I feel nothing as I tack up the letters outside homes, near doorjambs, around archways. I’m only creating these public displays because that’s how we’ve done it, though what matters are the words inside the envelopes, hidden for now behind addresses and stamps, but soon to be revealed when they arrive in cramped New York City mailboxes. Anticipation runs under my skin, the wish that I could speed up time, like a movie reel watched in fast-forward, until I reach the scene when my mom’s life comes crashing down, splintering into broken pieces around her. I’d watch that scene in slow motion, with a bowl of popcorn, hitting Rewind over and over, popping kernels into my mouth.
I wouldn’t laugh, but I’d be satisfied. Because that scene would mean I’d made it to the other side.
Somewhere in the East Eighties, the rain stops and the streets glisten. I cross back over to the West Side, taking pride in my ability to maintain my catlike agility even on a slick New York City street. I slow down when I reach the final house, one that’s just a few blocks away from the brownstone where I grew up with both my parents, the place where my mom still lives. I hop off my bike, walking it down the street with my hands pressed lightly against the handlebars. I turn the corner onto the block I’m targeting and as I do I have this sense that I’m being followed. I turn around quickly, expecting to see Jay Fierstein. But he’s not around.
I push a few strands of drenched hair off my face and pull my wet shirt away from my skin.
I keep walking, my bike alongside me, tense and watching.
I have that feeling again, so I stop again. The result’s the same—no one darts into a doorway or slinks behind a potted plant to hide. I hop back on my bike and ride up and down the block, but I don’t see anyone I might know. I resume my task. I affix the final letter to the doorway of Mr. and Mrs. Steigler’s brownstone, wondering what color her hair really was beneath the wig. Did she stay with him? Did she stay together for their daughter? Does her daughter know?
I’ll never know. I’ll never know how the others were affected by my mother’s choices. I won’t ever know who else has a black hole in her heart from the lies that tunneled through it.
One of the letters won’t stay put and it blows away. I tape up the rest.
I reach into my backpack and take out the stamped, sealed envelopes—letters to many of the wives of many of the men who’ve spent time in my mother’s bed over the years. The Balzac. They can all have the Balzac. They can all have my favorite—the words the French novelist Honoré de Balzac had sent to the very married countess Eveline Hańska. It was a tragic love, and a wrong love, and yet their letters were beautiful and spoke to the kind of deep, abiding, lifelong love you could feel for someone.
It’s time for the wronged to know. It’s time for me to get rid of the brick in my chest that’s weighed me down my whole life. I need to kick the past where it belongs—out of the way of my future.
I am nearly mad about you, as much as one can be mad: I cannot bring together two ideas that you do not interpose yourself between them.
I can no longer think of anything but you. In spite of myself, my imagination carries me to you. I grasp you, I kiss you, I caress you, a thousand of the most amorous caresses take possession of me.
As for my heart, there you will always be …
I spot a blue mailbox at the end of the street and dump this stack of letters into its big blue mouth, willing them to arrive quickly, because this time the letters aren’t anonymous.
This time they’ve been signed by my mom.
I know how to forge her name.
*
I stop at a nearby bench and lean Joe against the back of it. I sit down, pull out my phone and call Noah.
“Please tell me you’re at my house right now,” I say.
He laughs, that sexy laugh he has. “Nope. Didn’t even get a summons to appear. But you know I’ll meet you anywhere you want. Say the word, K.”
My body feels warm, like it’s humming, buzzing even, from the way he says K. A knowing smile surfaces on my face, a private little grin between this man and me, this man on the other side of this island, a few miles from me.
“Tell me about your day. The best parts—the food you ate, the music you listened to.” I close my eyes as he shares the details of his lunchtime Chinese chicken salad with David Tremaine and his afternoon listen to the cast album of Once while he worked on contracts for clients. “You left something out, Noah,” I say, sounding like a flirt and loving it.
“What did I leave out, Kennedy?” he asks, flirting back.
“What you wore to work today.”
“Charcoal-gray pants. Black shoes. Silver disco shirt.”
I laugh. “That I want to see.”
“I told you I was half raised by drag queens.”
“And now?”
“T-shirt and shorts.”
“You look good in a T-shirt and shorts,” I say, remembering the outfit he wore to the Yankees game last summer.
“You should come over then,” he says, and I can hear in his voice how much he wants me to. I can hear his hunger. It matches mine.
“I want to,” I say, and I’m surprised at how bold I’m being, but I want to be there with him. Plus, if he’s not at my house, it likely means a man is at my house, which means I really don’t want to be at my house.
An idea strikes me. “I’ll call you right back.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
I hang up and dial Amanda. “What are you doing?”