The Heights Part 21

"Not good. So pile it on. Your dissertation. You're not going to finish on Friday, are you?"

Tim diverted his eyes to the menu. He sighed and said, "No, I won't."

Funny, no matter how ready I was for this disappointment, I didn't feel ready.

"Kate, you gotta let me explain . . ."

What I couldn't handle was some sort of explanation, another grand excuse. "I don't want to hear-"

"There's a reason I won't finish on Friday."

I covered my ears.

"Because I finished it today."

"What?"

He unzipped his backpack. He removed a gray cardboard box that had been wrapped in a blue ribbon. He set it on my plate. "It's done."

In disbelief, I pulled at the ribbon, and it came off easily. I lifted the lid. I saw the cover page. "Done?"

"Done."

There it was. All those years of work. Five hundred and forty-two dense pages. Endless footnotes. All his. I flipped through it, amazed at the weight of it. He didn't point out the dedication page. I found it on my own. It read: to Kate

sorry for the long wait

"That's something," I said. "That's real nice." I didn't care if it was good, I realized. I even forgot how long it took to finish. I loved that it was done. And we would've celebrated longer if Debbie Beebe hadn't hurried into the Heights Cafe and said, "Did you hear?"

"Maybe," I said as I dried my eyes.

"Did you hear what happened to Anna Brody's little girl?"

TIM.

THAT NIGHT WE FOUND OURSELVES AT PIERREPONT PLAYGROUND SMACK IN THE middle of a band of other mothers. There were Claudia and Tess and Joan Manker and Suzanne, mother of Trevor and Jack. There were fathers, too-the Weasel, of course, and Dad Without a Clue.

If one were to listen to the many conversations going on around the playground that night, here was what would be learned: Earlier that night Sophie Brody-Ashworth tripped over/slipped off/fell headfirst from the top of the circular slide at Pierrepont Playground. Her mother, Anna, saw the whole thing happen/didn't see a thing/wasn't even at the playground. Sophie's injury was just a sc.r.a.pe/a deep cut/a nasty gash that exposed her skull bone. She received four st.i.tches/twenty-three st.i.tches/eighty-four st.i.tches and her jaw was wired shut. Finally, when the ambulances arrived, Sophie was fully conscious/unconscious but not yet in a coma/brain-dead.

The only aspect everyone could agree on was they had never heard so many sirens or seen so many flas.h.i.+ng lights. "That's the good part of it," Tess Windsor said, already clinging to the bright side. "You call 911 in the Heights, say a child has been hurt, and they send the world."

Indeed, two fire trucks, two EMS wagons, an ambulance from Long Island College Hospital, and another ambulance from Kings County Hospital all had arrived within minutes. My favorite person that night was Claudia. Normally a gossip artist of the first rate, she told those gathered, "We don't know. n.o.body knows. And until somebody knows, maybe we should, I don't know, just shut up and pray."

Prayer works, or so it seemed. Four st.i.tches under the chin. The kind that dissolved. A battery of tests given by the best of St. Vincent's Hospital. The diagnosis? A much earned headache that was treated with over-the-counter children's Tylenol. A two-night stay "just for observation" in the Frederick J. Ashworth Pediatric Wing.

News that good didn't stop people from talking. Rumor had it that Philip Ashworth was out of town. But rumor also had it that he'd beaten the ambulance to the hospital. Rumor had it that Philip had insisted on the barrage of tests that, according to rumor, may have been his way to alleviate any guilt for having been with his mistress/lover when Sophie fell.

Before questioning the ethics of what I was about to do, consider how, prior to the eighteenth century, children were personas non grata in nearly every culture. Keep in mind how the Aztecs would sacrifice children to ensure a good harvest, and how in London during the late nineteenth century, the lucky children slaved away in factories while the orphans begged and stole in the city streets. Contemplate the various cultures where infanticide was commonplace, or even old China, where girls' feet were bound, and contemporarily, consider those young Indonesian children who use their small fingers to sew the seams of Nike soccer b.a.l.l.s. This was not the coal mines of Kentucky, nor were live grenades about to be taped into my boys' hands before they were sent into enemy Vietnamese territory, nor would my boys be pierced by hooks and hung by their nipples on their twelfth birthday like the Sioux Indians of South Dakota. The truth was that in the history of children, few children had ever had it as good as Teddy and Sam Welch. This made it possible for me to dial the phone and force Teddy to speak into the receiver.

Teddy said in a shy voice, "Can . . . uhm."

"Say, 'This is Teddy. May I speak with Sophie, please?' "

Teddy said, "Hold on, my dad's yelling at me."

"I'm not yelling . . ."

Teddy dropped the receiver and ran out of the kitchen. I sheepishly picked up the phone and forced a laugh. "h.e.l.lo?"

"Yes, who is it?"

"Oh, Philip, it's Tim Welch." Is it true? Were you with your mistress? "It's not really me calling. My boys have been asking about Sophie, so . . ."

Anna, in the background, faintly: "Who is it?"

Philip Ashworth didn't cover the phone well. "Go back to bed. It's n.o.body." To me, he said, "Anna's resting right now. I'll let her know you called."

"But I'm not calling. It's the boys . . ."

The boys who are down the hall playing with their toys.

"The boys want to speak to Sophie . . ."

"She's resting, too. We're all trying to rest."

"Of course . . ."

A second phone was picked up. When Anna spoke, she sounded fuzzy, foggy, as if underwater. "I got it, Philip. You can hang up."

It took him a moment to hang up.

Anna sighed and said, "We need to talk."

The study of history has taught me many important lessons, but none more important than to be prepared, since the unlikely will likely happen. Which was why three days later, as I crossed the Heights toward our agreed-upon meeting place, I went over numerous, various conversation scenarios in my mind. What should I say? How best to say it?

It depended, I decided, on which of the various Annas I might find.

Sad Anna would be met by Funny Tim.

Cold and Distant Anna might need to have the ice broken first. A witticism, perhaps, as in: "So what brings us to this part of Brooklyn?"

Angry Anna would require a Thick-Skinned Tim.

Distraught Anna might prefer Bright Side Tim or It Could Have Been Much Worse Tim.

Her choice of where to meet proved curious.

The Fulton Street Mall was a short walk from the Heights. Just head down Joralemon, cross Court Street, keep going past the courthouse, and enter the Fulton Street Mall, Brooklyn's oldest and largest outdoor mall. It's a kind of gateway to the Other Brooklyn. Real Brooklyn. Black Brooklyn. If this were the South, one would have just crossed the railroad tracks to the other side of town.

Kate and I shopped there every so often. Modell's offered great deals on tennis shoes. The Toys "R" Us had closed, but they had a Macy's. It just wasn't Madison Avenue. And the elite, like Anna Brody, never set foot there, or so I thought until that day.

We need to talk, she had said. I didn't care where. A talk was long overdue.

The deserted second level of the Arby's was where I found them.

Anna and Sophie had already ordered.

I focused on Sophie first. She looked bigger since I'd last seen her. She'd lost a tooth. She wore an antique-white dress with large wooden b.u.t.tons. The white of her bandage matched her dress. I sat down across from them and said, "Hey, Sophie."

Sophie slid off her chair, climbed up on my lap, and wrapped her arms around my neck.

"Somebody missed you," Anna said. The whites of her eyes were spiderwebbed red from crying or lack of sleep. She offered me her french fries. I motioned a no-thanks.

All that practice, and I still didn't know what to say, except: "So what brings us to this part of Brooklyn?"

"The bargains," Anna said, not missing a beat. She smiled.

Good, I thought. At least she can still smile. "I didn't know you liked Arby's."

"This is Sophie's favorite place to eat."

Judging by the untouched food left on Sophie's tray, she'd lost her appet.i.te. And now she was asleep.

"You've still got the touch."

I looked away. On the floor, a plastic packet of ketchup had been stepped on, making an irregular circle of red. I blurted out, "It could happen to anyone, you know that, don't you? Any of us, any parent, one little turn of the head, one glance in the wrong direction . . ."

That was all it took for Anna to crack open. Mostly, she blamed herself. It was heartbreaking. She also blamed Philip. "We didn't need all those doctors and medical tests. Two MRIs. Just because he paid for half the hospital."

"You can never be too careful-"

She even blamed Kate.

"What did Kate do?"

"She came to my house, got so mad at me. Squeezed my arm so hard I can still see the finger marks."

"I don't understand . . ."

"I was sitting there at the park, trying to figure out why she was so angry at me, and I wasn't paying attention to Sophie . . . does she suspect something?"

"Kate? No, I don't think so."

"You didn't tell her about us."

"Never."

"Then why was she so rude?"

"She's had a hard time lately. Lost her job. And she really liked her job."

"Oh, that explains it," Anna said. She seemed relieved. "So, Tim, let's talk about our weekend."

Our weekend? "Oh my G.o.d," I said, "I'd forgotten about it." It was sort of true. Since I'd been sitting there, I hadn't thought about the Weekend once.

"You seem pleased with yourself."

Yes, it was one of those moments when you realize you're not an entirely bad guy. I was pleased with myself.

"Tell me, Tim, why do you think we're meeting?"

"Well," I said, "I thought you might need a friend."

"Oh, no." Anna laughed. "Hardly." She glanced at her watch. "There's a new hotel in the city I'd like to try."

Oh, here we go.

"Unless you have another idea," she said.

"No, sounds fine, great."

"Should I book us a room?"

"Whatever you think is best."

This is really happening.

She asked if I had any concerns. Many, I wanted to say as I put the sleeping Sophie back in her stroller. "No concerns," I said.

"Well, then, there's just one other matter to discuss."

"Okay," I said, forcing myself to make eye contact.

"I have only one rule, and it's not negotiable."

"Not negotiable, I understand."

Anna used a wipe to clean her hands. "We'll do anything and everything," she said. She crumpled the wipe into a ball. "But I only kiss my husband."

"Okay, sure."