Before You Know Kindness

  A dozen yards behind Charlotte, winding their way through a small crowd surrounding a pair of musicians dressed up like Chaucerian minstrels, he saw his sister and a strange man with a beard. It took him a moment to realize it was his brother-in-law. Behind them he could see the western tower of the George Washington Bridge and the graceful, sloped curves formed by the stay ropes and suspender cables on the New York side. The families had planned to meet at the top of the stone steps at the entrance to the Cloisters itself, rather than here in the middle of Fort Tryon Park, but here they all were--even Spencer.

  He'd never seen Spencer with a beard, and the combination of the whiskers and the mere fact that the man was present caused him a brief second of disbelief, then incredulity: Is that really Spencer? Has he really come along? The giveaway was the sling. Spencer's right arm was strapped in a sling across a blue cotton tennis shirt, the fabric a pale echo of the cobalt sky above them.

  John knew that even if he and Spencer hadn't been feuding, they never would have greeted each other with anything like the exuberance of their daughters. Given, however, that they were sparring (rather, that Spencer was sparring with him), he tried to decide how much ardor and warmth he should manifest now. He felt a September breeze coming up off the Hudson, warmer than the wind in Vermont, riffling the leaves on the park's maples and oaks.

  Willow was pulling Charlotte over to them, and he and Sara both took turns hugging their niece. She looked like she had grown since New Hampshire, but then John decided it was something else. She seemed more poised. He wondered if a few weeks in eighth grade could change a girl so much. She was wearing a denim skirt and a balsam-colored cotton cardigan, and now that she was done greeting her cousin she was carrying herself as if she were . . .

  And then he got it. She was carrying herself as if she were that kid in the play she was in. That proper British orphan. He thought he might even have heard the suggestion of a British accent when she had said hello.

  "Heavens! Spencer has a beard!" It was Nan speaking, apparently more taken aback by her son-in-law's facial hair than the reality that he had deigned to join them. Gently she pushed the stroller with her grandson back and forth, fearing, perhaps, that her small outburst had upset the child. Patrick wasn't sleeping, but at the moment he was content to bat at the small plastic boats that dangled before him from the awning of the pram.

  "Yes, isn't it nice that Father chose to come along, too?" Charlotte said, allowing that small hint of a British accent to become almost overwhelming. John didn't believe he had ever heard his niece refer to Spencer as Father, and he was quite certain that collapsing an er sound into an a was a new affectation.

  He smiled at her and then offered his sister and Spencer a small wave across the crowd. His sister waved back, but Spencer remained almost completely motionless. A juggler in harlequin tights drifted through the crowd, tossing garish cloth beanbags into the air, and John remembered that Willow had expressed an interest in the jugglers. And so he made eye contact with the jester and motioned for him to join them. When he was sure that the juggler had seen them, he murmured to his mother and to Sara that he thought he would go say hello to Spencer. He didn't know quite what he would say. But Spencer was here, and even if they resolved nothing, at least they could talk.

  INSIDE THE STONEWALLS of the Cloisters, Spencer stared at Bartolo's massive The Adoration of the Shepherds, but he was less interested in the depiction of the humans' veneration of the baby Jesus than he was in the awe that he saw in the eyes of the donkey and the cow. Arguably, they were more prominent in the painting than the shepherds. Luke, he knew, had never said specifically in his account of Christ's birth that there were animals present, but neither did he say that the barn had been empty. Certainly it was impossible for Spencer to imagine the Nativity without them. He couldn't envision how, years ago, Charlotte could ever have built her own creche scenes without carefully finding a place for each creature. Their metaphoric importance to the story was profound, and certainly Bartolo had understood this. Most medieval artists did.

  "I like the name Tanya. Did you choose it, or did it come with the dog?" he heard John asking him. Everyone else was outside on the terrace overlooking the Hudson River. They had fled as a group as soon as they saw that he wasn't going to shun his brother-in-law from Vermont, in theory leaving the two men alone to iron out their differences. So far, they hadn't said more than a dozen words about anything other than medieval altarpieces and twelfth-century wooden sculptures. Now John was bringing up the dog.

  "She's two years old. The name came with her," he said, keeping his eyes fixed on the great cow eyes in the painting before him.

  "Charlotte sounds very happy to have her."

  "She is."

  "She seems to be in a good phase right now. Is it the play?"

  "Maybe. Maybe she's just growing up."

  "Does she talk about what happened in New Hampshire?"

  He turned away from the Bartolo. This was the first time John had deviated from small talk. He sighed. "Well, we don't discuss it much. She's started to see a therapist, and the first session may have opened up some doors for her."

  "Does she seem okay about it--about the accident?"

  "Now, have you thought about why you're asking me that?"

  "Spencer, please. Come on."

  "I'm serious. Why do you think you're asking? Is it so you can feel less guilty about what you did--be reassured that your niece is not going to be traumatized for life--or is it because you're interested in my daughter's mental health? Personally, I think the answer's a combination of both."

  Two young women, one in a Fordham sweatshirt, pressed close to the painting. They had clipboards, and they seemed to be scribbling notes about the image.

  "Yes, I'm sure my guilt is a factor. Is that what you need to hear? If so, I'm happy to admit it. But the primary motivation behind my question just now was my niece and how she's doing. And I'll tell you something else: As bad as I feel for Charlotte, I feel a thousand times worse when I think of how my stupidity led to your injury."

  "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have made such a big deal about your question," he said.

  John looked taken aback--almost dazed--by his apology. Only after a moment did he continue, "So . . . you and Charlotte really don't talk much about what happened?"

  "Nope. But it's not like it's a subject we avoid, either. It is in our faces. After all, I'm still learning to eat with my left hand. I can no longer tie my own shoes. It's impossible to hold a book open and turn the pages. A hardcover novel, I've learned, is really quite heavy."

  "Does she blame me? If I were her, I might."

  He resisted the urge to chastise John for bringing this all back to him. Does she blame me? Yes, they were in the midst of relics touched by the true pioneers of the hair shirt, but if only because John's voice sounded so pathetic his question didn't seem quite so narcissistic. "Did she seem to blame you a few minutes ago in the park?" he asked in response.

  "No."

  "Well, there's your answer."

  "I'm glad."

  Spencer wandered toward the glass looking out on the garth garden and the fountain from a twelfth-century French monastery. It felt good to be strolling through here with John. Anger, always an exhausting emotion, was particularly trying when you were already investing so much energy in simply trying to button your shirt. The main reason, he guessed, he had agreed to resume speaking to his brother-in-law was precisely because not speaking to him was becoming so much work. "Can I ask you something?" he said when he felt John standing beside him once more.

  "Absolutely. Ask me anything."

  "How much weight have you lost? You look like hell."

  "I don't know. Ten, maybe fifteen pounds."

  "That's impressive. All since mid-August?"

  The man shrugged with both shoulders, a motion Spencer noticed largely because he couldn't do it. "Early August, mid-August. I don't know."

  "Why are you on a diet?"

>   "I'm not. I'm just not hungry."

  "Well, the two of us look pretty scary."

  "I know. I saw in the paper today that there's a play opening downtown about the Bataan Death March. We should have auditioned."

  He grinned in spite of himself. "I'm amazed I'm not losing more weight. I spill more food than I get to my mouth. At breakfast this morning I overturned a bowlful of cereal. Sent the whole thing somersaulting onto the floor. Fortunately, Tanya was right there. To be honest, that's the main reason I got the dog. It wasn't for Charlotte. It was for me. She'll eat anything."

  "Even soy milk?"

  "Oh, yeah. I checked her references. I made sure she was a vegan."

  "Really?"

  "I'm kidding. The animal shelter doesn't categorize its animals that way."

  "But you will try to make her a vegetarian--like your cats. True?"

  "Oh, I don't know. I may even pick up a few cans of Friskies for the cats one of these days. Just leave them on the kitchen counter for Catherine and Charlotte to discover one evening when they go to feed them. Everything is so much harder now, and not just for me. Sometimes I need to give in and accept the fact that I can't do as much as I'd like."

  "You're getting mellow in your old age."

  "You learn to compromise when you're down to one arm. And the truth is, Catherine eats meat--did you know that?"

  "She told me a few weeks ago."

  "Yup: My wife eats meat and the sun continues to rise."

  They were quiet for a moment. The garden was starting to empty, and he wondered if something special was about to occur in the park. The jousting, maybe. That would explain why people were beginning to leave.

  "Spencer?"

  "Yes?"

  "I was thinking of staying in town for the press conference."

  "That would be interesting. Did you discuss this with Paige?"

  "I'm not going to stick around. At least I don't think I will. And I wouldn't have been staying to help you. I was going to threaten to stay--threaten to talk about the benefits of hunting--to try to convince you not to announce your lawsuit with a press conference. It was a stupid idea. And I'm only telling you now so you understand the depth of my concern. I mean, I have no objections to the lawsuit itself. Absolutely none . . ."

  Spencer circled his left index finger at John, signaling him to continue.

  "But if I were at the press conference," John said, "a lot of reporters would want to talk to me. It would be chaos. And, in the end, less time and space would be devoted to the FERAL message, because the writers and producers would have the chance to quote me--the guy who owned the gun. And I would talk very reasonably about managing the size of the deer herd through hunting, and how contraception only works in very controlled little worlds. But it was all just brinkmanship. Public relations brinkmanship. I couldn't have gone through with it."

  He thought about this, picturing John in the rear of that large conference room in Paige's firm where they were going to announce the lawsuit, and the vision didn't make him angry. Certainly it would have once. Mostly, he guessed, he was surprised that John--exactly like his sister--had so little faith in what he was going to do at the event, in what he was going to say.

  "You sound like Catherine," he said after a moment.

  "Was she threatening to go, too?"

  "No. It's that both of you seem to think I am going to mismanage the press conference, and my daughter is going to be humiliated. That's not going to happen. I know what I'm doing."

  "I won't ask what your plans are, but . . ."

  "Good," he said, "it's too nice a day and it's too good to see you again." He reached into his left pants pocket for one of the Percocet he carried there loosely like change and popped it into his mouth without water. When he had swallowed it he continued, "Seriously, John, you can sleep easy. I know what I'm doing, and I would never embarrass my daughter. Now, shall we rejoin our families and see if the jousting is about to begin?"

  A MAGICIAN dressed up like Merlin was throwing bolts of fire into the autumn air from his fingertips, while a group of costumed adults were performing a living chess match on the tournament field. Willow decided that her art teacher, Grace Seeley, had been correct: This festival was wonderful. She had to remind herself that the whole reason she was here was to talk to her cousin about their depositions, a conversation toward which she had made no overtures thus far. Mostly they had discussed the school musical in which Charlotte had a lead and her cousin's new dog. When she put the two subjects together, it almost made Willow breathless with envy: How interesting her New York City cousin's life was compared to hers!

  They were walking alone now, a dozen yards ahead of their mothers, their grandmother, and Patrick, when Charlotte surprised her by saying, "Are you still worried about those oaths we may have to take?"

  "Yes." She considered adding more, but since her cousin had brought this up she had the instinctive sense that she should remain patient and see what Charlotte had to say.

  "I've been thinking about them, too."

  "Really?"

  "Uh-huh. And I know you don't want us to lie, but I believe we have to. We have to for my father. This whole lawsuit could crash and burn--isn't that a powerful expression? I learned it from my history teacher--if people find out I was stoned when I pulled the trigger. And that would be a disaster for him both personally and professionally. This isn't about you or me, and it sure as heck isn't about Gwen. It's about my dad. Your uncle."

  She worked hard not to raise her voice. "But what about my dad? It isn't fair to him if we don't tell the truth--"

  "Your dad isn't crippled. Mine is. Your dad doesn't have a cause here that matters to him. Mine does."

  "But lying is wrong. It's--"

  "Willow, have you ever told someone you couldn't come over to their house because you were going to visit your grandmother? You know, told a little white lie so you didn't hurt someone's feelings? In my opinion, not telling the whole truth at the depo-whatever--"

  "Deposition," she said, unable to restrain herself from correcting her cousin.

  "Right. Deposition. Not telling the truth at the deposition is like a white lie. It makes things better than telling the truth, which would only make people's lives worse. Do you see the difference?"

  "We're not talking about a little white lie. We're talking about a really big one."

  "No. The point is--"

  "Here's what I think the point is. Your dad can't use his arm anymore and my dad is in trouble because you picked up his gun and started fooling around with it. And why were you fooling around with it? Because we were both stoned."

  "First of all, your dad is not in trouble. Second, I would have taken the gun even if we hadn't been smoking pot," she said evenly, her voice lowering a register and picking up a slight trace of a British accent. "That's my point, and I am quite certain of it now."

  "So, you know what's going to happen, then?" Willow responded, hoping to keep her tone equally as measured. She stared straight ahead at the chess players in their medieval garb, wondering suddenly where they'd gotten all those costumes. Everyone looked like they had just arrived here from Middle Earth. "You won't say anything about the pot and the beer, but I will. They'll find out anyway--everyone will--and that certainly won't make your dad's case look very good."

  "You can't do that!"

  "I can! I won't lie in the deposition, Charlotte. I won't. It's wrong, and it's not fair to my dad."

  "You can't--"

  "Girls, is everything okay?" It was her aunt Catherine's voice. She turned around, and the grown women--her aunt and her mom and her grandmother with the pram before her--all looked slightly concerned. Willow didn't believe they had overheard enough of their conversation to understand exactly what they were discussing, but clearly they'd heard their daughters fighting.

  "Oh, we're fine, Mother," Charlotte called back in that new voice of hers. "Just two girls bickering."

  "Are you hungry? There seem to be
some vendors along that road over there," Aunt Catherine told them, and she pointed at the row of food carts on the street, closed today to automobiles, that wound its way up to the Cloisters.