He allowed that this would be better.
“By the fountain,” I said, and he agreed—yes, by the fountain.
—
I didn’t know how to go about any of this. I really didn’t want to see him again, Angela. But I kept hearing what Olive had said to me: You can remain a child. . . .
Children run away from problems. Children hide.
I didn’t want to remain a child.
I couldn’t help but think back to the time when Olive had rescued me from Walter Winchell. I could see now that she’d saved me in 1941 precisely because she had known that I was still a child. She could tell that I was not yet somebody who was accountable for her own actions. When Olive had told Winchell that I was an innocent who’d been seduced, it had not been a ploy. She had really meant it. Olive had seen me for what I was—an immature and unformed girl, who could not yet be expected to stand in the painful field of honor. I had needed a wise and caring adult to save me, and Olive had been that champion. She had stood in the field of honor on my behalf.
But I had been young then. I wasn’t young anymore. I would have to do this myself. But what would an adult—a formed person, a person of honor—do in this circumstance?
Face the music, I suppose. Fight her own corner, as Winchell had said. Forgive somebody, perhaps.
But how?
Then I remembered what Peg had told me years earlier, about the British army engineers during the Great War, who used to say: “We can do it, whether it can be done or not.”
Eventually, all of us will be called upon to do the thing that cannot be done.
That is the painful field, Angela.
That is what caused me to reach for the phone.
—
Your father was already at the park when I arrived, Angela—and I was early, and had only three blocks to walk.
He was pacing before the fountain. I’m sure you remember the way he used to pace. He was dressed in civilian clothes: brown wool pants, a light blue nylon sports shirt, and a dark green Harrington jacket. The clothing hung loosely on his frame. He was awfully thin.
I approached him. “Hi, there.”
“Hello,” he said.
I wasn’t certain if I should shake his hand. He didn’t seem sure of protocol, either, so we did nothing but stand with our hands in our pockets. I’d never seen a man more uncomfortable.
I gestured to a bench and asked, “Would you care to sit down and talk with me for a moment?”
I felt stupid—as though I were offering him a chair in my own home, rather than a seat in a public park.
He said, “I’m not good at sitting down. If you don’t mind, can we walk?”
“I don’t mind at all.”
We started walking the perimeter of the park, under the lindens and the elms. He had a long stride, but that was fine—so do I.
“Frank,” I said, “I apologize for running off the other day.”
“No, I apologize to you.”
“No, I should have stayed and heard you out. That would’ve been the mature thing to do. But you have to understand—meeting you again after all these years gave me quite a start.”
“I knew you would walk away when you found out who I was. You should have.”
“Look, Frank—all that was long ago.”
“I was a stupid kid,” he said. He stopped and turned to face me. “Who the hell did I think I was, talking to you like that?”
“It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“I had no right. I was such a stupid goddamn kid.”
“If we’re going to get down to brass tacks about it,” I said, “I was just a stupid kid, too. I was surely the stupidest kid in New York City that week. You may recall the details of the situation in which I had found myself?”
I was attempting to introduce a little levity, but Frank was all business.
“All I was trying to do was impress your brother, Vivian—you gotta believe that. He’d never talked to me before that day—never took notice of me at all. And why would he talk to me—a popular guy like him? Then all of a sudden, there he is waking me up in the middle of the night. Frank, I need your car. I was the only guy at OCS with a car. He knew that. Everyone knew that. Guys were always wanting to borrow my car. Well, the thing is—it wasn’t my car, Vivian. It was my old man’s car. I was allowed to use it, but I couldn’t give it to anyone. Here I am, middle of the night, talking to Walter Morris for the first time—a guy I admire with all my heart—telling him that I can’t give him my old man’s car. I’m trying to explain all this from a dead sleep, and I don’t even know what it’s all about.”
As Frank spoke, his native accent thickened. It was as if, by going back in time, he was going back deeper into himself—even deeper into his Brooklyn-ness.
“It’s all right, Frank,” I said. “It’s over.”
“Vivian, you gotta let me say this. You gotta let me tell you how sorry I am. For years, I wanted to find you, tell you I was sorry. But I didn’t have the courage to look for you. Please, you gotta let me tell you how it happened. See, I told Walter, I can’t help you, buddy. Then he deals me the facts. Tells me his sister’s gone and got herself in trouble. He needs to get her out of the city, pronto. He says I gotta help him save his sister. What was I gonna do, Vivian? Say no? It was Walter Morris. You know how he was.”
I did. I knew how he was.
Nobody ever said no to my brother.
“So I tell him the only way I can lend him the car is if I drive. Thinking to myself, How am I gonna explain the mileage to my old man. Thinking to myself, Maybe me and Walter will be friends after this. Thinking, How are we gonna just walk away from OCS like this, in the middle of the night? But Walter sorted it all out. Got permission from the commander for both of us to leave for a day—for twenty-four hours only. No one but Walter who could’ve gotten that permission in the middle of the night, but he did it. I don’t know what he had to say, or promise, to get that leave, but he got it. Next thing I know, we’re in midtown, and I’m throwing your suitcases in my old man’s car, getting ready to drive six hours, to a town I’ve never heard of, for what reason I don’t even know. I don’t even know who you are, but you’re the prettiest-looking girl I ever saw in my life.”
There was nothing flirtatious in the way he said this. He was just relaying the facts, cop that he was.
“Now we’re in the car, I’m driving, and then Walter starts giving you the fifth degree. I never heard anyone go at someone as hard as that. What am I supposed to do while he’s reaming you out? Where am I supposed to go? I can’t be hearing all this. I’ve never been in a situation like this. I’m from South Brooklyn, Vivian, and it can be a tough neighborhood, but you gotta understand—I’m a bookish kid, I’m a shy kid. I don’t get involved in fights. I’m the kind of kid who keeps his head down. Something goes on, people start yelling, I leave the scene. But I can’t leave this scene, ’cause I’m driving. And he wasn’t yelling—even though I think it might’ve been better if he was yelling. He was just taking you apart, so cold. Do you remember that?”
Oh, I remembered.
“Add to it all, I don’t know anything about women. The things he was talking about, the things he said you were up to? I don’t know anything about all that. And your picture is in the papers, he says—a picture of you messing around with two people? One of them is a movie star of some kind? Another one is a showgirl? I never heard of anything like that. But he just keeps going at you and going at you—and you’re just there in the backseat, smoking cigarettes and taking it. I look in the rearview mirror, you aren’t even blinking. It’s like water off a duck’s back, everything he’s saying to you. I could see it was making Walter crazy, that you weren’t responding. That was just firing him up more. But I swear to God, I never saw anyone looking so coolheaded as you.”