The Cloisters(83)

And even though a new curator had not yet started, they were, Michelle reported, in the final selection stages. In the same email that contained the offer, she had asked me if I wouldn’t mind cleaning out Patrick’s office. With little else left to do in the library, and a heavy heat blanketing the gardens, I carried a trash bag past his doors, the metal deers locked in combat, and slowly got to work.

His office had always been a calming place, and because the windows didn’t have crank handles, I propped them open with books to let the fresh air circulate. Even if it was hot, it was better than the clammy, recirculated air the central system labored to produce. The majority of Patrick’s books had been packed up and donated to the Yale Library weeks ago, but there were still a handful of papers, personal things, and odds and ends left in the desk drawers. Throwing away these little things—things that make up a life, make up a career—was somehow the worst of it all. And I imagined, morbidly, what would be found in my own desk someday: birthday cards from my parents, abandoned scraps of note paper, empty pens. I salvaged a few things for the library, and one thing for myself, a worn copy of The Name of the Rose, but placed the remaining items in the trash.

I was getting ready to go through the bank of filing cabinets behind Patrick’s desk when Moira walked in.

“Do you know who’s going to be hired?” She leaned against the closed door behind her, her voice barely above a whisper.

“I don’t,” I said, throwing the last few lingering items into the bag.

“Do you have any guesses?”

Those I had, but I did not have the patience to go through them with Moira. “Not really,” I said.

Moira walked over to Patrick’s desk and pulled out a drawer. “Find anything?”

“Nothing,” I said.

Moira was the kind of woman who not only slowed down to take in a tragedy but also spent the rest of the week researching it, learning about the victims, and internalizing their grief as her own.

“Can you believe they granted Leo bail? He’s out, you know. He could show up here anytime.”

“I don’t think he’s allowed.”

“Does that matter? Who’s going to stop him? Can you imagine, him just barging in here?”

The way she said it, wistfully, as if she had played out the scenario repeatedly on her commute, made me realize I wasn’t sure that Moira had really grasped the totality of the situation. She greatly enjoyed playing her role in the tragedy, bit part though it was. Leo, I knew, would never be a disgruntled worker who returned to his place of business. He’d move on, bartending for cash somewhere in the Bronx, someplace like Crystal’s Moonlight Lounge where they didn’t file paperwork.

“I don’t think Leo will come back.”

“That’s right. You two had something, didn’t you? I remember someone mentioning it, one of the guards maybe,” Moira said, watching me from the corner of her eye.

I shrugged, hoping that if I said nothing, Moira would leave, but she looked comfortable, perched on the edge of the desk, her long leg kicking a silent rhythm.

“You know,” she said, “you’re better off.”

“Oh?”

“Better off without Leo. I assume you two broke up, right?”

I wasn’t sure we had ever been together formally enough to break up, but I nodded, stacking a few remaining books. Moira said nothing for a minute as she studied the curve of the window, until finally she said absently, “I’ll never know what you girls saw in him.”

It was her use of the plural: girls.

“What do you mean?” I asked, watching her carefully.

“Just that you and Rachel are both so nice. You’re good girls. You have futures. What you were both doing with Leo, I’ll never know.”

Of course. I had always known it, on some level. It had been there, at the edges of the cards. It had been there in the way Rachel looked at us the day she caught us in the garden shed: exacting, calculating. I had seen it, but I had chosen to ignore it. I had made it unseen.

“What did Patrick think of them together?” I asked, unconcerned.

“Oh,” she said, “I don’t think he noticed. At least, not right away. I don’t even know if they were together yet. It was when she first arrived. For a while, it seemed like she and Leo might really be something. But then it fell apart like all things around Leo tend to do.”

“Was it ever awkward?” Although that wasn’t the question I wanted answered. I wanted to know things like: how long had it gone on for, was it serious, had Leo been hurt, who broke it off, how much did Patrick know.

“Between them?”

I nodded. “Or with Patrick.”

“There was a period of time when Leo and Patrick fought a lot. Little petty arguments. Things we overheard here and there. But mostly, Patrick was a gentleman about it. I can’t say the same for Leo.”

“When did it end?”

Moira, I thought, was enjoying this. At her core, she was a gossip, the conduit through which information moved around The Cloisters. Usually considered nonessential staff, in a moment like this, she couldn’t help but love that I lingered on every word.

“I don’t know,” she said, picking an imaginary piece of fuzz off her skirt. “Before you came. But I don’t know how long before. Rachel liked to see Patrick jealous. I think it was more that than any real interest in Leo, to be honest.”