Page 109 of The New Couple in 5B

“Did you send out dry-cleaning this week?” he asks, knowing full well that I did not.

“I thought so?” I say, and start pushing my sister, who has stayed silent, out the door to the lobby.

He follows us and then opens the elevator door, still in his suit. He’s fit and virile for a man nearing eighty, only the streaks of gray in his hair and the deep wrinkles around his eyes give him away.

We all climb inside and take the awkward ride up to five.

“My sister Sarah is visiting, Abi. Sarah, this is Abi, our doorman and elevator man.”

“Nice to meet you, miss.” He gives her a light bow and she smiles uncertainly.

When we arrive at my floor, Sarah exits the elevator first and I stay behind a second.

“What were you looking for, Mrs. Lowan?” he asks. “Really.”

I am about to lie again. But then find I don’t have the energy. “The truth, Abi. About you. About what’s going on in this building.”

We lock eyes.

“I’m sure I have no idea what you mean,” he says, gaze darkly direct, almost menacing.

“Don’t you?”

“Have a good day, Ms. Lowan.”

And then he’s gone behind the closing doors, and I am alone in the foyer with Sarah, who looks around, taking in every detail.

“This place has bad energy,” she says.

On that, at least, we can agree.

thirty-five

It’s awkward, having Sarah here. She’s the past, one I’ve fled and have tried to forget, and the apartment is my present, one to which I’m trying desperately to hold on. Previously, these have been two different planets. Though my childhood home is just a short flight away, it might as well have been on the moon.

Sarah sits at my dining room table. I make us grilled cheese sandwiches, just like I used to. I try Chad again and again, no answer. His location services are off.

Where is my husband? I keep flashing on Detective Crowe’s suspicious frown. What did he see when he looked at Chad? What have I been seeing? And which one of us is right?

The Instagram images of him with Lilian, the nightclub vision I had at the Aldridges, they swirl in my mind, mingling. Who are they to each other? How long has he known her? And why didn’t he tell me?

The sun has tentatively come out and is gleaming off the Chrysler Building, that Art-Deco monument to old New York. Built in 1930, at 1068 feet, it is still the eleventh tallest building in New York, sitting at the intersection of Forty-Second and Lexington in the heart of Turtle Bay. Though there are certainly grander, taller, more dramatic buildings in this city, it remains my favorite, like a glittering dancing girl, joyful among more serious grand dames.

We eat in silence, neither of us knowing quite what to say or how to say it to each other. Finally, she just starts talking. About my mother, who’s still reading cards all day, every day, with people coming from all over the county. How Brian is taking over the shop from his father, restoring old cars. And Daddy, well he’s still Daddy.

“But...”

“But what?”

“He doesn’t want me to tell you. But he’s not well, Rosie.”

“Not well how?”

“You know he won’t see a doctor,” she says with a rueful shake of her head.

“Thinks they’re all crooks looking to profit off the sick and dying.”

I almost guffaw at this, but the strained look of sadness on her face keeps me quiet. “He’s wasting away, tired all the time. He thinks he doesn’t have long.”

---