A. Homes - May We Be Forgiven

She seems unmoved, or like she doesn’t understand what I’m saying.

“I will talk to my husband,” she says.

“Okay,” I say. “Thank you.”

A little too proud of myself, I call Jane’s father. “I took your suggestion,” I say.

“You couldn’t have,” he says.

“I did,” I say.

“Trust me,” he says.

“I’m taking the kids away — we’re going to historic Williamsburg.”

“I get it,” he says, pauses, and then comes back: “My suggestion is that you goddamned rot in hell, you and your piece-of-shit brother. You took my beautiful daughter, God knows what you’re doing to those children.”

I collect my thoughts. “You’re right,” I offer. “What happened was unforgivable, and I wanted you to know I heard what you said; I’m trying to do my best for these children.”

“Shmuck,” he says — and then there’s a pause. “So why are you calling?”

“You suggested I take the children somewhere; I wanted you to know we’re going to Williamsburg.”

“And you’re expecting me to pay for that? You think Williamsburg is like Israel? Not a penny, asshole, not a penny.”

“I wasn’t asking for money — I just wanted you to know. We’ll send a postcard,” I say, hanging up.

The next time we talk, I tell Nate that I called the boy’s aunt.

“What’s today?” Nate asks.

“In what sense?”

“The date?”

I give him today’s date.

“I know,” he says. “Mom’s birthday.”

“Right,” I say, not having realized.

“Are we supposed to do something — have a cake with an unlit candle, something symbolic?”

“You could do that,” I say.

“Yeah,” he says, “I could ask the kitchen for a birthday cake for my dead mother, with an unlit candle. …”

“I’ll go to the cemetery,” I say.

“And do what?”

“Check on things, talk to her. …” The more I say the worse it seems — I picture myself standing at her grave singing “Happy Birthday.”

Silence …

“So what did the boy’s family say?” Nate asks.

“They’re thinking about it,” I say.

“I hope he comes with us.”

“How come?”

“This whole thing has been so bad,” Nate says, “we have to make something go right, and this is something we can do.”

“I hope so too,” I say, surprising myself.

I go to the cemetery and drive in circles — it all looks the same, a few scattered cars, gravediggers, and a funeral in progress. This one allows no markers aboveground, so there’s something apocalyptically flat about it. There’s not a stray baby tree springing up, a lone elm taking root.

I can’t remember where Jane’s grave is and have to check in at the office. “Please sign our Visitor Book,” the woman at the desk urges, but I don’t.

I would have brought flowers, but the cemetery doesn’t allow them: no live flowers also means no dead flowers that have to be collected and thrown away.

I get the directions, and as soon as I’m out of the car and up the small rise of land I see her — Jane’s mother, Sylvia. I see her and am tempted to leave, to turn and go back to the car, to respect her privacy, to avoid a confrontation. But, really, there is nowhere to go, nothing I can do except go forward.

“Hello,” I say.

She nods at me.

We both look at the grave. A few rocks have been placed, indicating that Jane has not been forgotten, others have been here.

“It’s a place,” she says.

It’s hard to know how to respond. “Yes,” I say, “it is. It’s her birthday.”

“Yes,” she says, brightening. “I remember the day she was born — vividly — like it was yesterday, but yesterday I don’t remember so well. Pardon me,” she says, as if begging forgiveness. “I’m on medication, I needed something to calm me down — but now I’m like the walking dead.”

“I can imagine it’s difficult.” I pause. “Nate called — he was wondering what to do about today — I told him I was coming here.” I give her a few details about each of the kids and then stop: she’s not listening.

“I knew about the affair,” she says.

I nod.

“Jane and I talked. …”

I don’t say anything, because what is there to say.

“I had an affair as well,” her mother says. “When she told me about you, I told her about me.”

“Whom did you have the affair with?”

“Goldblatt,” she says, “the dentist. And Troshinksy, the girls’ piano teacher. He had beautiful hands. I also had a moment, but not an affair, with Guralnick, who was for a time working in my husband’s office. Of course, my husband knows nothing of it.”

“Of course.”

“Jane liked you very much.”

“I liked her.”

“Was it worth all this? A moment of … whatever you want to call it, cost my girl her life,” she says, as though she can’t believe it.

“What happened is very unusual.”

“The affair?” She looks at me incredulously.

“The murder,” I say.

She pauses. “Your wife was a foreigner,” she says. “She married you to become legit.”

“My ex-wife,” I say, “is Chinese-American. She was born in this country and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford and her father was considered a strong candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.”

“I never knew,” she says. And it means so many things. She puts a little blue box from Tiffany down on the dirt where next year the marker will be.

“You bought her a gift?”

“I’m not foolish,” she says. “The box is empty. She always liked the little blue boxes.”

In the car, on the way home, I debate calling George. I imagine the conversation in my head: “It’s Jane’s birthday. I didn’t know if you’d remember, but I thought I should check in on you.”

“You fucked her,” he says.

“That’s not why I’m calling. …” The thought of it stops me from going further.

The boy’s aunt Christina calls back, says she’s got a couple of questions — she wants to make sure it’s not going to cost them anything.

“It’s all on us,” I say.

And then she says, “My husband wants to know if we have to bring a tent?”

I’m not sure where the tent idea comes from, but it makes me nervous.

“No need for a tent,” I say. “We’ll be staying indoors. A couple changes of clothes and a toothbrush.”

“Okay,” she says, “we’ll go.”

We pick them up at the aunt’s house. The husband comes out with them, carrying two enormous suitcases, a knapsack, and a bag of groceries. The aunt is dressed up, wearing her good jeans, a nice blouse, high heels; and Ricardo looks doughy, tense, and overexcited all at once — I instantly don’t like him. He’s wearing bright-yellow soccer shorts and an enormous blue Yankees T-shirt, all of it conspiring to make him look like a giant molten blob. By Trenton, I’m having second thoughts. The noise level of Ricardo’s video game seems to drive only me crazy, it’s like no one else can hear it. “Can you turn it down? Can you please turn it down? How about off? How about turning it off for a little bit? Just take a rest. Please. I’m asking you nicely. Okay, I’m begging you, I can’t keep driving if that noise persists.” And then he starts kicking the back of my seat and opening and closing the electric windows — changing the air pressure in the car. Nate and Ash speak to the kid in Spanish, he laughs, he puts the game away. The kid has a really odd, almost animal laugh that’s off-putting, and yet totally genuine and charming.

I ask the aunt where she’s from — I’m assuming Colombia or Nicaragua.

“The Bronx,” she says.

“And where were you from originally?”