When I saw you again it was the late springtime of 2003, exactly a week after I’d swallowed too many painkillers, or perhaps not enough. I was gazing down from the balcony, early for my Bronxville-bound train, a blue puddle of light soaking into the pink marble concourse of Grand Central Station.
I was thirty-three years old and up to that point in my life I’d tried three times to kill myself. There’s never been a fourth attempt. And naturally it was all because of you that I stopped at number three. I always wanted to save you, Hannah, but of course it was you who saved me.
I’ve never told you about those times I tried to end things, I never will, and I don’t know if that’s because I didn’t want to burden you or whether it’s because I was worried you might think me less of a man.
Anyway, more than two decades had passed. My last memory of you was your chin on my shoulder, the two of us together on my bike and a feeling of faintness. I had no idea that you were living in Manhattan. It was a Saturday morning, hundreds of city visitors spilling onto the station concourse, a small crowd massed around the famous meeting-spot clock, awaiting their loved ones, their friends, maybe even their futures. That’s when I saw you.
I remember the reflection of your legs in the blue-splashed marble, the way you moved unassumingly like someone trying not to be picked out in a crowd. I kept on watching you, twenty steps, thirty, unable to look away, something about you. And then an impulsive urge propelled me down the steps, two at a time. A few moments later I was standing directly behind you in the ticket line, even though I’d bought my ticket ten minutes earlier.
I studied the winglike shape of your shoulder blades through your raincoat, listening in on your conversation.
I assumed you were talking about a movie or TV show because you were saying something about torture and someone taped to a chair. And then you said, They chopped off his thumbs with a bolt cutter. I know, right? Left them standing in a tub of … oh damn, how can I forget the name? The Greek dip … No, not hummus … You know, cucumber and … Dammit …
Tzatziki, I said.
You turned around.
Yes, tzatziki, you said into the phone, smiling warily at me before turning back.
I was already smitten.
You were at the front of the line now and soon the ticket counter came free. Wait, you said, I’ll have to call you back.
I strained to overhear your destination. Yonkers, round trip.
Not one of the stops on my line. I remember the quick surge of my disappointment and then a second impulsive idea.
As soon as you moved away from the window, I rushed straight up to the counter and said loudly, Yonkers, please.
You stopped and turned around.
Round trip? came the question from behind the window.
Sure, I said.
I was facing the counter but all my attention was on you. I sensed your quizzical look. Sure?
Scooping up my ticket, I waved it like a kid going to his first ever ball game, you looking at me as if figuring me out harder with one eye than the other. Maybe we’re going to the same party, I said.
Never in my life had I done anything like this.
No, you said, you’re probably going to one of those fancy cheese and tzatziki parties I keep reading so much about.
Sorry, I said, I couldn’t help but …
Were you eavesdropping on my private phone conversation?
Eavesdropping? I said. No, it was impossible not to hear …
Oh, so now you’re accusing me of speaking too loudly?
Either that or the trains pull into Grand Central too softly.
I went over what I’d just said, certain I’d blown it. But you laughed. It was the most perfect laugh I’ve ever heard. I’m Hannah, you said, offering me your hand to shake, the movement of one hand making me think to look at the other. No ring. That’s the only place my brain went in that moment, not making the connection, your name.
I shook your hand. Patrick, I said. But my friends call me Patch.
And then something happened that I didn’t understand at the time. It felt as if I’d unwittingly detonated a bomb. The look on your face changed and I saw you more clearly, your eyes widening, two minutely different shades of the same fierce blue.
A moment later you were running—not toward any platform, but out of the station.
Hannah. Hannah.
* * *
I SAT ON THE TRAIN to Bronxville thinking about you, staring at the carriage’s reflection in the dark window, my ears popping as the train burst clear of the tunnel, blue light crashing over me like a wave. I’d thought about you so many times since that day but in my thoughts you’d never aged. Were you beautiful back then as well? At twelve years old, thirteen? Yes, you were, this became suddenly obvious to me. I’d been too young to notice.
I was on my way to my brother’s house, his first yard party of the year. I’d long been banned from making food for these events, or even helping out with the grilling. We don’t need all that fancy shit, bro! And whenever I asked what I should bring my brother always responded, Any hot secretaries at your place?
All afternoon I drank keg beer, wondering how I would ever find you again in such a vast city. Wiener jokes flew around the backyard while Sean and his colleagues talked law and sports. And as the light faded to its deep blue of dusk, my brother, drunk and boasting about his youthful prowess as a high school wrestler, pinned me to the ground and whispered, Spin me over, bro—Annie’s looking, she likes you, man.
And I liked Annie but I didn’t spin him over. No, you win, Sean, I said, tapping out.
Annie offered to clean a grass stain from my white shirt and I said not to worry, taking the train back to Grand Central Station a half hour later, alone.
* * *
SUNDAY MORNING I WENT OUT to get coffee, landing on a street strewn with the debris of another Saturday night in Partyland. Pizza crusts, chicken bones, crushed plastic cups. It had rained overnight and the remnants of a sodden newspaper were pasted to the sidewalk. The cover photo was the face of a man smiling up from the blue waters of a swimming pool. But something made me look down at the newspaper a second time.
MILLIONAIRE MURDERED FOR PEANUTS trumpeted the headline. And then, CASINO HEIR TORTURED AND SLAIN IN HIS HOME. I unstuck the few sheets from the ground. On the front page there were only two or three lines on the story, followed by the words SEE PAGE 5. I pulled the damp newsprint apart. Three, four, five …
And there you were, Hannah Jensen, your photo next to the byline.
Thumbs … bolt cutter … tzatziki.
I’d found you. The New York Mail.
I looked up at the sky in a gesture of gratitude. And it was so blue overhead, the morning so perfect, I knew right away what it was I would do.