The Gap of Time Read Free Page A

it is, I am grieving.
    I discover that grief means living with someone who is not there.
    Where are you?
    Engine roar of a motorcycle. Cars with their windows down and the radio on. Kids on skateboards. A dog barking. The delivery truck unloading. Two women arguing on the sidewalk. Everybody on their cellphone. A guy on a box shouting, EVERYTHING MUST GO.
    That’s fine by me. Take it all away. The cars, the people, the goods for sale. Strip it back to the dirt under my feet and the sky over my head. Turn off the sound. Blank the picture. Nothing in between us now. Will I see you walking towards me at the end of the day? The way you did, the way we both did, dead tired, coming home from work? Look up and we see each other, first far away, then near? The energy of you in human form again. The atomic shape of your love.
    “It’s nothing,” she said, when she knew she was dying.
    Nothing? Then the sky is nothing and the earth is nothing and your body is nothing and our lovemaking is nothing…
    She shook her head. “Death is the least important thing in my life. What difference will it make? I won’t be here.”
    “I will be here,” I said.
    “That’s the cruelty,” she said. “If I could live my death for you I would.”
    “CLOSING-DOWN SALE. EVERYTHING MUST GO.”
    It’s gone already.
    I reached the street where the hospital stands. There’s the BabyHatch. Just then the baby I’m carrying wakes up and I feel her move. We look at each other, her unsteady blue eyes finding my dark gaze. She lifts up one tiny hand, small as a flower, and touches the rough stubble of my face.
    The cars come and the cars go between me and my crossing the street. The anonymous always-in-motion world. The baby and I stand still, and it’s as if she knows that a choice has to be made.
    Or does it? The important things happen by chance. Only the rest gets planned.
    I walked round the block thinking I’d think about it, but my legs were heading home, and sometimes you have to accept that your heart knows what to do.
    —
    When I got back my son was watching the TV news. Last night’s storm update and personal stories. The usual government officials saying the usual things. Then there was another call for witnesses to come forward. The dead man. The man was Anthony Gonzales, Mexican. Passport found on the body. Robbery. Homicide. Nothing unusual about that in this city except for the weather.
    But there was something unusual. He left the baby.
    “You don’t know that, Dad.”
    “I know what I know.”
    “We should tell the cops.”
    How did I raise a son who trusts the cops? My son trusts everyone. I worry about him. I shake my head. He points at the baby.
    “If you’re not calling the cops, what are you gonna do with her?”
    “Keep her.”
    My son looks at me in disbelief and dismay. I can’t keep a newborn child. It’s illegal. But I don’t care about that. Help of the helpless. Can’t I be that person?
    I have fed her and changed her. I bought what I needed from the store on the way home. If my wife were alive, she’d do what I’m doing. We would do this together.
    It’s as though I’ve been given a life for the one I took. That feels like forgiveness to me.
    There was an attaché case with the child—like preparing her for a career in business. The case is locked. I tell my son that if we can locate her parents, we’ll do that. So we open the case.
    Clo’s face looks like a bad actor’s in a budget sitcom. His eyes bulge. His jaw drops.
    “Seven days of Creation,” says Clo. “Is that stuff real?”
    Crisp, packed, stacked notes like a prop from a gangster movie. Fifty bundles. Ten thousand dollars in every bundle.
    Underneath the notes there is a soft velvet bag. Diamonds. A necklace. Not little snips of diamonds—big-cut and generous like the heart of a woman. Time so deep and clear in the facets that it’s like looking into a crystal ball.
    Underneath the diamonds there’s a piece of sheet music.