She smiles and begins walking toward Fifth Avenue.
On the corner of Fifty-second and Fifth, there is a Salvation Army band playing “Silent Night.” Lissie drops a quarter in the kettle. The air is not quite balmy, but after Wednesday’s snow and wind, it seems almost springlike today. She heads downtown with her big belly jutting, listening to the carols coming from someplace across the street, hearing the jingling of Santa Claus bells, savoring the feel of this city at Christmas time, the pace of it, the sheer momentum of it even when it’s springtime in December and there is no need to rush against the brittle cold. She surveys the windows of Saks, and then walks into the store through one of the Fifth Avenue entrances.
She isn’t quite sure what she hopes to buy for Matthew in addition to the mountain of gifts she’s already purchased. She thinks it odd that he’s begun losing weight in direct ratio to the speed with which she’s been gaining weight, and isn’t certain she enjoys him looking so slender and trim while she herself is beginning to resemble, more and more each day, the entire state of Rhode Island. She loved him when he was fat, so why the doublecross now? Idly, she wonders if the baby will indeed be a boy. If it’s a boy, they’ve already decided to name him Jeremiah, after Matthew’s father, Jeremiah Hobbs, D.D.S.
She wanders the first floor of the store, casually shopping the counters, hoping to find something spectacularly smashing to reward Matthew for his damn perseverance in pursuing his latest diet so conscientiously, twenty pounds in two months, that is a lot of fat down the drain while old Melissa Hobbs is ballooning. She stops at the sweater counter, remembering that Matthew’s sweaters are getting a bit threadbare, recalling in fact that he dropped a hint only last Wednesday, his day off, about coming through the elbows of his favorite cardigan. There is a cardigan on the countertop, green, with a lovely shawl collar. She checks the label, sees that it’s a medium, and wonders if a medium will be too small for Matthew, even in his trimmed-down reincarnation. “Excuse me,” she says, signaling to the salesclerk, who rushes past breathlessly and says over his shoulder, “In a minute, miss.”
“Shit,” she mutters, and the man standing beside her turns to her, smiles, starts to say, “It’s always this way at...” and then abruptly stops talking.
He is a man in his early fifties, she supposes, with brown eyes and a full head of dark brown hair, worn rather long. A thick beard covers his jowls and his chin. The beard is partially the color of the hair on his head and partially white. A hooded green loden coat hangs open over wide-waled tan corduroy pants and a plaid flannel shirt. A camera is hanging around his neck.
He is, she realizes, her father.
Neither of them speaks at first.
They simply stare at each other.
He is seeing a well-groomed and obviously pregnant young woman wearing a smart cloth coat over an expensive maternity dress, he is seeing his daughter as he has never been privileged to view her before. She is seeing a bearded, casually dressed man who seems very much at ease with himself, more relaxed than she’s ever known him.
Still, they say nothing.
“It is Lissie?” he ventures.
“Yes,” she says. She almost adds the word “Dad.” She does not.
“How are you, Lissie?”
“Fine, thanks. And you?”
“Living in New York now, are you?”
“Yes.”
“Me, too,” he says. “Joanna and I are down in the Village now. Where are...?”
“Well, not actually the city,” she says. “Larchmont. My husband has his practice in Larchmont.”
“Ah. Nice there.”
“Yes.”
“So,” he says.
“So,” she says.
“You’re married and everything now, huh?”
“Yes.”
“I see you’re...”
“Yes.”
“When are you expecting?”
“April sometime.”
“Ah.” He pauses. “You look wonderful, Lissie.”
“Thank you.”
“So,” he says again. “It’s been a long time.”
“Eight years.”
He hesitates. Then he says, “You broke my heart.”
The words pierce her to the core. She feels herself crumbling inside, and thinks for a moment that these are the first honest words he’s ever spoken to her in as long as she’s known him, and answers with equal honesty, “And you broke mine.”
He nods. He says nothing. It almost seems the conversation will end with this brief exchange. Everywhere around them, shoppers are rushing past.
“You shouldn’t have written that letter,” she says, and her eyes seek his. Clear-eyed, they face each other. In her heels, Lissie is almost as tall as he is; their eyes meet at almost the same level. While everywhere around them shoppers hurry past, and clerks ring up sales or reach for ringing telephones, they search each other’s eyes.
Gently, he says, “You left me no choice, Liss.”
She hesitates. She takes a deep breath, and at last says, “Maybe I didn’t.” It is a fierce admission; it is almost a beginning. The clerk suddenly appears behind the counter. “Yes, miss,” he says, “I can help you now.”
She turns away from her father. “Would you gift-wrap this for me, please?” she says.
“The cardigan, miss?”
“Yes, please.”
“Will this be cash or charge?”
“Charge,” she says and opens her handbag and then her wallet and begins searching for her Saks card. Her father is watching her. She is aware of his eyes on her.
“Well,” he says, “it was good seeing you again.”
“Yes, here, too,” she says, searching for the card.
“Have a merry Christmas, Liss...”
“You, too,” she says quickly.
“And if you ever find yourself in the city...”
“Yes, Dad?” she says, and looks up from the handbag.
He hesitates. “I’m in the book,” he says, and extends his hand to her.
She takes it.
They shake hands politely, like strangers.
He continues holding her hand.
She feels her eyes beginning to dissolve, and releases his hand at once, and hurries off into the milling crowd of shoppers before she can find the courage to ask him how her little sister is coming along.