Love and Other Impossible Pursuits (31 page)

Once he is home he refused to dress and could not be bullied into his nice clothes. He insisted on telephoning his father. I can only imagine what it cost Carolyn to give in to this demand. Jack tells me that William wanted to speak to him and that Carolyn allowed him to call, and then requested Jack's assistance in convincing William to ready himself for the ceremony. I'm willing to bet she did so through gritted teeth. I feel for her, honestly I do, and not merely because she has recently been the source of some salvation for me. It must be terribly aggravating to have to request your ex-husband's aid in talking your son off a cliff so that your wedding can go forward peacefully.

Jack was not successful. Or at least, not entirely. William wept, but would not explain the reason for his tears. He said he wanted his daddy, he refused to go to the wedding ceremony, he begged Jack to come get him. He agreed, finally, to get dressed, but only if Jack would ferry him downtown. Once they'd reached the courthouse, however, he'd refused to exit the car. Jack had tried to pry him loose, but had realized that dragging a screaming child into the judge's chambers was not what Carolyn had meant when she had asked for his help in managing William. Through his tears William had suddenly announced that if Jack could produce
me
, and if we could talk, then William would go to the wedding.

“Put him on the phone,” I say.

“He wants to see you.”

“How much time do you have?”

“The ceremony is due to start at five.”

I look at my watch. “We've got plenty of time, it's only one subway stop.”

Everything is on my side. My train arrives in the station as I pass through the turnstile, and I slip through the door just before it closes. I have barely enough time in the moments it takes to travel to the next station to consider why William is asking for me now, when it is least convenient for his parents, when it will upset Carolyn's plans the most. Surely that's
why
he has asked for me because he knows how much this will irk his mother, still, it's funny. He has never accommodated me in this way, and now he needs me so much, precisely when I need him.

I exit the subway station to see the Town Car waiting for me. I yank open the car door. William is sitting on his father's lap, his face smudged with tears and mucus. Jack's coat and suit jacket are balled up on the seat next to him and the top button of his shirt is undone, his tie askew. He looks beautiful.

“Hey guys,” I say. “What's up?”

Jack gives me a this-is-no-time-for-jokes look. William, forgetting that he is the reason I am here, looks shocked to see me, and begins to sniffle.

“Shove over,” I say as I climb in the car.

The driver looks in the rearview mirror and says, “Once more around, Mr. Woolf?”

“Yes, Henry, if you don't mind.”

I lean back against the black leather upholstery and angle myself so that I can look at Jack and William. “Dude!” I say. “Score! No booster seat.”

“It was the last thing on our minds,” Jack says.

“Nice,” I say to William, nodding my head knowingly, as if I am the only person who realizes that this whole afternoon has been designed as a ploy to leave the booster at home. William's mouth begins to twist into a smile, but he clamps his lips.

“So, what's up, William? Why did you want to see me?”

He shrugs.

“Seriously. I don't mind, or anything, but any minute the cops are going to decide that poor Henry's a terrorist casing the federal building and pull us over, and your mom's inside having who knows what kind of conniption fit. It's definitely time for you to start talking.”

He rubs his crusted nose with his fist and then wipes his hand on the leg of his expensive gray slacks. I hope if I manage to get him into the wedding his mother will forgive me for the snot.

“You don't want your mother to marry your dentist,” I say.

He shakes his head and whispers, “No.”

“Well, honestly, who would? I mean, a dentist.” I shudder. “But you're not like most people, William. You're weird, remember? You like the guy. Didn't you tell me that? Didn't you tell me that you like your dentist?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you change your mind?”

“No.”

Jack has leaned his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes, as if he can't bear to watch the hash I am making of this.

“So, what gives?”

“I don't know.”

“I do.”

Now William finally stops whispering. “You do?” he says, aloud.

“If your mommy gets married to your dentist, and your daddy is married to me, then that's it, right? They're never going to get back together ever again. Your family will never go back to being the way it used to be. Your dad and your mom and you.”

He tears up again, and rubs his eyes. I am sad that it's started already, this manly pushing away of tears. For all that he's crying so readily, this small boy, something is telling him that he shouldn't be, that it's better not to cry, that he is shaming himself. I can tell that, now at least, he is trying not to give in to the seductive pleasure.

William says, “When I was a baby I used to think that when you and Daddy were done being married that then Daddy and my mom could stop being divorced.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. I used to think that when the divorce was finished then my dad would come home.”

“Do you remember a lot of things about when your dad lived with you and your mom?”

He screws up his face, wrinkling his brow and thinking hard. “Some things. I remember my dad coming to Nantucket with us one summer. I remember stuff like that. But I don't remember a lot of stuff.”

“You were pretty little when they got divorced.”

He leans against Jack, pressing his small back against his father's firm chest.

“William, did you think when I left last week that your dad would move back in with your mom?”

I can see Jack stiffen, and I know William must feel the tension against his back. Jack and I are both waiting for William's response.

First he shrugs, then whispers, “Sort of.”

“And is that why you're so angry today? Because your mom's getting married to your dentist instead of to your dad?”

He nods.

I lean forward and take one of his sticky little hands in mine. “So, kiddo, why did you want to see me? I don't get it. I would have thought I'd be the
last
person you'd want to see.”

William falls awkwardly off his father's lap and sprawls across my legs. He starts crying again, and pushes his head into my knees. “I don't know,” he says. “I don't know.”

I pull him up onto my legs, shifting him around. I've never held him on my lap before. He all knobby knees and dangling limbs and it takes me a moment to get him situated so we're not ridiculously uncomfortable. I smooth his hair and rock gently. “It's okay, William. It's okay,” I murmur.

“It's just, you know. All
bad
now,” he wails. “Everything is messed up. Just put it all back. Put it all back.” He is nearly hyperventilating, his whole body shaking with his tears. I wrap my arms as tightly around him as I can.

“I'm sorry, William,” I say, rocking him. “I can't.”

“Why don't you live with us anymore?” William says.

I hold my breath, waiting, I'm not sure what for. Jack says, “Emilia and I are just trying to figure things out, William. I know it's hard to understand.”

No kidding.

I say, “You know, it's like Lyle. Should he live in the house on East Eighty-eighth Street, should he live in the zoo with all the other crocodiles? That kind of thing. We're working it out.”

William sits up, shifting off my lap and onto the seat between his father and me. “That is so stupid, Emilia,” he says vehemently. “You know very well that Mr. Grumps
makes
Lyle go to the zoo. Lyle doesn't belong there. He belongs with his family on East Eighty-eighth Street.”

“Yeah, well, but that's fiction. In real life crocodiles don't have families. Not human ones. They live with the other crocodiles in the Central Park Zoo.”

“There are no crocodiles in the Central Park Zoo, only caimans.”

“It's a
metaphor,
William. I'm trying to say that maybe I'm like Lyle. Maybe I don't belong with you and your daddy because I'm not like you. My teeth are too sharp and . . . and my tail's too long.” That last part didn't work, but he gets it. At least I hope he gets it. I'm doing Jack's work for him here, and I'm not going to be able to do it much longer. I'm doing my best not to cry, but I'm not going to last.

“Lyle does
so
belong with his family, Emilia. They love him even though he's a crocodile.”

I stare at him. I cannot tell if he has said what I think he has. Has he told me that he loves me, or is five years old too young to speak metaphorically? Is he just talking about a silly children's book? I don't care, I hug him anyway. And then Jack is there, too, and we are all bundled together in the suddenly too-small backseat of the Lincoln Town Car.

“Another circle, Mr. Woolf?” Henry says.

“No,” I say. “We're ready to get out.”

William lifts his face, shocked. He starts to shake his head.

“Come on, sweetie,” I say. “It's late, and your mom's getting married with or without us. Let's not ruin her day.”

I rummage around in my purse until I find a tissue that looks only slightly worse for wear. I clean him up as best I can, and then I straighten Jack's tie. We take the steps to the federal courthouse at a jog.

Carolyn is waiting in front of the metal detectors in a small knot of similarly agitated people. This time, I see, she is not making the mistake of marrying a small Jew. Her dentist is tall and blond and decidedly Nordic. He is a polar bear next to Jack's koala. I'm partial to the smaller breeds, myself.

Our arrival is greeted with some surprise, but with general relief.

“Thank God,” Carolyn says, snatching William's hand from mine. “What happened? Emilia, what are you . . . oh never mind. Let's go. We were due in Judge Doty's chambers at five.”

I look at my watch. It is eleven minutes past the hour.

Carolyn, her Scandinavian or Icelandic dentist, and the few members of their retinue rush through the metal detectors. With the hand that is not grasped by his mother, William gives us a resigned wave. When the group disappears into an elevator, Jack and I sag against each other with relief.

“Let's get out of here,” Jack says.

Chapter 31
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

H
enry
takes us uptown, to Carolyn's building, to pick up the suitcase Sonia has packed for William and left for us in the lobby. We have not spoken about where we are going afterward, so I ask Henry to stop at Seventy-sixth Street. The names of the entrances to the park are so rarely used, and it is only because William has told me so that I know that, like Women's Gate, this particular break in the stone wall is one of the only ones not named for a profession or a calling, like Scholars' Gate, or Mariner's Gate, or Inventor's, Engineers', Woodsman's, or Artist's. It is called Children's Gate.

When we get out of the car I pull my scarf down. It is cold and blustery and I stamp my feet a few times to warm them up.

“Where do you want to go?” Jack asks.

“Let's just walk.”

“Do you want to go to that little hut in the Ramble?”

“We can't go to the hut because I can't
find
the fucking hut. William and I tromped around for ages. If I couldn't find it in the middle of the day I sure as hell won't be able to find it when the sun's about to set.”

“I know where it is.”

“What? How can you possibly know where it is?”

Jack is looking into the park, and his back is to me, neat and smooth in his dark coat. His slate blue plaid scarf is untied and one end eddies around his waist in the wind. As I cross toward him, my steps are quiet, but not silent; there are twigs and dried leaves on the sidewalk and they crack and break under my feet. I know he hears me but he doesn't turn. When I reach him, I slip my arms around his waist, lay my cheek against the rough wool of his back, and match my breath to his. “How do you know where it is?” I say to his back.

“William and I went looking for it on Wednesday afternoon.”

“And you found it? How did you find it?”

“I bought a map at the Dairy.”

“Oh. A map. Well. If you're going to cheat.” I suppose if I had stopped at the Dairy, if I had bought a map like Jack did, then William and I would have found this little hut in the Ramble as easily. We would have found it, and then we might never have gone up to the Meer. We would have avoided that debacle, but if we had we might have avoided it all, including what inspired Carolyn to tell me about Isabel's death, and what inspired William to call for me when he needed someone's help today.

The wind buffets us as we walk along the winding paths under the creaking trees. It is at our backs and propels us like a couple of ungainly kites over the cracked cement walks. As we walk north, looking for a path that will cut west to the Ramble and the bridge, the sound of children's voices begins to grow louder. There is a playground here, at Seventy-seventh Street. It is like the other playgrounds in Central Park, full of bundled children and their mothers, cocoa-skinned nannies, babies batting mittened hands at toys dangling from the hoods of the carriages. As we pass the playground, Jack shoots me a glance, evaluating my response. I look inside the gates. There is a little boy, four or five years old, too small to see over the handle of the stroller he is pushing. The baby in the stroller screams with excitement, laughs wildly at the thrill of being humped along by her big brother. Their mother walks next to them, a protective hand occasionally adjusting their direction keeping the stroller from rolling into harm's way.

I think of William, and of Isabel. I imagine how he might have wheeled her in her denim Bugaboo. I think of the baby Carolyn will have, the little brother or sister he will have a chance to know. And before my mind wanders further, I take Jack's hand and we continue walking west, toward the Ramble.

We don't speak while we walk, just watch our breath mist in the air as we climb. It takes only ten or fifteen minutes to reach the hut. My problem was that I was trying to come from the wrong side. All I needed to do was take the Lake path and cut north. It's a straight shot from there.

It is a little wooden structure, a kind of pergola with arched sides and a shake roof. The walls are made of odd-shaped logs hewn from the trunks of narrow trees. It is very hut-like and disappointingly unsecluded, with paths running into it from all sides.

“I can't believe this is right here,” I say.

“I can't believe you couldn't find it.”

Jack reaches over and tugs together the sides of my coat. It is much colder here inside the hut than it was outside.

We sit down on one of the rustic little benches. I extend my legs out toward the center of the cobblestone starburst that makes up the floor. Jack also puts his feet out and they go much farther than mine. As small as he is, he is taller than me. We are a nice pair, a good matched set. But are we a magical unit? The story I have always told Jack about the way we fell in love was a kabalistic tale of
bashert
, of magic and meant to be, of angels flying through lifetimes.

I'm afraid my father is right; I spun a dream web no more real than the fantasy he himself chased.

I mystified and mysticized our love to excuse the damage we did. The miraculous tale made it possible to ignore promises made and oaths sworn, children born and trust laid. Jack and I were
bashert
, and thus we had no choice but to rain nuclear fire on those who stood between us. We were meant to be, not by choice but by destiny. Because we were powerless in the face of fate, we were also blameless.

But Jack was a father first, before I became a mother, and thus he believed less readily than I. The gravitational pull of his paternal guilt was strong, and I was forced to be an aeronaut, constantly tending gas fires and lines, filling the balloon with hot air so that our tiny basket would stay aloft. When the silk tore and my skills failed, we crashed hard, breaking bones and crushing limbs in our race to the earth.

Now I see we are not a chapter from an ancient mystical text, ordained by God. We do not love with magic. We love each other like a man and a woman are supposed to love each other. With hard work and fear. With effort and misunderstanding. With moments of ease. And finally, necessarily, with trust.

I open my mouth to explain this to Jack, to tell him the way our love is and must be, to plead my case and show my heart, but he speaks first.

“I like your new jeans,” he says. “They make your ass look great.”

“You had time to notice my ass during all this?”

“Always.”

I smile, and put my leg on top of his. He slips his arm around me, cupping that ass he admires so.

There is much to say, many apologies, many promises. We say nothing. The sky grows dark, this corner of the park lit only by the luminaires and the glow of the buildings surrounding the park on all sides.

After a long time Jack says, “Let's go home. It's freezing out here.”