“Yes.”
“We should be in Rome by now, looking for your son instead.”
“We will fly out tomorrow night. There won’t be any more changes.”
“I’m sorry to be so frank, Mrs. Singer, but you’re in no condition to delay.”
“Then you can always drive a little faster, Mr. Clines.”
She could see his lips tightening in the rearview mirror. He didn’t want to drive back over to New Jersey, saying it was a waste of time, but in fact she could see it was because he was also fearful of Hector. But he did as she acidly suggested, accelerating slightly for a stretch before eventually easing back to his unusually slow driving style; he was indeed an older man than he wished to let on, and she could see him straining in the twilight to see the road. He had asked that she sit in the back because of a chest cold that he said he didn’t want to transmit to her. But this was primarily an excuse. Clines, she had come to see, was a terribly formal sort; he was someone who liked the comfort of having a designated station for himself, a place. This was fine by her, for she knew exactly where she stood with him without much discussion. Discussion for her had become a hardship. She had a purpose and Clines was aiding her and there was little else to talk about.
Nicholas, of course, had always been especially subject to her commands; even as a teen he couldn’t help but follow her wishes without argument. At some point she would find herself being particularly unreasonable, sometimes squarely merciless, hoping he would argue or talk back sharply to her, but he never did, merely assenting or else drifting off to another room of the apartment. Was it his character to be so compliant, or had she also formed him with those trenchant comments at the shop? Like any mother she sometimes found herself furious with him, for nothing other than his being a child. Later on the reasons would be different. In any case, she couldn’t help herself and probably Nicholas couldn’t either and after he left home and had been gone for months and neither written nor telephoned she wondered whether an objective observer would determine that on balance she had been the most damaging presence in his life.
That he had gone on so readily to a career of larceny seemed confirmation enough of the notion. Clines reminded her several times that these were still alleged crimes, but she knew the truth had already been long determined. For Nicholas had a history of stealing. It was not a problem before, though in truth only because he was never caught. From the time he was seven he filched candies and gum from the news shop and playing cards and felt markers from Woolworth’s, and later on, when he was in middle school, he stole record albums and books from the public libraries, expensive clothes from department stores. She periodically discovered a cache tucked deep in his closet or between the mattress and box spring of his bed, once finding three brand-new pairs of designer blue jeans, another time two ski parkas, none in his size. She supposed he sold them, or gave them away to his friends. It didn’t surprise her that he was never caught: he was a smart, charming, gentle-faced boy who walked easefully into rooms and could still look you in the eye and say hello while fitted with whatever goods he’d tucked beneath his shirt.
What was remarkable was that June never confronted him. Not a reprimand, not even an innocent question or comment about the loot. She would put the stuff back in its place, as if she’d found a pornographic magazine. But why? It wasn’t as if stealing were a typical boyhood stage to be outgrown. She could have spanked him the very first time, on finding a dozen packs of various gums stuffed into a sock, harshly punished or scared him into never doing such a thing again. But it seemed that each time she found a new stash she’d somehow discount the previous instances, see them as isolated, even accidental, cases in which Nicholas simply forgot to pay; she’d done that herself a couple of times, once resulting in an embarrassing frisking at a store entrance by the security guard. Nicholas was naturally preoccupied, yes, that was a problem, but the truth of the matter was that June began to look almost expectantly to the stealing. She would go into his room whenever he wasn’t there, half-hoping to find something. Of course whenever she did she felt frustration and bewilderment, but then a kind of dreadful curiosity about the moment itself took hold of her such that the larger, more disturbing picture dissipated and she focused too discreetly on the act; she would wonder about the particular circumstances of its moment, the part of the store he was in, if he had been nearly caught and his heart had raced terribly, and then what he was thinking, or not thinking, the faces of his compulsion.
Once she had followed him, seeing him by chance walking by on the other side of the avenue from her shop. He was thirteen at the time. She quickly closed the shop and trailed him until he went into a record store. She peered in at him from the sidewalk, making sure he couldn’t see her by standing at the edge of the large display window. She was terribly anxious; she couldn’t see how he could possibly take anything: as it was a warm summer day, he was wearing the lightest clothing, just a polo shirt and gym shorts. He browsed albums, lingered at a bin of tapes, a poster rack, and then, as if idly picking a leaf from a shrub while strolling by, he took an album and walked toward the entrance, which was right in front of the cashier. He was almost outside when the man stopped him and pointed to the album in his hands. Nicholas seemed to wake from a trance-and not in the least like he was pretending-and after apologies and a shared laugh, he paid for the record and left. By chance he departed in the opposite direction from her and when she caught sight of him again around the corner he was discarding the new album, paper sack and all, into a steel mesh trash can. Then he reached behind himself, lifting his shirt, and from the band of his shorts pulled out an orange-colored eight-track tape. He seemed genuinely pleased, letting the light play off the clear plastic wrapping like it was a prismatic mirror, regarding the lettering closely front and back, but then with a chilling casualness he dropped it into the trash as well.
Afterward Nicholas headed south on Third Avenue, his hands calm and empty. Was he on to a usual string of unsuspecting shops? His skinny form bobbed and then finally disappeared on the crowded lunchtime sidewalk. She tried following him but lost his trail. But she had to halt, too, because she was caught squarely by the feeling of her chest tightening around the ingot of a sudden pleasing fascination; for it was the picture of his surface equanimity, his self-mastery, that she was so gratified to see, to watch him exert himself upon the world, when the rest of the time he seemed too willingly subject to its turns. He was more like herself than she had guessed; for even though she held no illusions of being an admirable person, she had always been capable of making her way, no matter what.
“Do you have any children, Mr. Clines? Excuse me, I don’t even know if you have a wife.”
“My wife died many years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I have a daughter,” Clines said. They were stopped at a long traffic light. “She lives in Philadelphia.”
“What does she do?”
“She and her husband are both clerks in a grocery store.”
“Do they have children?”
“No.”
He was clearly hesitant to continue, but for some reason June felt like querying him.
“You must see her fairly often, being nearby.”
“Only sometimes.”
“On holidays?”
“No, not on holidays,” he said, clearing his throat. The light changed and they proceeded for a few blocks in quiet. He was driving quite stiffly, with both hands firmly on the steering wheel, his head locked straight ahead. She was ready to drop the subject but then he said, “We haven’t spoken in some time.”