Chapter 2 - The Infrastructure of Sunset Park
The fourth-floor studio apartment on 41st Street in Sunset Park was thirty-two steps from the ground, if a person counted the broken stone riser near the trash cans at the entrance. The hallway smelled of boiled cabbage, old grease, and the distinct, damp chill of a brick building whose central heating system was managed by an estate company located in an office park in New Jersey.
Sarah Bennett sat on the edge of the low twin bed, a small needle and a length of white polyester thread held between her thumb and index finger. The pink lamp beside the mattress threw a long, pale shadow across Lily’s drawing board, where four separate sheets of yellow paper were stacked under a plastic pencil box.
"Mommy," Lily said from the corner of the floor where she was balancing a wooden block on the head of her teddy bear. "Mr. Buttons says his ear is cold."
"Mr. Buttons needs to stay under the blanket then, sweetheart," Sarah said, her voice dropping into that smooth, unhurried rhythm she used whenever her shoulders felt like they were being pressed down by a sheet of lead. She had been awake since 5:30 the previous morning, having cleaned two four-bedroom brownstones in Park Slope before starting her eight-hour shift at the diner counter. Her fingers were dry and rough from the green dish soap the manager bought in five-gallon buckets, the skin around her nails split into thin, red lines that stung whenever she touched the thread.
"Is the moon lamp going to stay on all night?" Lily asked, her pale gray-blue eyes rising to meet her mother’s face. The color of her irises was exactly the color of the slate tiles on the roof of the West Village apartment where Sarah had spent three months believing that a man named Adam was just an insurance broker with a collection of expensive Italian shirts.
"The moon stays on until the sun comes up, Lily," Sarah said, knotting the thread with a sharp, practiced pull of her teeth. "You know the rule. The moon doesn't go to sleep until the birds start talking."
She stood up, her joints popping in the quiet room. She walked to the small, three-burner gas stove that sat in the corner of the room next to the refrigerator. A metal kettle was beginning to whistle, its handle wrapped in a dry dishcloth to protect her skin from the loose screw that held the copper lid in place.
For three years, she had kept the wooden box beneath her mattress. Inside was a single piece of lined paper she had written during her second month in Sunset Park, before the daycare trust fund had suddenly appeared in her mailbox under a neutral legal letterhead from Cherry Hill. The letter was addressed to Adam, but the name on the envelope was Adrian Moretti, written in the thick, block letters she had copied from the television screen during the news broadcast about the Bronx shooting.
She had never mailed it. She didn't know which house in Oyster Bay belonged to him, and she had been terrified that if she dropped it into a blue mailbox on Fifth Avenue, some man with a dark tie and a heavy jaw would show up at the diner and ask her why she was writing to the head of the Moretti council.
"Mommy," Lily said, her tiny fingers reaching out to touch the hem of Sarah’s uniform skirt. "The daycare teacher said my daddy might be a captain on a big boat. That's why he's far away in the deep water."
Sarah knelt on the linoleum, pulling her daughter’s small, warm body into her arms. The scent of strawberry shampoo and wet wool from Lily’s coat rose between them, sweet and ordinary, a world away from the smell of cold coffee and stale cigarette smoke that had filled the West Village apartment after Adrian’s nightmares.
"Your daddy is just... he’s just working, Lily," Sarah whispered into the child’s curls. "He has a lot of things he has to take care of so we can have the strawberry hearts every morning."
"Does he have a face?" Lily asked, her head tilting back as she looked at the blank figure on the yellow sheet near the bed.
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Sarah looked at the window. The rain had turned into a thick, gray sleet that was freezing against the glass, turning the brick wall across the alley into a white, blurry slate. "He has a very beautiful face, Lily. He has eyes just like yours. The color of the sky before the lightning comes."
She didn't tell her daughter that the man with those eyes had three separate warrants outstanding from the Eastern District of New York. She didn't tell her that the last time she had seen his face on a screen, he was stepping out of a vehicle whose door panels were three inches thick with ballistic steel. She simply held the small girl closer, her eyes fixed on the pink lamp that was flickering slightly as the voltage in the old building dropped under the weight of the winter storm.
