Miracle on 49th Street

by Mike Lupica

  “I may use that,” Sam said. “Do something with your brain attached. She’s funny.”

  “So he read it again,” Molly said. “And when he did, when he really read it, he decided that nobody except my mom could have written it.”

  “My butt’s cold,” Sam said.

  “Boy,” Molly said, “how did you know that was exactly the response I was looking for?”

  “It’s a gift,” he said.

  She looked over the pond below them, which nearly stretched all the way to Boylston Street. Once the sun was gone from the sky, it would get dark fast, and they’d both have to go home. It always made Molly sad.

  Even knowing she would see Sam the next day at school.

  When it was just the two of them this way, before she’d started worrying about the time, when it was just the Frisbee-throwers in the field behind them and the people reading books on all the benches and the dog-walkers and the stroller-walkers all around them, Molly felt…normal.

  Like a normal kid.

  “So as I was saying?” Sam said. “My butt really is cold.”

  “Is this one of those times when you want me to offer you my jacket to use like a blanket even though you haven’t actually asked me to do that?”

  “That would be wrong, wrong, wrong,” Sam said. “Unless you really are offering.”

  She had her favorite turtleneck on, one her mom had bought her at Harrod’s the previous winter, so she took off her blue down jacket and spread it out for Sam.

  “You’re telling me that he believes you now?”

  Molly said, “Not exactly. He believes her. He told me before he left yesterday that nobody could know that much about the day they broke up, no matter how much they tried to fake it.”

  “But wouldn’t he want to know for sure? About you, I mean?”

  “He talked about one of those tests,” Molly said. “But I told him I didn’t want to do that.”

  “But you stole his hat,” Sam said. “That was a Hardy boy deal if I ever heard one.”

  “Except I’m a girl,” Molly said.

  She turned so she was facing Commonwealth Ave. and Two Commonwealth. Looking at his view from this direction today. Wondering if Josh was up there thinking about her the way she was down here thinking about him.

  “I want him to believe me because I’m me,” she said. “Does that make any sense to you?”

  “Hardly any.”

  “I thought I could use all that DNA stuff to make him come around, but I changed my mind,” she said. “I want him to do the thing my mom said he’d never do: Want me for himself.”

  “You want him to pass the test without you having to give him the answer,” Sam said.

  “Something like that,” Molly said.

  “So where do we go from here?”

  “He wants to talk to Barbara about this.”

  Sam stood up, brushing the grass and dirt off her parka before handing it to her.

  “You liked him yesterday, didn’t you?”

  Molly nodded. “Maybe.”

  Maybe liking him was a start.

  She never had any warning when she would miss her mom the most. It could happen when she was sitting in school, or walking across the park, or sitting at the dinner table with Bill and Barbara and Kimmy.

  Or sitting alone in her room.

  Like now.

  Sitting alone and feeling as if she would never get over missing her for as long as she lived.

  She did what she always did when she felt like this, and took out her mom’s letters.

  Read them even though she knew them by heart. Read them and heard her mom’s voice inside her head. Saw her face. Heard her laugh. Saw her smile.

  Even back when Molly still believed her mom’s story about the dad she’d never known, Molly had never felt cheated in the parent department. Not when her mom was still around. If Jen Parker was your mom, you couldn’t ever feel cheated about anything. Or feel like you needed anything.

  You had her.

  “She was always a force of nature,” Barbara Evans told Molly once, when she came in and saw Molly reading the letters. “From the first day I knew her.”

  Once a year at the American School in London, it would be “BringDadtoSchoolDay.” Mollywouldalwaysbringhermom. Anditwasall right, withherandherfriendsandherteachers. Justbecause everybody loved her mom, always wanted to have her around.

  Now her mom was gone, and Molly had no idea where she was going, with Josh Cameron especially. After having told herself her whole life that she didn’t need a dad, now she wanted one in the worst way. And there he was, right over there on the other side of the park.

  The problem was getting over there, for good.

  She spread the letters out on the bed, keeping them in order, the way she always did, thinking there might be some great big piece of advice about life she might have missed, something she could use now.

  Noticed again how the letters got shorter near the end.

  “No matter what,” her mom wrote in one of the very last ones, “you know I’ll always be with you.”

  “Let Barb take care of you,” another one said. “The way she always wanted to take care of me, except I wouldn’t let her.”

  The last one had the line Molly would use on Barbara the next day when they were walking back across the Public Garden from Two Commonwealth, the one about not being afraid to get hurt.

  “I don’t want you to be afraid of anything,” her mom wrote.

  Molly put the letters back into the box when she was done. She read them to make herself feel better, but sometimes they only made her feel worse.

  Her homework was finished. There was nothing on TV she wanted to watch. Molly went over to the window and looked out on Joyless Street.

  It was a rare evening when Bill Evans came home early from work. And for once he hadn’t gone straight to his study after dinner to do more work on his computer or make more business calls. Lately it seemed as if he was on the phone all the time. Molly just assumed it had something to do with another big bank deal.

  Tonight was different. Tonight he had even volunteered to take Kimmy and Molly down the hill to Scoop, on Charles Street, for banana splits. Molly loved Scoop’s banana splits, but as soon as Bill made the offer, Molly had seen something as clear as day on Kimmy’s face: She wanted to have her dad to herself.

  “Oh, man, I’d love to,” Molly said. “But I’ve got way too much homework to do. You go, Kimmy. If you think you can make it back up the hill fast enough, bring me one to go. I don’t even care if the ice cream has melted a little bit.”

  Both Bill and Kimmy said that would be fine, they’d walk fast coming home. Kimmy was grinning as though Josh Cameron had just called and asked her to the movies.

  Now Molly looked over toward Mount Vernon and saw the two of them walking up the hill toward the brownstone. Bill Evans in his Patriots Windbreaker and jeans and his ancient Reebok shoes. Kimmy next to him in her gray Prescott hoody.

  Bill was carrying what had to be Molly’s banana split.

  Suddenly Kimmy started to laugh. Then she started to run, on those long legs she’d gotten from her father. She ran under a streetlight and Molly could see her face all lit up, like someone had put a spotlight on her. Molly could never remember seeing Kimmy Evans as happy as she looked right now. Maybe because she hardly ever got dad time like this.

  Bill was laughing, too, yelling out something that Molly couldn’t hear, looking pretty happy himself.

  Now he started to jog after his daughter, not running very hard, even though he was trying to act like he wanted to catch her.

  Kimmy turned her head and ran faster.

  That was when she tripped.

  Molly knew what those sidewalks were like. Kimmy’d probably hit one of those raised-up places in the cobblestone that were like a step you weren’t expecting.

  She went down, hard.

  Molly knew Bill Evans’s best sport had been football, that he’d been a star halfba
ck at Princeton. Now he ran like one to his daughter, dropping the ice cream bag, sprinting for Kimmy, getting to her in a flash, scooping her up into his arms like he was scooping up a loose ball in a game.

  Molly could see Kimmy’s chest go up and down as she cried. Saw Bill push the hood back from her face and brush her hair away from her eyes. Saw him use the end of his sleeve to pat away tears.

  Then he gently put her down and pulled up one of the legs of the sweatpants Kimmy was wearing, staring at her knee, getting down on his own hands and knees and staring at the knee like he was staring at something through a microscope.

  Molly felt like she was spying on them but couldn’t make herself turn away.

  Then Kimmy was laughing again, as Bill’s nose pressed almost to that knee.

  They were both laughing.

  He scooped her up again, as easily as he would a sack filled with clothes, and walked back to where he’d dropped the ice cream. Kimmy was still laughing, draped over his shoulder.

  The only person crying now was Molly.

  Even watching from inside the house, watching a real dad with his real daughter, she felt like more of an outsider than ever.

  CHAPTER 13

  Molly confirmed one of her theories in the first five minutes Barbara was in Josh Cameron’s living room.

  Barbara hadn’t been kidding.

  She really didn’t like him.

  She smiled at him the whole time they were talking about the old days, not just talking about Molly’s mom but a lot of other people they went to UConn with, some of whose names even Molly recognized. Whatever happened to him? I actually saw her at our tenth year reunion. “No, they got divorced,” Barbara said at one point, and Josh said, “Man, I thought he’d gotten life with her without parole.” Then they’d laugh.

  Except Molly knew Barbara was laughing with every part of her but the place where people meant it when they really laughed: her eyes.

  Okay, Molly thought, this isn’t what we’re looking for.

  When they finally ran out of small talk, Mattie appeared with coffee for the grown-ups, a glass of iced tea for Molly. Josh introduced her to Barbara.

  After he did, Mattie said, “Was he as big a pain in the butt when he was a college boy as he is now, a sports legend loved by millions?”

  It didn’t come out as sarcasm with Mattie, just pure fun.

  “Worse,” Barbara said, not quite so playfully.

  “Figured,” Mattie said. To Josh she said, “If they ask you any real hard questions, I’ll just be in the kitchen.”

  When she was gone it was as if somebody had suddenly shut off the volume in the room.

  “So,” Josh said to Barbara.

  “So,” Barbara said.

  Over her shoulder, Molly could see the kitchen door push open a crack.

  “Listen, Barb,” Josh said, “I always thought I could trust you.”

  “Always,” she said.

  Now that was sarcasm, Molly thought.

  If Josh noticed, he just ignored it. “So,” he said again, “I’m going to trust you now.”

  “Molly was very mysterious about why you needed to see me,” she said.

  Josh said, “I asked her. And I’m going to ask you to keep what I’m about to tell you between the three of us. And your husband, of course. It’s important.”

  “I’m sure Molly’s told you I have a daughter. Kimmy. The same age as Molly.”

  “Probably like sisters,” Josh said, with a quick glance toward Molly.

  “You bet!” Molly said.

  Another gag job, but it got a real smile out of Barbara, the first one since she’d walked through the front door.

  “I can’t imagine you could tell me anything that I couldn’t tell my daughter,” she said.

  “You might not want to make a decision on that until you hear what I need to tell you,” he said.

  Molly was expecting a scene, but Barbara shocked her. Mostly by not being shocked.

  “I never believed the story about that guy loving her and leaving her over there,” she said, almost to herself, like she was alone in the room. “That wasn’t her style, for one thing.”

  To Josh she said, “I should have guessed that you were always going to be the only one for her, no matter how much she tried to deny it.” She nodded. “Even if she was the one who broke it off.”

  She looked at Molly, then at Josh, then back at Molly.

  “If you really think about it, it all makes perfect sense, Molly being yours,” she said.

  “If she is mine,” Josh said, a little too quickly. “I’m not saying it’s for sure yet.”

  Molly let that go for now.

  Barbara said, “I’m not sure I understand you.”

  “All I’m saying,” Josh said, “is that my first reaction was that it was just a made-up story from a kid…from Molly, because she wanted it to be true. Or maybe it was some kind of shakedown.”

  That got Molly’s attention. “Shakedown?”

  “For money,” he said. “It’s never happened to me. But it’s happened to other guys in sports I know or I’ve heard about. A woman they used to know shows up with a kid they say is his.

  Sometimes the guy pays off without even having one of those tests, just to make the whole thing go away. They’ll cut a deal.”

  “Even if it really is the guy’s own child?” Molly said.

  “Let me explain something to you about athletes, especially ones making a ton of money when they never thought they’d have any money in their lives,” he said. “They’ll do anything to keep somebody else from getting their hands on it. And sometimes,” he said, “they just don’t want to know what they don’t want to know.”

  Molly was almost positive she could hear Mattie make some kind of snorting noise from the other side of the kitchen door.

  “Mom would have never done that,” Molly said.

  “For one thing,” Barbara said, “she was physically incapable of telling a lie.” Barbara sighed one of her big Barb sighs, a sound that always made Molly think it had come out of a musical instrument. “Even though I would tell her one wouldn’t hurt occasionally, after she had delivered another one of her famous honest opinions about me.”

  “Brutally honest,” Josh said. “Oh, that was Jen, all right.”

  “The only person she ever lied to was herself,” Barbara said.

  “About what?”

  “About you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “No surprise there,” Barbara said.

  This wasn’t good.

  “Where we goin’ with this?” Josh said. “What do you mean she lied to herself about me?”

  “About how much you hurt her,” Barbara said.

  Molly felt as uncomfortable as on her first day at the Prescott School, when she didn’t know anybody and didn’t want to, wanted to be anywhere except in what was called a home room and felt like anything but.

  She finally said, “Does anybody mind if I change the subject for a second?”

  “Be my guest,” Josh said.

  Molly said, “I thought you believed us now. Mom and me.”

  “I believe she believed you’re…ours,” he said. “And I know you believe it.”

  “But you don’t?”

  Josh said, “The simplest way would be for us to take one of those tests, that way—”

  “No!” Molly couldn’t help it, it came out of her as a shout.

  They both looked at her. Molly could see Mattie’s face in the door.

  Molly shook her head. “No, no, no,” she said. “You have to believe me because you believe me.”

  “I’m just saying—”

  “I know what you’re just saying,” Molly said. “My mom didn’t lie, and I don’t lie. And if you still think I’m lying, then I guess we’re all wasting our time here.”

  “It’s not what I meant,” Josh said.

  “I don’t want your stupid money,” she said, “if that’s all you’re worried ab
out.”

  Now nobody said anything, until Mattie suddenly burst through the doors, saying, “What he’s trying to say is that he wants to get to know you.” She gave Josh Cameron a good whack on the shoulder. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Words?”

  “I was getting to that.”

  “He wants a different kind of test, he just doesn’t know how to ask for it,” Mattie said. “A test where you get to know him and he gets to know you. Then we can cross all those other bridges and so forth when we come to them.”

  Molly imagined that it was like some cartoon comet had crashed into the room. Mattie, as little as she was, had done everything but trail a flame behind her.

  “But we can’t get there,” Mattie said, “without Mrs. Evans’s permission.” One more whack on the shoulder for Josh. “Isn’t that right?”

  “That’s one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you,” Josh said. “It’s not like she can just start spending time with Mattie and me without your say-so, Barb. She is in your custody, after all.”

  “Yes, she is,” Barbara said pointedly.

  “You’ve got to let me,” Molly said.

  “No, actually, I don’t.”

  “But it’s what Mom wanted,” Molly said.

  Another whopper of a lie, one Barbara saw right through. “Somehow I doubt that,” she said. “Now who’s not being honest here?”

  “She wanted me to get to know my father.”

  “Well, she sure took her time getting there.”

  “Please,” Molly said. She knew it sounded like begging, didn’t care.

  “Say I do go along,” Barbara said. “What are we supposed to tell people? What am I supposed to tell Kimmy?”

  She was talking to Josh, but Mattie answered.

  “How about the truth?” Mattie said. “I’ve been over there on the other side of the door, listening to you all talk about the truth.”

  “Eavesdropping, it’s called,” Josh said.

  She made a motion like she was swatting away a fly.

  “Just tell people the truth,” Mattie said. “That this little angel here is the daughter of a college friend who died. Who doesn’t have any parents now and just came back to America. And how you didn’t know the mom had died, but now you do, and how you met the angel and took a shine to her.”