In Case We're Separated (15 page)

She carried the bag downstairs, set it next to a couple of garbage cans, and returned, leaving the house door standing open. But as soon as she opened the apartment door, a gray blur rushed past her downstairs. Ruth felt Shadow's tail brush her leg, grabbed at it, and watched the cat disappear through the doorway.

Fifteen minutes later, she met David as he got out of his car. “Something terrible. Shadow got out.”

“Is he—dead?” he said instantly, his voice breaking, gesturing toward the street.

“Oh, honey,
no
—but I can't find him.” She told him what had happened.

“But how could you leave the door open?” he said.

Ruth couldn't speak.

“Shit,” he said. “Shit, shit, shit.”

He was sweaty; the air conditioning in his car was broken. He searched the same shrubbery Ruth had been searching. “There's no point in looking,” he said. They went upstairs, where David took off his shirt, shoes, and socks, and began taping boxes together with angry energy. He was thin, younger looking without a shirt. Every little while he'd go downstairs again. Through the window Ruth watched him search. The second time, he returned limping. “I got a splinter,” he said. He sat down and picked at his heel.

Ruth couldn't bring herself to offer to help, but David said, “Would you look at it?” He lay down and lifted his foot. The splinter was deep. “Just get a knife and dig it out,” he said. Then he remembered that he owned tweezers, but the splinter was too deep to reach.

“Do you have a needle?” she said. Ordinarily she'd be all but weepy with gratitude, allowed to remove her grown-up son's splinter, but now she kept reliving the moment when she snatched at the cat's tail. She was unforgivable. For a year or more, she considered, she'd had no judgment and no sense, and everyone had known it and fled, now even the cat.

David had a needle. Ruth stuck the point into the flame of the gas stove, because her mother had done that. She sat on the edge of the sofa and grasped his heel. She pressed the sharp point of the needle into his skin and began to dig, though she was afraid of hurting him. “Hey!” said David.

“I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”

“Just do it.” She almost had the point of the needle under the end of the splinter. Someone was on the stairs. “Anybody home?” said the person who had to be Bob.

Not looking up, Ruth pressed an elbow onto David's leg, to keep him where she had him.

“Hi,” said David, and Ruth turned her head to see a gray-haired, shaggy man, who started to close the door.

“Leave it open, Bob, would you?” said David as Ruth brought the tip of the splinter out of his skin.

“Hi, Bob,” she said. “Would you hand me those tweezers?” She gestured with her chin.

Bob handed her the tweezers and bent over to watch. “This is my mom, Ruth,” said David. “Unfortunately she let my cat out.”

The splinter—enormous, for a splinter—came out. They passed it around, Ruth to David, David to Bob, Bob to Ruth. Bob's hand was callused and lined. “Should I go look for the cat?” he said.

“No point,” said David.

Bob looked as if he'd take charge, but he nodded, then waited for mother or son to tell him what to do. If they couldn't find the cat—if she and David were going to have this between them forever—Ruth at least needed to make the coupling of David and Binnie—misbegotten or not—happen. Maybe it would symbolically complete her own uncoupling at last. She had packed no boxes when she and her lover separated, strained her back on no furniture. Ruth needed to carry furniture so as to arrive at the next segment of her life, and possibly she needed to drop it on the toes of these two men, to complete her own undoing.

Bob's shelter was in Brooklyn, and some furniture was going there. It would come out of the van first, Ruth pointed out briskly, so it should go in last. She told David it was time to make some decisions, and at last she and Bob picked up an upholstered blue chair and maneuvered it downstairs. By the time they shoved the blue chair into the back corner of the van, they'd had two polite disagreements on the best way to move a wide chair through a narrow doorway. They climbed the stairs again and took the desk. Ruth rather liked carrying furniture with this man, whose arms and body she appreciated.

The three of them filled the van, then David's car. David went for sandwiches and they ate. He returned, a long time later, looking disappointed. Obviously he'd been driving up and down the neighborhood streets. Now it seemed to make sense for Ruth and Bob to go to the shelter, leaving David behind. “You'll see where I work,” Bob said, as if they were friends. The van was air conditioned. It smelled of cigarettes, but Bob didn't light up. Ruth sank into the stained seat, with nothing to do, at last—nothing she
could
do—but finger the heavy seat belt buckle in her lap.

“This is good of you,” she said.

“I like going to Binnie's place. Fix something, carry something.”

“I wish I could do more for David,” she said. “Or do less. I wish I could be useful.”

“Aren't you?”

“I thought I'd be so helpful today, but all I did was let the cat run away.”

“It'll come back,” he said. He was either a wise man, or a pest. He continued, “You've got to know something they need. What do you know?”

He sounded irritatingly pleased with himself. “I know editing,” she said.

“Well, that will come up. Plumbing is good.”

“You know plumbing?”

“The shelter's in an old building.”

They crossed the Verrazano Bridge—distanced by the air conditioning, the bright day looked perfect—and soon left the highway. Ruth the Brooklynite was quickly lost as they drove down shabby streets, making many turns while her son's furniture shifted behind her. At last they drew into the driveway of a former elementary school. Men stood around the steps and the door. “We let them in at five,” said Bob.

As soon as they opened their doors to the afternoon heat, an old man came toward them. “Look at this, Bob,” he said. “Look at this.” He unfolded a map. Bob slowly got out of the van. It was hot in the driveway, but before they could move, this old man and his map must be scrutinized. It was a bus map, Ruth saw, and Bob studied it as if it mattered. “This is a crime,” said the man.

“What's a crime, Hank?”

“Either the map is wrong or the driver is wrong. In this heat. At my age. I'm fifty-seven, Bob.” Ruth stared at him. They were the same age.

The bus had turned at the wrong corner, lengthening Hank's walk. “You gotta do something, Bob. Either they changed the bus route or the driver is loco.”

Bob nodded vaguely. “Thanks, Hank,” he said, giving back the map. The man started to speak again, but Bob's cell phone rang, and he pointed, ducked his head, and moved to a corner of the yard to talk. Ruth waited, tired and hot. He returned. “Looks like we're stuck,” he said to Ruth. “Somebody's having a baby.”

“That was Binnie?”

“She can't get away,” he said.

“You don't have a key to her place?” said Ruth.

“She won't be long,” he said.

“Can I at least have a glass of water?” Ruth said.

“Oh, my woman,” Bob said, “what have I done? I've left you to roast here.”

“I'm not your woman,” said Ruth.

“Every woman is my woman.” He laid his hand lightly on her shoulder and steered her into the building, through corridors and down stairs to a cool, dim kitchen. Glasses stood in a dish drainer on the sink. Ruth ran the cold water, filled one, drank it, filled another, leaned over the sink, and poured it over her head. The water felt good on her scalp. She washed her face and arms with a scrap of soap. A roll of paper towels was next to the sink. She dried herself—while Bob stared—then searched in her purse for her hairbrush, pulled off the ponytail holder, and brushed her wet hair. She didn't care about him, so he could watch her wash her face. She did like his arms and hands. He was smiling slightly.

“What?” she said.

“Do you always do that?”

“Pour water on my head?” He nodded. “Only when I'm hot.”

“Do it again,” he said, and she stared back at him, at those same round brown protruding eyes his daughter had. Then he reached out with one forefinger and lightly tapped the back of her left palm.

“Now what?” she said, but something quivered within her. Her nipples, her crotch registered his touch.

“Let me put you in my office,” Bob said. “The guys and I will carry in the furniture.” More stairs, more corridors, and he unlocked a musty room, opened a window, turned on a fan, and left her. Ruth sat at his desk, next to the window, on his battered metal swivel chair, mildly swiveling and doing nothing else, for a long time.

Then she examined the desk. On it was a computer, turned off, and a partially written memo in handwriting on a yellow pad. “Pursuant to policies adopted at the last coalition meeting July 10, all staff should be advised that privacy policy implementation forms must be completed by special needs individuals whenever possible and completed by staff and signed by special needs individuals if this is not possible, which is a nuisance but worth it for reasons discussed.”

It was an appalling sentence. What a relief to be able to edit something. As Ruth worked, she could hear Bob and the men talking and joking while they carried furniture. She read the memo again, trying to figure out what it meant. After several trials she wrote, “As you know, you now must ask clients to fill out the annoying but important forms explaining how we protect their privacy. At the meeting of the coalition on July 10, the members decided that when clients can't fill out the forms, you should fill them out and ask the clients to sign them.”

As she continued to fuss with the sentences, the rise and fall of jocular voices became louder and tenser. She swiveled her chair—this must be how Bob ran the place, turning his chair and looking out the window—and watched. A thin black man, walking with a cane, was talking to Bob. “And I tell you, you are definitely to blame for this!” he said in a low, sonorous voice. The voice carried, and everybody turned to watch.

“So you're still mad at me, Carmichael?” Bob said.

“I shall be mad forever,” said the man.

“You know, I have no idea what I did.”

“You did evil.”

“I do evil all the time. You need to tell me which evil, exactly.”

“You know which evil.” The man now turned so his back was toward the building, and after that she couldn't hear anything. Curious, she'd paid attention—first to this place, then to Bob, then to his memo, then to the man with the cane. Now as she stopped listening, something tightened in her chest, and she remembered Shadow; again she felt the brush of his tail. At worst, she'd spoiled her life in that neglectful moment. If the cat was gone, if David couldn't forgive her . . . There was a phone on the desk. She thought of calling her daughter, Laura, busy at work in Washington, D.C., just to say, “
You
don't hate me, do you?”

But she called David.

“He came back,” he said as soon as he heard her voice. “Shadow walked in the door twenty minutes ago.”

“Oh, David. Oh, David.” She started to cry.

“I know.” He sounded teary as well. “He's smarter than any of us.”

Ruth heard Bob coming down the corridor. “Did you hear from Binnie?” she said to David. “She's going to be late.”

“I know. It gives me more time. I'm cleaning.”

“You all right?” Bob said, opening the door.

“Did you do evil?” she said. Then to David, “Okay, sweetie.”

“Okay.” She hung up, and turned to face Bob. “The cat came home.”

“I thought it would.”

“Did you do evil?” she asked again.

“Probably.”

“Is that a habit of yours?”

Bob paused, more serious than she'd expected. “I wouldn't go so far as to say a habit. What's that?” He stood behind her, one hand on her shoulder, looking at the pad. “You can't say ‘client,' ” he said.

“Why not?”

“Stigmatizing. Also, ‘special needs individuals' means something.”

“But it's not English.”

He sighed. “We'll talk about it.”

“But it's okay on the whole?” she said.

“Oh, it's much better. Let's get coffee. There's a place not too far.” Ruth pulled her hair into a ponytail again, and followed him down the stairs and out of the building. A breeze had started up. She said, “Tell me about this evil you do.” It would take time. They had plenty of time to be friends, she reflected, because they probably shouldn't be lovers until after the kids broke up—and maybe got over breaking up. And for all she knew he had someone already. More time. Could she take a lover who was such a bad writer? He was worse than her last lover.