The first image depicted Millard’s parents, Solomon and Shirley, posing on the red carpet outside the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Freshly married, obviously in love. He couldn’t remember his mother so young, his father so full of vigor and promise. “Grandma and Grandpa,” announced Maia. Then came Millard and Lester horsing around in the pool at Grossinger’s Resort, sunbathing on the beach in Fort Myers, tossing a baseball across the sandlot at Van Cortlandt Park. Millard in a sleeved doublet with a neck ruff as Myles Standish in his elementary school’s Thanksgiving pageant. Millard and Harriet dancing together at Lester’s bar mitzvah.
“How on earth . . . ?” he asked.
“I found the photos in one of Mom’s shoeboxes,” whispered Maia. “Arnold wanted to convert them to PowerPoint, but I thought you’d enjoy an old-fashioned slide show . . . . Believe me, it was a royal pain in the ass, too. Nobody converts photos to slides anymore.”
Millard wanted to ask: Do you remember that time Papa brought his slide projector to the Ozarks and airport security mistook it for a weapon? It was cutting-edge technology back then! But nobody in the room, he realized, possessed any memories of his father.
A candid of him and Lettie Moshewitz, lounging in the plush lobby of the Centennial Arms, popped onto the screen. How young she looked! A mere child. What foolishness, to have suffered so much for a girl in braces and knee socks. In a second photo, he and Lettie stood side by side, his arm draped over her shoulder, posing like a married couple. When had that been taken? Had she really allowed him to wrap an arm around her?
“Who’s the hot chick?” demanded Stan Laguna.
“No idea,” lied Millard. “Some girl from the neighborhood.”
Thankfully, that was the last of Lettie, although he did have to endure a portrait of the Hager Heights drama club that included his high school heartthrob, Stella Vann, and, later, a group shot of him and Art Hallam in a booth at MacGregor’s Pub with Art’s fiancée and Judy Bell—before she’d urinated on his gabardine trousers. Next came sundry pictures of Carol: in jumper dresses, in a white lab coat, with and without her horn-rimmed glasses. And slowly a family emerged: Millard cradling Arnold; Millard, tongue plastered to his nose, hamming it up for Sally; all three children costumed as dental cosmetics for Halloween. Lysander, the Pepsodent toothbrush, already a towering gangle at twelve. The children fished off the dock at Hal Storch’s lake house, cavorted on Millard’s skiff, played Frisbee at Hyannis like the Kennedy siblings. Soon Arnold graduated college, Sally completed high school. The family was just starting to fragment—baby Maia claimed a place in Millard’s arms—when Lysander entered the apartment with his usual tumult. Eyes turned toward the door.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “Happy birthday, Dad.”
“Grab a seat,” ordered Maia. “We’re nearly finished.”
Yet they were far from finished. A series of work-related photos followed: Millard accepting the medical school’s W. Feig Award for Teaching Excellence; Millard’s induction ceremony into the New York Academy of Medicine; a photo from the psychiatry department picnic, when joyless David Atkinson had still been chairman and Stan Laguna was a first-year fellow, sporting sideburns and a bushy beard. And then the show returned to family once again: Millard with Isabelle, cruising the Seine on a bateau mouche; with Isabelle and Maia—maybe age fifteen—outside the Holocaust Museum in Washington. (Compared to Carol, Isabelle received short shrift on screen time, but he understood this was a sensitive subject among his children.) The final slide pictured Millard, alone, smiling, leaning over the side of the skiff with a snapper dangling on his line, above the caption: Millard Salter, Beloved Father & Physician, Seventy-Five Years Young. Fervent applause greeted the conclusion of the tribute.
“Speech!” called out Stan Laguna. “Speech!”
Millard waved him off. “The secret to living a long life,” he retorted, “is not giving unwelcome speeches.” That produced a sporadic chuckle. “Unless you’re paid generously by a pharmaceutical company,” he added. More laughter and cheers ensued.
“We have one more surprise for you,” announced Maia. She handed him the telephone. “Someone very special wants to wish you a happy birthday.”
For an instant, he’d anticipated that Virginia Margold had called. When his sister’s voice came through the receiver, his first reaction was relief.
“Millard, is that you?”
“Yes, it’s me. Harriet?”
“I’m not going to stay on the phone too long,” said his sister. “I know you’re having a big birthday bash and all. But I wanted to wish you a happy birthday. And say that I love you.”
What Harriet meant was that she didn’t want to keep him on the line, long distance, although he’d explained to her countless times that he paid the same rate whether he called her in Tucson or Teaneck—or Tuscany, for that matter. But old habits perished hard: Papa never spoke on the telephone for more than thirty seconds, except for business matters, and kept sick calls at the hospital to a carefully timed fifteen minutes. No need to overstay your welcome, he insisted, when his primary thought was on his parking meter. How a man could shell out seventy-five dollars for a dinner at Lüchow’s and fret over a five-cent meter had been one of the unresolved mysteries of Millard’s childhood. When Millard had asked once—during their “parenting chat” at the Overlook—his father had replied, At Lüchow’s, I can enjoy my money.
“I love you too, Harriet,” said Millard.
He’d hardly hung up the phone when Sally entered with a chocolate cake. She’d forgone seventy-five candles for two large ones in the shape of a 7 and a 5. The designer had etched a stethoscope and a black bag onto the surface in frosting.
“Make a wish,” urged Stan Laguna.
“Yeah, Dad,” said Arnold, “make a wish.”
Gabby Lu’s toddler shouted an incoherent cry of enthusiasm.
“I already have everything I want,” he replied.
Yet he ought to wish for something—even if it were only superstition. But what? A career for Lysander? A husband for Maia? A painless death. When he’d been in grade school, he’d solved these competing demands by wishing for “a lifetime of free wishes,” which seemed a much better investment in childhood than in old age. What he desired, at the moment, was for his guests to leave, a request too frivolous for the occasion. And then Millard realized what he hoped for most, although he wasn’t sure if one could wish retroactively: He wanted Delilah to have had a peaceful passing. Closing his eyes, he blew out the candles.
Sally took charge of distributing the cake. “And who wants coffee?” she asked. “Regular or decaf? Milk or cream?” She’d become quite the hostess since her days sketching gowns on paper napkins; Millard admired his daughter’s poise as she navigated the room. “That’s three regular coffees, six decafs, and a peppermint tea with lemon for Mrs. Duransky.”
Millard retreated to a corner, where he chatted with his eldest son. Arnold’s company had recently been taken over by a major soft drink bottler, creating both opportunities and risks, none of which Millard fully understood. He was also restoring a nineteenth-century farmstead on his own. “You come out and visit in the spring,” said Arnold. “Lila and the boys would love to see you—and we’ll get you working on the house. I could sure use some help . . . .”
“Please send Lila my love,” said Millard.
Lysander approached, cradling a coffee cup.
“Since when do you drink coffee, baby brother?” asked Arnold.
“It’s hot water,” said Lysander.
“Your great-grandmother used to drink hot water like that,” said Millard. “She’d suck it through a cube of sugar.”
“No sugar cubes for me, Dad. Say, what did you do to your cheek?”
“Stray cat. Not a big deal.”
“You have to be careful with strays,” said Lysander. “What happened to her?”
At first, Millard was about to ask: What happened to whom? Then he realized his son meant the cat—that
the boy’s primary concern was not for his injuries, but for the fate of a random feline, an imaginary feline. So much for priorities.
“She ran off,” said Millard. “Now if you’ll pardon me for a moment . . .”
The alternative to excusing himself would have been to lash out at Lysander, which was not how he wanted their relationship to end. Fortunately, the party had started to wind down, and he was able to throw himself into the enterprise of farewells. He allowed Art Rosenstein’s sister-in-law to kiss him on either cheek; he reassured Mrs. Lewinter that her Pekinese’s potassium level sounded safe. One by one, the faces of his life disappeared.
Millard agreed to retrieve Linda Blauer’s umbrella from the sitting room, principally because he needed another moment of respite. By now, a crisp darkness had settled over the city and he groped on the wall for the switch. This had been Isabelle’s lair—and he could still picture her sketching at the window or reading an airport mystery on the divan. The aloe flourished in broad rosettes on trays beneath the window; he took pains not to overwater. With Linda’s umbrella in one hand, he crossed the room and ran his fingers along the plant’s fleshy leaves. Even the noxious smell of the yellow sap, like old scallions, made him miss his beloved.
“Hey, you. Now is no time for hiding.”
Maia had followed him into the sitting room. She held a paper plate with cake in one hand, a glass of red wine in the other. So much like her mother, she looked—so beautiful.
“I was just thinking . . . .”
“You were just being antisocial,” said Maia. “I know you.”
“I suppose you do,” he agreed. “Thank you, by the way. This wasn’t necessary . . . .”
“Seventy-five is nothing to scoff at.”
“I miss your mother,” said Millard.
“I know,” said Maia. “I do too.”
He looked out the window at the traffic below. Beyond the awning, he could make out a cab unloading at the curbside, the top of Barsamian’s red cap. Across the street, the neon lights flashed in the twenty-four-hour deli.
“Do me a favor,” he said. “If anything happens to me, please be sure not to drown your mother’s aloe . . . . It only needs watering twice each month.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to you.”
Millard followed his daughter back into the parlor and dispatched the last of the guests. The apartment itself had seen better days: crushed popcorn stippled Isabelle’s Berber carpet; crumpled napkins and icing-soaked paper plates perched on the bookshelves and the open breakfront like summer swallows along a cliffside. Not exactly the state of affairs Millard wished to leave behind, but it couldn’t be helped.
Maia had started gathering the litter.
“Don’t worry about that,” he insisted. “I’ll take care of it in the morning.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. I’m not too old to clean up after myself.”
He accompanied her to the entryway.
“I love you,” she said.
“Me too. Now don’t drown your mama’s aloe.”
Millard shut the door behind her and closed the latch. On the way to the bedroom, he retrieved a bottle of Courvoisier from the cabinet above the dishwasher. He’d received the bottle as a marriage present from Hal Storch; you couldn’t exactly call it a wedding present, because he’d married Isabelle at city hall on a Saturday morning. For decades, the cognac had waited patiently for a fitting occasion. Millard downed a shot straight from the bottle, savoring the burn of liquid fire down his throat.
You’ve earned some rest, Millard, he thought. You’ve done the best you could have.
Lysander hadn’t even bothered to say goodbye.
15
Millard unknotted his tie as he entered the bedroom: an act that announced a slumber well earned after a long workday, or in this case, a life well lived. Now that Delilah was gone, his death seemed neither necessary nor unnecessary, merely inevitable—a fact, like the day of the week or the number of dimes in a dollar. So he would be dead. He wouldn’t know. Life would continue, his children growing old, his granddaughters marrying, humanity subject to countless vagaries and twists and revelations. Harvey Bloodfinch might dynamite St. Dymphna’s, Hecuba Yilmaz could wrangle his job away from Stan Laguna, but the enterprise of loving and fighting, birthing and dying, would carry on just fine without him. What were those lines that a spurned Eliza Doolittle sings to dismiss Henry Higgins? “Without your pulling it, the tide comes in . . . .” Millard hummed the bars from My Fair Lady: “Without your twirling it, the earth can spin . . . .” How true it all was. His own tide was surging in for him—and he was okay with that.
Millard set the bottle of Courvoisier on the bureau. He didn’t notice Lysander until he’d tossed his necktie over the nearest chair. His son was seated on the bedspread, arms splayed behind him to support his vast frame, shoeless feet dangling over the edge. The boy’s hobnail boots rested close by on the throw rug. Beside him, atop the silk comforter—Millard was glad he’d made up the bed that morning—lay shavings of an orange rind and a carton of sugar-free breakfast cereal pinched from Millard’s refrigerator. An empty wineglass stood on the nightstand; Lysander hadn’t thought to use a coaster, which would have upset Millard on most occasions, except a dead man doesn’t care if he leaves behind water rings on his furniture.
“Good God!” he exclaimed. “You could give somebody a heart attack . . . .”
“I didn’t mean to surprise you,” said Lysander. “But I was feeling bad.”
As much as he loved his son, Millard instantly feared the worst: Did the boy need money? Had he gotten in over his head with loan sharks? Or knocked up a girl? How fitting that his son’s crisis and his own should reach fruition on the same day. He’d help the boy, of course—even, he realized, if doing so meant forestalling his planned demise for the time being.
“Mom called me this afternoon,” said Lysander. “She says you’re worried about me.”
So that was all. Millard could already imagine the tenor of his ex-wife’s report: She’d downplay her own concerns and Lysander’s shortcomings, pinning the entire impasse on the fanciful expectations of the guilt-soaked father. It’s how your dad was raised, she’d say. All he knew from his first steps was that he’d be a doctor. Everything else you do, even if you win the Nobel Prize while walking on the moon, is bound to disappoint him. Which wasn’t true, not the way Carol meant it—yet what was so wrong with another doctor? Your dad’s also a bit neurotic, the boy’s mother would say. Impatient too. He takes after his own father.
Damn Carol! That was a bridge too far. So he had high expectations like Papa: What parent didn’t? Just because he had hopes for his children didn’t mean he was prisoner to them. All he wanted, at least at this late juncture, was for his son to become a self-supporting, productive member of society; if that meant he’d be a veterinarian, or a trigonometry teacher, or even a cashier at the Bronx Zoo, Millard could accept his choice—although vending concessions at the zoo would obviously be harder to swallow. He still remembered how Hal Storch had suffered when his daughter quit UConn to train as a hairdresser, also the schadenfreude he’d felt when his niece opened a tanning salon in Laguna Beach. But even selling cotton candy outside a monkey house in the Bronx was something. Nothing, as Lear warned, came of nothing, and Lysander had mastered the art of nothing like nobody’s business. How dare Carol cast the blame at his feet? It would serve her right when he didn’t return her phone call in the morning.
“I am worried about you,” said Millard. “I tried to tell you over lunch.”
Lysander squinted—a sheepish habit—and examined the heels of his hands.
“How can I not be worried about you?” asked Millard. “You’re forty-three years old. Art Hallam’s son in Palo Alto is two years younger than you and practically retired.”
That provoked a chuckle. “I’m practically retired too,” said Lysander.
At least the boy shared Millard’s wit.
He sensed his own lips curling into a smile, but refused to be derailed. “You’re not retired.”
Lysander raked his hands through his unctuous hair. “No, I guess I’m not.”
The boy’s words settled over the bedroom like a miasma, and for the first time, Millard detected a melancholy in his son’s voice, a disappointment, such a contrast from his usual defiant indifference. A tenderness took hold of Millard, an aching, much as it had earlier, when he’d recognized the desperation behind Virginia Margold’s inane phone calls and visits. Lysander’s failures weren’t an act of rebellion, but rather a resignation to perceived inadequacy. The boy didn’t try because, at some subconscious level, as Hal Storch would say, he feared that he wouldn’t succeed. How had Millard been so blind? Comparing him to Art Hallam’s kid, or even Sally and Arnold, only exacerbated his inertia.
“Maybe I’ve been too hard on you,” said Millard.
Lysander gathered the orange peels into his palm. “What I wanted to tell you,” he said, rising from the bed, “was that you should stop worrying. I’m going to be okay. Trust me.”
They stood opposite each other, son and father, like reflections in a warped mirror. From the open window drifted the rumble of traffic on the avenue: the enterprise of life. A warm breeze ruffled the curtains, sent the lace valances line-kicking like chorus girls.
“All right,” agreed Millard. “I will stop worrying.”
Lysander took a tentative step forward, still cupping the orange peel, and wrapped his gangly arms around his father’s diminished torso. Millard patted the boy affectionately on the wings of his back. He could not recall the last time he’d hugged any of his children. He’d only embraced his own father at graduations and funerals, and once, on impulse, before his draft board hearing; hugging wasn’t the Salter way, at least, not until now.
“I’ll see you soon, Dad. Happy birthday, again,” said his son. Lysander shambled toward the doorway, his helpless languor visible in every step, and added, “I’d be an awful veterinarian, if you think about it. Can you really see me putting down injured puppies?”
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