Page 97 of Still Me
“But no mother.”
Her eyes suddenly brimmed. “No. I have to leave Leonard or I have to leave her. So is my... my... oh, what is word?... my penance to live without her.” Her voice cracked a little.
I sipped my vodka. I didn’t know what else to do. We both stared at our glasses.
“I am not bad person, Louisa. I love Leonard. Very much.”
“I know.”
“I had this idea that maybe when we had been married, when we had been together a while, I could tell him. And he would be little bit upset but maybe he could come round. Or I could go backward and forward to Poland, you know? Or maybe she could come stay for a bit. But things just get so—so complicated. His family hate me so much. You know what would happen if they found out about her now? You know what would happen if Tabitha knew this thing about me?”
I could guess.
“I love him. I know you think many things about me. But I love him. He is good man. Sometimes I find it very hard because he is working so much and because nobody cares for me in his world... and I get so lonely and maybe... I do not always behave perfectly, but when I think of being without him I cannot bear it. He is truly my soul mate. From first day, I knew this.”
She traced a pattern on the table with a slim finger. “But then I think of my daughter growing up for next ten, fifteen years without me and I... I...”
She let out a shuddering sigh, loud enough to draw the attention of the barman. I reached into my bag, and when I couldn’t find a handkerchief I passed her a cocktail napkin. When she looked up there was a softness to her face. It was an expression I hadn’t seen before, radiant with love and tenderness.
“She is so beautiful, Louisa. She is nearly four years old now and so clever. And so bright. She knows days of the week and she can point out countries on the globe and she can sing. She knows where New York is. She can draw a line on map between Kraków and New York without anybody showing her. And every time I visit she hangs on to me and says, ‘Why do you have to go, Mama? I don’t want you to go.’ And a little bit of my heart, it breaks... Oh, God, it breaks... Sometimes now I don’t even want to see her because the pain when I have to leave is... it is...” Agnes hunched over her drink, her hand lifting mechanically to wipe the tears that fell silently onto the shiny table.
I handed her another cocktail napkin. “Agnes,” I said softly, “I don’t know how long you can keep this up.”
She dabbed at her eyes, her head bowed. When she looked up it was impossible to tell she had been crying. “We are friends, yes? Good friends.”
“Of course.”
She glanced behind her and leaned forward over the table. “You and I. We are both immigrants. We both know it is hard to find your place in this world. You want to make your life better, work hard in country that is not your own—you make new life, new friends, find new love. You get to become new person! But is never a simple thing, never without cost.”
I swallowed, and pushed away a hot, angry image of Sam in his railway carriage.
“I know this—nobody gets everything. And we immigrants know this more than anyone. You always have one foot in two places. You can never be truly happy because, from the moment you leave, you are two selves, and wherever you are one half of you is always calling to the other. This is our price, Louisa. This is the cost of who we are.”
She took a sip of her drink and then another. Then she took a deep breath and shook her hands out across the table, as if she were ridding herself of excess emotion through her fingertips. When she spoke again her voice was steely. “You must not tell him. You must not tell him what you see today.”
“Agnes, I don’t know how you can hide this forever. It’s too big. It—”
She reached out a hand and laid it on my arm. Her fingers closed firmly around my wrist. “Please. We are friends, yes?”
I swallowed.
—
There are no real secrets among the rich, it turns out. Just people paid to keep them. I walked up the stairs, this new burden unexpectedly heavy on my heart. I thought of a little girl across the world with everything but the thing she wanted most in the world, and a woman who probably felt the same, even if she was only just beginning to realize it. I thought about calling my sister—the only person left with whom I might be able to discuss it—but knew without speaking to her what herjudgment would be. She would no more have left Thom in another country than she would have cut off her own arm.
I thought about Sam, and the bargains we make with ourselves to justify our choices. I sat in my room that evening until my thoughts hung low and black around my head and I pulled out my phone.
—Hey, Josh, is that offer still open? But for, like, a drink drink instead of coffee?
Within thirty seconds the answer pinged back.
—Just say where and when, Louisa.
21
In the end, I met Josh at a dive bar he knew off Times Square. It was long and narrow, covered with photographs of boxers, and the floor was tacky underfoot. I wore black jeans and scraped my hair into a ponytail. Nobody looked up as I squeezed my way past the middle-aged men and autographed pictures of flyweights and men whose necks were wider than their heads.
He was seated at a tiny table at the end of the bar in a waxed dark brown jacket—the kind you buy to look like you belong in the countryside. When he saw me, his smile was sudden and infectious and made me briefly glad that someone uncomplicated was pleased to see me in a world that felt impossibly messy.
