The Heights Part 1

The heights.

Peter Hedges.

The list of those who have descended from the heights is long, and only a few need be mentioned.

-JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH.

ONE.

KATE.

THAT MORNING WE WOKE TO FIND OUR STREET BURIED IN SNOW. THE STOOPS, THE sidewalk, the row of parked cars were a blanket of white; the trees looked as if they'd been dipped in frosting, and the whole of Oak Lane-with its impeccably preserved century-old brownstones-had the look of a vintage photograph. Only the loud sc.r.a.pe from an approaching snowplow betrayed what Tim, my history-teaching husband, would like to believe: Erase the plow, remove the light poles and the telephone wires, toss out all electrical appliances, and it could be any other Brooklyn Heights morning, circa 1848 or 1902.

Staring down from our fourth-floor apartment, I made out the faint prints from Tim's boots. Before sunrise, he'd crossed between two parked cars and trudged with his backpack full of graded papers toward Montague Street, where he'd climbed the steps to the Montague Academy. During the night, the thick flakes had fallen gently, but now it was morning, and the wind blew in gusts that rattled the windows of the living room/dining room/toy room where I was standing. I felt a chill.

Sam came running down the hall, his diaperless pants at his knees, crying, "Mommy, pee-pee! Pee-pee!" Teddy, newly four, followed, saying, "Sam made a mess!" Minutes before, I'd abruptly left the kitchen because, between the repeated calls of "More milk, Mommy" and "I'm hungry, Mommy" and "Mommy, Sam's. .h.i.tting me," I knew either they'd stop, as asked, or I would snap.

With few places to look, it took no time for them to find me.

Teddy had been up early due to a bad dream, and Sam had eaten hardly any breakfast, feeding himself only the brightly colored minimarshmallows from his favorite sugared cereal. "This will not do," I announced grandly. But, of course, it would. It did.

When Tim phoned from school, I had to shout over Sam, who was shrieking, while Teddy kept pushing the b.u.t.ton that made the phone go on speaker. Tim asked, "How's it going?" more out of habit, I suppose, because one little moment of listening, and he'd know.

"Good, it's going good," I said, choosing not to tell him about a mysterious smell in the bathroom (the toilet was clogged and would not flush); the bar of oatmeal soap half-melted in the empty bathtub; the growing stack of unpaid bills; the clothes strewn, a Hansel and Gretel trail of little boys' pants and shirts and underwear; and how when I finally made it to the sock drawer to finish dressing Sam, no socks matched. I made no mention of how the winter wind was sure to shatter our front windows, nor my prediction that this was going to be the coldest day of the year. After all, Tim was hard at work. Better to spare him.

Later, in the vestibule of our building, I managed to open the stroller and carry it down the stoop, all the while coaxing the boys to follow. I belted Sam in, lowered Teddy so he could ride standing in back, and we began our walk. Both boys were practically smothered under sweaters and coats and scarves and hats, gloves, boots-only their eyes could be seen. Beneath it all, I could hear them crying, and when I leaned forward to ask what was the matter, Teddy sobbed, "My eyes are cold."

"I don't know what to do about your eyes."

Never enough. Never enough. A parent can never, ever do enough.

I had the makings of a song.

Gloveless, scarfless, with my down jacket still unb.u.t.toned up top-I'd forgotten about me.

Soon after we set off, it became clear that, because of the snow, our stroller wasn't going to work. So, with the wind whipping and the need to think fast, I turned us around. Back home, I left the stroller in the vestibule and hurried to our storage closet in the bas.e.m.e.nt to fetch Tim's childhood sled. Outside, I wrapped the boys in an old blue blanket, set them on the sled, and pulled them behind me.

We were halfway down Hicks Street before I noticed other parents dragging their kids by the wrist, slipping and sliding, or struggling with strollers. Men and women, dressed for work, leaned into the wind as they headed toward the subway station on Clark Street, stepping gingerly, hoping not to fall. And here I came, pulling Teddy and Sam, the only children in the Heights riding to school on a sled. Glancing back, I could see them squinting in the way that comes only when they're smiling. And suddenly, that great unreasonable distance we traveled each morning to R Kids Count Learning Center became a blessing. Some children were getting rides in carpools, and others would be arriving by car service and taxi. But the boys and I were envied-one stiff parent, Chad the Wall Street whiz, surprised me by shouting from the corner of Pierrepont and Hicks, in a manner half amused, half in awe, "Now, that's the way to travel."

For once I was the clever mother, the only mother with this rather terrific idea, and my boys, Teddy and Sam Welch, were content.

These are the moments, I wanted to sing. These are the moments.

"Canceled," Maria (always perky) Spence called out from her Range Rover on the corner of Pineapple Street.

"But why?"

"Boiler. Broken. Call me. Playdate sometime." She had to go, her cell phone was ringing, and she drove on.

Teddy didn't understand why we were turning around.

"The school has no heat, sweetie," I said. "You'll freeze, and we wouldn't want that."

"But I wanna go!"

With my promise of hot chocolate, Teddy calmed down. As I pulled the sled up Henry Street to Montague, Sam said, "Daddy, work," and pointed toward the neo-Gothic ex-German Lutheran church that housed most of Montague Academy. On nice days, I often took the boys to the courtyard garden, where they climbed on the lower school's playground equipment. This was not to be one of those days.

Instead, we turned right on Montague and headed down to m.u.f.fins and More. Across the street, Starbucks was doing impressive business. I preferred, as did the other mothers in my circle, the locally owned m.u.f.fins and More, which, rumor had it, was in danger of going out of business, but not if we could help it.

Handfuls of rock salt had been scattered on the pavement outside m.u.f.fins and More. The ice and snow had begun to melt. I tied the sled to a parking meter and held Teddy and Sam by their mittens as we walked carefully toward the door.

Inside, sitting at a corner table-which they managed to commandeer every day at this time-Tess Windsor, Debbie Beebe, and Claudia Valentine drank their espressos and cappuccinos and decaf lattes.

"Kate will have an opinion," Tess said, picking up her parka, which had been lying across the only available chair. "Come over here, Kate."

Tess usually packed a child's activity ideal for bad weather. So it was no surprise to see her daughter, Maddie, who also went to R Kids Count, doing an origami project at a nearby table. Without prompting, Maddie offered to teach Teddy, who wanted to learn, and Sam, who seemed happy just to watch.

Debbie volunteered to go to the counter and get whatever the boys wanted. I gladly fished out a crumpled five-dollar bill, handed it to her, and plopped down in the open chair. Debbie was expecting her first in September. She often helped us with our children. "Practice," she claimed, although on this particular morning, I thought it may have been to escape the conversation I was about to join. Claudia said, "We were hoping you'd come by, we want your thoughts." Claudia has the throaty, smoky voice of a sultry movie star. "Tess and I don't agree. Debbie won't take sides."

"Because what do I know?" Debbie called from the counter before turning to order.

While Tess considered how best to phrase the question, Claudia blurted out, not whispering, because she never whispers, "What is it with little boys and their a.s.sholes?"

Tess winced. Debbie pretended not to have heard.

On that day, as far I was concerned, any of these women could say anything-talk nonsense, gibberish, even, and just so long as none of them called me Mommy or asked me to tie her shoes, I'd be positively giddy and, in no time, reborn.

Claudia continued, "Both my boys love to drop their pants, bend over, spread their b.u.t.t cheeks, and say, 'Look, Mom!' I mean, what is that all about?"

Meet Claudia Valentine: loud talker, blunt thinker, eager playdate maker. I hadn't liked her at first-too bra.s.sy and needy, or so I thought-but after two of my favorite other mothers moved away last year, Claudia and I found ourselves increasingly the only ones left at what she called the dwindling party that was our life. What I always liked about Claudia was that she was the kind of mother who would kill for her kids. What I loved about her was she'd also kill for mine. Or any kid, for that matter. And if her Homer (yes, Homer) and Olaf (yes, Olaf) were to mistreat some other child, her justice would be swift and firm. She didn't tolerate unkindness or cruelty, and her children, while exposed to her many momentary lapses into volatility, had been given one of the true great parental gifts: They had been civilized. And if not, they wouldn't be able to blame their mother, for no one tries harder to be fair. Her tendency toward salty language and her unabashed capacity to speak her mind may have been off-putting to the Heights establishment, but I found her refreshing.

"It's a phase," Tess said. "Boys grow out of it."

"Do they?" Claudia countered.

"Yes," Tess said, looking toward me, hoping I'd join in.

Claudia again: "I don't think they do. I think it morphs. Their fascination with their own a.s.sholes evolves into their fascination with ours."

Tess giggled as she pretended to cover her ears.

Still Claudia: "What is it with men that they all want to f.u.c.k us in the b.u.t.t?"

Please understand: I am no prude. I enjoy the occasional tacky s.e.x conversation. But it was morning, and this was bar talk. I did my best to ignore the question.

But Claudia kept on: "Lately, Dan has been begging me, whispering in my ear, pleading. He even bought a book, written by a woman, about the joys of it, the supposed pleasure. I'm not convinced!"

I glanced out the window of m.u.f.fins and More just as Frida Fabritz from Heights Realty hurried into the coffee establishment across the street.

Frida Fabritz was the Realtor who, years earlier, rented us our two-bedroom apartment. That's a joke, considering one of the bedrooms is a small, windowless s.p.a.ce, a glorified closet. Recently, we had one of the math teachers from Montague over for dinner. He admired how we managed in such "cramped quarters." I asked him to do us a favor and calculate the square footage of our apartment. Frida had listed it at approximately twelve hundred square feet, but I'd always doubted the figure. He paced out the apartment and, after a grim silence, said, "Well, you've got close to nine hundred square feet here, if you include the boys' room."

"Room?" I said. "You call that a room?"

That morning, as I watched Frida Fabritz enter Starbucks, I had an urge to chase after her. No, I wouldn't make a scene. I'd simply tell her what we'd discovered when a math teacher measured our apartment. I ached to make Frida buckle over with guilt. Luckily for her, she'd gone across the street for coffee. Luckily for her, I had both boys and was trapped in a conversation with my mother friends.

"Kate?"

I looked at Claudia. "What?"

"Where did you go?"

"I'm here, listening," I said, turning to check on Teddy and Sam, who sat entranced, watching Maddie fold a series of swans with the colored origami paper. Debbie held a corn m.u.f.fin between them, breaking off chunks for them to chew.

"You're no help," Claudia said.

"I know," I said. "Sorry."

Claudia said, "Whatever."

"Where were we?" Tess asked.

"a.s.sholes," Claudia said. Then she leaned forward and bellowed, "Oh, for the record, do you know which of our neighbors likes taking it up the b.u.t.t . . . ?"

I escaped before learning the answer. Outside, Teddy, the willful one, struggled with me, using his winter boots to kick at my ankles. Both boys had wanted to stay, but I had errands to run, and Sam, gentle Sam, needed a nap. We set off for Key Food but stopped at the M&O newsstand for a box of cherry Luden's and a packet of tissues for the boys' runny noses.

"Kate, good, it's you."

I turned to find Frida Fabritz walking toward me, a forced smile on her face. "Sorry to grab you like this, but, please, I need a favor."

I tried to beg off her request, but Frida said, "I've got a prospective buyer with all sorts of questions about the neighborhood, and I thought, Who better-"

"You don't want me to talk to them," I said. "Not with the mood I'm in."

Behind her fake smile, fear was in her eyes. Perhaps for the first time, I was catching a glimpse of the real Frida Fabritz. In recent years, several large realty companies had moved into the Heights, and Frida had begun to feel the pinch. In that moment she appeared desperate, and I have a soft spot for desperate people. Besides, my thinking went, a Realtor in the Heights who owed me might one day be a good thing. So I pulled the boys back in the direction we'd come.

Once, during a job interview, I was asked if there had been anything in my past I regretted. At the time I couldn't think of a thing, not one single thing I wished I'd done differently, so I said lamely, "Sure, I've made mistakes, yes, but I don't regret them because of what I've learned and I've been bettered from having made them." And while the person interviewing me was unimpressed, I knew my answer to be, if vague, sincere. Funny, now, what I remember thinking as I trailed after Frida-you see, she was already smiling again, which made me wonder if I'd been duped-and that was when I said under my breath: "This may be my first real regret." Frida turned back toward me and asked what I'd said. "Nothing," I replied. She paused before saying with cheeriness, "Great idea, by the way. The sled." Then she laughed nervously, a mixture of panic and glee. I'd never seen her behave this strangely, and then I saw why.

The woman stood just outside the doorway of Heights Realty, facing the other way, so I noticed her posture first. She had the long neck of a dancer. And when she slowly turned in my direction, she smiled as if she'd been expecting me. I may have gasped, because she was, quite simply, the most striking woman I'd ever seen.

"Kate, I'd like you to meet . . ."

The woman extended her hand. The leather of her glove felt warm and expensive; my gloveless hand was numb from the cold. She said in a whisper, "I'm Anna. Anna Brody."

"Anna's thinking of moving here," Frida said. "So I thought who better to tell her what it's like in the Heights?"

I don't remember what all I said, but when I finally stopped talking, Frida joked that I secretly worked for Heights Realty. "I don't work," I started to explain when Anna Brody smiled. "No, you don't work. You're just a mother." She said this with surprising affection and irony, and without saying it, she seemed to hint that we were the same.

"Oh," I said. "Do you have-"

"Yes, a daughter," she said. "Sophie. She's three."

"Well," I said, "it's a great neighborhood for children."

"So I see," she said, looking at my boys in their sled. I think she envied the sled.

It began to snow. Among the swirling flakes, I noticed the stream of exhaust coming from an idling black town car, double-parked. A driver in a uniform stood at attention, waiting for Anna Brody. But she was in no hurry. She slowly smiled at me and said in her soft, breathy voice, "You don't know what a help you've been."

I must have shivered because she undid her light blue scarf and draped it around my neck.

"I couldn't," I said.

"You must," she said, tying it for me. "Otherwise, you'll catch cold."

I wanted to say, "But it matches your eyes."

The driver opened the door. As Anna ducked into the back of the car, Frida shouted out that she'd be calling. Anna didn't look back, disappearing behind the tinted gla.s.s. I found myself waving stupidly as the sedan pulled away.

The rest of the walk home, I kept hearing the way she'd said it, as if it were a secret-Anna, Anna Brody. Like a stuck record, it kept playing in my head-Anna, Anna Brody, Anna, Anna Brody, Anna, Anna Brody . . .

The question became: How was I going to stop it? How was I going to drown it out?

Tim.

I imagined what Tim would say.

For six years my husband had been working on his dissertation. t.i.tled and ret.i.tled countless times, it had turned into a large, sprawling work called "The History of Loss." On the rare good days, he called it "Loss and Its Many Friends," and on the frequent doubt-filled days, he laughed sadly and referred to it as "The Lost Cause." Given his own history and seen from the vantage point of his childhood, Tim's central thesis had been born out of necessity, a lifesaving theory that salvaged a lost boy, but, I had urged him to consider, what about the man? Wasn't it time for a new theory? Happily, not yet. Besides, all theories need to be tested. Here I found myself with the opportunity to try out Tim's. And while many people found his approach depressing, I had lived with it long enough that I'd begun to find comfort in it. On that day, in those post-Anna Brody hours, it was Tim and only Tim I heard loud and clear. Often he'd couch it in historical anecdote, or pepper his conversation with apt examples, but the gist was: Lose. Lose early, lose often. For it's how you lose that counts. And you will lose. Your hair, your looks, your teeth, your body fluids and fecal matter; you will lose friends, your memory, and if you're one of the elite few, like Anna Brody, who expect to be remembered, give it time: Eventually, the world will lose its memory of you, too. Anna who?

I felt much better.

Still, I was in a sad, sad mood as I pulled Teddy and Sam down State Street. It had started with the scarf, an admittedly nice gesture, but enough already-now my tears were freezing to my face.

Back home, and in an attempt to shake myself out of my funk, I gathered Teddy and Sam in our living room/dining room/toy room, where we made a bed out of sofa pillows, stuffed animals, and the almost beanless beanbag chair I'd had since college. The three of us cuddled. I told them how happy I was and how much their daddy and I loved them. I kissed them on their forehead and on their soft, warm cheeks, and they sensed, I think, that if they didn't do something fast, I'd kiss them all over, so they began to squirm, push me away, and demand TV. We spent the afternoon watching animated and live action videos, all of which they'd seen numerous times. We had our own little film festival, and instead of making them lunch, I prepared a series of snacks that I brought out over the course of several hours. I made open-face grilled cheese cut into small squares. I made faces out of pieces of produce-grapes for eyes, a carrot stick for a nose, a banana split down the middle for a smiling mouth, and a handful of raisins, placed just right, to suggest a head of hair. I amused them and even myself, and for a few hours I was not only the mother I never had, I was the mother of all mothers.

TIM.

WHENEVER I GIVE, SAY, MY ANNUAL LECTURE ON THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS, WHEN I dress up like Lincoln, or recount the Cuban Missile Crisis from Castro's point of view, and whenever my students clap and cheer as I exit the cla.s.sroom, and after I climb the school stairs to my cork-lined faculty office/cubby where I sit in my broken oak swivel chair, my heart racing, exhausted but elated from my brief dance with brilliance, and just as I'm about to announce to myself I am the G.o.d of all teachers, I usually have the good sense to do the following: I pull open my desk drawer, rummage through the a.s.sorted chewed-on pens and pencils, the packages of Post-its, the pair of green-handled lefty scissors, the loose change, and the leftover Halloween candy pilfered from one of the boys' orange plastic pumpkins, until the aging envelope is found-"Ah," I sigh-as I take out the single piece of crinkled, now yellowed paper and reread what a former student wrote a few years back: Mr. Welch, yore my faverite teacher ever.