Bells of Avalon (20 page)

It didn’t take him long to gather his things. The only thing that really belonged to him was in his jacket pocket and wrapped in Christmas paper. Remembering, he pulled it from his pocket, his eyes never leaving her neutral, sleeping face. He placed it gently on the nightstand beside her.

“Merry Christmas, Cloda,” he whispered—and left.

Chapter Twenty-One

New York City, New York

1966

By the time she woke it was half-past noon. The sun was bright and she was punch-drunk and nude apart from her panties and thin socks. It was the elusive sleight of hand trick that would always be Daniel. She should have seen it coming—she hadn’t, nor had she seen the wrapped box on the bedside table as she threw off her blanket, sending the box flying into a corner.

Later, she walked down MacDougal Street wearing a brown jacket and black pants. This time blending better against the cafés and hardscrabble tenements. She got to his building and saw that the entrance was propped open by a concrete cinderblock. She took the stairs to the third floor, seeing no sign of the hard-of-hearing Mrs. Rohrabacher, or the man in the camel-colored cardigan named Pete. The hallway was stark and empty— except for a little boy hunkered over some wooden toys. Sunshine flooded in as an apartment door creaked open, light reflecting off his hair. It was reddish brown—and unnaturally slick for a boy she guessed was only three or four. When she walked a bit closer, he looked up at her. His look was peculiar at first, but then he smiled with crooked teeth—one tooth nestled too high in the gum line. She thought those teeth would be very stubborn for whoever tried to straighten them one day.

“C’mon inside, Kevin,” a woman called out. The boy gathered his toys against his small body and marched purposefully back into the apartment. It was the blonde who placed a hand on the boy’s head as he brushed past her.  Her eyes followed him then looked at Katie and sighed.  She wore a red body stocking that clashed brilliantly against her chopped, flaxen hair. She flipped a dishrag over her shoulder, and it jangled against her oversized plate earrings.

“It’s you,” she said.

“Can I come in?”

“He’s not here, you know.”

“I know. I’d like to talk to you if you don’t mind?” Katie asked.

Celia nodded and gestured her inside. The apartment was less cluttered than before and smelled of ammoniated powder cleaner. Katie glanced at the large windows and then to the boy when he reemerged and asked how many toys he was allowed to take with him.

“Only five or six, baby.”

“Can I watch Batman?” he asked.

“Yes, but only for a little while.”

The boy moved with the same purposeful march to the large television sitting on the floor with wooden pegs. His hand whirled the dial until the screen illuminated. He sprawled on his stomach and rested his elbows against the floor. He hummed along with the theme song as it played through the opening credits.

“How long will you be gone?” Katie asked.

“As long as it takes.”

“So that’s it?”

“Yeah, what else?”

“Let me help. I know people—doctors.”

Celia scoffed and shook her head.

“I don’t need your help.”

“I just thought—”

“I know what you thought. Listen, my grandfather helped finance the Panama Canal. You think I have trouble making a check clear?” Celia glanced at the boy as he watched television in the living room. She sighed, some of her frustration wearing off.  

“Look, we’ve tried. Pete and I have taken him to every decent doctor on the island of Manhattan. The army shells out a check every month because they can’t figure out what’s wrong either. If I thought you could do any better, I’d tell you to have at it. But as it is, I’ll just ask you leave it alone and let us do what’s best.”

Katie looked at Celia’s modern, young face. She felt something ripped away from her insides—something she realized had never belonged to her in the first place. She looked at the boy in the living room and forced herself to smile.

“Of course,” Katie agreed.

“Hey, it’s no big thing. You know I appreciate your whole role here, coming from where you do and all. It just took me off guard. I didn’t recognize you at first. It’s not like I don’t understand the way he has about him—we wouldn’t be here in this fix if I didn’t, right?” Celia nodded her head towards the boy watching television and smiled as if to say that none of it really meant anything.

But Katie didn’t understand, at least not in the same way that Celia might. She didn’t think she would ever understand. But then again, she’d never really understood Daniel either. She’d just tricked herself into thinking she had. In that moment, while she looked at Celia’s bright blue eyes and thick lashes, Danny seemed as foreign to her as ever. Just a strange boy crossing San Vicente and 26th as the men in grey suits drove her away.

“He’s probably still at the park you’d like to see him.”

Celia’s voice barely registered above the sad whooshing in her ears. She looked again at the boy on his stomach, his restless legs scissoring along with the sounds of the television. It should have been the loveliest thing in the world—the way his tiny body fizzled with energy, but she couldn’t help but grieve. Soon, he would come to know too much of the world—just as she had.  Katie stood to her feet, smiled sadly, and asked Celia for her telephone.

Chapter Twenty-Two

New York City, New York

1966

The sun had come out, and it almost felt like spring. He barely needed a jacket. He hadn’t wanted to wear the fussy show of a coat that Katie had bought, but his own jacket no longer seemed to suit him either. He sat on the park bench in a thick sweater and jeans. He touched his face and felt the newly-shaved softness of his jaw line.
Don’t you know there are no winters in California?
A satin doll in cashmere on his mother’s quilt. He should’ve known he couldn’t get out of saying goodbye this time. Couldn’t duck out his mother’s kitchen door—or limp away with a black eye. 

She felt the coolness of her hand at his neck. The honey scent of her soap hemmed him in.  She sat beside him and they looked forward as the city passed by. He let her take his hand and was happy to share the view of the park that had become his life. He hadn’t wanted things to be hard; he’d never wanted anything to be hard for her. But it had been hard,
for a million reasons it had been hard
. 

A few strands of hair blew across her small, acorn-shaped nose. The spitting image of Esther Ralston. He wondered how her pinned-up Park Avenue beauty would unfold through the years when he could no longer see it.

“You didn’t leave a note,” she said. “You’re a tricky creature, Daniel Gallagher. But you know that, don’t you? You knew I’d never understand you.”

“Maybe,” he said. “But there’s not much left about me to figure out.”

“Even if there were, you wouldn’t tell me—would you?”

He ached when he watched the sun as it fell over every curve of her face until she was perfect. 

“I’ll tell you anything you want—so long as it meant you wouldn’t hate me.”

“I could never hate you, Daniel,” she said and touched his face.

“Why not? Others have found it easy enough.” 

“Because you’re the only one. The only other one who knows how it was back then. I’ll be the last now. The last on the lot. Can you realize how incredibly lonely that will be, Daniel?”

“Yes.”

She held his hand and looked out upon the trees stripped bare by winter.

“You know, Danny—you scare me sometimes. The same way your mother did. How she used to know things she shouldn’t. Do you remember that?”

He laughed, “Yeah, but it wasn’t what you’re thinking.”

“What do you mean?”

He leaned back in the park bench and tilted his head.

“It was just her way. She came from travelers, back in the old country.”

“Travelers?”

“Yeah, you know—grifter types. They went from town to town selling snake oil and fortunes—that sort of thing. She could size people up real quick, used to drive my dad crazy. She didn’t mean anything by it. It was just her way.”  

Katie looked down and smiled.

“
Four daughters,
” she muttered. 

“What?”

“Nothing,” she said, but he’d caught a bit of doubt in the quickness of her tone.

“Just something I heard somewhere,” she said, more clearly.

“Aha,” he smiled.

She rose from the bench and stretched out her gloved hand.

“Take me for a walk, Daniel Gallagher?”

“To where, Katie Webb?”

“It’s a surprise,” she said. He gave her a wry smile as she pulled him to his feet.

“That sounds a little terrifying coming from you,” he said and moved in to kiss her.

She stopped just before his lips reached hers. “Happy as Larry, Mary.” she whispered.

They kissed for a long time before joining hands for an afternoon stroll across Washington Square Park.

     They sat in the back seat of the taxi, no longer the last kids on the lot, but two brothers so unalike in everything except the blood they shared. Max glanced at his brother’s rigid posture beside him, his stoic profile against the car window. A thought struck him that this time his brother’s silence had more to do with his own sadness—rather than a need to punish him.

“Well, Christ Al—say something.”

His brother turned his brown eyes on him.

“What do you want me to say, Max?”

Max sighed. His shoulders slumped under the form of his stiff tweed jacket. He turned and watched the buildings fade from jagged metal structures to squatty, red brick brownstones and storefronts as they drew closer to the lower east side.

“You know I get stone-sick of having information doled out to me as though I were a child,” Max grumbled. “This isn’t about the reporter fellow, is it?”

“No,” Albert replied.

He looked at his brother’s unresponsive face—and felt wild with frustration.  He raised his hands, wanting to shake the truth from his brother’s damnably cool composure.

The sky was covered by a thin veil of clouds, reducing the city’s ambience to a lifeless grey. Just then, a sun’s ray spilled out from a break in the cloudy façade. Then everything he’d not wanted to remember about Daniel was pulled to the forefront of his mind. It came out, fittingly, like a coil of film. The images played out against the recurring tick of a projector—flash bulbs lit behind black and white—and later, bursts of color. The imperfect, perforated edges of film fell onto the plane as the movie whirred from 24 frames a minute, 18, 16…10…and then nothing.   There was one last flare of decayed yellow laddering as it bubbled over the film. Max closed his eyes, and the backlit image cut away. All that remained was the hollow ticking succession of blank frames as they played on and on for no one but himself.

Max sighed and laid his hand on his brother’s shoulder. The car stopped next to a café. Two teenage girls, dressed to look twenty-five, sat under the tented veranda eating pastries. His wife sat under the veranda as well. Without makeup, she looked younger than the girls playing grown-up two tables down. There was a cigarette in her hand and a white porcelain cup in front of her.

“Look—it’s Katie,” Max said. Albert smiled at the pitiful excitement in his voice and reached for his wallet. Max put a hand up.  

“No, let me get it,” Max said reaching for his wallet.

“No, I’ll take care of it.”

“No, just wait a minute. I’ve got it,” Max began to count out cab fare from his own money.

“Max, listen to me—I’ve got it.”

“You got it last time, Al.”

“What the hell are you talking about—
last time?
Put your damn money away.”

“Give me a break Al—I’ve got it.”

“No, Max.” Albert said calmly.

“Damn it Al, I’m paying him.” Max snapped. He felt Albert’s eyes on him as he paused to recount the bills in his hand. He looked up again to the meter, avoiding the impatient glare of the cab driver. He shoved the money in the driver’s hand and crammed the wallet back in his pocket.

“What the hell are you looking at?” Max yelled at the driver.

“C’mon Max.”

“What?” Max turned his head sharply to his brother.

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” Albert said. “Just take it easy.”

“This is easy?” Max scoffed.

“C’mon, she’s waiting,” Albert said and got out of the car.  Max braced against the cold as he stepped out of the cab. The chilly wind took the edge off his anger and, by the time he saw his wife again, he was putty. She didn’t notice them at first and something about her dead stare kept him from walking any further. When she saw Albert, she smiled, surprised and girlish, stubbing out the remainder of her cigarette. She tucked a bit of hair behind her ear and fell into his brother’s arms.  Albert smiled and touched the end of the thin scarf around her neck. He whispered something and she laughed. The sound of her laughter was like a tinkling bell in the low winter light.  The delight on her face fell when she looked down at the scarf fabric held between Albert’s fingers. She took a step away before lightly kissing him on the cheek. Finally she looked at him and smiled weakly. Her dark blue eyes touched over his face, sad but beautiful. His legs felt like lead.

“Well, if it isn’t the Kingly Kittredge brothers.” She smiled, holding out her hand. Max took it briefly in his own.

“Hey, Katie.”

“Hi, Max.”

She looked again at Albert, her chin wobbled for a moment then stilled.  She nodded towards the inside of the café.

“He’s sitting at the corner table,” she said. Max glanced inside and saw a man with his back towards them.

“You coming inside, Katie?” Albert asked her softly.

“No, I’ll wait here,” she said and pulled her hand from his waist. 

“Are you sure?” Max asked. She looked at him as though startled by the sound of his voice.

“Yes, I’ll be right here when you’re finished,” she said.  Max took one last look at her before going inside, but she refused to meet his eyes.

Katie pulled Danny’s blue-edged pack of cigarettes from her pocket. She ran her finger over the cover and pulled another cigarette from the pack.  She struck a match and lit it, but her lungs felt too tight from the cold to inhale. She’d tried smoking the first summer they’d been together, but the habit never took. She looked through the café window at the three boys who’d so quickly become men. She felt her legs go wobbly, and steadied herself before sitting down. She watched her husband’s mouth move, handsome and unflappable. Albert sat across from Danny, dark-eyed but smiling. She wondered what they were saying. She could have watched them that way forever, marooned comrades of fame. Her cigarette burned to its end and her coffee went cold, but she paid little notice.

A sharp pencil of light broke through the windowpane and pierced the back of Danny’s neck. The light still spindled in the air, Daniel turned and looked at her. He smiled with the smooth, cosmetic teeth she’d never gotten used to. The men stood, leaving empty coffee cups along with dollar bills and coins. When they came out, Albert kissed her and caught a cab back uptown. Daniel and Max stayed with her under the veranda.

“Danny boy, give us a call when you make it up there, will you?”Max asked. Danny gave him a playful look and smiled.

“Sure, Max,” he said, flipping his collar up against the cold. They shook hands.

Danny tilted his head and looked at her, the past and the present merging together in one throbbing moment. She studied his unrequited look, wanting to reach out and touch him, but the presence of her husband beside her anchored her to the pavement. 

Well, forgive me, I’ve tried my best to draw you out—but you’re damned tough, Katie Webb
…
not with that clumsy fishing around of yours.

“See ya, Mrs. Kittredge,” he said—the words so misplaced coming from his lips. Her stomach crumbled, and she wondered if she would ever breathe again.  He smiled a last time—turned, and walked away.