“When Lisa was a newborn and Brent was about two, I had what I guess you would call an affair of the mind. Yes, I know! Radical! Silly Pam, perfect Pam! With another man!” She smiled at no one and took a sip of her coffee, which had grown cold. “Jack was never home. I mean, he was often out all night in addition to being gone during the day working. I questioned him, and he told me some lie, which I eagerly accepted because I was afraid he would walk out on me. Subconsciously, I knew he was probably cheating on me, but I would never admit it to myself. He was a smooth liar, that man! Where would I go if he left? Nelda’s? Not on your life.
“Anyway, we had a neighbor back then, a man who lived at the Ansonia, right there on Broadway. One day, Lisa must have been about six weeks old, I was walking in the neighborhood with both kids in the stroller, and
we stood in front of the pet store on Seventy-sixth—do you know which one I mean? It’s still there, I’m sure. I see their ads in the
Times
. I had Brent out of the stroller and his little shoes on the window ledge looking at the puppies, and someone who worked there came out and started yelling at me to get him down from the window. She scared Brent, and he started crying, which woke Lisa up. So I was on the street with two crying children and really not handling it well.
“Mr. Hill happened to be taking a walk that morning and saw me struggling. I recognized him from shopping in the neighborhood and a poetry reading I had attended in his building. He took Brent so I could give Lisa a bottle right there on the street, and we stood talking for at least a half hour.
“‘Let me help you get home,’ he said. I didn’t give it a second thought. The man could have been an ax murderer, and I was taking him home with me. But I was so starved for adult conversation that I would have been a willing victim. So we walked back to my apartment together. He was so helpful with the stroller and the children. Then he told me about a project he was working on—a screenplay adaptation of a novel that he really hated, but it was how he paid his bills. He asked if I would be interested in reading parts for him, and I agreed.
“Every afternoon during the week, I would take the children to his apartment in the Ansonia and read the female dialogue for him. He said it helped him. Who knows if it really did? He had a housekeeper who would serve us tea, the kind Alice used to fix here, with all the trimmings.
She would tend to the children, and I would read for Mr. Hill. I saw him almost every afternoon for years.
“Finally, when Brent was in first or second grade, I was just getting ready to leave for the Ansonia when a messenger came with a note from Mr. Hill’s housekeeper. He had died. The day before he was fine; we took turns reading aloud from a book of plays written by women, and we were screaming with laughter it was so much fun!
“So that was that. He was gone. We never, ever touched each other. I don’t even know if I ever addressed his sexuality; he could have been gay, for all I know. But I don’t think so. Oh, I don’t know. What difference does it make now? All I know is that he fed my soul for five years. I had my sister Friday through Sunday, and Mr. Hill Monday through Friday. Jack was sort of superfluous.”
Sandra sat quietly listening, but tears were streaming down her cheeks.
“I guess I am telling you this because I want you to know that you will find people who will fill the void in your life. It won’t be ideal, but it will stave off loneliness. Mr. Hill was wonderful because he stimulated my mind. I had something to look forward to every day. Because of him, it didn’t make any difference if Jack didn’t come home at night; I even stopped looking for him. When Brent started kindergarten, I would leave Mr. Hill’s and pick up Brent at school on my way home. It was a joy to prepare dinner for my children. We would eat together, and by the time I got them ready for bed, we were all exhausted. Some nights I would hear Jack sneaking in after midnight. Rarely, he was home by eight. I would fight sleep, and he would get angry
with me. ‘What do you do all day that you are too tired to talk to me?’ he’d ask. Oh, Jack, if you only knew.
“Not long after Mr. Hill died, we moved to Long Island. It was the final disconnection from people for me. It’s truly amazing how you adapt to your situation. Taking care of the family filled my life with meaning. I loved it when the children were teenagers. My house would be filled with kids playing video games all weekend. We’d order pizza from Shore Pizza, and I would take a carload of teenagers to pick it up. They would be laughing and horsing around in the car, and I enjoyed every second of it. My sister would call me whining that she had six eight- year-olds in her house for a birthday party; I would counter with having eight sixteen-year-olds!
“When Brent left for college, both Lisa and I were miserable. It was so lonely without him. She continued having her friends in every weekend, but we missed the boys. One day in October, she saw a couple of Brent’s friends in town, boys who were going to school locally, and she invited them over. After that, they returned each Saturday night. Brent didn’t mind, he claimed. He said he was jealous. Of course, eventually they found other things to do, and then Lisa went away to school last year.
“Poor Jack, all of my focus was on him. He and Marie. You’d think I’d have noticed something awry, but I didn’t. I went through life happy and content, living vicariously through everyone else.” Pam stopped. “So that’s the story of my life. One mistake after another. Forgive me for rambling?” she asked. She took a deep breath. “What a sorry excuse for a woman.” In a rare display of self-pity,
Pam allowed Sandra to see the complete woman as no one else had.
“Can you take some advice from someone without your life experience?” Sandra asked, smiling at Pam through her tears. She reached out her hand to take Pam’s.
Pam had nodded her head yes in answer to her.
“Forgive yourself for whatever you perceived to have done wrong. You’re not responsible for Jack, or for Marie. The fruit of your life are those kids of yours. Look at how wonderful they are, how they worship you,” Sandra said. “There is something else I need to talk to you about. I don’t want to hurt you or shock you.”
“Let’s go out in the garden,” Pam said.
Sandra got up and followed her outside.
They sat at the glass table in the center of the slate terrace, water features splashing and bubbling so that the sounds of the street were muffled.
Once they were situated, Pam said, “I believe I have heard everything, but you might surprise me. Go on.”
“When Bill was in my apartment Friday night, he told me that he and Jack had been lovers.” Sandra stopped for a moment to compose herself, tears continuing to stream down her face. “He said Harold forced them to have sex while he watched, but I had the impression that it continued after that. His exact words were, ‘It’s okay between brothers.’ Personally, I don’t care anymore. Jack was not the man I thought he was, obviously. It doesn’t change anything. But it got me thinking about the source of the HIV. Bill could’ve given it to Jack, or the other way around, in which case he might not know. He would literally rot in prison. There is always Anne, too.”
Pam was sitting, ramrod straight, with her hands folded on the glass table. There was a large vase of flowers on the table in front of her—summer flowers like peonies, roses, and daisies, many of them drooping over the vase—so that Pam looked as though she were holding a large, gaudy bouquet.
What the hell am I supposed to say to this?
She didn’t respond. There didn’t seem to be anything to say. She thought for a while, looking at Sandra, then at the flowers.
“Visiting hours are on Wednesday at Rikers. I’m taking Bernice then and will speak to Bill. There is nothing else we can do but inform him. He may know already. Don’t they test prisoners?” She didn’t know. Suddenly tired of the any discussion regarding Jack, she asked Sandra if she was going to get in touch with Tom.
“No,” Sandra said. “I don’t think so. If he doesn’t want to make the effort to be in my life, what can I say to him? Would you call him if you were me?”
“Well, do you like him?” Pam asked. “What do you have to lose?”
Sandra smiled to herself.
So like Pam not to answer the question directly
. “Yes, I like him. But I like you, too! I hate it that he is making me think about not having you in my life.” Sandra realized that she may be at a crossroads here. Tom hadn’t asked her to break ties with Jack’s family. He knew it was unreasonable to do so. But it was also unreasonable of him to think that he could pretend to be the baby’s father. Someday, the child would have to know the truth. Expecting to wipe out someone’s history wasn’t realistic. Maybe he was embarrassed of her after all, and it was his way of making her acceptable to his family and the
world. Now she wondered if she really did like him. It was slightly easier than she imagined wiping him out of her life. She hadn’t gotten attached yet.
“No, I guess I
don’t
really like him! He can accept me for who I am. It was decent of him to leave because he knew it was asking too much, if we can believe his letter.”
Tom Adams could go to hell
.
“I think you should try to reason with him,” Pam said. “He doesn’t like either one of us, Marie or me, that’s obvious, but it’s okay. We probably represent stupidity personified to him. Why not call him?”
Why am I pushing this?
Pam thought.
Do I want her occupied with something else? It would certainly help me if we had to lie about the paternity of the child
.
Sandra listened to the sound of the water bubbling in the fountain. “I don’t care if I ever see him again,” she said with finality.
Bernice was still sleeping peacefully, and Pam was staring at the sky up over the wall of the garden. The odd trio of women would come together in this way again and again, enjoying the beauty of the mansion in the middle of New York and the luxury of living a charmed life without lifting a finger, thanks to Jack Smith.
C
arolyn Fitzsimmons worked on Jack’s file like a person possessed. It was full of interesting folklore about the area with historical anecdotes. Each section she completed brought more satisfaction than she’d had at work in a very long time. She felt somewhat vindicated; she was older than any of the other women in the office, yet was trusted with an important project the very first day on the job. It had proved to be a Godsend. Life at home with her unhappy husband and aging parents was tolerable now that she was getting some relief at work.
On Monday morning, she arrived at her office before anyone else. A long, narrow table had been set up for her along one wall, and on the surface were ten piles of charts and monographs that related to the individual files. She looked at the organized display with pride. Today she would ask Marie to come in and would make an informal presentation for her. She, in turn, could take the project back to the client, knowing exactly what it contained.
She sat at her desk and opened the main file box. There were a few stray pieces of paper and one eight-by-eleven manila envelope that she had missed earlier. It wasn’t sealed, so she didn’t think twice about removing the document within. It was composed of several sheets of paper, ranging from yellowed typing paper and ending with newer printer paper. Thumbing through the papers,
Carolyn realized it was simply a list of women’s names, hundreds of them, the earlier ones with addresses and some with phone numbers, and the last sheet with email addresses. The area codes read like a history of Manhattan phone numbers. She had no idea what the purpose of the list was or if it was related to the file in some way, so she would hand it over to Marie when she came in that day. Marie would know what the significance of the list was.
After all, didn’t this file once belong to her late brother-in-law? What was his name? Oh right! His name was Jack
.