Andrew Gross - The Blue Zone

Kate stopped at a trinket stall and bought a small polished silver heart charm she thought she’d give to her mom. It had an inscription she thought was amusing.

Sugar Girl.

As she waited, glancing at her watch, the sea, and the festive scene, something old and long buried flashed into Kate’s mind.

She was in the old house. She was maybe eight or ten years old, and she had stayed home from school that day, sick. She’d been pushing her mom to go out and rent her a movie, the prospects of the long day recuperating at home seeming bleak.

“How about I show you a movie?” Her mother smiled.

Kate didn’t know what she meant.

They spent the next few hours on the floor in the den, Kate in her pj’s. From a carton of old things, Sharon pulled out a dog-eared, ancient-looking Playbill.

The original West Side Story .

“That was my favorite thing when I was about your age,” her mother said. “My mom took me to see it at the Winter Garden Theatre in New York. What d’ya say I take you?”

Kate beamed. “Okay.”

Her mom pushed a tape into the VCR and turned on the TV, and the two of them curled up together on the couch and watched the story of Romeo and Juliet and their families, recast as Tony and Maria, the Sharks and the Jets. At times her mother sang along, knowing every word-“When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way,/From your first cigarette to your last dying day”-and when they played the big dance number in the gym-“I like to be in America!”- Sharon leaped up and mimicked the steps to a tee, dancing in thrilling unison alongside the character of Anita, throwing her hands in the air and kicking up her heels. Kate remembered clearly how it made her laugh.

“Everyone I knew wanted to be Maria,” her mother said, “because she was the prettiest. But I wanted to be Anita because of how she danced.”

“I didn’t know you could dance like that, Mommy,” Kate said, astonished.

“You didn’t, huh?” Her mom plopped herself back down with a weary sigh. “Believe me, there’s a lot you don’t know about me, honey.”

They watched the rest of the movie, and Kate remembered crying as her mother sang, “There’s a place for us,” with the doomed Tony and Maria. Kate recalled how close it made her feel to her mom, how it became something she always remembered fondly. Maybe one day she’d have the chance to share it with her own daughter.

She smiled sweetly. There’s a lot you don’t know about me…

“Hon…?”

Kate turned. Sharon was standing there in front of her, at the market. She had on an orange turtleneck sweater and tortoiseshell sunglasses, her thick hair pulled back with a barrette.

“ Mom! ” The two of them hugged.

They gazed at each other, now in the light of day. Her mom looked so pretty. It was so good to be there.

“You won’t believe what I was just thinking about,” Kate confided, a little embarrassed, shielding her eyes from the sun.

“Tell me.” Sharon smiled. She looped her arm through Kate’s. “C’mon, we have a lot of things to catch up on.”

They talked about a million subjects. Justin and Emily, how they were getting along. How Tina was doing. Kate’s diabetes. Greg. How he was finishing up his residency and had his résumé out, but right now they didn’t know where they’d end up next year.

“Maybe we’ll have to come out here and live with you,” Kate said with a grin.

“That would be something, wouldn’t it?” Sharon smiled.

They talked a lot about Dad.

For lunch they ordered from a cute, athletic-looking waiter, with the tan of a snowboard instructor. Kate ordered the Vietnamese chicken salad and Sharon a salade Niçoise. Every once in a while, the wind kicked up. Kate kept pushing the hair out of her eyes.

Finally, in a little lull, Sharon lifted her sunglasses. She took Kate’s hand and, with a bit of a worried expression, traced the life line on her palm.

“Darling, I think you ought to tell me just why you’re here.”

Kate nodded. “Something happened last week, Mom, on the river…”

She told her mother about the boat that had almost run her down and cut her shell in two.

“Oh, good God, Kate…” Sharon shut her eyes, continuing to grasp Kate’s hand. When she opened them, there were tears. “You don’t know how sorry I am that you’re involved.”

“I think it’s too late for that, Mom. I think it was always too late.” Kate reached inside her bag for her wallet. “There’s something I have to show you, Mom.”

She took out the old snapshot of her father she’d found back at the house and pushed it across the table.

Sharon picked it up. Kate wasn’t sure if she’d seen it before. But it didn’t seem to matter. Sharon looked back up. She knew what it was. She knew what it meant. It all registered, mixed with a trace of regret, on the lines of her face.

“You found it.” Sharon smiled, without even a hint of surprise.

“You know about this?” Kate asked. “What the hell is Daddy doing there, Mom? This is in Colombia, not Spain. Look what it says on the gate, behind him.” Her voice grew agitated. “ Can you read it, Mom? ”

“I know what it says,” Sharon answered, averting her eyes. “I left it for you, Kate.”

Kate stared back at her, stunned.

“I wrote you almost every day,” her mother said, placing the photo back on the table and reaching out for Kate’s hand. “You have to believe me. I tried to tell you a hundred times… I just could never push that key. It’s been so long, I’d almost forgotten. But it doesn’t help. It doesn’t go away…”

“Forgotten what, Mom ? I don’t understand.” Kate picked up the photo and held it up in front of Sharon ’s eyes. “This is my father, Mom! Who the hell is he? What is he doing in front of that sign?”

Sharon nodded and smiled, a bit resignedly. “We have a lot to make up for, honey.”

“I’m here, Mom.”

The wind kicked up, blowing a plastic glass off the table. Instinctively, Kate bent over to grab it.

She never heard the sound.

At least that’s how she always recalled it as she played the moment back in her head a thousand times.

All of a sudden there was this sharp, searing burn on the back of Kate’s shoulder-a molten iron jabbing into her flesh, the impact almost knocking her off the chair.

Kate’s eyes flashed to the spot. The fabric of her jacket was torn. There was a red hole there. No pain. No panic. She knew that something horrible had happened, she just didn’t know what. Blood started to ooze. It took a second for her brain to realize it.

“ Jesus Christ, Mom, I think I’ve been shot! ”

Sharon was upright, still in her chair, but somehow unresponsive to Kate’s desperation. Her sunglasses were gone, her head was slightly bent and slumped forward. Her pupils were fixed and glazed.

A dark circle spread against the green of her sweater.

“ Mom! ”

In that instant the haze of the moment cleared and Kate focused in disbelief on the hole in her shoulder and at the ring of blood widening on Sharon ’s chest. The bullet had shorn right through her. And into her mom. Kate stared in horror.

“Oh, my God, Mom, no!”

There was the sound of another ping coming in, a woman screaming as a glass exploded at the table next to them, the shot careening off the pavement. By that time Kate had leaped up and thrown herself in front of her mother, covering her slack, unresponsive body, shaking her by the shoulders, screaming, “Mom, Mom!” into the stonelike pallor of Sharon’s face as she fell to the ground.