Loving Time (3 page)

When she’d been a medical student at the university and later a psychiatric resident at the Centre, Clara Treadwell never thought she’d have a single one of those titles, much less all of them. Nor did she ever dream that she’d be appointed to a President’s Commission on Mental Health and meet the Senator who’d made that cause his life’s work. When she’d been a resident, she never would have believed that a woman past forty-five could not only attain such status but could also attract a man of similar accomplishments (and far greater wealth) and that they could fall in love with all the passion and excitement of teenagers.

Every day when Clara Treadwell awoke in her stunning
apartment, decorated with fine antique furniture and painted in shades of beige and peach to soften the light and flatter her complexion, she felt the thrill of her accomplishments all over again. The apartment, a perk of her job, cost her only a dollar a year. That was gratifying in itself. But even more thrilling was the fact that she was the first woman ever to have it.

She was the first woman Chairman and Director of the Psychiatric Centre, the first to be head of the department and the first to have the name professorship. Her freshly washed hair whipped around her face in the wind off the river despite the generous dose of hairspray she’d given it. She ducked quickly into the cavernous building, patting her hair back into place.

“Morning. Morning,” she murmured as she waited for the elevator, conscious of her position and how important it was to acknowledge the people around her.

She unbuttoned her coat, could not resist showing off the sleek new suit and trim body under it. She had to admit her figure wasn’t perfect anymore, but she dressed well, moved gracefully, and knew she still looked—if not great—at least good enough to attract attention wherever she went. It was with the warm feeling of being able to assess herself critically and come to an objective conclusion that Clara Treadwell entered the elevator of the Psychiatric Centre. For nearly six minutes, as the crowded box made its tedious progress upstairs, she concentrated on her strategy for the various meetings at which she would preside that day, feeling a sense of mastery in all things.

Then, as the elevator doors opened on the twentieth floor, her body tensed at the unwelcome sight of Harold Dickey hurrying out of the executive suite. The tension started with the familiar tingle at the base of her neck that felt as if, once again, she’d been bitten by a tiny insect pest she’d repeatedly neglected to squash into oblivion.

“Ah, there you are!” Harold’s face creased into a delighted smile. “I was hoping to catch you.”

“I’ll bet you were,” she muttered coldly, brushing past him. Harold reached out and took her arm, halting Clara’s retreat. The tic in her cheek, which twitched only when she was absolutely exhausted or impatient beyond enduring, made its first tentative throb. She sighed. “What do you want, Hal?”

He smiled his old smile. “Just you,” his smile said.

She shook her head. Not a chance. Not a ghost of a chance.

“Did you have a good weekend with the Senator?” he asked.

“Harold, you were coming from my office.” Clara said the words slowly, giving herself a moment to calm down. She was deeply angry at his pushing, pushing, pushing her so that very soon, if he didn’t get a grip, he was going to force her to squash him.

“Yes, yes. I wanted to chat with you before the meeting about your proposed changes in the guidelines of the Quality Assurance Committee. I thought it might be useful.”

“Oh?” she said. Another management problem for her to finesse. This was how Hal blackmailed her to be with him. When she didn’t make time for him, he became difficult. He played the devil’s advocate in her meetings, raised questions that engaged the others on the committee in hours of wasteful debates about trivial points. Often he changed people’s minds about the issues.

Harold Dickey had quickly withdrawn his hold on her arm, but his face was still softened by that obnoxious expression of adoration no woman can bear seeing on a man she doesn’t admire. They were stopped right outside the entrance to the executive suite, where Clara’s assistant, the vice chairman, the chief resident, and various other functionaries could observe them perfectly well.

Harold’s expression was particularly offensive to Clara because he was way over sixty now and past his prime. His hair was white and had receded far enough to reveal the dome of his bright shiny skull. His stomach had grown, and so had the fleshy pouches under his eyes. The gray Brooks Brothers suit he wore was shapeless. He still ran, and still played tennis, but
his fire was gone. The only thing about Harold that was the same as when Clara had been a resident under his supervision eighteen years ago was the mustache. The white mustache had been very distinguished then, made him look dapper and a little dangerous. It still made him look a little dangerous. But now he
was
dangerous.

She’d been lenient for a long time—understanding, gracious, thoughtful, sensitive. She’d given him projects and even referrals. Just last night she’d referred a patient to him, Ray Cowles. She remembered with annoyance the conversation she and Ray had had about it. Ray and Hal were difficult children who irritated her almost beyond endurance. Let them bother each other; they deserved it.

Clara’s day was not starting well. Every man in her life required boundaries and discipline, not diplomacy. She had to spend precious moments dealing with each one. Having to take the time to reason with them annoyed her. Her tic made its second throb. She shook her head impatiently to make it stop. “Harold, I’m late for a meeting.”

“Oh, my. I wouldn’t want to keep you,” he said with that asinine adoring smile. “What time would be good for you?”

“No time. I have the day from hell today.”

“Do you want to have dinner later? I could hold my thoughts until then.”

“No, I have an association meeting.”

“Great, so do I. We can go together.” He looked hopeful.

Clara’s lips compressed with disgust. She shook her head at how he just wouldn’t let it die. She had married and divorced twice, had had many lovers, and had made her way through the complicated politics of two other psychiatric institutions since Harold had been her mentor, her supervisor, her lover. Now, after all these years, even though she was his superior in every way, he still had the supreme arrogance to think that he could get her back. Harold Dickey had not figured at all in her deliberations about returning to New York after a thirteen-year absence. The return of his desire, his continued and
growing interest after much discouragement, had surprised her at first. Then she was amused; she thought he could be useful. Now, however, she felt different.

“Hal, I said I’m busy.”

“I like that outfit,” he murmured. “You look very pretty, Clara. Is it new?”

The navy suit was new. His commenting on it was inappropriate. She was the Director of the Centre. She could force him out, eviscerate him. She’d done it to many better men than Dickey would ever be. She was terminating him, no question, just as she had terminated Ray. And Hal was absolutely certain she wouldn’t. The tic in her cheek throbbed, confirming her decision.

He smiled. “Have a good day.”

A
lmost before dawn on November 1, Maria Sanchez heard her son, Detective-Sergeant Mike Sanchez, rise from his solitary bed and cross the hall to the bathroom, yawning loudly. The bathroom door closed. Five or ten seconds later his water splashed loudly in the toilet. The toilet flushed. Then came the sound of heavy rain as the shower pounded the bathroom tiles. Each day it was the same. It took Mike exactly twenty minutes to urinate, shower, shave, and dress.

Each day Maria spent those twenty minutes waiting for her bitter coffee to brew and watching the joggers stretch at the entrance to Van Cortlandt Park, then disappear, their legs pumping easily up and down. The joggers ran in the summer heat, in the chilling rain. In the winter months they appeared before the sky began to lighten, some not even wearing sweatpants or jackets, their breath making steam. Maria knew who some of them were, what buildings they lived in, at what hour they took the Broadway elevated train that ran within view of her window into Manhattan.

Mike told her she was the kind of witness they liked to have on the stand in court, a person who knew what was going on around her, noticed when something was different and remembered it later. It made her feel good when he said that. Her
hijo
was an important man. He didn’t have to patrol the streets or wear a uniform anymore. He’d had his picture in the newspaper. Maria still showed the clipping of her son to her friends. She was proud that everybody in the neighborhood knew him, came to him asking for things. They thought her
hijo
could personally fix all their parking tickets, speeding tickets, all their problems with any government agency, including the IRS. She never told anyone otherwise.

She also knew her son could have any woman he wanted. Even without the uniform, he was a good-looking man, still
excited them. The single women in the neighborhood kept their eyes on him, flirting all the time. And some of the married women, too. Maria didn’t blame them. No one had trouble when Mike was around.

The walls in the old building were thin. Behind the bathroom door she heard him burp, then adjust the water in the shower. The faucet whined as he turned up the hot and the pipes began to clank. She hesitated, unsure of what to do. She had a box of wooden matches in one hand and her favorite rosary with the pink cut-glass beads in the other. She was a superstitious woman, knew timing and ritual mattered. Yesterday was Halloween. She wouldn’t have lit a candle yesterday for anything. This year God had finally intervened for Mike. Mike’s wife, Maria, who had left him five years ago, was finally dead of her leukemia. Halloween was over and November 2 was tomorrow. Could she start the ceremony a day early, light just one candle now, or should she wait?

Maria Sanchez had celebrated November 2, Mexico’s Day of the Dead, faithfully for all of the thirty years she had lived in this Bronx apartment overlooking Broadway, the elevated train, and Van Cortlandt Park. This year, however, she’d begun her shrine to the dead two months earlier than usual. She took out the old, old photos of her mother and father, uncles and aunts long gone; mementos of other half-forgotten relatives; the relics of her two babies, dead in infancy many, many years ago in Mexico, and those of her husband, Marco, when he was young. She studied them one by one, then arranged them on the heavy, carved wooden table, along with offerings of food, candles, and the prayer cards she got from her church.

The shower droned on in the bathroom. As she weighed the odds of her desire against the possibility of doing wrong, the coffee perked, and the sky lightened to day. Because her daughter-in-law had been too religious to divorce, Maria was glad she was dead. Then, ashamed of the sinful thought, she quickly extracted a match from the box, struck it, and inhaled the pungent sulfur odor.

Instantly, a thousand memories jumped out of the smoke, crowding the match tip as it flared. Then, as she reached out and lit one of the dozens of candles she had placed around the table and sideboard, her memories began to separate and go to their places. Some traveled to the silver pocket watch that had not worked since the day her grandfather died, some to the baskets of fresh and dried fruits, some to the chilies and herbs tied in bunches with thin bakery string, some to the stacks of letters with ink so faded on the brittle paper that the words could hardly be deciphered anymore. Still others flooded into the bright, artificial lilies and roses that reeked of plastic no matter how many times they were washed.

As the candle smoked and guttered, Maria lowered herself to her knees and began to pray. This year she did not pray for the dead, who were either in Heaven or not as God saw fit, but for the soul of her son, whose heart had refused to heal for so many years in spite of the many eager women who took him to their beds. Mike had been a husband with no wife for a long time. But now the wife-who-was-not was dead. It was only right that her son should have his soul back, so life could begin again.

“Just take a look at him,
Todopoderoso
, a man of thirty-four, almost old enough to be an
abuelo
and not yet a
padre
,” Maria complained softly to the Almighty in her own mix of Spanglish.

“Está un crimen en contra la naturaleza
, no? I ask you not for myself, even though I wouldn’t mind taking care of
dos bebes
, or even
tres
. I ask for
m’ijo
. My only child. You took the first step. Now take the second. Whisper in his ear,
Todopoderoso
, tell him it’s time to love, to marry again.
Dios
, are you listening …?”

Maria never prayed to the Son of God. At the center of her shrine she had placed one lone crucifix, a very small and painless one that showed no signs of suffering on the serene face of
Jesucristo
. There were no nails sticking through His hands or blood dripping down His chest, and His crown of
thorns was all but obscured by His healthy head of long, curly hair. The crucifix was surrounded by small prayer cards colorfully adorned with rosy angels and many poses of the
Virgen y Jesu
. Maria preferred the Mexican Church with its emphasis on the love of mother and child to the endless Italian celebration of tortured saints—skinned and beaten and burned—and otherwise martyred Christians in the church she attended. She always prayed to
Dios Todopoderoso
and to the
Virgen
. No one else.

Her fingers moved to the next bead. “Ave Maria …”

Her son, Mike Sanchez, stood in the hot shower for a full five minutes, savoring the only privacy he had. He dreamed in the hot rain, scrubbing at his skin absently with a rough loofah, wondering, as he always did these days, if April Woo was showering in Queens at this very moment. Wondering if indeed she showered. He didn’t know if she showered. Maybe she bathed instead, in green- or blue- or pink-scented bubbles.