‘So take the name, and spin it into gold, OK?’ She hugged him. ‘You think I need you to have the same last name as me? You are too silly … what next, matching outfits?’
Danny shoved her away playfully. ‘Oh Mom!’
She laughed and pulled him tighter. ‘You were born Daniel Joseph Mestas,myson. So don’t ever change it.’
He hugged her back. ‘OK.’
‘Now go to bed!’
He groaned and shuffled off to his room, but seemed happier.
Holly listened as he creaked into bed and shut off his light. That was certainly a conversation she didn’t want to have again anytime soon. Putting her head on the pillow, she lay there for a long time, wondering where she went wrong and where she went right.
The discussion had thrown her for a loop. She knew it would only be a matter of time before Danny started to feel bitter towards Nick – as it was, she’d needed ten years to calm down herself. She looked at the picture on her bedside table, of Danny the night he was born.
She blinked back tears. She had vowed not to obsess about Nick and had told herself that the father and son relationship wastheirrelationship, autonomous from hers.
But it was hard; hard when Danny was hurting because of Nick, because it brought back memories of when she was hurting because of him too. She ached for Danny, she wanted him to be happy and well adjusted, but who was she kidding? She was a single mom and Nick for the most part, an absentee Dad.
She toyed with her charm bracelet. ‘Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another’ Seamus always used to say, and her father was right.
Holly switched out the light and prayed for sleep, which did not come easily. She tucked her arm under her head and gazed out through the window across from her bed.
Her flimsy curtains only barely concealed the goings-on in the rest of the building. She could glimpse people’s shadows as they turned lights off and on; she knew who watched too much TV and who was single. Much as they probably knew about her, she thought.
Holly watched through the curtains as a blurry couple across the way entered their apartment. She watched them turning on the lights, settling in, tossing coats and looking in the fridge, then shutting lights out on their way to the bedroom, where, Holly imagined, wonderful unseen things would probably take place. She sighed and turned to the wall instead. She wished she could shut her brain off and go to sleep, instead of finding new things to worry about. Finally she watched the shadows on the wall and ceiling as all the lights in the courtyard started to expire, and once the building and her apartment were completely dark, she managed to drift off.
7
The next morning, she felt nervous and jumpy. She walked Danny to school, trying not to let him see how last night’s conversation had caused her so much worry. But, he seemed OK. She stood for a while across the street from the school building, watching him and the rest of the kids make their way in. The sky was grey and heavy with snow today; it felt as if it was five o’clock, the way the clouds blocked out the sun. The children were made to line up in an orderly fashion before being let inside. A teacher blew a whistle and they all started marching in, quietly. Holly watched her child shuffle in with the rest, his back stooped a little with the load of books that seemed too much for a fourth grader. She wanted to run across the street and pull him out of the line, take the day off and go to the zoo and watch the penguins, and eat hot dogs off a cart, which she never allowed him to do.
She clenched her fists in her black wool pea coat – at least she had had the sense to dress warmly today. She snuggled her chin firmly into her scarf and started walking back up Sixth Avenue.Hot dogs, she thought,I'll stop at the grocery store and pick up some hot dogs later.That would cheer them both up. Summer food on a cloudy day. Maybe next summer she could take him camping? She shuddered a bit at the thought – no, maybe three days at the beach was enough.
Having been born and raised in the city, Holly felt a little short on some of the experiences that other people had had. She hadn’t even learned to drive: it was embarrassing actually. But she had never been able to afford a car, and her mother didn’t drive, so Holly had never bothered to take a course or test. When she took Danny to the shore, there was always a train out of Penn Station, and New York City was loaded with public transportation and cabs. And of course there was no parking, or at least that’s what it looked like to her. Every street in Manhattan seemed to be crammed with cars parked so tight she wouldn’t even know how to manoeuvre one out of the space. And wasn’t that the excuse for almost every New Yorker running late? ‘Sorry, couldn’t find parking’, or, ‘Sorry I hit traffic’?
Having to get up early to move a car that she might only use on weekends seemed ridiculous.
Anyway, Kate drove, so on those rare occasions that Holly had needed a car, she simply called on her friend. Like when she found, on the street, the amazing big armchair that now sat in her living room. It had been too big to carry home. Danny had been eight at the time and appalled when his mother had come to a screeching halt on Tenth Street to inspect the chair. She had then eagerly pulled out her cell phone to call Kate and have her meet them.
‘We’re picking up someone else’sgarbage?’ he had asked, mystified. Holly laughed. ‘Remember, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.’
‘But it’s in thestreet, who knows who owned it?’ he had said, eyes wide.
‘Exactly!’ Holly had said, pinching his cheek. ‘Who knows? Maybe it belonged to that guy who played Wolverine.’
‘Really?’ Danny asked, looking around. ‘He lives around here?’
‘Oh yeah,’ Holly told him. ‘All those celebrities get apartments downtown after they make it big. They think no one cares down here, that we won’t notice them.’ She had leaned in close to Danny and pointed to a tall passer-by with a black baseball cap pulled tightly down over his eyes. ‘So keep your eyes peeled.’
Kate had appeared in less than five minutes, and the two women hauled the chair into the trunk of her Volkswagen, tying it down with twine. Kate never complained. She was always there for her. Thinking about it, Kate had been raised in Minnesota, so she probably knew about things like camping – Holly would ask her about it later.
She had been so deep in thought while walking that before she knew it she was standing inside The Secret Closet.
‘Thank goodness you’re here,’ Carole exclaimed when she went out back to her boss. ‘We areswamped– look how many boxes there are to go through. This is insane.’
Holly looked around; the three boxes she had left unpacked yesterday had now turned into twelve, as if cloned overnight.
‘Oh my,’ she murmured. It wasn’t that they couldn’t go through them easily enough, it was that Carole was due to go out to Long Island that week to visit her daughter for Hanukkah, which was early this year. And Carolehatedleaving unfinished business behind, and Carolehatednot going through the boxes, or at least seeing every piece that came out, and whether she was going to sell it or not.
