I hear breathing. Then: “So can we?”
“Can we what?”
Breathing turns into a small, pithy, much-practiced sigh. “Get a puppy.”
Considering I want a puppy about as much as I want a lobotomy, I say, “We’ll see,” because I’m in a taxi and this is using up my free minutes and while I basically know more about nuclear physics than I do about mothering, I do know what kind of reaction “No, we can’t” will bring. And I have neither the minutes nor the strength to deal with the ramifications of “no” today.
Of course, the little breather on the other end of the line is a poignant reminder of the ramifications of “yes,” but there you are.
“Put Leo on,” I say again. Breathing stops, followed by a clunk, followed by heavier, masculine breathing.
“Yes, I’m still alive,” are the first words out of my grandfather’s mouth.
“Just checking,” I say, playing along. Sharing the joke. Except my father’s father had a quadruple bypass a few years ago. So the joke’s not so funny, maybe. I can hear, immortalized through the magic of reruns, King Friday pontificating about something or other. My grandfather is not immortal, however; there will be no reruns of his life, except in my memory. An unreliable medium, as I well know.
“Just checking?” He chuckles. “Three times, you’ve called today.”
“I worry,” I say, sounding like every woman stretching back to Eve. Whose real reaction to Adam’s nakedness was probably, “For God’s sake, put something on, already! You want to catch your death?”
“You shouldn’t worry,” my grandfather says. “It can kill you.”
Black humor is a big thing in my family. A survival tactic, ironically enough. “I’ll take that chance.”
Another chuckle; I listen carefully for any sign the man might momentarily drop dead. Never mind he’s been healthy as a horse since the operation. But at seventy-eight, he’s already bucking the family odds. I mean, one glance at my family medical history and the insurance examiner got this look on her face like she half expected me to keel over in front of her.
With good reason. Not only does our family exhibit a propensity for dying young, but without warning. Well, except for my mother. But other than that, it’s hale and hearty one minute, gone the next, boom. My mother, at forty, from ovarian cancer. My father at fifty-one, massive heart attack. Grandmother, sixty-three, stroke. Assorted aunts, uncles, third cousins—boom, boom, boom. Okay, and one splat, but Uncle Archie always had been the black sheep in the family.
“Well,” my grandfather says, amused, “nothing’s changed since lunchtime, I’m fine, the baby’s fine, everybody’s fine. Except maybe you.”
By the way, my graduation present was a burial plot. What can I tell you, the Levines tend to be practical people.
I change the subject. “You fix the Gomezes’ leaky faucet?”
My grandfather owns a pair of duplexes. We all live in one, he rents out the two apartments in the other. Sure, they bring in extra cash, but speaking as somebody who finds changing a lightbulb a pain in the butt, I keep thinking he should just sell the place, give over the responsibility to someone else.
“This morning,” he says. “Think maybe I’ll switch out their refrigerator, too.”
“What’s wrong with their fridge? It can’t be more than, what? Ten years old?”
“It’s too small. Especially with the new baby coming.”
Which would make their third. Sometimes, I’m surprised Leo even bothers to collect the rent. These aren’t tenants, they’re family. Not that I don’t like the Gomezes—or the Nguyens, in the upstairs apartment—don’t get me wrong. Mr. Gomez paints his own apartment, just asks Leo for the paint; and Mrs. Nguyen’s window boxes in the summer are the envy of the neighborhood, regular forests of petunias. Besides, the Gomez kids give Starr somebody to play with, on those odd occasions when she’s in the mood for other children. It’s just…oh, hell, I don’t know. I just think he should be free by now, you know?
“Don’t worry,” he says. “I can sell the old one, it’ll be okay.”
My brain’s slipped a cog. “Old what?”
“Refrigerator.”
“Oh.” The taxi driver blats his horn, scaring the crap out of me. Nothing moves, however. “Starr says maybe you’ll take her for a walk later?”
“I thought maybe. We’ve been cooped up in this house too long. It’s up in the mid-twenties, I’ll make sure she’s warm, don’t worry.”
But this time, even as I smile, I realize the knot in my gut isn’t anxiety (for once), it’s something closer to envy. My grandfather will dress my daughter in her leggings and heavy, puffy coat and mittens and that silly fake fur hat he gave her for Christmas—she will look adorable, very Beatrix Potter—just as he did me when I was her age, and take her on the same walk, up and down the funny little elevated Richmond Hill sidewalks, show her the same things, tell her the same stories. Will she listen as I did? Will she be as enthralled with Leo Levine as I was at her age?
As I still am?
“And I think you should get her that dog,” he says, and the sentimental bubble I’d been floating in goes pfft. “We could go to the pound on Saturday, let her pick. Something small.”
I shudder. “Small dogs are yippy. And neurotic.”
“A big dog, then.”
“Like either of us wants to pick up a big dog’s poop. Anyway, I probably have to work on Saturday,” I add, which is the truth.
“Again?”
“You know Market Week’s coming up. Nikky needs me.”
“Your daughter needs you, too,” he says quietly. “So do I, for that matter.”
I get this funny, tight feeling in my chest. “Oh, come on—you two do just fine without me.”
“That’s not the point.” I can hear the smile in his voice. “When you’re not around, it’s like…like ice cream without the chocolate sauce. Nothing wrong with plain ice cream, plain ice cream is fine. But with chocolate sauce, ah…then it’s a party.”
I laugh, which jostles loose the funny feeling, just a little. “Great. Now I’m gonna crave an ice-cream sundae for the rest of the day.”
“So. You won’t work on Saturday?”
My smile fades. “I’m sorry. I have to.”
“What kind of life is this, that you can’t spend the whole weekend with your daughter?”
“It’s my life,” I say softly, because what else can I say? “The one where I have to work to support my kid, you know? Like you and Dad did your kids?”
“That was different,” he says, with a deep sadness, like a man watching helplessly from the riverbank as floodwaters wash away everything he’s known and accepted as real, solid, indestructible.
“Yes, it was.” Up ahead, traffic finally jars loose. I skid across the slick seat like a pinball as the cabby swerves into what he perceives to be an opening in the next lane. “We’ll talk later,” I say, adding, “I’ll try to be home by six,” before clapping my phone shut and stowing it back in my bag, shoving that part of my existence right in there with it.
I swear, sometimes I feel like Batman, living two lives. Except I’d look totally stupid in that outfit.
We shoot through Times Square and on down Seventh Avenue like