“WHY IS DADDY crying? Claire! Why is Daddy crying?”
“C’mere, pumpkin sauce. Dad got a sad letter from Connie.”
“But is Connie sad?”
Claire swept Alice’s tangled blond-white hair away from her head, and the girl slumped down into the soft paisley couch to lean against her. “A little bit,” Claire said. “But he’s going to be okay.” She reached a long arm out to Gene.
He shook his head and came to sit with them, tears on his face. He let his head fall back and looked up at the ceiling. “We should really be living in community,” he said. “You’re fucking right. You’re right, you’re right. God, Claire. We all should be together. This was crazy. Crazy stupid. They should be living here with us. I should have tried harder to talk him out of it. I should have told him all about this shit.”
Claire just held his hand.
Alice climbed over her mother to sit on his lap and brushed the tears from his cheeks with her little hands. He put his arms around her. She was tiny. Three and a half, long-limbed and round-cheeked. So pale the skin on her face sometimes looked translucent. She gazed intently at him. Her light blue eyes were shiny, pupils round and slightly dilated. Her brow was furrowed and she looked worried, but something else about her was studying the whole situation, and he could see it: her worry and her thought, her intensity in trying to put everything together. Her smallness made this both funny and oddly powerful. She was figuring it out, taking it on to help them.
“Wait,” Alice said gravely. “Where is community?”
Gene and Claire looked at each other and laughed. Gene was still crying a little.
“It’s when people live together and help each other out, you little question bug,” Claire said, smiling at her.
“Do we have to help Connie out because he’s sad?” Alice asked, looking relieved that they could do something.
“Yes, of course we help Connie and anyone else who is feeling bad. We stick together. All people stick together,” Claire told her. “It’s brave to help out, and it feels really good.”
Alice was getting restless. She stood up on Gene’s knees, and he held her hands. “Daddy’s feeling bad, so I have to climb him.” She put one foot on his chest and leaned back, rappelling off him while he held her hands. She was intent and grave about the task, watching Gene’s face for signs that it was making him feel better. He shook his head in disbelief. And then he and Claire started to laugh hard. Alice put her other foot on his chest and began to walk up so she could stand on his shoulders.
“You’re going to climb all the way up Gene while he’s crying and laughing?” Claire asked. Gene thought maybe she had inadvertently suggested Alice climb by saying “brave” and “feels good.” The girl loved to climb, and they always called her “brave” or “fearless” or said “good job” when she was doing it.
“Gene likes to climb,” Alice explained, shrugging. She put her feet on his shoulders, her skinny legs on either side of his head. He held her hands out to the side but then let go. He could feel that she was very well balanced, the arches of her little feet curved and strong, the heels resting just above his shoulder blades. And it did feel nice—like a massage. Her weight was just right.
Claire was looking at him, and though she was laughing at Alice, he saw that she was upset about Con. Disappointed. Pissed. “He’s unhinged,” she said quietly. “It’s him. You couldn’t have changed it.” She looked deeply into his eyes, the way she did, keeping him company that way, better than a kiss, and pulled her knees up to her chest. She was no longer the skinny girl he’d known from the East Village; she was rounder now, a big-breasted, softer-featured woman, someone who had nursed a baby and had been high on the joy of caring for that baby. But her face and her eyes still expressed a knowledge that set her apart. Gene knew she had no sympathy for Con. The letter clearly disgusted her. He could see her weighing Constant’s life against her own back at the clinic. Fourteen-hour days, crowded waiting rooms, funding cuts, staffing problems because people like Con found the work too boring or taxing, were unwilling to deal with the attendant features of poverty, illness, abuse. Gene knew that as far as she was concerned, Con might as well have sent them a letter saying he was sad he had only one Mercedes.
“Honestly,” Gene said to her with Alice still standing on him, “he’s just caught. He’s been caught.”