by Sara Gran
New York won’t be the same without Evelyn Forrest.
The world will never be the same without her.
Jake, our old tenant from Twelfth Street, takes me in his arms and won’t let go. I never imagined I would see Jake at fifty-five. He introduces me to his wife and his sullen, respectful, teenage sons.
“They did everything for me,” he says. “Everything I knew nothing when I met your parents. I didn’t know books, I didn’t know art. My life was like this.” He puts his right hand in the air and puts his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “Look at you. Michael would be so proud.” His wife nudges him. “I’m sorry, maybe I shouldn’t say it, but he would. You’re a beautiful young woman. I saw Allison, she said you handled everything so well. He would be so proud.”
“So listen,” says his wife, as Jake deteriorates into sobs. She’s pretty, and I’m so happy that Jake married this kind pretty woman. “Jake wants you to come to the house sometime We’re out in Montauk He’d love to see you again, I would too Really Will you call?”
I promise I will call, which I think is true, and they leave. A piece of my heart breaks when I see them walk out the door, and for the first time I know how much I’ve missed him.
A fortyish man, maybe a hippie, maybe poor, comes to me on the couch where I’ve been all evening and asks me if I’m Mary I tell him I am. I think he might be one of the homeless men in the West Village who Evelyn gave her pocket change to.
“I’m Leopold Bloom,” he says with the gravelly voice of a life-long smoker “Your cousin ”
Cousin? I give him a look
“I changed my name,” he says. “I was born Norton Forrest the Third I’m Chub and Meredith’s son And I’m so sorry about your mother”
Leopold Bloom gives me a hug and his sandy beard is rough against my forehead. We sit on the couch together and light cigarettes. He tells me he saw the obit in the Times and wanted to pay his respects With a little prodding I get him to tell me the whole story
“I changed my name when I was sixteen It wasn’t legal until the first time I was arrested, when I was twenty-two. Then it becomes a legal alias and you don’t have to go through the courts. I never read the book, Ulysses, I just flipped through it once at a friend’s house. I needed a name to use because I had run away and I thought my parents might find me, so I got a fake I D made with Leopold Bloom I just liked the sound of it.
“My father hated me,” my cousin tells me. “I was hyper-active when I was a kid. I was always going nuts, bouncing off the fucking walls. I was so angry, man. I would be running around the house screaming at the top of my lungs, and everyone would pretend not to notice. I was invisible unless I acted out in the worst way I could. It was like I was a dog or a cat. No one would pay any attention to me unless I did something horrible, and so I did horrible things. I attacked my sister with a fountain pen She had to get ten stitches in her face I beat up the nanny I’m not proud of it, but that’s how it was. I was fucked up. And then he would beat me until I was fucking unconscious, and I’d be good until I was all healed up, and then it would start all over again.
“I can’t believe you don’t remember when I met you before. We came over for dinner to your house in the Village I was maybe twelve. Your parents, man—that house I was so jealous of you. They were so cool You must have been four or five My dad was a pig, you know. A real glutton It could really be disgusting. So we sit down to dinner and my father ate like, everything, and then he told my mom to shut up. Now, I was just at the age where I was starting to realize that that wasn’t normal So my mom said something, I don’t remember what, something totally benign, and my father turned around and told her to shut up And then he goes on talking like nothing happened. And your parents—it was like a cartoon. Their jaws dropped. So your mother, she waits for my father to finish talking, and then she turns back to my mother and says ‘So, Meredith, you were saying?’ That fucking pig I can’t believe you don’t remember that!”
I tell him about the time I remember meeting his mother, at the house in Connecticut. He says he was away at school
“They sent me to St. Christopher’s It was a school for kids like me, kids whose parents refused to deal with them It pisses me off now, just thinking about it. These parents, you know, they beat their kids, they emotionally abused them, they treated them like shit, and then when they acted out they sent them off to St. Christopher’s and forgot about them. And the people who ran that place, it was like something out of a movie. ‘More porridge, please.’ ‘More porridge? Ten days time out’ Time out was like detention. I remember one kid, Stevie Stewart, he used to start fires. Once he burned down a whole fucking dorm, a firefighter died from smoke inhalation. And still, no one cared. His parents threw a little money at the school and everyone acted like nothing ever happened He still got no therapy, no counseling, he just got like, a millennium of time outs
“So I ran away when I was thirteen. The cops found me in New Haven—there was a little scene there—and they brought me back. Time out for the rest of the year. After that I stayed on my best behavior—well, the best that I could, given that I was nuts—and by the time I was sixteen I had privileges. Privileges were like the opposite of time outs The main privilege was to leave campus on weekends. So I waited for three years, got my weekend privilege, and split for good.
“I had gone home for Thanksgiving a few weeks before and I had taken some stuff to sell Bullshit little things that I knew were valuable but they would never miss. A little silver sugar bowl, a little cameo portrait, some jewelry
“So my first privilege I went right to the bus station and got on the next bus to New York Oh, man, my heart was like, ready to burst I had never been so fucking happy before. The only part of the city I really knew was the Upper East Side, because of course my mother had some friends there, so that was where I went first. I had remembered seeing some antique shops up there and I wanted to sell this stuff for a good price. So I walked around until I found a place that looked good This guy, first he really tried to rip me off. He offered me like, one hundred for everything I knew it was worth at least a few grand, everything out of that house was worth at least that much. So I haggled and finally he gave me a good price. He was a cool guy.
“‘Son,’ he says to me, with this Yiddish accent, ‘I don’t know where you get these things, but you look like a smart guy, and I want that sugar bowl, so I’m giving you my best price.’ No one had ever called me smart before. Ever, even in an offhand way like that It was like my life was beginning. This was it And I’ve been in New York ever since.”
Leopold won’t tell me how he’s made a living, then or now, until I guess correctly that he sells marijuana. He’s the president of the New York branch of MOFUG—Marijuana Out From Under Ground—a legalization advocacy group
“Looking back,” he says, “I can hardly blame him ”
“Blame who?”
“My father. You know, after what they went through With their own father”
“Like what?”
My cousin gives me a funny look “Your father never talked about him?”
“No,” I tell him. “My mother told me a little.”
“Huh Our grandfather was like, the sickest son-of-a-bitch I ever met, anywhere, and this includes living on the Bowery, on the streets, for three years, this includes Riker’s, he was the fucking worst. He was brutal. When Chub was bad—and bad meant like, spilling a glass of milk—he got the belt. Late for dinner, out came the belt, talking out of turn, up past bedtime, whatever, he got the belt. My dad’s back was scarred by that fucking sadist. He used to tell me all this stuff, stories about Grandpa, to threaten me. Like I was getting off easy And by comparison, I was I never really believed any of it, but my mother said it’s all true. But Chub was the oldest, he got the worst of it. Your father, he never pulled any of this shit on you, did he?”
“God, no. He never laid a hand on me. Where’s the rest of your family?”
“My brother and si
ster, they’re around. I don’t talk to them. I know they both have kids, which is a frightening thought. But maybe they’re not like that Look at your father He came from all that shit, and he turned out okay. Or, at least he turned out to be an okay parent. Sorry. That was pretty insensitive ”
“No, that’s okay. What about your parents?”
“My father’s dead, thank God I never saw him again. I actually just started seeing my mother again a few years ago. I’m going to see her this weekend, as a matter of fact. She wants to rewrite her will now that we’re speaking again. I said fine, I’ll help you, I’ll do whatever you want, as long as you leave me out of the fucking thing I’m trying to convince her to leave the whole thing to charity, at least my share It’s a fucking curse.”
We sit for a while in silence, and then I ask him. When he moved to the city, why didn’t he call my mother for help? Did he think she would turn him in?
“Well, yeah, I was scared of that.” He laughs a little nervous laugh “I thought about it I mean, I looked up Evelyn in the phone book—Michael was already gone, unfortunately I even walked by your house on Commerce Street a few times. But you have to understand. At that point, all anyone in my life had ever told me was that I was shit, I was worse than shit. I knew she probably wouldn’t call my parents, because she knew what I went through there, and once your father had actually told me I could come over anytime I wanted to He sent me a letter at school after I ran away the first time and he told me that, which was really nice. But I thought I was like, a monster. My own parents had sent me away. I didn’t think Evelyn would want me around ”
Of course, Evelyn would not have sent him away, she would have let him live with us as long as he wanted. And I would have had a brother, and Leopold would have had a home, and maybe with a man around Evelyn would have shown some interest in our home life. But he’s here now I hug him again, because he’s the only family I have left and I love him, I want to stay against his rough, sweet-smelling beard forever, or at least until my mother comes back
When Leopold gets up to get me a plate from the buffet—everyone offers me food, continuously, at this reception, everyone is extremely concerned with the fact that I’m not eating—Crystal comes over and takes his seat next to me on the couch
“I’m sorry,” she says, putting her arms around me. “I’m so fucking sorry ”
“I’m okay,” I say. I’m thinking, I’m not okay at all A line from an old country song I used to hear in the Lower East Side bars is in my head: “I feel like I’m fixin’ to die.” I’m thinking that I will never be okay again, I will forever be swimming through this black quicksand of missing her.
“I know you’re not,” Crystal says, pushing my hair out of my face, “but you will be. It’s gonna be a long time, it’s gonna be really fucking hard, but you will be. Just remember what I told you.”
“What?”
“You’ll make it. You can make it through anything You’re tough.”
Chapter 24
At noon on a Friday Chloe calls and tells me, calmly, that she’s going into labor. It’s my thirtieth birthday. I ask her, does she want me to come to the hospital? Brian has gone out of town for the weekend, working on a story. They laughed at the possibility that this, forty-eight quick hours in Los Angeles researching a raw foods cult, two weeks ahead of the due date, would be when labor would start. They laughed at the possibility, and now it’s happening, and only her sister is going to be in the delivery room with her I ask her again if she wants me at the hospital She tells me calmly that it’s not necessary. She promises she will call when it’s over No matter how exhausted, how fucked up, she will call, or at least have her sister call, to let me know it was okay. She promises
Most of Friday I spend waiting by the phone. I’m terrified something will happen to Chloe A few people call, but not Chloe and not her sister At ten the next morning I wake up and call Saint Vincent’s. The people at the hospital can’t or won’t tell me what’s happening so I get dressed, I have a few cups of coffee and a bagel with soy cream cheese and call a cab to take me to Saint Vincent’s.
At Saint Vincent’s there is no security. I wander around and ask people for the delivery ward, and then for Chloe Killing-ton’s room I see her OB, Stella, at the door of her room. Stella was at the baby shower; Chloe makes friends that easily.
Stella tells me what’s going on The baby was in the wrong position, and they suspected the umbilical cord was around his neck. Chloe was given an epidural and drugs to hold back the contractions and the doctors monitored Nicholas’s position Now the time seems right. The drugs are wearing off and the baby seems to be just so, poised to dive down the birth canal So, now it’s going to happen
“Do you want to help?” Stella asks. Chloe’s sister had been useless—she saw them put an IV tube into Chloe, passed out, and has since been banished from the delivery room. Brian has been trying without luck to get a quick flight back to New York Stella says that Chloe needs someone she knows in there.
I tell Stella I’ll see Chloe first and see what she says. I wasn’t invited, and I’m not sure she wants me here at all.
Chloe is lying in bed, pale and sweaty, chained to the bed with IVs and monitors An amplified fetal monitor fills the room with Nicholas’s heartbeat. Thump-thump Thump-thump. When Chloe sees me she sits up and reaches toward me a few inches. I run to the bed and hug her and push her damp hair off her face
“Thank God you’re here,” she says “I’m so happy you’re here. Where’s Brian?”
“He’s trying. He’ll be here soon ”
“I thought it would be so easy My mother said she had me in two hours. She said I practically fell right out on the floor “ A contraction hits her and she screams. Stella hurries into the room with a nurse and says, “Okay, this is it Mary, grab a leg.” I do as I’m told The nurse grabs her other leg and, following her lead, I pull Chloe’s knee up and out toward her ear
“PUSH push push push push push PUSH!” screams Stella.
Chloe bears down, and I have never seen a person in so much pain. I whisper into her ear, You are doing so well. You can do this
The contraction wanes. Chloe leans back and cries, without the strength for tears, and another contraction comes.
“PUSH push push push push PUSH!”
I pull her leg back as far as I can again. Blood pours from between her legs and I see the crown of Nicholas’s head, a small orb with a green tint and a few wet black hairs The contraction passes and his head slips back inside, shy as a mouse You are doing so good, I whisper in Chloe’s ear J am so proud of you Her eyes are glazed over and I don’t know if she hears me
“This baby,” says Stella, “is playing with me. This baby has been teasing me for twenty-four hours now. This baby is coming out today.”
Three hours later, Nicholas appears As soon as he’s out two pediatricians whisk him away for a cleaning and a checkup on the other side of the room Chloe is reenergized and crying: She wants him now. After a few minutes that seem like hours they’ve got him cleaned, wrapped, and fingerprinted, and they put him in her arms For the first time he cries, a walloping scream, and everyone laughs except Chloe “He’s so beautiful,” she cries. “He’s perfect. I love you, Nicholas, I love you so much ”
There’s an armchair in the corner of the room I walk over to the armchair, sit down, and fade to black.
The first time I babysit for Nicholas, I’m terrified
“For Christ’s sake,” says Chloe “You were there at his birth You’ve held him a million times, you’ve changed his diaper.”
“He loves you,” says Brian. “You love Aunt Mary, right, Nicholas?” Nicholas gurgles indefinably. It could be agreement or dissent.
“Yeah, but I’ve never watched him alone.”
Brian and Chloe are unfazed by my protest that I am unfit to care for a child, and they put on their coats for a lunch at a sushi bar around the corner Their big date. Chloe got my old job at Intelligentsia and Brian sta
ys home with Nicholas. It’s a big deal for them to go out to lunch, alone, on a Saturday
I hold twelve-pound Nicholas in my arms, and we sit on Chloe’s sofa. “So How’s tricks?”
He likes the question and giggles a little I’m enthralled, I feel like I’ve climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, making this baby laugh. I ask a few more stupid questions and he keeps on giggling and I’m high. Then I ask “Does Nicholas want some peas?” and he starts to cry The giggles turn to tears in two seconds flat. The tears are followed by whines and then howls. I’ve tumbled off the top of Mount Kilimanjaro and been stuck with a red-faced, howling child. I check his diapers. I try to feed him peas. I feel for a fever or a chill or a clamminess or a something I carry him around the room and coo and work up a nice hot panic about what could be wrong
Just when I’m about to call 911, Nicholas lets out one more echoing shriek and then squeezes out a phenomenally messy, foul-smelling shit into his diaper I wash him, and change him, and he coos and I’m on top of the mountain again.
Chapter 25
For the second time in my life I’ve got a trust fund, and I don’t want to fuck this one up. So even though I’m not working, I’m careful with what I spend. I haven’t moved downtown, I haven’t bought a new wardrobe, and although I haven’t yet been able to bring myself to rent out the empty apartment on Commerce Street, I will I’m taking a writing class at the New School, a yoga class at Jivamukti, and a Web design class at the Learning Annex—that’s my insurance policy, the Web design class If I do fuck up this time, I won’t be left with nothing.