Laurie shrugged. “I don’t know. I liked it okay when I was there. But it cost a lot, and since Dad…” Her voice trailed off, but she didn’t need to finish the thought. Private school was the first thing that had gone after Brad had died, and it had been one of the hardest things for Caroline to accept. Indeed, right up until the spring semester fees were due, she’d kept struggling to find the money to keep Laurie and Ryan in the school that she and Brad had worked so hard first to get them in to, then to pay for. But they’d both agreed it was worth it, since at the Elliott Academy they were not only getting a good education, but were safe as well.
But the money simply hadn’t been there, and both she and the kids had had to face it. But now, after the interchange she’d just witnessed between Laurie and Amber Blaisdell, and the longing she’d seen in Laurie’s eyes as she watched her old friends go off without her, she wondered just how much the change in schools might really be damaging her children. Certainly the academic standards at the Elliott Academy were higher than in the public school, and it seemed like every week she read more and more reports of beatings and thievery and drug dealings by kids in public schools who were only a year or two older than Laurie.
Should she have tried harder to find the money to pay their tuition at the Academy? But even as the question formed in her mind, she knew the answer: If there wasn’t enough money to pay the rent, there sure wasn’t enough to cover the costs of private school.
I can’t do it, she thought. I just can’t cope with it all! But even as the words formed in her mind, she heard Brad’s voice whispering inside her head. “You can do it. You’ll find a way. You have to.”
“And I will,” she said, not realizing she’d spoken out loud until her daughter looked at her curiously.
“You’ll what?” Laurie asked.
Once again, Caroline slipped her arm around her daughter’s shoulders. “I’ll figure it out,” she said.
“Figure what out?”
Caroline gave Laurie a quick squeeze. “Life,” she said. “That’s all. Just life.” Then she settled back to watch Ryan play softball, and for at least a little while her problems faded away into the warmth and brilliance of the perfect spring morning.
Irene Delamond and Anthony Fleming walked four blocks down to 66th Street, crossed Central Park West, and started into the park. The walking stick held lightly in her right hand, Irene tucked her left through Fleming’s arm, and glanced up at him. “You’re missing Lenore terribly, aren’t you?” She felt him stiffen, and gave his arm a reassuring squeeze. “We all miss her, Anthony. But because she’s gone doesn’t mean your life is over.”
There was a long silence as Anthony seemed to turn the statement over in his mind, but at last he nodded, and when he spoke, Irene could hear the uncertainty in his voice. “I suppose you’re right. But it’s only been six months.”
“Time is always relative, Anthony,” Irene observed as she turned down a path leading to the playground. “For the terminally ill, six months are a lifetime, and not a very long one. To a three-year-old waiting for Christmas, it’s an eternity so distant it’s not even worth thinking about.” She sighed. “To me it seems like a blink of an eye.”
“And for me?” Anthony asked, looking down at Irene.
Finally she saw a hint of a smile — the smile that was one of his best features — and just the faintest glimmer of a twinkle in his eyes, which managed to be the exact blue of turquoise while showing nothing of the stone’s hardness. “Well, I suppose that’s for you to decide, isn’t it?”
Now his smile broadened. “Unless you or some of your busybody friends decide otherwise.”
She swatted him playfully. “Is that any way to talk about your neighbors?”
“I thought the big city was supposed to be anonymous,” he observed darkly.
“It is. Except in The Rockwell, and I suppose in The Dakota, too.” She uttered the name of the building just up the street from their own with ill-concealed contempt.
“What’s wrong with The Dakota? Except for us, it’s the only interesting building on the West Side.”
“Actors,” Irene spat. “It’s filled with them. Loud parties, and all those perverted people. Can you imagine?”
“As I recall we have an actress in The Rockwell, too.”
“That’s different,” his companion sniffed.
“Really?” Anthony countered. “How so?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Virginia Estherbrook is one of us!” Her fingers tightened on Anthony Fleming’s arm once more, but this time there was nothing reassuring in the gesture. “And don’t think you can simply change the subject on me.” She guided him toward one of the baseball diamonds, where a group of shouting children were gathered around a man wearing the striped shirt of an umpire. “Let’s watch for a while,” she said as the group broke up into two teams. While one of the teams fanned out into the field and the other huddled together to establish a batting order, Anthony Fleming watched in amusement as Irene surveyed the benches behind the backstop, silently trying to anticipate which one she would choose. Men, a lot of whom seemed to know each other, occupied most of the benches and Anthony assumed that for the most part they were divorced, spending the weekend with the children they never saw during the week. Irene, just as he suspected she would, ignored the benches occupied by men, and headed instead toward one that was occupied by a woman who appeared to be a few years younger than he, and a girl who looked as if she was just shy of her teens.
“Is this end of the bench taken?” Irene asked.
The woman glanced up, shook her head, then returned her attention to the game that was just beginning on the baseball diamond. Irene settled herself onto the bench and patted the empty space next to her. When Anthony made no move to occupy it, she fixed him with a look. “Just for a few minutes,” she said. “It’s not going to kill you.”
Anthony Fleming lowered himself reluctantly onto the bench, and waited to see what Irene Delamond’s opening gambit would be. It didn’t take long.
“Is your son playing?” Irene asked, smiling at the woman.
The woman nodded. “He’s in left field.”
“He must be very good. They always put the bad players in right field.”
The woman glanced at Irene. “I think he’d play every day, if he could. But since his father—” Suddenly her face colored, and she seemed to withdraw slightly. “He just doesn’t play as much as he’d like.”
“What a shame,” Irene sighed, scanning the field.
Anthony Fleming watched as her eyes came to rest on the boy in left field — who darted out to snag a fly ball faster than Fleming would have thought possible — and he was almost certain he saw a tiny nod of Irene Delamond’s head, as if the boy had just passed some sort of test to which the woman had silently subjected him.
The boy suddenly looked directly at them, as if he was somehow aware of Irene’s scrutiny, but her attention was back on the woman at the other end of the bench.
“There’s just not enough time anymore, is there?” she asked. “The children all seem to have so much to do nowadays.” She leaned forward slightly and spoke to the girl sitting on the other side of the woman. “What about you, young lady? Do you like baseball?”
The girl shook her head, but said nothing, and finally the woman answered for her. “I promised her I’d take her to the Bronx Zoo this afternoon, but now I have to work. I—”
“Mo-om!” The girl rolled her eyes in exasperated embarrassment. “Do you have to tell everyone everything?”
“Oh, dear,” Irene fretted. “I’m afraid I’ve stuck my nose in where it doesn’t belong, haven’t I?”