Night Film

113

Days later, I packed away the Cordova research — what was left of it, anyway — shoved it back inside the cardboard box and the box inside the closet, Septimus quietly looking on.

I took a mountain of dirty clothes to the dry cleaner, including Brad Jackson’s herringbone coat. But then, eyeing the sad thing slumped over the counter under piles of my button-downs, I had the sudden paranoid thought that it was the last shred of evidence, my last tie to the insanity of The Peak, and if Brad’s coat were cleaned and steam-pressed, encased in plastic with a paper draped over the shoulders reading, We Love Our Customers! — gone, too, would be my recollections. So I awkwardly pulled the filthy thing back out of the pile, and, returning home, shoved it in the closet behind Ashley’s red one, and shut the door.

I wanted to see Sam. I wanted to hear her voice, have her hang heavily on my arm and squint up at me — but Cynthia never returned my calls, not once. I wondered if her silence meant she was working with her lawyers to petition for a new custody arrangement, as she’d threatened to do in the emergency room. Finally, my old divorce attorney called with this very news.

“They set a court date. She wants to restrict visitation.”

“Whatever she wants.” This appeared to jolt him, as simple acts of kindness did to attorneys.

“But you might never see your daughter.”

“I want Sam to be safe and happy. We’ll leave it at that.”

I did secretly go uptown to check on her, one late December afternoon. The day was graying from the cold, giant snowflakes drifting, bewildered, through the air, forgetting to fall. I didn’t want Sam to see me, so I remained behind a few parked cars and a FreshDirect truck, watching the gleaming black doors of her school opening, the bundled-up children in coats spilling out onto the sidewalks. To my surprise, Cynthia was there waiting, and after she tucked Sam’s hands into black mittens, they took off.

Sam was wearing a new blue coat. Her hair was longer than I remembered, secured in a ponytail under a black velvet hat. She looked more mature, too, quite seriously informing Cynthia of something about her day. I was overcome. Because I saw, suddenly, how it would always be for me, Sam’s life unfolding like slides in an old projector I’d always be clicking through in the dark, stunning leaps forward in time — but never the uncut reel.

But she was happy. I could see that. She was perfect.

When they crossed the street, I could make out only their blue and black coats. A surge of yellow cabs and buses flooded Fifth Avenue, and then I couldn’t see them anymore.