Page 28 of The Fadeaway

“Then let’s go listen to some jazz,” she says, falling back onto flat feet. “And have one drink before we come back here. I’ll be out before the sun comes up.”

Dexter grabs their coats and turns off the lights as they leave.

Patty

Patty walked along Fifth Avenue holding shopping bags in both hands. It was nearly Christmas, and the streets of the city were decorated with tinsel and lights. At Rockefeller Plaza, skaters looped around the rink wearing mittens and stocking caps, and all along the streets people pushed in and out of warm stores and coffee shops, collars turned up against the biting cold.

But Patty smiled at everyone she met, not hurrying and not fretting about buying gifts on time or any of the other stressors of the season. Her only child, Ruby, was the First Lady, and her granddaughters were teenagers who loved books and clothes and makeup and anything else that Patty picked out for them. All of that was easy.

What wasn’t easy was feeling as though she didn’t belong anywhere anymore. After years of being a lawyer, she’d finally retired from the firm and found some volunteer work to keep her busy, but sometimes it didn’t feel like enough. No matter what she did, she’d never be a First Lady, would never again have a teenage daughter to guide through such an important phase of life, and she’d never again be in demand for anything. That knowledge led her both to heave a sigh of relief, just knowing that no one was counting on her to act on things in a particulartimeframe, and also to feel as though she was being left behind. And Patty didn’t want to be left behind.

Maybe that was why she clung so hard to the people who needed her—these people who weren’t even technically family. Sure, she adored her daughter and her granddaughters, but none of themneededher. They had scads of people at their beck and call for everything under the sun: people to cook for them, shop for them, and protect them everywhere they went. At best, Patty had become an appendage—as all parents do when their children grow into adulthood—and at worst, a liability. Bringing her along anywhere meant more strategic planning, more security, and essentially, more stress for Ruby. And Patty knew that.

Meeting Carmela and her little ones had been fortuitous—as equally beneficial for Patty as it had for them. That first meeting with Carmela had been eye-opening; neither woman had known how much she was in need of someone exactly like the person she was sitting across from until the afternoon was over, and since then, Carmela had been like a surrogate daughter to Patty, and Patty a de facto mother for Carmela. Tit for tat.

And those beautiful children! So hungry in ways that Athena and Harlow never were. The baby just needing to be held while her mother attended to the middle child. The middle child increasingly growing distant as the signs of autism grew more prevalent. And the oldest just as charming and funny and self-reliant as you’d imagine a firstborn to be. Patty had loved them all instantly, and it had been nothing for her to figure out a way to support them through these important, formative years. Of course she’d pay for private schooling that would help them grow into strong, smart, capable children. And she’d already had her eye on an apartment in the city, a place she could stay whenever she made it to New York. Having Carmela live there and look over everything had ultimately benefitted Patty, andshe never minded a few nights on the couch when she came to town, waking up to sleepy-headed little ones wanting to climb all over her and watch cartoons while she made them pancakes.

Patty hailed a cab, one hand in the air as the falling snow caught in the headlights of the cars and taxis on Fifth Avenue. That night was going to be special: she’d head over to Carmela’s—no, her own—apartment (she was forever forgetting that it was her name on the deed), and together they’d wrap presents and stuff stockings so that the children would wake up on Christmas morning to find that Santa hadn’t passed them by. She dearly loved all the shopping and planning for a holiday like this, and while she’d be leaving the city the next day on the twenty-third to spend Christmas at the White House, in spite of all that pomp and circumstance, Patty kind of wished she was staying in New York to watch three small children open up the books, dolls, clothes, and games that she’d wrapped for them.

“Patty?” Carmela called out as she let herself into the apartment. Right away, she ducked down the hallway and left the bags of gifts in the master bedroom, kicking off her shoes at the door and shedding her coat as well, which she hung on a hook in the entryway. “Glass of wine?”

Patty walked into the warm kitchen in just her socks, stretching her toes as she went. “Love some,” she said, reaching out for the little one in the high chair. Valeria, then just two years old, laughed and reached out for Patty like she was her own grandmother.

“I just fed her,” Carmela said, pouring wine with one hand while she stirred a pot of boiling pasta with the other. “She’s dying to get out and run around, but I couldn’t keep an eye on her while I made spaghetti for the boys.”

“I’ve got her, love,” Patty said, taking the glass of wine from the counter and holding Valeria on one hip as she walked the toddler around the apartment, talking to her in a grown up voiceall the while, asking how her day was, and telling her about shopping on Fifth Avenue like she might understand it all. It was the same way she’d spoken to her own daughter, and now look: Ruby was sitting in the White House with an English degree to her name. It might not have been the reason for her many successes, but it certainly couldn’t have hurt to have a mother who read to her, spoke to her intelligently, and taught her all the basics about life—including shopping.

“And then at Bergdorf Goodman,” she was saying to Valeria, who was pointing at a stuffed giraffe that sat on the bookshelf. “I was at the perfume counter when—oh, do you want that?” Patty stopped in front of the bookcase, leaning one hip forward just slightly so that Valeria could reach her dimpled hands out and grasp the stuffed animal. “What do you say?”

“Tank you,” Valeria said gravely, putting the fur of the stuffed giraffe against her baby cheek.

The speakers in the front room were playing a Christmas station, and as the two boys ran through the room, Bing Crosby crooned about a white Christmas.

“Boys!” Carmela called out, setting a giant bowl of spaghetti on the table. She reached out for four-year-old Felix, whose face remained nearly placid at all times, his personality seemingly locked inside of his sweet, smooth little boy body. In one smooth move, Carmela buckled him into a plastic seat that sat atop a dining room chair.

Marcos, who was six but seemed twelve next to his younger brother and sister, brought a wet washcloth to the table and wiped off his brother’s face and hands before cleaning his own hands and sitting down.

“Thanks, baby,” Carmela said, dropping a kiss on top of Marcos’s dark head. She ruffled his hair and bustled around, bringing back sippy cups full of ice water, a plate of salad for Patty and one for herself, and two small dishes of steamed peasand carrots for the boys. “Valeria can play there in the living room, Patty,” she said, pointing at a spot where the baby’s toys were gathered. “We can keep an eye on her.”

This whole scene—all of it—was so unlike the life that Patty had led as a young mother. Even her brief time with Trixie had been spent with Evelyn and Jacob helping her, and with Ruby, she’d had a husband to help her all the way up to the time her daughter was eleven. Patty had never had to do everything single-handedly. This frantic level of forward motion that she sensed from Carmela during every waking hour was unfamiliar to her. Having three young sets of eyes on her at all times made Carmela’s job infinitely harder than Ruby’s had been—at least in her mind.

And yet there was something about it that any single mother could relate to. The need to keep moving, to stay positive, to make sure everyone was fed and happy…those desires were certainly universal, whether you had one child or thirteen, whether they all had special needs or everyone was completely self-reliant. Patty watched it all with admiration, feeling as she always did when she watched other women seamlessly navigate life and motherhood, which is to say that she felt the world would fall apart without the glue that a woman provided. It was a glue made of equal parts love, devotion, and dedication, and it was administered daily to every surface with varying degrees of joy, patience, and resilience.

Once the boys were messily twirling pasta around their forks, Carmela gave a visible sigh of relaxation, lifted her wine glass, and held it up to Patty from her end of the table. “Cheers, Mrs. Dallarosa,” she said with a tired smile.

“Cheers to you, my dear girl,” Patty said back, nodding at her with a wink.

They got the kids fed, bathed, read to, and into bed just after nine, at which point Carmela turned down the jazzy Christmasmusic that was playing and sat on the floor amidst a pile of unwrapped gifts.

“Time to make Christmas magic,” she said, pushing her frizzing hair away from her face. She looked exhausted.

“Honey,” Patty said, setting down the scissors and the roll of wrapping paper she was holding in her hands. “Why don’t you just go to bed and let me do this, huh? I have no reason to be up early, and all I have coming up is the holidays. I get to relax—there’s no more Santa for me.”

“Patty,” Carmela protested, waving a hand. “I can’t go to bed and let you wrap all of this.” She looked around at the sea of boxes and stuffed toys. “I mean…you bought all of this. I owe you more than I can even say already.” Her eyes brimmed with tears, and like so many times during their relatively short friendship, Patty could see that the younger woman was reaching the brink of exhaustion and emotion.

Patty stood up. “I won’t hear another word,” she said, extending a hand to Carmela, who took it. With a tug, Patty helped her to her feet. “Off with you,” she said, picking up a tube of wrapping paper and whacking Carmela on the behind playfully. “Go!”

Carmela laughed. “Patty, I already owe you too much.”

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