Don't I Know You? (17 page)

Steven was regarding her from the front row. Blankness gave way to mild confusion. He held up a finger as if pointing her out of a lineup in his mind. He turned the finger into a small wave.

She nodded at him, and then made her way back out the double doors.

In a taxi, she sat back against the black plastic seats and smelled their smell. A cab, she thought. All this money, just to go home.

F
rom his spot in the window, Michael saw her get out of the taxi. He opened the window and stuck his head out. “What's wrong?” he said.

She looked up to give him a wave. It made her dizzier.

“I'm coming down,” he said. “Stay there.”

She lowered herself onto the stoop and tilted to rest against the stone balustrade. It was even dirtier than the bench in the courtroom. She was resting on anything. She barely recognized herself.

Michael was next to her.

“You took a cab from Muriel's?” he asked.

She shushed him with a raised hand. “I'll explain later,” she said.

“You don't look so good,” he said.

“That's very nice,” she said.

“What happened?” he asked again.

She patted him on the leg. He'd come down in his shorts, with no shoes. The undershirt he'd slept in, the small gold cross she'd given him years ago tucked into it.

He was always next to her.

“I'll tell you later,” she said. “Nothing serious. Help me get inside.”

“Tell me now,” he said, helping her to her feet. His hands were strong and made her think that where they'd ended up had been a big mistake. If they just had the chance to go back, she could do things differently; he could do things differently. Each of them could have the life they should've.

G
ina had asked them to feed the cat. That's how they met. They were going away for a few days and needed someone to bring in the mail, feed the cat, water the plants. Gina thought maybe Michael would be interested; she'd heard around the building that he did that kind of thing.

The baby boy was sober but had a solidity to him that Louise recognized from some of her male relatives. Here I am, and here I'm staying. Later, she found out he'd been premature, had spent nearly two months in the hospital, his mother unable to touch him except through the thick rubber gloves on the incuba
tor. Four months after bringing him home, the father had walked out.

“And now,” Gina had said, the day they'd met, “here we are.”

“What about your family?” Louise had asked.

Gina had smiled. She had a nice smile.

“I'm Italian,” she said. “The only daughter. He's Jewish.” She shrugged just like Louise would've. “It wasn't what my parents had in mind.”

Louise had held a palm up to indicate that there wasn't a thing about what Italian families had in mind for their only daughters that she didn't know.

So there they were. Almost friends. And there Gina had come a few weeks later, up one flight of back stairs to knock on their door and hand Michael the key to her place.

I
t had been strange to be in someone's apartment without the someone. While Michael had watered and fed, she'd walked around the four rooms resisting the urge to tidy up. The hallway was lined with framed snapshots of different men. She recognized one or two of them. Men she'd seen coming or going with Gina. A wall of photos of former boyfriends was odd. Was it brashness?

She took in the view from the windows. Same as hers, one story down. In the fridge, blue cheese, grapes, sour cream, yogurt, a Sara Lee pound cake, a rack of eggs. On the counter, a jar of ground coffee, one of those fancy cheese slicers, an open container of olives, and a pack of cigarettes. Cutting knives stuck to a strip of magnet. One wall was covered in cork. Photos of baby
Steven. Emergency numbers. Telephone numbers on scraps of paper. Job listings from the newspaper circled in red.

Michael came in to refill the plastic watering can. He was being careful. He was taking his time.

In Gina's bedroom she stood there while he watered the two spider plants and the jade in the window. The hanging spider plants dripped. He caught the excess water by holding his T-shirt out.

Her bed was unmade and covered with throw pillows in purples and oranges and greens. The bottom of the sheets was un-tucked, as if Gina had spent the night kicking. A nightie was spread over the armchair in the corner. Socks. A bra.

Michael seemed to be concentrating on the plants. “Come on,” she said. “We gotta get back.”

“Why?” he asked.

He wasn't being wise, but she was impatient with him. “Because we don't live here,” she said.

He said he was working, in a way that stressed all her nagging about getting a job, all her disappointment when he'd lost yet another one, all her questions about what he was going to do today, when he was going to get off his rear and get motivated. He knew she prayed for him. He knew when she closed the door to her room for her naps that sometimes she was crying. He knew that sometimes it was over him.

So she went to the kitchen and got one of Gina's cigarettes, lit it, pulled a chair to the window, and thought about that ride Elia had taken her on for their second, secret date. She thought about the Willie's Frozen Custard booth with its corner awnings studded with white bulbs.

In Gina Engel's apartment, she felt something like she'd felt on
those secret dates: a deep roller-coaster plunge of a feeling that stopped her cold and left her charged up and fierce, someone she hadn't known she was.

P
age three of the
News
: Benjamin Engel had pleaded not guilty to one count of manslaughter in the first degree and one count of sexual assault. No bail. He'd been remanded to Riker's Island. The trial had been set for three weeks from the day before.

The defense attorney was a big shot. He was being assisted by a young member of his firm, a distant acquaintance of Mr. Engel and his son: Samantha Cook.

Louise got the phone book, looked up her number, and wrote it down on the pad by the phone with a pen whose ink was running out.

And then she called. She dialed; it rang. The secretary answered. A long list of names, none of them Cook.

Michael came into the room. “Whaddya doing?” he asked.

Louise put her finger to the plunger and replaced the handset. “Checking the time.”

“Something wrong with your watch?” he said.

She shook her head, stood, and wiped her hands on her housecoat. “Wanna make manicott?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Not really,” he said. “I'll eat them,” he added, as if that might make her feel better.

“You all right?” he asked.

She patted her hair into place. “Why? I don't look all right?”

“You look good,” he said. “I don't know. Things seem off around here.”

“You're the only thing off around here,” she said, then felt like kicking herself. His eyes were doing that flashy thing they did. Like she could see his brain doing its unhappy things.

“I'm going out,” he said.

“You don't have to,” she said.

He pulled his sweatpants up. “Me and Charlie got stuff to do.”

She was worn out so she let him go, managing a “come back soon” before the door shut.

The nausea was back. It had never really left. This morning, there had been more coughing, more blood in tissues stuffed to the bottom of the kitchen garbage pail.

What did she think? One day she'd be gone and Michael wouldn't even notice?

What did it matter what she did with her last days? Either way, she was dying. What did she have to tell Samantha Cook? Maybes and might-haves. An old lady's hunches.

She knew while she was thinking all this that she believed the opposite. It was because she was dying that what she did mattered so much.

And who'd encouraged Michael to get to know that mother and her son? To do errands for them, to take Steven to the park and watch him after school?

Who'd gotten warmth and pleasure from that apartment one floor down, that life that seemed so much like it could've been hers? If she'd been born thirty years later, or had a different kind of son. Or been a different kind of mother. She knew it sometimes seemed like Gina was making the wrong decisions, but all that independence, all that aggressive health, and that sweet, sweet boy.

So what if she'd wanted what someone else had? Who didn't? Who was happy with what God had dished out for them?

At the end of the day, there was just her and Michael. Whatever she had or hadn't done had been for him. She wouldn't have known how to live any other way.

And if she'd been sure that it had been Michael, would she have done anything different? Would she have turned in her own child? How could a mother do that? How could a mother not? If she knew her child took a mother away from another boy, how could she not?

S
he'd lost seven pounds in the last week. She weighed less than she'd weighed as a teenager. Her favorite foods made her gag. She left wide wet spots on the sofa.

She saw him from her window on a Saturday, two weeks before the trial. There he was, tall and thin like his father.

Michael was playing video games with Charlie at the Puerto Ricans' store. She didn't like the idea of Michael seeing him.

He was sitting on the stoop across the street, his knees up, his hands between them. He looked like he'd been there his whole life. Regulars walked past without noticing him.

He was dressed nice. He still had the bangs in his eyes like he was saving you from having to look at him.

He watched customers come and go from the drug dealer's apartment on the corner.

How long was he going to sit there? Michael wasn't going to stay at the store forever.

He watched dogwalkers and joggers, old ladies with shop
ping carts filled with laundry. Manuel and the other supers playing dominoes on overturned boxes. Louise watched with him.

He saw Michael before she did. Michael and Charlie were laughing and drinking Slushies, their lips stained red. Michael had a Charleston Chew sticking out of his front pocket. As they headed up their stoop, she had all three boys in sight at once. This was what heaven would be like—a view of everyone she'd ever known, milling around on the block.

Steven watched them go in. He stood and took a few steps into the street. She stood too and backed away from the window. He looked up at his old windows. The girls who lived there now were college students, unfriendly, a little too wild, in the dark about what had happened there all those years ago. The landlord had had to strip the floors.

She could hear Michael outside the door—his keys, his good-byes to Charlie.

Here the boy was, grown, aged, some things changed, some things not. What could be traced to losing a mother? Nothing? Everything?

She couldn't have saved his mother for him. Even if she'd called someone, there wouldn't have been enough time to save anyone. Why had Gina called her? They said the dying had particular messages to communicate to particular people. What had Gina wanted to say to her?
Louise
, she'd said. She'd been dying, and Louise had listened, hung up, and lied about it. She had her reasons, she'd told herself a million times since.

She was crying.

Michael was next to her. He was patting her back like a toddler petting a dog.

“Ma? What's the matter? What happened?”

Steven was still in the street. Here, she wanted to say to Michael, bringing him to the window.

She wiped her eyes and ducked away. She closed the drapes and turned on a lamp.

“It's nothing,” she said. “Thinking about your father.”

It was what she said when she didn't want to pursue something. Michael didn't like him. He didn't mourn his absence, and didn't like to be reminded that his mother did.

“He's dead,” he said.

“Yes, he is,” she said.

S
teven came back the next day and the day after that. Tuesday night, sleepless at 3
A.M
., she went to her window and there he was on the stoop, smoking a cigarette, stuffing his hands in his pockets between drags.

She slipped on a pair of sweatpants under her nightgown, socks, slippers, a robe, and sneaked into Michael's room. He had the bedroom set he'd had as a boy. Two twin beds, a night table between them, a three-drawer dresser, a small desk and chair. A customer of Elia's had been upgrading for his own son and they'd gotten the whole set cheap.

He was on his back, his knees tenting the covers. He slept like an infant, his head turned to one side, his fists by his ears. He was grinding his teeth.

She pulled his chair over and sat next to the bed. Boxes of crackers, cookies, and cereal were lined up on his night table and desk. She used to insist he keep food in the kitchen. She'd given up on that years ago.

Behind the boxes were his stacks of school composition books. He never took them out of his room. He'd never said she couldn't, but she'd never looked in them, even after the murder. He had a certain kind of pen he liked using.

He stopped grinding, and his face relaxed. She stroked his forehead. He used to go months without a haircut, until a few years ago when it had grayed and thinned so much the barber on the corner had convinced him to get a buzz cut. It looked better this way.

She slid her hand under his and regarded him. Here was her boy.

On her way downstairs, there were still empty wine and vodka bottles scattered in front of Gina's old apartment. She would have to talk to Manuel again. A man, too old for college, stepped backward into the hallway. He pulled one of the girls after him, his hand against her cheek. “Beautiful you,” he said. “Days aren't days without you.” Over the girl's shoulder, he saw Louise watching. He was like a movie star caught off guard. He winked at her. Louise was embarrassed for him. She frowned and picked her way around the bottles to the stairs.

By the time she got outside, Steven was gone.

S
omething was happening.

First Michael had gone upstairs to Charlie's, and then he had come back, going straight to his room. Now someone was knocking on the front door.

It was four in the afternoon and Louise was in bed. She'd been there all day. No energy for anything else. Steven hadn't come, as far as she knew.

“Michael,” she called. “The door.”

She called some more. The knocking was still going strong.

She put on her robe and went to the door. It was Charlie's father. He'd been down to their place a couple of times, and even in his mailman uniform, his presence was disconcerting. A big black man on her threshold.

His name was TJ. He looked embarrassed. He had a rolled-up magazine in his hand.

“I already got my mail,” she said.

“Listen,” he said. “I don't wanna make a big deal outta this, but we just can't have him showing this kind of stuff to Charlie.”

She could hear a door opening and closing up the stairs. Probably his wife eavesdropping. She never came down to do the talking.

“How do you know it's Michael's?” she said.

The year before, Michael had rented
Deep Throat
for Charlie. A few months ago they'd taken some of TJ's marijuana and smoked it in Charlie's room. Sometimes after they'd been around, she found wadded-up napkins in odd corners.

TJ handed the rolled-up magazine to her. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I know he don't mean nothing.”

Brenda, Charlie's mother, leaned over the banister one floor up. “He's ten, Louise. T-e-n. What's a grown man wanna hang out with a ten-year-old for anyway?”

TJ looked pained. “I got it covered, Bren,” he said.

Louise hated her with her hennaed hair and her tattooed ankles. Her brown kid with that crazy hair. Her
mulignan
husband.

“She's just talking,” TJ said.

Before Charlie there'd been a kid from down the block. Before that, from the park. Before that, Steven. Michael was a kid himself. He had a good heart, a big heart. Sometimes people didn't understand that.

“Maybe Charlie shouldn't come around for a while,” she suggested before TJ could.

TJ looked relieved. “Yeah, sure. Good idea.”

She closed and locked the door. The door to Michael's room was closed. She stood outside it for a minute. His music was playing.

Years ago she'd gone down to the basement to put in a load of laundry. Michael had been crying in the far corner of the laundry room, a glass jar held up to his face.

She put the magazine facedown in front of his door and went back to bed.

W
hen she woke it was dark out, and Muriel was there in the rocker, beading a necklace. For the last few years, she'd made her own jewelry. Big wooden things with feathers and rope. She put the pile aside.

“Good morning,” she said.

Pain, in her chest and her side. Her doctor had said the cancer would go from lungs to liver to bone to brain. She was supposed to call him for a morphine prescription when she needed to.

Her body was ingesting itself. Her brain would swell. There'd be a coma.

Muriel pulled the covers back. “Come on,” she said. “Tea. In the living room. Everyone's invited.”

Louise noticed Michael hovering in the doorway. He cocked his head and gave her a small wave.

Getting out of bed was harder than she expected. She felt like she'd spent the day lifting heavy objects. She imagined a giant crank handle inside of her spooling her up from the inside out. Muriel took her hand and elbow and lifted her to her feet. She helped her into her robe and said softly, “Time to come clean.”

Muriel made tea. Even Michael had a cup. He hated tea. Louise told him to add more sugar. “Nah,” he said. “I'm good.”

“Michael called,” Muriel said. “He was worried, wanted to know what was wrong. I told him I couldn't tell him, but I could come over here and make sure you did.”

Michael looked into his teacup, as if trying not to overhear. He sneaked looks at his mother.

It broke her heart to look back at him.

She closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands.

Muriel put a hand on her knee. “Your mother has cancer, Michael,” she said.

Louise couldn't bring herself to open her eyes. She listened for him.

“Yeah, so?” he said.

Muriel shook Louise's knee gently. “You're up,” she said.

Whenever she opened her eyes now, it took seconds for her vision to clear. She and Elia used to take turns spinning Michael as a toddler around and around in Elia's barber chairs, and then they'd set him on the ground, all of them laughing as he tipped and stumbled.

She couldn't bring herself to say anything. She was getting one chance after another, and look how well she was doing.

“It's gonna be okay,” she said.

Muriel exhaled. “Louise,” she said. She turned toward Michael in her social worker pose. “It's not the kind of cancer anyone can fix,” she said. “We need to tell you what to expect. We need to work out how you'll live after your mother's gone.”

Michael put his cup down on the floor under his chair. He brought his shoulders up to his ears and then let them fall.

“Muriel,” Louise said, hoping to get her out of the house with as little fuss as possible.

“Your mother's going to die,” Muriel said. “And we need to talk about what that will mean for you.”

He crossed the room and put a finger on her chest. He started with
liar
and
bitch
and kicked the coffee table over. Teacups and spoons skidded to the wall. Things broke. Muriel didn't panic. She'd seen his episodes before.

Louise put a hand on his arm, but he shook it off. “You don't talk to me,” he said, pointing at her. His eyes were full of fear and rage and betrayal.

She stood up. He pushed her back down. “You think you're leaving?” he said.

She'd brought him into this world. She'd made him who he was, and now she
was
leaving. There wasn't anything to do to get rid of that kind of rage.

Even before the murder, she'd been telling herself that they made out okay, that they could take care of themselves. She could handle him. Who was she kidding? Neither of them had been okay in years. Michael may never have been okay.

One of the neighbors must've called the police. Maybe the unfriendly girls downstairs. By the time the two officers arrived, he
was calmer. He was in his chair, hands under his thighs. Muriel let them in. Louise was on her hands and knees, piling broken china into a cupped hand.

Relationships were sorted out. The police asked their questions. The three of them gave their answers. Louise did not want to press charges and was not in any danger. Muriel agreed. The officers were persuaded.

One suggested Michael might want to take a walk around the block. Cancer, everyone agreed, was a tough one. One of the officers said his mother had beat it just last year, and that Louise shouldn't give up hope.

Michael got his jacket and went out in his slippers. Louise couldn't tell if anyone noticed.

The officers lingered. One of them carried the broken china into the kitchen and came back out with the dustpan and hand broom. The other righted the coffee table.

Here they are, Louise thought. Tell them what you know.

“He's not dangerous,” Muriel said. “Just a little troubled.”

“Who isn't?” one officer said, sweeping.

“You should meet my brother,” said the other.

Everyone smiled, and the tension continued to drain from the room. Michael was odd. He was eccentric. He was a disappointment to his mother. He wasn't a murderer. Everything would be fine. They'd be okay. They always had.

The officers left. Louise watched from the window. Steven was back on his stoop, watching the cop car, and the cops. How long had he been there?

Her son was like a toy train she was trying to keep on its tiny rails. She was exhausted. It was exhausting.

Muriel was next to her. Louise put her head on her friend's shoulder. She didn't think Muriel would recognize Steven. Still, she said she needed to sit, and led her back to the sofa.

“You need to get help,” Muriel said.

Louise bent to pick up a teacup piece the officers had missed.

“For yourself, and for Michael,” she said.

Louise didn't say anything. It was her special talent.

“I'll call the doctor tomorrow,” she said. Deflection, distraction: other things she was good at.

Muriel left, and Steven was still there. Michael came home and passed her without a word, closing the door to his room firmly if not loudly. Steven was still there. She almost expected to see his mother sitting next to him. They'd both been gone for years, but in another way they'd both been there all this time, waiting for her to come out and play.