Mister?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s hard to hear you. Is it your cell?”
“The place is packed. Just a second. I’m walking toward the office.” Mister looked at Sara and pointed at the cash register. He spun his finger in the air, his signal for “Take over.” He walked past the morning coffee crowd and made his way down the hall, cell phone in hand. “Keep talking, I’m heading toward my office.”
“I just wanted to go over a few things with you.”
He took the keys out of his pocket and opened the door to his office as he talked. “Few things?” He pushed the door open. “Good things, Linda?” He switched on the light and shut the door.
“Hard things—but good. They’re good things, Mister.”
He sat down at his mostly clean desk. Bad things, good things, bad things, good things. But good things. Hard things, good things, bad things. “Okay, I can talk in peace, now. Busy day.” He tried to keep calm. There was news. About the boy. Good things, good things—
“Mister? Mister? Are you there?”
“Oh, sorry. I must’ve zoned out for a second. Something gone wrong?”
“No. Nothing’s gone wrong. I was talking to the Rubios, and they thought maybe you could bring Vicente home with you for a visit.”
“A visit?”
“You know, just a small visit, so he can get to know you and Liz. Is she back yet?”
“No. Day after tomorrow.”
“We’ll wait till she gets back.”
“Good.” He stared at the blank wall in front of him. Why was it blank? “I’m a little scared here, Linda.”
“That’s normal.”
“Liz isn’t scared.”
“Women are stronger.”
He liked the sound of her laughter over the phone. “Like I needed you to tell me that.”
“He might be scared, too,” she said.
“But he might not be.”
“No, he might not be, Mister.”
“Still, it’s a good idea that he come over and check out his new home.”
“The Rubios think so?”
“Yes, and they’re right. As soon as Liz gets back, we’ll arrange it.”
He felt his heart beating. Just like when he came back from a four-mile run. Like that. But there was something in her voice. Something else. Sure there was.
“Mister?”
“I’m here.”
“You okay?”
“I’m fine. But you wanted to talk to me about something else.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
Linda was choosing her words, he could tell. She was careful around judges and clients. Probably careful with her husband, too. “She wants to meet you.”
For an instant, Mister felt off balance. And then he suddenly understood who she was.
“Mister?”
“What about Liz?”
“She doesn’t want to meet Liz.”
“Why not?”
“She said she wanted to meet the father. That’s all she said.”
Father, he thought. “When?”
“You don’t sound too sure. You don’t have to meet her, you know. She’s relinquished her parental rights.”
“She did it. She really did it?”
“Yeah. This morning. The ink’s not even dry yet.”
God, his heart could be loud sometimes, loud as if it had its own will, its own logic, its own voice. “Really?” He could feel his voice cracking.
“Yes, really. He’s not hers anymore.”
“It’s not that simple, is it, Linda?”
“No, it isn’t. But legally—” She stopped as if she was composing her next line in her head. Never rash. Too much rashness in the world. He liked her. “He’s free to be adopted. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Free to be adopted,” he repeated. A sad kind of freedom. Or maybe not sad at all. Or maybe not a freedom. Or—
“Listen, Mister?”
“What?”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Look, you’re not required to meet her. A lot of people would counsel against it.”
“What would you counsel, Linda?”
“There isn’t a right answer here.”
“There probably is a right answer. We just don’t know what it is.”
“I like you, Mister.”
“I like you, too, Linda.” For an instant he wished he smoked. As if a cigarette was capable of aiding the situation. In old movies, cigarettes always helped. Helped to keep men from screaming—kept them from becoming violent, kept them silent and serene and self-composed.
“Mister, you’ve left me again.”
“Sorry. When would she like to meet?”
“Soon as possible. I think she just wants to put all this behind her. And I think, if you decided to meet her, it would help. Her, I mean. But let me just say this, okay, let me—look, frankly I’m more worried about you and Vicente. Her life—look, I don’t mean to be crass, but it’s not your job to worry about her. Are you getting this? Mister? Are you there?”
“I’m here. I’m just stewing. I can be a pretty good stewer.” He could be. He got that from Grace.
“I know.”
He felt his heart still racing. He pictured him and Liz walking down the street. He pictured Vicente walking next to them, reaching out. His heart was quieting. He was holding Vicente’s hand. It was morning. They were in a park, and he was studying the look on Liz’s face as she kissed their son. In the light.
Yes, that’s what he’d said. Yes. He’d see her. So he’d know what she was like, what she talked like, what she looked like, so he could look into her eyes and maybe see her son, the one she was giving away. Maybe she would be holding something in her voice, a clue that would tell him why she was letting go of this boy, this son of hers, this beautiful boy. She was letting him go. It was like letting go of the sky. But it was more complicated than that. Somewhere along the line something had gotten broken, something in the way the world handled her had damaged her heart or her mind or her body. That’s the way it happened—the breaking world was careless and cruel, and it took bodies and molded them in its own image, bodies and hearts and minds all shattered and the million shards were scattered everywhere on the globe, and this woman and her son, hell, they were just the smallest piece of the picture. And it couldn’t be fixed. That’s why she was giving him away. Some people, they were broken, broken all to hell—and they still kept their kids, kept them and fed them and twisted them and bent them and made them into grotesques, little images of themselves. She was putting a stop to it. Wasn’t that the right thing to do? Wasn’t it? It stops here. The whole damn thing stops here. There was something good in her. That’s why she was letting go of the sky.