in the house?”
“Eddie—please go home.”
“She can’t just make threats like that.”
“Like what?”
“Stupid, selfish threats.”
“My mother is a passionate person.”
“Dramatic.”
Eddie stood and ran his hands through his hair. He buttoned his coat. “You know, I’m not like this. Your mother brings this out in me. This is not who I am, believe me.”
“Good-bye, Eddie.”
“I think you’re right,” he said. “This is probably good-bye.”
He opened his arms for a hug, but Avery offered her hand. He took it, then pulled her toward him and hugged her. Her head reached his shoulders, close enough to smell the cologne he must have rubbed on his neck. The hug went on too long, past Avery’s two attempts to pull away. He put his hand on the back of her head, like a father might.
“Eddie,” she said, and pushed him away.
“Sorry,” he said.
“For what?”
“Take care, okay?”
He walked across the small front lawn and beeped his car. The headlights flashed. But before he got in and drove away, Avery called to him: “Hold on—don’t go.”
She ran to the car and said, “What threats?”
“What do you mean?”
“What kind of stupid, se
lfish threats did she make?”
As soon as he told Avery, she took over his previous post on the stoop, banging on the door.
“Mom,” she yelled at the house. “If you love me, open the door.”
Avery backed away from the house and called up to her mother’s bedroom window. “Mom, I need to speak with you. I did something with a boy tonight.”
“What did you do?” Eddie said.
“Shut up.”
“What boy?”
“Mom,” Avery shouted. “I really need to speak with you.”
“Maybe we should call the police.” Eddie took out his cell phone, but as soon as he touched his finger to it, Avery knocked it from his hands.
“Jesus, Avery,” he said, and picked it up. “I was just checking to see if she’d called.”
She checked her phone—nothing.
“She wouldn’t really,” Eddie said. “She just wanted to get my attention.”
“Well, I guess she got it.”
His phone beeped. He looked at it, looked away.
“Sorry to say this, you’re her daughter and all, and I really like you, Avery, I do, you’re a smart, funny girl, you’re going to be someone, but this is exactly why I told her I can’t do this anymore.”
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