Go more gently, Sadie had always tried to warn him, and he had tried with Rory. He honestly had. But for too much of his life, he had been used to coming out of his corner, ready to lead with his right. You never asked, you just took, because if you asked, the answer would probably be no.
So he had heaped Rory with presents, tried to shove the ring onto her finger and closed down her warehouse without telling her first. All he had wanted to do was love, cherish and protect her. His blustering manner had only been to hide his uncertainty, his desperate fear she might somehow slip away from him. Perhaps the disguise had worked all too well.
But God forbid Zeke Morrison should reveal too much of his feelings, let it be known that underneath he wasn’t so tough after all, but just as vulnerable as anyone else.
He could only imagine what Rory must be thinking of him now, and none of it was pleasant. Fragments of her bitter words echoed through his head. How could you do this to me? You ruin people’s lives. No wonder your mother died grieving.
No wonder indeed. Rory had been wise to tell him to get out and spare herself further misery.
With such thoughts roiling in his mind, Zeke took little heed of where he was walking. He nearly collided with a freckle-faced kid hawking papers on a street corner. But the boy was quick torecover himself. Glancing up hopefully from beneath the brim of his cap, he asked, “Paper, mister?”
Zeke shook his head, but the boy persisted. Waving a copy of the World before Zeke’s eyes, the paperboy sang out, “Read all about it. Reporter raises doubts about Decker suicide.”
Zeke took a quick glance at the headline. So Duffy had made good his threat to continue the investigation. In his present humor, Zeke wasn’t even mildly interested. He gave the kid a dollar, telling him to keep the change and the paper.
The boy’s eyes lit up. “Gee, thanks, mister.” Gathering up his largess and his remaining papers, the lad scuttled off down the street with an energy that left Zeke feeling very old.
Snapped out of his musings about Rory, Zeke at last took a look around to gain his bearings. His gaze fell on the weathered street sign.
Pearl Street.
He should’ve been surprised, but he wasn’t. Some part of him had known all along exactly where he was headed. Where, but not why. What could possibly have drawn him back to this place? Nothing lurked on the block ahead of him but old memories, some of them bad, all of them painful.
Yet still he kept going. The row of brick tenements seemed to close around him, packed so close together they blocked out the rays of the setting sun. The street was even more rundown than he remembered, some of the windows boarded over. An old man rooted through a trash can, hunting for something to eat, while a scrawny stray dog barked and nipped at his heels. From an upper story came the shrill sound of laughter, then the shattering of glass as someone tossed a gin bottle out the window. Across the street, a young girl, looking too worn for her years, listlessly hung much-mended stockings out on the fire escape to dry.
All about him were the sights, the sounds of a world he had tried so relentlessly to put behind him. Almost instinctively he turned to the one place that had been a bright spot in the midst of all this poverty and despair—the second-floor flat, third house from the corner.
Sadie’s flowerpots were long gone from that windowsill, the curtains that hung there now much dirtier than his mother ever would have tolerated. The place was noisier too. Even at street level, Zeke could hear a man bellowing something in a slurred accent, followed by a smacking sound, then a child’s wail.
As Zeke lingered there, a small urchin emerged onto the flat’s fire escape. The boy snuffled against his sleeve, nursing a black eye, but was still full of fire and defiance.
“Don’t care whatcha do to me,” he shouted back through the window. “I’m gonna run away. Someday I’m gonna have lots of money and live far away from this stinking place.”
The boy sank down onto the fire escape, drawing his knees up to his chest, staring sullenly up at the sky. Zeke felt chilled watching him, as though he had peeled away too many layers of the past. It might have been himself back up there on that fire escape, so well could he guess what was going on in the child’s mind. Brooding over his wrongs, and if he only knew it, dreaming all the wrong dreams.
Zeke felt as if he had seen enough. Turning, he strode rapidly away, covering the blocks that led toward the East River. The dockside area was no place to be at dusk, but the size of Zeke and the blackness of his scowl seemed enough to keep any lurking toughs at a distance.
Besides, Zeke thought wryly, he really had nothing on him of any real value. As he stood by the water’s edge, watching the murky waters lap against the embankment, he thrust his hand into his pocket and drew forth the ring.
How different the diamond looked to him now. It didn’t sparkle near so much as it had in the jeweler’s case. It might as well have been paste, not able to hold a candle to the brightness of the stars or Rory’s eyes.
Zeke’s fingers folded around the ring, and with a slow deliberation, he drew back his arm and hurled it out across the East River. It landed with a plop, scarce raising a ripple on the darkening waters.
He lowered his arm, feeling worn down and defeated. For the first time in his life, he had no plans for tomorrow, or the day after that. The future stretched before him, an empty succession of years with no meaning, no Rory.
He had never asked anyone’s help or advice before. There had only been one person he had even partly needed, but she was gone. Never had he missed Sadie as keenly as he did tonight.
“What am I going to do, lady?” he murmured, tipping back his head, searching the night sky. Even the stars looked cold and remote. It seemed too late to be seeking answers now, too late for so many things.
And then again maybe it wasn’t. For too many years, he had been on a headlong rush down the road to wealth and power, not stopping to count the cost. Perhaps the time had come to pause, to cease charging recklessly forward. Perhaps the time had come at last to turn and go back, begin to recover some of what he had lost upon the way.
The area of the city known as Greenwich Village was a veritable labyrinth of crisscrossing streets. Zeke lost his way several times amidst a maze of artists’ garrets, antiques shops, cellar cafés and tearooms. He at last located the place he sought along a side road winding down from Sheridan Square. There was little but a number to distinguish the unpretentious three-story townhouse from a row of others just like it.
Zeke trudged up the steps of the high front stoop and rapped with the brass knocker. Squaring his shoulders, he stepped back, his uncertainty of welcome only betrayed by the way he fingered the brim of his hat.
When the door swung wide, he shrank from the flood of light and warmth spilling across the threshold. He hadn’t been prepared to have his sister Caroline herself answer his summons.
Caddie stood wiping her hands on a dishcloth, brushing back the straggling ends of her dark hair, which was now a little flecked with gray. She was still pretty, although she had grown a little plump after the bearing of three children. It both disconcerted Zeke and touched a poignant chord of memory within him. How much his sister looked like Sadie, the resemblance only growing more marked with the passage of time.
