All the Time in the World (24 page)

“Composition.” Patrick corrects her, but he is facing his father.

“Is music just something you're doing until you decide to have a family?” George asks me. “Or will composition be your life's work?” His eyes are piercing, without any of the cloudiness usually found in a man his age.

“That's not a very feminist way to put it, Dad,” says Patrick.

“Well, I'm not a feminist, so that's all right,” says George.

“Oh, heavens, George. Who isn't a feminist in this day and age?” says Ashley Lynn.

“Me,” says George, clapping Patrick on the shoulder, hard, like Patrick has set him up for an amazing punch line.

“I was hoping to convince her to play something for us.” Ashley Lynn lets Max take her hand in his and put all three hands in his lap. “It's such a beautiful piano, don't you think? You have wonderful taste, Scotty.” She doesn't mention Gretchen's taste, which is all over this apartment, staring us down. I cast around, trying to come up with the proper tense for “Gretchen and Scotty,” realizing that that's probably why Ashley Lynn left her out.

“It was a wedding present,” says Jeanne. “George and I found it through Sotheby's.” From the way she says it, they might have been wandering around lost on the Upper East Side, until a kind soul from the auction house noticed and took pity on them, gave them a hot cup of coffee, sold them a piano, and then called a taxi to take them home.

“I'm not much of a pianist,” I say. “I had to learn competency for my master's, but that's about it.”

“So you can play,” says Max. His voice is too loud for the parlor. “Know any Gershwin?”

“Let's not get too crazy,” says Patrick. “Unless you want seven kids to wake up and demand bedtime snacks.”

“Nonsense. These old walls are made of brick,” says George.

“I think I need to call it a night,” I say, certain that if I stay any longer I'll be auctioned off in some way to the highest bidder. Maybe through Sotheby's.

Scotty stands up, making it look hard. I'd almost forgotten he was in the room. “I'll call the doorman and let him know.”

“No, thank you,” I say. “I'm going to walk. It's not very late. I'll call in a few days to see, ah, what's what. I—”
I love you
is what I want to say.
And tell the boys I love them, that I loved
her. “Would you tell the boys I'll see them soon?”

I head into the foyer and grab my things quickly, thinking that I'd rather walk out into the freezing night and then get my clothing situated than be detained here for a minute longer. Patrick catches me in the hallway as I'm waiting for the elevator, trying to turn my gloves into a hat.

“Are you really going to walk?” he asks me.

“Yeah,” I say. “It's less than a mile.”

“Do you want me to walk you?”

“No, thank you.”

“
May
I walk you?” It must be the proximity of his parents encouraging this display of manners and propriety, but I don't want it. I miss the guessing game of his borderline comments.

“No. It's super close, Patrick; there's no need.”

“I remember where it is. Here,” he says, reaching into his jacket pocket for a beanie. “Take my hat. It's too cold not to have something on your head.”

The hat I left hanging next to my apartment door is the hat she gave me. I left it there on purpose earlier today. It's the guilt-hat, the hat she bought me on the same shopping trip that she bought a skinny tie for Scotty, which I'm sure he'll never wear. I couldn't bring myself to put that hat on my head this morning. Before I can start crying about it, like I suddenly feel like doing, Patrick adds, “And then when you get home, you'll smell like me.”

The sound of my laugh is loud and startling, so I clap my hands over my mouth. “Okay. Give it.”

As I'm getting in the elevator, he says, “You can drop it off for me anytime this week. After nine, preferably.” The doors close before I have to decide to agree or disagree and, thankfully, before any of Patrick's family members decide to come out looking for him.

April, eight weeks after

I am standing on the sidewalk outside Dr. O'Neill's office, which is in a lovely brownstone between Madison and Park that I wish I lived in. I am watching Scotty type an e-mail on his phone. He hasn't said much of anything since we left the office, and I'm not sure if he wants me to wait until he's finished so we can talk. Dr. O'Neill just gave us a whole load of buzzwords to ponder concerning Matt's psyche, as well as a full report on both boys' “grief progression.” Apparently, moving in and out of periods of intense emotion is more common than sustaining one long heightened state of emotion. In essence, both boys are moving along quite naturally, and we need to “create enough space” to let them “feel what they feel.” It makes a lot of sense, in the abstract. Unfortunately, the practical strategies are difficult to determine. I thought he would lay some out for us. But if he did, I totally missed them. Maybe Scotty got one or two?

An expression somewhere between weary to the very bones and daunted by a complex question has become more common on Scotty's face than any other. He wears it right now as he types, and when he finally looks up at me, I feel like I'm supposed to answer some question that he never asked in words.

“I'm hungry,” he says. “I was working all morning, and I forgot to eat. Are you hungry? Serafina has truffle pizza.”

I hesitate for a moment, thinking of my conversation with Claudia. “Yes,” I say, turning off my phone. “The boys never let me get anything exotic on my pizza, so that sounds great.”

“Strictly pepperoni guys,” he says, as we walk around the corner. It's pretty early, so they seat us right away. Scotty orders two gin and tonics, and neither he nor the waiter ask me what I want, but I'm sort of wondering if he means them both for himself.

“I think we need to figure out what to do with Matt,” he says, interrupting the nonsense in my head. “I just got an e-mail from the attorney who's representing that guy. You know, the cab driver. Sorry about the wait. I thought I should respond before I had a chance to think of reasons to put it off. Do you think squash would be good in a salad? I didn't think it was in season, but I guess we're into April now. Maybe squash is plentiful in South America or something.”

“I'm not a fan of squash,” I say. “Don't tell Georgie. Spinach is okay though, if that one looks good to you.”

“And you like truffle pizza, right?” he says, closing his menu.

“Right,” I say. “Do you mean the, the driver who, the driver who hit her? His attorney e-mailed you?”

“Yes,” Scotty says. “We've been communicating.”

“But the trial, or whatever, that shouldn't have anything to do with you,” I say. “I mean, it's not you pressing charges, right? Isn't it, like, the people?”

“It's complicated,” he says. “Both sides need more from me than I thought they would. I think this attorney wants to know if I'll speak to him. The driver. He's been asking to talk to me, and I've been avoiding it. I suppose they think it's possible that the prosecutor might want some kind of a statement from me, and they want to know what I'm going to say. He's smart to ask. I would, if I were his attorney.” The waiter is heading our way with the drink order.

Scotty pushes one of the drinks toward me and then tells the waiter what we're eating. “I don't know how to answer him any better than I already have,” he continues, as the waiter retreats. “What else can I say?”

“Wow. That's a lot.”

“What would you say?”

“I don't know,” I say. “I kind of feel like no punishment could ever be enough. If I did decide to go, I'd have to muster up the part of me that wanted to see him rot in prison.”

“I thought that part of me would be the loudest,” says Scotty, and we might as well be discussing the electric bill. “But now I have Mae's voice stuck in my head. ‘Vengeance is mine, sayeth The Lord,' and all that shit.”

His voice is so low that I've been leaning forward, with my forearms resting on the table, to be sure I can hear what he's saying. Now I lean back, taking the lime off the edge of my drink and stirring it into the gin and tonic. Scotty watches me do this, then takes the lime off of his own and squeezes it into my drink before discarding it onto a bread plate.

“To be completely honest, I don't want to think about it,” says Scotty. “I don't have much energy, and that man doesn't deserve a single bit of it.”

I think about the trouble he is having addressing the subject in his actual life, with his bewildered children in his house of precarious silence. How could he walk into a courtroom or even a law office and talk about this? And what would happen if I left the boys there, on the inside of that, with no mother and an echo of a father? Imagining this feels so bad that I have to force the idea from my mind.

“I had my first session of therapy this past week,” Scotty is saying, “and most of the time we talked about work.” He is all the way through his gin and tonic, and it feels more like he is thinking out loud than talking to me, especially since I can't come up with anything to add to the conversation. “But I have to do something about Matt. That much is clear.”

Our salad arrives, and it looks like the waiter is expecting us to eat with two forks out of the same bowl. “We need a couple of plates,” I tell him.

“I'm so sorry about how he was with you the other night,” Scotty continues. “It must have been awful.”

“It was the worst it's been,” I say, “although there are some moments that have come close. The school thing with Ainsley sounded really bad.” Now would be a good time to tell him about running into Ainsley's family at Carnegie Hall, but I don't.

“How is George doing, do you think?” Scotty hands our empty glasses to the server who drops off the salad plates, and orders two more gin and tonics.

“I can't really even tell.” I push the yellow tomatoes all to one side in the salad bowl, preparing to distribute it onto our plates “He's just so
sad
. He's clingy with Matt, and with me, and with you, when he sees you.” Scotty spoons the tomatoes out onto his own salad plate, seeming to understand that I need them out of the way. “He knows that he can't see her, but I don't think he knows what ‘dead' means. He asked me if we could call her on the phone.”

The waiter delivers our new drinks, and Scotty hands his lime over immediately. “What do you say to him, when he asks about her?”

“Sometimes I avoid the question.” I unfold my napkin and put it into my lap. My grandmother would scold me for the delay of this gesture. “But mostly, I try and tell the truth. You know, as gently as I can.”

Our waiter comes back and delivers the food. Scotty hasn't eaten much of his salad, and he doesn't seem interested in the pizza. I am, though, if only for the diversion it provides while I take it apart and put it onto our plates. It's hot, and I have to cut it up and use a fork to eat the first few bites. If Matt were here, he'd be mad at me for allowing the pizza to come out too hot to eat right away.

“I used to get jealous,” Scotty says. “I never thought of myself as a possessive person, but on the day I married her, I was so self-satisfied. I thought, this is mine;
she
is mine. We used to wake up two or three hours before I had to leave for work so that we could just
be
together. And then when the kids were born, I was jealous. I was jealous of the time they took up. That makes me sound awful, I know.”

“It makes you sound like you really loved her,” I say.

“I love the boys too, so much, much more than I thought I was capable of loving anyone, and the fact that she gave them to me made me love her more.” Scotty stirs his drink, watching intently as the ice cubes make a little funnel. “We never let them sleep in our bed. We always went in with them to their own rooms if they were having some kind of issue. But never overnight, because we would miss each other. It sounds pretty crazy when I say it, but there it is. That was us.” He stops stirring and puts down the straw, and it seems to take him a lot of effort.

“You sound sad, not crazy,” I say. “Maybe … maybe you can be sad
with
them, you know?” And I have the urge to reach across the table and put my hands around his hands, which are now holding on tightly to his tumbler. Just as the urge is about to overwhelm me, he says, “This pizza is sort of awesome.”

“Agreed,” I say.

“I thought that Dr. O'Neill would give us a few strategies for dealing with Matt, but he really didn't. He basically said what you just said, only in elaborate terminology,” says Scotty.

“Me too,” I say. “I mean, I thought so too.” I feel solidarity with him, even though it's a purposeless, foolish kind of solidarity. It's surreal, the way life moves on, even if you feel like you're not moving with it.

“Do you need another drink?” Scotty asks and signals to the waiter before I can translate
I don't think it's a great idea for us to get drunk together
into acceptable words.

But then I think to myself, we might as well drink. Neither one of us will be driving, because neither one of us knows where we're going.

July, the year before

“Why did you say you'd deal with the cupboards later?” Matt seems to be standing behind whichever kitchen cabinet I happen to be opening, putting his cute head at risk of getting smacked with a panel of beautifully carved wood.

“Because we need to get some stuff to put in them, and there's no sense in reorganizing until we have everything.”

“Why don't we have everything?”

“Um, I guess we ate it all.”