Authors: Mona Simpson
“He’s my father,” she said, looking down.
The picture. That child. She might be, he thought. Then he wondered if Olivia knew about this. “My name is Noah Kaskie, by the way. So where do you live?”
“Up in the mountains. I’m Jane.”
Noah looked at the foothills. There were no mountains around here. “Where’s your mom?”
“She’s there still.”
“She’s still there. Then tell me something: how did you get here?”
“That’s kind of a secret.”
“Well, listen, he’s probably at work now. He works a lot. So why don’t I take you somewhere and we’ll call him. We can even go get you some new clothes. You got a little dirty sleeping here.”
“Okay, great,” she said. “I love new clothes.”
She walked with a hand light on his shoulder to the eucalyptus grove, where an old Ford truck waited like a ruin, rusty as something in a junkyard. She used her hands and a knee to shimmy onto the seat, then jumped back down with a brown grocery bag folded down at the top, like a huge lunch.
“Who drove this?”
“I did.”
Noah looked at the ancient truck. He didn’t believe her at all. He hardly believed the thing still ran. Then he showed her his van.
“Oh, neat,” she said, when the ramp descended. “Like a drawbridge to a castle. You should call it Van Castle. And that makes you Count Van Castle.”
“Listen, do you want to try calling Owens first or go get something to eat?”
For a moment, just a moment, Jane forgot her mother. Then it all came back, a dark wink. “Eat,” she said.
Now Noah didn’t want to see Olivia. He wanted to keep his discovery to himself.
He drove to an old soda shop where Olivia would never be. Olivia and Owens were health people. Except when it came to ethnicity. Olivia’d eat Mexican-food fat but she wouldn’t touch a potato chip. Owens wouldn’t get near either. You had to grant him consistency, but it made him even more of a pain in the ass. Noah ate anything, particularly anything cheap. It pleased him to buy Owens’ alleged daughter a bacon cheeseburger.
Then he took her to the mall. He’d never bought a girl clothing before, and the shop was wonderful. He’d been on the boys’ floor of department stores to buy his trousers. But these dresses and shoes were not miniatures. They had a whimsy all their own. Noah had had a credit card almost a year now and still not used it. Now he would. He’d applied for emergencies, but maybe this was what it was for. Borrow for happiness, not safety.
Jane skitted from outfit to outfit. Even Noah recognized the poor quality of what she had on, stretch pants muddy from washings, shoes split at the sole. He wondered about the mother. She had to be someplace nearby. But why would she hide?
He told Jane to fetch what she wanted. She brushed the sleeve of a velvet coat, picked up the price tag, then relinquished it. Then she stood staring at a dress. She wanted it but she couldn’t have a dress now. Her mother hadn’t let her wear dresses. Jane chose overalls that went with a shirt. “Is it too much?”
“Not at all,” Noah said, relieved. “Go try it on.” While Jane ran back to the mirror, he motioned the saleswoman to include the velvet coat.
Noah had wanted to stop at the grocery store in case Owens didn’t come home before dinner, but they still had to climb into Van Castle and out again. He felt a fatigue coming. He wasn’t used to any of this yet. He decided to take Jane to his place instead.
“We’re the Van Castles,” she said. “Sounds like royalty.”
An hour later, she was murmuring in the bathtub while Noah called Owens. Kathleen told him he was at the plant and then had a meeting with architects.
“This is important.” He wanted to tell her, but Owens was very private. “Say it’s urgent, would you, Kathleen?”
He got off the phone because the girl was hollering, did he have any bubble bath, which he didn’t. “How about dish soap?” Noah found a bottle under the sink and with it she conjured a spa of bubbles overflowing onto the floor.
Noah listened to her small, rising hum from the other room. He remembered being washed, sitting in the old, deep porcelain kitchen sink. Or was that because of me, the way I was? he wondered. No, he recalled his sister too, sitting up there by the window, her legs crossed at the knees. Michelle had red hair, and her legs were pink with freckles and small scars.
Jane emerged, her hair still matted in a cloud. “You didn’t know that—that detergent’s like bubble bath? Sure, Noah, it’s just suds.”
“Do you drink tea?” He didn’t really know what children ate.
“Okay.”
She had tea with a box of graham crackers at his kitchen table, while he sat behind her and tried to comb her hair. A tangle eventually came out, like a burr, but she told him it hurt and he stopped trying.
“I called his office. Is he expecting you, or are you a surprise?”
“Surprise. Definitely surprise. Do you have any games?”
Games were things a person should probably have, Noah resolved right then. He had movies, though, taped from television. She picked
Peter Pan
. Noah made a batch of Jiffy Pop as the sky outside darkened. A carpet of wind swept through the house, and it began to rain. Noah gave her one of his sweatshirts and a pair of his wool socks.
Before the movie was over, she fell asleep on his bed. He covered her with a blanket and wondered about dinner. Owens wouldn’t necessarily call, and it was an evening to stay in. He opened the refrigerator: he had eggs he could scramble and oatmeal. Rachel had given him a large jug of maple syrup last Christmas. He had only breakfast foods because he tended to eat supper in the lab. But she’d liked the tea. He looked out the window at Van Castle in the rain.
“What if he doesn’t call?” she said in a normal voice from the other room.
“You’ll stay here. Are you hungry for some supper?”
“In a little while,” she said.
Jane was asleep when Owens finally called. “Hey, have you seen Olivia?”
“I haven’t seen her all day,” Noah whispered.
“Really? ’Cause I thought she might be with you. You know, I’m a little worried, Noah. She’s not here, she wasn’t at Huck’s, I even called her dad. We were gonna meet for dinner, and I got to the restaurant fifteen minutes late and she’d left.”
Owens made no mention of Noah’s messages.
“They told me she left. I couldn’t believe it.”
“Owens, listen. I wasn’t calling you about Olivia.” Noah heard the light tap of computer keys in Owens’ background. “But I went looking for her today at your place and I found a kid who says you’re her father.”
“Oh, no, that kid. Did you see the mother? Woman about thirty, kind of crazy.”
“No woman. There’s a truck in your yard, but no mother.”
“Yeah, they’ve got a truck. That’s them. And she’s not my kid. I’m sure I’ll hear from her mom soon and see what she wants, but I can’t deal with it tonight, I’ve got to find Olivia. Can you just keep her there for a day or so?”
“Sure, I guess so. But why does she think she’s your daughter?”
“Well, it’s a long story.” He sighed. “And not a very interesting one. But her mom decided I was the dad. And I had to think, if I didn’t agree to be her father, she wouldn’t have a father. So I help them out some.”
“So she’s always known you as her father?”
“She said that?”
“Yeah. Sort of.”
“Do you think she looks like me?”
“I don’t know. No, not really.”
“I know. I don’t either. Kaskie, do you have
any
idea where Olivia might be? You’d tell me the truth, wouldn’t you?”
“Of course,” Noah huffed. “If I hear from her, I’ll tell her you’re looking—”
“If you hear from her, tell her I love her. Tell her I love her a lot.”
As Noah put the phone down, he made out Jane, standing dense in the dark. “What did he say?”
“He said to tell you he loved you a lot.” Noah saw her shoulders drop, and he smarted for the lie.
“Is he coming?”
“Probably not for a couple days. He asked if I’d take care of you until then. Is that all right?”
“Yes. But I don’t know why he doesn’t just come.”
“I don’t know either,” Noah said. “But we’ll have fun. You watch and see.”
And for three days Noah worked at fun. He took Jane to the Mechanical Museum. Outside, they put quarters in telescopes to see overlapping seals on rocks. They watched Golden Gate Park’s last buffalo move slowly in their paddock and then they collapsed at the Japanese Tea Garden, ordering double portions of cookies. Noah fell into the habit of thinking about meals in advance. He worried about money in moments of darkness, at night and in the movies. He was spending more than he ever did. But they laughed together in the theaters and their plastic spoons scraped the waxy cardboard bottoms of sundaes. Sometimes, between pleasures, the girl’s face fell to blankness. Noah was beginning to understand how people spent money. Money was worth a laugh.
But he wasn’t sure how long he was budgeting for; you never knew with Owens. He was trying to figure out if they could keep on forever. Her food wouldn’t cost much if they ate at home. He could quit restaurants, bring lunch to the lab. He’d have to get her into school; they couldn’t be out celebrating every day. This was just for now, when they didn’t know. And by the third day they were wearing out from fun. Noah missed the lab. He could go a day without it, but after three he wasn’t right. He had applications in at Cold Spring Harbor for next summer and at MIT next year. Now he didn’t feel like going anywhere. She must miss her life too, he thought. He could tell she was tired. When they’d driven out of the park, full of warm tea, they passed a school where kids in brown uniforms poured out of double doors, jumping in the cold. She turned away from the car window.
“What grade were you in?”
“Third,” she said. “But I din go much.”
“Well, tonight we should call your mother.” Noah had been waiting to say that, but she just shook her head.
She was too old for third grade. At Mitch’s bookstore, he bought a math book and what seemed to him a decent volume of fairy tales. That night, he made grilled cheese sandwiches and cleared the table for her to work. He took out a clean notebook to sit with her and think with a pencil. He sketched diagrams of his fish brains, drawing arrows for signals. He’d talked to Louise a long time on the phone, but not enough had changed in the lab. At the tea garden, he’d said he had to go to the bathroom and called Kathleen. She’d sighed, her voice low with apology. But whatever Owens did, he couldn’t have a kid. He was never home. He only allowed about five vegetables in that kitchen. They didn’t have milk, he didn’t believe in flour, he forbade meat and most things you need for a regular life. And the house was too cold.
“Why don’t you want to call your mother? Did you have a fight?”
She looked at his notebook. “What language is this?”
“That’s biology. You can use the phone whenever you want. Maybe I’ll drive to the lab, and you can be alone in the van for a few minutes and call.”
“I’ll come in too. I always come in too.”
The way she said that, he began to think he could keep her. There was a school ten or eleven blocks down. Maybe she could walk to the lab after school and do her homework there. They could eat dinner together. And then what? Could he put her to bed at home and then come back to work? Before, he’d thought he’d move East. He’d wanted to go to conferences, join the capitals of science, get in the long line for the big prizes. But there were a thousand reasons to stay, and Jane was the last, the one that tipped him. And he was from here. He’d shop on Saturday mornings and cook every night. It would be harder to have a child and be a scientist, but he could do it. Women did. He’d buy milk, bread and ice cream. She could have friends over, maybe a birthday party.
“Jane, I’m thinking we should get you registered in school. He’s
pretty busy, and I’m wondering, whatever you two decide, you could always stay here. Would you mind that?”
“No,” she said. “Can I go brush my teeth now?”
Registering a child in school was not easy. They wanted proof. They wanted paper. Noah had the distinct impression the principal thought he’d kidnapped her. They needed her birth certificate, which, incredibly, Jane retrieved from the envelope she’d come with, safety-pinned to her sleeve. The worn paper verified that Jane was born to Mary di Natali. Two inked whorls of baby feet marked the page. “Where is Mary di Natali?” the principal asked.
“We’ve got to call her,” Noah said, sternly. “Tonight, Jane.”
Jane shook her head. “There’s no telephone.”
“Think, Jane. We have to reach her. I can send a letter registered mail. What about a neighbor who has a phone?”
Jane turned to him as they left the school hallway. “My mother’s dead, Noah.”
“When did she die?”
“She would have kept me if she could’ve.”
“Comere.” He hugged her into his chair. He had been trying to puzzle it together, the truck, her journey. “But who really drove?”
“I really drove, Noah,” she said, and that moment he believed her. There was more then he didn’t let himself ask.
When they returned home, two envelopes waited in Noah’s mailbox. One was from Sperry’s lab, the other from Cold Spring Harbor. He slid them unopened into a drawer.
Owens came that night, in jeans and hiking boots, loping across the lawn. “Hel-lo,” he called, reaching a hand in through their open window. Jane’s head shot up from her book, but all she said was, “Hi, Owens,” as if he were the most average thing in her life.
“Hey, bud,” Noah said, knocking his elbow. “Want coffee?”
“Do you have any fresh juice?”
“Nope. Tea and coffee. Bourbon.”
“Oh, no, thanks,” Owens said. “I’m pretty tired. I’ve been meeting all day with political types. The mayor was here. Experts.”
“So what’d you learn?” Noah said.
Owens had listened with full consideration to the planners of mass transit systems. But try as he did, he couldn’t work himself into the idea of taking the bus. It has something to do with freedom, he thought. After a two-day presentation for a subway system throughout Greater Los Angeles, Owens concluded, “I’d rather ride a bike.” He sighed. “There should be a moratorium on all cars for a year, until they can clean up the air.”