August 22, 2015 (HARRIET AT SEVENTY-EIGHT)
Caroline stops just short of the bar and, donning a curdled grin, reaches into her pocket.
“Good,” she says. “I’m glad you’re back, Mom.”
She pulls out the check and rips it in half, then tears it in half again, and watches the pieces flutter to the floor, before resuming her stool next to Kurt.
“And just so you know, Mom, just so there’s no misunderstanding, it’s Skip, okay? He wants your money, not me. I’m just his stooge.”
Stunned, Harriet reaches out and grasps the bar for support.
“That’s right, Mom. Golden boy Skipper, your little man, he’s losing his house. And you’re the solution to all his problems. Me, I just get a free vacation and some new duds.”
“Well, how did he afford to send you money?”
“He forged a check. Yep, one of yours. Turns out I’m not the only criminal you raised.”
“Where did he get my checkbook?”
“From me, of course.”
Harriet stands there, dumb as a side of beef. But before the repercussions can settle in, before she can react to this news, she reminds herself why she’s here and shakes off the blow.
“Caroline, honey, you don’t want to do this. C’mon, dear, come with me. Let’s get some air and straighten all this out.”
Just as she says it, the barkeep delivers Caroline a fresh drink, which she clutches immediately.
Harriet shoots Kurt a withering look.
Kurt shrugs helplessly.
“Oh, give him a break, Mom. You’re the one trying to set me up with him.” Caroline slugs down half the drink in a single toss.
“Maybe she’s right,” says Kurt. “Maybe y’all ought to have that talk, Caroline.”
Caroline slams the highball glass down with gusto. “Fine,” she says, pushing off of the bar, her stool tipping backward, as she stands. “Let’s have a little talk.”
Behind her, Kurt pantomimes an elaborate apology. How could he know?
Harriet leads Caroline out by the elbow, though halfway down the corridor Caroline wrests her elbow free and steps up her pace, arriving at the elevator well in advance of Harriet, where she pushes the call button and shifts her weight impatiently from one foot to the other. Harriet knows better than to breach the silence at this point. Having been there herself so many times, she knows that any appeal to Caroline whatsoever at this moment, anything besides a strict observance of silence over the next minute or two, will only result in escalation.
But something happens to Caroline in the close quarters of the elevator: all the defiance seems to drain out of her, right before Harriet’s eyes. Every muscle of her body seems to slacken at once.
“Thanks for getting me out of there,” she says.
Harriet reaches out and clutches her daughter’s hand, but Caroline pulls away as the elevator eases to a stop.
In the blustery air of the observation deck, Caroline, her kinky hair blowing sideways, crosses her arms over her chest.
“Dear, maybe we should go fetch your coat,” says Harriet.
“No.”
“But darling, you’ll freeze.”
“I want to freeze.”
The deck is deserted, as they drift wordlessly toward the stern, with the wind at their backs.
“Well, I don’t know how you can stand it,” says Harriet.
At midship, a steady blast from the heating vents envelops them suddenly in the illusion of a tropical night.
“Now that’s more like it,” says Harriet, lowering herself onto a wide bench. “Sit down, dear.”
But Caroline moves to the rail, where she stares into the darkness. Harriet wonders whether she should go to the rail or stay put and give Caroline her space. Watching her daughter’s back, the slow rhythmic convulsing of her shoulders, her dark mess of hair blowing crazily, Harriet contemplates the distance between them and wishes with an ache that the gap was only the mere ten or twelve feet now separating them. If only she could will her daughter back through the years.
Harriet is about to go to her when Caroline turns. “Five years thirty-one days,” she says, plopping down next to Harriet. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
“It’s my fault, dear.”
“I’ve been looking for an excuse. You and Skip just made it convenient for me.”
“Oh, Caroline. I’m so sorry. I’m a wicked person.”
“What are we even talking about, here, Mom? Who am I? Who should I be begrudging?”
Harriet balls her fists in her lap. She doesn’t know where to begin. She supposes, with the vague personal dissatisfaction and the ancient self-loathing, for which Charlie Fitzsimmons was only an antidote, or perhaps a symptom of or, at most, only part of the cause. But where did that begin? And what was it? And how, at nearly eighty years old, could she not know this about herself?
“You know what?” says Caroline. “Maybe I don’t wanna know. To tell you the truth, that might be too much right now.”
She bows her head, her ragged breath giving way to a sob. “Goddamnit, I fucked up again. Why do I always fuck up? I swear to God, it’s like I wanna fail. Skip’s right.”
“Forget Skip,” says Harriet. “Don’t talk like that. Part of it is genetic, you know. At least you’ve had the courage to face it. My God, Caroline, what did I ever do? And that may be the least of my problems. Lately, I’m discovering all kinds of deficits in myself. I don’t even know who I am anymore, Caroline.”
“Pfff. You’re telling me. I never have, Mom, not my whole life.”
“You’d think the growing pains would end at some point, or at least slow down,” says Harriet. “But oh no.”
“If anything, they accelerate,” Caroline says.
Harriet scoots closer and tentatively takes her daughter’s hand. This time, she accepts it.
“I’m sorry, dear. I’ve been a terrible mother. You did nothing to deserve me.”
“Who is he?” she asks.
“His name is — was — Charlie Fitzsimmons.”
“He’s dead?”
“He must be.”
“You loved him?”
“Never.”
“Does he know about me?”
“No.”
“Did Dad know?”
“No.”
“So, I was. . what, then? A mistake?”
“Don’t ever say that.”
“Well? Then what?”
And so, Harriet breathes deeply of the warm air, bows her head, falters once, falters twice, gives pause, and finally begins her explanation. It begins in the waning minutes of 1936, with a little girl, confetti in her hair, hanging upside down in a bassinet.
August 17, 1946 (HARRIET AT NINE)
Ding-dong-ding, thwack-thwack-thwack, how on earth did we arrive way back here, Harriet? It’s 1946, and Vaughn Monroe is on the radio. If you listen closely, you can still hear them celebrating victory in Times Square.
Welcome to postwar America, where spirits are high. It’s been another prosperous year in the Nathan household, and nobody throws a company barbecue like the boys at Nathan, Montgomery, Ferris, and Fitzsimmons. We’re talking Indian smoked salmon. Waldorf salad. Frankfurters the size of Chiquita bananas. All the Coca-Cola a nine-year-old girl can drink.
And lucky you, Harriet, of all the youngsters, you get a ride on Charlie Fitzsimmons’ speedboat, and boy, she’s a beaut. Good old Charlie Fitzsimmons. The whiz kid is now a wizened veteran of the law. One of the best in the city. A silver-tongued fox, a real asset to the firm. Your father venerates the man, talks about him like the son he never had, though Charlie’s only ten years younger.