The Nest Part 21

And then the bulldozers would arrive.

Walt had kept that piece of information from her until he couldn't any longer: The person who bought their house was a developer who planned to raze the entire thing and build a spanking new monstrosity. She moved through the rooms now with a fresh sorrow; soon they wouldn't even exist.

Today, they were waiting for a salvage firm to show up. The developer was not only going to demolish her house, but he was going to strip it first-the wood, molding, the oak banister, her painstakingly cared for heart pine living room floor-and sell it all to an architectural salvage firm. Walt tried to get Melody to leave, but she wouldn't. She wanted to look the a.s.shole in the eye who was dismantling beauty and reselling it at a profit. She and Nora and Louisa were in the living room packing up the last of the books when the doorbell rang. When Walt opened the door, she thought she was seeing things. It was Jack.

She wanted to pummel him at first. She was outraged. He was the salvager? He was going to rip out the soul of her home and sell it? It took a few minutes for Jack and Walter to calm her down and help her understand: Jack was salvaging what he could for her.

"I don't get it," she said.

"I know people," Jack said, gesturing to the crew with him. "These guys will take what you want and store it."

"For what?"

"To use again, Mom," Nora said. She and Louisa were expectant, excited. They'd known about the plan for weeks as Jack and Walt conspired to figure out the details. "If you build your own house someday. Or to put in one that's already built. You can keep the best things and reuse them."

"Keep them where?"

"I have a storage unit," Jack said. "A place for backup inventory. If it turns out you don't want the stuff, we can always sell it."

"You guys did this for me?" Melody was dazed and grateful.

"We can only keep what you really want," Jack said. He started organizing everyone. They needed to make a list, figure out what was worth storing. Choose the most important things.

"Why don't you guys start upstairs," Melody said. "I'll make us some tea. The kettle isn't packed yet."

Nora and Louisa ran up the stairs with Walt. "How about the stained-gla.s.s window in the hall?" she could hear Louisa say. "Mom loves that window." Jack followed her into the kitchen. He looked around the room.

"I don't think there's much in here to keep," he said. "These cabinets are from the '70s."

"Jack." Melody stood at the sink, filling a kettle with water. "I don't know how to thank you," she said. "This is-"

"It's what I do. It's easy. But we're paying this crew by the hour so we should move quickly."

"It won't take long," she said. She put the kettle on the stove, lit the gas. "What's going on with Walker?"

Jack shrugged. "Things are getting settled. I handed over my share of The Nest and he made up the difference to pay off my debt. We're selling the house. He's being generous. I won't get half, but I'll get enough to keep the store afloat for a bit while I figure out whether to sell it or not. He's letting me keep the apartment."

"But what's going on between you? Other than business."

Jack sat down at the kitchen table. Melody thought he looked thinner than usual but he seemed better than the last time she'd seen him. "How old were you when you got married?" he asked.

"Barely twenty-two. A baby."

"I was twenty-four when I met Walker. Do you know I've never lived alone? I'm forty-four years old and I've never lived alone. The first few weeks Walker was gone, I didn't know what to do with myself. I'd stay in the store until late, pick up some takeout, and just watch television until I fell asleep."

Melody looked around the kitchen. She'd spent every night for weeks dismantling their lives and wrapping it in newspaper for packing. Her nails were ragged and black with newsprint; her arms and shoulders were sore from heaving boxes around. "Sounds kind of great right now."

Jack looked at her and nodded. "It is kind of great. That's my point. I miss Walker. I miss him terribly and I don't know what's going to happen. But for the first time ever, I'm only accountable to myself and I like it. I'm not proud of why I'm at this point, but I'm doing my best to figure it out, and I'm kind of enjoying it, parts of it anyway."

Melody wondered what it would be like to live alone-to come home every night and turn on the lights of a darkened house and have n.o.body waiting to hear about your day or eat dinner with you or argue about which show to watch or help clear the table. She wouldn't tell Jack how sad it sounded to her. Upstairs, she could hear an electric saw.

"I'll be sorry if you and Walker don't get back together," she finally said.

"Oh, I'm sure I'll go running and crying back to his capable meaty arms soon enough. But I doubt he'll have me."

Just then, Walt and the girls came into the kitchen. "Look!" Nora said. She had a piece of woodwork in her hand. Melody recognized it immediately. It was from the upstairs hall closet, the piece of wood where she'd recorded the girls' heights at least once a year: red for Nora; blue for Louisa. "This is the first thing I asked for," Nora said.

"You did?" Melody was pleased that Nora thought to take it because Louisa had always been the more sentimental of the two. "What a perfect idea."

"We started a list," Walt said. "Look it over and see if you agree." Someone above them was hammering; the kitchen light fixture swayed a little.

Melody looked at the list. It was extensive. She couldn't imagine all those things-floorboards, windows, banisters, molding-sitting in Jack's storage s.p.a.ce gathering dust. A house but not quite; bits of a building that didn't add up to a home.

"I don't want to keep anything," Melody said.

The room went quiet. "Funny," Walt said, laughing and then stopping when he saw that Melody was serious.

"I want that." Melody pointed to the piece of wood in Nora's hand, marking the years they'd lived there and how much the girls had grown; it was covered with fingerprints and gray with grime because she'd never cleaned that bit, afraid of accidentally smearing or erasing the carefully drawn lines with dates next to them. "That's the only thing I want."

Jack was watching Melody carefully. "I don't mind storing things for you," he said.

"I know," Melody said. "Let's get anything out of here you think is worth money and sell it."

"Melody," Walt said, frustrated, "I'm confused."

"I'm so grateful to you both for thinking of this. Please don't think I'm not grateful. But- Let's sell it. Use the money to fix up our new place."

"You're sure?" Walt said.

"I'm positive." She turned to Jack. "You can sell all this and make a commission, right?"

"If that's what you want, yes." He was surprised, but pleased. He didn't really have the room to keep everything he'd imagined she'd want to keep.

"And you two are okay with this?" she asked Nora and Louisa. She felt good, lighter, in charge.

They both nodded. "We just wanted to do something to make you feel better," Louisa said. "We wanted to make you happy."

"I have what makes me happy," she said. Melody wasn't even sure she understood the impulse making her want to let go, but she decided not to overthink it for once. Having things from the house wasn't the same as having the house. Given all that had happened over the past year, nothing was the same, and it was time to stop holding on for dear life. And just like that, she felt like the General again. Their family might look like they were in retreat, but she knew better. She was the General and if anything was an advance, this was it.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE.

It was the craziest thing. When Matilda would tell the story later, and she and Vinnie would tell the story a lot in the coming years, the story of The Kiss would be their story and after the tenth, the hundredth, the thousandth time would still be told in almost exactly the same way, always starting with the same sentence, It was the craziest thing. How they went to Brooklyn the day before Mother's Day, and because some adjustments were being done to Vinnie's prosthetic arm, he wasn't wearing it, a rare occurrence. How Matilda had fought him about taking the subway because her stump was particularly painful and she wanted her crutches and was worried about being late, how they'd taken a car service and because there was no traffic had arrived absurdly early. How they'd walked around for a while, admiring the neat blocks of brownstones, the daffodils and pansies in the window boxes, the number of families out on the street pus.h.i.+ng strollers, jogging lightly behind kids on bikes with training wheels, planting the tiny garden beds around the tree trunks. How they finally decided to go over to Stephanie's a little early and see if she was home. How the man on the stoop had stood there and stared at them like he was seeing a ghost. How even with one arm Vinnie had caught Tommy O'Toole as he fainted, preventing him from hitting the sidewalk facedown and G.o.d only knows! Matilda would tell their wide-eyed children then, G.o.d only knows what would have happened if he'd hit his head. If your daddy hadn't caught him? He could have been dead. Worse! His brain could have been damaged and he'd never be the same. But no! Your father reached out-with one arm-and caught him around the waist and set him down like he was no heavier than a big bag of rice. A full grown man!

Matilda would tell how Stephanie had dropped her bags and flowers and started running down the street when she saw Tommy fall, how she'd sat and cradled his head in her lap and held his hand and made him stay still until the paramedics came and told them he was going to be fine. How they'd finally gotten him to his feet and helped him inside and then they knew why Tommy had fainted, why seeing Vinnie and Matilda on the street had made him dizzy and confused.

It was a statue of Mommy and Daddy! As soon as Vinnie Jr. was old enough to know the story, he'd always interrupt and say that part. It was a statue of you guys!

That's right. Matilda would run her hand over his head, his glossy hair dark like his mother's, curly like his father's. It was a famous statue from France. The lady was missing a foot and the man was missing an arm, just like your mommy and daddy. I took one look at that statue and I knew.

Here, if Matilda and Vinnie were in the same room, she would always pause, always give him the look, a look like she'd given him that day br.i.m.m.i.n.g with awe and revelation, a look that fixed his world and made him whole and filled him with such unbearable desire and hope that he was always the first to turn away because the look was almost too much, a virtual sun flooding his world with light.

I saw that statue, Matilda would say, smiling at her boys (first Vinnie Jr., then little Fernando, then Arturo for Vinnie's grandfather), and I knew. That statue? It was my sign.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR.

Nearly ten months after the unexpected nor'easter blew through Manhattan in late October, freezing branches, killing 185 stately trees in Central Park, destroying nearly all the autumnal foliage of the five boroughs, including the colorful mums that lined Park Avenue and the decorative pots of kale the denizens of Brooklyn favored for their front stoops while trying to effect a kind of incongruent country gentility, the birthing centers of New York City were hit with a miniature baby boom. As spring turned to summer and the days grew longer and the humidity crept northward and eastward, slowly making its way up the Jersey sh.o.r.e until it settled over the city like a clammy, uninvited embrace, the citywide birth rate for July nearly doubled, forcing doctors and nurses and midwifes and anesthesiologists to work double s.h.i.+fts, cancel vacations, operate on zero sleep.

"Snowtober babies" they started calling them, the Ethans and Liams and Isabellas and Chloes that appeared in late July in place of the corn, which had failed to thrive because after that early snowstorm the rest of the winter was dry as a bone and the winter's drought extended into spring and summer. But the babies came-their hair as abundant and soft as corn silk, their new bodies unfurling to expose tiny grasping fingers and clenched toes that looked as sweet as newly bared kernels of corn.

Stephanie had been having prelabor contractions for weeks, but she was five days past her due date and still didn't have a baby. She'd stopped going into her office, preferring to spend a few desultory hours at the computer before taking a long afternoon nap. She was bored. She was ready. She was beyond ready. Downstairs, Tommy was hammering. She still couldn't believe the change that had come over him once he got that ridiculous artifact out of his apartment. The day Tommy collapsed on the stoop, EMS declared him fine. Exhausted and dehydrated, but fine. When they finally got him inside and she saw the statue, she'd nearly fainted herself. She knew all about the theft at ground zero because one of her clients had written an entire book about the recovery efforts downtown and was currently covering the rebuilding of the new Freedom Tower.

Logistics of statue moving aside, the transfer was absurdly simple. Stephanie asked her old friend Will to help, knowing she could trust him to protect Tommy. A rented truck, a late-night drop-off at a collection spot that had been set up for anyone wanting to donate 9/11 artifacts. Ever since the statue had been returned to its rightful place, Tommy had taken to his living quarters with a new zeal, renovating the entire garden level himself. It was going to be beautiful.

Five days late. Stephanie had taken her nap, refolded the baby blankets in the spanking new crib in the pretty new nursery. The July heat was blistering and the afternoons were too miserable to do anything but sit in her air-conditioned living room, watch reality TV, and saunter down the block for an overpriced gelato before dinner. Standing in front of a neighboring stoop, listlessly rummaging through a pile of books left out for the taking, she felt a little pop, like a balloon bursting quietly and deep inside. And then the telltale gush between her legs, followed by a long, throbbing ache, longer and heavier than the small precontractions she'd been having. She leaned against a neighbor's stone bal.u.s.trade with one hand and took a deep breath. She felt the sweat trickle down the back of her neck, between her tender b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She closed her eyes and the sun beat down on her face and shoulder and arms, the peach gelato in her other hand dripping down her palm and wrist. She wanted to remember this moment. She looked at the wet spot on the pavement and thought: This is before. The trickle down her inner thighs, the swelling ache at her back, they were ushering her to a completely different place, to after. She was ready.

As she stood, mesmerized by her amniotic fluid meandering down the slope of the bluestone sidewalk (the first and last moment, as it would happen, that she had the luxury of observing the process with any aplomb), the first contraction hit and was so sustained it took her breath away, doubled her over, and she was stunned to hear herself audibly groan.

Okay, she thought, I guess this is going to be f.u.c.king intense.

As the pain receded and she tried to catch her breath and move toward her house, another contraction, right on the heels of the first and this one-she didn't even know how it was possible that she registered it but she did-a little stronger and longer than the first.

As the second contraction subsided, she stood and waited. Nothing. She took the phone out of her pocket and hit the stopwatch function so she could time the intervals between contractions. Everything was happening too fast. Gingerly, she started to walk and when she was directly in front of Tommy's living room windows, the third contraction. She grabbed onto the wrought-iron railing with both hands and the sound that came out of her was so primal and involuntary that she scared herself; she felt as if she were being torn in two.

Tommy loved telling this part of the story, how he heard her before he saw her. "Three kids," he'd say. "I knew that sound. Oh, boy, did I know that sound." He ran out the front door and managed to get Stephanie up the stairs and through the front door (contractions four and five). He tried to settle her on the floor (contraction six).

"Not on the rug!" she'd screamed at him. He'd run upstairs to grab some sheets out of the linen closet and a blanket to wrap the baby because it was evident that there would be no time to get to the hospital. A pair of scissors from the bathroom. Peroxide? Why not. He started toward her bedroom thinking he could use a few pillows when he heard her bellowing.

Downstairs, Stephanie was just trying to control her breathing. s.h.i.+t! Why hadn't she paid more attention to the breathing? Practiced? She couldn't manage her breathing, couldn't get ahead of the pain. She sat on the living room floor, pulled out her phone, and after a brief, unsettling conversation with her doctor during which she had two contractions and the doctor said, "I'm hanging up and sending an ambulance," and before she could even check the time again-and she knew this was very wrong, way too soon-she had to push.

"Tommy?" she wailed up to him. Where was he? "I have to push."

"No, no, no," he yelled down to her. "No pus.h.i.+ng. Absolutely no pus.h.i.+ng."

But telling her not to push was like telling her not to breathe. Her body was pus.h.i.+ng, her body wouldn't not push. She reached up from the floor and pulled a cashmere blanket off the back of the sofa. She could hear sirens, but it was too soon for her ambulance and she knew she wasn't going anywhere. She tried to remember if she'd learned anything about what to do once the baby was out. Would she have to cut the cord? Oh, G.o.d. The afterbirth? What the f.u.c.k was she going to do! The contractions were seamless; a constant tsunami of pressure, there was no break, no moment when she didn't feel like every internal organ was trying to exit her body in one concerted rush. She pulled up her maternity skirt, managed to work her underpants off, and place the cashmere blanket next to her on the floor.

Nothing but the best for baby, she thought, hoping she would remember later that she'd had the presence of mind to make a tiny joke.

She was trying to fight the urge to push, but she knew she'd already lost. Her body was doing what it needed to do and it was completely clear that her job was to surrender. Tommy had come down the stairs and dumped a pile of things near her head and was in the kitchen was.h.i.+ng his hands. At least she thought that's what he was doing. She'd lost count of the contractions. She'd lost track of time. She thought she could feel something emerging, but how could that be true? It couldn't be true. She remembered she was supposed to be trying short little breaths-ha, ha, ha, ha. No use. She reached down between her legs and felt it: her daughter's head, slick and wet and grainy with hair. Her daughter was in a hurry.

"Tommy," she yelled into the kitchen. "She's coming."

Her daughter was here.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE.

There were three things Paul Underwood a.s.siduously avoided: the beach, watercraft, and so-called street food. He genuinely disliked the beach, enjoyed neither the sand nor the beating sun nor the occasional whiff of putrefying sea creatures, nor the practically prehensile barnacles cleaving to a twist of brown otherworldly, goose-fleshed kelp. He made certain exceptions. On a cool, cloudy day, preferably in winter, preferably with an offsh.o.r.e breeze, he could be persuaded to walk along the waterfront for atmosphere if, say, a bowl of chowder or a bucket of steamers were offered as recompense at the end. But otherwise? Thank you very much, but no thank you. He'd never learned to swim, and marine vessels of any kind from kayaks to cruise s.h.i.+ps petrified him. (He'd never even learned to drive a car, so the prospect of a stalled boat was also disturbing.) And the entire concept of street food was befuddling and abhorrent: the greasy cart with its questionable sanitation, the paper plates that lost all tensile strength before you were finished, eating while standing, having things drip down your hand or onto your pants, and how to accommodate a beverage along with flatware and napkins? He didn't even approve of dining al fresco-what was the point when there was a perfectly wonderful, bug-free, climate-controlled room nearby? Street food was dining al fresco minus the petty luxuries of a table and a chair. In other words, minus civilization.

So Paul's discomfort, while standing on a slightly swaying dock, under the relentless afternoon Caribbean sun, waiting to board a ferry while eating a plate of jerk chicken and fried plantains served from a truck in confounding proximity to the diesel fumes from the nearby idling ferry, was immense. Immense and vaguely nauseating.

His consolation? Bea. She was across the dock, sitting on a bench, her face bent to her plate of food and momentarily hidden by the wide-brimmed straw hat he'd bought her the minute they arrived at the ferry terminal from the airport, ten days ago. Although their trip hadn't been successful by Bea's measure (she hadn't found Leo), the trip for Paul had gone exceedingly well. Bea's spirits had oddly-or maybe predictably-risen a bit each day. Partly it was their surroundings, being away from New York, being away from the Plumbs. But partly it was because Bea seemed to let go a little bit more each day of the need to find Leo. It wasn't anything she said-she wouldn't talk about not finding Leo-but her dissipating urgency was obvious to Paul. Her brow seemed to smooth a little each day. Her shoulders unwound. She'd stopped chewing the side of her mouth.

Everyone else seemed convinced that Bea was on a fool's errand. Well, if that made him the fool's accomplice, so be it. He'd eagerly volunteered to accompany Bea when she confided how anxious she was about going alone, and not just for the opportunity of her company or to offer support for her fraught mission, but to be there to help her confront Leo if he actually appeared. Paul would be quite happy to confront Leo.

He enjoyed parts of their trip, especially the tiny side-by-side but separate wooden cottages they rented near the water, both with green tile roofs and cherry-colored bougainvillea surrounding the front doors. He appreciated the expansive view of the s.h.i.+mmering blue water that he could admire safely from his shaded deck. And the trip had begun with promise. An airport worker recognized Leo's photo as someone who'd landed on a small charter from Miami some weeks ago and who hadn't left, at least not by plane.

But after that initial hopeful sign, nothing. n.o.body recognized his photo or-as Paul strongly suspected was the case-they did and didn't say so. As Bea became increasingly frustrated, he started going out on his own some afternoons, looking in the more remote bars on the island, the places not frequented by tourists and, Paul believed, not appropriate for Bea. But those efforts ran dry, too. Two nights ago he'd coaxed her out for dinner at a small inn on the island. He took her hand in his and made his case for returning to New York. That's as far as his physical intrusion went. She was preoccupied with Leo, occasionally despondent, and he didn't want her to turn to him out of sadness or desperation. He'd waited this long, he could wait until they got back to New York. Or he could wait for her to make the first move. They'd been so simpatico lately that he thought he wasn't crazy in believing she might just make the first move.

And she'd been writing nearly every day. Clickety-clack, clickety-clack. He could hear her from his deck when the door to her room was open, typing on the keyboard. She demurred when he asked what she was working on, but he could tell she was pleased. And he was patient. If Paul Underwood was anything, he was extremely patient.

Then this morning, she'd excitedly knocked on his door before breakfast. She was talking so fast, he didn't understand her at first. She'd sent fifty pages of something new to Stephanie, she told him.

"More Archie-"

"No, no," she said, shaking her head vigorously. "No Archie. No more freaking Archie. Something else. I don't even know what it is yet, but listen." Bea read from Stephanie's e-mail, lavish with praise for the pages and ending with "Keep going. I love this. I can sell it." And just like that, Bea was ready to go home.

They'd slipped some cash to a local police officer, asking him to "keep his eyes open" for Leo. They packed their things and booked their flights. They were waiting for the ferry to take them to the larger island's airport. Paul walked over to Bea as she stood and tossed her empty plate of mediocre food in a nearby trash can. He had a headache.

"I'm going to go across the street to look for aspirin," he said. "I'll be right back." He walked over to the small gas station and accompanying rickety wooden building that sold mechanical parts and a smattering of groceries and other sundries. Flanking the doors were two small stands with boxes of mangoes in various states of ripening, swarms of fruit flies hovering over each crate. Inside, Paul went to grab the guava soda Bea liked. He could hear a lively crowd in a side room, a bunch of men laughing. He smelled weed.

Paul heard Leo before he saw him, recognized the barking laugh that was distinctly Leo's. He told himself he was just imagining things, that they'd spent so many hours of so many days looking for Leo that he was const.i.tuting him out of thin air in the very last minutes before boarding the ferry. But then he heard the laugh again, closer, and the man with the laugh was heading to a rear restroom. Paul ducked behind a cardboard display for Kodak film that had to be at least twenty years old, two life-size all-American teens holding tennis rackets and laughing; the sun had faded all the pigment on the display to various shades of blue so the models looked ghostly in spite of their jauntily c.o.c.ked elbows and toothy smiles. From his spot behind the display, he saw the back of the laugher's head, took in his height, his hair, the particular profile that was, absolutely and beyond any doubt, Leo Plumb.

He'd found Leo.

LATER PAUL WOULD TELL HIMSELF he hesitated that afternoon in the bodega because he'd had too much sun. Or that it was the jerk chicken that was already roiling his stomach with ill portent given that they were about to get on a ferry and then a small plane to Miami and then a bigger plane to New York. Or shock, sheer shock. He'd never really expected to find Leo. He hurriedly paid for the soda and a tiny bottle of baby aspirin, which was all they had. As he made his way across the street, he thought about what to tell Bea. Back at the ferry terminal, he found a bit of shade at the side of the building and stopped to think for a minute. Seeing Leo again made Paul realize how much he loathed him. Nathan had told Paul about Leo's undermining tactics, how he'd questioned Paul's leaders.h.i.+p and competence. Paul had been furious but he also recognized that Leo's misstep had angered Nathan enough to tip the scale in Paul's favor. The first influx of Nathan's funding had already arrived and Paul was working night and day to prove to Nathan that he'd made the right choice.