Page 43 of The Dutch House

“I don’t know where she isnow. I saw her more than a year ago, maybe two. I’m bad with time. I’m sure it was in the Bowery though. I looked out the window of a bus and there she was, Elna Conroy, just standing there like she was waiting for me. It about stopped my heart.”

I exhaled, my own heart starting again. “You mean you saw someone who looked like my mother when you were on a bus?” The idea of seeing anyone you knew out the window of a bus seemed far-fetched, but I never took the bus, and when I did, I don’t suppose I looked out the window.

Fluffy rolled her eyes. “Jesus, I’m not an idiot, Danny. I gotoffthe bus. I went back and found her.”

“And it was her?” Elna Conroy, who had run off to India in the night, leaving her husband and two sleeping children, was in the Bowery?

“She was just the same, I swear it. Her hair’s gone gray and she wears it in a braid now, the way Maeve used to. They both have that ridiculous hair.”

“Did she remember you?”

“I haven’t changed that much,” Fluffy said.

I was the one who had changed.

Fluffy dumped her coffee into her water glass and let the ice melt. “The first thing she asked about was you and Maeve, and since I didn’t know there was nothing I could tell her. I didn’t even know where you lived. The shame of it all came back on me like the whole thing had happened yesterday. I’ll never get over it. To think I’d been fired, to thinkwhyI’d been fired, and that I hadn’t stayed to look after you the way I’d promised her I would.” Her grief hung between us.

“We were her children. It seems like she should have stayed and looked after us herself.”

“She’s a wonderful woman, Danny. She had a terrible time of it.”

“A terrible time of it living in the Dutch House?”

Fluffy looked down at her empty plate. This wasn’t her fault. Even if she’d hit me, even if she’d been thrown out because of it. There was very little forgiveness in my heart and what I had I gave to Fluffy.

“There’s no way for you to understand,” she said. “She couldn’t live like that. She’s doing her penance down there serving soup. She’s trying to make up for what she’s done.”

“Who is she making it up to? To me, to Maeve?”

Fluffy considered this. “To God, I guess. There’s no other reason she’d have been in the Bowery.”

I, who had bought property in Harlem and Washington Heights, would not have touched the Bowery with a stick. “When did she leave India?”

Fluffy tore open two sugar packets, added them to her iced coffee and stirred. I wanted to tell her the whole thing would have gone better if she’d put the sugar in the coffee while the coffee was still hot. In fact, I wanted to tell her it would have been infinitely preferable to get together in order to discuss how sugar dissolves. “A long time ago. She said it had been years and years. She said the people had been very kind to her. Can you imagine? She would have been happy to stay there but she had to go where she was needed.”

“Which wasn’t Elkins Park.”

“She gave up everything, that’s what you have to understand. She gave up you and your sister and your father and that house so she could help the poor. She’s lived in India and God only knows how many other horrible places. She was down there on the Bowery. The whole place stinks, you know. It’s foul down there, the trash and the people, and your mother’s serving soup to the junkies and drunks. If that’s not being sorry, I don’t know what is.”

I shook my head. “That’s being delusional, not sorry.”

“I wish I could have talked to her more,” Fluffy said, her feelings clearly hurt. “But I was going to be late for my job. I’m a baby nurse now. I get in and get out before I get too attached. And to tell you the truth, the bums were crawling all over the place and I didn’t feel so comfortable standing there on the street. Just as soon as I had that thought, she told me she was going to walk me to the bus stop. She put my arm in hers likewe were two old friends. She told me she’d be working down there for a while, and that I could come back and serve if I wanted to, or just come back and visit. I kept thinking I’d go see her again on my day off, but Bobby wasn’t having it. He said I had no business making lunch for a bunch of guys on the needle.”

I sat back in my chair, trying to take it in. I was glad that Maeve didn’t come to the city. I didn’t want her looking out a bus window and seeing our mother on the street. “Do you know where she is now?”

She shook her head. “I should have tried to find you sooner so I could have told you. It wouldn’t have been hard. I feel bad about that.”

I motioned to Lizzy for the check. “If my mother had wanted to see us she would have found us herself. Like you said, it wouldn’t have been hard.”

Fluffy was twisting the paper napkin in her fingers. “Believe me, I know what a bad time everyone went through. I was there. But your mother has a higher calling than we do, that’s all.”

I put my money on the table. “Then I hope she enjoys it.”

When I looked at my watch, I realized I was already late. I’d scheduled a meeting with a contractor as a means of ensuring my time with Fluffy would be limited. She walked with me two blocks before it became clear she was going in the wrong direction. She took my hand. “We’ll do this again, won’t we?” she said. “Maeve has my number. I’d like to see you both. I want you to meet my kids. They’re great kids, like you and your sister.”

Maeve was right. Not only was it remarkable to see Fluffy again, but I felt a complete absence of anger towards her. She had been in an impossible situation. No one would say thatwhat had happened had been her fault. “Would you leave them?”

“Who?”