there was no television, much to the frustration of Cassie, who claimed that weekends spent with me were deadly boring, involving as they did a good deal of reading.
Cassie was a clever child with a flair for the dramatic gesture. At times she was distant and dreamy, apparently indifferent to the world around her. She was tall for her age and had a mass of tangled blond hair that would fall across her face like a curtain.
“Daddy,
everybody
has TV! You are such a dinosaur.”
“What sort of a dinosaur, honey?”
She’d roll her eyes in despair. But she was just as happy with a book as she would have been with TV. She only pretended to be a modern child.
Agnes, on her second visit to my apartment, wandered the bookshelves while I ordered food from the Chinese place on Eighth Avenue. She pulled out a volume of Wallace Stevens and idly turned the pages. “Charlie,” she said, “you don’t imagine I’ve forgiven you?”
I was still on the phone. I turned toward her. She was wearing a black skirt and a dark blouse of some silky loose material, and she had not yet removed her raincoat. She had changed in the years we’d been apart, somehow become more of a woman, her long, clever face sprinkled with freckles now and a sort of wryness apparent in her slightly snaggletoothed grin. Often she talked with a hand-rolled cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth, her eyes squinting against the smoke. Her hair still tumbled untidily to her shoulders, much as it had when I first met her. She stood by the bookshelves and took the cigarette from between her lips.
“Because if you do, I have to tell you that it isn’t what this is about.”
I was still ordering food, and it was a mark of some intellectual agility on my part that I could sustain both that activity and Agnes’s last sentence. I completed the order and put the phone down. I didn’t give a damn whether she thought that I thought that she’d forgiven me: she was
here. I sat leaning forward on a high kitchen stool, my legs slightly bent and my palms on my thighs.
“Come here at once,” I said.
Agnes, smoking, continued to turn the pages, her face averted from me. I waited. She walked down the room, swaying a little, and tossed the book onto the sofa, where I found it the next morning. I opened my arms, and when she stepped between them I slid my hands in under the raincoat, clasping her slim frame to me with some force. She leaned into me and we kissed. Why was she doing this?
Only once had I properly met Leon, her second husband, Cassie’s stepfather. Leon O’Connor. They came from the same town on Long Island; apparently they had dated in high school. He worked for the Fire Department.
I remembered the defensiveness in Agnes’s tone when I’d asked what he did for a living. We were still enemies in those days but were forced to cooperate for Cassie’s sake.
“Yes, you laugh,” she’d said, “that’s just like you.”
“I’m not laughing.”
But a
fireman
? And her with a PhD in sociology? This had been my thought.
“Better a decent fireman,” she’d said.
“Better than what?”
“Than a shit of a shrink.”
By then I had mastered the ability to bite back my anger when she dispensed some particle of her own reservoir of resentment. I hoped the fireman would extinguish some at least of her unhappiness, and for a while it seemed he had.
The one time we met, it was because there’d been some miscommunication about when I was supposed to pick up Cassie from Fulton Street. My daughter, then aged five, interposed her body. “Daddy,” she said, “this is Leon O’Connor. Leon, this is Daddy.”
Done with grace. She was a precocious child. We shook hands. He was as tall as me and strongly built, a formidable man with cropped hair and a thick, tobacco-stained mustache. New York Irish. But he was not healthy. His skin was gray and he had a ragged cough.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
Then I thought, what does he see? Some shit
Cassie was a clever child with a flair for the dramatic gesture. At times she was distant and dreamy, apparently indifferent to the world around her. She was tall for her age and had a mass of tangled blond hair that would fall across her face like a curtain.
“Daddy,
everybody
has TV! You are such a dinosaur.”
“What sort of a dinosaur, honey?”
She’d roll her eyes in despair. But she was just as happy with a book as she would have been with TV. She only pretended to be a modern child.
Agnes, on her second visit to my apartment, wandered the bookshelves while I ordered food from the Chinese place on Eighth Avenue. She pulled out a volume of Wallace Stevens and idly turned the pages. “Charlie,” she said, “you don’t imagine I’ve forgiven you?”
I was still on the phone. I turned toward her. She was wearing a black skirt and a dark blouse of some silky loose material, and she had not yet removed her raincoat. She had changed in the years we’d been apart, somehow become more of a woman, her long, clever face sprinkled with freckles now and a sort of wryness apparent in her slightly snaggletoothed grin. Often she talked with a hand-rolled cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth, her eyes squinting against the smoke. Her hair still tumbled untidily to her shoulders, much as it had when I first met her. She stood by the bookshelves and took the cigarette from between her lips.
“Because if you do, I have to tell you that it isn’t what this is about.”
I was still ordering food, and it was a mark of some intellectual agility on my part that I could sustain both that activity and Agnes’s last sentence. I completed the order and put the phone down. I didn’t give a damn whether she thought that I thought that she’d forgiven me: she was
here. I sat leaning forward on a high kitchen stool, my legs slightly bent and my palms on my thighs.
“Come here at once,” I said.
Agnes, smoking, continued to turn the pages, her face averted from me. I waited. She walked down the room, swaying a little, and tossed the book onto the sofa, where I found it the next morning. I opened my arms, and when she stepped between them I slid my hands in under the raincoat, clasping her slim frame to me with some force. She leaned into me and we kissed. Why was she doing this?
Only once had I properly met Leon, her second husband, Cassie’s stepfather. Leon O’Connor. They came from the same town on Long Island; apparently they had dated in high school. He worked for the Fire Department.
I remembered the defensiveness in Agnes’s tone when I’d asked what he did for a living. We were still enemies in those days but were forced to cooperate for Cassie’s sake.
“Yes, you laugh,” she’d said, “that’s just like you.”
“I’m not laughing.”
But a
fireman
? And her with a PhD in sociology? This had been my thought.
“Better a decent fireman,” she’d said.
“Better than what?”
“Than a shit of a shrink.”
By then I had mastered the ability to bite back my anger when she dispensed some particle of her own reservoir of resentment. I hoped the fireman would extinguish some at least of her unhappiness, and for a while it seemed he had.
The one time we met, it was because there’d been some miscommunication about when I was supposed to pick up Cassie from Fulton Street. My daughter, then aged five, interposed her body. “Daddy,” she said, “this is Leon O’Connor. Leon, this is Daddy.”
Done with grace. She was a precocious child. We shook hands. He was as tall as me and strongly built, a formidable man with cropped hair and a thick, tobacco-stained mustache. New York Irish. But he was not healthy. His skin was gray and he had a ragged cough.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
Then I thought, what does he see? Some shit
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