City of Girls

“You know nothing about Tom Denno. Something happened to him, too, I guarantee it. For a grown man to come at you like that? With such cruelty? Oh, I promise you—life has happened to him, too. Something left him wrecked as a person. Not that I care about that asshole, but his world ain’t straight, either, Frank. You can bet on it.”

Frank started crying. When I saw this, I nearly wept, too. But I held back my tears because his were far more important, far more rare. At that moment, I would have given years off my life to be able to hold him, Angela—in that moment, more than any other. But it wasn’t possible.

“It’s not fair,” he said, through body-wracking sobs.

“No, it’s not, sweetheart,” I said. “It’s not fair. But it’s what happened. It’s just the way things are, Frank, and it means nothing. You’re a wonderful man. You’re no failure. You’re the best man I’ve ever known. That’s the only thing that matters.”

He kept on crying—separated from me by a safe distance, as always. But at least he’d taken his hands off the wheel. At least he had been able to tell me what had happened. Here in the privacy of his swelteringly hot car—in the one corner of his world that was not on fire at this moment—at least he’d been able to tell the truth.

I would sit with him until he was all right again. I knew that I would sit with him for as long as it took. That’s all I could do. That was my only job in the world that day—to sit with this good man. To watch over him from the other side of the car until he was steadied.

When he finally got control of himself again, he stared out the window with the saddest expression I ever saw. He said, “What are we gonna do about it all?”

“I don’t know, Frank. Maybe nothing. But I’m right here.”

That’s when he turned to look at me. “I can’t live without you, Vivian,” he said.

“Good. You’ll never have to.”

And that, Angela, was the closest your father and I ever came to saying I love you.

THIRTY-TWO

The years passed like they always do.

My Aunt Peg died in 1969, from emphysema. She smoked cigarettes right up until the end. It was a hard death. Emphysema is a brutal way to die. Nobody can fully remain themselves when they are in such pain and discomfort, but Peg tried her best to stay Peg—optimistic, uncomplaining, enthusiastic. But slowly, she lost the ability to breathe. It’s a horrible thing to watch someone struggling for air. It’s like witnessing a slow drowning. By the end, sorrowful though it was, we were glad that she could go in peace. We couldn’t bear to see her suffer any longer.

There is a limit, I have found, to how much you can mourn as “tragic” the death of an older person who has lived a rich life, and who is privileged enough to die surrounded by loved ones. There are so many worse ways to live, after all, and so many worse ways to die. From birth to death, Peg was one of life’s fortunate ones—and nobody knew it more than her. (“We are the luckies,” she used to say.) But still, Angela, she had been the most important and influential figure in my life, and it hurt to lose her. Even to this day, even all these years later, I still believe that the world is a poorer place without Peg Buell in it.

The only upside of her death was that it got me to finally quit smoking for good—and that’s probably why I’m still alive today.

Yet another generous offering from that good woman to me.

After Peg’s death, I was mostly concerned about what would become of Olive. She had spent so many years tending to my aunt—how would she fill her hours now? But I needn’t have worried. There was a Presbyterian church over near Sutton Place that always needed volunteers, and so Olive found a use for herself running the Sunday school, organizing fund drives, and generally telling people what to do. She was fine.

Nathan got older, but still not much bigger. We kept him in Quaker schools for his whole education. It was the only environment gentle enough for him. Marjorie and I kept trying to find him a passion (music, art, theater, literature), but he was not a person made for passion. What he liked more than anything was to feel safe and cozy. So we kept his world gentle, cocooning him within our peaceful little universe. We never asked much of Nathan. We thought he was good enough, just the way he was. We were proud of him sometimes just for getting through the day.

As Marjorie said, “Not everyone is meant to charge through the world, carrying a spear.”

“That’s right, Marjorie,” I told her. “We shall leave the spear charging to you.”