“Wait a minute.” A sudden anger. “You had people spy on me?”
His father shook his head. “No, no, nothing like that. Just what anyone would know. The public record.” He stopped. “Well, once. In the beginning. I was so desperate — I couldn’t bear it. So I asked someone at the institute. You know, it’s so easy. To arrange that. He brought me pictures. Hockey in Central Park. You were still a boy. Then I saw how crazy it was. How could I do that to you? It was my fault, all of it. I had to let go. So I made them stop.” He turned to him. “It was just that once.”
Nick stared up at him, not knowing what to say. In all the years, he had not once imagined what his father had felt. Now he saw, as in the science experiment, that if you just took a few steps to the side, the angle of the world was different.
“What else?” he said, curious.
His father shrugged. “It wasn’t much, Nick. A picture. A few clippings. I couldn’t watch you grow. Remember the height marks?”
Nick nodded. The notches on the side of the cabin door, measuring him every six months.
“It was like that. Just the marks. So I’d know how you were doing.”
His father was quiet for a minute, and Nick could hear the music rising in the background, almost at an end.
“So college and then the army and-” His father stopped, took a breath. “All the time, I thought, he doesn’t even know me anymore. Leave it-it’s over and done with. But then you went to London to work with Wiseman. Un-American activities. And I thought, it’s not over for him either. It’s time.”
“For what?” Nick said, standing up. “Why now?”
His father looked around, disconcerted, as if the question had come too soon, then turned to face him.
“Because I’m dying, Nick,” he said, his voice almost a whisper.
Nick stared at him, seeing now that what he had taken for age was really illness.
“No, don’t look like that,” his father said quickly, concerned. “It’s all right. I don’t say it to upset you. It’s just-a fact.” He paused. “So it has to be now.” He looked away from Nick’s gaze. “Please don’t. I know I’m a stranger to you. I didn’t ask you to come to-”
“Why did you, then?” Nick asked, unexpectedly bitter, his voice unsteady. “To say goodbye?”
“No. I wanted to see you, it’s true. Selfish. But there’s something else.” He reached up, putting his hands on Nick’s shoulders. “I want to put an end to that time. For both of us. I need you to help me.”
“But-”
“Don’t you see? You’re the only one I can trust.”
Nick looked at him, amazed. In the distance, the applause began. “To do what?”
His father looked up at the sound of the clapping, the lights beginning to come on, and patted Nick’s hand. “Not here. We’ll talk. It’s a long story. We can’t start it here.” Then he held him by the arms again. “Tomorrow.”
But the lights seemed to bring with them a kind of urgency. There would never be time to catch his breath, sort out the noises that were a jumble in his mind. He watched me grow. He’s dying. Something’s worrying him. Was any of it real? He felt somehow that his father might rise up and float away, like the applause.
“Nick!” He heard her voice from the other end of the arcade, tentative, obviously looking for him, and he grabbed his father’s shoulder.
“One thing,” he said. “I have to know.”
His father looked at him, surprised at the strength of his grasp. “What?”
“Tell me the truth. The truth. Just to me. That night, when you left-did you go to the Mayflower?”
His father stared, assessing, then looked down, almost with a smile. “So you think that too. I thought I was the only one.” He looked back up. “No, I didn’t go there. Somebody else killed her.”
There it was, as simple as that. Nick felt empty with it gone, the relief of an aching limb finally removed.
“But you do think she was killed?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Nick.” Molly again, closer now.
“Who-”
“It’s all the same crime, you see,” his father said, leaning toward him, conspiratorial. “What happened to her. What happened to me. That’s why I need your help. I want to know. While I still have time.”
Before Nick could respond, Molly was with them. His father glanced at him, a flicker of the eye to signal an end to the conversation. But why shouldn’t she know? Secrecy became a reflex. Nick looked at her, waiting to see if she’d overheard, but the words, so loud to him, evidently hadn’t carried.
“There you are,” she said. Then, to his father, “Hello again.”
His father took her hand. “Thank you. For bringing him. I owe you a great debt.”
“I’m glad someone does,” she said cheerfully, refusing to be solemn. “You’ve had a visit?”
“A sighting,” his father said. He looked around at the people milling toward the garden door. “Tomorrow we’ll visit.”
“You’re going?” Nick said.
“It’s better.”
“But we’ve just-I’ll come back with you.”
“No, no. Tomorrow. The country.” He smiled at Nick’s urprise. “The weekend is sacred here. To stay home would be noticed. We leave our flat every Saturday at eight. Like clockwork. So we must keep the clock running.”
“You’re going away?” Nick said, incredulous.
