Leaving Lucy Pear(80)
Why not? Why can’t you?
“I can’t get out of the car,” she said. “I won’t, I can’t. I can’t look like a dead lady when I meet her. She’ll be frightened! She’ll hate me. How could I forget? I had days to prepare. . . .” And so on, until the driver pulled the car to a stop and Lillian, seeing her granddaughter’s face, so like her daughter’s face had been at one time, childish and bare, inquisitive and brave, waiting for her life to begin, was quieted by her own tears. The doll was wrong, she understood, because it symbolized a baby. When Albert opened the door for her, she left the thing in the car.
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Lucy had not seen a grown woman cry openly, but that was what her grandmother did now. At last week’s piano lesson, Mrs. Cohn had taken her aside to say, “My mother means well, but she can be a little standoffish,” so Lucy, once she figured what standoffish meant, had prepared herself for that. But not for this: the woman’s shoulders jumping under her coat, tears dripping from her chin. Most disconcerting, she didn’t bother to cover her face with a handkerchief. (Lillian had left that, too, in the other purse, with the lipstick.) She stared at Lucy as if hungry for her. Lucy might have yelped had soft hands not enveloped hers then—Mr. Haven’s, cupping and smoothing Lucy’s hands as if they were rare jewels. She had never known a man to have hands like her grandfather’s. He murmured something about pleasure, then disappeared, leading Mrs. Haven away from the group, then Mr. Cohn was introducing himself with a warm, easy smile. He did not refer to their first meeting on Leverett Street—instead he began to ask Lucy entirely normal questions about school, which had started up again. And what grade was she in, and who was her teacher, and what was her favorite subject? Mrs. Cohn had said Mr. Cohn was not her father but Lucy couldn’t help searching his face for some evidence to the contrary. His features were sharp, his ink-black hair combed into neat waves, his eyelashes dark as a woman’s, his cheekbones tall. Lucy wondered if her own cheekbones could be described as tall, if maybe this was why she had succeeded as a boy in the quarries for as long as she had.
“I’m very good in math,” she said hopefully, but Emma’s clear disapproval—at Lucy’s boast, at her secret, deep hope, which shamefully Emma could see—made Lucy close her mouth, and Mrs. Cohn, who had been standing next to Lucy all this time without saying a word, appeared to be in some kind of shock, and the four of them stood around in a stunned sort of shyness for a moment until Emma asked Mrs. Cohn how Mr. Hirsch was doing and Mrs. Cohn answered that he was well. Actually—emerging from her daze—he was very well. He was walking again, not far but walking. He was up on the terrace, eager to meet Lucy. And to see Emma, she added. She took Mr. Cohn’s hand, as if for balance. At last Mr. Haven led Mrs. Haven back into the circle. Her eyes smudged with makeup, her hands trembling, she held out a blue velvet box to Lucy.
Lucy looked to Emma, who nodded.
Inside the box were three golden, sparkling rings.
“They’re lovely,” Lucy said. And they were. Janie or Anne or Maggie would gasp. They would flap their hands on their wrists, commanding everyone to ooh and aah. But Lucy’s thought was that the rings must be worth something—maybe a lot. “Thank you,” she said.
Mrs. Haven drew a ragged breath. “You . . .” She paused. Lucy waited. But her grandmother said nothing more. She handed Lucy another box, wrapped in a satiny, dark blue bow, then closed her mouth, swallowed audibly—a wet click—and, almost as if unbeknownst to her, began to smile. It was a tight smile at first, but soon her lips parted to reveal her teeth, and then her tongue, and then her obvious delight.
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Lucy would wait to open the second gift. She was being ferried up to the terrace, where Mr. Hirsch sat, a lumpish man with a blanket on his lap. She felt tired suddenly, walking toward him. So many people to meet, and for what? She had wanted to come, but wasn’t sure, now that she was here, what was happening. Did they expect she would visit regularly? Be part of the family? She couldn’t tell what that would mean, or even what sort of family this was. There were no other children, as far as she could tell. Cousins had been mentioned, but weren’t to be seen. The brothers’ surnames didn’t match, nor did their appearance: Mr. Haven had a thatch of coal-colored hair, Mr. Hirsch one white wisp winging at his ear. They were rich. Richer than anyone Lucy had ever met. And they were Jews. Lucy had never met a Jew, though apparently, at least somewhat, she was one.
Ira stared at her with such wonder that she flinched at first. He reached for her and she bent, relieved when his kiss was dry, quick, and stubbly. “Ahhhh,” he said, holding her away again. “Henry’s granddaughter.”
What could Lucy say to that? The entire situation was strange enough—why did it need saying, and with such drama? She felt at once overimportant and tiny, as if the adults were playing a game whose rules she didn’t know, and she was their little checker.
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Sometimes a change changes everything that came before it, too. For Ira, this was like that: it was as if a new color had been thrown across the past ten years, as if the energy he felt now, the optimism, was retroactively applied, so that when he looked back, his mood was better than it had in fact been. He felt expansive. The baby had not been drowned. Bea had not drowned it. She had left it in the care of the pear thieves! Henry was here, and Lillian, who for the first time since Ira had known her had nothing to say. And Emma, whom Ira had missed. She was drained of color, but of course.