The Leavers(30)

The Wilkinsons were on their first family road trip to New York City, to visit the Hennings family, who had a daughter’s Deming’s age. Kay said she’d be his friend. “This will be a good trip for your father,” Kay had told him, “he needs cheering up.” Valerie McClellan had been asked to take over as the chair of Carlough’s Department of Economics in the fall, after Will Panov retired. The day Peter found out, Deming had seen him wheeling the plastic garbage bin up from the curb, his face red. “God damn it!” he yelled when the bin’s wheels caught on a branch in the driveway.

Deming tried to remember that first drive upstate with Kay and Peter, eleven months ago, when they were still strangers. First he had looked out the window, trying to memorize the roads so he could make his way back. Then he fell asleep. Now they were no longer strangers, they were Kay and Peter, Mom and Dad, and this was the last day he would see them. He had gotten used to having adults speak to him loudly and slowly, as if he was deaf, and it was less terrifying being the only one; the terror had become normal. He no longer fantasized that his mother would come for him, but as they drove deeper into the city he stared at the looming high-rises with a catch in his throat. Slick pavement, ferocious honking, spewing fire hydrants, fetid mystery puddles, wet steam expelled through sidewalk gratings as if the Earth was panting, firm thwacks of rubber against concrete on handball courts. That precarious dip when you walked over a metal door atop a restaurant basement.

It was July. Peter and Kay had filed an adoption petition, and when the judge approved it, they would all go to court to sign the papers. Last month, they had bought Deming a yellow dirt bike and matching helmet, and he and Roland had been biking around town, exploring little streets on the outskirts of Ridgeborough, still gravel, still unpaved, with names like Bajor Lane and Meeker Road, streets he would never see again. Deming had perfected a wheelie on his bicycle. He and Roland had created a stage out of a tree stump and taken turns jumping off of it into a crowd of invisible fans.

He turned away from the window but when they drove past signs for the Cross Bronx Expressway, turned back. After Kay told him they were going to visit the Hennings, he had called his mother’s cell phone for the first time in over a month and got the same message. The call could not be completed. But he’d packed extra clothes.

The potato chip truck nudged up. “Finally,” Peter said. Deming watched the brown buildings fade behind them, breathed a small circle onto the glass and wiped the moisture away with his finger.

In front of a gray apartment building on East Twenty-First Street, the sounds and colors came back. The squawk of a lowering bus. The soundtracks of passing cars. House music, an old track with twisting keyboards and words about getting your back up off the wall, a song sung in Spanish with shiny horns and the fattest tuba bass. Bright pastel smudges rapidly filled the sky. It was hotter here than in Ridgeborough, and Deming turned in a slow, clockwise circle, stricken by the tinkling notes of a nearby ice cream truck, hesitant and plaintive, reminding him of the rainbow sherbet push-pops he would eat with Michael, the sweet liquid that made their tongues blue. He could hear Michael’s quaking laughter, Mama and Vivian snap-talking in Fuzhounese.

A woman on her cell phone bumped him as she walked by, and Deming rubbed his shoulder. “Excuse me,” a man said, pushing past. Kay shrank back.

A white man with a booming voice and a receding hairline bounded out the front door of the building. He and Peter slapped each other on the backs as if they were trying to dislodge food. Deming had never seen Peter with a friend before, and he liked it.

“This must be Daniel.” The man kissed Kay on the cheek and extended a hand for Deming. “Jim Hennings.”

“Mr. Hennings and I were at school together,” Peter said. “Freshman roommates.”

“Your father and I always made sure we studied all the time,” Jim said, and winked.

The doorman held open the lobby’s glass doors. Deming followed Kay into an elevator as Peter and Jim went to park the car.

“Twentieth floor,” the doorman said.

Deming pressed the button. The elevator made its journey up and finally opened into a large, sunlit room that smelled of brewing coffee. Empty wine bottles crowded a table and strung between two walls was a streamer of glittery letters: HAPPY GOTCHA DAY!

He scanned the room. The elevator was the only door he could see, and it dinged when it opened. He would have to wait until everyone was asleep.

A girl Deming’s age skipped into the room, hair hanging past her armpits, eyes peeking out from behind a blunt fringe of bangs. “Mom’ll be out in a sec.”

“Angel, you’ve grown so much.” Kay bent down and hugged her.

To Deming the girl said, “I’m Angel Hennings.” She was the first Chinese person he had seen in nearly a year.

“Tell Angel your name,” Kay said.

“Daniel,” said Deming.

A woman padded out in a T-shirt and jeans. “Ka-ay.” Her dark wavy hair was laced with wiry white, and her voice was round and velvety. She reminded Deming of a cartoon cow in a milk commercial.

Kay hugged her. “Elaine, it’s so good to see you. And this is Daniel.”

Elaine enveloped Deming in a hug. Her hair smelled like apple shampoo. “Daniel, call me Elaine. What grade are you in? Sixth, like Angel, right?”

“Seventh,” Deming said.