Fear of Heights Read online

  “The feds set up that night to see if there was any way to get him to comply. Carmen came back for the girls right after we left.”

  “So Carmen knew too? He didn’t really watch the girls?”

  “Christ, Kate, you don’t really believe I’d let a drug dealer babysit my kids? I hope on some level that you know me better than that.”

  “That’s not fair, Robert. He loves them. He’d never hurt them. They love him too.”

  “He loves them, Kate, as an extension of you. Don’t confuse that with fatherhood—these are my children we’re talking about.”

  I nod my head absently, taking in all this information while remaining as detached as I can. A barrier inside me has gone up, holding the storming emotion at bay. I have to connect all the pieces.

  “His first contact with the detectives happened right here at the house. Jaylee’s a tough candidate for informing, because he still holds a lot of anger toward the authorities. I’m sure you can imagine. They offered to renegotiate his father’s appeal, but he wouldn’t bend. But later that night, he took the money.”

  “If O’Connor knew about it, then what was with the interrogation after my arrest? How come that asshole showed up here to harass me?”

  “The deal was with the DEA, Kate. O’Connor wasn’t privy at first. He interrogated you because he believed you knew more than you were letting on. I came home early that day from work to meet with him—to discuss the deal—leniency for information, exoneration for full disclosure on both sides: Dominican dealers and Columbian suppliers. They want Jaylee to expose the entire operation.”

  “So you both set me up and let me get arrested?”

  “That was a mistake, Katie. Yes, they set up the sting to get leverage against him and force him into cooperation. I had no idea he’d reach out to you. I knew that your contact had truly been severed. I had a security detail on you, sweetie, and a trace on your phone. I did everything to protect you. I agreed to do it. At that point all I realized was that between you and Jaylee, there was a mutual attraction. I accepted that much. I never expected you to fall in love. And, Kate, the choices you made stunned me.”

  I’m rubbing my arms up and down with my palms, in some half-assed attempt to comfort myself. Trying to hang onto the fading heat in my body.

  “I hate that you think he’d put his entire family at risk. Not just his, Robert, but ours too. These people don’t take lightly to a snitch. I could have told you that from the beginning—saved you all the trouble you went through.”

  “Are you saying, Kate, that the feds, as well as the police, are incompetent at their jobs? I think we know what we’re working with.”

  “I’m saying you underestimated the man—his compassion, his capacity to love.”

  “They would set him up with the witness protection program, Kate. There’s still an opportunity for him to do it. It’s really the chance of a lifetime—complete anonymity, immunity. Not a courtesy commonly offered to a street thug. Those are white-collar options, reserved for offenders at the top.”

  “If he was set up, that means you should be able to get him out of there right now!” I realize the only reason Jaylee is in jail is because it’s convenient for Robert.

  Robert sighs and reaches one arm across his chest to massage his own shoulder.

  “Kate, he’s still guilty. Granted, it was a setup, but what Jaylee did was illegal.”

  “Do it! Get him out! He’s in danger in there!”

  “I’ll call the DA’s office in the morning to see if there’s any way to renegotiate his bail. ”

  “You know nothing about street culture if you honestly think that he’d snitch. What about his family? Do you remember Janinie? He’d never see them again. Don’t you even realize he’s a person with feelings?”

  “Kate, I‘m sorry you got so involved—really I am. It was high time I told you. But you, Kate, know nothing about street culture. You’re a goddamned debutante, with a load of white guilt. I’m tired of watching your Florence Nightingale services for thugs. This has got to stop somewhere. If not now, with this, then when will it ever end? What are you going to do, become one of them?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean, Robert? I’m just a person. So are they.”

  I wrap my arms tightly around myself and hug my body. I guess it was too good to be true—a love as relentless as Jaylee’s had to be fueled by an ulterior motive. We’re from two different worlds, I should have known we couldn’t come together so easily. Robert stood by and said nothing; he watched me get duped, like a fool.

  If love were a tangible thing, something we could measure, its weight might come from all the tears shed and blood spilled in the name of the lover. If we could only weigh out the sweat worried from a brow, or the moisture on two bodies colliding in passion. If we could pull numbers from fluids like this, I know that the sum of mine would be far greater than Jaylee’s or Robert’s. My devotion was always a real thing, not a ploy or a tactic. I never loved either man with lies or negotiated emotions. I gave my love fully. It was complete devotion—without a trace of withholding.

  If I were a shell of a person before, I am now just a shadow.

  I don’t want to feel. Because if feelings aren’t real, then nothing is. For the first time since it happened, I feel glad I lost the child. How miserable to feel relief at this loss—but what a sick inheritance, to be conceived for the sake of revenge. For a human life—a baby—to be a vehicle for payback, a weapon in a fucking feud between arrogant men.

  “Kate, don’t look like that, please. Try not to shut down. If it makes a difference, I know he loved you in his own way, whatever—that the guy loves you still. It’s written in his face, if not in his actions.”

  He sighs loudly when he receives no reaction from me. I’ll give him nothing. Just my absence. You emptied me, Robert—now deal with my emptiness.

  “Why—why the hell do I have to comfort you about your goddamn affair?” Robert yells, smashing his glass and throwing his hands in the air.

  This time, the broken glass will be more difficult to clean up than in the kitchen. There are carpets, the sheets will have to be changed and the blankets shaken out. A shard of glass on a pillow could do a lot of damage.

  “I told you not to tell me how he feels about me,” I say without any emotion. I’ve left my own body. The wife has left the building. I’m trying to hold onto the mother with all that I am.

  “I’ll close this case. But I still expect you to keep up your end of the deal. It’s over with Jaylee.”

  This is the meaning of meaninglessness. Without Jaylee, I am not who I thought I was.

  As he promised, Robert gets Jaylee released from jail three weeks later. It reminds me how easily Robert can control Jaylee’s destiny. I know about the release because Oscar texts me and asks me to come with them to pick him up at Rikers. I decline politely, but I wonder if Jaylee asked him to bring me. Robert, of course, doesn’t even mention that he did it. We’re not really talking and I have no plans to speak to Jaylee. I am done with both of them. Today, on this day of his release, if I had to choose one man I could trust, I would choose Ideal.

  I have confronted Robert almost every night with a litany of questions. He answers them openly, for the most part, after he’s had a few drinks. The saddest part to me is that the more I find out about their twisted connection, the more I feel sorry for Robert. I’ve begun to take pity on him.

  On the day of Jaylee’s release, Robert comes home from work around ten o’clock, reeking of booze. I fix him a pasta salad with the girls’ leftover buttered spiral noodles, adding carrots and green olives with pimentos, blanched green beans, and diced tomatoes and peppers. I dress it with vinaigrette and toss it in his bowl. When I give it to Robert, he takes my hand and kisses it. It’s the first attempt at affection since the grand explosion. My reaction is to inwardly cringe. I’m just not ready to love him.

  I toast some baguette and construct impromptu bruschetta with diced tomatoes a
nd basil from the garden, adding garlic and olive oil. Robert downs two gin and tonics as he devours every morsel of what I’ve placed in front of him. He’s pretty drunk again; maybe the food will sober him. His lips shine with the residue of the dressing and olive oil.

  I’m sitting close to him, so he clasps my hand under the table. There’s no way I can have sex with him, not a chance. I can’t even hold him or hug him or tell him that I love him. The closest I’ve come is preparing him food with something akin to affection.

  “The Trinitarios have information on me going all the way back to 1997.”

  Another unexpected outburst from my secretive husband. What is it called when you only keep secrets from your spouse? Everyone else seems to have free access to information. I’m cautious with my questions because it’s still painful to hear the answers. When I was in the dark, I was almost carefree in comparison to how I feel now. I’m a woman easily manipulated, all too easy to control. Sarah once called Robert a cuckold. Little did she know who was in the dark.

  “When did you take Jaylee’s case, Robert? Was it before you knew I was pregnant?” A perfect example of an answer I’m better without.

  “The night at the hospital, Kate. When they put you in jail. He gave the rings to me, saying he’d give you back in exchange for representation. The kid fucking hates me, but he knows I can win a case with the odds stacked against it.”

  “So you had already promised him representation when you found out I was pregnant. You used my own child to manipulate me. That is ruthless, Robert, and unbelievably cruel.”

  “Jaylee used you to negotiate his representation. That’s why it pains me to hear you babble on about his love and devotion. I felt sorry for you, Kate. Sad that you were so impressionable. Then I was contacted by the Feds, and I chose to drop the case. I didn’t want it on my record.”

  I rise from the kitchen table and pour myself a gin and tonic as well. I squeeze in a whole lime and add a teaspoon of sugar—a trick Carmen taught me that makes me ache for the mundane, the tiny details that make more sense than this mess. A little sugar to sweeten it, make it all go down, not so unbearably bitter.

  I return to the table and see that Robert’s finished his drink. He raises his glass and I take it to prepare him another. I turn off the recessed lighting from the switch on the counter. The kitchen goes dark, lit only from the overhead fixture over the table. Robert is cast in crisscrossed shadows, the light filtered by the wicker shade we picked out together. I searched relentlessly at flea markets and antique stores for one that matched the one from my childhood summer home in the Hamptons. Why get the same one? I’ve spent my whole searching for comfort. Lately, I find comfort in nothing. I’m bumping into walls and hiding my misery from my kids. Let Robert continue with his confession. You can’t touch a heart that’s already been hidden away.

  There is part of me that wants to hurl the glass at his face, but my anger-fueled reactions won’t make anything better. I place the tumbler in front of him. I’ve purposefully left out the sugar.

  “What about the night after the fight at my parents’, when you agreed to let us say goodbye?”

  “That’s when he told me about the file they’d been keeping. Any dirt you could possibly dig, the low-life gang members had it, and he threw that at me.”

  “Was it about crooked stuff you’d done? Information on cases?”

  Robert looks at me and nods. His brow has gone sweaty. He palms his eye sockets and eyebrows and rubs them like a child. Then he pulls back, his hands remaining like a frame.

  “And cheating, Kate. Jaylee had information on my personal history.”

  I don’t flinch. It’s been completely obvious, from the intern at the firm to the condoms in his wallet. I may play many parts, the naïve wife included, but the discovery of the condom in the briefcase was just another clue. That creepy session has been our only sexual encounter since my return from the Dominican Republic.

  “It’s not news to me, Robert, that you haven’t been faithful. Don’t get me wrong—I know nothing of the details. But on some level I knew. Maybe we both were unhappy.”

  “Christ, Katie. You make me happy. That’s why I keep fighting.”

  “So you told him he could fuck me if he kept the rest of it quiet? Did you think I’d leave you for him if I knew how many prostitutes you’d stuck your cock in?”

  I pose the question with vulgarity on purpose because I know that it humiliates him. He hates it when I swear, so I want to talk dirty.

  “He wanted me to take the case back. Despite the setup, he still needed representation. He’s quite clear on the fact that he wants me as his lawyer. But the aggravating part is that he won’t take my counsel. He tries to control everything, even in matters where he has absolutely no expertise, no idea what he’s doing.”

  Good for Jaylee, I think, despite the lies and the betrayal. I like to root for the underdog in all walks of life. There’s nothing quite like sweet revenge, the satisfaction of sticking it to the motherfuckers who stuck it to you. If I didn’t feel so conflicted about Jaylee, I’d cheer him on from the sidelines.

  I rise from my chair and pull out a drawer of cloth napkins we haven’t used since pre-toddler days. I’m looking for the pack of cigarettes that Sarah left behind. I know there’s one left; I was the one who smoked the other nineteen. It’s hard to believe all that’s come to pass since she was last here with me.

  “I’m going outside to smoke and finish this drink,” and as I say it, I’m pouring fresh gin in my glass to help me neutralize the shock.

  “You’re smoking?”

  I raise an eyebrow at him as I lower my face to the gas burner to light the cigarette. I haven’t yet committed to actually purchasing a lighter.

  “You know, when you left, Kate, I read that note. I thought you were leaving me for good.” Robert almost chokes on the acknowledgement, as if he’s on the precipice of crying.

  I don’t know what I should say. I wish I had left. I wish I could have kept the baby from dying. I wish I had more cigarettes.

  Chapter 18

  It’s a humid summer morning and there are only two weeks left of camp. We’re fifteen minutes late leaving because Ada can’t find her camp shirt and then we can’t find her shoes. Pearl is practically in tears with her sister’s disorganization. I try to keep Ada together, and so does Carmen, but it’s nearly impossible. She once traded her sneakers for three Oreos; when Carmen arrived to pick her up, she was standing barefoot on top of her backpack, not wanting to soil her socks on the floor. Carmen carried her home and told her next time to just ask for some cookies. Pearl never barters; she eats her snacks even when she doesn’t like them.

  I take the train these days, despite Robert lecturing me about my safety. But drug dealers don’t ride the subway: as far as I can tell, they stand on the corners and occasionally ride around in cars from New Jersey.

  The way I see it, the fear can actually make you much weaker. So if I just keep living my life as a strong, healthy person, they’ll believe it, and eventually I’ll believe it, and things will only get better. Ada and Pearl absorb it too, and I’ve watched them grow stronger. I’ve even got an adjunct teaching job lined up for the fall. It’s only one class, Golden-Age Poetry, but it gets my foot back in the door. I’ve got something to look forward to; that keeps me going.

  The girls run off as soon as we walk through the front doors of the 92nd St Y. It’s the same one Emily and I went to when we were their age.

  I decide to take my time on the way home, and to walk across the park. The sun is hot, but Central Park in the summer is a happening place. I love the foreign tourists, the music and performers, even the crazy roller-dancers. I could hang out here all day if I’d thought to bring a blanket and a book, maybe a pair of sunglasses. On the other side of the park, I hop on the D train to go back uptown. This time of day, none of the trains are too crowded. I rummage through my bag to see if I’ve got anything to read or maybe a crossword puzzle. These
days I’m in the business of keeping busy. If I relax, my mind will stray to too many difficult places.

  Pulling out of the 125th Street station, the train lunges forward, than jerks suddenly to a halt, making the few people standing stumble. An abrupt stop on the subway is never a good thing. At least we’re only halfway out of the station instead of midway through the tunnel. We wait for what seems like ages, with everyone fidgeting. The air is full of anxiety, and the lack of an announcement can’t be good. I should have taken the bus or even walked all the way home—I’d have been there by now. A few minutes later we can see police officers flooding the bit of platform that’s still visible from the train car. People are nervous, speculating about what’s happened. I am starting to feel nauseated from being stuck underground.

  The train is stalled, so there’s no air conditioning. My blouse is clinging to my stomach and the center of my chest with sweat. Finally, a muddied announcement comes through the PA system. A train evacuation: some poor soul has been hit on the tracks. We’re ordered to file through the train and exit the last car, which luckily still reaches the end of the platform. In all the years I’ve lived in the city, I’ve only done this one time before. I didn’t take the train as a child, but in college I started doing it on principle.

  People are anxious, so they come shoving through, some of them pushing, some shouting. There are a few poor mothers with strollers. I suggest to one that she close the stroller and carry the baby. She sighs at me but agrees when I offer to help her fold it.

  I hate pushy crowds; they make me claustrophobic, so I sit back down, thinking I’ll wait until everyone is off. I watch them pour in through one door and out the other. Everyone complains, like typical New Yorkers, with no sympathy for the person who was hit by the train. They’re angry about arriving late to wherever they’re headed.