Visible City (11 page)

“I thought that the last thing you needed was for us to force you to talk before you were ready. I assumed you needed your space,” he said.

“No, that’s what you needed,” she said. They were already close to home and Leon circled the block, in search of parking.

“See, I gave up my parking spot for you. That has to count for something, doesn’t it?” he said.

“That’s true love.”

“I’m sorry if I haven’t made this evident enough, but I hope you know that you can tell me anything.”

His voice was strangled with discomfort, but the right words had emerged nonetheless. He found a spot and pulled in. When he looked directly at her, she began to cry. Making him promise he wouldn’t tell anyone, she confided that she’d barely touched her dissertation in months. She told him about the night she broke her ankle, how she and Steven had been at home, he working at the desk in their bedroom while she paced the living room, no longer able to maintain the pretense that everything was fine.

“Steven was staring at me like he had no idea who I was, but I didn’t care. Nothing mattered, just this need to run. It was almost midnight but I ran from our apartment to Riverside Park, with Steven following me. I know it sounds crazy, but I thought that if I could run faster, this would be the moment that changed everything. I thought I could outrun not just Steven but myself,” Emma said, as he waited in silence, afraid that if he made a sound, she would stop talking.

“Near the entrance to the park, my flip-flop caught between the cobblestones and my ankle twisted. I thought I would have time to catch myself. Or that Steven would steady me. Or that I would land on the grass and end up with nothing more than a pair of skinned knees. But when I heard the cracking sound, it wasn’t only pain I felt. There was this overwhelming relief, like some sort of decision had been made on my behalf.”

Emma faltered. “I keep trying to convince myself that the problem is just school, but I know it’s Steven too. I keep hearing these voices telling me it’s not too late, I can still back out, I can still run.”

He took in her words. A month ago, he would have said that Emma and Steven were fine. Emma looked happy, which at the time seemed sufficient though now was so little. She was in no hurry to leave the car, and it brought to mind a memory of her he’d long forgotten. On family vacations, she’d liked to climb into the way-back of the station wagon, where she’d lie down unbelted as they drove late into the night, her sleep punctuated by the lights of passing cars, safe in the knowledge that when they arrived at their destination, she would be carried inside, to bed.

“What does Steven have to say about all of this?” he asked.

“I haven’t told him. I’m just so glad he’s gone. For the first time in months, I feel like I can breathe,” she said, and in an instant, his arms were around her. It had been ages since he’d held her like this, and he worried his tentativeness was evident, as though a hug were a contortionist’s most challenging feat.

They got out of the car and walked down West End. On the corner of 102nd, a woman was collecting signatures. She had a card table stacked with flyers in shades of fluorescent green and yellow, words in bold and all caps, every sentence erupting in exclamation marks.
SAVE OUR NEIGHBORHOOD!!! NO MORE DEVELOPMENT!!!!

He and Emma watched as another woman approached the table and read the flyers. She was wearing orange cowboy boots and a yellow lace dress that, despite the summer heat, was partially covered with a green wool sweater.

“We have a chance to stop this development. The community board is on our side, and we’re prepared to fight,” said the woman behind the table, and smiled encouragingly. “Would you like to sign?” she asked hopefully, even though this oddly dressed woman was probably a resident of the San Souci, the neighborhood SRO whose presence various community activists had protested to no avail.

“You’ll sign, won’t you?” she called as Leon and Emma walked past. She watched him, awaiting recognition.

“We’ve met before. I’m Barbara, I’m friends with Claudia,” she said. “And you must be her daughter,” she said to Emma.

Leon feigned recognition, but not quickly enough because he saw the flicker of hurt on her face, wanting more than a signature.

“I like the new buildings,” he said.

She narrowed her eyes in distaste, yet her mouth revealed an inadvertent smile; having been ignored all day, she was ready for a debate. “Are you aware of the damage done to the quality of life by these monstrosities?”

“I am,” he said. “But what can I do? I like them anyway.”

Glaring at him, Barbara gathered a handful of flyers. “I would assume your wife doesn’t feel the same way. Can you give these to her? I’ve been trying to get her involved.”

“She’s been busy,” Leon said with an apologetic shrug.

“We’re all busy. But someone needs to stop this,” Barbara chided him as she began to pack up the table.

Leon gladly ended the conversation with Barbara, whom he now recognized as the owner of one of the warring dogs he watched from his car. That morning, as the dogs circled and barked, the owners had avoided looking at one another. When intervention was finally required, the owners yanked back on the leashes, and the dogs were momentarily suspended in midair, wet, red mouths open, tongues hanging. Leon couldn’t tell whether the people or the dogs had initiated the bad feelings, but they all shouldered them equally now.

Continuing down the block, he looped his arm through Emma’s to steady her, afraid she might re-injure herself. Once he had a patient so overwhelmed by caring for both her young children and her ailing parents that she happened to break her arm three times in one year, accidents each of them, although he’d of course wondered.

“I don’t want you to say anything to Mom,” Emma said.

“I don’t know if I can keep this from her,” Leon said.

“Pretend I’m one of your patients with the right to confidentiality.”

“I’ll have to bill you,” he joked.

They laughed, though Leon remained unsettled. If Emma really were his patient, he’d know better what to say. In the midst of a recent session, his tightly controlled patient had interrupted her discourse on what her twins had eaten that day to tell him how much she hoped to run into him in the neighborhood. At first he had felt his customary impatience toward her, but he softened, his sympathy expanding. She was so embarrassed at her confession, as though she’d come up with the most outlandish fantasy ever uttered in this room. “And what would that feel like?” he’d asked her. “What would it mean for you to see me in that way?” As he listened to her wish, and understood the need to have more than she’d been given, he’d thought of Emma, his hand almost reaching for his phone. Upon arriving home that day, he’d offered to accompany her to the doctor because he had been struck by a fear. All these years, had he placed himself in an approximation of the therapist’s role, willing only to discuss needs but never gratify them? When he’d offered to drive Emma, she had looked at him with surprise. It was such a small gesture, yet her gratitude made it appear that he’d promised something far larger.

Leon stopped walking and looked searchingly at Emma. She gripped his hand, mistaking the pained look on his face for sympathy. But there was no escape from the truth: today’s small effort notwithstanding, his experience of fatherhood was never something to which he’d given sufficient thought. It existed closer to the margins of his life than at its center.

“I still don’t know what to do,” Emma said.

“I know. Neither do I,” Leon said, and wished he could give Emma what she wanted. If only he could ask her explicitly, “What do you need me to do?”

They continued walking, and at the construction site on their corner, Leon paused, glad to have an excuse to lighten the mood. In a matter of weeks, the site had progressed from a razed ground of rubble to a completed foundation. In a few more months, the steel frame of the building would be completed. In a year, the interiors would be in place. At least in this one spot, there was no indecision, no inaction.

“There’s one of Mom’s former students. I’ll introduce you,” he said, noticing Nina standing in front of the construction site. She was holding Lily while Max peeked through an opening in the plywood barrier.

“You really are out here all the time,” Leon said as Max picked up in the middle of an agitated conversation with an imaginary friend who was apparently suffering from a host of phobias.

“Maurice is invisible and he has x-ray vision, but he’s still afraid of the city,” Max said to Emma.

“This friend of yours is smart. If it were up to me, I’d tell him to pack his bags and move to the country,” Emma said. As Max launched into an account of Maurice’s day, Leon studied Emma’s smiling face as she asked Max about the continued adventures of Maurice. His daughter was a quick-change artist. No one would know that a few minutes before, she’d been crying in his arms. Her voice grew more animated, and he was reminded of the child she’d once been. She’d yet to shed some wide-eyed hopefulness, some inner playfulness. Now that she was encountering the pains of adulthood, she would lose those qualities, which was probably for the best—it was the only way to survive the sadness inevitably awaiting her.

“Maurice isn’t usually this friendly to strangers,” Nina said. “He must like you.”

“They’re cute kids,” Emma said. “And anyone whose imaginary friend has x-ray vision is someone I want to hang out with.”

“Emma used to be the most highly sought-after babysitter in the building. Once I found her in our apartment with the kids she was baby-sitting for, as well as a group of friends that they’d picked up along the way. They were all sitting on the living room floor, mesmerized by a story Emma was telling—and it was pretty clear she was just making it up as she went along,” Leon said.

“If you ever need a babysitter, you should call me,” Emma said to Nina, and Leon looked at her in surprise.

Emma shrugged. “I’m not doing anything right now. It’ll be good for me. And in a few weeks, I’ll be steadier on both feet and be able to keep up with Maurice.”

As they spoke, the woman with the disheveled hair and mismatched clothes drew closer to them. In an effort to be polite and treat her like everyone else, the adults ignored her. Only Max waved and looked mystified when she failed to respond.

“She’s lived in the neighborhood for years,” Leon said when she was out of earshot.

“How do you know?” Nina asked.

“I used to see her around, and once she came up to me and started talking. It was easier to listen than find a way to extricate myself. That was a long time ago, though, and she was in much better shape. She has schizophrenia and is probably not taking her meds.”

“He likes to diagnose people,” Emma said. “It’s an occupational hazard.”

“I’ll have to be careful,” said Nina.

“Don’t worry, I only diagnose strangers. It’s much safer,” Leon said.

“You don’t remember who she is?” Nina asked.

“That’s right, you’re interested in these things. You want to know everything about everyone,” he said, and Nina blushed, which sparked inside him an inexplicable happiness.

Emma glanced at him, ready to go home, but he pretended not to notice. No sooner had he resolved to be more fully present than he began to seek a way out. He couldn’t help himself. He was stirred by the way Nina’s eyes once again rested on him a moment too long. Regardless of her intention, it was both baffling and alluring. He’d started talking to Nina because she was a stranger, with no claims on his time. But if you kept talking to strangers, he realized, eventually they became friends.

Richard came into Jeremy’s office and closed the door, a sure sign of trouble. Upset that the permits hadn’t come through yet, he wanted to confirm that Jeremy had filed everything properly. With his heart pounding, Jeremy assured him that he had. Having fallen hopelessly behind, there was no choice but to lie to Richard and await the next set of commands.

“I promised the client that there were no grounds to stop the building, but even so, I want you to go back over all the diligence. Look over every scrap of paper. We don’t want any surprises,” Richard instructed, then said he would again be away for a few days. Jeremy didn’t bother to ask Richard where he would be because any question would be treated as an intrusion.

Jeremy used to believe there would be an end in sight, but a few weeks before, he’d been in Richard’s office when the head of the firm called to ask Richard to work on a new deal. Already swamped, Richard had pleaded to get out of it, but to no avail. There was never an end; the rest of their working lives would be measured out in billable hours. At least his father had the Sabbath; in the last few minutes before sundown, he’d walk into the house, emptying his pocket of his wallet, his keys, his cell phone. The world was divided by this impenetrable line. The phone and fax machine might ring, but for that one day, he belonged solely to them. Now Jeremy had no mandated break. It was one of the few things about Orthodoxy that Jeremy regretted giving up, the chance to become unreachable.