Visible City (10 page)

A half-eaten cupcake sat on Leon’s plate. At every table in the café, adults were eating cupcakes. Only one table was without food, and there, with a woman, was her neighbor Dog Man, though because he was neither in the lobby of their building nor with the dog, it took her a moment to recognize him.

“You’re staring,” Leon said.

“He lives in my building,” she said.

“You know who she is, don’t you?” Leon said. “She’s the owner of the café.”

“He likes to complain,” Nina said. “He hangs angry signs all over our lobby.”

“Whatever it is, they’re taking it very seriously. Neither of them looks happy,” he said.

“Believe me, he’s thrilled to have a complaint,” she said.

“You should sit closer,” Leon teased, and though Nina laughed, she felt a flicker of guilt. It was one thing to spy on strangers, but he had started to feel like a friend. When she talked to Leon, she couldn’t erase the picture of him sitting across from his wife, nor could she forget the image of his daughter and her boyfriend entwined on the couch.

“Are you okay?” Leon asked.

“Do I look something other than tired?”

He cocked his head, studying her face. “I’d say wistful,” he decided. “Come on, what do you mommies say? ‘Use your words.’”

She could say something about Jeremy or the kids—pull something from the growing stockpile of discontent or from one of the neighboring piles of joy. She could confess that she was tired, not because the kids were still up several times each night, but because it didn’t matter where Jeremy’s body was when his mind was increasingly at work. What she felt most fully of him was his absence. No matter what beliefs she and Jeremy had long ago set out with, she was in this alone.

“I know your wife,” Nina said, trying for casual, but something more complicated broke into her voice.

“Really. How?”

“I went to Columbia. I took her class.”

“How did you know she’s my wife?” he said.

“I saw you here a few weeks ago. I was walking past.”

“Was she a good teacher?”

“I loved her,” Nina confessed.

“I don’t suppose she seemed like the type of person to be screaming out the window. I probably shouldn’t have told you that,” he admitted.

“Don’t worry, I don’t think she has any idea who I am. I see her around the neighborhood, but she never remembers me.”

“She’s terrible with faces. And she’s very preoccupied these days. She’s not teaching anymore and is spending a lot of her time at the library because she can’t concentrate at home. Emma’s cast is coming off next week, but Claudia is convinced that it’s more than just the ankle, and she’s probably right. She usually is when it comes to Emma.”

“What do you think it is?” she asked.

He lowered his voice. “I don’t know. I try, but after all my years as a parent, the truth is, I really have no idea,” he said, and this time, she heard not just friendly banter between parents but the darker undertones as well. She stopped seeing him through the frame of a window or the crosshairs of her mind’s imaginary lens and instead saw him as he sat before her. On his face was a sadness and vulnerability she hadn’t seen before. At the corners of his eyes, wrinkles of worry and fatigue that made him look older. At their epicenter, pools of discontent.

“I want to go home,” Max said.

From his inflection Nina could gauge how much time remained before a meltdown. She promised they would go in one minute. She would buy cupcakes on the way out. She rummaged through the diaper bag. Every pretzel bought ten seconds. A package of goldfish crackers, five gorgeous minutes.

“Are you interested in stained glass? Is that why you took Claudia’s class?” Leon asked.

“It was a nineteenth-century survey class. I majored in art history and at the time I was considering going to graduate school. I wanted to be like her. She used to have so much passion in her voice when she lectured. I even went to talk to her once, hoping she would encourage me,” she said.

“And did she?” Leon asked.

“I asked a lot of questions but was too shy to say more. She probably saw countless students like me who weren’t sure what to do with their lives. Even if she had encouraged me, I probably wouldn’t have pursued it. I decided to go to law school because I was sure that I’d graduate and always know exactly what I was doing. But on maternity leave, I started to question why I was a lawyer in the first place. When I gave notice, all I had to do was explain my decision in terms of the kids. I didn’t have to admit how little I liked my job. I’m supposed to claim that I’m fulfilled by being home, but the truth is, I’d be working if I liked what I was doing.”

“Are you still interested in art?” Leon asked.

“It’s been so long since I thought about it. I don’t know what I’m interested in anymore,” Nina said.

Inside his pocket, his cell phone rang, but he made no move to answer it. Nina made halfhearted motions to pack up, but she lingered. The tingling in her body took her by surprise—since Lily was born, her body belonged primarily to the kids. Lily lunged at the sight of her nipples; Max liked to fall asleep lying atop her. Her most titillating fantasy was of a bed in which she slept undisturbed.

“If you ever want to rekindle your interest, Claudia has a great library. I’m sure she’d be happy to have you come over and borrow a book,” Leon said, and scribbled his cell phone number on a napkin.

She looked around, worried that her feelings had been evident. She should ask herself what she was doing. She should retreat to a safer place instead of standing on the edge of something she wasn’t willing to name. And yet, a voice inside her, one she hardly knew existed, pushed aside her impulse for caution.

“When?” she asked.

In the reading room of the New York Public Library, Claudia waited for Maurice. Several times her eyes played tricks on her—every man who entered the room was, for a moment, the one she was waiting for.

In vain, Claudia tried to reassemble an image of Maurice. She remembered the dark hair and glasses, but his facial features had blurred. When she met him, she’d thought of him as close in age to Emma. But now he was nearer to her age, more distinguished, more sure of himself. When she first felt Maurice’s eyes on her, she had worried that she was supposed to know him, but if he’d been her student, she’d never remember his name. She could recall every detail of a work of art, but names and faces slipped irretrievably from her mind. She had been baffled by his apparent interest, then flattered. Though her impulse was to pretend to be unaware that he was watching her, she had forced herself to meet his eye.

Waiting for him to say something, she had followed his gaze to the pages on her lap and understood. It was not her but John La Farge he was curious about. But rather than being disappointed, Claudia had been even more intrigued. The possibility of a shared interest was as tantalizing as if it were her face that had captivated him. To discover in someone a mutual love for a subject was as alluring as any other kind of love.

If she were to see him again, she would get his number, ask if he wanted to meet for a cup of coffee, to discuss the La Farges, his and hers. She and Maurice would pore over pictures and descriptions. She would describe how the abundance of color and the play of light in these windows had long ago captivated her, and confess her desire to establish the existence of one more La Farge window. Though it was unlikely she’d be able to locate the actual window, it was enough to prove that after all the windows La Farge had completed, he had the vision and drive to create one last great work.

Claudia had shown Leon her article when it was accepted for publication, but as far as she knew, it lay buried in his piles of unread newspapers and journals, an oversight she tried not to take personally. There was no point raising the issue, no point protesting the givens of their life. It was easier to talk about Emma, who had become agile on her crutches and was out most nights with friends.

“The cast is coming off next week,” she’d reminded Leon as she sat in her customary place next to him on the couch.

“I know. I was thinking about going with her to the doctor,” Leon had said. “I thought it would be nice for her to have company.”

“We could all go. We can make it a celebration,” Claudia had suggested, but then reconsidered. “Actually, you should take her by yourself. You should have some time alone with her.”

When he readily agreed, she felt envious, though for years she’d wanted Leon to be more present for Emma. “You’re her father. Can you at least try?” she had asked him countless times, to no avail. She and Emma had grown accustomed to his absence—even when he was right beside them, he had an air of impatience and distraction. When she first met Leon, they’d both understood the desire to surround themselves with their work. The sight of him immersed in reading, his mouth slightly open as he bent over a book, enabled her to sink more fully inside her own work; in some alternate sphere, their respective subjects interacted with one another, his people living inside her buildings, enchanted by her windows.

But as his career flourished and hers floundered, as she was drawn deeper into the vortex of family life and he farther from it, she alone had discovered the impossibility of living for work alone. He still spent his nights at his desk, hardly noticing that she was no longer at hers. Any notion of being engaged in a silent conversation had faded. No longer expecting more from Leon, she had stopped asking about his work, having realized that he had little need to talk. She had stopped trying to discuss her own work as well. It was better to say nothing than to have your excitement met with indifference; better not to talk than to find you were talking to yourself.

In the library the next day, she checked Columbia’s departmental website. She Googled Maurice’s name and subject matter, hoping that even with such scant information she might find mention of a talk he’d given or a paper he’d published. She searched for his dissertation topic, using every combination she could think of, but she found no trace of him. Claudia e-mailed the former colleague with whom Maurice was studying, under the guise of telling him about her article. In her last sentence, in as casual a tone as she could manage, she wrote that she’d happened to meet a promising student of his. She was embarrassed at her persistence, sure that her intentions, murky as they were even to her, were apparent.

A day later, her colleague sent back congratulations but said there must have been some mistake. He had no student named Maurice, not now or anytime that he could remember.

This man, this Maurice, had such a presence in her mind, and yet, as far as she could tell, he didn’t actually exist.

In his car with Emma, Leon didn’t know what to say. On the ride to the doctor, Emma had chattered to him with nervous energy, but now, on the way home, apparently it was his turn. The silence felt like proof of his failure. If Claudia were riding in the back seat, she would certainly see it that way. She liked to accuse him of not sufficiently trying—with Emma, but most of all with her. For most of his married life, he had been assaulted with the word
try,
a forked weapon always sharpened and ready.

As he stole helpless glances at her, Emma slumped in her seat and studied passing cabs. She rolled down the window and changed the radio station, which apparently she still considered her prerogative to do.

“So,” he said, “do you think you’re ready for four flights of stairs?”

“It’s only been six weeks. Are you trying to get rid of me already?” she asked.

“This was a short-term lease, remember. Valid only as long as your ankle was broken. When is Steven coming back?”

“In a few more weeks, but even then, I’m not sure I’m going to be ready to go home,” she admitted.

“I’m assuming this isn’t because of your ankle,” he said.

“Dad. Shouldn’t that be obvious to you by now?”

He startled, surprised at her directness. He had always assumed that Claudia and Emma were so close that there was little need for him. But how wrong he was to think he’d get away so easily. In family life, there were surely no bystanders.