Love Saves the Day (43 page)

“You’ve thought of names, though,” she insists.

“A few,” Laura answers. “If it’s a girl, we’d like to name her Sarah.”

“That’s the right thing.” Josh’s father nods. “And if it’s a boy, you can still name him for your mother. Samuel is a fine name you don’t hear very often anymore.”

“Dad,” Josh’s sister says, “I’m sure they can pick a name themselves.”

“We should go through our address book tonight,” Josh’s mother says to his father. “If it’s a boy they’ll make a bris. We need to think about who we’d invite.”

“There’s plenty of time for that, Zelda,” Josh’s father tells her. Winking at Josh, he adds, “Your mother’s looking for an excuse to call everyone she knows with the news.”

“I’m just so excited!” She stands up and walks around the table to hug Laura. “Listen to me. If you have any questions, or if something doesn’t feel right, or if you want someone to go to the doctor with you, you call me or Erica. We’ve had four babies between us.”

“Do you think Prudence will like the new baby?” It’s Robert who asks this, putting one hand up in the air. Abbie adds, “Will she, Uncle Josh? She didn’t like us very much when she first met us.”

“That’s true,” Josh’s mother said. “Sometimes cats and babies don’t get along.”

Josh laughs. “I think Prudence is going to love having a baby to boss around.”

“What do you think, Prudence?” Laura asks. I’m sitting next to my now-empty plate, waiting to get someone’s attention. It’s only polite, at a holiday dinner, to refill somebody’s plate for them once it’s empty. Seeing that Laura is looking in my direction, I stalk back into the kitchen and sit in front of the counter where the rest of the turkey is waiting. I can worry about the baby and whether or not I like it when it gets here, but the food you like should always be eaten while it’s still in front of you.

The people who live in the building that Josh and Laura saved in Lower East Side don’t have to move, but we do. Laura and Josh say that this apartment is too expensive for us to live in while Josh still can’t find a job, especially now that Laura is going to work at a smaller law firm that pays her less money. Once this idea made Laura’s face and shoulders knot up with tension whenever she and Josh talked about it. Now she seems happy, though. We’re moving to a place called Greenpoint, which is in a country called Brooklyn, and Laura says that she’ll be able to come home on time for dinner every night. Our new apartment will have an upstairs and a downstairs, like this one has, but it’s at “ground level” with no lobby and no man to open doors. Laura and Josh even say it has a
little backyard with a high fence and that I can go outside with them sometimes! Too much change all at once is never ideal, but the thought of staying with Laura and Josh and also getting to lie outside in sunlit grass sometimes
almost
makes me think that
this
move might be a good thing.

For now, though, we’re all living in a mess, as Laura puts it, throwing lots of things away and packing up what’s left into boxes. Having so many boxes around is by far the best part of moving. Boxes are just about the best place to sleep, because they’re small and safe and when you’re in a box, you can see whoever is walking up to you before they can see you. My new favorite thing is to crouch down low inside a box and wait for Laura or Josh to walk by, and then leap out at them. Sarah used to pretend to be surprised when I would hide in the big plant and do this to her, but I think Laura and Josh are surprised for real when I spring at them now. Which just goes to show why a box is such a perfect hiding place for a cat. “It’ll be nice when we unpack at the new place and get rid of these once and for all,” Josh said last night while I hung on to his left ankle with both paws. I think about how much time I’ve spent in boxes—I’ve been in boxes all the time since I’ve been living in Upper West Side. I’ll miss them when they’re gone. But sometimes you have to put your memory-boxes away, so you can start living your future.

It’s cold outside now, and the pigeons on the roof across the street almost blend into the snow. I wonder if Laura will miss them. She says we’ll be living in our new home by New Year’s.

New Year’s is another made-up story—like hours and minutes—that humans tell themselves. Years don’t begin and end because everybody gets together at the same time and says they do. Years
really
start when important things happen to you. When you’re born. When you find the human you’re going to live with forever. Your life begins when it becomes important. Like the day when Sarah found me. I’ve been counting my years from that day ever since.

Laura and Josh have brought all the Sarah-boxes downstairs into the living room so we can look through everything and decide
what to bring with us and what will be left behind when we go. The Sarah-smell of them fills my nose and goes straight into the part of my mind that still dreams of her sometimes. Laura and Josh are dividing everything into three piles—a “yes” pile, a “no” pile, and a “maybe” pile. Josh put all of Sarah’s black disks into the “yes” pile right away. Laura put things like Sarah’s address book and bongo drums into the “no” pile. The matchbook toys and bird-clothes are in the “maybe” pile. “I hate to throw them away,” Laura says, “but it’s an awful lot of stuff to take with us.”

“We could put everything in storage for a while,” Josh replies.

Laura’s face is doubtful. “I guess. We’ll probably need to rent a storage unit anyway. How is it that every time you move, you end up with
more
stuff instead of less?”

“I think it’s a law of physics that things in closets and boxes expand over time.” His voice sounds very serious when he says this, but there’s a grin on his face.

“Speaking of things expanding …” Laura says, and scoops me out of a box. “Somebody’s put on weight these past few months.” I think how unfair it is for Laura to say anything about
my
weight when
she’s
the one who’s getting bigger every day. But her eyes sparkle the way they do when she thinks something is funny, so probably she isn’t really trying to insult me. She puts me on top of a stack of black disks, which surprises me because Sarah
never
let me touch her black disks. Josh looks surprised, too. But Laura just laughs and says, “Well, Prudence
is
coming with us, isn’t she?”

The stiff cardboard holders the black disks are kept in feel cool and smooth beneath my belly, and I’m happy to lie here for a while. Suddenly Josh jumps up and says, “I almost forgot!” I hear his footsteps going up the stairs, and then he comes back down holding the Love Saves the Day bag. “I put this in my room after I found Prudence shredding everything in it one day.”

Shredding!
I remember that day. It was one of my first few days living here, and I just wanted a comfortable place to fall asleep with my memories of Sarah!

I try to fix Josh with my best indignant stare, but he’s already
sitting on the floor with his arms in the bag. “I think this is just old newspapers and stuff,” he tells Laura, and puts the bag in the “no” pile. But I remember, now, that I found something else in the Love Saves the Day bag that day. Leaping from the pile of black disks, I dive into the bag headfirst and start pulling out all the old newspapers. (This is where having “extra” toes comes in handy.) Laura and Josh are laughing as more and more of me disappears into the bag, but when I get to the metal box in the bottom—the one Sarah took my red collar from the day she gave it to me—it’s too heavy for me to pry out. I pull and pull at it, my back straining so hard that it arches up and almost rips the thick paper of the bag.

Laura finally notices what I’m doing and reaches into the bag to help me. When her hand and my head come back out, she’s holding the box. It’s crushed and dented, and I remember how difficult it was even for Sarah to open it. I can’t see Laura’s expression, because she’s looking down, but she holds the box in her hands and turns it over and over for what seems like a long time.

“What is that?” Josh asks.

“This is from our old apartment.” Laura’s voice is hushed. “I always assumed it was lost the day they tore it down.”

“Do you know what’s in it?” Josh looks curious and then concerned when it takes Laura a few moments to answer.

“Not really.” She’s still turning the box around in her hands, looking for a way to open it. “How did she even get this back?”

“It looks like it’s been through a war,” Josh says. “Let me get a hammer from the toolbox and see if we can pry it open.”

“I think I can get it.” Laura slides a finger into a tiny gap between the crushed lid of the box and its body, using her other hand to flip up the latch that holds it closed. She strains against it for a moment, and just when Josh is reaching over to help her, the box flies open. Laura’s hands shake as she starts pulling things out. There are some red satin ribbons, and an old, balled-up T-shirt with a funny picture of a fake ear with black disks hanging from it and word-writing across the top. Laura says the word-writing spells
EAR WAX RECORDS
. There are also photos of a very young-looking
Sarah standing next to a man who looks a little like Laura. Sarah is holding a baby and smiling at us. In another picture that’s creased, like it’s been folded in half, a young-looking Laura is hugging an old, old man.

Josh has moved over so that he’s sitting behind Laura now, looking over her shoulder as she finds a small velvet bag that holds a plain gold ring. “This was my mother’s wedding ring.” Laura looks up at Josh. “I don’t think she ever got over my father. She never dated. And every year on their anniversary, she’d pull out old records and listen to ‘their’ songs.”

Josh puts his arms around her. “That’s the trouble with romantics. Once they fall in love, it’s for life.” But he doesn’t look like he really thinks this is “trouble,” as he kisses the top of Laura’s head.

The last thing in the box is a small plastic rectangle with two holes punched into either side. “A cassette,” Josh says. “What’s on it?”

“I … I’m not sure.” Laura lifts it from the box and looks at the front and back of it, but there’s no word-writing on it. “She made so many mix tapes back in her DJ days. This could be one of them, or …”

She doesn’t finish the sentence, so Josh says, “Let me get my cassette player. It’s in my office.” Josh runs to the stairs again, and I hear the sound of things being moved around above our heads in Home Office before Josh comes running back down holding what looks like a black radio with a window on the front of it. It’s dusty, as if it hasn’t been used for a long time. He presses a button to make the window open and, taking the tape from Laura’s hand, drops it inside.

First there’s a sound like a long
sssssssss
. Then music starts playing. A voice that sounds like Sarah except a little higher says,
Are you ready?
A little girl’s voice says,
But I can’t sing as good as you do
. Sarah’s voice says,
We’ll sing together. Just try
.

“Oh my God.” Laura’s voice is a whisper, and one hand rises to cover her mouth. “We made this together, at Alphaville Studios. I was only a few years old.”

Sarah’s voice hums a little, like she’s trying to show this younger
Laura what the tune should sound like. Then both of their voices sing:

Hearing Sarah’s voice now is like being there again the day we found each other. Sarah’s singing was my first beautiful thing, the thing that all the other beautiful things in our life together came from. It’s the sound of cold nights cuddled up under the covers together and sunlight shining butter-gold on Sarah’s hair through the windows, and the hand that used to stroke my back when something frightened me. It’s the sound of feet-shoes coming up the stairs at the time of day when I knew Sarah was coming home and I’d wait for her in that little ceramic bowl by the door. It’s the sound of Sarah’s voice saying,
Who’s my love? Who’s my little love?
and knowing the answer to that question even though I couldn’t say it to her in human words. My first beautiful thing. It’s here in this different apartment in a whole different country.

I know now what Sarah meant when she said that if you remember someone, they’ll always be with you. Sarah is here with us now. As I listen to her sing, I know that she never left.

The water that fills Laura’s eyes makes them look darker, until they’re the same color as Sarah’s eyes were. When her hands rise again to cover her whole face and her shoulders begin to shake, I know it’s because this is the same for her as it is for me. Sarah’s voice was Laura’s first beautiful thing, too.

It’s the sound of Laura sobbing that makes Josh and me go over to her at the same time. Josh’s arms go around her again and I crawl into her lap. It’s harder for me to get comfortable there than it used to be, because her belly has gotten bigger, but I press my forehead against her chest anyway and purr as fiercely as I can. “Look,” Josh whispers. “I think Prudence remembers, too.”

The three of us sit together like that until Laura’s shoulders
stop shaking and one hand falls to stroke the top of my head. In the light from the window, I think again how much Laura’s hands look like Sarah’s. Outside, on the rooftop across the street, the white and amber pigeons huddle together against the cold air and prepare to take flight. One after the other they throw themselves into the sky. Soon, though, they’ll flutter back down again and return to the place they know is home.

On January 24, 1998, a century-old tenement building still in use and located at 172 Stanton Street was demolished by the City of New York following a 911 call reporting damage to the rear façade during a rainstorm. Some two dozen residents were evacuated early that morning without being allowed to gather any personal belongings. Firefighters and city officials assured them that they would be allowed to return within a few hours. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani entered the building without a hard hat at approximately eleven
AM
, but ultimately residents were not allowed to return before demolition commenced eight hours later.