July 2019
As the summer wore on, Helen kept calling Ella—to explain, to beg forgiveness—but Ella still wasn’t picking up. Helen wrote her letters often. She sent another handmade dress in blue linen because it was getting hot. The message she sewed into the hem read, I love you. There was nothing else Helen could do but keep loving her and keep hoping.
Her heart, though, clamped shut against Jude. Never had she expected him to contact her, though for a while she had hoped he would, remembering how he had sparked a promise of family in her life. Well, that promise had been broken.
She knew it wasn’t good for her to just sit in her apartment and ruminate, plus the sweltering heat of July wasn’t really cooled by the small fan she had, so she got up, and as usual she went to walk along her old block in Williamsburg.
It always felt as if time had fractured here, with some pieces in the past and some in the present. Everything was the same and yet different, which somehow made it all the sadder. People were always coming and going on this block, kids walking to school or skipping home, girls running errands for their mothers. When she passed her old house, she stopped, as if her stare would draw someone from her family to her. She saw the curtain flutter, a small, pale face peeking out—her sister Esti maybe, or her mother, or maybe a grandchild after all this time—but when she waved, the face vanished, the curtain pulled firmly shut. She used to know everyone on this block, the people who attended the same synagogue as her family, who had hosted one another for Shabbos dinners. She imagined she felt their stares, too. She swore she could hear the gossip.
She was still an outsider.
What was she even doing, living in Williamsburg, haunting the streets of her old neighborhood? She had moved to Bay Ridge for Ella, to make things safe. Then after Ella had left, she had felt that she should move, too, because there were too many reminders of Ella in her Bay Ridge apartment. Maybe it was time for her to move again, for herself. Just for herself. She had enough references, enough people who came all the way from Manhattan to have her tailor their clothes, and though she didn’t quite understand why they did, she was grateful. Surely, she could find work on the island itself.
She went back to the real estate agent she had used before, who looked at her in surprise. “I want to know if there are any studios I can afford in Manhattan,” she said.
The real estate agent smiled and pulled out a chair for her. “Manhattan!” She turned on her computer. “And so soon! You know it’s going to be pricier, right? Unless you’d consider farther north. And you’re not going to have the space you’ve had here. You okay with that?”
“Manhattan,” Helen confirmed.
It would be so different, no matter where it was, she was convinced. Plus, Mouse lived there and maybe that meant something. Maybe there was an invisible hand pushing her forward, nudging her to try to make things right there, too.
The agent snapped her fingers. “Here we go. Washington Heights. Let’s go take a look at this studio. Very very tiny, but affordable.”
Maybe there was a God, but maybe there wasn’t. She knew that the God of her childhood community was no longer hers, just as the community itself no longer was. She didn’t know what she believed anymore, but maybe she’d be able to create something new.
She longed to call Ella again, to tell her she was moving to Manhattan. Her fingers curled around her phone. She so yearned to help her, not in a way that was overbearing, but maybe there was something that she could do for her indirectly. And then, thinking about Mouse, an idea began to form.
THE FIRST THING she did when she got home was to call Mouse.
“Hey,” she said.
“Helen,” his voice shifted. It grew stiff and she could tell he was still angry with her. She couldn’t bear it. Not anymore.
“I’m moving,” she said. “I wanted to tell you.”
There was a silence.
“Where?” he said, and she thought, That’s a start.
“Manhattan. I have to go look at some places.”
“Are you stalking me, Helen?” he said, his voice softening.
“I would like to,” she said, drawing in a breath. “And there’s something else I want to tell you.”
“So tell me.”
“I love you,” she said. “I’m sorry. Forgive me.” That was her first ask.
He was silent for a moment and then she said it again, “Forgive me. Mouse. Please. You have to forgive me.” She heard him clear his throat. “I’m ready to tell you everything.”
“All right,” he said, slowly. “Tell me. I’ll listen, but I might not forgive.”
Haltingly, she began to tell him everything about Ella and Jude, about the child, the prison sentence. She finally arrived at her slipup at the bar, her drunkenness and Ella’s almost unbroken silence since. She felt him listening intently, and his attention was like a cloak draped around her—she had been so cold and now she was beginning to feel warm.
“I’m glad you told me,” he said. He didn’t sound angry anymore, but she was afraid that he would now dismiss her, say she should go and have a good life, but one without him in it.
“Could I see you, do you think?” Helen said. “I miss you. I really miss you. I miss what we had.” Helen pressed her cell against her ear, waiting. Please, she thought.
“Well,” he finally said. “Since you asked so nicely. Since I miss you, too. Yes. Yes, we can see each other.” She heard the smile in his voice.
He began to talk more then, to tell her how lonely he’d been after she’d come back from Ann Arbor and they broke up again, how a friend had tried to fix him up with another woman, a gastroenterologist, and although this woman had been perfectly fine and lovely, she hadn’t been Helen. He told her how sometimes he had even taken the subway to her neighborhood in Brooklyn, hoping he might run into her, but he never had.
“We’ll try again,” Helen said. “Tomorrow?”
He laughed and then she knew it was all right.
“How is your daughter holding up with all of this?” he asked quietly. She told him, haltingly, about how Andrew Stein had been the one to take away Jude’s parental rights without Jude even knowing it. She heard his sharp intake of breath.
And only then did she dare to share her second ask.