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Authors: Beth Kephart
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batons his cane and sings his Sammy Davis, Jr. tunes, the white house on Forty-Third that looks like it belongs at the beach.
We’ll make it up to you
, Dad said.
We’ll give you
—
You know what I’m talking about? You know that chain? Perdita’s?
I stand, useless, helpless, in a gunked-up nightshirt, ruby-tipped fingers, the smell of glue. Chunky gold, green feathers, he says. Family heirloom stuff.
He twists the headphones around his neck and my fingertips are beating like ten out-of-kilter hearts.
Christ, he says, and then his phone buzzes and he pulls it from his pocket and reads the text. Two. Three times. He texts back, waits. Another message shivers in. He texts again. His shoulders sag. Exasperated. Worried.
Worst timing in the world, he says. Get dressed, he says. We’re meeting Mom and Dad at the top of the hill.
What are you—talking about?
What do you think I’m talking about? Jesus. He tosses another pillow, pushes the couch with his foot, scratches his head.
Come on, he says.
Can’t.
You have to.
I don’t—want.
Jesus, Nads, do you think I want to go? Do you think I have time to babysit— And then he stops, like he’s supposed to feel sorry for me, be über nice to me, and that hurts worst of all. My eyes are wet spots, burning.
All right, I say. I’m—
Just get changed, he says. Don’t take so long.
31
Through the streets, with the schoolkids and the moms and the bikes and the bike bells and the nuns. Through the streets, my heart pounding. Jack is a shadow cast forward. He has the tuft of a lime-green feather riding high in his back pocket, the only evidence of Perdita’s chain he could find, and every time he turns, I’m still here, walking behind him, and still he turns, like he can’t trust me.
She thinks I took it, Jack says. Why would I do that? To Perdita? Shit.
My chest so tight.
At the Lungarno we cross to the riverside and walk west beneath the streetlamps. The sun is rising fast, splatting the horizontals of the bridges with a yellow pink. At the Ponte Vecchio the stacked boxes of the shops hang above the river. In the faces of the buildings along the Oltarno, the shutters are being pulled back, wood banging against wood and stucco and stone. I look forBenedetto, for a Vespa, for dropped flowers, a sign, a way out of this, out of me.
Meet them on the hill. Tell them the truth. Tell someone.
The air is cool, the sun is warm. On the other side of the river, at the Michelangelo Piazzale, the fake
David
lies invisible behind a tail of fog. In the arcade along the Lungarno, two gypsies are kneeling side by side, their lips kissing the old stones, their lizard hands begging. A taxi out looking for a fare rides the street too close to the curb and Jack grabs my arms, yanks me safe.
What are you doing, he says. Christ.
Halfway across the Ponte Vecchio we stop at the lookout and stand side by side, looking east toward the start of the Arno, which is just a muddy creek, so far down from where we stand on this bridge that any catastrophe story seems like fiction, and I think of all the times I’ve said to Dad,
Prove it
. Prove your flood, as if anyone can prove anything, but Dad tries, shows me photographs of November ’66, the bridges neck-high in the thick of river anger magnified.
The water ran twenty-eight feet high
, he said.
Higher. The bridge was like a dam
, he said, the capsized trees and cars and walls and windows of ruined houses pushing up against and through. Armchairs and jewelry boxes and portfolios and silverware and the split sides of sculptures and books all in the river by then. The river wanted nothing that it took. It dropped it, drowned it, pushed it, broke it, turned it into filth.
The river is a thief.
As am I.
The sun is blinking off. A fog is coming in. We leave the bridge and walk, feeling the fog’s soft gray fur as we climb, its dampness seeping into our hair and skin. Jack half disappears out in front. I see his skater shoes and his
We’ll make it up to you
, Dad said.
We’ll give you
—
You know what I’m talking about? You know that chain? Perdita’s?
I stand, useless, helpless, in a gunked-up nightshirt, ruby-tipped fingers, the smell of glue. Chunky gold, green feathers, he says. Family heirloom stuff.
He twists the headphones around his neck and my fingertips are beating like ten out-of-kilter hearts.
Christ, he says, and then his phone buzzes and he pulls it from his pocket and reads the text. Two. Three times. He texts back, waits. Another message shivers in. He texts again. His shoulders sag. Exasperated. Worried.
Worst timing in the world, he says. Get dressed, he says. We’re meeting Mom and Dad at the top of the hill.
What are you—talking about?
What do you think I’m talking about? Jesus. He tosses another pillow, pushes the couch with his foot, scratches his head.
Come on, he says.
Can’t.
You have to.
I don’t—want.
Jesus, Nads, do you think I want to go? Do you think I have time to babysit— And then he stops, like he’s supposed to feel sorry for me, be über nice to me, and that hurts worst of all. My eyes are wet spots, burning.
All right, I say. I’m—
Just get changed, he says. Don’t take so long.
31
Through the streets, with the schoolkids and the moms and the bikes and the bike bells and the nuns. Through the streets, my heart pounding. Jack is a shadow cast forward. He has the tuft of a lime-green feather riding high in his back pocket, the only evidence of Perdita’s chain he could find, and every time he turns, I’m still here, walking behind him, and still he turns, like he can’t trust me.
She thinks I took it, Jack says. Why would I do that? To Perdita? Shit.
My chest so tight.
At the Lungarno we cross to the riverside and walk west beneath the streetlamps. The sun is rising fast, splatting the horizontals of the bridges with a yellow pink. At the Ponte Vecchio the stacked boxes of the shops hang above the river. In the faces of the buildings along the Oltarno, the shutters are being pulled back, wood banging against wood and stucco and stone. I look forBenedetto, for a Vespa, for dropped flowers, a sign, a way out of this, out of me.
Meet them on the hill. Tell them the truth. Tell someone.
The air is cool, the sun is warm. On the other side of the river, at the Michelangelo Piazzale, the fake
David
lies invisible behind a tail of fog. In the arcade along the Lungarno, two gypsies are kneeling side by side, their lips kissing the old stones, their lizard hands begging. A taxi out looking for a fare rides the street too close to the curb and Jack grabs my arms, yanks me safe.
What are you doing, he says. Christ.
Halfway across the Ponte Vecchio we stop at the lookout and stand side by side, looking east toward the start of the Arno, which is just a muddy creek, so far down from where we stand on this bridge that any catastrophe story seems like fiction, and I think of all the times I’ve said to Dad,
Prove it
. Prove your flood, as if anyone can prove anything, but Dad tries, shows me photographs of November ’66, the bridges neck-high in the thick of river anger magnified.
The water ran twenty-eight feet high
, he said.
Higher. The bridge was like a dam
, he said, the capsized trees and cars and walls and windows of ruined houses pushing up against and through. Armchairs and jewelry boxes and portfolios and silverware and the split sides of sculptures and books all in the river by then. The river wanted nothing that it took. It dropped it, drowned it, pushed it, broke it, turned it into filth.
The river is a thief.
As am I.
The sun is blinking off. A fog is coming in. We leave the bridge and walk, feeling the fog’s soft gray fur as we climb, its dampness seeping into our hair and skin. Jack half disappears out in front. I see his skater shoes and his
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