The Narrows

CHAPTER 35

Eleanor Wish answered my knock and that surprised me. She stepped back to let me in.

"Don't look at me that way, Harry," she said. "You have this impression that I'm never here and that I work every night and leave her with Marisol. I don't. I work three or four nights a week and that's usually it."

I raised my hands in surrender and she saw the bandage around my right palm.

"What happened to you?"

"Cut myself on a piece of metal."

"What metal?"

"It's a long story."

"That thing up in the desert today?"

I nodded.

"I should have known. Is that going to hurt you playing the saxophone?"

Bored with retirement, I had started taking lessons the year before from a retired jazzman I had come across on a case. One night, when things were good between Eleanor and me, I had brought the instrument with me and played her a tune called "Lullaby." She had liked it.

"Actually, I haven't been playing anyway."

"How come?"

I didn't want to tell her that my teacher had died and music had dropped out of my life for a while.

"My teacher wanted me to switch from alto to tenor-as in ten or fifteen miles away from him."

She smiled at the lame joke and we left it at that. I had followed her through the house and into the kitchen, where the table was actually a felt-covered poker table-with cereal milk stains on it thanks to Maddie. Eleanor had dealt six hands faceup for practice. She sat down and started gathering up the cards.

"Don't let me stop you," I said. "I just came by to see if I could put Maddie to bed. Where is she?"

"Marisol's giving her a bath. But I was counting on putting her to bed tonight. I've worked the last three nights."

"Oh, well, that's fine. I'll just say hello then. And good-bye. I'm driving back tonight."

"Then why don't you do it? I got a new book to read her. It's on the counter."

"No, Eleanor, I want you to do it. I just want to see her because I don't know when I'll get back."

"Are you still working a case?"

"No, that all sort of ended up there today."

"The TV news didn't have much on it when I watched. What is it?"

"It's a long story."

I didn't feel like telling it once again. I walked over to the counter to look at the book she had bought. It was called Billy's Big Day and its cover showed a monkey standing on the highest step at an Olympics-style award ceremony. The gold medal was being put around his neck. A lion had received the silver and an elephant the bronze.

"Are you going back to join the department again?" I was about to open the book but I put it down and looked at Eleanor.

"I'm still thinking about it but it's looking that way." She nodded as though it was a done deal. "Any further thoughts from you on it?" "No, Harry, I want you to do what you want." I wondered why it was that when people tell you what you want them to tell you, it always comes with suspicion and second-guessing attached. Did Eleanor really want me to do what I wanted to do? Or was her saying that a way of undermining the whole thing?

Before I could say anything my daughter came into the kitchen and stood at attention. She wore blue-and-orange-striped pajamas and her dark hair was wet and slicked back on her head.

"Presenting a little girl," she said. Eleanor and I both broke out the smiles and simultaneously offered our opened arms for hugs. Maddie went to her mother first and that was all right with me. But it felt a little like when you hold out your hand to someone to shake and they don't see it or just plain ignore it. I lowered my arms and after a few moments Eleanor saved me.

"Go give Daddy a hug."

Maddie came to me and I lifted her up into a hug. She was no more than forty pounds. It is an amazing thing to be able to hold everything that is important to you in one arm. She put her damp head against my chest and I didn't mind that she was getting my shirt wet. That was no problem at all.

"How are you, baby?"

"I'm fine. I drew your picture today."

"You did? Can I see it?"

"Put me down."

I did as instructed and she ran off, out of the kitchen, her bare feet slapping on the stone tiles as she headed to the playroom. I looked at Eleanor and smiled. We both knew the secret. No matter what we had or didn't have for each other, we would always have Madeline and that might be enough.

The running of tiny feet could be heard again and soon she was back in the kitchen, towing a piece of paper held high like a kite. I took it from her and studied it. It showed the figure of a man with a mustache and dark eyes. He had his hands out and in one hand was a gun. On the other side of the page was another figure. This one was drawn in reds and oranges and had eyebrows drawn in a severe black V to indicate he was a bad guy.

I crouched down to my daughter's height to look at the drawing with her.

"Is this me with the gun?"

"Yes, because you were a policeman."

I nodded. She had said it like pleaseman.

"And who is this mean guy?"

She pointed a tiny finger at the other figure on the drawing. "That is Mr. Demon."

I smiled.

"Who is Mr. Demon?"

"He's a wrestler. Mommy says you wrestle with demons and he's the boss of all of them."

"I see."

I looked over her head at Eleanor and smiled. I wasn't mad about anything. I was simply in love with my daughter and how she viewed her world. The literal way in which she took it all in and took it on. I knew it wouldn't last long and so I treasured every moment I saw and heard of it.

"Can I keep this picture?"

"How come?"

"Because it is beautiful and I want to always have it. I have to go away for a while and I want to be able to look at it all the time. It will remind me of you."

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going back to the place they call the City of Angels."

She smiled.

"That's silly. You can't see angels."

"I know. But look, Mommy has a new book to read to you about a monkey named Billy. So I'm going to say good night now and I'll get back to see you as soon as I can. Is that okay, baby?"

"Okay, Daddy."

I kissed her on both cheeks and hugged her tight. Then I kissed the top of her head and let her go. I stood up with my picture and handed her the book Eleanor would read to her.

"Marisol?" Eleanor called. Marisol appeared within a few seconds, as if she had been waiting in the nearby living room for her cue. I smiled and nodded to her as she received her instructions.

"Why don't you take Maddie in and get her set up and I'll be right in after saying good night to her father."

I watched my daughter leave with her nanny.

"I'm sorry about that," Eleanor said.

"What, the picture? Don't worry about it. I love it. It's going on my refrigerator."

"I just don't know where she picked it up. I didn't directly say to her that you fight demons. She must have overheard me on the phone or something."

Somehow I would have liked it better knowing she had said it directly to our daughter. The idea that Eleanor was talking about me in such a way to someone else-someone she didn't mention at the moment- bothered me. I tried not to show it.

"It's all right," I said. "Look at it this way, when she goes to school and kids say their dad is a lawyer or a fireman or a doctor or something, she's got the trump card. She'll tell them her daddy fights demons."

Eleanor laughed but then cut it off when she thought of something.

"I wonder what she'll say her mother does."

I couldn't answer that, so I changed the subject.

"I love how her view of the world is uncluttered by deeper meanings," I said as I looked at the picture again. "It is so innocent, you know?"

"I know. I love that, too. But I can understand if you don't want her thinking you're out there literally wrestling with demons. Why didn't you explain it to her?" I shook my head and thought of a story.

"When I was a kid and I was still with my mother, there was this time that she had a car. A two-tone Plymouth Belvedere with push-button automatic transmission. I think her lawyer gave it to her to use or something. For a couple years. Anyway, she suddenly decided she wanted to go cross-country on a vacation. So we packed the car and just took off, her and me.

"Anyway, somewhere in the south-I don't remember where-we stopped for gas and there were two water fountains on the side of this service station. There were signs, you know. One said white and the other said colored. And I just sort of went up to the one marked colored because I wanted to see what color the water was. Before I got to it my mom yanked me back and sort of explained things to me.

"I remember that and sort of wish she'd just let me see the water and didn't explain anything."

Eleanor smiled at the story.

"How old were you?"

"I don't know. About eight."

She stood up then and came over to me. She kissed me on the cheek and I let her. I put my arm loosely around her waist.

"Good luck with your demons, Harry."

"Yeah."

"If you ever change your mind about things, I'm here. We're here."

I nodded.

"She's going to change your mind, Eleanor. You wait and see." She smiled but in a sad way and gently caressed my chin with her hand.

"Will you make sure the door is locked when you leave?"

"Always."

I let go of her and watched her walk out of the kitchen. I then looked down at the drawing of the man fighting his demon. In the picture my daughter had put a smile on my face.