Connections

Copyright © 2016 by Jacqueline Wein

TWO HARBORS PRESS

322 First Avenue N, 5th floor

Minneapolis, MN 55401

612.455.2293

www.TwoHarborsPress.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN:
978-1-63505-018-9

For the animals

When Rosa pulled up her living room blinds, it was officially morning on 83
^rd
Street. She used the bottom of her housedress to clear a spot in the blurry window and pressed her eyes right up against the glass to squint at the world. “Eh, Princess, Wally is up too.” She spoke to the Poodle standing in front of her, her paws resting up on the sill, even though she was still an inch too short to see out. To the fuzzy shadow of the roving super hosing the sidewalk, Rosa kicked her heels together and spat drily, “Achtung.”

She patted her bun and rearranged a hairpin so it held her long, thick gray hair tighter. Rosa always put her hair up as soon as she got out of bed. Even before she put on her girdle.

“Okay, bambina, you ready? Rosa’s thinking maybe she needs her jacket.” She stuffed a wad of paper towels under her arm, the side of her heavy breast holding it firm. She went to the hallway, picked up the little roll of pooper-scooper bags, and pulled her tweed sweater off the rack that served as a closet in the old apartment. Her niece had knitted the sweater and sent it from Italy, maybe eighteen years ago. No, it was twenty-one, she remembered, because it was for her fiftieth birthday. It was what Rosa called her “dog sweater.” It was too warm to wear under a coat in the winter and too hot to throw over her shoulders in the summer. It was perfect for walking the dog, early mornings and late evenings in spring and fall, to saunter up to Lexington Avenue or maybe over to Gracie Mansion for a stroll by the river.

Who else but the mayor would have a house—not a brownstone or converted garage or a loft, but a real eighteenth-century goddamn country house—with a yard so big it was a public park, in the middle of the busiest, most crowded city in the world? “Just goes to show.” Rosa wasn’t sure what, but it must show something.
She
showed them.

When her beloved Princess II had died, she had refused to let the vet have her body. To be flung into a pile with a lot of other dead animals and burned? Like garbage in an incinerator? Not her baby! The pet cemetery in Connecticut was a fortune. Besides, how would she get there to visit?

So Rosa borrowed a shovel from the janitor down the block. Then she borrowed the janitor. And while she kept a lookout, Hector dug a small grave in back of a bench in Carl Schurz Park behind the mayor’s mansion in the busiest city in the world. When it was done, Rosa opened her straw tote and removed the precious little body. She pulled the plastic bag back and kissed the tiny eyelids and the tiny nose, which now felt spongy against her lips. Then she wrapped her tightly and placed her in the hole. She stood back, trying to hide Hector as he filled in the dirt. When he was finished, Rosa looked around until she found a long rectangular rock under a tree. She put it on the top, hoping nobody would notice the fresh earth. She didn’t need a marker to know where Princess was. She would be forever where she loved to walk and play and smell the river breeze. And Rosa could come here as often as she wanted to sit on the bench in front of the tomb and silently talk to her.

“You and me, we have some-a wine now,” she had said to Hector. “Come on.” She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hands and gratefully pulled Hector back to her apartment. She prayed nobody would wonder what he was doing with a shovel in the middle of the spring and arrest him. She could see the headline of the
Daily News
: SPADE SLAYER SEDUCED SEXY OLD BROAD. Which was why Rosa decided it was better to keep the brown paper bag over the bottom of the shovel and carry it herself, like a newly bought broom.

Whenever people complained about City Hall or New York City politics, Rosa smirked to herself and thought of Princess lying peacefully in the mayor’s backyard.

“Let’s get dressed, little girl.” She took the red rhinestone collar off the next hook and, as she bent to put it on Princess III, something cracked in her spine. Straightening up and reaching for her back, as if she could realign it with her hand twisted behind her, Rosa mumbled to herself. She was the only person who could say “oy vey” with an Italian accent.

Eileen Hargan reached to the edge of the sink for support as she hoisted herself out of the tub. The rim seemed to get higher every time she took a bath. She dropped the lid and sat on the toilet seat for a minute. The water had been too hot; it left her weak and drained.

The floor creaked somewhere in the apartment, and her bowels immediately twisted in fear. Another sound, closer, as an old slat of wood cringed under a weight. The door blocked her view of the hallway. She could easily touch its edge, open an inch, and pull it in. But she didn’t want to see what was lurking there. “Fibber?” she whispered tentatively.

Instead of her past flashing before her, Eileen’s future engulfed her. She imagined the police breaking in, finding her body crumpled on the tile floor, blood spattered on the walls. Her neck was paralyzed, but her eyes swiveled to her robe hanging on the back of the door. She saw it sway slightly as the door moved almost imperceptibly. Her chest pounded from the weight of breaths she could not exhale. She wanted to get her robe, cover herself, so that when they found her, she wouldn’t be naked. The official photographer’s flashbulb went off in her brain, capturing the wrinkles on her cheeks, the pleating of skin between her breasts, the circle of shiny scalp showing through her thinning hair, and the blue veins bulging on her thighs and ankles. But she couldn’t move, couldn’t get it. They’d call her nephew. Maybe Danny would come before they took her away. See her naked body. Turn away in revulsion.

The door squeaked on its rusty hinge. She stared at the widening space, waiting for the face that would appear. The face of the monster. The bogeyman. She caught a movement down lower, and a black-and-white head peered around the door. “Fibber McGee, you little bastard.” Relieved and refreshed, Eileen stood up, shoved her partial plate in her mouth—grateful nobody saw it laying on the sink—and then put on her robe. “And you know I don’t let little boys in the bathroom with me. What am I going to do with you?” He was too low to see in the medicine chest mirror, so she turned around to give him an exasperated look.

“Naughty boy.” She bent down and squeezed him.

Eyes by themselves are not particularly fascinating. Or even beautiful. Even though we like to romanticize their loveliness, or their depth, or their meaning. Because we want to believe that we can look through them, or past them, to the soul. If you removed fifty of them and put them in a bowl of water, they probably wouldn’t look much different than floating marbles.

Clifford Marcus’s eyes worked. They moved, they dilated, they blinked. If his vision were tested, he would probably be able to read the last line of the chart. His eyes—which were almost the color of the sea—gave just the right touch of blue to accent his pale complexion. But they did not perceive much. And even though Dr. Michelle Kravitz knew it was biologically impossible, she could actually see the emptiness behind them. While she was looking at him through the one-way mirror, the blue faded to a dull gray.

She watched him, with his arms crossed, holding his elbows as he rocked back and forth on the floor. She pulled the wall shade down over the glass, stalling with the cord before she turned to face Jessica Marcus. “I think it’s worth a try. I don’t know anything else to suggest at this point.”

She wanted to remain professional—she
was
professional—but, she thought, there are times when you had to do what you had to do. She came around from behind her desk, pulling the extra side chair with her. She sat next to the pretty blonde woman she’d been seeing for two years and took both her hands. “I don’t want to keep leading you on when there’s no hope. At least, none that I can offer. There’s just no point in your coming here, week after week, when we can’t help him.”

“I know.” Jessica took a tissue out of her pocket and wiped her nose. “I know you did everything you could.”

“He’s not any better now than when we started. I know it sounds so…final. Cruel. But unless you institutionalize him…” She held up her hand. “I know—never. But unless you do that, I just don’t know enough—we don’t know enough here at the Center—to do anything for him. That’s why I’m suggesting it.”

“I’ll talk to my husband tonight. So this is…good-bye.”

“No, I’m not turning you out. I want to talk to you again. And Clifford. I want to see him from time to time. I’d like to keep in touch. After all we’ve been through together, I feel we’re friends.” Michelle smiled warmly and squeezed the other woman’s hands.

“We are. You’ve been a wonderful friend. To Clifford and to us. Don’t think we don’t appreciate all you’ve tried to do. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but I feel so…discouraged.”

“Of course you do. Look, you’ve been doing this for nine years. Taking him from one doctor to the other, putting him through tests and more tests. Trying different meds. Hoping; being disappointed. There might not be any treatment for neurologically impaired children that will help your child. It’s time you tried to accept the fact that it might never change, never be different. And get on with your life. I know that sounds harsh, but you’ve got to try.”

They stood up together, and Jessica bent slightly to give the petite doctor a quick hug.

“If you ever feel like talking or need to unload, I’ll be here. I want you to think about this as an alternative, something you can do on your own. And I want to hear how it works out.”

Jessica walked through the door and gently pulled her son to his feet. She left without looking back.

Jason Ruderman shuddered when he heard a jingle in the hallway as someone shook a key ring. He tightened his hold on Sabrina, rubbing his naked legs against her under the blanket. A thrust of metal into the lock, a jamming sound. A pause; more jangling. An indistinguishable curse. After almost a year here, you’d think Chris would be able to pick out the right key the first time. Sabrina lifted her head to listen. When the door finally opened and then closed quietly, she jumped out of bed and went into the living room.

Jason strained to hear the murmuring, to figure out what kind of mood Chris was in. Not that it mattered. He wasn’t going to take this anymore; he would just put his foot down. The minute the bedroom door opened, Jason would say,
“Look, I hope you had fun tonight, but as long as you’re living here with me, you can’t do that anymore. You’ll have to choose between me and your freedom.”
He would not allow himself to be intimated.

There was a thud as cushions hit the floor. So Chris was going to sleep on the convertible again. Jason stretched out his arm, wishing Sabrina would come back so he could hold her. He wanted to hold someone, wanted to be held. Why did he do it, knowing how much Chris hated him for it? Knowing, even as he was begging Chris not to go out, how much he would be resented. His words, squeezed out between clenched teeth, had been tinny. They sounded shrill, even to him, stretched thin like pulled taffy. “Chris, please don’t leave me, not tonight.” As he pleaded, he knew Chris would stay out even later, maybe not come home at all.

Jason had lain in bed all evening, trembling, imagining Chris with someone else. Not so much making love as just
being
with someone, holding someone, when he needed to be held so badly. He had turned Chris away, he thought as he choked back a sob. “Sabrina,” he whispered in the dark, wishing she would come back. Maybe she didn’t want to be with him either. Jason curled his knees under his chin and chewed his bottom lip, sniffling to keep his nose from running onto the pillow.

Her father was probably a Golden Retriever; about all that could be said for her mother was that she was a bitch, with possibly some Beagle or Terrier in her. Which would account for the caramel-colored spots on her back—more like sandy islands in a sea of white foam—matted now with dirt and grime. If anybody could trace her lineage back far enough, they’d surely find some Collie and some Irish Setter relatives. She was, with the thirteen pounds that had fallen off her ribs, forty-seven pounds. Her long face showed more aristocracy than the finest pedigree, and when she stood attentively, her tail swirled like a plume of feathers, higher than her head. All the pride of her strength and will showed in her bearing. She could afford to be arrogant, because she had survived.

She had been born in Vermont in the fall—one of three thousand puppies and kittens born every hour in the United States—and her long, thick fur was good protection during those first cold months of her life. Her mother taught her and her littermates how to squeeze under fences to find back porches and look for food scraps. When she was three months old, she knocked over a pail in back of a ski lodge and got caught stealing the garbage. But the manager liked her and started feeding her regularly. The first time it snowed, he fixed up a place for her in the garage. He called her Kid.

When the weather got warmer and the ice and snow melted, he closed up the house. “Wish I could take you with me, Kid, but I don’t even know where I’m going. Just heading west. But if you’re around when I get back next season, I’ll see ya.” He slammed the trunk and without turning around yelled, “So long, Kid,” got into his car, and drove off. Kid ran down the road barking, calling to the car. But it didn’t stop and after a while, she couldn’t even see it anymore.

With a dim sense of loss, she roamed the countryside searching for something she did not know. Even if she had found her mother, she would no longer remember her. She returned to the lodge several times. She scratched at the garage door and tried to jump up to look in the kitchen window. But the lack of sound and movement within made the only house she had ever known uninviting.

Toward the middle of summer, when the heat sucked all the moisture out of her body and made her paws weak from her weight, she lay in the grass, letting the blades cool her belly while she dozed. When she woke, her ears stood straight up; she tilted her head toward the distance. The talking and giggling noises floating in the air meant people. Nearing them, the need for play and for companionship filled her young being and with renewed energy, she followed the ribbons of sounds.

They gave her water and food and affection. When the sun was setting and the picnic things were being packed away, the eight-year-old girl and six-year-old boy whined, “Can we take her home with us, please?” Their mother and father walked off toward a tree. It took them less than three minutes to decide. The man checked her neck for a collar, so he could notify the local SPCA in case someone was looking for her, and put her into the car. It was her first ride, but she didn’t pay attention because she was so busy cuddling with the two children. By the time they arrived in Connecticut, they had voted on her name: Beauty. Once she got used to it, ever after the word meant “belonging” to her.

It was the happiest two years she’d ever know. She quickly learned the rules of living with people, took over the house and yard, and became one of the family. She ate well, played well, and loved totally.

The divorce changed everything. Although she couldn’t understand the conversations and arguments, Beauty could feel the tension, the sadness that separated them all from each other. In the end, it was hard enough uprooting the children every six months in order to keep them together, spending half a year with each parent. But it wouldn’t be fair to the dog. Besides, who could manage alone with two kids and an animal? The dog would surely be lonely if she stayed with the one who didn’t have custody and who would then be tied down because of her.

So for her own good, they gave her away. They’d never have put her out or sent her to the pound. They were decent people; they went to the trouble of asking around, and then they put an ad in the local paper, describing her carefully as a “lovable mx br, affectionate, gd watchdog.” They posted it on Craigslist. But unfortunately, nobody bothered to describe the man who came to look at her. No matter how much Beauty cried and clung to their legs, and the children wailed and pleaded, the strange man took her away. He brought her to an appliance outlet in White Plains, where she would protect the store from holdups during the day and intruders during the night. Because she yelped and tried so desperately to get out the door when it was open, he kept her on a long rope during the day and for the first weeks at night.

Sometimes she finished all her water by Saturday night and had to wait until he opened up at noon on Sunday for a drink. Sometimes he forgot to leave extra food over the weekend. The only conversation he had with her was to say, “Damn mutt, can’t you shit on the paper?” For five months, she suffered from hunger, thirst, unpredictable beatings, and unbearable loneliness. Until the day she saw him carrying a heavy television set out to his van after hours. He couldn’t set it down and pick it up again to close the door, so he left it open. Kid-Beauty-Damn Mutt watched from behind a washing machine until she saw him bend over the TV to secure it to the floor of the van. Then she bolted. “You damn mutt, come back here!” he yelled. Then he continued to maneuver the TV.

As she ran, her lean body streaking through the trees behind the parkway, her legs stiff from disuse, she knew what was far worse than her nostrils straining for the scent of food, worse than the dryness of her throat and the thickness of her tongue: captivity. So for nearly six months, she ran, mostly for the joy of it, scrounging, finding little-populated parks and woods to roam in. Sometimes, when she was tempted to nuzzle up against a person or catch a child’s ball in a playground—when the need to touch living things pulled at her—she remembered what happened the last time. Some primal instinct for stealth kept her alive. And free.