Chapter 17.  Passing Tenderness

Susan had known the minute Mark called her this morning, ostensibly to explain in a shaky voice that he couldn't fly out to New York because Chris was suddenly too busy to watch Ella and Elizabeth had three procedures scheduled for today, that he was lying.  Still she'd let him fake it, acted like she had no idea, for his sake.  She had thought of flying home, knowing that he must have gotten worse overnight, but realized that was exactly what he didn't want.  But every day means so much now…

The officer who'd helped her find Suzie looked curiously at her from his perch on the exam room bed.  "What did you say?"

She hadn't realized she'd been speaking aloud.  She'd just been keeping Bosco company while he waited for the nurse to come around with his tetanus shot, and their conversation had hit a lull.  "Nothing."

"Worried about your sister?"

"I'm worried that she doesn't get that she's got a problem.  A big problem."

"I—"

"You hate junkies.  I know, you've said so already."

"No, I was just gonna say I think she's got the picture."

"Maybe."

"Yeah, you can never be sure with these people."

She didn't like that turn of phrase, these people.  But Bosco wasn't much for tact, and this was somehow his attempt to be kind to her.  She looked up at him and realized that in another second he'd be flirting with her outright.

Susan stood up and waved cheerfully.  "Good luck with those needles, I'd better go up and check on those two girls."

Taking the hint, Bosco nodded and lifted the uninjured hand.  "See you around, Lewis."

"Thanks for your help," she added as she headed over to the coffee machines to get a quick caffeine fix for herself and Chloe.

It was on her way to the room that she noticed the familiar back of her sister traveling down the hall with her daughter in her arms.

"Oh my God," she muttered and then yelled her sister's name.

~

Ten minutes later, Susan was walking, or chasing, Chloe as the latter strode down the sidewalk with Suzie.  "I'll do an outpatient program, Suze," she promised blithely.  "It'll all be fine.  Look, I'm really not that sick."

Finally, losing her temper and forgetting that Suzie was right there, Susan gripped her sister's arm, not quite gently.  As Chloe squawked Susan hissed, "You are not doing this to her again."

Chloe shook off her hand and patted Suzie's head protectively.  "I'm not doing anything to her," she said.  "Look, it'll all be fine."

Susan couldn't believe Chloe was actually smiling, like this was the goddamn first day of the rest of her life or something.  She took a few seconds to decide what to say and finally just said limply, "Can I buy you guys some dinner first?"

"I don't know…"

"Please," she said.  "Chloe, please?"

At the nearest Uno's, while Suzie was occupied with her pizza, Susan attempted again to reason with Chloe, her voice lowered.  "I'll take Suzie," she offered, as she had earlier today.  "I'll take her, you can fix yourself up."

"I don't need to be fixed!  Can't you understand I'm not a loser like I used to be?"

"You can beat this Chloe, but you haven't yet.  Your daughter ended up in a drug den, in danger, because you were too busy getting high to notice.  You promised me you could take care of her."

Chloe blinked slowly and glanced at Suzie, who looked just like she had dipped her face in a bowl full of pizza sauce.  "I can take care of her," she insisted falteringly.

"Yeah.  As soon as you get out of rehab, you'll be a great mother.  But right now, you have a problem."

Chloe sat back.  A long time passed, while Susan wondered if she'd ever get through.  Finally she said, "So … if I stayed at a center for like, three months … you'd keep her with you in New York?  Joe wouldn't be able to get at her?"

"She'll be safe with me."  She kept her voice very low as if not to shatter her own diffident hope.  Still Chloe didn't seem quite convinced, and Susan added, "You know I love you, right?  I'm not trying to hurt you.  I want you to be able to take care of her someday."

"It was just a little slip…  I mean, just a couple times.  It's not like I'm back where I was or anything."

Susan didn't need to say anything for Chloe to realize she was grasping at excuses.  "Hey," she said after awhile, "I've lost my job already anyway, what's the diff?"  After a long pause, Chloe added in a loud, falsely cheerful voice, "I guess we're going to move to Chicago, Suzie!"

"We?" Susan repeated with a resigned grin.

Chloe shrugged, both resigned and optimistic at the same time.  "Why not?"

~

Lunch definitely wasn't going well, Romano thought as he and his niece ate in silence.  She'd called him, wanting to spend a day seeing the town while she was back here visiting her grandmother.

"So," he said, breaking the silence.  "Have you seen the Art Institute's new Paris exhibit?"

"No, I haven't had time," Taryn said.  "I've spent the last week at the hospital, basically."

He nodded.  "Maybe we should go see that.  It's supposed to be great."

"Uncle Bob?"

"What?"

"Grandma's not doing that well, is she?"

"No."

"Is she dying?"

"She's been going downhill since she took that fall," he said, knowing his voice sounded brusque and powerless to be kinder about it.  "She doesn't have long."

"Does she know?"

"I don't think so."

She looked like she wanted to say more, but after he had waited a few minutes she put down her fork and said, "I'll get the check."

"Don't be silly," he said.

Taryn nodded.  Romano sat back in his chair, looking surreptitiously at her.  They'd always had a fairly good relationship, comfortable even if they weren't best friends or anything like that.  Now, maybe because she was pretty much grown-up now or maybe because neither of them were very good with talking about things like this, she seemed impatient with him.

He knew that feeling, wanting your family to go as far away as possible.

They took the El to the Art Institute, Taryn taking out her cell phone to check her messages and perhaps, he thought rather wistfully, to avoid the black hole of conversation that they had been stuck in for the last hour.  She was the only member of his family that he was remotely interested in keeping up a relationship – but it looked like that was shot to hell like everything else.

As they entered the photography wing, he made a lame attempt at conversation.  Something about the Monet he'd seen here before.  Taryn was patently distracted, perhaps by thoughts of her grandmother.

Suddenly Romano broke off, looking straight ahead of them.  He'd caught sight of two familiar heads of bright red hair.  "Hey," he said, tapping Elizabeth on the shoulder.

She turned around, looking as frazzled as she usually did when she was with Isabelle.  "Robert!"

The four of them circled around, introducing each other.  Isabelle was clearly examining Taryn's clothes, which looked fashionable, whatever else they might be.  He wasn't sure whether they would pass muster with Isabelle; frankly, he wasn't even sure they were fashionable.

"Taryn," she said, like a cat with a mouse in her paws.  "What do you do?"

"I'm a copy editor."

"Hmm."

Romano tried to break in.  "Have you ladies seen the Paris exhibit yet?  It's supposed to be good."

Isabelle ignored him.  "With whom?"

Before answering, Taryn shot a look at Romano.  Then she said, "Actually I'm unemployed at the moment.  Random House fired me."

"Really?  I would think your 'ACLU' would be quite indignant if a woman were fired for how she dressed."  Isabelle pronounced ACLU exactly as if it stood for a particularly noxious strain of the stomach flu.

Over Elizabeth's murmured reproof, Taryn answered, "Actually, it was purely budgetary.  They fired plenty of women in old-fashioned clothes like yours, too."

After a pause, Isabelle said, "Do you like Van Gogh?"

Romano exchanged an amused glance with Elizabeth.  Unruffled by the sudden thaw, Taryn shrugged and said, "Yeah, he's pretty cool."

"There's quite a good selection on the third floor.  We should take a stroll up there, you'd appreciate it."

It took three seconds for Taryn to shrug again and follow Isabelle towards the elevators, tossing a "See you in awhile, Uncle Bob" over her shoulder.  The two disappeared into the crowds, already in the middle of a peppery conversation.  Left alone, Romano and Elizabeth smiled at each other for a moment, disconcerted.  Elizabeth was shaking her head.

"Looks like you and I just got ditched," Romano said wryly.

"They're certainly getting on splendidly," Elizabeth said.  "How on earth did that happen?"

He laughed.  "You know, there are few things I understand less than my niece."

"She's a bit like you," Elizabeth said, her eyes pensively raking over Romano.

"Don't let her hear you talking like that," he cracked.

"Oh, don't be silly," she said, shoving his shoulder lightly.  It was a gesture he'd seen Elizabeth make, but never to him.  A twinkle passed from her eye to light his smile.  Then she said, "Since those two may have ditched us entirely, we shouldn't stand around here like lumps waiting for them."

"That would be boring," he agreed.

Their eyes met.  Elizabeth grinned.  "Then we need to keep ourselves occupied, don't we?"

~

It had been half an hour, and Elizabeth and Robert were still downstairs waiting for her mother to bring Taryn back.  They had been walking, often in silence, sometimes teasing each other.

When they reached the photography exhibit, Elizabeth suddenly found herself lost in a crowd of teenagers with Worcester accents.  She circled the room, didn't find Robert, and sat down on a bench, looking at an odd black-and-white photograph.

She knew she hadn't smiled this much in weeks, until today she suddenly felt light as air.  She also knew that Robert noticed the smiles, noticed the way things had been changing.  For some reason he seemed wary of her, his gaze sharply fixed upon her when he thought she wasn't looking.

After a few minutes she felt someone settle down beside her.  Romano said, "You know, I've been chatting up this cute blonde on the other side of the room, but if you're in need of some company I'm always up for some semi-acrimonious banter instead."

Elizabeth couldn't help but be glad to see him.  "How magnanimous of you."

"I've been watching you sitting here and staring at nothing for about five minutes now."

She wasn't about to tell him she'd been mooning over him like a teenager in puppy love.  "I was taking a break.  I couldn't find you."

"You weren't looking hard enough," he teased.  "So what's so fascinating about Atget that you decided to sit on this bench and scrutinize him till the cows come home?"

"Atget?" she echoed.

He nodded to the photograph hanging on the wall in front of them, a black-and-white picture of a bunch of corsets hanging on the wall.  "The French guy whose work you've been staring at in such apparent fascination.  He isn't bad, although it doesn't mean much until you've been to Paris and seen how different it is from the way it used to be, how monumental the change was that he spent his life taking pictures of it."

Elizabeth was used to his occasional bombastic speeches, but she still found herself raising her eyebrows skeptically.  "Since when did you become an art history expert?"

"I majored in art history in college."

"Really," she said.

"Nope.  I keep art history books on my coffee table for when I have important guests.  It wouldn't do to appear uncultured."

"You're absolutely shameless," she informed him.

"I've always thought that was part of my distinctive charm."

"I could comment on that, but I'll let you imagine what I'm thinking."

He clucked his tongue.  "That's something I've found difficult lately.  Which is probably why the question retains such a fascination."

Elizabeth met his eyes.  "Then I'll try to remain opaque."

That, to her surprise, elicited a bitter kind of laugh from him.  The friendly moment broke into a rough, edgy kind of unease as Robert said, "Do me a favor – don't do that."

"Do what?" she asked, not quite innocently.

He shook his head without breaking their gaze.  "This back-and-forth thing.  I'm tired of it."

She hardly heard him, occupied with noticing in tremulous detail how dark his eyes were in even this bright light, and how close his face was to hers.  He flinched a little at her scrutiny, but couldn't, or wouldn't, tear his eyes away.

When she kissed him, his hand fluttered to her face, fingers feather-light against her cheek.  Light, impulsive, it was over before it had even begun and then she was breathlessly leaning back and he was standing hastily, his hand lingering near her for a moment even after he had started backing away.

"Robert?" she forced out as he paused, two steps away from her, poised to go further.  The space between them ignited with attraction, and Robert took yet another step backwards.

"I should go find the others," he said.

She pressed the fingers of one hand to her forehead.  "You can't wait thirty seconds?"

He hesitated.  "I'll … uh … I'll be back.  Okay?"

Elizabeth looked down at her hands.  "Okay."

Before he went upstairs to find their recalcitrant relatives, he passed close by her, and his hand brushed her shoulder in passing tenderness.  Elizabeth closed her eyes against the overhead lights that seemed too bright, too honest, mocking the enormous chance she'd just taken in broad daylight.  She had no idea what he was thinking, but she was starting to understand all too well the allure of opacity.